Any thoughts on the new 23 trillion cost of free healthcare?

[Baby's On Fire]

This is just a false statement. Pharmaceuticals do provide vitamins.
I take prescription folic acid and can buy it over the counter. Also multi-vitamins are available in prescription and over the counter.

I do understand what you are trying to say about taking a natural substance and creating a synthetic one . And I guess that really depends, would I want a synthetic derivative of a medicine if the natural product was rare, endangered or dangerous to obtain. Yes, I would rather the synthetic.

I would also rather get my vitamins through prescription BECAUSE of the higher regulated quality.

I will say, that the pharmaceutical companies have ethical issues if not corruption issues. I would compare it to the black mold seen after a flood of dirty water of a whole community. Some structures have to be condemned, some just stripped , others just cleaned with bleach.

The only question asked of me from doctors in communities that do not think of cost was, how did you survive infancy and childhood. But until doctors are allowed to PRACTICE medicine again, learned PRACTICES are not going to be available.

BTW, when you speak of much diabetes and much of colon cancer, these are brought on my lifestyles. That if people were going to the doctors on a regular basis, the doctor would give a prescription of lifestyle change*, and that does not come in a pill.
*And sometimes that would be find a better food source with higher nutrition unlike what we get in stores today



On a side note, one day structural engineering DNA and the genome can correct many genetic related illness or birth defects.

Well, let's differentiate pharmaceuticals from neutraceuticals.

Pharmaceuticals by definition are synthetic.

When I am arguing against pharmaceuticals, I'm referring to mand made derivatives of naturally occusing compounds.

We used Aspirin as a good example. ASA (which is the base of Aspirin) occurs naturally. Aspirin is the standardized form of ASA.

[Baby's On Fire]

The ASA itself was not patented.

The method of extracting it was patented. If the ASA was patented, that would have prohibited anyone else from devising any other extraction method from creating standardized ASA.

Which is not the case.

You'll never comprehend it.

By your logic, vitamin C would be patented. It isn't and can't be. Just because someone thought of a way to extract it first, it doesn't make the vitamin C itself patented.

That's enough from you. Eat some cookies and toxic milk, and go to bed.

[standin]

well, let's just say science and nature work together.


I still do not want to destroy endangered materials for my health when we can create them in the laboratory. And I still do not want people dieing to get ... lets just say ...drugs....


M'kay.

[Blackflag]

By your logic, vitamin C would be patented.

No, dipshit. But if I were the only one who knew how to make a pill out of Vitamin C, and I got the patent, everybody would have to buy their Vitamin C from me. I'm the only one who would be able to manufacture it and sell Vitamin C. Get it yet, homo?

[standin]

BTW,........................
cylinder shapes that roll, occur in nature also.....

Just sayin', boba.

[Seshmeister]

I take issue with "today."

It's best to avoid medicine if possible. This was up somewhere today, doctors were saying tamiflu can be worse than the flu and was unneccessary for something that passes in a few days.

Shush the adults are talking.

[Seshmeister]

Aspirin

Side effects and dangers

Overdose
Aspirin is very useful, but it has many side effects and therefore must be used carefully. Like most powerful drugs, an overdose of aspirin or salicylates can be fatal. If a child or adult takes an overdose of aspirin, induce vomiting to empty the unabsorbed medication from the stomach (if the person is still awake and conscious). Obtain emergency medical care right away.

Common side effects
The most common side effects of aspirin are heartburn and other symptoms of stomach irritation such as indigestion, pain, nausea, and vomiting. The stomach irritation may lead to bleeding from the stomach, which may cause black stools. These symptoms may be reduced by taking aspirin with meals, with an antacid, with a glass of milk, or by taking enteric-coated or timed-release aspirin. Also, it is best not to take aspirin with alcohol or coffee (or other beverages containing caffeine, such as tea or cocoa and many soft drinks). Alcohol and caffeine make the stomach more sensitive to irritation. The non aspirin salicylate preparations sometimes are less irritating to the stomach and may be substituted for aspirin by your doctor.

Other effects

A few people develop asthma, hay fever, nasal congestion, or hives from aspirin or NSAIDs. These people should never take aspirin, nor should people who have active stomach or duodenal ulcers. Anyone who has ever had a peptic ulcer should be very careful about taking aspirin because it can lead to a recurrence.

Aspirin is known to interfere with the action of the platelets (blood cells involved in clotting). As a result, some people who take a lot of aspirin experience easy bruising of the skin. Therefore, people who have major bleeding problems should not take aspirin. Also, keep in mind that aspirin should not be taken for 10-14 days before surgery (including surgery in the mouth) to avoid excessive bleeding during or after the operation.

High doses of salicylate may cause ringing in the ears and slight deafness. If these effects occur, reduce your dose and call your doctor for further instructions. Your physician may decide to check your blood aspirin level and may even ask you to tolerate these symptoms without cutting your dose. Sometimes, however, these symptoms indicate mild overdose, which could become more serious. This problem should be discussed carefully with your doctor.

Aspirin and NSAIDs sometimes affect the normal function of the kidneys, or they can cause fluid to accumulate in the body. If you have liver, kidney, or breast disease, get your doctor's advice before taking these drugs. If you begin to swell up, gain a lot of weight, or feel ill while taking one of these drugs, stop taking it immediately and contact your doctor.

Effects on children

Recent reports have said there could be a link between the use of aspirin and the development of Reye's syndrome. Reye's syndrome is a rare but possibly fatal disease seen most often in children and teenagers. It usually affects those recovering from chicken pox or a viral illness such as the flu. These reports have raised concern in pediatricians (doctors who specialize in treating children) and parents of children with arthritis who need to take large doses of aspirin to control their disease.

Presently, there is no conclusive proof showing how often Reye's syndrome occurs in children with arthritis who are or are not taking aspirin. Results from a survey of doctors who specialize in childhood arthritis and related diseases have not shown that children with arthritis who regularly take large doses of aspirin have a high risk of developing Reye's syndrome. There have been some reports of a few children with arthritis developing Reye's syndrome.

At present, there appears to be no reason to limit the use of aspirin in children with arthritis. However, if a child with arthritis who is taking aspirin develops symptoms of chicken pox, flu, or any viral illness that has fever as a symptom, the aspirin should be stopped. The child's doctor should be contacted right away.

All drugs have these crazy lists of side effects which don't happen 99.99% of the cases. Taking them is a calculated risk and the person you expect to do the calculating and advise you is your doctor in conjunction with the pharmacist. That's much more sensible than either making blanket decisions not to take drugs ever or trying to work out whether to take them in particular case. Thats why we spend all these years training our clinicians. Also I have to say that in my experience the internet is really poor when it comes to medicine and often it tends to give the wrong impression to the lay person googling stuff because it isn't good at setting things in context.

We don't really have drug advertising over here so maybe we are arguing about different things. I'll very rarely even take an aspirin if I have a headache.

[Dolemite!]

Shush the adults are talking.

Farting perhaps.

I'm such a fucking moronic little pissant....

Please notice me.

[Seshmeister]

You are such a rude little boy, go to your room.

And no masturbating to 1980s Euro boybands up there...

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Government Medicine Kills
The U.K. and Canada prove it.

By Deroy Murdock


Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: “Maybe I should pick up smoking.”

The fact that America is even considering government medicine is equally wacky. The state guides health care for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.

Look what you’re missing in the U.K.:

Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain, the Vatican of single-payer medicine, breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.

Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the U.K.’s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s. This may correspond to angioplasties, which were only 21.3 percent as common there as here.

The U.K.’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) just announced plans to cut its 60,000 annual steroid injections for severe back-pain sufferers to just 3,000. This should save the government 33 million pounds (about $55 million). “The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients,” Dr. Jonathan Richardson of Bradford Hospitals Trust told London’s Daily Telegraph. “It will mean more people on opiates, which are addictive, and kill 2,000 a year. It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky, and has a 50 per cent failure rate.”

“Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets,” Daniel Martin wrote last year in London’s Daily Mail. “Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour [party] pledge. The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 911 calls. Doctors warned last night that the practice of ‘patient-stacking’ was putting patients’ health at risk.”

Things don’t look much better up north, under Canadian socialized medicine.

Canada has one-third fewer doctors per capita than the OECD average. “The doctor shortage is a direct result of government rationing, since provinces intervened to restrict class sizes in major Canadian medical schools in the 1990s,” Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian physician and Manhattan Institute scholar, told the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee on June 24. Some towns address the doctor dearth with lotteries in which citizens compete for rare medical appointments.

“In 2008, the average Canadian waited 17.3 weeks from the time his general practitioner referred him to a specialist until he actually received treatment,” Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, a Canadian native, wrote in the July 2 Investor’s Business Daily. “That’s 86 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the [Fraser] Institute first started quantifying the problem.”

Such sloth includes a median 9.7-week wait for an MRI exam, 31.7 weeks to see a neurosurgeon, and 36.7 weeks — nearly nine months — to visit an orthopedic surgeon.

Thus, Canadian supreme court justice Marie Deschamps wrote in her 2005 majority opinion in Chaoulli v. Quebec, “This case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.”


Obamacare proponents might argue that their health reforms are neither British nor Canadian, but just modest adjustments to America’s system. This is false. The public option — for which Democrats lust — would fuel an elephantine $1.5 trillion overhaul of this life-and-death industry. Having Uncle Sam in the room while negotiating drug prices and hospital reimbursement rates will be like sitting beside Warren Buffett at an art auction. Guess who goes home with the goodies?

A public option is just the opening bid for eventual nationalization of American medicine. As House Banking Committee chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) told SinglepayerAction.Org on July 27: “The best way we’re going to get single payer, the only way, is to have a public option to demonstrate its strength and its power.”

Barack Obama seconds that emotion.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately,” Obama told a March 24, 2007 Service Employees International Union health-care forum. “There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision [single payer] a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.” As he told the AFL-CIO in 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health-care coverage. . . . That’s what I’d like to see.”

And why a public option just for medicine? Wouldn’t government clothing stores be best suited to furnish the garments Americans need to survive each winter? And why not a public option for restaurants? Shouldn’t Americans have universal access to fine dining?

All kidding aside, government medicine has proved an excruciating disaster in the U.K. and Canada. Our allies’ experiences with this dreadful idea should horrify rather than inspire everyday Americans, not to mention seemingly blind Democratic politicians.

— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

[Blackflag]

Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: “Maybe I should pick up smoking.”

I can't even believe this is in dispute. a) you get what you pay for, and b) everything the government touches turns to shit.

“There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision [single payer] a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.” As he told the AFL-CIO in 2003: “I happen to be a proponent of single-payer, universal health-care coverage. . . . That’s what I’d like to see.”

When he's out of office. How convenient.

[Big Train]

Universal is really a misnomer since neither he himself nor congress will actually be single payers themselves.

[Blackflag]

Universal is really a misnomer since neither he himself nor congress will actually be single payers themselves.

Neither will anybody with money.

It's just appeasing slackasses like Lounge Machine on the back of the middle class, while reducing the quality of care for both of them. Rich unaffected.

[Nickdfresh]

Government Medicine Kills
The U.K. and Canada prove it.

By Deroy Murdock


...
— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

If "gov't medicine" "kills," then why do Canadians enjoy a lower infant mortality rate and a higher life expectancy than the US...

And incidentally, no one is advocating adopting the Canadian system in the US, super-genius...

[Nickdfresh]

Neither will anybody with money.

Oh, you mean people with money will be better off? Really!? How fucking insightful!!

It's just appeasing slackasses like Lounge Machine on the back of the middle class, while reducing the quality of care for both of them. Rich unaffected.

LOL The middle class is finding it increasingly difficult to afford health care. No one not sucking the giant pharma and HMO cock seriously disputes that...