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Old 10-08-2010, 05:36 PM
 
30,856 posts, read 36,768,136 times
Reputation: 34394

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As this report shows, California is a leader in energy efficiency and green energy use:

http://www.next10.org/pdf/GII/Next10_GII_2010.pdf (broken link)


My thoughts are....why can't we do the same with our approach to health care??? We all know the US blows a lot of money on health care with mediocre/poor results. Health care spending might be a little lower in CA (I'm not sure), but it's still quite high. And we all know many of the costs related to health care are lifestyle related? Why won't we tackle this issue in a comprehensive way like we have with the energy issue?

Any ideas?
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Old 10-08-2010, 06:04 PM
 
2,311 posts, read 3,491,404 times
Reputation: 1223
It's called 'deficit spending'. Don't disillusion yourself as to why California is the leader in x,y,z. California has a huge deficit that continues to grow and is resorting to kicking the can down the road to hide that fact. As is the illusion of prosperity in America (due to our huge deficits) so is the illusion of prosperity in California. California has not tackled efficiency/green energy .. It has tax'd and spent (beyond what it has) and has subsidized the crap out of the industry to an extent higher than what it can afford. Other states, haven't... Other states don't have such huge deficits nor do they tax the snot out of their citizens to fund utopian dreams in wasteful ways...

So tackle health care.. you mean spend even more ... tax even more and run higher deficits .. Sorry, even magical wannabe utopia's have their limits as set by free markets. How about California tackle its deficit and quit taxing its citizens so much which are driving out jobs .. let people keep their own $$ and decide what they value most and respectively what they want to spend their money on.

Govt. Blows alot of money w/ mediocre/poor results yet you would wish to see them blow more money? I dont even want to get into the horrid examples of waste/poor results centered around this green foolishness .. $5,000 for a $200 EV charger... subsidized how much by govt. and people's tax dollars? Yeah that creates for some real efficient usage of money....

What a joke....

And sadly, Utopian dreamers would fully appreciate the reality until every last job is gone, states are broke, the federal govt. is broke, and you have created an expectation in society that you can just dream up whatever you want and get it w/o paying for it.


You want x... go work for it and pay for it yourself... The more you concentrate power and money into a group of people to do it for you .. the more corruption, waste, and foolishness that results.

P.S - I don't know if you noticed but California, unlike many other states has pretty amazing weather conditions ... It prevents having to heat/cool homes on an annual basis .. A lot of the stats in this paper don't qualify this fact. So there is a large bit of skew just based on this one factor ...
Trash/etc... Hard to have lots of trash when you tax the snot out of people @ 9.25% sales tax and have a very high income tax.... Recycling, well.. in san francisco they charge you based on the weight of your garbage... Tax tax tax tax .. Surprise, it changes people's behavior ...
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Old 10-09-2010, 12:28 AM
 
Location: Living on the Coast in Oxnard CA
16,289 posts, read 32,208,144 times
Reputation: 21885
Not sure where this is going. We are a leader now in medicine.
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Old 10-09-2010, 05:22 AM
 
30,856 posts, read 36,768,136 times
Reputation: 34394
Quote:
Originally Posted by SOON2BNSURPRISE View Post
Not sure where this is going. We are a leader now in medicine.
We are NOT a leader in terms of providing quality care at reasonable cost. Being at the cutting edge of technology is nice. But what most of us need is a more prevention oriented health care system so we don't need as much "cutting edge" treatment in the first place.
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Old 10-09-2010, 05:27 AM
 
30,856 posts, read 36,768,136 times
Reputation: 34394
Quote:
Originally Posted by yeahthatguy View Post
It's called 'deficit spending'. Don't disillusion yourself as to why California is the leader in x,y,z. California has a huge deficit that continues to grow and is resorting to kicking the can down the road to hide that fact. As is the illusion of prosperity in America (due to our huge deficits) so is the illusion of prosperity in California. California has not tackled efficiency/green energy .. It has tax'd and spent (beyond what it has) and has subsidized the crap out of the industry to an extent higher than what it can afford. Other states, haven't... Other states don't have such huge deficits nor do they tax the snot out of their citizens to fund utopian dreams in wasteful ways...

So tackle health care.. you mean spend even more ... tax even more and run higher deficits .. Sorry, even magical wannabe utopia's have their limits as set by free markets. How about California tackle its deficit and quit taxing its citizens so much which are driving out jobs .. let people keep their own $$ and decide what they value most and respectively what they want to spend their money on.

Govt. Blows alot of money w/ mediocre/poor results yet you would wish to see them blow more money? I dont even want to get into the horrid examples of waste/poor results centered around this green foolishness .. $5,000 for a $200 EV charger... subsidized how much by govt. and people's tax dollars? Yeah that creates for some real efficient usage of money....

What a joke....

And sadly, Utopian dreamers would fully appreciate the reality until every last job is gone, states are broke, the federal govt. is broke, and you have created an expectation in society that you can just dream up whatever you want and get it w/o paying for it.


You want x... go work for it and pay for it yourself... The more you concentrate power and money into a group of people to do it for you .. the more corruption, waste, and foolishness that results.

P.S - I don't know if you noticed but California, unlike many other states has pretty amazing weather conditions ... It prevents having to heat/cool homes on an annual basis .. A lot of the stats in this paper don't qualify this fact. So there is a large bit of skew just based on this one factor ...
Trash/etc... Hard to have lots of trash when you tax the snot out of people @ 9.25% sales tax and have a very high income tax.... Recycling, well.. in san francisco they charge you based on the weight of your garbage... Tax tax tax tax .. Surprise, it changes people's behavior ...
Did you even bother to read my post????

Shesh! One of the things I said was that the money we spend on health care is not being spent effectively.

I get really tired of dumb rants like yours (whether they be conservative or liberal) that are all over the place on CD.
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Old 10-09-2010, 01:28 PM
 
2,311 posts, read 3,491,404 times
Reputation: 1223
Did you even bother understanding what you posted... Here let me refresh your memory :

"My thoughts are....why can't we do the same with our approach to health care??? We all know the US blows a lot of money on health care with mediocre/poor results. Health care spending might be a little lower in CA (I'm not sure), but it's still quite high. And we all know many of the costs related to health care are lifestyle related? Why won't we tackle this issue in a comprehensive way like we have with the energy issue?"

"Why won't we tackle this issue in a comprehensive way like we have with the energy issue?"
"Why won't we tackle this issue in a comprehensive way like we have with the energy issue?"

K that was your question right... Here goes, let me keep it short so you don't get lost :

We can't tackle the issue of healthcare in a comprehensive way like we 'tackled' the energy issue because 'we' .. (California right?) tackled the energy issue by throwing a crap ton of taxpayers dollars at the wall and seeing what sticks ... We threw so much that something stuck and the end result is a bunch of solid tech that is priced as if everyone makes $1 million a year. So, the 'solutions' are here but no one can afford them. As far as doing the same w/ healthcare... Wooops we can't....., the federal govt. and california are broke and so is your average american.

The potential is there .. The solutions are there .. but woops, they are priced to the moon.

Did i loose you again?
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Old 10-09-2010, 02:52 PM
 
253 posts, read 347,603 times
Reputation: 156
mysticaltyger,

IMHO, I don't understand your comparison... and actually, I believe the "green energy" propaganda you support is fraught with unsubstantiated, unrelated data. ...maybe you infer an analogy to "alternative medicine"?

Regardless...

Health care is not like petty fights over "oil", "nuclear", "chemical" or "electrical" based energy plans... Health care is rather straight forward. Research provides better insight to physiology, which provides better therapy (medical, surgical, or otherwise). What Western culture petulantly avoids accepting is that the endpoint is known...

We will all die, no matter how much money is spent.

There are two questions: Should you individually pay for your health care? And intertwined to this, how much quality do you expect?

In grandiose generalities (yet they are true), if the herd (the government) pays for your health care, there is little incentive to provide good care for the individual. The emphasis is on the herd's overall health (think "Logan's Run" as a humorous example). This is the nature of the "NICE" board in the UK, and the Oregon state model. Generally, simple pediatric care, and chronic conditions are better cared for. When the individual pays, specific (low volume) conditions, terminal (immediate), and intensive care conditions are better cared for. As examples, if you had type 2 diabetes (non-insulin dependent) and hypertension (more common conditions), you may prefer to have a UK based health care model. If you have type 1 diabetes (say wanting an implantable insulin pump), cancer, cardiac disease (needing a CABG), or having trauma after an automobile accident you would want to have a system like what was in America.

In simple terms, we can not afford to do the latter (cutting-edge technological intervention) for the mass of America. Which, means that if people truly want a "single payer" system, then they must accept poor quality health care.

Think "the VA system".
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Old 10-10-2010, 12:16 AM
 
Location: Living on the Coast in Oxnard CA
16,289 posts, read 32,208,144 times
Reputation: 21885
Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
We are NOT a leader in terms of providing quality care at reasonable cost. Being at the cutting edge of technology is nice. But what most of us need is a more prevention oriented health care system so we don't need as much "cutting edge" treatment in the first place.
I would bet that more than 2/3 of the people we see have preventable medical problems. You want to have a prevention oriented health care system? Find a way to keep people from smoking, over eating, abusing drugs and alcohol. Get people to replace fatty foods with fruits and vegetables. Make fastfood a treat and not a staple. Eliminate processed foods and high fructose from the diet.

The truth is that we give quality care at a reasonable cost. We have more medical technological advanced procedures in Ventura, California than they have in 95% of the world. I agree with you that we have a need for prevention. Still because of a lack of prevention we still offer the best care in the world at a reasonable cost in this nation. At our hospital alone we have people from all over the world that come for a procedure that you can only have done at 3 or 4 places in the world and all of those places are here in the United States. Maybe the cost is high, but for the people that need the procedure it beats the alternative. Seems to me that the quality of that care is priceless to the people that need it.
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