Letters to the Editor
Electro Robot
Published Letters: 1115 Editor's Choice: 9
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Well then I guess you've never known anyone turned down for dialysis by the NHS (UK)
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Which they do, if they deem that you are insufficiently worthy (healthy) otherwise. You see part of the equation of socialized care, at least what it's morphed into is the nanny state that deems itself the sole arbiter of who is worthy to treat and who is not. And the list of those who are not, is getting progressively longer. If you smoke, if you drink, if you're overweight, if you give your kids junk food......you will find yourself slotted into marginal groups by the NHS which insists you are doing your part to be 'rewarded' with health care.
Now you can say in the cold calculus of cost it's worth it - why should you give bypass surgery to a 75 year old, they're old enough. But if you're the 75 year old and they take that decision away from you, it must be pretty depressing.
But if they're rationing care because it's unaffordable I suppose people can accept that. It's when they make a moral judgment on you and decide that you should be happy to die off for the better good and for the better people is where it gets dicey.
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Again, once you decide that the value of people is strictly utilitarian
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What good they are to you? That's when we should all start to practice mass euthanasia. Why not? It makes perfect sense.
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Be careful though
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What you're proposing is a strictly two tiered system. Economics would drive the providers to provide the services that compensate them the best. As soon as you have the relief valve of "Well if people want to pay for xxxxx then they can, on their own", that is EXACTLY where the services gravitate. And it's not always a bad choice. The problem with directed care is they have to treat you with the person they have. When I worked for a PPO we had providers under indictment for sexually molesting patients and we HAD to continue to refer patients to them because of the specialities they covered. Somehow when it's my wife's life on the line I'll figure out how to pay the private practice specialist out of network in lieu of a drug addict incompetent loser my PPO foists on me.
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No on the OBGYN's
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]20 years ago when malpractice premiums accounted for no more than 7-10% of revenue doctors decided they had enough and all went out of the straight OBGYN business and instead became 'high risk pregnancy specialists' which cut their premiums enormously. Why? Because now every patient is high risk, and the probability that something will actually go wrong with everyone is quite low, and, if something does go wrong, it was to be expected.
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David
[Read the article: Barack Obama, working-class hero?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The most expensive cases, as a group are not cancer or gerontology cases or AIDS or premature births (though preemies are way up there). The most expensive cases are generally long term neurological cases such as MS. The patient lingers with very expensive care for years, decades even. Millions of dollars is the normal lifetime cost for an MS case. And all you can ever do is make a quality of life improvement in what will always kill the patient, eventually.
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America seems to be slowly but surely weaning itself from its addiction to shrill moral judgments.
[Read the article: Is the Internet eroding America's Puritanism -- or making it worse?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Except of course that's 180 degrees and 100% wrong. The internet is nothing but screechy moralizing ignorant judgments based in rage, groupthink, blockheadedness and ignorance. Take a look at this place right here. The information to opinion ratio is maybe as high as 5%. The signal to noise ratio is about 50/50. In fact if nothing else, blogs like this one are proof that agitprop eventually implodes on itself and winds up speaking only to itself in a vacuous echo chamber of backslapping noise and foolishness. And woe to he who questions that. First the denigration, then insulted then marginalized then they are banned. It's bigotry played out on a global scale. Goebbels would be proud of the internet.
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Reagan collapsed like a cardbox box in Lebanon
[Read the article: McCain's Vietnam obsession]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]McCain might have been right about Lebanon but Hezbollah still talks about the asswipping they handed the US in Lebanon. It was one of the high points of their mythology. First they kill 241 Americans then Reagan tucks his tail between his legs and splits.
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People weaned on the web think the internet invented porn
[Read the article: Is the Internet eroding America's Puritanism -- or making it worse?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wrong. Didn't Hawthorne write "The Scarlet Letter"? Didn't Henry Miller and Anais Nin like to eat food off each other's naked bodies while they shot up heroin?
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I knew all sorts of good Catholic girls
[Read the article: Virginity: The new feminism?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Virgins all of them. They preferred oral and anal, keeping themselves pure for marriage and such. Even a few group things...Ahh Catholic girls.
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"I see multisided intellectual debate among people who are informed and intelligent"
[Read the article: Is the Internet eroding America's Puritanism -- or making it worse?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...that's because you're a blockhead.
Salon is obsessed with being obsessed with sex. Not sex. Flip through BS for instance. It's a big mash of people talking about people talking about people who talk about sex. Oh you're all so edgy and liberated. What two people, a german shepherd, some heat shrink tubing and a hair dryer do on their own time is their own business.
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I think every customer Gordon has, for one month
[Read the article: In memory of Gordon Ramsay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Should scream abuse at him, yell, throw things, push him, physically strike him just to make sure he's doing his job correctly. One month of 12 hour days, 7 days a week, 100% abusive tyranny. Then we'll cal it a draw.
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What the zork kind of plastic bag factory employs 20,000 people?
[Read the article: No more plastic bags, no more jobs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Didn't they ever hear of industrial machinery?
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Robots are the new oppressed sex slaves
[Read the article: Your girlfriend seems so fake]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Equal rights and empowerment for our robotic sistern!!!! Down with the Carbon Based Overlords!
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Good Work Curtis
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And good work Salon. Obama's got that fake G multimillionaire crack dealer vote boxed up.
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Tro some Ds on dat bitch
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I got a 84 Cutlass wit 26's I call Obama.
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There's an old Yiddish proverb
[Read the article: Who's your daddy? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If your mother calls you a bastard, she should know.
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I would like to go all Joan Crawford on his ass
[Read the article: In memory of Gordon Ramsay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And beat him with a wire hanger.
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The Giants will win 50 games this year. Tops.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe only 40. Yeah they're that bad. Zito? who cares he's 0-4 for opening day. He always sucks on opening day. But the Giants, they suck with fortitude this year. By the end of the season, maybe 1500 people will show up for games.
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It's Salon Book Release party month
[Read the article: "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Everyone's got a book they need to hump.