does a patient have any responsibility? if you are going to have a liver transplant, do you have an obligation to stop drinking? ok, let's consider a situation where one MUST ration health care. who should get the expensive procedures? the young? ONLY the young? what if he is a young brutal retarded criminal? what if an old person writes beautiful poetry? what if the old person is VERY much loved (and has the testimonials to prove it). what if the old sick person is VERY rich and will spend a lot of it on medical care for others? I THINK these things can NEVER be determined by LAW (that is, some finite procedure). a JUDGE could do it who must be a very fine person, elected for a very long term. when hospital boards of ethics judged who were going to get transplants, they found that the rich and the white were overrepresented. not totally, but noticeably. what would you prefer? fair because random or unfair because human?

Just checked. Yep. billary's down by 156 pledged delegates. Now, piss in your own punchbowl. I have band practice. Watch out for them there bosnian snipers. New video game: Billary Under Fire.

I have a lot of family in the UK, none of them have any serious complaints about the NHS and I have discussed the subject at length with a number of them both when I have visited there and they have visited here. Yes, there is considerable carping, but when I ask them point blank if they would like to trade places with me here in the US the answer is essentially "are you mad?".

Here in the US I'm basically uninsurable thanks to "preexisting conditions" and if I get seriously ill I fully expect to die untreated.

Both systems perform "triage", but the US system is based on how wealthy you are.

Of course, in the US, if you are wealthy it is prima facie evidence that you are good and worthy of life and if you are poor it is prima facie evidence that you are bad and not worthy of life.

All in all the moral clarity of the American system is greatly to be preferred, eh?

I wonder what's eating you. You sound very angry. If you don't like the tenor of the posts here why do you bother to read them.

You seem to think that working class people are all pissed off and won't vote for anyone not like them. Is there a working class candidate for president? It's true that Bill Clinton had a way of connecting with a lot of different people. He's charming. He's a great politician at that level. But were his policies really great for the working class? He could talk a good line but he really seemed to get off on his fancy "Friends of Bill."

Of the Democratic candidates Edwards was the one who talked about "two Americas", who seemed to be worried about those who fall below the median income.

So, in your opinion, who's the candidate for the "people?"

And all you can ever do is make a quality of life improvement in what will always kill the patient, eventually.

Life is a terminal condition.

the dull long days

of Hillary's maze

(given the problem that the most expensive conditions are neurological things like MS which require a lot of care). you pay the people that love said patient to care for him/her. still expensive, but a lot less so. now here comes the controversial aspect - what happens if that person HAS NO ONE to love them? TOUGH - they are warehoused in squalor till they die. you NEED people who love you to live - that is the species. i can't do any better - i tried, i really did.

http://www.nysun.com/news/national/some-republicans-emerge-endorse-obama

Call them the Obamacans: They are against continuing the Iraq war and reject what they see as Mr. Bush’s unconstitutional buildup of executive power. While the conservative Republican base rejected Senator McCain in the early primaries for his push for bipartisan campaign finance regulation and amnesty for illegal immigrants, the Arizona senator’s hawkish support for the Iraq war has alienated what was once his national constituency, anti-Bush Republicans.

Hard to believe. I know the Lama and I am *no* Lama!

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: -6.12

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44

I think it just means you don't want to be ruled either by some authoritarian government or some amoral multi-national.

I don't think I much resemble the Dalai Lama or Gandhi either. I'm sure a third axis of comparison would sort it all out.

I had to jump from page 13 to here so I apologize if I'm repeating anything. I wanted to expand on julieb's post about people underestimating support for Obama in PA.

I live in south central PA where my county is overwhelmingly Republican. I just switched my registration to Democrat in time to vote in this primary. I, like many registered Reps in this county, are independent or liberal but have maintained my Rep. card so that I could have some influence in the primaries, hoping to vote the moderates in while keeping the crazy, religious types out (e.g. Toomey vs. Specter a few years ago). Pretty much the democratic primaries for local politics have always gone unchallenged so to have any say in local government, it made sense to be registered Rep here since independents can't vote in the primaries.

Anywho, I got to see Barack for one second today while he was campaigning at a local college. I didn't have a ticket, having found out too late about the event, but drove down at 10am hoping to get a glimpse of him outside. I was with a small group of about 10 who waited for 3 hours in the cold and rain to catch a one second glimpse of him leaving the building and getting on his bus, about 20 ft in front of us. He did wave and smile though, so I got to see that winning smile close up and in person making the wait worthwhile.

People with tickets arrived in the wee hours of the morning, while it was still dark, for a 10am event. Talking with the people who stood outside in the rain with me, I learned that towards the end of the last week to register for the primary, the county was receiving over 1000 registrations a day, mainly people switching from Rep to Dem.

Please understand these aren't people trying to sway the election. Any hardcore Rep in this town would never "sully" themselves even for a month with a Dem affiliation. They are all still unapologetically Bush supporters who believe he was placed in his position by god. I kid you not.

The party switchers are all people inspired by this Democratic primary. It is my opinion that Obama has more support than the media realizes. This county is 3% black yet thousands came out to see him today. These are all white voters he's attracting in a county previously around 75% Rep until a few weeks ago.

I just spoke to my mother tonight and was surprised to find out she's an Obama supporter. She was disappointed that I didn't get a button today (I had told her I only found out my small group was standing in the wrong area, on the other side were the vendors and a bigger ticketless crowd who he did briefly talk with before going inside) and her comment was "you should have gotten a button! Those are going to be worth something someday because he's going to be our first black president!"

Mind you, my mother is racist as they come when it involves her daughter dating a black man. So I was quite disappointed to hear that she didn't find the time to switch affiliations to vote in the primary since she's a regular voter who never misses an election.

So my catholic, PA bred, racist mother is an Obama supporter who already believes he's going to win in November. This is the demographic that others believe would not vote for him in PA. April 22 is going to be quite an interesting day indeed!