Dear Moosemom, I haven't heard the Gingrich plan for a base on the moon, but are you aware of the technological breakthroughs of the space program that are now applied to dialysis and so many other industries? We have yet to develop all of the technologies invented in the 1960's such as sorbents for instance. Miniaturization for space craft has improved computers, plastics, metalurgy and a whole list of other breakthroughs that are applied in our daily lives without even realizing that today.
I am not sure that we could mount another space program today with our education system in complete ruin at present. If you recall, the kids of the 1960's scored the highest ever on SAT'S and it has been down hill since then. We would literally have to import engineers from India, China and the middle east to put such a program together today. So not sure where this proposal will ever go, but we are no longer the nation we were in the 1960's where innovation and science were part of the American core fabric of our society.
I really question Hemodoc's responses. It truly appears that he is on this board as a troll sometimes. I found the responses equally as ridiculous and I believe an apology is in order. He should be ashamed. If you truly are a doctor your response is even more disturbing.
Quote from: YLGuy on January 26, 2012, 03:13:23 PMI really question Hemodoc's responses. It truly appears that he is on this board as a troll sometimes. I found the responses equally as ridiculous and I believe an apology is in order. He should be ashamed. If you truly are a doctor your response is even more disturbing.I find your response to be belittling and mean! You call him a troll? Why do you get a pass? You may not agree with him, but you're targeting his character...-when someone disagrees with you- you call them a troll. Or YELL AT THEM- DONT YOU GET IT? THAT IS VERY RUDE? You should be ashamed. and you should apologize.
(cariad – I’ll see you out back)
HemoDoc:After the contentious political thread this morning, I had a burning question for you but decided not to bring it up. So, I got on my little tractor, the one with the road-grader blade, and went out and graded the driveway – setting it up for the remainder of the Winter (a quarter-mile in length). The entire time I was working, I couldn’t get this off my mind. It’s just a simple clarification, so here goes:Your creds say you are a Doctor (MD) and I assume you are a Nephrologist. I am aware that Medicare pays for the vast majority of dialysis treatments in the US, meaning, Medicare is the life-blood for Nephrologists. How then, can you be a Republican Conservative? The GOP congressional actions this past year demonstrates a GOP desire to abolish Medicare. No Medicare means death for many, many people.I’ll listen. Listening is what I do best.Gerald Lively
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick HenryThe principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but a swindling futurity on a large scale. – Thomas Jefferson"Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for any other." John Adams
My dearest Hemodoc, you know I love you, so please take this in the generous spirit in which it is given...Please show some mercy upon your good self and refrain from immediately taking things written on IHD so personally. You KNOW that I was not directing my remarks about the greed and eval of corporate influence in our politics at you. I was responding TO you, not AT you. I do not disagree that there are people out there who are lazy toads who don't want to fend for themselves and their families. You have told me that you have encountered such people, so I believe you as I do not think you would lie. But I have to say that I have not encountered any of these people. That's not to say that they do not exist, rather, that perhaps they are not as numerous as you believe.My point is that I do not feel that it is laziness that is at the root of the problem, rather, it is greed and corruption. Surely you agree this is a problem. I don't have time to read the rest of your post properly so that I may digest it fully and add a response, but I did want to come on this discussion and assure you that my comments were not made to be taken as a personal slight. Actually, let me amend that. I was quite hopeful that you WOULD take my comments personally ON A CERTAIN LEVEL PRECISELY BECAUSE of your view that for-profit healthcare should have no place in America. I was using this analogy to illustrate my opinion because I knew that you PERSONALLY would understand.I know that you would much rather control yourself, etc, but you are trustworthy. How about the others who are not? How do we keep an unscrupulous doctor or businessman from harming others and even depriving THEM of THEIR freedom? How do we, for instance, keep the LDOs in this country from harming vulnerable patients and from doing nothing to enhance the quality of life and freedom of their patients? What would happen to us if there were no regulations governing the business practices of LDOs and, say, drug companies? Do you trust these people to always act in the best interests of their patients? I don't! There has to be some mechanism to reign in their quest for profit, and sadly, the Bible isn't doing the trick. Jesus isn't going to descend from the heavens and smite Mr. Thiery and enforce a whopping fine if his clinics are crappy and aren't clean. So, does government play a role in this? Dialysis isn't mentioned in either the Constitution or the Bible, so what are we left with to make sure patients get out of there alive?OK, that's it for now, sorry...out of time. Please, for the sake of your own emotional health, try not to find insult where there is none. I will try to be more clear from now on, though, in case it really did sound like I was "attacking" you personally. My apologies that I was not clear in that regard.Gerald, I am calm! Texas and Illinois law also prohibits the kind of actions undertaken by my ex-ins company....that's why I won my lawsuit. But what would have happened if there had been no evil "regulations"? Again, are we supposed to just trust that everyone is going to act in an ethical manner? I think not.
HemoDoc:As much as I wanted to find out what you think about Medicare, I failed to locate it in your response. Based on all of the other subjects you covered, I can make a good guess.Your message of disentrancement with the US Federal Government is understood even though it is non-specific and has a sprinkling of propaganda. I get enough of this elsewhere. Here, on the IHD forum I wanted to focus on the narrower question of compassion by government. 1. Much of the administration of Medicare is in the hands of the various States. The Federal Government provides regulations that amount to guidelines but it is State law that says the door to the dialysis room must be locked. Yes, it is a small issue. Even so, it is illustrative. 2. Social Security is holding about $2 Trillion in IOU’s. There exists a system that immediately places Social Security revenues in the General Fund in exchange for an IOU. The payback is as needed to pay for program benefits. The only good I see in this system, is the supposed earned interest, which, so far, has never been paid. Instead, interest payments are just another IOU.3. George W. Bush saw this obligation to Social Security and tried to “privatize” the fund. Ryan, tried to cut it altogether through a phase-out system. Boehner praised the package as brilliant new thinking. The GOP, rather than pay the debt would rather dismiss it.I am only concerned here, about the care for the elderly, poor, children and those that cannot help themselves. To point to fraud in these programs is disingenuous. Yes, we should not have fraud, yet we need these programs. To declare that grandpa made it on his own is no answer. Grandpa died early as did his generation. WE are in the NOW, not yesterday. That is where I search for insight. That is why the GOP seems like a pariah on the very people they ask for votes. Perhaps in a few days, in calmer times, you can address those concerns. One more thing; the very nature of organized religion in government will change from your oligarchy to a dictatorship if mixed.MooseMom: California insurance law already prohibits all of the insurance actions you describe. Much of that is included in the so-called Obamacare package.Everybody calm down.gerald
HemoDoc:Back when JFK was running for President, I was the moderate in the neighborhood. I had spent my time in military intelligence and was made aware that all is not as it seems. Now, those veterans of that special military unit gather on a Yahoo Forum and discuss the politics of the day. There, no one is polite. In that environment I am the Liberal in the neighborhood, although I remain convinced of certain basic responsibilities of government. You see, not only was a private sector business owner, I had a career in government in the policy-making function. I believe that gives me some insight. And the entire politic of America has moved to the right, much too far in my opinion.The very idea of government is a collective effort for the benefit of it’s members/citizens. None of us could survive alone among many others striving to survive alone. We take care of one another. It takes a village to raise a child. This requires compassion. Who needs help? I am here to say that we cannot ignore the poor and needy.Comparing the US to another country is disingenuous as in apples and oranges. Some elderly woman down the street has no relationship to any other nation, she merely needs help. No private sector organization or church can reach all of the people all of the time. Only government can do that. I recall when Henry J formed Kaiser and I wondered as a kid what all the shouting was about, as in people condemning Kaiser’s effort as socialism and socialized medicine. Yep, we lived in government housing across the street from the Kaiser Shipyards. Ron Paul was very wrong when he commented on pre-60’s healthcare. Starvation was epidemic in the deep south among blacks. The rest of the nation benefitted from a relatively low population and doctors rendered healthcare in your home. But he didn’t have a dialysis machine. He sometimes bartered. He was wrong on occasion. Paul’s gaze back is a fantasy, tradition, and is the essence of conservatism in these United States. Yesterday carries no solutions for a nation with a burgeoning population and evolving viruses. Research has left the good-old days in the dust. And who will bring a CT scan to your home?God did not rescue my sister from renal failure. The State of Texas tried. Even in that bastion of conservative throw-backs, someone there did their best. I fail to see that compassion in your messages. Edward Lively, my ninth great grandfather, who was a translator for the King James Bible, died of the flu. Even as religious as he was, no God answered his prayers. God is not the answer to the healthcare needy. Again, only government can fulfill that niche. When the Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations are “people”, that was in the context of campaign financing and the First Amendment. Perhaps you need to be reminded that the Supreme Court is conservative. If corporations are “people” then they should pay the same taxes as people.The “founding fathers” were not particularly religious. In documents they produced, the language of the time was used. God was often mentioned. These were not church going, Bible thumping members of any church, these were independent thinking rebels. And if you wish to quote Presidents, we can be at this all day long.Conservative America is wrong when they criticize Medicare, Obamacare (or its intent), or Social Security. Those three programs and Veteran’s Healthcare reach more people than any health program in history. The conservative option is as Ron Paul characterized it; leave them alone. That, Sir, is not an option.Gerald Lively
Dear Hemodoc,1. I do not think the Bible has "failed", but I do think that in our history, we have believed as we have wanted to believe, and as a result, we have a history of destroying other peoples for our own benefit and have used the Bible as justification. The slave lords of the Deep South convinced themselves that slavery was holy and that the white man was superior to all other peoples. Actually, that mindset evolved into thinking that the gentleman plantation owner was superior to ALL other Americans, and they had their Bible teachings to prove it. These days, all one has to do is say that their beliefs, no matter how abhorrent, are supported by the Bible, and this seems to excuse and explain away everything.2. Again, I am not ascribing "corporate evil" to you. I'm not sure what more I can say to convince you otherwise. 3. I understand that we all of us base our philosophies and opinions on our life's experiences, but in saying that, I would hope that you understand that not everyone has had experiences just like yours. 4. I am not sure that the idea that the Tea Party supporters didn't engage in any property damage somehow makes their raison d'etre more "moral" than that of the occupy movement. I know that there has been trouble at some OWS sites, but there was a whole heap of trouble in the efforts to rid this nation of the moral stain of slavery, and that "trouble" certainly didn't make the cause unworthy. It is just intellectual laziness to refuse to look past the "trouble" and refuse to hear the message. I am not aware of anyone in the OWS movement wanting government to do everything for them. They are protesting the growing income equality and the destruction of the middle class. On the other hand, the Tea Party movement has undermined the very foundation of our nation in that they will not compromise, and they are intransigent in a way that goes against the way our government is supposed to work. They have had their day; people are tired of their screeching and do not like how their representatives in Congress have made that institution grind to a virtual halt. There is a reason that Congress has the lowest approval rating in the history of approval ratings, and the Tea Party is behind that. They may not be "lawless" as you use the word, but they are divisive and destructive in their own way.5. Surely there is a middle ground between having mountains of regulation and allowing our country to become a lawless free-for-all, screw-you-as-long-as-I-get-mine, ruthless society. 6. I believe that corporations CAN work for the common good, and many do, but many do not. What do we do about the ones who do not? I agree that the ones who do not should be held accountable, but again, apply this to the LDOs. How do we make them operate with their patients' welfare the highest priority?7. I can understand why you would believe that the OWS movement is not grass roots in origin. I believe the same about the Tea Party movement, so you and I are pretty much in agreement there.8. I know that President Obama hangs out with big money donors, and I don't like it any more than I like it when GOP leaders do the same. 9, I for one don't look to the government to cure the ills of society. I don't know anyone who believes that. Why do you say that? That's hyperbole, don't you think? But I DO think that government has a role, and it is this role that is debatable now like it has been since the 1700s. 10. If you were omnipotent and could start from scratch, how would you craft a plan for access to health care and the payment for same? How would dialysis be paid for in Hemodocland? For obvious reasons, I am very concerned about access to healthcare in this country. Do you know what sort of plan the GOP has for, say, people with catastrophic illness and/or pre-existing conditions? Do you think that all people have a right to access healthcare in this country? When you use the term "socialized medicine" (as in the socialization of ESRD by CMS), what exactly do you mean? How do you define "socialized medicine"?
1. I will pick the anarchical protest of Wall Street's greedy behavior and of the oligarchical path we are taking above the "lawful" protest of a group that seeks to divide the "us" from the "them". I am not demonizing conservatives, but I will demonize Tea Partiers. I have seen too many of them screaming with disrespect and marching with racist signs. It may be legal, but that doesn't make what they say any more moral or true. Once they start behaving with more respect, and once they lose the posters showing President Obama with a bone through his nose, perhaps I will then change my mind. I don't like the politics of resentment and hate. You find it hard to look past the lawlessness, and I understand that as I find it hard to look past the hatred. There are more Tea Partiers in the House than I would like, and I'd bet you the north forty that Speaker Boehner agrees. 2. It is not just "reported" that the Bible was used to justify slavery. Political leaders in the Deep South were happy to point out that slavery was never denounced by the Son of God in His documented teachings. Indeed, the Baptist and the Methodist faiths were split into northern and southern factions because the southerners preached that Africans were descended from Ham, who was condemned to serve his white masters. The same type of justification was used in the obliteration of the Native American populations. But these people were not "dumb". No, far from it. In fact, they decried hard work because they founded their society upon classical Greek thinking. Hard work was for the slaves to tend to why they used their time in finer pursuits. These were the aristocrats of America, the most educated and learned thinkers, but they were blind to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. These men were not about to "repent". Instead, they duped the population into thinking that their "way of life" was under threat. Where have we heard THAT before? They dragged this nation into the bloodiest conflicts this nation has ever seen. But they were convinced that they were entitled by God. But God had His hand in destroying their way of life after all, didn't He. Slavery is no more. Yes, God did speak to these men, but He did not say what they expected to hear.3. To answer some of your questions, I agree with you in that I'd look seriously at other health care models, ie the Swedish model. I'd also look closely at how they do things in France. But I wouldn't be allowed to say this in public because we cannot be seen to "Europeanize" America, right? The Tea Partiers might not like that.4. I would take the money out of politics and declare that if you want "freedom of speech", write a damn letter. I would outlaw financial political contributions of any kind and I would refute the claim that such contributions amounted to "freedom of speech". With the prevalence of social media, politicans can use that to get their messages across. No more superPacs, no more TV ads for any candidate.5. I would outlaw the public advertisement of prescription drugs. The US is one of the few countries that allow this, and this is how Big Pharma creates demand out of thin air. 6. I would remove the onus of providing access to health care from employers. Your access to health care should not be dependent upon your employment status. I would set up a health care fund for people to draw upon if they are diagnosed with a catastrophic illness such as ESRD. I don't understand why we insist upon the status quo when we claim to care so much about creating a pro-business environment. I don't understand why President Obama is being accused of being "anti-business" when he has tried so hard to take this particular burden off the shoulders of businesses.7. I would work hard to craft a quick path to citizenship for those who are here illegally because I think we need as broad a tax base as possible.I have lots of other ideas, but I'll start with these.
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
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