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homestead - Re: [Homestead] hooray it's only just beginning

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  • From: "clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] hooray it's only just beginning
  • Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 11:09:48 -0500





Sure there are worse things than dying like the way those kids will die and
how they will feel leading up to death. However, there is no excuse for
children not getting medical care while our tax dollars go to make some fat
cats richer off Iraq.

It wouldn't matter how much money we didn't spend in Iraq; it doesn't necessarily mean the availability of more funds for medical needs here. Medical care such as we are talking about here is kept artificially scarce specifically so that it can be kept artificially expensive. The very last thing in the universe that anybody in the health care industry would want would be, for example, an entire course of treatment for childhood leukemia to cost $5000. Would health insurance companies want that? No way, if a major disease could be treated for the price of a used car, no one would buy health insurance. Or if they did, how many health insurance execs can pull down six or seven figures selling policies with a payout of $5000? Same with hospitals, drug companies, doctors, etc. If the real market competitive price of the course of treatment of major disease were a few thousand dollars [and I'm not all that much exaggerating reality there], none of those people stand to make much money.

So medical cost have to be kept artificially very high and this is done by making the medical services artificially scarce. Unless you agree to devote a large part of your income to support us, we can fix it so you will die. It's an effective threat. So important is the guild and monopoly on medical services and its ability to fix prices that it is willing to drop its stethoscope around its neck and let some children die in order to scare other families into keeping up the tribute money. Until this feature of the medical guild is corrected, taking all the money spent in Iraq and dumping it on medical needs here would have no effect because there are mechanisms in place to assure that the services stay scarce and thus stay lucrative.

James





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