Captain's Quarters -

feh. MM is the embodiment of Oscar Wilde's statement, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." Every action of his is designed solely to focus the attention on himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he counted on the Treasury dept. looking into his visit to Cuba. Free press and he gets his little thrill after seeing his name in headlines again.

The shame of it all is that this propagandist will sell many tickets and probably get another series of award nominations from America's (and other nations') Leftists. Even if the movie doesn't sell well to the general public, Soros, et al will probably step in and buy tickets for the homeless to get the box office numbers up. The dangerous game continues yet so many will whistle past the graveyard as a committed minority dishonestly undermines the country.

Time to start a running tally of Harvey and Bob Weinstein's (of Weinstein Co.) Riefenstahl line of free speech films:

• Fahrenheit 9/11
• Sicko

Nope. Not gonna hit the radar screen.

Still, up ahead, twenty or more years from now, when people look back. And, see that we NEVER brought PEACE to Iraq, do you see the picture developing?

Military matters are just one piece in any given puzzle. You can win 'em. And, still not hold the winning cards.

You could also notice, if you really looked back into the distance; that the Romans refused to cross the Rhine with their armies. They considered the huns living there way too savage.

In other words? The old Romans knew battles weren't enough. You still needed to "grab" hearts and minds.

And, lots of Americans are beginning to realize; from Korea. To Vietnam. Forward. We sure can win battles. And, have no idea how to convince people who hate us, more than they hate anything else; to choose something "least-worse." We don't even own these abilities within advertising and marketing. Where we are pro's.

The other choice? If we weren't going to "lose Cuba?" Would have been to turn Cuba and Puerto Rico into new American States. And, that's not gonna happen your life time.

Health care cost per person:
US = $5,274 per year
Cuba = $236 per year

Life expectancy:
US = 77.9 years
Cuba = 77.4 years

It is clear that Cuba’s health care system is ineffective.

18,000 people per year die in the US due to lack of health care coverage. That’s impressive.

...and yes, the commie shyster lawyer wannabe can chant about "statistics"...and drool over his commie soul mates...but meanwhile, where does he live? How many stock options does he hold in his grubby little shyster mitts...?

When's he going to hop on a boat (or rubber raft) and float to Cuba? LOL!!!!

Gee dave, what is Cuba's per capita income? According to the CIA world factbook, it's $3900 per year.

So Cubans pay 6% of their per capita income for non-existent health care. The real question is, how much do they have to bribe their doctor, to get actual health care?

According to your figures, Americans are paying 12% of their income per year for the best health care in the world.

And imagine all the people who would flock to the medical profession, if we started paying Cuban-like wages for medical professionals.

How much do you get paid, dave? Why don't you take a 90% wage cut so you can help people out? One of those 18,000 people may have lived, but you were too greedy. Shame one you.

By the way, where did you get that 18,000 figure? It's absolute nonsense, by the way.

NoDonk,

The shyster's an admitted coward and as you pointed out, he also proves himself to be a soft, doughy hypocrite every time he cashes his six-figure salary…

The day the flabby little shyster get’s on the rubber raft will be the day that is “impressive”…I’d even donate the peanuts and stale pretzels for his trip.

Not that he’d ever do it though…too cowardly to EVER risk anything for what he “believes in”…other than pound away at the keyboard and maybe attend “secret” meetings with his commie pals. Pathetic.

The Cuban Imbargo law was a stupid law that did little other than further glamorize Cuban and Cuban products by making them illegal. It's now been on the books close to 10 years. Only US citizens/residents were affected by it and it sure hasn't appeared to have stopped funds from others getting into Cuba.

Castro's dying, so repeal the law.

Carlos Gutierrez (Secretary of the Commerce Dept who is Cuban by birth) should particularly be ashamed of his actions in not forcefully moving to repeal the law given the change in Castro's health.

dave,

If someone offered you the difference in a cash contribution to pay for bulk travel expenses each year ($5,038 from your supplied numbers) to get all of your health needs addressed in Castro's peasants' health care program, would you opt out of the American one?

Also, such a life expectancy statistic is so bereft of context to be worthless no matter the source. What is the relative expectancy of native born to native born when such individuals spend their entire lives under one system? Considering that millions from Mexico/Latin America now depend on the American system to patch their accumulated health issues, considering that American dining habits (obesity) drive lifespan down and that medicine keeps this mass population living longer than it should naturally, considering that American healthcare is the world's nexus of cutting edge treatment to address those illnesses no one else can touch, can you not recognize that such a barren number means practically nothing? Such simplistic excerpting is quite Mooreish. Tell me, do Cuba's political dissidents get to fly kites with their children on bright summer days?

By all means I encourage you to visit Cuba's clinics for anything worse than a headache and report back your experience. Just know that when you do, the life expectancy statistic you contribute to the number crunchers should be tallied under Cuba and not the U.S.

Enjoy the movie but make sure your server washes his hands before he serves you popcorn. It would be rather unfortunate if you had food poisoning and had to visit an American hospital with all of those hacks wearing lab coats. Assuming you could, of course, even see a doctor since they bar the ER rooms and only permit people arriving by Rolls-Royce.

dave is just another "official cuban statistic" wielding bafoon.

tell you what dave, next time my aunts and uncles and cousins in cuba call or write asking us for medicines and medical supplies, Im gonna have you flip the bill. That OK with you?

And should they be unlucky enough to have to be hospitalized, can I send you over with bedsheets and bedpans and rubber gloves and syringes and al the other supplies theyll need? Youll need to stay with them as well, you know, so you can clean the bedpans and wash the sheets and stuff.

It amazes me how some folks can laud something that they have absolutely no knowledge of.

how many of you all here that think castro's healthcare is awesome would give up your right to speak freely, your right to access information, your right to travel about your country freely, your right to chose where you live and where you work, your right to opine, your right to criticize your government, your right to meet with whomever you want, y0ur right to progress however you see fit all for "free" healthcare?

Val Prieto...calmese, caballero!!

You don't know what you're talking about...the shyster is the "expert" on Cuba, Castro, Che, Hugo and the rest of the merry little commies running about...LOL!

Swabjockey,

I remember the day on the USS Saipan, when we picked up an emaciated, starving, sunburned Cuban family who were trying to float their way to Miami.

We picked them up right before a storm about to hit. It would have swamped their leaky raft and they would have drowned.

We took them down to medical, where as you know, we have neo-op supplies for civilians (clothes, diapers, etc.). Our doctors treated their minor injuries, then we fed and we berthed them until we offlifted them.

How much fuel and time did we burn doing this? I remember that the 'Pan burned a gallon of fuel every foot she traveled, so probably quite a bit. But as you know, part of our mission is to help people who can't help themselves.

Wonder what the great navy of the socialist revolution, or the mighty Iranian Navy, do for helpless refugees they find floating around at sea?

At best, ignore them and let them drown.

At worst, use them for target practice or rape then shoot them.

But hey, remember, we're no better than they are. Worse, really.

NoDonkey:
“Americans are paying 12% of their income per year for the best health care in the world.”
Please tell me what makes America’s health care system the best in the world? How do you measure it? I think a good way to measure the effectiveness of a countries health care system is to look at thinks like life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. What do you look at? Is your method to look at where you are living and then say that that country has the best health care? I suspect that is your method of evaluating many issues.

“By the way, where did you get that 18,000 figure? It's absolute nonsense, by the way.”
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3809/4660/17632.aspx

Jim M:
The rest of the world tends to agree with you on ending the embargo. The most recent vote on it in the UN was 183 in favor of ending it, and 4 against (US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau). Votes in the UN often look like this, with the US and Israel on one side of an issue, and the rest of the world on the other. Another interesting vote last year was on the draft resolution on “The Rights of the Child”. The vote was 185 for, 1 against. I’ll let you guess which country voted against.

Drivel:
“If someone offered you the difference in a cash contribution to pay for bulk travel expenses each year ($5,038 from your supplied numbers) to get all of your health needs addressed in Castro's peasants' health care program, would you opt out of the American one?”
Of course. You wouldn’t? Oh, I forget. You actually believe the photos above are the reality of the Cuban health care system.

You talk about lifestyle issues and how that affects lifespan. Did you know that the promotion of a healthy lifestyle (or lack of it) is part of a nation’s health care system? The Cuban government promotes a healthy lifestyle. Conversely, the US spends billions on advertising to promote smoking cigarettes and to eat at McDonald’s. I agree that this has an effect, but this is all included as part of a nations health care. As a US citizen, you are condition to think that health care is only about when you get sick, and not about staying healthy. Look up "preventative care".

Val prieto:
“It amazes me how some folks can laud something that they have absolutely no knowledge of.”
It is quite possible to obtain knowledge of a country without having relatives that live there. You want me to ignore all the papers and studies I’ve read and instead believe the anectodal ramblings of some extremists on a website. Sorry, but that is not how I accumulate knowledge.
As far as personal experience, a friend of my wife’s, whom I’ve met, lived in Cuba for several years. He lives in Jamaica now, but still visits Cuba often. His stories about Cuba are very different than what I hear from this site, and his personal experience agrees with everything I’ve read. Weighing the evidence on both sides, I am forced to retain my current position on Cuba. You did have some well researched points, however.

LOL!

dave,

Life expectancy better measures lifestyle, than it does a health care system. I think you would agree that a good percentage of our population make poor lifestyle choices as far as diet, exercise and substance abuse. Well, it's a free country.

Cubans, on the other hand, don't have a whole lot of choice with regards to diet and can't afford the substance abuse Americans can. I wouldn't want to live that way. I eat right and exercise on my own.

Infant mortality? You know as well as I do, that hospitals in the US can and often do save babies that are born after 16 weeks gestation, while in most foreign countries, when delivered they are not even counted as infant deaths. So that's apples and oranges.

My brother-in-law has cancer and if he lived anywhere else in the world, there's no doubt in my mind that he would be dead right now. Our detection is better, our treatment is more advanced, we develop the drugs for the world and we have the most experienced, dedicated and talented physicians and nurses in the world, bar none.

We have a system that cares for poor people when they are sick, as well as charitable hospitals all over the country, that take care of people for free. Physicians give their services for free to help the poor and as you know, pharmaceutical companies donate drugs to help sick people who otherwise could not afford them.

And when Arab princes with a bajillion dollars need health care, they don't go to Cuba, comrade.

NoDonkey:
I agree that if you live in the US *and* have a very serious illness *and* have health care, the US is a god place to be. First of all, what about the 40+ million people in the US who do not have health care? For those people, the US health care system is much worse than that in Cuba. For the 18,000 people a year who die every year in the US due to lack of health care, advanced medicine means nothing. (I notice you did not dispute my link, which you thought was nonsense without even knowing where it came from, Mr. Open minded). Also, most people tend to overestimate what Western medicine can do for things like cancer. I am a pharmaceutical chemist who does cancer research, and my company has a cancer drug in the clinic that looks promising. If it makes it to market, it will make hundreds of millions. Guess how long it increases life expectancy for those who take it? About 5 months. Most Western medicine is about making money, and has little impact on overall public health. A country that spends billions to increase the lifespan by a few months for those who have money while ignoring thousands who die every year because they do not have money is seriously disturbed.
Why is 3 thousand people dying on 9/11 such a catastrophe, but 6 times that much dying EVERY year is a non-issue?

Are you sure those are pictures of Cuba's hosptials? They also look a lot like some of this winter's pictures of rooms at Walter Reed Hospital.

Drivel:
"If someone offered you the difference in a cash contribution to pay for bulk travel expenses each year ($5,038 from your supplied numbers) to get all of your health needs addressed in Castro's peasants' health care program, would you opt out of the American one?”

It still baffles me that you would ask this. That vast majority of people in a society live their entire lives needing only basic medical care. The kind of care that all Cubans get, and all but 40 million Americans get. For a very small minority, advanced Western techniques or drugs can make a difference. For example, a cutting edge cancer drug can give you 5 more months. You would really turn down $400,000 on the slim chance that you might need some advanced technique or drug, and even in that case would probably only get a few more months? I guess you really value time over money. Even if I knew I was going to be one of the small minority where Western medicine would give me a few more months at the end of my life, I would still take the $400k to use during my life and then check out a few months early.

When looking at a society as a whole, health care is about preventative medicine and about providing basic health care to all. These things contribute greatly to overall public health and are inexpensive. These things are ignored by the US. Cutting edge medical techniques and medicines do little for overall public health, and is much more about creating vast wealth for a tiny minority. This the US does well.

dave,

Your link just restates your claim, without any supporting information as to how they arrived at that figure. It's a non-issue because the figure was likely pulled out of thin air.

40+ million that "don't have health care"? Nonsense.

That fraud of figure includes:
- Illegal immigrants
- People who can well afford health insurance but who don't want to pay for ti
- Anyone who in the past year didn't have health insurance for even ONE DAY (I was counted one year when I was in grad school)
- People who are eligible for Medicare, Medicaid or the VA, but who can't be bothered to apply and enroll into one of the programs

Pare those people out and you have at most 8 or 9 million. But instead of figuring out how to help those people, the "answer" of course is to force the other 291 million of us into some shabby, overfunded and underperfoming, government health care system.

5 months ON AVERAGE, dave. That could mean several years. Most individuals who get cancer are old and are about to die of something. My brother-in-law got a cancer at 50, that most people get at 75+. He's still alive and my niece and nephew still have a daddy, because those evil pharmaceutical companies developed a drug that keeps him alive.

So you work in an industry you despise in a country you loathe. Why? I love my country, but if I could afford to, I'd probably live in Italy outside of football season. What keeps you here?

Dave,

"I think a good way to measure the effectiveness of a countries health care system is to look at thinks like life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. What do you look at?"

I look at the big picture. What good is 100% literacy when Castro only allows citizens to read government approved literature. I'll take lower literacy and a free press any day. What good is free "ah-hem" health care when masses of the citizenry will risk the death of themselves and their children to float on a rickety raft for a slim chance to live in a slum of Miami? I'll take my PPO, Cobra, State aid, Medicare, etc.

Dave, answer this. Would you trade living in America and give up our quality of life and relative freedoms for Castro's fantastic "ah-hem" health care system and relative lack of basic human rights?

I'll believe it when they frog march Moore out of his palacial Manhattan home in handcuffs. Until then, this is just another cheap publicity stunt.

NoDonkey:
“Your link just restates your claim, without any supporting information as to how they arrived at that figure.”
The US federal government creates a non profit organization to research scientific and technical matters and to report its findings. This organization performs a 3 year study on health care in the US, and you call it “nonsense”. The Captain, however, posts some stupid picture and that is the God’s truth. You have a unique method for evaluating credibility of sources.

Supply me with references to your info and I’d be happy to read it.

“So you work in an industry you despise in a country you loathe. Why?”
I have friends and family here, but I do like to think I’ll leave someday. I have been studying Spanish for a few years to prepare for it. When the US implodes, I’ll probably move to Venezuela.

Any argument based on official statistics from a Communist country rests on thin air. Michael Moore's m.o. is to create an industry around noticing Michael Moore. Anyone who sincerely believes Cuba's numbers is, at best, very naive about how Cuba operates.

Having said that: America's health care system is embarrassing.

It.s grossly inefficient, overworked, expensive, and, from an objective standpoint, other countries like France do it better for the average citizen.

Naturally, we shouldn't copy everything they do -- compare how many patents come from the rest of the world compare vs. the United States:

http://tinyurl.com/ynuukk

But in delivering such medical innovations to the public, other nations have a more effective system. Why not take what works?

DU

I'm sure you'll be welcome there.

Uh, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

"It.s grossly inefficient, overworked, expensive, and, from an objective standpoint, other countries like France do it better for the average citizen."

Inefficient? Not if you don't cut corners on treatment protocols and clinical pathways. Europeans do and so does everyone else.

Inefficient? Defensive medicine. Credit our lottery of a legal system. Multiple, redundant, useless tests and practices performed merely to make sure a physician doesn't get sued to death. Any of the lawyers running for President want to take on our inefficient, overworked and expensive "LEGAL" SYSTEM LOTTERY? Does Mickey Moore? I thought not.

And the evil pharmaceutical companies develop drugs that save millions of inpatient days per year. But according to Dr. Moore-On, all drugs should be developed by unionized government employees. Figure the odds at getting some useful drugs out of a bunch of featherbedding timeservers.

I agree we should look at what works, but what doesn't work anywhere, anyhow is socialized medicine, which is what this propaganda film is attempting to achieve.

NoDonkey:
Illegal immigrants in the IOM study:
The report says that 4.3 million out of the 42 million uninsured are illegal aliens. So 37.7 million Americans are uninsured. Still an issue. (For me, uninsured illegals is an issue, but I would never expect you to consider it to be). Let me know where your other statements originate from.

“Figure the odds at getting some useful drugs out of a bunch of featherbedding timeservers.”
Do you want to know what 90% of drug research is about in the pharmaceutical industry? It’s about copying some other company’s drug in such a way as to avoid their patent and putting out a me-too drug that is no better than the first one was in order to capture a percentage of the market. Most drug research in the private sector is redundant, and Moore’s system of “unionized government employees” would eliminate this redundancy and result in far more innovation than we have now. You want to know where most of the real research is done in pharmaceuticals? Universities. From the public sphere. Not the private.

You guys do realize that dave resides in ding-a-ling land.

He believes 9/11 was in inside job.

He wears his tinfoil proudly. LOL.

I'm sure you'll be welcome there.

Uh, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

NoDonkey:
"Anyone who in the past year didn't have health insurance for even ONE DAY"

One data set mentioned in the report I linked to is the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which found that over a two year period (1996-1997) 23.5 million people under the age of 65 were uninsured *throughout* the two year period. Regarding short term insurance loss, the same survey found that 80.2 million people lacked health insurance for at least one month out of the two year period. When MEPS counted the average number of persons *for at least a one year period*, they got a value of 45 million people.

See:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10874&page=32

I guess the points you brought up originated in youe imagination, judging by your inability to source them, and also judging by credible data sets that say the opposite. I know/ The source I link to is "nonsense", and I should believe your imaginary statistics instead.

Yes, Dave, I remember how smoothly and decisively the French medical system leaped into action during that big heat wave and buried all those dead senior citizens before typhus and cholera could set in.

Reality check: People do not t throw themselves into oceans to _get away_ from world-class healthcare and education...

Pictures kind of reminded of the Walter Reed Building.

dave
I am one of those uninsured at the moment (thanks to some financial difficulties on my employer's part) and I need medication to remain healthy, some of which I am doing without. Nonetheless I would never want the government to take care of my needs because it is not the government's job to take care of me and I have no moral right to ask the government for anything and you have no moral right to insist that other people pay for my needs, either directly or through taxation.

As inevitably as 2 + 2 = 4, socialism plus time inescapably and invariably leads to universal poverty. Europe is culturally, economically and socially dying because of the same nonsense that you are trying to push on America. If America "implodes" it will be do the malicious memes of socialism and political correctness, two social viruses that inevitably kill any society they touch. Venezuela will die much sooner because than America because the madman Chavez has totally infected his society with the deadly socialist meme.

Yes I am without insurance and doing without needs right now, but I am fortunate, and yes even blessed, to live in this country, because here I have hope. Please note which way the boat people go between Cuba and America. Please also note which countries have problems with illegal immigrants.

I do not want socialized medicine, even if it benefits me personally in the short term, because it will sooner or later destroy this country.

Richard Mcenroe:
"Reality check: People do not t throw themselves into oceans to _get away_ from world-class healthcare and education"
Right. They do so for economic reasons. Say an orphan lives in a family whose parents are the best in the world. Honest, loving, moral, but dirt poor. What if the orphan has a chance to move in with a family where the parents are mobsters and hit men, but they are filthy rich and the kid will get a car, a swimming pool, and his own room. Many may choose to live with the rich mobsters. That is not something the mobsters should really feel proud of.

"Why is 3 thousand people dying on 9/11 such a catastrophe, but 6 times that much dying EVERY year is a non-issue?"

I'll answer my own question. The reason most people are so enraged about 9/11 has nothing to do with the loss of life involved. If it was about the senseless loss of life, then the same people should be infinitely more outraged about 6 times that many people dying each and every year from something that can be very easily remedied, and involves doing merely what every other first world country in the world already does: provide health care for all their citizens. The reason for the outrage of 9/11 is a very different reason. It is because "they" got us. We have to show them who is the real killing machine, so we respond by killing hundreds of thousands of "those" people to get our revenge. But we must not talk about it in those terms. We must be somber about the loss of life, and always talk about our resulting wars being "regretable but necessary" in order to protect ourselves. What people really want is blind revenge, and to see as many "other" people die as possible. What you all want is descibed very well by Nomad 990 in his "First Way" scenario a few threads down:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/009931.php#comments

(May 10, 2007 08:55 AM)

As psychotic as that person is, at least he is honest. That is how most of you feel, and you get off every time you see a bomb explode on TV.

dave,

One question on that great Cuban health care system.

What was the name of the Cuban doctor that Fidel Castro called in when he was sick?

I am free:
I don't know how to respond to what you wrote. I guess time will tell. If the US has the best system, I guess 18,000 deaths per year is simply one price we must pay to enjoy our superior society.

"When the US implodes, I’ll probably move to Venezuela."

I'm sure that the commissars of the People's Republic of Venezuela will welcome you with open arms: They'll be desperate for whatever cash you bring. Of course, you might find that all your retirement savings have suddenly become the property of the state. Lotsa luck.

The WHO ranks US health care 37th in the world:

http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-44.html

Impressive. They must be jealous.

See also:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0505/p02s01-uspo.html

Amazing. How can anyone still believe in any sort of socialist/communist system being better than capitalism any more? How can anyone believe any kind of statistic or statement that comes out of one of those countries? Remember when the Russians used to claim they had invented everything and had 150 year old citizens? Pointing out some flaw in our system doesn't prove anything. Show me the U.S. refugees heading for other countries. Hello, even the poorest of the poor stay here. They don't head for Cuba, or Venuezuela. When WILL the socialists get a clue? How many hundreds of years has this idea been around? It's as if there were still large groups of people attempting to fly by building wings and flapping them with their arms.

Shipmates,

It's a waste of time to engage the commie shyster lawyer wannabe. He's a "true believer". I just wish he had the gnads to actually DO something to further his beliefs. Remember: in addition to what BitterPill pointed out...this particular shyster supports the VIOLENT OVERTHROW of the elected U.S. Government.

Sigh…If he actually had the gnads to DO something…maybe I’d get the chance to go beak-to-beak. LOL!

Here's the full list of the WHO rankings for health care systems:

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

The US if 37th, and Cuba is 39th. I guess you guys should be proud. The US does have a better health care system than Cuba, at least for those who have access to it. For those who don't, sorry. Too bad the US needs to dpend 22 times as much as Cuba for a system that rates as being virtually the same.

I know, the WHO is just jealous.

Swabjockey:
If you can't deal with someone on an intellectual level, the best way to deal with it is to either threaten or enact violence. The American way.

I have been studying Spanish for a few years to prepare for it. When the US implodes, I’ll probably move to Venezuela.

aha...ahaha....ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Swabjockey:
When you were unable to deal with someone rationally and intellectually, you resorted to threatening violence. Another approach is to attempt to ridicule the person. See johnnymozart above for a lame attempt. I like your approach better. It is more direct and somehow more honest. Johnnymozart's approach is merely pathetic.

LOL. That's even funnier that I struck a nerve. For such a loudmouth, you sure have thin skin, dave. Enjoy Venezuela. Comrade.

I will post this on this subject, as I have a number of times before. It is a cursory discussion of some of the issues, but it raises issues worth considering when addressing the kind of statistics that dave is spewing. dave will not listen, of course, because Marxists never do; but the issues at stake in this country, particularly in terms of "infant mortality", which is the most common and notoroious of the anti-US health care slurs thrown around (usually by people whom have no idea of what they are talking about and who view everything through their patheric "Das kapital" lens), bear consideration. This is by no means a definitive dissertation on the subject, merely a discussion, although a cursory search of the neonatology journals would provide a more thorough foundation for an actual debate.

But of course, who wants a debate when you can just selectively use selection and reporting biased statistics for a good old fashioned apparatchik tirade?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=386554

Oh, and one last thing; I recognize how sensitive you are, but my comment wasn't intended to be insulting, Khruschev. It was merely a reaction to the image of your irony.

I mean, come on: a whiny Marxist whose twisted view of the world causes him to flee the eeeeevil capitalist, Fascist America flees to where?

An actual fascist. Now that's comedy. I couldn't have hired someone to make up an insult for you that's funnier than that.

I wonder if there is such a thing as irony poisoning? If so, I need chelation. LOL.

Johnny:
Your slate article deliberately distorts the issue, which is not surprising. It is also not surprising that you cannot notice it.

Sanghavi says:
“Infant deaths in poor nations are roughly six times more common than in developed areas and result mainly from easily treated infections like diarrhea in the first few months. By contrast, the majority of deaths in developed countries result from extreme prematurity or birth defects that kill a newborn in the first few days or weeks of life.”

After this, he goes on to talk about premature babies, and how the US has a lot of them precisely because we spend so much on health care and many of these babies die and that increases our infant mortality rate. This certainly is true, and is a contributing factor (there are other factors that Sanghavi does not address, but that is not important here).
Therefore, according to Sanghavi, there is a difference in the source of infant mortality rates when comparing poor nations to developed countries, and it is therefore misleading for Save the Children to compare the two. Save the Children, of course, knows this. In their report, it says:

“The causes of newborn death in the industrialized world differ dramatically from those in developing countries. In the developing world, about half of newborn deaths are due to infection, tetanus and diarrhea. In the industrialized world, these problems are almost non-existent. Newborn deaths are most likely to result from babies being born too small or too early.”

Sounds similar? So how can Save the Children aknowledge exactly the issue that Sanghavi brings up, and then ignore it? The answer is, Save the Children IS NOT COMPARING THESE SITUATIONS. The title of the chart where Save the Children compares infant mortality rates is “Newborn Mortality in the Industrialized World”. Save the Children is comparing infant mortality rates to other countries in the industrialize world, not to poor or developing countries. Other countries in the industrialized world also have premature babies, you see. Sanghavi realizes this, but his objective is to deceive.

There are many reasons why the US has a lot of premature babies. Increased use of C-sections and induced labor, fertility drugs, and the high percentage of obese women in the US are some:

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20050909/rate-of-premature-birth-hits-new-high-in-us

These causes of increased premature births are also related to a nations health care system. Part of a nations health care system is to reduce obesity, for example. Our Surgeon General comes on TV and tells people to stop eating like pigs. That’s paid for in health care dollars. It is our poor health care system overall that is a factor in our high premature birth rate. This is especially true for this factor in the high US rate of premature birth listed in the above article:

“Another cause of premature birth…is the increasing lack of health insurance by women of childbearing age.”

You’re article is biased.

Johhny:
Nowhere in the WebMD list of causes for the high US rate of premature birth does it list Sanghavi's cause of "high spending in the US on healthcare". This guy Sanghavi is an ass.

dave,

You can read papers and studies till your blue in the face, fact is I get my information from the people that actually live in Cuba and receive that lauded "healthcare."

Any poll, paper or study that relies on information put forth by the Cuban government is flawed at best, as the source is not only unreliable, but laughable.

It irritates me to know end when someone tells me I know so and so who lived in Cuba yadayadayada. here's a clue for ya: Foreigners are an elite class in Cuba. They are on the good side of the apartheid. they dont get their food from ration cards. they dont have limitations on information. They dont get prohibited from entering hotels and stores and beaches. They dont have to abide by the CDRs. They dont have to sell their asses to fat foreign schmucks to put food on their tables. And, if they want to leave, they dont have to get on a raft and risk their lives to do so.

i may be an extremist, but at least I dont live with my head up my ass like you.

RE: dave (May 10, 2007 01:51 PM)

WRT opting in to Cuba's health care system and out of the U.S.:
Of course. You wouldn’t? Oh, I forget. You actually believe the photos above are the reality of the Cuban health care system.

Not a chance would I trade. America has the best medicine in the world bar none. It absorbs the exorbitantly expensive costs to research new drugs (as you know) and procedures that, while eating up a significant portion of our GDP, has a ripple effect which benefits humanity over the entire globe. Other people get government subsidized care due to the largess of a relatively wealthy America that pays the development costs in its own care to provide the cost-shifted R&D their economies and social structure cannot or will not support.

...the promotion of a healthy lifestyle (or lack of it) is part of a nation’s health care system? The Cuban government promotes a healthy lifestyle.

You are conflating the issue here. First, I don't know what "promoting healthy lifestyle" means in the context of Cuban policy. Every country "promotes" health. In the USA you see it in the Federal dietary food tree. You see it in mandated health classes. You see it in school vaccination policies. You see it in the emphasis of sports/recreation as one progresses through education. The point is that in a free nation, individuals know what to do to maintain a healthier lifestyle (fostered by the very government you detest) but that upon voting age (or earlier), the individual can opt out and ignore any message the government wants to present. It is not out of ignorance that Americans quit listening to the government's promotion of a healthy lifestyle. How exactly does Castro promote health? For example does he mandate that his citizens not exceed a certain caloric intake above and beyond some currently accepted ideal under threat of gunpoint? Would he even need to force such a plan in this particular instance considering the abject poverty and lack of food to acquire such a health condition?

Second, ultimately, economics is part of a nation's health care system. As is education. As is sanitation control. I could go on, but the point is that many things impact a health care system and selecting out promotion of certain behaviors while excluding other factors is of the same variety of cherry-picking I critiqued above.

Third, the U.S. government promotes "healthy living" as you charge that Cuba does. The difference is that those behaviors you might consider sinful or antithetical to proper health are activities advanced by private industry in a capitalistic society with consumers of free will and NOT by the government authority. It just so happens that the same capitalistic system also provides the solutions that heals those individuals who make "poor" choices in their living habits. Under the same system, those who opt in to the federally advised education programs via their reading educational materials etc. and keep themselves fit tend to benefit further from those capitalists who take the risks to push the envelope into discovering the next great cure that has been extending lifespans around the world for the past two hundred years.

As a US citizen, you are condition to think that health care is only about when you get sick, and not about staying healthy. Look up "preventative care".

Who says the conditioning is that uniformly administered and accepted by default? Most of my neighbors are quite health conscious. My peers are generally so. My family is health conscious. Others aren't but it is not due to ignorance. It is choice. Preventative care is but one poriton of policy and individuals can opt in or out at their leisure. I gather in a Cuban system, however, "preventative care" is the only care, so a citizen better like it since he probably won't see much else.

RE: dave (May 10, 2007 03:07 PM)
It still baffles me that you would ask this. That vast majority of people in a society live their entire lives needing only basic medical care. The kind of care that all Cubans get, and all but 40 million Americans get...

The kind of care the Cubans get is subsidized by Western medicine that has invested the time, money, and resources to devlope the drugs and tools necessary for any semblance of care beyond witch doctoring. While the U.S. doesn't trade directly with Cuba, our products and technology reach that state even if belatedly and irregularly. What was the last medical device Cuba invented and marketed outside of its borders de novo? Or what was the last drug? Or surgical technique? Or profound biotechnical discovery of a silver bullet to improve anyone's health?

Our capitalist system provides the incentive for hard-working people with great talents to push the healthcare envelope to horizons we have yet to envision. The mere act of producing one of those drugs that extend life only a few more days/months/years/timeframe-of-choice pioneers the path to the next drug or discovery and eventually drives down the cost as the drug evolves to non-cutting edge status. Our system, however imperfect, is the discovery engine that improves the lifestyle and extends the lifespan of everyone on the planet whether propagandists in a closed system admit this or not. The ripple-effect of discovery benefits humanity even though it is terribly expensive to do so. It's terribly naive to say (insinuate?) that we really shouldn't waste resources under such a "misguided" plan since "preventative medicine" is really the panacea. It assuredly isn't, and the fact that man lived to the ripe old age of 35 not too many moons ago is testament to the advances of science and medicine and the capitalist system that enables it to test our genetic limits whether the model is driven by private industry operating on a for profit model or by public subsidy via grant money still acquired by others through taxing of other private industry less directly involved in the final product.

And as we look south, we see that Cuba contributes nothing, but they do it cheaply, so that's a plus.

Val Prieto:
“Foreigners are an elite class in Cuba.”
Are Cubans not allowed to tell foreigners any of the things you mention? The person I know has been very good friends with many Cubans for many years. Why don’t the Cubans say any of the things that you say? Are they afraid that the person I know will turn them in to Castro and they will be tortured? That must be it.

Drivel:
I agree that many, many things go into the idea of a nations health care. These things are evaluated by many independent organizations, and they find that health care in the US is not so great, and about equal to what you would get in a poor country like Cuba. My main point is that the number one factor in providing a good health care system is to provide basic health care to all. No other factor comes close to influencing overall public health than this factor. Because of this critical factor, all industrial nations, and even many poor ones such as Cuba, respond by providing basic health care to all its citizens. The US and South Africa are the only industrial nations that do not. I think it is a serious problem that the richest nation in the world will allow 18,000 of its citizens to die every year when it is very simple to remedy. You do not have to become a communist nation to provide health care for your sick citizens.

“discovering the next great cure that has been extending lifespans around the world for the past two hundred years…”
Basic sanitation and relatively simple science such as vaccinations (which Cuba does much research on, and they have developed quite a few of their own vaccines) is what is responsible for the increase in life spans, not heart transplants.

“What was the last medical device Cuba invented and marketed outside of its borders de novo?”
Didn’t read that before my last response. I respond bit by bit. Answer = vaccines. The kind of thing that has a real effect. These vaccines are used to save tens of thousands of lives in poor countries, lives that are extended by decades as a result. Western advanced medicines usually extend lives by a few months, and only for a very small minority of the worlds population. Also, Cuba export doctors. I know you will have fun belittling the fact, but they have a tremendous impact on thousands of lives in poor countries, such as restoring eyesight to thousands through relatively simple procedures. You will never understand that the greatest impact on the health of the world comes, once again, in providing basic care for all. Cuba’s impact on the world is immeasurably greater than the US, because they concentrate on providing basic health care to the masses, which has a huge impact. The US concentrates on extending the lives of the tiny minority of rich people by a few months, because it is extremely profitable. But in terms of overall health, it means nothing. You can never understand this, because for you, poor people are non-people. They really don’t matter that much. Extending the lives of Westerners by a few months is much more important to you than doubling the life span of millions. Different points of view.

The pharmaceutical industry propaganda is working well on you. I guess it pays my salary.

Drivel:
A Cuban meningitis vaccine (world's first) could end up for sale in the US. It's an old article, maybe it's here already. Ironic, huh:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0417/p14s03-stct.html

Cancer vaccine:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072700-02.htm

Asthma vaccine:
http://www.csrt.com/e_news.php?display&302&item

I guess these vaccines are developed in the rooms the Captain has pictured above.

Drivel:
I do have something good to say about Western pharmaceutical companies. I've worked on a few drugs that have looked very promising when tested on mice. The tumors shrink or dissappear completely. They never seem to work on humans quite as well, however.

But at least Western medicine has cured mouse cancer!

Drivel:
In the CSmonitor link, it says that Cuba sets aside 1.5% of its GDP for scientific research, and did so even at the height of its economic problems in the 1990's. This again shows Cuba's commitment to the health of its citizens. If the US did this, it would amount to 200 billion dollars per year. We don't even spend that much on wars. Health care is even more important to Cuba than wars are to the US! Now that's saying something!

Drivel:
I think that having granted patents on 66 distinct medicines is extremely impressive for a poor third world nation. How many do you think Guatemala, Nicaragua, or Haita has, which are a few countries that have had the benefit of US “assistance” throughout the years.

You cannot receive patents by stealing IP.

Inmypajamas:
I have worked for well over 20 years in pharmaceutical research at Pfizer, Abbott, Aventis,and a two other companies. What exactly is your experience? What is your job?

“Where in the heck do you think the funding comes from?”
Most of the basic research, the innovative part, is done in universities and funded by the public. Look up the study dome by the Karolinsk Institute referenced by the Captain a little further up on the threads. They mention how public funding in the US for pharma research is seven times greater than in Europe. The pharma companies take over only when its time to patent the work and make money off it. And as I said, most of pharma research is about finding holes in other companies patents, not finding novel molecules.

“I'm sorry to sound less than overwhelmed but - 18,000 out of 300 million people?”
Nice statement. I guess 9/11 is an extremely trivial matter for you. 18,000 people die EVERY YEAR from lack of insurance, and only 3,000 died on 9/11 in one isolated incident. Maybe you should get a bumper sticker that says “quit whining about 9/11”.