Educator overreaction and school ban inanity drama continues

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That is nothing less than a pernicious lie.

While their may be organizations that are primarily concerned with their bottom lines--and I don't deny that this is certainly the case with most insurers, they are not "healthcare." They are merely one piece of a larger healthcare system. Do not tar my colleagues with the sins of only one part of the system.

Doctors practice medicine to earn a living. Some are motivated by ambition, and the greed for fortune and fame. But these are by far the exception to the rule, and the vast majority of doctors are motivated by the goal to heal the sick. Nurses, dentists, physiotherapists, psychologists and all the other professions and trades that are connected to health care may be similarly described.



Of course insurers have to make a profit. How else can insurance companies function?!? There are really only two choices: private insurers who can attract capital through the promise of a return on investment, or public insurers who are funded through tax and fee revenues of government. Take your pick, because no one has invented a robust third way.

Now I don't deny that there are abuses in the system--when I have been presented with American patients, I have fought enough with their insurers to know what that's like. And I don't deny that tort practice in the United States can look obscene. But you are looking at the outliers. The multi-million dollar damage award is the exception, not the rule. When I was a student, 85% of civil actions never made it to setting down a trial. And of those that did, some half of them were settled "on the courhouse steps." Litigation going the distance is very much the exceptional circumstance, and generally goes there only because there is a point of law to be settled.

The rest of the system carries on. The insured pay their premiums, the injured make their claims, the insurers pay out claims, and the investors receive dividends. The only time the system runs the risk of getting broken is when the insured mischaracterize their risk (like AIG's exposure to the subprime mortgage market) or when a single insurer is overexposed to a single disaster. When risks are correctly calculated, and when risks are spread evenly, the system works remarkably well.

You have clearly not practiced medicine in the US.

MOST physicians in the US are motivated by greed, and for that matter, everybody has their hands in the cookie jar known as healthcare. However, I was once told that they pretty much have to resort to greed or charging astronomical amounts for services because of the constant threat of litigation.

Do I deny that there are physicians in the US who want to heal the sick regardless of cost, no.



Insurance companies do not have to make a profit to function, but they do, and then they lose focus of their primary concern. To "insure" is to make sure a family does not go bankrupt because of an unexpected illness or injury.

Wasn't there a health and safety issue. Wearing perfume that can give another person a potentially fatal wheeze is not a mere issue of immaturity. It is a life-death safety and health issue. I speak as as asthmatic so I know whereof I speak.

There is a related issue of keeping peanut material out of the lunch room loose specks of peanuts can cause a violent and potentially fatal allergic reaction. It is no joke or trivial issue.

ruveyn

How is this overreacting? Someone could die from an allergic reaction.

Children tend to be stupid and bathe themselves in the stuff.

Making a decision for one student that will affect an entire student body is an overreaction.

Also, it boils down to free will v. common good.

Continuing along the vein of "free will trumps common good" why not just release all the pedophiles and murderers?

As I posted above, I think you have to look at the circumstances of this case.

This school district had a case last year where a student died due to (reports differ) not geting medical attention in time, or having health issues ignored that morning. It is by no means unrelated that this issue came up now.

I think this particular case is a poor test case for any larger arguement over litigation, insurance, or food allergies. There are far more local factors involved.

Your attempt at invalidation is acknowledged.

Indeed. Pick some decent deodorant and EDT, for God's sake.

Do you have so sort of Cerebro-like device that lets you divine the intents of an entire profession. You know you can't just state you opinion as fact without backing it up. And there is no human way of backing this kind of motive speculation up. It is just emotional rhetoric.

Who said I was stating opinion as fact?

Is what I stated not blatantly obvious?

You want it backed up? I give you the utter failure of the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Repeating a lie does not make it true. You hide behind weasel words ("MOST physicians" and "I was once told") so that you can persist in your ill-informed, prejudicial and inflammatory lies.

If you want to focus on the abuses in the system and to reform them, then you are going about it precisely the wrong way--because anyone who knows anything about how healthcare delivery works will recognize your words for the ill informed hyperbole that they are.



Are you stupid as well as ill-informed? How does an insurance company come into being? Where does the capital come from? What investor in his right mind is going to put money into an insurance company that is not going to provide a return on investment?!?

Insurance companies must make profits to function. The only exception to this rule are not-for-profit insurance cooperatives, where they are compelled not to make a profit, but rather to generate a surplus in order to provide a cushion of equity in order to meet future claims.

Did you really have to resort to argumentum ad hominem?

You have misused that term.

Pointing out your untruth and its repetition is not argument ad hominem. Were I to say, "you are a fool, therefore everything you say is wrong," then that would properly be argument ad hominem. However, my syllogism is, "almost everything that you say is wrong, therefore you are a fool," which is merely rhetorical icing on the cake.

I could have omitted that, to be sure, and lost none of the substance of my statement. But your claim that insurance companies do not have to make a profit to function was so profoundly misguided that it cried out for the rhetorical flourish.

It is an attack on the person, not the argument, therefore, it is an ad hominem.