Man Self-immolates in National Mall

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Blabby, I agree completely. Granted some drugs are very dangerous. But so are chain saws, and a ten-year-old kid with the money can go down to any store and buy a chain saw. The difference is that lumber jacks don't have a strong union whereas doctors most certainly do.

To me, there is something very distasteful, not to mention un-American, about adults having to go to doctors to get permission slips to buy the medications they need--or want.

Finally, this measure would largely do away with the war on drugs, since those who wanted such things could go into any pharmacy for their fix instead of the street and the criminal underworld. This is actually the way things were until the 1914 Harrison narcotics act was passed, which was the beginning of doctors showing their power.

ACA is designed so that the wealthy pay more, they CAN afford it. expecting people like me to pay $351 a month is unrealistic. sans insurance I simply could not afford to pay out of pocket for health care, not when local docs charge $200 just to walk in the door. if it came to that i'd have to go bare and when I got sick in a major way i'd just have to kill myself. of course the TP would like that, as there would be one less "useless eater."

Yeah ... make all drugs available without a prescription ... then, when anyone stupid enough to take drugs recreationally dies from an overdose, let me be the first in line to bid on their homes and other property.

If you are arguing that the wealthy should pay more in taxes, I am in wholehearted agreement. Though I just love not having a state income tax, the problem is that somebody making twenty grand a year here in Texas pays more of their wages in overall taxes than somebody making two hundred grand a year. Republicans only understand the income and capital gains taxes, because they hit the wealthy the hardest.

Having said this, I'm not sure why you are averse to making the system cheaper, and using those additional revenues for other things, including paying down our obscene national debt.

Let me put it this way: I've got beside me a doctor's bill for 267 dollars, which for some reason my insurance company decided it wasn't going to pay. For this amount, I got approximately three minutes of the doctor's time, in which he recommended a medical procedure I have had done four times without success, a recommendation to take a vitamin pill every day, and a referral to a specialist who refused to take me as a patient. In other words, I got NOTHING for my money. Is that really the way things are supposed to work?

Fnord, you could make the same arguments about automobiles, chain saws, and guns--particularly guns. Personally, I think all ought to be available to mentally competent adults, and with minimal restrictions. Perhaps you could tell me why you feel differently.

I am NOT averse to making the system cheaper. if medical expertise were democratized and the lions' share of drugs were made OTC, that would go a long way towards breaking the monopoly the insurance and medical industries have over our health care. in mexico, almost all drugs are OTC and it is the pharmacist who counsels customers to drugs' proper use.

Blabby, you make an excellent point on pharmacists. It verges on criminal that pharmacists have so much valuable training and yet they spend their time counting pills.

The story of how this came to be is a fascinating one I learned while in grad school from this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-System-Profes ... rofessions

What Abbott says is that back during the early 20C, the professions divided up their professional turf, and the doctors were simply better lobbyists than the pharmacists. And if you think about it, this is true. The professions zealously guard their professional turf, and free speech does not apply to such activities as handing out medical or legal advice by those not part of those professions.

I'm NOT arguing against licensure, as I'm not a libertarian. What I am arguing for is sane, rational policy designed to put the needs of average citizens ahead of making professionals rich. One of the truisms of the successful business owner or employee is realizing they need the customer worse than the customer needs them; they can simply go elsewhere or do without. The current professional system short-circuits this process. This is why you are liable to get better, more responsive service from a fry cook at McDonald's than a doctor or lawyer making a hundred times as much money.

short of a society-wide revolution, what could break the stranglehold then? who can be the great johnny appleseed of democratized medical expertise?

Meaningful campaign finance reform would be a good start to setting this country aright. Corporations, which currently control our politics, are really creations of the state, as they couldn't exist without governmental permission that allows them to act like citizens; this is why they are known as fictitious persons.

The reason corporations have rights is Supreme Court decisions. Corporations are also personal property, and as such have no more constitutional rights than my toast oven. In other words, corporations need to be forbidden from putting any money into our political process, though they should certainly be allowed to lobby, but only without buying undue influence.

The constitution grants respective rights and duties to citizens, the federal government, and the state governments. It grants NO rights to corporations. It should be kept in mind that this was intentional. In fact, one of the things the colonists were fighting against was the monopoly power of the British East India Company, which was an early corporation that supplied tea and spices. I only wish the founding fathers would have noted as much in the Constitution. Then, corporations were something brand new back then, and didn't have anywhere near the power they do today.

My second idea is reintroducing a reasonable test to register to vote proving that you know something about the process, the issues, and what is at stake. More educated voters aren't as easily manipulated, and would demand better politicians, and hence get better government. Just as you have to prove that you know the material to get a driver's or plumber's license, we should have to prove we know what's going on to be able to vote as well. Right now, the person who flips a coin to decide who they are going to vote for has a vote that counts just as much as somebody who really studies the issues conscientiously, and can vote intelligently. To me, that's wrong. As Winston Churchill said, the best argument against democracy is spending five minutes talking with the average voter. He was right.

yes, freedom and ignorance cannot coexist for long, and we are nearing the end of the coexistence period. there is tremendous inertia in our system, like trying to turn an ocean liner around in a sea of molasses. that is why I used the johnny appleseed analogy, some new democratic enlightenment/empowerment meme must be planted all over the place and allowed to organically grow up from the bottom. that would be the only way to make our present system irrelevant. IOW "people power."

Blabby, I suspect we may disagree on this one, but perhaps the feature of both right and left-liberalism that I abhor most is radical egalitarianism, which presumes we were all created equal, in the immortal words of Jefferson. The problem is this isn't true; we weren't all created equal; rather, we are all unique and different, with aspies being among the most unique and different of all.

The reason left-liberals believe in egalitarianism is that it is a necessary presumption for social engineering. It began with Marxism, which in essence is about The Revolution, in which the workers will rise up and take over the means of production, thus ushering in the final positivist stage of history: communism. Of course, this position presumes that the workers have the natural talents to do something like this when the evidence quite clearly suggests they do not. Thus its total failure.

Right liberals believe in egalitarianism to justify huge disparities in wealth and to negate any obligations of noblesse oblige. For example, when the rich banker looks upon his immiserated janitor, he can rationalize by telling himself that he is where he is because he worked harder than the janitor. But is it realistic to think the reason most janitors didn't attend Harvard Business School is because they are lazy?

I think the answer is quite clear. The banker likely did work hard to get where he's at, but so do most janitors. The difference is in innate intelligence, which we do nothing to earn; it is an accident of birth, the same as being born NT or autistic. So, we are left with a choice: We can assume that we were not all created equal, or that the less intelligent should have chosen their parents more carefully.

The problem is still the free market, because in the free market Doctors aren't free to just be Doctors. They must be business men first.

In a system like that, their trade might be healing people, but their objective MUST be making money.

That is always going to be a problem.

You are right that doctors are businessmen--or what I would characterize as criminal greed.

The reason for the Reformation was that in earlier years, the Catholic Church was a fine organization the commanded almost universal respect. Then, those who were more interested in wealth and status co-opted those who took their vows to serve their societies--e.g., the Church went from being influenced by people like St. Francis of Assisi to the Borgia Pope . And the Catholic Church became extremely crooked, and was subjected to a reforming through Protestantism.

Today, we are seeing the same thing in medicine. Doctors had a fine reputation at one time because they took their Hippocratic Oath very seriously. Today, doctors are more interested in spending Wednesday afternoon at the yachting basing and Fridays at the country club than they are in serving humanity.

We need a better class of doctors. Socializing them wont' make the current crop of doctors any less greedy of self-serving.

one way around that might be if we made medically talented teens a deal-- agree to sign on the dotted line, and accept a full-ride scholarship and lifetime indemnity from malpractice lawsuits, lifetime income in solidly middle-class territory, in exchange for treating all comers in underserved parts of the country.

what are the ramifications of this?

Blabby, I would suspect that if we sought MD candidates among those who want to serve their fellow man as well as make a comfortable living that things would get much better.