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POLICY: Thank God there’s no rationing here!

Back with more a little later (Typepad’s been a bit problematic today) but to start, just a quick note to those who say that there’s rationing in Canada and the UK and that we’re so lucky it doesn’t happen here. You need to amend your statements to "it doesn’t happen here — to nice people like us". But if you’re poor, good luck on getting the rest of us to help out.

For those of you too lazy to clickthru, the story is about Mississippi limiting Medicaid recipients to 5 prescriptions each. Something similar was tried back in the early 1990s with anti-psychotic drugs in New Hampshire, and I seem to remember that the result was that whatever was saved on the drug side was wiped out by the consequent increase in nursing home admissions.  So if this is the future (again) of rationing for the poor — and Medicaid covers 25% of the population in Mississippi — it’s not too clever a way of going about it.

(BTW This isn’t an argument in favor of Medicaid’s continued existence in its present form–it needs serious reform and in fact abolition. I’m just crying bullshit on those who say there’s no explicit rationing in the US–again).

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7 replies »

  1. let’s keep score now they took the opium out of are our cough syrup “best thing to knock out a cold or flue and reduces pain diarrhea”.
    the Cocaine out of are Coca Cola “best thing for the stomach and digestion and it removes tarter plaque and germs”.
    No more nicotine you know the stuff that farmers used to chew to keep from getting mange form the Cow’s they used to dip them in it to cure them and if you do not know buy now mange we call it a cold sore.
    Now we put pesticides in all our food and killed off all our natural bacteria in are sole “you know the ones that brake down fat and oil’s so they are water-soluble so we are anointing with oil for protection from the sun”.So!! no more Fat and no more sun.
    To top it all off let’s give them
    fake sugar (sweet and low)
    fake cream (yes Coffee Mate)
    fake bread (that is whole wheat bread with straw in it you know the stick that weat grows on let gust grind it all up and feed it to them)
    fake milk (they water it down it’s better)
    fake coffee (let take the caffeine and sell by it self)
    fake Real Mayonnaise, (they took the spices out and tell you that it’s better for you)
    fake tea (you know green tea you pick it befor it is full grown and do not age to bring out all the flavors)
    fake cow (yes dead disease meat)
    and they say “normal” body temperature is not 98.6F no more (that right you are no longer normal)
    and they change {God said, “Let there be an ferment} to {God said, “Let there be an expanse} what’s up with that!
    God’s fermentation that is composting temp is 98.6F
    let’s look at that go here
    http://www.cookinggodsway.com/lacto-fermented-dill-pickle-slices/
    or here
    http://www.gaianstudies.org/articles5.htm
    Yes {God is a bacteria that grows in your Sole} and the {Devil grows in the Flesh} and you must sever one or the other.
    Let’s look at that go here.
    http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=2692354&mesg_id=2693618
    It go’s on and on when are you people going to wake up geting fat no color no hair no veins
    the only real people they haft to inport.
    In the end it all come down to don’t mess with Mother Nature she put everything here for a reason.
    and no law should have rule over it that is left to God. MAKE NO LAW BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE FOR WHEN YOU DO THE END IS NEAR

  2. {soul} the inside underneath or unseen portion of
    {spirit} water that carries any other properties
    Now that you see what they did to the word and the word was God and GOD is this word bacterium the only thing that can take water and dust and make flesh just a small bacteria that multiplies 10 times over at 98.6 and when it fall to the water and everything was just right it fermented and from that ferment did God put air and in that air so did the mist of Gods spirit rise and come back to the dust and bring life to everything for his small movement in the dust did make a void and fill it with love and spirit.
    God is in your {soul} the inside underneath or unseen portion of you.
    bacterium that multiplies 10 times over at 98.6 God’s fermentation that is composting temp is 98.6F and when you pour water thru it you get {spirit} water that carries any other properties God’s spirit OK there it is not to hard was it.

  3. Of course health care is rationed here (and everywhere else for that matter), but so are automobiles, home mortgages, food . . .
    But the poor are not denied access to health care as many believe. Most have access to free clinics, free meds, Medicaid, sliding scale fee for service and of course the finest emergency care our tax dollars can buy.
    I don’t really follow trends in other states but here in GA several reports released of late showed the following.
    Over half the births in the state are covered by taxpayer funded Medicaid and 20% of those births are to immigrants. Our local (Atlanta) charity hospital receives enough funding from taxpayers (and a nominal amount from private insurance) to cover only 85% of their operating costs . . . the rest is charged off as uncollectable. That same hospital is one of only 3 level 1 trauma centers in the state.
    Most of those who rail against the healthcare delivery system here really do not understand the dynamics of healthcare in the U.S. . . . nor do they understand how poorly the socialized medicine in other countries operates.
    When healthcare (or automobiles, or housing or food) is free, rationing steps up to an entirely new level.

  4. My two cents from Chicago….of course rationing exists in the U.S. Health Care “system” (pssst..there is no system!).
    In the U.S. care is rationed by ones ability to pay, which means you are either rich, or like most of us, have employer based health insurance.
    However, unlike in most countries, we Americans like our rationing determined by the inept market place and not by government (ok…Medicare and Medicaid rationing is all right).
    Chris

  5. Instead of rationing, the U.S. just denies health care.
    *limps across room to make point*

  6. The relatively rational rationing that goes on elsewhere is far superior to the irrational rationing and ad hoc rationing that goes on here.
    If someone is going to be limited to 5 prescriptions you can damn well be sure that they’ll choose the 5 costliest, even if it means that the less expensive one or two others that are keeping them out of the ER are left up to the patient (i.e. not purchased out of pocket).