Bush's report card

Even your hero G-Dubya says you're full of shit

but then you're not listening to me


1) According to a 2001 report from the Surgeon General, only 1 in 5 Americans with mental illness receive treatment.

2) The World Heatlh Organization reported that of Americans seeking treatment for serious mental illness, only 40 percent receive stable treatment

3) Also, the places that fill YOUR pocket for pacemakers block treatment to the mentally ill. According to NAMI, 9 of the largest for-profit managed health care companies practice restrictive gate keeping, failing to provide clinical and support services for serious mental illness.

4) the President's New Freedom Committee's Interim Report (2002) stated, "The evidence of our failure to help people with mental illness is most apparent and most glaring in our Nation's steets, under our bridges, and in institutions like nursing homes and jails."

My list is much longer, but since Bradley promised not to reply I'll cut it.

In short, if you or a loved one develops a brain disorder, insured or not, you're screwed. Insurers will limit and eliminate treatment, leaving most with no alternative but the public health system, which has had to slash assitance to serious mentally disabled consumers up to 60 percent in the last five years.

 

Brad, just stop typing and go back to the general forum. Nobody on this thread cares about your opinion. We certainly DO NOT respect your opinion either.

 

Pakistan/Saudi/Yemen -- Allies? You actually believe that? WE HAVE NO ISLAMIC ALLIES. Yes, we might get lip service, for a nice fat loan guarantee or outright grant, or our continued status as world's largest importer of oil, but allies? No.

Also just wondering what, in your opinion, was the "idiotic drivel" that the General spouted?

 

About Bush and Democracy: "He's in the White House because God put him there."

About an Islamic opponents God: "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

Also: "We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this

And : that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

As far as "allies" go, you are right, its not like WWII, where Russia was on our team.

Rodger

 

So where are they not getting healthcare? When they need something they go to the emergency room, wait a little while, and are afforded access to the best health-care system in the world.
After which they are free to leave without paying and can never be forced to pay. They can even return for further out-patient treatment and not be refused. They can't be because they are protected by law. The expenses are absorbed into the system in a variety of ways, overcharging the privately insured, taxes, government programs, etc. They are a cost of doing business and as such, there is a tendency to watch those costs as they can be difficult to recoup and challenge hospital resources.

So they get immediate, free care and the person with insurance makes an appointment and waits days or even weeks to see a doctor or is forced to go to the emergency room and gets to make a co-pay.
Sounds like pretty decent access to health care.

I have several friends and relatives in the Boston area who have worked in hospitals for many years. They tell me a lot of Canadians come to Boston for more complicated and expensive procedures. Now why would that be the case when Canada has universal health-care and everyone has access to free health-care no matter what it is or how much it costs. Surely Montreal or Toronto are closer. Boston isn't flooded with folks from New Jersey or New York.

Maybe one of our Canadian members could post on this and enlighten us as to why they seem to love Boston so much they are willing to forgo the free health-care (free if you don't count the taxes you pay to support it as money you have earned).

 

Not any more

 

Not for a long time.

 

His own opinion in light of his religious views, remember free speech?

Don't you mean an Arab opponents God? Remember Islam is a religion of peace, we are constantly reminded not to associate Islam with those who just happen to call themselves Islamic but are perverting it for their own violent means. Remember, that is not Islam. Don't insult the Nation of Islam by associating them with violent factions.
And opponent? You making it sound like he was playing chess with the guy.

Cute the way that was edited to make it say something other than what was said or meant.

They were allies against a common cause, aren't you at all familiar with pre and post-war history of US/Russian relations?
That statement is just plain foolish, I hope you don't really believe that.

 

Believe it or not I know of quite a few people who believe the same things that the General does, myself included. How shocking that there are Christians left who think it proper to express their beliefs, and in a church even! How dare he!

I guess if anyone differs with your belief they are an idiot, how open minded of you. Just like a liberal. Professing their open mindedness, their tolerance, up to the point where someone disagrees.

Just what does WWII and Russia have to do with anything we're discussing here? Yes, Russia was our ally in a common cause, the destruction of Nazi Germany. Where's the correlation?

 

t316, Don't get me wrong, Boykin has the absolute right to say stuff like this, but as a high ranking Pentagon official IN UNIFORM it was truely stupid.

i don't care what God or Gods you believe in, but it is absolutely idiotic for anyone to claim that "God is on Our Side." Idiotic drivel.

If you do think it was a good thing for him to say this under the circumstances I think you are not being realistic about the world around you, like Boykin. Its just lack of good judgment. Even Bush says so, doesn't he?

And if God put him there why have elections? Do you really believe that Bush was put in the Whitehose by God? How about Clinton? Oh yeah, that was SATAN (in my best Dana Carvey/ChurchLady voice

Allies do not always share identiacal goals or beliefs. Hence we have allied with the military dictatorship in Pakistan like we allied with the communist dictatorship in Russia.

Rodger

 

You know that Boykin were just a Christian expressing his beliefs and not also a senior official in the armed forces, no one would have complained.

But if he was an enlisted soldier and had made those remarks more than once to a CNN reporter in Iraq, he'd probably be charged with insubordination.

I think the democrats will flog this for a bit, Boykin will get told by someone high above him to STFU and it will all blow over.

The cold war. Countries don't have friends, just common interests.

 

Canada's healthcare system isn't perfect but most reports I read in the US media are distorted. There are waiting lists here for some non critical or elective procedures which is why some choose to go to Boston.

But the how do you objectively rate a country's healthcare system? I'd suggest infant mortality rates (Canada's is 38% lower than the USA's), and average life expectancy (ours is higher than yours).

And what does it cost? The big difference I see is that american HMO's and health insurers sit in the middle making a profit. You spent $294 billion on "health care bureaucracy" in 1999. Per capita that's 3x more than we spent in Canada.

http://www.hms.harvard.edu/news/releases/0820woolhimmel.html

As far as anedotes go, last year, the same day Papa crashed, I did too, and shattered my pelvis. The doctor mentioned just before surgery I needed an MRI to aid him in putting the bits back together. I had to wait 5 minutes.

 

anectdotes

Meanwhile, I had to call a lawyer and fight my insurance company to get into one of the top four rehab hospitals in the US (covered by my contract) 7 mi. away from my apartment because they wanted to put me in a place out of town where they had a better deal. And they told me the day I was admitted what my release date was. You'd think they would look at you first, but what do I know?

By the way, the top-ranked hospital has nurses who ask quadriplegic patients to roll over for treatment. Or who stick pills into your mouth without waking you up (why waste time, since the choking will do it anyway?). Have you ever had one of those flat metal boxes they use for x-rays dropped on your face? Sweet, especially when your arms are paralyzed. I could go on for hours, but somebody's going to say I complain because I am a foreigner.

Great health-care system. Why improve it when you can spend the money on Boeing's tilt-rotor and kill your own troops?

 

Word.

 

Re: anectdotes

I don't think the system is perfect, far from it.
We need to decide on a reasonable amount of tax money to spend and find ways to spend it more effectively.
We need to stop playing games with the insurance companies and make sure people are dealt with fairly.
The system has become a hodge-podge of solutions and needs some direction. Putting the whole system into the hands of the US government would be a huge mistake. They could f**k up a free lunch.

As far as the two anecdotes given, they are interesting but hardly proof of anything.
I've had both good and bad experiences within the US system, doesn't mean it's all working one time and all broken the next.

As far as comparing the health system to a military decision, what does one really have to do with the other. I see this comparison all the time and it means nothing.

"How can we be spending $87 million in Iraq when we have homeless people here."
As if there would be no homeless people here but for the want of $87 million.

Next you'll tell me we could have better school systems if we'd all just pitch in "the price of a cup of coffee and a doughnut every day".
Aren't your kids worth it?

 

Re: Re: anectdotes

No but it'd go a long way towards helping. It galls me, we'll spend millons on defense contracts and new bombs and armor, but we have soldiers overseas whose families are on food stmaps, and vets with fried brains that fought twenty years for help (agent orange), and teachers who spend their own money for supplies. and ... oh hell the list is too long

 

I did have occasion to use the Canadian health care system when I was camping in northern Maine not far from Campabello
( Incredibly beautiful area) when I chanced to slip with a hacksaw while substituting my hand for a vise. Very obviously needed some stitches and the closest place to go was over the border. Nice little hospital, almost no wait and they did nice job. No better or worse than service I've had in Boston or NH. I've had a lot of stitches over the years, so I have some frame of reference.

 

Re: Re: anectdotes

It has nothing at all to do with Gen. Boykin. Brad called me a Canadian pansy and said I should go look for better healthcare.

 

face it, regardless of papa's warped fantasies (personally i'm glad france has taken him in) US of A has the best healthcare bar none, and everyone knows it.

you dudes are a trip. canada sucks, and that's is why when a canadian finally reaches celbrity status, they hightail it over here to live.

canada/france=shit.

 

What can you compare it to? And who is everyone? Don't worry, I don't really expect an answer from you. I am just pointing out the obvious.