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Nelson Agrees to Sign Health Bill, Malkin's Commenters Call for His Death

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b_sharp12/19/2009 4:04:33 pm PST

re: #172 lostlakehiker

I have real misgivings about this health bill. What of the future? Crippling shortages of skilled professionals figure to be the natural consequence of truncating their pay.


Do what other countries do, give them education and tax incentives.

If prescription prices are capped at a small multiple of the cost of production, where are the funds to come from with which to develop the next generation of antibiotics? Evolution takes no vacations; the bacteria of tomorrow will have made some progress at surviving the antibiotics of today. It’s an unremitting arms race. We cannot rest on our laurels.

I’m not sure where you got the idea big pharma would pack up and leave if their profits drop, but they’ll go where the money is, and even at a smaller profit than current, the money is still in North America.

If the patient never has to pay any actual cash out of pocket, what is to inhibit hypochondriacs from monopolizing the time of doctors who must see them again, and again, and again?

What is more important, the deaths of those who currently cannot afford care, or the inability of a doctor to creatively deal with hypochondriacs?


If the patient never has to cover some fraction of the cost of expensive procedures, won’t the expensive procedures be rationed by some sort of triage, instead?

There is already rationing by triage, but the triage is based on income instead of medical severity.


It won’t likely be rationed by lottery. The stimulus funds went largely to Democratic districts.

Evidence?

What reason is there to expect that tomorrow’s rationing of scarce goods won’t be a matter of having a friendly (democrat) congress-critter who can get you in with a doctor?

It wouldn’t be as bad as it is now.

At best, Republican districts would find their medical infrastructures starved of funds, unable to provide proper care or any advanced care. More likely, all regions would find their institutions starved of funds. The proposed scale of spending just doesn’t match up with the proposed means of funding it.

Are you also a truther/birther/tenther/UFOist?

How many countries are there that have both private and public health where the costs/person are lower than the US?