Socialism in Venezuela has made illiteracy a thing of the past

You got a problem with the post, jar?It's sad but you evidently know so little about the history of health care. Both efforts towards more government and steps towards socialized medicine and the insurance industry are making medicine more of a business than a profession.Talk to some retired doctors that have seen the changes. Prior to the government picking up the tab, doctors felt obligated to treat patients that couldn't afford treatment, and something around 20% of their work went unpaid, at least that's how it was in North Carolina. It was a profession, and still is to a degree but the business side is eroding that.Of course, sometimes patients that couldn't pay would find a way to do something. I can't tell you how many times I saw people bring something by my grandfather's house or our house, and ask why they did that, and it was because they were a patient at one time my Dad or grandfather took care of. It didn't really dawn on me they did thatm especially around Christmas, because they couldn't pay when they needed treatment and were treated nonetheless.One former patient brought my Dad for Christmas high quality moonshine, apple brandy, (lived in the eastern part of the state), and he never drank it and when we got to be teen-agers, since it was clear, we would take some out and put water back.Anyway jar, you claim people wouldn't be treated without socialism. That's just not true, and it wasn't true then.Maybe government programs are good to get help to the poor, but at the same time, the more you take the reigns of medicine from doctors and put it with either the government or HMOs and the lawyers, the less of a profession it becomes and the more the doctor is an employee of a business, or of the government if you have your way.Either way, you should know it will eventually have a very negative effect in medicine.

The BS meter just went off the charts reading your last post. It's obvious you don't know much about the issue. You can find someone to create some pseudo-statistic all you want, but it doesn't change the truth.Take the poverty indicator. Do you know how that is calculated? Basically, 90% of American children that "live in poverty" live far above what the middle class lives in much of the rest of the world. Had you ever had children and lived under the government poverty level line, either 100% or even 130%, you would know that.Sure, being poor is tough. I've been there before, but I still had a phone, a car, a warm and air conditioned house to live in, furniture, food, etc,...and we lived for a period of time at 130% of the poverty level line with 4 kids.The simple fact is the line is adjusted upward so that it is more a measure of just the bottom level earners, which we were in the ministry for years. It's worse for people that don't have the same opportunities to change what they are doing and move on, but stats can be very misleading.When I was little, and my Dad was in med school and we lived off my Mom's school-teacher salary, we were very poor, poverty stricken too, as I suspect many families are or have been when parents are still in school. Heck, probably every family in married student housing is poor, but they don't all stay poor. Your stats don't speak to that.You mentioned Texas. Now, could one possibility that children in Texas are not as "covered" be that many are not actually American citizens???Duh?At the start of this, I pointed out that if you include migrant workers and non-Americans, there are issues and a lot of that has to do with the fact we have a very porous border down there, and as poor as you see these people, they see being poor in America as better than what they could have in Mexico.So frankly, you are the one lying here, or at least obfuscating the truth and not being straighforward and honest. All children in the United States living below the poverty line qualify for Medicare programs. That's the truth. Whether their parents take advantage of it is a different story. Maybe some do not because they are here illegally, but I seem to recall in CA, that even illegal immigrants qualify too.The truth, which you claimed was a lie, is that only after you move up beyond the poverty line and beyond a low income, are your kids not qualified, and so it is the middle class that sometimes cannot or does not buy health insurance, and they are not poor.The reasons are varied, but it is cheaper to pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses as long as you don't have a serious illness.

Sure have schraf. Have you?

Been there and done that. Been poor. Been making a fairly high income with a large company. Been laid off; no insurance and then started my own company, living without insurance. In fact, we had an on-going medical treatment in excess of 20K per year when I was laid off.Been at the level where we made too much for subsidized insurance and not enough to feel comfortable paying for health insurance.Been at the level where we just want catastrophic insurance because we'd rather pay to our own medical savings account. Been at all the different levels for this discussion.The simple fact is too many of you don't know the truth about the system because you haven't lived it with your children; don't understand it and accept at face value a bunch of misleading statistics.

Shraf, any child that is part of a family earning at or below the poverty line qualifies for Medicare. You can actually make a lot more than that, depending on the state, and still qualify.When I got laid off and started a business, my daughter had an on-going treatment well in excess of 20k per year. The COBRA payment was $900 per month. The hospital made some recommendations, and even when I started making money, we could have full insurance for the kids with a $10 payment per month, includes medicine too, until I started making over 50K per year. That was a blessing.Before that, the insurance company took a long time to want to cover the treatment, and the hospital and drug manufacturer covered her for free. So we got free treatment, had our insurance company pick it up eventually, and then were able to use some assistance during the transition.Later, we actually went awhile with no insurance despite being somewhat well off, living about a block from the ocean in a very expensive area. We were one of those stats even though we lived a comfortable lifestyle just because paying an additional $500 per month for full coverage was not something we wanted to do.I say all that because unless you talk with people that have experienced some of these things, you can be misled by statistics suggesting poor children are not covered, which is false.

Pay out of pocket. It'll be cheaper, and you can pick the doctor you want, and if they don't treat you right, you can go somewhere else.If you are concerned about catastrophic illness or something very expensive, you can buy insurance for that, for bills in excess of $5000 or $10,000, and you can set aside the remainder savings in your HMO payment to a tax deductible medical savings account if self-employed and maybe if not (I don't know), or just in a savings account.

You don't have to invest in multi-nationals. There are plenty of other companies one can invest in. You can buy government bonds as well, or invest in owning a rental property. There are lots of things besides big multi-nationals you can invest in.It's not Vegas style gambling, and it sure beats having Congress spend it ALL!!This message has been edited by randman, 11-10-2005 11:50 AM

The weakness in your argument is that France and Germany and Western Europe were helpless at that point without the presence of US and British troops. The Brits were already strained, and had vast areas of their own empire to think of. Had the US withdrawn, there was absolutely nothing to stop Russian troops from over-running Europe.Moreover, they had sympathetic allies among the communist parties in Europe.There may have been some nations that could have made a stand, such as militias in the Balkans, so that the Russians would have left them alone, but all of Germany and France and the neighboring states would have been brought under the same heel as East Germany.Just look at the differences between Poland, Hungary, and East Germany compared to France, West Germany, and Denmark, and you can see clearly what the US saved western Europe from.To pretend there was any military power at the end of WWII besides the US that could withstand the Russian army and air force is ridiculous, and frankly without nukes, it would have been tough on us if war had broken out.This message has been edited by randman, 11-10-2005 12:07 PM

No, the real myth is the persistent belief among the Left that Stalin could be trusted if we just withdrew from Europe and didn't antagonize him.Without the US presence, Stalin would have ruled Europe as at the end of WWII, there was no one able to resist his military except the US, and as he showed with eastern Europe, he was not willing to allow Europe to be independent, nor capitalist.

You want a to take a few history courses to get up to speed?What part do you disagree with?

It's always better, even during a crash, than Congress spending it all, and moreover, you structure this to add up over a lifetime and if the economy is so bad people lose money over a 40-50 year span, the dollar won't be worth much anyway, and the government will be bankrupt.There is a reason people don't invest more into social security than they have to.Think about it.This message has been edited by randman, 11-10-2005 03:36 PM

Just look at what he did to Eastern Europe. That's all the evidence you need, and keep in mind Stalin began to set up one-party states under his control when he was still our ally.We decided to enter the Cold War in response to his actions, specifically refusal to allow self-determination, elections, etc,..in the areas he conquered.

Ah, the old buffer argument. Good ole Stalin was just trying to protect himself, eh?Why was Poland not granted independence then? Poland was not at war with Russia.After WWII, it was painfully clear Stalin was not interested in a free Europe but maintaining and spreading his form of communism.His army was not depleted and in fact was on the rise in a major way being able to plunder eastern Europe and use it's industry for more militariazation. The idea that he would not have taken control of all of Germany and France is quite absurd.Why have just have the buffer when you can actually occupy the enemy himself? Perhaps Spain and Italy could have been spared, but the simple fact is the only places communism did not take root were the places defended by US and British troops. Greece was barely saved in fact. Albania and the Balkans were not, but Tito, it must be admitted, at least was able to keep Stalin out after awhile. That is a tough area to conquer and rule.

You fail to realize that all of those communists were initially allied with and supported by Stalin. The fact some independent communists emerged in areas difficult for Stalin to launch an attack against does not change the point, and it needs to be pointed out that Tito had an arrangment with the West which prevented Stalin from taking him by force, which he tried to do, but the plot was revealed.All of Germany surely would have been ruled by Stalin, and all the neighboring states of Germany such as France and the Netherlands.

The comments you linked to are total bunk. Note the prediction of economic growth to be down to 1.9% FOREVER. That's total BS, as are most of the comments. For example, one claim is growth will come from the developing world. OK, but how does that mean stocks are not good investments then since there are companies and specifically mutual funds targetting growth in the developing world.The fact is you can find people to predict just about anything. Most experts think it's a good idea for people to invest in stocks for the long-term unless they have better investment opportunities and sinking more cash into social security is not one of them. If you don't want your money invested, then you don't have to.The other thing to keep in mind is concerning the economy, and the stock market, most "experts" are wrong. Their predictions usually don't hold true. I learned a long time ago never to trust the advice of a stock broker or analyst.