GrayBeard Wrote:(yeah, you left out solutions)
About the pot shots, if you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
JBR and myself deal with all the insults launched at us, insults far worse than "right-winged pigeons from outer space..."
Insults directed at me and JBR have been of the far too personal variety, i.e. Anti-American, America-haters, commie bast*rds, etc. (do you all realize exactly how inappropriate it is to call some one anti-American or America-haters? That is the worst insult one can levy at me because I love this country. If I didn't love it, I wouldn't be so critical, I'd just wouldn't say sh*t about problems we have as a nation if I truly hated this country).
Then there are the ever more personal insults, i.e. insane, nutjobs, wackos, loose cannons, etc.
Because you and other conservatives may disagree with JBR and myself, this leads to you guys insulting us, yet that does very little to discredit the comments, observations and arguments we post. You may dislike and disagree with what we say, but if a certifiably insane person said 2+2=4, then what that insane person said is still true, regardless of the fact they are insane.
Nonetheless, I find it laughable that you are now bellyaching about pot shots (taken in good fun) toward you and RebelKev given that the conservative crowd over here gets far, far more personal and innappropriate with their insults of those they may disagree with. At least my insults directed at you and other neo-con pigeons are creative and funny.
On solutions, did you read the post? I mentioned REGULATIONS.
There must be some independent watch-dog kind of agency to oversee the medical profession, insurance companies and pharmaceutical bohemoths like Glaxo-Smith Kline.
Are you aware of the Food and Drug Administration? You know, the government org. set up to test drugs before releasing those experimental drugs for public consumption. Their intent was to make pharmaceuticals safer for the general public and when this org. was created, politicians claimed it was to be an independent org. so that its findings would maintain credibility.
Do you know who approves drugs for the FDA? A panel of pharmaceutical representatives from the nations largest corporations, i.e. Johnson and Johnson, Dow-Hickam, Bristol-Myers and Eli Lilly. The latter company has more products on the market today, more new drugs such as anti-depressants, and Eli Lilly recently paved the way for opening up prescriptions of SSRIs to children as young as six years old. This, of course, doesn't account for the pharmaceutical companies that have been giving school aged kids drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin for years.
In case you don't know, Adderall and Ritalin is speed--amphetamines. It is not much different from the stuff junkies cook up in the trailer parks.
The FDA has relaxed their own rules at urging from FDA panel members, who are also employed by the aforementioned pharmaceutical companies. One example of a relaxed rule was prescription drug advertising on television. Since this rule was overturned in roughly 1994, today almost every other commercial on TV is for some pill that will make you feel great, i.e. Zoloft, Viagra or Celebrex.
Consequently, Americans collectively spend more on prescriptions than have ever before in our country's history. One dot-gov. site estimated that a typical family of four with median age at 33 spends roughly 45% of their annual income on prescriptions.
Don't believe me, see
http://www.breggin.com and click on the link he has about the FDA.
Now, about physicians, those dudes are in collusion with the insurance bohemoths. I caught them once double-dipping.
I went to a quickie medical clinic on a Saturday once (part of a hospital; the clinic being set up to take heat off the emergency room). After seeing the doctor, I told them I had insurance (I did), but I didn't bring my card with me, and just paid with a check.
They then sent me from the clinic to the hospital for an MRI, claiming the insurance would reimburse me for the expense. After I paid over $1500 medical bills with a personal check and never received the paper work to file with the insurance, hospital billing said they'd file it for me, nevermind that I didn't have my card and they didn't have my information.
Nonetheless, I paid the hospital bill with a check, and low and behold four months later, my insurance company had been billed for the same procedures. They sent me a note saying they paid the claim, meaning they paid the clinic and hospital after I paid them with a personal check. What the fock?
Consequently, I was never repaid for the MRI despite having already met my deductible that year. To add insult to injury, you know how they got my insurance information? They contacted my regular physician and his office sent them a copy of my Blue Cross insurance card.
I confronted a lackey at hospital billing about this, showing them all the pertinent paper work. After they heard me out, they asked why I was there. I told those bee-atches that I knew they double dipped and had the evidence to prove it, and I'd be turning them in to the state insurance commissioner. The lackey behind the counter became very defensive and threatened to call security. I was calm, collected yet confrontational and the lackey told me she was calling security because I was levying an accusation against the reputation of the medical center. What B.S.!!
Well, I turned them in and found out later the insurance commissioner was investigating over 50,000 other such cases in Mississippi alone--cases in which hospitals and/or doctors charged both the patient and the insurance company for the same bill.
So, solution: regulation!!!
The state insurance commissioner has a skeleton staff in Mississippi--because their budgets have been cut by Kirk Fordice ®, Ronnie Musgrove (D), and now by Haley Barbour ®.
So how can regulatory agencies regulate without a staff, and how can safety agencies look out for consumers when their reps are part of the drug supplier?
So, I guess you will claim regulations are a.) communist, b.) a tax boondoggle, c.) unnecessary because I'm freakin' crazy, or d.) doctors and insurance focks deserve to get rich off of joe public like myself.
Taxes are a great thing. Everytime we bomb a nation, those pilots and their support staff are getting taxpayer dollars in their paychecks. B2's don't bomb for free.
So my solution is, quit focking bombing other countries and worrying about their problems until we fix our own!! And in response to that statement, don't give me any garbage about how the Iraqis were sailing up the Potomac about to sack Washington.
