Submitted by Ira Berkowitz, Aug 23, 2007 22:04

first of all, you (predictably) changed the topic, you started talking about your own vision of how the world should be. you offered no direct rebuttal to the well made points from Mr. Stossel. Addressing your statement: 1. Americans and others from wealthy industrialized nations who go outside the US to receive treatment do so for major surgical procedures whose costs are extremely prohibitive here. Ask yourself: can a Thai afford the open heart surgery that Mr. Smith from Yakima flies to Thailand to receive? No, Scott, he can not. The American in Thailand for open hearet surgery is not availing himself of healthcare that is readily available to the average citizen there! 2. Scott, happiness factors have NO place in any honest evaluation of health care quality. Happiness has nothing to do with the ability or the willingness of pharmaceutical companies to develop and market life saving or life prolonging medications. Did your beloved Cuba develop any such pharmaceutics, Scott? 3. Scott, health care is not and never has been a "basic right". A scant 50 years ago, Scott, American health care was a cash and carry business. The doctors made house calls, and showed up with a stethoscope, and were payed on the spot. Then came Medicare and Medicaid, Scott (a form of socialized medicine, Scott)! Government provided a blank check, and lo and behold new and improved medicines and procedures began appearing. MRI, arthroscopy, open heart surgery, and so on. These were developed BECAUSE there was an incentive, a guarantee of payment! That payment by the govedrnment is not a basic right. in some cases, it is a ridiculous gift given to people who refuse to work, but who feel that they are entitled to hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to keep them alive despite their best efforts to destroy themselves with dangerous behavior (unprotected anal sex) and ill advised consumption of alcohol and drugs. No Scott, historically, health care has not been a "basic right". Only in the brave new world offered by the tired and failed socialist vision is health care so elevated. Trouble is, Scott, that the health care you speak of is rationed in the European socialist heaven. for example, Holland WIll NOT provide kidney dialysis to anyone over the age of 65. Those folks are simply allowed to die, Scott. Ira Berkowitz

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