US Politics: Getting Rid of the Senate

[Larry of the Lawn]

Please continue. :)

Are you interning to be the new Politics Mod?

[Shryke]

There's also the possibility of someone ignorant about the process giving a bad review because "it took too long" when they don't understand just how difficult the work is.

In fact, we know that people's view on whether a doctor or hospital is good or not has virtually nothing to do with the quality of care and everything to do with the comforts. Better rooms, shorter wait times, friendlier nurses, etc, etc.

[TrackerNeil]

Could you have picked a worse example? Car mechanics are legendarily scummy, sleazy liars who scam and cheat their customers, who mostly lack the expertise to tell they're being taken. Not all of them, of course -- I have a garage and I quite like them -- but a lot. I've had good experiences with, like, three shops ever.

Oh, not this again! Pick your doctor from Angie's List! Evaluate him yourself, relying on whatever medical expertise you picked up from "Grey's Anatomy"!

[BloodRider]

We don't want to force anyone to think or believe a certain way.

HA! Did Limbaugh or Beck tell you to think that.

[BloodRider]

There's also the possibility of someone ignorant about the process giving a bad review because "it took too long" when they don't understand just how difficult the work is.

Or the reverse - Here's an ugly truth. Chemo is horrible, and you often come to hate anyone who puts you or your kid through it. HOWEVER. It is certainly the best (by far) of two shitty, shitty choices. Death by untreated cancer is fucking suicide inducing torture. Even with the doctor certification practices we have in place now we still see this behaviour. People lionize the quacks who profit from disease and a very poisonous about the people who actually have a proven cure.

[aceluby]

Or the reverse - Here's an ugly truth. Chemo is horrible, and you often come to hate anyone who puts you or your kid through it. HOWEVER. It is certainly the best (by far) of two shitty, shitty choices. Death by untreated cancer is fucking suicide inducing torture. Even with the doctor certification practices we have in place now we still see this behaviour. People lionize the quacks who profit from disease and a very poisonous about the people who actually have a proven cure.

Who are the quacks that profit and who are the ones who have a proven cure in this scenario?

[BloodRider]

Who are the quacks that profit and who are the ones who have a proven cure in this scenario?

Well I used the term cure loosely, as there is no cure for cancer per se. There is however proven therapies that can lead to complete remission. Namely chemo and radiation therapies.

In case it is not obvious, I am calling out alternative medicine as quackery that condemns cancer patients to a painful death, while getting the same patients to piss all over proven therapies. Which is why relying on word of mouth or Angie List to pick your doctor or your medicine is fucking ridiculous.

I have a feeling that you are getting ready to prove me right by providing an example of pilorying tested medicine in favor of your sacred cow. I hope I am wrong.

[Jaxom 1974]

If t were up to the donors to pick and choose their posts they would all go for Great Britain or similar prestigious postings.

In the Netherlands we usually get reward-ambassadors due the good relations between the Netherlands and the United States.

I don't believe for a moment those high rollers looking to get a ambassador posting don't look at the President, any President, and go, "Here's the five million I helped raise for you... so I hear there's a spot over in (insert country here)..."

[Aemon Stark]

Actually we cure cancer all the time. But not all cancer can be cured, and not all types and stages. So there we go.

Either way, "caveat emptor" will not work for medicine or health care. Even aside from procedural stuff, making appropriate decisions requires a pretty vast amount of knowledge and experience, and if anything, regulations around certification and licensing are not strong enough as it is.

And otherwise there's Dr Oz.

[Commodore]

Can we get a sticky post that lists banned words?

I got suspended for using the i-word, but the only way to know about it was to have read the specific comment that announced the ban.

[Commodore]

Either way, "caveat emptor" will not work for medicine or health care. Even aside from procedural stuff, making appropriate decisions requires a pretty vast amount of knowledge and experience, and if anything, regulations around certification and licensing are not strong enough as it is.

This reliance on centralized institutions and appeals to authority like the state for assurance is for an older generation.

Think of Uber and Air BnB. People are willing to enter the homes or cars of total strangers based on nothing but user ratings and a corporate background check. To older people, this sounds insane. Hotels/taxis hate it. How can they operate without a license!

Even if the state offers the licensing, we should be able to decide for ourselves whether we want to avail ourselves of that assurance.

Not to mention, it eliminates any competition in the certification/standards market when the state takes it over.

[Aemon Stark]

The "state" does not offer licensing. In general non-governmental "self-regulating" boards or colleges do so under statutory authority.

Certification is required because of the gross asymmetry in knowledge. There should be no competition between, say, board-certified general surgeons and those who failed their exams repeatedly or failed out of residency.

In any case, your lunatic argument - and that's what it is - rather ignores the issue of just what sort of hospital would give privileges to a self-described surgeon who lacked appropriate training.

You can't take back a death caused by incompetence.

Anyway. A lunatic argument. That's what it is.

[YoungGriff89]

I think that it is truly lunatic, but it's not that Commodore is so crazy or so unintelligent. Clearly the latter is untrue. Guy is smart. But he got caught up in the Ted Cruz version of things before Ted Cruz existed and to this day hasn't been able to grasp that it's all a massive con.

But even if he reads that link, his cunning mind will be able to rationalize it all away. Oh well.

You can lead a burning man to water but you can't make him put himself out I suppose. On a slightly unrelated topic is it just me or does politifact have a little right wing bias?

[Aemon Stark]

This is one of those situations where I would just say "No, you're just wrong. You don't know what you're talking about."

[maarsen]

If you're going to get an ambassador posting as part of being of a kickback for help on the campaign trail, wouldn't you be asking for something like the Bahamas or Fiji?

Being sent to Canada as an ambassador is considered a hardship posting due to the cold winters we get. Only Moscow has winters as cold as Ottawa.

[aceluby]

Well I used the term cure loosely, as there is no cure for cancer per se. There is however proven therapies that can lead to complete remission. Namely chemo and radiation therapies.

In case it is not obvious, I am calling out alternative medicine as quackery that condemns cancer patients to a painful death, while getting the same patients to piss all over proven therapies. Which is why relying on word of mouth or Angie List to pick your doctor or your medicine is fucking ridiculous.

I have a feeling that you are getting ready to prove me right by providing an example of pilorying tested medicine in favor of your sacred cow. I hope I am wrong.

Nope, just wondering. I think they are all quacks looking to profit. Cancer is a 10 billion+ a year business that makes a lot of people a lot of money with a pretty high failure rate still and, IMO, that business is deathly afraid of anything that could actually cure cancer.

[Aemon Stark]

And that's just a lunatic conspiracy argument. "Cancer" is not a single disease. But lots of neoplastic diseases can be and are cured. Even stage I lung cancer can be cured by surgery alone. Many lymphomas can be cured, as can be the most common form of childhood leukemia.

Excision of basal cell carcinoma - the most common form of skin cancer - is generally curative.

For that matter, even a lot of metastatic cancers can be treated as a chronic disease with oral medications and with little or no disease progression.

So the idea that there exists some definitive "cure for cancer" betrays complete ignorance about the pathology and the nature of this group of diseases generally.

[BloodRider]

Nope, just wondering. I think they are all quacks looking to profit. Cancer is a 10 billion+ a year business that makes a lot of people a lot of money with a pretty high failure rate still and, IMO, that business is deathly afraid of anything that could actually cure cancer.

Except, yes that is what you did do. You gave a bad review to the people who HAVE ACTUALLY WON MANY BATTLES AGAINST CANCER. This is precisely why I claimed that making medicinal decisions at the individual level is really bad for a society.

I think they are all quacks looking to profit. Cancer is a 10 billion+ a year business that makes a lot of people a lot of money with a pretty high failure rate still and, IMO, that business is deathly afraid of anything that could actually cure cancer.

I can't deny the "looking for profit" part - But calling developers of Chemo and radiation therapy "quacks" is again exactly why we in the human race are not capable of assessing aggregate effects.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Since we're on the subject of right-wingers and medical quackery, for lolz purposes:

Political Hack, Medical Quack: Glenn Beck says he has adrenal fatigue. Endocrinologists beg to differ.

Adrenal insufficiency, however, must be kept separate from adrenal fatigue. Immunologist James Wilson coined the latter term in 1998 to describe a syndrome caused by prolonged stress overburdening the adrenal glands. The symptoms supposedly include extreme fatigue, a general sense of unwellness, and what Wilson calls “gray” feelings.

Wilson is prone to overstatement. He boasts of three doctoral degrees, but two of them are in the scientifically dubious fields of chiropractic and naturopathic medicine. He claims that adrenal fatigue affects millions of people around the world, but provides no credible data to support that statement.

Wilson also says his book on adrenal fatigue has been “received enthusiastically by physicians.” Not exactly. The Endocrine Society—the world’s largest association of people with formal, legitimate training in the treatment of adrenal disorders—says that adrenal fatigue is “not a real medical condition.” The group goes on to say that the diagnostic tests are “not based on scientific facts or supported by good scientific studies,” and that some of the supplements prescribed for the disorder, which include extracts of human glands, have not been adequately tested for safety. The statement concludes by urging patients “not to waste precious time accepting an unproven diagnosis.” Endocrinologists apparently do not beat around the bush.

...

There’s a particularly irksome layer to Beck’s story that shows how quacks sell themselves to patients. If his account is to be believed, it appears that some of Beck’s treatment providers spent as much time stroking his ego as treating his ailments.

Beck claims that the doctors told him it was “normal for someone processing as much information as he was” to become disoriented and forget familiar faces. There are many things wrong with this statement. First, I’m not sure how a doctor could quantify Beck’s daily information processing burden—whatever that means—let alone conclude his was higher than the data load of us mere mortals. Even if that calculation were possible, is there any evidence to suggest that people who “process” high levels of information forget what year it is? If that’s true, I think we need to worry much more about air traffic controllers.

Beck also said that his doctors “told him he should not have been standing, and only his faith in God had kept him moving.” Wow. That doctor certainly knew how to make Glenn Beck purr. Or perhaps Beck confused his doctors with his priest. Either way, I humbly suggest that you seek a second opinion when a doctor attributes your health to divine intervention.

[A True Kaniggit]

Nope, just wondering. I think they are all quacks looking to profit. Cancer is a 10 billion+ a year business that makes a lot of people a lot of money with a pretty high failure rate still and, IMO, that business is deathly afraid of anything that could actually cure cancer.

I'm assuming when you say "that business" you're talking about the people that develop/produce the drugs, and are not including the healtcare workers who actually take care of the patients.