Voting against your interests: Why does it happen so often?

[The Progressive]

Don't get so angry guy. I've never said that Canadians cross the borders in droves, I've only said that it does happen. Canadians also fly to France or India for procedures as well, now how's THAT for anecdotal evidence? :)

I couldn't find any definite number on Canadians crossing the border to the US seeking medical care, but in 2005 alone, about 500,000 Americans traveled oversea for medical treatment; not to mention the billions of dollars spent by Americans who purchased drugs online from foreign pharmacies.

It is NOT anecdotal bs, and should be a crushing blow to the argument of the superiority of the American healthcare delivery system.

[Lord O' Bones]

I have the best health care of any professional I know in the silicon valley, and I can't believe I still have to argue that a basic universal healthcare system is a good thing.

[EHK for Darwin]

Inequality happens, EHK, and it's a fact of life. It's how societies have worked since the very beginning. Even indigenous societies have inequality - they may all be living in mud huts in a jungle, but someone is getting the best cuts of meat and their pick of the available women.

No shit. I don't recall denying that fact. You seemed to gloss over it in your first few responses to my posts though. It does seem to call bullshit on your assertion that we're a meritocracy where you 'reap what you sow' and 'you get what you work for'. Equivalent work in those situations sure as fuck ain't gonna lead to equivalent results. Hell, enormously more work in any of the first 3 is unlikely to lead to a better outcome than marginal work in the latter example.

There have, in recent history, been certain countries (USSR, North Korea, Cuba) which have tried to erase all class differences and give "true" equality of opportunity for all - all these have done is ensure living conditions of the lowest common denominator except for the ruling minority.

And if you can find ANYWHERE in my 10 fricken years of posting on this board where I ONCE suggested or advocated such an ideal I'd roll over dead of shock.

At least your poor child growing up in a crime-filled urban environment here has various programs trying to steer him or her to a nice, college-educated, middle-class life.

But clearly that child doesn't deserve them. If you didn't make it 100% from the sweat of your own brow and/or popping out of the right vagina, clearly you didn't earn it. Let them 'reap what they sow' rather than creating a society of leeches dependent upon guvment handouts!

[The Progressive]

At least your poor child growing up in a crime-filled urban environment here has various programs trying to steer him or her to a nice, college-educated, middle-class life.

Precisely. That's why these social welfare programs existed to provide the urban poor with the basic necessities to raise their kids so that they'll have shot for that nice middle-class life. What we need to do is to expand these programs so that the rural poor could have access to them as well; the problem is that the rural poor are too stupid to understand this and keep on voting for the party that would gut these programs out of some misguided and mythical notion about rugged self-reliance.

[The Progressive]

The government invests in AGRICULTURE. Now, when you have damn near the entire western half of Kansas and Nebraska where an entire county may have a population of only a few hundred stretched across 10s of thousands of acres of farmland, any ratio of federal monies flowing in or out of the state will be skewed. Such a county may have a population density of 2 or 3 people per square mile, yet 10s of thousands of federal funding comes in for FARMLAND, the money is invested in the land, not the people.

This claim is entirely bogus and shown a profound lack of understanding about what kind of programs are funded by federal money. For example, the state of Nebraska in the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations process was refunded by Congress $42,052,725 for 59 projects and in Fiscal Year 2007, Nebraska received $621,971,312 for 2,316 project grants from 282 separate federal programs.

Almost all of these grants are for the preservation and maintenance of infrastructure, wildlife and nature preservation, education, and social services. Among the list, only two specific grants, $365,424.00 fo Midwest Advanced Food Manufacturing Alliance and $148,950.00 for sweet sorghum for energy production are related to agriculture.

[Lord of Oop North]

At least your poor child growing up in a crime-filled urban environment here has various programs trying to steer him or her to a nice, college-educated, middle-class life.

And some form of basic health universal health care would only help to level the playing field even more. It makes sense, too, because your health can be one of the things that totally fucks up your life through no fault of your own.

I don't understand how you are somehow taking our arguments, and saying we are proposing communism. Nice strawman, McCarthy. That is exactly the form of propaganda that is keeping the people in the original post from voting for their interests, rather then against them.

[Aemon Stark]

that's one of the reasons why I said life expectancy is tough to compare between America and its homogeneous cousins across the pond. We have a more diverse population, some diseases may be more or less prevalent here. When broken up between ethnicity Americans have similar life expectancies as those of their native nationalities.

Ah, well, yes - "ethnic"-based inequality is rather a problem in the US, now, isn't it?

What you really mean is that the information was not to your liking. I guess it's just random coincidence that American survival rates 'appear' to be higher than their counterparts.

I just linked what I could find on the first page of google, I tied it together in the 5 minutes I had available to me. What they all had in common though was higher survival rates for Americans, and most mentioned earlier detection time as well.

Your idea of proving your point is linking to a bunch of "marked-oriented" think tanks which appear to selectively choose only those numbers which confirms their original point. "Market"-based health care is best. That's what they'll see even without seeing the facts. Find some primary sources and we'll talk.

Those definitions can only be found in magazine articles, and evidently they are worthless because they must be lying. I suppose I could email such sites and ask them for references, but I'm sorry if I'm not taking this serious enough to do that, I don't have the time.

What kind of magazines? FFS, do you not assess the quality of the publication and/or sources before believing what you read? The old "don't have time" point is lame.

Did I say that other countries don't have pharmaceutical industries? I simply said that the US pharmaceutical industry cranks out more product. Here's an excerpt from the NY times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business...amp;oref=slogin

And yes, randomized controlled trials are more efficient in certain situations. The best researchers go to the top private companies. I should know, I actually work in Accounts Payable in the biological sciences building on campus. I've known quite a few labbies in my time and they bolt out the door for greener pastures. All scientists are not equal my friend, and when one research company, driven by profit, offers them 3 times the money and benefits as a publicly funded company, they take it. The most qualified researchers FROM ALL OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD(not all of them, but a significant proportion) flock to American pharmaceutical companies. Surprisingly, this actually has benefits from an economic perspective too. New jobs are created, taxes are collected, money is pumped into the economy through many avenues.

And then there's always a chance for a poor student like me to participate in a clinical trial to earn a couple grand for my schooling. I could take place in any # of trials and make some cash if I wanted to take the chance(not that I would, it's not worth it to me....I actually tried one for some psychological treatment for arachnophobia once...but they wanted me to touch spiders......and that was the end of that.

RCTs are not "more efficient" - they're incredibly expensive, but they're also generally the best of assessing the effectiveness and side effects of new and existing drugs and tests. However, there are major issues with relying on research solely conducted by and for pharmaceutical companies. There is an inherent conflict of interest, and you need merely to search for info about lumiracoxib and rofecoxib to see some obvious examples.

(I should add that paying people to participate in a clinical trial is appallingly unethical, not least because it muddies matters of informed consent and voluntariness. It would get rejected by our research ethics board here quickly.)

Also, the notion that the best people always follow the most money is ludicrous. If that was true, the best doctors would be dermatologists and ophthalmologists and the worst be in primary care and psychiatry. Academic physicians would similarly be "worse" than those in community practice. Money does not always equal, imply, or induce quality.

It seems that anybody or any claim that disagrees with your stance must be biased. Anyways, from what I've always heard, FDA regulations here are as hard to get by as any other country in the world.

They do a reasonable job, yes.

[Aemon Stark]

Inequality happens, EHK, and it's a fact of life. It's how societies have worked since the very beginning. Even indigenous societies have inequality - they may all be living in mud huts in a jungle, but someone is getting the best cuts of meat and their pick of the available women.

What sage wisdom from on high. It is a fact, however, that many countries are much less unequal than the US and so provide better equality of opportunity to their citizens. There is much to be said for social solidarity, not least because those who benefit most from inequality often tend to function less on merit than on kleptocracy. I'd argue that that's the case for *all* executive compensation currently. There's a warped mentality which states that certain people are entitled to 100 times the income of another person, just because of a few extra letters after their name or some nonsense record of "leadership" or "achievement".

There have, in recent history, been certain countries (USSR, North Korea, Cuba) which have tried to erase all class differences and give "true" equality of opportunity for all - all these have done is ensure living conditions of the lowest common denominator except for the ruling minority.

This is equivalent of the Nazi/Hitler card for this discussion.

At least your poor child growing up in a crime-filled urban environment here has various programs trying to steer him or her to a nice, college-educated, middle-class life.

Programs which are continually starved for funds if not outright attacked by those who think that "self-reliance" and "personal responsibility" are all that's lacking.

[snake]

For those arguing about cancer here are two reports you can look at.

For Canada.

For the US.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Chataya

I think it's fair to say that the U.S. is among the top few countries when it comes to advancement in social-economic classes, but whether it is head and shoulder above other developed countries or not I'd call into question. The rags-to-riches stories in the U.S. are certainly popular, but I have seen and heard similar ones from where I grew up, and I really don't think that it's largely due to the relative scale of socialism/capitalism mixture of the U.S.

Re: health care quality

Thanks snake for the links.

For those who are not reading the links, here's what I found:

5-year cancer survival rate, for all types of cancers combined, for both sexes combined, in Canada, is 62% from 2002 to 2003.

For adults diagnosed with cancer in 1999, 66% survived for at least 5 years, for all types of cancers combined.

I do not see a statistically significant difference in these numbers.

[turinturambar]

Ah, well, yes - "ethnic"-based inequality is rather a problem in the US, now, isn't it?

People with similar incomes in rural areas see longer better life expectancies than those in inner-city neighborhoods, so I don't think it has much to do with income. There are also public healthcare facilities available in such neighborhoods. You said yourself that different ethnic backgrounds may be subject to different diseases and may handle them differently, that in itself makes it difficult to compare diverse populations.

Your idea of proving your point is linking to a bunch of "marked-oriented" think tanks which appear to selectively choose only those numbers which confirms their original point. "Market"-based health care is best. That's what they'll see even without seeing the facts. Find some primary sources and we'll talk.

Many of the publications I linked are not pro-market-based healthcare. They were simply reporting the #s, the #s they cited came from a study done in London, free of bias. Perhaps you don't like the #s, that doesn't make them any less real. One of the publications was even the NY times and they've been pro-universal healthcare for a long time, yet they could admit that there were benefits from a private healthcare system and private pharmaceutical companies.

What kind of magazines? FFS, do you not assess the quality of the publication and/or sources before believing what you read? The old "don't have time" point is lame.

I did link the NY times for you. They lean almost as far left as you do so perhaps that means they aren't biased agenda seeking jerkoffs like everybody else?

As for the "don't have the time" I still did the google searches and linked publications for you. No, I don't have time to sift through a 167 page report. Very few people do. This is a fantasy-book message board, not a congressional debate.

RCTs are not "more efficient" - they're incredibly expensive, but they're also generally the best of assessing the effectiveness and side effects of new and existing drugs and tests. However, there are major issues with relying on research solely conducted by and for pharmaceutical companies. There is an inherent conflict of interest, and you need merely to search for info about lumiracoxib and rofecoxib to see some obvious examples.

Perhaps I misspoke....I wasn't trying to say the RCT's themselves were that much more efficient. The labwork itself is more efficient, the minds behind the work are better on the average, etc etc etc. It's kind of like hiring a computer-tech from MIT compared to somebody who picked up a 6-month online degree. They both learned a lot of the same stuff, but I can imagine the guy from MIT received a better education and probably was more intelligent in the first place to get his degree. I can probably assume who's going to have the most success.

(I should add that paying people to participate in a clinical trial is appallingly unethical, not least because it muddies matters of informed consent and voluntariness. It would get rejected by our research ethics board here quickly.)

Whether you volunteer for the greater good, or you volunteer for money, you still have willing participants and plenty of subjects to perform your trials. It does not muddy informed consent, you know what you're getting into and informed of any and all risks before the trial begins and you sign the liability forms before hand. I'm sorry it would get rejected by your ethics board, personally I see nothing wrong with it. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. You make the choice of whether or not you want to participate in an experiment. It's like any transaction, you take the risks, risks you are informed of, but you perceive the reward to be greater than the risks. You are responsible for your own decisions, and personally, I like that kind of freedom. This is the same reason why I'm all for the legalization of drugs, tobacco licenses for private businesses, gun ownership, etc. People should make their own decisions in life and freedom of other choices shouldn't be taken away because people are scared of the consequences. There are negative consequences to giving people such autonomy over their lives, but imo it's worth it.

Also, the notion that the best people always follow the most money is ludicrous. If that was true, the best doctors would be dermatologists and ophthalmologists and the worst be in primary care and psychiatry. Academic physicians would similarly be "worse" than those in community practice. Money does not always equal, imply, or induce quality.

I never said that people always follow the money. They do what they're best at or what pays the best, but most often they choose what they're best at AND pays the most and weigh all options before making the proper career choice. They also look into job security and availability. Obviously if everybody wants to be a dematologist, soon enough there will be too much competition and you find you've wasted money and time on education while competing with 50 other people for the same job. Nothing is so easy as simply "following the money", there are many factors that go into everything, and that is just one.

However, when somebody is in a career they will follow the money to the best job in their career. Most mechanics making $10/hr isn't going to think twice about taking a job at a different auto shop for $20/hr and a 401K. A customer service rep isn't going to think twice before leaving an $8/hr job for a $15/hr job. Costco pays their employees around $20/hr for even the more unskilled positions, they have little turnover and they have an influx of people applying for jobs with them. Similar positions at Wal-mart or Target pay their employees $7 or $8/hr, they have problems with employees leaving. A College Football coach will leave his $600,000/year job for a position at a different school earning $1,500,000. I'd like to know how many people would turn down a raise at their respective jobs. Hell, my friend is an archaeologist and he started out working for the Fed. He has since taken up as a private Archaeologist(yes they do exist) and he makes significantly more money. Doctors and Bio researchers are no different. Yes, they may not all leave for better money, but enough of them will to make a significant difference and if you don't believe this then you are truly being very naive. Only a few from Germany, or India, or England, or even Canada have to go to US pharmaceutical companies, but as a whole over the entire industry a small % from each nation adds up to a very large # of very very qualified professionals. Even in the NY times article I gave you a German researcher was interviewed and he himself said that often their best minds went to America and that the freedom of their research provided a rich environment for innovation.

And the #s back it up. The # of nobel prize winners in America in recent years, the # of important medical breakthroughs in America....outnumber the rest of the world combined. That is no coincidence.

[turinturambar]

This claim is entirely bogus and shown a profound lack of understanding about what kind of programs are funded by federal money. For example, the state of Nebraska in the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations process was refunded by Congress $42,052,725 for 59 projects and in Fiscal Year 2007, Nebraska received $621,971,312 for 2,316 project grants from 282 separate federal programs.

Almost all of these grants are for the preservation and maintenance of infrastructure, wildlife and nature preservation, education, and social services. Among the list, only two specific grants, $365,424.00 fo Midwest Advanced Food Manufacturing Alliance and $148,950.00 for sweet sorghum for energy production are related to agriculture.

I already mentioned nature preservation. I mentioned it in the case of Alaska and other such states. In a less populous state, nature preservation is always going to skew #s because there are very few people per square mile to pay for such things. But this is not for the benefit of nebraskans. The money would be put into nature and wildlife preservation even if NOBODY lived in Nebraska.

Infrastructure mainly goes into state and national highways, bridges, etc. Again, this would be there even if nobody lived in Nebraska. The nation would still need transport access to cross the land and to mine the resources of the land. As for city infrastructure, I doubt that the per capita money going into the infrastructure of the city is any different.

Education? I've said all along that I think funding should increase in education. But again, I doubt per capita spending on public education is much different in rural areas compared to urban areas, and judging from what I've seen in schools in the city compared to schools in the country it needs to improve. I've been to so called run down inner city schools, and most of them would put my high school to shame when it comes to facilities, textbooks, teachers, etc. Now most of the run-down inner city schools I've seen are here in KC which may not be as bad as other places, but still it needs to improve.

[Aemon Stark]

I did link the NY times for you. They lean almost as far left as you do so perhaps that means they aren't biased agenda seeking jerkoffs like everybody else?

I feel saddened that you'd consider any newspaper a reliable source for scientific information. Go to the primary sources.

Perhaps I misspoke....I wasn't trying to say the RCT's themselves were that much more efficient. The labwork itself is more efficient, the minds behind the work are better on the average, etc etc etc. It's kind of like hiring a computer-tech from MIT compared to somebody who picked up a 6-month online degree. They both learned a lot of the same stuff, but I can imagine the guy from MIT received a better education and probably was more intelligent in the first place to get his degree. I can probably assume who's going to have the most success.

Ah, the meritocratic dream at work. Time to wake up from it.

Whether you volunteer for the greater good, or you volunteer for money, you still have willing participants and plenty of subjects to perform your trials. It does not muddy informed consent, you know what you're getting into and informed of any and all risks before the trial begins and you sign the liability forms before hand. I'm sorry it would get rejected by your ethics board, personally I see nothing wrong with it. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. You make the choice of whether or not you want to participate in an experiment. It's like any transaction, you take the risks, risks you are informed of, but you perceive the reward to be greater than the risks. You are responsible for your own decisions, and personally, I like that kind of freedom. This is the same reason why I'm all for the legalization of drugs, tobacco licenses for private businesses, gun ownership, etc. People should make their own decisions in life and freedom of other choices shouldn't be taken away because people are scared of the consequences. There are negative consequences to giving people such autonomy over their lives, but imo it's worth it.

It absolutely muddies informed consent because providing financial inducements into a study alters the relationship between the trial and its participants. There are enough problems at times with purely voluntary participation as it is; paying people to take part incorporates all sorts of selection biases, and it provides further incentive for the study organizers to attempt to get the "right" results. I really do not think most people will appreciate all the side effects or the fact that in any double-blind placebo controlled trial, they will have no idea whether they're taking the actual medicine under study or a sugar pill.

I never said that people always follow the money. They do what they're best at or what pays the best, but most often they choose what they're best at AND pays the most and weigh all options before making the proper career choice. They also look into job security and availability. Obviously if everybody wants to be a dematologist, soon enough there will be too much competition and you find you've wasted money and time on education while competing with 50 other people for the same job. Nothing is so easy as simply "following the money", there are many factors that go into everything, and that is just one.

You directly implied that the "best" people will always go to the organization that's paying the most money, regardless of what sort of job it is or the constraints that might go along with it (do you think pharmaceutical company researchers get to patent things they discover?). Also, I didn't say anything about lots of people being interested in dermatology, merely that, by your argument, since they're very well paid, they must be the "best" or among the best.

However, when somebody is in a career they will follow the money to the best job in their career. Most mechanics making $10/hr isn't going to think twice about taking a job at a different auto shop for $20/hr and a 401K. A customer service rep isn't going to think twice before leaving an $8/hr job for a $15/hr job. Costco pays their employees around $20/hr for even the more unskilled positions, they have little turnover and they have an influx of people applying for jobs with them. Similar positions at Wal-mart or Target pay their employees $7 or $8/hr, they have problems with employees leaving. A College Football coach will leave his $600,000/year job for a position at a different school earning $1,500,000. I'd like to know how many people would turn down a raise at their respective jobs. Hell, my friend is an archaeologist and he started out working for the Fed. He has since taken up as a private Archaeologist(yes they do exist) and he makes significantly more money. Doctors and Bio researchers are no different. Yes, they may not all leave for better money, but enough of them will to make a significant difference and if you don't believe this then you are truly being very naive. Only a few from Germany, or India, or England, or even Canada have to go to US pharmaceutical companies, but as a whole over the entire industry a small % from each nation adds up to a very large # of very very qualified professionals. Even in the NY times article I gave you a German researcher was interviewed and he himself said that often their best minds went to America and that the freedom of their research provided a rich environment for innovation.

And the #s back it up. The # of nobel prize winners in America in recent years, the # of important medical breakthroughs in America....outnumber the rest of the world combined. That is no coincidence.

There is much to be said for being concise in language, particularly when you've written a long paragraph and a bit to say merely "USA No. 1!!!!!!!11".

[The Progressive]

I already mentioned nature preservation. I mentioned it in the case of Alaska and other such states. In a less populous state, nature preservation is always going to skew #s because there are very few people per square mile to pay for such things. But this is not for the benefit of nebraskans. The money would be put into nature and wildlife preservation even if NOBODY lived in Nebraska.

Infrastructure mainly goes into state and national highways, bridges, etc. Again, this would be there even if nobody lived in Nebraska. The nation would still need transport access to cross the land and to mine the resources of the land. As for city infrastructure, I doubt that the per capita money going into the infrastructure of the city is any different.

I'm sorry but this argument does not make much sense. The very first group to benefit from any wildlife and nature preservation grant or infrastructure maintenance grant would be the people who lives nearby because they'll have immediate access to nearby outdoor leisure activities; and if tourists and interstate commerce pour in from other states, that means more revenue being generated for the local economy. That's the reason why states are fighting for every scrap of federal dollars there is for park preservation and highway construction and that's why states with low population density are the biggest federal 'welfare queens'.

Education? I've said all along that I think funding should increase in education. But again, I doubt per capita spending on public education is much different in rural areas compared to urban areas, and judging from what I've seen in schools in the city compared to schools in the country it needs to improve. I've been to so called run down inner city schools, and most of them would put my high school to shame when it comes to facilities, textbooks, teachers, etc. Now most of the run-down inner city schools I've seen are here in KC which may not be as bad as other places, but still it needs to improve.

The formulas applied for recipients of federal education grants are the same for rural and urban schools. The problem the rural school faced is primarily local in nature. Remember that federal grants cannot provide all necessary money to run school district, part of the money has to come from local taxes. Rural areas tend to have lower taxes along with a smaller pool from which taxes could be collected from as opposed to urban school district. Consequently, the result is that you described above. There's only so much milk that rugged self-reliance rural communities could suckle from the teats of the federal government and other taxpayers ................ if you want to see rural schools improving, you have to question the conservative oxymoron of having low local taxes and expecting better local schools.

[The_BlauerDragon]

What is it with all the paranoia amongst some of our US boarders?

That's a genuine question, by the way. Where does it come from? I mean, I'm from a country where we have serious gun control, and I've never heard anyone worry about the fact that we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves against the government if they chose to round us all up into camps, or anything along those lines.

(Of course, that might be because if they tried it, they'd almost certainly mess it up, like they do everything else)

Intelligent people in the U.S. have a litany of good reasons not to be too trusting of our government. If the whole Gitmo even existing thing doesn't tell you why, then here are a few things to think about.

Like this, for starters.

I'll give you a few more worthy things to consider too.

Notice how many times the US government appears in this list?

Here's another (similar but narrowed down) list.

Here's a different reason to think that our government might be capable of turning on us.

The list goes on, and I don't want to bore anyone with the gorey details, but I hope now that you can understand why some people in the U.S. might be prone to being just a wee bit paranoid when it comes to our government. Yes? No?

[Lyanna Stark]

Intelligent people in the U.S. have a litany of good reasons not to be too trusting of our government. If the whole Gitmo even existing thing doesn't tell you why, then here are a few things to think about.

Does that means the people around the world who don't want to own a gun to defend themselves against their own democratically voted in Government are less intelligent?

And how would owning a gun prevent Gitmo? Were you going to storm it?

Chataya,

There have, in recent history, been certain countries (USSR, North Korea, Cuba) which have tried to erase all class differences and give "true" equality of opportunity for all - all these have done is ensure living conditions of the lowest common denominator except for the ruling minority.

The Scandinavian countries also have mostly abolished class differences and have high levels of income equality. Compared to the US, they have high levels of standard of living, low crime rates etc. Comparing communism with socialism or even social democracy is like comparing the most lefty liberal people in the US with the hardcore conservatives: politically, they are as far apart. A social democrat would be pretty shocked if you called him a communist.

[TrackerNeil]

Funny...I see that some of talked of America as a meritocracy, as if that somehow explains why this nation hasn't adopted UHC. I am not certain about the meritocracy thing, but it seems to me that if you truly think Americans get what they work for you should be more inclined to support UHC, not less. After all, in our current system any American who pays taxes in some form already springs for the health care of others, even if we don't have a notation on our paychecks reading "universal health care tax." The state pays for the health care of the indigent, or else hospitals pay it and pass those costs along to us in the form of higher doctor/lab fees. And the treatment of indigent people is often in the ER when it's most expensive. So if I, as an American, get what I work for, it seems to me that if I have to pay for the health care of others I want to pay in the smartest, cheapest pay possible, and that's UHC.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tracker,

Is UHC the cheapest possible way to pay for health care if it doesn't include price control mechanisms like rationing care?

[Silverstar]

Intelligent people in the U.S. have a litany of good reasons not to be too trusting of our government. If the whole Gitmo even existing thing doesn't tell you why, then here are a few things to think about.

Like this, for starters.

I'll give you a few more worthy things to consider too.

Notice how many times the US government appears in this list?

Here's another (similar but narrowed down) list.

Here's a different reason to think that our government might be capable of turning on us.

The list goes on, and I don't want to bore anyone with the gorey details, but I hope now that you can understand why some people in the U.S. might be prone to being just a wee bit paranoid when it comes to our government. Yes? No?

Well, if you're saying all these things happened, you're also saying that having widespread gun ownership did nothing to prevent it, so what difference does owning guns make? You think that these events would have been worse, should the American population be subject to gun control?

Are you also saying that the American government is worse than the governments of countries which have gun control? If you are, I'd suggest the more sensible thing to do would be to look at the reasons why that might be the case, and deal with that.

[TrackerNeil]

Tracker,

Is UHC the cheapest possible way to pay for health care if it doesn't include price control mechanisms like rationing care?

That's a good question, and one I am not qualified to answer. However, everything I have ever heard indicates that the US spends more on health care than any other first-world nation and doesn't get more. That tells me we are doing it wrong, and not because this nation is some kind of unique snowflake that is qualitatively different from every other nation on Earth.