John Dalmas 142 18 http://www.johndalmas.com http://www.johndalmas.com/webonizer_sitemedia/johndalmas.jpg http://www.johndalmas.com/guest/1/?refType=article&refId=14 Guestbook Posts http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/14 try reasearching the cost for the typical aids three drug cocktail. $1000 (yes one thousand)per month minimum mark leigh 2007-12-27T03:44:13-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/14 Have you seen Michael Moore's latest documentary, Sicko? It is devoted to this subject, the high cost of health care and what we can do about it. Moore is known to sometimes over-state his case and is more of a propagandist than an objective journalist, however, he is extremely eloquent, and his movies are worth seeing provided that one takes them with the proverbial grain of salt. By far the largest cost in the introduction of any new drug is the clinical trials, which in most cases are conducted for years and involve thousands of patients (and in most cases, all these patients are paid to participate in the study). Ever since the big thalidomide fiasco, drug companies are legally required to err on the side of caution, and caution is expensive. I have had considerable experience with both the US private enterprise form of health care and the Canadian form of public health care, and I have no doubt that the latter is more efficient. Governments can be very efficient when they want to be. I might point out that there are also some state governments which offer life insurance, which also turns out to be more efficient (that is, you get more coverage for a given cost) than life insurance from a private insurer. Life insurance companies pay incredibly large amounts of money in the form of sales commissions to agents, an expense which government based life insurance doesn't have. In the US, Health Maintenance Organizations have made obscene profits by selling health insurance and then doing everything possible to hold down their costs by finding ways to deny people the health care that they have paid for. This is a huge national scandal. But even aside from the particulary pernicious HMOs, private health care coverage will never be as effective as public health insurance. Only public health insurance can guarantee that all citizens are covered. (Of course, then we'll have have huge problems with illegal immigrants trying to claim health care to which they are not legally entitled. But illiegal immigration is a separate problem which has to be dealt with anyway, with or without the issue of public health care.) There is also the problem that the US is spending so much money on the war in Iraq, and so much on social security, and is so deeply in debt, that it seems inconceivable that the government could take on another major expense. But logically it must. The US has got to find ways to provide its citizens with the services that they really need, without going bankrupt doing it. This will require a lot more intelligence than George W, Bush has shown, but perhaps the next President can do better. David Palter 2007-12-19T17:59:43-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/14 John... I have gotten caught up in work this last week... so we'll have to reschedule our lunch. In the meantime... I read the post about meds. I feel the same skepticism about the system and everyone's proposed solutions. In my opinion, the culprits are a triumvirate that consists of Pharmaceutical companies, block-headed politicians and, perhaps most of all, the insurance industry. I personally think that the current culture, political powers and big money will make it impossible to "fix" the system in my lifetime. I hope I am wrong... but pessimism grows on me whenever I contemplate these things. Shawn Shawn Olson 2007-11-08T07:43:41-05:00