Friday, July 06, 2007

The SiCKO truth


The hype is on to counteract Michael Moore's devastating new movie. However,in my surfing about I ran across a new Google gadget that graphs UN data sets. It doesn't have every sort of data you can imagine, but it does have an amazing amount of data, and while one would always want more flexibility, it does have a lot of flexibility.

In this graph I was able to arrange measured Life expectancy, and number of doctors on the x and y axis as a measure of the quality and cost of care and the income per capita for the size of the bubble. I also was able to show the trend as to getting better or worse. (you can click on the image to see full size)

The US is standing still and things are not looking good in Estonia, Jamaica, and Uzbekistan. China and Brazil may be reporting issues to show such great change at that moment but all the excommunist countries seem to be showing a drop in the number of doctors as health care becomes less available.

It is worthy of note that almost all the countries to the right and above the US have Government run health care. A few like the UK, Canada, and Japan, have a bit fewer doctors per person, but all those orange dots above and to the right are pretty much the rest of Western Europe, and all doing better than the US in both health and doctors and continuing to improve.

Thanks to the Gang Of Pirates much recent US data is missing, one supposes that it is not good news. If you do not believe you can pick on the title and go play with the data yourself.

On edit, Playing with the program more I was able to create this graph that is even more telling


As you can see I put child mortality and life expectancy in and managed to label almost every dot to a country. In this graph Cuba ends up very close to the US but the number of doctors per person is so high it was off the chart in the one above. The US (and others) has not published the most recent data but I would not be surprised if Cuba is actually ahead now.

Everyone who can, should print a copy and frame it and put it on the wall of their Congressman and Senator. Emailing a copy to your local pundit wouldn't hurt either.
Update 2
A bit more study of the history shows how the us was ahead of much more of the world in the past, and that Government health care provides benefit even in those cases where it started from a much lower point.
I highlighted China so it would be easy to distinguish from Portugal where progress has been double that in the US, starting way behind and passing us by. Of interest also is what happened in China in 1987 and Costa Rica in 1990 when steady progress suddenly went bad. It would be interesting to look up the history of those times. Russia's experiences with privatization are well known but document well here.

Posted by Freedem at 7/06/2007 08:15:00 AM 5 comments

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Quotables

Intolerance

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."



from an old tale.

The Golden Rule
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel


Libertarians



1.

The self made man just isn't admitting how or where he came by all those parts

---FreeDem---- Aug 2005


2.

If a man tells you that the Government cannot accomplish anything of value, then voting for him would be like hiring an Amish Auto Mechanic.
If they don't believe in the concept, they are more than likely to do a very poor job of it.


---Bob Danforth Sept. 2009



3.

Republicans never meant to cut government waste, fraud and graft, from the get-go their plan was to organize, monopolize and privatize waste, fraud and graft.



They see the civil service as meddling “middleman,” who interfered with the free flow of cash from taxpayers into corporate coffers. Their intent was to eliminate the “middleman” as an obstruction to corruption.


---Unknown rabblerowser Feb 2007




Patriotism:


No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow




In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot

Mark Twain





Leadership:





You see, we often get noncreative leaders, people most interested in preserving their own positions. They flock around centers of power. Such centers attract people who can be corrupted. That is a more descriptive observation than to say simply that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.



If you are corruptible and your imagination is confined to worries about loss of power, you exist in a self-destructive system. Eventually, as all life does, you must encounter something you did not anticipate, and if you have not strengthened your creative resources, you will have no new ways for adapting to change. Adapt or die, that's the first rule of survival.



The limited vision of noncreative people is not difficult to understand. Creativity frightens the unimaginative. They don't know what's happening. Things new and unexpected arise from creativity. This threatens "things as they are." And (terrible thought) it undermines illusions of omnipotence.

Frank

Herbert 1984 (the year not the book)





News:




"News is what powerful people want to keep hidden; everything else is just publicity."

....Bill Moyer





Religion:



1.
Just as having only a hammer makes every problem either look like a nail, or as something irrelevant, our very technological skills have had us look there for explanations and ignore reality it cannot deal with. With our powerful hammer, we seek only nails, and dump the rest as dross. Not all questions involve hammers, not all answers are nails.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



2.
My issue with Atheists is not that they have no God, there are many religions that have no God, but that they have no religion.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



__Note: by this I mean that there are many things religions do besides the discredited "science" and self serving promises (give me your money and God will hold and pay the note), many like charity or fellowship, even social accountability can be very good things not requiring a God.




3.

Many have been very disappointed that their "God-critter" was not to be found as a technology swimming about in the shallower pools of knowledge. So in the obsession basic to our culture, we search ever deeper and more difficult pools, and always the "God-critter" seems to wink at us from the pool just beyond.



In the process we have found technologies beyond the wildest dreams of our most sophisticated ancestors. The great joke is that the "critter" never existed except as the pools themselves.



----Freedem --- Oct 2006



4.
Indeed I do think that many folk, believe all kinds of stuff from the actually true, to the utterly illogical, with no personal discernment one from the others. But that would hardly make any of them a scholar to rely on, any more that one should get their theology studies from a door to door salesman, offering "get out of hell free" cards, on special because the creator of galaxies in greater numbers than beach sand, nonetheless has an ego so weak He cannot exist without shamelessly excessive psychophancy from a major portion of the inhabitants of this particular dust speck.



----Freedem ---June-2007



More to come