Total Solar Eclipse in August

[Speaker to Animals]

If you have an argument to refute it, then by all means, present that argument.

I can see no other way to interpret their motives, and the idea that the government has the right to tell parents they have to let the government kill their baby instead of take the baby to a better health care system is fucking abhorrent. It amazes me how deluded you must be to defend this.

Your government murdered that baby by basically kidnapping him from the parents and taking him off life support when other hospitals offered a potential life-saving treatment. That, morally speaking, is murder, Monty. We can argue about their motives all night, but the LEAST offensive explanation is that they simply didn't want to deal with the public failure of their health care system if this baby was successfully treated in America. That would have been a political disaster for your government, and killing the baby could easily have been an easier option for them. They can take the fallout for that, and they can pretend like they did it all because they cared about the baby (even as they killed him). Yet, if they let him go, which was the only moral choice they had since they had no right to do what they did, they risked having to answer to a lot of domestic criticism as to why the health care system they run is not providing life-saving treatment the much-maligned for-profit system in American ultimately provided to him.

Ok, find me a reputable source which states the child could be saved. I'll wait.

The hospital that was willing to provide him with an experimental treatment.

[Montegriffo]

At no point did the clinic say they could save his life. They didn't even say they could improve his condition or even get him off life support. Try reading a reputable source on this case.
All they could offer was a few more weeks of vegetattive state.

[The Conservative]

Back on topic now:

I got this to see the solar eclipse. I'm also getting it so I can get my son interested when he gets older into this kind of thing. And yes, I got a solar filter to go along with it too.

http://www.opticsplanet.com/celestron-a ... drive.html

[Speaker to Animals]

This is the worst part about it that rarely even gets discussed:

"New-York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center have agreed to admit and evaluate Charlie, provided that arrangements are made to safely transfer him to our facility, legal hurdles are cleared, and we receive emergency approval from the FDA for an experimental treatment as appropriate," the hospital said in a statement.

"Alternatively, if approved by the FDA, we will arrange shipment of the experimental drug to Great Ormond Street Hospital and advise their medical staff on administering it if they are willing to do so."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-ho ... rlie-gard/


Note the bolded part of the statement from the hospital. They were willing to ship the experimental treatment to Britain and advise them on how to proceed, but the British government decided it wanted none of that.

We don't get approval for experimental treatment in this nation unless there exists some chance of success and the risks do not outweigh the rewards. In this boy's case, the risk of doing nothing was a 100% chance of death.

And if the government is to get involved in denying people access to experimental treatments just because, then one wonders how medical science would ever advance. That is, if the entire western world were run like the UK, how would we ever develop new cures and treatments for difficult diseases? The answer is that we wouldn't.

This entire story showcases the biggest problems with socialized medicine. They are all on display front and center: state treated human beings like property; state putting the fortunes of the health care bureaucracy ahead of human life; socialized medical system stifling advancement in medical science. It's all there. Fucking abhorrent.

They killed this boy to protect the good name of their shitty socialized medicine system. It was a truly evil act.

[Ex-California]

Not so much my side of it rather the hospital's side of it. I don't really have a side of it other than to refute the ''evil NHS'' nonsense which has been put forward.
The true sides to this case were not govt v parents but child v parents. A way to look at it and maybe understand it better would be to consider a case where the parents refused life saving treatment and the courts over ruled their wishes in order to save the childs life. Would the parents be in the right then?

Well thanks Monte.

The problem is that no one here can see their opponent's position.

I can.

I should have specified between StA and Monte. You were being reasonable

[Speaker to Animals]

Fuck you. I am being reasonable. I provided a solid argument for why their government condemned this baby to death.

British babies are not rightfully the property of the British government, and if parents have to flee England in order to save their babies at better hospitals, then that's something the the NHS should have to face openly -- without killing a baby in order to avoid.

At the most fundamental level, anybody who wishes to organize a health care system has to balance providing coverage for all and providing the best health care. You necessarily must balance those things. You can't escape that calculus. Britain said, "fuck it, we are just going balls-deep in coverage for all". But that means people are dying for lack of health care that they could get elsewhere. Instead of just openly admitting that, "sure, we sacrificed your quality of care so that everybody could have access to the same level of care", then they would have to face domestic push back against their socialized medicine system. So they decided to force this baby to die without attempting the experimental treatment.

It's cowardice. At least have the moral fortitude to face the consequences of your decisions. The very worst right libertarians don't shy away from admitting that, in their totally free-market health care system, your ability to live is contingent upon your access to money. The NHS should be similarly honest about the fact that socialized medicine severely limits your access to the best health care even when you can reasonably pay for it.

These people across the pond are living under a rich mythology about how their health care system is fantastic and America is some dark age cesspool. They have a lot emotionally invested in it. Apparently, they are so invested in the myth that they are willing to condemn babies to die rather than let them go to America for cutting-edge treatments that their system fails to provide.

[Speaker to Animals]

Also, don't pretend like I don't fucking know what he is talking about. I have to live the dream of socialized medicine right now in the VA. I know exactly how these kinds of bureaucracies work. When there is nothing really wrong with you but minor issues, they seem like great systems. But when you really need help, you will see just how horrible they can be.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Fuck you. I am being reasonable.

[Speaker to Animals]

Fuck you. I am being reasonable.

So you cut out the entire argument to make it seem like I am not the one presenting arguments, whereas folks like you present pretty much zip. That's dishonest.

At the most fundamental level, anybody who wishes to organize a health care system has to balance providing coverage for all and providing the best health care. You necessarily must balance those things. You can't escape that calculus. Britain said, "fuck it, we are just going balls-deep in coverage for all". But that means people are dying for lack of health care that they could get elsewhere. Instead of just openly admitting that, "sure, we sacrificed your quality of care so that everybody could have access to the same level of care", then they would have to face domestic push back against their socialized medicine system. So they decided to force this baby to die without attempting the experimental treatment.

It's cowardice. At least have the moral fortitude to face the consequences of your decisions. The very worst right libertarians don't shy away from admitting that, in their totally free-market health care system, your ability to live is contingent upon your access to money. The NHS should be similarly honest about the fact that socialized medicine severely limits your access to the best health care even when you can reasonably pay for it.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Fuck you. I am being reasonable.

So you cut out the entire argument to make it seem like I am not the one presenting arguments, whereas folks like you present pretty much zip. That's dishonest.

Meh, I just think it makes a good t-shirt lol

At the most fundamental level, anybody who wishes to organize a health care system has to balance providing coverage for all and providing the best health care. You necessarily must balance those things. You can't escape that calculus. Britain said, "fuck it, we are just going balls-deep in coverage for all". But that means people are dying for lack of health care that they could get elsewhere. Instead of just openly admitting that, "sure, we sacrificed your quality of care so that everybody could have access to the same level of care", then they would have to face domestic push back against their socialized medicine system. So they decided to force this baby to die without attempting the experimental treatment.

It's cowardice. At least have the moral fortitude to face the consequences of your decisions. The very worst right libertarians don't shy away from admitting that, in their totally free-market health care system, your ability to live is contingent upon your access to money. The NHS should be similarly honest about the fact that socialized medicine severely limits your access to the best health care even when you can reasonably pay for it.

This should read: "in their totally free-market health care system, your ability to live is contingent upon your access to more money than the other people that want it."

There is no "limit" to medical care pricing in a capitalist system. There is no reason not to charge you the absolute maximum up to, and beyond, bankruptcy - so long as someone can pay that price.

There is no such thing as a market for a necessity. See: Water, Air, Medical Care. When there is no option to go without, there is no demand curve.