COVID-19 - Coronavirus 2019-nCoV

[Al Agnew]

13 hours ago, Johnsfolly said:

Al what is your alternative? Issues with universal/government supported or fully funded health care system can lead to lack of innovations due to limited governmental funds available. The you get what you pay for situation. Currently those countries that have those systems like Canada and the UK benefit from the big pharma generating drugs in a for profit scenario. Ask yourself and maybe do the research on whether your wife would have had the care that she did and the medications/treatments that she used if she were in the UK or Canada? How long would she have had to wait for those treatments? Also would those medications been developed under their system? Maybe they would have, though I tend to doubt it.

You are looking at this as an either/or situation...either the government does everything or the government does nothing.  Think of it this way...the government funds the military.  But a whole lot of private companies make a ton of money off supplying the military, and they spend a lot of money coming up with better war planes and weapons systems.  What is to stop all the medical supply companies from doing the research to come up with better medicines, equipment, etc. and selling it to the government-run health care system?  The innovations in American health care are not in the hospitals or the health insurance; how much has a basic hospital stay changed in the last 100 years?  They are in the basic research and the private companies that come up with better stuff to sell to the hospitals; the hospitals didn't invent all those diagnostic machines and drugs.  Why would that change under a government-run health care system?  Remove the profit motive from the people who are actually interacting with the patients, the hospitals and health clinics.  Don't remove it from the people who are supposedly doing the innovating.

As for treatment like my wife went through, there are plenty of countries that could have and would have provided it just as well and timely.  But this is another thing you're wanting to make either/or.  How about basic healthcare, accepted treatments, hospital stays all funded by the government, but if you want Cadillac health care, you pay for Cadillac insurance?  

But...I don't expect any of this to happen any time soon, if at all.  There has got to be a better way of doing things, but maybe a government-run system isn't even close to the answer in a country as big, heavily populated, and basically "unhealthy" as America.  Heck, none of the politicians have a clue on how to improve on what we have right now, which is a mixed bag of improvements and problems compared to what we had prior to the ACA.

[Al Agnew]

1 minute ago, Gavin said:

This stuff has been gotten bat monkey dodo crazy, and it has exposed allot of systematic disorder and flat out stupidity. Take care of yourself and family. Be kind to others. The less you fuel this dumpster fire of emotion, & stupidity, the better off you will be.

Yup.

[Al Agnew]

23 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Let’s get a couple of things straight.

1.Im not an anti Vaxxer

2. I’m not wearing blinders

3. You can’t teach me sh*t

Now lets get back to the subject. According to AL, if you go to college, you On average are at least better educated. 
Therefore since more people are going to college than ever before, I’m not agreeing with your anti intellectual comment. It’s more of an anti trust problem. People don’t trust the government or the news media anymore and are looking with a much more skeptical eye.

 

More people are going to college than ever before because more people believe that you HAVE to go to college to get a decent job.  But,  you can believe that and still be anti-intellectual.  It isn't the education that they think is important, it's the piece of paper saying their kid graduated, which they look upon as a key to unlock one of those good jobs.  And there was once a time when nearly everybody thought a college education was a great thing, and college professors were respected and even revered.  Now, it seems that a whole lot more people who DIDN'T go to college look upon those who did with contempt.  So you can have more people going to college and at the same time have more people not valuing an education nor the educators.

  

[Al Agnew]

23 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Well, there are at least 2 doctors that were saying what the researchers with agenda said..... before they ever said it.  One is a gynocologist, but that's still a doctor, right?

I've done business with a few doctors, a pharmacist, and a professor of some field of medical learning that were either void of any common sense.....or pretended to be dumbasses for one reason or another.    

I mean I suppose it's possible to be brilliant in pharmacology or health care and not know that leaves in a boats bilge area could clog up a bilge pump. Or that adding more gas to a tank that you are aware is contaminated with water won't help the engine run on it.

Ah yes, the old "he may be educated but he lacks any common sense" thing.  Which is sometimes true, but is just likely to be true of the guy who never graduated high school...not everybody has "common sense", whatever that is.  And it's irrelevant anyway.  I don't go to the doctor to find out what's wrong with my outboard, I go to somebody like you.  And I don't go to you to find out how come I have a stomach ache that won't go away, I go to the doctor.  I don't value the doctor's common sense, I value his education and experience in his chosen field.

And while there have been times when the few voices crying out in the wilderness ended up being right and the vast majority in the field have ended up being wrong, those times are few and far between.  A few doctors saying one thing do not equal the vast majority saying something else.  I'll believe the vast majority before I'll believe the few.

[Gavin]

It is crazy. I don’t agree with your statement, therefore you are stupid. Magical belief systems. I believe, therefore true. You can’t argue with people like that. Wish they would teach “Logic” in grade school. 

[jdmidwest]

College today is nothing but an open book test.  Online classes, lots of off campus studies.  It has changed greatly since I was there.

You can even retake the tests over to get a better grade.  About the only thing you learn is how to Google search for answers.

Not sure how the new college makes you any smarter.

[Quillback]

Well a person has to want to learn.  You could drift through college back in my day too, lots of easy course schedules to take.  I remember taking electives like 'Art History' and the 'History of Boston'.  They were interesting courses, but piece of cake compared to Calculus or Physics.  And in the end I never used any of that math or physics in my job in the telecom world, but that degree helped me get into a good career.  

[Johnsfolly]

9 hours ago, Gavin said:

Wish they would teach “Logic” in grade school. 

Economics taught in HS would help as well.

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

You could drift through college back in my day too, lots of easy course schedules to take.  I remember taking electives like 'Art History' and the 'History of Boston'.  They were interesting courses, but piece of cake compared to Calculus or Physics.  And in the end I never used any of that math or physics in my job in the telecom world, but that degree helped me get into a good career.

In the US a college degree has dropped down to the importance that a high school degree was previously. Having a secondary degree is what most employers are looking for in a candidate. I know that I look at those higher degree folks more closely than one with a degree in a non-science field.

[MrGiggles]

1 hour ago, jdmidwest said:

College today is nothing but an open book test.  Online classes, lots of off campus studies.  It has changed greatly since I was there.

You can even retake the tests over to get a better grade.  About the only thing you learn is how to Google search for answers.

Not sure how the new college makes you any smarter.

That may be true for some degrees, but nothing in the STEM fields.

Source, took Trig twice, failed Calculus last year, hopefully gonna try again this year. it ain't easy, especially for a simpleton like me. My Calculus instructor at MSU was old school and Chinese, no online homework or gradebook, no retakes. 

I have taken some online classes, they are easy to BS your way through like you said, but that is only for the filler classes like Econ, History, etc. And you still have to show up at least once to take a proctored exam.