OT: American national ID card

(Snipped good article.)

A sincere Thank You for taking the time to make the lengthy reply; it has changed my view and reminds me that I need to learn more of the situation. I don't mind being found wrong.

A common scene at the VA Hospital. :)

(Hey Den - OT but how tall is your Puma at the rooftop? My Kelmark is 43"! That's low!)

he price that's payed for the features she has to have then.

Case closed.

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

Both of these entries are in line with what I had in mind. Thanks for the response. I wasn't so sure this was where you were coming from, but am very glad to hear your response.

I have one fairly major discrepancy though. I believe everyone should have the quality healthcare, and should never be denied treatment for chronic or life threatening issues. I do however believe that one should plan on taking care of themselves. Both physically and financially, so as not to burden their families and/or the Government/s.

We both agree on care to be given, but probably will never agree on who should pay for it or how it should be payed for. ( maybe we will )

There is something wrong with all the government "insurance". There is nothing wrong with individuals paying (thank you for putting in your dollars, not the governments Mr. Stafford) for their healthcare. It is highly preferred, even. There is something wrong with Making our health care system a welfare system for illegal immigrants, and vagrants that refuse to do anything close to working for a living.

Yes, i know I am a bit hard lined on this subject.

There was a time in my life I thought it inhumane to tell someone with a scrape to go away. Nowadays, I have no problem with it. They should go down to the store and buy a bandaid.

Is there some way we can "qualify" patients?...........I'd go for that. Not to deny care, but to eliminate the abuse of the emergency care facilities by those using it for "daily" medical care. This being one small step in securing our medical facilities for those who need them.

There are ways to deal with it I'm sure, but so far the Governments (state, local, and federal) are all out of sorts with anything other than "buying votes" with other peoples monies. That's my opinion on the subject!.............

LOL ( I knew I could bring this back to a political direction)

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

So it's a Leave or Love it thing, eh? My take is that more places should be as pleasant and civilized as this one, and it should be affordable, within reason. Funny how the more wealthy want to pay less for the same than the ordinary guy does.

Is that the car you posted a picture of the other day????

Nice looking car but nothing to give it "scale".

I kinda figured it was meant to be a small car in the picture, but one never knows without something to compare to.

I guess I don't remember you showing it before.

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

..............I'd say that politics and questions of who can or should pay their own way don't belong in the mix when talking about who should be treated for an illness. If an illegal immigrant has appendicitis, we ought to treat them first and ask questions about whether they deserved it afterward. In many cases, when you start trying to figure out who deserves to be treated, you're really talking about who deserves to live or die. It's not the job of hospitals and doctors to decide how deserving someone is to live. If they come through the door, treat them........period. Just my opinion.

To A degree it is a love it or leave it thing..........Sorry to say so, but it's true. These United States are thriving and vibrant in other areas and would welcome a good secretary to make more than one makes there..............I can't imagine what drives the price down to it's level that makes her so un-valuable.

Pleasantness has it's price. So does healthcare............I am not saying to leave the area you love. I am however, saying that UTOPIA is a long, long way off. If more money is desired , it can be had. If pleasantness is desired, well,..........seems like it should be pleasant accoring to your take on it. I see no issue there at all. Seems as though she's made her decision to stay if she's still there.

I hope you are not suggesting that I am wealthy. That'd be laughable. I do see how you could use that as a pawn in this discussion. But it doesn't need to become personal I don't think. I make a very humble living with my wife. We would definitley not be considered wealthy,..............unless we could take the same income and move to Mexico or Cuba or the like and still make the same money............That's not much of a likelihood.

It's actually more "funny" how people who make lots of money are GIVEN lots of freebies the rest of us cannot afford............I watch it daily almost. I can't tell you how many Dallas Mavericks basketball team players our company has flat out given product and service to for little or nothing. Not to mention Dallas Stars, and Cowboys, and lord knows how many other "names". It seems the same in many other items too. It's as though folks think they can buy that famous persons' loyalty or something............the only loyalty they give is when they come back for more freebies...................over and over again.

Anyways, I stand by my assessment of your friends situation as I know it. I don;t like it any more than you do. But I am just being very realistic about life and how it is affecting that situation, as well as others.

I have little sympathy for someone who knows they're in a crappy situation that they can change themselves with something as simple as sending out resumes to places other than where they live, as I too limit myself by similar things.I like the area I live in. I would love to make more money and live a little better. But I will take my lumps here, and work toward gaining what I can in my current situation, til I've had enough.

There's nothing more stisfying than getting a "belly full".

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

I see you missed my point. I was simply stating that there likely is a way, to keep the scraped knees and such, from clogging the emergency rooms. Bandaids are available at almost every convenience store in the USA. These items should be sent on their way, and real emergencies shouldn't be set aside for them. This is not a discussion of "who can pay?" or "where are you from?" fix the most necessary first. I can't see this as a matter of who should live and who should die.

Sorry if I mis stated my intentions also. It is commonplace for the local hospitals in our area to have a lot of what would be considered less than a minor emergency, using the doctors/nurses time when it's not necessary. Other than that I think we agree. You shouldn;t let a guy with appendicitis die cause he's a vagrant/illegal or the like.

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

YES WE NEED THAT! Two experiences, if I may. First, whenever (however rarely) I have to go to the clinic, the place is full of what I consider malingers who have nothing better to do. Sometimes the clinic seems to be a social meeting place for people with "golf injuries", chatting away like this was the highlight of their day. I had to wait three weeks with a low-grade fever and great pain, and that's the bunch that was in front of me. Second, once I had an intractable, hard post-nasal hemorrhage which some of you know can be a Bad Thing (I tutored the MD into how to stop it lest they ambulance me 50 miles to the next town.). The room was full of poor people, typically factory and Walmart employees, with colds, women looking for attention to minor things. THEY HAVE NO CHOICE but to go to the ER. In fact, Walmart lectures new employees on how to use the ER exclusively. When I was a US Medic working the ER, we would triage such things to a separate night-clinic, leaving the rest for people who needed help. That's what we need here.

I'll do some more pics one day. Scale - you are right. See the following link to give an idea of just how tiny some of these classic racers are. Be ready to be amazed. Check out the coupe on the far left.

"Tim Rogers" wrote

You are a True Medic.

Damn, Those are go carts!...........This is what you have there????

How do you get your worn out damaged back into that micro-car-ism?

LOL

Geez Louise!

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

On Sun, 15 May 2005 16:02:02 GMT, "Tim Rogers" scribbled this interesting note:

I'm sure you have similar problems in your neck of the woods, but here in Dallas County, this attitude has created the situation where the Dallas County Hospital (the famous Parkland Hospital) is in a real pickle. Despite having a very large budget, despite having one of the best medical schools in the country associated with it, despite being in one of the largest metropolitan areas of the country, this hospital system is just about broke-as in out of money. UT-Southwestern Medical School even presented them with a bill for services rendered because Parkland either couldn't or wouldn't abide by contractual agreements.

Why is this hospital out of money? Because the people who pay property taxes here finance the system. They can only pay so much. Why is that not enough? Because of the very high numbers of people (many of whom are illegal immigrants) who use that hospital emergency room for daily medical care, you know, scrapes, sniffles, the occasional stubbed toe. They choose the most expensive way possible to get what we pay our family doctor for. And who pays for it? We do, along with all the other people in Dallas County who pay property taxes. Not only does Parkland Hospital pay for the medical care of these folks who live in Dallas County, but neighboring counties have figured out they can get by without county hospitals by shipping all their deadbeat patients to Dallas!

Notice, no where have I said anyone should be denied care. But emptying my limited pockets in order to pay for normal, everyday, family practice style medical care for every homeless street person, every illegal immigrant, every poor person of any stripe who feels entitled to go to Parkland Hospital is wrong. This is where to politics comes into play. It is a political solution that is required.

How's this one grab you? When my wife was pregnant, we found an affordable solution to the question of how to pay for the hospital care we knew was coming. A local hospital offered an option to pay a certain amount of money in, pay a certain amount per visit before delivery, and all normal costs would be covered (our total costs came to somewhere around $5,000.00.) According to the folks administering the program, we were not representative of the usual clientele, although they were seeing more of "our kind", meaning folks in our particular demographic. See, we do have some, limited resources. We are both self-employed. We will never qualify for any kind of government aid. But paying our way is far from easy. Yet we continue to do so. Why? Personal responsibility. We made a decision to have a child. Just one since that is all we feel we can afford (again, personal responsibility.) We figured out a way to afford to pay for the hospital care ourselves, without making anyone else pay for it instead (again, personal responsibility.) See the trend?

Like it or not, healthcare in the US is political. It will become more so as more and more hospitals around the country go broke. Economics studies the distribution of scarce resources. In this case the money to pay for the healthcare is becoming more and more scarce, as well as the ability of hospitals to accommodate more and more low income people who are demanding their services. I can only pay so much to subsidize the day-to-day healthcare costs these folks seemingly think they are entitled to.

I've been studying these local issues for some time. Various factors go into the creation of the problem. Things like overcrowding issues in rental properties of all kinds contributes heavily to the strains being felt by locally administered governments like County Hospitals and local school districts. How? Stuff more families into limited numbers of apartments and homes and you have more people in the same amount of space yet the same amount of property taxes being paid (here in Texas most things are paid for from revenue generated from property taxes.) More people demanding services yet the same amount of taxes being paid. The probable outcome is obvious. Healthcare is only one casualty in this scenario.

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

No no! Mine is 43" tall. Those are much lower and smaller. It's a Kelmark, which is a bit of Ferrari Dino, Porsche 904 and something else... more like something else. And I won't tell you what engine it's running - suffice to say it's OT.

..............Texas like most other parts of the US has the ability and available resources to build enough hospitals and clinics to take care of everyone including the many thousands of illegal immigrants who help to make the Texas economy one of the most robust in the world. If there is a system in place where the burden for supporting this healthcare system is being unfairly placed on the shoulders of middleclass and self-employed people like yourself.............then that's a political problem in your region that goes beyond some the broader issues that face the nation as a whole.

.............There are a lot of hospitals in the Dallas area. If the other institutions in your region have manipulated the regional system there so that indigent people have to go to one place so that the private-for profit institutions can get off scott free from the responsibility of caring for the poor, then once again..........it's a political problem that's specific to your region.

...........If the middleclass people in your region like you and Scott are being encouraged to blame the poor and immigrant people who are seemingly clogging the clinics and ER at a place like Dallas Co. Med. Center instead of looking at why there's no problems in places like Highland Park where the privately insured can go Presbyterian Hospital for example.........then that's a political problem that's specific to your region.

...........I'm not trying to be a jerk about this John but each region in this country has specific conditions that are being handled in a number of different ways that are largely dictated by the political climate in that region.

Does the word "illegal" mean nothing to you? The phrase "illegal immigrants" just seems to roll off of the tongue because people talk about it all the time. It's like it's become so common that people don't even think about it when they say ILLEGAL immigrant. They are here ILLEGALLY. Breaking the law. And people have just "learned" to accept it. Just because a lot of people break a particular law doesn't mean we should just start ignoring it and accepting it, does it? It sure as hell doesn't to me. The crap I hear about illegal immigrants being willing to do jobs "that even blacks won't do" (according to the Mexican president) is just that. Crap. They may be willing to work for less, but that won't last. They are BREAKING THE LAW. That's why they are called ILLEGAL immigrants. While I'm ranting, why the fark don't we have signs up all over the place in english, spanish, french, japanese, chinese, etc? Why is it that we just have signs in english and spanish? Are we saying that spanish people are too stupid to learn english like everyone else who didn't learn english for their first language? What the fark is going on here? *sips Corona* Again, I don't get it. *throws hands in air* No comprendo!

On Sun, 15 May 2005 18:17:16 GMT, "Tim Rogers" scribbled this interesting note:

Illegal Immigrants. They are the ones who make the economy go? I understand your point, but I think you may exaggerate for effect. Illegal immigration is a multi-faceted socio-economic problem that affects the entire country, not just one region. There is not one region in the country which is unaffected in some way by this problem. The heath care angle is just one implication of that situation.

This problem is one that occurs, I would imagine, frequently, not just in the DFW area.

I am not being encouraged to blame anyone for any problems. I merely report the facts as I see them and as my limited understanding permits. Besides, I fail to see the relevance of Highland Park. People live where they want and where they can afford. If the affluent wish to congregate in Highland Park and Frisco and Allen and Prosper (I'm not making that last name up!:~) then why should anyone have any problem with that? If they afford their own health care and manage to pay for it, then they are taking personal responsibility for their own lives and living the ways they choose to live and not making anyone else pay for it.

One of the biggest problems, of which I'm sure you are aware, has to do with lower income (do you like that appellation better?) people using the hospital ERs as a kind of family practice. That is wrong. It is expensive. It is inefficient. There is nothing positive with this trend. And it pointlessly spends the hard earned money of the average taxpayer. Family medicine belongs in a family medicine setting, a small clinic, a small group practice, not in the local ER. Parkland has tried setting up satellite facilities in areas where it is most needed to try to address this issue, but it takes time to change the mind set of those who think the medical care they get at places like Parkland ER is Free. The whole point being, it isn't free at all. And a governmental agency like the County Hospital District should make certain the number one priority is spending the taxpayer's money in an efficient manner, not tossing good money after bad paying to diagnose every minor family medical problem that could most likely be taken care of just as well with a visit to the local drugstore.

I don't think you are being a jerk. I think you and Scott and I are all pretty much on the same page, just in different paragraphs. The problems illustrated here in North Texas serve to illuminate similar problems that are happening all over the country. Yes, these specific problems pertain only to the DFW area, but they may be taken as a lesson that similar problems, many times in less well off areas of the country, exist all over. It is easy to wave a hand and dismiss it all as just a local Dallas problem, but if it is a problem here, isn't it likely to be a similar problem somewhere else? After all, not every region in the country has the resources and reputations of Parkland and UT-Southwestern Medical School. Just think what those very same over crowding issues imply for hospitals with far smaller budgets and far fewer resources.

As for the Helmet issue Travis is all het up about, well, if you can afford the possibility that you may become useless because of an injury, meaning you have the personal resources or insurance that will cover all your heath care costs should you become a human cabbage, then feel free to ride without a helmet all you want. The issue here again is personal responsibility. So long as your long term health care expenses aren't transferred onto society at large, by all means ride without a helmet. Fine by me and I hope you enjoy it. I truly mean that. Same goes for seat belts so far as I'm concerned.

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

snip snip.........

................No comprendo is right. Pay attention! We're talking about treating the sick here in this thread. Shit, even the lifers in Attica who murdered their own families are getting a coronary bypass at the expense of the state whenever all the stress from being a murderer and being full of remorse and everything gives them a blockage that causes chest pain and shortness of breath which keeps them from being able to murder someone else while in prison since they don't have anything else to lose anyway because NY doesn't have death penalty because we're almost as liberal as freaking MASSACHUSETTS.