declocoug wrote:
I think the funniest thing is that we now think we are "advanced" and "developed" and "modern" when in rseality, those same adjectives were used to describe doctors and medicine at that time that seems so barbaric.
It's true that we know exponentially more than we did then, but we are still fumbling in the dark just as much now as they were then. In 200 years, they'll be looking at today's medicine as ignorant, crazy, and reckless. yay for science!
I'm wondering how much Obamacare (hopefully gets repealed, saw a huge first step today) will slow down the medical technologies train.
Agreed that medical knowledge has grown exponentially, even in the last seventy years, and the dissemination of esoteric knowledge has improved immensely with the internet. Medicine is now legitimately categorized as a science, and being science driven. Research studies are much better designed to control confusing variables, and the statistical math is also much more capable of rendering meaningful interpretation of results.
The totalitarian socialists among us (prominent Democrats including Hillary, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, etc) believe that modern, scientific medicine is gluttonous and immoral because it is income driven. These people believe further that the proliferation of medical specialties and sub-specialties is frivolous and excessive. They have advocated cutting back on specialists in favor of expanding the numbers of primary care providers, even to the point of the disenfranchisement of specialists unless they retrain. They are more interested in finding a pathway to sustainability of universal care than they are in maintaining the quality of that care-- which means that they do not give a damn if quality drops precipitously. They promote the monstrous lie that America's health care is behind that of 22 or more other industrialized nations, and they deliberately allow the public to misunderstand them to mean "in quality" of said care. The only truth there, is that many other countries now have universal coverage via government-provided insurance, and they neglect to point out the severe drop in quality and accessibility of care that has resulted from such compromise in those countries. Apparently, these socialists are willing to qualify health care as adequate, only if the insurance is universal, and provided without cost to all indigents and illegals at the expense of the "wealthy (that faction which is already paying for theirs, even if they are only just above poverty level)."
Contrary to what these communists preach, we owe much of our world-leading quality of care to two things:
1: the proliferation of scientifically proven treatment methodologies and the medical sub-specialties that support them, and
2: the profit/income driven system (an essential part of a free, competitive society) that provides powerful incentive to seek improvements/new developments and keeps medical providers motivated to please their clientele, who should remain free to choose/change providers.
Hillary's plans for the dumbing down of American health care were likened (by Bill Frist IIRC) to "the torching of that great library at Alexandria." Obama Care will be the same. Also, every citizen who now pays for their own insurance will get severely hosed by Obama, receiving much less while paying much more. It is not only the sharpest form of wealth redistribution, but an implement to pull power from people, and place it in the hands of aspiring despots (that's what communism is all about, folks).
I salute those states with the wisdom and courage to say "NO" to Obama Care. Hopefully, reason and sanity will prevail, and we will be able to keep what we have, regardless of the pejoratives that the Neo-Comms continually try to attach to it.
