Michael Moore...Sicko (

[misombra]

Is that what you call your posts after they are debunked?

you didn't debunk my post. you asked a question while continuing to fail to get it. sorry mish. get a sense of humor, maybe then you will get it.

[Mish]

Yeah, this is bullshit. Here in Oklahoma, "Natives" have a choice to whether they want to be registered with their tribe or not. They're treated no differently than anybody else.

In fact, they're probably treated better than most minorities when you consider all the ridiculous educational benefits/offers they'll get when they check off "Native American" on standardized tests.

I don't know what it's like in Oklahoma, but statistically (Around the country) they have it a lot worse. Please read the article I posted. I can link you up with more.

EDIT: Also, representing the asian and white demographic, I do not have health insurance either. I could get it, but then I'd probably be breaking even month to month and thus, would not be able to do the things I want to.

Well, wouldn't you want to be covered automatically? Then you won't have to worry how much money you will loose if something happens to you. If you are saving up for something, you won't have to worry that if you have a health problem you won't have to choose between saving up and suffering or paying the doctor and loosing all of your savings?

[Mish]

you didn't debunk my post. you asked a question while continuing to fail to get it. sorry mish. get a sense of humor, maybe then you will get it.

Okay, now you're just starting to make things up.

[misombra]

We have a similar issue with Aborigines in Australia. I mentioned this because Miso seemed to insist that native americans have it so much better in US, when in fact their situation is just as bad if not worse compared to Aborigines here.

no, you're not hearing me. i did not insist that. i was just trying to point out that people also fall through the cracks in your health care system and if you have enough to energy to focus on our health care system, maybe you should turn your focus toward your own country, don't you think?

but if you do want to focus on ours, come down here for a while and see for yourself what it's like.

[vashti]

We have a similar issue with Aborigines in Australia. I mentioned this because Miso seemed to insist that native americans have it so much better in US, when in fact their situation is just as bad if not worse compared to Aborigines here.

I would need to see some comparative data about that. While I know that certain tribes are in bad shape, the California tribes - as I said - are raking in the money. So much, in fact, that a lot of people are starting to oppose the casinos because they are exempt from paying federal, state, and local taxes. Maybe they should take the money they are rolling in and purchase some sort of tribal health insurance?

I wouldn't mind being an Indian in California (or any other state that allows casinos).

[Junket]

I don't know what it's like in Oklahoma, but statistically (Around the country) they have it a lot worse. Please read the article I posted. I can link you up with more.



Well, wouldn't you want to be covered automatically? Then you won't have to worry how much money you will loose if something happens to you. If you are saving up for something, you won't have to worry that if you have a health problem you won't have to choose between saving up and suffering or paying the doctor and loosing all of your savings?

I don't need to see your websites.

Look at it this way, the amount of Natives pales in comparison to most minorities in the US. Plus, under the circumstances stated by Vash, the percentage of them not having insurance would easily be greater.

This idea that they're treated worse than Australia's Natives is something I cannot argue against, because I've never lived in Australia, but I can tell you that Natives have the same opportunities if not more than any minority in the United States.

Here in Oklahoma (aka "Native America"), the reservations here actually have their own hospital. I don't know whether or not if Natives living on the reservations even need insurance or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[Mish]

no, you're not hearing me. i did not insist that. i was just trying to point out that people also fall through the cracks in your health care system and if you have enough to energy to focus on our health care system, maybe you should turn your focus toward your own country, don't you think?

I have my focus on my own country and I do what I can to help as I already said in my previous posts. This thread is not about my country though, it's about yours. I know there are problems in my country as well and I try to help as best I can. But what about you? Do you try to help as best as you can in your country as well?

but if you do want to focus on ours, come down here for a while and see for yourself what it's like.

Are you inviting me over?

[vashti]

I don't know whether or not if Natives living on the reservations even need insurance or not. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

Good point.

[misombra]

I have my focus on my own country and I do what I can to help as I already said in my previous posts. This thread is not about my country though, it's about yours. I know there are problems in my country as well and I try to help as best I can. But what about you? Do you try to help as best as you can in your country as well?

and your posts take up the majority of it. but keep going. they actually prove how little you know.


Are you inviting me over?


sure. you can stay at giga's house. maybe she could flirt with you in front of caliboy.

[Mish]

I would need to see some comparative data about that. While I know that certain tribes are in bad shape, the California tribes - as I said - are raking in the money. So much, in fact, that a lot of people are starting to oppose the casinos because they are exempt from paying federal, state, and local taxes. Maybe they should take the money they are rolling in and purchase some sort of tribal health insurance?

I wouldn't mind being an Indian in California (or any other state that allows casinos).

I couldn't find comparative data for you Vash which compares apples to apples because census formats are different in our countries and because Australia doesn't have citizents which are uninsured.

But I know from personal reasearch that life for native americans especially outside cities is not peachy. Native Americans are not one race, they are many races seperated by tribe and state. So even though you say "they" referring to Californian Native Americans, these could be entirely different people compared to Native Americans in the east. This is from US government sources.

Native American Quotes:
[url]http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html[/url]

Health Insurance

Based on a three-year average (2001-2003), 27.5 percent of people who reported American Indian and Alaska native as their only race were without coverage, lower than the uninsured rate for Hispanics (32.8 percent) but higher than that of the other race groups. Comparisons of two-year moving averages (2001-2002 and 2002-2003) showed that the uninsured rate for American Indians and Alaska natives did not change.

[url]http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/archive/poverty_statistics2001.shtml[/url]

The three-year-average (1999-2001) poverty rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives was 24.5 percent, with an estimated 800,000 living in poverty.

[url]http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/IncomePovertyWelfare/HighPoverty/Analysis.htm[/url]

The high poverty rate in 40 nonmetro counties resulted from low income among Native Americans, including Alaskan Natives. The poverty rate of Native Americans in these counties was 41 percent, a level greater than that of the dominant minority in other types of high-poverty counties. The Native American counties did not simply have a greater incidence of poverty, they also had the highest proportion in deep poverty. A full fifth of the total population in these areas lived in households with incomes below 75 percent of the poverty line.

Native Americans in high-poverty counties are much more likely to be children (along with the parent or parents with whom they live) than older people, compared with high-poverty minorities in other areas. Native American high-poverty counties have 5.9 poor children under age 18 for each poor person age 65 and over.

[IndiReloaded]

Imagine if fire department operated in the same way as health care system in your country? Imagine your neighbour's house burns down and noone responds. Then fire spreads, your own house catches on fire, by the time someone responds to your call you'll have nothing left. You can apply the same logic to health care. If you don't consider being empathic as a moral duty, consider diseases how much easier these could spread if tens of millions of people are simply refused treatment if they are uninsured.

This is an excellent point & is already relevant (ref: various drug-resistant strains of microbes). So many reasons NOT to stay in a hospital these days.

[Mish]

and your posts take up the majority of it. but keep going. they actually prove how little you know.

Miso, you sometimes susrprise me with your irrational randomness in response to my posts. How does this have anything to do with talking about US health care in US health care thread instead of Australia?

Are you inviting me over?

Yup, come over. I'll show you around

sure. you can stay at giga's house. maybe she could flirt with you in front of caliboy.

You're inviting me over to Giga's house instead of your own? What a great friend you are.

[misombra]

Miso, you sometimes susrprise me with your irrational randomness in response to my posts. How does this have anything to do with talking about US health care in US health care thread instead of Australia?



Yup, come over. I'll show you around



You're inviting me over to Giga's house instead of your own? What a great friend you are.

i was quoting you mish. lol.

anyway, it had nothing to do with the topic. i already spoke my peace. i have no time or energy to argue with you.

[Junket]

Native Americans in high-poverty counties are much more likely to be children (along with the parent or parents with whom they live) than older people, compared with high-poverty minorities in other areas. Native American high-poverty counties have 5.9 poor children under age 18 for each poor person age 65 and over.

Heh, I feel like that says it all right there.

People need to learn to stop poppin' out the babies.

My girlfriend works for a non-profit agency funded by the government that processes and determines whether or not a family will get free or discounted daycare.

The majority of the applicants she says she's processes are single moms with at least two children, and often between 3-5 children. Being in Texas, many of them are Mexican.

I rarely feel sorry for those mothers.

[TheSphinx]

Picture yourself having no money, having nothing on your resume that could give you a good job, having no knowledge of what's required of you out there to succeed, how are you going to do it? Picture yourself in a poor person's situation. Picture yourself as one. What would you do?

Make a choice to gain the knowledge I need or do the work I need to advance.

Then imagine, just when you just started to succeed and make a better life for yourself you suddenly found you had a health condition which if only you had medical insurance you wouldn't have to spend every last penny you earn on it.

Well isn't that hell? I can't count the times I've saved up money and then lost it due to sudden home repairs, vehicle maintenance, etc. It's a risk of living, but in answer to this scenario - I would spend every last penny and then get to work on making more pennies right away.

At the moment money is taken from your pocket to fund social services such as postal services, fire departments, police, library services. Is it also unjust that you have to pay for that? You don't necesarily use them all the time, why should you be paying? What about roads? You don't neccesarily use those all the time as well, espeically if you don't have a car. Is it unjust that money has to be taken from your pocket to pay for them?

Yep, but I use all of these, so I have no quarrels. I can vote for officials who will in turn, vote for, create or modify bills which affect the operations of each of the examples you listed. Let me know if you hear of a candidate who says he is going to make a law which requires people eat only certain foods along with banning "unhealthy" food businesses and mandating that, under threat of punishment or fines, one must exercise regularly.

And how about this. Money is being taken from your pocket to fund a war in another country. Is it just or unjust that you are paying for this war when you could've just spent that money on universal health care instead to make your health care system more fair?

I helped put some of the officials who voted for the war in office by voting. I made a choice, and now I am living with the consequences. It's hard to say what sort of attacks (if any) we would be facing here in the United States if we had not responded in such a manner. We'll probably see more as a result of our actions. But I would be pretty upset if I walked cheerfully out of a free hospital visit with a clean bill of health only to get torched in some sort of bombing.

And it's a system that makes health care distribution more fair for all citizents in your country.

I have no problem with people who have a lot of purchasing power being able to afford things I can't. Life isn't fair and I can live with that. Can you?

Imagine iffire department operated in the same way as health care system in your country? Imagine your neighbour's house burns down and noone responds. Then fire spreads, your own house catches on fire, by the time someone responds to your call you'll have nothing left. You can apply the same logic to health care. If you don't consider being empathic as a moral duty, consider diseases how much easier these could spread if tens of millions of people are simply refused treatment if they are uninsured.

Imagine a privately owned fire department. They will respond damn quick if they want to keep my business. They will have to offer a better service and reasonable price compared to the fire department across the street for me to sign on in the first place.

You have them partly because of the efforts of the poor, of the people who on the daily basis provide services doing crappy unrewarding jobs. Don't you think you have a social responsibility to make sure these people have at least basic health care?

I also owe a huge "thank you!" to the rich who took the time and energy to dream up, plan and set successful businesses in motion. They provide me with a job!

And social responsibility?

Don't get me wrong, Mish, I love to volunteer and I will donate money on occasion, but how can a responsibility be altruistic?

~Sphinx