Privatize Center For Disease Control?

Here is a thread to discuss getting rid of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control. Now we hear a lot about getting government out of the way of the private sector. Should we privatize the CDC?

You get a chance to vote and to speak your mind about why we should or should not get rid of the CDC, or should or should not privatize it.

 

Totally support CDC and their work. Infectous diseases are not dead nor are Flus.

 

CDC, we owe you for making sure diseases are dealt with.

 

Why would we want to privatize an entity whose mission is antithetical to profit making?

 

>>>Hell no, CDC shouldn't be privatized. That'd be like turning the launch codes over to Wall Street.

 

I think the CDC is a legitimate role of gov't as opposed to sending taxpayer-funded food stamp debit cards to welfare queens for votes.

_

 

Egads no that would be terrible. We cant even trust walstreet to make money lets not trust them with our lives!

 

First thing that comes to mind in support of the CDC is that no other organization or company, public or private, is prepared to act on a national level as swiftly as they are in the face of an immediate health threat. HIV and SARS are the two examples that come to mind where the CDC acted more quickly than anyone else. Really, there isn't any money in being prepared like that, so I don't think any private enterprise would even step into that role. Also, I don't trust a private company to have the authority to close sea and airports, or otherwise restrict travel.

 

Keep the CDC as a government agency.

 

The government should not impose "what's best" on each company/individual. The government role in the CDC should be removed. Privatizing it is nice, but if the free market does not create a private regulatory body, it is not the position of the government to force there to be one.

 

Great idea lets make the CDC a for profit entity...Where do people come up with this crap?

 

Out of curiosity, can you provide an example when the CDC imposed "what's best" on an individual in a situation where there was some ambiguity as to what was best? I'm pretty sure not spreading infectious disease is in everybody's best interest.

 

Here's a good reason NOTHING should be privatized:

"Dan Miller, Harrisburg's [PA] controller, points to Chicago as a cautionary tale: Parking rates there more than quadrupled after the city leased its meters to a private entity in 2008. That deal, set to last 75 years, low-balled the parking meters' value by about $1 billion, the city's inspector general later determined. Miller calls Chicago's experience "horrific.""

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/harrisburg-parking-privatization_n_877568.html

 

I think it needs to remain under government control but run like a business , too many government agencies are run haphazardly they need to use a private sector model like LEAN to remain efficient

 

SFJEFF, Do you mean the mission of preserving human life from deadly diseases?

 

Wow what an absurd statement...Proves my point about libertarians, they feel everything should be privatized and for profit only. Yeah real good idea im sure a private owned CDC will regulate themselves quite well! Your post is stupid.

 

To help achieve these goals, the Strategy identifies evidence-based recommendations that are most likely to reduce the burden of leading causes of preventable death and major illness. The Strategy's seven priority areas are:

• Tobacco free living
• Preventing drug abuse and excessive alcohol use
• Healthy eating
• Active living
• Injury and violence-free living
• Reproductive and sexual health
• Mental and emotional wellbeing

http://www.cdc.gov/Features/PreventionStrategy/​

That's not controlling our lives...

 

The government is responsable for the common defense of its people. I believe that includes attacks by diseases weather manmade or not. This is one of the few instances where only a federlised entity could possibly handle the magnitude of destruction that can be caused by disease.

 

I bolded the part that you seem to have missed.

 

Instead of flamebaiting and using arguments parallel to those found in a 7th-grader argument, how about you tell me why the government should be telling me what is best for me?

 

>>>I've never seen any proof that the private sector model is any more efficient than the public sector model. You got some?

 

They don't have to... most are already laws

 

Well Said!

 

Crawdadr, which diseases should we trust to the government to control and which ones to the private sector? Should we dole them out like that? Plagues may come and go but surely not everyone would die from them. People who could afford to can get vaccines from a private CDC. Other than that, people are freeloading. What's the difference between dying of polio or dying of cancer? Either way you're six feet under in the end. Which death is more important?

 

Of the things on that list, only part of one is illegal (drug abuse) and that's only for prescribed and illegal drugs. Also, government was outlawing drugs before the CDC even existed, so I don't see how you can fault the CDC for it. Care to cite an actual example of the CDC imposing "what's best" on an individual in a situation where "what's best" is ambiguous?