Privatize Center For Disease Control?

I can imagine that. Blackwater was a very expensive way to fight the Iraq war. We've already shot a huge wad out the door at private military contractors. In fact, if we eliminated private contractors in the military we could probably cut that budget in half.

That's my point. You're either in favor of socialized medicine or you aren't. You're either in favor of socialized anything or you aren't. Of course there are those rare few who believe in a balance between the two. We have a name for them: independents.

I really don't see why we can trust Blackwater to fight the Iraq war but not the private sector to fight the war on disease. Where do we draw the line between treating human ailments between the public and private sectors?

 

Expenditures on private military contractors is 1/2 of the budget? Whose ass did you pull that number out of?

 

Dick Cheney's ass.

I'm really just trying to get a feel though about the healthcare issue. How much of our taxpaying money is going to go to socialized health entities?

 

Just thought I'd point out that 85% of the posters here think it's a terrible idea to leave vital public health up to private entities.

When talking about epidemics that are overtaking our working poor, one wonders what the definition of "vital" is?

In recent days health-insurance schills have been celebrating their latest "victory" in keeping the American worker sick, uninsured and unattractive to industry. No industry, no GDP. No GDP, no America.

So either you're for public healthcare entities or you aren't. Which is it?

 

Here's what's illogical: you think that cancer is a communicable disease.

 

I realize this thread is a satire now, but it is really hard to tell given how many Rightwingers a few months ago came out in favor of privatizing hurricane warning and weather monitoring.

 

No, that's the thing. It isn't satire. Not really. It's more of a didactic device to show the apathic neocons how absurd their world of absolutes is when it comes to their supposed shunning of "big government" or "evils of socialism".

They love big government when they reap the benefits. They're perfectly fine with socialist healthcare programs like the CDC if it keeps cholera from their front doorstep. But if someone else wants to keep something from coming to their front doorstep, like the epidemic environmental cancers are [thanks for the example], then their desires to be able to be screened for early signs or receive early and lifesaving treatment are "out of line", "sucking off the system" and "evil lazy socialists".

This thread is about hypocrisy first and foremost. But if it gives you a chuckle, then by all means, enjoy yourself silly..

 

Yeah let's just nationalize everything.

 

The CDC is primarily research. It doesn't provide healthcare. Saying the CDC provides healthcare is like claiming NOAA provides weather or USGS provides earthquakes.

 

He said 'epidemics of cancer'. Epidemics doesn't mean solely communicable diseases.

Btw cancers can be triggered by communicable diseases such as HPV and certain infections which are communicable.

 

And don't forget environmental causes of cancer. If a large area is saturated with carcinogens, you could call the inhabitants of that area susceptible to "contagion" that way..

Sorry..

OMG!! It's......SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!!! Hide your children! Run for the hills! Put the money under the mattress...the commie pinko liberal secret police are going to steal your money and give it to deadbeats who are a drain on the system!!

 

The CDC, because it's a government agency, has posted politically advantageous and factually incorrect information on the website. The first one to come to mind is the cost in dollars and lives of obesity. When it was pointed out that they were lying their explanation was just like the alarmists everywhere. To paraphrase, "We don't want peope to think obesity isn't a major problem so we posted erroneous, and exaggerating, information".

Let's see, who do I trust, the government or business. Oh, heck, I'll go with business. Every business that ever gave me a job also gave me a paycheck.

 

That's a huge laugh. They singlehandedly made Flu vaccines almost impossible to get. The regulations are so onerous that only one company even bothers any more.

How's the view from under there?

 

The regulations are there in part to keep private medicine in control. That's why with vaccines there is this cumbersome and redundant chain of command that distributes them.

Take away the private sector's influence on keeping that process cumbersome [and therefore not a threat of becoming a viable public health extension..egads!] and you'll have a much cheaper/faster and efficient health service delivery system.

Look at how lobbiests for private health entities have hogtied the process so far. I mean you can smell the backroom deals in Congress setting it up this way to keep the CDC penned and not breaking out into the private sector's consumer base:

So they're buying the vaccines from the private sector. And if there is a snag in distribution of vaccines, you can trace it back to failure in the private sector. I used to work at a lab in the private sector that developed vaccines. They can only do so much if an epidemic springs up and large quantities are needed suddenly.

OK Patrick, while we're paraphrasing...lol..

You just said "I'm lying to protect the private sector's stake in profits off of managing obesity. If I agree that obesity is an epidemic, I've allowed the People as a collective [ie the CDC] to act to control this epidemic. That's scary. I want my stocks to be nice and fat no matter how many suffer at the private sector's ineptness to deliver viable [affordable] care to reach the many affected."

[paraphrased]

 

I notice the poll went up to 87+ % yesterday before it came back down to 82 from one other brave poster that decided the private sector's unending compassion for the human race would act with due diligence to save citizens in times of epidemics, even if they couldn't afford the vaccines..

 

(*)(*)(*)(*) NO! The real human suffering that would result from privatizing CDC is not justified just because some people think the federal government should be stripped of authority. (*)(*)(*)(*) this idea.

 

But that means that you support socialized medical programs.

How is it that you support small government and socialized medicine?

Are you saying that health concerns of the masses are somehow related to our viability as a productive nation capable of competing in foreign markets? Are you saying a hybrid system would be a healthy compromise?

Maybe we're attacking this thing from the wrong angle. After all, it's called "the Center for Disease Control". Disease is the reason people show up at any clinic or hospital. Perhaps we simply broaden the scope of their reach? Change some language in their bylaws and call it good? If they act to prevent disease, then how are they different from clinics doing checkups? If they intervene as disease is going on, how are they different from hospitals?

 

Now that covers a wide swath of public human health. Why have we not had more of an outcry about this insidious socialist organization lurking just under the radar?

Here's their commie, pinko, fascist, liberal left agenda statement:

[They have several according to category, follow this link to select one. This one is from the noncommunicable disease category: http://www.cdc.gov/maso/mab_Charts_CIO.htm ]

The bold print says it all. The CDC is already a de facto universal public health entity!

The martians have already invaded and they've blended into the crowd!

Guess what hospitals and clinics also do? They "promote and support noncommunicable diseases", their labs deal with "health-related science".

Mayday! Mayday! All private sector health entities to battle stations! We have encroachment.. repeat..we have encroachment!!

 

If you follow the chain of custody backwards in the vaccination protocol, you see that private industry failed to make the vaccines availible. And how convenient to have that symbiotic relationship for private industry to blame "the government" for its own failings?

 

Well I wasn't being thorough in the title of this thread.

The public healthcare program is actually called "The Center for Disease Control and Prevention".

Preventing disease is a hinge concept actually. In herds of animals the rancher knows that the health of a few can adversely affect all the stock. If a few animals are neglected and contract a pathogen, they serve as reservoirs to pass that pathogen throughout the herd that otherwise would be not getting it. So more will go down if the few aren't culled.

So unless the GOP is talking about culling the sick, we'd better make sure each downed member has access to better care.

 

What? Nobody is crying that taxpayer dollars are going to treat the uninsured?

C'mon neocons, down with the CDC! Right?

 

I still would like to know who the three people are who voted yes.

 

Really? Wow...possibly the stupidest idea I've heard in quite a while.

Privatize disease research and public health safety? So a flu shot could cost a few hundred bucks, the search for cures can be entirely stopped and the focus turned to only "treating" the disease, and we can round it off with a healthy dose of lets cheat the FDA as much as possible.

 

I tend to agree it's a stupid idea. But the main point is that we already have a universal care program in place and the neocons aren't touching it. Usually healthcare threads on this site get beat up and spammed like there's no tomorrow. Not this one..

Nope..

It just slips silently onto the back pages. The neocons hoping that nobody will notice it..

 

I agree about the health care threads.

Hell we do indeed already have socialist health care, its called medicare.

So in that aspect I completely agree with you.

However, the CDC doesn't really provide health care. It's services center more around disease research and control. I don't believe they provide much in the line of healthcare on a wide spread scale. I could be wrong there however.