The EFF's anti-SCO congressional letter campaign

Posted Aug 29, 2003 13:40 UTC (Fri) by chad.netzer (subscriber, #4257) [Link]

Seems like YOU are the one trying to ram ideas, and generalizations, down people's throats. The polls I've seen show that the majority of americans do favor some form of national or universal healthcare, but no one quite agrees how to achieve it (and the businesses that profit from the status quo lobby heavily against ANY change, even relatively non-socialist ones). Certainly people don't want a massive tax increase to get it.

Hopefully some Canadians will comment on the inaccuracies in your portrayal of their health care system (even if it is quite off topic).

Btw, I'm not socialist, I'm a liberaltarian.

Posted Aug 30, 2003 6:04 UTC (Sat) by MLKahnt (subscriber, #6642) [Link]

I find it interesting that most Americans have never sat in on a political meeting, or watched a political debate on television, where a candidate has pursued a Socialist platform, and yet the term, to some, constitutes an epitaph for all concepts counter-American and counter-liberty. Having active socialist parties in most European countries as well as here in Canada, we've encountered their platforms as well as their values and weaknesses. I do not personally support them, but I welcome the concepts and the expansion of the range of options they bring to the political debate. I also welcome hard-right wing contributions to the spectrum of political debate - so long as the debate is honest and free from scare tactics and slurs from any side, that is part of what makes democracy work - the open availability, evaluation, and collective popular choice from among various alternatives.

On the issue of "socialised" medicine, the amount spent per person on health care in any "socialised medicine" country is substantively less than the average costs spent by an HMO system per member in the United States, representing part of the reason that sometimes a test or involved treatment cannot be conducted immediately. Having worked in the Life and Health Insurance industry on my "day-job" side for much of my working career, and having earned the Managed HealthCare Professional (MHP) designation from HIAA, I know some of the details involved here. This is an important consideration in why sometimes in the Canadian system services are not as widespread and immediately available as they are in the American environment.

In Canada, there has not been the "pooling" of medical practices that exists within HMO (and sometimes PPP) environments, meaning that the cost savings and efficiencies as well as some improved services have not been realised. Additionally, there aren't the restrictions that exist in the HMO and to a lesser degree PPP systems to restrain usage and access within the health insurance supported aspects of the system. HMOs, by their basic structure, are market meddling and management tools to cap costs, and should not honestly ever be pointed to as "free market" examples - their basic premise is to close the market choice of the patient with respect to the coverage the HMO provides for the premium paid, or force the patient to turn to alternate resources to pay for any options "declined" by the HMO. Beyond those points, the premise of public medicine is that health is too important, and too unpredictable, to be left to the vagaries of the marketplace. While hospitals and medical practitioners in any country will address immediate trauma to stabilise the victim without concern of ability to pay, when it steps beyond the realm of "basic survival" and "preventing the spread of dangerous infectious diseases" the questions of costs arise.

The Canadian version is a system that decides that certain ranges of additional services of hospitalisation to pursue recovery and health are in the nation and society's collective interest. Set rates are established between doctors' organisations and provincial health insurance systems on these plans, where the doctors are not permitted to charge additional amounts to this per procedure (similar to HMOs, although there the doctors' choice is between participating in the HMO or not, and quite often the HMO will pay doctors a set rate per "rostered" patient regardless of services provided.) Private health insurance still exists, but on matters outside the range of what the public plan covers - things like extra time in hospital after giving birth, or private hospital rooms, medical drug coverage, or better quality home recovery devices. What private insurance, or deep personal pockets doesn't permit in the Canadian system is to outbid anyone else for health care resources - health need and availability of treatment resources is the sole deciding point on priority for services in the Canadian system.

American businesses operating in Canada encourage Canada to keep the public healthcare and insurance system, as it allows them to avoid significant costs in payroll that the provision of health insurance through employment constitutes to them in the United States. Why should employers be expected to finance health insurance, even at the reduced costs of HMO plans? Private basic health insurance in the United States is widely considered an aspect of standard remuneration where enough competing employers offer such coverage to gain/hold skilled staff - where basic health insurance is provided by the state, employers enjoy the liberty to compete for workers on the basis of the nature of the job, actual pay and actual work conditions. Additionally, when changing jobs, people in Canada don't need to worry about "pre-existing" health conditions arising and being denied coverage. Sure, the private health plans on top are nice, but with basic health care being provided from the tax rolls under public health insurance, private coverage is far less expensive to employers and far less of a consideration to employees.

Posted Aug 30, 2003 19:00 UTC (Sat) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

I live in Estonia<http://www.riik.ee/en/>,
Eastern Europe. In our case, we have a medical system,
where any citizen, who works or is unemployed,
gets a "healthcare card" which gives the
person the right to get all the necessary
medical care, that the local healthcare
foundation has to offer.
Serious operations are performed in the hospitals
funded by the local healthcare foundations but there exist
some small privately held (commercial)clinics
and medical institutions, that deal with births,
cosmetic surgery, psychotherapy, artificial fertilization,
etc. Generally the state healthcare foundation does
not cover the costs, if the medical services are
provided in the commercial medical institution, but still
pretty often even the commercial institutions have
some kind of a contract, so that sometimes the healthcare
foundation covers some part of the costs. Almost all
of the dentists operate privately and if any of them
used an 1950 technology, it would be definitely out of business
in a month or two.

The most advanced operations,
like neurology, heart operations, liver transfers, etc,
are made in 2 hospitals: one in Tartu and another
in Tallinn. There exists one dedicated hospital for cancer
treatment.
In the most severe cases, the patients are sent
from local hospitals to one of the two advanced hospitals.
Unfortunately, because of financial reasons, there does
not exist any air ambulance in Estonia. Local emergency
services coperate with other
governmental and nongovernmental institutions in order to
use a civilian copter or an army transportation
plane for sending the worst patients to one of the 2
advanced hospitals.
First aid is always for free, even to the ones, who
do not have the "healthcare card"(uninsured noncitizens) and
nobody has to wait a month for an ambulance: if it's serious,
ambulance will be present in 5min in urban areas
and in approximately 0,5h in rather deserted areas.
If it's a single small island in the
sea, like Ruhnu island, then, indeed, it will probably take hours
to get to the nearest hospital. In that case, because of lack
of finances, it's probably the coastguards, who have
to come to the rescue and probably there are no copters
available.
Estonia is a very poor country with a population of
approximately 1400 000 and the main problems in our
healthcare system are due to lack of finances, but
what I want to say is, that even in case of such a poor
country as Estonia, a healthcare system, which covers
almost all of the citizens on an equal bases, is not
as bad as many people think it is.
Indeed, most of the local hospitals
have obsolete equipment and in many cases the cost of
HIV and cancer treatment medicines is a huge problem, but
the almost all advanced operations are performed with up to date
equipment and the skills of the doctors do play a huge role
in the quality of the medical services.
For instance, my stepfather is a Finn and his
brother had a motorcycle accident
in Estonia. Estonian doctors patched the guy up and flew
him back to Finland for recovery. Finnish doctors said, that
the Estonians have done a great job and advised the guy
to start doing exercises. But the unfortunate thing was, that
the Finnish were not able to determine, if the bones were
grown back together or not, and as the whole bodyweight was
resting on the metal construction, which was screwed in to
the bones, the metal construction just broke. So, if I were
to choose between an average Finnish hospital or an advanced
Estonian hospital, I prefere the latter.

Posted Aug 29, 2003 12:22 UTC (Fri) by dwalters (subscriber, #4207) [Link]

My point is that if you're going to write to your congressperson, make sure what you're writing is accurate, and isn't something SCO will be able to easily deny.

What do you want the community to do? Sit back and watch them FUD Linux all the way to town?

Of course not. But if FUD's the issue, then write that in your letter to your congressperson. The EFF boilerplate letter says that SCO have made the decision to sue individual users of Linux. But actually, they haven't!

Posted Aug 29, 2003 12:29 UTC (Fri) by bwaldow (guest, #14579) [Link]

Yes, we should do something. But using Congress to do something here is like using a fish to loosen a rusted nut - it's not the right tool.
Congress's job is to make Federal laws, subject to the dictates of the Constitution. The Executive branch's job is to carry out those laws, subject to the dictates of the Constitution. The Judiciary's (Courts) job is to see the laws are applied fairly when there's a dispute, subject to the dictates of the Constitution. (No one has authority except as proceeds from the Constitution.)
The existing laws will handle this situation just fine. It may be appropriate to involve the Executive organisations to get them carried out (the SEC, the Attorney's Office, etc.) but not Congress.
If we want different Federal laws, we involve Congress (we don't need them here). If we want the laws enforced, we involve the Executive branch. If there's an argument about who's right, we involve the Courts.
Existing law, if applied, will deal with SCO nicely. Involving Congress is a waste of time and money.