The point of this being that the OS should be separate from everything. Everybody should have the same access to it. That means development tool makers, application makers, etc. should all become property of another company. That company may choose to divide itself up or sell off some of the apps or tools, but that's up to them. As long as the company with the OS isn't making apps or development software, I'll be ok with it.
the first thing DOJ should have done was to define what an operating system is, and then define what an application is.
I believe they did this. They even used Microsoft's own definition of "application" taken from their dictionary. Microsoft disputed the definitions though (even their own, go figure).
Give each one of them the rights to all the MS intellectual property and we can all buy one of the companies, and hence the right to use the MS code, with the spare change under our couch cushions.:)
MICROS~1 should be broken up into seperate companies 1 to do OSes, 1 to do consumer apps, 1 to do commercial/enterprise apps, and one to do software develpoment apps.
What is the point of splitting them along those lines? Why split consumer apps apart from commercial/enterprise apps? I could possibly see why software development apps should be split off. They should be given the same access to the OS as any other 3rd party developer. But why should they necessarily be cut off from the company that does the consumer or commercial/enterprise app development?
I've never been a big fan of splitting Microsoft up. I'd rather see them forced to publish a pricelist based solely on volume and forbidden from using MDAs or any other such deal to favor certain OEMs that do as Microsoft wishes. This method probably requires a bit more thought in order to close all the loopholes, but I think it might be more effective as well. Just my opinion though.
Oh gimme a break. Nobody is punishing Microsoft for being successful. Only idiots keep trying to trot out that tired line. Microsoft is being prosecuted for breaking some pretty well-established laws. They are called anti-trust laws. They are part of what keeps our current system running properly. Without them the system probably wouldn't work. It would at least need significant changes to make it work, and then it wouldn't really be the same system. Just because the recent Republican administrations have resisted enforcing the laws doesn't mean they have disappeared.
Ok, point taken on the cable service. I guess I assumed that ISPs would be given some sort of negotiating power to keep them from getting the same crappy service that regular users get.
So basically the only thing to worry about is the fact that DSL is very short-range (meaning it will take quite a long while to get to the point where it can provide effective competition with cable), satellite service is too expensive (but will probably be the only alternative for people who aren't in the cable or DSL service areas), and cable is too concentrated in the hands of a couple companies (again, less competition). I still believe that the cable companies should still be regulated since they have little to no competition. I live in a city of approx. 1 million. We have 1 cable provider. No choice whatsoever. Cable companies managed to hamstring satellite by preventing them from offering local channels. Now if you want satellite and local channels, you have to get an antenna too. There goes the competition, especially for people who can't normally pick up the local channels due to their location.
Sounds like I've been online as long as you. It doesn't change the fact that things don't appear to be going well. The bandwidth you're enjoying now won't last if some real competition doesn't show up in a hurry.
The opening of the cable networks will add more users on the network and the bandwidth of current users will drop to near modem speeds.
Why? Why is this more likely to happen with the networks open than closed? The cable companies are still signing people up as fast as they can. People either want it or they don't. It shouldn't matter how many companies are offering it. If there are more companies, they'll have more incentive to distinguish themselves via better prices and usage policies. They'll be taking customers from the major cable companies, not just pulling more people in off the street. If there is only one company, they have no incentive to provide better service. They're just trying to sign up as many people as possible, service be damned.
Cable companies will still own the pipes the only competition will be about who you get your IP address from.
You are still going to have to pay the cable companies for the data service then you will have to pay the isp ontop of what you pay the cable compaines.
Competitors wouldn't have to pay what you or I pay for access to these networks. Not any more than competing phone companies do for access to the phone networks. I fail to see why we should let cable go the route of the phone companies. Do we really have to let them get that bad before we decide to do something?
DSL connections (which is basically the same thing, you pay for the line then pay the ISP) and are generally twice that of a dialup.
DSL costs twice that of a regular dialup, but delivers a lot more speed. Sounds like a fair trade. I'd gladly pay $40 instead of my current $20 per month for 10 times the speed.
Give it time and it will work itself out. Patients IS a virtue.
Given time, they'll just gain more power and become more difficult to fix. Just like the phone companies. Then we'll have to spend years and millions of dollars in court to fix the problems. Patience may be a virtue, but it's not applicable to every situation. Patients are only a virtue if you're a doctor.:)
As you say, few people have the choices you have. ISDN is expensive. DSL is not available anywhere near me. That leaves cable. Which means I have to take it or leave it. I have no other broadband choice. According to the phone company, I won't have the DSL option for at least another year, and probably longer than that. I do think that cable companies should have to open up their networks. Just as phone companies do. Not for free, but not for outrageous prices that eliminate the chances of creating effective competition either. They wouldn't have those networks in the first place if it wasn't for the government's assistance. Cable companies need to have competition. They've gotten way too fat and complacent. Only recently have they even started doing anything for the customer, and that's only because they saw that they could get knocked off their perch. Open up the networks and let's see what happens when there's real competition.
Without certain regulatory agencies, we probably wouldn't have the communications infrastructure we have today. Business couldn't have done it alone. It was way too expensive and too risky. Not to mention they couldn't have gotten around the legal hurdles without having the government's assistance. Even assuming some company did manage to figure out a way around those problems, we'd probably be a lot worse off. It would have ended up being one huge monopoly and we'd probably have even worse programming than we have now (can you even imagine that?)
The way it worked on earth is that you own as much as you can defend. We could legitimately say we claim the moon as US territory, defending that claim is another matter.
That's the problem. Without competition the service is likely to go down the crapper. They'll set up bandwidth caps and try to squeeze more people in all the time without worrying about maintaining service levels. After all, what choice do you have if you want broadband?
Wake up. If property rights are the only thing at work here, then what gives the cable company the right to dig up my back yard even though I don't want cable? Come back when you have a clue.
This was a Scientific American story a month or two ago. They listed several ways of defeating the sort of system that the government is planning. All of them are pretty simple and relatively inexpensive ways to defeat a system that will cost us a bundle.
Not in my high school, but probably being installed as we speak.
We didn't have card locks... that kind of system would probably have been too expensive.
>>>transparent book bags
Or no bags.
Those were the two options at my high school. Either a transparent plastic or mesh bag or no bag at all. Choose wisely.
>>>armed guards cruising the hallways.
My school had guards, but they were not armed.
We had the armed kind.
Our school literally looked like a prison. It was a two-story square. There were covered walkways around the courtyard square. The upper floor walkway wasn't covered, it just had a railing. You came in and left through the first-floor gated corners of the building. These were usually locked or guarded. We didn't have mandatory drug testing. Perhaps there were some legal issues they hadn't managed to get around yet. They did have metal detectors installed a couple years after I graduated. Not sure about the ID badges. They were trying to make uniforms mandatory throughout the district recently, but I don't think they managed it yet.
Since her book uses the word 'male' instead of 'mail', it has a totally different meaning. So what if it sounds like their trademarked phrase? They don't have a trademark on "You've Got Male." As more and more companies snatch up more and more of the english language to make their own, something will have to give. Either we toss out the language or we start punishing companies for these idiotic trademark suits. If you try to trademark a common phrase, you deserve to be tossed out of court.
Over not so many people have guns, so its much less likely that somebody would ever threaten you with one.
So, basically, I should just give up my gun and hope it never happens to me? Sorry, that doesn't make me feel better.
Perhaps you could still get mugged, but you'd be unlikely to get killed.
Since when do criminals obey gun laws? We banned drugs, but it didn't make them any more difficult to obtain. I could go get some right now if I wanted to.
I think its much too easy to kill somebody with a gun, self-defence to a lot of Americans seems to equate to killing your attacker -> I think that's wrong, self-defence should be just that.
I take it that you think that killing someone who may kill you is, well, overkill? Why? Someone who is willing to point a gun at me and demand that I do something that they have no right to make me do, with the consequence for not complying being death (as evidenced by the gun pointed at me), deserves to be shot. There is obviously something very wrong with that person. Perhaps it's something wrong with society also, or even instead. That doesn't change the fact that there is a gun or knife or some other tool capable of killing me being used to force me to do something that I don't want to do. I don't want to die. I don't want to kill anyone else either. But if that person is willing to kill me or another person because they won't give him something or do something, then that person has got to go. If I kill him, then maybe someone else won't have to be his next victim. It would probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but at least I'd still have my life, and nobody else would have to die by that particular criminals hands.
Self-defense IS just that. Protecting myself from someone who wants to hurt or kill me. If that means killing them first, then so be it. Most people who do kill other people aren't nearly as rational as the people here discussing issues such as this one. They aren't going to subscribe to your belief that violence and guns aren't the way to do things. It works for them, until they end up in jail for life or dead, and then it's too late for them to change their mind.
"Guns equalize people" to the base state of aggressive animals.
People ARE animals. We're just more intelligent in most cases and have more self-control than most other species. People tend to resort to violence if they feel threatened or if they want something bad enough. Just like animals. Whether you believe God created man or man evolved to his present form, we still have much in common with the rest of the animal life on this planet.
If you really believe what you said, perhaps you should advocate self-control rather than banning the tools that those without self-control use to harm others. If someone who is much bigger and stronger than me wants to kill me, he'll be able to do it and I couldn't stop him. But, if I had a gun, I could stop him. Why should I be forced to relinquish the one thing that allows me to keep those who are bigger and stronger from being able to harm me whenever they feel like it? Wouldn't it be better to get people to not try to hurt each other? Then I would never need to use the gun. That would be just fine with me.
It's easy to point out who the people are who are committing the crimes. They're called criminals, no matter what race, color, sex, religion, or whatever else they are. It's also stupid to ignore the reasons they commit the crimes or the circumstances that surrounded them at the time. It doesn't excuse what they did, but it may offer some insight into how to keep it from happening as often in the future.
The problem with donating money to buy drugs is that you're still buying drugs at very inflated prices so that your money only does a fraction of what it could do. When it comes to people's lives, this kind of wastefulness is inexcuseable. That's why I say that rather than just buying the drugs, we need to buy the rights to make the drugs. These rights should be bought for a reasonable price based on what it cost to develop the drugs, plus a reasonable profit, not based on how much they could make by milking the world by selling just the drugs.
Patents run out, most drugs are still effective and made cheaply after they do..
Ok, you go over to Africa and tell them they'll hafta wait 17 years for AIDS drugs to become cheap enough for them to have access to them. If you think AIDS is bad in the U.S., you haven't seen what's going on in Africa. These people have no possible way of paying for the drugs they need, and our government won't let them produce the drugs themselves.
How many MORE people would be dead if those pharmecutical companies didn't invest literally BILLIIONS of dollars to find a cure?
What does it matter to the millions who will be dead long before the drug patents run out and it becomes possible for them to have access to the drugs that could save them? Do you think they care that some company is losing some money? They're about to lose their life or the life of their child or husband or wife.
I think it's best to keep these companies in the private sector. Profit motivates, but in this case it motivates to make the world a BETTER place..
We'll send billions to Russia so that their government can pilfer it to save their own asses, but we won't spend a few billion to buy the cure to a terrible disease and make it available to everyone?
The entire world would benefit from these discoveries, treatments, and cures. Wouldn't the best answer be to have everyone chip in to reimburse the organization that discovers the treatment? It would be a paltry sum that would improve the quality of life for billions of people. People should not be getting rich off of these discoveries. They definitely deserve to be compensated for their time, effort, and expenses, and even to turn a small profit, but they should not be making excessive profits. That's just blood money. If they want to help people and make a comfortable living doing so, then I'm all for it, but don't make the entire world suffer because you want a new car every year. Many of the people doing the real research got into it because they wanted to help. They have to work for a corporation though and the corporation has to maximise shareholder's profits. That sounds like an incredible conflict of interest. Better to have private corporations doing the research and being paid by the governments of the world when they discover or create something useful to all.
I'll agree with you that the insurance sector is probably the worst part of the whole system. They are incomprehensibly corrupt. They make it as hard as possible for you to get any assistance, and then they won't let doctors do their jobs.
Admittedly, there are surely flaws in my ideas as I've presented them here. This was written quickly. I think the point is that I believe we're going in the wrong direction with health care. We're aiming to maximise profits rather than just trying to help the greatest number of people while sustaining research in new areas. That's where the problem is I think.
The lasar eye surgury that is being preformed all over the world, is PATENETD by a US company...does not seem to stop anyone... there has to be an answer...
And it shouldn't stop anyone else. If they have the technology to help people, they should be able to do so. That's one of the fundamental problems with the health care industry. They are willing and able to put a price tag on nearly everyone's health and life. Unless you're incredibly wealthy or are a very high ranking member of the government, you won't get the best care. HMOs will deny you life-saving treatment on a technicality. There may be drugs or treatments that could help you, but if you can't afford them, you're history. We, as a country, should find a way to repay organizations that make discoveries that could help many many people, but are too expensive for the vast majority of those people. The government will blow billions upon billions on idiotic causes such as The War On Drugs(TM), but they won't spend the cash to make life-saving treatments available to everyone. Sounds like they've got some pretty screwed up priorities and aren't really serving our best interests.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows, Inc. -- Win9x, WinNT, WinCE
Everything Else, Inc. -- err.. everything else...
The point of this being that the OS should be separate from everything. Everybody should have the same access to it. That means development tool makers, application makers, etc. should all become property of another company. That company may choose to divide itself up or sell off some of the apps or tools, but that's up to them. As long as the company with the OS isn't making apps or development software, I'll be ok with it.
the first thing DOJ should have done was to define what an operating system is, and then define what an application is.
I believe they did this. They even used Microsoft's own definition of "application" taken from their dictionary. Microsoft disputed the definitions though (even their own, go figure).
Give each one of them the rights to all the MS intellectual property and we can all buy one of the companies, and hence the right to use the MS code, with the spare change under our couch cushions. :)
I think he meant FULLY documented formats for ALL file types.
MICROS~1 should be broken up into seperate companies 1 to do OSes, 1 to do consumer apps, 1 to do commercial/enterprise apps, and one to do software develpoment apps.
What is the point of splitting them along those lines? Why split consumer apps apart from commercial/enterprise apps? I could possibly see why software development apps should be split off. They should be given the same access to the OS as any other 3rd party developer. But why should they necessarily be cut off from the company that does the consumer or commercial/enterprise app development?
I've never been a big fan of splitting Microsoft up. I'd rather see them forced to publish a pricelist based solely on volume and forbidden from using MDAs or any other such deal to favor certain OEMs that do as Microsoft wishes. This method probably requires a bit more thought in order to close all the loopholes, but I think it might be more effective as well. Just my opinion though.
Oh gimme a break. Nobody is punishing Microsoft for being successful. Only idiots keep trying to trot out that tired line. Microsoft is being prosecuted for breaking some pretty well-established laws. They are called anti-trust laws. They are part of what keeps our current system running properly. Without them the system probably wouldn't work. It would at least need significant changes to make it work, and then it wouldn't really be the same system. Just because the recent Republican administrations have resisted enforcing the laws doesn't mean they have disappeared.
Wow! Another eloquent, well-argued rebuttal!
Ok, point taken on the cable service. I guess I assumed that ISPs would be given some sort of negotiating power to keep them from getting the same crappy service that regular users get.
So basically the only thing to worry about is the fact that DSL is very short-range (meaning it will take quite a long while to get to the point where it can provide effective competition with cable), satellite service is too expensive (but will probably be the only alternative for people who aren't in the cable or DSL service areas), and cable is too concentrated in the hands of a couple companies (again, less competition). I still believe that the cable companies should still be regulated since they have little to no competition. I live in a city of approx. 1 million. We have 1 cable provider. No choice whatsoever. Cable companies managed to hamstring satellite by preventing them from offering local channels. Now if you want satellite and local channels, you have to get an antenna too. There goes the competition, especially for people who can't normally pick up the local channels due to their location.
Sounds like I've been online as long as you. It doesn't change the fact that things don't appear to be going well. The bandwidth you're enjoying now won't last if some real competition doesn't show up in a hurry.
The opening of the cable networks will add more users on the network and the bandwidth of current users will drop to near modem speeds.
Why? Why is this more likely to happen with the networks open than closed? The cable companies are still signing people up as fast as they can. People either want it or they don't. It shouldn't matter how many companies are offering it. If there are more companies, they'll have more incentive to distinguish themselves via better prices and usage policies. They'll be taking customers from the major cable companies, not just pulling more people in off the street. If there is only one company, they have no incentive to provide better service. They're just trying to sign up as many people as possible, service be damned.
Cable companies will still own the pipes the only competition will be about who you get your IP address from.
You are still going to have to pay the cable companies for the data service then you will have to pay the isp ontop of what you pay the cable compaines.
Competitors wouldn't have to pay what you or I pay for access to these networks. Not any more than competing phone companies do for access to the phone networks. I fail to see why we should let cable go the route of the phone companies. Do we really have to let them get that bad before we decide to do something?
DSL connections (which is basically the same thing, you pay for the line then pay the ISP) and are generally twice that of a dialup.
DSL costs twice that of a regular dialup, but delivers a lot more speed. Sounds like a fair trade. I'd gladly pay $40 instead of my current $20 per month for 10 times the speed.
Give it time and it will work itself out. Patients IS a virtue.
Given time, they'll just gain more power and become more difficult to fix. Just like the phone companies. Then we'll have to spend years and millions of dollars in court to fix the problems. Patience may be a virtue, but it's not applicable to every situation. Patients are only a virtue if you're a doctor. :)
As you say, few people have the choices you have. ISDN is expensive. DSL is not available anywhere near me. That leaves cable. Which means I have to take it or leave it. I have no other broadband choice. According to the phone company, I won't have the DSL option for at least another year, and probably longer than that. I do think that cable companies should have to open up their networks. Just as phone companies do. Not for free, but not for outrageous prices that eliminate the chances of creating effective competition either. They wouldn't have those networks in the first place if it wasn't for the government's assistance. Cable companies need to have competition. They've gotten way too fat and complacent. Only recently have they even started doing anything for the customer, and that's only because they saw that they could get knocked off their perch. Open up the networks and let's see what happens when there's real competition.
Without certain regulatory agencies, we probably wouldn't have the communications infrastructure we have today. Business couldn't have done it alone. It was way too expensive and too risky. Not to mention they couldn't have gotten around the legal hurdles without having the government's assistance. Even assuming some company did manage to figure out a way around those problems, we'd probably be a lot worse off. It would have ended up being one huge monopoly and we'd probably have even worse programming than we have now (can you even imagine that?)
The way it worked on earth is that you own as much as you can defend. We could legitimately say we claim the moon as US territory, defending that claim is another matter.
Most people would probably think it's fake anyway. Could do just as well with some footage and a few thousand bucks worth of Adobe products :)
That's the problem. Without competition the service is likely to go down the crapper. They'll set up bandwidth caps and try to squeeze more people in all the time without worrying about maintaining service levels. After all, what choice do you have if you want broadband?
Wake up. If property rights are the only thing at work here, then what gives the cable company the right to dig up my back yard even though I don't want cable? Come back when you have a clue.
This was a Scientific American story a month or two ago. They listed several ways of defeating the sort of system that the government is planning. All of them are pretty simple and relatively inexpensive ways to defeat a system that will cost us a bundle.
>>>card lock doors
Not in my high school, but probably being installed as we speak.
We didn't have card locks... that kind of system would probably have been too expensive.
>>>transparent book bags
Or no bags.
Those were the two options at my high school. Either a transparent plastic or mesh bag or no bag at all. Choose wisely.
>>>armed guards cruising the hallways.
My school had guards, but they were not armed.
We had the armed kind.
Our school literally looked like a prison. It was a two-story square. There were covered walkways around the courtyard square. The upper floor walkway wasn't covered, it just had a railing. You came in and left through the first-floor gated corners of the building. These were usually locked or guarded. We didn't have mandatory drug testing. Perhaps there were some legal issues they hadn't managed to get around yet. They did have metal detectors installed a couple years after I graduated. Not sure about the ID badges. They were trying to make uniforms mandatory throughout the district recently, but I don't think they managed it yet.
Since her book uses the word 'male' instead of 'mail', it has a totally different meaning. So what if it sounds like their trademarked phrase? They don't have a trademark on "You've Got Male." As more and more companies snatch up more and more of the english language to make their own, something will have to give. Either we toss out the language or we start punishing companies for these idiotic trademark suits. If you try to trademark a common phrase, you deserve to be tossed out of court.
Over not so many people have guns, so its much less likely that somebody would ever threaten you with one.
So, basically, I should just give up my gun and hope it never happens to me? Sorry, that doesn't make me feel better.
Perhaps you could still get mugged, but you'd be unlikely to get killed.
Since when do criminals obey gun laws? We banned drugs, but it didn't make them any more difficult to obtain. I could go get some right now if I wanted to.
I think its much too easy to kill somebody with a gun, self-defence to a lot of Americans seems to equate to killing your attacker -> I think that's wrong, self-defence should be just that.
I take it that you think that killing someone who may kill you is, well, overkill? Why? Someone who is willing to point a gun at me and demand that I do something that they have no right to make me do, with the consequence for not complying being death (as evidenced by the gun pointed at me), deserves to be shot. There is obviously something very wrong with that person. Perhaps it's something wrong with society also, or even instead. That doesn't change the fact that there is a gun or knife or some other tool capable of killing me being used to force me to do something that I don't want to do. I don't want to die. I don't want to kill anyone else either. But if that person is willing to kill me or another person because they won't give him something or do something, then that person has got to go. If I kill him, then maybe someone else won't have to be his next victim. It would probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but at least I'd still have my life, and nobody else would have to die by that particular criminals hands.
Self-defense IS just that. Protecting myself from someone who wants to hurt or kill me. If that means killing them first, then so be it. Most people who do kill other people aren't nearly as rational as the people here discussing issues such as this one. They aren't going to subscribe to your belief that violence and guns aren't the way to do things. It works for them, until they end up in jail for life or dead, and then it's too late for them to change their mind.
"Guns equalize people" to the base state of aggressive animals.
People ARE animals. We're just more intelligent in most cases and have more self-control than most other species. People tend to resort to violence if they feel threatened or if they want something bad enough. Just like animals. Whether you believe God created man or man evolved to his present form, we still have much in common with the rest of the animal life on this planet.
If you really believe what you said, perhaps you should advocate self-control rather than banning the tools that those without self-control use to harm others. If someone who is much bigger and stronger than me wants to kill me, he'll be able to do it and I couldn't stop him. But, if I had a gun, I could stop him. Why should I be forced to relinquish the one thing that allows me to keep those who are bigger and stronger from being able to harm me whenever they feel like it? Wouldn't it be better to get people to not try to hurt each other? Then I would never need to use the gun. That would be just fine with me.
It's easy to point out who the people are who are committing the crimes. They're called criminals, no matter what race, color, sex, religion, or whatever else they are. It's also stupid to ignore the reasons they commit the crimes or the circumstances that surrounded them at the time. It doesn't excuse what they did, but it may offer some insight into how to keep it from happening as often in the future.
The problem with donating money to buy drugs is that you're still buying drugs at very inflated prices so that your money only does a fraction of what it could do. When it comes to people's lives, this kind of wastefulness is inexcuseable. That's why I say that rather than just buying the drugs, we need to buy the rights to make the drugs. These rights should be bought for a reasonable price based on what it cost to develop the drugs, plus a reasonable profit, not based on how much they could make by milking the world by selling just the drugs.
If the emergency room needed such a database, then they have the motivation to create one.
Patents run out, most drugs are still effective and made cheaply after they do..
Ok, you go over to Africa and tell them they'll hafta wait 17 years for AIDS drugs to become cheap enough for them to have access to them. If you think AIDS is bad in the U.S., you haven't seen what's going on in Africa. These people have no possible way of paying for the drugs they need, and our government won't let them produce the drugs themselves.
How many MORE people would be dead if those pharmecutical companies didn't invest literally BILLIIONS of dollars to find a cure?
What does it matter to the millions who will be dead long before the drug patents run out and it becomes possible for them to have access to the drugs that could save them? Do you think they care that some company is losing some money? They're about to lose their life or the life of their child or husband or wife.
I think it's best to keep these companies in the private sector. Profit motivates, but in this case it motivates to make the world a BETTER place..
We'll send billions to Russia so that their government can pilfer it to save their own asses, but we won't spend a few billion to buy the cure to a terrible disease and make it available to everyone?
The entire world would benefit from these discoveries, treatments, and cures. Wouldn't the best answer be to have everyone chip in to reimburse the organization that discovers the treatment? It would be a paltry sum that would improve the quality of life for billions of people. People should not be getting rich off of these discoveries. They definitely deserve to be compensated for their time, effort, and expenses, and even to turn a small profit, but they should not be making excessive profits. That's just blood money. If they want to help people and make a comfortable living doing so, then I'm all for it, but don't make the entire world suffer because you want a new car every year. Many of the people doing the real research got into it because they wanted to help. They have to work for a corporation though and the corporation has to maximise shareholder's profits. That sounds like an incredible conflict of interest. Better to have private corporations doing the research and being paid by the governments of the world when they discover or create something useful to all.
I'll agree with you that the insurance sector is probably the worst part of the whole system. They are incomprehensibly corrupt. They make it as hard as possible for you to get any assistance, and then they won't let doctors do their jobs.
Admittedly, there are surely flaws in my ideas as I've presented them here. This was written quickly. I think the point is that I believe we're going in the wrong direction with health care. We're aiming to maximise profits rather than just trying to help the greatest number of people while sustaining research in new areas. That's where the problem is I think.
The lasar eye surgury that is being preformed all over the world, is PATENETD by a US company...does not seem to stop anyone... there has to be an answer...
And it shouldn't stop anyone else. If they have the technology to help people, they should be able to do so. That's one of the fundamental problems with the health care industry. They are willing and able to put a price tag on nearly everyone's health and life. Unless you're incredibly wealthy or are a very high ranking member of the government, you won't get the best care. HMOs will deny you life-saving treatment on a technicality. There may be drugs or treatments that could help you, but if you can't afford them, you're history. We, as a country, should find a way to repay organizations that make discoveries that could help many many people, but are too expensive for the vast majority of those people. The government will blow billions upon billions on idiotic causes such as The War On Drugs(TM), but they won't spend the cash to make life-saving treatments available to everyone. Sounds like they've got some pretty screwed up priorities and aren't really serving our best interests.