How does a single payer system reduce health care costs?
First, and foremost, a single payer system reduces health care costs by reducing administrative costs. Administrative costs vary greatly in our current multi-payer system. The publicly administered sector is by far the most efficient, despite the common misperception that it is least efficient. Medicare spends 3% on administration, and is the most efficient provider of any health care system in the world. The declining not-for-profit sector of our multi-payer system spends about 8% on administration, comparable with most not-for-profit administered systems world-wide. The dramatically increasing for-profit sector of our health care system is the least inefficient. For-profits spend between 20 and 30 cents of the insurance premium dollar on administrative expenses. About the same percentage of the health care dollar they spend on providing payments to all health care givers.
The for-profit sector of our multi-payer system is so expensive for four reasons. First, they have high salaries, at least for their CEO's. The CEO's of the medical insurance industry have the highest average pay of any industry in the world. Second they have extensive marketing expenses and enrollment costs. Third, they have great expenses in enrolling providers, communicating to providers their ever-changing plans, and recertifying that the providers are up to date on their malpractice insurance, state licenses, federal licenses, hospital privileges, and the like. Fourth they are involved in the extremely expensive venture of micro-managing the care of every individual that seeks medical benefits from their insurance.
...
These five basic means of saving money under a single payer system: reducing administrative expenses to the insurer, reducing administrative expenses to hospitals, reducing administrative expenses to physicians, reducing the costs of purchasing medications and durable medical equipment, and the coordination and consolidation of medical services are large enough to "decrease total health care expenditures," despite covering all the uninsured and increasing benefits for the entire population, according to the 1995 report of the State of Connecticut Office of Health Care Access, "Health Care Reform In Connecticut: Analysis of Health Reform Options."
---
In the interest of time, I have employed a subtle 'arguing from the specific to the general' fallacy. In case you picked up on this fallacy, please consider that any single payer is better able to negotiate prices with its clout.
What are the advantages of such a health care plan?
...
It establishes a group large enough to bargain effectively with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and health care providers to control and significantly reduce costs.
Actually, chances are good that if you get into the army, you'll get a hot chick
Hello there, Mr. Rumsfeld. Welcome to the Internets.
When they add the 'Dear John letter' to the game, you'll have the ability to lose your wife to your best friend who stayed home. You can enjoy having part of your paltry wages garnished to support the child you hardly get to see anymore, if you make it home. Sign me up!!
So you believe that the appropriate method of securing these things is by government intervention?
No, I don't believe that, although I do see how easy it would be to draw that generalization from my post. My point was that a single-payer system tends to reduce costs.
Work hard. Help yourself. I have done it, people I know have done it. I am no better than anyone else, therefore if I could do it, anyone can. There are no excuses.
I work hard and help myself as well. My parents were not rich, but they had enough money to buy me a used car when I was still in high school. The car more than paid for itself in the money I was able to make working after school hours. I got scholarships, and a subsidized loan from the government. I quintupled my earnings, and paid back the loan with interest.
Now, what if I couldn't get a loan from the government? I had very little money. My parents, through no fault of mine, had declared bankruptcy three times, because they are irresponsible. No one in his right mind would loan them any money, or would allow them to co-sign a loan for me.
Now, what if my parents couldn't afford to buy me a car, or clothing, or food? What if I had to drop out of school so that I could work in order to help my family buy food or rent an apartment?
Or, what about the man I met the other day? He stopped me and asked if he might shine my shoes. I explained that my shoes did not need shining and tried to walk away. He asked again, and before I could say no again, he explained his situation: he was a recent parolee who regretted the mistakes he made in his life and was trying to raise his sister since his mother's recent death. He can't get a job because no one will hire him because he committed a crime. Shining strangers' shoes will only get him so far. How should he help himself?
You may not be better than anyone else, but you were likely better off than a great many people. Did you have at least one parent or relative to care for you? Did you have anyone that cared about you at all? Were you born physically or mentally challenged? Maybe you are a little bit luckier than you thought.
Wartime Culture is another way of saying "Clueless sheep who believe that a video game is like real war"
I've never played the game, so I don't know how realistic the game seems. I would think, though, that the game must involve the possibility for your character to be injured or killed. Maybe you're driving along a desert road and BOOM! your up-armored jeep blows up and you die. Or maybe you just get sniped by a camper.
And people are going to want to sign up for real?
If I were making a game to recruit young boys into the Army, God-mode would be the default, and there'd be plenty of nudity and sex. At least then the 'clueless sheep' would join the Army in the hopes of meeting the beautiful topless nymphomaniacs that roam the battlefields.
We have those things (healthcare and education), for the time being. I'm happy to hear that you can afford to lose your job, or quit your job so that you may look for another, without worrying about qualifying for an insurance policy because of a condition which was previously disclosed and covered.
Or maybe you pay for your own insurance? Isn't it great knowing that you don't have to work full-time just to make it worthwhile for your employer to subsidize your healthcare?
I'm also glad to hear that your family had enough money to live in a nice neighborhood with good schools, or maybe they had enough money to get you a good education.
While the government is buying things for us, I want a moon pony.
About this moon pony: will it help the many millions of uninsured Americans afford their healthcare? Will it increase the amount of money that our high school graduates earn? Will it help to lower the crime rate as education tends to do?
If so, maybe we should look into getting you that moon pony. Or, if you're wealthy enough, maybe you could lobby the government for one. The poor are not the only ones looking for assistance from the government.
'In the wake of 9/11, the public and media reaction was, in the Army's words, "overwhelmingly positive." Salon's Wagner James Au, for example, gushed that the game would help "create the wartime culture that is so desperately needed now" and excitedly anticipated the day when youngsters raised on America's Army would pick up real weapons to cleanse the globe of real terrorists' (emphasis mine.)
I was just pondering the other day what it is our country needs. Education, I thought. Health care, I mused.
Man, was I off! Now I realize that the thing our country needs most is a wartime culture.
I know it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you; I wonder if it's cynical if the belief in question is true. Producers of all sorts fight hard to water down the standards involved in labeling.
While reading Naomi Klein's "No Logo", I learned about the textile industry's attempt to subvert the 'Sweatshop Free' logo by allowing for a large percentage of the final garment to be manufactured in...drum roll please...sweatshops.
More recently, the United Egg Producers used the "Animal Care Certified" label to encourage the mistaken view that egg-laying hens are well-treated.
And don't get me started on Nike v. Kasky, where Nike attempted to assert its corporate personhood's First Amendment rights.
It's much cheaper to convince people that you're doing the right thing than it is to do the right thing. If we were ever to allow the corporations to police themselves more than they already do, we should at least maintain and enforce our 'truth in advertising' protections.
It may be true in your country that a nutritionally sufficient vegetarian diet is difficult to follow; I'm not familiar enough with Brazil to make any claim otherwise. I do know that, in general, this is not the case.
I need meat to feel OK
This attitude is not unique to Brazil; many of my friends from the Midwest express this sentiment, too. One friend even claims she can tell when she's 'low on protein.' In the United States, insufficient protein consumption is not typically a problem: as usual for my country, it's overconsumption that's the problem.
If I could eat dirt and glare at the sun, I just might. However, I'm not an autotroph, and so, if I wish to live, I have two choices: I must consume things which produce their own food, or I must consume things who consume other things which produce their own food.
More energy was consumed by the plants that I eat than I derive from the plants. More energy was consumed by the chicken you ate than you derive from the chicken. Look up "trophic levels" and "energy pyramids" on google and you'll see what I mean.
How much energy are you able to take from grain? How much are you able to take from chicken meat?
I'm NOT arguing that you get more energy from an ounce of soybeans than from an ounce of chicken flesh. I'm saying that, at 90% energy loss at each trophic level, described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that you're introducing a lot of energy loss by being a secondary consumer.
Of course, things are never as simple as they appear. No doubt, Rockefeller had many motivations in paying for a substitute. My objection is with the callousness of the statement (which Rockefeller did not make) about the lives of the rich being worth more than the lives of the poor. I believe Rockefeller would have agreed with this sentiment.
Also, I never stated that I believed Rockefeller to be evil. And, even if I thought this were true, I wouldn't base it off of his having paid for a substitute in the Civil War.
He was no pauper, as he could afford to pay $300 for a substitue, a nice sum of money back in the day. He would make for a poor choice of character in a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story.
Your neighbor sounds like a jerk. (Smoking tobacco doesn't sound very vegan, either; it does not reflect care for himself, and, if he can't care for himself, it must be harder to care for others.) At the very least, he could be consistent and understand that many non-smokers abhor the smell of smoke as much, if not more, than many vegetarians abhor the smell of cooked flesh.
It's very unfortunate that your neighbor does not seem to understand that veganism is essentially about reducing the amount of suffering in the world. His actions seem to indicate that he does not respect your right to not suffer.
I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble with your neighbor. I, too, have had my share of unpleasant neighbors, and it is very draining.
I believe that I portray veganism in the best light when I make it appealing and accessible to other people, in a non-judging way. I'm happier now that I'm vegan, and I hope my behavior towards others reflects that.
If you have the time, you might check out a Vegan Message Board. Hopefully, you'll see that many vegans are very sensitive and caring people, who genuinely want the best for others.
Interesting. I've never been to Asia, so I'm not qualified to converse on the number of meat or vegetarian restaurants. I was under the impression that, in many other countries, the meat is a complement to the meal. For instance, maybe a meal would consist of mostly rice and seaweed, with a portion of meat along side it.
My co-workers (one Chinese, one Indian) just came back from trips to their home countries. Both seem to agree that the portions are inverted in their home countries, so that meat is less prominent than plant-based foods. They say it has to do with the cost of meat.
I'll be sure to think about that next time I take the life of a soy bean in cold blood. That's my rule: if I can kill it, I'll eat it.
There are also environmental consequences to being a vegetarian/vegan
This is certainly true. However, since I'm a primary consumer and not a secondary consumer, I consume much less than an omnivore consuming a herbivore consuming plants consumes. In other words, if I ate as many plants as the chicken and cows you eat do, you'd have a great point.
If everyone was vegan on an overpopulated planet, we'd turn the place into a dustball pretty quick too.
True.
I choose to assume responsibility for what I am. Omnivorous. I eat what's available.
I choose to accept responsibility for eating what I deem morally conscionable. I eat what I am comfortable with eating.
Even though we fall on opposite sides of the 'animals as food' debate, I very much respect your position. It is consistent and well-thought out. It's too bad you posted as an Anonymous Coward.
If I were to consider eating animals again, a highly improbable event, I think I would need to adopt your approach.
Sorry to respond to my own post. Of course, 'chicken meat' is poultry, the definition of which follows:
Poultry, as defined in 9 CFR 381.1(b):
(40) "Poultry" is defined as edible skeletal muscle derived from a domesticated bird (chicken, turkey, duck, goose or guinea), with or without accompanying intramuscular or overlaying fat, bone or skin, nerve and blood vessels that are not separated from the muscle meat (see 9CFR 381.1(b)(40)). Ratite species (emu, ostrich, rhea) and birds not defined as poultry (water fowl, game birds, squab, etc.) do not automatically fall under USDA jurisdiction; however, if the processor opts to process them under voluntary USDA inspection, they are treated as poultry.
Any ideas how well an "'edible skeletal muscle derived from a domesticated bird' nugget" would sell?
Here's something else to consider the next time you eat a chicken nugget:
Meat, as defined in 9 CFR 301.2(rr):
(1) The part of the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine, or goats, which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, or in the diaphragm, or in the heart, or in the esophagus, with or without the accompanying and overlying fat, and the portions of bone, skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the muscle tissue and which are not separated from it in the process of dressing. It does not include the muscle found in the lips, snout, or ears. This term, as applied to products of equines, shall have a meaning comparable to that provided in this paragraph with respect to cattle, sheep, swine, and goats.
Hmmm, the definition of chicken meat must be defined somewhere else. Anyone know where?
While chickens may be the most 'energy-efficient, cheap-to-produce forms of livestock meat' available, eating chickens who eat plants is still much less energy effecient then eating the plants directly.
Chickens are heterotrophs, and so must rely on plants for food. However, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, these primary consumers are only able to extract a fraction of the energy that plants have stored. Secondary consumers introduce another level of inefficiency.
'Yet another way to do more with less water is to reconfigure our diets. The typical North American diet, with its large share of animal products, requires twice as much water to produce as the less meat-intensive diets common in many Asian and some European countries. Eating lower on the food chain could allow the same volume of water to feed two Americans instead of one, with no loss in overall nutrition.'
Some estimates put the acreage requirements for a vegan diet at 1/12th those of an omnivorous diet.
so you can eat meat without the animals having to live unpleasent cruel lives
This is exactly why I became vegan. I began to notice that I was preventing myself from thinking about where my food came from (it turns out it was from factory farms); at one point, it became easier to become vegan than it was to ignore these thoughts.
Fortunately, the love for meat disappears quickly in most of the ethical vegetarians and vegans who I know. (Ethical, as opposed to people who become vegetarian or vegan for religious or health reasons, and not in a holier-than-thou sense.) Once I was no longer eating meat, I could allow myself to confront the suffering that my lifestyle caused, and learned and saw things I would never have learned or saw otherwise.
For me, it's when they start using their wealth to purchase influence.
Or maybe it's when men like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Philip Armour, Jay Gould, and James Mellon escape military service by paying for a substitute, saying things like 'a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable.' (From Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States.')
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with the amount of money a person has, but everything to do with the person's attitude.
...and you rationalize that you're poor because you are immoral
I was just reading about this in Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States'. Russell Conwell (another Yale graduate), a minister, author, and post-Reconstruction (after the Civil War) motivational speaker, included this message in his lecture "Acres of Diamonds":
I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich....The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community. Let me say here clearly...ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men.......I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins...is to do wrong....let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings....(emphasis mine.)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course!
From: http://cthealth.server101.com/single_payer_soluti
---
How does a single payer system reduce health care costs?
First, and foremost, a single payer system reduces health care costs by reducing administrative costs. Administrative costs vary greatly in our current multi-payer system. The publicly administered sector is by far the most efficient, despite the common misperception that it is least efficient. Medicare spends 3% on administration, and is the most efficient provider of any health care system in the world. The declining not-for-profit sector of our multi-payer system spends about 8% on administration, comparable with most not-for-profit administered systems world-wide. The dramatically increasing for-profit sector of our health care system is the least inefficient. For-profits spend between 20 and 30 cents of the insurance premium dollar on administrative expenses. About the same percentage of the health care dollar they spend on providing payments to all health care givers.
The for-profit sector of our multi-payer system is so expensive for four reasons. First, they have high salaries, at least for their CEO's. The CEO's of the medical insurance industry have the highest average pay of any industry in the world. Second they have extensive marketing expenses and enrollment costs. Third, they have great expenses in enrolling providers, communicating to providers their ever-changing plans, and recertifying that the providers are up to date on their malpractice insurance, state licenses, federal licenses, hospital privileges, and the like. Fourth they are involved in the extremely expensive venture of micro-managing the care of every individual that seeks medical benefits from their insurance.
These five basic means of saving money under a single payer system: reducing administrative expenses to the insurer, reducing administrative expenses to hospitals, reducing administrative expenses to physicians, reducing the costs of purchasing medications and durable medical equipment, and the coordination and consolidation of medical services are large enough to "decrease total health care expenditures," despite covering all the uninsured and increasing benefits for the entire population, according to the 1995 report of the State of Connecticut Office of Health Care Access, "Health Care Reform In Connecticut: Analysis of Health Reform Options."
---
In the interest of time, I have employed a subtle 'arguing from the specific to the general' fallacy. In case you picked up on this fallacy, please consider that any single payer is better able to negotiate prices with its clout.
From http://www.wisconsinhealth.org/art5.html/
---
What are the advantages of such a health care plan?
It establishes a group large enough to bargain effectively with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and health care providers to control and significantly reduce costs.
---
There is a big incentive not to die early on.
Wow! It's more realistic than I thought!
I must admit, though, that the physics you describe do sound rather cool.
Actually, chances are good that if you get into the army, you'll get a hot chick
Hello there, Mr. Rumsfeld. Welcome to the Internets.
When they add the 'Dear John letter' to the game, you'll have the ability to lose your wife to your best friend who stayed home. You can enjoy having part of your paltry wages garnished to support the child you hardly get to see anymore, if you make it home. Sign me up!!
So you believe that the appropriate method of securing these things is by government intervention?
No, I don't believe that, although I do see how easy it would be to draw that generalization from my post. My point was that a single-payer system tends to reduce costs.
Work hard. Help yourself. I have done it, people I know have done it. I am no better than anyone else, therefore if I could do it, anyone can. There are no excuses.
I work hard and help myself as well. My parents were not rich, but they had enough money to buy me a used car when I was still in high school. The car more than paid for itself in the money I was able to make working after school hours. I got scholarships, and a subsidized loan from the government. I quintupled my earnings, and paid back the loan with interest.
Now, what if I couldn't get a loan from the government? I had very little money. My parents, through no fault of mine, had declared bankruptcy three times, because they are irresponsible. No one in his right mind would loan them any money, or would allow them to co-sign a loan for me.
Now, what if my parents couldn't afford to buy me a car, or clothing, or food? What if I had to drop out of school so that I could work in order to help my family buy food or rent an apartment?
Or, what about the man I met the other day? He stopped me and asked if he might shine my shoes. I explained that my shoes did not need shining and tried to walk away. He asked again, and before I could say no again, he explained his situation: he was a recent parolee who regretted the mistakes he made in his life and was trying to raise his sister since his mother's recent death. He can't get a job because no one will hire him because he committed a crime. Shining strangers' shoes will only get him so far. How should he help himself?
You may not be better than anyone else, but you were likely better off than a great many people. Did you have at least one parent or relative to care for you? Did you have anyone that cared about you at all? Were you born physically or mentally challenged? Maybe you are a little bit luckier than you thought.
Wartime Culture is another way of saying "Clueless sheep who believe that a video game is like real war"
I've never played the game, so I don't know how realistic the game seems. I would think, though, that the game must involve the possibility for your character to be injured or killed. Maybe you're driving along a desert road and BOOM! your up-armored jeep blows up and you die. Or maybe you just get sniped by a camper.
And people are going to want to sign up for real?
If I were making a game to recruit young boys into the Army, God-mode would be the default, and there'd be plenty of nudity and sex. At least then the 'clueless sheep' would join the Army in the hopes of meeting the beautiful topless nymphomaniacs that roam the battlefields.
We have those things (healthcare and education), for the time being. I'm happy to hear that you can afford to lose your job, or quit your job so that you may look for another, without worrying about qualifying for an insurance policy because of a condition which was previously disclosed and covered.
Or maybe you pay for your own insurance? Isn't it great knowing that you don't have to work full-time just to make it worthwhile for your employer to subsidize your healthcare?
I'm also glad to hear that your family had enough money to live in a nice neighborhood with good schools, or maybe they had enough money to get you a good education.
While the government is buying things for us, I want a moon pony.
About this moon pony: will it help the many millions of uninsured Americans afford their healthcare? Will it increase the amount of money that our high school graduates earn? Will it help to lower the crime rate as education tends to do?
If so, maybe we should look into getting you that moon pony. Or, if you're wealthy enough, maybe you could lobby the government for one. The poor are not the only ones looking for assistance from the government.
From the article:
'In the wake of 9/11, the public and media reaction was, in the Army's words, "overwhelmingly positive." Salon's Wagner James Au, for example, gushed that the game would help "create the wartime culture that is so desperately needed now" and excitedly anticipated the day when youngsters raised on America's Army would pick up real weapons to cleanse the globe of real terrorists' (emphasis mine.)
I was just pondering the other day what it is our country needs. Education, I thought. Health care, I mused.
Man, was I off! Now I realize that the thing our country needs most is a wartime culture.
I know it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you; I wonder if it's cynical if the belief in question is true. Producers of all sorts fight hard to water down the standards involved in labeling.
While reading Naomi Klein's "No Logo", I learned about the textile industry's attempt to subvert the 'Sweatshop Free' logo by allowing for a large percentage of the final garment to be manufactured in...drum roll please...sweatshops.
More recently, the United Egg Producers used the "Animal Care Certified" label to encourage the mistaken view that egg-laying hens are well-treated.
And don't get me started on Nike v. Kasky, where Nike attempted to assert its corporate personhood's First Amendment rights.
It's much cheaper to convince people that you're doing the right thing than it is to do the right thing. If we were ever to allow the corporations to police themselves more than they already do, we should at least maintain and enforce our 'truth in advertising' protections.
It may be true in your country that a nutritionally sufficient vegetarian diet is difficult to follow; I'm not familiar enough with Brazil to make any claim otherwise. I do know that, in general, this is not the case.
I need meat to feel OK
This attitude is not unique to Brazil; many of my friends from the Midwest express this sentiment, too. One friend even claims she can tell when she's 'low on protein.' In the United States, insufficient protein consumption is not typically a problem: as usual for my country, it's overconsumption that's the problem.
That is nutritional efficiency.
s/efficiency/sufficiency
It's too bad very few people will ever get the chance to read your post: it made my day. =)
If I could eat dirt and glare at the sun, I just might. However, I'm not an autotroph, and so, if I wish to live, I have two choices: I must consume things which produce their own food, or I must consume things who consume other things which produce their own food.
More energy was consumed by the plants that I eat than I derive from the plants. More energy was consumed by the chicken you ate than you derive from the chicken. Look up "trophic levels" and "energy pyramids" on google and you'll see what I mean.
How much energy are you able to take from grain?
How much are you able to take from chicken meat?
I'm NOT arguing that you get more energy from an ounce of soybeans than from an ounce of chicken flesh. I'm saying that, at 90% energy loss at each trophic level, described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that you're introducing a lot of energy loss by being a secondary consumer.
Of course, things are never as simple as they appear. No doubt, Rockefeller had many motivations in paying for a substitute. My objection is with the callousness of the statement (which Rockefeller did not make) about the lives of the rich being worth more than the lives of the poor. I believe Rockefeller would have agreed with this sentiment.
Also, I never stated that I believed Rockefeller to be evil. And, even if I thought this were true, I wouldn't base it off of his having paid for a substitute in the Civil War.
He was no pauper, as he could afford to pay $300 for a substitue, a nice sum of money back in the day. He would make for a poor choice of character in a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story.
Your neighbor sounds like a jerk. (Smoking tobacco doesn't sound very vegan, either; it does not reflect care for himself, and, if he can't care for himself, it must be harder to care for others.) At the very least, he could be consistent and understand that many non-smokers abhor the smell of smoke as much, if not more, than many vegetarians abhor the smell of cooked flesh.
It's very unfortunate that your neighbor does not seem to understand that veganism is essentially about reducing the amount of suffering in the world. His actions seem to indicate that he does not respect your right to not suffer.
I'm sorry that you're having so much trouble with your neighbor. I, too, have had my share of unpleasant neighbors, and it is very draining.
I believe that I portray veganism in the best light when I make it appealing and accessible to other people, in a non-judging way. I'm happier now that I'm vegan, and I hope my behavior towards others reflects that.
If you have the time, you might check out a Vegan Message Board. Hopefully, you'll see that many vegans are very sensitive and caring people, who genuinely want the best for others.
Best of luck with your obnoxious neighbor.
Ah, one of my favorite Urban Legends.
Interesting. I've never been to Asia, so I'm not qualified to converse on the number of meat or vegetarian restaurants. I was under the impression that, in many other countries, the meat is a complement to the meal. For instance, maybe a meal would consist of mostly rice and seaweed, with a portion of meat along side it.
My co-workers (one Chinese, one Indian) just came back from trips to their home countries. Both seem to agree that the portions are inverted in their home countries, so that meat is less prominent than plant-based foods. They say it has to do with the cost of meat.
I've heard Japan is quite the opposite.
I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but you make a great point. They're not Nikes, but Adbusters has the sweatshop free Blackspot Sneaker.
Plants have the right to live too you know.
I'll be sure to think about that next time I take the life of a soy bean in cold blood. That's my rule: if I can kill it, I'll eat it.
There are also environmental consequences to being a vegetarian/vegan
This is certainly true. However, since I'm a primary consumer and not a secondary consumer, I consume much less than an omnivore consuming a herbivore consuming plants consumes. In other words, if I ate as many plants as the chicken and cows you eat do, you'd have a great point.
If everyone was vegan on an overpopulated planet, we'd turn the place into a dustball pretty quick too.
True.
I choose to assume responsibility for what I am. Omnivorous. I eat what's available.
I choose to accept responsibility for eating what I deem morally conscionable. I eat what I am comfortable with eating.
Even though we fall on opposite sides of the 'animals as food' debate, I very much respect your position. It is consistent and well-thought out. It's too bad you posted as an Anonymous Coward.
If I were to consider eating animals again, a highly improbable event, I think I would need to adopt your approach.
Sorry to respond to my own post. Of course, 'chicken meat' is poultry, the definition of which follows:
Poultry, as defined in 9 CFR 381.1(b):
(40) "Poultry" is defined as edible skeletal muscle derived from a domesticated bird (chicken, turkey, duck, goose or guinea), with or without accompanying intramuscular or overlaying fat, bone or skin, nerve and blood vessels that are not separated from the muscle meat (see 9CFR 381.1(b)(40)). Ratite species (emu, ostrich, rhea) and birds not defined as poultry (water fowl, game birds, squab, etc.) do not automatically fall under USDA jurisdiction; however, if the processor opts to process them under voluntary USDA inspection, they are treated as poultry.
Any ideas how well an "'edible skeletal muscle derived from a domesticated bird' nugget" would sell?
Here's something else to consider the next time you eat a chicken nugget:
Meat, as defined in 9 CFR 301.2(rr):
(1) The part of the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine, or goats, which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, or in the diaphragm, or in the heart, or in the esophagus, with or without the accompanying and overlying fat, and the portions of bone, skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the muscle tissue and which are not separated from it in the process of dressing. It does not include the muscle found in the lips, snout, or ears. This term, as applied to products of equines, shall have a meaning comparable to that provided in this paragraph with respect to cattle, sheep, swine, and goats.
Hmmm, the definition of chicken meat must be defined somewhere else. Anyone know where?
While chickens may be the most 'energy-efficient, cheap-to-produce forms of livestock meat' available, eating chickens who eat plants is still much less energy effecient then eating the plants directly.
Chickens are heterotrophs, and so must rely on plants for food. However, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, these primary consumers are only able to extract a fraction of the energy that plants have stored. Secondary consumers introduce another level of inefficiency.
From Why Vegan
'Yet another way to do more with less water is to reconfigure our diets. The typical North American diet, with its large share of animal products, requires twice as much water to produce as the less meat-intensive diets common in many Asian and some European countries. Eating lower on the food chain could allow the same volume of water to feed two Americans instead of one, with no loss in overall nutrition.'
Some estimates put the acreage requirements for a vegan diet at 1/12th those of an omnivorous diet.
so you can eat meat without the animals having to live unpleasent cruel lives
This is exactly why I became vegan. I began to notice that I was preventing myself from thinking about where my food came from (it turns out it was from factory farms); at one point, it became easier to become vegan than it was to ignore these thoughts.
Fortunately, the love for meat disappears quickly in most of the ethical vegetarians and vegans who I know. (Ethical, as opposed to people who become vegetarian or vegan for religious or health reasons, and not in a holier-than-thou sense.) Once I was no longer eating meat, I could allow myself to confront the suffering that my lifestyle caused, and learned and saw things I would never have learned or saw otherwise.
I'm never going back.
For me, it's when they start using their wealth to purchase influence.
Or maybe it's when men like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Philip Armour, Jay Gould, and James Mellon escape military service by paying for a substitute, saying things like 'a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable.' (From Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States.')
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with the amount of money a person has, but everything to do with the person's attitude.
Sorry, benna. ;)
s/reletivly/relatively
Imagine the impertinocity of besmirchifying a Slashdotter based on his post. (Thank you, Don King, for your contributions to the English language.)
...and you rationalize that you're poor because you are immoral
...I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins...is to do wrong....let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings....(emphasis mine.)
I was just reading about this in Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States'. Russell Conwell (another Yale graduate), a minister, author, and post-Reconstruction (after the Civil War) motivational speaker, included this message in his lecture "Acres of Diamonds":
I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich....The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community. Let me say here clearly...ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men....