newberry wrote:Should the alternative health industry (ie, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, supplements, etc.) not be held to the same standard as the drug companies?

NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT THEY SHOULDN'T.

What you are too blocked in the head to see is that corruption in corporate medicine is the BIGGER THREAT, so to spend EQUAL TIME scrutinizing both is exactly what corporate medicine wants you to do.

If you lived in a city where there was one murder a day and one shoplifting a day, would you demand that the police devote equal personnel to combating both????

clocker bob wrote:

Mark Hansen wrote:For one example didn't I say, near the end of my post, that insurance companies are more interested in making money then in giving it back to you and me?

You're the ass, Mark. You can't even keep your fucking story straight!

Can this:

mark hansen wrote:insurance companies are more interested in making money then in giving it back to you and me

and this:

mark hansen wrote:I guess I don't understand why you think a cheap effective alternative treatment wouldn't be in their interests also.

and this:

mark hansen wrote:but wouldn't a low cost, reasonably safe treatment like the use of Vitamin C be encouraged by health insurance companies (which, by the way, I have no love for either) as a way to keep their costs down?

All be true at the same time???????

How the FUCK do you have the gall to attack me when you said that motherfucking insurance companies would be interested in making health care cost less, when at the same time, you are arguing this?

mark hansen wrote:insurance companies are more interested in making money then in giving it back to you and me

What do you think 'giving more money back' means????

It means lowering costs.

You, in one hour, have argued that the insurance companies WOULD want to lower costs, and that insurance companies WOULD NOT want to lower costs!!!!

Fuck you. Go read a book.

Listen Bob, didn't I say that I wasn't holding out hope that they would turn around and lower premiums? I'm sure that they would love to lower their costs (meaning the money they pay out to hospitals, doctors, etc.), and at the same time not lower premiums. Nothing I said is contradictory.

If someone else who has either read or posted on this thread genuinely thinks I have posted contradictory statements, I would be willing to apologize to you Bob, but I am not willing to let it pass when you decide to start throwing insults for no good reason.

Maybe this simple guide will help:

Their costs = money they (insurance companies) pay to hospitals, doctors, etc.

Our costs=premiums we (you and I and the rest of the world-except those with a national health plan) pay to insurance companies

Their profit=money they (insurance companies) swindle out of us by not passing on their lower costs in the form of lower premiums.





Now, why don't you go read a fucking book. Perhaps one that will give you info on interacting with other people in a non-confrontational yet edifying and provocative manner.

Mark Hansen wrote:Bob, you have selectively quoted and misrepresented what I said.

You are calling me a liar. Now I will prove that you are the liar.

Your first reply regarding vitamin C and cancer:
http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 789#431789

The complete paragraph is question:

Mark Hansen wrote:One point I would like to make though: I understand your mistrust of big pharma,(which I share) and I understand your reasoning about their vested interests in keeping patent control on potential cancer treatments, but wouldn't a low cost, reasonably safe treatment like the use of Vitamin C be encouraged by health insurance companies (which, by the way, I have no love for either) as a way to keep their costs down?

Followed by my explanation of costs:
http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 887#431887

clocker bob wrote: Whoa. Hold on. 'their costs'??? The cost of health insurance is the cost borne by the health insurance customer. They're our costs, and their profits. Their job is to sell us insurance, which is a loan: it allows us to be able to pay a big medical bill all at once, and in return for the coverage ( loan ), we pay them premiums which include interest. They let us pay slowly and they pay the hospitals quickly, and the difference between what they collect from us and what they pay the hospitals is their profit.

Where do you see the insurance company motive for cheap alternative medicine replacing corporate medicine? That breaks the circuit. The insurance companies have no interest in healthy people who get healthy cheaply without using corporate med, because that reduces rates. Insurance companies make the most money off people who suffer from long, protracted illnesses or catastrophic illnesses, like cancer, because an abundance of such people in society escalates the insurance rates for all of us. People that eat right and exercise and live without constant health care problems into old age are poison to health insurers and corporate med.

Your reply:
http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 951#431951

Mark Hansen wrote:

Bob, I realize that "their costs" are passed onto us in the form of premiums. No fucking shit. I merely stated that if a safe, cheap, reasonable alternative treatment for cancer, in this case, specifically, IV vitamin C, was proved to be effective in treating cancer, then any insurance company would jump on it in a heartbeat, because "their costs", the money they pay out for treatment of cancer, would plummet. Hopefully, that would translate into lower premiums for people like you and me, although I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for this to happen. As I said, I am no big admirer of insurance companies, and I know they are more interested in making money, then in spending it or giving any of it back to you and me.

I guess I don't understand why you think a cheap effective alternative treatment wouldn't be in their interests also.

Okay? Nothing out of context there, Mark, right?

My reply:
http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 968#431968

Full text:

Mark Hansen wrote:I merely stated that if a safe, cheap, reasonable alternative treatment for cancer, in this case, specifically, IV vitamin C, was proved to be effective in treating cancer, then any insurance company would jump on it in a heartbeat, because "their costs", the money they pay out for treatment of cancer, would plummet.

clocker bob wrote:You're not getting it. They are not 'their costs'. They are 'our' costs. That is what insurance is. An agreement that the insurer will pay the insured's costs when the insured is faced with a lump sum medical bill that he cannot pay. Insurance is a loan, or more accurately, a mortgage. Do banks want the costs of homes to plummet, so they write smaller loans and collect less interest? Of course not. Do health insurers want people to find cheaper treatments, so they require smaller loans ( policies ) from the health insurer? Of course not. Your whole argument is like you think we live in a single payer taxdollar funded system, where there would be an incentive to make people healthy for less. We live in a profit-driven system, and therefore, rising health care costs and rising premiums are good news for the profit-based industry.

I'm amazed that you aren't seeing this.

mark hansen wrote:Hopefully, that would translate into lower premiums for people like you and me, although I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for this to happen.

clocker bob wrote:And why are lower premiums good news for anyone but you or me? Did Exxon buy you a hybrid car this morning so you can stop buying their gas?

mark hansen wrote:I guess I don't understand why you think a cheap effective alternative treatment wouldn't be in their interests also.

clocker bob wrote:Mark, they are in the business of selling health care and the insurance to pay for it, that's why! Damn... I know you know what capitalism is. It must be the concept of treatment that is making you think that corporate medicine has your interests at heart, and is always doing what it takes to lower health care costs. Think of it as a product. If you held the exclusive license to sell donuts that cost $12 a dozen in Chicago, would you expect Donuts, Inc. to welcome with open arms the woman who bakes donuts in her kitchen and sells them to her friends for $2 a dozen?

Control of the marketplace and the cost structure is why they won't eagerly sell you cheap alternative treatments- you're aware of the battle to buy meds from Canada, right? Doesn't that current event tell you a lot more about who big pharm is looking out for than some fantasy you have about the insurance companies and their friends in corporate medicine getting together to give you Vitamin C for your cancer? If health insurers are on your side, why can't you get cheaper Canadian pills covered by your US insurer??

Christ, Mark. They're in it for the money.

And then, because I made a fool of you for thinking that the insurance companies would work together to lower health care costs, you come back at me with this??

Mark Hansen wrote:Bob, you have selectively quoted and misrepresented what I said.

I didn't selectively quote or misrepresent ANYTHING!

Mark Hansen wrote:I don't want to get into a pissing match with you, partly because I think that is what you really want, but it is really unnecessary and annoying. I know you know and understand what I said in my previous post, unless of course you selectively only read parts of it.

For one example didn't I say, near the end of my post, that insurance companies are more interested in making money then in giving it back to you and me?

Sometimes you are such an ass Bob. I don't think one thing I have said contradicts what you have said, except I don't put things in black and white terms the way you do.

Bob, I've said this before: you bring up interesting and provocative things in your posts, but your manner and the way you treat people who haven't, in any way, attacked you or the basic substance of your posts, is truly sad.

Answer the point I raised about the Canadian prescriptions, Mark- what does that tell you about the motives of the insurance companies?? If you think they will back alternative medicines that will turn people away from patentable medicines, you are a goddamned fool.

Mark Hansen wrote:
Listen Bob, didn't I say that I wasn't holding out hope that they would turn around and lower premiums? I'm sure that they would love to lower their costs (meaning the money they pay out to hospitals, doctors, etc.), and at the same time not lower premiums. Nothing I said is contradictory.

You're still not getting it. You are not seeing that the insurance companies and corporate medicine work in tandem to keep the costs of health care high. The process will begin with corporate medicine resisting the use of unpatentable drugs like Vitamin C, because...

if it is successful, then they will sell less patentable drugs.

The insurance companies will not pressure corporate medicine to give patients cheaper treatments, because....

that ends the excuse the insurance companies have for charging higher premiums every year.

If the cost of health care went down and the premiums stayed the same...

don't you think people would notice?

And don't you understand that it is a moot point, because the costs aren't going down, because the pharmaceutical companies will prevent it from happening in the first place??

You completely misunderstand the fundamentals of insurance. Insurance is a LOAN. It is money when you need it, like for an illness, that you pay off with interest over your entire life. That is what a premium is- an installment on a loan. If you want coverage for catastrophic health issues, the insurance company says, "okay, we'll cover you. pay this much a month". It is the same as the bank saying, "You want a house? Okay. Pay this much a month, and we'll buy you a house".

Now, read closely. Insurance companies take all the premiums paid to them and pool them into huge accounts, and they become what are known as 'institutional investors'. Insurance companies take their premiums and use them just like Goldman Sachs, putting money in the markets, hoping for big returns.

They don't want the money they can raise for the investment side of their business to drop for any reason. Expensive health care means constantly rising premiums, and more money that the insurance companies can invest.

Your premiums are not sitting in a box waiting to be used to pay a hospital bill, they're in the markets.

Now, have you ever heard of an investment house wishing it had less money to play with?

Would not a trend towards cheaper medicine predict a trend towards less income from premiums?? Would a trend towards cheaper medicine be good news for corporate medicine? Of course not. Don't you think that all the insurance guys and the health care guys all KNOW each other, and work together, and conspire to keep America from having socialized medicine?

Your belief that the insurers would join with the insured to cut the throats of the health care industry is painfully naive. They are not your advocates.

clocker bob wrote:

newberry wrote:Should the alternative health industry (ie, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, supplements, etc.) not be held to the same standard as the drug companies?

NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT THEY SHOULDN'T.

I've asked the above question on this forum numerous times, and I don't recall (though I may have missed it) anyone answering in the affirmative, or at all.

What you are too blocked in the head to see is that corruption in corporate medicine is the BIGGER THREAT, so to spend EQUAL TIME scrutinizing both is exactly what corporate medicine wants you to do.

If you lived in a city where there was one murder a day and one shoplifting a day, would you demand that the police devote equal personnel to combating both????

I never called them equal threats.

newberry wrote:I never called them equal threats.

By answering every post critical of corporate medicine with a post insisting that we should be critical of alternative medicine also, you demand that we should perceive them as equal threats.

Bob, To a certain extent, I now see what you mean, why insurance companies wouldn't want the pot to be smaller. I was not looking at the insurance investment side of the picture, which was not ever brought up on this thread before, unless I myself passed over it, although I don't think so, since it is not in any of the other parts of the thread you have quoted in your retort.

Bob, I would have backed down a bit much earlier if you had brought it up before, and if you weren't so easy to leap to insults to protect your thread.

Can't we see a gentler, nicer Clocker Bob who doesn't have to insult everyone who slightly disagrees with you? It would be very refreshing.

newberry wrote:Should the alternative health industry (ie, homeopathy, Chinese medicine, supplements, etc.) not be held to the same standard as the drug companies?

clocker bob wrote:NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT THEY SHOULDN'T.

newberry wrote:I've asked the above question on this forum numerous times, and I don't recall (though I may have missed it) anyone answering in the affirmative, or at all.

Did anyone answer in the NEGATIVE??

When I answered like this, and said that consumers should use buyer beware about the whole world, what did you think I meant?

clocker bob wrote:It's all buyer beware, buyer do research, buyer be smart. The whole world is. We can't trust the regulatory agencies to be straight with us, or the journals, or the media.

Mark Hansen wrote:Bob, I would have backed down a bit much earlier if you had brought it up before, and if you weren't so easy to leap to insults to protect your thread.

Can't we see a gentler, nicer Clocker Bob who doesn't have to insult everyone who slightly disagrees with you? It would be very refreshing.

Mark, in today's conflict the first insult was cast by you.

My tone was civil with you. I was not insulting you. I was a little exasperated at not getting my point across, but I was not insulting you. You followed by calling me a liar ( you said I misquoted you ) and you called me an ass. That was an escalation by you.

I'll boldface the 'insults'. I don't think mine were. Your's were.

Mark Hansen wrote:I merely stated that if a safe, cheap, reasonable alternative treatment for cancer, in this case, specifically, IV vitamin C, was proved to be effective in treating cancer, then any insurance company would jump on it in a heartbeat, because "their costs", the money they pay out for treatment of cancer, would plummet.

clocker bob wrote:You're not getting it. They are not 'their costs'. They are 'our' costs. That is what insurance is. An agreement that the insurer will pay the insured's costs when the insured is faced with a lump sum medical bill that he cannot pay. Insurance is a loan, or more accurately, a mortgage. Do banks want the costs of homes to plummet, so they write smaller loans and collect less interest? Of course not. Do health insurers want people to find cheaper treatments, so they require smaller loans ( policies ) from the health insurer? Of course not. Your whole argument is like you think we live in a single payer taxdollar funded system, where there would be an incentive to make people healthy for less. We live in a profit-driven system, and therefore, rising health care costs and rising premiums are good news for the profit-based industry.

I'm amazed that you aren't seeing this.

mark hansen wrote:Hopefully, that would translate into lower premiums for people like you and me, although I wouldn't hold my breathe waiting for this to happen.

And why are lower premiums good news for anyone but you or me? Did Exxon buy you a hybrid car this morning so you can stop buying their gas?

mark hansen wrote:I guess I don't understand why you think a cheap effective alternative treatment wouldn't be in their interests also.

Mark, they are in the business of selling health care and the insurance to pay for it, that's why! Damn... I know you know what capitalism is. It must be the concept of treatment that is making you think that corporate medicine has your interests at heart, and is always doing what it takes to lower health care costs. Think of it as a product. If you held the exclusive license to sell donuts that cost $12 a dozen in Chicago, would you expect Donuts, Inc. to welcome with open arms the woman who bakes donuts in her kitchen and sells them to her friends for $2 a dozen?

Control of the marketplace and the cost structure is why they won't eagerly sell you cheap alternative treatments- you're aware of the battle to buy meds from Canada, right? Doesn't that current event tell you a lot more about who big pharm is looking out for than some fantasy you have about the insurance companies and their friends in corporate medicine getting together to give you Vitamin C for your cancer? If health insurers are on your side, why can't you get cheaper Canadian pills covered by your US insurer??

Christ, Mark. They're in it for the money.

mark hansen wrote:Bob, you have selectively quoted and misrepresented what I said. I don't want to get into a pissing match with you, partly because I think that is what you really want, but it is really unnecessary and annoying. I know you know and understand what I said in my previous post, unless of course you selectively only read parts of it.

For one example didn't I say, near the end of my post, that insurance companies are more interested in making money then in giving it back to you and me?

Sometimes you are such an ass Bob. I don't think one thing I have said contradicts what you have said, except I don't put things in black and white terms the way you do.

Bob, I've said this before: you bring up interesting and provocative things in your posts, but your manner and the way you treat people who haven't, in any way, attacked you or the basic substance of your posts, is truly sad.

Okay? Point out where I delivered a real insult before you.

I'm glad we now understand each other on insurance.

Newberry, I totally agree that alt. therapies should be held to the same standard. At the same time, I don't think they should be necessarily pulled off the market if they are found *lacking*. Because most of these therapies have their share of loyal devotees due to their own personal experience, many of whom would probably not care what the science said. As for everyone else, it would be up to them to make up their mind based on the information made available.

If they are not found to be dangerous then I don't think there is reason to pull them off the market.