From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Sat Aug 07 2004 - 21:33:47 BST
Before responding DMB I must declare an interest ...
I'm a disciple of the "Universal Church of the Interactive Network",
http://www.bloggerheads.com/religion/ (check out its saints)
and a member of its "I Believe in the BBC" campaign
http://www.bloggerheads.com/bbc/
Murdoch and Fox are no friends of this campaign,
so whilst I have to point out that the Sun is still renowned as a
(successful) campaigning paper
I'm not here to defend it.
If the Sun's objective is to score political points,
then as usual there is absolutely nothing wrong with it's logic.
What wrong (poor quality) maybe, is its politics and methods and possibly
its objectives,
if you count money-making as wrong in principle.
The jury is out on all counts, which is why we need free-ish elections and
markets of some kind.
Apart from the comparative point that perhaps UK hospitals are no worse than
other sophisticated western hospitals (which few of us ever doubted BTW),
I'm not sure what LOGIC, or anything else rationally, objectively
scientific, has to do with it MoQ-wise.
I think what we're probably agreeing on is that Platt's politics also appear
to stink, if his (misguided) logic is to suggest there is any case for
public vs private medical arrangements anywhere in here in the first place.
(Which is the point your CNN story adds.)
Logic itself is what is misguided, in all human scale matters,
(other than those rare cases of controlled scientific experiments).
Ian
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2004 8:27 PM
Subject: RE: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
> Arlo, Platt and all inquiring minds:
>
> Platt said:
> >Headline in the UK Sun newspaper this morning:
> >
> >"Filthy NHS wards kill 5,000 a year."
> >
> >In the story, the reasons for this sorry record in Briton's socialized
> >medicine system are that doctors, nurses and cleaners "not washing their
> >hands properly" Also, "Many were overworked and found it hard to maintain
> >standards." Furthermore, "Generally unclean hospitals, too few isolation
> >units and patients frequently being shifted around all added to the
spread
> >of the bugs." Kerry and Hillary want a similar low quality system for the
> U.S. Thanks, but no thanks.
>
> Arlo Bensinger replied:
> Headling on CNN.com this morning:
>
> "Study: Hospital errors cause 195,000 deaths"
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- As many as 195,000 people a year could be dying in
> U.S. hospitals because of easily prevented errors, a company said Tuesday
> in an estimate that doubles previous figures.
>
> Lakewood, Colorado-based HealthGrades Inc. said its data covers all 50
> states and is more up-to-date than a 1999 study from the Institute of
> Medicine that said 98,000 people a year die from medical errors.
>
> "If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual list of
leading
> causes of death included medical errors, it would show up as number six,
> ahead of diabetes, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease and renal disease,"
> Collier said.
>
> dmb says:
> What I find troubling about Platt's complaints is that personal hygiene
has
> nothing to do with socialism. The problem is not solved by changing from
> socialized medicine to private enterprise. Its solved with soap and water.
> And considering the rate of death in our private system is any indication
of
> its quality, then its about 40 times worse than the UK system. If medical
> errors are the sixth leading cause of death its no wonder malpractice
> insurance costs so much and its no wonder that doctors are so often sued.
>
> I'd also like to point out that the SUN is a Rupert Murdoch paper. Like
Fox
> news, the Times of London, the New York Post and the Weekly Standard, his
> media outlets are notoriously biased. Anyone interested in learning about
> the many, many specific examples of this bias would do well to read Al
> Franken's LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM. The author is only a
> comedian, but employed the services of a classroom full of Harvard grad
> students as his researchers, so its actually very well documented. Plus
its
> funny. This book is aimed specifically at Murdoch's FOX NEWS, which is run
> by Bush's cousin. But the BBC says this about the SUN...
>
> According to the BBC...
> In 1969, the Sun was sold by IPC to Rupert Murdoch for £800,000. He
quickly
> relaunched the Sun as a tabloid paper, and cut the number of journalists
> employed. The first topless photograph of a page three girl was published
in
> 1970, and the paper began to focus more on sex, showbiz and celebrity
> gossip.
>
> In other words, its a gutter rag. The SUN uses a story about dirty hands
to
> score political points, but the logic is so bad that only an ideologue
could
> fail to see through it. Its ridiculous.
>
> Thanks,
> dmb
>
>
>
>
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