Welfare in the US

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread is an embarrassment to the forum.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread is an embarrassment to the forum.

not possible, the Forum is as itself an embarrassment, a collection of people who have failed in one form or another.

This may be true, but it's hardly wrong to demand at least a few standards...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread is an embarrassment to the forum.

not possible, the Forum is as itself an embarrassment, a collection of people who have failed in one form or another.

This may be true, but it's hardly wrong to demand at least a few standards...

Why is Sibboleth always pussyfooting around?

Because I like cats.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

U.S unemployment figures have historically been low because U.S unemployment figures are even more of a joke than unemployment figures in most 'Western' countries (so a complete joke rather than a relative joke). For what that's worth.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think it is ever good to have cancer.

Anyway, I know from the personal experience of too many of my close relatives that, actually, you do get access to expensive cancer treatment on the NHS. Quite how good depends on the cancer, for obvious reasons. There are also additional socio-cultural issues in the U.K regarding cancer (especially regarding the supposed embarrassment about talking about certain bodily functions; this might sound absurd, but is actually a very serious problem with men, especially older men), and there were some specific problems with cancer care until a couple of decades ago that (for what it's worth) had nothing to do with the structure or funding of the health service (and are no longer an issue).

I also know from rather direct personal experience that you also have access to expensive treatment for other serious illnesses on the NHS.

Certain other points need to be mentioned, I suppose. Firstly, private healthcare in Britain is not what might be assumed; actually it's mostly just the purchasing of a slightly privileged position within the same system as everyone else. Separate rooms, shorter waits for minor operations and so on. Same staff, same care, basically. It's a thing that people get in order to show that they've made it financially, more than anything else. Secondly, the NHS is not a massive cranking, clanking, semi-Stalinist bureaucratic monster, and never has been. It is actually fairly decentralised at an operational level. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on your point of view (personally I would like to see a more centralised service based around major regional hospitals as I think that is actually more effective and would guarantee quicker access to specialist care for everyone).

I also think that calm is a good thing, some of the time. A little more it would certainly be a good idea in this thread. Unlock.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Your response in regards to cancer in NHS is approximately what I've been able to piece together as well. Some expensive treatment is made available, but throughout the process there are key constraints that slow the flow of people utilizing these expensive treatments.

All healthcare systems ration treatment (and not just expensive treatment), the only question is how this is done. Fundamentally, the question is whether you attempt to do so based on need (however defined), on some sort of market system or on a compromise between the two. Either way, there will be losers and so, ultimately, the decision is extremely and inherently political.

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I would be careful about making assumptions like that. The main reason for relatively low cancer survival rates in Britain is almost certainly late diagnosis (which is as much a social problem as it is anything else) and a couple of other things mostly not related to the structure of the health service (at least not from a social policy perspective). It is very unlikely that the problems that exist could be cured by changing to any sort of insurance system.

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All healthcare systems are (to some extent or other) bureaucratic nightmares. This isn't really even a bad thing; an effective healthcare system ultimately runs off paperwork, because you need to keep track of patients and their histories. People who have a problem with this should be kept at least thirty miles away from shaping healthcare policy. What I object to (because it is not true) is the characterisation of the NHS as essentially a grey Soviet monster that shuffles people and care around in a Kafkaesque manner. This is a characterisation created out of ignorance and ideological blinkers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

British NHS will only budget outlay so much for specialist care so you will not guarantee quicker access to specialist care. They are forced to place any of a number of constraints to you accessing specialists even in the event of your solution of moving to "major regional hospitals". Again the problem is the low expenditure on specialists leaving a smaller supply relative to demand. It has nothing to do with housing specialists in larger buildings. Waiting lists, gate keepers, bureaucratic red tape, etc. will be forced to pop up to account for that mismatch in specialist supply and demand. Waiting lists are the most common because that is just the default outcome when other things aren't put in place(like gate keepers).

You've completely missed my point, I think. To make things absolutely clear, it is not a question about the size of the buildings. I tend to think that it would be better if the system was orientated around specialist care in major hospitals to a greater extent than it is at present (and to a far greater extent than it will be when the idiotic reforms being proposed for England are finally rubber-stamped). This would necessitate (of course) bigger budgets, but would also require the closure or downgrading of even more local hospitals than has been the case in recent decades, which means that it would be politically unpopular (and which is why it will never happen).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Market based systems don't need to engage in that much rationing at all because they have high cost sharing(and lower premiums) so people decide on their own whether they think its worth it or not and take more control of watching their own healthcare situation to assess risks vs. costs. This exercise of constraint in utilizing healthcare because its some of your money that is partially paying for it allows people to self ration like they do in most other markets like candy and new cars.

On the contrary, they engage in rationing every bit as much as something as overtly socialist as the NHS. It is just that it is done through market mechanisms and via exclusion. Fundamentally there is only a finite amount of anything related to healthcare (whether staff - including non-specialist staff - drugs or even buildings) and ways must be devised to manage this problem; we cannot all have what we want immediately. In this respect a market system is absolutely based around rationing, it is just that it rations based on the ability to pay. Anything else is semantics, and bugger that.

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Solely based on that problem? No, I don't think I argued that. Please do not twist my words into making claims that I did not make myself in order to make it easier to argue against my arguments. I do not like people doing that. It is dishonest and disrespectful.

It is certainly one of the reasons for the problem of late diagnosis though. Another issue with cancer statistics here, of course, is the fact that many cancer patients are elderly and there has always been an assumption here (and this was the case long before 1948) that there's not much point adding a few extra years to a life that was likely to end soon anyway. My own Grandad chose to fade slowly out to increasing doses of morphine rather than risk surgery that would have extended his life by a couple of years at the cost of what was left of his quality of life.

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If you think this then I think you cannot have met many British men, especially those that are older and working class. This has nothing to do with politics in the sense that you're thinking of.

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I think you'll find that in the US it isn't just a question of supply, as the little fact that large numbers of people are effectively excluded from access to large parts of the system. Not that there's any doubt that large US hospitals are extremely rich and can afford anything. Though it is interesting that you bring up cancer testing in that way; it has sometimes been the case in the past that drives to increase the number of people (again, especially men) getting themselves tested have failed because... well... guess.

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So you've never even heard of Kafka? I think that says everything.

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lol

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And you base this assumption on... what, exactly? All I know is that I'm alive now and wouldn't be if I was American. I accept that this may colour my perceptions somewhat, but then none of us is an objective observer of anything.

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As far as I am aware, hospital infection rates (if we believe the statistics that exist, and I don't because I'm not a credulous idiot, and if we also believe that it is a good idea to compare them, which I don't because not only am I not a credulous idiot, I am also not terminally naïve) are very similar in most Western countries, particularly given the sheer amount that estimates within particular countries vary from study to study. Most hospital infections are essentially unpreventable anyway and the statistics are (in all countries) a joke. You can go in for an injury and die of an infection in any hospital on the planet, and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You know that can very well happen here, don't you? One of the few similarities between the U.S., UK, France, etc. is the fact that quality varies greatly among provider's. There are some state-of-the-art hospitals and outpatient centers in Europe. There are some really crappy ones, as well. The same applies for us here in the U.S. God knows I've told my friends and relatives which hospital I want to be taken to if I need acute care.

This is absolutely true, yes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well as you close down the local hospitals those healthcare consumers don't just disappear. They then move to getting serviced at the major hospitals.

'Healthcare consumers'? Christ. And that was without a hint of irony, I presume? Lord...

Anyways, that's the whole point. The entire and uttermost totality of the point. Because, you see, the quality of treatment from both specialist and non-specialist staff tends to improve when there is a major concentration of specialists. Hospitals, in that respect, are like Universities. And like Universities, you also want some serious teaching and research going on as well. A better atmosphere in general, and better care for the patients.

Oh, and if someone is advocating increasing the importance of specialist care within a system, then it is reasonable (and also logical) to assume that this person supports training and employing more specialists. It is possible that this hypothetical individual is bemused at the fact that he feels the need to point this out, it being so blindingly obvious.

Naturally this hypothetical individual would not dignify the rest of your post with a response and would be most unlikely to take any bait from from that general direction.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As I've established above, people choosing to pay or not pay by themselves is not rationing.

Not everyone has access to the same amount of money (obviously). Therefore a market-based healthcare system essentially rations healthcare based on the ability (and often the perceived ability) to pay. Alternatively, it could be stated that what is rationed under such a system is actually choice (oh, irony). Healthcare, of course, is not actually a product so any use of the word 'ration' is a little on the dodgy side, but it will have to do.

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Market mechanisms is just a piece of jargon that I like. The meaning is obvious. Exclusion should also be obvious; if large numbers of people are effectively excluded from access (either by - inevitably poorly informed as most people are utterly ignorant of medical matters - choice or by economic circumstance) to the roughly the same level of healthcare as the bulk of the population, then it obviously becomes easier to supply certain things to the majority.

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But that's nonsense. There isn't an infinite supply of surgeons, doctors, nurses and other staff. There isn't an infinite supply of equipment. There isn't an infinite supply of drugs (and certainly not of very expensive ones). And so on and so forth. And there never actually can be; there is no long-term in healthcare. All that matters is what is available now, not what might be available in twenty years time.

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I'm not really trying to prove anything. All I'm doing is pointing out certain things that are known to have an impact on cancer statistics here. What you want to do with that information is up to you, of course.

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Have you ever tried thinking critically? Try it and run that paragraph back to yourself.

Anyway, I don't think I have ever denied that Americans with means have access to top notch healthcare. Who would? That's not the problem, from my perspective. As I wrote earlier, it is question of determining winners and losers.

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I'm sure that they have, but the rates are (from what I know) much higher...

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Franz Kafka was a man.

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In other words, very little...

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There are actually multiple answers to that, but the main one would be the point I've been going on about endlessly; access to the best quality treatment irrespective of class or medical history. This turned out to be absolutely necessary a couple of years ago, but there would be no chance of my American doppelgänger (if he even reached that point or was even born; neither are all that likely) being so lucky. There are, as I wrote earlier, winners and losers in every system. And maybe the personal is political, after all.

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Whether something is or is not a political issue (top five? I don't remember that, for all the tabloid trolling) does not determine whether it is or is not a problem. Hospital infections might not be a political issue in the U.S (which is hardly surprising as, unlike Britain, the People do not own the hospitals and the State is not responsible for running them) but they are most certainly a problem, much as they are everywhere else.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Again you apparently don't understand what the word rationing means.

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Let's try this again. We cannot all have access to the sort of medical treatment that we might ideally want and/or need at the very moment that we happen to want/or need it. Yes? Therefore, some way must be found to distribute treatment amongst the people that want it. And rationing will do just fine as a word to describe that process; it isn't ideal, but it captures the fundamental problem and so also captures the fundamental point. And this fundamental point is also the point at which the politics of healthcare are at their clearest; is the right to equality of access more important than the right to buy immediate access?

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The point is that it is stupid to think of anything other than the immediate when thinking about healthcare. At any one moment, the supply of the things needed in order to treat a particular group of possible patients is finite.

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No, all I was doing was pointing out the commonly accepted reasons for problems such as late diagnosis (I wouldn't feel comfortable going much further as this is very much not my area). On the one specific issue, well, perhaps everything is exactly the same in all places when it comes to social embarrassment over bodily functions, but that's unlikely as that kind of thing is never really uniform. It is certainly the case that immigrants working in the health service (and there are a vast number of them) are often surprised at the complicated web of euphemisms used by (especially older) patients and some NHS trusts actually run classes to help deal with the issue.

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...

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Not in any great detail, no. I think that I have a better idea of how it works than you have about the NHS though. It's like talking to the bastard child of a dog-eared Friedmanite economics textbook and lurid headlines from the Mail and the Express.

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Well I am glad to learn that the good people of the Mississippi Delta and Central Appalachia have easy access to great healthcare. I had heard otherwise, you see.

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The number of people taking them up, obviously. I suppose one reason for that would be that it's sort-of needed in any system based around insurance.

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There aren't the words.

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I'm not about to post personal medical details in a public forum.

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Are you making things up again? Because you've got a bit of an unfortunate habit of doing that. The statistics on this subject are beyond unreliable, but you can get hold of them within a couple of seconds thanks to the marvels of the internet.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Consumers of healthcare is the correct term when your referring to it on a macro level(think about it when you buy a drug your not a patient you are a consumer). Its an economics term. When your talking about those that see a doctor or something like that they become "patients". I'm just trying to use accurate lingo here.

'Consumers of healthcare' is never a correct term. It is a robotic term. It is a dangerous and reductive term. It may even be borderline dystopian. If you are ill and need treatment, then you are not acting (and certainly are not thinking) as a consumer, at least not unless you are effectively forced to. And, as has been pointed out already, if you have to act as a consumer, you may well make poor choices. Most people have very little in the way of medical knowledge.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I have not had a physical since I moved. I visited a doctor twice in the last 6 years, once when I had to operate some weird lump of fat that emerged under my skin and once after I was punched in the face.

Can I just say that that is so not fair?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Your're defining consuming from a marketing stand point. i.e. people that decry consumerism

Consuming in economics is just that you utilize the supply that's it. So even in a national healthcare system the population is consumers of healthcare.

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You certainly can reduce everything to such jargonistic abstractions if you really want to, yes. The question is whether this is actually a good idea if you want to be taken seriously by people who disagree with you.

Fundamentally a patient is not a consumer. Fundamentally they are a patient. They may also be (in some respects) a consumer, but only in the way that they are also citizens or perhaps even children of God. Moreover, patients do not make decisions as consumers unless they are forced to, and when they are forced to make decisions as consumers, they will often make poor decisions. Or, to put things slightly differently, it is a mistake to view healthcare as something that is purely (or even mostly) a question of economics.

You will, of course, disagree with every word of that. In any case, it is not merely a question of objecting to the word, as objecting to what it signifies.

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No, but your consultant or your GP will presumably prescribe it for you.

Of course I do understand that there is a major cultural difference here. Few things surprise visitors to America nearly so much as the sheer amount of advertising for drugs and other medicinal products.

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I actually know someone who's the patient of a nutritionist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What you are referring to is what kind of system do you use to handle scarcity? Its the first topic of your most basic econ class you'll take. That is a far cry from calling market a rationing mechanism and it wont "do fine just fine" describing that process.

Why won't it do 'just fine' to describe the process? It isn't an ideal word, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter pretty quickly. I suppose you would prefer a prettier euphemism, or perhaps something that celebrates what happens.

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Except that it isn't. If some people (especially large numbers of people) have almost immediate access to absolutely anything they want in a healthcare system (irrespective of need), then we cannot have equality of access. Someone has to lose out, in some way, at some point.

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That's a remarkably specific question for a question that ultimately means very little. I, too, support rainbows, kittens and fluffy bunnies.

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It's meaningless, so it's hard to really disagree.

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Mostly you just denied the possibility of major difference over such things, and I then I got very bored.

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You are posting with an air of authority on this topic and you don't know what I'm getting at when I bring up those particular areas? Christ.

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1. Economic situation, geographical location, certain lack of the necessary documented medical history for various other reasons, complexity of medical conditions/emergencies.

2. 21

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I'm well aware of the problems caused by infections in hospitals here, thank you. In fact... at no point did I ever claim otherwise. All I did was point out that it is an issue in every other country, and that what data there is (pretending for a moment that the data is reliable and comparable) points pretty firmly in that direction.

Or, putting things a little differently, it's not a good idea to make facts up here. People sometimes check.

And there we are, perhaps. I think we've reached a dead end, at least as far as this thread goes. Hwyl fawr.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In the US, nutritionists don't have "patients". Again consumer just refers to a broader subject that includes patients. You're arguing something that is just pointless.

No, it is not pointless. It is absolutely not pointless. It is the opposite of pointless. Nothing matters so much in social policy as how we see the individual, because societies are made up of individuals and social policy is shaped in that gap that exists between society and ideology. Is the individual merely, or even principally, a consumer? Or is the individual also a citizen? And I suppose a patient as well. Perhaps one of the children of God, maybe, even, an individual in a more directly philosophical sense.

And in pointing that out I think I may have finally have addressed the question that kicked off the thread.

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I think you will find that I know a little bit more about being a patient than most people here. Slightly. Not only that, but I know quite a few people who work in the health service (including relatives). Of course anything picked up that way is mostly anecdotal. But, and here's the funny part, I also have an interest (and a very serious and very real one at that) in the history of social policy, of which healthcare is an integral part. So you see, on this level, I do actually know what I'm talking about. This, by the way, would include an acceptance that we can only speak about such things as gross generalisations. There are patients who certainly can make good decisions for themselves, for example. But quite a lot, and I think you ought to accept this because you will look a tad foolish if you don't, who can't. Especially when put under some kind of financial pressure, even if it's likely posthumous.

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You are a consumer of a drug in the very literal sense that it passes through your body and has an impact on it. You can also be a consumer in the sense that you went out and bought it out o your own free will (to the extent that there is such a thing). But when something is prescribed?

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Do you seriously think that, or are you trolling? Can I just say (or, rather, write) that I very hope that the latter is true?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No I just demand people actually stop using false terminology after its been pointed out to them. Rationing and purchasing are not the same thing numb-nuts.

Touched a nerve? Metaphorically, I mean.

False terminology though... that's interesting language to use. Very interesting. Who, exactly, determines which terminology is the Truth and which is False?

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I don't think I used the word limitless, at least not today.

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That is because it is. At the point in time at which it matters to patients, anyway. Which is in the present. I suspect this has been mentioned elsewhere in this long nightmare of a thread based internet experience.

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What have economies got to do with anything? I'm thinking entirely about healthcare policy. And, alas, that is something that will always (always, always) produce losers, as well as winners. As I have been repeating endlessly for a while now. Which is a shame because it really is quite obvious.

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Is it? Did you ask them?

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My understanding (and I accept that on this issue I am beyond ignorant) is that most patients want to get better, and that most people who work in health services want to make this happen. I would argue that something would have to have gone seriously wrong for anything else to be so.

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I think that the use of 'probably' there is very interesting. 'Probably'.

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Access to top notch healthcare in the Mississippi Delta or in Central Appalachia. What's it like? If you are right, then it should be fantastic. I had heard otherwise though. I don't think there's much ambiguity there.

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No... I don't think I made up any facts. What I did was point out that it is very, very, very easy to find a set of comparative statistics on hospital infections (and here's a link!) and that these statistics do not exactly back up your rather extravagant claims. It happens, of course, that I don't really believe any statistics on the topic, but that's by-the-by.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1) Now your just sounding like acting all whiny and stupid because I pointed out that you aren't using the correct term. Maybe I should just call people on the left pedophiles and insist that my term is just as good as anybody else's. Its not my fault if you want to use incorrect language.

I'm sorry, but that will not do as a reply. So I will repeat myself, in the hope of provoking an answer that isn't full of childish abuse.

Nothing matters so much in social policy as how we see the individual, because societies are made up of individuals and social policy is shaped in that gap that exists between society and ideology. Is the individual merely, or even principally, a consumer? Or is the individual also a citizen? And I suppose a patient as well. Perhaps one of the children of God, maybe, even, an individual in a more directly philosophical sense.

Do you understand what that means? Do you understand (now that you have actually read it) why I object so strongly to this dogmatic use of the language of consumerism?

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Uh, huh. So you insist that there is no problem with patients making decisions that either they or their family will end up regretting, as a result of their (entirely understandable and absolutely normal) ignorance? This is not an issue at all in the United States?

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Again, only in a physical sense, and that's something quite different.

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I would define it in the way that it is usually defined by the non-robotic.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1) No I'm just surprised at the utter stupidity of someone that would spend this much arguing over terminology that is actually correct.

I am many things, but stupid isn't really one of them. I just find your vehemence over this to be a little bit... odd. I have already told you (repeatedly, I think) that I am using the word in question ('rationing') purely because it describes the process I am thinking about well enough, and because it means that I don't have to resort to some jargonistic dribble. But you see to think the word set in stone. Yet you won't say who set it there.

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The qualifier came immediately beforehand.

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Have you even been reading my posts? I've already told you. It's really quite simple, so I'm not going to again.

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I don't think I said that? What I have been trying to write is that what matters when we're talking about access (especially within the context of equality of access) is the present, the now, the immediate. No matter how many liver specialists (for example), you have, they cannot give equal time to every single person with a liver disease (irrespective of severity, income or else) at the same time. If you see what I mean. I'm not even sure why you find this thought so very problematic.

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Oh for God's sake. I now think you are being willfully obtuse. I am attempting to have a discussion about healthcare policy. Healthcare as social policy, if you will. The politics of healthcare, if you must. Because I took exception to what you wrote on the issue.

It is possible to talk about healthcare in terms that are not economic. Most people don't find this very difficult.

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I did no such thing.

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That's a remarkably convoluted thought process there. But most people, well, they don't think like that. At least, no one I've ever met anyway. Perhaps Wisconsin is full of patients who think first and foremost in terms of mechanistic jargon, but I doubt it.

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Interesting.

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I think you'll find that I have provided plenty of very specific answers to all kinds of things in this thread, it's just that you've not been able to understand them, or have made a conscious decision not to. This is regrettable.

Oh, and I never claimed to be studying social policy; that would not be true. But I do have a very serious interest in the history of social policy. I like to be clear on these details and not claim to be anything that I'm not.

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Not at all, not at all. I have no intention of proving that I am knowledgeable about healthcare. It is a fact that I am, at least as far as certain aspects of it are concerned. Whether you accept that or not is up to you.

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Prove what?

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These things are so well known that I would consider them to be part of a basic level of knowledge, that's all. Let's narrow things down to the Delta. Do you know what happens when you type 'healthcare mississippi' into that autocomplete thing on google?

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I do hope that that wasn't an attempt at wit, doll.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Really, see I actually thought that what mattered in healthcare policy was saving lives!! But instead apparently all of our problems go away according to this retard when we use his terminology for defining someone that receives treatment.

Oh, come, come. You can do better than that. You could at least read my argument. It is fundamental to everything that I have been trying to say (write) in this thread. So, here we go again:

Nothing matters so much in social policy as how we see the individual, because societies are made up of individuals and social policy is shaped in that gap that exists between society and ideology. Is the individual merely, or even principally, a consumer? Or is the individual also a citizen? And I suppose a patient as well. Perhaps one of the children of God, maybe, even, an individual in a more directly philosophical sense.

A little flowery, I admit. But then that's just the way I write. I blame my Grandparents.

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Is that what I want to do?

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I don't think that sort of abuse (and there was some a little earlier in your post with the same tone) is really called for, doll.

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I own several.

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Oh, I'm like Brian Clough, me. Always have a comment. Anyway, I'm not hiding. I'm out in the open and waving a bright red flag. Mind you, I don't think that my little question there is that hard to understand. Your funeral, though.

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And to think that you were the one who urged me to buy a dictionary.

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But I'm not selling anything. In any event, my meaning there was quite clear.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Dictionary

Sorry, but I don't quite follow. Do you mean that a dictionary (but which one?) is the ultimate arbiter of all word usage? But... if that were true (and it isn't), then people like you couldn't really use the word 'ration' to describes what happens in systems such as the NHS.

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Haven't what?

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Is that what this is all about? Jumping up and down and bawling out 'USA! USA! USA!' - ?

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I don't think I have ever denied that there is an economic aspect to healthcare. But to think that it is not primarily or exclusively a question of economics is certainly not being 'blind to the world'. If anything, the alternative view - the one that you seem to be advocating - is... well... weird.

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Just after I stopped beating my wife, I think.

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Ah, so you're blaming the people of the Delta for the fact that the Delta has serious problems relating to healthcare? Do they all have access to the best healthcare out there?

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I apologise for not being a computer programme.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I get your argument. But your argument is still very weird!

Well, it might be to you. I would argue, though, that it is a fairly common (and therefore not at all weird) approach to welfare and to social policy of all kinds. It seems obvious - and not at all weird - that the beliefs of those responsible for shaping policy have a direct influence on the policy that they shape.

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Wouldn't they? How do you know this?

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Ah, I see. You don't understand my argument, but you think that you do... well this is awkward.

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No. Crude and unprovoked abuse is never called for. I can hardly complain if people are rude (because I am very rude myself), but I do draw the line at that kind of thing. It certainly makes it very hard for me to care greatly about the discussion as anything other an excuse to argue on the internet.

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'Going to regret' is an open-ended phrase that covers most possibilities. Your question, however, is gibberish.

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Really? Do you even understand what I meant by 'consume in a physical sense'? No, you don't have to answer that.

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Alright. As the relationship between a patient and a medical professional. I think that is how I would see it, and how most other people would as well. I happen to think that anyone who thinks otherwise is a little... disturbing, frankly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oh my God, we have beaten to death the terminology crap. I'm done with it! If you don't understand that words have specific meanings by now there is nothing i can do for you!

Amusing.

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I don't explain things in 'clear step by step detail' because I am not a robot. I have actually been making the same argument over and over again in this thread, putting it in different ways and sometimes even putting it in clear language. It is not my fault if none of this has penetrated your stainless steel cranium.

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Oh, I care a great deal about 'peoples lives'. Especially when those people are in hospital. If you don't believe me, ask anyone here.

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I think it is fairly clear that that is what you think, because you have demonstrated absolutely no capacity (none whatsoever) to think about the issue in any other way. Now, you might not think that yourself. But a little self-awareness is a good thing.

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Oh dear. Now this is just a little bit sad.

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I would ask a question at this point (something like: 'why do you think I brought up the Delta?') but as I have no intention of wasting anymore time on this charade, I'll let it pass.

That really is that this time, I'm afraid. I have no interest in debating this issue further with you.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That's too bad. I was enjoying reading this thread.

I already declared that I'd had enough and then immediately replied, so maybe there's still life in this... I don't know... what would the right word be? Not that it matters... yet.