Artful Dodger: I don't have a big problem with people who recieve that assistance. Tax revenue pays people whose jobs are to funnel that money down to pay other people, until it reaches those who are payed to administer that assistance. I don't know how long or extensive the management chain is, but I'll wager that's where most of that money disappears.

Iamon lyme: It could easily be argued that those on state assistance are greedy for other people's money.

(V): "Isn't greed a deadly sin?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi6wNGwd84g

Isn't greed a deadly sin?

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a full parliamentary inquiry of the banking sector following the Barclays rate-rigging furore.

He told the House of Commons the manipulation of the Libor interest rates had been a "scandal".

The review will run alongside a narrower inquiry specifically into the Libor market, also announced on Monday. The comments follow news the Serious Fraud Office is considering whether to bring criminal charges.

In addition, Barclays will conduct its own "root and branch review" after receiving a fine of £290m ($450m) over the Libor affair.

Mr Cameron said the full parliamentary committee of inquiry would be headed by the chairman of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie. "This committee will be able to take evidence under oath, it will have full access to papers and officials and ministers including ministers and special advisers from the last government," he said.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history.

The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments. The case concerns the drugs Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia.

Deputy US Attorney General James Cole told a news conference in Washington DC that the settlement was "unprecedented in both size and scope".

GSK, one of the world's largest healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies, admitted to promoting antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses, including treatment of children and adolescents.

The illegal practice is known as off-label marketing.

The company also conceded charges that it held back data and made unsupported safety claims over its diabetes drug Avandia.

In addition, GSK has been found guilty of paying kickbacks to doctors.

"The sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations [and] paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to tickets to Madonna concerts," said US attorney Carmin Ortiz.

As part of the settlement, GSK agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years.

omneycare Is Bankrupting Massachusetts – A Lesson On The Dangers Of Obamacare http://patriotstatesman.com/2011/05/romneycare-bankrupting-massachusetts_lesson-on-the-dangers-of-obamacare/

Vikings: Jules never could stay on point.

Iamon lyme: "...the cost of exorbitant malfeasance awards."

Not malfeasance awards, I meant to say malpractice awards.

Vikings: Never heard of making comparisons, doesn't mean you've changed the subject.

"jealousy is a pathetic thing to live with"

Is it? What does it feel like???

(V): well congratulations, you successfully changed the subject again, start off with doctors then go to dentist and end up with bankers. But wait, you forgot business owners and ceo's.

jealousy is a pathetic thing to live with

The Col: I doubt it'll ever be such, a mixed market is more likely. You guys in Canada still manage to spend less of your GDP then the USA does on health care.

Vikings: I ain't worried. I ain't ignoring.

But fraud is fraud. Like the dentist who charges for work you've not had done.

Or our honest *cough* bankers, who now in the UK have been caught out conning customers out of billions through what is described as systematic intent to defraud their customers.

Looks like some of bankers will face criminal charges over their conduct. Should I congratulate that?

Iamon lyme:

They can take their new [salty language] health care tax and [disturbing visual imagery]

I don't suppose there's any point in bringing up tort reform again. Like putting a limits on how much someone can reasonably sue doctors and hospitals. If Obama was serious about lowering health care costs he could have approached it from a different angle. Insurance has been high because costs have been high, and costs have been high because doctors and hospitals need to be able to absorb the cost of exorbitant malfeasance awards.

It would be easy enough to reform the health care system without nationalising it, but after fixing the problems that drive up costs there would be no reason to put it under government control.

With the libs it's all about control. "Reforming the system" is code for controling it. It's like when someone points and cries out "Racist!" To find the racist, just follow the finger back to the hand and up the arm of the one pointing... misdirection and outright lying in order to gain or maintain control.

#ReasonsToVoteForObama - Because I want to know what the other 7 states are. He can't keep a secret forever.

(V): being worried about what someone else has earned is jealousy, and the fact that you ignore what that person has had to go thru to achieve it proves it

Vikings: "we" as in a royal "we"?

No, not of jealousy.. of greed.

I hear primary care in the USA is lower which would help cut health costs, various peer groups have noted many procedures are not needed, but you get to have them as they cost.

(V): IMO, a single payer system wouldn't work in the USA, too large a population of middle to lower income people, the tax burden would be huge and eventually crumble.While the tax burden is fairly large in Canada, we have a 10th the population, and less poverty.

(V): we all get the drift, you used a metaphor for jealousy

Vikings: Whoopee... I used a metaphor for the health rates going up.. one could say brokers, stock owners, managers, directors, etc, etc.

Get my drift?

Funnily.. Mitt was stating that many of the Obama healthcare plans were good.

Like pre-existing conditions coverage.

I guess the parable that Jesus told of the Good Samaritan touched his heart!!

(V): then you should stay on topic because here is your quote

"Hey.. that doc there!! Does he need a new 50 foot pool? Isn't 30 foot big enough!!"

welshrugbyfan: But it's not a choice to stay with one insurance company for most. It's tied to work from what I hear.

In the UK you have the choice to choose your health company, if you want to pay for private care....even if you are not rich.

Imagine that!!

Vikings: My point being is not specific to the doctors but over the rate that health insurance costs have sky rocketed way above the rate of inflation in the USA.

from 1999 to 2009 US inflation was 28.8%, wages for the average joe by just over 38%....... Health insurance premium costs have risen by 131%.

It seems (as lamon says) a "cartoonish cliche" that no-one in the conservative camp questions this. Here in the UK we would. We do when it comes to large companies that have monopolies, and put pressure on our government to rectify 'profiteering'.

The rise in premium costs suggests someone in the USA health insurance system is profiteering.. It's not the patients.

welshrugbyfan: unless ObamaCare is repealed, those days are gone.

Vikings: I have friends who are doctors. They live in modest homes, work long hours, and one travels to Sudan to assist in a ministry there (at his own expense). The left loves to vilify those that work hard and earn money as a result.

(V): you devote 4 years of college plus 4 years of med school plus 2 years of internship plus a couple more years of med grad school ( if you specialize) plus 300,000 to 500,000 dollars of debt, and then someone will listen to your complaining

Artful Dodger: BFL is right. But he's just being a mouthpiece for others in the Democrat party.

The libs don't want the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. If the top 1% actually did pay their fair share, the libs would go into cardiac arrest... congress might have to vote themselves a pay decrease instead of more pay increases, because fair and equally proportional taxation would mean less money going into the government piggy bank, not more.

That is obviously not what the libs mean by "fair"... it means getting more for themseves.

(V): It's a cartoonish cliche that all docs are fabulously wealthy, and why you think life and liberty is laughable is disturbing. We supposedly have a right to live and the right to be free, unless our government decides otherwise.

The pursuit of happiness means you have the right to go about your business without undue interference. The effect this has had here is people were free to invent new things and market them, but in order for that to happen they had to be free to fail as well. Not everyone fails, and not everyone that fails continues to fail.

Wealth didn't just drop into Americas lap, it developed over time because people were allowed to grow businesses and invent new things. Too much government control over peoples lives has the opposite effect. If enough of your income goes towards a government that uses your money to control every aspect of your life, then where's the motivation to do something other than the usual day to day grind?

Whatever country you live in, healthcare cannot be a right because it relies on the skills of other people. The system in the US (pre Obama) is by far the best. It is a choice of whether or not you pay.

"Health insurance is a product, not a right. The right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness means the right to being free to pursue those things"



if you take the insurance out of it, it sounds like health is a product and not a right... at least when it comes to preventive medicine. It also seems that it's ok for someone to lose everything they have worked for just to pay for the medical care they need to obtain relief from illnesses that cause their '''happiness''' to be a past memory.

Hey.. that doc there!! Does he need a new 50 foot pool? Isn't 30 foot big enough!!

Artful Dodger: Never occured to me that Roberts would vote to uphold it. Some people speculated about what Justice Kennedy might do, after he said it would forever change the governments relationship with the people.

Health insurance is a product, not a right. The right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness means the right to being free to pursue those things. It doesn't mean it's the governments responsibility to make it so, it means the government should step back and let us pursue those things for ourselves.

The idea of being ruled over by a nanny state type of government is so obnoxious, it's difficult for me to comment on it without using salty language and disturbing visual imagery.

Iamon lyme: The Supreme Court messed up. The ObamaCare package was being sold as legitimate due to the Commerce Clause. But CJ Roberts said no, it's a tax and therefore it stands.

He should have sent it back to the congress and said, "OK, now you fix this and pass it as the tax it is and it's legit. But as it stands it's not."

The Dums...I mean Dems would NEVER pass it as a tax. They are on record as saying they would not pass it as a tax. That's why they trumped it under the Commerce Clause.

OBAMA is a Big Fat Liar.

Iamon lyme: Yeah, not even liberal New York would do something that stupid. I mean, some libs are morons but not to that extent!

Artful Dodger: "You don't have to buy insurance if you don't want. But you'll still have to pay for it via the tax."

It's a tax? Obama said it wasn't a tax, but I don't think he consulted the dictionary when he made that statement. Fred Thompson has assured us that "We won't be taking water from your side of the bucket. We will take it from the other side." He was talking about something else but it still applies here, doesn't it?

rod03801: "Next is : We will be told what we can and can't eat."

Or what size sody pops we may purchase...

Naw, it'll never happen.

Iamon lyme: You don't have to buy insurance if you don't want. But you'll still have to pay for it via the tax.

Iamon lyme: Next is : We will be told what we can and can't eat.

What's next? Mandatory term life insurance? What else could we be forced to pay for?

I know! State controled gasoline insurance! We have a right to affordable gas. We don't have a right to get our own oil, but that's a separate issue... that has nothing to do with gas prices.

Iamon lyme: Greed.

Iamon lyme: All our troubles can be traced right back to the government.

(V): "I hear a class action is forming in the USA based on what the banks have done. Can't blame this on the government.."

It was aliens who pressured the banks into making risky loans, not the government... and who controls the aliens?

Artful Dodger: In every picture I've seen of Holder he looks so sad and put upon. I almost feel sorry for the guy.. but I think that was the point of showing him look like that.

Iamon lyme: congress is now voting / debating on holder in contempt

Mz Pelosi accused Republicans of wanting to "suppress voter turnout" by trying to get Eric Holder to talk. Pelosi can rest easy now, because todays SCOTUS ruling should put concerns of voter turnout to rest.

I can't imagine the next Nov election being a repeat of the Reagan/Carter blowout, but I'll be hedging my bets on that one too. I may as well throw it all into the pot and go for broke... what have I got to lose?

rod03801: Murdoch is not fascinating.. just how politicians are continually kissing upto him regarding getting good press.

It's is perceivable that Fox could switch to backing the Democrats if Murdoch got a better deal from them!!

I don't how much it's being 'told' in the USA, but the big news financially here is regarding the banks AGAIN!!

But it looks like many of the big banks have been rigging rates.

Barclays has been fined £290 million, other banks are by all accounts will be taken to court.

I hear a class action is forming in the USA based on what the banks have done.

Can't blame this on the government..