Big Brother and your Health Care

[rkuhns956]

Oh, wait, I figured it out. He's growing weed in his attic, so he plans on murdering his neighbors, so they can't tell anyone. He is also afraid of them legalizing the industry, which would mean he would have to declare his home business and pay taxes on it.

Now this makes this thread more fun.

[Gene]

I think it would be too hot to grow weed in the attic. The basement or that extra bedroom would be better. Then have some houseplants in the living room under a grow light for when the feds come and tell them that's what is using the electricity along with the A/C and oxygen for grandma.

Gene

[DKB_SATX]

I'm amazed that the guy in the SmartMeter video wasn't terrified to spend that long without his tinfoil hat. He should have been worried about the mind control rays getting through without that foil Faraday helmet.

The 2 differences smartmeters make is that they show time of day as well as total consumption, and they can "read" the meters without having someone look at the meter directly with either wireless or data-over-powerline transmissions.

Yes, knowing the time-of-day usage tells a little more about your usage, but it doesn't tell them WHAT you're using. It won't see a difference between a 1500 watt microwave, a 1500 watt hair dryer or 1500 watts of lighting that comes on at once.

Law enforcement already uses electricity usage to identify grow houses. Whether or not you think that's a good thing is a personal opinion, but the smart meter isn't going to make that much of a difference there.

This wacko needs to move in next door to the woman in New Mexico who sued her neighbor claiming that his cell phone and wireless network were killing her. I guess she needs a tinfoil Faraday helmet too.

[rkuhns956]

Okay, now the heavy stuff. Yes, I agree about using the information regardless. And that is exactly my original point. As I said in my first post. The information and the way it is collected really hasn't changed. Doctors have been using EMR, EHR records for year. Just now the Medicad, Medicare system is compensating doctors to get a uniform format, nothing else. If Big brother really wanted this information, they simply would ask your doctor, and I am sure they would give it (you know, to avoid the tax audit).

[Gene]

But who is Big Brother?

In the novel "1984", it was assumed it would be the state and when the novel was written in 1948, that was a logical guess as fascism was the recent enemy. Fascism was premised on corporations having a large role in state policies. Labor would have a role, but not a very big one. Democracy was funneled not through a real legislature, but through representatives of the major parts of the society with monied interests and military having a large role. The fascist regimes (Portugal 1st, then Italy, Germany, Spain) paid lip service to worker rights and pay, but didn't mean it.

In 1948 it was becoming obvious that the new enemy was the USSR. Though claiming to be socialist, it was nothing like that at all. It was a giant corporation, undemocratic and controlled by intelligence services, military and aparatchiks (bureaucrats). This was even more centralized fascism and notoriously inefficient.

All these regimes used patriotism and war threats to bolster their regimes and keep the public from noticing what was going on.

So is the US government Big Brother? US corporations, and most especially the insurance industry, a collection of big brothers? Have we become an oligarchy or plutocracy and the modern version of the corporate state but with the state weak and the lobbyists running things?

Gene

[pappy19]

The question I have is if the gov't is going to chop some off Medicare/Cade and add 40 million new insured, who's going to pay the doctors for all those new patients.......with pre-existing conditions? You know all those over-weight smokers that spend their welfare on beer? Those are your new comrades that you will see in your doctor's office. At least most of them don't have any teeth so I can miss them at the dentist.

Pap

[Gene]

Am I to understand all 40,000,000 uninsured (close to 50,000,000 by now) are overweight, beer swilling smokers with no teeth? Oh, they are all on welfare too.

If they have welfare, they are already on Medicaid. Welfare has been cut back a lot—back in the '90's. They would also get food stamps which you can't use for alcohol or cigarettes. If they have Medicaid, I think they get some dental care as part of that, so you already see them at the dentist's office. I'm unsure what the comment about new patients with pre-existing conditions means—should anyone with pre-existing conditions be refused health care—like insurance companies do now?

A lot more than 40,000,000 Americans are overweight, so the beer swilling, cigarette smoking, toothless welfare queens and kings aren't alone in their mutual obesity.

It looks like these people may be seen by some as subhuman and not worthy of health care. We could have committees set up to decide who is subhuman and unworthy of health care—call them "death panels".

Gene