U-505:
First Question’s Answer: Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois. I listed it before, but maybe you scanned over it when you read my post. /shrug. Anyway, BCBS isn’t exactly the best insurance company, IMHO, UHC (United Health Care) did not apply co-pays to line items like BCBS does.
Second Question: That’s why I listed infant mortality as an indicator. PS: If your nation murders unborn children who are “high risk” your infant mortality numbers will end up skewed. This is what Cuba does/did. If the mother was high risk, or the infant was high risk for any reason, the pregnancy was aborted and that gave good press to the Cuban health care system primarily because infant mortality rates were low (artificially low. Abortions don’t count as dead babies. They should, IMHO.)
Third: Our medical knowledge, medicines and technologies trump the minor difference between the US and some other nations in infant mortality rates. Remember, not all nations include abortions as infant deaths, so those numbers are highly skewed and a very poor indicator whereas a century ago they were a great indicator.
Last:
No, if computers were allowed to make the decision, then their decision could not be illegal. It might be immoral and unethical, but if we legally give the machine the right to determine who deserves the resources based on supply and demand and who has the best chances of living and who is the most productive members of society, then machines would be the best possible way of improving our current system.
Think of it, no more human emotion in the decision making process. Homeless people who contribute nothing to society and have low life expectancies would get the left overs while people like Ted Kennedy and Warren Buffet (both of whom attempt to contribute to society instead of homeless and handicapped people who live off society) would get the best medicines and treatments with the shortest waiting times.
Now, don’t say that I am actually advocating that machines run our health care. But if we were to impliment a central controlling authority over health care, then it should be run by machines who won’t care what your political, religous, racial, sexual orientation or lineage aspects are. Machines would only care about your education level, the amount of product you produce for the nation (ie if you are a rocket scientist at NASA you’d be worth more to society than a garbage collector for Groot Waste and Recycling), your medical history (if you have a history of cancer in your family, then you’d be worth less than someone who’s parents were olympic all stars who lived into their late 90s since the later would be expected to live longer) and your age (since curing cancer in a 20 year old expected to live to 96 years old is better than curing the same cancer in a 92 year old who is expected to live to 96 years old.)
If you put humans in control of the central authority, you’ll end up with problems. People with the right political connections or status will trump those with a higher value to society in getting life saving treatment.
Sorry, but I don’t think Vin Deisal is more important to society than the scientist curing cancer or Teddy Kennedy being more important than Larry Harris, for instance. I’d feel much better if an impartial machine was making that decision, or, better yet, we allow supply and demand make the decision as it is currently. (with the exception of saving life, limb or eyesight.)