To all who feel the need to inject it. This is NOT a political issue. Certainly not the place to discuss health care issues. If you wish to do so off list I will be happy to engage. I have a degree in Medical Sociology and let's go at it. The issue is safety. PERIOD. If you do not think so go bang your head against a stone wall without a helmet and then we can have this discussion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe it would level the playing field insofar as lately I remember less and less of what I once knew. BTW, after my accident and minor concussion I could clearly identify memory loss issues. While I am on this stupid thread I will continue. I once had a student in my Sociology of Sport class who played for the football team. Did not seem to bright to be honest. One day early in the semester he came up to me and explained that since high school he had experienced many concussions playing American football. He once, he related, was quite smart. He now was somewhat slow. The really sad part of it was that he recognized what had happened and what changes had occurred. I have another story about the brightest student in my Soc of Sport class I ever had who went on to an amazingly successful pro football career. He suffered many concussions. HE IS NOT THE SAME. I really feel I cannot name him. As they say on the New Hampshire licence plate. "Live free or Die." Go Ahead. Edward Albert Chappaqua, New York, U.S.A.
On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 1:51 PM, ed <bratt@sasktel.net> wrote:
> Harry:
>
>
> If doctors are so darned concerned about the public pocketbook, why do they
> concentrate their efforts on minor areas like bicycle injuries? Are their
> not more head injuries among automobile and truck drivers than among
> cyclists? Then who better needs a helmet law?
>
> Likewise there should be no excuse for a pedestrian to preambulate about
> unprotected by a helmet. The pedestrian is exposed to the danger of being
> struck by a missdirected car or truck, or even an errant cyclist, or exposed
> to injury from falls, caused by tripping or slipping. Should not everyone
> in the nanny state have equal responsibility to ensure that he or she does
> not overburden the nanny state with medical costs?
>
> It galls me that the socialists politicize healthcare by offering public
> funded "socialized medicine" and then use it to take control of the lives
> of those who pay for it. I live in Regina Saskatchewan, the birthplace of
> North American Socialized Medicine.
>
> See the P.S. below.
>
> Ed Bratt
> Regina, Saskatchewan
>
> P. S.
> Taken from the Regina Manifest, found here:
> http://204-225-123-146.xdsl.convoke.net/
> Preamble:
> The Regina Manfesto (1933)
> Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation Programme
> Adopted at First National Convention Held at Regina,
> Saskatchewan, July, 1933.
> The Regina Manifesto
> The CCF is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the
> establishment in Canada of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the
> principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the
> supplying of human needs and not the making of profits.
> WE AIM TO REPLACE the present capitalist system, with its
> inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the
> domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, We
> propose therefore:
>
> 1..
> 8. Socialized Health Services Publicly organized health,
> hospital and medical services
> With the advance of medical science the maintenance of a healthy
> population has become a function for which every civilized community should
> undertake responsibility. Health services should be made at least as freely
> available as are educational services today. But under a system which is
> still mainly one of private enterprise the costs of proper medical care,
> such as the wealthier members of society can easily afford, are at present
> prohibitive for great masses of the people. A properly organized system of
> public health services including medical and dental care, which would stress
> the prevention rather than the cure of illness should be extended to all our
> people in both rural and urban areas. This is an enterprise in which
> Dominion, Provincial and Municipal authorities, as well as the medical and
> dental professions can cooperate.
>
> Closing statement:
>
> No C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated
> capitalism and Put into operation the full programme of socialized planning
> which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative
> Commonwealth.