Yeah, right, Ellen.
What a maroon.
The headline actually was OK; just insert "tort" before reform. Why would an American company take on the task of manufacturing the vaccine only to be sued by JEdwards and crew?
And the FreeRepublic Dunce Cap goes to...
True. From which follows nothing in the article. Typical of the shallow thinking, magical thinking, and non-thinking of Ellen Goodman. If you think health care is inaccessible to large numbers of people now, wait till it's "universal." If you think health care is expensive now, wait till it's "free."
No mention of Hillarycare® Vaccines For Children? How odd!
Every problem for the left comes down to national un-health-y insurance.
If only we had NHI, terrorists would stop hurting us because we'd just go to the free doctor to fix up our radiation sickness or shrapnel removal or whatever, and they'd find it a pointless exercise.
If only we had NHI, we could increase our productivity 'cuz we could all go to the doctor for every sniff and twinge and be healthy and happy.
Argh!! They can put ANYthing in the NHI context, I believe.
Last year, and in the years before that, there were public announcemants all over the television BEGGING people to get the flu shot. I remember these flu shot "campaigns".
In 2003, they were throwing the stuff away because so much was left over (sorry, heard on radio dr. show, so no source)
Now, all of the sudden thousands of people are having to "go without". BS, I say! Most doing without it this year, have done so every year before now. . .including myself.
she's right - we do need reform: We need to reduce manufacturer's liability and to price the vaccines so that the companies are profitable again. THEN things will straighten themselves out.
"Maybe it takes the Free Market Flu to remind us that sometimes we need a public health system as much as we need a fire department or a military."
Or, then, perhaps we just need to get rid of the ability for millionaire ambulance-chaser lawyers like John Edwards to drive individuals out of the business of making vaccines by threatening extravagant lawsuits!!!!
The "I'm fighting for you," drivel that this small-town NC boy spouted during the campaign boiled down to "I've been fighting for me so hard that I've made $39 million in the last 10 years driving your insurance premiums and health care costs up."
Ellen Goodman's so-called "public health system" would work like her so-called "public education system" already works. It would produce mediocrity and scarcity--not excellence (as American health care is today) and plenty.
why is the shortage only seem to be here in America???does the rest of the world not get the Flu or are we the only suckers that they can get to buy the shot!for that matter why must we Americans subsidize the rest of the world when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
Dear Ellen,
Get the government out of the business of funding flu shots and let citizens pay the market value. This is how they will be more available and of an acceptable quality.
Flu vaccines are risky and expensive investments for companies to pursue. These are biological treatments instead of chemical ones, so they must be developed and done very carefully. Even when done correctly, the demand may not be there in any one season and the firm will have to toss the whole lot.
But you, dear affluent and overprivileged Ellen, are too pig headed to pay what it costs but demand that it's always there and is less than what it costs to produce. So you demand that the government gets involved to charge much less than what the shot is worth. Without forking over your own wallet (funny how that works out).
Great. Once the government gets involved, you drive away businesses and you take quality on a downward spiral.
We can only look forward to health care going into total bankruptcy, like TennCare (modeled after HillaryCare and KerryCare), only to receive maggots to "treat" infection and buffalo dung poultices instead of real medicine.
BUT, because George W. Bush is the President of the United States, we suddenly have a crisis of epic proportions on our hands.
These idiots are the same ones who think a cold is the flu.
10 years ago there were (13) making the flu shot....now down to (1)....Thank you tort lawyers
Oh yeah, that will be heaven won't it?!
Well .. since this was the Clintons' MESS .. why doesn't Ellen talk to Hillary.
That's essentially correct. However, an article in the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago indicated that many drug companies will get back in when new gene technology makes the egg-based production method obsolete -- and that might happen in only 4-5 years.
Hey Ellen, you moroness: stay out of dr's offices where the sick congregate, wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap frequently, and stop picking your nose. You'll survive, bimbo.
Of course, she can't be bothered to lay the blame for this flu shot shortage where it belongs, right at the feet of Clinton and the Democrats who make it totally unprofitable for American flu shot manufacturers to continue to make it here so it left America vulnerable to shortages.
Who needs the flu when you have Ellen Goodman to induce vomiting?