@Tzenker
Don't give me "nice try", as though you know something I don't. What I wrote was not "anecdotal evidence", what I wrote was my own experiences with the medical system in the U.S. That was an eyewitness account, my personal experiences. Which are actually DIRECT evidence of how these policies affect people in the U.S. "Anecdotal evidence", as you call it, is a third-person heresay account of how something affected somebody else. This is not that. This is my own life I was writing about.
Here is the wikipedia description of the "Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality":
"The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, is one of twelve agencies within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency began as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and was tasked with producing guidelines. However, it became controversial when it produced several guidelines which would reduce medical drugs and procedures. This included concern from ophthalmologists on a cataract guideline and concern by the pharmaceutical industry over a reduction in the use of new drugs. When the agency produced a guideline which concluded that back pain surgery was unnecessary and potentially harmful, a lobbying campaign, aided by Congressmen whose backs had been operated on, changed the name of the agency and "wound down" the guidelines program."
In other words, your "agency" has been discredited because it was shown to be biased - rather than showing factual information, which is what they were supposed to do. They were corrupt, and they lied. They are not a truthful source of information. This is why, when I show numbers or statistics, I show them from many different sources. Choosing only one source is almost proof that you only want to show one point of view, rather than the actual facts.
As for your last comment... I'm assuming you don't live in the U.S., because everyone here knows that the U.S. government is rapidly spending the country into bankruptcy. And you would know that the U.S. government has no interest in "looking after it's citizens", a concept that only a very young person would actually believe. People around the world see us as "rich", for some reason, when the truth is that the U.S. can't pay the bills it keeps promising year-to-year. Eight years ago we had a National Debt of about 7 or 8 Trillion U.S. dollars. Today, we have a National Debt of 18 Trillion dollars.
The U.S. is no longer "rich", if we ever were. (And if we ever were, little people like me never saw it.) The U.S., if it were a person, has maxed out all his credit cards... sold the second car... taken another mortgage on the house... rented out the extra room... had several garage sales... and STILL can't pay his bills without taking out new credit cards. If we don't do something drastic in this country in the next ten years, we will end up just like Greece is today - because we can't afford all the crap that our government is paying for right now. Personally, I think shopping-online channels should be outlawed in Washington D.C., because our own Senators can't seem to stop themselves from BUYING anything that anybody wants to sell them. We are GOING BROKE here, and they just KEEP spending money we don't have! It's really, really stupid...
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@Tzenker
Don't give me "nice try", as though you know something I don't. What I wrote was not "anecdotal evidence", what I wrote was my own experiences with the medical system in the U.S. That was an eyewitness account, my personal experiences. Which are actually DIRECT evidence of how these policies affect people in the U.S. "Anecdotal evidence", as you call it, is a third-person heresay account of how something affected somebody else. This is not that. This is my own life I was writing about.
Here is the wikipedia description of the "Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality":
"The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, is one of twelve agencies within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency began as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and was tasked with producing guidelines. However, it became controversial when it produced several guidelines which would reduce medical drugs and procedures. This included concern from ophthalmologists on a cataract guideline and concern by the pharmaceutical industry over a reduction in the use of new drugs. When the agency produced a guideline which concluded that back pain surgery was unnecessary and potentially harmful, a lobbying campaign, aided by Congressmen whose backs had been operated on, changed the name of the agency and "wound down" the guidelines program."
In other words, your "agency" has been discredited because it was shown to be biased - rather than showing factual information, which is what they were supposed to do. They were corrupt, and they lied. They are not a truthful source of information. This is why, when I show numbers or statistics, I show them from many different sources. Choosing only one source is almost proof that you only want to show one point of view, rather than the actual facts.
As for your last comment... I'm assuming you don't live in the U.S., because everyone here knows that the U.S. government is rapidly spending the country into bankruptcy. And you would know that the U.S. government has no interest in "looking after it's citizens", a concept that only a very young person would actually believe. People around the world see us as "rich", for some reason, when the truth is that the U.S. can't pay the bills it keeps promising year-to-year. Eight years ago we had a National Debt of about 7 or 8 Trillion U.S. dollars. Today, we have a National Debt of 18 Trillion dollars.
The U.S. is no longer "rich", if we ever were. (And if we ever were, little people like me never saw it.) The U.S., if it were a person, has maxed out all his credit cards... sold the second car... taken another mortgage on the house... rented out the extra room... had several garage sales... and STILL can't pay his bills without taking out new credit cards. If we don't do something drastic in this country in the next ten years, we will end up just like Greece is today - because we can't afford all the crap that our government is paying for right now. Personally, I think shopping-online channels should be outlawed in Washington D.C., because our own Senators can't seem to stop themselves from BUYING anything that anybody wants to sell them. We are GOING BROKE here, and they just KEEP spending money we don't have! It's really, really stupid...