Of course, because it doesn’t give politicians enough power to manipulate our lives, it wouldn’t pass.

One more thing to take into consideration with the numbers in the NYCDOPM report–was during the initial swine-flu outbreak (May-June)–one of the major “epicenters” (for lack of a better term) of the outbreak were schools in Queens. From what I recall (from the news), this led to a significant jump in ED visits.
[I don't discount the main stats put out in the aforementioned report, it's just to point out what may be a statistical anomaly. There is still a major problem]

Which is why it won’t happen.

Most people think of tax benefits as dollars in our pockets from things like welfare. But it’s far more than that. It is the interstates, it’s airports, it’s ports, it’s even the department of commerce and te innumerable federal agencies which promote trade on our dime. The benefits of those go disproportionately to the wealthiest among us. You know why the tax code is so complex? Because every line in it just about benefits some industry or another and it’s a hell of a lot less conspicuous for a politician to pay their donors off in there than have McCain call out their more direct pork.

This isn’t a matter of one political party either. They both have their paymasters and they share many (wall street for example).

Max highlighted Wal-Mart but the truth is they are nodifferent than any company. Remember the famous Kelo eminent domain case of a couple years ago? The beneficiary was Pfizer. We get the government we pay for, and if you’re not paying you ain’t getting. If you do benefit from govt action and you’re an individual who doesn’t give big dollars to a politician them that benefit was a happy accident, nothing more.

All of which makes me wonder why some of you want to further gut your individual rights.

You suppose we spent a couple trillion to prop up financial markets for the poor? That we kept a “strong dollar” policy for 20+ years to help workers? There’s good odds the Supreme Court will this year recognize the “right” of corporations to directly assail all but the most favorable of political candidates.

Of course, that’s aiming too broadly. Stop looking at the top 10, 5 or even 1 percent. Look at the top 0.1%. Recall Warren Buffet’s challenge: “I’ll bet a million dollars against any member of the Forbes 400 who challenges me that the average (federal tax rate including income and payroll taxes) for the Forbes 400 will be less than the average of their receptionists.”

No one took him up on it.

So, yes, just for one example, when I think of the massive government subsidies — from the government-built interstate system the use extensively each day, to the government paying most of their employee healthcare, to state and federal law enforcement protecting their property across the country, to direct state and federal subsidies of their merchandise, to direct state and federal subsidies in builing their stores — that continue adding to the wealth of the Walton family, none of whom worked a day in their lives, I do think they take a disproportionate amount of resources for what they pay back.

People like to forget that the bulk of civilization — from its roads, to its sewage, to its cops — was built by and is maintained by the government, and that all major wealth today relies very heavily on that initial investment and continued support. They should pay adequately for it.

In addition to the closing Mary Immaculate and St John’s, the Berman Commission closed 5 hospitals across the city. Queens is in dire straits, but the rest of the city didn’t gain anything either. NYC also lost Cabrini, St Claire (Aka St Vincent’s midtown), Victory Memorial in Brooklyn, and Parkway Hospital in Queens, and NY westchester in the bronx.

The federal government offered NY Stated 1.5 billion dollars to help close its hospitals and nursing that “were not performing at capacity” and thereby increasing their debt and losing money… therefore some government commission was set up to decide which facilities needed to be closed.

IIRC, even before the closure of these two hospitals, which were run by the Caritas group, Queens had a lower number of patient beds per capita than the other boroughs. The closure of these two hospitals + Parkway hospital (also in Queens) only seems to have compounded the problem.

Just some additional food for thought…

I wish I could help.

I wish there was a clear cut answer.

And I wish people would do whatever needs to be done for the good of both medical and patient populations.