US Medicine may be doing something right after all!

[sunnyside]

On coal.

While it doesn't put out "millions of tons" of carcinogins directly, it does put out an array of carcinogins in more trace amounts.

*googles a bit*
http://www.manisteecfrd.org/CancerFact.pdf
Meh, I would have rather found something better and with a more complete list but that gets you the jist.

If one really wanted to argue the "millions of tons" angle I suppose one could in that millions of tons of smoke are produced that contain carcinogins. For example if a million tons of nuclear waste were dumped into the Hudsen the story would read that million tons of radioactive material had been dumped, not that a few thousand tons of radioactive atoms had been dumped along with a million tons of non-radioactive atoms mixed in.

But that's beside the point, the bottom line is that they kick out carcinogins and cancer rates in the areas go up a significant, though not massive, amount, such that the harm shouldn't be ignored, but I bet it turns out that a coal plant is overall less deadly to local health than a Dunkin' Donuts with a drive through.

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On the subject of health care, good find CPH. Personally I'd like to be armed with some better information regarding the effectiveness of US healthcare. One factor I simply haven't been able to find is something that really compares the results for people with similar conditions and states of health.

The other thing I can't find are studies that cut out the uninsured part of the population. While including them is fair enough for an overall quality of life study, it doesn't really compare the systems as experienced by the vast majority of Americans.

I also wish I could find out about the effects of the much longer wait times in the nationalized systems. I can find studies that show they have longer wait times, even for emergency services, but nothing really that touches on the effects.

[Mikey]

All of which is somewhat academic, as no proposal with any credence at all that has been put forward by Washington is anything like a Canadian-style single-payer system, much less an English-type nationalized system. The closest thing we will ever have to those already exists in the form of VA benefits.

[Tsukiyumi]

...If one really wanted to argue the "millions of tons" angle I suppose one could in that millions of tons of smoke are produced that contain carcinogins...

That was sort of the gist, yes. Also, I was talking about worldwide - the atmosphere doesn't seem to care about any borders; we all share the same one.