McCain Campaign Protests YouTube's DMCA Policy 597
Colz Grigor writes "It appears that CBS and Fox have submitted DMCA takedown notices to YouTube for videos from the McCain campaign. The campaign is now complaining about YouTube's DMCA policy making it too easy for copyright holders to remove fair-use videos. I hope they pursue this by addressing flaws in the DMCA."
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHA (Score:1, Informative)
Republicans pushed for this.
Uh, you should look up the DMCA [wikipedia.org]. It's the part in the right column at the bottom, the one that reads
# Signed into law by President Clinton on October 28, 1998
I think both parties are in agreement on copyright law, who ever has the cash gets to sue everybody else. Only when two giants like Viacom and Youtube go up against each other are they unsure of what to do.
Re:HAHAHAHAHAHA (Score:5, Informative)
here's the actual vote:
SENATE: 100% Democrats; 100% Republicans (unaminous)
HOUSE: 90% Democrats; 85% Republicans (veto-proof)
PRESIDENT:
Signed by *democrat* William J. Clinton in 1998.
What was that about being a "republican" bill? It looks like a typical Duopoly bill to me, supported by BOTH sides, since they both pretty much act alike.
Body of the letter (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
* (The real blame lies with the 1990s president who repealed the Glass-Steagall of 1933 which allowed banks to invest in risky stocks, and thereby created the current crisis. But the media is being hush-hush about that. Don't want to risk losing the Obama election.)
Continue to believe what you want to believe. But the repeal of this act had nothing to do with the current crash. The majority of this can be put onto bad lending practices and the bundling and selling of these loans. The repeal of the GS Act of 1933 did not allow for 125% LTV loans to folks who did not substantiate their income. It did not cause banks to ignore credit risk. That was just greed. And the fact is that the Fair Credit Act specifically required that banks take into account borrowers' ability to repay when making loans. Had existing regulation been enforced, none of this crap would have come to pass.
I am a fiscal conservative, and hate to see government regulation when it isn't necessary. What I see coming to pass is a lot more feel good legislation, and lax enforcement. We have the proper level of regulation in place right now, but when it is not enforced, it is worthless.
But, hey, good job trying to pass the buck. Of course, prefacing it with "FOX luvs the Democrats!!!111!" kinda outs you right off the bat.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
CBS and FOX won't do it to Obama because they *like* Obama. They don't mind if Obama uses their videos to help him win the election.
>>>I hope they pursue this by addressing flaws in the DMCA.
Do you actually know that Obama's campaign hasn't had takedowns used against them, or are you assuming?
** (The real blame lies with the 1990s president who repealed the Glass-Steagall of 1933 which allowed banks to invest in risky stocks, and thereby created the current crisis. But the media is being hush-hush about that. Don't want to risk losing the Obama election.)
Sure. I'm sure that a single piece of legislation caused the whole thing. I notice that you conveniently forget that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [wikipedia.org] was sponsored by republicans (Phil Gramm strikes again), and passed the senate on a party-line vote with only one democrat crossing over. But sure, you go right ahead and believe that the Republicans are in no way responsible for our situation.
I notice also that you neglect to take any notice of other things that contributed quite a bit to our situation, such as the Commodity and Futures Modernization Act of 2000 [wikipedia.org] (more of Phil Gramm's handiwork). This was also a republican bill, but it was supported by a few dems as well. You might want to look into how this relates [wikipedia.org] to the AIG situation [npr.org] and how that affected [motherjones.com] the banks.
Obama foresaw this and prevented it (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone remember this article?
Obama Requests Creative Commons for Presidential Debates [slashdot.org]
That is when I started liking the guy. Seems like he was even more prescient than I thought.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
>>>Republicans who had control of both the White House and Congress from 2001-2006 is appalling. If they saw something wrong, they had a free hand
THE DEMOCRATS had control of Congress from 2007-8. If they saw something wrong, they had a free hand to correct it. (For that matter, Democratic president Clinton could have vetoed the bill in 1999, and thereby kept Glass-Steagall in full force.)
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
If you look at the Wikipedia page you linked to for the Gramm Act, it even says that it passed 90-8 in the senate, and 362-67 in the house. Not exactly a 'party line vote'.
A little of your own revisionist history?
True. I should have said that as well. I was referring to the initial version, before they added the sweetener for democrats of strengthening the CRA (which I also consider to be misguided legislation).
I'm not trying to lay all the blame on republicans. I was just trying to explain to the gp poster that he was misguided in trying to lay it all on the dems.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
(For that matter, Democratic president Clinton could have vetoed the bill in 1999, and thereby kept Glass-Steagall in full force.)
Look it up: any bill passed by more than two thirds is veto-proof.
I do blame the Republicans as well as the Democrats in congress for passing the bill, but we have bank lobbyists to thank for that!
In case you are forgetting, the senate currently has 51 democratic senators, not nearly enough to override Bush's inevitable veto.
Next time you contribute, please at least try to educate yourself on the basic principles of our government.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:1, Informative)
"I believe that the reselling of such mortgages existed well before the 90's as the ggp poster indicated. If I am wrong, please point me to a source. I will try to carve out some time to research tonight."
All types of mortgages/loans have been resold for many years. The market for subprime mortgages was reasonably small until recently. What happened was some financial engineers came up with a way of taking a bunch of subprime mortgages, slicing and dicing them in interesting ways and creating securities with different levels of risks and rewards. These are the mortgage backed securities that people are talking about. The risk/reward models were all based on past statistics of subprime mortgages and did not take into account the changes in the market that the creation of the mortgage back securities created.
The creation of the mortgage backed securities increased the market for subprime mortgages. Sine the demand for such mortgages increased, banks started making more of them.
Here's where things began to break down. Capitalism is powered by greed, and works well so long as people make money by increasing the value of the company they work for or supply capital to companies to make more money. Capitalism breaks down when people are paid to do something else. For example when you pay your employees more when they cost you more rather than when they make you more, you are going to go out of business.
The mortgages brokers were not paid to make good loans, or loans that would be paid back. They were paid to make loans, good or bad. They made more money by making bad loans than good loans, so more bad loans than good ones were made. Some mortgage brokers were just crooked and actively scammed their customers. Others were just deluded and thought there was nothing wrong with the loans they made. Any that really understood probably lost their jobs because they didn't go along and make more loans. The government also got involved and encouraged bad loans so that low income people could buy houses.
Meanwhile, most of the investors just assumed that the loans were being made the same way they always were and continued to use the same risk models. So they ended up taking far more risk than they thought. This changed all the risk/reward models for credit.
All was well and good so long as there were no bumps in the road. As soon as something went wrong, everyone suddenly understood they did not know what they were investing in and panic set in. The markets for anything mortgage or credit related dried up and even companies that had only good mortgages had trouble. Then it became difficult to value any mortgages and banks hand to write down more then they could afford. There are also credit default swaps which are basically phony insurance on credit that is suppose to pay off if people don't pay their loans, but has turned into a shell game.
So the root causes of the problem were investors not really understanding what they were investing in, and mortgage brokers being payed to make bad loans. To prevent this from happening again, we don't need a lot of government regulation on the markets. What we need is a law making investors responsible for any financial consequences of wrong doing in what they are investing in. I.E. the investors at the top of the food chain would lose their shirts, because of the fraud committed by the mortgage brokers. Then all the investors will require insurance on their investments before they buy them and the insurance companies will make and enforce rules and regulations that should limit the fraud and delusions and the lowest level.
The government does need to regulate insurance companies to make sure they can and do pay off when they are suppose to. It would likely require something like the FDIC set up for insurance companies and for insurance companies to be regulated like banks. If done properly, the government could turn a profit. I doubt the government could do it properly though.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
It's completely different provisions that make the DMCA unpopular.
The take down process and it's liability shield is probably the only half way decent part of an extremely flawed bill. But that does not mean that it is a "Good Thing", I've had my internet and phone service interrupted because of the "take it down and ask questions later" culture it has spawned at ISPs. In my case it was due to a bogus DMCA complaint from EMI on an IP address in a block that had been allocated to me, but hadn't even been placed into service yet. Maybe I could have sued for loss of business, but just starting that suit would have cost more than six days of lost business with very dubious chances of success.
In the eight years since the day the phones went dead I haven't had any more full interruptions, but enough close calls -- literally, the ISPs that I've paid a bit of a premium for since call me before breaking the link (and Verizon is long gone from the picture) -- that I really have no love for any of the DMCA. That someone who voted for the bill might lose his presidential bid in part due to it fills me the glee! That his proposed solution to YouTube is a special exemption for himself is funny and sad at the same time.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
Glass-Steagal has everything to do with the current crisis. Without its repeal there wouldn't be a quadrillion in derivatives [google.com] (of course no one knows the real value of that). That is the big black hole that is causing this entire mess. It is why gold and other commodities were going down even though the FED was pumping in 100's of billions of dollars. People were liquidating their paper assets of gold because they had no physical gold to cover their positions.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html [pbs.org]
In 1933, Senator Carter Glass (D-Va.) and Congressman Henry Steagall (D-Ala.) introduce the historic legislation that bears their name, seeking to limit the conflicts of interest created when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds. In the early part of the century, individual investors were seriously hurt by banks whose overriding interest was promoting stocks of interest and benefit to the banks, rather than to individual investors. The new law bans commercial banks from underwriting securities, forcing banks to choose between being a simple lender or an underwriter (brokerage).
After 12 attempts in 25 years, Congress finally repeals Glass-Steagall, rewarding financial companies for more than 20 years and $300 million worth of lobbying efforts. Supporters hail the change as the long-overdue demise of a Depression-era relic.
On Oct. 21, with the House-Senate conference committee deadlocked after marathon negotiations, the main sticking point is partisan bickering over the bill's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, which sets rules for lending to poor communities. Sandy Weill calls President Clinton in the evening to try to break the deadlock after Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, warned Citigroup lobbyist Roger Levy that Weill has to get White House moving on the bill or he would shut down the House-Senate conference. Serious negotiations resume, and a deal is announced at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 22. Whether Weill made any difference in precipitating a deal is unclear.
On Oct. 22, Weill and John Reed issue a statement congratulating Congress and President Clinton, including 19 administration officials and lawmakers by name. The House and Senate approve a final version of the bill on Nov. 4, and Clinton signs it into law later that month.
Just days after the administration (including the Treasury Department) agrees to support the repeal, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, the former co-chairman of a major Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs, raises eyebrows by accepting a top job at Citigroup as Weill's chief lieutenant. The previous year, Weill had called Secretary Rubin to give him advance notice of the upcoming merger announcement. When Weill told Rubin he had some important news, the secretary reportedly quipped, "You're buying the government?"
I suggest reading the whole history on the link I provided. You can't blame just one party for it. Had the Republicans been completely against it it would have never passed. Had Clinton vetoed it, it wouldn't have been overridden. Alan Greenspan is also to blame.
In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).
This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively renders Glass-Steagall obsolete. Virtually any bank holding company wanting to engage in securities business would be able to stay under the 25 percent limit on revenue. However, the law remains on the books, and along with the Bank Hol
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
They are NOT Socialist. If they were SOCIALIST they would be run by and for the workers on a non-profit basis.
Oh - and by the way - re: Healthcare - the only major (G7 or G8) industrialised nation that DOESN'T have national health is the USA, and all the health statistics for the USA are behind everyone else except a few stats where Russia and China are behind.
So, assuming you're a troll - thanks - that was really funny. Fox... Socialist.
BWAHAHAAaaaa!!! Who'd-a-thunk-it? Awesome. What an idiot.
RS
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you like waiting in line for health care. I don't.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
That's incorrect. The act in the Senate was passed on a basically straight party line vote. See 106th Congress, Senate Roll Call Vote 105 [senate.gov] 54-44. 53 Republicans voted for the bill, 1 Deomcrat. 44 Democrats voted against the bill.
You're looking at the Senate accepting the conference report, which was the 90-8 vote. (106th Congress, Senate Roll Call Vote 354 [senate.gov]).
My search-fu is sort of weak, but the last time I could find that the Senate outright rejected a Conference Report (filibusters excluded) was in 1918 [nytimes.com].
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:2, Informative)
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
O's actions dictate he is a very, very liberal democrat
Which actions would those be? His reversal on FISA or his endorsement of the Paulson rescue plan that was largely opposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus? I don't think Obama is nearly as liberal as you seem to think. He has liberal leanings but his actual decisions seem to be grounded in pragmatism more than anything else.
McCain as pres, Dem congress, likely nothing interesting happens in four years
Do you think we can afford four more years of doing nothing on energy policy, education or health care? Ignoring the first two is going to put us at a serious disadvantage in the 21st century global economy. You could also tie them into national security -- a weak economic power is a weak military power. Ignoring the last one is also an economic issue -- our companies aren't as competitive as many foreign companies because of the costs of health care.
Obama pres, Dem congress with Republicans potantially with no filibuster, you get shafted in every way (judge appointments, pet Dem projects, taxes - because someone has to pay for all their programs, etc.
As opposed to being shafted by the first six years of the GWB administration and the rubber-stamp Republican Congress?
And yes, I can see Dems blocking bank regulations which would restrict Fannie and/or Freddie when they are in bed - in the 90's sometimes literally - with them
Fannie and Freddie are only part of the problem. The unregulated $65,000,000,000 (yes, trillion) market for credit default swaps deserves some mention.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:2, Informative)
I find it interesting that the president takes the "blame" for a legislation that 8 of 535 representatives passed. does anyone think that a veto would work in this case? It sounds to me that a great many of our representatives (and society in general) drank the reganesque policies of trickle-down and voodoo economics, possibly because the economy looked so good at the time, possibly for other reasons as well.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
Haha, nice one. You really don't understand what 'socialist' means, do you? What form of government is the collusion of large business and government, with nationalist and religious sentiments? Fascism, not socialism.
Second, you are terribly confused. Corporations are run by graduates of ivy league schools, who come from wealthy families and are not at all liberal.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
Bollocks.
The linked article is about a NHS trust using its money wisely by ensuring that staff with musculo-skeletal injuries are able to return to work sooner than they otherwise would.
12 grand over a year to save many more thousands in locum nurse costs is a sensible use of resources.
There are many things wrong with the NHS (poor and over-heavy management, government mandated targets causing patient care to suffer, poor management of IT programmes, etc.), but it is still free at the point of use, even if it is frustrating to have to wait to see a specialist.
Speaking as someone with a disabled partner and a severely disabled stepson, I'm grateful that the system exists at all, despite all its faults.
Re:Funny .... (Score:4, Informative)
I have to agree. He thinks his use isn't commercial. His goal may not be money, but it's definitely commercial. It's even called a commercial.
He thinks he should be immune from the DMCA. I say BS. Since several artists have already complained about McCain using their work without authorization, I think it only fair.
Jackson Browne has sued the McCain campaign, and Ann and Nancy Wilson have derided the McCain campaign for unauthorized use.
I am glad McCain is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
Before you say this doesn't work, there are lots of us who do exactly what I just described.
There are lots more of us who don't have tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around.
Your idea would also work with car insurance as well -- it'd be much easier to just pay for that totaled car out of pocket rather than fight with an insurance company -- but isn't the whole point of insurance to avoid financial disaster?
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
For-profit corporations owned by capitalist stockholders can benefit from a strong, central government that works on behalf of capitalists. That's what we've had at least since the 1950s rise of the "military industrial complex".
They would not benefit from a socialist government.
The problem here is that you - like many Americans - are operating under an incorrect definition of socialism. Since the Red Scares of the early 1900s, it's been just about impossible to have a reasonable discussion of socialism in the U.S., until it's reached the point that a large number of people think socialism, communism, and Stalinism are the same thing, and that the only possible alternative to being fucked over by capitalist robber-barons is to be fucked over by a Stalinist state.
Socialism is orthogonal to the size and strength of government. Socialism means an economic system based on the exchange of labor and the democratic control of capital by those who do the work. It contrasts with capitalism, an economic system based on the control of capital by a state-backed minority class of "owners".
Both can be found in free-market and in command economy forms, and both can co-exist with authoritarian or with libertarian policies on social issues. For examples of free-market socialism, consult your local libertarian socialist [slashdot.org], a.k.a. anarchist; for command economy capitalism, review the U.S. during WWII.
If control of capital is concentrated into the hands of a few, you've got capitalism; if it's spread out democratically, you've got socialism. Slapping a few regulations on a capitalist system does not make it socialist, any more than installing a speed governor on a northbound train makes it head south.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
Earlier this month, I had a kidneystone; three ER visits before it got under control. ($4,151 each, according to the bill): $12,453 The surgery was $7,162. The surgery to remove the stent they had put in was $6,812.
So, this month, healthcare has cost me $27,627. I can barely afford my deductible; you really think people can pay that kind of cash out of pocket?
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
It's a matter of degree. In Canada, the average waiting time for a necessary surgery is 18 weeks [www.cbc.ca]. Having your appointment happen an hour late isn't even close.
the Fraiser Institute is a right wing think tank and is masterful at twisting statistics to seem to mean something they don't actually mean. they have a long history of railing against the government providing services to taxpayers on a non-profit basis.
if we bothered to get their raw data, the flaw in their analysis would no doubt reveal itself.
And where does the article say "necessary"?
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
THE DEMOCRATS had control of Congress from 2007-8. If they saw something wrong, they had a free hand to correct it.
Wow, you make it sound like a 51-49 Senate with an executive of the opposite party constitutes a nationwide mandate.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, look, if you are arguing that most politicians, regardless of party, are in the pockets of big business, I'm right with you. But you are trying to pin it all on the Democrats, and right now, they are BY FAR the lesser of two evils. The Republicans have turned into a sad parody of their true ideals.
Re:Special Treatment (Score:3, Informative)
I don't find his objection to the DMCA remarkable, in the light that he regularly ignores plain old cease and desist orders.
His campaign was playing "Barracuda" at Palin rallies without getting permission. Amy and Nancy Wilson of Heart got upset and he got a cease and desist letter. Even after this had all been in the news, they played Barracuda again as they dropped the balloons on Palin at the GOP convention.
Not if you do it right (Score:5, Informative)
The difference is, when you do get to see them it can bankrupt you (even if you thought you had insurance).
My wife had to have a very expensive procedure done. Twice. I'm not going to get into it but it did wind up costing more than the house we live in.
The doctor would not proceed with the procedure until after we contacted our insurance carrier and got a letter of confirmation from them. We told them what we wanted done, they said ok, and once the doc had the letter in hand the procedure would commence.
All you really need to do is contact your insurance beforehand and CYA. It's not such a big deal.
BTW, my wife's condition is ultra-rare, there are only 3 or 4 specialists in our entire state, and we've never had to wait more than a week. Hell, they'll call us if they think we should have a checkup and schedule it for us. I don't know where you go for your medicine, but if they're making you wait for months on end you should shop around more and find some people who care.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:4, Informative)
Yes my friend. He died in his mid-50s and chose to accept his death rather than fight it. If I had been in his shoes, I would have done the same. It is far wiser to accept death, than to live in denial about the inevitable. No matter how rich you are, or how much "free" healthcare your government gives you, you will not live forever. It is pointless to try.
You realize that not all cancer is an automatic death sentence, right? I might accept death if it was something incurable and treatment was only going to buy me a few months (I watched someone go through pancreatic cancer -- miserable way to go and the "treatment" seemed worse than the disease) but if it was something that could be treated and cured then I'd be damned if I was going to meekly accept death.
A friend of mine went through non-hodgkin lymphoma a few years back. Her first round of treatment cost over $120,000. Her second round over $80,000. I'd really like to hear how you think cutting out the cable bill would enable someone making a middle class salary to save up that kind of money.
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:1, Informative)
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:5, Informative)
No, buy many Americans jump on a plane to India because they can't afford to get their treatment in the US.
No. No no no. This is terribly and awfully anecdotal. You cannot just sling around words like "common" and "many" without providing even minor evidence of such. You need to provide evidence of the number of Americans that actually travel to India and then conduct a discussion around whether or not this number would qualify as "many" Americans. You cannot take something you read in a magazine or saw on 20/20 and start formulating policy based on that.
If we could see evidence that -- just for sake of discussion -- 0.1% of (just guessing) 200 million insured people had to go to India for a procedure they could not afford in the US, there'd be some merit to your argument. Otherwise, you're just telling stories that may tug at the heart strings, but aren't at all useful for the purpose of making broad decisions.
Again, how many is many?
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:1, Informative)
Denied by insurance?
1. Insurance Denies Life-saving Surgery, Calling it "Cosmetic"
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2008/september/insurance-denies-life-saving-surgery-calling-it-cosmetic.html
Denied by hospital?
Well, if I'm not mistaken, emergency rooms now have to take in folks, regardless of ability to pay, according to Federal law. On an anecdotal note, my insured mother and I went to a hospital ER in Modesto, and we waited two hours while she was screaming in pain. Finally, I took her to another hospital ER, and she was taken care of. Even some hospitals - Memorial Medical Center - have ER waiting rooms that suck.
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/node
nyd
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a Canadian and I'm not going to tell you that socialized medicine is the problem. However, many doctors here flee to the US where they can charge more, and the ones that stay are forced to take in increased patients if they want to make more money.
So anyway, 2 months to get an appointment with my family doctor sounds about right, and I'm lucky to have one. My daughter was talking before we finally found one, and we only got her because she's my mother's doctor.
Not trying to agrue socialized vs. privatized. It just doesn't seem like there is any side of the fence here where the grass looks greener on this issue.
Re:Not if you do it right (Score:3, Informative)
All you really need to do is contact your insurance beforehand and CYA. It's not such a big deal.
I don't know where you are living. Here in the SF Bay Area the wait come in trying to see a specialist in the first place. You get a list of potential "service providers" from your insurance and you start calling. The most common response will be "I'm sorry, Dr. Jones isn't taking on any new patients at this time." If you keep calling long enough you might be able to find someone that will see you in 8 months or so.
At one point I was in an emergency room with someone in the process of slowly dying. The nurse handed us a phone book and phone so we could find someone who could perform an emergency procedure. According to Senator McCain, I have a gold plated health plan. Yeah, private health care works great...
Re:We Can Only Hope the Same Happens to Obama (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe that is a problem with you PPO or HMO or whatever. Here is a question, were you recieving treatment before that two months?
I ask this because My family doctor would typically have a 2 week wait before he died. Anyways, his nurse would take out symptoms over the phone when taking the call, in many cases, except when I cut myself and she told me to go to the hospital, they phoned in prescriptions based on our patient history, what was going around at the time (doctors have a good idea of viruses and bugs floating around) and our descriptions of our symptoms. When we saw him in 2 weeks, 3 at the most, it was more of a followup visit and most of our symptoms had disappeared. Once, he sent me for a blood gas analysis thinking I had some sort of hepatitis due to the color of the whites of my eyes but it was because I was eating raw carrots all weeks long because it seemed to be the only thing I could keep down.
Only once was I faced with a 2 month or longer wait. It was when attempting to get approval from my provider for as test. It took 6 months to get the approval because the first app listed the wrong condition and they switched case workers on me (because of the condition) and the second app didn't make it to the right person. When making the appointment, they scheduled it for 2 months later, I explained that I have already been waiting 6 months for the approval, I was in a week later. She explained that they leave a couple slots open each week for situations like that.
Socialize medicine might not be the problem with you, but with the exception of one time that almost took two weeks, I have never experienced what you claimed and think it is a sign of your health care providers network more then anything else.