Universal Healthcare= Slavery (Libertarians Are Trolling Us)

[GreecePwns]

by "unpaid for" gvernment, I am to assume you mean a government that can be purchased by special interests? In which case, I may, again, refer you to a book. Or I might copy a paragraph or two here.

Publicly funded elections will crippple the lobbyist industry. And I'd certainly read a book on this, thanks.

[PLAYER57832]

The boogeyman.

No... it's not the boogeyman. You want to call it the boogeyman because you hope that the federal government will be able to provide universal health insurance with limited resources and with limited inefficiency. I challenge you to find some programs that the federal government runs in an efficient and worthwhile manner.

National Parks.

Let's take the four biggest - public education, Medicare, social security, and the military. Of these four, are any run efficiently? Could any of them be run better by private institutions?

Those are 2 different questions. Are they run 100% as efficiently as they could? No, of course not. However, could private entities do better? Not on the same scale, no. And, frankly, the idea of Haliburton having even more power, more fingers into what used to be government services terrifies me.

What makes government "seem" inefficient is that it just does not start with the same place.

Public education is a classic example. First, a lot of private schools do NOT actually do better. There are plenty of very bad private schools out there. True, they often go out of business, but not necessarily .. (not, for example, if they are backed by the Catholic Diocese.. which is by no means to say that Catholic education as a whole stinks, but there are absolute examples). AND, public schools get fixed, too. Public schools don't get to choose students, don't get to exclude those who are behavior problems or difficult to teach.

OOPS.. actually, you can see something of that happening in Alabama. Kids there can be expelled from public school and the expectation is they will have to go to private schools. When there do they do better? A few, of course, but overall.. no.

The military.. do you REALLY want blackwater? Personnally, I much prefer our military. ALSO, you ignore the truth about why the military is inefficient when it is.. the primary reason is contractors who want to make a buck. When the military is allowed to do things for itself, make its own decisions it can be pretty powerful and efficient indeed!

Medicare.. already been answered. It works! people like it because it works. The problem is it was so successfu that people kept being added (younger disabled people, for example) and more is asked of it without raising funding (yep, more taxes). Now it is just too big. It IS efficient, but more money has to go into it. ALSO, the right wing has come out steaming against things like true hospice discussions, etc. (remember the "death panel" accusations?). As long as we allow the far right to shout out any sensible discussion, nothing will happen that is good.

We NEED to have entities apart from doctors to assess reasonably what types of care are truly appropriate. NOTE.. I say this having been through it recently with family members, seeing my neighbors going through it. Doctors are so taught to just cure.. cure.. cure, that sometimes they forget to step back and say "hey, this is a frail 95 year old woman ... maybe invasive surgery isn't really the best thing right now." Etc. And, absolutely patients need to be able to hear, when the time comes "right now, there just is not much we can do.. here are your options, what do you really want to do? Instead of just presenting the illusion that there might be som cure "out there", but not giving the family time to get together, deal with things, etc.

From my perspective, that is not about saving costs, its about humanity. However, it seems that nothing will happen unless it IS about saving costs.. and in this case that will be one result, too.

How about the postal service?

Actually the post office was quite efficient until it was "privatized". But, a big problem there is less inefficiency and more just a change in people's needs and demands. Electronic media mean we just don't need as much mail service as before... and that happened very, very quickly (as such things go), so that the postal service is still responding is not surprising.

How about the Environmental Protection Agency or the FDA? Are these well-run organizations?

LOL

And why are they inefficient? Is it something that private industry could do better? NO, in fact the primary reason they are not more effective is that they are too much in bed with private industry, are hamstrung from doing what they need to do by powerful private industry players.

... and yet, your answer is more private industry??? It makes no sense at all!!

Those of us who think they are not well-run organizations are the same people who don't think the federal government is the best option to run our health insurance (or healthcare system).

Lay blame, fail to look at real solutions.

You lay out that government is inefficient, but utterly ignore why..and don't even begin to think about what an even more private system would look like...

EXCEPT.. we have it already! Yep, the private industry system is the one that dumps expensive patients on "others" (the "other" that you and other tax-cutters want to all but eliminate, just when more and more and more people need it!). It is the system that finds any little excuse (namely any pre-existing condition, "errors" in paperwork, etc, etc,e tc) to deny patients and just generally gives people a hard time.

You think a government run program would be WORSE????

[thegreekdog]

Nokia. Finnish government is much less intrusive than Greece's. The capitalistic part of your economy is large enough to overcome the socialistic parts.

Which is true of most of Europe and would still be true of the USA even if your healthcare reform was twice as radical , your arguments are the same 'reds under the beds ' tosh that was discredited in the fifties.

It's not a question of "oh noes, herez the commies!" That's a strawman argument, which might be relevant in that a lot of conservative pundits use some form of that phrase to describe socialized healthcare.

The discussion, from the "we don't want government provided universal healthcare" side of the aisle, is whether we can do it better the other way. The answer might be yes and some of us would like to try that before handing healthcare over to a federal government that is close to bankrupt, corrupt, and inefficient (and doesn't like letting stuff go once it has its hands on it).

I feel your pain , it cant be easy trying to get your view across when you are 'supported' by a dinosaur who thinks the UK was once communist
I should say that your point is fair enough except that it must be said that the healthcare industry previously showed little appetite for change , you could say that they brought the problem on themselves.
In the long term the ideal situation is a well managed public/private partnership , this actually happens in other countries but seems to be deliberately ignored by the scaremongers.
This debate really sums up the polarisation currently rampant in the USA today , there seems to be no room for compromise or moderation , its not a healthy situation.

I generally agree with you, with some exceptions:

(1) I blame the health insurance industry, not the healthcare industry (although I am biased as I have a number of relatives who are doctors or nurses).
(2) The polarization in the United States is virtually non-existant compared to the polarization of times gone by. I read an editorial in the alumni magazine of my university which indicated that political dialogue in 2011 is horrible compared to the past. It was written by the dean of the school. I was dismayed by her lack of education in US history. At her very school I learned that the political discourse of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century was marked by horrible messages and very much extreme polarization. I firmly believe and will continue to believe that there are virtually no differences between Republicans and Democrats.

[PLAYER57832]

And you'll argue that we waste a lot, but won't see that in a study BBS posted in some other thread (the CLEAR one by MIT, I have to find it somewhere) that we are not the most corrupt or wasteful government with a fully public system. Yet their systems are still more efficient than ours. Why is that?

Because their legislatures aren't as corrupt or inefficient as ours? I don't know.

No, because our system is built on making money for insurance companies. Not doctors, not providing truly better care, though up until recently those goals worked hand-in-hand with insurance. Now, when costs have skyrocketed, employment is down, the healthcare insurance industry can only maintain its profits by significantly cutting what it provides, and dumpig huge numbers of people onto the existing government programs or the last-ditch, 'emergency care only' (except for minor costs) world of the uninsured.

Right - because our government is corrupt and takes money from insurance companies (the lot of them from both sides of the aisle). And that is the reason we don't have universal health insurance right now (instead we have the "you have to buy health insurance or else..." plan).

yet you seem to think simply turning it completely over to private industry, having absolutely NO holds on what they do will be better?

Explain your reasoning there!

Oh, and as I remember it , you argued very strongly against any public option at all!

[Mr_Adams]

I feel your pain , it cant be easy trying to get your view across when you are 'supported' by a dinosaur who thinks the UK was once communist

I assume you are referring to me, and I never said the UK was communist. I said that the communists in Britain did great damage. They had union power support, and did massive damage to the manufacturing base of Britain for about a decade. Apart from making the factories they took over extremely inefficient, they produced such crap as this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Riva

[GreecePwns]

The British produced the Lada Riva? The Wiki article you put in there says otherwise.

[PLAYER57832]

I feel your pain , it cant be easy trying to get your view across when you are 'supported' by a dinosaur who thinks the UK was once communist

I assume you are referring to me, and I never said the UK was communist. I said that the communists in Britain did great damage. They had union power support, and did massive damage to the manufacturing base of Britain for about a decade. Apart from making the factories they took over extremely inefficient, they produced such crap as this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Riva

The Germans, by contrast produce some of the best cars in the world and have the audacity to offer 4 weeks paid leave, true healthcare coverage, etc.

I would say something other than communism is to blame for poor British cars.

[Mr_Adams]

Perhaps I have the wrong commy car. 1 moment please.

[PLAYER57832]

Perhaps I have the wrong commy car. 1 moment please.

Actually, if you want to find a REAL commie car, you used to be able to find them all over Europe. (someone help me with their name.... they were from Russia, very cheap and ran, but had no amenities).

[Mr_Adams]

Found it.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Marina

The Morris Marina

[thegreekdog]

National Parks.

Hey, that's great!

Those are 2 different questions. Are they run 100% as efficiently as they could? No, of course not. However, could private entities do better? Not on the same scale, no.

How do you know? Has it been tried?

LOL

And why are they inefficient? Is it something that private industry could do better? NO, in fact the primary reason they are not more effective is that they are too much in bed with private industry, are hamstrung from doing what they need to do by powerful private industry players.

... and yet, your answer is more private industry??? It makes no sense at all!!

Of course private industry wouldn't run the EPA or the FDA and if I was saying that it would make no sense at all. What I was saying, if you would read the post, was that these entities are both corrupt and inefficient.

Lay blame, fail to look at real solutions.

Of for the love of Peter... I've said this multiple times in multiple threads in responses to YOU... there is a Republican plan put forth by Paul Ryan. I would endorse it if people let me endorse things. It was completely ignored by you, the president, and 90% of the other people living in this stupid country.

You lay out that government is inefficient, but utterly ignore why..and don't even begin to think about what an even more private system would look like...

I do think about what a private system would look like. It would look awesome.

EXCEPT.. we have it already! Yep, the private industry system is the one that dumps expensive patients on "others" (the "other" that you and other tax-cutters want to all but eliminate, just when more and more and more people need it!). It is the system that finds any little excuse (namely any pre-existing condition, "errors" in paperwork, etc, etc,e tc) to deny patients and just generally gives people a hard time.

You think a government run program would be WORSE????

No, what we have is a mixture of cronyism, socialism, capitalism, and feudalism. As I've said many times, I don't disagree at all when you say that entities run the United States - businesses, unions, special interest groups - they run the country. I have no voice in government. A group of people thinking like I do don't have a voice in government.

And I'm not saying the current health insurance system is good. It's not. It's bad. It's very bad. I just don't think the solution lies with forcing people to buy insurance (a/k/a the Affordable Care Act). I also don't think the solution lies with the federal government paying for your healthcare. And yes, a government-run program by this federal government which runs everything else poorly... I do expect it to be worse than anything we possibly have now or could have under a semi-private or private system.

yet you seem to think simply turning it completely over to private industry, having absolutely NO holds on what they do will be better?

Explain your reasoning there!

Oh, and as I remember it , you argued very strongly against any public option at all!

Why would private industry have no holds over what it could do? Do you think private insurance companies are regulated right now? In what way? Do you think the regulations are not ones they have written themselves?

I argued very strongly against the public option, correct.

[GreecePwns]

TGD accruately describes the problems with our current government. Now it's time we fixed them with the ending of a policy of "money (read: legal bribery) as a form of speech."

[thegreekdog]

TGD accruately describes the problems with our current government. Now it's time we fixed them with the ending of a policy of "money (read: legal bribery) as a form of speech."

You're probably going to need a constitutional amendment for that one.

I propose we start with campaign finance reform, see how that works, and then go for the whole shebang.

[Mr_Adams]

The boogeyman.

No... it's not the boogeyman. You want to call it the boogeyman because you hope that the federal government will be able to provide universal health insurance with limited resources and with limited inefficiency. I challenge you to find some programs that the federal government runs in an efficient and worthwhile manner.

National Parks.

I beg to differ. My step-dad is the director of public lands management in Nevada, and that whole system is a crooked mess. He's going bald from the stress of being an honest man working against a corrupt organization.

[comic boy]

I feel your pain , it cant be easy trying to get your view across when you are 'supported' by a dinosaur who thinks the UK was once communist

I assume you are referring to me, and I never said the UK was communist. I said that the communists in Britain did great damage. They had union power support, and did massive damage to the manufacturing base of Britain for about a decade. Apart from making the factories they took over extremely inefficient, they produced such crap as this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Riva

You said "' How about Communist Britain ''' Well it never existed so we must put that down to fantasy.
You said ''' The Socialist party that rose up for a period in Britain almost destroyed the country economically '' No such party 'rose up ' in the period you describe , if you mean the Labour party then your knowledge of British politics is deficient in the extreme.
What you indicate about union abuse in the seventies is true enough , coupled with weak management and poor government it certainly put a huge dent in British manufacturing and crippled the UK economy .
It was certainly an inditement of unbridled Socialism and a lesson was learned , when the Labour party returned to power the UK had a decade of prosperity which ironically was wrecked by a huge chunk of Capitalist greed.
You would be better served by ditching the commie rhetoric and looking closer to home for solutions , maybe this will help ; Unbridled Socialism/Capitalism = Bad. Soft Capitalism with a social undercurrent = Good , easy enough for you

[comic boy]

The boogeyman.

No... it's not the boogeyman. You want to call it the boogeyman because you hope that the federal government will be able to provide universal health insurance with limited resources and with limited inefficiency. I challenge you to find some programs that the federal government runs in an efficient and worthwhile manner.

National Parks.

I beg to differ. My step-dad is the director of public lands management in Nevada, and that whole system is a crooked mess. He's going bald from the stress of being an honest man working against a corrupt organization.

Can you elaborate , are you suggesting that by definition public bodies are all corrupt
Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

[thegreekdog]

Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

Yes, I would. Let's move on and stop with these ridiculous questions.

Or, on a related aside - what can we do about the Haliburton's of the world? What can we do about the corrupt politicians? Which of those groups (corrupt private organizations or the corrupt political process) do we have the most control over?

[Mr_Adams]

Can you elaborate , are you suggesting that by definition public bodies are all corrupt
Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

No, I was referring specifically to your remark on the NPS. His job is to coordinate between the nation park service, BLM, National Forest service and Game & Fish (and maybe a couple others). All the organizations he works with he tells stories about them having these talking heads that are busier trying to get money than doing their jobs, and it is completely political, rather than about preserving the parks. In all fairness, the park service is one thing I do like the government controlling. Every ranger I've ever met was a great person. Just a friendly bunch. But it isn't near as good as it could be. (This is one thing I think could be fixed and run by the government)

[comic boy]

Can you elaborate , are you suggesting that by definition public bodies are all corrupt
Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

No, I was referring specifically to your remark on the NPS. His job is to coordinate between the nation park service, BLM, National Forest service and Game & Fish (and maybe a couple others). All the organizations he works with he tells stories about them having these talking heads that are busier trying to get money than doing their jobs, and it is completely political, rather than about preserving the parks. In all fairness, the park service is one thing I do like the government controlling. Every ranger I've ever met was a great person. Just a friendly bunch. But it isn't near as good as it could be. (This is one thing I think could be fixed and run by the government)

I made no such remark about the NPS
Incidently I dont disagree with those who question the accountability of much of the public sector , non profit should not mean non performance.

[Mr_Adams]

Sorry, that was Player XP

[PLAYER57832]

Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

Yes, I would. Let's move on and stop with these ridiculous questions.

Or, on a related aside - what can we do about the Haliburton's of the world? What can we do about the corrupt politicians? Which of those groups (corrupt private organizations or the corrupt political process) do we have the most control over?

Citizens need to vote and agree to things other than low taxes for businesses. Citizens need to accept that we are in a big mess, thanks to all the gifts given the wealthy and big businesses (some outright gifts and a LOT of just plain passes on making them pay for the infrastructure, educated populace and other benefits they automatically recieve by being in the US).

But, given our current supreme court... it will take time.

[PLAYER57832]

Can you elaborate , are you suggesting that by definition public bodies are all corrupt
Would you therefore accept that Halliburton is a good example of the rampant corruption and greed of corporate America ?

No, I was referring specifically to your remark on the NPS. His job is to coordinate between the nation park service, BLM, National Forest service and Game & Fish (and maybe a couple others). All the organizations he works with he tells stories about them having these talking heads that are busier trying to get money than doing their jobs, and it is completely political, rather than about preserving the parks. In all fairness, the park service is one thing I do like the government controlling. Every ranger I've ever met was a great person. Just a friendly bunch. But it isn't near as good as it could be. (This is one thing I think could be fixed and run by the government)

Someday, will get into MY experience (direct, not second and third hand).. However, for now I will just say that when you have to fight tooth and nail to keep any funding.. that does become a priority. And, as far as "not being as good as it could be"... of course. However, by and large they do a pretty decent job.

See, that is the part that gets missed. The biggest question here is not "is government perfect". Of course it is not. However, when you honestly compare it to private industry, then government does not come out so terrible. In fact, it comes out pretty good. However, government's role is inherently different. Government does things like collect taxes, enforce rules, inspect for safety, and other things that are not inherently profitable. A fiction of profit can be created, which is what government contracting does... and if you want to talk about waste, that is it!

Every time things have been shifted out of government (aside from outrigh closures because needs change.. a tea tasting board might have mattered once, but no longer..); it results in MORE money, not less to the tax payers. Almost all of the exceptions usually trotted out are not really exceptions..t hey are cases of "creaming" =-- tweaking a few, small easy things, but ignoring he overall situation.

[PLAYER57832]

National Parks.

Hey, that's great!

Those are 2 different questions. Are they run 100% as efficiently as they could? No, of course not. However, could private entities do better? Not on the same scale, no.

How do you know? Has it been tried?

BP, Halliburton.

LOL

And why are they inefficient? Is it something that private industry could do better? NO, in fact the primary reason they are not more effective is that they are too much in bed with private industry, are hamstrung from doing what they need to do by powerful private industry players.

... and yet, your answer is more private industry??? It makes no sense at all!!

Of course private industry wouldn't run the EPA or the FDA and if I was saying that it would make no sense at all. What I was saying, if you would read the post, was that these entities are both corrupt and inefficient.

Except, the "why" matters, because as much as I know that some police officers are corrupt, that does not mean I think we need the police to be disbanded and turned over to private security forms to police us.

Lay blame, fail to look at real solutions.

Of for the love of Peter... I've said this multiple times in multiple threads in responses to YOU... there is a Republican plan put forth by Paul Ryan. I would endorse it if people let me endorse things. It was completely ignored by you, the president, and 90% of the other people living in this stupid country.

No, in fact it was not ignored by me at all. I addressed it earlier, in another thread where that was the topic. It was an incredibly irrresponsible plan. It had nothing to do with saving Medicare or providing more insurance to more people. It was about saving businesses money, and leaving millions in even worse shape then they are now, when they can at least hope for Medicare when they get to be 65.

You lay out that government is inefficient, but utterly ignore why..and don't even begin to think about what an even more private system would look like...

I do think about what a private system would look like. It would look awesome.

Your evidence?

Because it has not worked yet, anywhere.

EXCEPT.. we have it already! Yep, the private industry system is the one that dumps expensive patients on "others" (the "other" that you and other tax-cutters want to all but eliminate, just when more and more and more people need it!). It is the system that finds any little excuse (namely any pre-existing condition, "errors" in paperwork, etc, etc,e tc) to deny patients and just generally gives people a hard time.

You think a government run program would be WORSE????

No, what we have is a mixture of cronyism, socialism, capitalism, and feudalism. As I've said many times, I don't disagree at all when you say that entities run the United States - businesses, unions, special interest groups - they run the country. I have no voice in government. A group of people thinking like I do don't have a voice in government.

First, if you think Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, Health America, etc will give you a voice, then you have plainly not dealt with them for any serious health issues ( pregnancy related issues, are one exception, though of course they don't apply to you directly. then again.. did your wife get to stay a full day in the hospital after giving birth? . .. or, you/she probably benefitted without even knowing it).

If you have no voice, it is because you don't take one.

Granted, our voices are now minimal. It was not always that way. But, when you let making money be the kind of decisions.. guess what, anyone without money is firmly ignored, and anyone with any other goals in life is firmly pushed aside, not as "contributing to society in other meaningful ways" (teaching, nursing, social work, even clergy, etc.) they are suddenly "lazy bums" who don't deserve to even have the luxury of health insurance.

And I'm not saying the current health insurance system is good. It's not. It's bad. It's very bad. I just don't think the solution lies with forcing people to buy insurance (a/k/a the Affordable Care Act).

Never said it was, no matter how many times you infer I did. I have said it is better than what we had before.

I also don't think the solution lies with the federal government paying for your healthcare. And yes, a government-run program by this federal government which runs everything else poorly... I do expect it to be worse than anything we possibly have now or could have under a semi-private or private system.

Then you have no experience with Blue Cross/Blue shield, truly.

yet you seem to think simply turning it completely over to private industry, having absolutely NO holds on what they do will be better?

Explain your reasoning there!

Oh, and as I remember it , you argued very strongly against any public option at all!

Why would private industry have no holds over what it could do? Do you think private insurance companies are regulated right now? In what way? Do you think the regulations are not ones they have written themselves?

LOL

The problem is too much influence from the insurance industry and other big businesses. So, it is utterly illogical that giving them more control, which IS what happens with all of your suggestions, would result in a better, more responsive system.

I argued very strongly against the public option, correct.

The bottom line is that healthcare is not and never will be truly profitable. It is a service. It is a service with only one endpoint.. death and serious illness. In any other product, any other type of service, the end point is success. In healthcare, that is not the case. Sure, you can get cured when you are young, they can make money, etc... and then you hit the point where that is no longer true.

At that point, either you are able to fall back upon the insurance you have built up through the decades, recieve some payback for what was stockpiled in advance, or you go without.

ALL of these so-called "alternatives" are just fine for healthy people, but they leave out almost everyone else.

[Mr_Adams]

I would argue that a quite successful private FDA could be run. They could sell the right to use their stamp of approval, and get their influence in the market by only selling said stamps to organizations that meet certain health standards. Similar to USDA meat grades. You pay to be involved in the rating system, and consumers are more inclined to use the product.

[Mr_Adams]

I would argue that a quite successful private FDA could be run. They could sell the right to use their stamp of approval, and get their influence in the market by only selling said stamps to organizations that meet certain health standards. Similar to USDA meat grades. You pay to be involved in the rating system, and consumers are more inclined to use the product.

Not that it SHOULD BE, but that it would be possible.