Health Care Procedural Machinations

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Ruveyn,

There is nothing wrong with earning money. You are bordering on a logical fallacy argument insofar as nothing I said had anything to do with honest work. It had to do with sharing the profits of your honest work, the same way you benefit from others sharing the profits of theirs. You drive to work on roads paved with the hard earned money of those wealthier (and poorer) than you. You went to school in a building constructed with money earned by those wealthier (and poorer) than you. If you went to University, your education was the result of professors who owe their education to the taxes paid by those wealthier (and poorer) than you. All the good things in your culture that you benefit from and enjoy, are only possible because of the redistribution of wealth via the taxation system.

Complaining about taxes is laziness defined.

I also did not say there was anything inherently wrong with consumerism, but rather implied that it may not be a great signal of a healthy society when it has a death grip on consumerism and materialism, while ignoring its collective responsibility to provide health care to the human beings that are its citizens. I know that word "collective" sends shivers down the spine of many Americans, but that also points to a deficit with your understanding of how your own society was formed, grew, and prospered.

It is also untrue that consumerism has made the difference between Haiti being poor and the USA being rich. I have to chuckle at such a simplistic concept of the history of politics and economics between the developed and undeveloped world.

The gasoline tax, which is a use tax, is supposed to pay for the roads (i.e. repay the bonds) and fund the maintenance of the roads. So all users are paying for the roads. Nothing is Free. TANSTAAFL -- There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

We pay for the schooling of others with the property tax. My parents payed for my schooling and I have payed for my children's schooling through the tax. Never mind that I home schooled my kids, at my expense and never got a penny off my property tax for my troubles. But I wanted to make sure my kids were not ruined by the tax funded illiteracy mills that pass for public schools in the U.S.

We all pay. Included in the price of the goods and services we buy are the property taxes payed out by the vendors of these goods and services. No is getting anything for free. TANSTAAFL -- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Anyone who earns a legal wage has taxes taken out before he ever gets a cent. We all pay. We pay whether or not the services we get from the government are any good or not. Mostly they are of mediocre quality, since government workers have a guaranteed job and have no incentive to perform well.

ruveyn

Not true. Some people don't have any taxes taken out.

Also, people in Dubai pay no taxes.

Context was the U.S.A. Sorry for not being more explicit.

In the U.S. everyone pays taxes whether they work or not. As soon as one buys any good or service they have paid a tax. If not a sales or excise tax, then that portion of the price which covers the vendor's tax.

Nothing is for free.

ruveyn

Most Americans are isolated and brainwashed by the media.

Many idiomatic statements perpetuate many fallacies.
I am aware of a few significant "taxes" that others willingly pay,
which harm the economy.
I am aware of solutions to expensive problems that are not
allowed.
Corruption depressed the economy. Taxes fill corrupt pockets only.
A GOOD economy doesn't need taxes at all.

Healthcare is overpriced.
Hospitals can't really be going out of business unless they are burdened
not by sick people but by illegitimate rents. Why do people go to Canada
and Mexico to pay less for American Pharmaceuticals?

The generation that is burdened by corruption, which cannot stand on
the shoulders of their parents to make a better world, which was educated
for burger-flipping, is so fooled by what appears to be that they can not see
what it really is.

How could a city be built efficiently and NOT be able to efficiently EXIST?
Why did NYC tear down its good baseball stadiums and
rebuild two more of the same kind, only to overprice the
tickets so that people go less often?

Detroit was bailed out, but nobody lives there, so where did the money go?
How does the economy work such that there are no jobs, cheap goods,
and high rents?

Some theories do not involve corruption.

I CAN'T WRITE A BOOK ON THIS NOW. IN BRIEF:

Free healthcare is like LINUX. LINUX may actually be the means!
If you don't believe in LINUX, then go ahead and buy more antivirus updates!
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH is a logical fallacy,
obviously perpetuated by Bullies who steal your lunch money.
Politics and Economics as you understand them is irrelevant to my CONCEPT.
VEGETARIANS can have free lunch, by natural means of Free Solar Energy,
powering the process of Photosynthesis.
Think of birds. Who pays them to sing? How much do berries cost them?
What currency is used by birds? How are they taxed?
Fallacy:Money makes the world go around. DUM DUM DUM DUM / DUM!! !
Fallacy:Money doesn't grow on trees. BUT LUNCH DOES!! ! (((POW!)))

PLUS ULTRA

You have established this by a properly designed statistical poll?

ruveyn

How would you measure a corrupted mind without a non-corrupted mind to compare it to? Sorry, but it seems a little biased for me. The average American is completely delusional. The Government does nothing but fill the delusions. You don't need to do a survey. We have enough information to do a more accurate assessment. First, we know people don't like being ripped off. Second, we know we are being ripped off (you did say we were being overtaxed for low quality service?) Third, we know that a majority of the people could easily reform the government by simply refusing to pay taxes, on a premise a violated contract (the constitution.) Fourth, we know any sane person would do that. Fifth, because it hasn't happened, people aren't sane. Please forgive the technical details and focus on the bigger picture here. People are delusional brain washed mob creatures. The people on this site might not be, but out there in the world, people have no idea what they are doing, because they don't think. There is such thing as free lunch, but it's too inconvenient. We also have an oppressive Government. Take your side, gather your masses, and refuse to pay taxes. Destroy the world for a good cause.

I would measure it relative to a reasonably neutral question tested by a properly designed poll. There are books on the subject on how to do this.

ruveyn

Fascination with total government destruction is an amusing macabre concept. The willing destruction of civilization is moronic.

What does this have to do with asserting an founded claim?

ruveyn

Here, you can earn $1 and still pay tax. It is called social security.

On the OP's question: Apparently the Democrats learned the game from the Republicans. I don't like it either way, but sometimes you've got to fight using the same tools the other side is willing to use.

On healthcare in general: If everyone got sick equally, I might be willing to say that reap what you sow was a fair approach. But they don't, and it isn't. Healthcare is about pooling risk, and none of us want to work hard all our lives only to find ourselves at the losing end of the risk pool. Until you sit there, you don't know if you will win or lose; there isn't a fair way to even know if the insurance you do have will cover what you hope it will cover. Over half the bankruptcies in the US are medical drive; no other country in the world has that situation.

Right now, if you have insurance is dependent on who you work for. That is a bit crazy; what does your risk of getting sick have to do with your employer? And once you get sick, how long can you stay emloyed? Yes, individual plans can be bought, but once you try buying in that market you discover it isn't as simple as you might have hoped, and these are not available to anyone who is sick. Basically, the system we have is crazy, and the administrative overhead it takes to keep all this "choice" is overwhelming. Something needed to be done. Whether or not you will be cared for without going bankrupt when you hit the losing card in the health lottery should not be dependent on what kind of insurance your employer of the moment has chosen, and if you can be cured before the expiration of Cobra (assuming you can pay the premiums when unable to work). We should not live in fear of losing the insurance we have, and that fear is real and founded. We should not be saying the life of someone whose skills can earn $200 an hour is worth more than the life of the nanny caring for that person's children. And, yet, our system says all these things. When I tried to start my own business, it was an eye opener. When I had lunch with a co-worker in the '80's (before the miracle drugs) confessing his fear that he would live with aids, unable to work, past the expiration of Cobra, it was an eye opener. When my nanny got sick and we had to help her with medical care, it was an eye opener. Open you eyes enough times, and you start to demand change. I know there is a cost, but the cost of NOT making a change is higher.

Conservatives will tell you that none of that matters.

All that matters is that private insurance companies are making money, and that it is bad for the government to step in and regulate anything.

People who have bad luck with their health are of no use to society anyway.

For the Conservatives, the most important thing is that the Government does not run the system.

In the U.S., the Government(s) are not fit to run a dog pound, much less a highly sophisticated system of delivering health care. You will notice that the Government does not run the production or distribution of food. If they did, we would surely be hungry half the time and malnourished the other half.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 24 Mar 2010, 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dog pounds? Why not dog pounds?

That's exactly the thing I fear the most about Obamacare. I don't want the Federal government saying what risks can and cannot be pooled in my health care. So far, they've only eliminated abortion coverage from what basic health insurance policies can include, but if other national health care programs, such as in Australia or the UK, are any indication, that's just the beginning of a trend that will end in much poorer health care than we now get in the U.S.


The new law does nothing to change that. The incentives and pressure that cause most people to get health care through their employer are actually intensified under the new law.

And you're right, that's exactly where our former health care system went wrong. Health care needs to be tied to the consumer, not to the employer; only when health insurance companies have long term customers will health insurance companies be able to focus on people's long term health. Unfortunately, the new health care law moves us in the wrong direction on this, further encouraging an emphasis on short term solutions designed to shift the burden to the next employer rather than actually to provide the care that's in the best interests of the individual.

I have my own business and I've paid for my own health insurance; once accepted, you can't lose the insurance unless you quit paying premiums. We contract for an Au Pair through a company that pays for health insurance for her - insurance that was required under our state law. Now, our state law will be preempted by the Federal law that mandates that we move to inferior coverage for a smaller percentage of the population.

Nothing is so bad that it can't be made worse by bringing more government into it.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa042000b.htm
Australia life expectancy: 79.8 years
U.K. life expectancy: 77.7 years
U.S. life expectancy: 77.1 years

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_c ... ase-deaths
The U.S. has the same rate of deaths from circulatory disease as the U.K, and both are worse than Australia.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_p ... eaching-60
A citizen of the U.S. has a greater chance of not living to the age of 60 than citizens of either Australia or the U.K.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_o ... th-obesity
American citizens are more obese than Brittish and Australian citizens.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_c ... ase-deaths
Australia and the U.K. both have more acute care beds per 1000 citizens than the U.S.
(this one I see the impact of on a regular basis at work: it is not at all unusual to have to send a critical ER patient to a hospital that is hours away because there are no critical care beds available at the local hospitals - that's hours of travel for a critical patient with no better care than can be found in the back of a moving vehicle).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ality_rate
Infant mortality:
Australia is # 17
The U.K. is # 22
Canada is # 23
The United States is # 33

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_d ... rom-cancer
The U.S. has more deaths from cancer than either the U.K. or Australia.


clearly it would be a tragedy if the American health system became more like that of the U.K. or Australia.