What seems to be the mainstream argument in America against ‘government sponsored healthcare’ is that ‘they’ dont want healthcare run like the DMV. basically the U.S. government sucks at running things.
However, the U.S. government manages most of its citizen’s Security i.e. military, cops, prison.
and the state governemnts, now along with the Fed, manages many of its citizens Education.
So, Why does mainstream America agree with allowing the U.S. government manage Security and Education but not Healthcare?
medicare and medicaid are run so inefficiently that government needs to dip into income taxes every year just to continue paying for them… even though we pay a “medicare” tax on our paycheck, it only, at this current point, covers roughly 50-60% of the total cost of these programs; the rest comes from the “federal” and “state” income taxes of your paychecks; and there was a recent study, last year, which showed the amount of fraudulent claims and waste associated with medicare was estimated conservatively at over 40 billion dollars, just last year (that includes faulty procedure claims, claims for equipment that was never received, etc).
the costs of medicare/medicaid explode every year, and out of proportion to inflation and the increasing numbers of dependents-- please tell me even ONE reason why a government-run system, of ANY kind, particularly healthcare, has any incentive whatsoever to control and reduce costs (a practical, i.e. REAL reason, not some “public utility/common good” BS).
TTG, tell me why a private health care provider has any incentive to reduce the instance of health problems in the country, thereby reducing their client base.
And then tell me why more tax dollars go to private health care in the US, per capita, than go to public health care in other countries. And then tell me why we should still stick with a private health care system that doesn’t cover everyone and yet costs us more.
And tell me how any middle manager in an corporate office has any incentive to give up, say, some part of their budget they didn’t use. Have you ever worked in a big office around the end of the fiscal year? Ever see managers scramble to blow all the budget they haven’t spend so that they don’t lose it the next year? Anecdotal, but illustrative: giant corporations are as accountable to their owners (the shareholders) as the government is to its citizens. We’re not deciding between government and small locally owned banks, we’re deciding between our national government and huge multinational corporations. And the government, like the company, is worried about getting voted out; they represent their constituents because if they don’t their constituents remove them. Just like in a corporation; when Yahoo’s board turned down Microsoft’s offer, the stockholders pushed for a change in leadership.
well Liteninbolt, I would rather wait TEN days to get treatment than not get any at all.
TTG
"please tell me even ONE reason why a government-run system, of ANY kind, particularly healthcare, has any incentive whatsoever to control and reduce costs (a practical, i.e. REAL reason, not some “public utility/common good” BS).
"
A Responsible Government, or at least one that does not want to carry massive debt, would want to control cost. That is why.
well I guess the U.S. government is incompetent to create a workable healthcare system. That probably means the U.S. governement is incapable of providing security for its citizens, or ‘education.’
So would you agree the U.S. governement is incompetent?
Private security? education?
? I believe the state regulates the who and who is not allowed to practice ‘healthcare’
and what makes you believe you would be denied access to a specific ‘doctor’ if tax money funded healthcare?
I would rather my tax dollars that at taken from me go to a hospital or doctor so then when I need the doctor or hospital I am allowed to go.
as apposed to funding section 8, ‘educating’ crackkids, waging useless wars, and paying the salaries of way too many governement officals.
feel free to answer the question above. because even if one pays for healthcare. it doesnt mean one gets what they want or need.
Yes, but it wouldn’t be just your tax dollars. It would also be mine and everyone elses. I would just as soon not pay for everyone elses hospitalization…only mine.
But Liteninbolt, the US already spends more per capita on health care than almost every country in the world. Switching to a single payer system would likely save you money. Would you really object to paying less for health care just because others would benefit from it too? That sounds like cutting off the nose to spite the face.
it is not the job of a health-care provider to “reduce the instances of health problems in the country”, their job is to TREAT disease as needed (i.e. provide care)… the responsibility for preventing and curing disease lies with the individual himself and with research institutions, respectively.
good point, you dont realise that youve made my argument for me. the US is so wasteful, on the federal level, that nationalizing healthcare is a joke. just look at our partially-socialist system we have now-- medicare sets ALL PRICES AND SALARIES even for private practice. the cost to get a simple 2-minute procedure to drain an infected wound (a procedure that any nursing intern can do) is over $110, not because that reflects the real cost, but because the government says thats what it should cost. we spend more per person on healthcare because a) we still have the best technology and best care in the world (and thus it tends to be expensive to retain top-notch equipment, capital and staff at all times), and b) our government is incompetent. you think turning over the reigns to them completely is going to fix anything…? look at europe. they pay about 15% of their paychecks to their healthcare systems, whereas our medicare tax is 1.45%– and you want to talk about how expensive the US system is?
the US healthcare system is expensive because of our advanced technology, top of the line emergency systems, world-best doctors and institutions, ease and prevalence of clinics and hospitals… to try and fund that overall system completely with tax money would easily cost 30% of each individual’s paychecks. our advanced and over-burdened (due to government waste through such things as medicare) system just cannot survive on a budget like the europeans have, and even if we could (and this would only happen if care was DRASTICALLY and forcible reduced), imagine taking another 10-15% off each of your paychecks, just to afford it. think its still worth it? remember, youve got rent, bills, kids to feed…
the extra cost in our system results from government interference… a true private-pay system is not more expensive, and thats part of the beauty of a private system: the costs, even IF and WHEN they are expensive (because they reflect the best care in the world) are paid only by those who use it. in a public healthcare system, you pay for it, even if you dont use it.
were not talking about banks here, but ok. yes, i used to work at coca-cola, and i saw them cram over $100,000 of merchandize onto their trucks and send it out on Dec. 31st, to places like walmart and target, even though those stores never ordered the product… they did it on the one hand to inflate their sales numbers for the year, and also to justify their “budgets” as you pointed out (which is just their sales data from previous years). however, this is idiotic. they only get away with this because there is no one to compete with them. everyone knows they do it, even their CEO and shareholders, and none of them care, as long as the numbers look good. of course, walmart and target are pretty mad about it every year, since they need to store thousands of extra cases of soda pop in their stores overnight, but hey, who else are they going to buy coca-cola from?
thats my point: that government has de facto monopoly power, and can get away with this sort of thing. just because inventory-pushing goes on in the private sector doesnt make it right, and it certainly doesnt justify that sort of behavior by the government.
and the analogy between private firms/shareholders and government/voters is flawed, because shareholders are directly knowledgeable about business practices and budgets, whereas the average voter is not privy to this information. voters go out and cast a vote depending on who they like the most, or who has the catchiest soundbites on cnn, or who will give them the bigger welfare check-- shareholders however hold DIRECT CONTROL over the management of their firms, and that firm needs to MAKE A PROFIT for them. typically, and certainly as weve seen in the last election, over half of the US voters dont care whether government makes them money, or wastes their money: all they care about is how much THEY are going to get, what THEIR cut is… “free” healthcare, “free” education, “free” housing, sign me up!
any business that ran itself like the government would be bankrupt within 6 months; businesses cannot print their own bottom line, like government can, so to compare them as a fiscal analogy is to commit a serious logical error.
Carleas, I already don’t like government having their fingers in my business. Letting them into every aspect of our lives is inefficient and wasteful. Bureaucracy tends to increase involvement instead of stabilizing a situation and backing off. Right now the nose is getting so big, it’s over taking the face. It needs cutting back some fiscally responsible plastic surgery.
TTG, one of the bills I have to pay now is for health care. So, even if my taxes went up, I would just be transferring a non-tax bill from a private company into a tax. The likelihood is that I would pay less, in total, for that service. Other countries might pay a lot in taxes, but their health systems cost less than our private system does. You chalk that up to the government involvement in our system, but that is to claim that a little bit of privatization actually makes things more expensive, while still expecting us to believe that a lot of privatization will reduce costs. That’s a stretch.
And I don’t believe it. There are numerous ways that a public system can cut costs that a private system can’t or won’t. Perhaps the best example for this discussion is preventive medicine. The reason it’s best is because a large part of your position involves an incredulity at there being any useful incentives in government. When I pointed out that private medicine had no incentive to prevent disease, I was getting at preventive medicine being very cost-effective. Private medicine will never use preventive medicine, because they are actually negatively incentivized: if they took this step, which would save everyone money, they would deteriorate their clients base. That is a poor way to incentivize an industry.
And the industry isn’t very well incentivized anyway. You claim that “shareholders are directly knowledgeable”, but that’s hardly the case. For one thing, the majority of stocks are owned (or at least the voting rights are controlled) by large companies, often companies in which the first company owns stocks! Besides that, the people that actually do control and exercise their voting rights aren’t necessarily better informed. In politics, much of the media (mainstream, blogosphere, et al) is involved in informing people about what’s going on. For shareholders, there is a substantially smaller network of information sources. Do you have a retirement plan, or a bank account, or own stocks? How much research do you do before voting on all the assets that those accounts invest in before voting on their actions? Do you vote on their actions?
It just seems to me like you’re taking as an article of faith that more privatization will improve everything always, and I don’t see the evidence to back it up. As has been pointed out, the USPS is an efficient government run company. So are the police and the fire department. The latter two also provide something that private companies can’t: they cover everyone. There are huge advantages to covering everyone in those cases (crime spreads, breeds distrust, causes inefficient over-investment in self-protection), fires spread to adjacent (so instead of putting out one fire, which a public service does, a private service might be putting out four or more fires because the first house wasn’t a client). Health care is no different: when people die, or are sick, it costs everyone, whether we like it or not. Missed work days, unpaid debt, unsupervised children, all these things costs society. If we’re paying for it anyway, why not pay in the most effective way: preventive medicine addresses the fire before it spreads, saving us the cost of putting out four. To not implement preventive medicine just because people who aren’t paying for it benefit from it is just spiteful if it will reduce your payments too. That’s what I meant by cutting off the nose to spite the face: hurting yourself just to make sure another person doesn’t get something for nothing.
LB, your business is society’s business, and society’s business is the business of government. Having government in our lives, protecting our property from theft or fire, paving the roads we travel every day, keeping the lines that supply power to our houses: nothing but inefficiency and waste, right? If you want to look at stabilized systems, look at places where the government is weak or non existent. They aren’t places you’d want to live, because they aren’t stable in the least. Some situations, like crime and health, need constant stabilizing; they are facts of life, and not something that can be fixed and left to its own devices.
Can I ask, both Liteninbolt and Three Times Great, would you have the police, the army, the fire departments, etc. disbanded as wasteful government enterprises? If not, then the general argument about the invasiveness of government don’t defeat proposals for nationalized healthcare. I could still maintain that in most industries, nationalization is bad, but in some the benefits outweigh the costs, and healthcare is the latter type of industry.
We need to cut back on the government’s involvement. A fair tax would be a fine place to start instead of targeting a demographic of people with whom the government feels can afford to pay higher taxes. There are certain areas in which a governed body can be affective. Plus, I want it to be one of “of the people, by the people and for the people”. Our Republic is gradually being swayed into a ‘socialistic’ type system and I’m not happy with that at all.
this says it all right here… no way for me to debate with someone who holds this as a fundamental primary; your premises are as far from mine as east is from west… you should love the coming police state, tyranny and nwo.
LB, a progressive tax is a fair tax. A flat tax isn’t fair, even if it’s by percentage. It taxes a certain amount of money to support a person. For a poor person, that amount of money is very near what they make. For a rich person, it is not. If you tax a poor person and a rich person the same percentage, for the poor person would would take away everything above basic subsistence, whereas for the rich person, you would take away some amount well above subsistence, perhaps a few luxuries, but leave them with plenty of subsistence and many luxuries.
Moreover, the progressive tax structure we have now is in fact flat with respect to the distribution of wealth; that is, the top 20% of wealth owners pay 20% of taxes, the top 40% pay 40%, etc.
“Of the people, by the people, and for the people” is totally compatible with a socialist democracy, more so even, I am arguing, than a state which enables the perpetuation of wealth and encourages a system of social selection based on ascription as opposed to achievement. Currently, wealth of parents determines success of children almost exactly. If we were living in a meritocracy, that wouldn’t be the case. Lincoln might be right that weakening the strong is not sufficient to empower the weak, or lowering the wage payer sufficient to lift the wage earner, but those are likely to be the necessary consequences of empowering and enriching the weak and poor. In a system with a single voter, taking away his vote doesn’t give a vote to anyone else, but giving votes to anyone else does take away more than half his power.
TTG, you’re in luck. I don’t hold that as a “fundamental primary”, but as a reasoned conclusion. In fact, I explained why that is (though I now realize it was poorly worded):
That is to say, “there are huge advantages to [the police and fire departments] covering everyone: crime spreads, breeds distrust, causes inefficient over-investment in self-protection; fires spread to adjacent [buildings],so instead of putting out one fire, which a public service does, a private service might be putting out four or more fires because the first house wasn’t a client.” A person’s business is society’s business when that persons business can spill over and affect society, which is true in the case of crime, fire, health, business, and others. And we have government offices set up to deal with these exactly because they are things which can affect others. If you house catches on fire, it is a huge liability to mine. If your business makes toxic baby toys, it is a liability to my children. If you catch a pandemic flu, you can pass it on to me, my family, my friends, my boss, my customers, my favorite author, etc. etc. In so far as any of your decisions in the matters affect me, why shouldn’t I have a say it them? Why should you have the right to be so irresponsible that you negatively affect my situation?
Carleas, a progressive tax is an advocation for a socialistic reformation that targets wealthy people and corporations which will increase prices on consumables and services. I see nothing fair about that at all. That is not much different from how our tax system works now.
The ‘Fair Tax’ will equally acquire monies across the board without a big hit at the end of the fiscal cycle. Plus, the illegal aliens here in the U.S. who has gotten by without paying taxes due to the fact they have phony or no Social Security numbers will have to consume and pay taxes like everyone else. Not to mention drug dealers who deal in cash who also will have to pay taxes on the things they buy too.
That doesn’t mean people who make near to or poverty level wages won’t have programs that are already in place to look for in regards to assistance. There are also places like Good Will and The Salvation Army which sell used worthy items for much less than new. Those organizations provide employment for people with disabilities and ones that are ‘down on their luck’. There are churchs too that help impoverished folks so they can lead better lives.
This site here can give answers and debunk some misunderstood ideas about how that system could work.
Sorry, I should have included this source when I made the statement. I just read this the other day, and was pretty impressed. A flat tax by wealth, while not as progressive as I’d like it to be, is also not as regressive as others would like, so it seems like a pretty fair compromise. The source is a few years old, in particular the period it covers is mostly pre-Bush. I think that means it’s probably a fair approximation of what we can expect from the Obama administration. Although, from what I gather Obama and his advisors are better economists than Clinton and his (no conservative is impressed ).
Oh, I get it. Measured by wealth. That puts a different light on it than you get from Fox News, which will tell you only that the top 1% pay, you know, 81% of the taxes.
I’m hooked on Fox News, by the way. Best fiction writers on the planet.
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