Can you point out where the right has done that?The right wanted to reform social security so that one could open a "retirement account" in their name and with the ability to manage it themselves, or they could choose the system currently used (this was during the Bush Administration), but the left wanted nothing to do with it...
In large part because:
1) It was a subsidy in disguise. It would essentially be a trillion dollar investment into the US stock market. If you want the savings rate to change there are better ways of doing it...for one changing domestic credit markets.2) It doesn't solve any problems.
The first problem is that US citizens, in aggregate, do not save. Offering retirement accounts is a sham policy. What is the difference between that and what people already have...e.g. access to tax deferred IRA accounts, for anyone who is saving less than 15k per worker per year (i.e. most of us)? The answer is nothing. Thus one might infer the purpose is not to increase savings/investment but rather to cut Social Security.
Two, a major goal of Social Security is to ensure some manner of income floor for people who become too old to work (or disabled...). Risk has its place within the market and the ability to determine and allocate risk is one of the things a market is damned good at. Allocating risk such that people who choose stocks poorly cannot pay their bills as they become too old to work is foolish. The point of Social Security is to make sure that people who lose the capacity to earn money have income sufficient to meet basic needs. Private accounts don't do that. What do you do if people end up with nothing or too little to pay their bills. For many going back to work is not an option.
On the other hand, balancing the budget ought to be significant policy concern, not only on free market grounds but also on the basis of global peace and security.
A lot of "leftist" social programs can be defended as public goods though and I think the right refuses to acknowledge them.
One anecdote:
I worked in an alternative to prison agency through a local government. I also worked in a non-profit that received government contracts. In both the government spending was efficient for pretty much the same reasons.
In the first our budgetary rational took about 1/2 a page. You discount the lifetime cost of a single child born with birth defects because of his mother's drug use (1 million dollars give or take) by rate of change in the likelihood of women having such a child while in the program and you will always come out with a value greater than the annual budget of that agency. That isn't fuzzy math. That is the facts showing that compassionate care is a better economic choice than prison.
In the second, the calculation was similar. The cost to the city for institutionalizing people into mental hospitals is exceedingly expensive. Jail is pretty similar. That is without counting social or human costs. Turns out that the cost of housing homeless people and providing services is cheaper.
I think we may find that the same is true for healthcare. The compassionate and humane way of treating people may very well prove to be cost effective as well.
For one, there are considerable losses associated with out system. One it is very bureaucratic. Private firms spend more on suits than do Medicaid or the VA. Two, government benefits CAN be CLEARER and have lower information costs than private health care. The VA in particular is very easy to work with and answers questions about care way better than my private insurance ever has. Three, people are often wary to seek treatment because of costs which ends up increasing costs when they become more ill. If people know the rules or the system is accessible (like the VA) they will cut those costs. Four, those same people who get very sick and do not have adequate health care often cannot work. That is a loss two ways, one you cannot work, two society pays for you. Five, economies of scale and the manner in which drug research is funded may work better when the same entity funds research and pays for pills. Drug companies are great at R&D but there are good reasons to believe that their profits may be a result of rent seeking. Their research is often heavily federally funded because health is a public good. But then they privatize that knowledge.
The above could be wrong. It could be inefficient. That is the risk we run. But most of the world has pretty good care. I sincerely doubt it will be a disaster.
Seriously. The state itself is a social welfare undertaking from start to finish. Among the entitlement programs it runs are the police, public utilities, the military, the fire department, the courts, and so forth. These are all for the public good. We benefit from having them. (Well maybe not so much the military in my book, but most people would count it.)
Many of the benefits you point out come at a very high price in money and freedom.
Law enforcement comes with corruption and abuse of power. To what degree depends on what you think the police are for. In the US the police have zero responsibility for protecting citizens who are not in their custody, and they don't do a very good job of protecting those actually in their custody. My friends in law enforcement tell me that they spend an absurd minority of their time pursuing crimes with actual victims. The focus of most departments is revenue generation though drug and traffic enforcement. Two areas that generate direct revenue for their jurisdictions.
Public utilities tend to be inefficient, some what corrupt bureaucracies. They also are typically monopolies. I've had better luck with rural co-ops, but there is still little or no competition.
I would prefer for military power to be less centralized and far smaller. I don't think it's Americas job to police the world, and I'm tired of subsidizing nations who want to skimp on their own defense. The military is a legitimate constitutional function of federal government, but I think it's far too large and costly. Like any other bureaucracy the bigger it gets the more corrupt and inefficient it's likely to be.
As for fire departments I've worked with rural VFD's who have done an amazing job with virtually no budget, and they've covered an enormous area. Volunteers looking out for their neighbors with out a massive government bureaucracy did a fine job. My position is not anarchist, but I think we do most things better more locally.
Courts are another issue where I'm not arguing for a stateless society. I believe we should be a nation of laws. I don't believe that's what we are now. We have become a nation of lawyers and legal insanity. Courts inject themselves in areas where they are not needed or wanted. I've seen cases of family courts inserting themselves into already settled amicable divorces and matters of private business contracts where neither party had a grievance. Case law grows to eclipse black letter law and mutates into an incomprehensible joke that the citizens and law enforcement no longer understand. In Colorado you can get a DUI for sleeping in an RV without an engine!
I won't argue that no government has ever helped anyone or ever done anything right.
I will argue that we are better served by less government not more.
This line of reasoning seems incredibly selfish to me, and always has. I make enough money to put food on my table and pay my rent. I'm more than happy for anything else to go to those who need it more, and I don't have the time to allot and manage it across various institutions; I leave it to the government to administer my tax dollars.I find something humorous about this comment, coming from someone who is a "superscriber". Looks like you have plenty of disposable income that you are selfishly using to purchase the things you want. If you would be satisfied with having just enough money to cover your cost of living, why not cancel all of your subscriptions and donate that money to a worthy cause of your choice. There is surely some non-profit charity that you deem worth out there.I'm fairly certain this line of reasoning is a fallacy, but I'm not sure what I would call it.
In any case I think the default assumption should be that it's his money to do with as he pleases.
The direction this argument usually goes is along the lines of "If liberals think the government is so great why don't you give them all your disposable income?" followed by a private charity version back at the conservative side. It tends to go down hill from there.
It may just be my private nature, but questioning how someone else spends their own money doesn't really seem right.
Perhaps, but the bolded part is so obviously false, that it should be pointed out. I believe it was an obvious exaggeration. Admitting that harms noone.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Perhaps, but the bolded part is so obviously false, that it should be pointed out. I believe it was an obvious exaggeration. Admitting that harms noone.
Again, you don't have all the info, and I'm not going to go into it here; needless to say, you're making some assumptions about how much I spend on subscriptions upon which you're basing your argument.
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I make enough money to put food on my table and pay my rent.
But wouldn’t it be nice if you got to keep more out of your paycheck? You earned the money didn’t you? Why shouldn’t you be able to keep what you rightfully earned? Feel guilty for being employed? You shouldn’t...
Do you in all honesty, really want the government to take out more of your hard earned cash? That’s exactly what big government does...
On a side note it may be helpful if both sides try to avoid the error or assuming the other to be the most extreme. You calling me an anarchist is inaccurate, and my implying that there is no area of human existence that you would not have the state regulate is probably not useful.
When you reject the most basic and universal services a state provides, you leave me no choice but to call you an anarchist or to lie. It was not a hard choice. I'm only working with what you gave me.
On a side note it may be helpful if both sides try to avoid the error or assuming the other to be the most extreme. You calling me an anarchist is inaccurate, and my implying that there is no area of human existence that you would not have the state regulate is probably not useful.When you reject the most basic and universal services a state provides, you leave me no choice but to call you an anarchist or to lie. It was not a hard choice. I'm only working with what you gave me.
This isn't meant to be condescending, but have you read many of my posts? Do you know what an anarchist or a minarchist is? I believe I have explained the distinctions in the past on other threads.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I make enough money to put food on my table and pay my rent.Do you in all honesty, really want the government to take out more of your hard earned cash? That’s exactly what big government does...
If it means giving up extravagancies without sacrificing comfort, sure. Especially if that extra 10% or whatever of my gross income supports programs I benefit from or if it makes a 50% increase in standard of living for someone else.
At this point, social security comes out of a paycheck, as does 401(k) or other personally administered savings. So does employee portion of health insurance. It's not like if that same 30% of the total gross pay went exclusively to the government and then they provided me health care and guarantee of benefits in the case of retirement or disability, there would be any noticeable difference to me. But for someone less fortunate than myself, any extra I might pay into it than what I take out would make a significant difference. If my wealth were distributed to the already wealthy, then sure, I have a problem with that. But on principal, I'm not opposed to the idea and would actually much rather pay into government health care than have my employer pick the one I use because it's the cheapest for them; it's not like I have the extra income to pay the full cost of going with a different company.
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At this point, social security comes out of a paycheck, as does 401(k) or other personally administered savings. So does employee portion of health insurance.
Small potatoes right...
You know, if you take a salt shaker and shake it onto the table; you have a small almost insignificant mess...
But if you keep shaking that salt onto the table, eventually it becomes an ever increasing pile you cannot help but notice...
Perhaps, but the bolded part is so obviously false, that it should be pointed out. I believe it was an obvious exaggeration. Admitting that harms noone.Again, you don't have all the info, and I'm not going to go into it here; needless to say, you're making some assumptions about how much I spend on subscriptions upon which you're basing your argument.
You don't have to go into it. Are you saying that after spending money on food and rent, every single cent is given to people who need it more? If you spend even one cent on anything besides food and rent, then your statement was an exaggeration, you would not be happy "for anything else to go to those who need it more". So, are you claiming every single cent of disposable income that you have is given to those in greater need than yourself. If not, then you doth protest too much.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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If you spend even one cent on anything besides food and rent, then your statement was an exaggeration, you would not be happy "for anything else to go to those who need it more". So, are you claiming every single cent of disposable income that you have is given to those in greater need than yourself. If not, then you doth protest too much.
I never claimed every cent of surplus went to those in need. I said I would be happy if it did. It's unrealistic to expect that any economy would work so efficiently, however, that not a penny was wasted or spent on anything other than a necessity. You and I both know that you're needlessly splitting hairs, so I'm going to drop it.
If you spend even one cent on anything besides food and rent, then your statement was an exaggeration, you would not be happy "for anything else to go to those who need it more". So, are you claiming every single cent of disposable income that you have is given to those in greater need than yourself. If not, then you doth protest too much.I never claimed every cent of surplus went to those in need. I said I would be happy if it did. It's unrealistic to expect that any economy would work so efficiently, however, that not a penny was wasted or spent on anything other than a necessity. You and I both know that you're needlessly splitting hairs, so I'm going to drop it.
And yet, every one of your surplus cents could go to a non-profit charity that you thought was of value right at this moment. Nothing is stopping you from experience that happiness, if you truly believe such would make you happy. Or do you believe that there is no charity worthy of your money and only government is worthy of it. I think, that you are like everyone else. There is some level of that surplus wealth that you believe that you are entitled to for your own enjoyment, even if it could be spend on someone else in need. Where you draw that line may be different then others, you may be much more giving than them, but the line exists none the less. We all have it, it is perfectly natural.
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DigitalElf,
You do realise that American healthcare costs twice as much per capita as Canada (who has the second most expensive healthcare in the idustrialised world) and you have a life expectancy two years less than the UK (who has the second lowest life expectancy in the industrialised world). So you pay more than anyone else and you live a shorter life than anyone else. Why do you think your current system is so good and everyone else (who are getting longer lives and cheaper care) so crap? What's your reasoning for paying more and getting less?
You do realise that American healthcare costs twice as much per capita as Canada (who has the second most expensive healthcare in the idustrialised world) and you have a life expectancy two years less than the UK (who has the second lowest life expectancy in the industrialised world). So you pay more than anyone else and you live a shorter life than anyone else. Why do you think your current system is so good and everyone else (who are getting longer lives and cheaper care) so crap? What's your reasoning for paying more and getting less?
I can't speak for anyone else, nor do I hold the viewpoint I'm about to describe, but to my mind the most defensible, intellectual, nonreactionary response I've heard presented (certainly not on this forum :)) is that one of the aspects of American cultural "exceptionalism" is that a person is free (in theory) to sink or swim according to his merits. Giving a so-called helping hand to the less fortunate is to deprive them of the moral victory of self-actualized "achievement".
There are sacrifices implicit in such a viewpoint, just as sacrifices, albeit different ones, must be made by those like myself who consider ourselves progressive/socialist/Marxist. In this case the sacrifices--which, to interject my own polemic, are most often made by those who benefit least (e.g. poor public welfare, excellent corporate welfare)--include the proscription of so-called socialized medicine as part of a larger concept of "minimal government, maximal personal responsibility." As an idealism it's romantic, evoking notions of the Protestant work ethic, self-reliance, and freedom from tyrannical government.
As we've seen in the US (I'm speaking as an American expat who's been lucky(?) enough to see the situation from both the inside and outside) the romantic ideal of the "city upon a hill" has become a grim mockery of itself, with the destruction of the middle class resulting in the capitalist class co-opting part of the lower class (alienating it from itself) in a gruesome cultural class war. With the lower classes bickering over health care, education and militarism, the capitalist class, or corporate imperialists at this stage, are able to run game. This paragraph is my own opinion.
I hope I've been able to articulate the American exceptionalist point of view satisfactorily. I also hope I haven't offended anyone. My point was to try to explain to pinkos like myself what we often aren't willing to hear from right-wingers.
Zo
Can you...
Yes.
I voluntarily entered an agreement with a money management company to fund my retirement. I send them money, they do the legwork to grow it. They needed to convince me of their competence before I gave them money. Unlike our Social Security system, which forces each employee to pay 12.4% of his paycheck towards our government without any real hope of seeing that money again, the money I invest is mine, to do with as I please, and to give to my heirs. And it's all voluntary. The managers even sent me cookies as a thank-you gift! Arrived in a pretty tin. Darn tasty, too. Government never sent me a thank-you gift.
My health care insurance has some simple rules, which I follow, and in return they protect me from a significant financial event. No one made me choose this particular company. I have chosen, based on their history, their competence, and their financial status, and the cost to me, to use them as my insurance company. And they have worked wonderfully for me through the years.
I happen to live on a private road. It is well maintained, as are all the private roads I've driven on. The tollways around Chicago, I-80, E-470 in Denver, the Kansas turnpike . . . all are beautifully maintained. Maybe the private roads in your part of the world don't follow that model. The public roads I drive on are filled with potholes into which small children can disappear. Now, each of the tollways I have driven on has a public option that is "free" and could get me to where I'm going, but thanks to the power of liberty, no one forced me to drive on the substandard public roads.
And if you don't believe that your taxes are being taken from you at gunpoint, try not paying them. You will find out relatively quickly that government can do things that normal people cannot. A bank cannot put you in jail for being a deadbeat and not paying a loan. I couldn't imprison you if you owe me $20. But your beloved government can and does.
From the link:
What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called "Macroeconomics":
Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of "Eurosclerosis," the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.
So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl's "bizarre point of view" is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.
Emphasis mine.
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From the link:
What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called "Macroeconomics":
Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of "Eurosclerosis," the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.
So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl's "bizarre point of view" is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.
Emphasis mine.
I'm curious. Once you stop claiming benefits in the US, do you still count in the unemployment statistics? I think why this matters when comparing to Europe should be fairly clear.
DigitalElf,
You do realise that American healthcare costs twice as much per capita as Canada (who has the second most expensive healthcare in the idustrialised world) and you have a life expectancy two years less than the UK (who has the second lowest life expectancy in the industrialised world). So you pay more than anyone else and you live a shorter life than anyone else. Why do you think your current system is so good and everyone else (who are getting longer lives and cheaper care) so crap? What's your reasoning for paying more and getting less?
Both of these claims are simple distortions of accounting.
On cost, much of the costs go to voluntary procedures that don't have an equivalence in Canada. And a great deal of the real costs of Canadian health care is hidden in bureaucratic shell games. But I will admit, delaying and rationing health care does certainly result in some savings.
As to life expectancy, presenting that value of a representation of health care quality is a deeply flawed assessment. The US has a very significantly higher rate of violent death, for example. And the US also has higher rates of diseases such as diabetes. Canadians, overall, have better health lifestyles than Americans.
But an American with diabetes has a better life expectancy than a Canadian with diabetes. An American with cancer has a better life expectancy than a Canadian with cancer. In short, Americans have a slightly short over life expectancy despite the fact that there health care system does a better job of keeping them alive.
Do you in all honesty, really want the government to take out more of your hard earned cash? That’s exactly what big government does...
What this implies is that government is bad and no government is good.
I don’t agree. Some of the reasons (not all) for the bad economy we are experiencing now is cutting taxes during war time under Bush and lack of regulation of wall street (which Regan and Clinton gets part of the blame for.) Government is made up of humans so of course there is corruption and bad calls – but there is also great good and services it can and should provide for its citizens. (For example, I think it is amoral to outsource war – re: Blackwater.)
I make a six figure salary, I work in corporate America. (I also worked in the banking industry for a few years – ick.) I think it is patriotic to pay your fair share of taxes and I do give to charity.
Some of you may think Obama is clueless and making bad calls for the country – that’s fine. But get real – the guy’s not a socialist. (I’m not saying you said this Digitalelf – just what seems to be floating in some of the comments.) For one thing he’s given way too much money to the banks and his flawed health care plan locks citizens into buying health care from the big health care companies. America is no danger of becoming socialist. It wasn’t in any danger when we passed Medicare (although Regan at the time said it if it passed we were one step away from totalitarianism) and it is not in any danger now.
Link to item on Regan (Medicare bad – be afraid!:[url=http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/raising-the-white-flag-of-surrender-to-medicare/[/url]
Can you...Yes.
Maybe I didn't phrase my question properly, but when has any right-leaning government ever proposed and worked to implement an all volunteer program to cover all the present social programs?
I voluntarily entered an agreement with a money management company to fund my retirement. I send them money, they do the legwork to grow it. They needed to convince me of their competence before I gave them money. Unlike our Social Security system, which forces each employee to pay 12.4% of his paycheck towards our government [b]without any real hope of seeing that money again[b], the money I invest is mine, to do with as I please, and to give to my heirs. And it's all voluntary. The managers even sent me cookies as a thank-you gift! Arrived in a pretty tin. Darn tasty, too. Government never sent me a thank-you gift.
Emphasis mine.
Isn't that just your opinion shining through? Are you saying that the government isn't paying out retirement funds?My health care insurance has some simple rules, which I follow, and in return they protect me from a significant financial event. No one made me choose this particular company. I have chosen, based on their history, their competence, and their financial status, and the cost to me, to use them as my insurance company. And they have worked wonderfully for me through the years.
So how is this different than having a public option too, you'd still get to choose? Also, where is your guarantee that they'll still cover you in every instance that might prop up? If there are no opt-out clauses in your contract I'm sure a lot of other people would like to know which insurance company it is, because it's apparently the only one if its kind out there.
And if you don't believe that your taxes are being taken from you at gunpoint, try not paying them. You will find out relatively quickly that government can do things that normal people cannot. A bank cannot put you in jail for being a deadbeat and not paying a loan. I couldn't imprison you if you owe me $20. But your beloved government can and does.
And I'm sure you can provide copious evidence of people being thrown in jail for owing the government $20, right?
Not 100% sure how it works in the US, but over here a bank certainly could force you to pay back a loan by taking you to enforcement court. If you lie about your assets in enforcement court you can also be sentenced to up to 40 days in jail (note: Danish law).
Both of these claims are simple distortions of accounting.
On cost, much of the costs go to voluntary procedures that don't have an equivalence in Canada. And a great deal of the real costs of Canadian health care is hidden in bureaucratic shell games. But I will admit, delaying and rationing health care does certainly result in some savings.
Seems like you're using simple distortions too, just of the truth this time.
It's long been a talking point of the right in the US to say that universal health care requires intentional delays and "rationing" the health care. Yet where is the evidence?Besides, what does "delaying" and "rationing" health care even mean? Are they talking about simple triage? That happens in US hospitals too.
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Both of these claims are simple distortions of accounting.
On cost, much of the costs go to voluntary procedures that don't have an equivalence in Canada. And a great deal of the real costs of Canadian health care is hidden in bureaucratic shell games. But I will admit, delaying and rationing health care does certainly result in some savings.
Seems like you're using simple distortions too, just of the truth this time.
It's long been a talking point of the right in the US to say that universal health care requires intentional delays and "rationing" the health care. Yet where is the evidence?
Besides, what does "delaying" and "rationing" health care even mean? Are they talking about simple triage? That happens in US hospitals too.
GG,
It's simple, really. The US is the bestest country in the history of the world ever, ever, ever at everything. Therefore, if evidence shows another country does something better, it is clearly a fraud.
This isn't meant to be condescending, but have you read many of my posts? Do you know what an anarchist or a minarchist is? I believe I have explained the distinctions in the past on other threads.
I rarely pay close attention to who posts what for any length of time, Bitter. I don't participate in many threads (though I do read more) and I am consequently more familiar with those who frequent the same threads I do.
So no I haven't followed you around and explored every nook and cranny of your ideology any more than I expect you to have done the same with mine. I simply took your post at face value. That obviously did not give me what you consider to be an accurate appraisal of your ideology, but I can't be faulted for assuming you meant what you said. I generally try to take other posters seriously and assume that they are participating in earnest unless they give me reason to think otherwise. Call me crazy.
And yes I know what those words mean. Taking the distinction seriously is a separate issue, of course. I have far too much experience with the absurd mental gymnastics right-libertarians go through to define and re-define aggression, force, and their strange notions of what constitutes a meaningful choice and thus consent. But I wasn't calling you out on your minarchism but on the outright anarchism you expressed previously.
If that's not you, that's not you. As I said, I only had your post to work with.
Money.
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DigitalElf,
You do realise that American healthcare costs twice as much per capita as Canada (who has the second most expensive healthcare in the idustrialised world) and you have a life expectancy two years less than the UK (who has the second lowest life expectancy in the industrialised world). So you pay more than anyone else and you live a shorter life than anyone else. Why do you think your current system is so good and everyone else (who are getting longer lives and cheaper care) so crap? What's your reasoning for paying more and getting less?
Must be why whenever the majority of people world-wide want major life or death surgery, they come get it in the United States...
This isn't meant to be condescending, but have you read many of my posts? Do you know what an anarchist or a minarchist is? I believe I have explained the distinctions in the past on other threads.I rarely pay close attention to who posts what for any length of time, Bitter. I don't participate in many threads (though I do read more) and I am consequently more familiar with those who frequent the same threads I do.
So no I haven't followed you around and explored every nook and cranny of your ideology any more than I expect you to have done the same with mine. I simply took your post at face value. That obviously did not give me what you consider to be an accurate appraisal of your ideology, but I can't be faulted for assuming you meant what you said. I generally try to take other posters seriously and assume that they are participating in earnest unless they give me reason to think otherwise. Call me crazy.
And yes I know what those words mean. Taking the distinction seriously is a separate issue, of course. I have far too much experience with the absurd mental gymnastics right-libertarians go through to define and re-define aggression, force, and their strange notions of what constitutes a meaningful choice and thus consent. But I wasn't calling you out on your minarchism but on the outright anarchism you expressed previously.
If that's not you, that's not you. As I said, I only had your post to work with.
In what post did I advocate for a stateless society? You keep saying your going by my post, but I'm not seeing where I said what you claim I said. Perhaps I'm being obtuse. I if you could quote the post where I said there should be no government that would help, otherwise you seem to be making this up.
Must be why whenever the majority of people world-wide want major life or death surgery, they come get it in the United States...DigitalElf,
You do realise that American healthcare costs twice as much per capita as Canada (who has the second most expensive healthcare in the idustrialised world) and you have a life expectancy two years less than the UK (who has the second lowest life expectancy in the industrialised world). So you pay more than anyone else and you live a shorter life than anyone else. Why do you think your current system is so good and everyone else (who are getting longer lives and cheaper care) so crap? What's your reasoning for paying more and getting less?
I think that's because American doctors are trained 2-4 years longer than most other countries and American doctors are the highest paid and American hospitals have the best equipment.
American health care system is still one of the worst in the world because the quality of your heath care is based on what you can pay.Rich foreigners come to America for the best care, the poor foreigners stay in their home countries and die.
It's simple, really. The US is the bestest country in the history of the world ever, ever, ever at everything. Therefore, if evidence shows another country does something better, it is clearly a fraud.
I will admit we Americans have a bad habit of that. However, you Europeans have a bad habit of every time a healthcare debate comes up, you guys have the attitude, "try our system, it's so much better than yours". It goes both ways you know.
Both of these claims are simple distortions of accounting.
On cost, much of the costs go to voluntary procedures that don't have an equivalence in Canada. And a great deal of the real costs of Canadian health care is hidden in bureaucratic shell games. But I will admit, delaying and rationing health care does certainly result in some savings.
Seems like you're using simple distortions too, just of the truth this time.
It's long been a talking point of the right in the US to say that universal health care requires intentional delays and "rationing" the health care. Yet where is the evidence?
Besides, what does "delaying" and "rationing" health care even mean? Are they talking about simple triage? That happens in US hospitals too.
GG how does this assertion compare with your experience?
"The US spends much more than other countries with national (socialist) health systems, largely because we can afford it and have, so far, refused to stand in line for care.
In subsistence economies, limited resources are focused on providing food, shelter, and clothing. As these needs are met – as wealth increases – people willingly devote more to less fundamental needs such as swimming pools, pollution reduction, and medical care. All of these are goods for which we can afford to devote greater resources only as income increases. Per capita income of US residents is 20% to 40% higher than almost all other Western European nations and Japan. One study found that health spending increases by $230 when per capita income increases from $30,000 to $31,000 and by $500 when per capita income increases from $40,000 to $41,000. Of course we spend more per capita than other countries – we can afford it.
But there are other, more perverse reasons for seemingly lower costs in other countries, including lower pay for medical practitioners and, as mentioned previously, queuing. Doctors recently protested low pay in Germany, and their pay is capped in Canada. The average French doctor earns $55,000 yearly, compared with $146,000 for primary-care physicians in the US and $271,000 for specialists. Doctors and hospitals must accept a set of fixed prices for services. Roughly 2% of New Zealanders, Canadians, and Brits are on waiting lists to get into a hospital at some point during the year every year. These are not just people who need surgery – they comprise percentages of the entire population of those countries. Last year, more than 43,000 patients had to wait outside in ambulances for at least an hour before they could be seen in Britain's National Health Service emergency rooms. As journalist John Stossel puts it, the only Canadian patients who consistently have immediate access to cutting-edge technologies such as CT scans are those furry creatures that bark and meow. Remember the rigidity of Medicare? Foreign countries don't limit such rigidity to only the elderly. Is this the system we want for our country?
In Canada and Britain, the rate of coronary bypass surgery is one-third to one-fifth that of the US. Aside from the fact that many such surgeries might be avoided with proper diet and lifestyle changes, the savings by avoiding this one very expensive surgery could account for a large part of the lower medical costs borne by other countries. Capital equipment and innovation are expensive as well. Adjusted for population the US has five times as many CT scanners and four times as many MRI scanners as the UK, Canada, and France. The US, with 5% of the world's population, develops 50% of all major medicines, has produced 75% of the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and invents more high-tech medical instruments and technology than anywhere else. The rest of the world is being subsidized by the US, which increases our costs vs. theirs.
And many countries simply withhold surgery and treatment based on age. New Zealand, for example, withholds kidney dialysis for anyone over 75. Such decisions should be made by insurers and consumers in a competitive marketplace, not by high-handed government bureaucrats with a one-size-fits-all mentality."
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I will admit we Americans have a bad habit of that. However, you Europeans have a bad habit of every time a healthcare debate comes up, you guys have the attitude, "do our system, it's so much better than yours". It goes both ways you know.
It's simple, really. The US is the bestest country in the history of the world ever, ever, ever at everything. Therefore, if evidence shows another country does something better, it is clearly a fraud.
Gary,
Except, our system costs less than yours per person (exactly the opposite of what you'd expect given market economy's supposed efficiency); our system has universal coverage which yours doesn't; our system produces a longer life expectancy than yours (granted a large part of that is owing to diet but even Britain does better); and our system is about 27 different systems anyway so you can't adopt them all anyway.But you, (generic you, not GaryDee specifically) could at least bother to look at them and learn from them rather than lying as several conservatives (well, Republicans. I'm no longer sure who's a conservative and who's not) did about the death panels and Dr Steven Hawkins and how he'd be dead if he lived in the UK, which, of course, he does. Or dismissing them as lies as ByronD did above.
However, I quite accept that Europeans are just as capable of being arrogant bastards when it comes to politics. Why do you think it annoys us so much when you're arrogant about your different (and therefore obviously wrong) opinions?
Gary,
Except, our system costs less than yours per person (exactly the opposite of what you'd expect given market economy's supposed efficiency); our system has universal coverage which yours doesn't; our system produces a longer life expectancy than yours (granted a large part of that is owing to diet but even Britain does better); and our system is about 27 different systems anyway so you can't adopt them all anyway.But you, (generic you, not GaryDee specifically) could at least bother to look at them and learn from them rather than lying as several conservatives (well, Republicans. I'm no longer sure who's a conservative and who's not) did about the death panels and Dr Steven Hawkins and how he'd be dead if he lived in the UK, which, of course, he does. Or dismissing them as lies as ByronD did above.
*sigh* You might try reading up on the things ByronD mentioned instead of just dismissing them. He makes some great points. However, I guess there's no point trying to have a discussion with you since you already have all the answers.
Do you in all honesty, really want the government to take out more of your hard earned cash? That’s exactly what big government does...What this implies is that government is bad and no government is good.
I don’t agree. Some of the reasons (not all) for the bad economy we are experiencing now is cutting taxes during war time under Bush and lack of regulation of wall street (which Regan and Clinton gets part of the blame for.) Government is made up of humans so of course there is corruption and bad calls – but there is also great good and services it can and should provide for its citizens. (For example, I think it is amoral to outsource war – re: Blackwater.)
I make a six figure salary, I work in corporate America. (I also worked in the banking industry for a few years – ick.) I think it is patriotic to pay your fair share of taxes and I do give to charity.
Some of you may think Obama is clueless and making bad calls for the country – that’s fine. But get real – the guy’s not a socialist. (I’m not saying you said this Digitalelf – just what seems to be floating in some of the comments.) For one thing he’s given way too much money to the banks and his flawed health care plan locks citizens into buying health care from the big health care companies. America is no danger of becoming socialist. It wasn’t in any danger when we passed Medicare (although Regan at the time said it if it passed we were one step away from totalitarianism) and it is not in any danger now.
I think your inference that no government is good is simply wrong. Most conservatives and libertarians want less government not no government. Libertarians tend to want less than Republicans who in turn want less than Democrats etc.
Calling every conservative an anarchist and every liberal a totalitarian is intellectually dishonest.
That said, corporate welfare is not inconsistent with socialism. There are various definitions or forms of socialism that both Democrats and Republicans fall into.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socialism&oldid=347837528]wiki
National socialism is conspicuously absent from the wiki entry, but fascism ostensibly leaves some of the means of production in private hands under government control of some degree. I tend to think this reflects our current system of massive corporate welfare and government control fairly well.
Of course some socialist would disagree.
They also argue that what I call the western European socialist democracies are not socialist too.
The Krugman link and the wiki link in the above post seem be mixed up but they are not remotely related on the edit page. Did I break something?
If anything in a review of 2500+ years of human history has taught us that an immediate distrust of anything labeled as "the government" is anything BUT irrational.
I don't believe you can really back that up. Most modern western states have gotten where they are based on good government. The Japanese went from being a burned out wreck after World War two to the second strongest nation economically in large part because their best and brightest went into government service and focused on improving the nation. China's government is not something to be emulated but they have been doing very well for much the same reason.
Good governance is the foundation upon which most successful nations become success stories. There are only a handful at most that become successful states in any other manner. Sure bad Governance can be a horribly debilitating thing that dooms a nation but if anything that just shows how important it is to implement good governance.
I am willing to consider your proposal.
The proposal I floated was this:
So you support the abolition of the military, the police, the fire department, government-financed road construction, etc?
If I mistook you, I mistook you. Fair enough. I'm hardly infallible.
But once you've abolished the police, the fire department, the military, and the like you've pretty much eliminated even the things conservatives think the state is for. Which leaves an effective stateless society (and a horrific dystopia, of course) and thus I read the post as such.
You minarchist, you.I am willing to consider your proposal.What the Democrats fail to understand, repeatedly. Is that it isn't the governments job to take care of it's people.So you support the abolition of the military, the police, the fire department, government-financed road construction, etc?
Ok.
Samnell, your statement was rhetorical, correct?
Do you not see that my willingness to entertain your rhetorical proposal is purely for the sake of argument?
If I were willing to just consider Marx's ideas would that make me a Marxist? I should hope that considering the other sides argument would never amount to a de facto surrender to that position.
Freehold got the reference immediately, but he and I have discussed this
on other threads too.
May I ask, is American English your primary language?
You badly mistook what I consider obvious, so something isn't translating well. I'm not the most articulate writer by any means, so the fault may be mine. However, I further explained my position in subsequent posts in this thread, so if you read all the posts in this thread it's hard for me to understand how you are not willfully conflating my position.
If anything in a review of 2500+ years of human history has taught us that an immediate distrust of anything labeled as "the government" is anything BUT irrational.I don't believe you can really back that up. Most modern western states have gotten where they are based on good government. The Japanese went from being a burned out wreck after World War two to the second strongest nation economically in large part because their best and brightest went into government service and focused on improving the nation. China's government is not something to be emulated but they have been doing very well for much the same reason.
Good governance is the foundation upon which most successful nations become success stories. There are only a handful at most that become successful states in any other manner. Sure bad Governance can be a horribly debilitating thing that dooms a nation but if anything that just shows how important it is to implement good governance.
Jeremy, given his 2500 + qualifier I think Moro's point is that Government has a vast history of enormous violence and oppression and horrifying atrocities.
When I look at the hundreds of millions of human lives destroyed by governments just this century I wonder why people are not much more skeptical of the state.
You use the qualifier "most modern western states", but even recent history (say the past 1 or 2 centuries) shows a lot of horrible authoritarian governments being successful by many measures. China and the USSR being the most obvious examples to me, so I'm not sure I can buy the idea that governments stay in power because they are doing somethings well.
I will admit we Americans have a bad habit of that. However, you Europeans have a bad habit of every time a healthcare debate comes up, you guys have the attitude, "try our system, it's so much better than yours". It goes both ways you know.
Its not as simple as that however. Its not like one day most of the wealthy states in Europe, Canada and Japan all decided to go with some kind of government style health care. The system started and spread from one nation to the next because its actually a really good system that not only benefits pretty much everyone in the society (outside of the very wealthy that can afford the best possible private hospitals) but costs less to boot.
I'd actually argue that its some trick of American political life that manages to get this issue neatly into a right/left divide. It continues in the rest of the western world in part because it has wide spread support among businesses. Having ones work place be in the business of of providing the administration of health care to their workers on top of whatever else it is they do makes very little sense from a capitalist perspective. A business should concentrate on making widgets or what ever their core business is - not on dealing with health insurance.
I will admit we Americans have a bad habit of that. However, you Europeans have a bad habit of every time a healthcare debate comes up, you guys have the attitude, "try our system, it's so much better than yours". It goes both ways you know.Its not as simple as that however. Its not like one day most of the wealthy states in Europe, Canada and Japan all decided to go with some kind of government style health care. The system started and spread from one nation to the next because its actually a really good system that not only benefits pretty much everyone in the society (outside of the very wealthy that can afford the best possible private hospitals) but costs less to boot.
I'd actually argue that its some trick of American political life that manages to get this issue neatly into a right/left divide. It continues in the rest of the western world in part because it has wide spread support among businesses. Having ones work place be in the business of of providing the administration of health care to their workers on top of whatever else it is they do makes very little sense from a capitalist perspective. A business should concentrate on making widgets or what ever their core business is - not on dealing with health insurance.
I would agree that having to depend on ones job for health care is illogical, but I would point out that the current US health care system that does just that to a large degree is a result of government meddling in the first place.
The long history of government interference and regulation has led us to where we are today. About half of our health care dollars are socialized already in the form of medicare, medicaid, VA, prisons, and native American government systems. The tax structure still incentivizes employer provided health care with all of its inherent flaws regarding portability and so forth. The sum of the governments policies is hostile to consumers obtaining their own health care without government interference. The government has also subsidized private insurance in varying degrees leading in part to the current trend of expecting third parties to cover our health care costs. I find the current model of third party responsibility for health care to be illogical and inefficient, but the government has strongly encouraged it. Furthermore the US government has done a poor job of running the major systems it already controls. I would cite the prisons, the native American system, Medicaid and medicare as examples. Many would disagree with me particularly on medicare, but I would still point out the major solvency issues with medicare and medicaid.
The reason this tends to be a left versus right issue is largely because it's a debate about the size, scope and efficacy of government. The left is more likely to trust in the efficacy of government and trust in its beneficence than the right.
For many of us on the far right we view this as yet another example of something that the government has screwed up and wants to seize more power and money to "fix".
I make this analogy. If your toddler shoves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the VCR you don't give them a hammer and ask them to fix it.
Jeremy, given his 2500 + qualifier I think Moro's point is that Government has a vast history of enormous violence and oppression and horrifying atrocities.When I look at the hundreds of millions of human lives destroyed by governments just this century I wonder why people are not much more skeptical of the state.
You use the qualifier "most modern western states", but even recent history (say the past 1 or 2 centuries) shows a lot of horrible authoritarian governments being successful by many measures. China and the USSR being the most obvious examples to me, so I'm not sure I can buy the idea that governments stay in power because they are doing somethings well.
But this is such a very broad brush. I'm not sure it really gets us any were. Sure there have been many bad governments and maybe thats a good reason to be critical in thinking and dealing with the concept of government and how its implemented. However government is not something one can easily get by without. Almost all success stories for nation states are ultimately stories about good government.
In the end my position is not actually all that ideological - though I opposes everything is ideological in some sense. Instead I feel that governments are very good at delivering certain kinds of services for the citizens of the state and not nearly so good at delivering other kinds of services. Generally speaking I want the government to deliver all services where it can be reasonably shown to do so more cheaply and more efficiently then the private market.
Much of the time that is social safety net type activities but even that is part and parcel of trying to get an efficient rational system.
Its not so much morality that has me wanting to the state to rationally deal with the issue but the idea that if the state does not deal with it in a rational manner then it will do so in an irrational manner once some 'morally bankrupt' event takes place and the citizenry demands that something must be done.
In essence my argument is economic - I actually want to spend as much of my money on luxuries as possible. I just feel that in some cases giving some of my hard earned dough to the government will cost me less in the long run then giving my money to some corporation for the same thing - depending upon the service being provided. Or alternatively I'm willing to shell out know for an efficient rational bureaucratic system instead of waiting around for X number of years until some incident forces the creation of an inefficient irrational system due to the hue and cry of my fellow citizens.
You badly mistook what I consider obvious, so something isn't translating well. I'm not the most articulate writer by any means, so the fault may be mine. However, I further explained my position in subsequent posts in this thread, so if you read all the posts in this thread it's hard for me to understand how you are not willfully conflating my position.
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm about here. All I'm saying is that I mistook you ("If I mistook you, I mistook you" etc) based on what you posted. When you asked where the confusion came from, I supplied the quotes. That's all there is to it. I'm not trying to drag some kind of confession out of you that you really are in favor of abolishing the fire department or whatever nor am I accusing you of secretly harboring such notions.
(Separately I don't think minarchism meaningfully differs from anarchism in practical terms and outcomes, but that doesn't have a lot to do with how I parsed your post.)
You badly mistook what I consider obvious, so something isn't translating well. I'm not the most articulate writer by any means, so the fault may be mine. However, I further explained my position in subsequent posts in this thread, so if you read all the posts in this thread it's hard for me to understand how you are not willfully conflating my position.I think you're misunderstanding what I'm about here. All I'm saying is that I mistook you ("If I mistook you, I mistook you" etc) based on what you posted. When you asked where the confusion came from, I supplied the quotes. That's all there is to it. I'm not trying to drag some kind of confession out of you that you really are in favor of abolishing the fire department or whatever nor am I accusing you of secretly harboring such notions.
(Separately I don't think minarchism meaningfully differs from anarchism in practical terms and outcomes, but that doesn't have a lot to do with how I parsed your post.)
OK that seems fair enough. I think we are talking past each other in some degree.
Obviously we have stark differences of opinion regard the role and efficacy of state power. I would caution both sides about arguing against extreme positions that the other side has not taken. The fact that conservative want smaller less invasive government does not make conservatives anarchists, and conversely the fact that liberals want more government control does not make them all Stalinist's.
You don't think there is a meaningful distinction between small government and no government. I obviously disagree.
I on the other hand sometimes struggle with the degree to which leftist's want the state to control our lives. I often find it difficult to understand how much they think is too much, but I doubt that I add much if anything to the discussion if I accuse everyone who wants a federal social safety net of being a totalitarian.
Let's leave name calling and willful distortion of the other sides position to the politicians.
Unfortunately Urizen, there are people that do collect unemployment without looking for a job. I know several people that are doing just this.
I don't doubt that; honestly. Some of us are used to a different type of lifestyle and what I'm collecting now doesn't cut the mustard. Maybe there's not much difference for them or they don't care about their credit; etc.
But this is such a very broad brush. I'm not sure it really gets us any were. Sure there have been many bad governments and maybe thats a good reason to be critical in thinking and dealing with the concept of government and how its implemented. However government is not something one can easily get by without. Almost all success stories for nation states are ultimately stories about good government.
In the end my position is not actually all that ideological - though I opposes everything is ideological in some sense. Instead I feel that governments are very good at delivering certain kinds of services for the citizens of the state and not nearly so good at delivering other kinds of services. Generally speaking I want the government to deliver all services where it can be reasonably shown to do so more cheaply and more efficiently then the private market.
Much of the time that is social safety net type activities but even that is part and parcel of trying to get an efficient rational system.
Its not so much morality that has me wanting to the state to rationally deal with the issue but the idea that if the state does not deal with it in a rational manner then it will do so in an irrational manner once some 'morally bankrupt' event takes place and the citizenry demands that something must be done.
In essence my argument is economic - I actually want to spend as much of my money on luxuries as possible. I just feel that in some cases giving some of my hard earned dough to the government will cost me less in the long run then giving my money to some corporation for the same thing - depending upon the service being provided. Or alternatively I'm willing to shell out know for an efficient rational bureaucratic system instead of waiting around for X number of years until some incident forces the creation of an inefficient irrational system due to the hue and cry of my fellow citizens.
True, suspicion of power is a broad and general concept. It is one I embrace more than most. Even if one doesn't feel as strongly as I do about the corrupting nature of power I think it's a fundamentally sound principal to always question authority and power.
We are unlikely to agree on what constitutes success for a nation as my metric will always be heavily weighted in favor of individual liberty. That's a core value for me personally that I find fundamentally at odds with invasive state power. For example, some of my fellow conservatives would view things like DHS and the Patriot Acts as a success. I would not because I view them as diminishing personal liberty. Essentially ideology trumps most pragmatic arguments for me. Of course that makes me a very small minority.
For the majority of people though the pragmatic argument is probably the core issue.
I remain unconvinced that the state can provide health care more efficiently than the private sector. I believe it is incumbent on the state to make the case for why control should be taken away from individuals and the market. The state has already taken away a great deal of control from individuals and transferred much of it to private corporations. We certainly don't have a free market health care system now. They have facilitated massive virtual monopolies and the house and senate bills that have already passed criminalize the uninsured and provide hundreds of billions of dollars in direct subsidies to the same insurance companies.
From a pragmatic standpoint I see Obamacare as a complete failure and I oppose every aspect of it with which I am familiar.
I stand by my VCR analogy.
It may not be the same in every state, but here in Utah you must submit at least two job applications per week to be eligable to recieve unemployment.
It's the same here in Ohio.