quote: Yes, because we all know that a bare statistic with no context (and inviting people coyly to read the article, after you've delivered your chosen punchline is not context, it's manipulation), from six years ago up against an unrelated finding about a totally different topic produced by an international organization is really, quality rhetoric.
Yopur response is totally meaningless and lacking any thought whatsoever.
Isn't it funny the way that happens?
But no, no, take your ball and go home. The big bad people who point out your ridiculous crap are just plain mean bullies.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Badenov: Do you even realize how easy you are to manipulate?
Posting an insult, waiting for a reply in kind, and then posting under your alt is some kind of deep game of manipulation? To what end? So far as I know, being a dick doesn't exactly qualify you as a master manipulator. It qualifies you as a dick.
Now, if the goal was getting me angry- fail. You don't merit, sorry. I mean, trust me, I wish I could work up a good head of steam about it, but you're such a tool, I like having you as a foil. So by all means, "manipulate."
Actually, I have to post under that name at work because that's the one logged in on my work computer. There's a whole big long story about that one, but I don't want to go into that. No other reason than that. Did you think that was part of the manipulation? That's funny. But anyway, I'm a tool towards you because you can't help being a jerk to people who don't agree with you. It's hilarious. I generally try to treat people with a bit of respect (I'll admit there are times I've gotten pissed off at the attitude and type of conversation on here...in particular the level of mockery handed out to conservatives by people like you)...You, on the other hand, warrant no such respect. Congratulations, we're both tools to each other, but you're a tool to just about everyone.
And thanks Samp, you've convinced me to do some pretty exhaustive research of my own on the effect of UHC around the world on the American health industry. I figure it'll take me about a week to complete while the government is paying me to do nothing. I'll let you know how it turns out.
"My comment was specifically addressing the incongruity of your leaping from an anecdote about being paid for no work to the prediction that doctors won't be paid. Extrapolation from anecdotal evidence obviously has its problems, but it at least pretends to be evidence-based. "
Natural, the government pays the company I work for a blanket amount to complete a contract. I am paid by the contracting company. As a result, my paycheck sees none of the bureaucratic lag that is inherent in dealing with the Federal Government. Doctors, on the other hand, would be forced to deal with paperwork and bureaucracy required with dealing with the US government (And let me assure you, the bureaucracy in the Insurance industry *pales* in comparison to the federal government). Most won't get paid for the work they do. Some will spend half their working lives dealing with the paperwork. Others will give up and pick another profession.
The end result, after having worked directly with the federal government for just 3 months, I am convinced that it is completely incompetent. Relying on incompetence for health care will just make it worse.
All that said, I'll start my research on Monday, Samp.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:UHC is able to negotiate extremely low prices for medications simply because pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies jack up the prices in the US to offset the losses that result in dealing with the UHC systems. They are able to break even almost entirely with sales in America. Everything foreign is profit, so they don't *have* to charge as much.
You didn't even have to get to the point where you dredge up data. I can already point out that you're wrong.
quote:in the past two years, we have started to see, for the first time, the beginnings of public resistance to rapacious pricing and other dubious practices of the pharmaceutical industry. It is mainly because of this resistance that drug companies are now blanketing us with public relations messages. And the magic words, repeated over and over like an incantation, are research, innovation, and American. Research. Innovation. American. It makes a great story.
But while the rhetoric is stirring, it has very little to do with reality. First, research and development (R&D) is a relatively small part of the budgets of the big drug companies—dwarfed by their vast expenditures on marketing and administration, and smaller even than profits. In fact, year after year, for over two decades, this industry has been far and away the most profitable in the United States. (In 2003, for the first time, the industry lost its first-place position, coming in third, behind "mining, crude oil production," and "commercial banks.") The prices drug companies charge have little relationship to the costs of making the drugs and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening R&D.
Second, the pharmaceutical industry is not especially innovative. As hard as it is to believe, only a handful of truly important drugs have been brought to market in recent years, and they were mostly based on taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The great majority of "new" drugs are not new at all but merely variations of older drugs already on the market. These are called "me-too" drugs. The idea is to grab a share of an established, lucrative market by producing something very similar to a top-selling drug. For instance, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, and the newest, Crestor) on the market to lower cholesterol, all variants of the first. As Dr. Sharon Levine, associate executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, put it,
If I'm a manufacturer and I can change one molecule and get another twenty years of patent rights, and convince physicians to prescribe and consumers to demand the next form of Prilosec, or weekly Prozac instead of daily Prozac, just as my patent expires, then why would I be spending money on a lot less certain endeavor, which is looking for brand-new drugs?[4]
Third, the industry is hardly a model of American free enterprise. To be sure, it is free to decide which drugs to develop (me-too drugs instead of innovative ones, for instance), and it is free to price them as high as the traffic will bear, but it is utterly dependent on government-granted monopolies—in the form of patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved exclusive marketing rights.
quote:And there is nothing peculiarly American about this industry. It is the very essence of a global enterprise. Roughly half of the largest drug companies are based in Europe. (The exact count shifts because of mergers.) In 2002, the top ten were the American companies Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth (formerly American Home Products); the British companies GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca; the Swiss companies Novartis and Roche; and the French company Aventis (which in 2004 merged with another French company, Sanafi Synthelabo, putting it in third place).[5] All are much alike in their operations. All price their drugs much higher here than in other markets.
Novartis, Roche, Avantis, et al, do actually earn sizable profits from their sales to UHC countries in europe/australia/new zealand. These companies are not operating on a loss.
If Sweden is helping American pharmaceutical companies profit, your original assertion is dead in the water. It's a direct contradiction. The only thing you are defending is the blatant abuse of our populace by pharmaceutical companies intent on maintaining a profit margin possible only through the lobbied exploitation and artificial inflation of pharmaceutical prices in the only country that cannot allow its government to negotiate drug prices directly with the industry.
Ok. So, I've got you on this. But let's keep going.
quote:A single UHC won't work because the federal government doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Ever.
When you use absolutes like this, you're setting yourself up for failure. "The federal government doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Ever."
In Badenov land, The U.S. Postal service doesn't have an 83% approval rating and doesn't turn a profit. The National Park Service never works ever. Nor does the U.S. Forest Service. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not work. NASA has never succesfully launched a spacecraft, nor can it be considered the world's pinnacle of space engineering and operations. Why? It's Federal. Federal never works. Badenov said so. The Census Bureau is an utter failure. So is the Food and Drug administration, with its better approval rating than election-eve Obama. And the National Institutes of Health. And how about that Federal Aviation Administration? It totally doesn't work. It doesn't manage higher air traffic than anywhere else in the world with a significantly low accident rate, because it's Federal. And Badenov assures us that anything Federal is a failure. Forsooth.
quote:I'll do it on Monday, when the government is paying me to sit there and stare at the wall because it spends too much money. As for now, I'm going to go do something that's worth my time.
Evidently I'm worth more than your useless career, so I don't feel too bad about your blatant projection. However, as long as you spend your life doing nothing in a useless job, you may have time to learn how to use the quote function.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Evidently I'm worth more than your useless career, so I don't feel too bad about your blatant projection. However, as long as you spend your life doing nothing in a useless job...
Useless career...yeah. My job description is to go to Army bases around the world to ensure that IT departments are taking the proper steps to protect sensitive and secret information from people that would very much like to kill American soldiers by collecting that data. My "useless career" isn't exactly useless. However, I am pissed that the government has thus far spent well over 200,000 dollars directly on my employment over the past 3 months for me to have spent a total of 3 weeks actually *working*. You know why? Because the *Federal* government can't decide where it wants to send me. I've been assigned to three different army bases in the past three months. Each time, they change their minds and decide to send no one, ostensibly waiting for the end of the fiscal year before making a final decision. What this means is that 3 months out of each year, the government will waste a considerable amount of money letting things just sit there until they can get more money, even though they haven't finished spending the money they have. As a result, I have absolutely nothing to do.
As for your examples of good Federal government...Let's see...FDA...how many food and drug recalls have occurred over the past few years? Not exactly a spotless record there. Parks and Recreation...oh yeah. That one's hard to screw up. "Here's a whole bunch of land that people aren't supposed to do stuff to. Don't let them do stuff to it." NASA...half of their missions have been scrubbed, every shuttle launch lately is delayed by weeks and sometimes months because the Federal government refuses to fund it. The International Space station that cost 50 billion dollars, and isn't even *finished* yet, is scheduled to be deorbited within 10 years. We're going to be forced to rent space on Russian shuttles in the next few years because we have nothing to replace the current shuttle program with because the federal government has mismanaged them. The census bureau does it's thing once every 10 years. I expect it to be an utter failure due to the white house's demand for control this go-round, but at any rate, is it really difficult to count people? Air Traffic controller is ranked as the highest stress job in the US right now. Many controllers resort to amphetamines and other stimulants to get them through excessively long shifts of staring at a radar all day. It works only because if it doesn't, people die. The Postal Service, that is going bankrupt. Then there's the fact that each thing you mentioned is only *funded* by the federal government. Not directly controlled by it.
What you seem to be doing is equating approval rating with success. That's a logical fallacy.
And
quote: you may have time to learn how to use the quote function.
That better? By the way, making fun of people is totally a great way to win them over to your way of thinking. Jerks like you and Orincoro are the very reason I refuse to listen to liberals. By the way. What's your source on your quoted information? Not that I don't trust you and your source...Oh wait, I don't.
[ August 29, 2009, 02:40 AM: Message edited by: Boris ]
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Jerks like you and Orincoro are the very reason I refuse to listen to liberals
You refuse to listen to all liberals because a few of them are mean to you?
No. More because the majority of them I have ever talked to treat everyone else like they are inferior. Why don't you go ahead and look through these two particular liberals' posts. See how many of them are needlessly snarky and belittling.
Well, that and their ideas are almost universally incapable of working in that little thing we like to call "The real world."
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Liberalism isn't responsible for whatever's wrong with those two. See two people of any stripe behaving in a way you don't like: Blame the stripe?
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: I generally try to treat people with a bit of respect
Ok, let's run with this.
quote: Jerks like you and Orincoro are the very reason I refuse to listen to liberals. By the way. What's your source on your quoted information? Not that I don't trust you and your source...Oh wait, I don't.
Oh no, well that doesn't look so good.
quote: Yeah, see, people who make a habit of trying to piss people off regularly shouldn't ever try the whole tongue in cheek thing.
Also doesn't go with the "bit of respect" theme we've got going. Nor does this:
quote: That made no sense whatsoever. Try again please.
This one was in response to someone suggesting that you hadn't done your homework on a particular topic:
quote: Uhhh, yes I did. Thanks for playing, though.
That was rather snarky, don't you think?
Then of course, there was really nothing that compelled you to post in this thread in the first place, except, as you have freely admitted, you wanted to start an argument with me, and apparently with all foaming liberals and their dastardly reform and such nonsense. The best you've ever been able to muster on the topic is an appeal to authority (which you do often), claiming that your superior knowledge of government work affords you an advantage in understanding the consequences of reform. Just like having lived in Alaska gave you insight into Sarah Palin's inner motivations- these are rather poorly relateable positions because they assume that your portion of the argument can only be appreciated by you, and should therefore be accept by others as a matter of fact, rather than opinion. What's someone going to do? Tell you your job is different than you know it to be? No, so you think you win that point because there's nothing anyone can say back- and you don't realize it's because your point is meaningless to anyone but you.
I mean, seriously dude. I'm rude often, but at least I have the balls to admit it and not just kind of while away the time building up my intense hatred of specific posters*, so I can choose opportune moments to skewer them with my brilliantly subtle manipulative mind games. I just say what I want to say- it's not particularly deep. So please do scramble and find a way to take this and respond in such a way that you can try to make me feel uneasy at the brilliance of your foresight and cunning, as I have now fallen into your carefully laid rhetorical trap, and am ripe for... what?
Maybe a little: "how easy it is to draw you into a blah blah blah" Or, "so simple a matter to get your to show your true blah blah blah," or some other very portentous comment, made seemingly offhand. Please. I'm waiting with bated breath!
*Well, to be fair there is one I dislike more than the others, but it's not hatred, just a sort of morbid fascination.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I'm rude often, but at least I have the balls to admit it and not just kind of while away the time building up my intense hatred of specific posters*, so I can choose opportune moments to skewer them with my brilliantly subtle manipulative mind games.
You're clearly conscious of your rudeness, and therefore of what you can do to make this forum a better place (stop being rude). So why not modify your behavior?
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quote:I'll admit there are times I've gotten pissed off at the attitude and type of conversation on here...in particular the level of mockery handed out to conservatives by people like you.
There are people like Orincoro on here who aren't Orincoro? Who?
quote: No. More because the majority of them I have ever talked to treat everyone else like they are inferior. ... Well, that and their ideas are almost universally incapable of working in that little thing we like to call "The real world."
Yeah. I don't detect any sense of superiority in your tone at all, despite the idea that only your ideas work in "the real world" -- a real world that you, as a military contractor, obviously experience every day.
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quote:I'll admit there are times I've gotten pissed off at the attitude and type of conversation on here...in particular the level of mockery handed out to conservatives by people like you.
There are people like Orincoro on here who aren't Orincoro? Who?
Well of course you've completely discounted The Awesome Possum, as well as my evil mirror universe twin: Orocniro, though he's really the shy sort.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
It's amazing how enlightened we all are. I wonder what it would have looked like if we'd all been on a playground at age 10.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
I generally believe that the government can do things far better than its given credit for, but I by no means think the government is perfect. As a rule, my personal philosophy tends to orbit around the idea that I'd prefer government screw ups to rampant private sector greed.
I know where the idea came from that government is inherently bad and the private sector can do anything better, but I'm amazed that in this day and age it still gets the reverence that it does.
What's the biggest government run and government funded organization not just in America, but on the planet? The US military. Near as I can tell (I'm not really a student of more modern US history yet, admittedly), we've never lost a war for logistical reasons, only political ones, and short of a military junta, there isn't a country on earth that doesn't have to deal with confrontations between the military and politicians. But is anyone going to make the argument that the military is underfunded? Undertrained? etc? Where do most of the cost overruns in the military come from? Generally it's from private sector companies promising one price for a piece of hardware, and then amazingly it ends up costing something dramatically higher. Thankfully Congress is finally getting serious about procurement, but this has been a problem for decades.
Taking a good look at the private sector, what's really there to hold up high over the head of government? A private health care system that is the butt of world wide jokes, denies coverage, discourages wellness in favor of reactionary treatment, that bankrupts millions a year and never seems to be making us, as a nation, healthier or happier. A banking system that damn near sank us into another depression, some would say specifically as a result of government taking a more hands off approach, due to rampant greed and stupidity in the private sector. Our waters are polluted, our trees cut down, vast tracts of land are barren wasteland, the air in places is toxic, all due to the rampant greed of corporations that don't give a crap about the country or the people, just their bottom line.
I'm not going to sit here and defend government as the be all end all, but what the hell is so damned special about the private sector? Near as I can tell, we're in a struggle for our lives against the private sector, and if not for the occasional government interference, a whole lot more of us would be dead now as a result of their apathy towards our general well being.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Boris: As for your examples of good Federal government...Let's see...FDA...how many food and drug recalls have occurred over the past few years? Not exactly a spotless record there.
"Not exactly a spotless record" for doing the job it's supposed to do? That doesn't even make an inch of sense! The FDA has to recall food when and where the safety of food is compromised due to any issue. Sometimes (especially recently) the FDA's recalls are evidence of its prompt response to ill-managed internal safety protocol of private companies. This is a pro-feds argument, not con.
If you are having trouble finding ways to actually make the feds seem the villain, I have plenty of stories, plenty of well-researched examples of entrenched federal dysfunction that carry far more weight than your poorly researched mostly-anecdotal gripes. You can't just take these anecdotal and fact-poor ideas and apply them wholesale as an argument that the fed is incompetent in everything it does or tries to do, but you're doing exactly that.
quote:It works only because if it doesn't, people die.
Okay, let's say your statement is true. Then federally funded healthcare would ALSO work, because if it doesn't, people die.
You're accidentally throwing out comments which support me!
quote:The Postal Service, that is going bankrupt.
You have no idea what you're talking about! Most of what you're throwing at me is poorly researched and incorrect! For instance, the postal service is actually Self-Sufficient, which is the opposite of what you assert.
You're wrong!
quote:Then there's the fact that each thing you mentioned is only *funded* by the federal government. Not directly controlled by it.
You're dropping another one! A single-payer system, the form of UHC we intend to move towards, is also only funded by the federal government. It is also not directly controlled by it! Healthcare is still directly maintained and controlled by private functions and private ownership!
You're doing my work for me!
quote:By the way, making fun of people is totally a great way to win them over to your way of thinking.
Excellent statement; let's see if we can apply it to you. Perhaps making fun of people IS a great way to win them over. I will assume that you actually operate on that logic, so that's why you opened fire towards me with the insinuation that I was not worth your time, and now you're going to use that as your excuse for saying you refuse to listen to me and/or liberals.
If you start your counterpoints with derogatory assumptions about me, like that I am a "brick wall" and that I am worth less than your job where you sit and do nothing, expect me to treat you like you're not worth treating any more civilly than you do me.
Don't be a huge hypocrit. Don't act insulting towards me, and then whine when I respond in kind. : )
quote:What's your source on your quoted information? Not that I don't trust you and your source...Oh wait, I don't.
If you look carefully there happens to be a method of accessing it directly underneath it. It leads to another bit of commentary which cites its claims as well, leaving you with a wealth of sources.
I am very sorry that you do not trust someone who has so far as of yet been the only side in this debate to source and make corrections to completely factually bogus claims.
By the by, thanks for learning how to quote.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: The Postal Service ended its fiscal year $2.8 billion in the red, battered by a faltering economy that cut the amount of mail being sent. Postmaster General John Potter said the agency is making sharp cuts in hours and overtime, but added there are no plans for layoffs. The mail being sent dropped by 9.5 billion items.
quote: We expect the new fiscal year to be another difficult one," Potter said, adding: "We're not panicking here."
By cutting back on spending the post office had a net operating income of $2.7 billion in 2008, but still ended up in the red because of the requirement for a $5.6 billion payment to a health benefit fund for retirees.
Even so, the $2.8 billion loss was well short of last year's $5.1 billion postal deficit.
quote: Potter said the agency plans to ask Congress to restructure the way it handles payments for retiree health care. A 2006 law requires the post office to create a fund to cover retiree health care, contributing several billion dollars annually for 10 years. At the same time the agency is paying about $2 billion annually for retiree health care.
The postmaster general said the agency would like to start funding retiree health care from the new account, which it will continue to build up. But it would like to eliminate the need to pay the extra $2 billion for current costs.
The Post Office isn't funded by a regular yearly influx of taxes but they have received billions and billions in bailouts to meet budget shortfalls. That Self Sufficent link goes to the Letter Carriers union page which is not really an independent source.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: ETA: DarkKnight, if you were elderly and died alone, do you think that your insurance carrier would come looking for you?
No, but neither would my doctor. If you were elderly and died alone, do you think the federal government's UHC would come looking for you? Overwhelming odds are it would be a family member, friend, or neighbor noticing your absence or the reek of a decaying body long before any healthcare provider would be at your door.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: The Post Office isn't funded by a regular yearly influx of taxes but they have received billions and billions in bailouts to meet budget shortfalls. That Self Sufficent link goes to the Letter Carriers union page which is not really an independent source.
In what way do you feel the example of the post office is more relevant to a discussion of health care than health care systems from other countries? The drift of the discussion has been here, for a long time, that health care specifically is an industry that obviously does not benefit in terms of outcomes from private control. No one has argued that of the post, and it's clearly not the case. I would love to know why you feel that indirect anecdotal information is more useful in this discussion than anything else, because it's been a theme.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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1) Having the Public Option will destroy all private insurance because it will be less expensive. Since it is not needing to produce a profit, it will be able to charge less.
2) The Government is too corrupt, confused, and inefficient to be able to run health insurance, so it will cause pain and suffering to all who partake.
How can both 1 and 2 be correct? If the Public Option is so much cheaper and better than the private option that people will come running to it, then it is doing a good job. If it is so bloated and terrible that it injures those its supposed to be supporting, only those who can afford no other option will use it, and jump to the private options as soon as they can afford to.
Boris, not all government agencies are equal. You have had issues with the Military. That does not mean that everyone does, or that every federal agency has similar issues.
I know that the present system is bankrupt. Do you agree that we need to change the present system? If so, how?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: In what way do you feel the example of the post office is more relevant to a discussion of health care than health care systems from other countries?
I don't nor have I said anything like that in anyway. I did not bring up the USPS nor did I compare the USPS to UHC. You are confused. I'll try to help you although I am sure you will have your usual snarky response. I have not commented about anything on the US Postal Service as it relates to healthcare in anyway. I was providing additional information to Samp's claim that the USPS was self-sufficent. USPS is too different to be a useful example. I did want to correct the interpertation that the USPS is succesful moneymaking enterprise when it is not. Note how I did not make any references to health care, only to the fiscal solvency of the USPS. You made the inference to prove a point I am not making.
quote: The drift of the discussion has been here, for a long time, that health care specifically is an industry that obviously does not benefit in terms of outcomes from private control. No one has argued that of the post, and it's clearly not the case.
You mean health care specifically is an industry that obviously does not benefit in terms of outcomes from private control because of the way insurers are currently forced to run by regulations from state and federal governments. We do not know how private insurers would run if many restrictions, like being able to compete across state lines equally, were removed.
quote: I would love to know why you feel that indirect anecdotal information is more useful in this discussion than anything else, because it's been a theme.
I'd love to know why you feel that the information is less useful? Well, no, to be truthful I do not care one bit why you feel the information is less useful. You are going to draw conclusions I am not making in order to prove your point.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: ETA: DarkKnight, if you were elderly and died alone, do you think that your insurance carrier would come looking for you?
No, but neither would my doctor. If you were elderly and died alone, do you think the federal government's UHC would come looking for you? Overwhelming odds are it would be a family member, friend, or neighbor noticing your absence or the reek of a decaying body long before any healthcare provider would be at your door.
So what was your point in bringing it up?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: I was providing additional information to Samp's claim that the USPS was self-sufficent.
quote:Bailout the Postal Service? Your reader must be confusing us with the car companies and the banks. (Letters, Aug. 16, 2009)
The Postal Service isn’t asking for a bailout and Congress isn’t giving us one.
We’re used to making it on our own. Postal Service operations have not received or requested one dime of tax money in 25 years.
Yes, we are facing a $7 billion deficit this fiscal year. However, most of the shortfall is because a 2006 law requires the postal service to pay the Treasury more than $5 billion a year, every year, until 2016. This fund, which won’t begin to be drawn down until 2017, was created to pay future retiree health benefits. While we agree that this is a worthy ambition, it is also an extraordinary requirement. Agencies and corporations compelled to do this are as rare as hen’s teeth.
Yes, the Postal Service is asking Congress to reschedule this obligation. However that’s a reasonable request given the effects of the economy and the Internet on mail volume and revenue.
Like newspapers, the U.S. Mail is being hit from two directions at once: a contracting economy and the migration of hard copy communications to electronic alternatives — two things that are both outside our control.
Joseph Breckenridge U.S. Postal Service Communications Lawrenceville, Ga.
Even the private carriers like fedex are experiencing budget shortfalls. It's because of the retraction of the market. The USPS is responding to it like any private business would: reduction of supply infrastructure to re-calibrate themselves to demand in a new digital age.
So your year-old article does not actually contradict the statement that the USPS is self-sufficient.
Any more questions?
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote: 1) Having the Public Option will destroy all private insurance because it will be less expensive. Since it is not needing to produce a profit, it will be able to charge less.
Depending on how the Public Option is setup and run, it can destroy private insurance. Imagine you are an employer and you must choose to provide health care to all of your employees. If all health plans must provide the same services but one does so at a lesser cost which one would you choose? A Public Option can operate at a loss, a private company cannot.
quote: 2) The Government is too corrupt, confused, and inefficient to be able to run health insurance, so it will cause pain and suffering to all who partake.
Except in the case where your health care insurer is not chosen by you but rather chosen by your employer. If you cannot chose another option because your employer provides you with the Public Option what will you do? In the current proposals, (and now you see how devasting this is) if you do not take your employers health insurance choice then, based on a sliding scale up from a total payroll of $250,000, your employer will pay 8% of the average employees salary to the government to help pay for health care.
quote: Do you agree that we need to change the present system? If so, how?
Allow everyone to deduct their health care premiums like you can do with employer based health care. We should work to end employer based health care the way it works now. Give the employee the money being spent by the employer on health care insurance, allow it to remain tax deductible and expand the deduction to include anyone who has health insurance. Health insurance companies can certainly still work with your employer to provide health care and you can choose them if you wish, but you woud also be allowed to choose any other health insurance provider you wish as well. The decision should be yours, not your employers. To be clear for those of you who just want to jump all over anyone saying anything but UHC! UHC! UHC! This is just one example and would not fix everything that is wrong with health care.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: "People have lost their sense of responsibility. They think the government is going to resolve every problem in their life," said Nadia Finkielman, lending moral support to a grieving friend at a Paris morgue where mourning families prepared to bury their dead.
quote: The new estimate comes a day after the French Parliament released a harshly worded report blaming the deaths on a complex health system, widespread failure among agencies and health services to coordinate efforts, and chronically insufficient care for the elderly.
quote:Depending on how the Public Option is setup and run, it can destroy private insurance. Imagine you are an employer and you must choose to provide health care to all of your employees. If all health plans must provide the same services but one does so at a lesser cost which one would you choose? A Public Option can operate at a loss, a private company cannot.
As an aside, I am amused that people's objection over the public option all center around the fact that they're afraid that the government could provide the service for cheaper.
I wish I could be afraid of more services like that.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote: We’re used to making it on our own. Postal Service operations have not received or requested one dime of tax money in 25 years.
quote:
By law, the Postal Service is authorized to receive two types of appropriations from the federal government as reimbursement for its costs of performing certain services. These are for the public service costs incurred in providing a maximum effective degree of universal mail service and for revenue forgone which is reimbursement for providing free mailings to the blind and to overseas voters. In the early years of the Postal Service, a third type of appropriation, “transitional appropriations,” provided a means for the federal government to fund costs related to its obligations to the former Post Office Department (POD) and thereby shelter ratepayers from such costs. Workers’ compensation costs related to claims that arose prior to July 1, 1971, were the last known POD costs to have been reimbursed. In the Balanced Budget Reform Act of 1997, Congress transferred responsibility for those costs to the Postal Service and rescinded the section of Title 39 United States Code that authorized transitional appropriations to the Postal Service.
The Postal Service remains authorized to request up to $460 million for public service costs. This is the amount authorized by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 and is not intended to represent the present cost of providing universal service. The Postal Service has neither requested nor received reimbursement of its public service costs since 1982, which may be viewed as a “savings” of $11.0 billion to the U. S. government and taxpayers. In 1971, the final year of the POD prior to creation of the Postal Service, appropriations totaled almost 25% of total POD revenue.
This year the Postal Service recognized a revenue forgone reimbursement of $99 million to fund free mail for the blind and for mailing overseas voting materials. This accounted for 0.1% of total Postal Service revenue in 2006. Because legislation delayed payment until future years, this amount remains in accounts receivable at the end of the year. Additionally, in 2002 and 2005, the Postal Service received four appropriations from the federal government to help fund costs related to homeland security and emergency preparedness.
They carefully use the word 'operations' to make thier statement true. The USPS has received appropriations.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: It's actually an argument in favor of health care reform, but he doesn't realize it.
"France can end up killing 10,000 elderly people due to systemic neglect in some facilities and their health care system is still better than ours and results in their seniors living longer and happier lives than ours, so, our system sucks just that much.
Or more likely the criteria set up to determine who has the best healthcare in the world is flawed.
So, what criteria should be used to determine the best healthcare. The studies I have seen look at life expectancy, outcome after diagnosis with certain problems, infant mortality rates and patient reported satisfaction with treatment. The US ranks low in all of these, though we are very high in cost of care and number of tests performed. And while one might argue that performing more tests is a good indicator of care, there is more and more research indicating that the high number of tests actually on average decreases health. The tests can be invasive and the number of false positives are high, leading to more invasive care which is often not necessary. Invasive, unnecessary treatment leads to a less healthy population.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote: As an aside, I am amused that people's objection over the public option all center around the fact that they're afraid that the government could provide the service for cheaper.
I wish I could be afraid of more services like that.
The 'cheaper' remarks do not mean the government actually runs things using less money but rather they can use other tax revenue sources, like Social Security, to pay for any over-expenditures in the Public Option. Obama could raise taxes on everyone, or just some people, and direct that money to the Public Option to keep the costs artificially low. Does that make more sense?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: So, what criteria should be used to determine the best healthcare.
To make it painfully clear to some...or rather one of you....the quote I am posting is what WHO used to determine the rankings of best health care systems in the world. Scholarette referenced my earlier post so I am clarifying what the WHO's criteria was, and not what criteria I think should be used to determine the best healthcare.
quote: WHO’s assessment system was based on five indicators: overall level of population health; health inequalities (or disparities) within the population; overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts); distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system); and the distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population (who pays the costs).
quote: The studies I have seen look at life expectancy, outcome after diagnosis with certain problems, infant mortality rates and patient reported satisfaction with treatment.
Can you provide a link, especially with all of the criteria used in the study?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: The 'cheaper' remarks do not mean the government actually runs things using less money but rather they can use other tax revenue sources, like Social Security, to pay for any over-expenditures in the Public Option. Obama could raise taxes on everyone, or just some people, and direct that money to the Public Option to keep the costs artificially low. Does that make more sense?
No, this isn't what I'm talking about at all. The groups lobbying against the public option are actually afraid that the government could provide cheaper coverage because the government has better buying power and could leverage its own power as a distributor in order to control costs. It is a monopsony effect virtually identical to the power that Wal-Mart wields in leveraging its size as a distributor in order to regulate the costs of its supply.
This is entirely separate from operating at a loss. The insurers' argument against the public option was them saying that this element in itself would be unfair to them because they would be unable to compete against a single provider monopsony the likes of which the government could provide even as a self-sufficient entity.
They additionally posit the "it can operate at a loss" argument to engender further fear and uncertainty against the offer. The issue is the same. They have to stop the government because it makes good business sense to maintain their control over the markets, because capitalism would ensure that they lost market share if a provider came along that was able to provide the same service for cheaper. they have to manipulate the playing field through lobby to ensure that it stays conductive only to their business practices and their profit. the welfare of the people is irrelevant to them beyond that.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: They carefully use the word 'operations' to make thier statement true. The USPS has received appropriations.
So? The section you posted clearly explains why the Postal Service would need extra money outside its revenue stream, because it is required to provide services not assigned to private companies. Makes sense to me.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Did you read what those appropriations were for?
Free mail for the blind, overseas voting, and homeland security/emergency preparedness.
Or, to put it another way, the government gave them money for services that the government wanted them to do. That's actually evidence in favor of them being self-sufficient, not the contrary.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I meant to say, the US ranks low in those measures, not that any specific study looked at all of them to rank the US. So, if you look up infant mortality, the US is ranked pretty low (number 33). Of course, the infant mortality rates do have some potential problems, based on differences in classification. Our under 5 mortality rate is also pretty high in comparison to other countries. http://www.prb.org/Datafinder/Topic/Bar.aspx?sort=v&order=d&variable=28
1. Comparing the US to France as far as health care systems go, and as far as health care reform goes, is a bit like apples and oranges. No one is suggesting that America become anything like France's system, where the government controls every aspect of the system, employs all the doctors, etc. The most liberal plan, for single payer, still just turns the government into a giant insurance company, but doesn't take over the infrastructure itself. It's comparisons like that, by fear mongering by point out the flaws in systems that we aren't even considering becoming, that ruins honest debate.
2. There was a fascinating article in TIME magazine at the beginning of this month about the US infant mortality rate. Half of all us infant deaths occur in very preterm babies, those born before 32 weeks. Late preterm babies, those born a week or two early, have a 99% survival rate. The mortality rate for babies who aren't preterm is less than 3. Our high numbers seem to be highly linked to preterm births, but no one really knows what causes preemies to be born. The rate of premature births has risen from 9.4% in 1981 to 12.7% in 2007. Given that they are such a higher factor in the mortality rate, a rise in the rate of premature births and a drop in the overall infant mortality rate is rather impressive over the years. Also, preterm babies are born in much higher numbers to black mothers (four times more than white mothers), and strangely, in much higher numbers in the south as compared to the north and west. Scientists are speculating there's a relationship between the health of the mother and preterm births, but there's no conclusive evidence yet. More research needs to be done, but it would seem that until we can crack this mystery, our infant mortality numbers aren't going to do anything dramatic when 2% of all live births cause 50% of our infant mortality figures.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote: So? The section you posted clearly explains why the Postal Service would need extra money outside its revenue stream, because it is required to provide services not assigned to private companies.
Private companies are not required to provide any services or accomodations to the handicapped? Private companies are not forced to comply with updated codes and regulations? If private companies are required to change their services the government provides all the money necessary to ensure those changes occur? All private companies enjoy the same tax exemptions the USPS does? Delivering mail is outside of their revenue stream?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: So? The section you posted clearly explains why the Postal Service would need extra money outside its revenue stream, because it is required to provide services not assigned to private companies.
Private companies are not required to provide any services or accomodations to the handicapped?
I don't believe so provided such accommodations are either never required, or completely unfeasible. I'm not an expert on that, but if you are, please enlighten us. But anyway, these were not the requirements I was referring to. I was referring to such items as special training to deal with threats of terrorism, handling free government mail, and other duties the post office fulfills as part of its functioning as a governmental organization, which is payed for out of its revenue, but is not related to profitability. Private companies are subject to many of the same things, so I am not sure whether or not the Post is subject to more.
quote: Private companies are not forced to comply with updated codes and regulations?
They are, and again I am not an expert in this field, but I believe the post office is subject to specifically different codes and regulations than private businesses. Again, if you know differently, please share your information.
quote: If private companies are required to change their services the government provides all the money necessary to ensure those changes occur?
No, but those private businesses don't do free work for the government. Since your quote points out that such things as official gov. mailings and ballots are not paid for directly (though they are required of the post office to handle), but carried over on the balance sheets of the Postal Service as owed, and the money is then supplied via an appropriation (though I don't understand why that is), the government is simply paying the post office through the back door to supply "free" service out the front. However, the money has been taken out of their revenue stream and still appears on the books as owed. Again, this is according to your quote as I understand it, and I don't personally comprehend why things are done this way. If you are the expert on this, go ahead and clarify for me.
quote: All private companies enjoy the same tax exemptions the USPS does? Delivering mail is outside of their revenue stream?
Well, yes I believe Fedex and DHL enjoy numerous tax exemptions. Once again, I am far from an expert on this, but isn't the average nominal tax rate for a major US corporation near 0.01%?
I don't really feel the burden should be on me to defend the Postal Service, because you haven't made a very convincing case that it loses money. You've pointed out that it gains appropriations, but you haven't justified your reasoning for concluding that this makes it a money-losing proposition. Again, when I say a "money losing proposition," I mean that I suspect that the Post spends no more money above its revenue stream than would have to be spent by other government organizations, or payed directly to the Post for services rendered, if, for example, the Post was suddenly privatized.
What I'm interested in knowing is this: for providing the public service that the post office provides, does it take in enough revenue to pay the costs of those services and all administrative costs related to that service? Non-related administrative costs that result from specific requirements of the government with the Postal Service as a special case would not be included in this equation I'm talking about, particularly if those requirements decreased the Post's profitability while increasing its costs, and having no effect on the portion of its work that involves the everyday, ordinary flow of postal traffic.
I would tend to expect that if you had such damning information, and if the post was really hemorrhaging money, rather than a more complicated scenario, you would share it with us. I don't have to be a tax attorney or an economist to know that these points you've made are not very good ones, or that they at least beg far more important questions that you are being coy about, because you would seem to rather damn the Postal Service by implication than direct evidence.
And even if, after all those caveats, the postal service *still* loses a little money in the long term? I'm not for privatizing it, and I'm ok with it losing money to do the service it does. The government maintains a monopoly over certain portions of the mail for a very good reason, and I'm not afraid of that. I think the real wallbanger for me is the constant need of some people to imagine how every sector of our economy can maximize profitability, without considering the long term consequences of that kind of movement. It is very difficult to predict what a privately controlled industry is going to do over the long term, and the government does need to insure that a number of its vital functions are continued despite changes in markets and businesses. Privatization reduces to absurdity: we could privatize everything, and then find in 10 years that our most basic services have been downsized. Maximum profitability and efficient money generation do not *necessarily* build to last.
posted
Both FedEx and UPS got a lot of help from the government when they first started offering air service (before they just started buying up small airlines) in the form of loans and surplus planes.
But I think DK, what people are talking about in relation to duties of the USPS are duties over and above what a regular company must comply with. Yes, UPS and the others have to have ramps for handicap access and stuff like that, but they don't have to go through the extra security measures, training and services that the USPS is required to by law, and that's added expense.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
For the record, I receive books on tape through the mail that ship with free postage because the materials are for the blind and physically handicapped. (I'm legally blind.) Those books aren't even small -- they come in plastic containers that hold either 4 or 6 cassette tapes. Your tax dollars pay for that -- thanks! Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Private companies are not required to provide any services or accomodations to the handicapped?
I'm not sure how we went from "providing free mailing for deaf people" to "any services or accommodations to the handicapped".
The list we had was:
* Provide free mailing to deaf people * Provide free overseas ballot mailing * Unspecified homeland security issues
If the government is forcing private companies to offer free services in accordance with government programs, I'd very much expect the government to be subsidizing those services.
And the government did provide funding and support for private companies to deal with homeland security issues, although obviously we don't really have a complete basis for comparison.
The US Postal Services provides, on the whole, very good service and is self-sufficient. But that may only be because reality has a distinct left-wing bias.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The US Postal Services provides, on the whole, very good service and is self-sufficient. But that may only be because reality has a distinct left-wing bias.
Almost socialist, you could say.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
At some point, I think we're going to realize that market capitalism isn't the best model for every undertaking.
I mean, I'd rather have a government involved program that does a mediocre job of providing health care* to what we have now, where insurance companies do a good job of their main goal of denying people medical care. Setting up a system where the people running it have goals that are almost directly opposed to the good of the people using that system never made much sense to me.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Okey, it's tuesday afternoon. I guess boris ain't found the evidence what he was mighty sure he would find.
I'm gonna call it.
CLAIM: every single Universal Healthcare system in the world relies *heavily* on the fact that nearly 50% of all money made by pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies is made in the US.
STATUS: busted
CLAIM: You take the United States out of the picture and the health care of the entire world *collapses*.
posted
Except there are markets that objection appears to apply to that function perfectly well without being run by the government, such as car insurance.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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