Health care bill passed!!!!

Sabzi

Bench Warmer
Oct 18, 2002
2,157
0
#81
You know what, I'll apologize for what I said, and take whatever ban the mods here give me.

How about you give me ONE factual reply, you never have and never will. Just excuses and rhetoric.
I know we had a dispute some time ago but in general I think you are a good guy and also often on the right side in arguments (except in our arguments, of course ;) ). But I dont see why you should be banned here.

That said... I dont want to divert this topic, again.
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
#83
LOL. Ok now youve gone off the deep end. Taxes pay for the social welfare of all where individual payments are not feasible or economical. Things like roads, police, fire, and now health. How you equate the latter with stealing is rather convenient to your reasoning as it is not made for the others mentioned...

The free market would not work here. No amount of bargaining power would allow this business model to exist without the role of government. In the long run the money has to come from somewhere and these are your options:

1. Doctors - Wont happen in America, doctors have made way too much for way too long. This would force the industry to crash and mass doctors leave the industry.

2. People - Already the cost of Healthcare is pushing people into bankruptcy and is leaving millions uninsured.

3. Insurance Companies - Here is the answer, but I do not believe a for profit model will work. The amount of regulation needed to protect the consumer and create any type of so called bargaining power would be tantamount to a gov't take over anyway, might as well get rid of the formality...
Rather I think your characterization is an indication of where you ended up in. That is when by point by point you saw how it is explicitly possible for freedom to work, you finally ended up with a sweeping it will not work combined with defamation.

I think I have made it sufficiently clear how freedom works explicitly in this case for anyone who wishes to understand.

Otherwise, yes of course it is stealing. It is stealing in case of roads too. And the results show. When you use general tax funds to build roads then you are stealing. The bad consequences follow. The consequence is urban sprawl, traffic jams, pollution, and so on. People will start living far away from their work to take advantage of the stolen money disproportionally. Instead under freedom the cost of the service would be had by those using it, to the best of ones ability. In this case it is simple, a tax on gasoline. Then gas would cost say $5 and you would not see urban sprawl, you would see people using public transportation because it is cost effective and so on.
 
Oct 18, 2002
6,139
0
Los Angeles, CA USA
#84
Rather I think your characterization is an indication of where you ended up in. That is when by point by point you saw how it is explicitly possible for freedom to work, you finally ended up with a sweeping it will not work combined with defamation.

I think I have made it sufficiently clear how freedom works explicitly in this case for anyone who wishes to understand.

Otherwise, yes of course it is stealing. It is stealing in case of roads too. And the results show. When you use general tax funds to build roads then you are stealing. The bad consequences follow. The consequence is urban sprawl, traffic jams, pollution, and so on. People will start living far away from their work to take advantage of the stolen money disproportionally. Instead under freedom the cost of the service would be had by those using it, to the best of ones ability. In this case it is simple, a tax on gasoline. Then gas would cost say $5 and you would not see urban sprawl, you would see people using public transportation because it is cost effective and so on.
lAnd then the gas tax would lead to a sky rocket in the cost of food and product transport which in turn would drive many companies under and damage the economy much more than the general tax would. Honestly, I know you are very intelligent. The arguments you make are evidence of that. But think this one through. A direct tax on gas would destroy the economy as it would severely drive up the cost of products before income could be made on their sale. It would not work. Its not just about public transportation. Free Market is not always the answer.
 

Mahdi

Elite Member
Jan 1, 1970
6,999
497
Mjunik
#85
lAnd then the gas tax would lead to a sky rocket in the cost of food and product transport which in turn would drive many companies under and damage the economy much more than the general tax would. Honestly, I know you are very intelligent. The arguments you make are evidence of that. But think this one through. A direct tax on gas would destroy the economy as it would severely drive up the cost of products before income could be made on their sale. It would not work. Its not just about public transportation. Free Market is not always the answer.
Nevermind that. With a higher tax rate on gas, urban areas would very likely become even more and more expensive and given that public transport is also a public good, a nichtnicht and communist, rent in urban areas would skyrocket even more and commuting to work would become an even harder task.

I mean, just imagine New York without public transport and say some guy living in Brooklyn going to work in Manhattan just without the subway.

On the other hand, people would walk every day for like 4 hours to work, would stay healthy and no one would need any public health care, so it works I guess.
 
Oct 18, 2002
11,593
3
#86
Well Canada has a hefty gas tax but prices of consumer goods are not a lot higher than the US. After all, the main part of transportation cost is to bring the goods from China to North America :D
 
Oct 20, 2003
9,345
1
#87
Well Canada has a hefty gas tax but prices of consumer goods are not a lot higher than the US. After all, the main part of transportation cost is to bring the goods from China to North America :D
deerouz jan, it is true that a lot of people live on the coasts, but millions depend on getting the Chinese goods :) to the interior via trains and trucks. IMHO, a tax on gasoline is a regressive tax. Increased gas tax is a shot gun approach. A better tax to accomplish what FP wants, is property taxes.
 
Oct 18, 2002
6,139
0
Los Angeles, CA USA
#88
Well Canada has a hefty gas tax but prices of consumer goods are not a lot higher than the US. After all, the main part of transportation cost is to bring the goods from China to North America :D
The thing is that in the US, fuel taxes already basically pay for all roadway funding anyway. What FP is talking about is using fuel taxes to curb public consumption of gas, to end urban sprawl and to replace (at least a portion) of general taxation. In order for that to occur the price of gas would need to be double what it is now. Canadian gas prices are only about 20% higher than US gas prices...
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
#89
The thing is that in the US, fuel taxes already basically pay for all roadway funding anyway. What FP is talking about is using fuel taxes to curb public consumption of gas, to end urban sprawl and to replace (at least a portion) of general taxation. In order for that to occur the price of gas would need to be double what it is now. Canadian gas prices are only about 20% higher than US gas prices...
Farbod jaan, I think you are not quite getting what I have said from the beginning, being too lost in the details of the current set up and too used to justifying stealing from others for a project you may be excited about. It is stealing regardless of how common it is and how normal it seems.

The entire point is that I am not interested in you or I or anyone to engineer a solution from the top for the particular problem at hand, for example urban sprawl or healthcare or whatever the case may be. Neither you, nor I, nor any other person is smart enough, cares enough, or immune from corruption enough, past, present, or the future. Instead, I focus on what obviously is right, and trust God that then it will be taken care of. And absolutely, every single empirical data supports that this system is infinitely better than any other. Why should an old lady sitting in her house who hardly travels pay for someone who has chosen to live 50 miles from the center of the city in Texas because he wished to have a bigger house? There is nothing wrong with wishing a better house, just that the person must pay for it himself.

In the rare, rare case where it is so, so advantageous to have a public solution because of technical issues involved, such as for example roads (even that is debatable) then the cost should be on those who actually use it as much as possible. It is not that I wish to prevent urban sprawl. Instead, urban sprawl happens because people like to get a portion of that stolen money. No, the cost of road construction was not and is not paid by gasoline tax. Urban sprawl occurred after some genius said, we should build super highways using general tax fund. Result is the mess created in every aspect.

The real cost of gasoline is probably around $7. And this does not include the cost of wars, warships etc that US and other nations have permanently installed in the Persian gulf to "protect" their own interests. So if people did actually pay $10 per gallon for gasoline for example, then we would see how many would choose to behave the way the do, not to save the environment, but to protect their own interests.

No, food cost and other costs would not go up disproportionally. Instead they will be what they should be. There will be no general inflation problem. Inflation is only and only caused by the government as it is the only entity that has a monopoly over money itself.
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
#91
You do realize that the US Federal Reserve is a private entity...
Of course it is not a private entity. Do you know of a private entity where its chairman is appointed by the government, all of its profits are taken by the government, and where its product, money can be printed through government IOUs?

Instead the Federal reserve is a collusion of government and a particular special interest group, that since its inception has stolen trillions of dollars as a side job for its constituents.
 
Oct 18, 2002
1,182
0
Toronto, Canada
#94
So, is the Federal Reserve private or public?

The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.


As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government."


The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, are organized much like private corporations--possibly leading to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.


http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm#5
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
#95
So, is the Federal Reserve private or public?

The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone and is not a private, profit-making institution. Instead, it is an independent entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.


As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its authority from the U.S. Congress. It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms. However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by Congress, which periodically reviews its activities and can alter its responsibilities by statute. Also, the Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government. Therefore, the Federal Reserve can be more accurately described as "independent within the government."


The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation's central banking system, are organized much like private corporations--possibly leading to some confusion about "ownership." For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.


http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm#5
i.e. the Federal reserve is a collusion of government and a particular special interest group, that since its inception has stolen trillions of dollars as a side job for its constituents.

The Federal Reserve is a government sanctioned, government regulated, government protected monopoly, a collusion of a particular special interest group with the government to control and steal money from the population and other countries when possible packaged as serving the interests of the people.
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
#96
The Federal Reserve :p
That reminds of of a real life joke that I experienced. Turkey has the picture of Molavi on their currency. Almost all Turks have no idea about his poetry but they are intensely proud and insist that he is pure Turkish. When I asked them how is it then that his poetry is in Persian, one of them replied, he is the only Turkish poet who wrote his poems in Turkish.
 
Feb 22, 2005
6,884
9
#97
This says it all:


A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.”
Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another, and said contemptuously, “I’ll pay for this guy. Here you go. Start a pot.”

http://www.nytimes.com//2010/03/23/opinion/23herbert.html?hp
 

ardy

Legionnaire
Nov 25, 2004
6,575
0
San Diego Armando Maradona, CA
#98
I think this is pretty much what FP is talking about, am I correct FPjan?


Designing the ideal health care system

One Fortune editor explores the ups and down of Obamacare - and poses his own solution.


NEW YORK (Fortune) -- --This is the first installment in a series of health care columns by Fortune editor at large Shawn Tully.

Let's dream for a moment: Imagine that our nation could start with a clean slate and invent the best possible health care system to replace the current wobbly machine -- one that everybody agrees needs fixing.

Let's design a market-based, consumer-driven plan based on the belief that the same free-flowing forces that bring us the world's finest groceries, cars, and private mail delivery can also deliver high-quality health care at bargain prices.

In that world, put simply, the best way to spread coverage to the maximum number of Americans is to make it as affordable as possible, not by disguising the true cost through lavish subsidies, but by allowing the market to bring the benefits of real competition and consumer choice.

That will have two tremendous benefits. First, millions of Americans who lack insurance would buy it for the most basic of reasons -- they can afford it. And second, people who now have coverage would get to keep far more of their future incomes, instead of sacrificing their raises to soaring health care premiums.

So how do we get there?

The solution is to attack both sides of the problem -- inflated demand created by a system that encourages consumers to overuse and waste medical services, and restricted supply that pushes up the prices of those MRI exams, dialysis treatments, and physician visits.

These issues don't exist because the laws of supply and demand won't work in medicine, a misperception that's gained a shocking degree of credence. Once unshackled, they always work. But the market is blocked from working by a web of laws, regulations, and monopolistic restrictions. The solution isn't to add to them, as the Obama plan dictates, but to eliminate as may of these barriers as possible.

Hence, the goal is to put the consumer in charge by freeing Americans to spend their own money on health care, shop for the best prices, and keep what they don't spend. That's the way markets are supposed to behave.

But it doesn't work that way in health care. Most working Americans don't control the thousands of dollars spent each year on their coverage. Because of an outdated feature of the tax code, it's the employer that buys health care for its employees and pretty much dictates the benefits.

The solution sounds simple, and it is. To create a real market, we need to hand consumers the money companies now spend for them. Then, employees would own their policies and carry the coverage to the next job. Today, millions of workers cling to jobs just to preserve their health benefits. The result of liberating them would be a revolution, with providers tailoring a galaxy of new plans -- rich, high-deductible, and everything in-between -- to the needs and budgets of consumers writing their own checks.

The House bill championed by President Barack Obama moves precisely in the opposite direction. Americans need total freedom to buy the plans that are right for them. By contrast, the Obama plan doesn't allow for much choice. That's because it sets extremely strict minimum standards for all the plans the government will approve for sale.

For example, Americans would have to pay for mental health benefits and coverage for their "children" until the age of 26. While many Americans may want that kind of rich coverage, millions do not. So why impose these expensive plans on everybody?

By setting deductibles extremely low -- another feature that makes any plan offered under Obamacare extremely expensive -- the law would pretty much eliminate high-deductible insurance. Again, that's what millions of families now have, and what tens of millions more will want, but won't be able to get.

The Obama bill blocks insurers from charging more for people with unhealthy lifestyles -- smokers and those with high cholesterol due to unhealthy diet, for instance -- than Americans who exercise regularly and watch their weight. That's hardly a formula for reducing costs. A free-market plan would allow insurers to offer discounts to people who pursue preventive care and carefully nurture their health. It would charge people premiums based on their actual or projected costs.

Hence, young healthy workers would pay far lower premiums than 62-year-olds, even healthy ones -- because those young people need less care. Premiums based on cost aren't allowed under Obamacare. Through a mechanism called "community rating," it would force the young and healthy to pay far more than their actual cost, and give a big subsidy to older Americans, who generally make more money than young workers and can afford higher premiums.

At this point, it's important to emphasize that the government has an important role to play in health care. For a free-market solution to work, the government must protect Americans with pre-existing conditions who couldn't afford coverage in a de-regulated market. Otherwise, the government's main job is to create the conditions for the market to provide the highest quality care and the best possible price.

This is where the Obama plan fails. Because it requires rich standard packages and prevents incentives for healthy lifestyles, it would enormously increase the cost of the average policy -- and of the total cost of providing health care. Its solution is to heavily subsidize those policies so consumers don't face their real costs. But that approach only worsens the total health care burden on the U.S. economy. Much of the load would be shifted to federal spending; that's why the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of "reform" at over $1 trillion from 2013 to 2019.

The weight wouldn't fall exclusively on the budget. It would also hit younger Americans forced to pay far more than their cost. In fact, it would act as a tax on 20- and 30-something workers. A large swath of the 46 million uninsured consists of young workers who dropped coverage because state regulations like the ones Obama wants to impose nationwide made it so expensive.

Obama's solution is to require that all Americans buy insurance or pay a big fine. It's not clear that his "mandate" will actually decrease the ranks of the uninsured any more than policies that would make their insurance far more affordable through enhanced competition.

Let's be honest. A system where consumers are suddenly responsible for their own insurance probably sounds scary to millions of Americans who are accustomed to the comfort of lavish, company-provided plans. No one likes change, and many will be frustrated by the initial confusion of comparing policies and distrustful of the insurance companies offering them.

To be sure, some groups would benefit from the Obama plan -- at the expense of others. Older workers, for example, would continue to get a big subsidy. Under a free-market plan, their premiums would rise, but perhaps not as much as they fear, since the added competition should reduce or at least stabilize the costs of all insurance.

A free-market plan offers the simplicity of de-regulation versus the overwhelming complexity of the 1,100-page House plan, which advocates mandates, actuarial equivalencies, profit caps, fines, penalties, and price controls to impose plans people would never pay for with their own money.
 
Feb 22, 2005
6,884
9
#99
I guess the options always comes to this:

1) There are those that have it and say f*** the rest. They have good insurance and cant care if the insurance discussions go for decades. And always say no to any bill that will cover uninsured.
2) There are those that dont have it, time is critical to them, one accident and they are f***ed for life in terms of finance.
3) There are those that have it and say we made what we have within the system that all the dont-have belongs to. It is not a vacuum and everyone is part of the system. So, care about the others too.
4) Those that realize there is no other option. The government cannot continue to pay for the services that insurance companies deny while their executives makes billions of dollars. This is going to bankrupt the system.

What matters is what is good for the country and that is one thing the first group dont see as all they care about is what is good for them in the short term. This group does not understand the government cannot possibly pay bills for all the hospital emergency cases of uninsured when the problem could have easily been detected and resolved at low cost while the insurance companies deny cover with their top executives making billions. This group has no problem with financial institution robberies and then the government having to bill them out and want no regulation for the thieves.


The reason Obama has to go with this half-ass bill is because of many people on this thread and republicans out there who refused any kind of bill for decades, as well as the government at this point having no choice if they are to control the budget.
 
Jun 7, 2004
3,196
0
I think this is pretty much what FP is talking about, am I correct FPjan?
Yes. Thank you.

Except that the article does not go far enough to exactly identify what are the web of laws enforced by the government that are restricting supply to increase prices thus making health-care unaffordable to millions and costing millions of lives in exceptionally poor quality compared to what it should be.

Such laws are everywhere and people take them for granted. They are specifically designed to serve the interests of special interest groups but they are packaged as for the public's good.

For example, it is illegal for anyone to "practice medical care" without AMA board certification. So if you want to have a simple cut sutured, it must be at a place where a board certified physician is present. AMA also happens to be in charge of accreditation of medical schools. It thus threatens medical schools that if they accept more than say 10 students this year then they will not accredit their program. The school does this by arbitrary putting standards such as English competency and God knows what else to have a credible reason to keep students out. Thus the supply is limited, competition is kept out, and salaries are kept high for, highly, highly mediocre service.

Note that many physicians are actually under paid. There are some that are fantastic at what they do and they should be making millions upon millions. But the average is pathetic, because they have gotten used to being protected artificially from free competition.

The solution is simple, AMA can have the same board certification and anyone who gets it can advertise it as much as he likes, and that is great, but it should not be illegal for anyone to practice medicine. If I want to have my cut attended to by a technician who has his own corner shop it is no one's business.

Now I am picking on physicians here. They are actually the least of the problem. Every single interest group has got the government to pass their own laws to get massive welfare checks from the government derived from the rest of the society. They have done this over many, many years, because healthcare is an old industry, and through fear mongering. No one is going to come and tell you that I am doing this to get more money for my special interest group. They are much, much smarter than that.

For example, oh no, you must have AMA board certification enforced at the point of the gun or people would die. Yes, people would die but many, many times more people die because of AMA board certification enforcement.

Or that the free market system would not work health-care. And this is what I was clarifying and commenting on. This is like saying telescopes only work to magnify objects on earth but they do not work for heavenly bodies. If you find this latter statement laughable, then this exact argument was made when the profits of a certain special interest group, i.e. the Christian church was threatened. And guess what, the majority of people actually bought the Chruch's arguments. It took two hundred years before the majority came to realize that this is not the case.