Rights vs Goods

[garageband]

but it all assumes we have a trusting government or a government we can trust to ensure the money is going where it's supposed

Apply the same standard to insurance companies and you'll find that they fall behind the government any cost/return analysis. They are in business to put money in their pockets. Period. You give them your money and hope they give it back to you when you need it - if they have to. If a course of treatment stretches much beyond $20k, it makes total financial sense for them to dispatch persons to deny your claim and pay you nothing. There are tens of thousands of stories of denials of payment and recision of policies. The insurance companies will whitewash this by characterizing this in terms of fractions of percent of the insuranced

File a claim and in terms the insurance companies
It's sad how many people think they "have good insurance." Every year it costs more and when it comes down to it, you can't count on it to do what it's supposed to do: pay for health care.

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by garageband

They are in business to put money in their pockets. Period. You give them your money and hope they give it back to you when you need it - if they have to.

Congress - They are in business to put money in their pockets. Period. You give them your money and hope they give it back to you when you need it - if they have to.

Apparently the economy is recovering and all the stimulus funds won't be needed. Will Joe Q. Citizen get it back? I live in Alabama and I'm dreaming of a White Christmas.

I really wish we could clean House and Senate. Purge 'em all and re-elect all new reps. They're just too comfortable in their cushy positions.

[Tony Ramone]

Originally Posted by TonyB

I really wish we could clean House and Senate. Purge 'em all and re-elect all new reps. They're just too comfortable in their cushy positions.

We tried that here in Ireland with local elections recently, but for some reason all the old bastards who fucked up the country got voted back in.

I think we should have an election where nobody over 60 is allowed to vote, since at this stage they only vote for someone "because that's the way I've always voted"...

[csiscs]

We dont exactly get free health care in the UK, I'm self employed so have to pay a monthly amount plus 10% of my gross at the end of the tax year.

So us that work pay for those who dont.

[TonyB]

By the way, there is no such thing as free health care in any format in any country unless doctors agree to practice for free.

[brandondrury]

The problem with socialism is it can exploited by whoever is in charge. Goverment officials are not as good at running businesses as business men. Figuring out where the money should go and how much of it should go there is absurdly complex.

I like to think of my recording studio. If they handed me $20,000,000 and I had to spend it I'd build Blackbird. There would be no market for such a studio in my area. That's $0.06 that everybody in America wasted on something that isn't getting used. If I would have gotten a salary off that I would have no reason to create Recording Review. The not-so-fun aspect of me having to work harder to succeed at what it is that I do actually resulted in a big benefit for anyone who likes Recording Review.

The problem with capitalism is your needs allow you to be blackmailed.
All of us can do without another mic preamp. Capitalism works well on mic preamps. The whole "Death Fee Theory" (I made it up) is different. In your bed, the hospital could give you the $5k option to live or they are pulling the plug. Needs can be exploited because they often circumvent competition. (Enron was guilty of this one when they shut off the power to California.) Health insurance companies are guilty of it now.

I believe that the true utopia is an almost entirely free market that has a high threshold compressor set to nuke to catch exploits in the system but leave everyone else alone. It would be exponentially more productive, efficient, and prosperous than anything the government could ever dream of. This can only work if no one is trying to cheat the system (either corporate fat cats or bums on welfare). Good luck!

Military defense
Public health
Public roads
Interstate highway system
Municipal parks
National Parks
Inland navigable waterways
Airports
Airport Security
Dams
Bridges
Water utilities
Sewer utilites

I think all of these should be re-evaluated to make sure they are good for us. Roads need to be public, in my opinion, only because it's pretty much impossible and impractical to have two different roads that go to the same place.

I believe that top level military leaders have done more harm to the country. By protecting our borders (and 140 other borders) they have attacked us economically.

can you get emergency legal represenation in the US without charge?

Yes, this is part of the liberty thing. No hospital can turn you away in an emergency either, regardless of your ability to pay.

We have Rush and Glenn Beck on the airwaves telling anyone who will listen that it's their god given right be be rich

Some societies consider good health to be the highest for of being "rich".

I really wish we could clean House and Senate. Purge 'em all and re-elect all new reps.

Hitler wrote of this extensively in Mien Kampf. He basically said that the kind of people who run for office are exactly the kind of people you don't want running for office. Popularity contest winners are seldom good leaders. In comparison, Eisenhower did not want to be president according to Stephen Ambrose. He looked at it reluctantly as his duty.

Brandon

[izzme]

The problem with unrestrained capitolism is it can buy the government and insure the maximum exploitation possible!!

[brandondrury]

The problem with unrestrained capitolism is it can buy the government and insure the maximum exploitation possible!!

Yeah, I'm with you. The way I see it campaigns in the conventional sense should be outlawed. Forget posters, signs, TV commercials, t-shirts, etc. Ban them all. Instead, just give them a forum like this where people can ask questions. A person will be elected based on their merits within the forum.

It would be like a world with no MTV (or Youtube). A band like Boston can get signed. (Everyone always said that Boston would have never been signed in the MTV age because they were too ugly).

Since politicians are for hire, the whole system is entirely flawed.

Brandon

[newkid]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I've been thinking about our modern era of politics and such. The issue of Health Care Reform is a hot topic. It's got me thinking a little deeper.

What are our rights? In other words, what are we entitled to?

Natural law says we are entitled to:

• Life
• Liberty
• Pursuit of Happiness

Those sound pretty good.

I come from the school of thought that pretty much nothing past that is a right. I don't think people are entitled to:

• food
• beds
• cars
• houses
• Ipods
• internet connection
• Cell phones
• sexual relations
• mic preamps
• etc

I think if people want this stuff, they have to go out and earn it. (We'll rule out people who are incapable of work for this study.) In other words, I don't feel you should automatically get these things just because you alive. Lazy asses don't automatically get these. You shouldn't have to pay for my internet connection. On the other hand, a person who wants to live on Ramon noodles can put his cash into mic preamps, for example.

The fun one, of course, is health care. After considerable thought, I've decided that health care is not a right. It's a product / service. When a person needs it, it's a pretty damn awesome product. I recommend everyone partaking in health care when necessary, but I also recommend everyone getting an internet connection. That, too, is a luxury.

Anyway, I was just curious if all of you considered health care to be a fundamental right or if there were other fundamental rights besides life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Brandon

Those are inalienable rights.
We have a right, from the govt we establish, to protection from criminals and warring nations as well as NGO terrorists (legally pirates under international law).

Additionally we have the right for the govt to constrain biz so it does not profit by stealing or fraud. And taht includes by transferring external costs to us so they can make a profit.
EG feed downer cattle to their herd in order to save pennies while putting us at risk for madcow disease.

Anything else should be done by the free market with proper constraints by the govt.

The govt wastes 88c of every dollar it takes in for its own purposes and only sends back 12c to help the citizens. Of that a lot gets wasted frauded and abused so the efficiency is extremely low when the govt does anything.

Private charities typically use 12% for expenses. That makes them 7-8x more effective than the govt.

Charity should not be confused with insurance.

We (at least most of us) would help people who are truly innocent and unable to care for themselves. But expecting gold plated top notch A1 health care on the public dime will bankrupt a govt andor drive the quality of care very very low.

Anything free is wasted and abused which is very inefficient.

We should provide minor care and pain alleviation for everyone. But if you expect a brain transplant you should buy your own insurance.


Now there are naturally monopolies that can be done most efficiently by one vendor. Local water and sewer is an example, so is electric power. Schools should be too.

They should all be licensed by the govt and their expenses and profits regulated. That worked will until the grumpy old perverts thought that "competition" would somehow happen if the regulations got dropped. All we have seen are soaring phone and electric bills since then.

Govts only job is to provide security and safety and to constrain the bad guys whether wall street pirates or those on boats.

[newkid]

Originally Posted by Tony Ramone

I keep seeing riled up Americans on TV (well, mostly the Daily Show) roaring about how this Health Care reform is the worst kind of socialism and it makes me think why are Americans so afraid of socialism? Is it just that it's been bred into you so much over the last couple of generations that you can't possibly step outside of your box for a moment and look at all the benefits? For example not having to pay ridiculously high fees if you need to take up space on a hospital bed for one night (I heard once that in the US it costs something like €1000 dollars a night?!?! Can this be true?..), or getting a helping hand from the government if you happen to be out of work for a few weeks or months (I don't agree with paying welfare to people who refuse to work and are content to live in the squalor that their dole affords them)?
It also makes me wonder, if your taxes aren't paying for these rights/services, then where is the money going? Are you happy about the fact that, where you could be paying money into a fund that could pay for any hospital expenses you may incur some time, instead it goes into more weapons for an already insanely overarmed army?
Maybe we just have different mindsets...

My mindset is that the govt is inefficient and wasteful.

88c of every dollar goes to the govt bureaucrats themselves
12c comes back to help citizens.
And much of that is wasted frauded and abused.

The less govt we have, the more prosperity we will have cause more of our money will be spent on us and not them.

Govt should provide security and safety and protect the economy by constraining excesses and immoral unethical and illegal actions by those who would make a buck no matter the harm they inflict on the rest of us.

Other than that govt should keep out of our biz cause everything it does turns to boolsheet with unintended consequences plus intended consequences that are meant to get them reelected by enriching their wall street owners.