Um. Say what?

I know there are problems with the programs you've named, but if you think about it the size of each of them guarantees there will be inefficiencies and problems with them. I think it's amazing that despite the size and problems those programs have, they still function. Social Security checks get delivered, mail gets through on time, etc. It's easy and popular to act like nothing the US gov touches ever works but that's just not true.

It's about 80-85% there. Not perfect and it should be better, but I sure as hell am not the one to straighten it out. Are you?

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

bravenrace wrote: In reply to T.J.: I've never understood why anyone would trust the government to run any program properly. History shows they can't do it.

Every other first world democratic country manages it with better results than our for profit system. Why can't we?

In my uneducated opinion (my degree is in Math, not politics or health), you can not directly compare us to other first world democratic countries. We are the 3rd most populous country in the world. The only other first world country in the top 10 population wise is Japan, coming in at number 10. Based on the size necessary, there will be too many inefficiencies to make it work right now.

Could it work? Yes. But the government needs a whole lotta cleanup first.

dculberson wrote: I know there are problems with the programs you've named, but if you think about it the size of each of them guarantees there will be inefficiencies and problems with them. I think it's amazing that despite the size and problems those programs have, they still function. Social Security checks get delivered, mail gets through on time, etc. It's easy and popular to act like nothing the US gov touches ever works but that's just not true. It's about 80-85% there. Not perfect and it should be better, but I sure as hell am not the one to straighten it out. Are you?

Those programs still exist only because they keep writing checks with money they don't have. Look at the history of them closely and you'll see they if those were private sector companies they would have gone under long ago.

mtn wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

bravenrace wrote: In reply to T.J.: I've never understood why anyone would trust the government to run any program properly. History shows they can't do it.

Every other first world democratic country manages it with better results than our for profit system. Why can't we?

In my uneducated opinion (my degree is in Math, not politics or health), you can not directly compare us to other first world democratic countries. We are the 3rd most populous country in the world. The only other first world country in the top 10 population wise is Japan, coming in at number 10. Based on the size necessary, there will be too many inefficiencies to make it work right now. Could it work? Yes. But the government needs a whole lotta cleanup first.

Not to mention we are a republic, not a democratic nation. There is a difference.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I just re-read your post, and am now uncertain what you meant by it. Are you saying you think the US government CAN run healthcare? If so, please offer an example of just one major program they have run efficiently. Medicare? No. Medicaide? No. Social Security? No. Post office? No. Tax System? No. Military? Yes on the combat side (run by soldiers, not politicians), definitely NOT on the administrative side. Then again, if that's not what you meant, then refer to my last reply.

You can make the same argument about any government in the world, yet most places have a functioning government run health care system. And I believe you can say that even an inefficient government run health system (not that I think it would have to be) here would be better than the absolutely awful system we have in place right now. Some people will always fault the government no matter how good a job they are doing because they don't like it. People will also jump to show examples of how government run systems fail people in other countries, including the UK. That's fair, no system is perfect. But what I will say is that I spent my first 25 years in the UK, and I still have many friends and family in the UK. In my 44 years I've never met or heard of outside of news media of a single person in the UK who has been badly let down by the health care system, let alone suffered financial for it. That's me, my family, my friends, co-workers, friends of all of them. No one.

Living here for 20 years I've met people who have had to declare bankruptcy, people who have lost retirement saving (the insurance company retroactively decided the doctors were wrong and an emergency procedure was not really needed and not an emergency so they didn't cover it), people who have lost parents, people who are stuck in jobs because of fear of losing insurance. People who have been denied coverage due to preexisting conditions (his wife was pregnant when he changed jobs so they wouldn't cover the birth) etc. etc. And that's with only 20 years’ worth of contacts, not my total (close too) 45 years with the UK system.

One thing people also forget. A National health system doesn't preclude you from having private insurance. When I was still in the UK I also had private insurance if I ever needed something elective, or a long wait list etc. Never needed it though. One thing is for sure, back in the UK if you get hit by an uninsured motorist you will be taken care of and put back into circulation as a fit healthy person. Not here, I know two people who that has happened too, one was OK, he had good health ins through work, the other was one of the people I mentioned above who had to declare bankruptcy and lost everything in his mid 20's as he was working a low paying job with no coverage.

I'm one of the lucky ones, I have good coverage through my employer with savings to back me up. Millions and millions aren't so lucky. To me, access it's a human rights issue and the single biggest failing of this country, which I love dearly and is my home.

P.S. Yes yes 25 plus 20 is 45 years not the 44 years I mention, but give me another 8 weeks and the math works OK? I can give exact dates if it really really matters to people!

About that: for me, the USPS is more reliable than UPS or FedEx.

Curmudgeon wrote: About that: for me, the USPS is more reliable than UPS or FedEx.

Really?
The only thing USPS does right consistently for me is delivering junk mail.
Don't get me started on their 'tracking system'

As for the topic on hand... I'm just going to hold my tongue.

bravenrace wrote: Not to mention we are a republic, not a democratic nation. There is a difference.

YEs yes, I get that, unlike most of you lucky souls who are US Citizens by birth, I made a conscious choice to become one and had to study and learn what it all meant!

Both systems are still a representative forms of government that rely on the public voting in a (form of) majority to elect their representatives of various forms. At the end of the day people go to polling places and vote for the candidate they choose to represent them. We are always preaching democracy around the world so trying to claim we don’t have democracy is laughable.

OK you say, why don't we vote in people to give us a decent health system then? I’d argue that we can't. The president and Senate are both Democrats, the current congress has almost zero chance of going democrat due to gerrymandering of districts. IF we had a truly representative system I'd argue that the ACA would be a lot less dysfunctional than it is. We may not have got a National health system, but I'm sure we would have kept the Government option that was originally in there so people could buy government health insurance and it would have been a lot easier.

There is absolutely zero defensible reasons for the health exchange debacle though.

dculberson wrote:

RX Reven' wrote: Dculberson, I'm pretty sure the CBO said 2.5 million net loss so that's after accounting for any rotation.

Not as I read it; they do not say *jobs* will be lost at all, they say *workers* will work less. That's a very different scenario and not at all lost jobs. The money sentence from the report itself: "The reduction in CBO's projections of hours worked represents a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024." And: "almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor" Note that it is not because the work is unavailable, it is because they will choose to work less.

Hi dculberson,

Analogy time…it’s not that there’s less food, it’s just that people have stopped eating.

So, starvation is not going to occur even though people aren’t eating because there is food.

If you’re OK with my analogy, please replace food with jobs and eating with working and I think you’ll arrive at starvation equating to economic hardship.

It’s very easy to get lost in the complexity but one immutable fact is that if people aren’t working, we’re berkley’d.

No coconut shuffle or accounting wizardry or slick speech will budge this fundamental truth one inch…game over.

We can debate this forever. But lets use one FACT as an example. Obamacare does NOT cover Copaxone, the $4000 a month drug that keeps me alive. That's not good, and it's the direction we are headed. So do you think you'll win an argument with me over government run healthcare?

RX Reven' wrote: Analogy time…it’s not that there’s less food, it’s just that people have stopped eating.

Oh come on, that’s B.S. and you know it. You have to eat to live. Once you’ve saved up enough you don’t need to work to live. Also by your analogy everyone currently not working is dead too. Piss poor argument.

bravenrace wrote: We can debate this forever. Here's one thing I know for sure. Obamacare does NOT cover Copaxone, the $4000 a month drug that keeps me alive. That's not good, and it's the direction we are headed.

That blows and is inexcusable. But, with a National Health system it should be and would be free to you. It certainly is in the UK, although Google says it costs the UK NHS the equivalent of about $10-12K USD per year, so our current broken system is over charging you.

I’m truly sorry for you and hope you have a way to get it affordably.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

RX Reven' wrote: Analogy time…it’s not that there’s less food, it’s just that people have stopped eating.

Oh come on, that’s B.S. and you know it. You have to eat to live. Once you’ve saved up enough you don’t need to work to live. Also by your analogy everyone currently not working is dead too. Piss poor argument.

Hi Adrian,

In my analogy, hibernation would represent retirement…get it, storing up calories = storing up money.

RX Reven' wrote: Analogy time…it’s not that there’s less food, it’s just that people have stopped eating. …game over.

Analogy is a poor replacement for proper discussion. I give you numbers on jobs and you respond with something about food, that's helpful.

If someone chooses not to work then they did not need the money from the job. Someone that needs that money will step up and take the job, perhaps one of the chronically underemployed. So a person without the need for the job frees it up for someone with the need. Seems like a win/win. "game over" indeed.

Bravenrace said: "Those programs still exist only because they keep writing checks with money they don't have. Look at the history of them closely and you'll see they if those were private sector companies they would have gone under long ago."

Actually, let's look closer. The feds keep stealing money from Social Security and putting it in the general fund, replacing SS's money with IOUs. That means that SS can no longer invest their funds and thus is hamstrung. If they were not so hampered they would be one of the largest - if not the largest - investment capital funds in the world, for better or for worse. USPS is similarly hampered in operation because they are required to fund all future retirement benefits for employees immediately. They could fund those liabilities no problem given time, but instead they have to put billions into trust funds in order to provide for an employee that's got decades left working for them. In both cases that would not happen if they were private business and so they would be running just fine since the meddling would not have happened.

And yes, that's a problem caused by them being governmental (or pseudo-governmental in USPS's case) agencies, but not by the management of the agency itself.

So no, the exact same management would not have made them go under years ago.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

bravenrace wrote: We can debate this forever. Here's one thing I know for sure. Obamacare does NOT cover Copaxone, the $4000 a month drug that keeps me alive. That's not good, and it's the direction we are headed.

That blows and is inexcusable. But, with a National Health system it should be and would be free to you. It certainly is in the UK, although Google says it costs the UK NHS the equivalent of about $10-12K USD per year, so our current broken system is over charging you. I’m truly sorry for you and hope you have a way to get it affordably.

I get it for $30/mo now. That's my point. People on Obamacare aren't getting it at all, because if they could afford it they wouldn't be on Obamacare in the first place.
Here's another real world fact. I know 3 people that opted to pay the fine (none of them could even afford that) instead of get Obamacare because none of them could afford it. Not only is that a sign of a system that doesn't work, but you can't defend it by saying there are problems to work out. That is a fundamental flaw in the plan that could easily have been avoided.
But here's my question, and it's sincere (while it may not sound like it). If you like government run healthcare so much, why did you come here? This country was founded on the idea (among many others) that we wanted to be free of Europe and create a unique country. And for many years it was that way and it worked (We went from nothing to the most developed and powerful country in the world in less than 200 years). Then the government decided that they didn't just want to oversee things, they wanted to run them. It's been downhill ever since. I with people that keep wanting to change the US into what another country is would just move to that country and leave the rest of us alone.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

BTW, I don't know how people in the UK are getting Copaxone that cheap, but nobody here is. In fact the cost if you don't have any insurance is much higher than I stated. I just used that number so that I wouldn't be accused by anyone of inflating numbers. Check this out:

http://www.goodrx.com/copaxone

RX Reven' wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

RX Reven' wrote: Analogy time…it’s not that there’s less food, it’s just that people have stopped eating.

Oh come on, that’s B.S. and you know it. You have to eat to live. Once you’ve saved up enough you don’t need to work to live. Also by your analogy everyone currently not working is dead too. Piss poor argument.

Hi Adrian, In my analogy, hibernation would represent retirement…get it, storing up calories = storing up money.

BEar a and bear b both have 1,000,000 calories saved up to hibernate in October, meaning they saved the same amount and retired at 60. Bear A is fine and burns through his calories slowly but safely. Bear B is actual more conservative than Bear A and is burning thorough his calories more slowly, but then he gets hit by an uninsured motorist just before he's eligable for medicare, sorry I mean he got hit by a polar vortex in January, and got wiped out even though he did everything right.

dculberson wrote: The feds keep stealing money from Social Security and putting it in the general fund, replacing SS's money with IOUs. That means that SS can no longer invest their funds and thus is hamstrung. If they were not so hampered they would be one of the largest - if not the largest - investment capital funds in the world, for better or for worse. USPS is similarly hampered in operation because they are required to fund all future retirement benefits for employees immediately. They could fund those liabilities no problem given time, but instead they have to put billions into trust funds in order to provide for an employee that's got decades left working for them. In both cases that would not happen if they were private business and so they would be running just fine since the meddling would not have happened.

That's ironic as government meddling is a huge contributor to the current state of US healthcare. And then people see even more governmental intrusion and interference as a panacea for problems of its' own creation?

Skepticism about success doesn't deserve ridicule; it has earned decades of respect.

dculberson wrote: And yes, that's a problem caused by them being governmental (or pseudo-governmental in USPS's case) agencies, but not by the management of the agency itself.

And now with the ACA we have economic fascism where corrupt businesses (insurance companies) have become willing agents of government.

There isn't much history to promote trust in either.

In reply to oldsaw:

"Skepticism doesn't deserve ridicule; it has earned decades of respect." - The truth.

oldsaw wrote: And now with the ACA we have economic fascism where corrupt businesses (insurance companies) have become willing agents of government.

Because one group refuses to let the Government provide a service that costs most first world Nations 7-11% of GDP to do a damn good job, but we spend nearly 18% of GPD in this country to do a E36 M3ty job.

You want to get rid of the ACA, then let the Government run it, redirect the massive savings to other higher priorities and be done with it then. But of course saving money while providing a better service isn’t the rights goal. Reducing government is, because we all know the private sector always does a better job for less even when evidence to the contrary is starting us in the face!!!!

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

There is no indication that ACA is going to do anything but raise costs, and in fact it already has. And in my opinion cost is the only thing wrong with our current system. Where do you get all these savings you talk about? My premium and that of every private sector person I've talked to has gone up as a direct result of ACA. I've yet to see any factual evidence that anything has or will improve under the ACA. I really can't understand your confidence in a government that fails at virtually everything it does. The private sector you obviously don't like is what built this nation, not the government.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: There is no indication that ACA is going to do anything but raise costs, and in fact it already has. And in my opinion cost is the only thing wrong with our current system. Where do you get all these savings you talk about? My premium and that of every private sector person I've talked to has gone up as a direct result of ACA. I've yet to see any factual evidence that anything has or will improve under the ACA. I really can't understand your confidence in a government that fails at virtually everything it does. The private sector you obviously don't like is what built this nation, not the government.

He's not arguing in favor of ACA. He's arguing in favor for universal healthcare, which ACA does not provide.

93 percent of hospital executives think Obamacare will make health care better

In reply to mtn:

I understand. But universal healthcare would just make things all the worse, IMO. I guess I look at both the as the same (I know the difference) because I personally believe that universal healthcare is where we are headed. I'm admittedly biased. I'd rather have high healthcare costs and be alive than the alternative.