No. Of course not. We have one person here per capita, just like the UK. If anything we'd get more economies of scale. But it would be socialism, and therefore inherently antithetical to the desires of every right-thinking American.
Capitalism is all well and good so long as peoples lives are not put in danger; and I'm not talking about luxuries here, I'm talking about whether people live or die. But what we have happening instead is a closed market dominated by a small number of monopolistic drug companies who abuse patent systems and extort their customers just because they can. Surely at some point, even the right-wings have to appreciate that neither closed markets nor putting peoples lives put in danger because of the greed of the few is neither in the spirit of capitalism nor the Christian thing to do (and I only reference the last part because of the emphasis that many right-wings place on religion).
We had a moral obligation to be seen as and actually provide a better life than that experienced by those behind the Iron Curtain. We had to pay attention to the negative aspects of market-based economics and at least attempt to mitigate these problems.
It also showed people what 'real' communism looked like. It's big joke that people think we're measurably closer to anything resembling socialism.
The idea that capitalism itself is a moral end to achieve in and of itself, regardless of the reality, seems to have taken root. People who are left worse off are dismissed as stupid and lazy.
As someone with an economics background I'm strongly in favor of markets and capitalism, but it's worrying when people forget that the strength of this way is based upon the health of the economic institutions that enable it to function.
...which would be markets, correct? There is no free market for welfare.
Economic institutions encompass everything that allow it to function including basic ideas like private property rights, rules and regulations that enforce contracts, and functions that account for the welfare of people.
I agree that there are other concepts that dispose of people's "property" and require them to seek or deliver services; in the past we called them things like theft, war, and slavery.
I think the problem is we like to have the freedom to select our charities (and charitable giving amount) rather than have them forced upon us by statute.
Surely it's better to have a subsidised minimum service than to rely on charities?
And more over, if your objection is purely because you don't want to be told that you should look after your fellow Americans, then that's either a really sad representation of how little respect Americans have for their kin, or the facet of a childish mentality where kids deliberately disobey their parents because they like to test their boundaries. Either way, it's just a terrible attitude to have.
See, it depends on who you are. If you are a well-connected member of the political class you prever to give charity because it's you who directs the flow of money. If you are part of the unwashed masses you prefer a subsidy, because there is the democratic process involved, and experts in public policy and the general public might have influence what is done with the funds.
No. Charities have to maintain efficiency because they are not subsidized, if they want to continue to operate they need to prove to contributors that their contribution is going to the cause to the extent that a market critical mass of contributors cares to know.
> if your objection is purely because you don't want to be told that you should look after your fellow Americans, then that's either a really sad representation of how little respect Americans have for their kin, or the facet of a childish mentality where kids deliberately disobey their parents because they like to test their boundaries. Either way, it's just a terrible attitude to have.
Effigies should only be burned in street protests when there are teeming masses to rile up. They are less effective in print.
Having worked for a number of charities, I can promise you that not all charities are efficient. In fact some are even worse for wasting money than government bodies.
What's more, most people pay even less attention to just how efficiently their money is put to use in charities because: 1) it's considered bad etiquette to question charitable organisations, 2) it's assumed that charities are full of volunteers working for free on a shoe string budget out of the goodness of their hearts.
The reality is, many charities are run as businesses - with high paid salaries and paid expenses just like any other business. Obviously I don't want to tar all charities with the same brush, however my experiences certainly call BS to your generalisations.
> Effigies should only be burned in street protests when there are teeming masses to rile up. They are less effective in print.
That doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. I'm assuming you're objecting to my comment, but given the brevity of your previous post and the context of my comment that preceded it; it's hardly surprising that I took your reply to mean what I suggested it may have meant.
However with you now expanding on your point, I now realise that your lack of comradeship is based on blissful ignorance rather than pure selfishness (though I suspect there's an element of selfishness driving the lack of motivation to investigate this topic otherwise you'd be advocating people giving up their free time caring for the less fortunate rather than complaining about who gets your money)
How to fix the American health system in several easy steps, from a governmental perspective:
* Stop all current governmental subsidies
* Outlaw medical insurance
* Purchase expensive medical equipment, and most importantly the means of production of such equipment, and resell to new medical enterprises at a reasonable price (most likely resulting in a severe loss)
* Provide a matching program on qualifying doctors' medical school debt
* Radically reform and/or remove medical licensing programs to focus on apprenticeship more than academics
* Reform pharmaceutical patent protections to allow drugs to proliferate freely
This will get us to a ground-up, self-sustainable medical system that is based on ordinary rules of supply and demand, without giving a blank check to the administrators of the current system, which is already irrevocably corrupted by paper-pushers. The whole thing just has to be torn down and started over.
Oh, wait. https://www.cafonline.org/pdf/World_Giving_Index_2011_191211...
I like to share with my family, not the collective mass of Americans who make less than me; whose sole claim for charity is that they make less than me.
- You have the RIGHT to education in the United States.
- You do NOT have the RIGHT to be alive to be educated.
* Additionally, you MUST treat someone in the ER if they are dying, but if they will be dying a week from now, send them on their way.
That is one thing I give to hardcore libertarians, they seem monstrous at times (no public schools, let sick people without insurance die, can't afford food then starve, etc) --- but at least they are consistent and honest. Also, they will claim that private companies / charities will stop this horrible stuff from happening.
Just want to emphasize (I see your little tacked-on afterthought there) that just because a libertarian doesn't believe the money to do these things should be forcibly extracted from the taxpayer's pocket doesn't mean that they believe people should be left to die. They simply trust non-governmental entities to capably care for their fellow men. It's about the proper role of government, not Darwinism.
As an example, consider Social Security. The government told us that they needed to save our money for us, since we were too stupid to do it ourselves. And now they've spent it all. lol?
No, because there are also diseconomies of scale. Some services are best provided by smaller-scale organizations than an entire nation, much less one the size of the US. It is perfectly plausible that a service that worked well for the UK might not work at the scale of the US. Making an organization bigger means adding more layers of bureaucracy, which puts the ultimate decision makers farther away from the problems they are trying to solve. It also creates more room for resources to be absorbed by political infighting within the organization.
The problem with the way that Native Americans are treated in the US is a lack of political will and the totally fucked power dynamic between the political institutions that have (or have not really) developed in the shadow of Western dominance of the continent.
Canada has universal healthcare and health outcomes for the First Nations are poorer there too. It's really not an apples to apples comparison, since there's so much other fraught bullshit involved.
The point stands, if we in the USA cannot get it right for IHS or VA, then we won't get it right for the majority. If you cannot do the little things, don't expect to do the big things.
The act (which I am sure the author has not read) has already cost people insurance and failed at reducing costs for everyone else. It cut medicare money (read the act), and reduced the effectiveness of the non-employer health saving funds. We are more dependent on employers, not less. It bungled the wording of the exchanges to screw up the tax benefits (perhaps public review would have helped this point). I await the report that the fraud prevention in the act hasn't resulted in the required savings.
The IHS nor the VA are representative of the US population, nor are the politics around Indian or veteran affairs representative of how politicians deal w/ the general public.
Nor is there necessarily a connection between small and large projects. What's the political will to get these small things done? What are the consequences when they fuck up? Does it threaten a politician's chances at getting reelected? Is it likely to hurt industry's bottom line? Is it going to generate a significant amount of negative press?
Small projects are not necessarily representative of the governments ability to get things done, and the IHS as i've pointed out is definitely not representative for a whole pile of reasons.
I also don't get why people are so concerned that it cut medicare money. Isn't the point to reduce how much medicare costs?
No, the cut in Medicare is justified by the saving from fraud detection. Perhaps you are thinking Medicaid?
The IHS's failure is not an indication that the us government can't execute on healthcare.
Additionally there are plenty of regulatory agencies in the US that do a phenomenal job at what they do even in the face of dire circumstances, the FDIC being a really good example. Literally hundreds of banks went out of business between 2008 and 2010 (see: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html ), and the FDIC unrolled those institutions, found other banks to take over depositor accounts, without any substantial problems.
The government can and does work, even if it doesn't always. The question is how can we ensure that government's interface with the healthcare system is one of the systems that does work.
No, it is the same - the government failed with less people and now is attempting something with almost all. I then added information about how the US government generally goes about social programs (pilot -> nationwide).
> The IHS's failure is not an indication that the us government can't execute on healthcare.
Yes, it is.
As to the rest of your post, I did not and have not argued that the government doesn't do some decent things in other fields. The FDIC unrolls have happened before 2008 and they have a plan for it that worked in the past.
Once again, they are attempting a lot of stuff with no previous experience, uncertain regulations (even now), and failure in their two previous large scale programs (IHS and VA). Add to this resistance from states and even doubt casting by Senators and Representatives that voted for it, it has very little hope of working.
Medicare? It's hugely popular and keeps prices down despite serving a population that over-utilizes health care.
[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/...
[edit: can we stop treating PolitiFact as if its not bias - there math handling is spotty at best and their half-truths are also biased]