hmmm...I agree with you. I don't know about this bill but how are they going to "force" somebody to have health care? And how does this help somebody that can't afford it? That's like instituting a mandatory 3 meals a day for everybody because there are people that are starving even though people are starving because they can't afford to eat.

Naturally, those who can't afford it wouldn't have to pay for it. Taxes and national dept increases will have to cover those folks. The problem is that "those folks" are already covered. The people that are not covered (against their will) primarily--or so I'm told--have health conditions that make this insurance too expensive for them. Perhaps more laws regulating who is "able" to get insurance would be better than who "MUST" get it.

http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/new-health-care-flow-chart-pushes-bac

sort of related to what we're talking about.. as in, current healthcare system. just posting it...because.

I'll try and give a "short" explanation for what the thinking of "those in bed with the current form this bill (read, "liberal left" and "1000+ page monstrosity that no one has read" respectively)" is.

Uninsured people come into our hospitals when they become critically ill. The hospitals are both legally and morally obligated to help them despite their lack of insurance, or means to pay. When they cannot pay their bill, the hospital is reimbursed by taxpayers.

Uninsured people, like normal people, can catch and spread disease. We would rather they seek treatment for that disease to reduce the spread of the disease, and in some cases, to give them a cheaper, earlier treatment rather than have to do highly expensive, invasive treatments when they come to the hospital later.

There are 47 million such people in the United States, and they are a) having to suffer treatable/preventable medical conditions, b) putting the rest of us at greater risk of communicable disease, and c) costing us more money than they would if we gave them taxpayer-funded insurance up front. I suppose some fraction are also d) never going to get sick or injured without insurance, but I doubt it's anywhere near 100%.

Therefore, universal coverage is a goal for reasons of morality, public health, and cost control.

The other issues the "1000+ page monstrosity that no one has read" (summarized here and here) is seeking to address is escalating costs, and the reliability of coverage (preventing rescissions and "pre-existing condition" denial, making it job-portable, etc.).

Really, the whole conversation is about reworking the system so people have good incentives. Patients have no disincentive to seek medical help, doctors have incentives focused on patient outcomes (and not the profit margins of tests and procedures), and insurers forced to compete on things like price & service, instead of careful risk selection (i.e. only insuring people who won't get sick).

Personally, I don't think incrementalism is sufficient. To address most of these issues, it will require changes that you would call "radical" like employer & individual mandates, or requiring insurance companies to accept all applicants, etc. I also don't think there's valid reason to fear making our system worse by quickly implementing policies that have been successfully used throughout the rest of the industrialized nations, especially when there's a human and monetary cost for delay.

Agree or disagree, that's what us liberals are thinking.

The conservative doesn't trust government.

The liberal doesn't trust people.

blah blah blah good intentions.

I'm this close to quitting my job and finding a new one where I can tax evade all of my income, get on welfare, get on unemployment, get free healthcare, and suck the resources out of all these socialist's pockets (if they even have jobs?). I already lose jesus damn 40% of my income, so I could take a pretty hefty pay cut and still come out ahead.

FUCK this country, btw. Theres two kinds of people in the world, the players and the played. If you think this healthcare is designed to "help the little guy" you are smoking some serious chronic.

i tend to think when "the big guy" gets all fucking freaked out about tweeking the status quo its because the little guy might actually come out of it a teeny bit ahead.

insurance companies make money denying people coverage.

you invinsible "im young healthy and fairly well off, i dont need health coverage" i take care of your invinsible asses all the time. youre usually the ones who cry about the iv and bitch about the bill.

i know this wasnt exactly brought up, but its something that erks the fucking fuck out of me.
so, let me address this "illegals" using the ER as a clinic are uninsured and never pay their bill. see these "illegals" pay sales tax on everything they buy, they pay taxes on their utilities, their cell phones and they pay property tax, even if its rolled into their rent and paid by a landlord. they pay taxes. all the time. even if nots income tax. truthfully they probably pay more taxes than i do since i get that big fat single mom of 2 kids tax rebate business and texas has no state income tax and im frugal and try real hard not to buy anything. soooo... all that sales tax they pay (and in a border state like texas i bet thats a HUGE amount of money), part of it goes into the county cauffers that has money set aside in its budget to reimburse hospitals for indigent care. so yes, they ARE paying for healthcare, in a sort of socialized redistrubuted kind of way. ooooh scary.

oh and as for not paying an ER bill, i work in an ER. i have what might resemble the worlds shittiest health insurance plan. my son has asthma and is a bit accident prone to boot. i have a $5000 deductible per family member. so when i leave the ER for a legitimate emergency (asthma attacks, stitches, etc)and get a bill that says my insurance company isnt going to pay shit and i owe $4000. i. dont. fucking. pay. it. i pay $400/month and my insurance doesnt cover a damn asthma attack at the hospital ive given 8 years of my life to.
the system is broken. as much i despise the government something has to be done. and its real apparent the free market isnt going to take care of it.

and im stellar28, i completely support your idea to drop out and live in abject poverty. maybe then you wouldnt be such a whiny objectivist selfish little bitch who lacks the perspective to have a relevant fucking take on anything.

>> ^peggedbea:
The conservative doesn't trust government.
The liberal doesn't trust the corporation.

Alright I'll just say it point blank. The United States has a systematic failure at providing health care to the population as a whole. The past statement I made is irrefutable.

#1. Every Western European nation along with Australia, New Zealand, and Canada has been through this and figured it out.

#2. On gay rights. dido for the most part from the last statement

To tell you the truth I'm annoyed that the US is so far behind the times. I marched and supported political candidates for same sex rights already in Canada and we won. As did most western European countries.

What bothers me is that the US is no longer a leader in civil rights by a long shot...the US is lagging now. And since the US corporate media has such a dominating force on the world it's a force that curtails social progression for everybody else.
For instance my local news contemplates US healthcare every other night when our country has already come to a consensus on the issue. It's a waste of energy.

If everyone like me stopped working, you'd be living in poverty too. I didn't say I was going to stop working...just stop paying taxes. By the time socialism is in full swing in this country I'll be retired and you'll still be slaving 40+ hours a week to pay all my bills.

Cheers.

>> ^peggedbea
i completely support your idea to drop out and live in abject poverty. maybe then you wouldnt be such a whiny objectivist selfish little bitch who lacks the perspective to have a relevant fucking take on anything.

As an addendum, I wonder how much that ER bill is when your son has an asthma attack? Surely you are present, and can see what exactly they are doing (giving him a anti-inflammatory, likely a steroid, either intravenously or via a respirator). I wonder how much those shots or respirators would cost if they were freely available? $5, $10? How hard would they be to administer at home? The fact is, you really don't have any business going to an emergency room for an asthma attack.

1. i have lived in poverty. i worked my ass off while taking care of 2 kids to get out of it. and that is why i think you should try it. you seem to desperately need some perspective before you attempt to proselytize here.

2.the ER bill is $4000, i thought i said that.
his preventative home administered asthma medication is $350/per month after my insurance pays 40%. he recieves a dose everyday as a preventative measure. when hes in a flair up its 4-6 doses a day. the nebulizer cost $500. we bought it 3 years ago. you obviously know nothing about children healthcare and asthma. i couldve always just watched him asphyxiate while his airway swelled shut and the home treatments we were prescribed and had on hand were not effective.

3. did you miss the 500 posts ive made about how I HAVE WORKED IN A FUCKING EMERGENCY ROOM FOR 8 FUCKING YEARS?!?! so fuck me and my kids because their sorry ass mother chose to be a hourly wage slob providing healthcare to a mostly hispanic and poor demographic. if you want to talk about how much healthcare costs and why it costs so much and treatments, procedures, illnesses, pathologies and tests with anyone on the sift, im sure i can hold my own.

4. the fact is, you really have no business trying to assess the cost and circumstances surrounding medicine healthcare or childhood illnesses.

Alright, would the troll kindly find its way out of the pool.
Adult swim.

Peggedbea:

The conservative doesn't trust government.

The liberal doesn't trust the corporation.


As GM proves, when even mighty corporations ignore reality they die a deserved death (unless some lawless government buys them).

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good
of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live
under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may
at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end for they do so with the approval
of their own conscience."

Why do you think your preventative home medication is $875 a month, when it costs maybe 5 cents to make?

How long were the doctors working on your son, and what drugs did they administer? You think that was worth $4,000? A reasonable pay for a ER doctor, in my opinion, is say $60 an hour ($120,000 a year). The drugs to treat asthma shouldn't cost more than $10. So doing some math, I'm going to guess you son was being treated in the ER for 66 straight hours?

Wait it was only like 1 hour?

You are in this position because of government regulation. It is a historical fact that the average time to market medicinal drugs increased 10 fold, and the average cost for drugs increased 100 fold after the FDA came into being. You paying $875 for medicine which should cost $8.75 is a result of the asinine policy you are supporting.

Healthcare and medicine are both highly regulated by the government. Engineering is practically devoid of regulation. You think doctors are smarter than engineers, or that working on the human body is harder than creating electrical structures 1/1000th the size of the human hair?

Why can I go to Walmart and buy a computer which can perform 3,000,000,000 operations a second for less than $300, yet you have to pay $875 a month for some common chemicals?

Asking for other people to pay for health insurance to cover your $875 chemicals is as ridiculous as asking for other people to pay $30,000 to put a Walmart computer in your home.

If being educated enough to understand the problems in this world makes me a troll, then paint me green.

>> ^peggedbea:
the ER bill is $4000, i thought i said that.
his preventative home administered asthma medication is $350/per month after my insurance pays 40%. he recieves a dose everyday as a preventative measure. when hes in a flair up its 4-6 doses a day. the nebulizer cost $500. we bought it 3 years ago. you obviously know nothing about children healthcare and asthma.

I can't Google "how to treat asthma" or "asthma drugs" or "severe asthma attack" ? Or ask someone I know who is a doctor? Or go to MTI open courseware and get myself a biomedical degree for free?

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Health-Sciences-and-Technology/index.htm

This is the 21st century. Information is no longer a monopoly. With a few days of research you can be more informed than the average doctor on any specific pathology. The only difference between me and a doctor is 160 course hours, and I'll bet he didn't take a full class on treating asthma.

>> ^peggedbea
4. the fact is, you really have no business trying to assess the cost and circumstances surrounding medicine healthcare or childhood illnesses.

>> ^imstellar28:
With a few days of research you can be more informed than the average doctor on any specific pathology. The only difference between me and a doctor is 160 course hours, and I'll bet he didn't take a full class on treating asthma.

The only difference between me and a NASA scientist is a over inflated government budget! TO SOLARIS MY FELLOW HUMANS!

are suggesting reading a "how to" website will give you all the information you need to be a doctor?

i think this statement very clearly illustrates the problem i have with you.
all your hyper argumentative bullshit is lacking one thing. relevant life experience. the kind where wisdom and intimate knowledge and understand outweighs any number of words you can plug into google together and read about. maybe one day when you grow up you will understand this.

i could google causes of inflated healtcare costs all fucking day until i found 1 single point that agreed with me. the problem with your fda scenario is that its doing what every other argument is doing and that is talking healthcare down to a singularity.

the point thats being missed is that its a gigantic industry, linked to every other imaginable gigantic industry. it must support a massive infrastructure, education, salaries and insurance and liability costs of millions and millions of people. who do deserve to get paid. it is subject to all the other whims and manipulations of markets, inflations, corruption, bad management, human error and bad politicking. etc etc etc.
not only that, it is intimately entangled into every single persons life. from the joys of birth to the tragedy of death and everywhere in between. it is subject to bad decisions, catastrophic accidents, ignorance and arrogance of every single person.

its huge. too big. and too important. and there is no solution. but the path we are currently on is completely unacceptable and unsustainable. and its time try something else.

last thing, an engineer may deal with some hardcore serious precision and smarts. but an engineer will never have to cut a premature infant out of a dying mothers womb in a hallway while the father watches in horror. an engineer will never have to ask a mother to sign the paperwork so her sons organs can be harvested. and an engineer will never get beaten up by scared, mentally retarded man twice his size while trying to provide care. apples do not equal oranges. nor would i attempt to say one is more valuable than the other.

The whole problem is very simple.

Every Western nation besides America has a single payer system.

In America this is equated to be socialism.

Market oriented solutions are always pushed forward as being 'better' then socialism.

Obama and countless studies before him have shown that a single payer system would be better.

A new market oriented plan is thus formulated. It will fail again as it is exclusionary.

Meanwhile Western nations with single payer health systems have spent less then the US health care system and have better healthcare indicators as a whole.

Who gives a shit what you think is a reasonable pay? The pay is what it is. I also think you're not looking at experience - there's more to being a doctor than education.

>> ^imstellar28:
A reasonable pay for a ER doctor, in my opinion, is say $60 an hour ($120,000 a year). The drugs to treat asthma shouldn't cost more than $10. So doing some math, I'm going to guess you son was being treated in the ER for 66 straight hours?

Prices are set by consumers in the absence of government interference. Thus, my opinion on whats "reasonable" is critically important. When you go to Walmart, do you purchase things that are "unreasonably" priced or "reasonably" priced? You don't think the sum opinion of everyone who shops at Walmart is important?

The reason doctors prices are through the roof are because of crooked insurance companies which lobby for government interference. Becoming a doctor is no harder than obtaining many other college degrees, in fact I would rate it as easier, so ask yourself how doctors can be charging $4,000 an hour when most college graduates earn $30-40?

>> ^gwiz665:
Who gives a shit what you think is a reasonable pay? The pay is what it is. I also think you're not looking at experience - there's more to being a doctor than education.
>> ^imstellar28:
A reasonable pay for a ER doctor, in my opinion, is say $60 an hour ($120,000 a year). The drugs to treat asthma shouldn't cost more than $10. So doing some math, I'm going to guess you son was being treated in the ER for 66 straight hours?

The only difference between you and a NASA scientist is 160 credit hours of aerospace engineering.

You read the 53 800 page textbooks, do the homework, practice tests, and watch all the lectures here:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/index.htm

And yeah, you'll be as knowledgeable as a NASA scientist.

Why exactly is a classroom the only way to learn anything? Do you really think everyone is that much smarter than you?

>> ^Farhad2000:

The only difference between me and a NASA scientist is a over inflated government budget! TO SOLARIS MY FELLOW HUMANS!

>> ^peggedbea
the point thats being missed is that its a gigantic industry, linked to every other imaginable gigantic industry. it must support a massive infrastructure, education, salaries and insurance and liability costs of millions and millions of people. who do deserve to get paid. it is subject to all the other whims and manipulations of markets, inflations, corruption, bad management, human error and bad politicking. etc etc etc.

Do you know how many different people, from how many backgrounds, working with how many billions of dollars of equipment it takes to construct a computer which performs 3,000,000,000 operations a second? The computer industry is much larger and more complex than the healthcare system.

not only that, it is intimately entangled into every single persons life. from the joys of birth to the tragedy of death and everywhere in between. it is subject to bad decisions, catastrophic accidents, ignorance and arrogance of every single person.

As opposed to say, the civil engineers who built the Golden Gate bridge, of which millions of cars travel across (safely) every day? Or the Boeing 757s built by aerospace engineers, which take billions of people around the world to never-before-seen destinations safely, and at 500 miles per hour?

its huge. too big. and too important. and there is no solution. but the path we are currently on is completely unacceptable and unsustainable. and its time try something else.

As opposed to the genetic engineers who splice genes to create hybrid plants resistant to disease, or the agricultural engineers who develop the technologies to provide millions of tons of food each year to feed the 300,000,000 Americans in this country? That big or that important?

but an engineer will never have to cut a premature infant out of a dying mothers womb in a hallway while the father watches in horror. an engineer will never have to ask a mother to sign the paperwork so her sons organs can be harvested. and an engineer will never get beaten up by scared, mentally retarded man twice his size while trying to provide care.

What do you think an aerospace engineer things each time one of their plane crashes? Or a civil engineer thinks when the buildings they designed fell on 9/11? Or the chemical engineer when the drug they designed accidentally kills a thousand people?

Your argument is absolutely vacuous.

There are two reasons why healthcare has been a complete failure not only in the US but worldwide:
1. Healthcare is too intertwined with politics
2. Healthcare providers are not as smart as you think.

^ Without delving into a deeper topic, let me knock down your engineering example. There's tons of regulation on engineers, especially civil engineers who're building bridges. It's true that computers and electronics are fairly lightly regulated through the bulk of the segment, but you'd be surprised at how many regulations there are when you come to things that people's lives depend on, like the flight control computer of an airplane, or even the computer in your car's engine.

If you'd gone to an engineering school, they would've told you about that...

>> ^NetRunner:
^ Without delving into a deeper topic, let me knock down your engineering example. There's tons of regulation on engineers, especially civil engineers who're building bridges. It's true that computers and electronics are fairly lightly regulated through the bulk of the segment, but you'd be surprised at how many regulations there are when you come to things that people's lives depend on, like the flight control computer of an airplane, or even the computer in your car's engine.

Theres hardly a single aspect of our lives that isn't regulated. In relative terms, engineering is practically unregulated when compared to health care. The regulations that exist overlap with industry standards, so for all intents and purposes, they are useless. Bridges have to be designed with safety factors according to the laws of physics because thats how you engineer a bridge, not because some politician mandated it.

I know personally hundreds engineers from all of the fields mentioned here. So I wouldn't be as surprised as you might think...

If you'd gone to an engineering school, they would've told you about that...

Weird, cause my three degrees, including one in engineering, says "Summa Cum Laude" on it.

^ So your argument is that the highly regulated field of engineering isn't regulated because engineers agree with what's being mandated by the regulation?

Why then are you arguing with a member of the medical profession about what should and should not be regulated?

Never mind, I think I know.

Anyways, I'm hoping somewhere along the line you figure out that this objectivist hate of sympathy and empathy really gets in the way of your ability to advocate your philosophy in any sort of even semi-constructive way.

People have concerns that you don't. People have experiences that you haven't had. People know things you don't know. People certainly have their own deeply held beliefs about how the world works, and how it should work. People aren't really going to be open to reexamining those beliefs if you start the conversation by insulting their beliefs and dismissing their concerns.

That's why Richard Dawkins is a fool for being the way he is, and why you're a fool for acting the way you do.

Until you come to grips with that, you will find that most of your screeds will get either ignored, or repudiated with prejudice.

Now, do you have something sensible to add to the conversation, or are you just going to scream at people who've got crappy, overpriced private insurance, who gets charged exorbitant prices by a private hospital for necessary medical treatment, that they should focus all their blame on government having required the doctor go to school?

Sensible like what? Nobody is going to move an inch from their position on any side, and nothing we say here has any bearing on the course of reality, so what purpose is any of this aside from catharsis?

Lets say I somehow manage to convince you, then what? It has no consequence. So why should I be concerned with whether you disagree, are prejudiced, or change your mind? This whole act is entertainment, a way for a bunch of space age monkeys to pass the time.

>> ^NetRunner:
Now, do you have something sensible to add to the conversation

^ If you convince me that what we need most from healthcare is something different than what I'm advocating? Well, I'd say different things when I call the various congresscritters' offices. I might even drop the idea out into the larger group of liberals, and see if I can sway some of them to do the same.

It's not particularly likely that you'd get me to adopt your "no regulation of any kind is the fix" position, but if you set your sights on something smaller like trying to convince me that a mandated contribution to a health savings account might address my concerns better than a big government-run public option, I think you would at least have a chance of convincing me.

If ya wanna change the world, learn some poli sci. Google Overton window.

On that note, I wanna know why we aren't talking about adopting a full-on Single payer system like we have throughout the rest of the western world...

Heres the thing. I think all humans should be treated equal. Now how is that going to happen when certain people constantly try to rule others, or tell others what to do. How can two people be considered equal if one of them is giving orders to the other? And thats what it is, when you want to enact some sort of government policy, say mandatory healthcare, what you are really saying is that there are two distinct types of people - those who are rulers, and those who are to be ruled. Thats inequality and theres really just no way I can justify that.

I'll be honest, lately I'm starting to wonder why I'm letting these people run me through the maze, when I should be gaming the system just like all the people you seem to look up to.

This whole idea of picking yourself up by your bootstraps is just bullshit. Getting into college, studying hard, getting a degree, finding a respectable job, working for your pay. Thats not what anyone ruling anyone else ever did. They made their money with violence - lying, cheating, stealing, scamming; killing even.

Working for a living in this corrupt, fraudulent, violent world we've created - is for suckers. No matter how hard I work, how successful I am, how easy my life is or how little I work for what I make - someone else is earning 40 cents of ever dollar I earn. I'm still being played by someone else who earns their living off the blood and sweat of others, without so much as lifting a finger. Someone who thinks we aren't equal - that they somehow have the authority to give us orders, as if the mere act of being born made us enlisted to them.

>> ^NetRunner:
If ya wanna change the world, learn some poli sci.

The problem with adopting a full single payer system is as Obama said "the existence of legacy systems that are already in place", showing that even though there is a democratic ruled house, congress and white house there is reluctance to dismantle and reorganize the system along the lines of other western nations. This is not even mentioning the oft mentioned socialism aspect.

The biggest block being the private health insurance industry, private insurance paperwork and bureaucracy consume 1/3rd of every health care dollar spent. This is because there are subdivisions that need to be created for profit, between those who should pay but don't need health care, and those that can't pay but need the health care. i.e. goods risks and bad risks.

Those who want to back private health insurance should remember that in 2006 the US spent $2.1 trillion on Health care, the largest in the western world while at the same time lagging behind on infant mortality, life expectancy and early detection of life threatening conditions. At the same time the baby boomers are sent to retire and place more pressure on the system. Employer based health care is at the same time becoming unaffordable to finical firms undergoing strain for capital.

But health is not a commodity and shouldn't be treated as such.

>> ^imstellar28:


Those frustrations that you just expressed...I feel exactly the same way. Not about government, but about the investor class for which all of those statements are actually true.

Government takes 40% of your income? Make 10x as much, and they'll take a smaller portion, because you're part of the ruling class.

Think deregulation of healthcare would make it better? Tough shit, the ruling class who owns the healthcare lobby has government in its pocket, and they like the racket they've got.

Think people should be treated equally? Why then defend the coexistence of an ultra-rich minority, commanding the vast majority of the rest of us to do their bidding, often against our own interests?

You think government is the problem. I agree to some extent -- government is supposed to work for the people, instead it's been corrupted by selfish, wealthy people who could give a shit about equality, violence, lying, cheating, stealing, scamming or anything but their own ends.

That's part of human nature. Hell, it's part of just plain nature -- those who can dominate, will.

I argue for democratic organization of people against that kind of crap, because normal people like us can only really fight those kinds of interests in large, unified, organized groups.

In a lot of ways, we're after the same thing, we just have very different ideas about which half of the union of private interest and government is the source of the problem.

Oh, and here's a fantastic litany about profit motive with regard to healthcare that everyone should read.

Why are you assuming that I only feel this way about the government? I feel the exact same way about the criminally wealthy. Enron executives who steal money are no less sleazy than government officials who do the same.

I'm speaking out against the government, for one, because many people think their actions are sanctioned (whereas most already agree that the criminally wealthy's actions are not sanctioned). For two, I'm a lot more concerned with the government because they don't steal money by clever fraud schemes, or taking advantage of the under-informed, or backhanded actions - they walk in the front door with gun in hand and steal right in front of your face. Resistance is not an option, because the amount of violence is overwhelming.

To me, that is infinitely more scary. When I sleep at night, I don't fear a banker coming up with an elaborate fraud scheme to steal my savings, I fear someone kicking down my front door and robbing me at gunpoint. Knowing that they might have a "search warrant" doesn't help me sleep any better.

As Farhad2000 mentioned, 1/3 of every dollar in private healthcare ends up in the hands of someone who is gaming the system, and I believe it. They steal because they don't think we are equal, that they are entitled to the fruits of our labor because we are somehow different, below them. Private, non-governmental people who are rotten criminals, who managed to get in the position of stealing 30 cents of every healthcare dollar by lobbying rotten criminals in the legislature. They are, in effect, not only gaming us, but those in government as well - because their share is much larger than the bribes and lobby dollars the government officials receive.

What scares me, is you see this situation where private criminals are stealing billions of dollars, an undeniable situation; and what you propose is to replace these private criminals with public criminals. Public officials who are in an even easier position to steal billions of dollars, who have a vastly larger amount of physical violence at their disposal.

That is scary, and I don't think it solves anything.

In Mexico, the government decided to combat drug smuggling by clamping down on the borders and arresting leaders in the crime syndicate. The result? A violent power vacuum which resulted in ritualistic revenge killings, mass-beheadings, and the assassinations of several public figures. Then, when they couldn't earn money through smuggling, they turned to kidnapping. Instead of clandestine smuggling, the public now has to cope with over 500 kidnappings a month - many in broad daylight - where 1 in 7 kidnap victims are murdered. These types of people don't just quit, they find new ways to steal.

You create a power vacuum in the healthcare industry and what do you think is gonna happen, these criminals who have been stealing billions of dollars are just gonna retire, or better yet, go to college and decide to pursue a legitimate line of work? Get a degree and go to some job interviews? Give up a life stealing billions a year for 60 hours a week slaving in the ER? No, they will probably just run for office.

These people will never work for a living because they don't think we are equal.

>> ^imstellar28:
What scares me, is you see this situation where private criminals are stealing billions of dollars, an undeniable situation; and what you propose is to replace these private criminals with public criminals. Public officials who are in an even easier position to steal billions of dollars, who have a vastly larger amount of physical violence at their disposal.
That is scary, and I don't think it solves anything.

I'm not advocating a replacement of the private health industry with a public one. Paul Krugman wrote a good article today that sums up the four pillars of the progressive healthcare plan (though the main thrust of the article is to chastise Blue Dog Democrats for being tools of the insurance lobby).

But your argument seems to operate on the premise that government can't be trusted with running the police forces or courts (much less the military). Who do you think should be running them? What is the mechanism you'd use for ensuring that it isn't the oligarchs?

I'm still a believer in elections, though there are plenty of days I have my doubts. I've not really heard a better way of going about things, though I think there are technical improvements we could make to the process (caps on campaign spending, lifetime bans on gov't officials lobbying after they leave office, 10+ year bans on being a regulator for an industry you worked for or invested in, etc.).

Of course they can't be trusted, thats why we have the bill of rights and the separation of powers. Nobody in power should be trusted, which is why you always need to have checks and balances.

>> ^NetRunner:
But your argument seems to operate on the premise that government can't be trusted with running the police forces or courts (much less the military). Who do you think should be running them?

Yeah, but that's just a piece of paper when it comes down to it. Someone has to actually exercise the checks and balances.

How do you keep oligarchs from using wealth to subvert the people in the system?

>> ^NetRunner:
How do you keep oligarchs from using wealth to subvert the people in the system?


Like this:
"Chinese steel workers beat takeover boss to death over job cuts"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/27/china-steel-workers-boss-beaten

Except on a national scale, and not quite "to death." Nobody is going to secure your rights or your wealth for you, you have to do it yourself. You create a government with extremely limited powers, a high level of transparency, and you respond quickly and appropriately when it gets out of line. That's really our only chance to ever be treated as equals.

The idea that you can just write some legislation, have a few elections, and "leave it up to the leaders" is just ridiculous.

>> ^imstellar28:
The idea that you can just write some legislation, have a few elections, and "leave it up to the leaders" is just ridiculous.

I agree, but that's not what I'm advocating. On the contrary, I'm usually saying "government should protect our rights, but they're not -- let's make them do it". I want everyone to pay attention and stand up for their rights (and the rights of others!), though preferably by exercising their freedom of speech, voting, pestering their representatives, or through the courts, and not through violence.

I think there are many schemes people have used in the past to usurp others of their rights. It seems to me that more often than not we have learned the lessons of history, and written law to try prevent against making the same kinds of mistakes again.

I disagree with the libertarian premise that all people need is a profit motive, and defense against theft, and everything will be free and wonderful. I do agree with a similar premise, though: what we need is for incentives to lead people towards mutually beneficial behaviors, and everything will be free and wonderful. I think government is a good tool for combating problems where profit motive and mutual benefit part ways.