Late-Night Political Rant

[kujo]

[left][size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I have no problem with taxation. That's part of the whole "social contract" thing we've all agreed to by being part of a modern society with federal, state and local governments that exist in order to perform certain services to ourselves and our fellow citizens. On the other hand, I am a strong proponent of efficiency, and if you're going to take my money, I would really like it to be put to good use. And when I hear that it's NOT being put to good use, or is being wasted on attempts to keep insolvent or incompetent bureaucracies afloat, elected officials aren't allowed to call me a "radical" because I demand that they fix that stuff before taking [i]more[/i] of my money.[/font][/size][/left]


[left][size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Example A: It's 2012 and we are citizens of an advanced post-industrial society--everyone should have healthcare. I believe the best way to accomplish that goal is to have states implement and administer programs that cover every citizen of their state. That would very likely involve some taxation, and I would gladly pay so that myself and others would be able to be healthy in both the short term and the long term.[/font][/size][/left]


[left][size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Example B: It's 2012 and we are citizens of an advanced post-industrial society--our schools are terrible and our education system is a gaping pile of smell of elderberries. I live in Florida, where the phrase "s****y education" might as well be emblazoned on the state flag! We have no state tax, so rather than levy one to ensure that we are no longer one of the worst states in the country for education, we allow ourselves to be slavishly dependent on tourism and the lottery. Of course, the economy has been in the toilet for 6 or 7 years, causing revenues to decline, and guess what suffers: education budgets. I'd gladly pay a state tax to ensure that our school system could improve and so that schools in poorer areas aren't critically and perpetually underdeveloped.[/font][/size][/left]


[left][size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Example C: I have absolutely no problem with the Obama Administration's decision to support companies like Solyndra that seek to create newer and cleaner forms of renewable energy. I have no problem with our federal and state governments incentivizing research and development in this field by using tax revenues to award grants and funding to companies and universities. I do, however, have a serious problem with any politician--Republican or Democrat-- trying to sell me a false dichotomy, where we have to choose between these as-yet-to-be-determined forms of energy and the continued expansion of our domestic oil drilling. There is absolutely no reason that we should have to choose between the two; the Obama administration (and the EPA) should have agreed to the construction of the entire Keystone pipeline in exchange for Republican support for the government's role in harnessing all of our domestic energy potential, in the very same way that our government was instrumental in supporting the effort to launch the space program.[/font][/size][/left]

Edited April 4, 2012 by kujo

[kujo]

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Also:

[color=#000000][left]“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible beaver dam problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” - Barry Goldwater[/left][/color][/font][/size]

[Winchester]

I never signed any social contract.

[Groo the Wanderer]

Compromise is the pablum of the weak

[morakind]

I signed SOMETHING when I became a resident alien, was that a social contract? I didn't read it.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='kujo' timestamp='1333517376' post='2412764']

[left][size=4][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]I have no problem with taxation. That's part of the whole "social contract" thing we've all agreed to by being part of a modern society with federal, state and local governments that exist in order to perform certain services to ourselves and our fellow citizens. On the other hand, I am a strong proponent of efficiency, and if you're going to take my money, I would really like it to be put to good use. And when I hear that it's NOT being put to good use, or is being wasted on attempts to keep insolvent or incompetent bureaucracies afloat, elected officials aren't allowed to call me a "radical" because I demand that they fix that stuff before taking [i]more[/i] of my money.[/font][/size][/left]
[/quote]
The Government is inherently inefficient at spending money. There is no two ways about it. They haven't done a good job with the healthcare system in the VA.
A- Our modern society's technical capability to provide extrordinary levels of health-care has exceeded any economy's ability to provide the extrordinary care to everyone in society. Government run health care is not the societal institution to make and enforce 'rules' for who gets what.
B- I live in Florida too. I have many family members and friends that were or are part of the school system (teachers & admin). I've concluded, from multiple instances, it's bloated beaucracy that is choking good teachers out of the classroom. For example, in the surrounding Counties, less than 25% of school budgets go to teacher's salaries. It's also a fact it's easier to get a teaching job with a degree in liberal arts, than a person who has a teaching degree in history. Money isn't the primary problem.
C- Perfect example that Government spending is driven by issues that are 'other than what is economically viable, needed, or wanted by the market place'. But keep in mind, that is what Government is for. Not everything society needs (or wants) can be financed by marketplace economics. Think fire, police, military, etc. It's in the public forum that we discuss and discern and hammer out what we want Government to collect our money and spend for non-marketplace needs and wants. But we can't forfeit all reasonable discussion to appointed or elected Government beauracrats and politicians. Perfect example for the need to balance the reach of 'one rule for all' Federal Government with more local citizen sensitive State and Local Governments. Although it's easier for individuals to say, "what the heck, I don't want to deal with it, let the government deal with it". That's how we end up with the Government telling us what we want, not visa-versa.

[Papist]

Us taxpayers do not have enough money to fund proper healthcare for everyone.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1333551080' post='2412859']
Us taxpayers do not have enough money to fund proper healthcare for everyone.
[/quote]

you do actually. Canada spends less money per citizen on healthcare than the states does, and has much more complete coverage.

At the moment you have all the worst parts of both single payer systems and a completely government free system. That is, you have decided you need to treat everybody that shows up needing it, but have no actual way of paying for it. when most of them dont pay their medical bills, treatments start costing far more than they should, just so the hospitals can recoup some of their losses. So, since there is no one telling them otherwise, pharma companies sell you drugs at hundreds of times as much as they should cost, and do cost elsewhere, and every person involved at all in your stay at a hospital charges you separately, and often thousands of dollars each, sometimes for just looking in a door at you.

so now you get stuck with 50,000$ bills for a day or two in a hospital, more of which get defaulted on, and now the hospitals are constantly running understaffed on nurses, and working those nurses to the bone. All of this, and millions of people not getting treatment at all.

and then there is your competing insurance companies that will often leave you holding the 6 figure bag, trying to pay for your surgery you just had, and you were insured for.

It would cost the american public much less money to actually make up there minds one way or the other. I dont have any numbers for modern countries doing a completely free market approach to healthcare, but the ones for Single Payer systems exist, and are an improvement.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Jesus_lol

[Anomaly]

I guess j-lol is better at national accounting then the GAO.

Do some googling. Check out some "left" wing and "right" wing and"neutral" sites. It's expensive.

We are putting the government in control over healthcare decisions with national HC. Aren't Catholics pissed enough with recent events?

Lol is right that something needs to be done. Most likely it's not more government control, nor removal of all regulation, but a different approach that allows portability, choice of coverage, market freedoms with proper regulation and oversight.

[Anomaly]

Double

Edited April 5, 2012 by Anomaly

[Anomaly]

Triple Or evidence of thought diarrhea

Edited April 5, 2012 by Anomaly

[arfink]

I'm not planning on being too involved in this debate, but I'll add my two cents for now. The more I look at our (the United States') free-market capitalism the more I realize that subsidiarity does not equal free market capitalism. Free market capitalism encourages corporatism and centralization of all power, authority, and money. It's much better at respecting certain rights than, say, Socialism, but in other regards it's even more detrimental to a Catholic sense of social morality than Socialism would be.

Industrialism has run its course, and I believe our entire economic model and possibly our current governmental model has lost its base. What now? We'll have to fight it out, and it won't be perfect. Ever. Big deal. They didn't build Rome in a day, and it passed from this world, as all human things will do.

If our government choses to steal our property from us, tax us till we're dry, promote a holocaust of human life not seen since the days of Aztec human sacrifice, and force us to do things that violate our conscience then we as Christians will do what we have always done- live, suffer as Christ did, and die. In this way we shall claim our reward.

[Papist]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1333551080' post='2412859']
Us taxpayers do not have enough money to fund [b]proper [/b]healthcare for everyone.
[/quote]
[quote name='Jesus_lol' timestamp='1333593043' post='2413152']
you do actually. Canada spends less money per citizen on healthcare than the states does, and has much more complete coverage.

At the moment you have all the worst parts of both single payer systems and a completely government free system. That is, you have decided you need to treat everybody that shows up needing it, but have no actual way of paying for it. when most of them dont pay their medical bills, treatments start costing far more than they should, just so the hospitals can recoup some of their losses. So, since there is no one telling them otherwise, pharma companies sell you drugs at hundreds of times as much as they should cost, and do cost elsewhere, and every person involved at all in your stay at a hospital charges you separately, and often thousands of dollars each, sometimes for just looking in a door at you.

so now you get stuck with 50,000$ bills for a day or two in a hospital, more of which get defaulted on, and now the hospitals are constantly running understaffed on nurses, and working those nurses to the bone. All of this, and millions of people not getting treatment at all.

and then there is your competing insurance companies that will often leave you holding the 6 figure bag, trying to pay for your surgery you just had, and you were insured for.

It would cost the american public much less money to actually make up there minds one way or the other. I dont have any numbers for modern countries doing a completely free market approach to healthcare, but the ones for Single Payer systems exist, and are an improvement.
[/quote]

Please note the word "proper". Of course the us taxpayers can afford crappie healthcare for everyone.

[Archaeology cat]

At the risk of being called a socialist, I didn't find the NHS care to be crappy. Now, I don't think England's system would work in the US, because of the sheer size of the US, but it wasn't crappy in my experience. Being back in the US, I find a lot of wasteful spending in healthcare, and it can also be tough to navigate. I do think tort reform would help a lot, since part of the problem is the cost of malpractice insurance and/or the fear of being sued. My own GP here won't see me because I'm pregnant, which I assume is because of malpractice insurance. Just my opinion on all this, of course, but I do prefer and miss the NHS.

[eagle_eye222001]

40+ years ago, people went to the doctor and the hospital, and the fees were modest.

Now we live in a maze of costs, coverage, and large coverage abuse.

My family has had a few fights with the hospital over getting charged $10 for tissue boxes when my mom used one or two single tissues. Never mind that tissue boxes do not cost $10 a piece. The point is little is checked on proper pricing and coverage.

Tort reform is a must to stemming the costs along with insurance coverage reform.

Given the government's record on inefficient spending (education) along with the great pyramid ponzi schemes of social security, medicaid, and other such large programs, it would be unwise to think big government is the solution. I won't risk my liberty in the hands of the government.