NationStates Jolt Archive

The 'cost' of medical care
Thomas Sowell
May 4, 2004 (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040504.shtml)

If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor's office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid.

The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs -- and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both. In the case of medical care, the supply is a matter of life and death.

The average medical student graduates with a debt of more than $100,000. The cost per doctor of running an office is more than $100 an hour. The average cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is $800 million. These are among the costs of medical care.

When politicians talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," they are not talking about reducing any of these costs by one cent. They are talking about forcing prices down through one scheme or another.

All the existing efforts to control the rising expenses of medical care -- whether by government, insurance companies, or health maintenance organizations -- are about holding down the amount of money they have to pay out, not about reducing any of the real costs.

Many of the same politicians who are gung ho for imposing price controls on prescription drugs, or for importing Canadian price controls by importing American medicines from Canada, have not the slightest interest in stopping frivolous lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, or drug companies -- which are huge costs.

Price control zealots likewise seldom have any interest in reducing the amount of federal requirements for getting a drug approved for sale to the public -- a process that can easily drag on for a decade or more, costing millions of dollars, and also costing the lives of those who die while waiting for the drug to be approved by bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration.

For political purposes, what "bringing down the cost of medical care" means is some quick fix that will win votes at the next election, regardless of what the repercussions are thereafter.

What are those repercussions?

If the bureaucratic hassles that doctors have to go through make their huge investment in time and money going to medical school not seem worthwhile, some can retire early and some can take jobs no longer involving treating patients. Either way, the supply of medical care can begin to decline, even in the short run.

In the long run, medical school may no longer look like such a good investment to many in the younger generation. Britain, which has had government-run medical care for more than half a century, has to import doctors from the Third World, where medical school standards are lower.

So long as there are warm bodies with "M.D." after their names, there is no decline in supply, as far as politicians are concerned. Only the patients will find out, the hard way, what declining quality means.

No law passed by more than 500 members of Congress is going to be simple or even consistent. There are already 125,000 pages of Medicare regulations. "Universal health care" can only mean more.

I saw a vivid example of what bureaucratic medical care meant back in 1959, when I had a summer job at the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. Around 5 o'clock one afternoon, a man had a heart attack on the street near our office.

He was taken to the nurse's room and asked if he was a federal employee. If he was, he could be sent to the large, modern medical facility there in the Public Health Service headquarters. But he was not a government employee, so an ambulance was summoned from a local hospital.

By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of downtown Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. That is what bureaucracy means.

Making a government-run medical care system mandatory -- "universal" is the pretty word for mandatory -- means that we will all have no choice but to be caught up in that bureaucratic maze.

Better the poor die than have to endure a bit of beaurocracy, eh? :roll:

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Better the poor die than have to endure a bit of beaurocracy, eh? :roll:

It's evident that you didn't read the full editorial. If you did, then you'd have come up with a better, more provocative post to argue the other side. It is possible to argue the other side but you'd be much more affective if you took the editorial, piece by piece, and showed the perceived errors of the author's judgment. This would require that you would have to expose yourself to something that you didn't necessarily agree with and then do some critical thinking. Welcome to the world of a conservative; we have to do this all the damn time.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Yes it is, but it is not as easy as thinking "I know, I'll get a job," and is it right to disallow someone who cannot get employment at the time medical attention? Surely if they are given medical attention then they have the chance to get employment in the future, rather than dying or being disabled because society is too selfish too look after those who don't contribute to the society's economy.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

I have..I have been so poor that my family would pick mushrooms to sell to local restaurants...that I can't ever recall getting a new pair of pants growing up..they were always my older brother's...of constantly sewing up holes in socks because you couldn't afford new ones..but yet..not one dime of welfare did my father or mother ever take..they were not going to let them be considered victims, nor was I..I may have been born poor but doesn't mean I was going to stay poor.....thru my own sense of responsibility for my own actions...I scrimped..saved...worked a job AFTER I got done with farm chores, and family chores...and from thereon in I made the decision on whether or not I was going to be poor....There are jobs out there..some not pretty..some not the best paying, but there are jobs...a person may have to have two jobs..but that is life..it was never meant to be fair despite some countries attempt's to make it so.

dp

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

Ironically, "old money types" generally don't identify themselves as Republicans

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

On the contrary...I am one of those middle-class Republicans, I was even unemployed for over a year...officially that is..when my unemployment ran out, I just couldn't sit at home, my jobs were primarily white-collar but I did under the table work..I dug ditches, worked for a tree-removal company..anything to keep the money coming in.....But in my drives into the city to find work...I would see otherwise healthy young males sitting on their asses drinking a beer....apparently welfare money allows them to buy beer with the money received.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?
I think I have had this conversation with another person and after I told them the circumstances that surrounded my youth, the person replied that I was "lucky." If my family can go from what we did not have to what we have today, any American can do the same without one dime of government welfare.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

On the contrary...I am one of those middle-class Republicans, I was even unemployed for over a year...officially that is..when my unemployment ran out, I just couldn't sit at home, my jobs were primarily white-collar but I did under the table work..I dug ditches, worked for a tree-removal company..anything to keep the money coming in.....But in my drives into the city to find work...I would see otherwise healthy young males sitting on their asses drinking a beer....apparently welfare money allows them to buy beer with the money received.

Well, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about very wealthy families whose children don't have to work. You're one of the hard-working, blue-collar Republicans who people can respect, and who can appreciate what it means to have a job because you've been unemployed.

To some it's just a foreign concept...that you are resposible for you own actions...that it is up to you and you alone to change the station in life if you are not happy with it..a person will end being a victim the moment he/she decides they aren't.

Without the burdens of taxation/regulation medical care would be *much* cheaper than it is now, about half the price (Friedman's law: an unregulated free market can do something at about half the price of a regulated or govt one). Further, the tax burden is highest, not on the richest, but on the poorest. This is because of sales tax and national insurance, which fall disproportionately on the poor, as well as effects such as corporations tax being paid mainly by customers rather than out of profits.

The vast majority of people could aquire health care on the free market IF the taxation/regulation burden were removed or drastically reduced. The remaining few could be provided for by private charity. When the UK created the NHS the biggest opponents were healthcare charities.

You might say "some poor might have to forego healthcare in order to afford essentials like food" but, despite the unlikelyhood of this situation, what is the justification for then *forcing* them to buy the healthcare and do without the food as the current system would?

To some it's just a foreign concept...that you are resposible for you own actions...that it is up to you and you alone to change the station in life if you are not happy with it..a person will end being a victim the moment he/she decides they aren't.
very well put

Better the poor die than have to endure a bit of beaurocracy, eh? :roll:

It's evident that you didn't read the full editorial. If you did, then you'd have come up with a better, more provocative post to argue the other side. It is possible to argue the other side but you'd be much more affective if you took the editorial, piece by piece, and showed the perceived errors of the author's judgment. This would require that you would have to expose yourself to something that you didn't necessarily agree with and then do some critical thinking. Welcome to the world of a conservative; we have to do this all the damn time.

Hmmm. but on the flip-side I at least post my OWN thoughts up for discussion, not a professionally written article where the author is not available to defend their position.

And be fair - he was responding to New Auburnlands statement, not the article

-Z-

The 'cost' of medical care
Thomas Sowell
May 4, 2004 (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040504.shtml)

If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor's office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid.

The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs -- and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both. In the case of medical care, the supply is a matter of life and death.

The average medical student graduates with a debt of more than $100,000. The cost per doctor of running an office is more than $100 an hour. The average cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is $800 million. These are among the costs of medical care.

When politicians talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," they are not talking about reducing any of these costs by one cent. They are talking about forcing prices down through one scheme or another.

All the existing efforts to control the rising expenses of medical care -- whether by government, insurance companies, or health maintenance organizations -- are about holding down the amount of money they have to pay out, not about reducing any of the real costs.

Many of the same politicians who are gung ho for imposing price controls on prescription drugs, or for importing Canadian price controls by importing American medicines from Canada, have not the slightest interest in stopping frivolous lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, or drug companies -- which are huge costs.

Price control zealots likewise seldom have any interest in reducing the amount of federal requirements for getting a drug approved for sale to the public -- a process that can easily drag on for a decade or more, costing millions of dollars, and also costing the lives of those who die while waiting for the drug to be approved by bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration.

For political purposes, what "bringing down the cost of medical care" means is some quick fix that will win votes at the next election, regardless of what the repercussions are thereafter.

What are those repercussions?

If the bureaucratic hassles that doctors have to go through make their huge investment in time and money going to medical school not seem worthwhile, some can retire early and some can take jobs no longer involving treating patients. Either way, the supply of medical care can begin to decline, even in the short run.

In the long run, medical school may no longer look like such a good investment to many in the younger generation. Britain, which has had government-run medical care for more than half a century, has to import doctors from the Third World, where medical school standards are lower.

So long as there are warm bodies with "M.D." after their names, there is no decline in supply, as far as politicians are concerned. Only the patients will find out, the hard way, what declining quality means.

No law passed by more than 500 members of Congress is going to be simple or even consistent. There are already 125,000 pages of Medicare regulations. "Universal health care" can only mean more.

I saw a vivid example of what bureaucratic medical care meant back in 1959, when I had a summer job at the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. Around 5 o'clock one afternoon, a man had a heart attack on the street near our office.

He was taken to the nurse's room and asked if he was a federal employee. If he was, he could be sent to the large, modern medical facility there in the Public Health Service headquarters. But he was not a government employee, so an ambulance was summoned from a local hospital.

By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of downtown Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. That is what bureaucracy means.

Making a government-run medical care system mandatory -- "universal" is the pretty word for mandatory -- means that we will all have no choice but to be caught up in that bureaucratic maze.



Now, I'm not going to argue the fact that politicians put in quick fixes to get votes. That is a given. Nor am I going to argue how much debt a medical student accumulates. Because that is irrelevant.

However that seems to be this person's only argument. Bureaucracy=bad. Leave the poor health care system alone.

OK.

That's a starting place I guess. Let's totally unregulated the industry. Heck, let's even do away with those costly safety tests that add so much to the costs of drug development... OK, I'm stretching things here - but at what point does he suggest that regulation of the medical industry end?

Next, having done this: what is his suggestion on how to fix the cost of health care?


Oh wait - he doesn't have one! Not in this article anyway. Is there some general assumption that it will fix itself? IT will self-balance?

Here's a thought: Health Care is like almost no other industry.

Why? Because it deals with life and death.

This is not a case to the consumer of "Do I buy a Sony or a Hitachi". This is "There is this new patent protected drug out that that might just save your ass. If you want it.... it will cost you your house. Of course - if you're dead having the house is rather pointless now isn't it?" People will do without if you overprice a lot of things - but not health care. Few people will choose to do without life to save a buck.

And if the cost-benefit analysis for that new cancer drug states that at $100 per day with this cancer type the company will make 100 Million profit - but 25% of those with this disease will not be able to afford the drugs and die. At $50 per day only 3% of the afflicted will not be able to afford it, but the corporate profits will only be $70 Million. Wonder which way the guys on the board who just got 50,000 stock options are going to swing...

So - what are the options on how to reduce the price:

Clearly, there are fixed costs and variable costs to any industry. And then revenues and profits.

OK: fixed costs: equipment, salaries, R&D. Can't touch those.

Variable costs: Direct marketing campaigns. The thought that untrained patients are going to tell those well-trained doctors how to treat their ailments based on how funny an add for impotence they thought up is ridiculous. That is the tail wagging the dog. Also, how about the marketing to doctors that goes on "here - prescribe OUR impotence pills and get an all-expense paid trip to the Bahamas with your secretary for a 'conference'". That happens. That gets added to the drug company's overhead.. i.e to the price of the drugs/

How about lawsuit controls? That has been discussed. the sticking point seemed to be the absurdly low ceiling that the President wanted. Doesn't mean that it is not a possibility.

Lastly: profits. The more tiers of the flow of the commodity, the higher the final cost. Because each layer has carrying costs and profits. A $100 item passing through five companies to get to the consumer eac of whom wants to make 15% profit winds up costing the consumer $200. IF you can remove two of those five layers, it only costs him $150. Medical Equipment -> Medical Import/Export Supply Warehouse -> Hospital -> (via Insurance Company) -> Patient. Which two can you drop?

Also: Negotiated bulk rates. Why not let insurance companies with millions of customers buy the drugs directly at negotiated bulk rates (because they will rate them given the amount they are buying!) and pass a good portion of the savings on their customers? They would have to as otherwise one could undercut the other on rates.


There. A few things right off the top of my head. Real things that could change the costs to consumers. Feel free to disagree with them, but compared with your article at least I have some ideas rather than just negativity.


And once you have looked them over, ask yourself if what I have described isn't the Canadian Medical system? The two layers we cut? For profit hospitals, and for-profit insurance. And our single plan that we all subscribe to negotiates rates on our behalf. And we don't have to worry about them gouging us. Hell - if they turn a profit it's public money anyway.

-Z-

For what it's worth I agree that there should be some state provided healthcare - But it should not be universal healthcare but a safety net for the those who cannot afford private healthcare - decent people are subject to misfortune - I happen to think that it's in the states intrests to make productive people productive again. Universal healthcare is unworkable, expensive and generates too much needless bureaucracy and waste.

The nearest thing I have seen to universal state healthcare provision is the NHS in the UK (My country) - It's a failure pure and simple. Don't get me wrong my family has had to use it and I am grateful for that, but the NHS can never do the job it was created to do because to two things:

1. Too much demand on it's services and two few resouces. Ahh I hear you say, 'lets raise taxes and give it more money' - Thats been tried in the UK in the seventies and look what that did to the British economy. Also if you give the NHS more cash it does not get spent in the correct way. Leads me to point 2.....

2. Waste. The NHS sucks up tax payers money like nothing else. For Example they have 10 billion pounds (Thats about a quarter of the UK psbr) to spend what do they decide to do with it. More beds? More hospitals? More staff? Don't be silly (that would actually be a good thing) they are going to spend it on IT? Some of you may have heard about this as these are the largest IT contracts in history with firms like Accenture and BT as the major winners. This confirms a prejudice of mine that large government is usually bad.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

i have been. i've been homeless, i've lived in an inner city slum, and i've had to shower in my high school's locker room just to make myself presentable enough. and i agree with him...i never expected anybody else to fix my situation, and i worked my ass off to not be there any more. poor people may have gotten into their situation through no fault of their own, but if they stay there it's their own choices that do it. don't have kids you can't support, don't drop out of school, don't be another unskilled and incapable leach expecting society to take care of you.

In the 1980s the american FDA allowed production of a beta-blocker which they had banned for 10 years. Other countries had allowed it and it had no ill effects. The FDA claimed they would thus "save" 10 000 lives a year and expected to be praised for their wisdom. Translated from Bureaucratese to English this means the FDA effectively murdered 100 000 people in the 10 years it was banned. The problem is that it makes less waves for the bureaucrat to be overcautious. Thalydemide babies make headlines but nobody knows who the 100 000 victims were. Have all the drug regulations in all the world saved 100 000 lives? I'd guess not, but even then this 100 000 is from only a single example.

One economic study showed that the FDA reduced the number of new drugs by about 50% with *no noticable increase in quality*. Other industry insiders have claimed that if penicillin were invented today it would not make it to the market.

The other problem with regulations is that the regulatory body usually becomes a political tool of the industry itself (regulatory capture). After all, who can regulate doctors but other doctors? Thus the medical profession keeps down the number of doctors (by limiting the numbers of med students) in order to keep their salary up. The AMA is the most successful trade union in America. Similar things happen with lawyers, accountants and even barbers and plumbers which is why many of these services cost much more than they should.

An unregulated free market can provide services at about 1/2 the price of a regulated market or nationalised service. Thus abolishing taxation/regulation will mean your money is worth double what it is now. Add to this the effects of free trade, more investment and research, rapidly rising wages, reduced costs associated with paperwork, inefficiencies induced for tax evasion purposes and a dozen other factors and the free market is a much more attractive and moral option.

The threat of law suits which would damage the company both financially and, possibly more important for the future of the company, in its reputation for quality drugs, is enough to ensure they'll take high standards of safety precautions.

Zeppistan: If you think the poor will go without medical care check out my post on the previous page. The food industry deals with life and death as do the housing and cloathing industries, effectively. The fact that it is so important is an argument for less govt meddling not more, I don't care much if bureaucrats mess up the DIY industry but if they can get me killed....

None of the things you quote are fixed costs. Your discussions of layers is also flawed and in fact the direct opposite of the truth. This is why Sony is currently splitting itself into lots of pieces. The insurance companies idea might work but I suspect not, if it does they'll presumeably do this.

Sorry for the mammoth post!

Better the poor die than have to endure a bit of beaurocracy, eh? :roll:

It's evident that you didn't read the full editorial. If you did, then you'd have come up with a better, more provocative post to argue the other side. It is possible to argue the other side but you'd be much more affective if you took the editorial, piece by piece, and showed the perceived errors of the author's judgment. This would require that you would have to expose yourself to something that you didn't necessarily agree with and then do some critical thinking. Welcome to the world of a conservative; we have to do this all the damn time.

Hmmm. but on the flip-side I at least post my OWN thoughts up for discussion, not a professionally written article where the author is not available to defend their position.

And be fair - he was responding to New Auburnlands statement, not the article

-Z-

You should check on the placement of the post I quoted. Unless I'm seeing things, Myrth's post was second and right after the editorial!

The author, though not available for debate can and does read his e-mail. Go back to the first post - the one with the editorial - and click on the hyperlink I provided. At the bottom of the linked page there's a method to contact the author.

Now, in all fairness to you, you have done what I suggested, read the editorial, and provided your opinion for further discussion. Without meaning to be condescending, I must say that you did well. And, that's why I posted this thread, to hopefully provoke good discussion :!:

The 'cost' of medical care
Thomas Sowell
May 4, 2004 (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040504.shtml)

If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor's office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid.

The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs -- and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both. In the case of medical care, the supply is a matter of life and death.

The average medical student graduates with a debt of more than $100,000. The cost per doctor of running an office is more than $100 an hour. The average cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is $800 million. These are among the costs of medical care.

When politicians talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care," they are not talking about reducing any of these costs by one cent. They are talking about forcing prices down through one scheme or another.


the prices will be reduced because there will be less overlap, there will be savings in economies of scale, etc. and prices wont go down that much, its just that medicare will be paid through taxes and benifit everyone. yeah, the rich will pay more, but they pay for public schooling and maintaining roads and police and firemen and i dont see them complaigning about that.

All the existing efforts to control the rising expenses of medical care -- whether by government, insurance companies, or health maintenance organizations -- are about holding down the amount of money they have to pay out, not about reducing any of the real costs.

Many of the same politicians who are gung ho for imposing price controls on prescription drugs, or for importing Canadian price controls by importing American medicines from Canada, have not the slightest interest in stopping frivolous lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, or drug companies -- which are huge costs.


Price control zealots likewise seldom have any interest in reducing the amount of federal requirements for getting a drug approved for sale to the public -- a process that can easily drag on for a decade or more, costing millions of dollars, and also costing the lives of those who die while waiting for the drug to be approved by bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration.

the fda does a job thats tough. people that complaign about that bureaucracy dont remember phen phen or ephedra or a lot of other things. the lives the fda has saved is immeasureable. and drug companies can make the cost associated with it back within a few years easily.

[For political purposes, what "bringing down the cost of medical care" means is some quick fix that will win votes at the next election, regardless of what the repercussions are thereafter.

What are those repercussions?

If the bureaucratic hassles that doctors have to go through make their huge investment in time and money going to medical school not seem worthwhile, some can retire early and some can take jobs no longer involving treating patients. Either way, the supply of medical care can begin to decline, even in the short run.


hmos and malpractice insurance can also make doctotrs not want to work. if not as many people want to be doctors, med school prices will decrease. supply and demand. also, theres no reason the government wouldnt pay doctors as much as they are getting now privately.

In the long run, medical school may no longer look like such a good investment to many in the younger generation. Britain, which has had government-run medical care for more than half a century, has to import doctors from the Third World, where medical school standards are lower.

So long as there are warm bodies with "M.D." after their names, there is no decline in supply, as far as politicians are concerned. Only the patients will find out, the hard way, what declining quality means.

if we take that argument to its logical conclusion, police, firefiighters, and public school teachers are really just warm bodies of mediocre quality. we need everybody to pay for their own education and public safety to make sure the quality is high. if poor people cant afford police, oh well, they should get a goddamn job. at least as a wealthy person i know *I* am getting the best police money can buy.

No law passed by more than 500 members of Congress is going to be simple or even consistent. There are already 125,000 pages of Medicare regulations. "Universal health care" can only mean more.

lets do away with roads! and schools! and government! all that paperwork, all that hassel, i say, let those who can afford it live a good life and let the rest rot. if for no other reason then to stop all the paperwork.

I saw a vivid example of what bureaucratic medical care meant back in 1959, when I had a summer job at the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. Around 5 o'clock one afternoon, a man had a heart attack on the street near our office.

He was taken to the nurse's room and asked if he was a federal employee. If he was, he could be sent to the large, modern medical facility there in the Public Health Service headquarters. But he was not a government employee, so an ambulance was summoned from a local hospital.

By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of downtown Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. That is what bureaucracy means.

Making a government-run medical care system mandatory -- "universal" is the pretty word for mandatory -- means that we will all have no choice but to be caught up in that bureaucratic maze.

the man's problem was that there are too many different outlets for medicare. if everyone was on the same plan, hence *universal* health care, it wouldnt matter what the man was, somebody would have helped him. and one anicdotal case isnt convincing. im sure for every person that dies because of bureaucracy, ten more die because of poverty. and universal just means you have the option of being part of the health care system. to continue the theme, look at public schools. some people send their children to pivate schools. they escape the "maze". if you hate the system, you can always go to a private hospital, and im sure they will exsist. but listen, if public schooling can work, and public roads, and a ublic police department, i dont see why health care cant too. also, canada, western europe, pretty much all of the modern world has a health progream, so its not like its some impossible dream.

Give it a few more years and I'll be willing to bet that the business community (minus the health care industry and big Pharma) starts to be the one agitating for universal health care. Ask any small business owner who provides health care to his or her employees and they'll tell you that it's the biggest expense after labor costs.

It even affects large corporations. Why do you think Wal-Mart employees are overwhelmingly enrolled in state medicaid types of plans? Because Wal-Mart, despite the billions it makes, is unwilling to foot a big enough part of the health care bill so that its minimum wage earning employees can afford it. So if businesses can get the federal government to cover that cost for them, they'll do it. That's my bet, anyway.

Give it a few more years and I'll be willing to bet that the business community (minus the health care industry and big Pharma) starts to be the one agitating for universal health care. Ask any small business owner who provides health care to his or her employees and they'll tell you that it's the biggest expense after labor costs.

It even affects large corporations. Why do you think Wal-Mart employees are overwhelmingly enrolled in state medicaid types of plans? Because Wal-Mart, despite the billions it makes, is unwilling to foot a big enough part of the health care bill so that its minimum wage earning employees can afford it. So if businesses can get the federal government to cover that cost for them, they'll do it. That's my bet, anyway.

The problem is..they have to come up with the funds somewhere..and that can only come thru one source..taxing more on those of us who are working..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid programs..now for truly universal healthcare even more of my earnings would go for that....so would I get better service because I'm then paying for someone else to have healthcare?

Give it a few more years and I'll be willing to bet that the business community (minus the health care industry and big Pharma) starts to be the one agitating for universal health care. Ask any small business owner who provides health care to his or her employees and they'll tell you that it's the biggest expense after labor costs.

It even affects large corporations. Why do you think Wal-Mart employees are overwhelmingly enrolled in state medicaid types of plans? Because Wal-Mart, despite the billions it makes, is unwilling to foot a big enough part of the health care bill so that its minimum wage earning employees can afford it. So if businesses can get the federal government to cover that cost for them, they'll do it. That's my bet, anyway.

The problem is..they have to come up with the funds somewhere..and that can only come thru one source..taxing more on those of us who are working..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid programs..now for truly universal healthcare even more of my earnings would go for that....so would I get better service because I'm then paying for someone else to have healthcare?
No you would end up with something like our 'free' health service in the UK.
I pay national insurance and tax to fund it, so it can be free for all. Great I say, so I pay nothing else and anyone who is unemployed etc also does not have to pay. No! they don't have to pay for anything, but if I need some medicine I have to pay again!
So us workers are stung twice! Then if you earn enough you jump ship and get private health care, but you've got so much money you don't care. All us suckers in the middle are the one to get stuffed.
Do I sound bitter yet?

The problem is..they have to come up with the funds somewhere..and that can only come thru one source..taxing more on those of us who are working..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid programs..now for truly universal healthcare even more of my earnings would go for that....so would I get better service because I'm then paying for someone else to have healthcare?I look at it this way--we're paying for it already, whether in the form of higher prices for consumer goods or services (because companies providing health care are passing along the cost), in the form of higher state medicare/medicaid taxes (because people who aren't earning a living wage are applying for it, and getting it at least for their kids) or in higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of unpaid emergency room visits for people who don't have insurance. So I figure, if we're going to pay for it anyway, we might as well get a system that provides preventive care for everyone and we can reduce costs that way, while at the same time giving small businesses a break from their health care expenses and forcing the big boys to pay their fair share.

The problem is..they have to come up with the funds somewhere..and that can only come thru one source..taxing more on those of us who are working..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid programs..now for truly universal healthcare even more of my earnings would go for that....so would I get better service because I'm then paying for someone else to have healthcare?I look at it this way--we're paying for it already, whether in the form of higher prices for consumer goods or services (because companies providing health care are passing along the cost), in the form of higher state medicare/medicaid taxes (because people who aren't earning a living wage are applying for it, and getting it at least for their kids) or in higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of unpaid emergency room visits for people who don't have insurance. So I figure, if we're going to pay for it anyway, we might as well get a system that provides preventive care for everyone and we can reduce costs that way, while at the same time giving small businesses a break from their health care expenses and forcing the big boys to pay their fair share.

The problem with that though is I may be paying for it..indirectly..perhaps but I am DEFINITELY paying for it if you take it directly from my paycheck to pay for those who arent working....as I said..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid..now you want me to see even less in my paycheck to pay for "Universal healthcare"?

1) the prices will be reduced because there will be less overlap, there will be savings in economies of scale, etc. and prices wont go down that much, its just that medicare will be paid through taxes and benifit everyone. yeah, the rich will pay more, but they pay for public schooling and maintaining roads and police and firemen and i dont see them complaigning about that.

2) the fda does a job thats tough. people that complaign about that bureaucracy dont remember phen phen or ephedra or a lot of other things. the lives the fda has saved is immeasureable. and drug companies can make the cost associated with it back within a few years easily.

3) hmos and malpractice insurance can also make doctotrs not want to work. if not as many people want to be doctors, med school prices will decrease. supply and demand. also, theres no reason the government wouldnt pay doctors as much as they are getting now privately.

4) if we take that argument to its logical conclusion, police, firefiighters, and public school teachers are really just warm bodies of mediocre quality. we need everybody to pay for their own education and public safety to make sure the quality is high. if poor people cant afford police, oh well, they should get a goddamn job. at least as a wealthy person i know *I* am getting the best police money can buy.

5)lets do away with roads! and schools! and government! all that paperwork, all that hassel, i say, let those who can afford it live a good life and let the rest rot. if for no other reason then to stop all the paperwork.

6) the man's problem was that there are too many different outlets for medicare. if everyone was on the same plan, hence *universal* health care, it wouldnt matter what the man was, somebody would have helped him. and one anicdotal case isnt convincing. im sure for every person that dies because of bureaucracy, ten more die because of poverty. and universal just means you have the option of being part of the health care system. to continue the theme, look at public schools. some people send their children to pivate schools. they escape the "maze". if you hate the system, you can always go to a private hospital, and im sure they will exsist. but listen, if public schooling can work, and public roads, and a ublic police department, i dont see why health care cant too. also, canada, western europe, pretty much all of the modern world has a health progream, so its not like its some impossible dream.

1) Friedman's law: "An unregualted free market can provide a service about 1/2 the price of regulated or nationalised one". This is an empirical fact. Economies of scale apply to private companies, and then only to a point. Above that point big firms are less efficient. Govts are not efficient in any sense. Are big govts more efficient? No.

2) It is a tough job which is why the govt can't do it. They can't even deliver mail well for christ's sake. Did you read this part of my previous post?

"
PostPosted: Tue May 04, 2004 11:18 am Post subject:
In the 1980s the american FDA allowed production of a beta-blocker which they had banned for 10 years. Other countries had allowed it and it had no ill effects. The FDA claimed they would thus "save" 10 000 lives a year and expected to be praised for their wisdom. Translated from Bureaucratese to English this means the FDA effectively murdered 100 000 people in the 10 years it was banned. The problem is that it makes less waves for the bureaucrat to be overcautious. Thalydemide babies make headlines but nobody knows who the 100 000 silent victims were. Have all the drug regulations in all the world saved 100 000 lives? I'd guess not, but even then this 100 000 is from only a single example.

One economic study showed that the FDA reduced the number of new drugs by about 50% with *no noticable increase in quality*. Other industry insiders have claimed that if penicillin were invented today it would not make it to the market. "

3) The doctor's union (AMA) deliberately keeps the numbers of doctors down in order to keep their wages up which is just a small part of why medical care costs far too much.

4) Except for the sarcastic part, yeah. Poor people pay far higher % taxes than the rich. Poor people could easily afford police and other essential services IF the tax/regulations were abolished. In the very few cases where they couldn't (it's not as if unemployment would be a problem on a truly free market) private charity could easily pick up the slack, better than govt welfare does.

5) Now your talking! But the poor wouldn't rot for reasons I gave and could explain further if you like. In fact they'd have most to gain. By abolish I assume you mean privatise.

6) Here in the Uk the man would probably go straight to the back of an 8 month waiting list. Unless he were privilidged enough to afford private care on top of exhorbitant taxes. It is our system, not private care, which is truly the 2-tier system. I don't know what starry eyed vision you have of socialised medicine but it's dead wrong.

Sorry.... long post follows....

1) Friedman's law: "An unregualted free market can provide a service about 1/2 the price of regulated or nationalised one". This is an empirical fact. Economies of scale apply to private companies, and then only to a point. Above that point big firms are less efficient. Govts are not efficient in any sense. Are big govts more efficient? No.



While an intrinsicly sound general theory, where this falls down regarding health care is that there is no assumption in general economic principles that all possible customers must purchase a given product. If you wish to accept this maxim as supreme, then you must make the ethical and moral decision that a proportion of your population will not be able to afford health care, and that this is acceptable to you. That some people dying of preventable diseases is fine as long as the majority of the population gets the cheapest rates possible. That is, after all, a fundamental precept of market economics.

And if that is your feelings, then I can only hope that the twin disasters of unemployment and illness never hit you at the same time. Because at that point you are f_cked.

I mean, I do agree in principle that people should work to get out of the hole of poverty, however those of us who have done so have generally done it whil in good health. How does a person with a chronic, debilitating disease do that if they are denied the opportunity to control that disease to allow them to work or return to school? And in an economic downturn this path is made only that much longer and more arduous for those travelling it.

You also have to look at industries in general. Almost every industry goes through shakeup periods. Where perhaps a large player (or group thereof) attain a virtual monopoly. Do you want your health care costs to go up at the whim of a corporate board in the same way oil prices go up at the whim of OPEC? Do yu want to enjoy the period of instability when the government has to step into break that monopoly up?

In periods of instability, ask yourself if you want to experience possible disruptions in health care in the same way Californians experienced disruption in energy. That was all in the name of free market economics was it not? You mind going without health care sometimes if that is the result of forces in an unregulated market? "Sorry - no dialysis for you today.... maybe tomorrow....."

Do you mind the closure of small rural hospitals because they lend themselves to inefficiences and the cost-benefit analysis decrees that the gains from larger, more widely spaced care centers is more profit-optimal than retaining the smaller centers - even if a few lives per year do get lost due to increased transit times? I know the response: "you want to be near the hospital? MOVE!" OK...well who is it that has to stay behind at risk to perpetuate the farming industry? Or do we just give up on the wellbeing of the farmers as being counter to unregulated market economies? Let them make that choice and just assume that there will always be somebody poor enough and willing enough to make that sacrifice for themselves and their families. You're probably right - there will always be some willing. You just have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and be unaffected knowing that the two dollars per month you saved on health insurance was worth a life or two.


Zeppistan: If you think the poor will go without medical care check out my post on the previous page. The food industry deals with life and death as do the housing and cloathing industries, effectively. The fact that it is so important is an argument for less govt meddling not more, I don't care much if bureaucrats mess up the DIY industry but if they can get me killed....


Are you suggesting that nobody is homeless? Or receiving substandard housing? No families cannot afford to properly clothe themselves or their children for winter? That nobody is malnourished?

Or will you just hope that people who do care start contributing to stock "medicine banks" in the same way that they now stock food banks for those that can't afford to eat? That medical hostels and health kitchens will profilerate to care for all who need it. Make the health care of the poor dependant on the charity of the rich and just hope that it all works out ok?

I might also point out that in all of those industries you have far more options. You can eat dog food rather than steak if that's all you can afford. You can live on a park bench and get scooped up for vagrancy if you can't afford a house. Are you suggesting that people should see the vet if they can't afford the doctor? That roving doctors will scoop you up and deliveral you to a penal hospital for health-vagrancy? That there is are generic drugs at significantly cheaper rates than brand-name ones for every disease but that both will ultimately provide the same basic content? Clearly you haven't looked into drug patent protection laws. The generic version of many new treatments will be here.... next decade. In the meantime - what? Take two aspirin and call the morgue in the morning?


Or just that it's OK with you if the poor don't receive proper care?


None of the things you quote are fixed costs. Your discussions of layers is also flawed and in fact the direct opposite of the truth. This is why Sony is currently splitting itself into lots of pieces. The insurance companies idea might work but I suspect not, if it does they'll presumeably do this.


Now I'll grant you that what I listed were not true accounting-defined fixed costs such as hospital buildings, facotries, equipment, yada-yada. I just used that as a quick way to dismiss many items that aren't likely on the table to be changed. Not fixed costs, just items in the system that are not likely to be materially altered no matter what route is taken.

As to Sony Splitting itself, that is internal efficiencies to Sony. If internally they can cut costs then that is one saving, however I Was discussing the entire supply chain from Sony to you. If you are provided no option except to buy your new TV from a local retailer who buys from a distributer who buys from an importer who buys from the factory, then those costs are forced upon you. That is why factory outlets used to do big business before the internet. They cut out the profits of the middlman supplier and the retailer by taking on all of the tiers themselves. And that is why WalMart can get deals that Mom'nPops Sterio and TV cannot. And the WalMarts also generally offer to buy 10 million units per year for Sony under the agreement that Sony never undercuts their costs via direct marketing.


And again, there are diferences between retail consumer goods and health care. Current trends such as JIT inventory to save warehousing costs is great as long as you have tolerance for hiccups that leave the odd shelf empty once in a while. Our tolerance for "whoops - your ambulance is backordered... can you stay alive until tomorrow" is just not the same as waiting to get that new DVD player.

I should also point out that free market economies tend to specialize on providing costs per commodity according to sound financial principles. Your Walmart-world would negotiate great deals on common ailments, but decide not to address esoteric illnesses. Get a specialty disease? You gotta go to Freds Odd-illness luxury emporium.

Well, unless you put in regulations mandating that all players in your free market cover ALL diseases, at which point you have already destroyed the conceptual basis upon which your unregulated free market exists anyway.

In real life we only shop at the Ferrari dealership if we can afford it. But people rarely choose to be the one to get the new luxury-model disease like SARS. And that is the crux of my disagreement with the equation of health with all other industries. Economics is based on the balanced concepts of supply and demand, but demand is deemed to be price-variable. In the end though, ask most people what their life is worth in dollars and they will offer up every last penny they have. The indifference curve for life is a very different animal than that for TVs.


Yes, you can treat health care like any other commodity and you are quite correct that overall it will provide consumers with the best price possible for it's services. However in a true free market you just have to then accept that products sometimes sell out in a Christmas rush, and that there is no built-in notion that the consumer really NEEDS the product, and that there will only be certain diseases that most consumers will be able to afford to get. You must accept that the economic principles that govern corprations are the principles you value most above all, because we all know that corporations are notoriously ethical in their treatment of their customers and investors. And finally, you must acknowledge that the guiding principle for the well being of the people will not be that they be provided with the best possible health care, but rather with the most cost-effective health care that also provides for the maximization of profit for the industry.


You WILL save yourself a buck. But frankly, that's not the world I want to live in nor the level of care that I want to receive.


-Z-

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.
I am sure that they would love to get a job, but Bush just can't seem to manufacture anything these days, except maybe some lies:

http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/charts/bush_pvtjobs70.gif

But Halliburton is doing well in Iraq:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/04/09/sprj.irq.halliburton/

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15445

Cheney still has 233,000 shares of Halliburton stock.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

On the contrary...I am one of those middle-class Republicans, I was even unemployed for over a year...officially that is..when my unemployment ran out, I just couldn't sit at home, my jobs were primarily white-collar but I did under the table work..I dug ditches, worked for a tree-removal company..anything to keep the money coming in.....But in my drives into the city to find work...I would see otherwise healthy young males sitting on their asses drinking a beer....apparently welfare money allows them to buy beer with the money received.
"I did under the table work".....

Ummmm you mean you cheated the Government of tax dollars? Good Republican trait?

I have no idea how one could believe that free/universal healthcare is bad. Besides being the moral thing to do (you know, keeping people alive), I also support it because the atrocities of insurance companies in America. It's pure evil. The ridiculous amounts of money and services insurance has denied for my family makes me furious. This is because my younger sister is severely handicapped and has digressed terribly due to the denial of these services. Any industry that makes its money by refusing to give what you pay for is inherently evil.
Businessmen should not be determining whether a procedure is necessary or not, the doctor should!
I dug ditches, worked for a tree-removal company..anything to keep the money coming in.....But in my drives into the city to find work...I would see otherwise healthy young males sitting on their asses drinking a beer....apparently welfare money allows them to buy beer with the money received.
This is irrelevent to healthcare, but...once you've started a blue-collar job, the possibility of making more money is extremely limited unless you receive more training (which costs $$). And I'll throw in an applicable Bible verse for good measure:
"Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more." - Proverbs 31:6-7

I am sure that they would love to get a job, but Bush just can't seem to manufacture anything these days, except maybe some lies:
Also interesting to note that on the Bureau of Labor Statistics page in which that chart is found on (its a rather massive chart), it states that you cannot (its inaccurate) to compare directly year-to-year over a period of time such as the past 70 years. Politicians (Dems in this case) don't seem to mind that, though.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
then it becomes the individual's responsibility to not be one of those people left out.

Have you ever been poor?

Evidentally not seeing as he appears to be one of those Republicans who think poor people are just poor because they're lazy. :roll:

Ironically, the Republicans who think that are the old money types who are the laziest people in the world. The hard-working, blue-collar Republicans are good people who can appreciate the situation someone who's unemployed.

On the contrary...I am one of those middle-class Republicans, I was even unemployed for over a year...officially that is..when my unemployment ran out, I just couldn't sit at home, my jobs were primarily white-collar but I did under the table work..I dug ditches, worked for a tree-removal company..anything to keep the money coming in.....But in my drives into the city to find work...I would see otherwise healthy young males sitting on their asses drinking a beer....apparently welfare money allows them to buy beer with the money received.
"I did under the table work".....

Ummmm you mean you cheated the Government of tax dollars? Good Republican trait?

And speaking as someone who bartended for over a decade - let me assure you that the bulk of those young men at the bar all afternoon are NOT on welfare. Welfare never paid enough to let people afford that. Not up here any way.

Where you show your bias is in assuming that the whole world only works office hours.

The bulk, in my experience, were blue collar workers who have jobs that don't run 9-5. Night shift factory workers. The guys that drive the delivery trucks from 4 a.m. getting newspapers to every convenience store in the morning and finish up at noon. Off-duty cab drivers. Firemen on their off-shift days. Roofers who take a break during the hottest hours of a summer day and then work longer into the night. All the people that work at everything you ever go to after you finish your regular office job.

Yeah, there are some bums and criminals in the crowd - same as in the evening. But they were in the minority in my experience.


-Z-

I am sure that they would love to get a job, but Bush just can't seem to manufacture anything these days, except maybe some lies:
Also interesting to note that on the Bureau of Labor Statistics page in which that chart is found on (its a rather massive chart), it states that you cannot (its inaccurate) to compare directly year-to-year over a period of time such as the past 70 years. Politicians (Dems in this case) don't seem to mind that, though.
It does not negate the FACT that George Bush Jr. will be only the 2nd President in the past 70 years whose administration resulted in NET JOB LOSSES, nevermind the fact that the administration suggested that they would CREATE 300,000 jobs per month with the "tax cuts". However, the administration is not even keeping up with the minimum requirement of 125,000 new jobs per month. The average being created is only 108,429.

http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/ber.htm

NET JOBS LOST (2.6 Million)

PLUS the LONG TERM Unemployement has TRIPLED.

Finally, there are now 3.8 Million more Americans without healthcare since Bush took office, and 3 Million more Americans living in poverty.

It is hard to find jobs that don't exist??

1) Friedman's law: "An unregualted free market can provide a service about 1/2 the price of regulated or nationalised one". This is an empirical fact. Economies of scale apply to private companies, and then only to a point. Above that point big firms are less efficient. Govts are not efficient in any sense. Are big govts more efficient? No.

economies of scale apply to everyone. govbernments ARE businesses in a sense, and costs go down when you buy in bulk. yeah, it only works to a point, but it still works. and medical care, i think, should be one of those things that isnt about efficiency. in fact, its time for a little story.

back in the day, all the peasants knew that they wouldnt be able to afford a doctor should they need one. they were poor, and doctors cost a lot of money. so, these people decided they should band together, put say, 20 bucks in a month, and then they could get a doctor whenever they wanted. everyone thought this was a great idea and the pot of 20 dollars grew and grew until the peasants couldnt manage it any more. they hired someone to look after it and count all the money for them, sice they had to go and do whatever it is peasants do. soon, the overseer of the fund came to think of the money as his own. he wanted to pay out less and less and would only accept people into the fund if he knew he wouldnt have to pay out for a long long time. at first, people with histories of cancer and heart disease or smokers werent let in. nobody listened to them because they were a small percentage and didnt matter to anyone. but soon, only vegan kenyan marathon runners were let in the fund. everyone in all the land thought it was an amazingly well run business. it made a lot of money and everyone involved with it got rich. it hired the best doctors and those that werte in it were cured instantly. but the peasants who had originally started the fund found they were rejected from it, and all died because they weren't able to pay for a doctor because they didnt fit into the overseer's business model.

moral: effeciency is awesome for car companies. not so much for medical care.

government would be a neutral third party to make sure everyone could get health care, even kids who are born to poor families and people who lose their jobs and get sick at the same time. and before i hear any more of the "pulled myself up by the bootstrap" stories, i ask you, how many of you were undergoing chemotherapy while doing odd, under the table jobs?

2) It is a tough job which is why the govt can't do it. They can't even deliver mail well for christ's sake. Did you read this part of my previous post?

no, i havent read all this thread, just the first post and now this one. actually, i went and read it and it just seems like boo hoo hoo, there's a bureaucracy. id be intrested in the source, probably put out by a drug company. but even if it is legitimate, and yeah, there is such a thing as too much bureaucracy, who else will moniter drug safety? phizer? or maybe we should go back to the good old days of havig heroine as an acceptable cold cure?"

3) The doctor's union (AMA) deliberately keeps the numbers of doctors down in order to keep their wages up which is just a small part of why medical care costs far too much.

beautiful. so, an interest group is able to keep a comodity (doctors) at a high, artifically inflated price by manipulating capitalism? seems like an argument for socialism to me. dont you think this could be changed if the us had, say, a coherent public health policy?

4) Except for the sarcastic part, yeah. Poor people pay far higher % taxes than the rich. Poor people could easily afford police and other essential services IF the tax/regulations were abolished. In the very few cases where they couldn't (it's not as if unemployment would be a problem on a truly free market) private charity could easily pick up the slack, better than govt welfare does.

you said it yourself, they pay a higher percentage tax. so if they had to pay 200 dollars for police, 300 dollars for firefighting, 1,000 dollars for public education. that's 1500 a month. tell me how the poor are in a position to pay for it? and dont even get me started with unemployment and the free market.

5) Now your talking! But the poor wouldn't rot for reasons I gave and could explain further if you like. In fact they'd have most to gain. By abolish I assume you mean privatise.

so, that 1500 is 50% of a person's income if they make 3,000 but only, 20% if the person makes 7,500. id like you to explain how the poor having to pay the same for services as the rich is going to do them good. how increasing their cost of living will be the end to all their problems. please, please, lay it on me.

6) Here in the Uk the man would probably go straight to the back of an 8 month waiting list. Unless he were privilidged enough to afford private care on top of exhorbitant taxes. It is our system, not private care, which is truly the 2-tier system. I don't know what starry eyed vision you have of socialised medicine but it's dead wrong.

here in the us if that man didnt have a job, he wouldnt be looked at at all. you dont have ER's in the uk? damn, you people are more backwards than i thought.

The problem with that though is I may be paying for it..indirectly..perhaps but I am DEFINITELY paying for it if you take it directly from my paycheck to pay for those who arent working....as I said..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid..now you want me to see even less in my paycheck to pay for "Universal healthcare"?First off, you're not taxed that heavily for Medicare, and secondly, you'd have a solid argument to demand a raise from your employer--his health costs have disappeared, so he can afford to give you a raise.

But more importantly, a system that covers everyone and provides real preventive health care will be more effective and more efficient than the current one which basically rewards the uninsured neglecting their health until it gets so bad they've got to go to the emergency room. Throw in the ability of the government as a purchaser to leverage big Pharma for lower prices and you increase the savings potential.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.
I am sure that they would love to get a job, but Bush just can't seem to manufacture anything these days, except maybe some lies:

http://jec.senate.gov/democrats/charts/bush_pvtjobs70.gif

But Halliburton is doing well in Iraq:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/04/09/sprj.irq.halliburton/

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15445

Cheney still has 233,000 shares of Halliburton stock.

Someone should take a graphic of an aircraft [with a video file maybe] and have it repeatedly slam into Clinton's 2.6 bar of this graph. Maybe that would drive the point home a little better, eh?

First off, you're not taxed that heavily for Medicare, and secondly, you'd have a solid argument to demand a raise from your employer--his health costs have disappeared, so he can afford to give you a raise.

But more importantly, a system that covers everyone and provides real preventive health care will be more effective and more efficient than the current one which basically rewards the uninsured neglecting their health until it gets so bad they've got to go to the emergency room. Throw in the ability of the government as a purchaser to leverage big Pharma for lower prices and you increase the savings potential.
I can tell your not a Poli Sci major. Taxes only add up - very, very rarely are they removed once in place. Giving everyone a 'raise' increases the cost of everything (the companies just pass it on in increases to the costs for the customers), thereby making that 'raise' disappear. No, I repeat, no government-run health care system in the world can compete with free enterprise when it comes to researching new technologies because the benefit with new technologies can create additional sources of revenue for the researcher. If governments come in and try to leverage pharmacies, pharmacies increase costs, thereby ignoring the leverage and effectively reducing new drugs on the market. The government needs to step out and give charities and other business alternatives fix the problem.

The problem with that though is I may be paying for it..indirectly..perhaps but I am DEFINITELY paying for it if you take it directly from my paycheck to pay for those who arent working....as I said..I am already taxed heavily to pay for Medicare and Medicaid..now you want me to see even less in my paycheck to pay for "Universal healthcare"?First off, you're not taxed that heavily for Medicare, and secondly, you'd have a solid argument to demand a raise from your employer--his health costs have disappeared, so he can afford to give you a raise.

But more importantly, a system that covers everyone and provides real preventive health care will be more effective and more efficient than the current one which basically rewards the uninsured neglecting their health until it gets so bad they've got to go to the emergency room. Throw in the ability of the government as a purchaser to leverage big Pharma for lower prices and you increase the savings potential.

On the contrary..I am taxed heavily in my opinion..whereby .20% goes to Federal and at last count 5% to the State..that is WAY to much in my opinion, yet you would have no problem with them taking MORE out of my check?..Hey..ever think that I might want that extra $50 or so?

First off, you're not taxed that heavily for Medicare, and secondly, you'd have a solid argument to demand a raise from your employer--his health costs have disappeared, so he can afford to give you a raise.

But more importantly, a system that covers everyone and provides real preventive health care will be more effective and more efficient than the current one which basically rewards the uninsured neglecting their health until it gets so bad they've got to go to the emergency room. Throw in the ability of the government as a purchaser to leverage big Pharma for lower prices and you increase the savings potential.
I can tell your not a Poli Sci major. Taxes only add up - very, very rarely are they removed once in place. Giving everyone a 'raise' increases the cost of everything (the companies just pass it on in increases to the costs for the customers), thereby making that 'raise' disappear. No, I repeat, no government-run health care system in the world can compete with free enterprise when it comes to researching new technologies because the benefit with new technologies can create additional sources of revenue for the researcher. If governments come in and try to leverage pharmacies, pharmacies increase costs, thereby ignoring the leverage and effectively reducing new drugs on the market. The government needs to step out and give charities and other business alternatives fix the problem.

There is more to health care than new technologies. There is having your population being able to afford to benefit from them.

As mentioned, the argument for deregulation only works as long as you are morally willing to consign good portions of your citizens to poor (or no) health care. If that is the case, then you will get what you claim.

However some of us put some things above economics. It's the reason we give to charities. The reason we help out after a disaster. And the reason we are willing to sacrifice a bit of efficiency in this industry in favour of universal access to basic needs.

A blanket assumption that charity will pick up the slack to your satisfaction either abdicates your own moral obligation in this area, or at least defines what you think of it.

If your system comes to pass - I just hope for your sake that you never wind up unemployed and gravely ill at the same time. I doubt if that came to pass you would be able to look at it in the simply abstract terms as you are doing now.

-Z-

http://jec.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=DataPipes.ViewImage&Image_id=69&ImageStoreType_id=1

http://jec.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=DataPipes.ViewImage&Image_id=75&ImageStoreType_id=1

Well, what do ya know. These charts from the very same main website [granted, one that wasn't on the Democrat's partisan page] that the other chart on this thread came from!

Health care should be provided for all her needed. There's no debate for this. It's a human right, that's not observed, and should be. Unfortuantely, economical factors of health are more important than the people that need to be helped in this world.

It does not negate the FACT that George Bush Jr. will be only the 2nd President in the past 70 years whose administration resulted in NET JOB LOSSES, nevermind the fact that the administration suggested that they would CREATE 300,000 jobs per month with the "tax cuts". However, the administration is not even keeping up with the minimum requirement of 125,000 new jobs per month. The average being created is only 108,429.
You're blowing the whistle too early. If he gets a 2nd term, and if the numbers continue at the rate they have been recently, the growth will be net positive. That would leave Herbert Hoover as the only one. Heck, at 300,000 a month (as it was in March), you have April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, and January - if Bush gets voted out. Thats still 10 months - over 3 million jobs, which even that alone would put Bush in the black, and thats without a bubble like Clinton.

On the contrary..I am taxed heavily in my opinion..whereby .20% goes to Federal and at last count 5% to the State..that is WAY to much in my opinion, yet you would have no problem with them taking MORE out of my check?..Hey..ever think that I might want that extra $50 or so?I've said it before and I'll continue to say it. Taxes are the dues we pay for an advanced society, and here in the US, generally speaking, we're woefully undertaxed as citizens and we're even worse on collecting from corporations. If we did a better job on getting tax money from the so-called economic engines in this country, then the citizens wouldn't be called on to pay even what they do.

In the US, we've got this silly notion that we can have the most technologically advanced military in the world and deploy it anywhere we want to, have the best road system, have cheap gas and oil, have a security net for the aged, have food and drug and clear water and air protections, have all these things that we've grown accustomed to having the federal and state governments provide and yet not pay for them with taxes. We need to get past this idea that paying taxes is somehow evil--paying taxes in order to improve our society is patriotic.

I've said it before and I'll continue to say it. Taxes are the dues we pay for an advanced society, and here in the US, generally speaking, we're woefully undertaxed as citizens and we're even worse on collecting from corporations. If we did a better job on getting tax money from the so-called economic engines in this country, then the citizens wouldn't be called on to pay even what they do.

In the US, we've got this silly notion that we can have the most technologically advanced military in the world and deploy it anywhere we want to, have the best road system, have cheap gas and oil, have a security net for the aged, have food and drug and clear water and air protections, have all these things that we've grown accustomed to having the federal and state governments provide and yet not pay for them with taxes. We need to get past this idea that paying taxes is somehow evil--paying taxes in order to improve our society is patriotic.

Do you know how business pay for the amount that they are taxed?

Do you know what a "dead weight loss" is?

I do agree that taxes are a necessity but it's the wealth holding individuals in this country (and outside of it) that provide the very financing to purchase land, labor, and capital. Tax them too much and they'll no longer provide it.

Do you know how business pay for the amount that they are taxed?

Do you know what a "dead weight loss" is?

I do agree that taxes are a necessity but it's the wealth holding individuals in this country (and outside of it) that provide the very financing to purchase land, labor, and capital. Tax them too much and they'll no longer provide it.There's a problem with your final premise--money doesn't replicate itself magically. If you have money and want to keep having it, it's got to be invested, no matter what the tax ramifications are. Yes, there is an upper limit at which point it's no longer worth it to try, but in the US we're nowhere near that limit. We're not even remotely close. We still had economic growth in this country when the highest tax rate was over 70%--and I'm not even suggesting we should return to anywhere near that level.

The idea that if you tax the wealthy too much they'll stop investing is a foolish one--wealthy people want to invest because it's easier than working for one, and because if they want to stay wealthy, they have to continue to grow their money. But they've suckered the working class into thinking that they provide all these benefits if we make it easier for them to keep what they've got and get more. No thanks--if they're going to enjoy a disproportionate share of the benefits, they need to bear a disproportionate share of the load.

the other problem is if you dont tax the wealthy or control the economy a little bit, society becomes polarized. back in the 1912, when the whole idea of "dont tax the wealthy, they drive the economy" was at its fullest, coal workers made $22.80 and a first class ticket on the titanic was $870. taxing the rich spreads out income, and cutting taxes for consumers provides a consumer base. plus, all of icertona's arguments, that investing wont end because tax rates go up.

Health care should be provided for all her needed. There's no debate for this. It's a human right, that's not observed, and should be. Unfortuantely, economical factors of health are more important than the people that need to be helped in this world.

Excuse me....healthcare is a right?...now where in my Constitution (being an American) does it say that providing healthcare is a right?...I must have missed that one..You want to help people...fine..do it with your money...I have enough to deal with in my own family thank you very much.

Excuse me....healthcare is a right?...now where in my Constitution (being an American) does it say that providing healthcare is a right?...I must have missed that one..You want to help people...fine..do it with your money...I have enough to deal with in my own family thank you very much.

It's the right to live.

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Excuse me....healthcare is a right?...now where in my Constitution (being an American) does it say that providing healthcare is a right?...I must have missed that one..You want to help people...fine..do it with your money...I have enough to deal with in my own family thank you very much.

It's the right to live.

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Ahmmm..right to live..and right to healthcare are two VERY different things, no one is saying that a person can't be born..well..some do depending on your perspective...but your CONTINUED existence should not be my problem..my money...I have my own family to provide for.

Ahmmm..right to live..and right to healthcare are two VERY different things, no one is saying that a person can't be born..well..some do depending on your perspective...but your CONTINUED existence should not be my problem..my money...I have my own family to provide for.

You need health care to survive. Why should you die because you were born into the wrong family?

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Ahmmm..right to live..and right to healthcare are two VERY different things, no one is saying that a person can't be born..well..some do depending on your perspective...but your CONTINUED existence should not be my problem..my money...I have my own family to provide for.

You need health care to survive. Why should you die because you were born into the wrong family?

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Hey...life isn't fair..never was..and never has been..the sooner some realize it the better off they will be an in place themselves in a position where they can obtain their own healthcare

Hey...life isn't fair..never was..and never has been..the sooner some realize it the better off they will be an in place themselves in a position where they can obtain their own healthcare

That's a very weak argument. This example of unfairness can be stopped. Why shouldn't it be? So you can keep the slim chance of getting massive amounts of paper that are only useful because the government says they are and backs them up by force?

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

It does not negate the FACT that George Bush Jr. will be only the 2nd President in the past 70 years whose administration resulted in NET JOB LOSSES, nevermind the fact that the administration suggested that they would CREATE 300,000 jobs per month with the "tax cuts". However, the administration is not even keeping up with the minimum requirement of 125,000 new jobs per month. The average being created is only 108,429.
You're blowing the whistle too early. If he gets a 2nd term, and if the numbers continue at the rate they have been recently, the growth will be net positive. That would leave Herbert Hoover as the only one. Heck, at 300,000 a month (as it was in March), you have April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, and January - if Bush gets voted out. Thats still 10 months - over 3 million jobs, which even that alone would put Bush in the black, and thats without a bubble like Clinton.
One month does not make a recovery and the fact is hat even with that unusual burst, the unemployment rate increased from 5.6% to 5.7%.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/02/news/economy/jobs

But Democrats noted that nearly 24 percent of jobless workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more -- a 20-year high -- a sign, they say, that the labor market still has a ways to go.

"After three years of punishing job losses, the one- month job creation announced today is welcome news for America's workers. I hope it continues," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Bush's likely opponent in November, said in a statement. "But for too many families, living through the worst job recovery since the Great Depression has been, and continues to be, far too painful."

BTW 300,000 jobs over the next 10 months would still leave Bush almost a million jobs short of the black. Remember that the economy needs to create 125,000 jobs per month just to break even with NEW people coming into the work force.

Please don't speak of being "highly taxed" before you pay around 60% of your income in various taxes (yes, a Real Life situation, actually, though not mine since I'm a poor student *g*).

And boy, ain't I glad to live in a country where medical care is considered the responsibility of the state instead of those who can afford it. Sure it can be a bit slow at times, but if you've got the money, you can pay the private sector prices and bypass the lines.

Still, even poor people get treated.

And incidentially, there aren't as many 'cheap jobs' around here as there are in the States, so don't tell me I should be able to get a job if I just tried a little.

It does not negate the FACT that George Bush Jr. will be only the 2nd President in the past 70 years whose administration resulted in NET JOB LOSSES, nevermind the fact that the administration suggested that they would CREATE 300,000 jobs per month with the "tax cuts". However, the administration is not even keeping up with the minimum requirement of 125,000 new jobs per month. The average being created is only 108,429.
You're blowing the whistle too early. If he gets a 2nd term, and if the numbers continue at the rate they have been recently, the growth will be net positive. That would leave Herbert Hoover as the only one. Heck, at 300,000 a month (as it was in March), you have April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, and January - if Bush gets voted out. Thats still 10 months - over 3 million jobs, which even that alone would put Bush in the black, and thats without a bubble like Clinton.
One month does not make a recovery and the fact is hat even with that unusual burst, the unemployment rate increased from 5.6% to 5.7%.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/02/news/economy/jobs

But Democrats noted that nearly 24 percent of jobless workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more -- a 20-year high -- a sign, they say, that the labor market still has a ways to go.

"After three years of punishing job losses, the one- month job creation announced today is welcome news for America's workers. I hope it continues," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Bush's likely opponent in November, said in a statement. "But for too many families, living through the worst job recovery since the Great Depression has been, and continues to be, far too painful."

BTW 300,000 jobs over the next 10 months would still leave Bush almost a million jobs short of the black. Remember that the economy needs to create 125,000 jobs per month just to break even with NEW people coming into the work force.

Odd situation for me. I do not favor social health care yet I do believe that everyone should have basic health care made available to them. It is amazing how the costs of healthcare and medication keep skyrocketing.

There is no quick fix but it would seem that attacking administrative costs and large salaries for top administrators would be a good place to start. There are just too many catch 22's currently. However, priority should be given to the very young and the elderly.

Heck I don't know and even if I did explaining it here would not help ease anyone's needs.

There's a problem with your final premise--money doesn't replicate itself magically. If you have money and want to keep having it, it's got to be invested, no matter what the tax ramifications are. Yes, there is an upper limit at which point it's no longer worth it to try, but in the US we're nowhere near that limit. We're not even remotely close. We still had economic growth in this country when the highest tax rate was over 70%--and I'm not even suggesting we should return to anywhere near that level.

The idea that if you tax the wealthy too much they'll stop investing is a foolish one--wealthy people want to invest because it's easier than working for one, and because if they want to stay wealthy, they have to continue to grow their money. But they've suckered the working class into thinking that they provide all these benefits if we make it easier for them to keep what they've got and get more. No thanks--if they're going to enjoy a disproportionate share of the benefits, they need to bear a disproportionate share of the load.

There are securities markets located all around the world and in those markets there are other assets to buy that are not American. In fact, if you heard or read Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan just yesterday (May 6th) he warns that U.S. capital inflows from foriegn sources have been financing American debt for the past two decades. He whent on to warn that that trend may be starting to reverse itself and at some point could get violent.

And, here's another fact for the class warfare rhetoric spewers: the Congressional Budget Office - using 2001 data from the IRS - made a chart that shows that the top 20% of households, by income, paid 83% of the federal tax burden while raking in just 46% of the U.S. income.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
There's always a job. Anyone can join the military and get free health coverage.

how about the poor get off their ass and find jobs to pay for their medical care or find jobs with medical insurance.

And if there are not enough jobs to go around?
There's always a job. Anyone can join the military and get free health coverage.

unless, of course, you arent physically fit for military service, or a conscientious objector, or over the age of 45

Hey...life isn't fair..never was..and never has been..the sooner some realize it the better off they will be an in place themselves in a position where they can obtain their own healthcare

That's a very weak argument. This example of unfairness can be stopped. Why shouldn't it be? So you can keep the slim chance of getting massive amounts of paper that are only useful because the government says they are and backs them up by force?

-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!

http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Weak argument?...It's not supposed to be an argument at all...I work..I provide for my family...that is the extent of my personal obligation..what you want is for me to pay out of some altruistic sense of compassion, sorry miss...I don't feel sorry for them...each life is what you make of it, and before anyone or you says "Well you'd feel differently if you were poor"...I'd been there..done that..got pas it..worked my ass off to better myself...I never asked for a hand out..never expected anything that what I'd paid into..and those pieces of paper you refer too....they buy my family the groceries..ensure the house over my head..a vehicle I can get to and from work...and when called upon...pay my co-pay to see my doctor...if you wish to pay for those that don't have healthcare..put your money where your mouth is..in fact...let's just all have a item put on our tax returns that says "I wish to donate x amount of money to those who have no health insurance"...you can pat yourself on the back then and feel so much more superior to me because you gave a damn.

There are securities markets located all around the world and in those markets there are other assets to buy that are not American. In fact, if you heard or read Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan just yesterday (May 6th) he warns that U.S. capital inflows from foriegn sources have been financing American debt for the past two decades. He whent on to warn that that trend may be starting to reverse itself and at some point could get violent.

And, here's another fact for the class warfare rhetoric spewers: the Congressional Budget Office - using 2001 data from the IRS - made a chart that shows that the top 20% of households, by income, paid 83% of the federal tax burden while raking in just 46% of the U.S. income.I have to admit, the foreign ownership of our debt bugs the hell out of me, expecially since we're adding to the debt at a furious rate. Fiscal responsibility needs to be part of the US national security plan.

As to your second point, I'm pretty sure your numbers are accurate, but I'd like to know where you got them from. I'd like to see the breakdown as you get closer to the top 1% in terms of overall tax burden, especially in terms of their actual income levels. After all, in order to be in the top 50% of income earners, all you have to make is about $26,000 a year. There are a lot of places where it's tough to survive on that, and yet that puts you in the top half.

BTW 300,000 jobs over the next 10 months would still leave Bush almost a million jobs short of the black. Remember that the economy needs to create 125,000 jobs per month just to break even with NEW people coming into the work force.
No, because the net amount of jobs created would still be positive. Unemployment would be higher, but job creation/loss would be positive.

Weak argument?...It's not supposed to be an argument at all...I work..I provide for my family...that is the extent of my personal obligation..what you want is for me to pay out of some altruistic sense of compassion, sorry miss...I don't feel sorry for them...each life is what you make of it, and before anyone or you says "Well you'd feel differently if you were poor"...I'd been there..done that..got pas it..worked my ass off to better myself...I never asked for a hand out..never expected anything that what I'd paid into..and those pieces of paper you refer too....they buy my family the groceries..ensure the house over my head..a vehicle I can get to and from work...and when called upon...pay my co-pay to see my doctor...if you wish to pay for those that don't have healthcare..put your money where your mouth is..in fact...let's just all have a item put on our tax returns that says "I wish to donate x amount of money to those who have no health insurance"...you can pat yourself on the back then and feel so much more superior to me because you gave a damn.

first of all, letalia is a guy. second of all, welfare is not about altruism, its about creating stability in society. if you have a lot of poor people dying in the gutter, there will be riots. if you have to do emergency procedure on people who let their health get so bad, they need quadruple bi-pass surgery, youre going to pay a lot more money than you would if youd just let them go see a doctor once a year. providing for the poor and forgottten isnt about altruism, its about making sure they dont radicalize. its about stopping ghettos from spreading. a large forgotten amount of poor people is always, always a bad idea. its not about us picking up after them, its about us providing just enough that they dont demand anymore violently. welfare saved europe from communism. it saved 18th century germany from anarchists. and if we dont cave in just a bit to the destitute's demands? well, ask louis xvi sometime if ignoring the lower classes is a good idea.

BTW 300,000 jobs over the next 10 months would still leave Bush almost a million jobs short of the black. Remember that the economy needs to create 125,000 jobs per month just to break even with NEW people coming into the work force.
No, because the net amount of jobs created would still be positive. Unemployment would be higher, but job creation/loss would be positive.
Creative Math Concepts 101?

No, Macroeconomics 101. It invovles doing something other than copying and pasting.

See, there's many different terms and figures in economics. When 125,000 people a year enter the jobforce, thats not 125,000 jobs lost. Thats exactly what it says : 125,000 new people joining the job force. Unemployment is what would really be affected by that, as although jobs may be created, they're not being created fast enough to both restore the job losses in the past few years and accomodate the newcomers. To say that, because of the newcomers that Bush would have a negative job creation is wrong.

Health care should be provided for all her needed. There's no debate for this. It's a human right, that's not observed, and should be. Unfortuantely, economical factors of health are more important than the people that need to be helped in this world.

Excuse me....healthcare is a right?...now where in my Constitution (being an American) does it say that providing healthcare is a right?...I must have missed that one..You want to help people...fine..do it with your money...I have enough to deal with in my own family thank you very much.I think it can be interpreted that the government has the responsibility to provide health care for its citizens from the Preamble to the Constitution.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I think the people in favor of a universal health care system have shown that it would indeed promote the general Welfare of the citizenry as a whole.

No, Macroeconomics 101. It invovles doing something other than copying and pasting.

See, there's many different terms and figures in economics. When 125,000 people a year enter the jobforce, thats not 125,000 jobs lost. Thats exactly what it says : 125,000 new people joining the job force. Unemployment is what would really be affected by that, as although jobs may be created, they're not being created fast enough to both restore the job losses in the past few years and accomodate the newcomers. To say that, because of the newcomers that Bush would have a negative job creation is wrong.
When you get it figured out accurately, let me know.

http://www.jobwatch.org/index.html