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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| United Health is not an insurance company, is it? So, this is not part of the health insurance debate. |
Yes, it is a health insurance firm, among other things. |
It is all those other things: management of hospitals, home care, nursing, etc. that I'm familiar with. Apparently they are into insurance as well. This is another example of a business that is too big as a response to the socialist marketplace, which was my point in any case.
| mises wrote: |
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| 1) There are very few execs who can manage the large institutions that the socialist marketplace has engendered. So, those execs command oversized compensation. |
This is exactly what I mean when I say that the minds of market loving libertarians have been captured. The compensation is not in any way correlated with performance. It is correlated with the extent to which the shares are held by institutions. |
But this is what I mean when I talk about complexity. The management requirements are so complex that even performance has become secondary to issues of complexity. Ordinary measures of performance no longer apply. Sheer size can result in a massive payoff down the road for the institutional managers, government managers, corporate managers - even when the tradional ROI measurements seem to be lacking. Survival becomes essential, and ROI inside the nonoptimal business is still superior to the failure that would come from the alternative of bucking the government by following traditional business methods.
| mises wrote: |
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| 2) The income tax, which must be repealed, causes massive economic distortion. |
Fine. But this doesn't change the fact that shareholders are supposed to hold CEO's accountable. Which they don't, because the shares are held by short-term profit seeking Hedge Funds, pension funds (who should look long, but don't because of bonus structures) and ibanks. |
They are getting more by leaving their money inside these distorted oversized corporations than they would by taking dividends out. The companies are too large because of the income tax. The rest is inevitable. What you are lamenting is true, but it is a result of the income tax. Repeal of the income tax is a necessary prerequisite to the accountability you seek. The results we have today are actually optimal within the socialized market. We must abolish socialism and the income tax to get to the place you can see in your vision.
| mises wrote: |
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| 3) Much of the increase in executive compensation is illusory due to the 99% fall in the value of the dollar. You need to have $100 million dollars in the bank to have the effective wealth that people think they mean when the utter the magic words: "He's a millionaire." In the US today, anyone with less than 100 million dollars in assets is middle class. |
Completely irrelevant. |
Not at all. It is essential. It means that the numbers are not really that big in historical terms, in real dollars. They are just beyond comprehension for most people. Divide everything by 100 and people will not be so upset. They will also be more careful with spending, saving and other life decisions. They will manage their personal lives better. They will understand economics better. They will be less jealous and greedy.
| mises wrote: |
| The salary/bonus structure is designed for short term profit taking and not long term stability. These firms have monopolies or oligopolies and don't have to concern themselves with customer satisfaction. Which is why the public option + a repeal of the laws that grant health insurers monopolies is good policy. |
Business size and concentration is largely a result of the income tax and other regulations that make it necessary for survival and success. That said, there are industries where the available capital is less than 1% of what is needed. The government has destroyed massive amounts of wealth that would have been created. We are missing thousands of large businesses that have never been created due to government.
Public option, OTOH, is a terrible idea. It will suck up hundreds of billions of dollars from the outset, cost more for services provided, yet at a lower price, with the subsidies coming from taxpayers. The level of health care will end up far lower than what it otherwise would have been.
| mises wrote: |
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4) When sports figures are earning hundreds of millions of dollars, it is clear that the idea of earning that much is not what people think it is.
Today's billionaires are yesterday's millionaires. People have lost perspective and the reality is that very few have enough intelligence to comprehend the magnitude of the numbers. When you try to explain the fact that the total debt of the US Federal Government is now $99 trillion according to the Federal Reserve, when you try to teach them what money is, they cannot comprehend. |
I don't follow. Here is the American income distribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
84% of households don't earn more than 100k, which isn't all that difficult (dual income, both in middle class jobs). Yet much of the <100k population has a quality of life that is comparable to the super-wealthy a century ago. |
It's true that the free market in the areas that are still relatively free such as computing, communications, and retail sales have provided great advancement in the overall living standards. It is also true that the government has reduced those standards from where they would have been so that we are living at a 90% reduction of where we should be.
But, the point is that the numbers are not what people think they are. People do not adjust psychologically to the advancement of relative prices. They feel that higher prices actually represent more money and are not able to comprehend. They do not "inflation adjust" and they cannot comprehend the large number of digits in their minds. For most people it's like the old cartoons about the man talking to the dog. The man says words, the dog hears "blah, blah, blah." For most human beings, even those with college degrees, today's figures have become incomprehensible.
| mises wrote: |
| I, of course, agree with you about many things. But in this situation, the financial services industry (FIRE economy) has strip-mined the middle class of their wealth and pulled the income distribution north. This will not change. FIRE owns everything. |
I agree that too much money goes into "FIRE." But, it's the distortions in the marketplace created by the government that have driven this long term trend. Individuals players have only responded as one would expect to bad socialistic incentives.
"RE"
The income tax coupled with tax breaks for home ownereship, massive inflation driving people away from cash into any asset that seems promising, massive interest subsidies for homebuyers, free roads, rural electrification, RFD mail ... an endless list of govenment mistakes caused a massive malinvestment in real estate - the RE part.
"F"
Again, the income tax and other amazingly complex and stupid regulations have made finance exteemly lucrative. It can return profits almost from thin air without production. Enron failed because of the income tax and government regulation. Everyone is looking for magic profits from "loopholes" and clever schemes instead of real production.
WE ABSOLUTELY MUST REPEAL THE INCOME TAX AND ALL BUSINESS REGULATIONS if we are ever to eliminate the profits generated by being clever with the rules instead of producing and return to the growth that comes from a free market and is destroyed by socialism.
"I"
People have become dependent on the socialist institutions because socialism takes away the possibility of NOT being dependent. This makes the "need" for all kinds of "insurance." Life is full of risk and people have to learn to recognize what risk is in need of insurance and what risk is not.
In the business world, socialism has created instability in areas where none should exist - and managers want insurance. Being profitable, people create it. So, complexity increases, smart people command outrageous salaries because only they understand what is going on, and the FIRE economy dominates.
Eliminate socialism and this vicious cycle will end.
| mises wrote: |
| If the public option will help the little guy get a few breaks in life, then so be it. The whole system is designed to screw him out of his wealth. I |
It won't help the little guy. It will make things worse. But, maybe the fascist-socialist politicians will be able to blame others as a result and arrogate even more power to themselves.
It is socialism that screws the little guy and enriches the powerful. It has always been that way, with every law, rule, regulation and nation the socialists have infected. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:25 am Post subject: |
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I don't want to get into it so I'll just agree with the theme of your post. But I have to assert that we're never going back. The income tax isn't going anywhere. etc.
I'm from Canada. The health system isn't perfect but even poor as hell homeless people receive excellent, timely (for the vast majority of needs) care. In so far as a socialist system can work, Canadian health care works exceptionally well. And the Canadian tax burden is about par with the US now. Canada also ran surpluses for about a decade prior to the crisis. My personal crazy libertarian politics aside, in the real world, sometimes you go with what works.
And the public option will work better than the other politically possible reforms. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:42 am Post subject: |
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Repeal of all taxes on income and property and replacing them with a constitutionally limited consumption tax at 10% for all levels of government, repeal of the FED and going back on a 100% gold standard, eliminating inflation by ending the power of the government to print money and taking away the government's power to borrow - these are the issues that are essential to our future - jobs, sustainable, environmentally sound, economic growth...
These are the real issues. Without doing these things, the health care issue will be crushed by the collapse of the US dollar, the US government and the world economy - and any of the proposed national health care plans will accelerate the arrival of this collapse.
As the US burns, Obama is fiddling with health care. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| I don't disagree. But the public option is best, anyways. These goddamned wars have far more to do with the dying dollar than anything. It was the debt of war that pulled America to close the gold window. |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:21 am Post subject: |
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| These goddamned wars have far more to do with the dying dollar than anything. It was the debt of war that pulled America to close the gold window. |
We can agree on this, too. War squanders resources, destroys wealth, reduces living standards and when financed by debt or non-consumption taxation will impair investment and permanently lower future living standards - and this of course is the "good side" of war where the boneheads in the world somehow think war helps the economy.
War should be waged only with volunteer soldiers and volunteer donors to pay for it - no taxation, no borrowing, no draft - War is only possible when the state uses the tools of socialism to support it. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:33 am Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
| War is only possible when the state uses the tools of socialism to support it. |
Wow, that's profound! Does the peace movement know this? |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:43 am Post subject: |
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Back to Reid's public option plan, which looks dead:
Key Senators AGAINST:
Rep:
Snow
Collins
Ind:
Lieberman
Dem:
Landrieu
Nelson
Bayh
Without these Senators there will be no public option. Others will back away as well, not wanting to go out on a limb for a losing vote.
Public option is dead. The trigger option is still possible, but the likelyhood is falling quickly. Any three of the above can kill the bill forever.
Reid's whole gambit was an attempt to ensure his own reelection and he is aware that he is actually helping to kill this year's health care bills. |
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Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| I Honestly now believe that had the US and UK never attacked Iraq, they would not be in the precarious positions they now find themselves in. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
Public option is dead. The trigger option is still possible, but the likelyhood is falling quickly. Any three of the above can kill the bill forever.
Reid's whole gambit was an attempt to ensure his own reelection and he is aware that he is actually helping to kill this year's health care bills. |
Alas, we're going to get stuck with a health care reform bill w/out the public option. Consequence? A huge subsidy for the health care industry that will just shift more of the costs to the US gov't, leading to higher taxes for us, and no improvement in care or services.
| Quote: |
| I Honestly now believe that had the US and UK never attacked Iraq, they would not be in the precarious positions they now find themselves in. |
Interesting. I think our gov't would have found another way to squander billions of dollars, but I suppose billions is better than trillions  . |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
Public option is dead. The trigger option is still possible, but the likelyhood is falling quickly. Any three of the above can kill the bill forever.
Reid's whole gambit was an attempt to ensure his own reelection and he is aware that he is actually helping to kill this year's health care bills. |
Alas, we're going to get stuck with a health care reform bill w/out the public option. Consequence? A huge subsidy for the health care industry that will just shift more of the costs to the US gov't, leading to higher taxes for us, and no improvement in care or services. |
I wouldn't call it dead just yet. Democrats still have reconciliation as an option and, even before it gets to that point, one could challenge the assumption that the few Democrats and other key Senators against this current proposal will in turn vote against this bill again in the event that it and the public option essentially get preserved as the final version. A senator could easily be opposed to this version of the bill for the rationale that it'll jeopardize the whole reform effort in alienating those against the public option without wanting to further vote against this version once it becomes the final bill (in the event it becomes the final bill) so long as this version has already made it to the end, at which point voting against it would no longer help avoid the potential problem of alienating future bill voters. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Street Magic wrote: |
| A senator could easily be opposed to this version of the bill for the rationale that it'll jeopardize the whole reform effort in alienating those against the public option without further voting against this version once it becomes the final bill (in the event it becomes the final bill) so long as this version has already made it to the end, at which point voting against it would no longer help avoid the potential problem of alienating future bill voters. |
However, there is no reform without the public option. What all these people who are calling for more compromise and bi-partisanship are neglecting is that a non-profit, non-subsidized public option is all ready an immense compromise. People who are against reform just keep moving the goal posts; after each compromise, they treat the compromise as if it's the base suggestion and say, "Come on, let's compromise, you need to be flexible!"
Any senator who is still holding out is putting the interests of the insurance industry ahead of the interests of their constitutents. |
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Street Magic
Joined: 23 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Street Magic wrote: |
| A senator could easily be opposed to this version of the bill for the rationale that it'll jeopardize the whole reform effort in alienating those against the public option without further voting against this version once it becomes the final bill (in the event it becomes the final bill) so long as this version has already made it to the end, at which point voting against it would no longer help avoid the potential problem of alienating future bill voters. |
However, there is no reform without the public option. What all these people who are calling for more compromise and bi-partisanship are neglecting is that a non-profit, non-subsidized public option is all ready an immense compromise. People who are against reform just keep moving the goal posts; after each compromise, they treat the compromise as if it's the base suggestion and say, "Come on, let's compromise, you need to be flexible!"
Any senator who is still holding out is putting the interests of the insurance industry ahead of the interests of their constitutents. |
I totally agree. I was just disputing the notion that a senator who was afraid of the public option scaring off the support needed to pass some sort of reform bill would be inclined to vote against the final bill since this rationale assumes the senator in question isn't against the public option, just afraid of the public option's potential for alienating support. That fear would no longer matter if the public option were already in the final bill. If any senators were hiding behind this reason because they wanted to help out their insurance ties, then this will come out when they still vote against the final bill (assuming the public option makes it there) despite this action having no way of improving the chance of anything else passing. |
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seonsengnimble
Joined: 02 Jun 2009
Location: taking a ride on the magic English bus
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
Personally I'd rather just abolish insurance, pay for regular and optional expenses out of pocket, and have a national single payer pool for emergency, required treatment. This would be the cheapest way for our nation to get health care, and it would protect those who through no fault of their own became sick in a life-threatening fashion, which I want. We're making this far more complex than it has to be. |
Unless costs were controlled for regular and optional care, this would still be problematic. Regular checkups cost an arm and a leg without insurance. If you want to get a physical or have any lab work done, it's even more expensive. What about preventative care? What about those with chronic conditions? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
Personally I'd rather just abolish insurance, pay for regular and optional expenses out of pocket, and have a national single payer pool for emergency, required treatment. This would be the cheapest way for our nation to get health care, and it would protect those who through no fault of their own became sick in a life-threatening fashion, which I want. We're making this far more complex than it has to be. |
Unless costs were controlled for regular and optional care, this would still be problematic. Regular checkups cost an arm and a leg without insurance. |
Regular check-ups cost an arm and a leg without insurance due to insurance industry interference in pricing. What things cost right now is not indicative of how much they would cost in an insurance-free setting. If no one had insurance, you can be sure things like regular check-ups would be reasonably priced, because otherwise no one would pay the price.
Also keep in mind that we're paying those prices anyway, in the form of insurance premiums. It's just that on top of paying those prices, we're also paying for insurance industry profits.
| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| If you want to get a physical or have any lab work done, it's even more expensive. |
Again, if doctors didn't price these things reasonably, no one would ever take them, so they'd certainly be reasonably priced. What you have to understand is we're still paying for these things now, we're just also paying the insurance industry. Removing the insurance industry would reduce the total cost our nation pays, both because we'd no longer have a purely parasitic industry leeching profits out of the system, and because people are far stingier about prices when they're paying out of pocket.
| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| What about preventative care? What about those with chronic conditions? |
Again, if it wasn't reasonably priced, no one would take advantage of it. It would be in a hospital's best interests to ensure prices were reasonable. It is, however, in the insurance industry's interests to do their best to ensure prices are unreasonable, so you have to rely on them. They've had plenty of time to work towards this end. Don't be fooled.
Without the insurance industry, your pay check would be higher (both because you wouldn't be having pay deducted, and because the hidden part your employer pays could go to you instead), and prices would be lower due to lack of insurance industry interference and people making more realistic health care choices due to the money coming right out of their pocket. We'd all be better off. |
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Rusty Shackleford
Joined: 08 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
Personally I'd rather just abolish insurance, pay for regular and optional expenses out of pocket, and have a national single payer pool for emergency, required treatment. This would be the cheapest way for our nation to get health care, and it would protect those who through no fault of their own became sick in a life-threatening fashion, which I want. We're making this far more complex than it has to be. |
Unless costs were controlled for regular and optional care, this would still be problematic. Regular checkups cost an arm and a leg without insurance. |
Regular check-ups cost an arm and a leg without insurance due to insurance industry interference in pricing. What things cost right now is not indicative of how much they would cost in an insurance-free setting. If no one had insurance, you can be sure things like regular check-ups would be reasonably priced, because otherwise no one would pay the price.
Also keep in mind that we're paying those prices anyway, in the form of insurance premiums. It's just that on top of paying those prices, we're also paying for insurance industry profits.
| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| If you want to get a physical or have any lab work done, it's even more expensive. |
Again, if doctors didn't price these things reasonably, no one would ever take them, so they'd certainly be reasonably priced. What you have to understand is we're still paying for these things now, we're just also paying the insurance industry. Removing the insurance industry would reduce the total cost our nation pays, both because we'd no longer have a purely parasitic industry leeching profits out of the system, and because people are far stingier about prices when they're paying out of pocket.
| seonsengnimble wrote: |
| What about preventative care? What about those with chronic conditions? |
Again, if it wasn't reasonably priced, no one would take advantage of it. It would be in a hospital's best interests to ensure prices were reasonable. It is, however, in the insurance industry's interests to do their best to ensure prices are unreasonable, so you have to rely on them. They've had plenty of time to work towards this end. Don't be fooled.
Without the insurance industry, your pay check would be higher (both because you wouldn't be having pay deducted, and because the hidden part your employer pays could go to you instead), and prices would be lower due to lack of insurance industry interference and people making more realistic health care choices due to the money coming right out of their pocket. We'd all be better off. |
Can you please explain how the insurance companies have any influence over how much hospitals choose to charge for care? Do car accident insurance companies have any influence over how much it costs to fix your car? |
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