Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Right, which is why there are fiscal intermediaries scattered across the country in the Medicare system. Trail Blazer here in Texas, a private company, is who you talk to about Medicare issues, not CMS in Baltimore.

Aren't you proving my point then?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by LessinSF
You should reread what I said. I am opposed to a national health care system. All I said was that if there was going to be additional governmental involvement in an effort to control skyrocketing costs, the analysis applied should be a cost-benefit one akin to what Oregon is trying to do, not whatever fucked-up approach would actually be pushed or applied.

2. The Oregon plan was one of the most innovative and honest plans out there. It acknowledged limited resources for a very large population and did a good job of allocating those resources accross the entire population, instead of deciding that half the population should go without healthcare just so we're not accused of "rationing."

Fuck the first Bush administration for denying the Medicaid waiver on that one.

Also, there needs to be a shitload more outcomes research in this country. It's ridiculous how conventional wisdom, without any research to back it up, becomes protocol in the delivery of healthcare.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Two hundred years before Christ, Eratosthenes deduced the diameter of the earth from some simple geometric measurements. It amazes me that some people believe God gave us brains so that we could refuse to use them.

Besides subjecting all you poor unsuspecting victims to my ridiculous diatribes and harangues, I spend a large portion of my time fighting the Christian Conservatives. Even here in california they are a large and well organized bunch. And you would not believe how ignorant these people can be.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Aren't you proving my point then?

No. I'm trying to show you that government health care doesn't necessarily mean that private companies are kept out of the system.

I don't think that many Medicare beneficiaries are upset with Medicare, on the quality side or the administrative side. I know that the biggest issues on the provider side are the regulatory burdens (anti-kickback, documentation, some non-coverage issues, Stark, HIPAA, EMTALA) and the reimbursement levels, though it is NOT an inefficient system. Submit a clean claim to Medicare, and you're going to be paid. I can't think of another insurance company that does that. Fuck, most states had to pass laws to force insurance companies to pay claims within 45 days. They didn't do that because Medicare was behind.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I think you are misunderstanding my point. I agree that there are programs to which tax money should be spent. We can argue about what they are and how much. My point is on the execution side.

So is mine. Identify a private enterprise that operates with administrative costs as low as Social Security.

Cost overruns, inefficiency, and mismanagement are hardly limited to the public sector. The Boeing Dreamliner? The NEXT computer? Webvan? pets.com? Brobeck? Worldcom?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Tell me, what does the government do better than the private sector?

Address the many ways in which markets fail.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by LessinSF
You should reread what I said. I am opposed to a national health care system. All I said was that if there was going to be additional governmental involvement in an effort to control skyrocketing costs, the analysis applied should be a cost-benefit one akin to what Oregon is trying to do, not whatever fucked-up approach would actually be pushed or applied.

Are you against any government involvment at all in health care?

P.S. I am meeting Pete McCloskey at 5:00 at the Ferry Building (to discuss the demise of Tom Delay). You want to hit the town after my meeting? Maybe go to the Green Rock where Sharon Stone is the bartender?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Do you really think the government does that better and more efficiently than the private sector could? I guess those Bay Bridge cost overruns don't count.

Those Bay Bridge cost overruns are being generated by the private sector.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
If people are taking over our school system that want to teach the world is flat then yes. It is funny you say that, because there are fundamentalists that think the earth is flat (because the bible implies that it is) and there are people who think that the sun revolves around the earth (as is implied in the Bible). The Creationist position is just as absurd as these two other propositions.

It's especially absurd that our President, who was in the oil business, should be suggesting that there's something to creation science. It's like he's unfamiliar with the science underlying geology.

Come to think of it, he never made much money in the oil business, did he?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Cite, please.

Yikes. This is scary:

Over a third of the 1 000 or so Americans quizzed on the issue – in phone interviews by the Gallup Organisation between 7-10 November – seem to believe so. Darwin himself might be surprised to find that today, 145 years after he published his book, only 35% of Americans believe his “scientific theories are well supported by evidence”. Meanwhile, the same number are willing to agree that his theories are “not well supported by evidence”, and 29% “don’t know enough to say”.

Most Americans are not scientists and have probably had little exposure to biology or evolutionary theory since school or college, the polling organisation reports. But it then muses over why the “don’t know enough to say” percentage was not higher? The answer to this begins to appear in the responses to the next question on the origin and development of human beings.

Genesis versus Darwin
The poll shows that 45% of the US population believes human beings did not evolve, but were instead created by God in their current form about 10 000 years ago, as stated in the Bible. Just over half agreed with the alternatives which are more compatible with Darwin’s thesis; that humans developed over millions of years either with or without God’s guidance in the process

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/h...12_21_en.html.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Yikes. This is scary:

Over a third of the 1 000 or so Americans quizzed on the issue – in phone interviews by the Gallup Organisation between 7-10 November – seem to believe so. Darwin himself might be surprised to find that today, 145 years after he published his book, only 35% of Americans believe his “scientific theories are well supported by evidence”. Meanwhile, the same number are willing to agree that his theories are “not well supported by evidence”, and 29% “don’t know enough to say”.

Most Americans are not scientists and have probably had little exposure to biology or evolutionary theory since school or college, the polling organisation reports. But it then muses over why the “don’t know enough to say” percentage was not higher? The answer to this begins to appear in the responses to the next question on the origin and development of human beings.

Genesis versus Darwin
The poll shows that 45% of the US population believes human beings did not evolve, but were instead created by God in their current form about 10 000 years ago, as stated in the Bible. Just over half agreed with the alternatives which are more compatible with Darwin’s thesis; that humans developed over millions of years either with or without God’s guidance in the process

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/h...12_21_en.html.

Lord help us all.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Yikes. This is scary:

I like that you posted the article w/o being humbled by this part.....

• Most Americans are not scientists and have probably had little exposure to biology or evolutionary theory since school or college, the polling organisation reports. But it then muses over why the “don’t know enough to say” percentage was not higher?

the lack of shame and the abilty to post nonsense is a sign that the old SS I loved still exists. maybe Adder will weight in later!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Rich Lowry has a good piece on NRO about how Bush's energy bill is a lobbyist's dream but ignores how markets work. For example, re drilling in the Alaska wilderness:

• Then, there’s the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Allowing drilling there is the most controversial part of Bush’s energy plan. Overheated environmentalists claim it will despoil pristine wilderness. Actually, ANWR is a vast, desolate bog. But put that aside. ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips all have backed off their support for drilling.
  
  Let it never be said the administration is slavishly beholden to Big Oil. The proceedings of Vice President Dick Cheney’s notorious energy task force might have gone something like this. Cheney: “We want to drill in ANWR.” Cigar-chomping oil executive: “Mr. Vice President, there might not be as much oil there as first thought, and when you consider the costs of drilling through permafrost and the long distances involved, it probably makes no economic sense.” Cheney: “Well, tough.”
  
  The main backers of drilling are the state of Alaska, which will get oil royalties; unions, which will get jobs; and conservatives for whom sticking it to hyperventilating enviros is a matter of principle. But oil companies aren’t in the mix. “If the government gave them the leases for free they wouldn’t take them,” an administration official recently told the New York Times.

A desolate bog can be pristine wilderness, but otherwise he's right on.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Lord help us all.

I was going to look for the Cite, but it is just too depressing. Everytime I read those insane polls I just want to cut my wrists.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Yes, I do. The Federal Interstate Highway system is the single most important economic development initiative in the history of mankind. Private firms have been allowed to build roads for decades. You want to identify a system they've built that comes close?

The railroads. And even the Erie canal. But what government employee built the interstates? They were built by private contractors with federal money.

And what you're getting at, more generally, is identifying a market failure that gov't action could cure. No one has an incentive to create a comprehensive network of roads, so they didn't. But plenty of private toll roads have been (and continue to be) built, without government intervention. So all you're really saying is that the government did its job in solving a market failure. Not that government does a better job than the market where there is no market failure.

So, in designing health care, you have to identify a market failure that calls for a government-operated solution. The only market failure is not that, but a moral belief that everyone is entitled to "free" healthcare. That's fine, and worth voting on, but it doesn't mean that government needs to be involved in the solution any more than to move money from a rich pocket to apoor one.