Film Review: SICKO!

[FUCK THE POLICE]

WHO is a highly respected international organization, with world class expertise in health and medical issues. That's a fact

In creating those statistics, it's goals were mostly political. To promote socialist policies by slapping their "respectable" name behind it. The WHO is a health organization, they are not economists, they should devote their ENTIRE statistics to actual health quality, not 1/4th to health quality, and 3/4th to how much the government owns the system.

 

[Damocles]

Damo,

Let me just say this: You're holding SS to a standard that you would never hold a private corporation.

Does SS have some long term structural problems potentially 40 years down the road? Yes.

Do many major american corporations face structural and fiscal challenges 40 years down the road? Yes.

But, you expect public officials to immediately "fix" problems that may not emerge for decades. I think most american corporations tend to focus on near term problems and near term efficiencies. I don't see much difference here, between private and public sector.

When Ronald Reagan made structural changes to SS in 1983, that guaranteed its stability and viability for the next 50 years, that was a good thing. SS periodically has to undergo reform. If the CEO of a corporation made changes that guaranteed the company's viability for the next 50 years, that dude or gal would get a 100 million dollar bonus, and be on the cover of Fortune Magazine for the next year.

Please don't hold public entities to a standard, that you would never hold private entities. Long term problems exist in every entity - public or private. With respect to SS, those problems historically have always been addressed one way or another. Perhaps not in as timely a fashion as you prefer, but they do get addressed.

Bullpucky, total disingenuous garbage, a rapidly exposed strawman fallacy. You should never attempt to give me an opinion, especially one about how I would expect a private corporation to act as compared to the government. Don't pull my opinion from your wishful thinking about how I would react because you are wrong, totally wrong, in every case when you attempt this.

I would hold a private company to the same standard, in fact I would hold them to a higher standard.

You are preaching total rubbish, and attempting to give me an opinion I don't hold without regard to past conversations we have held, it is an attempt to pretend we post in vacuum and past opinions must never be even thought of in any conversation other than the one in which they were presented. I expect you to have better memory than this and to use a much stronger technique than attempting to give me an opinion so that you can argue against that rather than my actual position (classic strawman fallacy).

And regardless of all that it doesn't change that a more regional system could more easily respond to an areas different or unique needs and would be far easier to correct when problems arose than a centralized program as evidenced by the aforementioned (paraphrasing again) "extra-specially-superspectacularly-run SS Program" that has had temp bandages put on it constantly because cowardly politicians fear to lose the fogey vote.

It doesn't change that larger bureaucracies inevitably respond less quickly than smaller bureaucracies and that in healthcare in particular we can't wait through another 50 years band-aid to resolve issues that can very well mean life or death with temp fixes and duct tape patches presented by fearing politicos who will never present a change to a federalized program that may change a vote.

Public corporations are smaller and slimmer and when problems arise, temp fixes are not acceptable. Any company that half-assed "fixed" a problem then pushed it to the next generation would likely be sold from my portfolio long before they even came up with their silly temp band-aid, but definitely long before that next generation came about.

Not only from mine but they would lose money on shares as many would make the same move. Shoot before the fix came about at all they would be hemorrhaging value to the stock market and until a true fix became reality would continue to founder compared to their competition. Even if the temp fix did satisfy some short term investors they would never reach their full value until the problem had been addressed.

All of that would be because those share holders expect them to act like a more regional bureaucracy, with quicker and more permanent fixes than you get from the clearly inept federal government who can't fix a simple system that is supposed to be just a bank account.

So, let's let these morons who can't even take money and deposit it into an account then pay it out to the person who deposited the money later take care of your health issues. You know the people who can't even understand that taking money from the SS system later to "balance the budget" and "create a surplus" might speed up the problems rather than actually resolve them... The same people who can't even run the simplest bank account with the crappiest return I have ever seen correctly... Let's by all means let them "fix" your healthcare with the same duct tape band-aids desperately trying to keep ahead of the end rather than create a program that may stand the test of time with quicker reacting less centralized bureaucracies.

Let's test out your theory on every single person rather than create different authorities that can be more easily corrected if there is a fatal flaw in the estimations of our politicos...

Let's let your super smart extra-special centralized federal government that is too stupid just to keep money then pay it out run your system.

I want one that will run better than that and if it doesn't I expect, especially in my health care, better fixes than temp patches that will make it barely cough along until the next planned crisis period.

 

[Beefy]

Damo,

Let me just say this: You're holding SS to a standard that you would never hold a private corporation.

Does SS have some long term structural problems potentially 40 years down the road? Yes.

Do many major american corporations face structural and fiscal challenges 40 years down the road? Yes.

But, you expect public officials to immediately "fix" problems that may not emerge for decades. I think most american corporations tend to focus on near term problems and near term efficiencies. I don't see much difference here, between private and public sector.

When Ronald Reagan made structural changes to SS in 1983, that guaranteed its stability and viability for the next 50 years, that was a good thing. SS periodically has to undergo reform. If the CEO of a corporation made changes that guaranteed the company's viability for the next 50 years, that dude or gal would get a 100 million dollar bonus, and be on the cover of Fortune Magazine for the next year.

Please don't hold public entities to a standard, that you would never hold private entities. Long term problems exist in every entity - public or private. With respect to SS, those problems historically have always been addressed one way or another. Perhaps not in as timely a fashion as you prefer, but they do get addressed.

While I realize I'm not really part of this conversation at the moment, I have to call BS here.

Private money relies on economic factors that public money does not. Public money is essentially white collared blood money. They do like the mafia, only less romantic.

It is not their money. They treat is as such, but it is not theirs. The reason it has become insolvent is because it has been pillaged and raped, but now the demand for a reform is being misconstrued as some sort of adjustment for the times, when it reality its been royally fucked up all along, and doesn't ultimately even have a prayer of profitibility or sustinence. This is because it never had to stand on its own two feet, it never was organic, and it is ultimately a crap system, always will be.

This is my money, I cannot choose whether or not I can put it there. I have no choice, so I am damned well going to expect they don't do with it what they've been doing for decades. They TAKE my money to "Protect me". And then it becomes a bottomless pit. No, it is not the same standard as a private industry.

All financed by IOU's. Open your eyes man.

 

[Cypress]

Bullpucky, total disingenuous garbage, a rapidly exposed strawman fallacy. You should never attempt to give me an opinion, especially one about how I would expect a private corporation to act as compared to the government. Don't pull my opinion from your wishful thinking about how I would react because you are wrong, totally wrong, in every case when you attempt this.

I would hold a private company to the same standard, in fact I would hold them to a higher standard.

You are preaching total rubbish, and attempting to give me an opinion I don't hold without regard to past conversations we have held, it is an attempt to pretend we post in vacuum and past opinions must never be even thought of in any conversation other than the one in which they were presented. I expect you to have better memory than this and to use a much stronger technique than attempting to give me an opinion so that you can argue against that rather than my actual position (classic strawman fallacy).

And regardless of all that it doesn't change that a more regional system could more easily respond to an areas different or unique needs and would be far easier to correct when problems arose than a centralized program as evidenced by the aforementioned (paraphrasing again) "extra-specially-superspectacularly-run SS Program" that has had temp bandages put on it constantly because cowardly politicians fear to lose the fogey vote.

It doesn't change that larger bureaucracies inevitably respond less quickly than smaller bureaucracies and that in healthcare in particular we can't wait through another 50 years band-aid to resolve issues that can very well mean life or death with temp fixes and duct tape patches presented by fearing politicos who will never present a change to a federalized program that may change a vote.

Public corporations are smaller and slimmer and when problems arise, temp fixes are not acceptable. Any company that half-assed "fixed" a problem then pushed it to the next generation would likely be sold from my portfolio long before they even came up with their silly temp band-aid, but definitely long before that next generation came about.

Not only from mine but they would lose money on shares as many would make the same move. Shoot before the fix came about at all they would be hemorrhaging value to the stock market and until a true fix became reality would continue to founder compared to their competition. Even if the temp fix did satisfy some short term investors they would never reach their full value until the problem had been addressed.

All of that would be because those share holders expect them to act like a more regional bureaucracy, with quicker and more permanent fixes than you get from the clearly inept federal government who can't fix a simple system that is supposed to be just a bank account.

So, let's let these morons who can't even take money and deposit it into an account then pay it out to the person who deposited the money later take care of your health issues. You know the people who can't even understand that taking money from the SS system later to "balance the budget" and "create a surplus" might speed up the problems rather than actually resolve them... The same people who can't even run the simplest bank account with the crappiest return I have ever seen correctly... Let's by all means let them "fix" your healthcare with the same duct tape band-aids desperately trying to keep ahead of the end rather than create a program that may stand the test of time with quicker reacting less centralized bureaucracies.

Let's test out your theory on every single person rather than create different authorities that can be more easily corrected if there is a fatal flaw in the estimations of our politicos...

Let's let your super smart extra-special centralized federal government that is too stupid just to keep money then pay it out run your system.

I want one that will run better than that and if it doesn't I expect, especially in my health care, better fixes than temp patches that will make it barely cough along until the next planned crisis period.

Damo: The United States already has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. Something in the range of 20-30% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, administrative costs, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, and other non-clinical costs-- because the U.S. does not have a system that serves everyone; instead we have thousands of different insurance plans, each with their own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, rules, and regulations, making our insurance system extremely complex and fragmented. In contrast, the Medicare program operates with something like 1 or 2 % overhead, compared to 20% to 30% overhead at your typical HMO.


It is not necessary to have some huge bureaucracy to decide who gets care and what care they get, if and when everyone is covered and has the essentially the same comprehensive benefits.. With a universal single-payer system we would have less bureaucracy, less paperwork and overhead costs, and a cheaper healthcare system on a per capita basis.

As for the ideological concerns of having some centralized, soviet-style command and control bunker in Washington running everything - this is a rightwing myth. You pointed out Medicaid and CHP as examples of programs run and administered at the state level, with federal funding and guidelines. It seems to work just fine. Also, I think the Canadian system isn’t simply some soviet style central bureaucracy run out of Ottawa: I think fees, costs, and benefits are set by doctors associations in conjunction with regional and provincial governments.

 

[Damocles]

Damo: The United States already has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. Something in the range of 20-30% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, administrative costs, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, and other non-clinical costs-- because the U.S. does not have a system that serves everyone; instead we have thousands of different insurance plans, each with their own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, rules, and regulations, making our insurance system extremely complex and fragmented. In contrast, the Medicare program operates with something like 1 or 2 % overhead, compared to 20% to 30% overhead at your typical HMO.

I agree, it is the amount of sources that tends to create such a debacle. But I disagree that creating a central bureaucracy with no regional supporting bureaucracies isn't the fix. It will increase the problem of paperwork and be less responsive to regional, or local, needs.

It is not necessary to have some huge bureaucracy to decide who gets care and what care they get, if and when everyone is covered and has the essentially the same comprehensive benefits.. With a universal single-payer system we would have less bureaucracy, less paperwork and overhead costs, and a cheaper healthcare system on a per capita basis.

However, the bureaucracy must decide what machinery goes where, why it goes there, travel times to make it work, so forth. It is like saying the IRS is efficient because everybody has a percentage they fall under so that makes it easy. That is total garbage...

As for the ideological concerns of having some centralized, soviet-style command and control bunker in Washington running everything - this is a rightwing myth. You pointed out Medicaid and CHP as examples of programs run and administered at the state level, with federal funding and guidelines. It seems to work just fine. Also, I think the Canadian system isn’t simply some soviet style central bureaucracy run out of Ottawa: I think fees, costs, and benefits are set by doctors associations in conjunction with regional and provincial governments.

However, it is what you are arguing for here. I have even pointed out that Medicaid was state run yet you continued to argue for a centralized boondoggle. I have asked several times why you, personally, were so in love with the centralized federally run system. So far all you have given me was more, "You are wrong about big bureaucracies" rather than.... "I want to work towards a program more like Medicaid..." Which is what I have been arguing for. My point was, that unlike Hillarycare, I prefer a regionalized system that could more easily be responsive to the needs of the area.

All I have argued for is a system that would be less centralized than Hillary's original proposal.

I hope our politicians are smarter than this.

It is nice to see that you agree with me and wish to work for a less centralized system that could be much more responsive than a centralized federalized system that could be problematic.

 

[Cypress]

I've never said I wanted some soviet-style command and control healthcare plan.

I DO think we need a national single payer plan. With federal funding and guidelines. I've never suggested that cost controls and implementation of a national plan can't involve states.

 

[Damocles]

I agree. I haven't argued that it shouldn't be national. I even suggested I preferred a system more like Medicaid that is run at the state level with federal oversight.

You kept telling me that it must be as centrally bureaucratic as possible because they run so efficiently.

 

[Cypress]

While I realize I'm not really part of this conversation at the moment, I have to call BS here.

Private money relies on economic factors that public money does not. Public money is essentially white collared blood money. They do like the mafia, only less romantic.

I don't know how to respond. I don't know what white collared mafia blood money is

It is not their money. They treat is as such, but it is not theirs. The reason it has become insolvent is because it has been pillaged and raped, but now the demand for a reform is being misconstrued as some sort of adjustment for the times, when it reality its been royally fucked up all along, and doesn't ultimately even have a prayer of profitibility or sustinence. This is because it never had to stand on its own two feet, it never was organic, and it is ultimately a crap system, always will be.

First, SS is not "insolvent". Its fully funded for decades to come. If you're talking about the trust fund, I'll adress that shortly.

I've been talking about fiscal reponsibility. I haven't been talking about profit versus non-profit. Enron was fiscally irresponsible. They couldn't manage their shareholders money. SS have been fully funded, fiscally responsible, and administered relatively efficiently for 70 years.

To suggest that it's easy for a public entity to be fiscally managed well, I refer you to the Reagan and Bush 43 presidencies. Those were characterized by massive deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibility. Debt and deficit spending are a choice. There's nothing inherent about a public entity that makes it "easy" to run fiscally responsibly. Just as the same principle applies to a profit-making entity.

This is my money, I cannot choose whether or not I can put it there. I have no choice, so I am damned well going to expect they don't do with it what they've been doing for decades. They TAKE my money to "Protect me". And then it becomes a bottomless pit. No, it is not the same standard as a private industry.

All financed by IOU's. Open your eyes man.

I understand you want SS to be eliminated.

However, I think that when you turn 67 years old, you'll be exactly like tens of millions of other republicans who spent their lifetime railing against SS. : you'll be happy to be receiving those weekly checks. And the beauty of it, is that SS is like a pension: a guaranteed benefit that doesn't run out - it pays until the day you die, no matter how old you live to

As for the "IOU' part - your wrong. Currently SS is fully funded. It's a direct transfer of money from FICA taxes to retired americans. There is no "IOU" involved.

You're perhaps thinking of the trust fund - the excess FICA taxes invested in US treasuries. Beefy, unless you use the trust fund to buy gold bars, and stick them in a vault in fort knox, then anything you do with the trust fund is an IOU, or a loan. US treasury notes are just loans. As are equities or bonds. Somebody is going to take that money and spend it, with the promise of paying you back at a later date. Now, either the chinese, the saudis, or the US government are going to pay back the loan on those treasury notes. If you choose to invest the SS trust fund in municipal bonds, then (likewise) you're loaning money (aka, IOUs) to a municipality and assuming they're going to pay you back.

Personally, I'm open minded about investing a portion of the SS trust fund in stable equities or bonds. But, its the same principle as US treasury notes - its a loan, and the anticipation is that you'll be paid back. As far as the US government using the SS trust fund, in the form of treasury notes, to fund government activities, I think it would be great if those investement could specifically be directed towards spending on infrastructure, tranportation, education and research: those are areas of public spending that acutally grow the economy, making it more likely that the US treasury notes can be paid back through increased economic activity and revenue, rather than raising taxes. But, I'm not an expert on it, so I don't know if that's possible.

 

[Cypress]

I agree. I haven't argued that it shouldn't be national. I even suggested I preferred a system more like Medicaid that is run at the state level with federal oversight.

You kept telling me that it must be as centrally bureaucratic as possible because they run so efficiently.

Okay, my bad. I think we fought over semantics.

 

[Cancel7]

I hate whenever people say "LOL" and didn't Laugh Out Loud.

I'm not posting here for your pleasure.

 

[Cancel7]

I agree, it is the amount of sources that tends to create such a debacle. But I disagree that creating a central bureaucracy with no regional supporting bureaucracies isn't the fix. It will increase the problem of paperwork and be less responsive to regional, or local, needs.



However, the bureaucracy must decide what machinery goes where, why it goes there, travel times to make it work, so forth. It is like saying the IRS is efficient because everybody has a percentage they fall under so that makes it easy. That is total garbage...



However, it is what you are arguing for here. I have even pointed out that Medicaid was state run yet you continued to argue for a centralized boondoggle. I have asked several times why you, personally, were so in love with the centralized federally run system. So far all you have given me was more, "You are wrong about big bureaucracies" rather than.... "I want to work towards a program more like Medicaid..." Which is what I have been arguing for. My point was, that unlike Hillarycare, I prefer a regionalized system that could more easily be responsive to the needs of the area.

All I have argued for is a system that would be less centralized than Hillary's original proposal.

I hope our politicians are smarter than this.

It is nice to see that you agree with me and wish to work for a less centralized system that could be much more responsive than a centralized federalized system that could be problematic.

The only concerns I have about this are that, implemented on a state level, we could see race and class playing a part in distribution of care, especially in backwards states like MS. I assume that is what the federal oversight would ensure doesn't happen. I'd certainly be willing to try it this way. Maybe it would actually work better than national systems in other countries. You never know, until you try. It's better than what we've got now at any rate.

 

[Cancel7]

Okay, my bad. I think we fought over semantics.

But it was entertaining.

 

[evince]

50 different plans ?

yeah that would be great.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

I'm not posting here for your pleasure.

Didn't say you were.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

50 different plans ?

yeah that would be great.

Imagine all the options!

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Okay, my bad. I think we fought over semantics.

You sound like me and Damo over immigration.

It's like "Goddammit! I agree! Go fuck yourself!"

 

[Damocles]

The only concerns I have about this are that, implemented on a state level, we could see race and class playing a part in distribution of care, especially in backwards states like MS. I assume that is what the federal oversight would ensure doesn't happen. I'd certainly be willing to try it this way. Maybe it would actually work better than national systems in other countries. You never know, until you try. It's better than what we've got now at any rate.

Hence you have oversight.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

The only concerns I have about this are that, implemented on a state level, we could see race and class playing a part in distribution of care, especially in backwards states like MS. I assume that is what the federal oversight would ensure doesn't happen. I'd certainly be willing to try it this way. Maybe it would actually work better than national systems in other countries. You never know, until you try. It's better than what we've got now at any rate.

Darla, I'd like you to find one decision in the past 30 years where "race and class" have played any part in any distribution of welfare in Mississippi. Whilst on this futile endeavour, I'd like you to think about not saying ignorant things about my state anymore.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

The only thing I can find in google news is where the federal supreme court recently ruled that Mississippi colleges could no longer use diversity as a justification in favoring people in admissions. Oh wait! That's the other way around. Sorry.

 

[Cancel7]

Darla, I'd like you to find one decision in the past 30 years where "race and class" have played any part in any distribution of welfare in Mississippi. Whilst on this futile endeavour, I'd like you to think about not saying ignorant things about my state anymore.

Ok I'll think about it.