Health Insurance QuestionFollow

Yup. So basically, after Republicans gained control of Congress and were able to implement changes, the rate began to decline. Let's not forget that this is a conservative issue and act surprised at why things change.



Yup. Right as Republicans begin to lose control of Congress and are unable to prevent the program from expanding.



While I'm sure some of it's the most recent effects of the economy, it's a mistake to ignore the political effects going on here. At the end of the day, Democrats want larger government and Republicans want smaller government. While either side may fail to achieve their goals at any given point in time, we should always keep that in mind.

We're often sold big government as a means to an end. Provide health care. Provide education. Provide "equality" of all kinds. But what's forgotten is that for some political ideologues, the means is the end. They don't care about health care, gay marriage, housing assistance, or affirmative action. Those ends become the means to big government and that's all it's really about for them.




In terms of scale, absolutely. I'm just pointing out the pattern of spending.




Not technically true. I don't believe that the goal of a society should be the "adequate distribution of basic life necessities". The problem is that the cost of doing that is the more important and poetic aspects of society. Call me a dreamer, but I think that accomplishments are what matter. I want to live in a society which expands the horizon of human endeavor, not one that merely ensures subsistence for all. I happen to believe that the more we pursue the goal you set forth, the more it ultimately costs over time until eventually it consumes all of our productivity. At that point, there's nothing left over for the really important things. In a thousand years, no one will judge our civilization on the basis of what percentage of the population received free health care from the government. They'll judge us by the poems we write, the songs we sing, and the technological wonders we invented which perhaps (hopefully) made their future present what it is.


As with most conservative positions, it's about moderation. I'm not opposed to helping people in need. It's important to recognize that. It's about the relative cost of what we're doing compared to the benefit. Most conservatives hold to the ideal that a little bit of something is often good, but a lot of it is almost always bad. Liberals tend to follow an ideological believe that if a little bit of something is good, then a whole lot of it must be better.


That's the part I disagree with. When you look across our society at all the liberal causes, there seems to be no end to what we "must do" to help others. Does anyone honestly think that if we were to enact some kind of universal health care, that the arguments for new things we must do based on "need" would end? It's a slippery slope, but a legitimate one. There is no reason to expect that once this battle is won, the liberals within society wont just shift the same volume of effort to the next one. And the next. And the next. And the next.


Where does it end? Clearly, we have to draw a line somewhere, right? Where is that line? See. You'll say today that the line is "here", but the next generation, having grown up with the line "here", will insist that they just want to move it to "there". And that's it! Really. Until the next group comes along. They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, let's look at the history of social spending programs and make a call here.


I don't oppose universal health care because I want people to suffer. IMO, that's a var too simplistic argument which utterly misses the point...

Now, before someone else responds.. Do you really want to go with that? Saying anything to keep a person functional should be free?

So the government should pay for your food too?

Do you know who has a contract with the State of Maryland to provide my health care?

I'll give you some hints.

They are the largest employer in Baltimore City.

Most of their land holding are Tax exempt as much of that they do, they claim is not for profit.

They run both a major University and Teaching Hospital.

So back when Maryland got it's Federal exemption to allow private insurers run the State Medicaid program, they jump on a chance to make some more money.











Yep the Hospital with a 3 tier System of Health care in that those able to pay in Full get escorted around the hospital. Usually they have interrupters and Diplomatic plates.

Those that have good health insurance are able to get the doctors that have finish their training.

Then their are the poor of Baltimore, who are lucky to keep a new intern for 2 years, before they move on elsewhere. Still I go there for my primary doctor and tests, since they were the only place where I found a doctor, that 12 years ago that had the beginning of a clue, to what was wrong with my health. I gone through 6 doctors at least in their Adult Medical Outpatient Care Clinic.

What is sad is seeing families who have to travel from out of state, so their children can be treated for cancer.

Still I root for the BlueJays every year, as I have both a brother-in-law and son-in-laws who got their non medical degrees there. Also all the Surgical Interns at the Catholic Hospital, who saw me over the weekend were from JHHU

Edited, Jun 24th 2009 9:47pm by ElneClare

I haven't been able to find a job that would pay me enough to take care of even the most basic essentials of life, no. Working for 6$ an hour at a job that makes you want to kill yourself doesn't solve the problem of money, and it adds other problems on top of it.



I can say with at least 70% certainty that I'm at least five million times better at being frugal and allocating money where it needs to be than you are. You should seriously stop preaching some horatio alger wetdream when you don't have a ******* clue what I spend money on.



Yes, there is. You're a million times more free under government care than you are without it. You're certainly not less free than you are working for a business that controls your life through salary. Instead of worrying about dying, you're free to pursue goals of significance.

Yes or no. Can you obtain a job that would allow you to pay 200 dollars a month for your medical costs?



I doubt that seriously. I have always managed to live within my own means. I've certainly never in my life felt that without the government to provide me with something I simply could not get by. And this includes times when I survived only by selling off parts of my comic book collection, and another period of time in which I was living in my car.



I don't need to know what you spend money on to know that if you think you can't survive without the government to help you, you're most likely wrong. I know quite well just how little you can get by on if you really really need to. The details of your finances are irrelevant. Unless you are disabled to the point of physically not being able to work at all, you can find a way to make do.



False. But then you're using a completely different definition of "freedom" than I am.



False. Assuming you hold your job because your labor is worth what you are paid (and not some union or government mandated wage), then you have as much power in that regard as your employer does. He needs you to work for him just as much as you need him for a wage. His ability to obtain a replacement is no greater than your ability to obtain a new job. That's how it works in the free market if you don't have government interfering.

In that situation, you are as free as possible. Under the government, you have no power at all. It's giving you something you didn't earn, so it cost the government nothing to take it from you, or hold it over you. That's not the same with an employer.



Ah. Your warped definition of freedom, in which it has nothing to do with not having the details of your life controlled for you, but instead rests on a bit of semantic trickery. Being "freed from worry" about things like wages, health care, etc does not actually make you free.

Slaves don't have to worry about those things. Free people do. Slaves have them provided for them. Free people obtain them themselves. How much more clear can I make this?

So someone else is paying for it, right?



And not having a job at all is better? Couldn't you get a job that at least provides some income so as to defray the costs you are incurring for whomever (your parents?) is supporting you?

It's not an all or nothing proposition. My first job didn't pay enough for me to move out on my own. But I worked it anyway. It generates experience which will help you get a better job in the future. You're waiting for that perfect job to fall into your lap, but by not taking less than perfect jobs along the way, you're ******** your own chances.

The fastest way to begin making good money in the job market is to start in the job market making not so good money. It'll pay off in the long run. I guess I just don't understand this kind of "It's not enough, so I won't even bother" attitude. Something is better than nothing...

I agree. If your labour alone produces one fish a day and your labour with Mrs. Vashj's fishinator 4000 produces 4000 fish, being paid 1.000001 fish by Mrs. Vashj is a fair wage. I
mean, it's more than you'd get on your own! Furthermore, if you Vashj owns the sea and you can not fish without working for her, 0.1 fish a day would be a fair wage for your labour. This is a beneficial deal for you, because you would starve slightly faster if you did not do this.

Without a worker, Vashj gets 0 fish a day. Alone, you could bargain, but with ten percent unemployment, you cannot. Unless, say, you and all the workers forma union, so that you can bargain on equal footing with Vashj. But, you know, that'd be evil, as you're artifiically inflating wages. We should use the police to prevent this from happening, in our free republican paradiuse on earth. Right?



Accepting for a second that labour is worth whatever the free market would pay you, this is still false. Without government intervention, people still do not pay exactly what a job is worth to have this magic ratio. In fact, it is almost never the case. I mean, generally, with no regulations, 10% unemployment, an employer would not pay the very smallest amount possible, because while they may not care about their employees, they don't want them to die in droves. Thus you would pay them enough to stop them dying, but not enough to live on. This could be above the value at which it is as hard to find workers as it is for workers to find work.

I'm underemployed - that is, I work for a McJob for what is thankfully a living wage in the area I'm in, but I'm by no means intellectually stimulated and I'm so stressed out that my hair is falling out in clumps. I've been trying to save up money all summer so I can quit my job and survive until my fiance's (will be husband by then) first big paycheck in August when his real, not underemployed job starts. Then I can go back to school, get a graduate degree, and stop doing a job that Forrest Gump could do well for $12 an hour.

Just because you have a job doesn't mean it's a job that's good for you. I've determined that the only people who truly enjoy the kind of work I do are people with the personality of a betta fish: content to cruise along without expending any energy then BAM! jump into action at a moment's notice. I'm not like that; my two states of mind are actively engaged or asleep.

And I agree: The founding fathers documented that one of the inalienable rights is that of life, and if a lack of government regulation means I'm going to die because my insurance company canceled my policy due to a technicality and the government did not have an alternative in place to help me out, then the government is accountable for my loss of life. Even if they didn't shoot me in the head. Death by soldier, death by cancer - one is deliberate, the other is preventable.

Edit: And yes, I'm a Kossack. I don't watch television and if I'm going to read my news, I might as well do it in a location surrounded by like-minded people.

Edited, Jun 25th 2009 12:41am by catwho

Only if your labor was .0000001 fish more valuable than if you didn't work at all. You're assuming a power for the employer that doesn't exist.



If no one works for Vashj, she starves as well. She's going to attempt to maximize the output of her fish catching business. That means hiring as many people as she can to get as many fish as she can. It's not just you and her alone here.



You're assuming one potential employer, with only one job slot available and an infinite number of potential laborers to fill it. That's simply not the case. The reality is that Mrs. Vashj has competition who'd like to cut into her fish catching business. They'll find laborers skilled in using the fishinator4000 to come and work for them. They'll be willing to pay you more wages to steal you away because the profit motive for them is even greater (they're making nothing at the moment, right?).

That's how the free market works in real life. Only in a fable told by the likes of Marx and Engels does the employer/employee relationship work the way you describe. And they invented that fable precisely to manipulate people into following their own ridiculous political agenda.



No. You let the laborers compete for jobs, and you let the employers compete for labor! If you do this, it works. It only fails to work when the government gets involved and tries to "fix" things.

If what you believe was true, TVs would cost 1 dollar each because you could infinitely demand a lower price for the TV.

The real price of something will always be somewhere between the minimum one is willing to sell it for and the maximum someone is willing to pay. Labor is no different than any other good or service in the market. If you can't make a living wage doing what you are doing, then it's because the labor in that particular field has saturated the market. The natural market reaction is that labor will shift to do different things. The value of that labor will increase, eventually achieving a balance between what the workers are willing to work for and the employers are willing to pay.


It does work. There are millions of US citizens right now who work in fields with no government regulations or unions rules mandating our salaries, and yet we make very good wages. Why is that? Could it be because the supply/demand mechanic works for labor just fine?


You should not expect to make a large salary doing something that anyone can do. Cause... well... anyone can do it.




Of course they do. Your problem is that you want to apply some other arbitrary "value" to labor. A product is worth exactly what the buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to sell it at. You're laboring (haha) under the false assumption that labor is worth some specific amount. It's worth what an employer is willing to pay for it. Period. That's it's "true value". No more and no less.

Do you want to know where the freedom part comes in? If you are working in a field in which there are no government mandated wages, or union manipulation, and you are making a given salary (and presumably it's an acceptable one), then you know you are getting that salary because your labor is actually worth that much to your employer. You know that even if you lose your job, you will most likely be able to obtain another for a similar wage. Because when the free market determines how much your labor is worth, it's actually worth that much. When the government or a union does, you have no clue if what you do is really worth that much to your employer. You live in constant fear that the union will fail, or the government will change its wage laws, and you'll suddenly not be able to make the same money you've been used to.


It's that fear which is used to control you. You are not freed by these things. You are enslaved by them. No matter how "hard" it may seem to have to compete in an open labor market, the results are "fair". You always know where you stand. You are not being lied to, and you are not lying to yourself.

It's a good thing.



Don't you find it the least bit odd that it's those who've adopted the ideas of the union/prevailing wage systems who are most insistent that without them, it would be impossible for labor to get a fair shake? If not having those things was so bad, wouldn't you think all the folks who aren't in unions and aren't working for government wages would be yelling and screaming about the horrible facts of their poor existence? Isn't it telling that it's not the case? Those who aren't in unions are most happy with that condition, while those who are seem to constantly be terrified that the rug will be pulled out from under them by the powers that be.


If what you say was true, it would be the other way around. It's not. That's your first hint that free labor markets really do work. You just have to allow them to work and not constantly try to manage them with government rules.

Which is it?

I'll make that more clear.

Can they not take it away, or should they not? It's not possible for both to be true. The way you conceptualize rights requires you to be alive. It's a presupposition, not a right itself.

Edited, Jun 25th 2009 1:05am by Pensive

letting someone die is not the same as taking their life away from them.

kavekk, setting up a ludicrous scenario is not an argument.

Edited, Jun 25th 2009 12:14am by Xsarus