Malaise
You know it's bad when Bob (aka cheneyslovechild) tosses in the towel . I guess it's hard to be passionate about something when reality slaps you in the face.
But I think my days of working hard on national races are over. I can't compete with the moneyed interests. And the quadrennial lip service our national candidates pay to the notion of "changing the culture in Washington" rings as hollow as a Cubs manager talking up potential World Series success during spring training.
I've been (rightly) accused here of a lack of passion; perhaps it's never been so much a lack of passion as an overabundance of reality. Campaign promises are cheap, while greed and the desire for power rule Washington. If the Libertarians get anything right, it's this: giving more money to the federal government, for whatever honorable reason or cause, usually just increases the influence of the moneyed interests and decreases the likelihood that the government will respond to the needs of the citizenry. Sad, but true. And so much on display during the debate which is no longer about "healthcare reform" but about "health insurance reform" that even passionate liberal Bob can no longer stomach it.
Is it this the cause of the malaise on the blogs, this unpleasant reminder of how our political system really works? That even with possession of all three legislative bodies, the Democrats too are failing to follow their stated philosophy and party platform? Swords Crossed is not the exception; many blogs are seeing a decrease in activity. Passion for debate is waning. Disillusion with one's party is surely part of it. It's hard to call the kettle black when one more clearly sees the color of one's own pot.
But rather than bemoan the current state of this blog, let's celebrate what it was. One of the few spots on the web where all sides tried to talk with one another. And sometimes succeeded. Where anger at the other, instead of being screamed into the sky in frustration, could be directed at a person who would actually respond. Where posters from all walks of life could put their two cents out there, in the truest sense of democratic participation. And where ultimately, some of us walked away realizing that the other might hold some screwy ideas and use appalling judgment in the voting booth, but was still a person, just a fellow traveller in this mixed-up thing we call life.
I feel for Bob. Something tells me though, that he'll be back in the game. He just needs a break.
As do most of us, apparently.
I've enjoyed reading what you all have had to say. Everyone who's ever bothered to take the time to post here has contributed to the joyous noise of democracy in action. It's been real, and it's been fun.
I'll keep watching the site until Ender decides to turn the lights off. Here's hoping that we will still have something to say once these doldrums pass.
This is an open thread.
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Comments :
He'll be back sooner than Brett Favre
Maybe people are just too fired up about college football
?
obligatory off topic reference to a song inspired by phrasing in the parent post. "Ender decides to turn the lights off" Nelly Furtado - Turn Off
The Light
"The Family" 
will likely garner a lot more attention in the coming weeks.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Links I liked this week
Here's a few random items I found interesting this week.....
Will the Republic go Empire
? Maybe so, if things get dire enough
Some data on healthcare
, which seems to be woefully absent from the discussion, as Camille Paglia 
points out. Overtesting seems to be a big part of it. Will consumers ever adapt to the idea that no, Johnny does not need his ankle X-rayed "just in case"?
An interesting POV
on the furore over town halls.
And the new Breaking Benjamin
single is out; I can't wait for the album... "I will not bow, I will not break......I will not fall, I will not fade.....
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
Nihilism's Rebirth
During he Russian Revolution of the late 18th Century in 1881, the Nihilists were known throughout Europe as proponents of the use of violence in order to bring about political change. The Nihilists wanted Russia to be more competitive, were angered that Russia seemed backwards in comparison to Europe.
The Nihilists formed 'go to the people' underground coalitions such as The Land of Liberty designed to educate people. The Nihilists assassinated Alexander ll. They believed that violence was necessary to bring about reforms.
Nihilists philosophy purport that religion, morality and politics limit freedom.
The backlash against FDR was an underground libertarian business coalition movement, spearheaded by the very wealthy, that has its foundation in preserving profits and profit margins. This anti-FDR movement believed the only freedom there should be is the freedom to make a profit. They feared pro-worker, anti-monopolistic programs. Now these very same folks, backed by corporate sponsors, aka FreedomWorks (the Swiftboat Gang), are resorting to nihilist rhetoric and tactics to undermine any attempt at changing the status quo. They are dead serious and are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent change, literally.
They have created a movement. Welcome the coming out of the nihilists in America. They have spread their message through whatever means necessary. You are entitled to carry assault rifles at public events and scream nazi, all in the name of 'freedom' and preserving the profits for the insurance companies, who prey upon the sick for profit and stock market gains.
I'm only half stupid
My thoughts
See http://swordscrossed.org/diary/20090803/open-thread-august-3-9#comment-1...
My biggest concern
with Obama back during primary season was his overdeveloped penchant for conciliation. It's good politics to speak of unity, so I wasn't too worried when he stuck to uplifting generalities throughout the campaign.
But Bill Maher made a good point: the mere term "public option" sounds like a toilet facility. Start calling Republicans the pro-backruptcy or coverage-denied party. Have Menendez inform Baucus and Conrad that they'll either get a couple of million from the DSCC or a credible primary challenger for their next reelection, depending on their cloture vote. Hold up the best bill to come out of any committee and ignore the others. Denounce Grassly as the obfuscating industry stooge that he is.
Senators put percieved slights and incivilities behind them all the time. They know it's part of the job. You can either twist a few arms and offend a few people, or get stuck with a watered-down piece of crap.
BTW, does anyone recall a Republican Senator voting against cloture on a bill supported by the Bush administration between 2001 and 2009? How did the idea of filibustering your own party in the post-civil rights area become acceptable?
Regardless of what anybody else says or thinks,
I believe that the public option is a great big loophole that will enable the insurance companies to get around it and continue to screw and gyp customers who've opted for private insurance. Single-payer Universal National Healthcare, imho, is the ONLY way to go, because that way, everybody's in, nobody's out. Inotherwords, EVERYBODY, regardless of who s/he is , their walk of life, socioeconomic status, whether or not they've got a pre-existing illness or condition, or healthy, they'll be covered at all time. The fact that Obama and his Administration are in the back pocket of the insurance companies/pharma and are against single-payer is disgusting. I don't regret my refusal to vote the Obama/Biden ticket in the last election and doing a write-in at the polls instead, because I saw all this coming from the get-go.
I'd agree single payer is best
Incidentally, so does Obama, although it's not practical to bring that up at the moment.
He's not in the back pocket of insurance companies, he's just too timid and conciliatory. I'm absolutely certain a public option is better than nothing, because almost anything would be. Private insurers will have to "get around it" by offering more coverage at lower prices. They'll have to stop screwing around with reimbursement refusals.
I still think that that the public option would be a tool
used for cherry-picking young and healthy people into their insurance programs (private insurance), while people with pre-existing conditions who're therefore a higher, more expensive insurance risk still stand a chance of being left out in the cold. With the public option, anybody who lost his/her job would still lose his/her benefits. With single-payer Universal National healthcare, everybody would be in and nobody would be out.
btw, corph, I disagree with your first sentence. Obama could've and should've brought up single-payer, and, had he wanted to, he could've lobbied to get single-payer on the table.
Also, I disagree with your notion that Obama's not in the back pocket of the Insurance companies, because he is. Also, Obama's a corporate shill, plain and simple.
I love it
After all those years where we complained that Bush was governing like a liberal, now we get to hear liberals whine that Obama is governing like a conservative. :)
Holy crap! Where have all the people gone?
I take a little break and you guys just drop off the face of the planet? :)
(Cups Hands) Hello ... ello ... ello ...
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4Even ML has abandoned the site?
Please say it isn't so ...
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4Stopping by...
See some familiar names, I guess I get the sense the site is kind of slow these days... oh well... I have a bunch of new and interesting (and extremely controversial) views that I was looking forward to talking about. :)
Well, give us one to chew on then ...
:)
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4Just posted one...
on health care. I don't see any coherent views coming from Republicans on this issue. Not that I see much good coming from the Democrats, but defending nearly any aspect of our status quo policy on health care is just plain stupid. The status quo is astoundingly bad.
It would take a fairly long diary for me to explain what I'm thinking about these days. But I think a good word to describe nearly all of my current views on politics and society would be "unpopular." :) I think some aspects of our society are headed in a very, very bad direction, and I see no hope for improvement through the political process. No, not because of Obama, and not because of Bush either -- because of fundamental problems with democracy and human nature. Trying to change things through the political process is absolutely hopeless, because our political process is set up in such a way now that it's essentially guaranteed to produce horrible outcomes.
Our best hope at this point is to accept that the system is hopelessly broken and to do the best we can to live our day-to-day lives despite how bad it is (and how much worse it's going to get once the baby boomers retire), while making plans to get the hell out and either (A) find an existing society that works better than our current one or (B) build a new society. In other words, (A) expatriation or (B) Charter Cities/seasteading/spacesteading.
In the words of Arnold Kling: exit, not voice.
I've already exercised my option to exit California in favor of Texas, but Texas is still subject to federal law, and federal taxes/spending are quite a bit higher than state taxes/spending, so you're not escaping all that much. I absolutely encourage all libertarians and conservatives to move to one of the 9 states with no state income tax, the sooner the better, but we need a plan beyond that.
Texas secession would be great -- I am absolutely in favor of Texas secession -- but even if the majority of Texans supported it, which they don't, I don't see how we could get it.
While I've mentioned the tax issue here, this is NOT all just about taxes. There are several other major problems with our society that I see getting worse, not better, and I see no roadmap for fixing them within the political process. An example: no-fault divorce w/ community property and alimony has led to "divorce theft", where women initiate divorce when they get "bored" with their husbands and take half their money along with the kids. And you wonder why we young men don't want to get married...
That's a truckload of malaise you got there
May I suggest the mass consumption of vodka?
BTW, how would the Republic of Texas replace all the jobs in Houston when NASA pulls out to return to the United States? And how about all the jobs at military bases in Texas that won't be there any more? And how are you going to fund the new country's armed forces? And your new border patrol? And you'll need a navy and a Coast Guard too. Private militias certainly aren't going to be enough to keep the Mexican drug cartel from turning Texas into their own private narco-state.
And how are your universities going to replace all the federal money they will no longer be getting? And let's not forget the billions in farm subsidies. You'll also need a mint to make coins and such.
And don't expect a lot of help the next time Galveston is wiped out by a hurricane. We'll probably send you some pathetically inadequate foreign aid but you'll pretty much be on your own.
Sounds to me like you're gonna need to raise taxes to support this grand new adventure.
Will the Republic of Texas expect to receive favorable trade status with the United States? We might just have to slap a 20 percent tariff on everything coming from Texas. And we'll probably have to build a fence along the Louisiana border to keep out all the illegal Texas aliens.
Oh, and might want to recall that the last time this secession thing was tried there wasn't exactly universal support for it in Dixie. Quite a few Southerners volunteered for the Union Army. And there were even secession movements within the secession movement, i.e. the Free State of Jones County, not to mention West Virginia.
And since President Rick Perry has already declared that Texas can split up into as many as five separate countries, you are either going to have to fight a nasty war to keep everyone in line or you can become a collection of Luxembourgs.
Either way, you better keep an eye on us over here in America. We do pre-emptive wars these days and we might just decide that some regime change is in order down there. Especially if we suspect you might be trying to make WMD.
qui tacet consentire
Errr...
Texas is a donor state
. (I was confused by the numbers at first, which don't seem to divide correctly, but they point out the reason in the XLS: they're adjusting for the fact that the federal government has been running deficits, which are not a free lunch.)
My ideal isn't Texas secession; it's a suboptimal solution. It's also an unachievable solution right now because the feds would never let it happen, even if there was 80% support for it here. But there is a real problem in that federalism has broken down. There's too much power in DC for it to work. The states spend much of their budget complying with federal mandates, so the raw dollar breakdown understates the issue.
And even then, some of the states are too big. California is definitely too big.
But none of these problems are ever going to be fixed through democracy. Democracy has failed. We've finally gotten the outcome of our 233-year experiment with self-government. It had a good run, but the final score was: Public Choice 1, Hamilton and Madison 0.
To clarify: Hamilton and Madison thought they could put together a government that could restrain the wickedness of men, via checks and balances, division of power, etc. They overestimated the power of constitutional devices to restrain human nature. Power has been centralized and the checks and balances have been destroyed.
Just as Public Choice tells us what the problem is, it also points us towards the solution: competition between governments to attract citizens. The US government is able to extract monopoly rents from its citizens because it has little effective competition and therefore a lot of market power.
My proposed solution is to directly attack the market power by exercising the right of exit, which (thank God!) hasn't been taken away from us yet.
Step 1: Exit high-tax states (e.g. CA, NY) for low-tax states (9 choices for no income tax: AK, WA, NV, WY, SD, TX, TN, NH, FL). Check: already did this. I recommend everyone else do the same.
Step 2: Find a better country to live in with a less degenerate society. I was just over in Estonia. Real nice place. Ultra-capitalist, low taxes, low cost of living, beautiful countryside, beautiful women, educated population, up-and-coming player in the IT field, already richer than some countries in Western Europe. Remind me why I'm in the US again?
Step 3: If no suitable existing country to live in can be found, build a new one from scratch, floating on the ocean or in space if need be.
If you are looking for a tax haven
You can't beat Monaco. Estonia might have beautiful women but the Riviera has topless beaches.
Monaco also has a Formula One race and a great harbor to dock your yacht.
qui tacet consentire
ha...
If only I didn't have a job and had time to go around the world and explore all these places. :)
Out of curiosity, I looked up some of these countries' citizenship policies. Trying to impose such policies here would be considered outrageously racist. Take for instance Estonia:
In other words, we only want white people to move here (although we'll make an exception for Japan because they're rich and well-behaved). And there are many additional restrictions on top of this.
Oh, here you go then, ...an ode to ML...
"You suck, Repub's suck, capitalism sucks...
You have no right to use the post office,street lights, & public ed since you believe in low taxes & restrained government...
You suck, Repub's suck, capitalism sucks...
You have no right to use the post office,street lights, & public ed since you believe in low taxes & restrained government...
You suck, Repub's suck, capitalism sucks...
You have no right to use the post office,street lights, & public ed since you believe in low taxes & restrained government...
You suck, Repub's suck, capitalism sucks...
You have no right to use the post office,street lights, & public ed since you believe in low taxes & restrained government..."
...it's spooky isn't it, it's just like she's right here with us this very moment, huh? LOL! ;-)
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Hello!
I think everyone is still on vacation ;-)
Did you by chance catch this
article?
He puts forward a viable plan, if only as a starting point for a discussion of real reform. Worth the read.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I read the article, and the idea of only issuing "catastrophic"
I read the article, and the idea of only covering catastrophic health insurance to all Americans is quite screwed up, because it leaves no room for preventive care as well, which is also necessary, and can destroy a person's income and savings. Sorry, but I believe that a single-payer healthcare system that covers all Americans and includes the coverage of preventive healthcare as well is the only way to go. The public option thing is a huge loophole, and catastrophic health insurance is BS. I don't buy into either one of those, plus the notion that you'd be subsidizing somebody else is BS also. The reason our government doesn't have the money to cover all Americans with the one that I and most other reform supporters advocate is because the USA government has spent too much money invading other countries with impunity and creating coups or attempted coups, to topple governments whose interests don't tally up with ours.
You did see...
He's very clear that he wants to subsidize preventative care: "So here’s a solution: the government could provide vouchers to all Americans for a free checkup every two years."
In general, it seems to me that all of your objections were very clearly addressed in the article. Catastrophic insurance is not "BS"; it's the only kind of insurance that is actually *insurance* as opposed to what Arnold Kling calls "insulation" against day-to-day expenses, just as your car insurance doesn't cover gas or oil changes. It doesn't destroy your income/savings, because catastrophic insurance is cheap, it covers you against financial disaster, and day-to-day expenses can be paid out of the thousands of dollars of savings on insurance premiums you're already (or your employer is already) paying. Thus the whole comment about $1.77 million.
The Singapore model is very similar to what he describes. Singapore has great health outcomes at a fraction of any other developed nation's cost. Also, it would be easier to switch to the Singapore model in the US than to another model, because the Singapore model would build on pre-existing institutions like MSA's.
Single-payer might actually be better than what we have right now, but it isn't a free lunch. Even the Singapore model wouldn't be a free lunch. Any honest discussion of health care needs to start with the fact that you can't give people all the health care they want for free, because demand for health care is infinite at a price of zero. This implies some sort of system for matching up supply and demand, be it a market or be it rationing.
The good news is that there is a lot of health care that is harmful, ineffective, or at very least not even remotely cost-effective. There are certainly efficiency gains to be had. And we could also do a ton by simply fixing the appalling hospital infection problem. So we could cut a *lot* of health care spending with very little impact on health outcomes. Unfortunately this will require some fundamental changes to people's views about health care. There is a significant percentage of the population that thinks they are entitled to essentially unlimited health care spending *out of someone else's pocket* for massively expensive last-ditch efforts to postpone death for incurable conditions. This must change.
But instead of trying to come up with a plan that everyone could agree on -- I honestly do think this ought to be possible -- some Democrats seem fixed on the idea of pushing through single-payer through stealth in the form of the "public option", which will inevitably lead to single-payer. And Democrats seem to have given up on the single best idea that's been discussed so far, which was to tax employer-provided health care benefits as income.
Actually, we don't really need to come up with a plan. We could just pass Wyden-Bennett: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545885464333145.html
There's also the critical issue of obesity, but no one wants to take that very seriously either. With obesity the time for half measures is long past. We shouldn't be talking about taxing soft drinks. We need a direct tax on people whose BMI is over 30. Maybe $2500 a year if your BMI is over 30, and an extra $500/year on top of that for every point above 30. So someone with a BMI of 40 (mind you, this is rather morbidly and disgustingly obese) would essentially pay a $7500/year fine. For people unable to pay the fine, we would cut off their Medicaid eligibility in maybe 5 or 10 years, giving them time to (literally) shape up. If they can't or won't shape up, then too bad. I'm sick and tired of paying for other people's irresponsible lifestyle choices.
Lifestyle choices
The whole issue of lifestyle choices is a slippery slope.
Do we exclude homosexuals because of the prevalence of HIV?
Do we exclude motorcyle drivers whose likelihood of serious injury is far higher than car drivers?
What about football players, or soccer players, or skiiers?
Smokers? People who drink more than a glass or two of alcohol a week? People with heart issues who continue to enjoy coffee?
All of those are "lifestyles" that carry higher degrees of risk for expensive medical treatment than other lifestyle choices. And, let's say we do limit care for such people, including the morbidly obese, and they cannot or do not change their lifestyle----do we let them die?
It's much better to stifle your urge to condemn, and realize that both obese people and adrenaline junkies are citizens too, and just as entitled to participate in governmental care as any other citizen. Trying to draw lines around "good" people and "bad" people for purposes of deciding who lives and dies is no better than our current system.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I agree
I know exactly where this slippery slope leads.
But this is no different than the bank bailouts: private benefits for socialized risks. If the benefits of risky activities (say, skiing or motorcycles) accrue to private individuals, and the risks are paid by all of society, then it is rational to take excess risks. If we must have socialized health care, then I say we must also have totalitarian behavior control to prevent people from taking those unacceptable risks -- just as some have argued that if we are to have bank bailouts, we must have a financial regulator to prevent banks from taking excess risks.
There are some other considerations with obesity, though. I'd want to target obesity even in the absence of socialized medicine for two reasons:
1. Fat people are ugly. Having to look at them is a negative externality.
2. Obesity is screwing up the dating market: an increasing percentage of young women are now unsuitable candidates for long-term relationships, much less spouses or families.
Tackling obesity
Americans (indeed, all developed countries) have to face this issue. But preventing obesity is much easier than fixing it. I think we have to start there, and yesterday.
A few governmental things come to mind: Ending corn subsidies (to end the falsely-low pricing of corn syrups as a food additive), start subsidizing the development of anti-fat drugs (to better balance the profitability of prediabetic and lipid medications); getting the USDA out of the food pyramid business so that school nutrition isn't biased towards cheap carbohydrates; returning true PE classes to schools; more PSAs about what a healthy diet looks like, including portion sizes; etc.
The other thing, which is societal, is that we have to quit making children stay indoors or under constant surveillance for fear of being snatched or harmed. But I digress.
A few recent articles about obesity and health:
Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin
Obesity 2009 (pdf)
Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
Not necessarily disagreeing...
Several of the things you propose would be good starts. But look at how fast obesity is climbing; I don't see how a policy of "educate people about more healthy lifestyles" is sufficient to reverse the trend.
Does anyone who is concerned about global warming talk about simply "educating" people about the issue? No, they would rightly dismiss that as silly.
Now, just as I would rather have a carbon tax than command-and-control regulation of carbon-emitting industries, I would rather have a tax on obesity than more direct forms of behavior control. Set down the goal: "we want lower obesity"; and simply reward people who achieve the goal and punish people who don't.
Most of the stuff recommended in that healthyamericans.org report is unfortunately command-and-control, and I would predict a lot of it would be fairly ineffective.
Regarding the science of obesity -- I will actually give people in the "overweight" (BMI 25-29.9) camp a free pass for now. Some folks have claimed that this group is not necessarily any less healthy than the "normal weight" group, and while I have some qualms with some of the scientific claims they've made, there's not a huge health problem with merely "overweight" people.
But once you start talking about the "obese" group, it becomes more clear cut. And we're seeing rapid growth in the BMI>=35 and even BMI>=40
groups, as well as child obesity.
The argument that a broad
The argument that a broad increase in preventive care will save lots of money is bogus. Prevention programs generally do not reduce costs. Sure, it’s cheaper to prevent some health problem or catch early than to treat it later, but obviously many receiving the preventive care do not have that particular problem and will not get it even without a particular form of preventive care (i.e., the preventive care is largely wasted on most people). Of course, it’s possible for preventive care to be sufficiently targeted to produce net savings, but apparently, in practice, preventive programs generally don’t. See http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/congressional-budget-expert-says-preventive-care-will-raise-not-cut-costs.html
and http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=345 
In fact, even “wellness services” that produce lifestyle changes that improve health like reduction of obesity and smoking cessation don’t reduce long-term federal spending, because healthier people live longer and thus receive more Social Security and Medicare benefits, etc. (I know that sounds cold, but I’m just talking about net effect on spending, not about what’s desirable, all things considered) See http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/crsdocuments/97-1053_E.pdf 
and http://www.nber.org/papers/w4891 
The research on obesity that I’ve seen reaches the same conclusion (I don’t have links handy).
Again, I disagree here, B Rational.
Preventive health care is also a necessity for coverage under a comprehensive, singlepayer Universal National healthcare program. Why should people either die or end up permanently incapacitated in some way or other because they felt the need to forego preventive healthcare due to expensive costs? They shouldn't, and the government shouldn't kick them to the curb when they're sick. Preventive care does save a lot of money.
Re: Why should people either
Re: Why should people either die or end up permanently incapacitated in some way
I didn't say anything about what we should do. I just commented on the impact on cost. Whether or not we should do something that increases costs is a different question than whether or not it increases costs. And whether or not a claim that something reduces costs is valid is a different from whether or not it's worth doing.
Re: Preventive care does save a lot of money.
I just gave you links showing that experts who have studied that question concluded otherwise. And coincidentally, here's more from today's Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR200908...
It's hard to save money by spending money
Not much else to it. It's good old wishful thinking at work. Who could possibly disagree with ancient bromides about ounces of prevention and pounds of cure?
There are certain specific types of preventive care that have a very high bang for the buck. Those aren't the issue. The worry is that we'll start giving more people cholesterol drugs in a hope of preventing heart attacks, even though the impact of these drugs is modest. Many of the people receiving the drugs really need to change their diet, exercise, and smoking habits before we even *consider* medication.
Not much else to it. It's
Not much else to it. It's good old wishful thinking at work. Who could possibly disagree with ancient bromides about ounces of prevention and pounds of cure?
Right, but it's amazing to me just how dumb (often conveniently so, given their policy preference) so many people can be by just stopping at that point without considering the other facter: the preventive care spending that is wasted on people who don't have and won't get the health problem in question even without that type of preventive care. I mean, does it really take much common sense to realize that this "wasted" care (money spent on a particular form of preventive care for people who turn out not to need or benefit much from this care) has to be netted out of the savings from the cases (the other subset of people receiving that form of preventive care) in which the preventive care does reduce healthcare costs for those individuals? I mean, no one would say that playing the roulette wheel in Vegas as an ongoing practice is a great investment on the basis that, in those cases in which the ball lands on your number, it's hugely profitable (neglecting all the times one loses), so why would so many people be (or pretend to be) so idiotic that they would assume mass preventive care to be inherently cost-reducing just on the basis of those cases in which it turns out to be so? Yeesh.
Sooner or later, the ball will hit your number no matter what.
At least when you get preventative health care coverage as well, it'll minimize how hard the ball hits your number, plus it does save more money down the road. If a condition is detected before symptoms show up, or gets too advanced, it's easier to possibly save a life and/or limbs. Ever heard the term "A stitch in time saves nine"? That applies here.
It's really hard to believe
It's really hard to believe that you could read my comments, which explained -- twice -- the clear error in your logic, and keep responding with the same error. I'll try just one more time: Broad-based preventive care ends up saving money on a small portion of recipients (those for whom it prevented or caught early some progressive health problem) and losing a lot of money on the majority (those who don't have the related health problem and won't get it even without the preventive care). The experts have found that the latter is greater than the former: The preventive care dollars wasted on the majority who don't benefit from it exceed the savings from prevention or earlier intervention with the minority. If you still don't get that, I give up trying to explain it to you.
Spending money is saving money
Did you forget your own advice that spending is an investment on returns to be be had at some future date?
That is why health insurance companies are now spending to oppose any kind of insurance reform or real competition. They consider that spending now will give them a good return on future profits.
The health insurance industry isn't so much interested in an individuals health as they are in making a profit.
Health care is a separate issue.
When you say 'before we even consider medication', one has to ask what do you mean by "we"? That certainly smacks of collectivism.
I'm only half stupid
I found his plan to be fair
and worthy of serious discussion. Not that anything like it would actually be considered by Congress, though. The very idea of taxing insurance benefits as income is seen as unfair by most Democrats, despite the fact that uncoupling insurance from employment would be a boon to most people. No more having to stay at a job, any job, just for the benefits.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I disagree, lordzorgon.
Preventive care, too can get very expensive, and with something like "catastrophic healthcare coverage only", more and more people will die unnecessarily because they'll feel forced to forego preventive medical care because they can't afford it. Sorry, but I'm not going to support a program that lets people die unnecessarily because they can't afford full healthcare coverage including preventive healthcare as well as "catastrophic care health insurance. Often enough, once a person has waited until s/he only gets "catastrophic health care insurance, it's too late to save this person's life. Would you really prefer that kind of health insurance program? I sure as hell wouldn't!
"Full" coverage?
That covers everything? For free? That seems to be what you are implying. Because otherwise, people would die unnecessarily.
We need to make tradeoffs in life, and health care is no exception. "Preventive" care should not be exempt from cost/benefit tradeoffs; in fact, sometimes "preventive" care is not actually more cost-effective than waiting for something bad to happen and treating it only if it actually does happen. See other posts by B Rational on this thread.
Indeed, there is a strong case to be made that a lot of health care spending is "feel good" spending: it doesn't really help anyone, and we *know* that it doesn't really help anyone, but we feel guilty if we don't try to save someone's life. (i.e. "it would just be *mean* to let Grandma die!") By putting in the effort, however futile, we deflect charges that we're mean, awful people who weren't willing to spend a few bucks when someone's life was on the line.
Not very rational behavior -- we'd all be better off if we could agree that we shouldn't spend money on known-to-be-ineffective treatments, and that refusing to administer such treatments is not "mean" but actually humane -- but a lot of human behavior is far from rational.
My grandpa is a good example of what's wrong with the system; he's 92 years old, he's barely able to move, and he cannot assemble a coherent sentence (the best he can do these days is a somewhat incoherent sentence fragment). He has had several strokes and there is absolutely no chance of his condition improving. He isn't "living" in any meaningful sense, he is merely "surviving." He's a burden on my dad: shouldn't my dad be able to spend his retirement doing fulfilling activities rather than taking care of his parents' never-ending medical issues? He's a burden on society (when the money runs out Medicaid will continue to pay for everything): that's unfair to hard-working taxpayers.
But if I said "we should just let him die in the most humane fashion possible" I would rapidly be accused of being a dick.
Football season
n/t
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Horrors
The newly elected leader of Japan, Mr. Hatoyama ran on a platform decrying American style market fundamentalism, promising much more worker friendly policies, including banning temporary labor and raising the minimum wage.
Mr. Hatoyama, the new prime minister of Japan was elected attacking deregulation promising to put more rules on business and provide social safety nets for the aging.
How will US conservatives react to this seemingly new anti-American Japanese leader?
Will they start a Japanese style FreedomWorks to do counter townhalls?
Will they transplant a Texas undercover agent to Japan to sabotage Japan's new leader and undercut his pro-worker policies as treason?
Will they pay the Japanese newspapers large sums of money to run well placed op-eds in Japanese papers slandering the new popularly elected leader of Japan as a marxist/socialist for being worker friendly?
What kind of temper tantrum can US conservatives have that will have the most dramatic destabilizing effect on Japan's turning against their beloved conservative 'freedom index'?
I'm only half stupid
You left off ...
Will they yawn and go back about their business?
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4Well sure
there are no votes in Osaka.
Hello, All.
(BTW, to my Facebook BFF's: I plan to have some updates and photos from my very hectic and eventful recent life very soon) :)
While I haven't been reading much...if anything...in the way of politics or public policy lately, I accidentally scrolled down too far on my Google Reader (which now resides at the bottom of my homepage) and happened to catch the headline to this fine article at the Liberty Papers
which covered one of my most reviled pet peeves:
Regulatory Capture and the idea of new regulations being quasi-crafted by the intended target of the silly yet well-intentioned law to make its business better relative to its competitors than before the law was passed.
The Law in question is the The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) which passed in response to the cases of lead-laden toys sold by Mattel.
Long story short: Mattel, the culprit in the toy dilemma, managed to lobby to get third party testing for ALL toy makers (including small domestic makers) while getting approval to test its own product in-house in government-approved testing laboratories. Smooth move. Nice provision. Well played by Mattel. Now they have a cost advantage over weaker competitors.
From Liberty Papers:
Hmmm.
Or as Peter Suderman quoted in this article
:
""don't hate the playa, hate the game."
PS: I was actually dragged into an out-loud political discussion among friends by one of my New Deal Democratic friends (to back him up on an issue) the other evening. The cob webs were very apparent (to me at least). I had my reservations about joining in. I generally don't enjoy it. But I managed to get his back on on a few issues against the conservatives...quite convincingly I might add ;)...while just as quickly turning on him on another issue or two. As the topics drifted, I had both the liberals and conservatives against me on free trade, immigration, the nature of wealth and tax policy among a few other issues :)
I kinda felt like Ron Paul in Congress. :P
My libertarian-leaning Republican sister-in-law was my only ally...tepid or otherwise...through most of the chat. Kinda like Jeff Flake =)
Oh well, see you 'round...
You earned it baby
Jenna Bush Hager 'merits' a correspondents job because of all of her hard work.
Speaking of the virtues of the meritocracy:
Yes and by contrast Sonya Sotomayor was practically handed a job on the Supreme Court on a silver platter, because of you know, affirmative action, that just let's lazy minorities slip into important positions without earning it.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/30/royalty/index.html
[ Glenn Greenwald, one of his more sarcastic and poignant writings]
I'm only half stupid
I just want *the truth*
Take notes folks.
Check out the 'artwork' by progressives/communists/ fascists in New York.
The progressive/communist/fascist indoctrination is everywhere, once you start *seeing* it and start to connect the dots.
It could be that communists have infiltrated America. Just a simple question to get at *the truth*
Have faith, the truth will come out, if we ask *questions*. (cue weeping)
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9gccy/did_glenn_beck_murder_a_...
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/yahoo-answers-did-glenn-beck-murd...
I am not saying that it happened, you know at that party in 1990, I am just saying, how do we really know that it didn't? The truth will out. Besides my sister in laws boyfriends, girlfriend said she talked to someone who said, that the person in question could have been there on that fateful night. Further how do we know he wasn't.
Golly gee, aw shucks, Glenn Beck didn't really, well honestly, just askin'.
I'm only half stupid
Glenn Beck is a money grubbing clown
He says whatever he thinks he can to feed the beast in his wallet and his obsession. Crazy stuff to get liberals to watch and be dumbfounded by the idiot, saner stuff to play to standard Fox News crowd. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080315161844AAP17qx
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
All true, but.....
He appeals to the *gut*. People's uneasy feeling that there is something *afoot*.
It is unbelievable to me that he is allowed on the air with his conspiracy theories.
True story: A man I help due to stroke and immobility, who is now disabled, lived off of his mother's social security until she had to go in a nursing home. He now gets social security and medicaid (state funded) aid, plus food stamps. He loved Obama until the day after the DNC convention when McCain picked that sexy Sarah as the VP.
He watches a lot of Fox News, and loves Glenn Beck. The electricity went off at his house once right before the Beck show and he was positive it was a conspiracy to hide the truth. He got a census form and is now bragging how he is not going to fill it out, and is willing to suffer the consequences *whatever* they are cause he thinks Obama wants to know what kind of toilet paper he wipes his ass with. His ignorance is unbearable, especially since he is generally a nice fella.
I asked him if he understood that without 'government run health care' both he and his mother would be dead? That little nugget of truth doesn't seem to matter to him, because one time he worked for a few months at a real job (when he wasn't living off mama's soc.security check) and he paid a thousand dollars once in taxes.
That is what is so dangerous about this inane, stupid, ignorant, idiotic misinformation campaign. It doesn't matter how stupid we 'elitists' think this stuff is. It works. On people that otherwise seem kind of reasonable.
I fault Team Obama, for not understanding that they should have gotten one step ahead of this SwiftBoat Campaign, immediately. I don't know how you deal with this crap.
They say the answer to free speech (conspiracy theories are not illegal) is more free speech. It is insane to me that these delusions are allowed to be legitimized by the media.
I find it both sickening & revolting.
I'm only half stupid
Glenn Beck is bizarro Olberman, but 290x futher out there.
There will always be people that think there are Monsters due on Maple Street
, and folks of all ilks. The few one's on the right are very vocal recently. What's worse, is a small few of them are digging their own graves with their paranoia. Maybe soon they'll fight to end all the laws on the books that are against mob rule. The one's that are soft-racist amongst the crowd might be one of the most dangerous, being pissed that they're being labeled as a racist, at times, just for being part of a group that has a much greater ratio of racist than the average population.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Unfortunately, however, if we want a truly democratic society,
we'll have to allow the Sarah Palins, the Glen Becks, the Sean Hannitys and the Al Sharptons, etc. of this society to public air their views, no matter how irresponsible and repulsive that they may be to us. Suppressing and disallowing that kind of speech isn't the answer. The people who're saying that more free speech is the answer are right. If we let them speak, there's more opportunity to rebut such people, and by rebutting them enough, these people may well become irrelevant.
Here's an example in point, though it's a tad or so off the subject, but deserves noting, anyway. Several years ago, in a white workingclass Boston neighborhood, a tavern owner in the area was known for his blatantly racist attitudes, even going as far as putting up a whole bunch of pictures of apes on Martin Luther King Day. It was repulsive and blatantly racist, and the Boston NAACP got involved, eventually putting this tavern owner out of business, thus depriving him of his livelihood. While I myself agree that this tavern owner's viewpoints were clearly racist...and repulsive, to boot, I honestly don't believe that depriving him of his livelihood was the way to go. This is yet another example of an instance when more free speech would've been the answer, thus providing an opportunity to rebut the racist tavern owner, and make him re-think the consequences of putting pictures of apes up on the walls of the tavern on MLK day, if one gets the drift. That being said, I believe that more free speech has the possibility, remote as it may be, of changing people's minds.
It's a little more complicated than that
The media has a responsibility to hold itself to some semblance of the facts. They shouldn't be allowed to just make sh*t up and, metaphorically speaking yell, fire in a crowded theater.
Glenn Beck by himself is puny. But he has the wink and nod of the right wing media monopoly, where World Net Daily, makes up lies, sends out millions of e-mails, gets conservative hacks to write op-eds, scream hate on the radio. The effect is getting folks all worked up to support the status quo. No change they scream. Let me keep my high insurance premiums, because damnit I love American freedom. It's idiotic.
The monopolistic single mindedness of the right wing media, seems to run exactly opposite of what they claim they are fighting for anti-statism. It has zero to do with principles and everything to do with ownership and power.
The states rights purists screaming, that the tenth amendment doesn't allow the federal government to interfere with states or states rights, need to give back all the money they take from the federal government, for roads, education, building contracts, health care, military bases. The tenthers may as well advocate for breaking up the states into individual nations like Europe.
The country of Texas, has the worst outcomes in health care, and education, yet somehow manages to be top on the receiving end of federal dollars given to their little country of Texas. These people really don't want the United States to exist because they have zero interest in the common welfare.
Just saying for the common welfare, or labor rights automatically makes you a communist?
Are we all just supposed to turn into a bunch of screaming bullies carrying guns, so that we can have equal time and attention in the free speech realm?
Re: your little story, the blacks, just like the Jews, are ultra-sensitive to bigotry of any kind with good reason. Not that long ago, they used to just point fingers and grab a rope, or ask you your name and put you on a train. One man filled with hate and bigotry can easily whip a mob into hysteria. That is the tea party crowd.
Glenn Beck is essentially saying hang em high and whipping folks into a lynch mob frenzy.
There is a real good reason why the feds originally invaded Mississippi. The white (pro-life) population was murdering black people with absolutely zero consequences.
I'm only half stupid
Care to present evidence for your claims?
I'd appreciate it if you were a little more careful with the facts.
I already linked earlier in this thread to numbers indicating that Texas is a donor state. If you want to pick on a state whose economy is heavily dependent on the federal government, pick on a state that actually deserves it, like New Mexico.
Regarding health and education, I looked up several rankings and Texas certainly did not come out as "the worst." For example, one education ranking
put Texas at 26th, right in the middle of the pack.
It's no Minnesota
, but that's hardly a fair comparison. Texas is a border state with a lot of poor immigrants with weak English skills. Minnesota is full of Scandinavians. Remember, there's a large genetic component to intelligence. One of the rankings where Minnesota does best is SAT scores; SAT scores have a very high correlation to IQ. And of course, it's a lot easier to teach kids who already speak English.
On health, this ranking
put Texas at 46th -- not good, but certainly not "worst." But look carefully at the methology. They rank Texas at 48th in "determinants" of health, but only 33rd in health "outcomes." Read through the "determinants" of health; many of them are not "health" rankings at all. For example, high school graduation rates?? Occupational fatalities? Children in poverty?
And again, it's intructive to look at the top states in the ranking. Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah. With the exception of Hawaii, all extremely white states; Hawaii has a large Asian population. Could this have anything to do with... ahem... genetics? It's well-known that, for example, black males have high rates of heart disease, even after correcting for other factors.
Oh, please. Is it not plausible to think that maybe we simply think we get a really poor value for our federal tax dollars? That we think we could get a lot more for our money if our government was less incompetent? That our state government is more likely to be responsive to the needs and desires of the population than the federal government?
I hope your not in finanance or statistical analysis
Do you have any stats of how Scandinavian immigrants of poor families with poor 2nd language skills do on test once cultural differences are taken out?
If you want to see dumb white people, come to my hometown and talk to the people that had poor parents.
I think the "Tiger Repellent Rock" you hold was found after some specious correlations were made.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Do you dispute that intelligence has a genetic component?
I certainly didn't invent the idea that it does; here's
a recent example from the blogosphere of some real data on the topic, which might help explain your observation that people with poor parents seem to be dumb.
There are dumb people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. However, there are also some distinct variations across certain populations. For example, the standard deviation of IQ for men is much higher than that for women; more men are super-geniuses than women, more men are stupid as dirt also.
And when it comes to average IQ... Asian > white > Hispanic > black. Mind you, I said *average*. We may wish it was otherwise, but that's what the data say. At the same time, look at who wins in running, both short distance (think Usain Bolt) or long distance (think the Kenyans). Human beings are unequal, and human populations are also unequal.
Even within European populations, it would not be surprising to see significant differences in various traits from region to region (e.g. Nordic vs. Germanic vs. Anglo vs. Mediterranean).
[quote]there's a large
[quote]there's a large genetic component to intelligence. [/quote]
Depends what you mean by large.
Ton of drivers, many are interconnected, Multicollinearity abound.
There's a high percentage of British Anglicans, Arab Muslims. Italian Catholics, those specific religion aren't in their DNA.
Culture is too deeply embedded in everything....
...97% of the 30+ blacks from my town that played sports that require some speed in the last 15 years have been slow to nearly average speed...
The study doesn't say if they took into account when the children were adopted, the income of adopters, if the kids were placed in similar schools.
I can find a graph that shows a strong correlation between fresh lemons imported into the US from Mexico and US highway deaths.
http://scienceblogs.com/commonknowledge/2009/04/mexican_lemons_prevent_h...
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Thank You
The stats game can be fun. Who knew lemons were so dangerous.
Texas gets a lot of those federal medicare dollars.
“Texas gets far less than its fair share from Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor. Maybe we are making up the shortfall with extra Medicare dollars.”
Texas ranks third in the nation in on the receiving end of federal medicare dollars.
http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/07/21/daily61.html
I'm only half stupid
I'm not sure where you're going with all this...
So you do, or you don't, think that intelligence has a significant genetic component? The lemons thing is funny but it doesn't address the point. It's a very important question, no? Because if (1) intelligence has a significant genetic component, (2) there are positive externalities to high intelligence, and (3) there are negative externalities to low intelligence, that could have a lot of implications to public policy. Say, starting with immigration.
And it seems clear to me that all three statements are almost certainly true.
At very least, if there is a genetic basis to intelligence or to health (and the health connection is even more obvious -- there are tons of genes that have been found to be linked to diseases, and the prevalence of some of those genes varies wildly among various groups. Sickle cell anemia is probably the best known example), trying to rank states or countries on education or health *outcomes* without correcting for their populations' makeup is silly.
That is, is the Finnish education system really better than the American education system, or are Finns just smarter to begin with?
You've commented about culture -- yes, there are cultural differences too -- but this begs the additional question of whether there is a genetic basis to some aspects of culture. Anyway, what's the overall nature/nurture split? My understanding is that for intelligence, the answer has been found to be about 70/30.
Which reminds me
Of one European talking about soccer in Europe, and how the "whites" there are considered the one's with more athletic ability than any of the players coming out of sub-Saraha Africa.
Not too many Kenyans would be long distance runners if they came out of subartic zones,.
The biggest genetic differences in "intelligence" are probably localized, but in less of a way than a truck is better at off road driving than a Porsche 911.
The mind is like a muscle, Usain Bolt might be fast, but if he didn't train and ate fast food all the time, he'd be a lot slower. Geography plays a big role in culture, and culture and things like the Golem Effect play too huge a role.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081118180713AAN41Gp
Multiple guess test and studies with a small population cannot take out the other drivers that are deeply entrenched.
Double blind studies in medicine can even be misleading.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
First of all, missliberties,
one doesn't have to approve of somebody's racist attitudes and actions to realize that putting a tavern owner out of business no matter how repulsive his viewpoints were, thus depriving him of his livelihood, was an overreaction to this situation. Don't you think it's possible that had if enough people, preferably outside the area where this tavern was located had at least told the tavern owner, in so many words that what he did was offensive and that he should think about the consequences of his actions and behaviours? My answer to that is...yes...it's a possibility.
Secondly, I stand by my position that if people rebut these idiotic Rightwing nutcases long enough, or at least refuse to watch them, then they'll eventually flake off like a bad rash, knowing that people don't take an interest in them.
But, then again, missliberties,
when one person supposedly whips a mob into hysteria, it's much, much more likely to happen when leaders are elected who either create the kind of atmosphere that makes mob hysteria possible through actions, which speak way louder than words, or if elected top officials just plain aren't strong enough to put extremists under control. Troublemakers are often coached and assisted by top leadership that encourages them.
But, then again, missliberties,
when one person supposedly whips a mob into hysteria, it's much, much more likely to happen when leaders are elected who either create the kind of atmosphere that makes mob hysteria possible through actions, which speak way louder than words, or if elected top officials just plain aren't strong enough to put extremists under control. Troublemakers are often coached and assisted by top leadership that encourages them.
reward offered
I heard a rumor that a cash reward of $500 is being offered to anyone who can prove that Glenn Beck didn't rape and murder someone in 1990.
I'm only half stupid
We are all marxists now
Glenn Beck claims his first scalp.
His week long tirade against that scary black radical who had the temerity to protest the beating of Rodney King, has resulted in Van Jones resignation.
You have got to love how all week long he explained his story with three adjectives linked together.
Progressive = Communist /Fascist
Clever. If you are a progressive, you are automatically a communist.
Grab some wood and stoke the fire. The witch hunt has begun.
I'm only half stupid
Next Target Mark Lloyd
Mark Lloyd.
His crime being for diversity in communications.
He has the audacity to express his view that there is a stranglehold on communications by international corporations. He advocates for robust public broadcasting, and stronger regulation of the FCC.
Mark Lloyd, a communist.
Valerie Jarrett will live to regret these words.
Valerie Jarrett bragging about Jones before a friendly audience earlier this year:
"Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he's not that old, for as long as he's been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House."
Valerie Jarrett, a communist sympathizer.
I'm only half stupid