Bill is looking for addresses to which he might send wedding announcements. He said he's missing Antares' and Nate's. Would y'all mind sending me (probably by email) yer's mailing addresses?
Gracias.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Another rambling comment in the form of a post
If you've never read "The Phantom Tollbooth" you're missing out in a serious way. Near the end of the book, as our hero is nearing his rescue of the two banished princesses Rhyme and Reason, he has do deal with a number of nefarious creatures in the Lands Beyond above Digitopolis. One of these is the two-headed demon of compromise, which, as you might imagine, never gets anywhere. I used to wonder why Norton Juster would characterize compromise that way; it is, after all, what our government is set up to do.
The theme I see coming out here is that just about any "pure" implementation would probably be better than what we've got. The problem isn't public healthcare vs. take care of yourself healthcare, because either system would work great in the social equivalent of the perfect physics world. Public education might be a good idea for the public if it's implemented correctly, but what we've got is not implemented correctly. Public healthcare might be good if implemented correctly, but it isn't. It's people's human pride and selfishness that breaks everything. In that world, the best we can do is compromise, which, in terms of actual function, is very often the worst of the available options, but the only one that allows for common peace. Or is supposed to.
Take socialism. I think this is probably the ideal. My investment is good for me, true, but in a round-about way that requires me to have faith in you to return the favor at some undetermined future date. It would just be so simple. There are numerous examples of the failure of socialism, but none, to my knowledge can be ascribed to a failure in the system itself. We just don't have that much faith in one another, and the system requires everybody to live solidly by charity.
Then there's the opposite, libertarianism. It'd also work pretty well. Everybody takes care of themselves, your problems aren't my problems, and since I'm a nice guy and I like you, I'll pay attention and help you out when you need it. In our imperfect world, though, it doesn't work because it depends on self-motivation, which is apparently less common than one might hope, and the correct application of agency. The problem I have with libertarianism, when carried to its logical end, is where it leaves the offspring of the unmotivated. You would seem to get these cells of parents who don't take care of their children's education, for example. The failure of the parents limits the children's choices going forward. The motivated families keep getting smarter and smarter, the unmotivated ones keep not getting smarter, and the gap widens, making it increasingly difficult for a person in unmotivated-land to get in with the better-offs. To solve this problem, the uppers have to either ignore the disparity, calling it the consequence of agency badly applied (not a solution, and not very charitable, in my view), or help out in some way, effectively ending the libertarian ideal. I see libertarianism as the default system, from which things like monarchy developed as the uppers realized their power over the lowers and institutionalized the disparity. In any real world, it just doesn't seem sustainable, unless I misunderstand the concept. This is a tangent.
So, we're left with the capitalistic republic. We can't innovate for the sake of innovation very well, so we have to leverage the powerful basic human drives, like selfishness, to drive innovation. To me, the fact that such astonishing progress is achieved on the back of something like selfishness is both elegant and ironic. I love it and hate it all at the same time. And, since we can't agree, (and can't be bothered to discuss things amongst ourselves), we get to elect people to compromise for us. Again, the solution here is inspiringly elegant. A system that has done so well at postponing our social collapse, despite our humanity, could only have been divinely inspired, and deserves to be respected and protected.
I think Antares has hit it on the head by recognizing the ACA as possibly the best of the bad solutions, not because it is good in and of itself, but because it is available and is, if nothing else, a chance to look deeply at what we've got and hopefully find a way to fix it. Following our discussion here, though, I'm not optimistic about that. Like Antares pointed out, we've already got social medicine, but even though it eats up more of the federal budget than anything except defense (did I get that right?), we can't call it that, and since it's mixed up in this amalgamated behemoth with a few parts capitalism and some healthy doses of anti-capitalistic subsidies and backwards incentives, it doesn't work. Thank you, compromise.
I guess this isn't a discussion about healthcare anymore. So, what is the root problem here, and is there a fix for it?
I think I know... :)
No, that is not a sarcastic or malicious smiley face.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Healthcare and Libertarianism
So, this is another difficult topic for me - I guess it wouldn't be discussed here if it were easy, though.
Let me preface my comments with an observation on libertarianism, and let me preface my observation on libertarianism by making a statement on its ideological opposite, communism: I would actually be happy to be a communist if everybody in the economy truly believed in it and practiced it to the best of their ability. I actually think libertarianism falls in the same category as communism, namely that it is really only effective if its principles are adhered to by a great majority of the people.
In communism we need to all decide that each of us is enhancing the greater good, and that while there is no direct, personal benefit to my labors it still "averages out" better for my economy and the economy that my children will participate in. Libertarianism takes the approach of letting each person decide their own destiny without undue influence from other parties in the form of taxes, regulation, etc. The primary reason I think that libertarianism is a more realistic approach is because it more accurately mirrors the tendencies of the people who practice it. When Winston Churchill said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried", I think the exact same thing can be applied to capitalism and libertarianism. As human beings we are selfish, and a system that works off of this selfishness is generally better than one that pretends the attribute isn't there.
So - the reason for my preface is to state that in my ideal world there would be no ACA, but it also would not have ever come up as an issue because we all understood the importance of taking care of ourselves and the legislation would not even be needed. Since we don't live in this "perfect" world, we have to deal with compromise, differing ideals, shifting public opinion, election cycles, and everything else. With that preface, my opinion is that the ACA is probably a necessary evil under our broken system, or at least a necessary experiment that I will be curious to see the result of.
The main reason for this opinion is because I actually believe that we are already living a form of socialized medicine in this country. Insurance companies are probably the worst thing that ever happened to our healthcare system, for many reasons that I won't get into here beyond a single example of how my group insurance program works for my work. We all pay hundreds of dollars in insurance payments each month, money that just goes down into a deep dark hole never to be recovered in most cases. Prior to my child being born, I had put tens of thousands of dollars into the systems and had never used it a single time. It is a necessary evil, costing tens of thousands of dollars each year but really only there for the off chance I need I get really really sick. Even when my child was born and had to spend time in the NICU, the insurance coverage was pitiful at best and I know for a fact that my out of pocket costs were higher than they would have been been if I had not had insurance at all.
Meanwhile, there are other people in my office who go to the ER 3 times a week, for everything from a minor cold to a broken bone because their kids are doing something stupid. They are using way more than their "share" of the system, which is of course why the system was set up. In the distributed risk model used by all insurance programs from auto insurance to life insurance, we all participate based on the calculated risk we introduce, and the financial aspect of that risk is spread across the entire basis. Especially in the employer-based group health insurance plans, that risk is spread very inequitably in order to make the cost even for everybody. That means that I am the one paying for the hundreds of ER visits by just a couple people while I get nothing out of the system. This is also why we will see so many statistics trying to prove that many of the people who don't have insurance actively avoid having it, who definitely make enough money to be able to pay for it if they want.
Therefore, the bottom line is that there are essentially two types of socialized medicine in this country right now: those who buy insurance and participate in the distributed risk model, and those who don't purchase insurance and are still being paid for through higher health costs and/or higher taxes. While there are dramatic exceptions highlighted by the proponents of the ACA, for the most part everybody in this country gets their healthcare taken care of one way or another. The ACA really only formalizes this dirty little secret, and tries to do something about it.
Do I think it is perfect? No. I think it is the crowning achievement to a broken healthcare system, and I don't think I have ever heard any commentator or pundit ever claim that our system is anything more than barely functional. Everybody agrees the system is broken, and while nobody can agree on how to fix it this at least gets things moving.
I think the idea of independence vs. interdependence as presented by Bach is at the heart of the question. The issue of course is how we interpret each of those terms. Is me being forced to buy insurance when I don't want to "interdependence"? I would submit that the answer is no. As a direct contrast to this idea, Exhibit A is the gasoline/highway tax. I actually support this tax, because it seems to be the most fair way possible to build infrastructure within our country. While there are many factors and it is at best an oversimplification, how much I use the system is almost directly correlated with how much I am paying into it. I am sure the government has plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse that can be pointed to when looking at it, but all in all I am pretty happy with the system.
Exhibit B is the church fast offerings system. I am very happy to pay into the system for a couple reasons: it is voluntary, I trust the organization handling it, and I am able to see it do good work. I have personally seen it at work several times, and I generally agree with everything I have seen it applied to. While you can't really look at this as as system that you "pay into" the way you do with insurance, I would like to think that if I ever needed financial assistance of this type I would be able to take a loan or other assistance without feeling guilty because I have been helpful.
For Exhibit C: I occasionally have people who are obviously on their last leg stop by my house selling things. I may just be suckered in by somebody with a great sob story, or perhaps the ability to portray their sob story without actually relating it to me, but I end up buying a gallon of cleaner that I don't need from people like this. I have my own ways of giving, and it should always be up to me to decide how that giving occurs. A couple years ago I had a nice gentlemen stop by my office offering to clean windows. He was a real estate professional at the height of the real estate crash (depth of the crash?) and was looking for a way to help his family. I jumped all over that, and for almost 3 years he worked from 3:00 to 5:00 AM a couple times a week cleaning our building, and we paid him quite well for it. I have a lot of respect for somebody who might be in a bad situation, but who can take matters into their own hands and try to turn things around.
In short, I think that there is a huge need for ways to make peoples lives better, and I know that I don't do enough of it. However, I don't really want to be forced to pay for the medical insurance of those around me who don't take care of themselves and get sick all the time, and who go to the hospital at the first sign of a runny nose, and who generally run up the tab for the rest of us. We are selfish beings, and the only reliable system I have seen use that selfishness to make the world go round. Capitalism is a horrible system, but to paraphrase old Winston again, it is the worst except for all the rest. If those around me had to be responsible for their proportionate cost to the system, what would change? I guarantee they would not go to the hospital nearly as often if they had to bear the full brunt of the cost, and I would like to think that they would also make better decisions overall with regards to their health. I know this sounds selfish and I guess I just need to own that fact, but I want to be able to help my own family and help the people I want to help, I don't want to see my money wasted and mismanaged when it is supposed to be going to "help" others.
Point 1 on this rant is that I think our insurance system is broken and simply doesn't provide any incentives for people to keep costs under control, and requiring people to buy into it is furthering this broken system.
Point 2 on this rant is closely involved with the first, in that I think that generally speaking, a mandate to buy anything at all is wrong.
While I got into point number 2 a little bit above, it probably deserves a couple paragraphs of its own. I won't waste too much effort here, since this is the issue that has been bandied around and beat to death already. While I think there are better ways to do it (that I won't get into now), I don't really have a problem with people being required to buy car insurance, for two reasons. First, you can directly impact other peoples property and lives with your car, and it seems reasonable to mitigate that by requiring people to buy insurance. You don't have to buy insurance to cover your own car, just to cover other people you might run into. Secondly, you don't have to purchase car insurance if you don't want to, only if you want to own a car.
In the case of the ACA, there is no way around the mandate: buy health insurance, or receive a financial penalty each year. This is a requirement from the government to buy something, and I have a hard time justifying the mandate. Spinning it and calling it a tax doesn't change the fact that we are still being required to purchase something, or suffer a financial penalty. I don't think this is constitutionally permissible, but I don't think much of what else goes on is either, so I guess nobody cares what I think is constitutional :-)
Now for point 3: There is absolutely no way that this is going to end well just because of the law of unintended consequences.
If there is anything I have learned while trying to manage 50 employees, it is the absolute inescapability of the law of unintended consequences. No matter what policy you put in place, no matter what new initiative you roll out, there will be people who either game the system, or who actively work against it, or find a loophole you didn't anticipate, or straight up retaliate. If I can't get it right with 50 employees in a fairly closed system, how well will this go as a nationwide program with so many players?
With this, I am supremely confident that this will not go as planned. How many people will choose to pay the tax and participate in the healthcare system anyway, because it is cheaper? I have heard that the tax will be less than 1% on most people, and this is a small fraction of what I am currently paying for my health insurance. What if everybody jumps on board this way and the insurance companies LOSE members rather than gain them?
Does anybody actually believe the cost projections? I haven't even dug in to them, and I can confidently state that they are wrong. I don't know when the last time was that our government got any cost projections right, but I assure you it was completely by accident.
What about my health insurance costs? Now that the person who smoked their whole life and is going to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs in the last 20 years of their life will be covered by me because this person legally can't be turned down.
I don't have any particular disastrous predictions, I am simply stating that there will be plenty of side effects that were never anticipated. The government should stay out of everything they possibly can, just because no single entity can regulate and control anything this massive, if anything at all.
Education was brought up as an example of interdependence. I would submit that our education system is broken, only to be eclipsed by healthcare in brokenness. We basically have an agrarian-style education system that has changed little if at all since the 1800s; I own 5 or 6 books dedicated to talking about how the brain works and how we learn, and even with all the thousands of studies and millions of dollars dedicated to showing a better way of doing things, we are stuck where we were a hundred years ago. Why? Because education is government mandated. The idea of "education for all" is a great idea, and I support the general thesis. However, we would be light years ahead of where we are today, and I am confident that we would have a system where education was available to all people.
Higher education is another example of where government messing with education causes problems. I imagine most of you have seen the graphs correlating increases in tuition prices with increases in Pell grants and other funding. Again - education is extremely important and should be available to anybody who wants it, but I think that intervention by the federal government has caused more harm than good.
I like the way Ronald Reagan put it: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Point 4 probably shows nothing more than how fed up I am with things in general - Even with the other three points explaining why I think the ACA is a disaster, I think it is an experiment worth trying for the following reasons:
To bring things around to my preamble, I think that libertarianism holds the secret to wealth and happiness as a whole for our country. It is not a fair system, so some people will make it better than others. However, a rising tides floats all boats, and as long as individual liberties are respected by everybody then the need for an occasional helping hand will be minimal and can be driven by community resources such as churches. Importantly, those who truly want to succeed will have no limits.
The problem is that libertarianism is an ideal that would require everybody to respect it, which makes it just as difficult to implement as communism. Those in power could not abuse that power, whether "those in power" refers to the government, wall street, your neighborhood watch, or anybody else. While I think that that this is a great ideal, realistically people will always abuse their power and influence to further their own benefit. That same trait of greed and selfishness that makes capitalism/libertarianism the best system of all those available still can't be completely self-regulating because of those exact traits.
I think that in past years we have been closer to the ideal, and that we are drifting in the wrong direction. I won't list all the reasons, but there are too many examples of big-brotherism, corporate dominance, etc. for my liking. Under the circumstances, the ACA may actually prove to be an experiment worth running.
In summary, I would design things completely different if I had my way. Realistically though, I think that things are so broken that almost anything is better than the status quo - I look forward to the results of the experiment, and it might even provide the motivation for achieving real change.
Thoughts?
Let me preface my comments with an observation on libertarianism, and let me preface my observation on libertarianism by making a statement on its ideological opposite, communism: I would actually be happy to be a communist if everybody in the economy truly believed in it and practiced it to the best of their ability. I actually think libertarianism falls in the same category as communism, namely that it is really only effective if its principles are adhered to by a great majority of the people.
In communism we need to all decide that each of us is enhancing the greater good, and that while there is no direct, personal benefit to my labors it still "averages out" better for my economy and the economy that my children will participate in. Libertarianism takes the approach of letting each person decide their own destiny without undue influence from other parties in the form of taxes, regulation, etc. The primary reason I think that libertarianism is a more realistic approach is because it more accurately mirrors the tendencies of the people who practice it. When Winston Churchill said: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried", I think the exact same thing can be applied to capitalism and libertarianism. As human beings we are selfish, and a system that works off of this selfishness is generally better than one that pretends the attribute isn't there.
So - the reason for my preface is to state that in my ideal world there would be no ACA, but it also would not have ever come up as an issue because we all understood the importance of taking care of ourselves and the legislation would not even be needed. Since we don't live in this "perfect" world, we have to deal with compromise, differing ideals, shifting public opinion, election cycles, and everything else. With that preface, my opinion is that the ACA is probably a necessary evil under our broken system, or at least a necessary experiment that I will be curious to see the result of.
The main reason for this opinion is because I actually believe that we are already living a form of socialized medicine in this country. Insurance companies are probably the worst thing that ever happened to our healthcare system, for many reasons that I won't get into here beyond a single example of how my group insurance program works for my work. We all pay hundreds of dollars in insurance payments each month, money that just goes down into a deep dark hole never to be recovered in most cases. Prior to my child being born, I had put tens of thousands of dollars into the systems and had never used it a single time. It is a necessary evil, costing tens of thousands of dollars each year but really only there for the off chance I need I get really really sick. Even when my child was born and had to spend time in the NICU, the insurance coverage was pitiful at best and I know for a fact that my out of pocket costs were higher than they would have been been if I had not had insurance at all.
Meanwhile, there are other people in my office who go to the ER 3 times a week, for everything from a minor cold to a broken bone because their kids are doing something stupid. They are using way more than their "share" of the system, which is of course why the system was set up. In the distributed risk model used by all insurance programs from auto insurance to life insurance, we all participate based on the calculated risk we introduce, and the financial aspect of that risk is spread across the entire basis. Especially in the employer-based group health insurance plans, that risk is spread very inequitably in order to make the cost even for everybody. That means that I am the one paying for the hundreds of ER visits by just a couple people while I get nothing out of the system. This is also why we will see so many statistics trying to prove that many of the people who don't have insurance actively avoid having it, who definitely make enough money to be able to pay for it if they want.
Therefore, the bottom line is that there are essentially two types of socialized medicine in this country right now: those who buy insurance and participate in the distributed risk model, and those who don't purchase insurance and are still being paid for through higher health costs and/or higher taxes. While there are dramatic exceptions highlighted by the proponents of the ACA, for the most part everybody in this country gets their healthcare taken care of one way or another. The ACA really only formalizes this dirty little secret, and tries to do something about it.
Do I think it is perfect? No. I think it is the crowning achievement to a broken healthcare system, and I don't think I have ever heard any commentator or pundit ever claim that our system is anything more than barely functional. Everybody agrees the system is broken, and while nobody can agree on how to fix it this at least gets things moving.
I think the idea of independence vs. interdependence as presented by Bach is at the heart of the question. The issue of course is how we interpret each of those terms. Is me being forced to buy insurance when I don't want to "interdependence"? I would submit that the answer is no. As a direct contrast to this idea, Exhibit A is the gasoline/highway tax. I actually support this tax, because it seems to be the most fair way possible to build infrastructure within our country. While there are many factors and it is at best an oversimplification, how much I use the system is almost directly correlated with how much I am paying into it. I am sure the government has plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse that can be pointed to when looking at it, but all in all I am pretty happy with the system.
Exhibit B is the church fast offerings system. I am very happy to pay into the system for a couple reasons: it is voluntary, I trust the organization handling it, and I am able to see it do good work. I have personally seen it at work several times, and I generally agree with everything I have seen it applied to. While you can't really look at this as as system that you "pay into" the way you do with insurance, I would like to think that if I ever needed financial assistance of this type I would be able to take a loan or other assistance without feeling guilty because I have been helpful.
For Exhibit C: I occasionally have people who are obviously on their last leg stop by my house selling things. I may just be suckered in by somebody with a great sob story, or perhaps the ability to portray their sob story without actually relating it to me, but I end up buying a gallon of cleaner that I don't need from people like this. I have my own ways of giving, and it should always be up to me to decide how that giving occurs. A couple years ago I had a nice gentlemen stop by my office offering to clean windows. He was a real estate professional at the height of the real estate crash (depth of the crash?) and was looking for a way to help his family. I jumped all over that, and for almost 3 years he worked from 3:00 to 5:00 AM a couple times a week cleaning our building, and we paid him quite well for it. I have a lot of respect for somebody who might be in a bad situation, but who can take matters into their own hands and try to turn things around.
In short, I think that there is a huge need for ways to make peoples lives better, and I know that I don't do enough of it. However, I don't really want to be forced to pay for the medical insurance of those around me who don't take care of themselves and get sick all the time, and who go to the hospital at the first sign of a runny nose, and who generally run up the tab for the rest of us. We are selfish beings, and the only reliable system I have seen use that selfishness to make the world go round. Capitalism is a horrible system, but to paraphrase old Winston again, it is the worst except for all the rest. If those around me had to be responsible for their proportionate cost to the system, what would change? I guarantee they would not go to the hospital nearly as often if they had to bear the full brunt of the cost, and I would like to think that they would also make better decisions overall with regards to their health. I know this sounds selfish and I guess I just need to own that fact, but I want to be able to help my own family and help the people I want to help, I don't want to see my money wasted and mismanaged when it is supposed to be going to "help" others.
Point 1 on this rant is that I think our insurance system is broken and simply doesn't provide any incentives for people to keep costs under control, and requiring people to buy into it is furthering this broken system.
Point 2 on this rant is closely involved with the first, in that I think that generally speaking, a mandate to buy anything at all is wrong.
While I got into point number 2 a little bit above, it probably deserves a couple paragraphs of its own. I won't waste too much effort here, since this is the issue that has been bandied around and beat to death already. While I think there are better ways to do it (that I won't get into now), I don't really have a problem with people being required to buy car insurance, for two reasons. First, you can directly impact other peoples property and lives with your car, and it seems reasonable to mitigate that by requiring people to buy insurance. You don't have to buy insurance to cover your own car, just to cover other people you might run into. Secondly, you don't have to purchase car insurance if you don't want to, only if you want to own a car.
In the case of the ACA, there is no way around the mandate: buy health insurance, or receive a financial penalty each year. This is a requirement from the government to buy something, and I have a hard time justifying the mandate. Spinning it and calling it a tax doesn't change the fact that we are still being required to purchase something, or suffer a financial penalty. I don't think this is constitutionally permissible, but I don't think much of what else goes on is either, so I guess nobody cares what I think is constitutional :-)
Now for point 3: There is absolutely no way that this is going to end well just because of the law of unintended consequences.
If there is anything I have learned while trying to manage 50 employees, it is the absolute inescapability of the law of unintended consequences. No matter what policy you put in place, no matter what new initiative you roll out, there will be people who either game the system, or who actively work against it, or find a loophole you didn't anticipate, or straight up retaliate. If I can't get it right with 50 employees in a fairly closed system, how well will this go as a nationwide program with so many players?
With this, I am supremely confident that this will not go as planned. How many people will choose to pay the tax and participate in the healthcare system anyway, because it is cheaper? I have heard that the tax will be less than 1% on most people, and this is a small fraction of what I am currently paying for my health insurance. What if everybody jumps on board this way and the insurance companies LOSE members rather than gain them?
Does anybody actually believe the cost projections? I haven't even dug in to them, and I can confidently state that they are wrong. I don't know when the last time was that our government got any cost projections right, but I assure you it was completely by accident.
What about my health insurance costs? Now that the person who smoked their whole life and is going to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs in the last 20 years of their life will be covered by me because this person legally can't be turned down.
I don't have any particular disastrous predictions, I am simply stating that there will be plenty of side effects that were never anticipated. The government should stay out of everything they possibly can, just because no single entity can regulate and control anything this massive, if anything at all.
Education was brought up as an example of interdependence. I would submit that our education system is broken, only to be eclipsed by healthcare in brokenness. We basically have an agrarian-style education system that has changed little if at all since the 1800s; I own 5 or 6 books dedicated to talking about how the brain works and how we learn, and even with all the thousands of studies and millions of dollars dedicated to showing a better way of doing things, we are stuck where we were a hundred years ago. Why? Because education is government mandated. The idea of "education for all" is a great idea, and I support the general thesis. However, we would be light years ahead of where we are today, and I am confident that we would have a system where education was available to all people.
Higher education is another example of where government messing with education causes problems. I imagine most of you have seen the graphs correlating increases in tuition prices with increases in Pell grants and other funding. Again - education is extremely important and should be available to anybody who wants it, but I think that intervention by the federal government has caused more harm than good.
I like the way Ronald Reagan put it: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Point 4 probably shows nothing more than how fed up I am with things in general - Even with the other three points explaining why I think the ACA is a disaster, I think it is an experiment worth trying for the following reasons:
- The insurance system is broken, but it isn't going anywhere. Would I like to see health insurance become all but completely unnecessary, and do I think this is completely possible? Yes. I think we could get health care costs to the point that all we needed were high deductible plans that kicked in at $5,000 or so. If we had to pay all the smaller stuff out of pocket, we would be much more judicious about things, all the insurance company overhead would disappear from our costs, and lots of other benefits. Realistically though, this won't happen.
- Making healthcare available for everybody is a worthy goal. I don't think the ACA is the way to do it, but the idea is still a noble one. If things are bad enough that anything is better than nothing, then this certainly qualifies as anything.
- The theory is that costs will go down with the distributed spread. I am not sure that I believe this, but it is worth testing.
- If this doesn't work, maybe it will provide impetus to fix it for real?
To bring things around to my preamble, I think that libertarianism holds the secret to wealth and happiness as a whole for our country. It is not a fair system, so some people will make it better than others. However, a rising tides floats all boats, and as long as individual liberties are respected by everybody then the need for an occasional helping hand will be minimal and can be driven by community resources such as churches. Importantly, those who truly want to succeed will have no limits.
The problem is that libertarianism is an ideal that would require everybody to respect it, which makes it just as difficult to implement as communism. Those in power could not abuse that power, whether "those in power" refers to the government, wall street, your neighborhood watch, or anybody else. While I think that that this is a great ideal, realistically people will always abuse their power and influence to further their own benefit. That same trait of greed and selfishness that makes capitalism/libertarianism the best system of all those available still can't be completely self-regulating because of those exact traits.
I think that in past years we have been closer to the ideal, and that we are drifting in the wrong direction. I won't list all the reasons, but there are too many examples of big-brotherism, corporate dominance, etc. for my liking. Under the circumstances, the ACA may actually prove to be an experiment worth running.
In summary, I would design things completely different if I had my way. Realistically though, I think that things are so broken that almost anything is better than the status quo - I look forward to the results of the experiment, and it might even provide the motivation for achieving real change.
Thoughts?
Independence and Health Care
Once again, my comment was too long for the box, so I made a new post.
Funny enough, a few days ago I quickly checked facebook to see some friends' news. After reading some things and logging out I turned to my wife and said "I HATE politics."
I must correct myself. A lot of good things have been done through politics. I dislike the bad things people do in the name of politics.
I had just read another scathing rant between several parties about the ACA. Yes, Benjamin, people tend to go black and white on this and call each other evil if they think differently. It is getting out of hand. I listened to a BYU forum the other day by a guy named Mark DeMoss, a prominent evangelical, consultant for Christian-based groups, and past political aide. He also started and later ended the Civility Project to encourage civility in the political sphere. Part of his forum talked about how Christians should be civil as Christ would be, even when we disagree. It is a good listen (http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=2013).
HEALTH CARE: I was cleaning some oil stains on carpet this morning and thought about how what I was doing was similar to health care. Some people believe steam cleaning is the only way to go. However, steam often releases the glue holding the carpet down, leaving bubbles. Some people believe the buffer and pad method is the only way to go (I worked for Heaven's Best in high school). Both work toward one goal, but using different means. Both have flaws, both have positives. Not one is perfect.
We have to understand that health care is a huge and complex dilemma and not one thing will fix it. Some politicians tend to go to one solution to fix a whole problem because they have limited time and resources. This happens in any camp or political group. I could site many programs, but the one that comes to mind is No Child Left Behind. In all probability, it has left a lot of kids behind. You cannot fix all of America's diverse education problems or accommodate all of America's diverse students with one bill or program. This is my main complaint about the ACA. I wholeheartedly agree that health care needs to be addressed. However, ramming a program through the government is probably not the best solution.
The individual mandate? Could be good, might be bad. I'm not a fan of insurance either or being required to buy it. I can see both sides on this. I am not required to have a car, but modern society is a bit difficult without one, or without a phone, computer, and other things. Does our future society necessitate to some degree buying insurance to guarantee that life goes on without major interruptions? Possibly. Is there another way? Maybe. Tax breaks for those that do buy it? That has been suggested. I don't have an answer, I'm just saying that things like this probably won't solve all the problems.
Money is a huge issue for health care. How do we fund it? Does the government ever ask that? Ben, you mentioned helping people and society out by chipping in. I agree, it should be a voluntary thing. What I am afraid of is how creating affordable health care programs will affect spending. I've tried to research Massachusetts as the test case, but sometimes it's hard to wade through the info. Spending for their health care did double in a few years and they had to have grants from the feds. Just a little scary to think what could happen with money escalating. However, any other solution would probably require money too, so no win for money.
Socialized medicine: one major problem I have heard time and time over again is the line at the doctor when people get sick. If health care is completely covered by taxing the people or whatever they do in England, Japan, and other countries, then that means a mass of people seeing few doctors. Some people die waiting.
INDEPENDENCE: A lovely topic. Truly. But I probably won't get into the tear-jerking accounts of military or other patriotic stories.
One thing to remember is that the colonies were not fighting for independence from government, but from a tyrannical government. They believed the King and England's government was overstepping bounds and controlling the colonies too much. No taxation without representation comes to mind. They wanted a government that would allow them some rights as Americans. That is also one reason religious people came to America.
Some people may see the ACA as a federal government overstepping its bounds. One of the great debates when our country was in diapers was federal government vs. state government. Many representatives were afraid of a government similar to England's where a ruling elite would control things like commerce, industry, etc. Is this happening now?
For a later discussion, what do you think about America being involved militarily overseas? This is a large issue I've been thinking about the last few years. James, I would love to hear your take on this. Soldiers sometimes have a unique perspective on this and I am a curious individual.
Funny enough, a few days ago I quickly checked facebook to see some friends' news. After reading some things and logging out I turned to my wife and said "I HATE politics."
I must correct myself. A lot of good things have been done through politics. I dislike the bad things people do in the name of politics.
I had just read another scathing rant between several parties about the ACA. Yes, Benjamin, people tend to go black and white on this and call each other evil if they think differently. It is getting out of hand. I listened to a BYU forum the other day by a guy named Mark DeMoss, a prominent evangelical, consultant for Christian-based groups, and past political aide. He also started and later ended the Civility Project to encourage civility in the political sphere. Part of his forum talked about how Christians should be civil as Christ would be, even when we disagree. It is a good listen (http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=2013).
HEALTH CARE: I was cleaning some oil stains on carpet this morning and thought about how what I was doing was similar to health care. Some people believe steam cleaning is the only way to go. However, steam often releases the glue holding the carpet down, leaving bubbles. Some people believe the buffer and pad method is the only way to go (I worked for Heaven's Best in high school). Both work toward one goal, but using different means. Both have flaws, both have positives. Not one is perfect.
We have to understand that health care is a huge and complex dilemma and not one thing will fix it. Some politicians tend to go to one solution to fix a whole problem because they have limited time and resources. This happens in any camp or political group. I could site many programs, but the one that comes to mind is No Child Left Behind. In all probability, it has left a lot of kids behind. You cannot fix all of America's diverse education problems or accommodate all of America's diverse students with one bill or program. This is my main complaint about the ACA. I wholeheartedly agree that health care needs to be addressed. However, ramming a program through the government is probably not the best solution.
The individual mandate? Could be good, might be bad. I'm not a fan of insurance either or being required to buy it. I can see both sides on this. I am not required to have a car, but modern society is a bit difficult without one, or without a phone, computer, and other things. Does our future society necessitate to some degree buying insurance to guarantee that life goes on without major interruptions? Possibly. Is there another way? Maybe. Tax breaks for those that do buy it? That has been suggested. I don't have an answer, I'm just saying that things like this probably won't solve all the problems.
Money is a huge issue for health care. How do we fund it? Does the government ever ask that? Ben, you mentioned helping people and society out by chipping in. I agree, it should be a voluntary thing. What I am afraid of is how creating affordable health care programs will affect spending. I've tried to research Massachusetts as the test case, but sometimes it's hard to wade through the info. Spending for their health care did double in a few years and they had to have grants from the feds. Just a little scary to think what could happen with money escalating. However, any other solution would probably require money too, so no win for money.
Socialized medicine: one major problem I have heard time and time over again is the line at the doctor when people get sick. If health care is completely covered by taxing the people or whatever they do in England, Japan, and other countries, then that means a mass of people seeing few doctors. Some people die waiting.
INDEPENDENCE: A lovely topic. Truly. But I probably won't get into the tear-jerking accounts of military or other patriotic stories.
One thing to remember is that the colonies were not fighting for independence from government, but from a tyrannical government. They believed the King and England's government was overstepping bounds and controlling the colonies too much. No taxation without representation comes to mind. They wanted a government that would allow them some rights as Americans. That is also one reason religious people came to America.
Some people may see the ACA as a federal government overstepping its bounds. One of the great debates when our country was in diapers was federal government vs. state government. Many representatives were afraid of a government similar to England's where a ruling elite would control things like commerce, industry, etc. Is this happening now?
For a later discussion, what do you think about America being involved militarily overseas? This is a large issue I've been thinking about the last few years. James, I would love to hear your take on this. Soldiers sometimes have a unique perspective on this and I am a curious individual.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
240
First off, thanks, all, for a great campout. It was fantastic to see you all again, and to relive the glory days, and look for a hole we didn't find. It may not compare in magnitude, but in Sunday School today we discussed Alma 17 in which Alma meets Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni after some years apart doing their several works, and I was reminded of our little gathering. I appreciated being able to discuss all that we discussed, and I learned that my body is not so fond of sleeping bags as it once was.
With the current uprising concerning the individual mandate, I got to thinking about such things as I read many a heated commentary on Facebook about how this is both the greatest moment in recent US history and the first step down a deep slope to absolute constitutional obliteration, to exaggerate but slightly. One FB friend, in particular, seemed incensed that we had chosen oppression over independence, socialism over democracy.
I think I can guess where the Libertarians in the room stand on the subject, and I think most Republicans and Democrats respectively (or disrespectfully) know where they are supposed to stand. What I find most discouraging about the debate in general is that people seem to be so ready to cast stones (labeled generally as cold hard facts) at others in an attempt to "convince" one another of the evil of their respective ways without pausing a moment to consider the validity of various idealogical differences. It would seem a presumptuous thing for me to assert my correctness over yours so categorically, particularly when there is very little chance that I bother to gather facts from sources with which I am unlikely to agree.
What I've been thinking about over the last few days is independence vs. interdependence. Particularly as we approach Independence Day this week, we consider the ideal of independence to be one of the great virtues we posses and revere as a nation. I think it's good for a country to be independent of other countries, and for countries which believe in independence to grant the right to others. What struck me in my Facebook friend's post, however, was how he bemoaned the end of independence, not from a foreign hand, but from our own government.
Was the idea ever to be independent of government? Or independent of one another? Isn't there a difference between not being oppressed and being dependent? I think about all of the ways I am dependent on my government, and in most cases I'm really quite happy to be so. It actually makes me glad that other motorists are required to carry liability insurance. I don't mind so much paying taxes on gasoline, considering that doing so means I have good roads on which to drive my cars. Municipal taxes to support a deterrent for people to break in to my house? I'll get behind that.
If the colonies had wanted complete independence from not only England, but from each other, could they have achieved it? Could they have fought the revolution melee style, every colony for itself, and won? Where would we be if they had?
Independence does not equate with progress. A nation of independents would have no borders, no public services, no laws, no common rights, no recourse for wrongdoing. It would consist entirely of farmers working all day, every day, to feed their own families, and he who hath the best shot hath the most land. He who hath the strongest back hath the most food. And nobody hath an iPhone.
Isn't it our interdependence that makes us great? The fact that I invented a better irrigation system so that you could grow more crops means that we both get fed and fewer of us have to do the farming.
It's remarkable to me to look back through history and see how yesterday's liberal ideas are today's conservative ones. I think both are important, if only to ensure that we evaluate our progress honestly. How many times, though, have programs or policies been vehemently decried because they were "evil", and yet have so much to do with providing the liberties we enjoy today. There are certainly lines that should not be crossed, and we should always be on guard to protect them, but it's so easy to take a position on principle without drilling down to figure out what the actual principle is.
I wonder if, at the advent of public education, a similar fight ensued. What have we gained by giving everybody a better chance at being literate? Is your kid's education my problem? I think so. Even a heartless corporation needs employees who can read and write and communicate with other humans. Public education is just good economic policy. Is your kid's health my problem? I tend to believe that the same arguments apply.
From my point of view, I don't think that the requirement to either buy health insurance or pay a fine at tax time is bad, and I'm not particularly fond of health insurance in the first place. As evolved humans, we seem to agree that it is right to take care of a sick person. Unfortunately, modern medicine is expensive. I agree that it's somewhat uncomfortable to be required to pay for somebody else's care, that it would be better if we all just did it voluntarily. It's funny that everybody seems to agree that everybody should have access to healthcare, and that the "right" thing is for everybody to pitch in so that can happen; it's just a matter of having to or not. An attitude shift during tax time would seem to me to solve the disagreement completely.
In short (finally), I think I don't have much problem with the idea or spirit of the individual mandate. If the nation gets more healthy, I'm happy to pitch in. The actual mechanics and implementation of the system are likely to be flawed and imperfect, because they will be designed and enforced by politicians, but I think it's right to get stepping in that direction.
What do you all think about it?
Oh, and this is, I believe, the 240th post on our blog.
-Benjamin
With the current uprising concerning the individual mandate, I got to thinking about such things as I read many a heated commentary on Facebook about how this is both the greatest moment in recent US history and the first step down a deep slope to absolute constitutional obliteration, to exaggerate but slightly. One FB friend, in particular, seemed incensed that we had chosen oppression over independence, socialism over democracy.
I think I can guess where the Libertarians in the room stand on the subject, and I think most Republicans and Democrats respectively (or disrespectfully) know where they are supposed to stand. What I find most discouraging about the debate in general is that people seem to be so ready to cast stones (labeled generally as cold hard facts) at others in an attempt to "convince" one another of the evil of their respective ways without pausing a moment to consider the validity of various idealogical differences. It would seem a presumptuous thing for me to assert my correctness over yours so categorically, particularly when there is very little chance that I bother to gather facts from sources with which I am unlikely to agree.
What I've been thinking about over the last few days is independence vs. interdependence. Particularly as we approach Independence Day this week, we consider the ideal of independence to be one of the great virtues we posses and revere as a nation. I think it's good for a country to be independent of other countries, and for countries which believe in independence to grant the right to others. What struck me in my Facebook friend's post, however, was how he bemoaned the end of independence, not from a foreign hand, but from our own government.
Was the idea ever to be independent of government? Or independent of one another? Isn't there a difference between not being oppressed and being dependent? I think about all of the ways I am dependent on my government, and in most cases I'm really quite happy to be so. It actually makes me glad that other motorists are required to carry liability insurance. I don't mind so much paying taxes on gasoline, considering that doing so means I have good roads on which to drive my cars. Municipal taxes to support a deterrent for people to break in to my house? I'll get behind that.
If the colonies had wanted complete independence from not only England, but from each other, could they have achieved it? Could they have fought the revolution melee style, every colony for itself, and won? Where would we be if they had?
Independence does not equate with progress. A nation of independents would have no borders, no public services, no laws, no common rights, no recourse for wrongdoing. It would consist entirely of farmers working all day, every day, to feed their own families, and he who hath the best shot hath the most land. He who hath the strongest back hath the most food. And nobody hath an iPhone.
Isn't it our interdependence that makes us great? The fact that I invented a better irrigation system so that you could grow more crops means that we both get fed and fewer of us have to do the farming.
It's remarkable to me to look back through history and see how yesterday's liberal ideas are today's conservative ones. I think both are important, if only to ensure that we evaluate our progress honestly. How many times, though, have programs or policies been vehemently decried because they were "evil", and yet have so much to do with providing the liberties we enjoy today. There are certainly lines that should not be crossed, and we should always be on guard to protect them, but it's so easy to take a position on principle without drilling down to figure out what the actual principle is.
I wonder if, at the advent of public education, a similar fight ensued. What have we gained by giving everybody a better chance at being literate? Is your kid's education my problem? I think so. Even a heartless corporation needs employees who can read and write and communicate with other humans. Public education is just good economic policy. Is your kid's health my problem? I tend to believe that the same arguments apply.
From my point of view, I don't think that the requirement to either buy health insurance or pay a fine at tax time is bad, and I'm not particularly fond of health insurance in the first place. As evolved humans, we seem to agree that it is right to take care of a sick person. Unfortunately, modern medicine is expensive. I agree that it's somewhat uncomfortable to be required to pay for somebody else's care, that it would be better if we all just did it voluntarily. It's funny that everybody seems to agree that everybody should have access to healthcare, and that the "right" thing is for everybody to pitch in so that can happen; it's just a matter of having to or not. An attitude shift during tax time would seem to me to solve the disagreement completely.
In short (finally), I think I don't have much problem with the idea or spirit of the individual mandate. If the nation gets more healthy, I'm happy to pitch in. The actual mechanics and implementation of the system are likely to be flawed and imperfect, because they will be designed and enforced by politicians, but I think it's right to get stepping in that direction.
What do you all think about it?
Oh, and this is, I believe, the 240th post on our blog.
-Benjamin
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