You make an interesting point. Part of the tradeoff is level of service to the users. If it's OK to have the Exchange server offline 1% of the time instead of 0.1% of the time, then by all means go get a batch of MCSEs and turn 'em loose. I would rather have a small number of very smart, well-paid people than a large number of mediocre certificate holders. I prefer 99.9% uptime to 99%. I prefer to work someplace where people can tell the difference.
You obviously never went to business school.
Business is drudgery; it's filing papers the proper way, it's following procedures so things do not get out of hand. It's tedious repetitive meaningless work that is best performed by semi-intelligent drones that will never question management rather than by intelligent independent thinkers that always see another way of doing things. It's only the big-shots who get the hookers during intense contract negociations. The little pipsqueaks jerk-off on the couch.
And if you're an intelligent independent thinker, you certainly don't want to indulge in the terminally dullness of business work.
If you're in charge of a datacenter, it's very likely you didn't go to business school, and therefore not likely to pick windows.
However, your boss may have gone to business school, and therefore he is likely to insist upon you to use windows. And with that crappy job market, it's better to use windows than beg on a street corner...
But if you nationalize health insurance without nationalizing health care providers and pharmaceuticals, the system will degenerate into health care providers and pharmaceuticals overcharging the nationalized health insurance, and getting rich off of tax money. This is the inevitable result of nationalizing health insurance in the United States, because of the way our political system is set up. That's why it's unworkable.
Au contraire, mon cher; the national/federal (whatever you call it) insurance program will pay so much for a given service. It's up to the private hospitals to live with that, because they're not allowed to overcharge.
Just like it is up here.
Canada's system only works for Canada because the US system exists as a second tier for Canadians who can afford it. 80% of Canadians live within a couple hours of the US border, and the Canadian system is protected from backlog by having wealthier Canadians (and not just the super-rich) drive those couple hours to get care in America. So, in effect, Canada has the type of two-tier system I'm describing, just like most of Europe. The one-tier, monopolistic system you're proposing has never been proven to work without the ability to easily cross the border into a country with private care.
So? Don't worry, Switzerland will be the escape route for those super-rich who don't want to be treated like the rabble.
What? You can't afford Switzerland? Oh, poor little dear. Have you got any idea about how many people will shed a tear towards your predicament?
It makes sense. Without something to denigrate, what Microsoft could do? How could Microsoft claim to be "better"?
For many business managers that went to business schools who know fuck-all about IT, it's very easy to believe that something that is "free" in both senses of the word is not good. After all, business is about control and profit, two things that are absent from "free".
Treatment is expensive specifically because insurance pays for routine care. Unless you nationalized all the hospitals and pharmaceuticals (which is a guaranteed failure), you're going to just change from a "bilking the insurance companies, who in turn bilk the consumer" system to a "bilking the federal government" system.
We're not talking about nationalizing hostpitals nor pharmaceuticals. They are not in Canada.
What you do is regulate the pharmaceutical market so the companies do not gouge the people. Prohibiting advertisements is a good way to do this, given how much obscene amounts of money is poured in advertising, money not available for actual research...
Then you have the governement insurance paying such and such for such and such service. Don't worry, the hospitals will make sure they can deliver the service for that amount of money, because that's all they're getting, and they're strictly prohibited from billing the patients. This way, you keep costs in check, without any extra governmental intrusions beyond the basic standards compliance.
We're trying to get away from solutions that involve vast amounts of tax money enriching politically powerful corporations, remember?
Duh ? But of course!!!! By eliminating the private insurance corporations altogether, you eliminate that political risk. No croporation has a god-given right to exist, especially if it has a negative influence on Society.
The very idea of insurance is to spread the risk; the larger the people who contribute the insurance pool, the cheaper everyone will pay.
This works great until you start using insurance to pay for the predictable costs of routine care.
Duh ? Are you on Earth? What the hell is wrong with having insurance paying for preventive care? It's in it's own goddammed best interest!!!!
Oh, it's true, you bourgeois/anglo-saxons believe that a pound of cure is better than an ounce of prevention, so you can make more money...
Insurance is not a magical genie that automatically gives you more money than you put into it. If you pay the insurance company insurance premiums and expect the insurance company to pay for a routine checkup, not only do you have the overhead of billing the insurance company, but you're expecting to pay the insurance company $20 so they can pay the doctor $200 for a $50 appointment.
This looks like "magic-thought" mathematics... Of course, if you have an inefficient insurance company, one that has to have the overhead needed to nitpick every single claim, that is, doctors that are paid to violate their hippocratic oath, it will indeed have to pocket a bigger share of money than one that covers everyone the same and doesn't care about pre-existing competition.
Then there is that pesky question of the legally mandated maximum return to shareholders thingy... Without shareholders to fatten, more money can be poured towards caring for those whom the system is made for, the covered population...
This is absurd--why can't you just pay the doctor $50--even better, from a reserved tax-free account, and save a bunch of waste in the process? And if you can't pay the doctor $50, this is where government assistance steps in.
This implies that everyone who "can't afford it" will have to be investigated if they're not bullshitting, thus adding more overhead.
The magic word here is: "LESS OVERHEAD".
Repeat after me: *** LESS OVERHEAD ***.
What your solution does is to let the insurance companies skim the cream from the healthy profitable cases that do not need any care at all while dumping the heavy cases to a government that is pressured from all sides to cut taxes.
Your solution will put big money in big croporations while letting the public high and
As opposed to, for instance, the government nationalizing all the medical insurance and providing generous plans to everyone for free. That's not a recipe for financial disaster at all.
But it is. The moment you provide the slightest crack for the bourgeois to slip-in, they will totally subvert and corrupt the system so that they get the best, whilst leaving crumbs to the rabble, all this in order to pay less taxes.
The idea with my idea, is that everyone is covered, everyone who can afford to pay pays, and everyone who can't afford to pay is covered by the public because we are a benevolent society.
Every dollar that is paid for by one own's pocket is a dollar that is not used towards covering everyone else. The only way to insure success is to have everyone in, without exceptions. Otherwise, the system will be utterly gutted and destroyed in a few years.
And since there is no red-tape (everyone gets the same coverage), the efficiency is as high as 97% (compare this to the 30-35% overhead of private US insurers).
"No red-tape" is a too-sunny appraisal of nationalized medicine.
But it is an actual fact. If you want, I'll have you meet a doctor I know (a friend, not "my" doctor) who went to practice in the US. He came back very fast, because his malpractice insurance premiums were eating more of his revenue than the high taxes here, and he spent 30% of his time doing paperwork to justify and account everything he did to insurance companies.
You anglo-saxons need to remove that head out of your butt, and ditch that stupid hatred and distrust of what the State does, and look elsewhere at other cultures that DO put some trust in the State and do not harbour that visceral defiance of it. And, you know what? In such cultures, working for the State is not seen as something bad, so bright people WILL go work for the State and provide competent, efficient, quality service.
Up here, we got the cheapest electric power in the world, thanks to a government-owned utility that's the Wall Street poster child; everytime it wants to make a new dam, Wall-Street lenders will bend-over backwards to lend them the money, because they know their top-notch infrastructure will not collapse like the northeast power grid did several years ago (ours is the only northeast power grid that bravely stayed put).
Although, in reality, the only difference between my idea and (for instance) a two-tier, universal health insurance system is that there's a means test to get public assistance. This can further be contrasted with a Canada-style single-tier system, in which the entire government health service is a monopoly, and the wealthy cross the border to get decent care when that monopoly falls short.
The idea of insurance being to have the largest pool to spread the risk better. Every time someone gets out of the sytem, the cost goes up for everyone.
For those willing and able to pay, the US health care system is the best money can buy.
Are you a zillionaire that can affort to buy it? I doubt it, you wouldn't be on Slashdot then.
So why do you defend the zillionnaires? Have you been brainwashed? Are you expecting some crumb handouts???
Believe me, the zillionnaires do not give a rats' ass towards the public good. They could not care less if you croak out in the gutter because you've been denied a lifesaving procedure.
I don't want to throw that away in the name of making sure everyone gets coverage, and a nationalized single-payer system would absolutely do that. There are better ways of ensuring everyone gets health coverage.
Like what?
Don't worry, no matter the system, the zillionnaires will always be able to "escape" and get "better" health-care.
The only delusion here is your inability to look in a mirror and see your real problem.
Ah, yes, the "personal responsibility" thing... A favourite of the rich to enable them to blame the poor for their poorness so they can sleep at night...
Sorry, buddy, but up here, we don't believe in personal responsibility. We do believe in the community responsibility, though.
Do you really need to repeat the same post over and over again? If we got away from two very dangerous ideas--the "insurance should pay for routine care" idea, and the "your employer provides your health insurance" idea, we would be much better off. Combining a health savings account with actual insurance that only pays for expensive contingencies (you know, the original idea of insurance in the first place) would make things more cost-effective as it would simplify the billing process. When you combine this with a government program that provides an HSA and insurance to people who cannot afford it themselves, you have universal health coverage without nationalizing the entire system.
Do you really need to keep beating about the bush and trying to find non-workable excuses not to justify the only course of action that's guaranteed to work, that is, an universal health-insurance system in which **EVERYBODY** pitches in?
Why should someone who works his ass off should pay extra to insure big profits to a private insurer??? Do private insurers have a god-given right to bilk the public?
I mean, look at that ridiculous idea: a "health savings account". Comeon. let's get real. No one save the filthiest rich will be able to put any meaningful amount of money in there, given how expensive anything bigger than a band-aid is.
The very idea of insurance is to spread the risk; the larger the people who contribute the insurance pool, the cheaper everyone will pay. Therefore, the only way to make sure you pay the cheapest is to have everyone pitch-in.
When everyone pitches-in, it's a simple matter to give the very same coverage to everyone; this way, you reduce the paperwork needed to figure out if for such and such patient, such and such procedure is approved. Or pre-approved, for that matter.
Then by removing the profit motive, you make sure no one is denied treatment.
and anyone incapable of buying insurance and an HSA on the open market should be provided them by the government.
Keyword here: "SHOULD BE PROVIDED". Aha! But it's not! If you're working, you don't qualify. Even if your employer doesn't offer you insurance.
Now, if you have the government insure the uninsurable, you have a recipe for financial disaster; not being sustainable, you will run in the wall sooner or later.
The idea with universal government health-insurance is that everyone is covered and everyone pays. And since there is no red-tape (everyone gets the same coverage), the efficiency is as high as 97% (compare this to the 30-35% overhead of private US insurers).
Imagine if everyone was given a car via taxes. Everyone gets the same car, and everyone is allowed the same car. Now, the rich person pays the same taxes as everyone else - and pays into the same system. Thus, supporting the ownership of cars for everyone. Now, if the rich person wants a BETTER car than what is government mandated - they have already paid for the basic car, but don't want it. What is wrong with them buying a Ferrari as opposed to the goverment car? In my mind, nothing.
(Cars make me puke, so I will change "cars" to "health-insurance")
What is wrong is that those who can afford a better health-insurance will see no point in paying for the less-rich, so that they will lobby to have their taxes reduced, to the point of completely gutting the health-insurance the less-rich get.
Prevening the rich from having better health-insurance makes sure the less-rich don't get shafted.
But it seems the notion of shafting the less-rich is deeply ingrained in the United States...
Some of us actually believe in liberty. Yes, the rich are a minority. Our republican form of government and the Bill of Rights exists to PROTECT minorities from the tyranny of the majority. And some of us believe in standing up for that principle, because if one minority's rights are trampled on, then eventuall no minority rights will be respected.
And the majority also has the right to be protected from minorities, too.
When a minority uses it's economic clout to gut the majority's access to healthcare, it is the **DUTY** of the government to step-in and protect the people.
As long as you project that attitude, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here is the "magic thought" at work! Ever since communism fell, we are deluged by those liberals who worship the free market and keep claiming that hard-work is the only way to move ahead, all said from the top of their connections.
No matter how hard one works, one won't get ahead the well-connected guy.
One who keeps denying it is in a state of delusion.
Food is bought and sold on an open market, and in places where this falls short, there are ways of helping people get what they need without engineering a centralized takeover of the entire system by a government bureaucracy. The same can be done for medicine.
Medicine, yes, but we're talking about medical INSURANCE, here.
There has to be a market, but in reality, there is NONE. You cannot shop for insurers, insurers shop for you. And if they don't like you (you have diseases that are too expensive to treat), they will refuse to cover you.
There is no free market for medical insurance. There cannot be, because insurance companies would falter and die if there were, leaving everyone high and dry.
"Safety" isn't an industry--although I'm sure companies that make motorcycle helmets do so profitably. Asking "how can you put a price on health" is like asking "how can you put a price on food" or "how can you put a price on rent"--just because you need something to survive doesn't mean it can't be provided in a market.
For this, there has to be a market. You cannot shop for insurers, insurers shop for you. And if they don't like you (you have diseases that are too expensive to treat), they will refuse to cover you.
Since I happen to have insurance and that's the way things are done, I have nothing to lose by not paying that way. But if I had to pay out of pocket, I could afford it.
Wait until your condition worsens enough so your insurer will decide to drop you...
So people are fired, because the employer's insurance is tired of paying?
First of all, it's an insurance. The whole *point* is that they pay. Otherwise, why did the employer get that insurance deal?? The point is that the insurance can't get out of the deal, and that there is no need to fire anybody. Obviously, I don't know how some Americans messed up the system, that it DOES work out that way...
Secondly, why does the employer have insurance, not the person? Sounds like nuts to me. This way, every time you change jobs, you change insurance companies (probably), and that means that whatever disease you have right now won't ever get covered in future insurance deals. Great.
I think this is because the Feds mandated employer-based insurance. Otherwise the employer would simply pay people their wages (sometimes low, but that hasn't really changed through that law, hasn't it, and neither has great medical coverage!), and people could get an insurance for *themselves*, for the next 30 years or so, and would keep their coverage, even if theyre gonna catch some disease 15 years from now.
Just think about it.
It all started during World War II, where price controls prevented salary hikes. When employers were looking for better employees, they therefore added fringe benefits; health-insurance was such a benefit. And when the war ended, health-insurance was so sought-after that the system eventually became entrenched.
I have a preference for systems with negative feedback: when two stores compete for my business, I will go to the better store. This forces both stores to improve. If the stores are run by the government as a monopoly, this feedback does not happen. This is as true for health care as for other things.
All the private insurers that compete for your business have to turn out profit. The profit comes from the money YOU pay them, not from the money they pay YOU. So they will find all sorts of ways to not pay you, leaving you high and dry, and if you had the temerity of trying to switch insurers, they will deny your clientele, knowing that you will not be a profit center.
Now where is your free-market liberty to choose your supplier in there?
Free market works when there is a market. In health insurance, there is NONE.
Losers like you make me sick. If you want health insurance, get off your ass and work for it.
I *DO* get off my arse, and I *DO* work for it. I pay for it through my taxes. The only difference is that it is not provided with a for-profit private company with 35% overhead, but by a governmental organization who only skims 3% for itself; that is, 97% of the money put into the system goes to actually care for people, and since 100% of the people contribute, 100% of the people are covered, and no one gets denied any treatment.
By creating financial demand, you would create incentives for there to be more doctors, so actually everybody could be treated.
Actually, the demand for more doctors is managed by the various medical colleges who artificially keep the number of doctors low (by lowering medical school admission, preventing foreign doctors from practicing and by prohibiting paramedics) in order to make sure the existing doctors's pay stays high.
And in some cases, the doctors's pay is so high that the various provincial insurance régimes will actually limit the number of procedures a doctor can perform.
The medical colleges are a big part of the doctor penury problem, and it is nothing but appaling that no government will step-in and rein-in the insanity.
Do I think universal healthcare is a good idea and a right? Yes. Do I believe that it should be forced so that those who have the means and the funds to help their family should be denied that right? No.
The minute you start doing this, you enter the slippery slope of private health care like in the US. Because there will always be someone richer than you willing to sacrifice you hard-earned right to health-care to jump the queue in front of you.
The rich can wait, too. They're not more important than anyone else.
And if they're really much more important, well, they can take their own money and go elsewhere; it's a free country, after all.
So what?! Having universal medical coverage does not rule out private healthcare. You can always pay for a better doctor. Anyway, did it occur to you that people with shitty health also have less money, and even better, are not insured because no company wants them? Tell me how is that fare?
Actually, the whole point of the Canadian system is to precisely prevent the filthy rich from having a separate but unequal system from the unwashed masses. Since everyone is **FORCED** into the same system, any politician who proposes to gut the system to give more to the rich gets quickly shunted out of the arena.
However, still all this doesn't prevent the filthy rich from going to seek health care that they pay from their own pockets elsewere, like the US, or (gasp!) even Cuba (Michael Moore didn't invent anything).
Slashdot Mirror
Business is drudgery; it's filing papers the proper way, it's following procedures so things do not get out of hand. It's tedious repetitive meaningless work that is best performed by semi-intelligent drones that will never question management rather than by intelligent independent thinkers that always see another way of doing things. It's only the big-shots who get the hookers during intense contract negociations. The little pipsqueaks jerk-off on the couch.
And if you're an intelligent independent thinker, you certainly don't want to indulge in the terminally dullness of business work.
However, your boss may have gone to business school, and therefore he is likely to insist upon you to use windows. And with that crappy job market, it's better to use windows than beg on a street corner...
Just like it is up here.
So? Don't worry, Switzerland will be the escape route for those super-rich who don't want to be treated like the rabble.What? You can't afford Switzerland? Oh, poor little dear. Have you got any idea about how many people will shed a tear towards your predicament?
None at all; exactly none at all.
For many business managers that went to business schools who know fuck-all about IT, it's very easy to believe that something that is "free" in both senses of the word is not good. After all, business is about control and profit, two things that are absent from "free".
Oh, sorry that you can't elaborate your argument further.
We're not talking about nationalizing hostpitals nor pharmaceuticals. They are not in Canada.
What you do is regulate the pharmaceutical market so the companies do not gouge the people. Prohibiting advertisements is a good way to do this, given how much obscene amounts of money is poured in advertising, money not available for actual research...
Then you have the governement insurance paying such and such for such and such service. Don't worry, the hospitals will make sure they can deliver the service for that amount of money, because that's all they're getting, and they're strictly prohibited from billing the patients. This way, you keep costs in check, without any extra governmental intrusions beyond the basic standards compliance.
Duh ? But of course!!!! By eliminating the private insurance corporations altogether, you eliminate that political risk. No croporation has a god-given right to exist, especially if it has a negative influence on Society.
Duh ? Are you on Earth? What the hell is wrong with having insurance paying for preventive care? It's in it's own goddammed best interest!!!!
Oh, it's true, you bourgeois/anglo-saxons believe that a pound of cure is better than an ounce of prevention, so you can make more money...
This looks like "magic-thought" mathematics... Of course, if you have an inefficient insurance company, one that has to have the overhead needed to nitpick every single claim, that is, doctors that are paid to violate their hippocratic oath, it will indeed have to pocket a bigger share of money than one that covers everyone the same and doesn't care about pre-existing competition.
Then there is that pesky question of the legally mandated maximum return to shareholders thingy... Without shareholders to fatten, more money can be poured towards caring for those whom the system is made for, the covered population...
This implies that everyone who "can't afford it" will have to be investigated if they're not bullshitting, thus adding more overhead.
The magic word here is: "LESS OVERHEAD".
Repeat after me: *** LESS OVERHEAD ***. What your solution does is to let the insurance companies skim the cream from the healthy profitable cases that do not need any care at all while dumping the heavy cases to a government that is pressured from all sides to cut taxes.
Your solution will put big money in big croporations while letting the public high and
You anglo-saxons need to remove that head out of your butt, and ditch that stupid hatred and distrust of what the State does, and look elsewhere at other cultures that DO put some trust in the State and do not harbour that visceral defiance of it. And, you know what? In such cultures, working for the State is not seen as something bad, so bright people WILL go work for the State and provide competent, efficient, quality service.
Up here, we got the cheapest electric power in the world, thanks to a government-owned utility that's the Wall Street poster child; everytime it wants to make a new dam, Wall-Street lenders will bend-over backwards to lend them the money, because they know their top-notch infrastructure will not collapse like the northeast power grid did several years ago (ours is the only northeast power grid that bravely stayed put).
The idea of insurance being to have the largest pool to spread the risk better. Every time someone gets out of the sytem, the cost goes up for everyone. Are you a zillionaire that can affort to buy it? I doubt it, you wouldn't be on Slashdot then.So why do you defend the zillionnaires? Have you been brainwashed? Are you expecting some crumb handouts???
Believe me, the zillionnaires do not give a rats' ass towards the public good. They could not care less if you croak out in the gutter because you've been denied a lifesaving procedure.
Like what?Don't worry, no matter the system, the zillionnaires will always be able to "escape" and get "better" health-care.
You oughta worry about yourself, though.
Sorry, buddy, but up here, we don't believe in personal responsibility. We do believe in the community responsibility, though.
Why should someone who works his ass off should pay extra to insure big profits to a private insurer??? Do private insurers have a god-given right to bilk the public?
I mean, look at that ridiculous idea: a "health savings account". Comeon. let's get real. No one save the filthiest rich will be able to put any meaningful amount of money in there, given how expensive anything bigger than a band-aid is.
The very idea of insurance is to spread the risk; the larger the people who contribute the insurance pool, the cheaper everyone will pay. Therefore, the only way to make sure you pay the cheapest is to have everyone pitch-in.
When everyone pitches-in, it's a simple matter to give the very same coverage to everyone; this way, you reduce the paperwork needed to figure out if for such and such patient, such and such procedure is approved. Or pre-approved, for that matter.
Then by removing the profit motive, you make sure no one is denied treatment.
Now, if you have the government insure the uninsurable, you have a recipe for financial disaster; not being sustainable, you will run in the wall sooner or later.
The idea with universal government health-insurance is that everyone is covered and everyone pays. And since there is no red-tape (everyone gets the same coverage), the efficiency is as high as 97% (compare this to the 30-35% overhead of private US insurers).
What is wrong is that those who can afford a better health-insurance will see no point in paying for the less-rich, so that they will lobby to have their taxes reduced, to the point of completely gutting the health-insurance the less-rich get.
Prevening the rich from having better health-insurance makes sure the less-rich don't get shafted.
But it seems the notion of shafting the less-rich is deeply ingrained in the United States...
When a minority uses it's economic clout to gut the majority's access to healthcare, it is the **DUTY** of the government to step-in and protect the people.
Here is the "magic thought" at work! Ever since communism fell, we are deluged by those liberals who worship the free market and keep claiming that hard-work is the only way to move ahead, all said from the top of their connections.
No matter how hard one works, one won't get ahead the well-connected guy.
One who keeps denying it is in a state of delusion.
Medicine, yes, but we're talking about medical INSURANCE, here.
There has to be a market, but in reality, there is NONE. You cannot shop for insurers, insurers shop for you. And if they don't like you (you have diseases that are too expensive to treat), they will refuse to cover you.
There is no free market for medical insurance. There cannot be, because insurance companies would falter and die if there were, leaving everyone high and dry.
There is no free market for medical insurance.
Now where is your free-market liberty to choose your supplier in there?
Free market works when there is a market. In health insurance, there is NONE.
And in some cases, the doctors's pay is so high that the various provincial insurance régimes will actually limit the number of procedures a doctor can perform.
The medical colleges are a big part of the doctor penury problem, and it is nothing but appaling that no government will step-in and rein-in the insanity.
The rich can wait, too. They're not more important than anyone else.
And if they're really much more important, well, they can take their own money and go elsewhere; it's a free country, after all.
However, still all this doesn't prevent the filthy rich from going to seek health care that they pay from their own pockets elsewere, like the US, or (gasp!) even Cuba (Michael Moore didn't invent anything).