Thet's because too many private companies profit from it. Take those middlemen out and costs become much more modest.
I'm sorry, but which "private companies" act as "middlemen" for Social Security? The US government collects the money and dispenses it again.
As for "middlemen" in health care, great, let's take them out! Let's start with Medicare/Medicaid! If you cut costs to European levels in Medicare/Medicaid, then you can cover everybody out of the existing budgets.
But that's not what "progressives" have been doing. Rather, they want to add the private health care spending to the public spending and then hand all that money to big pharmaceutical corporations and doctors, with no possibility of opting out at all. It's crony capitalism at its best.
It doesn't make much sense to contribute to a plan that can't actually be implemented unless everyone has to contribute by law.The US will never have single payer healthcare for the same specious argument.
The US already has a single payer health plan (Medicare/Medicaid), and everybody does contribute to it. The trouble is that although it spends more per capita than any European system, it only covers a third of the population with all that money.
That is, the problem with the US healthcare system is that its single payer system is extremely inefficient, and the way to fix that is to make it efficient, not to force people to redirect even more money into its inefficient maw.
Just like nice guys don't get to the level of running countries, imbeciles don't either. He may not be a genius, but he's smart enough to have outmanoeuvred his political rivals, worked his way to the head of his party, and then won a major election against a very experienced and motivated opposition.
Oh, I'm sorry, you misunderstood. Trudeau is doubtlessly very smart at manipulating people and the political system for his own benefit. Hillary is the same way. It's bizarre that people like you seem to think that's a good thing.
Where Trudeau is an "imbecile" is the areas that actually matter to me and that he claims to be good at: economics and good government, as evidenced by his comment on Castro.
That's the most encouraging thing I've seen from you say so far.
So, you'll keep your nose out of stuff that's NOYB then, like US politics?
Why do you have a bug up your ass because the Prime Minister of Canada
I have a "bug up my ass" about Canadians and Europeans trying to persuade American voters to persuade them to be more like them. Here, it was Beauregard, a Canadian, who was making fun of Trump, and I think it's valid to point out how rotten his own leadership is.
Obama, whatever you may think of him, at least had a multi digit IQ that allowed him to answer questions from reporters, skin that was too thick for his soul to be injured by Saturday Night Live skits and had a clear idea of which countries he had bombed.
Well, yes, he ran on being an intellectual, so he has to behave like one.
Trump on the other hand walks out of press conferences when he gets questions he does not like, launches twitter storms where he lambasts anybody who lampoons him and told a reporter he'd launched a missile strike on Iraq until the reporter corrected him and pointed out the strike was on Syria.... and those are just three sample of the highlights of what those bastards at SCL Group and their friends have saddled us with
And Trump ran on being an alternative to the Washington establishment, so that's how he's behaving.
You're a fool if you think that anybody can just bumble into the presidency. Trump knows what he is doing as much, if not more so, than Obama. Trump is far from the first president to play this game.
The question is what these people use their intellect for.
Hillary Clinton, with her sophisticated, very expensive data analytics machine, won the popular vote by the slimmest of margins on Election Day. But Donald Trump, with his reality-TV-tested, carnival-barker sense of what people wanted to hear, was able to find a path through America’s Rust Belt to a stunning electoral college victory.
He did it by tapping into emotion, not by mapping data points.
Kriegel’s anodyne title is Clinton’s director of analytics, but it’s a job that makes him, and his team of more than 60 mathematicians and analysts, something of the central nervous system for the campaign: charged with sensing, even predicting, the first tinglings of electoral trouble and then sending instructions to everyone on how to respond.
When Clinton operatives talk about their “data-based” campaign, it’s invariably Kriegel’s data, and perhaps more importantly his models interpreting that data, they are talking about.
Well, duh. Trudeau is a politician. Nice guys do not claw their way to the level of running entire countries.
That may well be, but the aspect of Trudeau's personality that I was referring to is that he is an imbecile.
As for Castro... I fully agree with you, he was exactly the sort of dictator the United States is happy to make friends with. He just wasn't on your side.
Well, personally, I think we should largely stop foreign military interventions, withdraw most of our troops from Europe and Asia, and stop support for foreign dictators. Unfortunately, foreign military adventures are popular in both parties, and Hillary had a war boner even bigger than McCain's.
However, as long as the US is dealing with foreign dictators, I very much prefer dealing with military dictatorships to dealing with communist dictatorships.
As for your opinion as a Canadian on this, I'll take it for all it's worth: nothing.
Hillary has claimed to be both "moderate" and "progressive"; as Sanders put it "You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive."
In fact, she was neither: she flip-flopped between being a progressive and a moderate in her speeches and then adopted policies that served her donors and her political interests. Her history is really that of a left-wing radical (Alinsky and all that).
So, old, tired Hillary was really neither moderate nor progressive nor radical, she was simply an opportunist and a sell-out to the highest bidder.
Really? The Republicans have been getting nuttier and nastier for years.
So? I didn't join the Republicans, I left the Democrats and became an independent.
Mainstream Republicans used to believe government could and should do at least some things.
And they still do: for example, police, education, roads at the local level, highways, criminal justice, family law, health care, welfare, and environment at the state level, and defense and trade policy at the national level.
What has changed is that Democrats have been increasingly pushing things to the federal level and then accused Republicans of being anarchists when they oppose this and want more local control.
Trump really has more important things to worry about than Hillary; Hillary is humiliated and politically irrelevant at this point, and with the collapse of the Clinton Foundation, her advanced age, and her apparently debilitated state, she isn't going to make a comeback.
Why is it that the day after Trump gets elected, we no longer hear about Benghazi?
Benghazi was one of many instances where Hillary screwed up and lied, and voters took that into account when going to the polls. What more do you want to "hear" about it?
Your post is only "insightful" as it shows how totally fucking clueless conservatives are to believe propaganda from their worthless as shit politicians.
I came to despise Hillary not in 2016, but in 2008, when she ran her dirty campaign against Obama (who I voted for). I'm not a conservative. In fact, I used to be a registered Democrat until I figured out how (to use your words) "totally fucking clueless I had been and to believe the propaganda from the worthless as shit politicians" in the Democratic party. Since then, I've registered independent.
Correction: I would have considered voting for a moderate, competent Democrat, but [there was none, and] since I didn't particularly like Trump [either], I just stayed home.
Are you kidding? Castro was an evil, murderous dictator who condemned Cubans to a life of poverty and misery. And Castro allied with the USSR and other totalitarian and terrorist regimes by choice.
Even if what you say is true, it still doesn't make sense because Trump is still worse in every aspect you listed, so clearly those factors weren't the deciding ones.
Well, I'm sure you believe that. Large numbers of Americans disagree (myself included).
"All that got you was that independents like myself got thoroughly pissed off and stayed home" Don't you live in California? You were planning to vote for Clinton? Before you answer yes to that 2nd question, refer to the following quote:
No, I was never going to vote for Clinton: she proved that she was an evil b*tch when she ran against Obama (who I voted for), and proved her incompetence in the subsequent eight years. I would have considered voting for a moderate, competent Democrat, but since I didn't particularly like Trump, I just stayed home.
In the aftermath of the election, two things happened. First, the sky didn't fall with Trump and the Republicans have pretty much accepted the status quo on social issues I care about. Second, instead of figuring out what they did wrong and moving back to the center, the Democratic party and its supporters have become even nuttier and nastier, meaning come next election, I may well vote Republican.
In case you were wondering, AMT allows you to access the screen, keyboard, and mouse of your machine through VNC as if you had a network KVM on that machine. It seems to use the VNC protocol even. Network KVMs are expensive specialty items, and something like AMT is a cleaner, simpler way of accomplishing the same thing.
It's a shame Intel messed up and gave this feature a bad name. I hope they'll fix the problems and/or other motherboard makers will come out with a safer and improved version of it.
Too bad Bozo wasn't on the ballot; the USA might've had a shot at sane and competent leadership.
Well, not every nation can be blessed with such "sane and competent", not to mention pretty, leadership as you:
“It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba’s longest serving President.
“Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.
“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.
I'll give Trudeau this much: he is probably too stupid and ignorant to understand what his speech writer wrote for him.
People who sit in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Honeybuns, the election is over. You can stop the pretense and the lying. All that got you was that independents like myself got thoroughly pissed off and stayed home.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but which "private companies" act as "middlemen" for Social Security? The US government collects the money and dispenses it again.
As for "middlemen" in health care, great, let's take them out! Let's start with Medicare/Medicaid! If you cut costs to European levels in Medicare/Medicaid, then you can cover everybody out of the existing budgets.
But that's not what "progressives" have been doing. Rather, they want to add the private health care spending to the public spending and then hand all that money to big pharmaceutical corporations and doctors, with no possibility of opting out at all. It's crony capitalism at its best.
The US already has a single payer health plan (Medicare/Medicaid), and everybody does contribute to it. The trouble is that although it spends more per capita than any European system, it only covers a third of the population with all that money.
That is, the problem with the US healthcare system is that its single payer system is extremely inefficient, and the way to fix that is to make it efficient, not to force people to redirect even more money into its inefficient maw.
If you make me a high enough offer, you can decide how to employ my labor.
Free markets are great, aren't they?
Oh, I'm sorry, you misunderstood. Trudeau is doubtlessly very smart at manipulating people and the political system for his own benefit. Hillary is the same way. It's bizarre that people like you seem to think that's a good thing.
Where Trudeau is an "imbecile" is the areas that actually matter to me and that he claims to be good at: economics and good government, as evidenced by his comment on Castro.
So, you'll keep your nose out of stuff that's NOYB then, like US politics?
I have a "bug up my ass" about Canadians and Europeans trying to persuade American voters to persuade them to be more like them. Here, it was Beauregard, a Canadian, who was making fun of Trump, and I think it's valid to point out how rotten his own leadership is.
Unfortunately, the ideology behind Castro isn't dead, and it guides popular mainstream US politicians.
Well, yes, he ran on being an intellectual, so he has to behave like one.
And Trump ran on being an alternative to the Washington establishment, so that's how he's behaving.
You're a fool if you think that anybody can just bumble into the presidency. Trump knows what he is doing as much, if not more so, than Obama. Trump is far from the first president to play this game.
The question is what these people use their intellect for.
Those claims are ridiculous in light of what actually happened:
Hillary's data-driven campaign:
Hillary was clearly targeting individual voters and groups.
That may well be, but the aspect of Trudeau's personality that I was referring to is that he is an imbecile.
Well, personally, I think we should largely stop foreign military interventions, withdraw most of our troops from Europe and Asia, and stop support for foreign dictators. Unfortunately, foreign military adventures are popular in both parties, and Hillary had a war boner even bigger than McCain's.
However, as long as the US is dealing with foreign dictators, I very much prefer dealing with military dictatorships to dealing with communist dictatorships.
As for your opinion as a Canadian on this, I'll take it for all it's worth: nothing.
I still wonder what causes people like you to obsess so much about US politics: it's not your country, and you obviously don't know much about it.
That's utterly disgusting.
You can't usually stay in power as a mass murdering dictator without that skill.
Hillary has claimed to be both "moderate" and "progressive"; as Sanders put it "You can be a moderate. You can be a progressive. But you cannot be a moderate and a progressive."
In fact, she was neither: she flip-flopped between being a progressive and a moderate in her speeches and then adopted policies that served her donors and her political interests. Her history is really that of a left-wing radical (Alinsky and all that).
So, old, tired Hillary was really neither moderate nor progressive nor radical, she was simply an opportunist and a sell-out to the highest bidder.
So? I didn't join the Republicans, I left the Democrats and became an independent.
And they still do: for example, police, education, roads at the local level, highways, criminal justice, family law, health care, welfare, and environment at the state level, and defense and trade policy at the national level.
What has changed is that Democrats have been increasingly pushing things to the federal level and then accused Republicans of being anarchists when they oppose this and want more local control.
Oh, poor babies! They might have gotten stuck outside the country for a few months waiting for a visa!
You know, like I and many other legal immigrants have been in the past. Where was your outrage for the past half century before Trump?
Stop your stupid binary thinking. I didn't become a Republican, I have become an Independent.
Trump really has more important things to worry about than Hillary; Hillary is humiliated and politically irrelevant at this point, and with the collapse of the Clinton Foundation, her advanced age, and her apparently debilitated state, she isn't going to make a comeback.
Benghazi was one of many instances where Hillary screwed up and lied, and voters took that into account when going to the polls. What more do you want to "hear" about it?
I came to despise Hillary not in 2016, but in 2008, when she ran her dirty campaign against Obama (who I voted for). I'm not a conservative. In fact, I used to be a registered Democrat until I figured out how (to use your words) "totally fucking clueless I had been and to believe the propaganda from the worthless as shit politicians" in the Democratic party. Since then, I've registered independent.
Correction: I would have considered voting for a moderate, competent Democrat, but [there was none, and] since I didn't particularly like Trump [either], I just stayed home.
Are you kidding? Castro was an evil, murderous dictator who condemned Cubans to a life of poverty and misery. And Castro allied with the USSR and other totalitarian and terrorist regimes by choice.
Well, I'm sure you believe that. Large numbers of Americans disagree (myself included).
No, I was never going to vote for Clinton: she proved that she was an evil b*tch when she ran against Obama (who I voted for), and proved her incompetence in the subsequent eight years. I would have considered voting for a moderate, competent Democrat, but since I didn't particularly like Trump, I just stayed home.
In the aftermath of the election, two things happened. First, the sky didn't fall with Trump and the Republicans have pretty much accepted the status quo on social issues I care about. Second, instead of figuring out what they did wrong and moving back to the center, the Democratic party and its supporters have become even nuttier and nastier, meaning come next election, I may well vote Republican.
You're assuming that this was an accident rather than a backdoor.
In case you were wondering, AMT allows you to access the screen, keyboard, and mouse of your machine through VNC as if you had a network KVM on that machine. It seems to use the VNC protocol even. Network KVMs are expensive specialty items, and something like AMT is a cleaner, simpler way of accomplishing the same thing.
It's a shame Intel messed up and gave this feature a bad name. I hope they'll fix the problems and/or other motherboard makers will come out with a safer and improved version of it.
Well, not every nation can be blessed with such "sane and competent", not to mention pretty, leadership as you:
I'll give Trudeau this much: he is probably too stupid and ignorant to understand what his speech writer wrote for him.
People who sit in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
The difference between socialism and fascism is like the difference between dying from bubonic plague and dying from smallpox.
Honeybuns, the election is over. You can stop the pretense and the lying. All that got you was that independents like myself got thoroughly pissed off and stayed home.
Trump voters seem to still consider him the better choice. Personally, I have nothing to complain about.
Easy: Hillary was corrupt, incompetent, dishonest, war-mongering, and a party-hack. Bozo the Clown would have been a better choice than Hillary.
Macron doesn't strike me as the brightest bulb, but if the Democrats had put up anybody like him, they would likely have won in the US as well.