The real problem is that in many of these trade treaties, the negotiations are not truly between the people of Nation A and the people of Nation B.
Most people in the US have zero interest in our government attempting to strong-arm other nations into using the same IP laws we have, for example. It simply doesn't benefit the average person. I suspect the situation is similar in many other countries, such as those of the EU.
Yet the US government spends an inordinate amount of time trying to pursue such policies. As now it seems the EU does too. It clearly is not because the people are demanding it. So what other explanations could there be?
Now, I'm not normally one to get upset about "the corporations". But the only explanation that I can see is that the negotiators are working on behalf of various special interest groups, not their populations as a whole. In other words, corporations who see an opportunity to use the law to obtain what they could not obtain by fair business.
Seriously, as a Canadian this disgusts me. The EU, the US... What the hell gives these assholes the right to demand ANYTHING?
As an American, it disgusts me. This is the problem with politicians around the world - they're never content to let others live differently than they themselves wish to.
It's especially ironic for the US, given that the nation was founded on a federalism in which states were intended to have most of the power. The Founders were well aware of the need for the states to act as social laboratories for experimentation. You never learn if you don't try new things. Rigid homogeneity is not good for the society as a whole. Too bad that lesson seems to have been forgotten in the present day, in which the federal government attempts to control damn near everything, domestically and abroad.
Except the US is not a 'former' adultery, it's been doing it for the best part of half a century
You know we could toss around each nation's sins all day. The Chinese Communist Party has been abusing its people for half a century. The Brits and the French have had their share of imperial abuses. And so on.
All this stupid blame game rhetoric obscures what's really at issue, which is the matter of what's the morally right thing to do in each case.
When someone says "stop being a jerk", it's not a valid defense to say "well Bob over there's a jerk too". Maybe Bob is a jerk, maybe he's not, but regardless you need to look at your own behavior. US Cold War alliances with dictators are not justification for Chinese government oppression of its citizens, or vice versa.
Instead of getting into a pissing contest about who's holier than who, we should all be taking some time to hold ourselves to a higher standard. That's the US, China, and every other nation. That means discussing each issue on its merits, rather than bringing in unrelated issues.
Seems to me there is a reasonable middle ground in which the market could exist and be regulated to prevent abuse, rather than be banned. The US has free speech yet bans certain abuses (slander, "fire in a crowded theater", etc). Similarly, most "free markets" throughout history have been regulated.
There are only so many people willing to donate a major organ for the benefit of somebody they don't know. There are many more who would be willing if they could use it to help send their kid to college, etc.
I'm sorry, but after engaging in torture itself, the USA has kind of lost it's moral high ground.
So do we cease condemning adultery just because someone in our family did it? If a former adulterer now says adultery is wrong, should we dismiss the truth of the statement because they have personal experience with the offense?
I don't think so. Perhaps we could recognize that maybe they learned something along the way.
There is not a person on this planet who has not done something wrong. If having sinned disqualifies you from criticizing sin, then we will have a world in which no depravity is condemned. We don't need that kind of race to the bottom.
People will sometimes fail their own moral standards, or those of society. The right thing to do is admit our failings, correct them, and encourage our friends to do the same. It's not a contest to see who's "better", it's a struggle to have us all do the right thing.
A problem is that criticism naturally makes people defensive. They take it as an assault on themselves, rather than a criticism of a particular action. So instead of accepting the truth of the criticism, and working on it, they attack the critic. This avoids needing to admit their own guilt, and discourages others from making constructive criticism too. This may be an effective strategy to get people to back off, but it's not an effective strategy to become better human beings.
I'm kind of torn by this whole China/Google/Microsoft thing. While I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, who are we to say what they should and shouldn't allow? Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do? While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty.
China has sovereignty. So do nations that are criticizing certain of its current behaviors. Sovereignty just means China has the power to make the laws of its land. Which it clearly does. Sovereignty does not mean immunity to criticism by your peers, despite the Communist Party's wish that this be so.
The US is sovereign but has received lots of foreign criticism for nearly every policy it has, from the structure of its health care system, to capital punishment, to our numerous activities abroad. Sometimes we accept the criticism and change something, sometimes we don't. But either way, while the criticism can sting, the dialog serves as an important sanity check for every nation.
None of us will become wiser and more moral, as individuals or as nations, if we refuse to discuss moral issues with each other. Even when that creates uncomfortable moments. The Chinese government may not like criticism over how it treats its citizens, and the West may be tempted not to rock the boat, but these sorts of discussions are necessary.
Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do?
In the US, foreign companies are welcome to come to our country. They are welcome to ask the government to change its policy on a given matter. We have free speech here, after all. If the change makes sense to enough of us, we'll do it. Now would some people in the US complain about the nationality of the speaker, rather than the correctness of the speaker's argument? Probably. But when someone attacks the speaker's nationality rather than their speech, it's often because they want to distract you from the correctness of the speech.
Since when does Google, or the United States, get to decide how China is governed?
They don't. But neither do they need to aid and abet acts by the Chinese government that they feel are immoral (i.e. censorship).
But isn't it up to the Chinese people to decide how they want to be governed?
I believe everyone in the West would like the Chinese people to decide how they are governed. Unfortunately the people do not decide - they are currently ruled by a dictatorship. When the Communist Party stops using force to crush dissenting views within their own country, and allows competing parties to form and run for election to office, then the Chinese people will be able to decide what level, if any, of censorship they feel is appropriate for their country.
But no people is deciding anything for itself when a dictatorship imprisons people for dissent, when the dictatorship uses tanks to suppress peaceful protests, or when censorship is used to deny the people the information needed to make an informed decision.
And you know, maybe if the Chinese were given these basic human rights, they might still choose some censorship. That would be their sovereign right. But let's not pretend that a people can truly consent to such censorship when dissent will land you in jail, or worse.
The way you could make this work is that the federal law would say that whichever state is the one selling the insurance is whose law that applies. I.e. if you live in MD but bought a NJ policy, the federal law would override MD's regulation to say that in this case NJ law applied. And vice versa if you live in NJ and bought a MD policy.
That presumably should lower the overhead costs of health insurance, because now companies don't need to have different arms of the same company in every state. You could sell all the policies out of one state.
This would create more competition among insurance companies. It would also increase competition among state governments to have more attractive regulations (from the perspective of the insurers).
Republicans like this increased competition, thinking it will lead to more effective regulations and lower prices. Democrats fear that it will lead to a "race to the bottom" of insufficient regulation. There's probably some truth to both sides, although I personally think the increased competition would be valuable.
Using embryonic stem cells is not at all ethically questionable. They come from the left-over embryos from IVF treatments that would otherwise be thrown away or stored until someone else is willing to try using them.
So if someone dies, we should be able to harvest their organs even if they didn't volunteer them, because otherwise they'll just be thrown away and buried?
I think a lot of people would have ethical issues with that. Which is why we require consent for such things (and obviously an embryo can't consent itself, though maybe its parents could on its behalf)
The only way there is no ethical issue with embryonic stem cells is if you don't believe embryos are human beings, with the corresponding rights and dignity that go with being human. Which is of course what the whole debate is about.
The problem is that by protecting the desperately ill against snake oil salesmen, you're also "protecting" them from legitimate cures that could save their life.
It really comes down to who owns your body - you, or the government? Right now our system says the government does.
It doesn't matter if you're terminally ill, and have tried all the approved treatments to no avail, the FDA still denies you potentially life-saving care. So rather than having a, say, 90% chance of dying from the disease, they guarantee you have a 100% chance of dying from it. That's not protecting patients.
I think most people would be fine if the FDA said you had to try all the approved alternatives first. But if you've tried all that and nothing works, then they shouldn't forbid you from trying something experimental. Because at that point, they're not protecting you, they're killing you.
This is the same problem faced by businesses who need a 'software' person. Without having a good software person in the company already, how can they tell the difference between candidates? They can't.
If you're an organization looking to hire your first expert or two, you do it the old-fashioned way. You consider their degree and the institution that granted it. You consider their work experience. And perhaps you rely on a referral from a trusted contact who knows more about the field than you do.
If you're looking for some fine-grained specialization in a particular technology, there are a number of certification programs out there. If you're looking for broader skills sets, there are both BS and MS programs available in disciplines such as Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Software Engineering. What does a licensing regime get you that certificates and degree programs do not?
Ever hear of Medicare/Medicaid? Yet when people suggest changes to this "socialist" plan, all hell breaks loose.
Yes I have heard of them. And I understand why people who depend heavily on these programs would be naturally nervous about any attempts to change them. Any change (even good policy) entails some risk.
In any case, could you explain how an insurance bureaucrat who makes money screwing me is better than an government bureaucrat that is funded by taxdollars? Didn't think so.
Relying on either bureaucracy entails all sorts of problems. Either way the bureaucrat's job is to minimize how much he spends on you, because no matter who runs the bureaucracy, they have insufficient funds to cover all the care patients need.
But even in our not-very-competitive insurance market (due to regulation that prevents competition across state lines and exempts insurers from anti-trust law), you the consumer have some choice of bureaucracies. In the single-payer system you have none.
My understanding is that if you lack the ability to pay, the hospital must provide care for free, or it loses its federal tax-exempt status. Providing care for the indigent is what lets the hospital claim it is a charitable endeavor despite charging most patients for services.
What I don't know is how the hospital knows that you truly lack the ability to pay.
If you have no money there are government programs to provide you free health insurance. Also hospitals are required by law to treat patients in emergencies even if they can't pay.
There is a problem though with people who are well-enough off that they don't qualify for the government programs, but not well enough off that they feel they can buy adequate insurance. Then they get seriously ill and go bankrupt due to the portion of the bill not covered by insurance. This seems like a solvable problem with the appropriate regulations and subsidies.
Most people here support various key elements of reform. But:
1. They're scared of losing the coverage they have (either immediately or as the eventual effect of "reform"). Most people are satisfied with their personal coverage.
2. They have low opinion of the federal government's effectiveness, so 2000-page grand schemes are scary.
3. They have even less faith in the politicians' good intentions. Both parties seem intent on ideology and insensitive to the concerns of the population.
With better leadership, most elements in the current reform proposals could've gotten into law. But leadership is sorely lacking in DC at present.
It probably didn't get used as part of the sales pitch much because most people are not operating their own business. So if all the employers for their profession offer insurance, the benefit of insurance portability is not that high for those people. The issues of cost and pre-existing condition coverage are relevant to a far greater number of people.
Only a raging sociopath, or completely greedy asshole is against paying higher taxes to make sure everyone around him is in good health.
No need to flame. The dude was just pointing out that if you want to compare costs among various possible reforms (i.e. market-based, single-payer, hybrid, etc), you need to account for ALL the costs to the citizens, not just the ones they make directly.
Note that he didn't say he was opposed to higher taxes for better care.
But if you want to go there... how much of your paycheck should go to your neighbor's health care? I'm sure it's not 100% (for obvious practical reasons), so what is fair? How good of health does he need to be before your obligation is met? Do you have to work half the year for it? 3/4?
I have a feeling if you asked a lot of good, generous people this question, you'd likely get different answers. They are not raging sociopaths or greedy assholes, but probably feel there is a limit to their obligations in this regard. After all, people have other obligations to meet too (helping elderly parents, sending kids to college, etc).
Quality of care and responsiveness to the patient matter a lot too. As do citizens' estimates of their government's ability to implement an effective single-payer system.
Derangement it's not. Skepticism would be a more accurate term.
. I mean, who wants a system where I can't just spend more money to be pushed to the front of the queue so I can get my non-critical surgery performed ahead of the guy who needs a heart transplant? What the fuck??? I don't want my freedom to fuck other people over limited!
You're missing the point.
Nobody thinks their minor ailments should take precedence over someone's heart transplant.
What they want is a system with enough doctors to cover everyone's needs in a reasonable time frame.
And they know that "reasonable" means one thing to the patient, and something else to a bureaucrat who doesn't know you and never will. Thus they fear a government monopoly's attempts at cost control will mean fewer doctors available to treat them quickly.
And yes, they want a system where they can protect themselves as best they are able from the bureaucrats' decisions. If the government denies your kid the treatment he needs (the government has limited funds after all), why shouldn't you be able to spend your hard-earned savings on his health rather than a new TV or automobile?
If you're talking about the negotiation between the insurer and an individual consumer, the insurer does have a huge advantage.
But it's not so simple as the big bad insurance companies trying to screw us. The insurers don't hold many cards related to the underlying costs of care, and thus have limited freedom to offer lower prices to customers:
1. They don't control the hospitals, which have incredible leverage against insurers since they're often the only one in town.
2. They don't control the eating habits of their customers. Chronic conditions related to diet and obesity - heart disease and diabetes - are the biggest cost drivers in health care today.
3. They don't control the fact that care costs money, the need for care is infinite, and the funds are not. So either they ration care or they have high rates.
They tried rationing care several years ago via HMOs, people screamed, and they relented. Thus the costs went up, and now we're screaming about those. But that underlying tradeoff exists with a single-payer system too.
Other countries' health care systems may not be perfect but at least they exist.
The 'States have nothing even resembling a humane health care system.
What they have is health-don't-care systems.
This is hyperbole, not fact.
While the US system has clear problems, it also has some clear strong points.
The US ranks highest for responsiveness to patients' needs. It also has some of the highest quality, which is why you see people from around the world traveling to the US for care. And why strong majorities in the US say they are satisfied with their health care.
Those areas where the statistics look poor for the US are often not caused by the health care system, but are artifacts of the inputs to that system. I.e. the US has a lot more obesity and automobile accidents. If you control for the less healthy personal habits (eating and driving more), you get comparable or better outcomes to these vaunted single-payer systems.
Now, does the US system have weaknesses? Of course.
The fact that about 10% of the nation's residents don't have insurance is a big problem. Some of those are the young and healthy playing the odds. Some would actually qualify for the federal health care program for the poor (Medicaid) or the one for the elderly (Medicare), but don't realize it. And some are just above the borderline of eligibility but feel they can't afford the insurance premiums. These are issues that need to be addressed.
And there is the problem that because people are not required to have insurance, when a recession hits, the healthiest people opt out of coverage. This raises costs for everyone else, which drives up premiums and drives out more people, etc in a vicious cycle. You see that today.
But this could all be addressed with proper government subsidies and regulation. Single-payer is one approach, but not the only humane one.
Health care for profit is an oxymoron.
That's one political perspective. Another is that there is nothing wrong with providing care or insurance to people, and nothing wrong with being compensated for providing those services.
I think in the US more people adhere to the latter than the former.
No, but they might be asked, "how come you have so few female or black or jewish or mentally handicapped employees?" and I would be interested to know why they couldn't answer that.
That shouldn't be Google's burden to bear. They should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until they can prove their innocence.
How come all the free-market libertarians on slashdot don't think that this sort of informaion should be freely available too
Probably because the only use for this information will be to coerce Google into some sort of an affirmative action program, which is a nice way of saying racial discrimination against the folks it's currently PC to discriminate against.
To be fair, from their perspective this isn't a wrong because they're helping disadvantaged people.
They are "helping" those people by creating a new class of disadvantaged people, namely those who grew up in difficult circumstances and didn't have the right skin color. Which sounds a lot like the problem they were trying to get rid of for the first group.
I have no doubt many of their intentions were good... but two wrongs don't make a right. It's not even the same individual people involved, it's their descendants or others (like my ancestors) who came here much later and were not considered "white" at the time.
Maybe they're lying. Or maybe they're just afraid of getting dragged into some pissing contest / politics over a largely meaningless number that doesn't even represent true diversity*.
* = Hire a Chinese or European guy from halfway around the globe? That's doesn't count. Hire the black guy that lives next door? Now you're diverse! Never mind that a place with employees from around the globe is probably more diverse and accepting of differences than a company that just tries to meet a racial quota.
In practice, if an employer has few minority employees, it can be used as "evidence" of discrimination by over-zealous EEOC investigators when the inevitable bad candidate thinks they're a victim and cries discrimination. To protect themselves against this eventuality, the employer gives preferences to minority candidates, so that their overall numbers look "better" and they're less likely to get screwed by the government.
Thus does the noble spirit of "equal opportunity" get perverted into a racist affirmative action program.
Colleges, for example, are allowed to consider race as a means to an end such as "diversity", but they are not allowed to set any quotas or use race-based admission as a redress for historical racism
So... colleges can consider race to ensure they accept applicants representing a "diverse" mix of races. But they're not allowed to have a quota of each race. So then how do they know whether a given set of applicants is "diverse" enough to accept?
The ONLY way to know is to count the number of applicants of each race, and compare those numbers to a threshold. In other words, a quota. They're just not allowed to SAY they have a quota, because that strikes people as unfair. So instead they keep their quotas in the heads of the admissions committee rather than on paper.
"Considering" race without an acknowledged quota is just an attempt by the Court to please both sides of the affirmative action debate by forcing the debated activity into the shadows, rather than out in the open. But it hasn't stopped the activity itself.
Slashdot Mirror
The real problem is that in many of these trade treaties, the negotiations are not truly between the people of Nation A and the people of Nation B.
Most people in the US have zero interest in our government attempting to strong-arm other nations into using the same IP laws we have, for example. It simply doesn't benefit the average person. I suspect the situation is similar in many other countries, such as those of the EU.
Yet the US government spends an inordinate amount of time trying to pursue such policies. As now it seems the EU does too. It clearly is not because the people are demanding it. So what other explanations could there be?
Now, I'm not normally one to get upset about "the corporations". But the only explanation that I can see is that the negotiators are working on behalf of various special interest groups, not their populations as a whole. In other words, corporations who see an opportunity to use the law to obtain what they could not obtain by fair business.
Seriously, as a Canadian this disgusts me. The EU, the US... What the hell gives these assholes the right to demand ANYTHING?
As an American, it disgusts me. This is the problem with politicians around the world - they're never content to let others live differently than they themselves wish to.
It's especially ironic for the US, given that the nation was founded on a federalism in which states were intended to have most of the power. The Founders were well aware of the need for the states to act as social laboratories for experimentation. You never learn if you don't try new things. Rigid homogeneity is not good for the society as a whole. Too bad that lesson seems to have been forgotten in the present day, in which the federal government attempts to control damn near everything, domestically and abroad.
Except the US is not a 'former' adultery, it's been doing it for the best part of half a century
You know we could toss around each nation's sins all day. The Chinese Communist Party has been abusing its people for half a century. The Brits and the French have had their share of imperial abuses. And so on.
All this stupid blame game rhetoric obscures what's really at issue, which is the matter of what's the morally right thing to do in each case.
When someone says "stop being a jerk", it's not a valid defense to say "well Bob over there's a jerk too". Maybe Bob is a jerk, maybe he's not, but regardless you need to look at your own behavior. US Cold War alliances with dictators are not justification for Chinese government oppression of its citizens, or vice versa.
Instead of getting into a pissing contest about who's holier than who, we should all be taking some time to hold ourselves to a higher standard. That's the US, China, and every other nation. That means discussing each issue on its merits, rather than bringing in unrelated issues.
Seems to me there is a reasonable middle ground in which the market could exist and be regulated to prevent abuse, rather than be banned. The US has free speech yet bans certain abuses (slander, "fire in a crowded theater", etc). Similarly, most "free markets" throughout history have been regulated.
There are only so many people willing to donate a major organ for the benefit of somebody they don't know. There are many more who would be willing if they could use it to help send their kid to college, etc.
I'm sorry, but after engaging in torture itself, the USA has kind of lost it's moral high ground.
So do we cease condemning adultery just because someone in our family did it? If a former adulterer now says adultery is wrong, should we dismiss the truth of the statement because they have personal experience with the offense?
I don't think so. Perhaps we could recognize that maybe they learned something along the way.
There is not a person on this planet who has not done something wrong. If having sinned disqualifies you from criticizing sin, then we will have a world in which no depravity is condemned. We don't need that kind of race to the bottom.
People will sometimes fail their own moral standards, or those of society. The right thing to do is admit our failings, correct them, and encourage our friends to do the same. It's not a contest to see who's "better", it's a struggle to have us all do the right thing.
A problem is that criticism naturally makes people defensive. They take it as an assault on themselves, rather than a criticism of a particular action. So instead of accepting the truth of the criticism, and working on it, they attack the critic. This avoids needing to admit their own guilt, and discourages others from making constructive criticism too. This may be an effective strategy to get people to back off, but it's not an effective strategy to become better human beings.
I'm kind of torn by this whole China/Google/Microsoft thing. While I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, who are we to say what they should and shouldn't allow? Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do? While I've seen a great deal of discussion about human rights surrounding these stories, I've seen precious little about sovereignty.
China has sovereignty. So do nations that are criticizing certain of its current behaviors. Sovereignty just means China has the power to make the laws of its land. Which it clearly does. Sovereignty does not mean immunity to criticism by your peers, despite the Communist Party's wish that this be so.
The US is sovereign but has received lots of foreign criticism for nearly every policy it has, from the structure of its health care system, to capital punishment, to our numerous activities abroad. Sometimes we accept the criticism and change something, sometimes we don't. But either way, while the criticism can sting, the dialog serves as an important sanity check for every nation.
None of us will become wiser and more moral, as individuals or as nations, if we refuse to discuss moral issues with each other. Even when that creates uncomfortable moments. The Chinese government may not like criticism over how it treats its citizens, and the West may be tempted not to rock the boat, but these sorts of discussions are necessary.
Would we want a Chinese company to come into our country and tell our government what to do?
In the US, foreign companies are welcome to come to our country. They are welcome to ask the government to change its policy on a given matter. We have free speech here, after all. If the change makes sense to enough of us, we'll do it. Now would some people in the US complain about the nationality of the speaker, rather than the correctness of the speaker's argument? Probably. But when someone attacks the speaker's nationality rather than their speech, it's often because they want to distract you from the correctness of the speech.
Since when does Google, or the United States, get to decide how China is governed?
They don't. But neither do they need to aid and abet acts by the Chinese government that they feel are immoral (i.e. censorship).
But isn't it up to the Chinese people to decide how they want to be governed?
I believe everyone in the West would like the Chinese people to decide how they are governed. Unfortunately the people do not decide - they are currently ruled by a dictatorship. When the Communist Party stops using force to crush dissenting views within their own country, and allows competing parties to form and run for election to office, then the Chinese people will be able to decide what level, if any, of censorship they feel is appropriate for their country.
But no people is deciding anything for itself when a dictatorship imprisons people for dissent, when the dictatorship uses tanks to suppress peaceful protests, or when censorship is used to deny the people the information needed to make an informed decision.
And you know, maybe if the Chinese were given these basic human rights, they might still choose some censorship. That would be their sovereign right. But let's not pretend that a people can truly consent to such censorship when dissent will land you in jail, or worse.
The way you could make this work is that the federal law would say that whichever state is the one selling the insurance is whose law that applies. I.e. if you live in MD but bought a NJ policy, the federal law would override MD's regulation to say that in this case NJ law applied. And vice versa if you live in NJ and bought a MD policy.
That presumably should lower the overhead costs of health insurance, because now companies don't need to have different arms of the same company in every state. You could sell all the policies out of one state.
This would create more competition among insurance companies. It would also increase competition among state governments to have more attractive regulations (from the perspective of the insurers).
Republicans like this increased competition, thinking it will lead to more effective regulations and lower prices. Democrats fear that it will lead to a "race to the bottom" of insufficient regulation. There's probably some truth to both sides, although I personally think the increased competition would be valuable.
Using embryonic stem cells is not at all ethically questionable. They come from the left-over embryos from IVF treatments that would otherwise be thrown away or stored until someone else is willing to try using them.
So if someone dies, we should be able to harvest their organs even if they didn't volunteer them, because otherwise they'll just be thrown away and buried?
I think a lot of people would have ethical issues with that. Which is why we require consent for such things (and obviously an embryo can't consent itself, though maybe its parents could on its behalf)
The only way there is no ethical issue with embryonic stem cells is if you don't believe embryos are human beings, with the corresponding rights and dignity that go with being human. Which is of course what the whole debate is about.
The problem is that by protecting the desperately ill against snake oil salesmen, you're also "protecting" them from legitimate cures that could save their life.
It really comes down to who owns your body - you, or the government? Right now our system says the government does.
It doesn't matter if you're terminally ill, and have tried all the approved treatments to no avail, the FDA still denies you potentially life-saving care. So rather than having a, say, 90% chance of dying from the disease, they guarantee you have a 100% chance of dying from it. That's not protecting patients.
I think most people would be fine if the FDA said you had to try all the approved alternatives first. But if you've tried all that and nothing works, then they shouldn't forbid you from trying something experimental. Because at that point, they're not protecting you, they're killing you.
This is the same problem faced by businesses who need a 'software' person. Without having a good software person in the company already, how can they tell the difference between candidates? They can't.
If you're an organization looking to hire your first expert or two, you do it the old-fashioned
way. You consider their degree and the institution that granted it. You consider their work experience. And perhaps you rely on a referral from a trusted contact who knows more about the field than you do.
If you're looking for some fine-grained specialization in a particular technology, there are a number of certification programs out there. If you're looking for broader skills sets, there are both BS and MS programs available in disciplines such as Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Software Engineering. What does a licensing regime get you that certificates and degree programs do not?
Ever hear of Medicare/Medicaid? Yet when people suggest changes to this "socialist" plan, all hell breaks loose.
Yes I have heard of them. And I understand why people who depend heavily on these programs would be naturally nervous about any attempts to change them. Any change (even good policy) entails some risk.
In any case, could you explain how an insurance bureaucrat who makes money screwing me is better than an government bureaucrat that is funded by taxdollars? Didn't think so.
Relying on either bureaucracy entails all sorts of problems. Either way the bureaucrat's job is to minimize how much he spends on you, because no matter who runs the bureaucracy, they have insufficient funds to cover all the care patients need.
But even in our not-very-competitive insurance market (due to regulation that prevents competition across state lines and exempts insurers from anti-trust law), you the consumer have some choice of bureaucracies. In the single-payer system you have none.
My understanding is that if you lack the ability to pay, the hospital must provide care for free, or it loses its federal tax-exempt status. Providing care for the indigent is what lets the hospital claim it is a charitable endeavor despite charging most patients for services.
What I don't know is how the hospital knows that you truly lack the ability to pay.
If you have no money there are government programs to provide you free health insurance. Also hospitals are required by law to treat patients in emergencies even if they can't pay.
There is a problem though with people who are well-enough off that they don't qualify for the government programs, but not well enough off that they feel they can buy adequate insurance. Then they get seriously ill and go bankrupt due to the portion of the bill not covered by insurance. This seems like a solvable problem with the appropriate regulations and subsidies.
Loss aversion.
Most people here support various key elements of reform. But:
1. They're scared of losing the coverage they have (either immediately or as the eventual effect of "reform"). Most people are satisfied with their personal coverage.
2. They have low opinion of the federal government's effectiveness, so 2000-page grand schemes are scary.
3. They have even less faith in the politicians' good intentions. Both parties seem intent on ideology and insensitive to the concerns of the population.
With better leadership, most elements in the current reform proposals could've gotten into law. But leadership is sorely lacking in DC at present.
That would indeed be a benefit.
It probably didn't get used as part of the sales pitch much because most people are not operating their own business. So if all the employers for their profession offer insurance, the benefit of insurance portability is not that high for those people. The issues of cost and pre-existing condition coverage are relevant to a far greater number of people.
Only a raging sociopath, or completely greedy asshole is against paying higher taxes to make sure everyone around him is in good health.
No need to flame. The dude was just pointing out that if you want to compare costs among various possible reforms (i.e. market-based, single-payer, hybrid, etc), you need to account for ALL the costs to the citizens, not just the ones they make directly.
Note that he didn't say he was opposed to higher taxes for better care.
But if you want to go there... how much of your paycheck should go to your neighbor's health care? I'm sure it's not 100% (for obvious practical reasons), so what is fair? How good of health does he need to be before your obligation is met? Do you have to work half the year for it? 3/4?
I have a feeling if you asked a lot of good, generous people this question, you'd likely get different answers. They are not raging sociopaths or greedy assholes, but probably feel there is a limit to their obligations in this regard. After all, people have other obligations to meet too (helping elderly parents, sending kids to college, etc).
Quality of care and responsiveness to the patient matter a lot too. As do citizens' estimates of their government's ability to implement an effective single-payer system.
Derangement it's not. Skepticism would be a more accurate term.
. I mean, who wants a system where I can't just spend more money to be pushed to the front of the queue so I can get my non-critical surgery performed ahead of the guy who needs a heart transplant? What the fuck??? I don't want my freedom to fuck other people over limited!
You're missing the point.
Nobody thinks their minor ailments should take precedence over someone's heart transplant.
What they want is a system with enough doctors to cover everyone's needs in a reasonable time frame.
And they know that "reasonable" means one thing to the patient, and something else to a bureaucrat who doesn't know you and never will. Thus they fear a government monopoly's attempts at cost control will mean fewer doctors available to treat them quickly.
And yes, they want a system where they can protect themselves as best they are able from the bureaucrats' decisions. If the government denies your kid the treatment he needs (the government has limited funds after all), why shouldn't you be able to spend your hard-earned savings on his health rather than a new TV or automobile?
The insurance companies hold all the cards.
If you're talking about the negotiation between the insurer and an individual consumer, the insurer does have a huge advantage.
But it's not so simple as the big bad insurance companies trying to screw us. The insurers don't hold many cards related to the underlying costs of care, and thus have limited freedom to offer lower prices to customers:
1. They don't control the hospitals, which have incredible leverage against insurers since they're often the only one in town.
2. They don't control the eating habits of their customers. Chronic conditions related to diet and obesity - heart disease and diabetes - are the biggest cost drivers in health care today.
3. They don't control the fact that care costs money, the need for care is infinite, and the funds are not. So either they ration care or they have high rates.
They tried rationing care several years ago via HMOs, people screamed, and they relented. Thus the costs went up, and now we're screaming about those. But that underlying tradeoff exists with a single-payer system too.
Other countries' health care systems may not be perfect but at least they exist.
The 'States have nothing even resembling a humane health care system.
What they have is health-don't-care systems.
This is hyperbole, not fact.
While the US system has clear problems, it also has some clear strong points.
The US ranks highest for responsiveness to patients' needs. It also has some of the highest quality, which is why you see people from around the world traveling to the US for care. And why strong majorities in the US say they are satisfied with their health care.
Those areas where the statistics look poor for the US are often not caused by the health care system, but are artifacts of the inputs to that system. I.e. the US has a lot more obesity and automobile accidents. If you control for the less healthy personal habits (eating and driving more), you get comparable or better outcomes to these vaunted single-payer systems.
Now, does the US system have weaknesses? Of course.
The fact that about 10% of the nation's residents don't have insurance is a big problem. Some of those are the young and healthy playing the odds. Some would actually qualify for the federal health care program for the poor (Medicaid) or the one for the elderly (Medicare), but don't realize it. And some are just above the borderline of eligibility but feel they can't afford the insurance premiums. These are issues that need to be addressed.
And there is the problem that because people are not required to have insurance, when a recession hits, the healthiest people opt out of coverage. This raises costs for everyone else, which drives up premiums and drives out more people, etc in a vicious cycle. You see that today.
But this could all be addressed with proper government subsidies and regulation. Single-payer is one approach, but not the only humane one.
Health care for profit is an oxymoron.
That's one political perspective. Another is that there is nothing wrong with providing care or insurance to people, and nothing wrong with being compensated for providing those services.
I think in the US more people adhere to the latter than the former.
No, but they might be asked, "how come you have so few female or black or jewish or mentally handicapped employees?" and I would be interested to know why they couldn't answer that.
That shouldn't be Google's burden to bear. They should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until they can prove their innocence.
How come all the free-market libertarians on slashdot don't think that this sort of informaion should be freely available too
Probably because the only use for this information will be to coerce Google into some sort of an affirmative action program, which is a nice way of saying racial discrimination against the folks it's currently PC to discriminate against.
To be fair, from their perspective this isn't a wrong because they're helping disadvantaged people.
They are "helping" those people by creating a new class of disadvantaged people, namely those who grew up in difficult circumstances and didn't have the right skin color. Which sounds a lot like the problem they were trying to get rid of for the first group.
I have no doubt many of their intentions were good... but two wrongs don't make a right. It's not even the same individual people involved, it's their descendants or others (like my ancestors) who came here much later and were not considered "white" at the time.
Maybe they're lying. Or maybe they're just afraid of getting dragged into some pissing contest / politics over a largely meaningless number that doesn't even represent true diversity*.
* = Hire a Chinese or European guy from halfway around the globe? That's doesn't count. Hire the black guy that lives next door? Now you're diverse! Never mind that a place with employees from around the globe is probably more diverse and accepting of differences than a company that just tries to meet a racial quota.
That's what it means in theory.
In practice, if an employer has few minority employees, it can be used as "evidence" of discrimination by over-zealous EEOC investigators when the inevitable bad candidate thinks they're a victim and cries discrimination. To protect themselves against this eventuality, the employer gives preferences to minority candidates, so that their overall numbers look "better" and they're less likely to get screwed by the government.
Thus does the noble spirit of "equal opportunity" get perverted into a racist affirmative action program.
Colleges, for example, are allowed to consider race as a means to an end such as "diversity", but they are not allowed to set any quotas or use race-based admission as a redress for historical racism
So... colleges can consider race to ensure they accept applicants representing a "diverse" mix of races. But they're not allowed to have a quota of each race. So then how do they know whether a given set of applicants is "diverse" enough to accept?
The ONLY way to know is to count the number of applicants of each race, and compare those numbers to a threshold. In other words, a quota. They're just not allowed to SAY they have a quota, because that strikes people as unfair. So instead they keep their quotas in the heads of the admissions committee rather than on paper.
"Considering" race without an acknowledged quota is just an attempt by the Court to please both sides of the affirmative action debate by forcing the debated activity into the shadows, rather than out in the open. But it hasn't stopped the activity itself.