Since the government bureaucrats don't owe you anything (unlike insurance companies), you will not be able to sue them.
Insurance companies don't owe you anything unless you own some of their stock. Otherwise, you _will_ have to sue them over anything they think they can weasel out of. Good luck doint that when you're seriously ill already. They know that time and money are on their side.
And since when can't you sue the government over all kinds of things? That's an essential part of that whole "rule of law" business. If you can't, get the heck out of there while you still have a passport.
My grandmother -- on Medicare -- is going through exactly that right now. She is, effectively, refused treatment, because of her age (91).
Expanding Medicare to everyone will royally suck...
Well, can you find any private insurance company that will actually offer health insurance to a 91 year-old, at a reasonable rate (say, less than $2k/mo)?
I don't think any country allows its citizens to opt out of taxes for programs they don't use.
Here in Germany, the government is expressly forbidden to specify what a certain tax is going to be used for. Taxes are also expressly described as something that the payer cannot expect an individual benefit for.
Therefore the public health insurance system isn't funded by taxes (it would be impossible to do so legally). Hence it's possible to opt out of it under certain conditions (you're not- or self-employed, a government employee or make above a certain amount if you're employed).
In other words, if I give you a "see a doctor for free" card, there is now extra demand, but there are still the same number of doctors.
Err... no. Most people don't want to see a doctor if the only reason for it is that "it's free". It's a waste of time, the guy is going to stick needles into you or do similar unpleasant things, etc.
If you want to increase the demand for healthcare, you need to make people sick, not pay for their doctors visits.
There is nothing special about me in any regard, which is another way of saying "if I can do it, anybody can do it."
Err... no. It's not. If you had been thrown an enormous amount of bad luck (i.e. you're the unluckiest person on this planet), and could still "do it", then anybody "can do it". Otherwise, you say that you're just average and every else is also at least average, which is a bogus statement considering some simple statistics.
That John Mcain, a Navy brat, turned lifetime public servant who has had "socialist" government provided healthcare for his entire 72 years on this planet.
Oh, that reminds me of that one book I saw a while ago. Afair written by a senator who had defeated cancer, and obviously meant to be inspirational to other cancer patients. Yeah right. When you don't have to worry about about losing your job and income _and_ getting stuck with six to seven-figure bills, fighting off cancer suddenly becomes much easier.
Apparently, you've never experienced being an undesirable for the insurance company (they call it "incalculable risk", but it really means "undesirable". They'd rather swallow a life tarantula before even thinking about offering you a contract.).
If it can't afford to pay for the health problems I've brought on myself, nobody else should be required to pay one red cent to cover me.
But the hospitals are required, to some degree, to treat you before being able to check your ability to pay. Who will foot the bill if it later turns out that you're unable to pay?
And what about all the health problems that you didn't bring on yourself? Or are you a firm believer in "bad things only happen to you if you make bad decisions"?
Walk into any Emergency Room lobby and you'll see a sign saying "you will be treated regardless of your ability to pay" or some such.
It's only "free" if you can't pay. If you can (or the hospital thinks that you could), they'll squeeze every dollar out of you _and_ a couple of dollars more for all the patients they had to treat for "free".
So, yeah, the US system already is socialized, but instead of burdening the costs on the general population it burdens the costs only on the patients that can actually pay.
Step 4: I didn't make any profit, so I pay no taxes.
Err... sorry. Your company didn't make any profit, so it pays no taxes. You have a $100k salary, and you're going to pay taxes on that. Nothing sneaky about that.
A similar thing happened with one of those big financial bank type companies that just got bailed out here in the US... they paid a bunch of huge million dollar "bonuses" right before they went bankrupt. How fucking convenient. And the stock holders got screwed.
Well, that's the problem with the shareholders. Most of them are too disinterested in controlling their property to keep these things from happening.
Education and success are statistically correlated. And a country contains enough individuals to allow statistical points of view.
Drive, the ability to relate to people, personal accountability - those are typical qualities for success.
Drive is basically everything. Just drop the other two points and you'll have a "fine", "successful" CEO that will probably collect lots of golden parachutes.
No, but you had bank employees and mortgage brokers that could easily
talk you out of any doubt that you couldn't afford that mortgage. That's
what they're paid for, right?
2. You shall invest in sub-prime mortgage-backed derivatives.
They had AAA ratings from all the rating agencies. Why should they be different from any other AAA investments? It's triple-friggin'-A, it's gotta be safe!
It's not a conspiracy; it simply IS. Just intuitively to you - does it seem fair that one class of citizen can create money from nothing? What if I told you that for every 1 dollar you have you can now spend 10?
Fractional reserve banking means that for every X dollars in deposits, the bank only needs to keep a*X dollars in cash (0 < a < 1) and can lend out (1 - a) dollars as credit (to people/companies/other banks).
What you're describing is a system where a bank could, for every X dollars in deposits, lend out b*X dollars, with b > 1. That's not fractional reserve banking.
Fractional Reserve banking is so inherently UNJUST that the only reason it continues to exist is ignorance.
Fractional reserve banking is what enables you to have any form of interest-bearing investment at a bank (savings account, CD, whatever) and/or to take out loans from banks (instead of from other people). "Getting rid" of fractional reserve banking means getting rid of banks as we know them - they'd basically become institutions where you deposit money and pay for having it kept safely. Loans would have to be taken out from other private parties - good luck finding any that are willing to take that kind of risk while not demanding loan-shark-like interest rates.
Germany, for example. There are certain conditions for it (you must either be self-employed or a government official or make more than ~49k€ per year if you're otherwise employed), but once you meet one of these criteria, you can opt out of the public health insurance system and the deduction from your paycheck associated with it disappears. If you're not in the public system, you'll receive a bill from your doctor, which you can then submit to your private carrier (or not, if you're inclined to pay out of pocket). Even if you're in the public system and want to pay for something out of pocket (e.g. they only cover amalgam fillings, and you want gold/ceramic/plastic fillings, or they don't cover single rooms in hospitals and you really want some peace and quiet during your stay at the hospital), then that's perfectly possible.
Another nice thing around here is that the prices for medical treatments are mostly standardized and doctors may only charge more if there's an actual medical reason for it("Due to the condition of the patient, procedure X was unusually complicated and took twice as long as usual" would qualify, "My golf club fees went up this year." wouldn't). Therefore, it's easy for the patient to estimate what a certain treatment would cost - pull up the associated list (there's one each for doctors and dentists), add up the cost, and you're pretty much there. E.g. a root canal on a molar would be around 500€, maybe 700€ if special treatment methods are used by an endodontologist, so if the bill is suddenly 2500€, there's something fishy going on. Also, the insurance companies (public or private) don't decide which doctors you can see and which hospitals you can go to (since the costs are roughly the same for them) - it's completely up to the patients preference.
That's like saying you can send your child to private school. The problem is this: After the state sucks-away $3000 in School Tax, you no longer have enough money to afford private tuition.
IMHO people who attend private schools should be exempt from School Tax for that year.
Wow, you're a genius. You've come up with exactly the solution that has existed in various countries with both private and public health insurance carriers for decades. Public and private health insurance can coexist, and someone who's got private health insurance does not have to pay anything to support anyone who's on the public system. Zero. Zip. Nada. The fee for being on the public system is only deducted from your income if you've actually signed up for it. It's not impossible to do.
In the normal view of politics, Democrats are leftist, Republicans are right.
In the broad spectrum, Democrats are right of the center, and Republicans are _way_ right of the center. There is no "leftist" party in the USA that is of any significance.
Democrats *generally* agree with socialism as a solution, Republicans don't.
Most Democrats would be scared just as much as the Republicans if they ever got to talk to an actual socialist. Heck, even a plain social democrat might be enough.
I'd personally be interested in regulation like "You can't offer to insure someone for $x or to borrow $x from them unless you keep y*$x on hand to pay them off if necessary. And yes, this applies to anything that will make you similarly financially liable to them, whether you call it 'banking' or 'savings and loan' or 'insurance' or a 'CDS' or a 'rose by another name'."
Sell people a specific argument like that and you might get surprising agreement - I'll bet you can even get some of the "No! Regulation evil!" libertarian types to insist that y should be 1.0 unless the customer signs a contract stipulating otherwise.
Err... so basically that means that no one can get a loan unless they can prove that they don't need it and are stupid (if they have to keep $x in cash around to take out a $x loan, why the heck are they taking out the loan instead of just spending the $x that they have already?), and that any kind of insurance will be horrifically expensive since the insurance company also needs to have $x in cash sitting around? Not really a good regulation. Pretty horrible, in fact.
The regulations that would have stopped the crisis would be more about limiting the securitization/bundling/sale of mortgages, and about rating agencies ("How again did junk securities end up with AAA ratings? Guys?").
This is a common sentiment -- but really backward. What about during the time when you're trying to get your business going, making negative money every month, i.e., burning up all your savings on your dream. What about the point where it starts working but the minimum wage receptionist is literally making twice what you do? After taking all that risk, if you end up making it work -- you should have your reward taken away? What kind of incentive is that?
Keep a job at your company until you're satisfied with the money you've made?
*sigh* Real entrepreneurs know how to get their rewards. Armchair libertarians just whine about the big evul gubbamint.
Say you own a corporation -- not a mega-giant one, just your regular old mom&pop type. You work really hard, pay your workers, pay your expenses, and pay yourself everything that is left over. The government then taxes you on all of the profit you took out as income. If the government also taxed the "profit" the corp made before you paid yourself, you would be getting taxed TWICE on the same money
Err... if you work really hard, for the corporation (never mind that it's your own right now), then the corporation should be paying you a salary. And that salary is part of the expenses, not of the profit (as you mentioned). So if you actually _work_ (instead of just owning the corporation and letting other people run it while you play golf), you're not getting taxed twice.
I believe if you own a corporation and have a job in that corporation, it's illegal to work for free. So go ahead and pay yourself a salary.
I've always been a believer in opt-in economy. Just mark huge swaths of land as "government-free" counties. No government means: no roads, bridges, water treatment, fire stations, EMTs, hospitals, or regulated utilities. You buy the land, you move there, you're on your own.
But these things already exist! Of course, they go by a different name - failed state - but they basically work much like you describe. Heck, you can even skip the "buy the land" part - just bring enough armed goons. The opportunities are basically endless for anyone who's ruthless enough. And if anyone tries to claim to be from the government, or shove anything vaguely government-like down your throat, just remember the part about bringing enough armed goons.
this means you get regular access to many many doctors offices. Videos or it didn't happen.
I'm sure GP meant the free taxi ride followed by a dumping in the middle of crime-infested area, courtesy of the hospital. You could never expect treatment _that_ good under a socialized system.
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Insurance companies don't owe you anything unless you own some of their stock. Otherwise, you _will_ have to sue them over anything they think they can weasel out of. Good luck doint that when you're seriously ill already. They know that time and money are on their side.
And since when can't you sue the government over all kinds of things? That's an essential part of that whole "rule of law" business. If you can't, get the heck out of there while you still have a passport.
My grandmother -- on Medicare -- is going through exactly that right now. She is, effectively, refused treatment, because of her age (91).
Expanding Medicare to everyone will royally suck...
Well, can you find any private insurance company that will actually offer health insurance to a 91 year-old, at a reasonable rate (say, less than $2k/mo)?
Here in Germany, the government is expressly forbidden to specify what a certain tax is going to be used for. Taxes are also expressly described as something that the payer cannot expect an individual benefit for.
Therefore the public health insurance system isn't funded by taxes (it would be impossible to do so legally). Hence it's possible to opt out of it under certain conditions (you're not- or self-employed, a government employee or make above a certain amount if you're employed).
Nowhere does it say to "share" someone ELSE'S wealth.
Deuteronomy 23,25, also referred to in Matthew 12,1? And that's just one example, I didn't bother looking for all the others.
The only thing the Bible says about sharing is to share your OWN.
Yours must be fairly odd translation of the Book.
Err ... no. Most people don't want to see a doctor if the only reason for it is that "it's free". It's a waste of time, the guy is going to stick needles into you or do similar unpleasant things, etc.
If you want to increase the demand for healthcare, you need to make people sick, not pay for their doctors visits.
Err ... no. It's not. If you had been thrown an enormous amount of bad luck (i.e. you're the unluckiest person on this planet), and could still "do it", then anybody "can do it". Otherwise, you say that you're just average and every else is also at least average, which is a bogus statement considering some simple statistics.
Oh, that reminds me of that one book I saw a while ago. Afair written by a senator who had defeated cancer, and obviously meant to be inspirational to other cancer patients. Yeah right. When you don't have to worry about about losing your job and income _and_ getting stuck with six to seven-figure bills, fighting off cancer suddenly becomes much easier.
Yay, let's go back to the good ol' times of patent medicines, untested drugs and general quackery.
We've got neither, despite price controls. What did we do wrong?
What stuff are you on, and where can I get some?
Apparently, you've never experienced being an undesirable for the insurance company (they call it "incalculable risk", but it really means "undesirable". They'd rather swallow a life tarantula before even thinking about offering you a contract.).
But the hospitals are required, to some degree, to treat you before being able to check your ability to pay. Who will foot the bill if it later turns out that you're unable to pay?
And what about all the health problems that you didn't bring on yourself? Or are you a firm believer in "bad things only happen to you if you make bad decisions"?
Walk into any Emergency Room lobby and you'll see a sign saying "you will be treated regardless of your ability to pay" or some such.
It's only "free" if you can't pay. If you can (or the hospital thinks that you could), they'll squeeze every dollar out of you _and_ a couple of dollars more for all the patients they had to treat for "free".
So, yeah, the US system already is socialized, but instead of burdening the costs on the general population it burdens the costs only on the patients that can actually pay.
Split it into Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd states.
Great. Who gets the oil-rich areas, who gets the seaport, who gets which holy site? It's not all that simple.
Forcibly reallocate all population to those zones according to their self-identification.
A method proven to generate bad blood and hard feelings (mildly put. very mildly put) for generations to come.
That money doesn't just disappear, it goes into the US economy...the majority of it does.
Three words: Broken window fallacy.
Err ... sorry. Your company didn't make any profit, so it pays no taxes. You have a $100k salary, and you're going to pay taxes on that. Nothing sneaky about that.
A similar thing happened with one of those big financial bank type companies that just got bailed out here in the US... they paid a bunch of huge million dollar "bonuses" right before they went bankrupt. How fucking convenient. And the stock holders got screwed.
Well, that's the problem with the shareholders. Most of them are too disinterested in controlling their property to keep these things from happening.
Education and success are statistically correlated. And a country contains enough individuals to allow statistical points of view.
Drive, the ability to relate to people, personal accountability - those are typical qualities for success.
Drive is basically everything. Just drop the other two points and you'll have a "fine", "successful" CEO that will probably collect lots of golden parachutes.
1. You shall take mortgages you cannot afford.
No, but you had bank employees and mortgage brokers that could easily talk you out of any doubt that you couldn't afford that mortgage. That's what they're paid for, right?
2. You shall invest in sub-prime mortgage-backed derivatives.
They had AAA ratings from all the rating agencies. Why should they be different from any other AAA investments? It's triple-friggin'-A, it's gotta be safe!
It's not a conspiracy; it simply IS. Just intuitively to you - does it seem fair that one class of citizen can create money from nothing? What if I told you that for every 1 dollar you have you can now spend 10?
Fractional reserve banking means that for every X dollars in deposits, the bank only needs to keep a*X dollars in cash (0 < a < 1) and can lend out (1 - a) dollars as credit (to people/companies/other banks).
What you're describing is a system where a bank could, for every X dollars in deposits, lend out b*X dollars, with b > 1. That's not fractional reserve banking.
Fractional Reserve banking is so inherently UNJUST that the only reason it continues to exist is ignorance.
Fractional reserve banking is what enables you to have any form of interest-bearing investment at a bank (savings account, CD, whatever) and/or to take out loans from banks (instead of from other people). "Getting rid" of fractional reserve banking means getting rid of banks as we know them - they'd basically become institutions where you deposit money and pay for having it kept safely. Loans would have to be taken out from other private parties - good luck finding any that are willing to take that kind of risk while not demanding loan-shark-like interest rates.
What countries allow you to opt out?
Germany, for example. There are certain conditions for it (you must either be self-employed or a government official or make more than ~49k€ per year if you're otherwise employed), but once you meet one of these criteria, you can opt out of the public health insurance system and the deduction from your paycheck associated with it disappears. If you're not in the public system, you'll receive a bill from your doctor, which you can then submit to your private carrier (or not, if you're inclined to pay out of pocket). Even if you're in the public system and want to pay for something out of pocket (e.g. they only cover amalgam fillings, and you want gold/ceramic/plastic fillings, or they don't cover single rooms in hospitals and you really want some peace and quiet during your stay at the hospital), then that's perfectly possible.
Another nice thing around here is that the prices for medical treatments are mostly standardized and doctors may only charge more if there's an actual medical reason for it("Due to the condition of the patient, procedure X was unusually complicated and took twice as long as usual" would qualify, "My golf club fees went up this year." wouldn't). Therefore, it's easy for the patient to estimate what a certain treatment would cost - pull up the associated list (there's one each for doctors and dentists), add up the cost, and you're pretty much there. E.g. a root canal on a molar would be around 500€, maybe 700€ if special treatment methods are used by an endodontologist, so if the bill is suddenly 2500€, there's something fishy going on. Also, the insurance companies (public or private) don't decide which doctors you can see and which hospitals you can go to (since the costs are roughly the same for them) - it's completely up to the patients preference.
That's like saying you can send your child to private school. The problem is this: After the state sucks-away $3000 in School Tax, you no longer have enough money to afford private tuition.
IMHO people who attend private schools should be exempt from School Tax for that year.
Wow, you're a genius. You've come up with exactly the solution that has existed in various countries with both private and public health insurance carriers for decades. Public and private health insurance can coexist, and someone who's got private health insurance does not have to pay anything to support anyone who's on the public system. Zero. Zip. Nada. The fee for being on the public system is only deducted from your income if you've actually signed up for it. It's not impossible to do.
In the broad spectrum, Democrats are right of the center, and Republicans are _way_ right of the center. There is no "leftist" party in the USA that is of any significance.
Democrats *generally* agree with socialism as a solution, Republicans don't.
Most Democrats would be scared just as much as the Republicans if they ever got to talk to an actual socialist. Heck, even a plain social democrat might be enough.
Sell people a specific argument like that and you might get surprising agreement - I'll bet you can even get some of the "No! Regulation evil!" libertarian types to insist that y should be 1.0 unless the customer signs a contract stipulating otherwise.
Err ... so basically that means that no one can get a loan unless they can prove that they don't need it and are stupid (if they have to keep $x in cash around to take out a $x loan, why the heck are they taking out the loan instead of just spending the $x that they have already?), and that any kind of insurance will be horrifically expensive since the insurance company also needs to have $x in cash sitting around? Not really a good regulation. Pretty horrible, in fact.
The regulations that would have stopped the crisis would be more about limiting the securitization/bundling/sale of mortgages, and about rating agencies ("How again did junk securities end up with AAA ratings? Guys?").
Keep a job at your company until you're satisfied with the money you've made?
*sigh* Real entrepreneurs know how to get their rewards. Armchair libertarians just whine about the big evul gubbamint.
Say you own a corporation -- not a mega-giant one, just your regular old mom&pop type. You work really hard, pay your workers, pay your expenses, and pay yourself everything that is left over. The government then taxes you on all of the profit you took out as income. If the government also taxed the "profit" the corp made before you paid yourself, you would be getting taxed TWICE on the same money
Err ... if you work really hard, for the corporation (never mind that it's your own right now), then the corporation should be paying you a salary. And that salary is part of the expenses, not of the profit (as you mentioned). So if you actually _work_ (instead of just owning the corporation and letting other people run it while you play golf), you're not getting taxed twice.
I believe if you own a corporation and have a job in that corporation, it's illegal to work for free. So go ahead and pay yourself a salary.
But these things already exist! Of course, they go by a different name - failed state - but they basically work much like you describe. Heck, you can even skip the "buy the land" part - just bring enough armed goons. The opportunities are basically endless for anyone who's ruthless enough. And if anyone tries to claim to be from the government, or shove anything vaguely government-like down your throat, just remember the part about bringing enough armed goons.
I'm sure GP meant the free taxi ride followed by a dumping in the middle of crime-infested area, courtesy of the hospital. You could never expect treatment _that_ good under a socialized system.