"For several years, the Obama Admin fooled the populace...."
Um, while, I'm no fan of the Obama Administration, they haven't been in office for 'years'.
They may well be fudging the books, but we'll have to wait for just a little while.
Of course, the dot-com bubble was fueled in part by the Big Eight firms handling auditing, IPOs, and investment banking for many of those dot-coms that went public, scooped huge barrels full of money, and then burned it all with nothing but technology others bought for pennies on the dollar and went on to make actual money. Obvious conflict of interest that lead to many of the Big Eight dying off.
Enron being just the most obvious example.
Give the Obama team a chance. They can do better...;)
It's not 'free time' The meter is still counting down, and just because someone else paid doesn't make it 'free time', except to you. The city is still getting paid for the time.
Now, if the city wants a way to be able to get paid for 12 hours of parking in an 8 hour stretch, ok, then the sensors can make you pay every time you enter the space. So they make the minimum time say 60 minutes in front of the dry cleaners and shops, and people come and go every 15-20 minutes, so the meter gets the hour minimum 2-3-4 times an hour. Nice.
But I don't live in Chicago, and never have, so I don't expect my city government to deliberately screw me at every opportunity.
We are learning a lot more about Chicago-style politics than I ever wanted to...
Fairpoint was just a scam to give Verizon an out from 'losing' (not making as much as they wanted) money in the Northeast, especially Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
A pox on them both. I used to live there. Phone service should have been a license to print money, but tyhey hosed it up and probably hve a kickback sceme running with Fairpoint. Worst case scenario, Fairpoint collapses and Verizon gets it all back and keeps what Fairpoint paid them. Best case scenario, Time-Warner and the other ISPs eat their lunch and dinner with VOIP, if they can keep the landlines dry...
"I feel no need to put links on here that are everywhere in the rest of this thread. Oh wait, I specifically have you "use your sources". Way to control the debate!"
What?
They would be Y O U R sources. What control would I have over those?
When you stop drooling, come back and give me some sources. All ya gotta do is google a little bit. Sheriff Joe is popular enough to get plenty of ammo, even if most of it is blanks.
A true American entrepreneur, Paul Fisher tackled the problem and solved it, and seems to have done so just to be able to say he did. No doubt he made a bundle selling the civilian version (identical to the NASA version, BTW).
Oh, and the Russians are alleged to have been using GREASE pencils in space. Close...
1) County sheriffs (and most elected and appointed law enforcement leaders) have numerous cases filed against them, on a continuing basis. It's the nature of their position to both be responsible for activities that are regularly challenged in court, and to attract complaints from many parties that are motivated and willing to take legal action. This does not explain the volume of cases against Sheriff Joe.
2) There are, of course, several unflattering reports of Sheriff Joe's performance over the years. It's never good to see suspects die while in custody. Is no there any major jurisdiction in the U.S. that has had no such incidents since 2004? I'm not trying to excuse these incidents so much as considering whether or not these incidents are significantly out of the ordinary for a department of similar size. The LA County Sheriff doesn't enjoy a significantly better reputation, nor do the New York City police, or the departments of Chicago, Detroit, Boston, or even Washingon D.C. Ask around.
3) How many lawsuits have been filed against our President, Barack Obama? Don't count the ones about his birth or eligibility for the office of President. Again, the position is a magnet for complaints and suits.
If your measure of good behavior is the number of lawsuits, then only you and I are decent people. And I'm not too sure about you.
Or Phoenix Police whose chief and the Phoenix mayor just can't take much criticism.
Try and discredit the reports based on the sources I use. Not working. The incidents did happen. Police officers were calling into local radio shows and confirming the reports.
It seems most home invasions in Phoenix are carried out by those who attack drop houses the 'coyotes' use to stage illegal immigrants on their way to other cities. Taking some hostage and making a quick buck is the motive. Posing as police works very well until the real police show up. then, hope the bad guys run out of bullets, which they often do.
Our mayor, Phil Gordon, is death against enforcing immigration law, as is our former Governor and now head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. It's so bad the Feds are demanding that local law enforcement accept a new policy that pretty much prevents them from enforcing the law. That's the 287(g) program that apparently is too successful.
Sherrif Joe also has tangled with the local alternative paper, which published his and other officials home addresses and apparently violated grand jury statutes. It's only an arcane law when it is applied to you.
Sherrif Joe has his view of law enforcement. It enrages many of the liberal intelligensia around here, who would rather we put the illegals up in the Phoenician and give them a chance.
Me? I back Sherrif Joe, knowing full well he can get carried away. The alternative is to have everything not nailed down stolen by the illegals as they stream through here on their way to a better life.
You ought to live here. Then you would grasp a little more of the nuance. Much too easy to take things at face value. 4 years here has taught me that we have a serious illegal immigration problem. How to solve it is unfortunately simple - clean house, starting with the House of Reperesentatives. Our government has too many conflicts of interest, business sees illegals as cheap labor, Democrats see them as new voters, and regular citizens have no one on their side. But I'm not hopeful.
Why the focus on illegal immigration? That's the crux of the trouble over Sherrif Joe. That's all it is.
"it should be criminal to create a webpage stealing feeds from others "
What?
We can't even seem to criminalize ads that say "A Phoenix mom discovers the one rule to lose weight" when there was NEVER a Phoenix mom, NEVER a mom who discovered a rule to lose weight, and NEVER a mom who lost weight involved IN ANY WAY with the ad campaign. Pure, made-up BS. Apparently not criminal.
Surely republishing feed links can't be criminal - you're not even replicating the content, just advertising for them. You're benefiting them.
"IRS only has to change their data type on their database. I bet a ton of companies would be caught off guard dealing with 'letters'."
So your solution is to not merely force amputation and reattachment, but in the process swap an arm for a leg from some other species?
Nope, changing to hex would not be less painful.
ps - the IRS is the least of the problems. they change yearly to accomodate legislation, though this would be a much bigger change. SSA first would have to change their systems, and that is a nightmare I do not wish to induldge in lightly. Then virtually every bank, utility, financial processor, etc in the U.S. Massive. You are probably underestimating the effort and cost. Of course, it could be a stimulus package - IT would get a bounce for this! Now to write into law that they have to use Americans to do the work...Bahahahahaha!
Already the SSA is recycling SSNs. There are only 1,000,000,000 -1 that I know of, and roughly a third of those are in active use. On-demand new SSNs would fail in about 5 years, I think, and then we would face the joy of expanding the SSN length from 9 digits to at least 11.
You think changing year digits from 2 to 4 in 1999 was painful? That pales by comparison. If you planned on making this change in 2015, you are already too late.
Heck, changing area codes to allow middle digits other than 0 and 1 took years to negotiate, and a bit longer to implement, knowing that the ineviaible change to the NANP will be here some day and cause even more chaos. Systems are marvelous, aren't they?
That might be 300 documents, or more likely as few as 1/3 of a document. How many single-page documents are commonly filed?
Of course, at ten bucks, you're getting warmer...
Perhaps this is the beginning of truly 'public' repositories. Or a way for not-for-profit journalism to survive, since they would benefit greatly from free or nearly-free documents. And shouldn't we also encourage public repositories of FOIA documents of all types? Oh, wait, don't many FOIA requesters already do that???
I'm not saying we shouldn't (or WON'T) take care of them. Of course we will. It's just about the cost and means of payment.
I happen to work in an industry where I hear occasionally about the travails of travellers, both Americans abroad and foreigners here. Trust me, there are some places in the world where you do not want to get sick on vacation, where care is paid in advance. Some of these places would surprise you, though the vast majority would not.
It's interesting. So far, it seems that most posters think we should prety much give healthcare for free to visitors and illegals. I'm of the opinion that we should at least *ask* for payment... But hey, I'm still working from the premise that somebody will have to pay for the services sooner or later.
Cumbersome? Everything in a foreign land is cumbersome. I have to show a passport to get back from Canada? CANADA? C'mon man, it's Canada. We used to like each other. Sheesh. See? Cumbersome is relative.
Oh, another thing. The U.N. has more than a thousand diplomats in the U.S... I suspect there may well be half a million or more. Damn, there were 500+ in Iraq in 2005.
I guess because I didn't believe you. I don't support providing healthcare to non-citizens in the U.S. at taxpayer expense. Call me insensitive, but I don't want to pay for it. I got enough to pay for without that. And yes, that means dealing with illegal immigration. Legal immigrants can be treated as citizens, since they should be paying into the system through taxes, or we accepted them legally, knowing they won't be paying.
"Only in emergencies. The ones I know about want a lot of paperwork before admitting you"
I am referring specifically to emergencies. All else, of course, there is some paperwork, maybe even in your system of 'everyone is covered'.
"That's a good question that noone has asked. Personally, I think it's shaky without an amendment, but I also think we haven't paid much heed to our constitution of late."
Not much of an excuse to continue to not pay much heed.
"It doesn't appear that way - education is mostly done at a state level, with ed.gov doing research, passing out information, and student grants/loans at the college level. If you want extra-legal mandates, look at NCLB instead."
My point exactly. If we did not have an Deptartment of Education, NCLB might/would not exist. If you create it, they will use it. If education is a state function, the Federal department should not exist, certainly not in the present form. If you see abuses in state/local education the SCOTUS is available as a final arbiter if it comes to that. File suit and work the system. Title VI and Title IX would seem to be the right ideas, but the implementation is not working as it ought to (IMHO).
Somehow, this is applicable to the healthcare debate - we have a lot of complaints about heathcare in America. Making it a government program is not, IMHO, the best solution. Insurance abuse? Regulate effectively. Cost? Can we empower the government to manage this soley to reduce costs? What's next, electricity, water, food? It may cost too much, but if the answer is government management, then we need a Constitutional Convention, for our Constitution does not permit that.
By saying 'everybody's covered', we extend coverage to anyone who shows up in the U.S. Do you intend for that coverage to include even non-citizens? Visiting tourists? Even those here illegally? Admittedly the current system covers illegals, but a foreign tourist would probably have to offer some form of payment. And even then, for every hospital I know of, they get treated first, and then the paperwork gets done. If you genuinely expect to le them be covered under a nationalilzed system, then we would pay the bill? Interesting. I'm not sure I like that, though in reality it seems cheap considering the real numbers. Until people decide to visit the U.S. when they are diagnosed with kidney cancer overseas. Do you get my drift, yet?
And claims processing is one thing. The blanket denial for certain things is MUCH less expensive than paying for the procedure. Example? Experimental cancer treatements. A few hundred thousand $s vs writing letters saying NO? No contest. Mind you, I'm not condoning the process, just pointing out that it pays the insurance Cos. In a different system, claims processing could be simplified, saving much. Notice I said 'could'. This also is a choice, and the policies of a nationalized system would have to be chosen to do that. Is Medicare the model? If so, expect much expense in claims processing to continue.
But to continue the discussion to a logical conclusion, we have an important question to answer, as a nation. The question is, can our nation in fact legally establish nationalized healthcare? Does the Constitution permit it? Specifically, does nationalized healthcare meet the definition of any service or function the Federal government is permitted to perform?
We don't ask that question often enough. So we have the Feds getting into some stuff they should not be involved in. I'm not a whacko who thinks we should abolish the Federal Reserve, IRS, etc. But the Department of Education is a possible example of an extra-Constitutional function. Changing Federal law to permit health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines and deny states the right to regulate that activity might violate Article 10, or others. Putting private insurance companeis out of business just to take over their business and run it as a singler-payer nationalized healthcare system might be unconstitutional.
But we need to have this debate, and make the choice. I am all for having the debate and making the choice. Hopefully, we make it wisely. There are many things we could do, and some we should do. But we don't, often because it is not wise. Let's have a full, open, honest debate about this. A rush job is not the way to do this. Mind you, politically, it may be both expedient and clever, but this issue is so much more important than the political ramifications. We should hold the Obama Administration to their promises of open debate, careful consideration, public comment, and even the five-day pause before signing or vetoing legislation of importance. These were THEIR promises, not mine.
"If we didn't want them, we'd fine those who employ them and they'd stop coming. It's still cheaper than what we have now. In case you missed it, they flood our emergency rooms and DON'T PAY."
You are so right. But that's the immigration debate. Fallout from that failing policy includes healthcare costs. So let's enforce immigration law. Nothing new need be done.
"Planning to shape national policy on the needs of less than a thousand people? Smart."
Um, just pointing out some of the loopholes and decisions to be made. And the problems of a 'everyone's covered' mentality...
"No it isn't - we frequently spend more on denying care than the procedure would cost, and that's for people with insurance. Never mind refusing payment for prevention while happily paying 10x as much for treatment."
1. Not expensive to write the denial letters. Ask the current private insurance Cos. This is obvious. I am assuming they deny to the point of the patient's expiration. To deny until the cost of care is inflated by delay is of course poor management and expensive, but for many insurance Cos., this is easier than actually tackling the issues and making rational choices. If this is a national crisis, we should have taken GM over decades ago, and Microsoft must be nationalized immediately. We do not live in such a nation. Go ahead, ask me why.
2. Prevention v treatment is not the same issue. My doctor found my cholesterol too high and prescribed me the usual statins. I refused, and changed my diet, which is cheaper and more effective. Our choices also influence the prevention v treatment dilemma. But that requires us to be responsible. Much easier to take a pill. Yet that was not the first thing he thought of. I am working on him. He has potential.
We're really not so far apart on these issues, but when I consider the practical aspects of nationalized healthcare, I see problems to solve and choices to be made. Many people see only Utopia - no worries. Not gonna happen.
Slashdot Mirror
"For several years, the Obama Admin fooled the populace...."
Um, while, I'm no fan of the Obama Administration, they haven't been in office for 'years'.
They may well be fudging the books, but we'll have to wait for just a little while.
Of course, the dot-com bubble was fueled in part by the Big Eight firms handling auditing, IPOs, and investment banking for many of those dot-coms that went public, scooped huge barrels full of money, and then burned it all with nothing but technology others bought for pennies on the dollar and went on to make actual money. Obvious conflict of interest that lead to many of the Big Eight dying off.
Enron being just the most obvious example.
Give the Obama team a chance. They can do better...;)
Doesn't matter.
It's X.
You didn't know that? Obvious.
It's not 'free time' The meter is still counting down, and just because someone else paid doesn't make it 'free time', except to you. The city is still getting paid for the time.
Now, if the city wants a way to be able to get paid for 12 hours of parking in an 8 hour stretch, ok, then the sensors can make you pay every time you enter the space. So they make the minimum time say 60 minutes in front of the dry cleaners and shops, and people come and go every 15-20 minutes, so the meter gets the hour minimum 2-3-4 times an hour. Nice.
But I don't live in Chicago, and never have, so I don't expect my city government to deliberately screw me at every opportunity.
We are learning a lot more about Chicago-style politics than I ever wanted to...
No one wants to go on record? IBM got you by the YKWs?
"Likely Illegal"
"Mostly Harmless"
"Somewhat Pregnant"
Oh yea, it's illegal. We're not harmless. You are or you are not, whether you know it or not.
This will be fun. Our current Administration could take this opportunity to start exercising some antitrust muscles and spank some bad boys and girls.
" I totally DO know what it is, and I WANT it"
Now, what to do with my G1... Oh, wait, a remote terminal for my N9000.
Ah.
For damned sure...
Obviously she will be picking up a prepaid GSM phone, since they work for voice here and the UK.
What was that again, her UK phone wouldn't work here? uh, no. Just need a prepaid SIM, which can be hard to find in the U.S.
Fairpoint was just a scam to give Verizon an out from 'losing' (not making as much as they wanted) money in the Northeast, especially Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
A pox on them both. I used to live there. Phone service should have been a license to print money, but tyhey hosed it up and probably hve a kickback sceme running with Fairpoint. Worst case scenario, Fairpoint collapses and Verizon gets it all back and keeps what Fairpoint paid them. Best case scenario, Time-Warner and the other ISPs eat their lunch and dinner with VOIP, if they can keep the landlines dry...
I can ALREADY get VOIP via Cox. In fact, you can get VOIP from Qwest, called 'Broadband Phone Service', in some areas...
And you can only order 'Broadband Phone Service' over the phone... :)
Funny? Not really, sort of, unfortunately. Mostly sad.
Landlines were part of the Construct. They weren't real either.
Missing them already?
"I feel no need to put links on here that are everywhere in the rest of this thread. Oh wait, I specifically have you "use your sources". Way to control the debate!"
What?
They would be Y O U R sources. What control would I have over those?
When you stop drooling, come back and give me some sources. All ya gotta do is google a little bit. Sheriff Joe is popular enough to get plenty of ammo, even if most of it is blanks.
Oh, and the maker, Fisher Pen, did in fact sell NASA AND the russians plenty of pens.
NASA paid $6 each.
A true American entrepreneur, Paul Fisher tackled the problem and solved it, and seems to have done so just to be able to say he did. No doubt he made a bundle selling the civilian version (identical to the NASA version, BTW).
Oh, and the Russians are alleged to have been using GREASE pencils in space. Close...
1) County sheriffs (and most elected and appointed law enforcement leaders) have numerous cases filed against them, on a continuing basis. It's the nature of their position to both be responsible for activities that are regularly challenged in court, and to attract complaints from many parties that are motivated and willing to take legal action. This does not explain the volume of cases against Sheriff Joe.
2) There are, of course, several unflattering reports of Sheriff Joe's performance over the years. It's never good to see suspects die while in custody. Is no there any major jurisdiction in the U.S. that has had no such incidents since 2004? I'm not trying to excuse these incidents so much as considering whether or not these incidents are significantly out of the ordinary for a department of similar size. The LA County Sheriff doesn't enjoy a significantly better reputation, nor do the New York City police, or the departments of Chicago, Detroit, Boston, or even Washingon D.C. Ask around.
3) How many lawsuits have been filed against our President, Barack Obama? Don't count the ones about his birth or eligibility for the office of President. Again, the position is a magnet for complaints and suits.
If your measure of good behavior is the number of lawsuits, then only you and I are decent people. And I'm not too sure about you.
Don't be afraid of the Phoenix Police. Be afraid of the imposters.
In Phoenix, you stand a good change of being the victim of a home invasion staged by Mexican Army Regulars...
Or Mexicans in Phoenix police drag, fulfilling their contracts...
Or Phoenix Police whose chief and the Phoenix mayor just can't take much criticism.
Try and discredit the reports based on the sources I use. Not working. The incidents did happen. Police officers were calling into local radio shows and confirming the reports.
It seems most home invasions in Phoenix are carried out by those who attack drop houses the 'coyotes' use to stage illegal immigrants on their way to other cities. Taking some hostage and making a quick buck is the motive. Posing as police works very well until the real police show up. then, hope the bad guys run out of bullets, which they often do.
Our mayor, Phil Gordon, is death against enforcing immigration law, as is our former Governor and now head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. It's so bad the Feds are demanding that local law enforcement accept a new policy that pretty much prevents them from enforcing the law. That's the 287(g) program that apparently is too successful.
Sherrif Joe also has tangled with the local alternative paper, which published his and other officials home addresses and apparently violated grand jury statutes. It's only an arcane law when it is applied to you.
Sherrif Joe has his view of law enforcement. It enrages many of the liberal intelligensia around here, who would rather we put the illegals up in the Phoenician and give them a chance.
Me? I back Sherrif Joe, knowing full well he can get carried away. The alternative is to have everything not nailed down stolen by the illegals as they stream through here on their way to a better life.
At least he doesn't PRETEND to be doing his job.
You ought to live here. Then you would grasp a little more of the nuance. Much too easy to take things at face value. 4 years here has taught me that we have a serious illegal immigration problem. How to solve it is unfortunately simple - clean house, starting with the House of Reperesentatives. Our government has too many conflicts of interest, business sees illegals as cheap labor, Democrats see them as new voters, and regular citizens have no one on their side. But I'm not hopeful.
Why the focus on illegal immigration? That's the crux of the trouble over Sherrif Joe. That's all it is.
Bring it on.
"it should be criminal to create a webpage stealing feeds from others "
What?
We can't even seem to criminalize ads that say "A Phoenix mom discovers the one rule to lose weight" when there was NEVER a Phoenix mom, NEVER a mom who discovered a rule to lose weight, and NEVER a mom who lost weight involved IN ANY WAY with the ad campaign. Pure, made-up BS. Apparently not criminal.
Surely republishing feed links can't be criminal - you're not even replicating the content, just advertising for them. You're benefiting them.
A strange world...
A change request. Ingenious. Feh.
How about charging for the mistake? After all, it was my mistake, not the registrar's...
"IRS only has to change their data type on their database. I bet a ton of companies would be caught off guard dealing with 'letters'."
So your solution is to not merely force amputation and reattachment, but in the process swap an arm for a leg from some other species?
Nope, changing to hex would not be less painful.
ps - the IRS is the least of the problems. they change yearly to accomodate legislation, though this would be a much bigger change. SSA first would have to change their systems, and that is a nightmare I do not wish to induldge in lightly. Then virtually every bank, utility, financial processor, etc in the U.S. Massive. You are probably underestimating the effort and cost. Of course, it could be a stimulus package - IT would get a bounce for this! Now to write into law that they have to use Americans to do the work...Bahahahahaha!
Already the SSA is recycling SSNs. There are only 1,000,000,000 -1 that I know of, and roughly a third of those are in active use. On-demand new SSNs would fail in about 5 years, I think, and then we would face the joy of expanding the SSN length from 9 digits to at least 11.
You think changing year digits from 2 to 4 in 1999 was painful? That pales by comparison. If you planned on making this change in 2015, you are already too late.
Heck, changing area codes to allow middle digits other than 0 and 1 took years to negotiate, and a bit longer to implement, knowing that the ineviaible change to the NANP will be here some day and cause even more chaos. Systems are marvelous, aren't they?
Three bucks would be 300 PAGES.
That might be 300 documents, or more likely as few as 1/3 of a document. How many single-page documents are commonly filed?
Of course, at ten bucks, you're getting warmer...
Perhaps this is the beginning of truly 'public' repositories. Or a way for not-for-profit journalism to survive, since they would benefit greatly from free or nearly-free documents. And shouldn't we also encourage public repositories of FOIA documents of all types? Oh, wait, don't many FOIA requesters already do that???
I'm not saying we shouldn't (or WON'T) take care of them. Of course we will. It's just about the cost and means of payment.
I happen to work in an industry where I hear occasionally about the travails of travellers, both Americans abroad and foreigners here. Trust me, there are some places in the world where you do not want to get sick on vacation, where care is paid in advance. Some of these places would surprise you, though the vast majority would not.
It's interesting. So far, it seems that most posters think we should prety much give healthcare for free to visitors and illegals. I'm of the opinion that we should at least *ask* for payment... But hey, I'm still working from the premise that somebody will have to pay for the services sooner or later.
Cumbersome? Everything in a foreign land is cumbersome. I have to show a passport to get back from Canada? CANADA? C'mon man, it's Canada. We used to like each other. Sheesh. See? Cumbersome is relative.
Oh, another thing. The U.N. has more than a thousand diplomats in the U.S... I suspect there may well be half a million or more. Damn, there were 500+ in Iraq in 2005.
Not an insubstantial bill.
"Yes, why don't you believe me?"
I guess because I didn't believe you. I don't support providing healthcare to non-citizens in the U.S. at taxpayer expense. Call me insensitive, but I don't want to pay for it. I got enough to pay for without that. And yes, that means dealing with illegal immigration. Legal immigrants can be treated as citizens, since they should be paying into the system through taxes, or we accepted them legally, knowing they won't be paying.
"Only in emergencies. The ones I know about want a lot of paperwork before admitting you"
I am referring specifically to emergencies. All else, of course, there is some paperwork, maybe even in your system of 'everyone is covered'.
"That's a good question that noone has asked. Personally, I think it's shaky without an amendment, but I also think we haven't paid much heed to our constitution of late."
Not much of an excuse to continue to not pay much heed.
"It doesn't appear that way - education is mostly done at a state level, with ed.gov doing research, passing out information, and student grants/loans at the college level. If you want extra-legal mandates, look at NCLB instead."
My point exactly. If we did not have an Deptartment of Education, NCLB might/would not exist. If you create it, they will use it. If education is a state function, the Federal department should not exist, certainly not in the present form. If you see abuses in state/local education the SCOTUS is available as a final arbiter if it comes to that. File suit and work the system. Title VI and Title IX would seem to be the right ideas, but the implementation is not working as it ought to (IMHO).
Somehow, this is applicable to the healthcare debate - we have a lot of complaints about heathcare in America. Making it a government program is not, IMHO, the best solution. Insurance abuse? Regulate effectively. Cost? Can we empower the government to manage this soley to reduce costs? What's next, electricity, water, food? It may cost too much, but if the answer is government management, then we need a Constitutional Convention, for our Constitution does not permit that.
You may have missed my point, at least once.
By saying 'everybody's covered', we extend coverage to anyone who shows up in the U.S. Do you intend for that coverage to include even non-citizens? Visiting tourists? Even those here illegally? Admittedly the current system covers illegals, but a foreign tourist would probably have to offer some form of payment. And even then, for every hospital I know of, they get treated first, and then the paperwork gets done. If you genuinely expect to le them be covered under a nationalilzed system, then we would pay the bill? Interesting. I'm not sure I like that, though in reality it seems cheap considering the real numbers. Until people decide to visit the U.S. when they are diagnosed with kidney cancer overseas. Do you get my drift, yet?
And claims processing is one thing. The blanket denial for certain things is MUCH less expensive than paying for the procedure. Example? Experimental cancer treatements. A few hundred thousand $s vs writing letters saying NO? No contest. Mind you, I'm not condoning the process, just pointing out that it pays the insurance Cos. In a different system, claims processing could be simplified, saving much. Notice I said 'could'. This also is a choice, and the policies of a nationalized system would have to be chosen to do that. Is Medicare the model? If so, expect much expense in claims processing to continue.
But to continue the discussion to a logical conclusion, we have an important question to answer, as a nation. The question is, can our nation in fact legally establish nationalized healthcare? Does the Constitution permit it? Specifically, does nationalized healthcare meet the definition of any service or function the Federal government is permitted to perform?
We don't ask that question often enough. So we have the Feds getting into some stuff they should not be involved in. I'm not a whacko who thinks we should abolish the Federal Reserve, IRS, etc. But the Department of Education is a possible example of an extra-Constitutional function. Changing Federal law to permit health insurance companies to sell policies across state lines and deny states the right to regulate that activity might violate Article 10, or others. Putting private insurance companeis out of business just to take over their business and run it as a singler-payer nationalized healthcare system might be unconstitutional.
But we need to have this debate, and make the choice. I am all for having the debate and making the choice. Hopefully, we make it wisely. There are many things we could do, and some we should do. But we don't, often because it is not wise. Let's have a full, open, honest debate about this. A rush job is not the way to do this. Mind you, politically, it may be both expedient and clever, but this issue is so much more important than the political ramifications. We should hold the Obama Administration to their promises of open debate, careful consideration, public comment, and even the five-day pause before signing or vetoing legislation of importance. These were THEIR promises, not mine.
"If we didn't want them, we'd fine those who employ them and they'd stop coming. It's still cheaper than what we have now. In case you missed it, they flood our emergency rooms and DON'T PAY."
You are so right. But that's the immigration debate. Fallout from that failing policy includes healthcare costs. So let's enforce immigration law. Nothing new need be done.
"Planning to shape national policy on the needs of less than a thousand people? Smart."
Um, just pointing out some of the loopholes and decisions to be made. And the problems of a 'everyone's covered' mentality...
"No it isn't - we frequently spend more on denying care than the procedure would cost, and that's for people with insurance. Never mind refusing payment for prevention while happily paying 10x as much for treatment."
1. Not expensive to write the denial letters. Ask the current private insurance Cos. This is obvious. I am assuming they deny to the point of the patient's expiration. To deny until the cost of care is inflated by delay is of course poor management and expensive, but for many insurance Cos., this is easier than actually tackling the issues and making rational choices. If this is a national crisis, we should have taken GM over decades ago, and Microsoft must be nationalized immediately. We do not live in such a nation. Go ahead, ask me why.
2. Prevention v treatment is not the same issue. My doctor found my cholesterol too high and prescribed me the usual statins. I refused, and changed my diet, which is cheaper and more effective. Our choices also influence the prevention v treatment dilemma. But that requires us to be responsible. Much easier to take a pill. Yet that was not the first thing he thought of. I am working on him. He has potential.
We're really not so far apart on these issues, but when I consider the practical aspects of nationalized healthcare, I see problems to solve and choices to be made. Many people see only Utopia - no worries. Not gonna happen.