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sempervirens
climber
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Apr 17, 2013 - 11:29am PT
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Any comments on the Bill Moyers video essay?
http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-united-states-of-inequality/
He does have more credibility than a CNN or foxx news editorial, wouldn't you agree? And he does present a logical case for the current situation of inequality. And remember he is not arguing that wealth should be re-distributed to be equal. He is arguing that it has been re-distributed unfairly (should be illegal but for the fact of who makes the laws). And that the unequal distribution greatly endangers all of us in society including those who believe in conservative values of hard work and retaining the fruits of that work.
Hopefully Bill Moyers made that point clear.
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Apr 17, 2013 - 01:44pm PT
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Elcap and Dr F, where is your wealth redistribution? Do you give awa y a alot of your hard earned money? there are plenty of people on here that you can give money to. try Happy. she drives across country with barely enough gas money and i am sure she would accept some wealth redistribution. i am sure it was not her choice to be broke on her climbing trips. you two can help her out of the hole that obviously republicans put her into (eyes rolling).....
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Apr 17, 2013 - 02:37pm PT
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JE, don't you think that single payer health care insurance would fix more problems than it would cause
It's idiotic for it to be linked to you employer
Dr. F., those are too different questions. I'll answer the second one first. Yes, it is idiotic to tie health insurance to employment. It's a relic of WWII wage controls that got grandfathered into the Tax Code.
The answer to the first question depends on what system it replaces. I've opined on what system I would prefer too much already, so I'll just summarize. I find it theoretically possible that a single-payer system could be implemented in the U.S. that is superior to what we do now. I find it realistically unlikely that it can be.
Simply put, there's no free lunch here. Under our current system, the United States has the most responsive care in the world, as measured by World Health Organization surveys. Those same surveys show rather abysmal overall health outcomes for a country with our wealth. This suggests that those with health insurance here probably have better care than that provided under a single-payer system, but those without health insurance have much worse care.
As many point out, we spend a very high proportion of our GDP on health care. While "defensive medicine" and inefficiencies associated with third-party payment certainly contribute greatly toward this, I personally think the real reason is that those who can afford it demand that level of care. I don't see the insured American public happy substituting their current insurance for the inevitable queues and standardization that characterize western single-payer systems.
I also don't know if single-payer would decrease overall bankruptcy filings. Health care expenses probably won't be as large a factor, but the added cost will lead to less employment in the rest of the economy. I haven't tried to model this myself, nor have I tried to see what recent developments may be in the technical literature, since my professional econometric interests lie elsewhere.
So my bottom line with your first question is I don't know, but I don't think so.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Apr 17, 2013 - 02:44pm PT
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He [Bill Moyers] does have more credibility than a CNN or foxx news editorial, wouldn't you agree?
To those of us who remember Moyers as LBJ's press secretary, he has no more credibility than any other person with an axe to grind. Just to make this clear, we all grind axes, so I'm really saying that Moyers has no unique claim to credibility to my mind.
John
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sempervirens
climber
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Apr 17, 2013 - 04:44pm PT
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I wasn't familiar with Moyers' role in LBJ administration. I agree that it does detract from his credibility in general. His PBS and other documentaries, commentaries are very good. He is usually very objective. In comparison cnn and foxx editorialists are laughable as journalists, IMO.
More importantly, what do you think about his message? Have I convinced you yet that we aren't talking about taking rich people's hard-earned money. We're saying that wealth has been stolen BY THE 1% FROM THE TAXPAYERS.
P.S. almost all my posts on this thread have the same message.... I'm aware of that.......
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Apr 17, 2013 - 06:51pm PT
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One didn't have to know Moyer was LBJ's press secretary to know he was firmly in the liberal camp. Pretty meaningless information considering his body of work since.
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sempervirens
climber
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Apr 17, 2013 - 08:29pm PT
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One didn't have to know Moyer was LBJ's press secretary to know he was firmly in the liberal camp. Pretty meaningless information considering his body of work since.
How about considering the factual information he presented about tax free off shore profits? (By factual, I mean something than can be checked and verified as opposed to opinion. He didn't cite his sources, and like anyone else he can lie.) So if his info. is true and correct can you not see a problem there? And is that problem itself liberal or conservative? Do you think corporations with off shore holdings might be funding some of the anti-tax rhetoric in the media? I really gotta work to connect the dots for ya.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Jun 20, 2013 - 01:22am PT
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Simply put, there's no free lunch here. Under our current system, the United States has the most responsive care in the world, as measured by World Health Organization surveys. Those same surveys show rather abysmal overall health outcomes for a country with our wealth. This suggests that those with health insurance here probably have better care than that provided under a single-payer system, but those without health insurance have much worse care.
This is not quite true, John.
The reason is that Medicaid is always factored into what is counted as "insured", and that group has great difficulty accessing high quality care.
However, there is absolutely no doubt that the current system has huge administrative costs built into it.
Many many studies have demonstrated about 30% of the healthcare premium goes to ins co overhead.
About 3% of the healthcare premium goes to overhead for Medicare. (although I'll stipulate that there is a little wiggle in that number, depending upon what you count.)
But even if you consider it 10%, which I think is way out of range, that is still a 20% difference, accounting for BILLIONS of dollars a year.....and the expenditure of that money does not cure 1 sore throat.
But it is worse than that. Nowadays, a large amount of the money that is spent by insurance companies goes to large multi-specialty groups. Think Sutter Health or Sharp Healthcare. They ALSO run another 20% of overhead.
Additionally, all those groups that contract private physicians have the Physician individual overhead, which runs from 40-50% of income.
So, in the private system, there is probably over 50-60% of the healthcare premium that is spent on administration.
All of that is largely eliminated by single payer, particularly if we use the Medicare system, which already is setup, and to which every doctor in America is contracted. you could implement it tomorrow, and it would work.
32% of all healthcare spending in the US is paid by ins co. In 2011, total spending was 2.7 Trillion dollars. That is 864 Billion dollars.
Elimination of the, say, 50% overhead expense would provide 432 Billion dollars PER YEAR, which would cover a whole lot of uninsured people.
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sempervirens
climber
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Jun 21, 2013 - 12:44am PT
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Whether you agree with Ken M or not, isn't that a large part of what we ought to be debating? (i.e. economics, how much we're paying and where it's going). THose against a single payer system all-too-often focus on the socialist scare. And American hasn't seen through it yet.
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jopay
climber
so.il
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Jun 21, 2013 - 10:51am PT
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When this subject comes up people think of the wealthy versus the very poor but I think the middle is seeing a widespread disparity of a different kind. Your local self employed plumber, electrician, roofer, mechanic etc probably has no pension unless his business was good enough to fund a private one, so when you can no longer handle the elements, crawling on your knees etc. your left with social security, contrast that to teachers who in our state receive a very adequate pension. Some would be quick to point out the education level and I would challenge that, my brother who passed a couple years ago was a PHD in plumbing, show him a boiler with a problem and he was the answer man, did he have a college phd no of course not, but society needed my brother just as much as they need teachers, but somehow we as a society have come to marginalize those that make the wheels turn, historically the unions spoke for the skilled trades but there has been a systematic dismateling of them for years, thus that great middle class that was once able to but a new car and a home are finding it ever harder to do so. I close with this quote from John Gardner,"The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
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mountainlion
Trad climber
California
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Jun 22, 2013 - 10:43am PT
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We have alot to be thankful for being born here in the United States...our working class ancestors fought, lost lives, and spilled their blood so we can have the rights (speaking of worker's rights--not to discredit the other rights they also fought for). Let's not give those rights away!!!
People come here to improve their situation and believe me it is a big improvement over the rights they enjoy in places like the Philippines.
Just this year I have watched:
Children do a man's work (work they don't have the skill to be doing)
Welding without goggles
Workers not paid with police called to enforce the business owners position
Hard labor under a blazing sun with no paid break, and water isn't provided (employee has to buy thier own)
Injuries on the job that resulted in having no job and no treatment of the injury
The people who suffer this type of treatment come here willing to work thier asses off, live 10 to an apartment or house (bigger than just a room that they currently pack that many in back in thier country).
They don't know and don't care that they have worker rights here...all they know is that they can work 1 day and be paid more than they would earn in a week (and that is just being paid minimum wage here). They can provide for thier family back home and move back there and live comfortably if they choose.
Most stay here because this is where they dream of living!!!
The middle class is what created this dream...let's keep what we have...
We have to fight the wealthy 1% tooth and nail or we will lose all of what makes this country great!!!
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