why big government programs = MASSIVE FAIL

The fucking problems are so easy to solve. Try closing the medicare doughnut hole and how about ending cost plus fee schedules and how about permitting the Government to negotiate the cost of drugs and services? See? Those are easy fixes but are you interested in them? No. Why? Cause you right wing nuts don't want to fix medicare, you want to end it.

Medicare is like health care reform. Ya'll spout your lazzies faire free market religion, that is, until it's your aged parents who have a stroke or cancer or it's your kid who contracts spinal meningitus and a million dollar medical bill.....then you'll all be for medicare and health care reform...that is after you've worked your dumb asses off to undermine it.
 
wanderingbear said:
Tax the corporations.That's where the money is.
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And corporations consider taxes part of the cost of doing business. And what happens when business expenses go up? If you answered "Prices go up" give yourself a cigar.
 
Happy anniversary: Bush tax cuts turn 10







Since then, household income fell, unemployment rose, GDP growth stalled...


Under the Bush-Cheney administration, the U.S. saw a series of historic economic lows, and overall, the slowest overall rate of economic growth since World War II. Household income declined for the first time since the Census Bureau tracked that data in 1967. Labor force participation had reached an all-time high in 2000, but dropped steadily under Bush; relatedly, the economy created fewer jobs than at any time since World War II.


http://www.salon.com/news/taxes/?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2011/06/07/bush_tax_cuts_anniversary
 
WinterBorn said:
That would be my question.

So, can anyone think of a large gov't program that has succeeded and is even remotely efficient?
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Absolutely. This "Government is the cause of problem" attitude is ideological stupidity. There are things the free market does well. There are things it doesn't do well and for the very big problems that the market can't maanage we have government and criticize government for it's inefficiencies all you want but it still does better managing certain problems by far then the "free market" does or the free market would be doing it.

Government does these things because we need institutions that address problems based on what will benefit the most persons and not "what will make the most profit for me!". This lack of perspective by the "I hate government" crowd is frightening and it's stupid. We need affective governance not some lame brained romanticized ideology.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Absolutely. This "Government is the cause of problem" attitude is ideological stupidity. There are things the free market does well. There are things it doesn't do well and for the very big problems that the market can't maanage we have government and criticize government for it's inefficiencies all you want but it still does better managing certain problems by far then the "free market" does or the free market would be doing it.

Government does these things because we need institutions that address problems based on what will benefit the most persons and not "what will make the most profit for me!". This lack of perspective by the "I hate government" crowd is frightening and it's stupid. We need affective governance not some lame brained romanticized ideology.
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Could you be specific? Outside of military and FDA (in most ways), being effective, what other big programs do you think the government has managed well? If they'd left SSI funding in place, perhaps that would have been one. Alas, they didn't, so which do you consider wonderfully efficient and well managed?

The following seems pretty typical of how these programs run, perhaps do to a lack of regulations on the government?

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2011/06/apocalyptic-financial-numbers-.html

Thursday, June 09, 2011
Apocalyptic financial numbers

Here's a comparison for James Taranto's Best of the Web Today column:

Barack Obama's worst week was about more than bad data. The two great legislative monuments to the first Obama term, the remaking of the health-care industry and the Dodd-Frank financial reform, look like they've got serious structural cracks. A McKinsey report estimates that a third of employers will abandon their health-insurance plans come 2014. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the failure (or inability) of Dodd-Frank's regulatory arm to write new rules for the $583 trillion derivatives market has the financial sector in a panic over its legal exposure.​

— Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2011.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association said Tuesday that the true size of the global over-the-counter derivatives market is closer to $401 trillion, not the $583 trillion estimate given by the Bank for International Settlements late last year.​

— Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2011.

I don't know about you, but I feel much better after reading that second blurb. $182 trillion difference here, $182 trillion difference there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real money!
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WinterBorn said:
I think "remotely efficient" might be a stretch for those.
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Really? Social Security is pretty efficient. As compared to total expenditures, its administrative costs are 0.9%. Medicare is much less costly than the private sector. Medicaid I don't have real figures on, but it seems to me that it'd be pretty inefficient to have lots of poor and disabled sick people in the country. Well, unless they die. Dying is pretty efficient.
 
Annie said:
Could you be specific? Outside of military and FDA (in most ways), being effective, what other big programs do you think the government has managed well? If they'd left SSI funding in place, perhaps that would have been one. Alas, they didn't, so which do you consider wonderfully efficient and well managed?

The following seems pretty typical of how these programs run, perhaps do to a lack of regulations on the government?

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2011/06/apocalyptic-financial-numbers-.html
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This is exactly the truth of it Annie!
 
David St. Hubbins said:
Really? Social Security is pretty efficient. As compared to total expenditures, its administrative costs are 0.9%. Medicare is much less costly than the private sector. Medicaid I don't have real figures on, but it seems to me that it'd be pretty inefficient to have lots of poor and disabled sick people in the country. Well, unless they die. Dying is pretty efficient.
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LOL.... the ONLY reason Medicare is less costly than the private sector is because the health care industry's private side subsidizes Medicare. The hospitals simply shift costs onto those with insurance. What happens when the private side is gone and the government runs a single payer? I wonder what will be done to 'control costs'.... anyone want to bet this is where the government creates a 'panel of experts' to determine what should or should not be covered? (you know... the thing the private sector gets bashed for doing)
 
Superfreak said:
LOL.... the ONLY reason Medicare is less costly than the private sector is because the health care industry's private side subsidizes Medicare. The hospitals simply shift costs onto those with insurance. What happens when the private side is gone and the government runs a single payer? I wonder what will be done to 'control costs'.... anyone want to bet this is where the government creates a 'panel of experts' to determine what should or should not be covered? (you know... the thing the private sector gets bashed for doing)
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Well if you say its the ONLY reason it must be true. Because you're really smart.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
The fucking problems are so easy to solve. Try closing the medicare doughnut hole and how about ending cost plus fee schedules and how about permitting the Government to negotiate the cost of drugs and services? See? Those are easy fixes but are you interested in them? No. Why? Cause you right wing nuts don't want to fix medicare, you want to end it.

Medicare is like health care reform. Ya'll spout your lazzies faire free market religion, that is, until it's your aged parents who have a stroke or cancer or it's your kid who contracts spinal meningitus and a million dollar medical bill.....then you'll all be for medicare and health care reform...that is after you've worked your dumb asses off to undermine it.
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You are such a moron.... If I pay for routine care and have insurance that pays for catastrophic, my costs are LOWER overall than ANYTHING the idiots in DC can 'negotiate'. The problem is that idiots like you want EVERYTHING to be paid for by the insurance company or the government and you want plans with little to no out of pocket. THAT is one of the biggest problems with our health care system.

You want another way to lower costs... make people pay for their OWN health care. If you are fat and don't exercise and think McDonalds food really is good for you... you pay more than someone who eats healthy and is in shape. Watch how quickly the health care costs get reduced.... but no... you are not interested in those solutions because you don't believe in personal responsibility. YOU think the Government should manage your life for you so that you don't have to do anything for yourself.
 
The biggest contributor to the disappearance of vast estimated surpluses was additional spending ($4.3 trillion), followed by incorrect revenue estimates ($3.3 trillion) by the Congressional Budget Office.


Tax cuts are estimated to have totaled $2.8 trillion.


Strictly speaking, the two big tax cuts during the Bush years are estimated to total about $1.5 trillion, but many continued into the early years of the Obama presidency, and in December he cut a deal with Republicans to extend them even more, which brings us to $2.8 trillion.


(In case you are wondering, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was $1.26 trillion through 2011 and the Medicare prescription drug program totaled $272 billion.)




http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...e-bush-tax-cuts/2011/05/09/AFxTFtbG_blog.html
 
Superfreak said:
Go in to your local hospital dumbass.... ask to talk to the administrator. Ask her/him whether it is done in this manner. Let us know what you are told.
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Whether "it is done in this manner" doesn't answer the question of whether Medicare costs are ONLY lower because hospitals charge more to non-Medicare patients as you asserted. So go piss up a rope, Cochise.
 
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