It turns out that there is at least one Republican in the FedGuv with a functional spine:
House Republicans propose deep cuts to Medicare
The proposal, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), aims to cut $4 trillion in federal spending over ten years, in part by ending Medicare as we know it for Americans who are currently under the age of 55.
The proposal also cuts Medicaid, which helps pay health care expenses for low-income Americans. Currently a joint program run by the federal government and states, the Ryan plan would turn it into a series of block grants for states, considerably reducing benefits.
About goddamn time. These programs have come to virtually dominate the FedGuv budget.
The article tacks on this:
liberals have argued that seniors and low-income people should not have to pick up the tab for a deficit caused largely by tax cuts, two unfunded wars and a recession.
In a word: baldercrap. The deficit was not caused by tax cuts, but by massive over-spending. Notice the trend here? It ain’t downwards.
While Federal revenue has been essentially flat for decades:
Sadly, I suspect this proposal has approximately zero chance of success… the Medicare/caid scams have been entirely too successful at suckering people into dependency upon them (just read the comments at the article). But it’s good that at least *somebody* in government is willing to at least try. The US economy will continue to decline if these programs are not tackled, with a virtually inevitable collapse under the sheer weight of government bureaucracy.
9 Responses to “Finally!”
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Ultimately, it would be a great idea if Ryan’s plan would be implemented. Would save this country money and help people too. A better title for the articles would have been, “House Republicans propose privatizing Medicare” but then again it’s not as controversial as “House Republicans propose deep cuts to Medicare.”
I am for the privatization of both Medicare and Social Security. Two moves that would help save our economy but unfortunately, the party majority (Liberals and Democrats) have stuck to the “Spend, Spend, Spend” philosophy.
Paul Ryan will be someone to watch — maybe if things work out, we may see him as President. At least he’s showing he’s got some balls! I have a feeling he will have a successful political career if he can accomplish this.
We just need to get the Liberals and Democrats out of the way and allow the Republicans to fix this country.
“These programs have come to virtually dominate the FedGuv budget”
yea, except that its the medicare payroll tax, not the Genral fund. what 4% ?
and what was your last Insurance premium ? 10% Medicare looks pretty good actually.
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“the Medicare/caid scams have been entirely too successful at suckering people into dependency upon them”
yep people shouldn’t be suckered into using healthcare.
The corporate healthcare system is so efficient as it now stands, maybe
we could get the banks interested ? Think of the profits to be made if everyone has to pay the uninsured rates !
Maybe a private organisation like Freddy Mac could really serve as a healthcare/insurance clearing house ? you know something with public guarantees but still allow plenty of profits for the front end ?
Why spend hard earned (Inherited) money just caring for the elderly (useless/unproductive) members of the society. Cut them out when we cut
out the under-aged covered by state aid and of course the chronically ill are just wasting time. Bury them all and be done with it.
The Dems are all scumbags, but the Reps are really trying to force a revolution: The 1%, for the 1% by the 1%. It’s all going to burn.
More ideas for the NewThink:
Personal freedoms = useless in a well behaved society.
Guns = no one should ever need one.
Private property = inefficient division of resources.
democracy = uniformed making decisions that they don’t really understand.
Republic = inefficient division of power.
Free speech = security risk
Free travel = see free speech.
etc and so on.
The ridiculous arguments for either side are just crap to put on TV.
Don’t pay attention to it.
Sound bites are not a well thought out policy, but just a grab for popularity.
It’s all very sad.
-G.
I’m curious what you think a situation that included MediCare/Aid “collapse under the sheer weight of government bureaucracy” would look like. I totally agree that this will happen eventually, I guess I’m just morbidly curious as to how that would play out.
> Think of the profits to be made if everyone has to pay the uninsured rates !
Exactly so. Were I granted dictatorial powers, I would override both the Constitution and my own libertarian ideals and pass this edict:
1: The government will provide no form of individual healthcare, leaving that instead to the private sector
2: Health insurance is hereby banned.
3: Any lawyer filing a malpractice lawsuit against a doctor will be required to pay the doctors full legal fee, plus penalties and damages, if he loses
The result: if you are sick or injured, you pay out of your own pocket. Without Mediscam or health insurance to drive up the prices, an aspirin will cost… what, a few cents each, rather than the many dollars they currently cost. Hospital stays are currently measured in the thousands of dollars per day range, and people don’t care… because insurance/Mediscam covers it. Just as “Food Insurance” would lead to a loaf of bread costing a hundred bucks, the high price of health care is entirely artificial, and contrary to basic market forces.
>Cut them out when we cut
out the under-aged covered by state aid and of course the chronically ill are just wasting time. Bury them all and be done with it.
Yes, this is the form of arguement often used by the socialists and the idiotarians. This of course ignores the fact that, absent a government “safety net,” people who are not taxed to the gills do a good job of shelling out their funds to charities. If you think that a world without Mediscam would lead to poor people dieing in the streets in droves… do something about it using your own money.
> the Reps are really trying to force a revolution
Let’s hope so. If it leads toa FedGuv that actually stays within Constitutional bounds and has a sense of fiscal propriety… wonderful!
> what you think a situation that included MediCare/Aid “collapse under the sheer weight of government bureaucracy” would look like.
I imagine it will look a whole lot like the former Soviet Union after the collapse of the USSR, but with added revolution. A vast population of people who have lived their entire lives on the dole, suddenly cut off, and with those who formerly paid for it now largely out of work because the entire economy has collapsed and/or fragmented.
Mark Steyn had a good’un:
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3865/26
“Any looting in Japan’s future is likely to come from rogue platoons of the “Yurina” — the well-named robot developed a year or two back by Japan Logic Machine to help out at the old folks’ home: Yurina can change your diaper and then carry you over to the tub for an assisted bath. But I would imagine we’re only a half decade away from advanced-model Yurinas that can unionize, negotiate unsustainable retirement packages, and rampage through state legislatures menacing non-humanoid politicians opposed to collective bargaining. “
Wow. Sarcasm is lost.
Scott, you don’t have a good job.
Insurance today is counter intuitive on healthcare costs. The collective
bargaining of the insurance companies lowers the cost to their members
by about a factor of ten.
“Hospital stays are currently measured in the thousands of dollars per day range, and people don’t care…”
BZZT. Hospital stays are in the tens of thousands of dollars per day. Insured hospital stays are in the thousands. Check your bill before the disallowed by insurance. It’s obscene, and people are shocked. 95% of hospital profits are from un-insured patients. 60% of bankruptcies are due to medical expenses.
When is the last time you pre-negotiated your hospital stay for your next car accident ? Have you every re-directed an ambulance to a cheaper hospital ?
Does anyone even know what the costs are going to be when they walk in the door ? Insurance isn’t about third party pay when you are getting Lasik or cosmetic surgery. It is about unforeseen developments, sometimes with critically fast response time. Maybe if you just substitute auto for health in the insurance name you might have some insights.
In the interest in a safe, peaceful, and prosperous society, there are certain things we try to accomplish. Public Schools come to mind. Rural Electrification and phone service seem nice. Pubic roads and libraries ? Police/fire/National Guard. Common currency (maybe !) etc and so on.
One important aspect used to be the break up of monopolies. Because of the response time in healthcare, (and other reason) the closest provider has a pretty good monopoly on your butt in that bed. There needs to be some changes. Probably not eat-the-babies capitalism, and definitely not bureaucratic-socialist healthabuse either. There needs to be a balance.
Medicare is a retirement healthcare system that you should be pretty happy about. When (not if but when) you dad gets sick and probably dies (sorry about that, I like him also) he will spend a lot of money. (assume no inheritance) With medicare, you won’t lose your house when a doctor says we can save him, but only runs up bills.
Now on the socialized medicine side, (I think this is about where OBAMA is coming from) we have a insurance system in place for retirees that is a big customer for healthcare. They already negotiate lower prices than many private insurance companies and an order of magnitude lower than individuals get. They are low enough that many doctors won’t take medicare patients (that’s good!).
Shouldn’t those prices be available to everyone ?
I’m not saying that the system should pay the bills, but they sure can negotiate them down for us. Private providers that wanted to charge more (arguably for better product) are free to do so, they just have to post that in advance. Now as a consumer, you get to make a choice.
Win:win low cost universal coverage and freedom to purchase superior coverage and care as you see fit. I believe South Africa has a similar system.
(I.E. kids get their broken arms set correctly even if their parents are drunks, but the whole thing is on a reasonable budget.)
(Medicaid is a different topic, thats state welfare, like unemployment and probably should be decided as the people of that state desire it.)
Our country seems to have some serious problems with abuse of economic power right now. Healthcare, Banking, Security, buying politicians etc. We probably need to make some changes. The Constitution may not be quite complete.
-Gar.
Unless the government specifies a limit to how much it can or will spend per person… then the amount will grow with no limit. As medical advances let people live longer and longer, who will pay for them, and for how long?
Once you determine that it’s governments role to provide for your healthcare, AND you have determined that there is no practical limit to how much they’ll spend or for how long, then you have not only determined that the government will blow vast sums on you, you have also determined that the prices of things will skyrocket… which means that the *only* people who can afford that healthcare sans insurance will be the super rich – or those on the government dole. Thus you will snare an increasing share of the public onto the dole, and they will all demand that same increasingly expensive standard of care. It’s an economic death spiral.
Just as “food insurance” or “gasoline insurance” would inevitably lead to vast increases in the prices of otherwise cheap commodities, medical insurance leads to vast increases in the cost of what should be cheap. There is *no* good reason why a hospital stay should cost thousands of dollars (or 10’s of thousands) per day. But they charge that because they *can.*
How much does it cost to give birth in a hospital? How much *should* it cost? Keep in mind, this is a process that humans have had a fairly good grasp on for a while now.
How much should it cost to suture a wound or set a broken limb? Again, these are problems that humans figured out millenia ago.
How much should a sonogram cost? Remember, sonograms are apparently readily available in the poorest parts of India and China (because it’s important to know the babies sex, to decide whether or not to abort the little dickens). CAT scans can be had in Japan for, IIRC, a few bucks. Medicines more than 20 years old can be had from Wal Mart for about 4 bucks for a one-month supply.
In the US, these things tend to cost a vast sum… not because they are intrinsically expensive, but because there is someone richer than you (insurance/government) ready and willing to pay whatever the bill is. Thus there’s no incentive to lower cost.
> The Constitution may not be quite complete.
Indeed. Needed amendments:
“Any legislator who proposes a billl that expands government powers in a way not currently and specifically called for under the Constitution shall be held on a charge of treason.”
“A tax increase will require a 75% majority to pass.”
“A tax decrease will require a simple majority to pass.”
“Any legislator who proposes a billl that infringes upon Constitutionally established rights of the People shall be held on a charge of treason.”
“Lawyers shall be ineligible to run for any public office that holds any power to determine new or revised laws.”
Plus the one earlier about paying loser fees (post a bond)
but back to the medicare. Specifically only providing the bare minimum is not the open ended, exponential growth until global collapse. We are talking about using government bulk purchase negotiating power to lower everyone’s cost of accessible healthcare. it’s about lowering the low end prices and allowing everyone to pay those.
“How much does it cost to give birth in a hospital ?” pre negotiated cost (according to an insurance salesman) should be about 6k. Historically births in the wild (colonial times when I looked it up) cost about 10% mortality rate for the mother. When my daughter was born in a hospital, no mother had died in 4 years in Washington State.
“How much should it cost to suture a wound…” in Kimbal county hospital emergency room in 2001, $250 for a small cut on my forehead. One drop of superglue. (A trick you taught me) and it didn’t hold ten minutes. Total BS.
“food insurance” (food stamps for AFDC), and “gasoline insurance” (like the hedges that southwest airlines is famous for) exist and don’t drive prices up. sorry for the counter example.
Insurance is about risk mitigation, not an entitlement program. Medicare is not insurance. (well neither are food stamps, but…) We as a society have determined that a social safety net is important. we don’t want people breaking into you house to steal food, nor debtors prison because you parents died slowly. If you don’t like it, move or just announce the social contracts don’t apply to you. I’m sure we can kill you and pillage you ranchet within the week. dibs on you guns after the sniper takes you out !
Improving the efficiency of these systems, and the fairness of application is a whole different question.
-Gar.
> We are talking about using government bulk purchase negotiating power to lower everyone’s cost
Snerk. Listen to yourself: using government to *lower* costs?
> Historically births in the wild (colonial times when I looked it up) cost about 10% mortality rate for the mother.
And how much of that was due to lack of *knowledge,* rather than lack of the latest high-tech gadgetry? What would ahve happened to the mortality rate if the people involved had used boiled water, clean linens and *soap?*
That would not drop the mortality rate to zero, of course, there are always complications. But the cost of birthin’ babies today seems to be to treat *every* hospital birth as if it’s a dire emergency. And of course its in the hospitals interest to do so: if they don’t, and that one in a thousand messed-up birth comes along, they get sued.
> “food insurance” (food stamps for AFDC), and “gasoline insurance” (like the hedges that southwest airlines is famous for) exist
Neither of your exampels are relevant. Where can I go, say, to buy food insurance that will allow me to procure as much food as I want, as often as I want?
>We as a society have determined that a social safety net is important.
Have we as a society determined that about a third of our GNP should go to “social safety net?”
> we don’t want people breaking into you house to steal food
That’s what guns and jobs are for. Jobs to let people buy their own food; guns to reduce the population of those unwilling to actually deserve and earn their own food and who decide to steal from others.
> If you don’t like it, move or just announce the social contracts don’t apply to you. I’m sure we can kill you and pillage you ranchet within the week.
That’s pretty incoherent.