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biccat wrote:
I was under the impression that physicians in JOE were not paid based on the services provided, but instead on the number of patients seen.

They aren't, I was referring to doctors in the US.

biccat wrote:
Sticking with the hyperbole, the JOE technician would replace the spark plug and send you to a specialist if you were concerned about the manifold.

In my experience that's how it works here as well. The GP I see basically exists to write prescriptions and referrals.

biccat wrote:You're right sebster. Before social security anyone who reached age 65 1/2 was sent out on the street to die in the cold.

Without unemployment insurance, losing your job was a death sentence for you and your family.

Before food stamps if you worked a low-paying job you slowly starved to death.

So, your defence is to make up pretend claims that have nothing to do with anything anyone said?

Are you going to substantiate your claim, or keep trolling?

I already responded to you, a page before this. I guess you missed it.

Easy E wrote:In the UK, the NHS (Government) can deny coverage of your services.

In the US, the Insurance Company (private, profit driven organization) can deny coverage of your services.

I guess the question is, which is more accountable to the people that need the service?

Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable. They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

Stormrider wrote:
Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable.

Since when? They're ostensibly accountable to voters, and of course can be sued.

Stormrider wrote:
They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

Why? You're 22, you have more than enough time to start a private retirement fund if you believe SS will collapse.

I'm not sure about this idea of "false promises" either, did the government promise that SS would be infinitely sustainable?

Stormrider wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

I would be, though changes will certainly be made.

Stormrider wrote:Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable. They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

Huh? Not accountable. They're called elections, and there's quite a lot of media coverage in the lead up to one. I'm sure you must have heard, at least in passing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

It's worth pointing out this kind of vague doomsday mentality is not a purely American phenomenom, but it is so much worse there because so many politicians play up to it, and very few people are willing to spend the time calling them on their nonsense.

But seriously, no. The system is not going to collapse in the next ten years. Highly prosperous nations don't give up and die because there is presently no political will to set tax collection and spending to equivalent levels. I mean, feth, you had a balanced budget just a tick over a decade ago, and getting it required the lynching of exactly no rich people, and exactly no poor people to eat their own children.

And yet here you are, a decade later, pretending it's the great impossible thing, and that total systemic collapse is even slightly plausible.

biccat wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:GP clinics are not open all hours and are only obligated to provide services to registered patients.

If you need emergency health services there are walk-in clinics and hospital AE departments.

Treatment at the point of service is free, except for prescriptions for medicines.

Ah, so the key difference between charity clinics in the US and UK clinics is that in the UK you have to be on the list and come in at the right time? Oh, and it's not free.

Whatever works I suppose. I would suggest you guys look into the "charity clinics" we have here in the States. They're free, open all hours, and will service anyone.

Health care in the UK is available 24/7/365 in the form of Doctor's clinics and Accident and Emergency departments. If there is a pressing need to see a Doctor in the middle of the night locum services are availble in all areas. If you can not travel to the over night clinic then an emergency Doctor can come to you.

If you have an urgent and immediate need for medical attention ambulance and hospital staff are availble ALL the time.

Prescription charges are a nominal ammount; are the same no matter the quantity or type of drug and; if you have a chronic condition you do not have to pay; If you are pregnant or for 1 year after birth you do not have to pay; if you are under 18 or in full time education you do not have to pay; if you are unemployed you do not have to pay.

Everybody can go on a doctor's list, you can be removed if you are delinquent for a number of years or smack a member of staff but your records are just held ready to go on the next list you join. The doctor's list is simply a record holding mechanism that ensures a person's medical record follows them from doctor to doctor.

Your assertion that NHS services are not free because we pay a contribution towards our prescriptions is ludicrous.


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Stormrider wrote:

Easy E wrote:In the UK, the NHS (Government) can deny coverage of your services.

In the US, the Insurance Company (private, profit driven organization) can deny coverage of your services.

I guess the question is, which is more accountable to the people that need the service?

Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable. They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

YOU ARE 22! If you don't like it do something about it and stop whining. Change the system from within it and work to make it better.

biccat wrote:
Whatever works I suppose. I would suggest you guys look into the "charity clinics" we have here in the States. They're free, open all hours, and will service anyone.

I don't know of many charity clinics that will give free prescription drugs to patients.

dogma wrote:I don't know of many charity clinics that will give free prescription drugs to patients.

I like how, outside of the GFC, medical expenses and the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US, but at the same time in biccatland you can get medical help for free. I can't decide if he's unaware that the care provided in free clinics is extremely limited and miles short of the care needed for serious conditions, or if he thinks people ignore those free clinics and go bankrupt purely out of spite, just to make America look bad.

Oh and with the NHS system employers can not pick and choose what drugs you can get. Contraception is free.

Religious organisations can not argue repression of belief because employees can get contraception. Health care decisions are secular and no employer can dictate the level of care you recieve. They can supliment it but they can never take it away.

Sonophos wrote:
Religious organisations can not argue repression of belief because employees can get contraception. Health care decisions are secular and no employer can dictate the level of care you recieve. They can supliment it but they can never take it away.

In the states contraception is pretty easy to get, its not free in many places, but it is relatively cheap. For example, my ex pays ~20 USD per month for her birth control in Minnesota.

The allowance for companies to not cover birth control is a bit silly not because everyone should have access to birth control, but because birth control is used to treat things beyond "I don't want kids."

This is addressed to anyone that thinks the assets of someone that earned it should be confiscated by the government and given to someone that didn't earn it:

When has any government ever done anything that was efficient and beneficial to the governed?

Best

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Well, often. The issue is typically with degree.

Phanatik wrote:This is addressed to anyone that thinks the assets of someone that earned it should be confiscated by the government and given to someone that didn't earn it:

When has any government ever done anything that was efficient and beneficial to the governed?

Best

I know I'm taking the bait, and that you probably won't bother to respond, but:

The question isn't necessarily one of propriety, but of necessity. The modern state depends on taxation for revenue, and the modern state is the basis of the international system. Further, no system of government has ever not depended on taxation, or something similar to it, for revenue. And, seeing as we, as a species, seem to rather like government, that presents a sort of conundrum.

It is, as sourclams said, a question of degree. You probably know that, of course, which makes me wonder why you would use such stark terminology...

dogma wrote:

Stormrider wrote:
Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable.

Since when? They're ostensibly accountable to voters, and of course can be sued.

Stormrider wrote:
They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

Why? You're 22, you have more than enough time to start a private retirement fund if you believe SS will collapse.

I'm not sure about this idea of "false promises" either, did the government promise that SS would be infinitely sustainable?

Stormrider wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

I would be, though changes will certainly be made.

Is the bureaucracy accountable (you know, the people who actually write all of the regulations) ? Furthermore, are those trials free? No. They are not, on both counts. People who are already poor cannot mount much of a campaign against these organizations.

I have already made plans for a Private Retirement account, but I still have to pay FICA taxes and I not only find in abhorrent that I am having money taken from me for something that will not be around by the time I am retirement age, but that I have to at the point of being jailed if I don't.

False Promises are quite evident. Go to your average meeting involving the elderly or near retired being pandered to by politicians "guaranteeing" that their checks will continue to be paid.


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sebster wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Does the Federal Government Deny people medicare/medicaid/disability payments and money to cover procedures? All the damn time. Except they're not accountable. They've got generations of people by the curlys and I am one of them (I'm 22, I'll eventually have to deal with decades of false promises from the Government).

Huh? Not accountable. They're called elections, and there's quite a lot of media coverage in the lead up to one. I'm sure you must have heard, at least in passing.

I wouldn't be surprised if the system collapses in the next ten years.

It's worth pointing out this kind of vague doomsday mentality is not a purely American phenomenom, but it is so much worse there because so many politicians play up to it, and very few people are willing to spend the time calling them on their nonsense.

But seriously, no. The system is not going to collapse in the next ten years. Highly prosperous nations don't give up and die because there is presently no political will to set tax collection and spending to equivalent levels. I mean, feth, you had a balanced budget just a tick over a decade ago, and getting it required the lynching of exactly no rich people, and exactly no poor people to eat their own children.

And yet here you are, a decade later, pretending it's the great impossible thing, and that total systemic collapse is even slightly plausible.

This isn't a balanced budget issue, it's a sustainability issue. Our own CBO and the actuaries of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid have projected unfunded liabilities between these programs in the $90+ Trillion dollars, and with the requirements constantly getting easier to qualify for, people dropping out of the workforce and a rapidly aging population the number is only going to increase.

Increasing taxes in this economic situation is suicidal as well. I would expect a look at the economy in a static model from someone who think Paul Krugman is all-right.

Stormrider wrote:
Is the bureaucracy accountable (you know, the people who actually write all of the regulations) ?

Yes, they can be fired for incompetence, just as any other employee. Then there's political turnover, which is important when regarding those people who actually write regulations.

Stormrider wrote:
Furthermore, are those trials free? No. They are not, on both counts. People who are already poor cannot mount much of a campaign against these organizations.

Of course they can't, the rich and powerful (there is little practical difference) won't have it.

Also, I love how similar this is to the argument for welfare.

Stormrider wrote:
I have already made plans for a Private Retirement account, but I still have to pay FICA taxes and I not only find in abhorrent that I am having money taken from me for something that will not be around by the time I am retirement age, but that I have to at the point of being jailed if I don't.

Oh no, people with more power can make people with less power do what they want, how awful.

Either way, you're conflating knowledge with belief, a common mistake, but still a mistake.

Stormrider wrote:
False Promises are quite evident. Go to your average meeting involving the elderly or near retired being pandered to by politicians "guaranteeing" that their checks will continue to be paid.

You're 22, which isn't generally considered to be "elderly". And promising that a cheque will continue is not the same as promising that the amount of the cheque will continue to be the same.

People often hear what they want to hear, not what is said.


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Stormrider wrote:
This isn't a balanced budget issue, it's a sustainability issue.

Do you make a habit of adopting terrible environmentalist terminology, or is this a one time thing?

Stormrider wrote:I have already made plans for a Private Retirement account, but I still have to pay FICA taxes and I not only find in abhorrent that I am having money taken from me for something that will not be around by the time I am retirement age, but that I have to at the point of being jailed if I don't.

Don't think of it as a retirement fund that is slowly being bled dry, think of it as an income transfer payment to a wealthier and more politically connected class.

The US government is caught in its lies. Remember the social contract - Social Security - was guaranteeing an income to those that survived to 65. In 1935 the life expectancy average was 61.7 Today that is 13% of the population in 1940 it was 6.8%. So around the time it was started there were 13 americans supporting 1 elderly person now we are down to about 7 supporting 1. Oh and the cost of healthcare has gone up 546% over the last 50 + years.

The theory of support is good but the reality is something different. So increase the cost and the number of people living and reduce the number of people paying and lo and behold, you have an insolvent mess. Where politicians promise the world to the retiree and expect the money to pay for it to come out of thin air.

Phanatik wrote:This is addressed to anyone that thinks the assets of someone that earned it should be confiscated by the government and given to someone that didn't earn it:

And I'll repeat for about the 50th time on this forum, taxation drawn from income is not taking something from someone. That's a piece of stupid that gets stuck in people's heads when they first take a job, and think their pay is a contract that is between them and their employer, with no input from anyone else in the world.

Once they get a bit smarter, and begin to learn that employer only exists because of the complex interactions of society, underpinned by governmental law and systems, they should begin to realise that what they're paid and what they're taxed are all part of the same system. They don't, because it's more flattering to consider themselves as victims of the evil, evil state.

sebster wrote:And I'll repeat for about the 50th time on this forum, taxation drawn from income is not taking something from someone.

This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've read on this forum. Seriously.

You can argue for the legitimacy of taxation, whether its as a direct provision of services or as part of the social contract, that's fine. But to say that "taxation drawn from income is not taking something from someone" is facially absurd.

I suppose next you'll tell me that when the government increases taxes, my income doesn't decrease. Or when the government reduces taxes my income doesn't increase.

Stormrider wrote:This isn't a balanced budget issue, it's a sustainability issue. Our own CBO and the actuaries of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid have projected unfunded liabilities between these programs in the $90+ Trillion dollars, and with the requirements constantly getting easier to qualify for, people dropping out of the workforce and a rapidly aging population the number is only going to increase.

That $90 trillion number is the kind of thing that sounds very scary to people outside of finance and accounting, but is actually nothing of the sort.

For instance, say you buy a house. You're moving your furniture in when some guy comes running up the street and yells 'stop what you're doing! In addition to your $125,000 mortgage, you can be expected to pay $1,500 a year in utilities, and another $2,000 in repairs and maintenance every year for the next 50 years! That's another $175,000 in unfunded liabilities!'

You would look baffled at that man for a second, and then you'd reply, 'well yeah, but I'm going to earn money in every one of those years, and use that money to offset those liabilities as they become due!'

It's the same thing with the scary sounding 90 trillion figure. You'll continue earning money every year, it's presently 14 trillion and will grow, more or less, at about 3% after inflation every year.

As the payments out of the system grow then adjustments will need to be made. People paying into the system will likely have to pay more, while taxes will likely have to increase somewhat, and spending will have to be cut (you could bring defence spending down to something comparable with other developed countries and the problem would basically be solved). And you could increase the age before people are eligible for the system.

That's how system work. They hate making adaptions, and they gnash their teeth and treat each sacrifice like it's the worst thing in the world, but at the end of the day they do what's needed to avoid systemic collapse. And 95% of the time they look back ten years later and wonder what all the big fuss was about.

Increasing taxes in this economic situation is suicidal as well. I would expect a look at the economy in a static model from someone who think Paul Krugman is all-right.

The economic repercussions of increased taxes are always claimed as a self-evident truth, but it's interesting to note an example is never given* of a nation that contracted over and above the reduced aggregate demand of the taxes. Simply put, the idea that people stop working because taxes go from 30% to 35% is nonsense. That is a simple, instinctive truth that you can consider by considering your own circumstance - would you stop working because you only got to keep 65% of your income, instead of 60%?

And Krugman isn't right about everything. The beard is a terrible choice, for instance. But on the present economic model, he's pretty much bang on.



*Well, sometimes Japan in the 90s in mentioned, but that example is so non-sensical to anyone who's ever studied the Lost Decade it doesn't count.


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DAaddict wrote:The US government is caught in its lies. Remember the social contract - Social Security - was guaranteeing an income to those that survived to 65. In 1935 the life expectancy average was 61.7 Today that is 13% of the population in 1940 it was 6.8%. So around the time it was started there were 13 americans supporting 1 elderly person now we are down to about 7 supporting 1. Oh and the cost of healthcare has gone up 546% over the last 50 + years.

The theory of support is good but the reality is something different. So increase the cost and the number of people living and reduce the number of people paying and lo and behold, you have an insolvent mess. Where politicians promise the world to the retiree and expect the money to pay for it to come out of thin air.

I really, really don't see how a demographic shift means the government was 'caught in their lies'. That's just being silly.

You have a problem, brought on by unsustainably low taxes, or unsustainably high spending, or more likely some combination of the above... that is compounded by a demographic shift. This requires a moderated solution geared to the long term. That's all. No need to get bonkers about things.

Institutionalized mediocrity. Makes me think of how many people would be more than happy to be heat batteries for the machine overlords as long as they got their Matrix on.

Edit: Sebster said it better.

biccat wrote:This has got to be one of the stupidest things I've read on this forum. Seriously.

You can argue for the legitimacy of taxation, whether its as a direct provision of services or as part of the social contract, that's fine. But to say that "taxation drawn from income is not taking something from someone" is facially absurd.

I suppose next you'll tell me that when the government increases taxes, my income doesn't decrease. Or when the government reduces taxes my income doesn't increase.

The argument isn't that people don't get impacted by tax policy - that idea is purely a product of your woeful reading effort. The point is that taxation is some external thing that comes in to interfere with the process, it is just as much a part of the process as anything else.

So, now for the 51st time, give or take, I'll go through the very simply concepts, and reach the very clear conclusion. The system we have in place, while it encourages individual incentive wherever possible, is at all times underpinned by government, in contract law, property law, employment law, provision of infrastructure and so on. As such, even though it might look like your employment is a deal purely between you and your employer, it is actually part of that greater system, and that system includes tax policy. As such, to complain as if government just came in and took your income as tax, while pretending that the income you earned in the first place was entirely due to your own personal awesomeness and unrelated to that same government system, is bonkers.

In other words, it isn't that your personal awesomeness has earned $85,650, and the government came in and took from you $19,617. It's that your interaction with the greater system has allowed you to claim $66,032.

Although your Awesomeness may convince your employer to raise your wages to match a tax increase.

sebster wrote:

The theory of support is good but the reality is something different. So increase the cost and the number of people living and reduce the number of people paying and lo and behold, you have an insolvent mess. Where politicians promise the world to the retiree and expect the money to pay for it to come out of thin air.

I really, really don't see how a demographic shift means the government was 'caught in their lies'. That's just being silly.

You have a problem, brought on by unsustainably low taxes, or unsustainably high spending, or more likely some combination of the above... that is compounded by a demographic shift. This requires a moderated solution geared to the long term. That's all. No need to get bonkers about things.

Sonophos wrote:Although your Awesomeness may convince your employer to raise your wages to match a tax increase.

If taxation isn't taking anything from you, then your employer doesn't actually give you your wage. Your wage is determined based on society's valuation of your input, and your employer has nothing to do with it.

This is a theory of labor that is consistent with communism, but not with a capitalist system.

Given that Australia isn't a communist country, I have no idea where it comes from. Maybe sebster studied economics under Castro. It certainly would explain a lot.

DAaddict wrote:
The lie is that it is unsupportable. They say it is due to mismanagement. To a degree they are right, as the money invested - through taxation- was not put aside but mixed in so when it was solvent you would have that money to draw on. The reality is if it took $12 to support one retiree in 1940 you needed to ask everyone to pay $1. With the cost of healthcare, that $12 is no about $66 and the reduced number of people paying in means you need to take in about $9.50 per person paying in. Now if you are used to paying in $1 and suddenly someone is going to hit you for $9.50. It is not going to be viewed as fulfilling a social contract, it is going to be viewed as undue taxation based on incompetence.

Just about everything I have ever read in regards to the formation of the US's Social Security program points to FDR wanted a TEMPORARY program to provide a retirement supplement to those who "lost" many years of their own ability to prepare for their retirement because of WW2.... So, what we're running into all these years down the road, is a RAW vs. RAI argument, where instead of going full "RAI" most politicians either want to severely limit or reform the program (hey they want their SS checks too), or pump more money into the program, but they all see that it is political suicide to suggest we get rid of the program altogether. I know that among many groups, it is an inherently "American thing" to be actively saving and preparing for your own retirement rather than hoping that SS will provide for you. Obviously this sort of "prepare yourself" option isn't available to the poor, but we are also seeing a larger number of people working beyond the "retirement age" in America, because in some cases they wouldn't know what to do with no work to do, etc.

IMO, SS is a completely separate issue from social welfare. Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned Fire Depts. Police and similar services as being social welfare, and to an extent I agree, though I would definitely say that more money should be sent to them to allow them to better do their jobs (and hire more people, etc.)

biccat wrote:
If taxation isn't taking anything from you, then your employer doesn't actually give you your wage. Your wage is determined based on society's valuation of your input, and your employer has nothing to do with it.

Employers aren't part of society?

The original point, going back to Sebster's post, seemed to be that what we can attribute out wage to is the 'framework', i.e. government. Which is bonkers, but hey, different realities I guess.

I believe biccat was responding to that point.