Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 2196 2197 [2198] 2199 2200 ... 3511

Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 3532843 times)

Lord Shonus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Angle of Death
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32955 on: October 16, 2019, 08:38:45 pm »

I must be missing something. Why would people fear getting healthcare?

While the answer wierd gave isn't wrong, it applies more to the upper-end lobbyists than it does to the rank-and-file voters. Ignoring conspiracy theorists and nuts, there are three major reasons why a lot of people are uncomfortable with the notion of expanding public healthcare.

The first is, quite simply, a matter of cost. A lot of people don't realize just how much tax money already goes (inefficiently) to healthcare, and think we'd be going from spending 0 tax dollars to spending hundreds of billions, and there's no way to do that without massive tax hikes. The actual scenario (that most people would spend less in extra taxes than they would save by not paying for insurance) is something that has to be explained very carefully, and is easy to dismiss as a shell game.

The second is the not-unreasonable fear that the existing infrastructure would collapse. Stories about the medical community abound, and it is not well known just how much hospitals spend on administration and billing. Nor do most people realize that the "Doctor shortage" and "nurse shortage" is a deliberate policy of professional organizations to keep wages high. Thus, it is easy to believe (especially when you get outside major cities into areas that might only have one hospital) that a public healthcare system would effectively be the "burn it all down and start from scratch" option as most hospitals collapse due to loss of revenue.

The third is more subtle. A lot of companies already put restrictions on employees to keep insurance costs down. For example, my work will not hire anybody who smokes, and any employee that fails a nicotine test will be terminated immediately. There have been publicized cases of companies banning anything but the healthiest food from their property, and a few attempts to mandate pure vegan diets for employees. As company policies, these have inherent limits - they can't follow you home and check your fridge for bacon, or monitor your soda intake, or force you to exercise at gunpoint, etc. There is real fear that, once the government is footing the bill, the government will have both an incentive and a legal justification to force you to live "healthy", and (unlike a company) the government has the power to make it stick with bans, fines, and even jail time.
Logged
On Giant In the Playground and Something Awful I am Gnoman.
Man, ninja'd by a potentially inebriated Lord Shonus. I was gonna say to burn it.

Naturegirl1999

  • Bay Watcher
  • Thank you TamerVirus for the avatar switcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32956 on: October 16, 2019, 08:44:49 pm »

This is very interesting to read. Sometimes I think that a big enough company can become a government though, with governments caring more about profits than their people/environment, governments seem more like giant companies with too much power.
Logged

PTTG??

  • Bay Watcher
  • Kringrus! Babak crulurg tingra!
    • View Profile
    • http://www.nowherepublishing.com
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32957 on: October 16, 2019, 08:51:49 pm »

This is very interesting to read. Sometimes I think that a big enough company can become a government though, with governments caring more about profits than their people/environment, governments seem more like giant companies with too much power.

This is why socialists hate liberals. Democracies need close watch from an informed and diligent electorate to avoid becoming, well, what the USA is.
Logged
A thousand million pool balls made from precious metals, covered in beef stock.

Naturegirl1999

  • Bay Watcher
  • Thank you TamerVirus for the avatar switcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32958 on: October 16, 2019, 08:55:42 pm »

This is very interesting to read. Sometimes I think that a big enough company can become a government though, with governments caring more about profits than their people/environment, governments seem more like giant companies with too much power.

This is why socialists hate liberals. Democracies need close watch from an informed and diligent electorate to avoid becoming, well, what the USA is.
Yes. I'm hoping the next president and next Congress members will actually fix these problems, but I don't think they will
Logged

wierd

  • Bay Watcher
  • I like to eat small children.
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32959 on: October 16, 2019, 09:01:49 pm »

It is irrational to expect career politicians to fix problems.

A career politician is interested in election, and then immediately upon being re-elected.  Fixing problems erodes their election platform, and makes them less needed.

EG-- why would you elect say, Sanders--- If there was no issue with wealth disparity or with abuses of corporate power?


The bread and butter of politicians once they are in, is in getting various pork projects through that get their population hooked on a specific industry or interest.  Take for instance, defense budget expenditures and contractors.  For places like Seattle, where you have BOEING and pals, this is a big thing.  Why elect somebody that would fix the runaway issue of the military industrial complex, when that is a major part of the local economy?

Career politicians pander to these things to stay elected, and so problems never actually get fixed, and if there is incentive for them to get worse (because money is involved), they will.
Logged

smjjames

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32960 on: October 16, 2019, 09:09:08 pm »

This is very interesting to read. Sometimes I think that a big enough company can become a government though, with governments caring more about profits than their people/environment, governments seem more like giant companies with too much power.

This is why socialists hate liberals. Democracies need close watch from an informed and diligent electorate to avoid becoming, well, what the USA is.

Except that liberals are socialist and liberals in the US are what would be called social(ist) liberals elsewhere. So, it's sort of like (socialism=liberalism)=/=(socialism=/=liberalism)=(socialism=liberalism).
Logged

Naturegirl1999

  • Bay Watcher
  • Thank you TamerVirus for the avatar switcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32961 on: October 16, 2019, 09:13:45 pm »

It is irrational to expect career politicians to fix problems.

A career politician is interested in election, and then immediately upon being re-elected.  Fixing problems erodes their election platform, and makes them less needed.

EG-- why would you elect say, Sanders--- If there was no issue with wealth disparity or with abuses of corporate power?


The bread and butter of politicians once they are in, is in getting various pork projects through that get their population hooked on a specific industry or interest.  Take for instance, defense budget expenditures and contractors.  For places like Seattle, where you have BOEING and pals, this is a big thing.  Why elect somebody that would fix the runaway issue of the military industrial complex, when that is a major part of the local economy?

Career politicians pander to these things to stay elected, and so problems never actually get fixed, and if there is incentive for them to get worse (because money is involved), they will.
Yes, I worded this poorly. I hope someone who isn't a career politician becomes president, and that people who aren't career politicians become congress members, that people who actually want to fix the problems get elected
Logged

MetalSlimeHunt

  • Bay Watcher
  • Gerrymander Commander
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32962 on: October 16, 2019, 09:15:57 pm »

Career politicians are only a problem for neoliberal shitheels and those like them, because they have no belief system other than capitalist realism. Sanders represents someone who, even if only marginally, does have an ideology other than religious fascism. Such an opportunity cannot be missed by anyone seeking to not have the 21st century remembered as the Century of Extermination.
Logged
Quote from: Thomas Paine
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
Quote
No Gods, No Masters.

smjjames

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32963 on: October 16, 2019, 09:23:29 pm »

It is irrational to expect career politicians to fix problems.

A career politician is interested in election, and then immediately upon being re-elected.  Fixing problems erodes their election platform, and makes them less needed.

EG-- why would you elect say, Sanders--- If there was no issue with wealth disparity or with abuses of corporate power?


The bread and butter of politicians once they are in, is in getting various pork projects through that get their population hooked on a specific industry or interest.  Take for instance, defense budget expenditures and contractors.  For places like Seattle, where you have BOEING and pals, this is a big thing.  Why elect somebody that would fix the runaway issue of the military industrial complex, when that is a major part of the local economy?

Career politicians pander to these things to stay elected, and so problems never actually get fixed, and if there is incentive for them to get worse (because money is involved), they will.
Yes, I worded this poorly. I hope someone who isn't a career politician becomes president

Trump? Though to be fair, he wasn't completely new to politics as he did the usual politiking on the fringe since he had plenty of political interactions, but he wasn't a career politician by the definition.

Be careful what you wish for there.
Logged

Devastator

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32964 on: October 17, 2019, 12:06:59 am »

Ispil, we live, today, in a highly automated society.  90% of the population is no longer chained to the production of food for immediate survival.  This is a post-work society.

I'd also fundamentally disagree with your explanation of a market economy.  "That one’s share of the distribution of the goods of a state is proportional to the contribution one makes to the state."

That's not the definition of a market economy.  It's the definition of a non-market economy.  The basic principle of a market economy is that the value of something is equivalent to the price one pays for it, which means that the economy is driven by the forces of supply and demand, not the forces set by state actors.

After that, having defined a market economy as a non-market economy, I find the further points lack force.  You could easily state that a command economy in a workless state would dispossess people as being non-contributors, and then label the forces that would lead to those effects as a result of the defined 'market economy.'  Or relable your description of a planned economy as a market economy, because under that plan, people are valued by their contribution to the state, just with different definitions.. you could say you're paying people to not create problems, for instance.

Quote
With that particular definition, which admittedly is rather broad, there appears a rather curious conundrum- socialism somehow became a subset of capitalism, at least under how it was described. Hence, it might be better to refine our definition: what we have described above is not capitalism per se, but a market economy.

Or they could be two different things, but the wrong definition was used for one of them, making them seem identical.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2019, 12:14:25 am by Devastator »
Logged

Max™

  • Bay Watcher
  • [CULL:SQUARE]
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32965 on: October 17, 2019, 12:23:14 am »

So, not to skip out on the fun of defining things or the breakdown between highly automatable tasks and barely automatable tasks, but I was wondering after seeing discussions of healthcare-for-all cost projections being up in the tens of trillions of dollars range over the next decade and all that shit.

Has anyone seen a projection based on a realignment of healthcare costs where insurance companies aren't being rewarded for jacking them up into the exosphere?

I mean, I guess it is simpler to assume prices will remain the same without private insurance premiums involved, but it is plainly absurd, isn't it?
Logged

Devastator

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32966 on: October 17, 2019, 12:46:40 am »

Truthfully?  There are plenty of savings to be made, but I'd highly doubt there are any cheap answers.  There are several different kinds of socialized medicine, and where broadly implemented, are all expensive.  In addition, there are a few additional costs that are usually overlooked:

Firstly, if you have money, American health care is really excellent.  There will be declines in the quality of services provided, in at least some areas, for some people, with the advent of a more egalitarian system.  This will also hit people lower down on the quality scale than you might expect, at least in part, by really rich people not being soaked as heavily.

Secondly, medical research is an extremely difficult field of human endeavour.  There is a very strong view today that medical research is cheap and only held back by legislative difficulties or fat profit-taking capitalists.  That view, by and large, is untrue.  Finding drugs and new treatments for humans is really, really difficult and really expensive.  The easy ones have been found.  The difficult ones have been found.  The targets people are going at today are extremely, absurdly difficult problems;  New technology helps, but in general, progress in medical research gets harder and more expensive every year.

And there's no getting around it.  Someone has to pay the bill, and the result is that everyone pays.  Americans pay a lot due to there being a lot of them, and generally being wealthy.  Countries with rich socialized medicine also pay lots, although generally less than Americans.  Poor countries pay too, albeit less.

The biggest chunk of the expense is also the one that can never by bypassed.  Clinical trials.  They're crazily expensive and absolutely necessary.  At the most basic, new discoveries are made by exploring the unknown.  That is, we are going to find new things by doing things that haven't been done before.  As a result, it is absolutely necessary to test said discoveries in order to learn if they work.

Cutting off the rest of the world doesn't make the problem better for Americans.  It means they'll have to foot 100% of the bill, instead of the current existing large percentage.  It is also one of the places where socialized medicine should help, by being able to cut out some middlemen in the process and more efficiently providing money for new drugs.

But it won't be cheap.  Cheap would give you health care that doesn't make people better.

..Also, ten trillion dollars over the next decade seems pretty reasonable.  There's what, 450 million americans?  One trillion a year is a bit over $2000 per American, which isn't an unreasonable estimate.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2019, 01:21:55 am by Devastator »
Logged

wierd

  • Bay Watcher
  • I like to eat small children.
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32967 on: October 17, 2019, 06:19:35 am »

There is something to be said about a market economy though (presuming everyone HAS something that somebody else wants, anyway... That thing used to be labor, but with automation that is no longer the case, an is why the market economy is poised to fail): It is possible, with some cleverness, to get anything you want.

In a more controlled economy, natural scarcities and government favoritisms will prevent certain goods or services from being available to all persons or parties, which will stifle innovation. (What do you NEED those femtosecond laser parts FOR, citizen? We can put those to work at a respected university instead of letting you purchase them!)



The issue with automation is that the universally desired service-- labor-- is no longer desired.  There is nothing that a good chunk of the population can trade, which effectively cuts them out of the market.  Once automation reaches its peak (where labor of any kind is no longer necessary or cost effective to hire), that is more than 90% of the population out of work, AND ostracized from the market.  If you are a wealthy plutocrat who makes money by having money, you don't sweat it. Hell, you might even ENJOY that the only people in the market are people like yourself, since now all the offers are tailored for you and those like you.  That wont make the starving masses any less destitute or hungry.

We either need a replacement for labor as a universal thing that anybody can provide, but which is in seemingly endless demand (that is naturally tied to that person), OR we need to introduce an artificial one, in the form of UBI. (Where each person has an allowance that is guaranteed, and which everyone is seeking to get a piece of, enabling bargaining positions.)


Otherwise, there will no longer be a mass market. There can't be.
Logged

thompson

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32968 on: October 17, 2019, 06:30:45 am »

I think we're still a very long way away from automation reaching those levels. Your points are valid, given a long enough time horizon. Short term I think improving labour conditions needs to be the priority. Unemployment can be addressed through infrastructure spending - we'll need that anyway to reduce carbon intensity and whatnot. Once that's all finally done the world will be a very different place.

There's also a case to be made for reproductive regulation. Probably not necessary given birth rates in most developed countries, but that could change if you go all "post-scarcity" on everyone. The "tragedy of the commons" cannot be fixed with technology alone. Human behaviour also needs to change.
Logged

Egan_BW

  • Bay Watcher
  • Perhaps I'll
    • View Profile
Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #32969 on: October 17, 2019, 06:40:28 am »

If labor is no longer desired, we just have to find universal values for something else that everyone has! I propose blood.
Logged
Down at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath tons of brine which would crush you down. Not into broken and splintered flesh, but into thin soup. Into just more of the sea water. Where things live that aren't so different from you, but you will never live to touch them and they will never live to touch you.
Pages: 1 ... 2196 2197 [2198] 2199 2200 ... 3511