Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Let's talk politics for a sec...

I don't know whether Germany is a good military example. Germany is historically compelled to avoid military conflict.
Getting troups into Afghanistan was big enough a political row, asking our troups from the North to the South is not something many understand.
And regarding Iraq in particular, there's also a bit of a sentiment of why Germany should clean up the mess the USA made.

Yes, since the World War II experience, that's understandable, Chaos. But our hope is still to find some relief for our combat troops in the South.

Think your perception of Germany's probable reaction to a UN request for military aid in Iraq to form sort of International peacekeeping force would probably be the reaction in most other countries, as well. I think it would be here too - public opinion wouldn't buy it. Regardless, we're a small country, about 40% the size of Germany for example, and our military is even smaller, as a proportion of population than those of Europe. So we just wouldn't have the resources to say yes.

I'm not meaning to overlook or minimise here the casualties that other nations' troops have suffered in Afghanistan. Nor the extreme horrors that the Afghanistanis continue to experience.

c.

In regards to the original comment about Obama’s pin I have to blame the media. Actually, that’s probably not entirely accurate. I have to blame the 24-hour media. 30 or 40 years ago the news media had a very limited window by which to disseminate information and make an impact or even make a point to the public. At best they had 30 minutes to an hour nightly with which to cover local, national and global events on television or radio and newspapers were limited to daily or perhaps twice daily printings to do the same.

Because of this limited “window” they had to be a bit more thoughtful when they chose their stories. A story for instance about Obama ceasing to wear a patriotic symbol for whatever reasons might by necessity have to take backseat to a story about his policies on a given issue such as healthcare or national defense. However, with the advent of 24-hour networks the question was no longer “which story to run with?” but rather, “what other stories can we run?”

In today’s media the struggle to fill programming hours makes even the most minute moments worthy of extensive commentary. In the 70’s there was a much run clip of President Ford slipping and falling down the steps while disembarking from a plane. Had that happened today we would see stories covering such topics as his mindset prior to and following the incident, what he may have eaten earlier that day that may have affected his balance, in-depth investigations into the manufacturers of the steps and the planes, as well as a retrospective of other great falls in history while disembarking from transportation conveyances.

All of this coverage or “pseudo-coverage” has an impact on viewers as this level of scrutiny has an unfortunate tendency toward “nit-picking”. I think we see just from the internet community how what were once simply enjoyable television shows are now fodder to be dissected and analyzed as to scene lighting, plot points, and continuity. Of course, we can argue that these things are important from a story-telling perspective, but if we’re honest would we really have even wondered about some of this stuff if someone else hadn’t pointed out that a season 5, episode 6 of “Smallville” directly contradicted a statement made by an extra in season 2 episode 9?

Personally, when a major news story happens I will turn to the big chains to see the coverage and get as much information that I can. However, my rule of thumb is that the moment one news personality begins to interview another news personality about the incident it’s time to switch off the TV as that is a sure sign that all relevant information has been exhausted.

I remember giving an interview to a news station shortly after 9/11 and being asked what advice I would give to individuals in our country who had been traumatized by those events. I’m sure my answer gave my interviewer a start because it was, “turn off the TV”. It’s reasonable to watch and gain information about a traumatizing event because we all seek to make sense of even that which will never make sense, but it’s foolish to subject yourself to re-traumatization every half-hour as the same story runs over and over again.

I think politics falls into this same realm. Before the days of YouTube and the internet would Hillary even have known that Obama borrowed a line from another politician’s speech? And then would we have been subjected to numerous postings and examples of Hillary having done the exact same thing herself?

Look at the recent McCain controversy. 40 years ago would The New York Times have gone to print with a story that made such serious charges without further and more detailed investigation? And then would they while not retracted the article then have published another by a different reporter criticizing the paper for having done just that? I’m all for a little open debate, but when it’s with myself I feel a little foolish. Would this decision have been so hastily made had they not feared that half a dozen bloggers and 3 gossip news programs would have ran with even less than that had they caught wind of it first?

I think instant access to information has been a wonderful thing in some instances and created some positive effects such as accountability in certain situations. Unfortunately, like most super powers though the same idiom of “With great power comes great responsibility” applies and not every possessor exercises “great responsibility”.

As for the broader topic of “patriotism” I found this quote from Mark Twain to be apt:

Wow, I, too, am impressed by how calm and reasonable a political discussion has been! Great job, guys!

I have to say that I agree with Roger almost straight down the line. He's written, far more eloquently than I could, just about exactly what I'd write, in terms of health care, government bureaucracy never makes for better, cheaper service, etc.

In general, I think we have this idea that people are "entitled" to health care, which has just never really been the case in history. That's not to say that I believe we should just let sick people who don't have the money for health care die, but we do have to keep in mind that doctors and medicine are *expensive*, and that money has to come from somewhere. Doctors have some of the most intense and lengthy training of any profession, and medicines take many, many, many years to develop, test (think of Thalidomide) and make sure they're safe, and then market. We can't expect everything to be free, there's always a hidden cost. And when the costs are hidden, it's more likely that things won't be done the cheapest or most efficient way, because what's the incentive to improve?

I think it was Paul who seems to be saying that things like shelter, food, clothing, education, and health care are rights. I disagree. If I do nothing my entire life, contribute to the community in no way, make no effort to earn anything at all, why should these things be taken away from other people and given to me? I'm breaking that down to the most extreme example, I know, but just to point out that we don't "deserve" all of these things ourselves... we work to earn them. That's what this country is supposed to be about. We have the right to life, liberty, and the *pursuit* of happiness, not having happiness delivered to our doorstep. Now, I was speaking of what *I* deserve. But, on the other hand, as a compassionate individual who has the basic things she needs, my responsibility is to share, to show compassion for those who need help getting food, shelter, health care, etc. I personally think it's a mistake for the government to be involved, I think that we should donate voluntarily to charities who would provide help, rather than government bureaucracy, but since the government already does and I don't think it's likely to go back, I'll deal with it. But I don't think the government should be *adding* to the responsibilities that it takes on itself. Each bit of liberty that we cede to the government is just one more bit of freedom we'll never get back. The government only takes on duties and grows bigger, never smaller.

Also, the government was not meant to tax us so that it could provide things we could provide ourselves for cheaper. If you look at what the Constitution says that the government can collect taxes for, it's a very limited list, mostly thing like building and maintaining roads, the postal service, defense, etc. Not providing "free" health care to all individuals. They actually had to amend the Constitution to give the government the right to collect an income tax.

Somebody also said that it wasn't that easy to get health care if you don't have money. Well, my husband is currently unemployed, so we lost the health insurance we'd had through his work. It took about a month to get our daughter on a state health program provided free or low-cost (depending on income). That's with already-existing health programs available (this one is through the state government, although I couldn't say if it gets federal funds or not). And in an emergency, a hospital is not going to turn away a sick person. You can also get health insurance even if your employer doesn't cover it. It's more expensive, sure, but not as much as you'd think, and considering that when you have a job you get paid less because they're paying for your health insurance (that's why they call them "benefits"), it's really not a bad deal. We would have done that if this opportunity hadn't come up.

I liked the idea of the FairTax. Sure, changing tax plans in mid-stream is complicated. Since it changes income tax to sales tax, people who already have significant savings would be taxed twice--one when they earned it, and once when they spent it--unless something is done to work around this problem. But I do think our tax-and-spend, taking money away from people who earn it (and for all people complain about CEOs and sports players, they wouldn't get so much money if what they were doing wasn't worth a great amount of money to the people paying for their services) to give to people who haven't, is just wrong, and it wasn't the way that the founders of our country intended it.

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough and I'm not sure I'm still being coherent, so I'll end now and wait to see what others are saying!

There's a difference between needs and luxuries.

I believe that we, as a society, have a responsibility to see to the basic needs of our fellow citizens. A roof over your head, clothes to wear, food to live on, etc. Simply because we owe that to each other as human beings.

It's all well and good to say that people should give to charity. But they don't. Not enough, anyway. And, even if you see to the basics, there's still a lot more to be done, a lot more charities to give to.

Now, once the basics are covered - enough for a person to survive and be reasonably healthy - if a person wants better, that you have to work for. A nicer place to live, better clothes, better food, etc. A higher standard of living than subsistence-level.

The government is in a position to do that. To look out for all of its citizens. To make sure that at least the minimum gets done. And it's the government's job because the government is there to represent the collective will of the people. To represent us as a society.

And yes, health care is expensive. I don't know what the right answer is there. But the system we have is broken. And it's the government's role to fix it. Because it's the government that played a big role in getting us into this mess.

As it stands... Insurance companies have all the power. They decide what they charge their customers (except in some states, like NJ), they decide what they want to pay for, they decide what they're willing to pay for it, and they can make the process of paying as complicated and error-prone as they want (except in some states, like NJ).

On the surface, that seems reasonable. The same is true of just about any other business. And you'd hope that competition would set some limits.

But the companies are too powerful. They can decide to pay a doctor whatever they want, even if it's at or below cost (never mind overhead and at least a little profit). And if the doctor doesn't like it, his only choice is to refuse to accept that insurance... and thus lose all the patients who have it.

On the other side of things, the doctors can't even talk to each other. Thanks to lobbyists, it has become illegal for doctors to unionize. Not just unionize, but even to discuss the subject. If two doctors go out to lunch and one asks the other how much Company X pays him for giving a flu shot and the other answers, they are breaking federal law.

Laws and regulations like that are destroying the system, and they need to be fixed. We need to give patients and doctors more power and put some restrictions on insurance companies.

As for drug companies... they used to have all the power. There are still regulations to prevent the government from negotiating drug prices (getting essentially bulk discounts for things like Medicare). But the insurance companies have really cut into them, too.

NJ put some caps on things. Here, whatever an insurance company collects in premiums, they have to pay out 80% in benefits. And if they take more than 30 days to pay a claim, they become subject to fines (which get paid directly to the patient whose claim they delayed). And things like diabetic supplies have to be covered as prescription items.

And the state writes the policies (that may be going a little too far, but it does help a lot on the patient's side of things). There's Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, etc. Each company can decide which of the available plans they want to offer (and which they don't), and, within limits, how much they want to charge for each. The patients don't have to go wandering through a maze of alternative plans, trying to understand the rules and the wording and the subclauses and everything else just to figure out what's covered and what isn't.

The result, of course, is that there are relatively few companies who offer plans in NJ. But those companies do still make a profit, and there are limits to how much they can jerk patients around.

(Now, if only there was something the state could do for the doctors...)

So... even if you don't believe in universal health care, the government does play a role in how the system works. And it needs to do a better job of it.

And we need to close the gap between Medicaid and similar programs(government insurance for those who make less than a certain amount) and the point where medical insurance actually becomes affordable.

Like I said, I don't know what the best answer is, but I know we can do a lot better than we're doing now.

One question for the US posters-who does end up paying the bill when emergency care is done for people who don't have insurance coverage and can't afford the bill? Do hospitals have insurance against this or does the goverment help cover costs? Or does the cost of treating those who don't have coverage get passed on to those who are paying for coverage in the form of higher premiums? Okay, I realise it's more than one question but what it boils down to is trying to figure out how walk-ins to emergency rooms can get treated and who covers it in the long run.

On another note, a good online pal from a midwestern state is now in a chronic-care nursing home down there, quite possibly for the rest of his life. Considering he's in his mid-50's, it's a pretty bleak situation to say the least. As a small-time soybean farmer who has had chronic health problems since his 30's when he developed testicular cancer, he's been stuck with less-than-adequate health care since he and his elderly mother could not afford more than the state subsidised health insurance and finally he totally collapsed and nearly died a few months ago. Now I'm wondering who ends up paying the bill for the years and years of care he may need-he may never walk again and has no family to help look after him so he's stuck in the nursing home. I'm not sure he'd be any better off up here in Canada but I'd like to think he might have had access to see a wider range of specialists than seemed to be available to him down there over the past while, the docs he saw seemed to just hand him pain-killers and point him to the door when he probably should have been referred to a larger center for a much more extensive work-up. Aside from selling off the small farm he has no assets to speak of and once that money is gone, he's penniless and I'm guessing the goverment steps in since there is no family to send bills to other than his mother and she's now in a different nursing home after having a stroke. Even if he did get well enough to leave the home at some point, he'll have nothing left to go to...

No time for an in-depth answer, but if the patient really can't or won't pay it, the hospital has to write it off. But this isn't good for the patient, either - the charge-off will show on their credit report, and since everyone from creditors to employers to insurance companies to landlords pulls a person's credit these days, that's a serious problem.

I was trying to figure out how hospitals and other health care providers get around the losses from patients who default on bills when I stumbled over this site-

Disputing a bill?

Reading it over, it becomes clear that some hospitals are charging high enough markups on items that they must be making back some of those fees they cannot collect on. I used to purchase all of the inventory for the vet hospital I worked at (same medical companies supplying us that supply human hospitals) and I can tell you that at that time, (2002) suture material costs would have been something like $3.75/individual suture package (wholesale) and the hospital here is charging $49.00 while the saline solution and irrigation unit would have maybe been $6.00 wholesale price tops while the hospital charged them $100.00 for exactly the same thing.

So yes, hospitals do take a loss when patients can't pay their bills but when you are going for a markup like this with materials, I can see where profits are still possible in the long run. As for having a bad credit history, I suppose if it comes down to paying the rent and putting food on the table versus the bill for that emergency room visit, you just give up on getting a credit card, financing a vehicle or anything else that would mean a credit check. Though there seem to be enough car dealers and rent-to-own furniture places,etc that boast about "No credit? Not an issue!" around that it's not impossible to live with bad credit, just harder is all.

You can live with lousy credit, but you're going to pay through the nose on interest. A bad credit score can cost you the chance to buy a better house or rent a nicer apartment. It can force you to buy things either on a cash-only basis, too, because no one will loan you money. Which also cuts into your opportunities to have credit cards with reasonable interest rates, reduces your chance to carry a Visa or Mastercard debit card from your financial institution (which deducts the purchase from your checking or savings account but is presented at the point of sale like a credit card), and might even cost you the opportunity to either be promoted in your current job or get hired to a better job. Employers don't want people who don't pay their bills to be responsible for important business decisions.

So pay your medical bills, people!

Kidding. Like Paul already said, this is a complicated issue with no single clear-cut simple answer. But I'm not convinced that the Federal government can run the system any better. New Jersey's successes shouldn't be used as fuel for Federal control because their system won't scale up to a national level, if for no other reason than the sheer size of such a system. And any system put in place will grow like mold in a flooded basement because that's what government agencies do.

Some cynic once said that the function of government is to perpetuate itself, and that's what I see nearly every government agency on any level doing. The people in the agency start out wanting to do their jobs, and because they're charged with carrying out this responsibility, they do it. Then some genius figures out that by adding this task or that process, they can get more money the next budget year, and their jobs will be that much safer from being eliminated. Before long, the sincere and hard-working and honest are displaced and overwhelmed by the opportunists because the oversight functions and agencies react so slowly. Before long, this bright new agency which began with so promising a future becomes bogged down in red tape and attention to process replace attention to people.

Do you doubt me? Look what happened in Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, how slowly the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reacted to the crisis. It wasn't President Bush's fault that the agency couldn't get their collective butts off their cushioned chairs, it was the institutional inertia and reluctance to actually make a controversial decision which cause so much trouble. And that's the fate of nearly every government agency ever introduced in the United States.

I'm concerned that a federal health care system would very quickly become a deeper morass than the current system, bent and damaged as it is.

Well, since I pay for everything on a cash-only basis already (despite a good credit rating), that really wouldn't bother me too much. I do have a credit card (which I've used perhaps four times in the past six years) but aside from our mortgage, we just don't want to add anymore stress to our lives when it comes to bill paying. I think buying on credit is a financial morass that has led a lot people to more grief than they ever could have imagined as they signed the back of that little piece of plastic just before they stuck it in their wallet. I've tried to stress to my kids that paying cash instead of using credit cards can be done and if they are smart, they won't get into the system and over their heads like so many people seem to do these days.

I don't think any one system of health-care and health-care funding is perfect. I do think that the current US system has flaws as seen in my previous post since it's obvious that those who can afford to pay are paying rates that are probably adjusted to help cover the costs of those who cannot afford to pay...hospitals are getting supplies at costs just as low (if not lower because of bulk buying) as the vet hospital I worked at but our markups never went over 150% and that was only on specialty items we paid extra shipping on.

I think Canadians would be shocked if every time they saw the doctor or were hospitalised, a copy of the costs the government covers was sent to them. I've had four ER visits since college, my husband has had two and my son two as well, plus the two births of my kids (an emergency C-section and a normal delivery with complications on my end) and of course the childhood visits to the doctor for my kids as well. Not to mention tests,etc for when I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease a while back and to this day I could not begin to tell you what any of this costs since my husband is a municipal director and we have extended health benefits from his employer so we don't even pay the nominal provincial health insurance fee.

I have to say I don't think I'd want the headache of dealing with health insurance carriers but I do think it would be nice to see what things cost so when the next big mouth starts complaining about his federal taxes, I could pull up his family's bills and show him where some of it went.

Hmmmm. Rights. It's very interesting to contemplate this concept. Really, what are rights?

I don't think rights exist as independent entities. I think that rights are something we create ourselves and give to each other.

Sometimes people will try to grab rights for themselves that others have not granted them. We call such right-grabbers criminals. Just the other day I read about such a right-grabber in Denmark. This man, eighty years old, had just recently moved to a home for old people. In order to spiff his room up he had spent more than he could afford on painting the walls, getting new curtains etcetera. He had overdrawn his account. He soon got a letter from his bank ordering him to pay the money back right away. The bank would not allow him to pay off his debt in monthly instalments. In response, the man bought himself a toy gun and walked - or rather limped, supported on a cane - into a branch of his bank and threatened a female cashier with his gun. "Don't be afraid, I won't shoot you," he told her, but he nevertheless managed to make her give him 32,000 Danish krone, about 6,000 dollars.

Now the eighty-year-old man will go to jail. Of course. We could argue, however, that the bank might be held partly responsible. If it had allowed the old man to pay off his debt in instalments, nothing may have happened. By enforcing the rights that it had been given under the system in which it was operating, the bank put the (irresponsible) man in a position where he might be evicted. But the bank had the right to act the way it did, because the Danish government, law, tradition etcetera gave it the right to ask its money back right away and to levy execution on the man's possessions if he did not pay up. The man, however, was not given the right to act the way he did by any significant force or actor in the Danish society.

Hmmmm. I'm reminded of a case in Sweden about a year ago. Sorry I don't remember the details. A man was leaving Sweden for a year to travel around the world. Meanwhile, he allowed another man to move into his rented apartment to live there while he himself, the owner of the lease, was away. But when the man returned, he found that the other guy refused to leave his apartment! And because the law had not really foreseen this situation, it turned out that there was no way that the police or anyone else could evict the guy! In the end it became necessary for the man who had the right to live there to give up his right to the lease, so that the owners of the apartment house could give the lease to someone else! And because these owners had the right to turn down anyone they found unsuitable, they could easily argue that the squatter's refusal to evacuate the apartment constituted a very good reason not to let him have the lease. And finally, this guy could be evicted. It had taken almost a year. But the guy who originally owned the lease could not move back.

My point is that societies will protect some people's rights in some situations, but they will not protect other people's rights in other situations. I think "rights" are pretty much unpredictable and erratic. And I really think that the members of a society bestow rights on one another, but they bestow these rights on different people in unequal amounts. We don't all have the same rights. If your father is rich, you will almost inevitbly be born to greater rights than if your father is poor.

I live in a society where you have to pay very high taxes. I trust that most of the taxes I pay will go to good causes. I trust that most of it will end up paying for doctors, nurses, teachers, hospitals, schools, old people's homes, day care centers, subsidized housing, unemployment compensation, disability and sickness pensions and the like. I don't think that I or anyone else has the right to such things, but it is important to me to live in a country where people are willing to contribute to the welfare of others by paying tax, so that the government gets the money it needs to distribute among us according to our needs.

In the latest election in Sweden, in 2006, a right-wing alliance won. The alliance had promised to give unemployed people jobs, and its campaign had been very inspiring and successful. When it won the election, it lowered the taxes for everyone who had a job, and the more money people made, the more their taxes were lowered. At the same time, the government cut down on the support for unemployed, sick and disabled people. Well, sigh. No, unemployed, sick and disabled people don't have the right to ask for money and support. I just want to live in a society where people feel responsible for one another and want to pay for everyone's welfare through their income taxes.

Ann

Saffron wrote:
That's an excellent way to live, but not everyone can do that. Most young people in the US, in fact, can't live on a cash-only basis, due to educational expenses or low income levels or trying to live to the limit of their means (which Saffron is properly trying to teach her own kids not to do). Besides, if Saffron lived in the US and had gotten into medical debt before buying her house, that's when the problems I described before would have kicked in.

So many people here in the US get in those situations that the law has actually addressed it. In most states, if you make a regular monthly payment on your medical bill, the account holder can't sue you for non-payment, even if you're paying $25 a month on a $10,000 bill. You might get some phone calls or stern letters urging you to increase your payments, but as long as you pay regularly, you won't be sued and it won't go on your credit report.

Of course, if you miss one month, all bets are off.

It's also possible that hospitals charge insurance companies such outlandish sums for cheap items (like suture material) to make up for the people whose debts they will never collect. If you go to any emergency room in the southwestern United States at nearly any hour of the day or night, you'll see people there who speak little or no English, only Spanish, waiting for treatment for their colds or minor injuries which don't require hospital care, but for which they will never pay because they're in this country illegally and won't be found when the bill comes due. They don't have to pay when treatment is rendered by the emergency room staff, but they would have to pay if they went to a private doctor or clinic.

And they get their treatment, which costs the hospitals thousands of dollars each month and which takes time and resources away from the people who truly need emergency medical treatment. This is yet another facet of this complex issue, one which so far has defeated the best efforts of men and women who are sincerely trying to solve the problem.

We cannot get past the fact that high-quality medical care costs money. Researching new drugs is expensive (AIDS and all kinds of cancer treatments), producing current drugs is expensive, building and maintaining health-care facilities is expensive, paying doctors and nurses (especially the nurses!) what they should be paid is expensive, training new health care professionals is expensive, and so on. Someone has to pay for all that, and whether it comes directly out of your pocket or you send it to a government agency first, you pay the bills in one way or another.

While discussing this issue, Ann wrote:
That's a very interesting statement. If an American political candidate had written that, he or she would be torn apart by the conservative commentators. Here's a short list of what we'd hear (not a comprehensive list, I promise).

"Don't you think people are responsible for themselves?"
"Why is it the job of the government to take care of people?"
"Why do you want to be everyone's nanny?"
"Communist!"
"You're abdicating your responsibility to your fellow man to some faceless government agency! You don't really care about people!"

And I don't for a moment think that any of those comments apply to Ann or to Swedes in general, so please don't bust me for them! I assure you, I put those in for illustration purposes, not to obliquely call anyone any names or cast aspersions upon anyone.

I do, however, want to point out that Ann's coming from what most Americans would call a socialist-leaning viewpoint (if not something stronger), and I believe that she truly believes that it's the best way to take care of people who can't (or won't) take care of themselves. And maybe for Sweden that's the optimum system.

But just because it might be best for Sweden doesn't mean it's the best system for every society in every nation. Psychologists and therapists tell us that if one gives money to a person (like to a child or to a friend) for any reason, one tends to be more interested in both the use of that money and the effectiveness of the help given than if one gives the money to an agency (welfare tax, church, United Way) for distribution to the needy. The natural tendency of human beings is that we pay attention to our own pocketbooks, be that right or wrong or neutral. Because Swedes are just like Americans in this regard, I would predict that most Swedes who support this kind of system would have less personal involvement in the use of that money than those who feel otherwise, just like most Americans would. And that's just because everybody's human, not because I think that America is better than any other country. Any nation is only as good as its people and its leaders, and no one has a monopoly on those qualities.

Don't have much to add just now, but just came across this story about a debate a little less civil than this one...

"Montgomery County authorities say a man stabbed his brother-in-law during an argument over who should get the Democratic nomination for president. What's more, Jose Ortiz, 28, who's charged with felony assault, is a registered Republican..."