RE: Nationalized Health Care - not all it's cracked up to be

Another email conversation:

 

 

What you don't realize is that the healthcare you're describing is a slippery slope to what you don't want.

 

Employers offer subsidized health insurance because it gives them tax breaks. It's also why they like to hire temps or part time rather than full time in big companies: because they are pretty much mandated to provide such health insurance when the company is over a certain size.

 

For every person that gets between your treatment and you, there is an increase in inefficient allocation of resources: your money being wasted. If mandatory subsidized health insurance weren't competing with single-payer point-of-service payment, it would be much cheaper to go to the doctor than it is now. Your doctor would be far more involved in discussing treatment options with you (yes, they are options.) Studies consistently find one of the single best predictors of successful medical treatment is patient involvement. The more we push off that responsibility for negotiating price to the insurance entity (I won't say "company" because we're increasingly going down the road of government making those payment decisions), the less people are involved in the decision making process of what treatment is best in their own, individual case. In fact, the moer the insurance entity is involved, the less say an individual has, even when they do try to take personal responsibility for themselves. Not to mention institutional practices so widespread as to be beyond the sway of any individual's ability to influence.

 

On the other hand, paying out of pocket for routine expenses and pooling risk (through insurance) for those statistically but not personally predictable occasions when the financial burden is overwhelming; that needs no government interference or incentivization.

 

Our current model is better than what is being proposed, but it's not nearly as good as the model we used 3 or 4 decades ago.

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:35 PM, my Bro-in-law wrote:

 

And this is why I am so fucking happy with my healthcare....dammit I pay 80 bucks a month plus 300 dollars a year deductible for a 15 dollar copay on all visits with damn near no other costs....and I can get a bed at my nearby hospital within hours of going to the emergency room or urgent care.  This administration is a fucking joke and its stuff like this that lends credibility to our capitalist society.  Fuck socialism, we're the USA not the USSA.

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 10:48 AM, I pointed out to my Bro-in-law:

"It's hard to say that the Canadian government guarantees health care, at least in the usual sense of the word "guarantee." In fact, what the government really guarantees is that if you get health care, you won't be allowed to pay for it, and it is this guarantee that makes you have to wait to get it. The government also guarantees something else: If health care providers try to set up their own clinics and charge willing patients for medical care, the government will shut them down. "

 

Canadafornia

 

 

Listen, don't just hear...

If only people would pay attention. When you listen to a celebrity talking head don't just nod your head in time to the damn lyrics. Pay attention to what they are actually saying. And if you don't agree with it, don't buy it.

 

I won't buy a Green Day album, for example. The ignorant bastards comment on things they haven't bothered to study, from a shallow and self-centered, not to mention self-indulgent perspective. And we, the American people, for some reason promote that shallow and self-centered point of view even in people we disagree with. Lots of people don't agree that America is the root of all evil, but they don't bother to bestir themselves enough to resist the meme even in small ways that would not inconvenience themselves- I believe it's because they're nodding their heads in time and not thinking at all.

New website for listing "For Sale" and "For Rent" properties

A close friend is launching a new side business. Please take a look:

Hello to everyone. I am launching a new website that I hope is an easy and inexpensive way for people to advertise their homes online.I need help in getting an initial database of homes. In my effort to attract people to list on my website, I am giving ALL new listings a free 1 year subscription. If you have a rental property or you are selling a home, PLEASE go post your home on my website, WWW.MYEASYLISTINGS.COM. If you have friends that have a house; please, forward to them and anyone else you know. Sorry for the spam. It would be greatly appreciated if you forward to as many people as you can.

Please visit www.MyEasyListings.com, check it out and tell everyone you know about it.

 Some of the features that set our site apart from the rest are:

If you are posting listings:

1.       You are able to edit your listing at anytime.

2.        You can add and remove Open Houses at anytime.

3.       You can manage all your listings from one central Dashboard.

4.       You are able to remove your listing from the public eye without deleting it and then republish it at a later time.

5.       You can create, view, and save as many listings as you would like without paying a thing.

6.       You pay for listings (or use the FREE TRIAL) when you are ready to publish.

 

If you are searching listings:

1.       Searching is easy and intuitive.

2.       You can easily save a listing to your favorites, viewable in your Dashboard.

3.       You can be notified when listings get posted based on search criteria that you define in "I'm Looking for".

4.       All Favorites and Matches get saved to your Dashboard for easy reference.

 

It's very easy to get started, just go to www.MyEasyListings.com and create an account, from there you can list as many homes as you like.  As a "Grand Opening" special, we are offering a 1 year free trial on all listings for a limited time. There is no risk to give it a try.  There is no credit card required for the free trial. There is nothing installed on your computer and the only information we get from you, is what you put in your profile and listings.

We are always looking for feedback so we would appreciate your communication. If there is something you would like to see or find helpful about this listing site please let us know.

 

Thank you,

admin@myeasylistings.com

 

Becky's right

...as usual. She's even work safe this time, although all the crap she has on her blog seems to making it slow to load.

HOA's

This (http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=10651525) is why I will never buy a property with an HOA.

 

(via http://www.saysuncle.com/)

By way of thanks

Here's a list of gratuitous links to my friends and blog-buddies who have referred someone to me in the last week. May it drive up your standing in Google, if ever so slightly:

Roberta X

Ace of Spades HQ

Breda

Kid Velvet

Cosmic Babe

Clue Meter

Cowboy Blob

Neptunus Lex

No Man's Blog

Anarchangel

Hit Coffee

Just basic healthcare

Had a good conversation with friends this weekend. Good-hearted people, all well enough off to have health insurance, mostly as a work benefit, still on the upswing of our careers, and unlikely to ever be left without health insurance or other options for very long.

They're all in favour of basic coverage for everybody, without really being invested in discovering what that would take. Emotionally, they are simply compassionate enough to want everybody to have "the basics" covered.

I think we may have opened a couple minds to the economic realities of the situation as it stands. These are not dumb people (you know who you all are lol) but I get the impression they simply haven't looked into the system deeply enough to understand how it works.

Well, here's how it works from an end-user perspective, and if you can wrap your heads around that, I'll feel like I have at least gotten "the basics" covered.

Some more resources:

Despite the increases, Canada, with 12 CT scanners and 6 MRI machines per million population, falls below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) median

Here we see some of the trade-offs of the patient not being the one directly responsible for payment. Would more testing help or hurt? It's something that should be negotiated between the doctor and patient, depending upon the individual facts of the individual's illness, but our system increasingly encourages us to go for the maximum because we don't pay for it.

Here we see that even when people are waiting too long for treatment, Government-run healthcare monopolies care moe about punishing the private operators who do provide a timely service, than actually providing the necessary service. This is because of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureacracy:

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.

Also stated as:

...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Which means, in the end, any organization will eventually come to serve the purpose of its own existence, over any purported mission it was originally designed for. It's social evolution, and it responds to the same survival imperative to which individual organisms are subject. The 'best' way to do that is to increase the scope of the stated mission, to consolidate power, eliminate competition, etc.

But competition is what drives prices down, and causes innovation (evolution). So a bureacracy will ALWAYS stagnate the economic ecosystem, until one of them dies.

Independence Day

I hope you all had a happy and safe Independence Day. Personally I found the explosions caused me a little more stress than I expected.

I hope you all took the opportunity to tell your kids what the "4th of July" is all about. Such a memorable event is a great tie-in to valuable lessons in liberty. Sadly, most kids can't even give you the proper name for the event, much less tell you what it is about.

Helluva week

Just gotta get thru tomorrow, and then spend a couple days camping to throw off the scent of civilization.

Unique in my experience...

I voted my Citigroup shares via the Intarweb today...

In the wind

It was a good day for riding the motorcycle.

Had a good email discussion today in response to this article:

NOTE: All of these people are my personal friends!!! No bashing these amiable differences of opinion!!!

Dan1 says:

"Who would of thought that the ACLU would actually fight for something worthwhile?"

Tara says:

"I totally agree with the statement that some TSA agents have "mission creep" issues.  I witnessed a situation where a family was getting verbally harassed by a TSA, causing the mother (and subsequently the child) to cry.  The attitude of the TSA was completely unnecessary. "

Derrick says:

"Totally true.. However, this guy was just being a jackoff. He knew he was being recorded so he was trying to instigate them into doing or saying something that would get him on the news. All he had to do was answer the question and none of this would have went down. If he had nothing to hide he shouldn't of been acting like he needed a lawyer."

Yours Truly:

"That's complete bullshit, D. There was no legal reason he had to answer questions. In fact, he would be *stupid* to answer any questions not knowing what law he might be falling afoul of. A few thousand dollars in cash is not that much, and is not illegal, there's no reason to have pursued it further.
 
He's also a political activist- it is his job to point out failings of the system. The whole point of his political career as a Libertarian activist is to point out the intrusive nature of government. He would have been remiss to not capitalize on this, it's the perfect example oif what his message is trying to convey.
 
Third, I would record any interaction with the law that I might ever have too. Any time some police agency starts asking you questions, especially questions about your own actions, even if you are pretty sure you are in the right, you'd better shut your mouth and lawyer up. I'll try to dig it up, there's a great video of a police officer who is attending law school giving a presentation on the 5th Amendment- he says do not ever answer a question from the cops without a lawyer. Absolutely nothing you can say to the cops can ever help you in court in any way. A cop's interview of you is evidence for the prosecution, but cannot be used by the defense unless the prosecution enters it into evidence first. So a statement "I only had one beer" can be used for probable cause for a field sobriety test but cannot be used as exculpatory evidence, for example.
 
The idea: "If he had nothing to hide he shouldn't of been acting like he needed a lawyer" is shortsighted and shallow thinking, my friend. That kind of thinking has gotten us to the point where little old grannies get frisked because their underwire bra set off a metal detector."

Dan2 says:

"In Derrick's defense...
Military training to do without asking questions plays a huge part in this thought process and can be summed up as "just shut up and get the job done." Unfortunately it is this way of thinking that continues to lead us down the road of 'Government run lives.' Just remember government is for the people and by the people meaning they need to shut up and do as they are told and not visa versa."

Derrick again:

"You both are retarded and should move to montana and start your own militia together.. You both are seriously overboard....there is a time and a place. If he was abiding by the letter of the law then he should of answered the question. Someone carrying large amounts of money on a plane should raise the attention of TSA, if he has simply answered the question "why are you carrying this cash" he wouldn't have had the problem. I think TSA was completly justified in asking that question. No doubt they often over step their bounds many times a day. There are many things that us simple folks do everyday that can be perscived as illegal activity, only to find out that our actions are completly legal and safe after scratching the surface. If the TSA had ingored the cash.. what would you be saying then?? "Oh TSA isn't protecting us.. grumble grumble... we need a revolution..lets move to montana"

I remember a time was Dan was drinking a root beer in a brown glass bottle while driving (you know the ones that look like a BEER). The cop pulled up next to Dan and realized it was a soda. If the cop had pulled Dan over, by your logic he wouldn't justified, and Dan would have everyright to be a dick and not answer "what is in the bottle"  Because Dan's actions were completly legal.

This has nothing to do with questioning what the government is doing and your surroundings.

Dan2:

"Your example is retarded! Drinking a root beer while driving can appear to be an illegal act. Carrying $5000 in cash between two locations in the same Country is not illegal. In fact, I can take up to $10,000 between here and Mexico without a single question legally being asked.
 
As for moving to Montana: Sorry but they fall under the same crap laws the rest of the US does. I'll take the first seceded state that binds itself to the US constitution and not what a Supreme court judge FEELS is right."

Derrick:

"Questioning is not illegal.. in fact, as you and Larry point out it is necessary. So, for TSA or Law Enforcement or a Citizen to ask questions it is a needed part of this society for personal protection and constitutional protection. If those questions do not get answered; whether you are asking them of the government or the government asks them of you, will raise suspicions, regardless of if they are justified suspicions or not..  It is when the Government and Civilians do not ask the questions is when things start to go wrong.

 I agree with the overall point You and Larry are trying to make. However, I think this was a question that had an easy answer and was a perfectly legal answer, by choosing to not answer that question, whether right or wrong, raises suspicions. Was the letter of the law followed, probably not.. did this guy exaggerate and exploit the situation because he was recording, probably. 
 
I also think that this was most likely staged to obtain the desired outcome to use for political ammunition."

Your Humble Scribe, Once Again:

"Derrick,
 
You make some valid points, but people are not accountable to Government, it's the other way around. No more than you should have to answer to your neighbor for how much cash you have on hand- really, it's none of their damn business. The government is just a proxy for the people- if you shouldn't have to answer to your neighbor for something, then it's not something the government should be involved in either. If there is reasonable suspicion of an actual crime being committed, then Government may ask questions. I agree that it gets shady around the edges, but mere posession of money is not just cause for suspicion. Particularly within the confines of one country. Even posessing over $10k and traveling with it is not illegal, you simply have to declare it. Carrying well under half that amount in circumstances where one has no requirement to declare it is clearly not grounds for detainment. As soon as he declined to answer their questions he should have been let go.
 
In response to your idea while we were at work, that we would be complaining if he went on to use it for illegal purposes, well, we would use it as evidence at his trial, and that would be enough for me. While I understand that most people nowadays are used to coddling and the idea that we MUST DO SOMETHING to prevent as much crime as possible, I have two arguments. First, you can't prevent every possible crime and still have a society which is even vaguely "free". Second, most of what government does in order to be seen DOING SOMETHING usually turns out to have a negative effect in the end; it both fails to hit the target and also has lots of unintended consequences.
 
We work on what is called the "common law" model, that comes mostly from British history. Under this system, that which is not specifically forbidden is allowed- basically something is either illegal or not addressed at all. We don't need explicit permission to live our lives. We are also presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. There was not a presumption of innocence in this case. In fact, the direct opposite. They didn't even know what to suspect him of, as the direct facts of his actions are not illegal.
 
This is opposed to the other main, Western tradition of law, "statutory law" (basically the French model, but that's not important) which tries to define everything in terms of legal or illegal. This latter approach is doomed to failure, through sheer volume, if nothing else. Really, there is just no way to define every possible matter on which the law might conceivably touch- and it would be a very unhappy, totalitarian state that would even seriously try.

(sidenote: in American legal terms, there is also statutory law and case law, which mean something slightly different. I'm talking about the underlying philosophy of law rather than technical terms in modern usage.)
 
I agree this guy definitely used the situation and possibly even aggravated it: however he was perfectly within his rights to do so, and the government was in the wrong- clearly demonstrated by the fact they couldn't charge him with anything. Government agents are not there to help you. They are there to perpetuate their own careers.
 
I think you're wrong about the staging aspect, I find it hard to believe he could readily anticipate this much hassle for such a small amount of money (in absolute terms). I do believe he took full advantage of the situation to advance his agenda and I applaud his willingess and courage in doing so.
 
I know you see this as someone who is just being contrarian and unnecessarily difficult. A lot of politicians see the voters the same way. In any case, there is no speech that is (rightly) protected so strongly as political speech. It is THE most important and foundational aspect of our system of government. However, all the civil liberties work together, and this was an infringement upon at least three- the 1st, 4th, and 5th amendments. As he was a political activist carrying funds raised specifically for political speech and activities, it should bother all of us that he was hassled, becaus ewhile this case was probably just overzealous employees abusing their authority, it could very easily become a tool of oppression.
 
If we don't put limits on our government, we will quickly all become criminals- it's the easiest way to control the population.  Any government that has enough power to do good, also has the power to do evil. Most of the 'good' we can accomplish on our own. Most of the 'evil' comes as a mass movement that an individual has no hope of standing against. Protest early, and strenuously, to any usurpation of our individual sovereignty and any curtailment of our liberty."