Argue for Socialism

Government insurance plans also have fewer incentives to minimize fraud. If you factor in the 20%+ fraud that goes on here as part of admin costs, the comparison probably doesn't look quite so good.

Regardless, it's still a wrong-headed approach, imo: insurance as a means of providing/delivering healthcare. Doesn't matter if it's government run or privately run.

Want to improve access to healthcare for the population at-large? Then have the government provide it in full OR lower the costs. Imo.

Given those two scenarios, we can argue about which is better more effectively.

Don said:

I don't see it as sophisticated at all. I see it as very straightforward and a question every person should ask themselves.

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No, it is a language "trick" of defining the whole issue in such a narrow way as to force people to agree with you by accepting premises that are assumed but never stated or (more importantly) debated.

Hence "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Government is force. Government will take people's homes and put them in jail if they can't or won't pay their taxes. If you're seriously OK with somebody losing their home and going to jail in your name, then you can argue for government-sponsored anything. If you're not okay with that, then you should rethink your premises.

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Again, you are trying to force others into the tunnel vision with which you view the government. By the same argument, surgeons are nothing but sadists enjoying orgasm after orgasm as they get to slice into living flesh to carve it into a shape of their liking. After all, that is what surgeons do, right? Slice into living tissue to cut away bits of living beings? That is what surgery is, right? Well, of course not. And all your repetitions of "Government is force" do not succeed in making it somehow true.

You are wrong. Your premise is erroneous and so all the conclusions from which you derive that premise are likewise wrong. You have come up with a simplistic "answer" that simply ignores whole chunks of reality.

I'm struck by the recent increase in the meme that government cannot and must not be trusted

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For me, it's not so much that I don't trust government out of principle (though I am a theoretical anarchist), but that I don't think most of us distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate authorities. For the ideologue, they are lumped into one; that is, there is no such thing as a justified authority. I think we owe it to ourselves to think more critically. There are few absolutes.

OP: My understanding of socialism as a governmental institution and an economic principle is that it seeks to maximize the quality of life while minimizing the restrictions on freedom. The How of it takes many forms.



AMC

robeiae said:

Government insurance plans also have fewer incentives to minimize fraud. If you factor in the 20%+ fraud that goes on here as part of admin costs, the comparison probably doesn't look quite so good.

Regardless, it's still a wrong-headed approach, imo: insurance as a means of providing/delivering healthcare. Doesn't matter if it's government run or privately run.

Want to improve access to healthcare for the population at-large? Then have the government provide it in full OR lower the costs. Imo.

Given those two scenarios, we can argue about which is better more effectively.

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The overall cost is still 14% less, even with the fraud. That is not an insignificant difference.

And how do you lower the costs without a government-run system? No one has figured that out yet.

Hmmm... maybe a government-managed prevention campaign?

The employers give an optional insurance fund for private treatment, and the patient decides the provider of such treatment?

Romantic Heretic said:

I object very strongly to the false dichotomy between 'socialism' and 'capitalism'. The real decision does something belong in the public sphere, meaning it is a necessity for all citizens; or does it belong in the private sphere, meaning it is more effective to deliver it through private enterprise.

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Part of the problem with this discussion is that there are people, both here and elsewhere, who define virtually anything the FedGov does as socialism. Likewise, anything done through "private enterprise" is by definition more "efficient" than anything done by government.

caw

MacAllister said:

Those same memes tend to be anti-union, anti-compassion, and anti-regulation. The arguments for complete deregulation and privatization would roll economy, culture, and social-class structure back to the days of the robber-barons, when J.P. Morgan and John Jacob Astor owned entire cities and structured the resulting system so that anyone providing actual labor for them ended up ever more deeply indebted.

You know how the end of a game of Monopoly is only fun for the guy who managed to get ahold of Boardwalk and ParkPlace early on in the game, so he could systematically buy up the utilities, railroads, and everything else and bankrupt everyone else? And for everyone else playing, it's a sort of toothache kind of an experience, trying to stave off the inevitable?

I'm actively opposed to extending that structure to real life.

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Yet, standards of living for populations go up under systems that have more open competition for resources. It's not like there were was an unequal distribution of wealth before the robber barons. Hell, look at Europe during the same period.

The big difference is ultimately wealth creation. We want wealth creation, but at the same time, we want some measure of equality of outcome.

In my view, there's a necessary tension. Without that tension, things fall apart. So, we need voices clamoring for both extremes.

Of course, I also think the tension--in a given society--is a temporal thing. But you know me, always the optimist...

clintl said:

And how do you lower the costs without a government-run system? No one has figured that out yet.

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Well, we could start by dismantling HMOs, getting insurance companies out of the process, undoing the requirements for businesses to provide coverage, and instituting tort reform, for starters. Really, the big health insurance companies need to go the way of the dodo. Think about how much money they amass, year after year. All that money represents additional costs for services, passed on to the consumer.

But no one wants to go down that road...

clintl said:

The overall cost is still 14% less, even with the fraud. That is not an insignificant difference.

And how do you lower the costs without a government-run system? No one has figured that out yet.

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I'm not saying I disbelieve you, but I'd like a citation for that figure. I want it to be true.

clintl said:

The overall cost is still 14% less, even with the fraud. That is not an insignificant difference.

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If there's a fraud rate of 20% and that's tacked on to admin costs, there's no way the cost would be less than 14%.

SPMiller said:

I'm not saying I disbelieve you, but I'd like a citation for that figure. I want it to be true.

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Here you go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304692.html

robeiae said:

If there's a fraud rate of 20% and that's tacked on to admin costs, there's no way the cost would be less than 14%.

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You're wrong, Rob. Read the link.

Private sector insurance administrative costs are typically well over 30% of expenditures.

MacAllister said:

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This happens because America is the land of opportunity where everyone gets an equal chance at success.

clintl said:

You're wrong, Rob. Read the link.

Private sector insurance administrative costs are typically well over 30% of expenditures.

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My mistake. I thought you said the overall cost was 14%, not 14% less.

But I don't see where--in the link--the numbers include estimates of fraud.

SPMiller said:

This happens because America is the land of opportunity where everyone gets an equal chance at success.

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Some of us are more equal than others. Just as there is no such thing as a fair fight, there is no such thing as a fair economic system. What we do to level the playing feild in any economic system is how we make the system just, if not fair.


Richard

Assuming, of course, that those doing the "leveling" can be trusted to be fair...

robeiae said:

My mistake. I thought you said the overall cost was 14%, not 14% less.

But I don't see where--in the link--the numbers include estimates of fraud.

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It's total cost per beneficiary. That number would include all expenditures, including the ones that were the result of fraud.

And they cannot. Just look at how the regulators regulated the banks.


Richard

clintl said:

It's total cost per beneficiary. That number would include all expenditures, including the ones that were the result of fraud.

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I don't think so.

It can't be fixed, so don't try? Sorry, don't buy it.

Believe what you want, then. I do not see how it can possibly be read any other way. It's in plain English in the article. "Cost per beneficiary."

clintl said:

Believe what you want, then. I do not see how it can possibly be read any other way. It's in plain English in the article. "Cost per beneficiary."

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Some "beneficiaries" are phony. That's part of the fraud that is rampant in Medicare.

Regardless, fraud numbers are estimates, so I doubt they're included. Why do you assume that they are? I don't understand where you're getting that from.

The proportion of total cost that is classified as fraudulent is what's estimated. It's not like the money magically disappears; it has to come from somewhere.