Recently I received a forward from a dear reader of this blog (well, or more like forced reader, since I send all of you an email everytime I crank this crap out), from a co-worker who sent her an article on how some social security checks were sent out to dead people--the original sender (not my lovely reader of course) then made a comment to the tune of "so you want our government running health care?"
There is a sentiment throughout our society that government cannot run things efficiently--ever--and that this fact alone means that we should never let the government do anything, because it will be...ah yes, inefficient. This is dumb. And though it would be perhaps foolish of me to do it given that some of my dear, forced readers believe this as well--oh what the hell--people that believe this are dumb. Dummies, morons, fools, and extremely easily tricked and manipulated. At the very least, they are undereducated, and lack intellectual curiosity.
A couple of points in response if I may:
1) If private corporations are more efficient and make less mistakes than the government, why did the banking industry fail and why are we currently in the biggest recession in about 50 years? What about GM, Chrysler, or any other private corporation that has filed bankruptcy etc? Not too terribly efficient are they--so yes, though the government makes mistakes, there is nothing about running a business that is somehow a saving grace against screw ups--its called human fallability.
2) Using one example of a screw up does not damn an entire system. People make this mistake all the time. They think that just because they know someone who has done this, or done that, or something that somehow magically defies conventional wisdom, that this means that it always happens and is true and logical--I've heard so many outright lies of this nature, because someone was unwilling to concede an argument. Again, giving one provincial example to prove a point that is related to hundreds of thousands of people or a tremendously complex system is a drop in the bucket, and without thousands of similar examples, should be completely disregarded. Your buddy may well have an uncle in the Ozarks that cured his lung cancer by drinking bathtub gin, but that doesn't mean the Mayo clinic is going to start offering the Cletus Cocktail to cure its patients.
3) The government run health care system already operates more efficiently than private health care. Medicare (though it is running out of money because it caters to people who need an unbelieveable amount of care--oldsters), is administrated at a cost of about 2%, depending on where you get your data, and most HMO's operate at a cost of 9%.
4) When competition cannot produce a better product at a lower price, it doesn't do anyone any good to have it (on a side note, this is why we allow public monopolies, such as PGE, or the water or sewage company--it would be silly to build more than one electric grid, water, or sewage system--inefficient, more precisely), especially when you consider that it is not as if you can pick and choose whether or not you get treatment. If you break a leg, you don't wait for the price to go down, or go to the cheapest doctor--you go to a doctor you are comfortable with, and get a cast, or go to the emergency room.
This is the reason that health care costs have gone up tremendously in the last few years...people can't very well just not go to the doctor if they are seriously ill, and the HMO's make a higher profit by DENYING these people treatment and making it as difficult to access their health care as possible. In any private industry, corporations are going to seek to increase their market share as much as possible (as they should), and that is exactly what has happened with the health care industry.
Consider these facts:
-About 45 million Americans do not have health insurance, including 9 million children.
-We currently spend about $2.2 trillion on health care every year. That amounts to $7,421 per person!
-If the current rate growth in the health care industry continues, 1 out of every $4 in the U.S. economy will be tied up for this purpose by 2025.
-Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases.
-Americans spend more money on health care than on food or housing.
Now, think of insurance as an umbrella--the more people under that umbrella, the larger the umbrella needs to be, and the more efficient it becomes. You need less material to cover 20 people with one giant umbrella than you would need if every single person had an individual umbrella. Additionally, most of the people are in no danger of getting wet (healthy) with one umbrella--it would only be the people on the outside that were in any danger (sick); whereas if everyone has a small, individual umbrella, they are all in danger of being outside of their coverage.
In other words, since there are many, many more people that are healthy at any one time, than are sick, the larger the insurance pool is, the lower the cost of coverage. So putting every American under the same umbrella would save us a lot of money (single payer health care).
5) Things are getting pretty bad in this country and we need to change the way we do things. Arguing, as the Republicans do, against change of any kind is not maintaining the status quo, because things are already getting worse, so arguing against change to fix these problems is actively harming the general American public. There is no reason that we can't make government run effectively and efficiently to make it do the things we want it to do, and one of those things it can and needs to run is health care.
6) Many people somehow think that changing to a public health care system will cost us money--it won't! THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF CHANGING TO GOV. HEALTHCARE DUMMIES! Going to a single payer system will have a number of benefits: a) employers will no longer have to provide health care for their employees, making their profit margins larger, which means that they can either pay their employees more, take more home for themselves, or both; b) we will drastically reduce the number of people that are not covered and have to use the emergency room to get care, which is tremendously more expensive than regular visits to the doctor; and c) because we will all be in the same system, public pressure to keep it efficient will be tremendous, giving each American much more leverage than they currently enjoy with their soulless HMO.
Look, we can all sit here and listen to the wolves baying outside our door, but they're picking people off every so often, and pretty soon their gonna find us and kill us, and being too scared to confront and kill them isn't going to solve our problems. Yes, change is scary, but I would rather face that fear than piss the bed like a little kid because I'm too scared to get up and go to the bathroom. This is the difference between adults and children. Adults use facts, knowledge, and confront their problems in a rational way by finding solutions. Children beg mommy to make it better.
Be an adult.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
I Didn't Vote for Compromise (earmuffs)
I'm probably going to sound a lot more like an asshole conservative than I'm comfortable with, but I'm mad. Barack Obama called in health care industry leaders on Monday, apparently so that they could sit around and sing "Kumbaya," eat pastries, and "voluntarily" cut 2 trillion dollars of their burgeoning system.
Yes that's right, they are going to "voluntarly" do it...if you follow me that means that: A) They've been sticking it to the American consumer for years unnecessarily, B) They have made zero priority to make their businesses efficient (a huge argument against the competition axiom economic conservatives tout...the assclowns), and C) There are going to be no penalties for these people if they don't "voluntarily" accomplish any of this.
You want to know why else I want to punt a small dog? Well, maybe I'm just not so big on trust these days, especially when it comes to mindless, soul-crushing corporations that could give two shits about the people that die because they can't afford coverage, and employ a phalanx of lawyers so they can deny coverage to the people that can. The people that run these companies are some of the worst kind of life sucking vampires that humanity is capable of producing (and no, not the cute, day walking dipshits in Twilight--which is a dumb, worthless book).
But I am really mad at Barack Obama. I didn't vote for waffling, compromise, and feel good rhetoric (well, maybe a little)--I voted for fucking change. Real change, not once again letting the lions into the herd, and asking them to be a little less greedy. I mean, John McCain probably would have bought the guys prostitutes, gone around lighting cubans with hundred dollar bills, and handed them the keys to the fucking treasury--after all, that is the Republican way--but still, I expected more from Democracy's savior.
Honestly, it would be nice if Obama turned his eloquence into action. He has made some outstanding points about the state of public education, and on Monday again paraded out the landslide of reasons we cannot continue with our current health care system. Yet, we have still to see anything major out of this administration except more of the same. More bailouts for irresponsibly run corporations, no teeth on investigating the abuses of the constitution in the past, and the tendency when an industry has run amok, to invite the leaders of that industry in to fix it. Perhaps I misunderstood my parents, but two wrongs still don't make a right...right?
For now, I am still waiting for Obama to become the man he promised to be during his campaign. I voted for action on these issues, and as soon as Franken gets seated, Obama will have no excuse but to move forward with the sweeping change he promised. Make no mistake, our country is in dire trouble if we don't change the way we do things, and change them drastically. Waffling, bipartisanship, consensus building, and compromise is not going to get it done. And neither are fantastical stories about day walking faggot vampires.
Yes that's right, they are going to "voluntarly" do it...if you follow me that means that: A) They've been sticking it to the American consumer for years unnecessarily, B) They have made zero priority to make their businesses efficient (a huge argument against the competition axiom economic conservatives tout...the assclowns), and C) There are going to be no penalties for these people if they don't "voluntarily" accomplish any of this.
You want to know why else I want to punt a small dog? Well, maybe I'm just not so big on trust these days, especially when it comes to mindless, soul-crushing corporations that could give two shits about the people that die because they can't afford coverage, and employ a phalanx of lawyers so they can deny coverage to the people that can. The people that run these companies are some of the worst kind of life sucking vampires that humanity is capable of producing (and no, not the cute, day walking dipshits in Twilight--which is a dumb, worthless book).
But I am really mad at Barack Obama. I didn't vote for waffling, compromise, and feel good rhetoric (well, maybe a little)--I voted for fucking change. Real change, not once again letting the lions into the herd, and asking them to be a little less greedy. I mean, John McCain probably would have bought the guys prostitutes, gone around lighting cubans with hundred dollar bills, and handed them the keys to the fucking treasury--after all, that is the Republican way--but still, I expected more from Democracy's savior.
Honestly, it would be nice if Obama turned his eloquence into action. He has made some outstanding points about the state of public education, and on Monday again paraded out the landslide of reasons we cannot continue with our current health care system. Yet, we have still to see anything major out of this administration except more of the same. More bailouts for irresponsibly run corporations, no teeth on investigating the abuses of the constitution in the past, and the tendency when an industry has run amok, to invite the leaders of that industry in to fix it. Perhaps I misunderstood my parents, but two wrongs still don't make a right...right?
For now, I am still waiting for Obama to become the man he promised to be during his campaign. I voted for action on these issues, and as soon as Franken gets seated, Obama will have no excuse but to move forward with the sweeping change he promised. Make no mistake, our country is in dire trouble if we don't change the way we do things, and change them drastically. Waffling, bipartisanship, consensus building, and compromise is not going to get it done. And neither are fantastical stories about day walking faggot vampires.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Incentives and Disincentives
There's a lot of complaining that goes on in school. The teachers complain, the kids complain, the parents complain, I complain (there is an abundance of evidence on this blog particularly), everyone complains. I suppose that is the way it is anywhere with people, as long as they have the freedom to do so. And complaining is fine, if, when it reaches a loud enough volume, something is done: either the complainers shut up, or the problem that they are complaining about gets solved.
OK, so you can stop holding your breath--I'm not going to shut up. But today, I am going to offer some solutions to some of the most glaring problems our country faces in this time of economic distress.
Economists are big fans of incentives--financial or other benefits for the exibition of a particular desired behavior. I believe that many of the situations we find ourselves in now could be solved by simply implementing the proper incentive, or disincentive. For example, our students are not acheiving to the levels we need them be at in school--this has to do with lack of effort on the student's part, parents that are not helping their kids, and/or teachers that are poor or not trying. Why not create an incentive for performance? If a kid goes to school and does not try or show effort, and fails more than half of his/her classes, we fine the parents $1000 for wasting the taxpayer's money OR they get to work off their fees by joining the military. And if a teacher fails to show improvement during observations and their students do not show gains on a district approved pre and post test for that course, they do not advance on the pay scale for the next year...if they do show improvement, instead of going up the usual one year on the scale, they advance two years.
With illegal immigration, simply pass a law with a 10 year jail sentence for those who hire illegal immigrants. A strong jail sentence works with this kind of crime, because employers are rational people; in fact, that is precisely why they hire illegal immigrants in the first place--because it is cheaper. Pass a law that strongly punishes the hiring of illegals, publicize it, and pull off a couple of high profile stings every so often. No fence needed.
And look, as far as tax revenue is concerned, why not kill two birds with one stone and legalize marijuana? That way, you can tax the living day lights out of it, and you don't have to spend the money to police, prosecute, and imprison the people that use it.
Finally, can we please just go ahead and do single payer health care by putting everyone on medicare? It would be so much more efficient than having privatized health care. Competition in the case of health care, has failed--and if you still think competition is so great for areas of our economy that are essential to life, you are an idiot, you are wrong, and you may as well believe in unicorns and pixies, because the logic behind that argument is pure fantasy. It's like so many other things conservatives believe in--good rhetoric, but ridiculous when examined with any rational scrutiny.
What I really don't understand is why Obama hasn't done some of these things? I voted for change damnit!
OK, so you can stop holding your breath--I'm not going to shut up. But today, I am going to offer some solutions to some of the most glaring problems our country faces in this time of economic distress.
Economists are big fans of incentives--financial or other benefits for the exibition of a particular desired behavior. I believe that many of the situations we find ourselves in now could be solved by simply implementing the proper incentive, or disincentive. For example, our students are not acheiving to the levels we need them be at in school--this has to do with lack of effort on the student's part, parents that are not helping their kids, and/or teachers that are poor or not trying. Why not create an incentive for performance? If a kid goes to school and does not try or show effort, and fails more than half of his/her classes, we fine the parents $1000 for wasting the taxpayer's money OR they get to work off their fees by joining the military. And if a teacher fails to show improvement during observations and their students do not show gains on a district approved pre and post test for that course, they do not advance on the pay scale for the next year...if they do show improvement, instead of going up the usual one year on the scale, they advance two years.
With illegal immigration, simply pass a law with a 10 year jail sentence for those who hire illegal immigrants. A strong jail sentence works with this kind of crime, because employers are rational people; in fact, that is precisely why they hire illegal immigrants in the first place--because it is cheaper. Pass a law that strongly punishes the hiring of illegals, publicize it, and pull off a couple of high profile stings every so often. No fence needed.
And look, as far as tax revenue is concerned, why not kill two birds with one stone and legalize marijuana? That way, you can tax the living day lights out of it, and you don't have to spend the money to police, prosecute, and imprison the people that use it.
Finally, can we please just go ahead and do single payer health care by putting everyone on medicare? It would be so much more efficient than having privatized health care. Competition in the case of health care, has failed--and if you still think competition is so great for areas of our economy that are essential to life, you are an idiot, you are wrong, and you may as well believe in unicorns and pixies, because the logic behind that argument is pure fantasy. It's like so many other things conservatives believe in--good rhetoric, but ridiculous when examined with any rational scrutiny.
What I really don't understand is why Obama hasn't done some of these things? I voted for change damnit!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Jumping to Judgment Without Rationale
I was reading an advice column (AN advice column Dom, now lets not reply all kiddos) the other day (I know--how super emo of me), and I noticed that the ridiculous nature of the advice being given is a classic pattern of thinking in our irrational society. In it, the lady said that the petitioner should just immediately leave her boyfriend because he was giving her the silent treatment (women NEVER do that--its so childish) after they had an argument. I was amazed at what a quick rush to judgment this was--the advice columnist, miss Carolyn Hax (who is a total hack), immediately assumed the woman was on the right side of this argument, and that the gentleman in question must have been behaving like a total jerk, without even knowing anything about the scenario of the relationship or nature of the argument.
Sound familiar? This quick rush to judgment is a veritable pandemic in our society, a distinct pathological characteristic of the American zeitgeist that probably owes its existence to our lamentable puritanical past. It is the reason that we so strictly punsih criminals and have the largest prison population in the world, and probably the reason Fox News is able to exist. As a society, we are so self-righteous, so holier than though, and if we are a Christian nation, we did certainly not learn our Sunday school lessons, in which Jesus Christ explains that one should not judge others, lest ye be judged. If this is true, we are in for a hell of a lot of judgement, and it won't be the first time (or the last) that "Christians" end up looking a lot more like jerks than genuinely decent people.
I don't know if people understand this, but you aren't going to teach anyone any lessons by being an asshole...you're not making the world a better place by being so harsh and quick to judgement, and in the end it is just ridiculous, not to mention tremendously narcissistic. Somehow, we think we've taught people a lesson, when in fact, the opposite has happened: the accused now has every reason to believe they've been treated unfairly and is given no reason to examine the validity of their own actions.
I mean, I used to do it, I'd purposely not do jerky things that guys get accused of being horrible people, specifically because I did not want to give men a bad name.
This, at least, until I realized, that even if I do something totally justified, girls are going to think men are bad people anyway. I was not teaching the female gender at large any grand lesson through my behavior--my attachment to moral behavior was just that--an attachment--it had absolutely zero effect on the world around me. In other words, yes, people do dumb things that are hurtful and inconsiderate, but we don't make them any better or make the world a better place by shunning them and acting like jerks ourselves.
In the same way, this woman who was told by the hack to dump her boyfriend, will not guarantee her better treatment in the future, nor will it, in all likelihood, alter his behavior in similar circumstances. Politicians are big fans of saying they are tough on crime because they pass harsh penalties for particular crimes, when in reality, they are only increasing the jail time of those we catch. When people do bad things they know they shouldn't do, the overwhelming majority do it because they believe they will not get caught, so the consequences are completely inconsequential.
Harsh prison sentences do nothing to deter crime, as harsh social consequences do nothing to deter bad behavior. As long as the reasons and rational exists to commit a crime or behave poorly (not to mention human imperfection and tendency to err), it will continue to happen. And the longer our society continues with this tremendous sense of self-righteuosness and narcissistic indignation, the longer we will continue to have bad policies like our failed war on drugs and failed system of education, and continue to have failed political and social discourse on matters that are utterly inconsequential and meaningless.
NOTE: If you would like to comment on this or any of the other blogs, please go ahead and comment on this blog right here!
Sound familiar? This quick rush to judgment is a veritable pandemic in our society, a distinct pathological characteristic of the American zeitgeist that probably owes its existence to our lamentable puritanical past. It is the reason that we so strictly punsih criminals and have the largest prison population in the world, and probably the reason Fox News is able to exist. As a society, we are so self-righteous, so holier than though, and if we are a Christian nation, we did certainly not learn our Sunday school lessons, in which Jesus Christ explains that one should not judge others, lest ye be judged. If this is true, we are in for a hell of a lot of judgement, and it won't be the first time (or the last) that "Christians" end up looking a lot more like jerks than genuinely decent people.
I don't know if people understand this, but you aren't going to teach anyone any lessons by being an asshole...you're not making the world a better place by being so harsh and quick to judgement, and in the end it is just ridiculous, not to mention tremendously narcissistic. Somehow, we think we've taught people a lesson, when in fact, the opposite has happened: the accused now has every reason to believe they've been treated unfairly and is given no reason to examine the validity of their own actions.
I mean, I used to do it, I'd purposely not do jerky things that guys get accused of being horrible people, specifically because I did not want to give men a bad name.
This, at least, until I realized, that even if I do something totally justified, girls are going to think men are bad people anyway. I was not teaching the female gender at large any grand lesson through my behavior--my attachment to moral behavior was just that--an attachment--it had absolutely zero effect on the world around me. In other words, yes, people do dumb things that are hurtful and inconsiderate, but we don't make them any better or make the world a better place by shunning them and acting like jerks ourselves.
In the same way, this woman who was told by the hack to dump her boyfriend, will not guarantee her better treatment in the future, nor will it, in all likelihood, alter his behavior in similar circumstances. Politicians are big fans of saying they are tough on crime because they pass harsh penalties for particular crimes, when in reality, they are only increasing the jail time of those we catch. When people do bad things they know they shouldn't do, the overwhelming majority do it because they believe they will not get caught, so the consequences are completely inconsequential.
Harsh prison sentences do nothing to deter crime, as harsh social consequences do nothing to deter bad behavior. As long as the reasons and rational exists to commit a crime or behave poorly (not to mention human imperfection and tendency to err), it will continue to happen. And the longer our society continues with this tremendous sense of self-righteuosness and narcissistic indignation, the longer we will continue to have bad policies like our failed war on drugs and failed system of education, and continue to have failed political and social discourse on matters that are utterly inconsequential and meaningless.
NOTE: If you would like to comment on this or any of the other blogs, please go ahead and comment on this blog right here!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Fat People Having Kids
I think if our country was a sitcom, it could accurately be called, "Fat people having kids." Maybe they could get Kelly Clarkson to do the theme song (I bet she'd do it for a life time supply of KFC). Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that everyone is fat and irresponsible, but lets face it, a ass load of people are, and most of them fall into that category--fat, and having children. This may rub some people the wrong way, but the newest addition to this group are our freindly flu spreading neighbors to the south. Hispanics are having kids like I order cocktails on Fridays, and most of them aren't skinny.
So where am I going with this? Nowhere really, I mean just because someone is fat and/or has children doesn't mean they are a bad person, but it is a hell of a good start. First of all, fat people require a great deal more medical care than healthy people, because they are more likely to get sick, and more likely to have heart disease or develop cancer. Pregnant people and children also require a great deal of care...that's not good for the most expensive health care system in the world.
Second, being an obese, childblasting nation is symbolic, if not symtomatic of our problems. Fatness is lazyness, and having tons of kids is irresponsible, and that's exactly what we are as a nation: lazy and irresponsible. Not only that, we are gullible and paranoid. This whole swine flu pandemic reveals that--our media spends all this time talking about the swine flu, and people start freaking out about it, when hardly anyone has died, and there are many other dangers we are much more likely to die from, such as bad driving, which is rampant from what I can tell.
I guess I am just sick and tired of people being stupid and making horrible choices. We've got some real problems in this country...we've got to shut down the border, we've got to fix health care and education.
But moreover, we've got to stop being so goddamn lazy and settling for a life without challenges. Marrying a schmuck, sleeping all the time, eating poorly, and watching an ass load of television is no way to live our lives. We have fallen behind other nations, perhaps in part due to poor education or lack of opportunity, but mostly, because our country is lazy, fat, and perpetually pregnant with more mouths to feed and a growing population needing jobs, housing, education, and health care. My solution is to euthanize everyone over the age of 14 who has seen either Beverly Hills Chihuahua--if you have any solutions, let me know.
FYI: I had a ninny come right into my dugout while I was coaching the other day, and when she said I needed to calm down, I told her she needed to get out! Ninnies are the worst...
So where am I going with this? Nowhere really, I mean just because someone is fat and/or has children doesn't mean they are a bad person, but it is a hell of a good start. First of all, fat people require a great deal more medical care than healthy people, because they are more likely to get sick, and more likely to have heart disease or develop cancer. Pregnant people and children also require a great deal of care...that's not good for the most expensive health care system in the world.
Second, being an obese, childblasting nation is symbolic, if not symtomatic of our problems. Fatness is lazyness, and having tons of kids is irresponsible, and that's exactly what we are as a nation: lazy and irresponsible. Not only that, we are gullible and paranoid. This whole swine flu pandemic reveals that--our media spends all this time talking about the swine flu, and people start freaking out about it, when hardly anyone has died, and there are many other dangers we are much more likely to die from, such as bad driving, which is rampant from what I can tell.
I guess I am just sick and tired of people being stupid and making horrible choices. We've got some real problems in this country...we've got to shut down the border, we've got to fix health care and education.
But moreover, we've got to stop being so goddamn lazy and settling for a life without challenges. Marrying a schmuck, sleeping all the time, eating poorly, and watching an ass load of television is no way to live our lives. We have fallen behind other nations, perhaps in part due to poor education or lack of opportunity, but mostly, because our country is lazy, fat, and perpetually pregnant with more mouths to feed and a growing population needing jobs, housing, education, and health care. My solution is to euthanize everyone over the age of 14 who has seen either Beverly Hills Chihuahua--if you have any solutions, let me know.
FYI: I had a ninny come right into my dugout while I was coaching the other day, and when she said I needed to calm down, I told her she needed to get out! Ninnies are the worst...
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