Dems intend to bypass GOP on health compromise

[Hayabusa Rider]

Medicaid has to be paid for, education has to be paid for, and about 10,000 other things have to be paid for. Ideally, we wouldn't transfer education funding to pay for Medicaid. I personally would have looked for cuts elsewhere...but...well, what you gonna do. There's waste in education too.

There's waste in everything, and sometimes "waste" isn't, but a misunderstanding by those who aren't well versed in what would best facilitate the purpose of whatever we might be discussing.

I think you hit on a few things which are relevant.

Government is going to move and distribute funds and those in charge see fit.

Yes it will. That's a huge problem which can be extended to the whole health care debate. In our system of government the theory is that it will allocate resources which are best for the citizenry as a whole. In truth political concerns are the overriding factor in most situations. My understanding is that some time before I moved to NY there was an attempt to reform Medicaid by a Republican. No it wasn't to eliminate, but reform. Well the Dems decided that here was a great opportunity to destroy the Reps, and they promoted that it was about the rich wanting to gut the poor, and especially the black poor. Sound familiar?

The result is that the Dems were able to further solidify their hold on the state and give the Reps a beating. Well what the Dems should have done is co-opt the idea. They could have taken the credit if politics was most important.

Nope. They were allied with Sharpton and others and made protecting a system which they knew was corrupt (which is distinct from "wasteful" because it purposeful) top priority.

Consequently with the most recent economic downturn the whole state is collapsing on itself. When money was there, the state expanded it's programs at every opportunity as if the gravy train had no end.

That brings on my present rant. It isn't that Medicaid is bad in theory, but in practice is horrendous. Rather than reform, they wish to feed the beast with other needed funds.

I don't know where you are in NY, but we had some tax relief in something known as the STAR program. That's gone. In western NY, you may have to spend 8K or more in taxes on a 200k home. That's the highest in the nation, and specifically earmarked for education. So was the lottery. Would I say there's waste in education? Of course, because there's inefficiency in everything, but we have more control at the local level and those who spend the money are held to a higher level of accountability. So when we have a building program, something gets built.

Now to your point. Yes Medicaid needs funding, and so does education. One gets cut, the other not. One is full of corruption and the other not.

We can take from our children's future, but we cannot address the considerable shortcomings of how Medicaid is administered. Therein lies the difference. While we are at it, who could benefit from education the most? Those on Medicaid. It's not the middle class alone harmed by this.

Back to health care. In light of the above, we're going to put MORE people on it. It's like putting people on heroin. We're at the breaking point, and no matter what anyone says, the cost is going to be foisted on the states in large part. It's ALWAYS the case. More people on a corrupt, inefficient system that one party controls and uses to the detriment of everything else.

It's hard to look at all that and say "Hey that's great!"

Theory and practice are not the same.

 

[Carmen813]

There's waste in everything, and sometimes "waste" isn't, but a misunderstanding by those who aren't well versed in what would best facilitate the purpose of whatever we might be discussing.

I think you hit on a few things which are relevant.



Yes it will. That's a huge problem which can be extended to the whole health care debate. In our system of government the theory is that it will allocate resources which are best for the citizenry as a whole. In truth political concerns are the overriding factor in most situations. My understanding is that some time before I moved to NY there was an attempt to reform Medicaid by a Republican. No it wasn't to eliminate, but reform. Well the Dems decided that here was a great opportunity to destroy the Reps, and they promoted that it was about the rich wanting to gut the poor, and especially the black poor. Sound familiar?

The result is that the Dems were able to further solidify their hold on the state and give the Reps a beating. Well what the Dems should have done is co-opt the idea. They could have taken the credit if politics was most important.

Nope. They were allied with Sharpton and others and made protecting a system which they knew was corrupt (which is distinct from "wasteful" because it purposeful) top priority.

Consequently with the most recent economic downturn the whole state is collapsing on itself. When money was there, the state expanded it's programs at every opportunity as if the gravy train had no end.

That brings on my present rant. It isn't that Medicaid is bad in theory, but in practice is horrendous. Rather than reform, they wish to feed the beast with other needed funds.

I don't know where you are in NY, but we had some tax relief in something known as the STAR program. That's gone. In western NY, you may have to spend 8K or more in taxes on a 200k home. That's the highest in the nation, and specifically earmarked for education. So was the lottery. Would I say there's waste in education? Of course, because there's inefficiency in everything, but we have more control at the local level and those who spend the money are held to a higher level of accountability. So when we have a building program, something gets built.

Now to your point. Yes Medicaid needs funding, and so does education. One gets cut, the other not. One is full of corruption and the other not.

We can take from our children's future, but we cannot address the considerable shortcomings of how Medicaid is administered. Therein lies the difference. While we are at it, who could benefit from education the most? Those on Medicaid. It's not the middle class alone harmed by this.

Back to health care. In light of the above, we're going to put MORE people on it. It's like putting people on heroin. We're at the breaking point, and no matter what anyone says, the cost is going to be foisted on the states in large part. It's ALWAYS the case. More people on a corrupt, inefficient system that one party controls and uses to the detriment of everything else.

It's hard to look at all that and say "Hey that's great!"

Theory and practice are not the same.

I've lived in Western NY my entire life (Niagara Falls/Buffalo till 17, Rochester till 24, now Syracuse), though I guess now I'm technically in CNY.

I've been working with people who are low income for most of the past year. Right now I work in an inner city school, before I was working in Rochester doing child maltreatment research. I've seen those who game the system. My experience has been that they are by and large the minority. I'm not willing to sacrifice programs that help a lot of people because of abuse by the minority.

Each county has a social services hot line where you can report individuals who abuse the system. Use it!

Education has it's own problems. It's not free of corruption or waste, that's for damn sure. Perhaps this is a product of you working in one field and not the other, a grass is greener view. I agree that education should be the silver bullet to helping those who are on Medicaid in the first place, but there are a lot of problems helping these kids that don't revolve around school funding. I assure you, more money for education would probably have little impact on their achievement. There are reforms needed for the schools just as there are for how Medicaid is administered.

Parts of my family were pretty heavily involved in state politics. My cousin's grandfather was in charge of the Department of Transportation a while ago, his father was in the Assembly. Both Republicans/Conservatives. Honestly, I'll probably be looking for some third party candidates in the next local elections because the current house and senate are idiots.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Remember I'm not asking to eliminate the system, I'm looking to have it become less corrupt. Having been overseas in areas which define poverty, I'm not anxious to have that become something which is seen here. Nevertheless, if the idea is to help people, then a major priority would be reform of whatever current system would be utilized and that is the last thing on the agenda. Why do people extol the virtues of government health care and ignore what we've discussed? Where does the money come from to provide these extra services? People are in jeopardy of losing their homes due to taxation. This isn't a triviality, this isn't a matter of principle. It's come to the loss of home and hearth.

Sometimes it feels like "vox clamantis in deserto"

 

[woolfe9999]

For my first point, you may find this interesting, if you haven't already seen it. A CNN poll found that a majority of Republicans want a candidate that shares their values, even if that candidate loses, while a majority of Democrats want a candidate that can beat the Republicans even if that candidate does not share all the same values. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...s-the-gop-want-ideologically-pure-candidates/

What that poll clearly means is that dems are less concerned with ideological purity than repubs. They will vote for the candidate that they disagree with on some issues so they don't end up with the candidate that they disagree with on all the issues. I agree with this way of thinking 100%.

It is worth noting here that the democratic party has a much more diverse base than the republican party. It is a coalition of blocs that do not agree on everything. Liberals are only one voting bloc. Union members are by and large not especially liberal, overall centrist, but they support the dems because of their stance on unions. African Americans vote overwhelmingly democrat because they support the dems on civil rights and economic policy, but they are overwhelmingly conservative on social issues and will usually vote with the Christian right on those issues. Given the big tent constituency of the dems, the notion of pursuing single-minded ideological purity over pragmatism in voting is nonsensical. It would be suicide.

- wolf

 

[Darwin333]

I've got absolutely no problem with taking steps to address each problem you described. No plan is perfect, and private companies have their own fair share of problems. We should tighten up regulations and cut down on fraud. It's our state politicians who don't act to solve the problems, or perhaps aren't even aware of them.

Abuse, waste, fraud, ect. piss me off a great deal. Hell, my HMO sends me six different letters every time I get a PET scan to approve each different part of my body. I hate that and it's just a small example of pissing away money.

The problem with that $200 bonus is exactly as you described. What the governor should have done, if he absolutely had to spend money, was purchase school supplies and give them directly to schools. Or just buy school supplies, make a package, and send them directly to families. What they did was absolutely idiotic. That wasn't really related to Medicaid, but when people aren't willing to do the work to design a system properly what else can you expect.

My objection was with the broad strokes you painted the program. I've seen people abuse social services, hell, in Syracuse you can walk down the street and buy a $200 food stamp card for $20. It pisses me off, but that doesn't mean the programs should be ended, just fixed.

The problem is, if we don't fix the bigger budget problems in general, our lenders will fix it for us. If they do that then Medicaid payments instantly stop along with a good deal of other government obligations.

Contrary to what our politicians think, we have a finite supply of money to fund all of these programs. We are already upside down as hell yet we keep adding more and more spending that never seems to go away, so our debt grows exponentially faster than GDP.

You might think your current healthcare is fantastic but when the wheels come off what do you think you will have? We don't care though just as long as our free keeps coming. The politicians kick the can down the road hoping it won't blow up on their watch but the can is starting to get pretty damn heavy.

PS: I think that taxes on everyone have to go up AND spending needs to be drastically reduced but you guys that think the rich can cover all of the gap you are sadly mistaken.

 

[Carmen813]

Remember I'm not asking to eliminate the system, I'm looking to have it become less corrupt. Having been overseas in areas which define poverty, I'm not anxious to have that become something which is seen here. Nevertheless, if the idea is to help people, then a major priority would be reform of whatever current system would be utilized and that is the last thing on the agenda. Why do people extol the virtues of government health care and ignore what we've discussed? Where does the money come from to provide these extra services? People are in jeopardy of losing their homes due to taxation. This isn't a triviality, this isn't a matter of principle. It's come to the loss of home and hearth.

Sometimes it feels like "vox clamantis in deserto"

I've really got no problem reforming it, I just need to see some actual ideas to evaluate on how to do so. You have a couple, have to see if anyone running for office has them.

 

[Carmen813]

The problem is, if we don't fix the bigger budget problems in general, our lenders will fix it for us. If they do that then Medicaid payments instantly stop along with a good deal of other government obligations.

Contrary to what our politicians think, we have a finite supply of money to fund all of these programs. We are already upside down as hell yet we keep adding more and more spending that never seems to go away, so our debt grows exponentially faster than GDP.

You might think your current healthcare is fantastic but when the wheels come off what do you think you will have? We don't care though just as long as our free keeps coming. The politicians kick the can down the road hoping it won't blow up on their watch but the can is starting to get pretty damn heavy.

PS: I think that taxes on everyone have to go up AND spending needs to be drastically reduced but you guys that think the rich can cover all of the gap you are sadly mistaken.

I really don't have the luxury with a history of cancer of worrying about what might happen to the health care system later. I understand there are risks with the current bill, but it strikes me as a great deal better than the current system. Call me selfish, greedy, passing the buck, or whatever, but if I'm not alive than I really don't need to worry about it, do I?

Ideally, I would have preferred single payer. It won't happen in my lifetime, and possibly ever.

I agree with your P.S. I would gladly pay more in taxes to have some assurances regarding health care. I'd also accept cuts in certain areas to make it fiscally possible. I'd also accept insurance being reduced to catastrophic care again. I don't understand why insurance companies need to be involved in every medical decision I make. A physical really doesn't need to cost more than $60-100...

 

[Darwin333]

That didn't quite answer it to me, but if I were guessing I'd guess you said you will support more enforcement and oppose the Bush enforcement cutbacks, and you then wagged your finger at taxes.

Here's an example for you.

There's a multi-national business tax evasion practice that is based on mispricing items it 'sells' from ona country's subsidiary to another country, to evade the proper taxation.

It might involve underpricing one direction, or overpricing another - examples include a roll of toilet paper for several hundred dollars, or a tractor for $328.

I forget whether I saw an estimate how much this costs government for one recent year was for the US or globally, but the figure was $175 billion lost.

Poorer nations lack the resources to enforce the law. The entire continent of Africa has never brought one successful case, but the practice is the norm there.

That's a real example I'd bet not one of the righties complaining about the same tired abuses by the poor that pale in comparion has paid any attention to.

We can't even get the .gov to investigate local businesses who are using illegals for labor. Not only are the fucking over the IRS but they have an unfair advantage in a competitive marketplace. They often pay below minimum wage, no insurance, no workers comp, payroll taxes, etc...

Even funnier is the larger businesses can't complain very loudly because if they do they will be labeled as racists.

It starts at the top though. The whole damned system, from the politicians to the people scamming welfare, is corrupt and when the rulemakers are doing it out in the open then it is hard to imagine the rest won't follow suit. The current head of the IRS can't even pay his taxes so I personally am not surprised when other people "make a few mistakes" on theirs.

I say prosecute every last one of them but of course that won't happen. Hell, for a few million bucks you might be able to just get the law changed so that you are operating legally. Need some more business? No problem, just throw a few bucks at our elected officials and they will mandate people do business with you regardless if they want to or not. Not selling enough drugs? Thats easy, just make the check out to the right people and the countries largest purchaser of your products will gladly pay you a lot more than they otherwise could. Aww, you made a bad business decision and lost money? No problem, we will cut you a check to cover the losses just hold the line and I will transfer you to my head fundraiser. You don't like my 2,000 page bill, are you serious? Well, how about a few hundred million thrown in for your district, oh you like it now? Great, thanks for your support.

Doesn't matter who holds the White House or Congress/Senate its still the same bullshit.

OT a bit: I have been reading a few stories from one of your links and while I don't always agree with their views from what I have read they are much more honest than similar opinion pieces.