[ExI] eput this crazy system out of our misery: was RE: Euthanasia

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] eput this crazy system out of our misery: was RE:
Euthanasia

On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 12:02 AM, spike  wrote:
<snip>
>>... If you believe O-care will work, be of good 
> cheer, for you have nothing to worry about and the future is bright.
>
>



>...The O-care system wasn't actually built by the guv'mnt.
>...It was built by the glorious free-trade corporations making millions off
the government spending...

Exactly so, thanks for this BillK.  Here is a British guy who gets this
better than Americans.   BillK, this entire system was designed by one
party, in private, with little public debate so nothing is on the record and
no one is required to take ownership of anything.  No one is responsible for
it.  The speaker of the house didn't know what was in that bill:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ht8msGqwI

None of the opposition party knew what was in it, and it got zero votes from
that side of the aisle.  How can you vote for a mystery bill?  It was
designed by those who intended to generate profit from it.  That part it
looks like it will work.  People will make money, plenty of money.  

Since there was all these profit-making provisions in there, those who
designed it specifically removed isolation clauses to prevent its being
modified to defeat the profit-making portions.  This means that to modify
any part of the law, everything in it is up for modification.  To do that
would mean debating it before congress.  But the present congress is
balanced.  It was completely over on one side when it was passed.  So they
don't do that.

>...The corporations that spent the most on lobbying (bribing) got the
business...

The former speaker said we need to pass the bill to find out what is in it.
It passed, we still don't know.  But I suspect bribery was used at every
step by those who would directly profit from the law.

>...See:
<http://www.infoworld.com/t/e-government/how-federal-cronies-built-and-botch
ed-healthcaregov-228724>  Quote: The biggest problem with Healthcare.gov
seems simple enough: It was built by people who are apparently far more
familiar with government cronyism than they are with IT.
----------------
BillK
_______________________________________________

BillK, if we can see what a mess HealthCare.gov is, and how it still doesn't
work right, why should it be such a leap of faith that the law was put
together the same way?  It was designed by all the wrong people with all the
wrong motives.

We know our previous system was in a death spiral.  If you had health
insurance, your company was billed to compensate for all those who had no
health insurance.  Hospitals cannot absorb all that loss.  So they took a
system which was in a tailspin and replaced it with a different system which
was in a tailspin closer to the ground and dropping faster.

What we see now is an attempt to cram every attitude towards O-care on one
axis, the only one politicians really care about, the classic left right
political axis.  But one's attitude on this law has many nuances that are
not captured by this.  For instance, how about an axis for those who think
they will benefit vs those who think they will not?  I am one who would
benefit, being old.  Perhaps more importantly, an axis for those who believe
it will work vs those who do not?  I do not.

Of all the plausible axes, I am close to center on most all of them except
one: I am one who is convinced this system will fail spectacularly, no
matter what we do, because it didn't solve any of the biggest four problems
wrecking our previous system, in fact it makes all three of them worse:  

-It doesn't solve the free rider problem, it makes it worse: the government
convinced voters it will give poor people free health insurance with low or
no deductibles.  I can assure you.  

-It doesn't solve the lack of market feedback problem, it makes it worse:
for those most likely to pay attention to deductibles, it promises a means
of having them subsidized, which intentionally defeats price controls in
medicine. 

-It doesn't solve the problem of the legal industry's over-involvement in
the health industry, it makes it worse, waaaay worse.

-It doesn't solve the insurance industry's overdependence on young and
healthies subsidizing the old and sicklies, it makes it worse.  The young
and healthy are compelled to buy insurance and allowing the old and sickly
to buy in, then imposing government controls on the price structure.

O-care introduces a new huge problem by setting the IRS as the enforcement
arm.  We currently have one IRS chief, Lois Lerner, who invoked the fifth
amendment, meaning she refuses to testify because it can incriminate her.
We have the IRS chief in charge of O-care enforcement, who has been caught
sharing confidential taxpayer information with those not legally entitled to
that information, specifically targeting political opponents: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnWK-rodi2M

Watch that video, then go to HealthCare.gov.  If you can get it to work, the
first thing they do is ask for a bunch of personal information, birthdate,
legal name, address, email, three security questions, social security
number, everything an identity thief would need to empty your bank account.
And it goes to a person who has been caught sharing confidential taxpayer
information with unauthorized parties, specifically political opposition. 

My attitude to O-care has little to do with my political views and
everything to do with skepticism of this particular system as written.  Even
though I am among those who would benefit if it succeeds, I already know it
will not.  It cannot, it is too deeply flawed, by design.

Note that the US government's current thrashing about, threatening to
default is about this law.  

I would suggest we scrap this mess and start over.  We can still call it
ObamaCare if the current president wants a signature legislation.  Get
buy-in from both parties.  Actually debate the material in public, on the
record.  Break it up into reasonable sized pieces of legislation, which can
be actually read by those being asked to vote on it, so we never again have
the sound-bite of the house speaker uttering the absurdity "...we need to
hurry and pass this so you can find out what is in it..."  

A more reasonable sized legislation should be about 20 to 50 pages, rather
than 2000.  There's no way to legitimately understand a bill that is the
size of O-care.  Avoid passing huge society-changing packages when the
legislature is unbalanced.  That invites corruption and incompetence, as we
saw.  Avoid passing major legislation in an even year, such as 2010.  In
even years, the congressmen are more concerned about their reelection
campaigns than what they are voting on.  They don't even know what they are
voting on, or care.  They will vote on anything in exchange for campaign
contributions and support.  They are politicians, not insurance executives.
They don't know what they are doing.

spike