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Where the Right Goes Wrong

Submitted by markamerica on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 11:21

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OK, lets talk about profits

Submitted by Mead50 on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 12:29.

You want to talk about profits? Try this one for size: a McKinsey study found that the amount that employers spent on health insurance in 2008 exceded their profits.

The CBO says job-based health insurance could increase 100% over the next decade.

Employers are simply going to cut or stop health care benefits.

 

 

Companies dropping health benefits

Submitted by johnson springs on Sun, 09/13/2009 - 08:24.

More and more companies are dropping health benefits for their employees. This not simply a crisis for government health care -- Medicare and Medicaid. Health care premiums doubled over the last decade and will do so again in the next decade. Many Americans who today rely on employer health benefits will lose them in coming years because their employers will no longer be able to afford them.

This is a fairly acute crisis and it goes well beyond the free-lunch portion of the system.

 Many Americans who today

Submitted by In between on Sun, 09/13/2009 - 08:42.

 Many Americans who today rely on employer health benefits will lose them in coming years because their employers will no longer be able to afford them.

This is especially true with globalization. Cheap labor is winning and the pressure will be on employers and employees to have less. It will be the loss of jobs, less pay, and less in benefits. 

 

I think it would be instructive to consider

Submitted by markamerica on Sun, 09/13/2009 - 17:59.

why employers provide health benefits at all: In response to FDR's wage and price controls in the WWII era, employers had to find some way to entice new employees, since wages were strictly controlled, and the answer was found in benefits packages.

In other words, had things been left to the free market, this practice, which most of us have taken for granted all our lives, would never have existed.  It went from enticement to expectation to assumed benefit to slipping compensation in around 50 years.

Employers ought never have been involved, is the point.

Now, let's touch on a related matter, and that is the Democrats' proposal to mandate health insurance.  Aside from the fact that it is purely a tyrannical power play, let's look at what happened the last time governments began mandating insurance. In auto insurance, it was promised that mandatory insurance would decrease the number of uninsured on the roadways, and also decrease costs to everybody.  This turned out to be a big fat lie, for obvious reasons: You now have a captive market.  Oh sure, you don't have to buy car insurance from a particular company, but you will buy it from somebody... And it drove the price of insurance up, because regulations required insurers to have people in pools who were previously uninsurable. This additional cost drove up the price of auto insurance generally, to the extent that it has priced many borderline-poor people right out of the market, and this has led to an increase in the number of uninsured.

If you follow this approach with healthcare, it is a disaster economically, but it is also going to prove to be a source of much dissent and discord in the country.  It may spark a good deal of unpleasantness.

Don't later tell me you hadn't been warned. Don't tell me at some future date that you hadn't wanted the disaster that you're making now.

M

Right... So let's assume

Submitted by markamerica on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 14:58.

that's accurate. What is the solution? In my view, we should be moving away from an employer-based system, back to an individualized system where you deal with insurers and providers directly. Part of our current problems stem from the fact that many employees have no idea what the full cost of their coverage may be, and other than incidental co-pays or deductibles.

Profits are the whole point of doing business. Who would operate perpetually at a loss? (Other than government...) Assuming you go to work like most folk, would you go there if you would gain nothing by it and would not be able to sustain your own life and expenses?

People complain about 'obscene profits,' but most everybody who gets up and goes to a job each day does so out of a desire to reap a profit. With those profits, they buy new homes, new clothes, new boats, new cars, and all the sorts of things they would not otherwise afford. Everything you purchase outside the realm of 'autonomous consumption' is really likely to be something you could have lived without. New widescreen TV? Did you need it? Or did you want it?

See, the mere fact that people seek profits says nothing negative about them, so long as they are willing to earn them by their own efforts.  These days, however, we have an entire subset of our population that profits without any effort and lives on free lunches.

There are no free lunches. Somebody is paying.

M

Life can exist without a profit motive.

Submitted by Mead50 on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 17:57.

The problem is health care companies make a great deal of their profit by taking money from customers when they are healthy and then employing an army of paper pushers to deny them benefits when they get sick.Profits should not be the "whole point" of providing health care. Lots of people get up and go to work every day without a desire to make a profit: policemen, firemen, soldiers, nurses, teachers, ministers, musicians. Health insurance companies are here to stay - I have no problem with that. However, the system can't be allowed to continue along its current path until it simply implodes. For starters, I'm in 100% agreement with the Mayo Clinic proposal that the concept of "pre-existing conditions" be abolished. Second, I support the public option.

Amen!

Submitted by Soulsamurai on Sun, 09/13/2009 - 17:00.

 I couldn't agree more, with this article.

 

Re: Where the Right Goes Wrong

Submitted by Demetrius on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 05:05.


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A lot of economists believe that the United States will be bankrupt in as few as twenty years. It may take several decades for future generations of Americans to pay off America's debts, if it is even possible. In a worse case scenario, Americans would not even be able to pay the interests on the American debts. In the best case scenario, the United States would cease funding several key programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and even increase the retirement age again just to name a few possibilities. Pay back is in part by giving important and handsomely paid jobs in governance to party 'friends', instead of to professional and incorruptible servants of the public. Payback for big money donations from business can come from awarding contracts within USA, and in countries the USA government no faxing payday loans has invaded, or in which it has based itself.

 

Control Freakery. A losing issue.

Submitted by JMR on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 09:59.

http://poker.blogtownhall.com/2009/09/14/its_time_for_focus_on_the_famil...

Many, many Republicans play poker. Doyle Brunson himself warned the party before they did this, but they still did it. Then they lost, just as Doyle warned them on Cavuto. And now, apparently, the control freakery trumps things like a ministry. Just what I wanted from the Republicans! A government they worship preaching at me for what I do with my own money in my own free time.

Eisenhower used his poker winnings

Submitted by Mead50 on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 10:05.

to pay his incidental expenses while he was at West Point, and to buy his first uniform!

I don't doubt that for a moment

Submitted by JMR on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 10:31.

And the history of Poker as a great American game goes far back before that. The idea of getting poker players angry deliberately almost seems too stupid to be believed. Then you look at meatspace gaming industry political donations/lobbying, and it all makes sense. Corrupt, statist sense, but sense. Anyway, as a libertarian, I pledge "tough love" to the Republicans on this issue. "Tough love" sure as hell worked on Bob Barr, and losing elections might work on other control freaks, as well. Holding my nose & voting for more closet-statists is sure as hell a non-starter.

Control Freakery vs Respect for Liberty

Submitted by Soulsamurai on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 14:15.

I think the RIGHT as a whole needs to get back to the ideas of:

1.) respecting the instrinsic value of the individual 

2.) respecting the rights and liberty of the individual

I think that these two principles can be shared and embraced by both religious and secular conservatives.

Because in a free society, there must be respect for individuals and their conscience. With mutual respect we can debate, we can lead by example, we can persuade and be persuaded, or we can agree to disagree and still get along, and still work together where we have shared objectives or common interests.  

I think there is a self-defeating danger in taking a 'control freak' approach from either side. It is also antithetical to the principles of freedom of conscience, and liberty and justice for all. Although I am an evangelical christian, I think the temptation to control or coerce the behavior of others is contrary to the gospel.

History has shown us the disasters of the state controlling the people, or the church controlling the state (or vice versa), freedom of the people (and for religion for that matter) flourish best when the people control the state.

As for authority and control within the Church, obviously every religion and denomination has different structures - but ostensibly the Scriptures, the Word of God, or Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. But from the standpoint of personal liberty (and perhaps arguably from the New Testament) it's better to have the local church governed by it's members (in subject to the Word of God), rather than have the people in their local churches governed by a centralized denominational authority, Magisterium, or governing authority that either assumes or presumes the authority of God to the people.

At any rate, religious/church leadership may declare what they deem the word and will of God is and how their members should follow, but they should not try to DICTATE or CONTROL the behavior of SOCIETY AT LARGE - in a free society the religions of the world ought to be free however to carry out it's ministries, evangelize freely and influence society for the good by way of setting an example, but also must respect the liberty and rights of individuals to their own conscience regarding matters of faith, worship, and behavior. Religions, churches and para-church religious organizations can and should act as a conscience and a voice, a free society needs that, and should not be threatened by it, lest we succumb to every desire & temptation, anarchy, and/or self-destruction.

If we would return to the principles mentioned above, then we can best prevent the abuses of both the state and religion, and so far as it is humanly possible insure liberty and justice for all at least until the Lord's return (if you happen to believe that).