Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

[ehcks]

"Government" is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together. "Corporation" is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together without coercion.

That's cooperative, not corporation.

 

[logger]

Our wealth is greater, in part, because we do help the poor.

How?

 

[Kestrel]

Reading comments on other forums about the ACA, I am struck by how many people seem to think insurance is for paying for routine doctors visits. Are they that sheltered from real life that they don't know anyone who developed a serious medical condition?

 

[thaiboxerken]

Reading comments on other forums about the ACA, I am struck by how many people seem to think insurance is for paying for routine doctors visits. Are they that sheltered from real life that they don't know anyone who developed a serious medical condition?

I suspect that is the case for many against health care reform. The rest just lack empathy.

 

[RandFan]

How?

1. Healthy citizens who are not stressed for fear of being homeless or destitute are more productive.
2. Poverty and malnutrition physically harms children who grow up to be less productive.
3. As poverty increases so does crime.
4. Incarceration costs on average $50,000 a year.
5. Inmates do not contribute anything to society.
6. Inmates do not pay sales tax, use taxes, fees, SSI, local taxes.
7. As poverty increases it affects the morale of other citizens because we are a social species and that increases stress on otherwise well adjusted people.

Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations' - New York Times

The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year

It is estimated that the economic and educational effects amount to some $500 billion a year, the report says. Compared with children whose families had incomes of at least twice the poverty line during their early childhood, poor children:
*completed two fewer years of school
*earned less than half as much money
*worked 451 fewer hours per year
*received $826 per year more in food stamps
*were nearly three times as likely to have poor health
Furthermore, poor males were twice as likely to get arrested and poor females were five times more likely to have a child out of wedlock.

 

[RandFan]

How?

BTW: Where is your list of nations that are better off because they do not help the poor?

 

[asydhouse]

First of all, I'm not a "worker" I own my own business, I also used to be an "employee"

Interesting that you conflate "worker" with "employee". I would have thought that a man who owns his own business would know that "work" is not solely that for which one is getting paid. As with creative workers, who do most of their work as a journey towards some hoped for future financial pay off, satisfying themselves meantime with the engagement of themselves in their developing skills and thereby fulfilment of themselves, a business owner is popularly imagined to work every waking hour to ensure the success of his business, not drawing an hourly rate of pay lest it bankrupt his business.

Those hours spent pursuing financial "success" at the expense of a life outside of the work, those hours are your dues you pay to be a worker in a system which keeps you and almost everyone else bubbling in the engine of the wealth generating machine that feeds the top 1 % you serve, merrily whistling your work tunes and chasing the ever-receeding dream of catching up to the good life you can see straight up ahead..

Anyone can own their own business, except in communist countries.
The human spirit yearns to be free. you may think it Immature thinking, that's because it really does take a "real man" to be able to take care of his family.

So it's not possible to be a "real man" if you happen to be born with a congenital problem which restricts your ability to be a soldier ant in this illusion of a free capitalist system which has you workers enslaved in delusion?

In my world, a "real man" is someone who thinks beyond his own narrow self-interests and takes a wider and longer view of the world around him, and displays the strengths of compassion and magnanimity. In my world, a "real man" is simply a decent human being.

The macho delusion that it is noble to stand alone and beat down the competition, to "win" at the expense of those weaker than oneself, the macho delusion that society is a weight dragging them back, that's the libertarian immaturity to which I was alluding. Champion it if you will.

Besides we don't have the best most powerful country ever in the shortest amount of time for nothing. That's why EVERYONE wants to be here, even you.

Answer this, what system is better?

News flash: You cannot imagine how glad I am that I don't live in the USA today! Your empire lasted maybe 3 decades! You are in your senescence as a world power!

European social democracy is obviously far better than your system: and we don't have to sell our homes and live in our cars when we come down with a serious illness.

Good luck with what's coming down the road. Or wake up and get real. Either way, I'm so glad to be here instead!

 

[sunmaster14]

1. Healthy citizens who are not stressed for fear of being homeless or destitute are more productive.
2. Poverty and malnutrition physically harms children who grow up to be less productive.
3. As poverty increases so does crime.
4. Incarceration costs on average $50,000 a year.
5. Inmates do not contribute anything to society.
6. Inmates do not pay sales tax, use taxes, fees, SSI, local taxes.
7. As poverty increases it affects the morale of other citizens because we are a social species and that increases stress on otherwise well adjusted people.

This is all pretty speculative stuff. In addition, you have failed to quantify the effects, or tried to compare them to the effects of the economic distortions caused by welfare (most importantly, the numbing effect on the incentive to work).

As for the US's sky-high incarceration rate, that has a lot more to do with our insane drug laws and our overly punitive criminal justice system than with poverty.

The Washington Post's article on poverty overstates the cost because it neglects other causal factors, parenting being perhaps the most important.

 

[sunmaster14]

BTW: Where is your list of nations that are better off because they do not help the poor?

The question is irrelevant. Better off nations will provide assistance to the poor because they can afford it. Even the US, which is widely castigated for neglecting its poor, has a pretty strong safety net.

 

[3point14]

The Washington Post's article on poverty overstates the cost because it neglects other causal factors, parenting being perhaps the most important.

Could I see your evidence for this?

 

[Trakar]

The question is irrelevant. Better off nations will provide assistance to the poor because they can afford it. Even the US, which is widely castigated for neglecting its poor, has a pretty strong safety net.

The corollary is generally that some nations are "better off" because they have better social safety nets which help even the poorest individuals to attain subsistence and a basic education where they experience the opportunities to better contribute to the society that has created those safety nets. Focus on improving the weakest links in the chain, builds a much more robust and useful chain than polishing and strengthening only the best made links.

 

[sunmaster14]

Could I see your evidence for this?

Actually, I have to take it back because when I looked more closely at the study, I see that the $500B/yr number isn't defended or even referenced in any way. So I have no idea where that number comes from. I only claimed that it was done wrong because the Washington Post article implied that it was calculated from achievement gaps between poor and non-poor kids extrapolated to the whole population (also, because the number seems ridiculously large). So I guess I'll just leave it as a completely unsupported assertion that the Educational Testing Service, and then the Washington Post, and then RandFan made.

My main point is that you can't just look at achievement gaps between the poor and non-poor and just assume those go away by giving the poor money. I think that's obvious and mostly undisputed. If a controlled study is done as to how much giving the poor money will close the achievement gap, then I think one could reasonably calculate a benefit. $500B/yr strikes me as unrealistically high, even for the gross benefit, let alone the net benefit.

 

[sunmaster14]

The corollary is generally that some nations are "better off" because they have better social safety nets which help even the poorest individuals to attain subsistence and a basic education where they experience the opportunities to better contribute to the society that has created those safety nets. Focus on improving the weakest links in the chain, builds a much more robust and useful chain than polishing and strengthening only the best made links.

That's not a corollary. I think the word you mean to use is "converse." A corollary is something that follows logically (i.e. can be proved) from something else, which, in this case, the converse is not.

 

[RandFan]

The corollary is generally that some nations are "better off" because they have better social safety nets which help even the poorest individuals to attain subsistence and a basic education where they experience the opportunities to better contribute to the society that has created those safety nets. Focus on improving the weakest links in the chain, builds a much more robust and useful chain than polishing and strengthening only the best made links.

Thanks, I'm more than happy to grant the argument that the wealth of Industrialized nations is entirely in spite of providing assistance to the poor for the sake of discussion.

At the end of the day, there is no evidence that the assistance hurts the societies. There are few if any real world examples of nations high in Economic Freedom, HDI or GDP (GDP is variable of HDI, I mention it for those who want to dismiss HDI) that do not provide social services to its citizens.

The thing is, we have a scientific model that accounts for why we have reciprocal altruism that predicts and explains why it's beneficial for members of society to give up some of their fitness for the good of the group.

 

[sunmaster14]

<snip>

The thing is, we have a scientific model that accounts for why we have reciprocal altruism that predicts and explains why it's beneficial for members of society to give up some of their fitness for the good of the group.

There's no reason to believe that reciprocal altruism would apply between an individual and an abstraction like society or government. It almost certainly evolved between individuals, and probably mainly between members of the same family or the same tribe. I doubt that somebody getting help from society at large would feel the same sort of indebtedness and gratitude that somebody who received help from an individual would feel.

 

[xjx388]

Thanks, I'm more than happy to grant the argument that the wealth of Industrialized nations is entirely in spite of providing assistance to the poor for the sake of discussion.

At the end of the day, there is no evidence that the assistance hurts the societies. There are few if any real world examples of nations high in Economic Freedom, HDI or GDP (GDP is variable of HDI, I mention it for those who want to dismiss HDI) that do not provide social services to its citizens.

The thing is, we have a scientific model that accounts for why we have reciprocal altruism that predicts and explains why it's beneficial for members of society to give up some of their fitness for the good of the group.

The US is high in HDI and GDP. We provide social services. There is no evidence that increasing the amount of social services will lead to higher HDI or GDP. We do know, however, that we were able to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world without forcing everyone to buy health insurance or having a single-payer health system. What we have done thus far has worked quite well.

 

[quixotecoyote]

The US is high in HDI and GDP. We provide social services. There is no evidence that increasing the amount of social services will lead to higher HDI or GDP. We do know, however, that we were able to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world without forcing everyone to buy health insurance or having a single-payer health system. What we have done thus far has worked quite well.

For certain values of 'we', of course.

 

[RandFan]

The US is high in HDI and GDP. We provide social services. There is no evidence that increasing the amount of social services will lead to higher HDI or GDP. We do know, however, that we were able to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world without forcing everyone to buy health insurance or having a single-payer health system. What we have done thus far has worked quite well.

We can always do better. Allowing people to die or suffer for lack of health care isn't a hallmark of civilization.

We can do better.

Alan Grayson claims 45,000 people die a year because they lack health insurance

 

[logger]

Interesting that you conflate "worker" with "employee". I would have thought that a man who owns his own business would know that "work" is not solely that for which one is getting paid. As with creative workers, who do most of their work as a journey towards some hoped for future financial pay off, satisfying themselves meantime with the engagement of themselves in their developing skills and thereby fulfilment of themselves, a business owner is popularly imagined to work every waking hour to ensure the success of his business, not drawing an hourly rate of pay lest it bankrupt his business.

Those hours spent pursuing financial "success" at the expense of a life outside of the work, those hours are your dues you pay to be a worker in a system which keeps you and almost everyone else bubbling in the engine of the wealth generating machine that feeds the top 1 % you serve, merrily whistling your work tunes and chasing the ever-receeding dream of catching up to the good life you can see straight up ahead..

What if you just love your job, here in the great USA we can have jobs we love. We are free to pursue what we love. Its the greatest feeling ever, which of course makes you love freedom!

So it's not possible to be a "real man" if you happen to be born with a congenital problem which restricts your ability to be a soldier ant in this illusion of a free capitalist system which has you workers enslaved in delusion?

In this country, even with health issue there are many jobs to be done and you can love doing it. Capitalism does not enslave me, its given me everything I've ever wanted.

In my world, a "real man" is someone who thinks beyond his own narrow self-interests and takes a wider and longer view of the world around him, and displays the strengths of compassion and magnanimity. In my world, a "real man" is simply a decent human being.

In my world a man pursuing his own self interest is a man who is completely free to care for his fellow man. It is why we are the most wealthy, giving nation ever!

The macho delusion that it is noble to stand alone and beat down the competition, to "win" at the expense of those weaker than oneself, the macho delusion that society is a weight dragging them back, that's the libertarian immaturity to which I was alluding. Champion it if you will.

You're sorely misinformed, I don't beat down the competition, they are my best friends, we work together to bring business into the area.

Being a real man is taking care of ones family and self, don't knock it until you've tried it. Capitalism is the best vehicle for that.

Again which socialist country are you from, please tell us!

News flash: You cannot imagine how glad I am that I don't live in the USA today! Your empire lasted maybe 3 decades! You are in your senescence as a world power!

3 decades. lol

European social democracy is obviously far better than your system: and we don't have to sell our homes and live in our cars when we come down with a serious illness.

We don't either, we have Obamacare and some of us pay for our own insurance, after we were canceled.

Good luck with what's coming down the road. Or wake up and get real. Either way, I'm so glad to be here instead!

Good luck to you!

 

[xjx388]

For certain values of 'we', of course.

In this case, we = "The United States"