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tsuruchibrianOct 22, 2009
@digitalArtform I agree that a childs education has a lot to do with the parents involvement, but that doesn't change the fact that most school districts receive their funding from local property taxes, which results in very wide difference in the amount of money each school and each child gets.I suspect even many people that call themselves progressives would freak out at the notion of all the tax money in the nation being pooled together and split up evenly among all children. A lot of people claim to be progressives or conservatives but in the end only really care about their own pocket books and their own children.I would be totally in favor of doing a national education pool for the sole reason that it would show clear as night and day the difference between the public education available to affluent and poor neighborhoods. I actually went to both the Los Angeles unified school district and the palos verdes peninsula unified school district (which only had 1 but very wealthy high school), and the difference was huge.Not all libertarians believe in the complete dismantling of social welfare programs. Even Ron Paul (who would be considered more of a right wing libertarian) does not want to remove the social programs that many people have come to be dependent on, but rather to focus on making sure less people in the future need come to need these programs.For that matter, rich people do not NEED public schools, so it makes no sense to use tax money to subsidize the education of wealthy families. It should work similar to welfare programs where the money is targeted specifically at those who need it most.If people are choosing their schools and paying for them, they will be much more concerned with getting results for the money they are spending. Schools/teachers that can't produce good results will go out of business and be fired. I have a feeling that ein this system even the worst private schools will become better than most public schools today, in the same way that even fast food chains can make better food for less money than government run cafeterias in the military and K-12 schools.
blackwing602Oct 24, 2009
It's a start.
bobcat7407Oct 26, 2009
@uncleFair enough. I can only relate my personal experience with the VA. I don't need to provide an example of this. Insurance companies have to raise their rates to remain viable. If they didn't, they would go bankrupt. Instead, we have a government that makes it impossible for Medicare to avoid bankruptcy. This is mismanagement. If the government could just fund everything with no consequences, we would be find. But in the real world, there are consequences, and we have already paid for them through inflation and the loss of the dollar's value. How can you say that the post office runs more efficiently than any other carrier? They have raised prices consistantly for years, outpacing inflation along the way. They also pay people to sit in rooms and do nothing. Sounds pretty efficient to me. /sDefining something as mismanged when it is going bankrupt, or unable to provide the services it is supposed to because it is losing doctors, is pretty reasonable. The goals of the USPS are to deliver the mail while being self-sufficient. It has failed at the second part because of government interference. You say they are able to function cheaply, I don't see how that is true. There is nothing cheap about the USPS or Medicare. Here's some facts about the USPS that highlight its inefficiency:"Not that the Postal Service has ever been a paragon of efficiency. If the cost of a postage stamp had risen at merely the rate of inflation since 1950 when a stamp cost two cents, today you could send a first-class letter for 30 cents. Instead the cost rose in May to 44 cents from 42 cents.These higher prices have corresponded with worsening service. The mailman used to deliver twice a day in urban areas, but now Postal Service Chief Executive John Potter says he wants to stop Saturday service to reduce costs. No private business in America could continually raise prices, lose billions of dollars and then hope to win back customers by promising poorer service.""About 80 cents of every postal dollar pays for employee salaries and benefits (compared to less than 50 cents for Fed Ex and UPS).""Most employees have no-layoff clauses, the starting salaries are about 25% to 30% higher than for comparably skilled private workers, and the fringe benefits are so expensive that the Government Accountability Office says $500 million a year could be saved merely by bringing health benefits into line with those of other federal workers."<a class="user" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204884404574365202534503632.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702048 ...</a>
8880415Oct 31, 2009
Have you guys got a caterer yet? (puts hand up)
dakdak900Nov 3, 2009
My appendix exploded and I had to have it removed; my bill if I had insurance would have been $22k but since I did not have insurance and was poor it was reduced to about $3k. That's even less than if I had been catastrophically insured because my annual deductible would have been $5k.But its not like the $19k balance just vanished, EVERYONE else ate that amount via higher billings for their care to make up for the loss the hospital took on my care.@Scamper22 thanks for paying part of the cost of my hospital bill; I really appreciate it.
dakdak900Nov 3, 2009
You didn't read the article = buried!
exiler86Nov 3, 2009
"Healthcare should NOT be run as a for-profit business"For-profit makes sense from the R&D side of things though. Without profit companies won't take the risks nor have capital to develop new treatments and medicines. I don't care how much money you throw at NIH grants - you won't get the same results from the academic research community alone.
haikufuNov 3, 2009
If I have to fill out an insurance document for pre-existing conditions, I lie. f**k those guys.