Discussion Forums > Politics
2012 US Presidential Election
Burkingam:
--- Quote from: vicious796 on October 15, 2012, 05:07:16 PM ---It's the same reason I support a universal healthcare system but only on a state level with federally mandated minimums.
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You know I don't mind at all who does it as long as it's being done. You could have something akin to Canada's healthcare act where provinces manage everything and the feds provide part of founding as long as certain criteria are respected: must be universal and free and must include this and that services etc.
zherok:
--- Quote from: jaybug on October 16, 2012, 11:34:49 AM ---1. I am not a conservative. It's only how far left you are that makes me seem so. Maybe you ought to move to Eugene, Oregon. You'll fit right er left in.
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I have no problem admitting I'm a liberal Democrat. But there's plenty of room to the far left of me. You're no moderate. Maybe you're not enamored with the Republican party, but you certainly seem to agree with them often enough to dispel any pretensions of being near the middle.
--- Quote from: vicious796 on October 16, 2012, 12:56:08 PM ---I'm nitpicking, of course, but only because it hits so close to home and I hate being considered blue.
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I really only looked at the 2008 election map and just went down the list. For what it's worth though, Virginia could tip blue again (it's definitely in the running), and Maryland seems pretty solidly in Obama's corner this election.
AceHigh:
--- Quote from: sdedalus83 on October 16, 2012, 03:46:34 PM ---No president will touch this, since by accident or by design, our military spending provides several million jobs, many of which are occupied by people who would not be employed, or would be earning far less, in the private sector.
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Well, those "jobs" don't make the country wealthier, because they are useless. It is expenditure, not income for the state. The state would actually have income even if those millions of people were in poorly paid private sector. Hell even if those millions were sitting on welfare it would cost the country less.
Burkingam:
So firing teachers is fair game but firing soldier NUUUUUUUUUUU!!! Is that it?
Ixarku:
--- Quote from: vicious796 on October 16, 2012, 12:56:08 PM ---I know you break the mold but, seriously, you and my step-father are the only two I really know (and I really only know him if you know what I mean).
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I like to characterize myself as socially liberal and fiscally moderate, though I suppose the latter label is up for debate. The majority of my long-standing friends are also college educated socially liberal professionals in their 30s or 40s, and the few co-workers I've talked politics with lately are also socially liberal and firmly middle class. None of the folks I've talked to have been in favor of deregulation or increasing government spending or in favor of cutting taxes on the wealthy, or any of the things that Repubs & Democrats butt heads on. Keep in mind that I work in banking, servicing the banks themselves, and we see a lot of the crazy stuff that our clients come up with to try to squeeze a few more dollars out of the average consumer. On one the hand, we try to stay positive and help our clients become more profitable wherever possible, since when they prosper, we prosper, but there's also not a lot of sympathy there from us rank and file IT folks, either.
--- Quote from: vicious796 on October 16, 2012, 12:56:08 PM ---What's important here is the phrase "as much as possible". You're right - we're very, very diverse. However, we're also very spread out and we tend to cluster with those of our own ilk. Families in North Dakota have different backgrounds historically, medically, and culturally than families in Virginia and a single federal mandate in most things won't work for both groups. The Nords that call ND home suffer from different genetic issues than the British living in VA.
Are we a melting pot? Sure - but each state has its own set of citizens that happen to share a background, especially medically. A lot of that is environment. People in CA are more prone to skin cancer than people in Minnesota due to their sunshine and lifestyle. At the same time, people in MN are more likely to get the flu every year due to the cold weather and amount of air they inhale. Two different problems with two different treatments that cost two different amounts.
Educationally, there's a high Asian population in CA and those families are traditionally more school focused than, say, poor white, black, and hispanic families in Louisiana. That high population of Asian students sets a bar that other students want to compete with that the LA kids don't have. Why should citizens of CA, who discipline their children to do well in school, pay for the parents that don't in LA?
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You're always going to find an uneven distribution of wealth & resources in any society, though. Why should the property taxes of wealthy residents in one neighborhood go to fund schools that serve an adjacent neighborhood that's poorer? For that matter, why should I, as a single man, pay taxes that contribute to public schools which my (non-existent) family will never use? The divisions between towns, counties, and states are arbitrary and subject to change, which is one of the reasons I have no problem drawing the line at the federal level instead of at the state level. I see little reason to discriminate between poorer and wealthier states, but I suppose it depends on your goals as a society. Will it be, every man for himself, to survive or fail on your own merits, or is greater cooperation desirable, with the goal of mutual improvement over time? There may not be much point in maintaining a union of states if disparities in education and healthcare across state lines continue to grow.
--- Quote ---Personally, I want to see the entire healthcare insurance industry disappear. I think the federal government should set the prices for healthcare services across the entire country, and I'd like to see some fed-controlled agency handle direct payments to doctors & hospitals for healthcare services. Pricing of healthcare related materials, equipment, and consumables should be subject to some regulation, but it would have to balanced to not stifle research & development. I'd like to see healthcare services funded primarily by a separate income tax.
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--- Quote from: vicious796 on October 16, 2012, 12:56:08 PM ---The problem with this is the lack of potential profit. The government will have a set wage to work with and, therefore, will have to make sacrifices. The doctor's offices will have to all file through the same means which can create a bottleneck of payments. Centralizing things on this large of a scale simply does not work. State level will.
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As far as R&D goes, I would think that government subsidies to manufacturers in order to offset pricing restrictions would probably be necessary. Maybe that's unnecessarily complicated; perhaps it would simply be better for the government to buy drugs at one price and resell at a loss to healthcare providers, I'm not sure. There's a lot of moving parts that I'm not sure how it would need to work.
As far as payments for medical services go, we live in the 21st century. Technology in the payments sector continues to evolve rapidly, so I think the success of this would hinge on implementation of a robust software system and all of the supporting pieces behind it. I work for a company that handles billions of financial transactions a year on a large variety of systems, so I know it's possible, even though it would be a massive undertaking. As far as I'm concerned, it's well past time that the healthcare industry catches up with the rest of the world in technology. If we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to design & implement a software system with the infrastructure behind it to make it happen.
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