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March 02, 2007
As The Poll Turns...
It's good, every once in awhile, to dig through a comprehensive poll and see where the country's at. For instance, I wasn't aware that only 20 out of every 100 people approved of George W. Bush's job performance. I thought he'd have at least, oh, four more supporters in there. And I am surprised that only 23% of the country thinks the country is on the right track. That matches the low from May 2006, and the two are lower than at any point in the past 25 years. Bush's foreign policy and Iraq ratings have cratered, of course, but support for his handling of terrorism has also drifted downward, hitting a new low of 40% (53% disapprove). And only 24% approve his handling of health care, despite the fact that he used much of the State of the union to announce a new initiative on the subject.
Indeed, health care appears to be rising in salience, as 55% name "health insurance for all" as more important than reducing taxes, strengthening immigration laws, or even promoting traditional values. Further, 62% say the Democrats are the likeliest to improve the health care system, while only 19% name the Republicans. As it is, 54% of the country wants fundamental changes to the system, while 36% want to completely rebuild it. That's the highest number since 1993 -- and it's notable that it's not coming amidst a recession. This is an enduring trend, not a temporary squeeze. Indeed, 57% are dissatisfied with the quality of health care in the country, even as 77% are generally satisfied with the quality of care they receive. The unhappiness manifests in the next question, wherein 60% are dissatisfied with the overall cost of care, 52% are upset about what they personally pay.
What surprised me is that 61% say providing care to the uninsured is more important than keeping costs down for average Americans. 95% think the uninsured are a serious problem, and 63% think the government should guarantee care for all Americans. This drops, however, to 48% if it means individual costs will rise. That said, 76% say access to insurance is more important than retaining Bush's tax cut,s suggesting that John Edwards' formulation of using the cuts to pay for care may resonate. Indeed, 60% are willing to pay more in taxes to guarantee care and 49% remained willing when the pollsters specified an extra $500 in taxes per year.
These anxieties may be part of the reason the Republican Party is in such an image crisis, with only 34% rating them favorably, as compared to 48% approving of the Democrats. That's a moderately low number for the Dems, but an atypical pit for the Republicans. All this suggests health reformers have a real opportunity. But these numbers that existed in early 90s -- and reformers failed. The difference, though, is that the early 90s was a serious recession. The current anxiety comes from enduring trends in the system, and so may prove a more stable base for change.
Also at Tapped.
March 2, 2007 in Polls | Permalink
Comments
Apparently, a majority of Americans have bought into the myth - endlessly perpetuated in the media - of 47 million people without health insurance - and hence, without health care.
However, the 2005 U.S.Census Bureau Current Population Survey report on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States (Table 8 on page 22), shows that over 17 million - more than one third - of the uninsured reside in households with annual incomes in excess of $50K.
Also, an April 26, 2005 article in the LA Times estimated that from 10 to 14 million of the uninsured are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP, but have not enrolled. Indeed, the actual number of Americans who can't get health insurance is much less than half of what is consistently reported. Various health care "reformers" don't feel the need to be honest about just who is uninsured while they strongly imply that health insurance equals medical care in order to press for total government health care financing - and the mainstream media is their dependable ally.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 12:34:24 PM
I would like to disagree with Stuart Browning and propose that people who do not have health insurance or Medicaid are not, in fact, insured.
And what does it matter if their income is greater than $50,000? That's not an infinite amount of money. If they have a serious medical condition, they will soon have no money at all, just like a person with income of $20,000 and no insurance. Also, that includes a lot of people whom no agency will insure for any amount of money because of preexisting conditions.
Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Mar 2, 2007 12:38:20 PM
Cryptic Ned - You may disagree with me, but you have not refuted anything I said.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:02:27 PM
Stuart, even if you make an adequate income it may be very difficult to obtain non-employer based insurance. Insurance is almost impossible to obtain once you have had any form of medical care. When my father retired, my perfectly healthy, well off mother was only able to purchase insurance that excluded her right leg because she had fractured it in an accident and been patched up with a plate. Try obtaining insurance after you've been treated for Hodgkin's or when you have a chronic disease like diabetes.
Medical costs are still a leading cause of bankruptcy (exacerbated, obviously, by the fact that long term illness is generally not compatible with continuing to earn a paycheck).
Medical care is not a "right" as you have stated on a previous post. However, we are a wealthy society and we can certainly chose to provide basic medical care, quality education, and make sure that everyone can achieve adequate nutrition and shelter in this country. Most of us leftists actually believe that the country is stronger and more productive if those basic lifestyle needs are met for as many people as possible.
Posted by: J Bean | Mar 2, 2007 1:08:11 PM
Browning your point is a red herring. Even if your fact is exactly right as you state it, it doesn't explain why Americans in general feel this way about healthcare. It's also a pretty bad number even if your number is exactly right. So you are saying 30 million or 10 percent of population isn't a bad number? If you are not saying that factoid as a misdirection then what's your point considering that still leaves 30 mil peo?
I think whenever these discussions come up there should be a red herring patrol to cut down on the inevitable irrelevant points. ie, well health care is bad because of torts, etc.
The reason why most Americans- if I had to guess (which I don't) have a problem with healthcare is not the 47 mil uninsured, it's the fact that they see their insurance going up by double the rate of inflation each year (at the least). Most of this is common sense- people can sense from their own situation that there is a problem. Trying to white wash it into your idealogical perspective doesn't change the fact that there is one.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 1:13:25 PM
I think the point of Stuart's post is twofold.
1) Those who push the "univesal healthcare as a right" agenda could certainly be more honest with the figures.
2) If you are really, really interested in helping poor people, get them on the existing programs that are now available to them. Its the easiest way to reduce this uninsured number. No new programs, no waiting for congress, etc.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 2, 2007 1:13:40 PM
This scares me a bit. I've come around over time to the idea that health care is an issue that really needs to be addressed. What scares me is that with public sentiment being what it is, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, combined with the potential for a democratic president and congress, we'll get a crappy solution that covers everyone, provides pour quality, all without addressing the underpinning issues driving healthcare costs up.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 2, 2007 1:14:36 PM
J Bean - Preexisting conditions aside, you have not addressed the point of my post. More than half of the 47 million are either eligible for Medicaid or can afford health insurance. What purpose is served by grotesquely exagerating the problem of the uninsured? Oh wait - I already answered that question.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:14:49 PM
Stuart, the reason there are a rising number of people that list health care as a major concern is not because they have started believing any "myths." Rather, it is because these people are more and more being personally affected by problems with the health care system.
Also: let's say your household has an income of $50,000. Heck, make it $60k. Say you get enough tax breaks that your household takes home $50k after FICA taxes and a small amount of federal and state income taxes are deducted. Family health insurance is $1000/month and rising, if you can get it at all. Americans are easily looking at the possibility of paying at least 25% of their income is going to pay health insurance.
The health care crisis has always hit the middle class the hardest. It's just hitting them harder now than it has in the past, so people are more concerned because they are PERSONALLY affected. Stuart, telling them, "your problems aren't really a big deal," isn't going to hold much weight with them, as their "lyin' eyes" are considered more believable than you are.
Posted by: Tyro | Mar 2, 2007 1:20:39 PM
Tyro - I could go into a lengthy explanation of how state and federal intervention into the medical market place drives up costs in thousands of ways. I could explain how anti-competitive state laws make insurance all but unaffordable for people in some states. But that would be off-point.
The issue, is why does the left lie about the problem of the uninsured? If government financing of all health care is the right course, why all the mendacity?
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:27:39 PM
can I just say that this is how every debate on issues with the right occurs? or the majority of them. I've said this on other threads, but do you notice the pattern? You spend much your time arguing about whether there is a) actually any facts b) whether there is actually any problem c) what's causing the problem once you finally get them to admit one exists d) figuring out a solution because your solution must still fit their idealogical perspective and on and on. You never ever start from- well this is what the American people are dealing with or anything like that unless its convenient to them.
For all these reasons, these debates are often just shellgames meant to obfuscate rather than shed light on what's being discussed.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 1:27:39 PM
I see- so the problem of the market is that the government is involved in the market, and if the governmetn went away all the problems of cost would go away. I am sure Stuard could write a lengthy post on missing the point, but that would be the point now wouldn't it.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 1:29:12 PM
Akaison - I can feel your frustration when facts are introduced into the collectivist echo chamber here.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:30:01 PM
Stuart you aren't introducing RELEVANT facts. That's the part you have a problem with understanding, but I do not, which is why I call your post what it is- a red herring. I can bring up any number of red herrings too, but I don't. I've never heard of polling data being referred to as an echo chamber. Interesting continued Orwellian manipulation of the conversation.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 1:34:56 PM
Akaison - Many Americans believe that there is a "crisis" of 47 million uninsured. This is the primary factor that motivates them to support the notion of government-provided health insurance. It is certainly relevant to the discussion that this number is a politically inflated number and is nowhere near true.
So once again, can you - or anyone - answer my question: Why does the left lie about the problem of the uninsured? If government financing of all health care is the right course, why all the mendacity?
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:38:42 PM
You claimed that people were listing health care as an increasing concern because they had supposedly "bought into the myth." I'm pointing out that they're listing health care as a rising concern because they, personally, are suffering the consequences of a crisis which you claim is a myth. There's a reason why many of the uninsured make more than $50,000/yr. One of those reasons is that since the poor can take advantage of medicaid, the cost of insurance is further and further out of reach of the middle class.
You can't find someone having trouble getting insurance or blowing a large portion of his income on insuring his family and scream, "there is no problem with the health insurance system or the uninsured! it's all a myth!" and expect him to take you seriously.
Posted by: Tyro | Mar 2, 2007 1:40:23 PM
Afford is the word. If they can afford health insurance, they can afford the tax to pay for universal health insurance. The problem has two dimensions - one being simply the uninsured, the other being the burden of a medical system depending mostly on private health insurance, which is borne mostly by the middle class, more and more vulnerable to cuts in their insurance through the tie in with job-related benefits. There is a meme on the right about "middle class entitlements", as though this was a bad thing. It isn't. It is like saying the skeleton in your body is a bad thing - too wimpy to walk without it, eh? The middle class is as large as it is precisely because of those entitlements - which allow the vaunted flexibility in the labor market, and all the rest.
So, the advantage of the universal health care is - a, taxes in a progressive system would shift the burden of paying for it more onto the wealthiest, where it should be; b, providing healthcare for the poorest; and c, giving the middle class the kind of social safety net allowing them to take other risks. In other words, it is like social security, or other government programs, a wonderful way to mesh capitalism with progressive state action.
Let's do it.
Posted by: roger | Mar 2, 2007 1:45:23 PM
we'll get a crappy solution that covers everyone, provides pour quality, all without addressing the underpinning issues driving healthcare costs up.
That's exactly my concern. All of these collectivists are so eager to rob peter to pay for paul's healthcare that they are not addressing the real underlying problem and that is the double digit annual inflation of healthcare costs. Instead, they attack the symptom.
It's not that I don't care about the uninsured, it's just that the 'conventional wisdom' here about universal insurance is not conventional nor is it wise. It simply will not address the problem.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 2, 2007 1:50:38 PM
Roger - I find your answer refreshingly honest. You admit that many of the uninsured can afford health insurance. And you want them to not only purchase it for themselves - but also for others of less means.
It's all about wealth distribution, not health care, isn't it? And so, the lie about 47 million without health care is justified.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:50:44 PM
Akaison, I think it is still important to argue with people who ignore all the relevant facts, because there are a lot of lurkers who will be persuaded by a conversation like this one that your position is reasonable and Stuart Browning's is obviously partisan and laughably insensitive to the concerns of real people.
Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Mar 2, 2007 1:55:09 PM
Akaison - Ah yes, the inevitable liberal moral posturing. Yes, you care - and opponents of collectivized medicine don't. So lying about a "crisis" of 47 million uninsured is just beside the point.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 1:59:05 PM
It's all about wealth distribution, not health care, isn't it?
All these years of paying renter's insurance, it turns out I've been distributing my hard-earned wealth to people who get robbed! My money is going into the pockets of people who get free stuff from the insurance company when they get robbed or have a fire in their apartment! It's the redistribution of wealth! It offends me!
And don't even get me started about the police! I pay a lot of money in taxes, and meanwhile the police department is spending my hard-earned money preventing crimes in poor neighborhoods in my city! It's a shameful act of wealth-redistribution to watch the city take money from taxpayers to defend poor people from criminals! Do these poor people think they have some kind of right to effective law enforcement?
Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!
Posted by: Tyro | Mar 2, 2007 2:06:28 PM
Browning isn't bringing up "facts" at all. He's declaring insurance to be affordable to people of a certain income level without either acknowledging what insurance actually costs or where the people making $50,000/yr live. That amount of money doesn't buy as much in some parts of the country as it does in others, something true of individual health insurance as well as housing and food costs.
Mr. Browning then points out the number of people eligible for assistance who are not currently receiving said assistance, and of course blames them for it. Nevermind that one of the biggest problems in getting people to sign up for programs for which they are eligible is that money to advertise these programs is often either provided at a low level or not allocated at all.
He of course focuses on the "lie" of 47 million uninsured (which is a patently false claim, as I have shown) while ignoring the question of the 20-30 million people who, according to his own arguments, are neither able to afford health insurance on their own nor are they eligible for assistance. The reason is that he is not here to discuss ideas or persuade. He just wants to throw out a baseless accusation and then ignore anyone who points out the flaws in his arguments. Some people watch porn, others look at Sears catalogs. It's a free country. I just hope that Mr. Browning is able to finish, um, his little activity here and move along.
As a postscript, Cryptic Ned is actually right. People without health insurance, whatever the reason, are in fact uninsured, whereas Mr. Browning seems to believe that people with no health insurance are actually insured.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 2, 2007 2:06:59 PM
Stephen - I'd like to move along, but your falsehood about getting people to signup for medicare is just too rich.
At Parkland Hospital ER in Dallas, a facility that is a primary source of health care for the city's indigent population, patients with Medicaid and the uninsured are both given the same treatment by the same doctors. However, when Parkland employees attempt to enroll the uninsured for Medicaid so that the hospital will get paid, they are unsuccessful more than half the time.
It seems that these poor people know - more than you - that health insurance does not equal health care!
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:15:12 PM
Stephen - I'm not sure I understand your reference to pornography and Sears catalogs. Is this some sort of ad hominem attack? I guess it must make you angry when someone questions one of the most cherished myths of the health care left.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:20:41 PM
The fact that insurers will often refuse to sell insurance at ANY price to individuals seeking to buy health insurance has been well-covered, both here and elsewhere.
And $50,000 a year just isn't all that much money if you have a family and/or live in a high-cost area.
Posted by: fiat lux | Mar 2, 2007 2:22:56 PM
fiat lux - The fact that a minority of people cannot get non-group, underwritten insurance does not change the fact that most of the uninsured already have insurance or can afford it.
In fact, if you go read the Census Bureau report, you'll also see that nearly 9 million of the uninsured reside in household having more than $75K in annual income.
But come on, be honest. It really doesn't matter about how many are uninsured does it? Ezra and his ilk here would support complete government financing of health care even if everyone had private insurance. The whole "uninsured crisis" is just a smokescreen.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:29:55 PM
that's exactly the point stuart. he's bringing up his opinion, and when we disagree with it, they we are all of course liberals. i guess by that he means I'm not accepting his unsubstantiated and irrelevant assertions.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 2:30:25 PM
by the way mr brown you continue to bullshit becaue my anyones definition 30 mil people even if we accept your argument is still a horrendous number becasue its 10 percent of the population. i dont expect your logic to catch up with your idealogy, but i do watn to keep harping on the fact you aren't an honest person.
that's what this is about really- lying and throwing monkey wrenches in because your arguments- are ultimately losing saliency with the american people. when you say the american people are buying 47 mil, what you mean is that they are no longer buying your bullshit. to you and fred, i say good luck with that.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 2:34:07 PM
It seems that these poor people know - more than you - that health insurance does not equal health care!
See? You're dodging the point again. You said that people who can't afford health insurance are eligible for assistance, they just don't go out and get it. I said that sometimes the problem with that is how people are not always told about these programs, and therefore cannot be expected to sign up for a program they know nothing about. Whatever is happening at Parkville Hospital in Dallas is irrelevant to anyone who doesn't believe that anecdotes = data. I was speaking about health insurance the entire time. You, however, are incapable of discussing the actual issues.
My point about pornography is that this is an excercise in mental masturbation for you, since you are obviously uninterested in any actual facts. So please, achieve whatever amount of satisfaction you're looking for here and move along.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 2, 2007 2:39:45 PM
Akaison - 30 million without healthcare is also an exageration. There are 12 million illegal immigrants who don't have health insurance, are counted in the 47 million - but who get the best health care available if they show up at any ER.
In fact, the US heath care system even provides ostensibly free health care to Mexicans in border towns who claim a right of "compassionate entry" at the border where they are met by an ambulance which takes them to an American ER room where they get medical care. The bills are almost never paid.
You guys are pathetic. You hide behind the smokescreen of the 47 million uninsured lie - and have no idea who makes up the number. If you guys are so compassionate, it would seem that you would have investigated just who these supposedly unfortunate people are.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:42:26 PM
Regardless of the underpinning facts, or non-facts, driving people’s opinions, I accept this is an accurate representation of them. And given the shift left in both gov’t and general public policy opinion, health care reform will be a real issue that’s going to go through real debate in the coming years.
The more interesting opinion polls with be the ones measuring the public’s opinion of plans espoused by the democrats in the coming years. Let’s face it: we Americans love to bitch, regardless of what we have. I want see the results once people get a better idea of the trade-offs. I’m guessing that, once the public realizes that something must give – we can’t have full coverage with low cost and high quality - the general public may ease off on their desire for “reform”.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 2, 2007 2:45:46 PM
Stephen - I understand how unsettling it is for you when an independent thinker challenges the predominant statist thinking here. So, I think I'll stick around for your benefit if not for anything else.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:46:15 PM
Stuart, I regret to tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about when you say government regulations increase costs. Let's ignore the US for a moment and write off its off-the-charts health care spending as an anomaly. In Western Europe, the country with the most market-based health care system is Switzerland, followed by Germany. According to the Human Development Report, Switzerland and Germany have the second and third highest health costs in the world as a percentage of GDP (11.5% and 11.1% respectively), the highest being the US, at 15.2%.
Now, France and Canada have intermediate health care systems. France has a combination of private and public insurance; Canada has single-payer insurance that does not extend to prescription drugs, resulting in relatively high private health spending. These two have health spending at about 10.1 and 9.9% of GDP respectively. Britain, which has a purer public system (and, admittedly, a worse one), is at 8%.
In fact, these numbers understate the problem with American health care. The US has a higher GDP per capita than all other countries mentioned so far in this comment. This suggests it's allowed to have a somewhat higher per capita health spending. But in fact, as GDP per capita increases, spending as a percentage of GDP tends to decrease. Norway and Ireland, whose levels of GDP per capita are comparable to the USA's, are at 10.3% and 7.3% respectively; Luxebmourg, whose GDP per capita is half again the USA's, is at 6.8% (and has the lowest private spending as a percentage of GDP among developed countries and the eighth lowest globally). So the US should aim not for 10%, but rather for about 8%, breaking down as around 6% public and 2% private.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 2, 2007 2:49:41 PM
You hide behind the smokescreen of the 47 million uninsured lie
Actually, I hide behind the, "I realize I will likely not be able to afford or be allowed to purchase an individual health care plan" reality, and I realize that more and more Americans are coming to realize this truth as well. It may be acceptable for you to know that Americans are tethered like indentured servants to their jobs because of the health insurance benefits-- after all, as David Frum once argued, the beauty of free-market capitalism is that it kept people insecure enough to ensure that they would be docile and conformist. However, I do not think it is acceptable to force middle class Americans to go without health care or send money down the drain into ever-spiraling health insurance premiums. It looks like the majority of Americans seem to agree with me, their "lyin' eyes" notwithstanding.
Posted by: Tyro | Mar 2, 2007 2:51:09 PM
and now we have dan shifting the conversation yet again- this is why I refer to this as a shellgame. Lose one argument- then say that people don't get something else, lose that change it again. a thing is never what it is- truly Orwellian. So now it's that once people realize that the system now is better (funny I don't think in any other context hyperinflation has ever been referred to as "better") they will want to continue the mess. at least he's honest about his shell game unlike stuart who pretends he is something other than an idealogue.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 2:53:47 PM
Alon - I regret to to tell you that it is *you* who have no idea what you're talking about. The way that other countries keep their spending down is by denying care. In the US, there are a multitude of reasons for rising costs. One is that Americans insist on "premium medicine" as described in Arnold Kling's book "Crisis of Abundance". You need to educate youself about the true nature of health care in countries with government-run medicine.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:54:44 PM
Alon:
How do these countries compare in terms of cost increases year over year? I've read a number of times that the cost of health care is growing at about the same rate accross the industrialized world, regardless of the differences in the systems.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 2, 2007 2:57:07 PM
Tyro - We both agree that employment-based insurance is very bad. However, it does not follow that the solution is government financing as opposed to private insurance. I can't quite imagine the leap of logic in a collectivist's brain that leads to that conclusion.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 2:59:06 PM
oh- and by the way david- i love how you call americans whiners for not wanting to continue with a system that is headed toward failure
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 2:59:45 PM
akaison:
I'm only shifting becuase the old conversation was stale. There's plenty of debate left there, I'm just tired of it.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 2, 2007 3:00:09 PM
people can't make you see stuart what you dont want to see. it's a little like asking people to convince you the sky is blue when you have determined its green.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 3:01:57 PM
akaison:
I'm calling us whiners in general.
Posted by: Dan | Mar 2, 2007 3:02:10 PM
Stop feeding the trolls!
Posted by: CParis | Mar 2, 2007 3:03:01 PM
I just told my conservative coworker what you said Dan, and her response to you is go to hell. I think CParis is right, and I will stop feeding you. peace.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 3:09:55 PM
Mission Accomplished.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 3:10:27 PM
I think the lesson here is that it's impossible to either win or lose an argument with someone who says things like "most of the uninsured already have insurance".
Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Mar 2, 2007 3:11:45 PM
it does not follow that the solution is government financing as opposed to private insurance.
If you want to provide arguments about why single-payer insurance is not a good idea, go ahead. However, it's the most viable alternative on the table to address the concerns that Americans have when they say they want some kind of universal health care solution.
Posted by: Tyro | Mar 2, 2007 3:32:34 PM
The way that other countries keep their spending down is by denying care. In the US, there are a multitude of reasons for rising costs. One is that Americans insist on "premium medicine" as described in Arnold Kling's book "Crisis of Abundance".
And yet this premium medicine results in the highest under-five mortality rate in the first world, high death rates from lung cancer despite low smoking prevlance, and a life expectancy below Western Europe's average.
What is actually happening is that Americans sometimes insist on flashy stuff: prescription drugs whose generic equivalent costs a third as much, unnecessary tests even when there's no threat of a lawsuit, visits to specialists for matters GP can take care of. Taken together with a total lack of preventive care and outrageous administrative costs, this results in a per capita health spending double that of France despite a lower utilization of care.
Now, I realize that in the free market dream, nothing government does can be efficient, and thus the statistics showing that private insurance has incredibly high administrative costs must be countered with thinktank garbage. Fortunately, the general population responds differently to the fact that in Canada 3% of health spending is administrative compared with 30% in the US. I don't need to care that libertarian extremists, whose solution to every problem is deregulation even when existing examples of success are based on greater involvement of government, disagree with me. All I have to do is note that they're becoming increasingly marginal.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 2, 2007 3:40:02 PM
You know, I think Stuart Browning is starting to convince me.
Did you guys know that one of the reasons socialized medicine sucks is because in the countries where they have it the mortality rate is still 100%? Plus, they don't actually have any doctors, and you have to wait 9 months for some hippie with a butter knife to screw up your triple-bypass surgery because he's always high on his government-supplied pot.
Turning our attention back to the godly, hard-working capitalist side of the Atlantic (except for San Francisco, of course) not only do most of the uninsured have insurance, but most of the poor are actually quite wealthy. Plus, most sick people in the USA are actually quite healthy, and if they would just quit abusing the system, we'd have a healthcare utopia, which we already have, of course, except when it serves some conservative wanker's agenda to claim the opposite.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 2, 2007 3:41:08 PM
Stephen - Your post is not deserving of a response.
Alon - You just can't help yourself. You stumble from one single-payer myth to another. Life expectancy and infant mortality have little or nothing to do with the caliber of a health care system. The infant mortality rate in Washington DC is double the national average. Does that mean that hospitals there are to blame? Or are there other factors?
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 4:07:05 PM
Stephen - Your post is not deserving of a response.
Yet you gave it one anyway. You just can't help writing things that are inherently contradictory, can you?
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 2, 2007 4:14:03 PM
Stephen - I think I'll throw in the towel for the day vis-a-vis debating collectivist clowns. You and your ilk have never answered the question that I have posed from the beginning of the thread. You have also trotted out some of the worst canards about our health care system re: infant mortality and life expectancy - and yet, you're not even curious about why your arguments are wrong top-to-bottom.
It goes back to what I've always said about the single-payer left: it has nothing to do with health care and everything to do with wealth redistribution. That's why you lie about a "crisis" or 47 million uninsured.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 4:19:42 PM
Stuart, are there or are there not 47 million uninsured people in this country?
Compare your answer, your previous statements, and the definition of the word mendacious, available here.
Posted by: sidereal | Mar 2, 2007 4:29:30 PM
I think I'll throw in the towel for the day vis-a-vis debating collectivist clowns.
But we haven't had the chance to invoke Hitler yet! Oh, poo.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 2, 2007 4:36:09 PM
You just did.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 4:42:01 PM
sidereal - There are allegedly 47 million people without health insurance if you count millions of people who are eligible for Medicaid. However, there are not 47 million people without health care. The health care left constantly tries to make the connection that health insurance equals health care. It is not true.
Federal law requires that any hospital must provide care to anyone who comes within 100 yards of an emergency room - regardless of ability or willingness to pay. American hospitals and doctors provide nearly $50 billion a year in charity and uncompensated care. And - there's also an extensive system of low or no cost community health care centers and free health care clinics in this country.
Contrast this with the UK and Canada where people suffer and sometimes die waiting for health care. But at least they're insured!
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 4:46:03 PM
as long as people comment- he will post - it's what nutcases like him do. take the advice of another poster who said stop feeding the troll.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 4:47:22 PM
akaison - You should probably heed your own advice. Better yet, read my posts and you might learn something.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 4:49:41 PM
Stuart, if you're going to accuse people of lying you should show that something they say is false. You don't do that. You just disagree with how the figures are used, but in fact you appear to agree that there are 47 million Americans without health insurance. You haven't shown that anyone here or elsewhere has claimed that 47 million lack health care. Ezra plainly says otherwise. If you're really that concerned with honesty you can do your part by not accusing people of lying when they're telling the truth. That would be honest.
There is a significant difference in the data Ezra cites in how people see health care in general and how they see they own care. That is probably due in part to media coverage that exaggerates some aspects of the problem. That doesn't mean there's no problem. No one here argues there are 47 million uninsured, therefore we need socialized medicine. There are plenty of intermediary steps that Ezra and the rest of us who read him have gone over many times. You're not going to get anywhere ignoring everything that has been said in other threads.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 2, 2007 4:52:00 PM
Sanpete - This is becoming circuitous. My point was that the media and the health care left make this false connection on a daily basis. I asked the relevant question: "Why, if government financing of all health care is a good idea, does the left engage in such mendacity?"
No one here has been able to answer, however there has been a great deal of ad hominem attacks.
Regarding Ezra Klien, he has been quite mendacious on the topic in different ways. He has referred to the US health care system as #37 in the world without mentioning that the WHO report that determined this based 25% of its scoring on the "fairness" of the country's health care financing - meaning how much more higher income groups pay for their health care compared with lower income groups. This has nothing to do with healing. But young collectivist Klein doesn't mention that.
Like I say, it's not about health for you guys.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 5:03:30 PM
Stuart, again, you haven't shown that anyone here or elsewhere has equated lack of insurance with lack of health care. That is the relevant response to your question, that its premise appears to be false, and that you have done nothing to support it. This has been pointed out to you in half a dozen ways. If you can support the premise of your question, go ahead. Otherwise, your continued accusations of mendacity only rebound to you.
What you say about Ezra, even if true, doesn't show him to have been mendacious. You're way too anxious to accuse people of lying. That's an emotional response, not a rational one. As is the claim that it isn;t about health. You haven't shown that at all. You've only shown that you disagree with us. You need to learn to distinguish between disagreement and all the emotional reponses you have to it.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 2, 2007 5:15:16 PM
CParis and akaison, while Stuart sports a number of all-too-human flaws (as do we all), he's hardly a troll. A troll is someone who intentionally and mischievously attempts to ruin a forum by driving conversation off-topic and baiting people into helping him or her. Mr. Browning just has opinions you don't like and a caustic delivery.
You're invoking the wise 'ignore the troll' mantra to inappropriately get people to ignore Mr. Browning's opinions, which is unnecessarily exclusionary. Besides, good theories are those that stand up to reasonable criticism. So you won't know if yours is any good unless someone's there to criticize it.
Posted by: sidereal | Mar 2, 2007 5:35:09 PM
As a blog commenter, Stu, you're a good maker of wingnut propaganda films.
'Being able to afford insurance' and 'being able to get insured' are not cognates. But thanks for playing.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 5:35:57 PM
I can easily understand why people are anxious about health insurance. Even those who have good insurance today are aware that their employer's cost to provide that insurance is increasing faster than inflation and faster than its other costs. Employers have responded to this trend by gradually increasing the amount of the premium the employee is required to pay as well as by what the industry calls "benefit buydowns." This means higher deductibles and co-pays, perhaps a more restrictive network, etc. So, even if employees have good health insurance today, they fear it won't be as good next year and/or it will cost them a lot more plus it means they have to accept lower (or no) wage increases so their employer can continue to provide decent health insurance.
I think John Edwards' estimate of the cost of covering the currently uninsured ($90-$120 billion per year) is in the ballpark or perhaps, a bit low but not too much. I'm afraid Democrats, who keep calling for reversal of the Bush tax cuts to pay for health insurance for the currently uninsured, have spent that money several times over for a host of initiatives from healthcare to education to alternative energy initiatives.
My frustration is that the middle class refuses to squarely face the fact that, under any likely healthcare reform approach, the broad middle class is going to have to pay to insure the broad middle class. Higher income people, through progressive income taxes, already pay most of the cost of insuring the poor and the elderly. Also, as I've said before, I believe the left grossly overestimates the potential savings from lower administrative costs.
Most of the reform proposals being considered by the states, as well as Senator Wyden's plan, call for either building on the current employer based system (employer mandate or pay into a government fund) or a voucher approach that would preserve a significant role for private insurers. I think a premium support / voucher approach along the lines of the managed competition model developed by Alain Enthoven has the best chance of garnering broad support but probably not before 2009. Despite enthusiasm on the left, I don't think a single payer system will gain much traction because it is not a good fit with our culture which prefers lots of choices. Hopefully, this issue will be vigorously debated during the 2008 election cycle, and whoever wins, will have earned the political capital to pursue the approach he or she advocated during the campaign.
Posted by: BC | Mar 2, 2007 5:35:58 PM
I would like to turn the conversation back to what it's about. Does anyone beyond stuart think this doesn't mean there is a growing mandate for change with the system as we presently see it? i am kind of partial to edwards idea, but i'm wondering does this mean the american people are open to his idea as well, or will we see HRC's apprach tweaking around the edge despite the poll numbers?
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 5:41:14 PM
By the way, Stuart, when you pop up to comment in a blog that spends much of its time discussing healthcare politics, it always helps if you don't sound like a patronising git by rehashing old arguments. The archives are your friend.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 5:41:48 PM
"as long as people comment- he will post - it's what nutcases like him do. take the advice of another poster who said stop feeding the troll."
I must say that Stuart makes me appreciate the quality trolling of Fred Jones, who at least has, ohh, half-a-dozen stock responses rather than only one, and sometimes goes on entertaining memoir-type tangents.
In the meantime, as Stuart claims to have read our minds, I'd like to know what website in wingnuttia sold him the mind-reading implant he uses to look into our dark, envious, collectivist, hearts.
[I mean, if I had that implant, I'd use it to mind-read nubile females on the train and at the gym*, rather than debate crypto-socialists on the interwebs.]
Posted by: No Longer a Urinated State of America | Mar 2, 2007 5:42:08 PM
And I meant to add this:
He has referred to the US health care system as #37 in the world [blah blah blah] This has nothing to do with healing.
Complete strawman. Ezra repeatedly talks about cost versus outcomes. Americans collectively pay more and get less than other countries.
But young collectivist Klein doesn't mention that.
And you talk about ad hominems, Stuart? Do get back to the editing booth.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 5:44:28 PM
sidereal- a troll has multiple means. one of which is when someone brings up a red herring argument. it's irrelevant whether i agree or agree with brown. indeed, i said above if you bothered to read rather than do the "im the reasonable one" routine that I said assuming his argument to be true, the problem with it is that it's irrelevant. if you can not respond to my specific statements- dont stick me in middle of your need to feel reasonable because by misstating what I said, you aren't being reasonable. What I also added was that waht he is doing is a common practice of the right- a game of hide the ball. if you argue that iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, then you are told what you are advocating is terrorism. if you say that health care is for shit in this country, and that taking his numbers seriously 30 mil people are without healthinsurance, and those that do aren't being given the best of services or even adequate services compared to other countries, you are told that well they just dont want it or they could have it if they wanted or they are whiners. the problem with your analysis of my argument in other words is that you play into the game of false equivalence. brown says x, i say y, and rather than admitting that brown if full of shit, you decide to place me on brown's level. thanks, but no thanks.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 5:46:44 PM
By the way, Stu, if you think that saying 'collectivist! collectivist!' wins you wingnut points, you're quite mistaken. It just shows you're a deeply unserious person.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 5:48:24 PM
pseudonymous - if you think saying 'wingnut!' 'wingnut!' reflects well on your debating skills, then you're mistaken.
There are solid grounds for applying the label 'collectivist' to the political idealogies of some who post here. You, on the other hand, are merely engaging in ad hominem attacks.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 5:55:44 PM
Stuart,
For most people with pre-existing conditions, even relatively minor conditions, insurance is either not available of prohibitively expensive. In my experience (probably at least as good as your Parkland anecdote), the very poor take MediCal/Medicaid/MSI quite readily when it is offered to them. However, the working poor and the less well off middle class are really hurt when they lose their employer based coverage. I spent a month in Texas after Katrina as a volunteer helping people sort out their medical problems after their places of employment disappeared and their insurance went along with them. Employer based insurance is a very real problem, but the idea that the current system can, without modification or regulation, replace the collapsing employer based system is at best without any data for support.
Ezra, while young, is not a "collectivist" and you are probably not entirely a troll. However, your use of the word tells me that you are arguing from ideology rather than fact.
Posted by: J Bean | Mar 2, 2007 5:55:51 PM
Americans collectively pay more and get less than other countries.
pseudonymous - Can you back the second half of this statement up with any facts?
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 6:03:42 PM
J Bean - I agree with you that insurance for pre-existing conditions can be prohibitively expensive and that employer-based insurance is a real problem. May I suggest that the latter actually agravates the the problem of the former? A free market where people have insurance from any early age, independent of emplyment, would go a long ways towards solving this problem. Getting state government out of the insurance regulation business and allowing insurance to be sold across state lines would also do a lot to make the industry more competititve and to brings cost down. I'm only scraping the surface here.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 6:18:42 PM
Stuart Browning: facts?
US ranking in infant mortality and here is a simple comparison to Canada, whose system is often belittled by RepubliConTarians
Google would provide more comparisons should you seriously care to investigate.
Posted by: Mike | Mar 2, 2007 6:25:18 PM
Can you back the second half of this statement up with any facts?
That's been covered in the archives of this blog many times over. Welcome to ezraklein.typepad.com. Now get yourself up to speed.
Posted by: Constantine | Mar 2, 2007 6:33:18 PM
Constantine - I have to go now - however, rest assured I will return - time permittin g- to disabuse you of the notion that infant mortality has anything to do with the quality of a health care system.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 6:50:01 PM
Stuart, you speak of collectivism as though it were automatically a bad thing. Obviously that isn't true. (I'd guess you're fine with public highways, for example.) The issues you're bringing up here have been dealt with many times, including whether health care would be better based on a competitive insurance market or single-payer. Ezra supports universal health care, and is willing to see it done either way, as long as it's done, even if he sees advantages to single-payer. In all the discussions I've seen, no one has ever been swayed by merely pointing out that single-payer is collectivist.
If this is an issue of special importance to you, stick around and deal with specific points as they arise. You won't be able to settle all the myriad issues by just bringing them up in a thread that's really about how people feel about health care. You've made your point relevant to that, and points have been raised against your claims, and unless you have some more support to offer to support them, you really aren't going to get much further on the topic of this thread.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 2, 2007 7:09:50 PM
Sanpete - Sounds good. Over and out ......
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 2, 2007 7:25:10 PM
Getting state government out of the insurance regulation business and allowing insurance to be sold across state lines would also do a lot to make the industry more competititve and to brings cost down. I'm only scraping the surface here.
Or maybe not. Certainly the removal of regulation in other fields has not always (or maybe even "usually") resulted in lower costs. Deregulation of power in California allowed the boys at Enron to make a bundle off of California consumers. I happen to live in a state that does not have a medical malpractice insurance problem because it is both highly regulated and has a thriving non-profit provider.
I doubt that the merger between PacificCare and United Health Care and the merger between the Blues and whichever company they are merging with (I'm on vacation and too lazy to use The Google today) will have anything but a deleterious effect on the California HMO market. However many of the free-market folks think that unregulated oligopoly is just fine. Me, I'm less than impressed by the likelihood of this resulting in a particularly good deal for the California consumer.
Posted by: J Bean | Mar 2, 2007 7:52:42 PM
You know, I can't help noticing that when I wrote a comment comparing Switzerland to France, you immediately injected the US into this. Where I gave evidence that the private system overspends on health care, you immediately moved the conversation to an argument you were marginally familiar with rather than the argument I was making. Then you responded with non sequiturs, seizing on such as marginal points as infant mortality (if you want a more robust set of health standards, go here). You don't even respond well. You could've accepted infant mortality as an indicator of health care and said Singapore has the lowest rate in the world; instead, you insisted on better standards, by which France is the best in the world. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're so honest you'd shoot your own argument in the foot to tell the truth.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 2, 2007 8:06:05 PM
pseudonymous - Can you back the second half of this statement up with any facts?
Like I said, this blog has this miraculous thing called 'archives'. They are free to peruse. Use the google, you patronising git.
There are solid grounds for applying the label 'collectivist' to the political idealogies of some who post here.
Er, no. Although you're creating solid grounds for the label 'hack'.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 8:15:55 PM
OK, it's official.
pseudonymous has just replaced constantine (aka Dean-0)as the biggest whiner about trolls that aren't trolls at all but people who disagree with his socialist philosophy.
Why don't you get an education, get a good job and take advantage of the tremendous opportunity that is available to you instead of whining about how much the government "owes" you.....be it healthcare or other issues??
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 2, 2007 8:45:41 PM
"And yet this premium medicine results in the highest under-five mortality rate in the first world, high death rates from lung cancer despite low smoking prevlance, and a life expectancy below Western Europe's average."
To compare apples with apples you must separate US outcomes by race.
We have a significant minority underclass and a huge illegal immigrant population, both groups have bad health habits and no health consumer education.
I don't assert that outcomes for whites and asians in US will be better or worse than for whites, say, in Germany. But without doubt, comparison will not be as skewed as with all US population.
For example, using Minnesota as a proxy for whites life expectancy (it is an approximation, so hold your enthusiasm) life expectancy in Minnesota is 78.8.
In Germany and Sweden it is 78.5 and 80.3 repectively.
Posted by: mik | Mar 2, 2007 9:13:54 PM
"health care appears to be rising in salience, as 55% name "health insurance for all" as more important than reducing taxes, strengthening immigration laws, or even promoting traditional values."
I'm curious how we could have provide a decent health care for all as long as we have open borders.
In effect 100 million Mexicans have an open claim on our health system, all they have to do is cross border and show up at any non-private hospital.
Santa Clara County is 500 miles from the border. County hospital gets 20% of their patient bills paid, 80% go unpaid.
Estimates vary, but 30-50% of all patients are illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans.
Posted by: mik | Mar 2, 2007 9:20:55 PM
Estimates vary, but 30-50% of all patients are illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans.
Such generosity makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 2, 2007 10:00:46 PM
it's also factually wrong. if people are going to post they should know what they are talking about with regard to immigrants. look up the most recent data regarding california for example and what has happened over time with immigrants there. the claim is that they don't add to the economy, and yet the actual numbers that just came out by the fed says they do. its easy to demonize the 'other' to justify your own prejudice but you may actually want to start by looking shit up rather than making shit up.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 2, 2007 10:21:50 PM
Why don't you get an education--
Oh, motherfucking yawn. Got one, thanks. Why don't you get a psychiatrist, Jim-Fred-Robert?
Or if you want to be a good little boy, show your new best friend Mr Browning how to search the archives so that he doesn't look so silly next time he blunders in. It'll be the first useful thing you've done in years.
In effect 100 million Mexicans have an open claim on our health system, all they have to do is cross border and show up at any non-private hospital.
Yes, it's so simple, isn't it? Also, all they have to do is cross border and infiltrate a military base, and those durned Mex'cans will have NUKES!!!1!1OMG!!
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 10:45:57 PM
And for the sake of making it abundantly clear to our local sociopath:
It's not a question of 'owing'; it's that I find abhorrant the notion that for one particular country, the act of getting sick or dying young is taken as a measure of financial success, and in that curious American way, of personal moral health. It's an odd kind of theology: if you're wealthy, you've obviously been blessed by the good Lord Jesus Christ, and thus can be healed; if you're poor -- well, everyone knows what that says about you, so the sooner you shuffle off, the better.
'Fred' has said just today that sees uninsured adults who get sick as guilty of something: of being feckless, lazy, addicts, and not white. It's all about the benjamins with our 'Fred', presumably because his personal wealth is what sustains his sense of self-worth.
Strangely enough, Jesus went around healing the destitute and never once asked to see an insurance card. How motherfucking un-American of him.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 2, 2007 11:00:43 PM
"it's also factually wrong."
What is, pray tell?
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:23:28 AM
"look up the most recent data regarding california for example and what has happened over time with immigrants there."
Legal or illegal?
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:24:39 AM
"you may actually want to start by looking shit up rather than making shit up."
Please, dump your shit here, if you know some.
Any references to back up your PC assertions?
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:26:31 AM
"the claim is that they don't add to the economy, and yet the actual numbers that just came out by the fed says they do."
Setting up a strawman, don't we?
No one claims that illegals don't add to economy. They add some, problem is they take in health, education, police, jail, food stamps, etc services much more than they put in.
Besides, benefits are distributed mostly to illegals themselved and investor class.
Middle class pays taxes to support illegals and poor loose their jobs to illegals.
I thought lefties are compassionate to our own downtrodden.
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:31:21 AM
"all they have to do is cross border and infiltrate a military base, and those durned Mex'cans will have NUKES!!!1!1OMG!!"
Thank you for a brilliant and well reasoned contribution to the debate.
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:32:42 AM
"Such generosity makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?"
Yes. The very same county hospital in which 50% of patients are illegals and 80% don't pay bills, will fall on you like a ton of bricks if you have any assets.
I knew an electrician, independent contractor, mid fifties with preexisting conditions, no insurance.
Got a serious surgery, had to declare bankruptcy because of medical debts.
Posted by: mik | Mar 3, 2007 2:38:50 AM
They add some, problem is they take in health, education, police, jail, food stamps, etc services much more than they put in.
Where do you find this information? I've heard the opposite is true.
The very same county hospital in which 50% of patients are illegals and 80% don't pay bills, will fall on you like a ton of bricks if you have any assets.
I knew an electrician, independent contractor, mid fifties with preexisting conditions, no insurance.
Got a serious surgery, had to declare bankruptcy because of medical debts.
Which is why we need universal health care coverage, right? Seems we're paying for most of it already, just not in a rational way.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 3, 2007 3:14:07 AM
Mik, Germany and France have underclasses of immigrants and their descendants. The Arabs who rioted in France last winter were hardly integrated into French society. The level of income mobility in France is almost as low as in the US and Britain, with the intergenerational income coefficient being 0.41 to the USA's 0.47 and Britain's 0.5 (while Canada is at 0.19 and Denmark is at 0.14). Just because the French underclass's members live in nicer houses than the American one's doesn't make them not alienated, not poor, or employed.
But even if you exclude black Americans but not any minorities elsewhere, the US does worse. The white infant mortality rate in the US is 5.5, regardless of Hispanic origin; Britain's is 5.2, the EU average is 5.1, in Canada it's 4.8, and in France, Germany, and Sweden it's 4.3, 3.9, and 2.4 respectively.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 3, 2007 5:41:27 AM
"US ranking in infant mortality and here is a simple comparison to Canada, whose system is often belittled by RepubliConTarians"
Following up on Stu's assertion that the left often has to lie or mislead to make their point, here is another example.
Countries with socialized medicine don't try to save nearly the amount of underweight babies that US healthcare tries to save here(and they[Canada, Europe] uethanize their elderly). A baby that is too premature is not given medical attention and simply left to die. And of course they don't count these premature babies they killed in their infant mortality stats, cuz that would make their statistics on infant mortality pretty bad.
Anyone hear about that 22 week old baby that was saved here in the US? I believe the story ran last week.
If your baby was coming prematurely, where would you rather have an underweight baby here or in a socialized medicine country?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 3, 2007 8:59:56 AM
In socialized medicine, premature babies are left to die and those babies are not counted in their infant mortality rate.
In the US, we try to save every premature baby, and the ones that die are considered infant mortalities.
Socialized medicine's infant mortality rate is better than US's infant mortality rate, so socialized medicine is better, right?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 3, 2007 9:30:36 AM
My the trollery is thick today. Moving on....I don't think this shift is the same as the one in the 90s for the simple fact that a) Baby Boomers have aged, and b) the economy and jobs are less stable, even if overall profits are greater...the fact that Company X is doing great means bupkis to you if you were laid off to pad their bottom line. In a world where you are going to need more and more care very soon and you can't fool yourself that you'll always have a job, you want guarantees. You want to be able to go to the doctor because you need to, regardless of whether you have much in your bank account. Accusations of socialism mean nothing to desperate people looking at a grim future in which they could die for lack of, say, a simple tooth extraction, for God's sake. "Rationing" means nothing to people who already hesitate to go to the doctor because they can't afford the deductible. We are already being rationed to death.
Hospitals can and do refuse care. They dump patients on Skid Row. Medicare problems persist precisely because who "deserves" or is "entitled" to care is a matter of constantly updating paperwork, and having the caregivers know how to decipher it. Or being willing to try.
Universal care is simple: all US citizens get care, regardless of income. You, me, Dick Cheney, and the homeless guy on the corner. My grandmother had to empty out her savings because they weren't enough to support her, but disqualified her for Medicare. In what world is that a good system? If she'd had guaranteed care, she could have used her savings to make herself more comfortable, take a trip, spend time with her grandkids. She didn't get that option.
Posted by: emjaybee | Mar 3, 2007 9:43:20 AM
emjaybee - The points that Captain Toke makes concerning premature babies and the differences in the way that countries count infant mortality is true. But instead of asking him for his sources so that you can educate yourself, you spout off about "trollery". The ignorance here at young collectivist Ezra Klein's site astounds me.
Posted by: Stuart Browning | Mar 3, 2007 9:54:13 AM
"It's not that I don't care about the uninsured, it's just that the 'conventional wisdom' here about universal insurance is not conventional nor is it wise. It simply will not address the problem."
That's the part of my quote that psudopsycho in nc likes to leave out. The fact is that I disagree to the efficacy of socializing medicine. However, it's more fun for him to paint his perceived enemies as monsters. It's extreme and dishonest and exactly what Marcotte did and we all saw how that played in the real world of grownups.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 3, 2007 10:54:29 AM
emjaybee - I believe you are confusing Medicare with Medicaid - Medicare is based on age or disability, and is in fact, this is the model that many on this site want to extend to everybody.
I am not one of them. I am for universal coverage, but against single-payer. I do think we need to cover all children, decouple coverage from jobs, and allow people with pre-existing conditions to get coverage. I do not believe single-payer is the best answer to that.
Posted by: umbrelladoc | Mar 3, 2007 12:19:27 PM
Ooh, Jim Matthews (aka 'Fred Jones') is starting to get obsessed with me. And we all know what happens when he gets obsessed. As Brendan put it back in 2004:
Jim, you don’t know me. You don’t know ANYTHING about me. But i know something about you: you’re a liar, you’re a bully, and you are so fucking stupid, you probably wipe your ass with your hand and then eat Triscuits.
You're a sick man, Jim, and really ought to get professional help. Though knowing the inadequate provision of mental health care, I can understand why you choose to self-medicate on the internets. Did your therapy stop after six weeks, as is common under most plans, and in most states?
With you, it's all empty bullshit for the sake of incitement. While you may forget what you post from one day to the next, you're on record that you consider the uninsured ill to be guilty of something. It's a skewed moral issue to you, and your thinly-veiled racism makes it clear you think it's all down to those lazy drug-addled brown folks.
Sorry, Jim: I'm not going to play your little sociopath games. In the meantime, I'll take comfort in the fact that no conservative politician in the developed world outside the US wants to replace an existing system of universal coverage with the US model of non-universal coverage. That's conventional wisdom for you.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 3, 2007 12:21:43 PM
Ooh, Jim Matthews (aka 'Fred Jones') is starting to get obsessed with me.
That's rich. If anyone is obsessed, it's you. Get a room. Or better yet, follow your own advice about getting counseling. This is pathetic.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 3, 2007 1:36:02 PM
I can see how knowing the background of a poster in terms of why they came here would be unsettling to you. You don't like things are not rarified. But, me personally, I think its good to know who it is people seem to want to debate as if they are even representative of the garden variety mainstream conservative here. I think its useful to know how extreme Fred is rather than from thread to thread pretend he's less extreme than he is. It's the equivalent of my knowing from experience that all one has to do is looking Toke's direction, and get some out and out racist spewing as you saw the other day. Does that make me obsessed too just because I know who the guy is, and what he stands for?
Posted by: akaison | Mar 3, 2007 2:03:29 PM
Akaison, if you would bother reading what you respond to you'd be so much more useful. How on earth is what you say a response to what I said, and how does it take into account what pseudo keeps doing in almost every thread Fred posts in, and the bizarre ways he/she does it? As so often, you're responding to what no one has said.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 3, 2007 2:46:22 PM
sanpete, do you believe nc's pointing out that fred is a racist is equivalent to fred claiming that someone has a personal aminousity toward him are equivalent?
if you do not, your post makes the point that you do because you treat the behavior of someone who finds fred offensive in its racism as the same as fred's reaction to nc. as someone has said you are light on the logic skills, but this is silly, prevous post clearly treats these two as equivalent when one is a racist and one is not.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 3, 2007 3:49:19 PM
if you can't figure out why i say that, which it just occurs to me that i can't assume you have the capacity to understand these things- its when you admonish nc to get a room with fred as if nc is acting the same as fred when in fact one reaction makes perfect sense, and the other does not.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 3, 2007 3:51:46 PM
For a taste of the significant fraud within the Medicare program, see here and here. If this is any indication of what a single payer Medicare for all system would be like, I don't think taxpayers will be pleased. But hey, administrative costs are low.
Posted by: BC | Mar 3, 2007 7:29:37 PM
yes because the most important thing when making any policy decision is the small percentage of fraud rather than the high level of sucess. i suppose if wall street lived by that mantra we would never get any business contract done because of the fear that someone may cheat you. that makes a lot of sense if you are a wingnut trying to justify your wingnuttery, but not a whole lot of practical real world sense.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 3, 2007 9:03:10 PM
akaison,
I don't know about you, but I would not view 10% (knowledgeable estimates) lost to fraud as small. 1% or 2%, maybe but not 10%. Obviously the program needs more and better oversight.
Posted by: BC | Mar 3, 2007 9:54:21 PM
Akaison, if you would bother reading what you respond to you'd be so much more useful.
That's a pet trope of yours, Sanpete, isn't it?
Why is it 'bizarre' that I point out the way that 'Fred' has a long history of dishonest argument, misrepresentation and bullying? His aim at TalkLeft, Pandagon and now here has always been to drive away other commenters through sheer persistence and rampant bigotry and turn the space into his own little cesspit.
You'll notice that in the Klein thread, I treat you as an honest participant, even if I disagree with your contentions.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 4, 2007 1:44:26 AM
That's a pet trope of yours, Sanpete, isn't it?
It is with some posters, and some topics, with good reason.
What's bizarre is the way you follow Fred around and indignantly accuse him of the very things you're doing to him, without any cue that you even notice the irony. And you're so over the top. Fred can get carried away, but you go further--and lower--than he does in most threads where you go after him. Read your post. It's awful; it's infantile; it's about as far as you can get from you at your best. You can or should be able to see that you're not going to drive him away, so if this is some kind of a strategy on your part (some kind of performance), it's never going to work; it will just introduce needless ranting into every third thread.
Besides, it's good to have Fred here. He thinks like a good many in this country do, so he reminds us of what we might otherwise forget. Often he's even civil about it (as often as many), and sometimes gets a decent discussion going. If he really has dreams of driving anyone else away, he's doing an odd job of it.
You'll notice that in the Klein thread, I treat you as an honest participant, even if I disagree with your contentions.
Indeed, as I do you.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 4, 2007 3:08:50 AM
Approximately 40% of the 'uninsured' make over $50k/year. My suggestion to fix the problem is to require these individuals to purchase a barebones HDHP (with a $5000 annual deductible). In order to make this affordable, and the reason why the MA plan is failing, we need to cap the monthly premium for such a plan at $250/month per individual and $750/month for a family, provide tax deductions to buy into the plan, allow unfettered state-to-state insurance company competition, and strip away all the lobbyist implanted care mandates, such as chiropractic care, in-vitro fertilization, circumcision, acne care. Of the remaining 60% or approximately 30 million people, those eligible for Medicaid should be required by law and enforced to sign up for the program. By doing this, another 15 million would be covered. That leaves about 15 million people. As a compassionate nation we should provide means based vouchers to help them buy into the previously mentioned barebones HDHPs. Not sure how much this would cost, but this is a potential solution that is relatively low cost, maintains the current private system for the vast majority of Americans that can afford it, and does not force everyone into a nightmare of a government run single payer system. As for solving the 4-6% annual rise in health insurance premiums seen today, I would end the employer based insurance system, allow state-to-state competition, strip-out the unnecessary care mandates, and offer the previously mentioned barebones HDHP along with an HAS. End of story.
Posted by: squid | Mar 4, 2007 8:52:31 AM
Sorry unable to edit. The above post should read.
'such as chiropractic care, in-vitro fertilization, circumcision, acne care...'
'strip-out the unnecessary care mandates, and offer the previously mentioned barebones HDHP along with an HSA.'
Posted by: squid | Mar 4, 2007 8:55:11 AM
Squid,
While I agree with much of your post, I think the employer based system, especially in the case of large employers, can provide good insurance at very low administrative cost (5%-6% of total costs). What we need is a taxpayer funded mechanism for the unemployed, pre-Medicare eligible retirees, and others who want to move to another employer that doesn't offer health insurance or wants to start a business to access health insurance. Such insurance could be financed by a dedicated tax like a VAT.
The problem with the high deductible plan for low income people is that they won't be able to afford the deductible either and will need some means tested help with that as well. The good news is that a disproportionate share of the uninsured are comparatively young and, as a group, don't need as much healthcare as the older segment of the population.
With respect to the Massachusetts experiment, there is actually some good news. See the most recent two threads on the Healthcare For All blog here.
Posted by: BC | Mar 4, 2007 9:24:48 AM
For proof that infant mortality rates in Europe are artificially low compared to U.S., see this article: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm
Posted by: JFP | Mar 4, 2007 12:02:16 PM
BC:
Eastern Mass: $861
Central Mass: $756
Western Mass: $756
Are these annual premiums? If so, it looks good...
Posted by: squid | Mar 4, 2007 12:19:22 PM
squid,
Not sure. Those may be the penalties for not buying insurance which, I think, are supposed to be about half the cost of buying it. I believe the thread just before the most recent one has some of the premium information, along with the names of the seven insurers who submitted affordable bids. An average cost of $175 per month was mentioned which would be even less when paid for on a pretax basis through the Connector Authority. That could get the after tax cost down to as low as $109 per month. The Connector Authority is supposed to meet on March 20th to determine whether or not plans without drug coverage will satisfy the state's Minimum Creditable Coverage (MCC) requirements. The state's willingness, apparently, to let the bids vary by applicant's age and geography within the state will also help to maximize affordability for the younger uninsured. The average age of the uninsured in MA is pegged at 37 which suggests below average healthcare needs as compared to the older demographic.
Posted by: Barry Carol | Mar 4, 2007 12:56:32 PM
The point about the fraud argument is that its a common retort of the right in creating social programs.
It was used with regard to the welfare system, and ultimately is a bullshit argument precisely because no system ever built can prevent fraud.
It's one of those issues brought up that conservatives assume that people would get all hot and bothered by because it's a concept that no one would be in favor of. But, it doesn't tell the truth because it's a concept which can not be prevented by any measure, and works on people's emotions rather than the reality.
You can give me the percentages of what your sources claim to be the fraud all you want- the problem is that I don't trust the idea that this is being brought up as a serious concern because if you are truly knowledgeable of the private sector you know that this is not something unique to the public sector.
I remember reading during the height of the Enron scandal that a large percentage of companies have engaged in cooking their books- in other words committing fraud.
Yet, I don't hear anyone on the right claiming we need to completely rehaul the process or system for disclosure beyond the tweaking that was done with Sarbane Oxley. Your argument about fraud is designed to pretend that the whole system should be eliminated or avoided because the possibility of fraud exists.
The real question is what is most effective in getting the over all goal accomplished rather than pretending one can eliminate fraud. Nor should a system be based on elimination of all fraud. Such a system in the private sector tends to drive up costs massively. Instead, as with the SEC, you selectively enforce the law to increase the likelihood that there would be less fraud, not fraud at all. The fraud of cooking one's books costs investors, the public, billions of dollars a year. What's the difference if you are losing money other than you will claim its public money.
I grow tired of the double standards that conservatives apply to arguments. You don't really care about fraud if you don't care about it everywhere. This is about your idealogical perspective. Hence why you add that the American people will be turned off by the system as a whole because really, that's your tell, as to what this is really about- you dont want a public based healthcare system. Fraud is one of those ways to demonize the idea based on a falsehood that any system can avoid it.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 4, 2007 1:21:05 PM
Besides, it's good to have Fred here.
No, it's not. Picking up from that other thread, he normalizes crazy on this blog. Tolerating his filth makes filth appear tolerable. And if 'a good many' think like him, the mental health system in the US is in even worse shape than I thought. It's the same kind of persistent, aggressive behaviour I've seen since USENET days.
On the fraud argument: a lot of this is on account of selectivity. That's why the introduction of means-tested benefits in place of universal ones often delivers smaller savings than projected. I think it also buys into the bullshit argument that the uninsured are somehow already defrauding the system in some way -- the 'lazy, feckless addict' line that's not so much an argument as a weak attempt to rationalise gut bigotry.
There's lots of talk about infant mortality, but I noticed that the Independent writes today of a crisis in NHS because of rising maternal mortality. That's troubling, but the rate -- 13 per 100,000 live outcomes -- is actually identical to that in the US, where a black woman is about three times more likely to die during pregnancy than a white woman. Now, pre-natal care is one of those areas where there is limited, state provision, but with lots of hoops for expectant mothers to leap through.
Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Mar 4, 2007 2:56:02 PM
The real question is what is most effective in getting the over all goal accomplished rather than pretending one can eliminate fraud. Nor should a system be based on elimination of all fraud.
akaison,
Believe it or not, I agree with you on this. Bankers know that a small percentage of their loans will not be repaid. Credit card companies know that some money will be lost to fraud. For healthcare, one of the goals is to insure that fraud is kept within reasonable limits, not eliminated entirely.
With respect to Medicare, I think a couple of improvements would be helpful on this front. First, Medicare should not have to pay so quickly. Taking 14 or 15 days to pay would be reasonable and give it more time to verify the legitimacy of payments it may have reason to question. Second, providers, including business owners and people involved in billing, as well as those who interact with patients directly, could be required to have a robust ID card including a picture and a fingerprint. This could help to catch the crooks who set up the phony storefronts and then disappear in a matter of months only to reappear elsewhere. For those who are caught defrauding Medicare (or Medicaid), punishment should be swift and appropriate.
A couple of points about Enron. First, the discipline of the marketplace eventually forced the company out of business. Second, senior people were held accountable. Third, large settlements from bankers, brokers, accountants, etc. did provide some restitution for investors who lost money. For the corporate sector generally, there are many grey areas in accounting, and there is a range of approaches that can be used to report financial results. Some are more conservative than others, but there is a considerable zone of reasonableness. I don't know if you work for a large private company or not, but CFO's of such companies would tell you that Sarbanes-Oxley is more than just "tweaking" and has added millions of dollars in costs to comply with its provisions. Fortunately, we have not had a similar corporate failure since. Enron was an exception, not an indictment of the whole corporate sector.
For the record, I've said before that I support universal coverage, community rating and taxpayer financing but not single payer. I like Enthoven's managed competition approach and think vouchers or premium support would be a better fit with our culture. I would also be willing to build on the current system if it brings insurance to the uninsured, unemployed and under 65 retirees and would be easier to get through our political process..
Posted by: BC | Mar 4, 2007 3:09:40 PM
First, I'm glad you agree on the healthcare issues. Second, Enron was not an exception (if i understand what you mean by that word) in the sense that it rarely ever happens. It happens a certain percentage of the time each year because the SEC has no means by which it can SEC regulation other than through the process of selective enforcement, and thereby, produce deterence through the selective enforcement. We don't know for a fact how many companies are doing what and where. Third, as to accounting practices, there some wiggle room under GAAP, but I doubt it as much as many companies which are forced to focus on short term gains are often willing to pretend. I also know that Sarbanes added costs, but it was about the competing interest of not allowing not just Enron, but multiple other fraud cases to happen again without linking management to their actions. The truth is, in my opinion, what they are complaining about is now they can't just sign off because they know there's no real consequence as with Enron, but now if they get it wrong, they will face consequences. Nothing says incentive like your own ass being on the line. The cost is related to them CYA. Because of the competing interest, I'm not sure how you avoid having some increased costs.
As for healthcare, I'm actualy leaning towards Edwards idea. I'm not an expert here, but I think the real problems are addressed in his plan. Although there are a few other things that I think need to be mentioned like forcing real competition for drugs that will help as well.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 4, 2007 4:35:48 PM
Barry:
$109/month seems very affordable. I pay more for my cellphone. How is life over at The Health Care Blog? I think I need to go back there, I still have a few bones to pick with a couple of the posters over there. Over and out...
Posted by: squid | Mar 4, 2007 7:40:00 PM
"But even if you exclude black Americans but not any minorities elsewhere, the US does worse. The white infant mortality rate in the US is 5.5, regardless of Hispanic origin; Britain's is 5.2, the EU average is 5.1, in Canada it's 4.8, and in France, Germany, and Sweden it's 4.3, 3.9, and 2.4 respectively."
Are "progressives" alergic to data?
If you don't separate Hispanics from white stats you will get mush. There are a lot of Hispanics births and Hispanics health stats resemble blacks, not whites.
Again, the most important parameter of health care delivery is life expectancy.
Minnesota was 94.1% white + asian is 2000. Life expectancy for all residents is 78.8 years, probably slightly higher if one removes 4.1% blacks.
German life expectancy is 78.5 while relevant stats are
91.5% Germans, 6.1% of other Euros (Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbs, Spanish) and 2.4% Turkish.
So, Germany has 97.6% of white europians vs 94.1% in Minnesota. One should expect German population to live longer, but opposite is correct.
Does it mean health delivery is better in Minnesota?
I don't know.
But if one wants to smear Minnesota health delivery as poor quality American shit vs royal treatment euros are getting, one has to back progressive blabber with some hard data.
Data is from CIA World Factbook, www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/gm.html.
Posted by: mik | Mar 4, 2007 8:29:18 PM
"
"They (illegals) add some, problem is they take in health, education, police, jail, food stamps, etc services much more than they put in."
Where do you find this information? I've heard the opposite is true."
Well, I heard from my gardener, illegal of course, that Jews stole all Mexical oil.
You could do better than "heard".
Here is from www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html:
1. Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.
2. Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).
3. With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services.
4. On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
5. Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them.
6.The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.
Another good review of some of the problems of Mexican immigration is by Samuelson in Newsweek, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek.
Posted by: mik | Mar 4, 2007 8:40:23 PM
are you seriously trying to claim that the health care problems in the US are attributable to illegal immigrants? THe reason why most people find your racist is that you bring up something that may or may not have legitimacy in other conversations but which has none here. As for my state on immigrants, since you don't until this post make it about the 10 million undocumented workers, I was referring to this:
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_52043.shtml
Which cites a study that was fairly well covered in the news. I'm including when I talk about people of color all people of color, not just illegal immigrants.
If your argument is to be takent serious, which it can't be, you rae saying that all 10 mil are constantly draining on our system. Like I told your co troll, the fact is that your argument is specious because all americans not just you single out are having problems with our healthcare system. Even if you took all the illegals out of the country today, there are still issues with the system for legal immigrants.
I know you want see your response as racist because poeple like you rarely do. But, the reality is that you really are throwing up your own personal racism in the face of a systemic problems. It's the blacks. it's the whites. It's alot of other things other tahn the fact the system is screwed up because that way you can bury your head int eh sand and say its other people. As the poll data that start this shows- no, it's alot of americans. Including conservative ones.
Posted by: akaison | Mar 4, 2007 9:42:21 PM
MIK, the claim you made earlier was that illegals take more form the economy than they add. The study you cite doesn't deal with that claim. It's about tax payments from illegals compared to tax-supported programs they take money from. Their effect on the economy is obviously far broader than that. They work, they spend money, both of which add quite a bit to the economy. The Newsweek story doesn't go into this either.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 4, 2007 9:59:14 PM
THe reason why most people find your racist is that you bring up something that may or may not have legitimacy in other conversations but which has none here.
Racism is making decisions based upon the color of one's skin. The simple fact that now everything that you don't like is included in the ballooning 'definition' of racism should give you understanding why the term has lost it's punch. People know your arguments are thoughtless when you call everyone you disagree with 'racist'.
Say a word, any word over and over and over and over and over and pretty soon, it has no meaning. No one loses any sleep over your baseless accusations.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 4, 2007 11:19:46 PM
If you don't separate Hispanics from white stats you will get mush. There are a lot of Hispanics births and Hispanics health stats resemble blacks, not whites.
Not when it comes to infant mortality, they don't. In fact, Hispanics in the US have a slightly lower infant mortality rate than non-Hispanic whites - 5 versus 5.5, if I remember correctly.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 5, 2007 4:10:22 AM
If one looks at infant mortality just within the United States, where the definition of a live birth is the same nationwide, there is considerable variance in the statistic from state to state. That variance has little to do with the percentage of the population that lacks health insurance or the number of pregnant women who had access to pre-natal care. The factor most correlated with (relatively) high infant mortality appears to be poverty. Data is from the UnitedHealth Foundation's annual America's Health Rankings report. For a copy of the full 134 page report, which includes a host of other health statistics for each state and the country overall, look here.
Posted by: BC | Mar 5, 2007 5:18:51 AM
BC, I can't access the PDF, but does it have a racial breakdown? One possible cause of discrepancies between blacks and whites in health is that clinical trials are typically done on whites and Asians, because of the much larger pool of white or Asian non-poor first-worlders. It doesn't let the US off the hook for having a high infant mortality rate, but can disentangle variations within the US. Incidentally, a very straightforward way of seeing if I'm right is to control for income in racial infant mortality data; alternatively, since in Queens blacks make more money than whites, it's possible to look at Queens-specific infant mortality data.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Mar 5, 2007 1:36:45 PM
"the claim you made earlier was that illegals take more form the economy than they add. The study you cite doesn't deal with that claim. It's about tax payments from illegals compared to tax-supported programs they take money from."
And that study doesn't even address defense/infrastructure payments.
In reality only about 50%-70% of our taxes go into social/welfare/education programs. A good chunk of gov revenues goes into defense, highways, communications. etc, etc.
If there is a law that immigrants are excused from paying for national defense or roads, I have missed it.
So, all study numbers must be adjusted for defense/infrastructure expendetures, that makes illegals look even worse.
But really, isn't it obvious that less money you make, the less impact on economy you have?
And recycling money you receive from welfare-type programs does impact economy, but who says it makes more impact than if money were spent on highways or health reaserch?
Posted by: mik | Mar 5, 2007 3:12:41 PM
MIK, I'm not taking issue with the idea that illegals cost more in taxes than they put in in taxes. I'm pointing out that taxes aren't the only relevant metric. The economy is far broader than the government. By working, which adds value to the economy, and by earning wages and spending them, they add a great deal to the economy, very likely more than they take out, even considering taxes and tax-based programs.