Then you can look at how inefficient your health spending is, against all other first world countries, all of whom have universal coverage.
In 2009, there were large variations in how much OECD countries spent on health and the health spending share of GDP. The United States continued to outspend all other OECD countries by a wide margin, with spending on health per capita of $7960. This was two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average of $3223.
As a share of GDP, the United States spent 17.4% on health in 2009, 5 percentage points more than in the next two countries, the Netherlands and France (which allocated 12.0% and 11.8% of their GDP on health). Norway and Switzerland were the next biggest spenders on health per capita, with spending of more than $5000 per capita in 2009.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Bring in universal single payor insurance and use that power to force efficiencies on health care providers. Dictate the prices you will pay for drugs to the pharmaceutical industry. Tell hospitals that every single institution doesn't have to be the host for every cutting edge procedure and piece of equipment. Move away from fee-for-service payment methods and towards block grants for hospitals and capitation payments for physicians.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
Then you can look at how inefficient your health spending is, against all other first world countries, all of whom have universal coverage.
In 2009, there were large variations in how much OECD countries spent on health and the health spending share of GDP. The United States continued to outspend all other OECD countries by a wide margin, with spending on health per capita of $7960. This was two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average of $3223.
As a share of GDP, the United States spent 17.4% on health in 2009, 5 percentage points more than in the next two countries, the Netherlands and France (which allocated 12.0% and 11.8% of their GDP on health). Norway and Switzerland were the next biggest spenders on health per capita, with spending of more than $5000 per capita in 2009.
inefficient? do any of those other countries pioneer procedures and or drugs in any meaningful way? No. Ok, medicinal drugs. Over here we 'cure' diseases, over 'there' they send people 'over here' to be 'cured'.
like it or not, no other country comes close to a UPMC childrens and some argue thats not even the best in the US.
the only arguments that should be made is if we should spend $$$umpetys on an 85 year old man for organ transplants. But that makes the left dream up death panels.
quaddriver wrote:
inefficient? do any of those other countries pioneer procedures and or drugs in any meaningful way? No. Ok, medicinal drugs. Over here we 'cure' diseases, over 'there' they send people 'over here' to be 'cured'.
Just when you had started sounding reasonable, you come up with rubato level stupidity like that?
"It is widely believed that the United States has eclipsed Europe in pharmaceutical research productivity. Some leading analysts claim that although fewer drugs have been discovered worldwide over the past decade, most are therapeutically important. Yet a comprehensive data set of all new chemical entities approved between 1982 and 2003 shows that the United States never overtook Europe in research productivity, and that Europe in fact is pulling ahead of U.S. productivity. Other large studies show that most new drugs add few if any clinical benefits over previously discovered drugs..."
Posted by Don McCanne MD on Tuesday, Aug 25, 2009
"This entry is from Dr. McCanne's Quote of the Day, a daily health policy update on the single-payer health care reform movement."
"Our uniquely American health care system is noted for its high prices for relative mediocrity. Some contend that our pharmaceutical industry provides an exception. It doesn’t. We are paying high prices for new chemical entities that over 85 percent of the time are providing us with no real benefit over existing products.
Many contend nevertheless that innovations provided by U.S. pharmaceutical firms are well worth our very high prices. Yet productivity of European pharmaceutical firms remains even higher, and they are able to provide new products at much lower prices.
When reform advocates look at the excessive costs of U.S. health care, two favorite targets are the private insurance industry and the pharmaceutical firms. Policies that would reduce these burdens are no secret. Physicians for a National Health Program has described policies that would eliminate the private insurance burden. Arjun Jayadev and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, in the article cited above, provide examples of policies that would increase value in our purchasing of pharmaceuticals.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
quaddriver wrote:But that makes the left dream up death panels.
As opposed to the death panels that already exist when insurance companies deny coverage. But that's the invisible hand of the market at work, so it's all fine and dandy.
Or we could come up with plans to stop prices from spiraling so far out of control and give that guy a better chance of getting a transplant. But that's the government meddling with big business, and therefore bad.
Or develop a system (you know like the rest of the world has managed to do) which doesn't end up with 50% of all bankruptcies being caused by health matters.
BOSTON — Costly illnesses trigger about half of all personal bankruptcies, and most of those who go bankrupt because of medical problems have health insurance, according to findings from a Harvard University study to be released Wednesday.
Researchers from Harvard’s law and medical schools said the findings underscore the inadequacy of many private insurance plans that offer worst-case catastrophic coverage, but little financial security for less severe illnesses.
“Unless you’re Bill Gates, you’re just one serious illness away from bankruptcy,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of medicine. “Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick.”
The study, to be published online Wednesday by the journal Health Affairs, distributed questionnaires to 1,771 bankruptcy filers in 2001 in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. That year, there were 1.46 million personal bankruptcies in the United States.
More than 900 of those questioned underwent more detailed interviews about their financial and medical circumstances for what the authors say is the first in-depth study of medical causes of personal bankruptcies, which have risen rapidly in recent years.
Illness and medical bills were cited as the cause, at least in part, for 46.2 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the study. Himmelstein said the figure rose to 54.5 percent when three other factors were counted as medical-related triggers for bankruptcies: births, deaths and pathological gambling addiction.
The study estimates medical-caused bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans each year, counting debtors and their dependents, including 700,000 children.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Guinevere wrote:Common defense and General welfare, thank you very much. They are equal priorities, so one should not be sacrified for the other. Unfortunately, that's where we are at today. I'f we are going to make budget and policy decisions that undercut the welfare of our citizens (and to be clear, I mean the concept, not the program) then we need to make equal cuts in the defense side. Period.
Guin, my dear I am not trying to be snotty,but the phrases are provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. I see a difference in the two words. I see provide as being more direct that promote.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.
Instead of providing a captive market for insurance companies why can’t the federal government do what the state of Louisiana did. Build and staff federally owned and operated hospitals. Institutions where people would pay according to their income.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.
[quote="Gob"][quote="quaddriver"]
Just when you had started sounding reasonable, you come up with rubato level stupidity like that?
[quote]
Really? When someone needs an ass-transplant do they head to canada, norway or uganda? (3 countries on your list) WE have tractor trailers roaming our roads containing diagnostic equipment that some countries dont even have - period - and most others only have in the most well equipped (read: ruling class only) hospitals have. I noticed in his reply that scooter suggests we should restrict or eliminate stuff like this. Exactly, the best way to make life saving equipment use not cost so much is to restrict or ban its use to anyone but in the large metropolitan centers.....ummmm, like canada for example.
And the links you provided, talk about productivity. WTF is that when is comes to pharmecuticals? that they make them cheaper?
IF the defining standard is can people make drugs for pennies on the dollar at gunpoint, then it falls short of 'pioneering' which some may argue is a synonym for 'new development' - those are two non-linked arguments.
And if the defining standard deals with our FDA approval process being too long and costly then consider this: we have found - after the fact - many well prescribed drugs that tend to wipe out livers, cause seizures and make peoples dicks fall off. NO. OTHER. NATION. has our approval process and ours fucks it up regularly. Furthermore, drugs that are now restricted or banned in THIS country, are practically over the shelf in YOURS and others. So how is that 'productivity' number holding up? At some point, common sense has to apply.
I mean c'mon, when we have essentially 3 centers in the world for infectious and exotic diseases - USAMRID, CDC and Pasteur, which deal with items NOT found in the host countries, this does not point to the US lagging behind in anything.
Really, guys, the question is NOT, "What should we cut," but rather, "What is the Federal Government permitted to spend money on?"
Unlike Australia and other former penal colonies, we in the United States have a Constitution which defines what the Congress - that is, the branch of the Federal Government that spends OUR money - is permitted to do, to wit,
Borrow money and pay interest on our debt,
Regulate interstate and international commerce,
Govern immigration,
Establish rules on Bankruptcies,
To coin money and punish counterfeiters,
To run the post office and (maybe) the interstate highway system,
To establish patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc,
To fund the federal court system,
To declare war (or not),
To provide for the Army, Navy, militias, etc., and
Presumably, to collect taxes to pay for all of it.
It is notable that one of the attorneys in our midst makes the eggregious constitutional error of suggesting that Congress is authorized to fund, "The General Welfare," a concept that is as fatuous as it is impossible - a concept which those who wrote the Constitution emphatically rejected. But of course, what did they know? They only wrote the damn thing.
Therefore, in the parlance of our ubiquitous Schools of Public Administration, the starting point is the "Zero-Based Budget."
Department of Education: Gone.
Federal housing programs: Gone.
Food stamps, etc: Gone
O'Bamacare: Gone.
Department of Agriculture (and ALL farm subsidies): Gone.
Small Business Administration: Gone.
National Public (Fucking) Radio: Gone.
National Endowment for the Arts: Gone.
National Institutes of Health: Gone.
Et cetera.
As for Social Security and other "emanations and penumbras" of the Federal Teat, one might argue quasi-legally (but certainly not Constitutionally) that the Federal government is "estopped" from eliminating or substantially reducing such programs, because generations of Americans have ordered their lives in reasonable reliance that they would continue more or less unchanged.
But the same rationale doesn't hold true for all of the Federal social programs - even the Social Security Disability Program, which was never part of the Original Deal with SS, but was added later as our Congressional Representatives sought to buy more and more votes with Boomer Tax Revenues. One does not live one's life in a manner that anticipates a Federal Government stipend if you are disabled.
As for Defense spending, I think a few points need to be made.
First, financially. The DOD budget does not go into a hole, never to be seen again. Those dollars are mainly paid out to soldiers, sailors, and federal employees, who spend them in the economy. They go to purchase supplies and weapons, weapon systems, aircraft, vehicles, machinery, and other goods that are all subject to "Buy American" clauses in all Federal Government contracts. Like it or not, Defense spending is "stimulus" for the economy, just as much as building a "high-speed rail" line from Chicago to Keokuk, that gets you there slower and more expensively than a Greyhound bus. So to say that you want to trim the defense budget so we can spend more Federal money elsewhere, the "gain" is minimal, economically speaking.
Second, as to the missions, like it or not, our Federal elected officials are more or less unanimous in supporting both the wars in Afgannystan and Irak - like it or not. It may make one feel superior to sit in your pajamas in San Francisco and say those wars are stupid and pointless, but the way the System works is, we elect people and rely on their judgment.
So to say that we could simply pull out of these awful places with no negative impacts is actually rather childish. People who understand the issues a lot better than the General Public have decided that as bad as it is to be over there, it would be worse NOT to be over there. Deal with it.
EXACTLY dgs. Bravo, but I gave up that argument with the leftests on here a while back. They cannot seem to comprehend our Constitution, even the lawyers.
And social security, if that were a private institution, everyone involved would be in prison. Its merely a legal ponsie scheme.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Mark Twain
Funny that those who claim to comprehend the Constitution haven't bothered to read it. Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;...
One would think they would be embarrassed to have a foreigner have to point that out to them, but there you are, what passes for the conservative mind.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
Scooter wrote:Funny that those who claim to comprehend the Constitution haven't bothered to read it. Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;...
One would think they would be embarrassed to have a foreigner have to point that out to them, but there you are, what passes for the conservative mind.
but it would take a furriner to believe that the word 'welfare' above meant welfare, as in payouts to the citizens - yanno, welfare.
the general welfare of the US might be served in many ways. checks to those who refuse education and work aint one of them.
dgs49 wrote:The DOD budget does not go into a hole, never to be seen again. Those dollars are mainly paid out to soldiers, sailors, and federal employees, who spend them in the economy. They go to purchase supplies and weapons, weapon systems, aircraft, vehicles, machinery, and other goods that are all subject to "Buy American" clauses in all Federal Government contracts. Like it or not, Defense spending is "stimulus" for the economy
But of course, money that is paid out by all the government departments you listed above are stashed in a sock and never spent in the broader economy. Only defense spending provides "stimulus".
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
One would think they would be embarrassed to have a foreigner have to point that out to them, but there you are, what passes for the conservative mind.
We really appreciate you showing your ignorance scoot. This is what article 8 says in full.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [Altered by Amendment XVI "Income tax".]
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
And as you will note, the portion you copied is followed by a list of powers. In the US these are called Enumerated Powers, look it up.
Enumerated powers are a list of items Congress may exercise the powers granted by the Constitution. The are subject to specific restrictions in the Bill of Rights and other restrictions listed in the Constitutional and ammendments. The 10th Amendment reiterates it and states that all powers not granted the federal government nor prohibited of the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states and to the people, which means that the only powers of the Congress and the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch are limited to those explicitly stated in the Constitution.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Mark Twain
Thanks, I was aware of all that the first thousand times I read that section. What I can see, which you obviously cannot, is that there is absolutely nothing there that would require the taxing and spending power in the first few clauses to be limited in any way by the powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses:
[T]he [General Welfare] clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution. … But the adoption of the broader construction leaves the power to spend subject to limitations. … [T]he powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare.
United States v. Butler, 1936.
Of course, the entirety of U.S. jurisprudence could be wrong and you could be right, so perhaps you can point out the words which say that Congress's power to tax and spend is limited in any way by any of the subsequently enumerated powers (Hint - that would involve the presence of words like "subject to remaining within the limits of the following powers", or words to that effect.)
Don't see anything like that there? Why am I not surprised?
Thanks for playing.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
Guinevere wrote:Common defense and General welfare, thank you very much. They are equal priorities, so one should not be sacrified for the other. Unfortunately, that's where we are at today. I'f we are going to make budget and policy decisions that undercut the welfare of our citizens (and to be clear, I mean the concept, not the program) then we need to make equal cuts in the defense side. Period.
Guin, my dear I am not trying to be snotty,but the phrases are provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. I see a difference in the two words. I see provide as being more direct that promote.
Here we were discussing the preamble to the Constitution. I know that some liberals want to ignore it or deemphasize it as irrelevant but it is still there and it is still is part of the constitution and still has meaning.
I expected to be placed in an air force combat position such as security police, forward air control, pararescue or E.O.D. I would have liked dog handler. I had heard about the dog Nemo and was highly impressed. “SFB” is sad I didn’t end up in E.O.D.
Perhaps you (singular) were discussing the Preamble (because conservatives are usually too stupid to know or would like to forget that the actual text of the Constitution gives Congress the power to tax and spend to PROVIDE for, not just promote, the general welfare). Don't presume to speak for others on what they may have been referring to.
"The dildo of consequence rarely comes lubed." -- Eileen Rose
