Climate Change "Debate"

[Kidlicious]

Reducing the amount we spend on foreign wars will save lives. We would still have much more spending than China, Russia combined. Look at the trillions we spent in Iraq to achieve what? If we had spent that planting trees climate change wouldn’t even be an issue, and our standing in the international community would be much higher.

I agree with you on that. Iraq was BS. But you know what? 9/11 should have never happened. It wasn't done by a nation state. But we can't let stuff like that happen. There's no way that works. W is a dumb ass. He was corrupt and so is the CIA. But we can't just let things happen. That actually increases the risk of a major war. We can't afford to get into it with Russia or China, not even Iran, so we need to deter them.

[Proteus_MST]

It's not really profit when you subsidize it. You are just taking money from someone and giving it to someone else. Then the communities that you took from are suffering. But you think you are preventing suffering! The truth is that with the economy we have right now we don't need to subsidize anything.

I understand, so you would support stopping the huge US subsidies on fossil fuels?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...report-833035/

[Aeson]

I agree with you on that. Iraq was BS. But you know what? 9/11 should have never happened. It wasn't done by a nation state. But we can't let stuff like that happen. There's no way that works. W is a dumb ass. He was corrupt and so is the CIA. But we can't just let things happen. That actually increases the risk of a major war. We can't afford to get into it with Russia or China, not even Iran, so we need to deter them.

Your own chosen cost analysis says more Americans will die per year due to climate change than died in 9/11. You’re right we shouldn’t let that happen. Especially not every year. Especially when the rest of the world will suffer even greater per capita losses.

We can do this and end poverty in the same stroke. Healthy environments and people are productive.

[Kidlicious]

No, we can cut the waste either with a private or public healthcare system. Right now we combine the worst of both worlds, and do not have the best healthcare except for the very rich. Almost everyone else would be better off. The rich would still have the best healthcare money can buy.

On paper maybe. In reality changes don't work like that. You can't radically change something and expect there not to be a serious change that you are just going to F everything up totally. Right now the US healthcare system is a relief valve for other healthcare systems. That's because we don't have a totally government run system and we spend a lot on healthcare. If we let the government take over with the intention of cutting cost we could F that all up. And nobody will have any alternatives. You don't realize how F'd up government can be.

[Aeson]

As fir China and Russia, we could coordinate with them on this global crisis, and build some mutual benefits. In any case it’s not the $700bn/y we spend on the conventional military that prevents war between nuclear superpowers. It’s MAD.

[Kidlicious]

Yeah, that's a good idea. If we can.

[Aeson]

On paper maybe. In reality changes don't work like that. You can't radically change something and expect there not to be a serious change that you are just going to F everything up totally. Right now the US healthcare system is a relief valve for other healthcare systems. That's because we don't have a totally government run system and we spend a lot on healthcare. If we let the government take over with the intention of cutting cost we could F that all up. And nobody will have any alternatives. You don't realize how F'd up government can be.

As I said, public or private. We can do it enforcing antitrust law already on the books. The healthcare and health insurance industries are abusing market power, price fixing, and a whole host if other waste/corruption issues.

[Kidlicious]

As I said, public or private. We can do it enforcing antitrust law already on the books. The healthcare and health insurance industries are abusing market power, price fixing, and a whole host if other waste/corruption issues.

But we have to deal with the reality that right now Medicare for all is what they are trying to push. That's going to actually be Medicare for none. The fact that they are lying right off the bat should tell you something. This is all for votes and for power. It's not to save the earth or to save lives. They are going to try to keep costs down so that it doesn't blow up in their face.

[Proteus_MST]

Well, germany combines both worlds.
Every adult person has to nhave a health insurance and there are 2 types of health insurances:
1. Statutory Health Insurances which need to take everyone regardless of precondition (and whose basic primaries are fixed to 14.6 %of your income of which half your employer has to pay (and which is fixed to 800 € / month maximum ... so people earning a lot of money have an advantage)
2. Private Health insurances, which offer complete health insurances (and are free with rgards to whom they take and which they demand) and also supplementary insurances in order to beef up statutory health insurances.

So far our system works well.
Maybe something that would be a good model for the USA as well (as it has more similarities to the US system than Single Payer Healthcare systems tlike the british NHS)

[Kidlicious]

Well, germany combines both worlds.
Every adult person has to nhave a health insurance and there are 2 types of health insurances:
1. Statutory Health Insurances which need to take everyone regardless of precondition (and whose basic primaries are fixed to 14.6 %of your income of which half your employer has to pay (and which is fixed to 800 € / month maximum ... so people earning a lot of money have an advantage)
2. Private Health insurances, which offer complete health insurances (and are free with rgards to whom they take and which they demand) and also supplementary insurances in order to beef up statutory health insurances.

So far our system works well.
Maybe something that would be a good model for the USA as well (as it has more similarities to the US system than Single Payer Healthcare systems tlike the british NHS)

We have too much waste. I don't see how that solves the problem.

[Proteus_MST]

We have too much waste. I don't see how that solves the problem.

It may do so:

1. Leaner administrations
According to all I have been reading read your hospitals, doctors and insurance agencies have a huge administration overhead.
The insurance agencies in order to negotiate prices with individual hospitals,
the hospitals and doctors, in order to calculate for each patient and each individual position on the bill, how much it wioll cost with the insurance the patient has ...
and also in order to deny a patient certain treatments beforehand because his insurance doesn't pay for them.

This all isn't present in germany. All insurances (including the private ones) cover all hospitals and doctors in the same way.
What the hospital can bill for a certain trreatment is always the same regardles of hospital or insurance agency where you are.
As a result, our hospital/doctor/insurance administrations are much leaner than those in the USA.
Less money spent on accountants -> more money available for the actual care of the patients.

2. You usually stay for your lifetime withg the same insurance agency
If you change your employer you take your insurance with you, there are no employer specific insurance (and therefore also no need to stay with a job you don't want just because of the health insurance the employer provides). And your next employer has to pay half of your insurance primaries just like your previous one did.

This actually has a profound effect for you as well:
As the insurance agencies see you as a long term investment, they will proivide you with a broiad range of medical checkups (depending on age).
Because an insuree whose illnesses/health problems are detected early on, doesn't cost them as much as an insuree whose diseases/health problems stay undiagnosed for a long time (due to them becoming worse and harder to treat over time)

Contrast with the US system where people (also due to co-pay, which doen't exist in this form in germany) are actually encouraged to not go to the doctor and instead treat their symptomes witrh cheap opioids.

This means, a system like in germany also may reduce the downtime of employees in which they cannot work (or the employees who drop out of the job market either due to having been killed due to waiting too long for a treatrment of an illness, or becoming disabled to to it)

It may also reduce your opioid crisis. Due to doctoral visits being free atr the point of delivery, people are encouraged to visit a doctor, instead of "treating" the symptomes via self-administered opioids

[Kidlicious]

Medicare for all would have the central government set prices. Right now prices are negotiated threw a third party, which is waste. The thing is that if the Ds get this passed and the Rs oppose it then the Rs are going to say that prices increased, just like Obamacare (they promised to decrease cost). There is going to be pressure to cut costs. So on an individual basis they would try to set the price appropriately, but under political pressure they will set the price too low. That will create shortages that will become ingrained into the system.

[-Jrabbit]

You seem to have an amazing amount of detail about this Medicare-for-all program and how it will operate. If you weren't pulling literally every statement you make out of your ass, I would be quite impressed.

[Jon Miller]

Um yes it is. When you don't consume you save. Those savings are compounded. Consumption is a choice. When you chose to consume it's because it's more valuable to you than making compound interest.

If no one had to consume, most people will be getting negative interest rates. The 6% or 8% is because of the abnormally high growth rates and because most people do not have the choice not to consume (so those who have a choice can get higher returns).

I know that this is what is taught in right-wing economics 101 but it doesn't make sense in any basic model of the global economy.

JM

[Kidlicious]

If no one had to consume, most people will be getting negative interest rates. The 6% or 8% is because of the abnormally high growth rates and because most people do not have the choice not to consume (so those who have a choice can get higher returns).

I know that this is what is taught in right-wing economics 101 but it doesn't make sense in any basic model of the global economy.

JM

There are many hidden taxes. The working people end up paying a lot more than you realize. When you tax the rich, or especially corporations, you put a hidden tax on the poor. There is no way you can avoid hurting the poor with taxes. Idk why you call this right wing economics when many on the left understand this. It's the establishment that pushes the myth that you can just tax the rich and the poor can benefit. It doesn't play out that way anywhere. In every economy the working class pays at least some of the bill. It's just that it doesn't show up in the numbers.

When a working class individual has no money to invest for retirement that means that what they consume is more valuable to them than retirement, because they can't think about retirement. So it is worth more. Now if the government imposes a cost on them indirectly (that is that it affects them indirectly) then the loss they incur is much more than losing stocks.

[Jon Miller]

There is decades of evidence both from the US and from around the world, that this is not the regime we are in and not the regime we would enter if we taxed at the level of any of the mainstream presidential candidates propose (Warren, Sanders, et al.).

JM