FCC and the internet

[Samuel Thurston, III]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Steve Furbish <sfurbish at nerdshack.com> wrote:
> Samuel Thurston, III wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Steve Furbish <sfurbish at nerdshack.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I find your definition of "free"  sadly amusing. It's almost as if you
>>> believe that nobody is paying for it?
>>>
>>
>> How exactly is one supposed to state that the only cost to the
>> end-user of the service is through taxation?  There's no such thing as
>> "free" and I think that's well understood, so let's not dissect the
>> use of a word that means exactly what he used it for.
>>
>>
> When one uses the word "free" to replace "socialized" in what has become
> yet another political discussion then such dissection is appropriate.

Socialized is an extremely politicized term.  Do we call public
education "socialized school?"

>>> So is it "free healthcare" or just some imposed charity?
>>>
>>
>> You already pay the imposed charity.
> That does not mean that I must embrace it's expansion.

Certainly not, but what about managed displacement?  What if the money
we currently spend really poorly could be spent more efficiently?  We
currently spend more than twice what any other nation spends per
person on health, and we're 37th in overall care. 37th!!!

>> Medicaid tends to the extremely
>> poor. Medicare for the elderly.  Your personal income tax money covers
>> employer tax credits for subsidizing employee care.  Your insurance
>> premiums are higher to cover the cost of poor- and middle-income-
>> uninsured defaulting on hospital bills.
>>
> And the reform plans currently circulating in congress want to bloat the
> already broken system by increasing the share I pay in order to increase
> the numbers covered. If you are trying to suggest that growing
> government is going to save me money then you're wasting our time. I'd
> wager that even you have a favorite example or two of government waste?

First, I don't really like the plans in congress right now, but what
they do is provide greater coverage without increasing your taxes to
30% like a switch to single payer likely would.  My argument is that
you're already paying that 30% through one means or another, and
you're fooling yourself if you don't think you are.

All of my examples of government waste would be military based.  Who
can forget Regan's $20,000 hammers and $60,000 toilet seats. We spend
5 times what the rest of the world combined spends on our military and
we can't even win two wars in tiny, tribal desert countries in less
than 5 years.  We're screwed if anyone serious ever comes after us.

Our public school system is excellent.  The post office is pretty
amazing at what it does.  Most people are happy with medicare and
medicaid.  If the government's going to waste my money I would at
least prefer it waste it on something for the public good.  And,
unless you've forgotten how the last 8 years cost us 12 trillion
dollars, they WILL waste it on something.

>> How exactly does tort reform work?  Which lawsuits do you mandate are
>> "frivolous?"
>>
> I'd start with malpractice arbitration as opposed to litigation,
> followed by capping awards based on a standardized formula and IF you
> still insist on government regulation (as in mandated coverage under
> Obama's plan) I'd suggest regulating the profits of  litigating
> attorneys based on the median income of hourly wage earners in the state
> where they practice.

Your whole argument is how government can't do anything right and does
nothing but cost money, but you want to put an extra layer of
government to do what our justice system is already supposed to be
doing, but costs us too much on the bottom line.  Brilliant.

> Lets admit, for the sake of argument, that the CBO's estimate is based
> on a plan that is not yet even fully developed and assume that 4% really
> is a tiny number. With the economy tanking and unemployment in double
> digits  pushing through a high cost health reform without doing
> something to reduce that *estimated* $856bn pricetag seems irresponsible
> to me.

Again, I think that the congress plans are weak.

Contrast 4% with ~60% for military spending.  By the way the CBO is
non-partisan and pretty good at estimating on the conservative side of
things.

Since this is the second mention on the economy, let me remind you
that it was private enterprise, and not the government, that put us in
that position.  The only practical thing the government CAN do about
the economy is spend tax dollars on stimulus, which it already has.
So unless you want the broken government that can't do anything right
to spend more of your tax dollars ineffectually solving a problem
created by private enterprise, why don't you leave the economy out of
this for the moment.

Actually, that's another fine point: if we could shift more of the
burden of insurance costs off of employers and consumers with
something like, i don't know, a single-payer plan, it would be an
enormous boost to the spending and production capacity of the economy.