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On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial.
I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products.
And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number.
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On July 10 2013 05:39 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. From the wiki on Charter SchoolsShow nested quote +In 2009, the most authoritative study of charter schools was conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University. The report is the first detailed national assessment of charter schools. It analyzed 70% of the nation's students attending charter schools and compared the academic progress of those students with that of demographically matched students in nearby public schools and scaled performance gains so that they had the same starting point. The report found that 17% of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than their theoretical traditional public school virtual twins; 46% showed no difference; and 37% were significantly worse than their traditional public school virtual twin. The authors of the report consider this a "sobering" finding about the quality of charter schools in the U.S. Charter schools showed a significantly greater variation in quality as compared with the more standardized public schools with many falling below public school performances and a few exceeding them significantly. Results vary for various demographics with Black and Hispanic children not doing as well as they would in public schools, but with children from poverty backgrounds, students learning English, and brighter students doing better; average students do poorer. While the obvious solution to the widely varying quality of charter schools would be to close those that perform below the level of public schools, this is hard to accomplish in practice as even a poor school has its supporters.[54] So no, charter schools are by no means definitively better than public schools.
They've done a new study in 2013 that shows those numbers increasing (albeit by some of the worse charter schools closing). But as they stress in their study, the importance of their findings shows that low income and minorities are improving in comparison and that the increases are centered around the average as opposed to outstanding students raising the average.
Link
You're probably not going to be able to read this next link because its on jstor, but I'll explain some of these findings as well. Link
For charter schools that have operated longer, there's a greater proficiency advantage over the matched public schools. For example in California and Arizona, there are proficiency advantages in charter schools over the local TPSs. For states with better charter laws, students are more likely to have a proficiency advantage if their school has autonomy and ensures that charter schools get funding equal to at least 40 percent of the total per-pupil funding of regular public schools.
The study was done in 2004 but it assessed different aspects of the schools that credo doesn't touch on.
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On July 10 2013 06:20 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial. I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products. And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number.
Having known a number of those who needed emergency care without insurance, you are very wrong about uninsured ER care being free.
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On July 10 2013 06:21 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:20 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial. I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products. And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number. Having known a number of those who needed emergency care without insurance, you are very wrong about uninsured ER care being free.
You'll get a bill but there's nothing they can do to make you pay it. Unless you're actually admitted to the hospital which is completely different. If you don't go outside the ER then you're fine. It's only ER's that are legally obligated to provide care to everyone.
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On July 10 2013 06:25 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:21 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:20 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial. I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products. And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number. Having known a number of those who needed emergency care without insurance, you are very wrong about uninsured ER care being free. You'll get a bill but there's nothing they can do to make you pay it. Unless you're actually admitted to the hospital which is completely different. If you don't go outside the ER then you're fine. It's only ER's that are legally obligated to provide care to everyone.
The collection agencies hounding the legions of uninsured who have incurred health costs beg to differ. Many fail to collect due to the utter lack of equity on the part of those most affected, but in many cases bankruptcy is the only means of avoiding an ER bill.
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No one has commented (that I've seen) on Obama's decision to defer that ACA for one year as it affects corporations. It's actually a very interesting issue, because on the face of it the President doesn't have the power to do this. Can you imagine if Romney had won the election, tried and failed to repeal ACA, and then said "oh well I'll just defer the start date"?
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On July 10 2013 06:28 ziggurat wrote:
No one has commented (that I've seen) on Obama's decision to defer that ACA for one year as it affects corporations. It's actually a very interesting issue, because on the face of it the President doesn't have the power to do this. Can you imagine if Romney had won the election, tried and failed to repeal ACA, and then said "oh well I'll just defer the start date"?
This entire debacle can be summed up rather nicely with 2 words: partisan process.
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On July 10 2013 06:25 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:21 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:20 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial. I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products. And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number. Having known a number of those who needed emergency care without insurance, you are very wrong about uninsured ER care being free. You'll get a bill but there's nothing they can do to make you pay it. Unless you're actually admitted to the hospital which is completely different. If you don't go outside the ER then you're fine. It's only ER's that are legally obligated to provide care to everyone.
I cannot believe how incredibly wrong you are about our healthcare system.
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On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider.
That's a factor but not an insurmountable one. A lot of transactions take place because you really need something and can't / won't shop around.
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On July 10 2013 06:27 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:25 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:21 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:20 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:
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Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation.
An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. And in regards to education, I was mostly referring to K-12. You seem to be assuming that every child/family has access to transportation. This could not be further from the truth. You are right though to indicate that the public school option is incredibly beneficial. I do have a hard time hating public education, even as a self described libertarian. And yes, transportation is a problem and no I was not assuming every family had it. But that can pretty easily be factored into the $$/diploma ratio as part of the $$. I mean, if you're going so far as to move just to attend a certain school I'm pretty sure it's fair to lump your moving expenses into that $$. Or if you're taking off work to get your kids to a certain school the lost wages can be lumped into that $$ as well. Just because people have different costs and different budget constraints doesn't mean they can't be discriminatory with their products. And I'm not so much talking about deleterious health conditions. ER treatments are usually almost universally covered if you have insurance and they're outright free if you don't have insurance. I'm more referring to fairly non threatening tests and procedures. Like...seriously, call a doctor's office or hospital and ask how much you'll pay out of pocket for a given procedure. It's disgustingly hard to get an accurate number. Having known a number of those who needed emergency care without insurance, you are very wrong about uninsured ER care being free. You'll get a bill but there's nothing they can do to make you pay it. Unless you're actually admitted to the hospital which is completely different. If you don't go outside the ER then you're fine. It's only ER's that are legally obligated to provide care to everyone. The collection agencies hounding the legions of uninsured who have incurred health costs beg to differ. Many fail to collect due to the utter lack of equity on the part of those most affected, but in many cases bankruptcy is the only means of avoiding an ER bill.
A collection agency can hound you but they can't force you to pay. Collection agencies are one of the most bullshit things in this country. They act with authority and they bully the hell out of people even though they have absolutely no power.
And again, there's a difference between being admitted to a hospital and getting ER care. A lot of patients are admitted to hospitals through and there the financial responsibilities are different. Believe me, I have spent most of my life in healthcare. Doctors and hospitals give out LOADS of free care. And believe it or not, they don't really bitch about it. What they bitch about is people telling them they don't give out enough free care and they HATE the system that has forced uninsured people to wait until their health problems are emergencies instead of being able to get preventative care.
Hospital administrators are kinda assholes though.
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On July 10 2013 06:34 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. That's a factor but not an insurmountable one. A lot of transactions take place because you really need something and can't / won't shop around.
Yes but how many of those desires have the very real potential for a tangible effect on one's rational capacity for decision making? Like, if you have early-onset type 2 diabetes, the blood sugar problems can have a pronounced effect on cognitive function. Similarly, any fever over 99 degrees has a palpable effect on the brain. It is along these lines that healthcare decisions are quite distinct from other consumer choices.
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On July 10 2013 06:04 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:00 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:57 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). Wut? Profit = Revenue - Costs. Raising costs directly reduces profits. A profit maximizing firm has every incentive to reduce costs. And your sentence about lawyers...wtf are you on about? Do you have any idea how health insurance works? If cost(lawyers) < cost(changing policy in question) then the ideal decision depends entirely on the likelihood of those lawyers succeeding versus the likelihood of a judgment against the corporation being greater than what it would have cost to begin with/force them to change their policy regardless. Umm...yeah but that's still a cost minimizing decision.
Cost minimizing does not mean efficient. Not at all.
The question is (hire a crack team of lawyers) vs (payout to more patients).
Either way there is a cost to the system. With the lawyers, they will basically try their hardest to stop doing their job (paying sick people) but they will prevent health insurance fraud, or whatever. Without the lawyers, they would take some insurance fraud, but they would do their job more (give more money to sick people).
With the lawyers is less efficient, even if it is more profitable, because they aren't doing their job of paying sick people. Who cares if it costs less if less of the job happens?
And this is the kind of thing we see with private corporations. They try cost-minimizing things at the expense of doing the job (Private Prisons is another great example of this). That is not efficient. The private sector is not necessarily more efficient than the public sector. It entirely depends on the incentives and the situation.
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On July 10 2013 06:40 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:34 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 10 2013 06:08 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:05 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:01 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:54 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). It's just like insurance companies! You know, I wonder if there's a game-theoretic way to prove whether or not any optimally profit-seeking corporation would inevitably employ actuary science in order to calculate precisely how much they can cheat consumers (in a way that garners profit) without the resulting fallout being enough to negate that profit. I have no idea if such a thing is mathematically feasible, though. If you didn't use such blowhard language I might be able to explain that to you. Do you mean how much companies will try to deceive consumers in order to trick them into paying more for less product? Umm...yeah we can absolutely measure that but it's pointless because the answer is as much as they possibly can. But it doesn't matter because as long as a consumer actually gets a product, they can immediately evaluate how much they've gotten vs how much they've paid. The cost of bitching about that ratio is incredibly low so many consumers will bitch endlessly that they've been cheated. But in reality they'll keep buying the products because they're actually ok with the ratio. This assumes perfect choice opportunity, and we all know that there are many services/products that do not allow for that, most notably healthcare and education. You don't need perfect choice to still discriminate products. Healthcare is a little trickier because prices are so hidden that it's really difficult to shop around (economists do not like that), but it's absolutely easy to choose your higher education. Not only are prices mostly hidden with healthcare, the nature of deleterious health conditions totally discounts a consumers ability to consider their options; when you have a 103 fever, vomiting, and extreme fatigue, good luck making an informed choice as to your healthcare provider. That's a factor but not an insurmountable one. A lot of transactions take place because you really need something and can't / won't shop around. Yes but how many of those desires have the very real potential for a tangible effect on one's rational capacity for decision making? Like, if you have early-onset type 2 diabetes, the blood sugar problems can have a pronounced effect on cognitive function. Similarly, any fever over 99 degrees has a palpable effect on the brain. It is along these lines that healthcare decisions are quite distinct from other consumer choices.
Yeah but so what? The situation isn't like hospital A charges $1 and hospital B charges $1.20 and woe be the consumer under duress who chooses hospital B. The differences between hospitals varies by orders of magnitude. One hospital can charge $2,000 and the other can charge $50,000 and who charges what and why is completely opaque.
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On July 10 2013 06:13 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:10 WolfintheSheep wrote:On July 10 2013 05:42 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 10 2013 05:19 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 10 2013 04:58 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 04:50 DeepElemBlues wrote:Only an argument for more democracy and socialization! Changing more bureaucracy jobs into elected positions to prevent corruption and waste is like throwing gasoline on a fire. How so? Presumably, there exists a code of conduct and job description regardless of whether a job is elected or bureaucratic. The only difference (should) be that a potential employee needs to impress the employer whereas a candidate for election needs to impress a larger group. If someone does something wasteful, then they'll retain their position in a bureaucratic system if their waste is beneficial to the bottom line of the corporation in question, since the corporation regulates itself. If someone does something wasteful in a democratic system, then the same thing as the bureaucratic situation will occur (if the waste turns out to really help out the corporation, nobody is going to lambaste it) except that, come election time, the employee will need to actually demonstrate to a large group that what they did was worth doing. Yes, elected candidates are vulnerable to lobbying, but the corporate hierarchy is unforgiving in equally problematic ways (insularity, nepotism etc.). No, people would just elect whoever would promote their political agenda. I can't think of any public elections where voters were highly focused on internal metrics... Then isn't that just a case of people valuing [something candidate X does] over the waste that candidate X has caused? I mean, it's not like we ever get a perfect choice whether we're operating in a bureaucracy or a democracy. Every candidate has good qualities and bad qualities; you need to weigh them to see which one is overall best for the job. You could get a super efficient guy, who, for example, wants (efficiently) to create a program which (efficiently) evangelizes people to oppose same-sex marriage. For the person who cares about efficiency and social equality, it seems like this candidate would be impossible to support, wouldn't it? You're combining issues. Currently we elect people to represent our views on what the government should or should not do. We don't really elect people on their management prowess, which is much more relevant to the efficiency issue. May we should start a system where it's like you vote for the party, then the party produces like 3 candidates for major positions, then we vote on those with respect to who might manage the department the best~ I dunno. Seems like a hard problem to solve. Well, if you compare to the British/Canadian parliamentary system, you get a lot less direct representation, but the parties are much more like a few figureheads with supporting management staff. It's definitely a tradeoff, and you'll find that the more management oriented the government is, the less actual say you have in individual proceedings. As a Canadian I can say with relative confidence that a majority government is basically awful because the entire party is elected for four years despite, generally speaking, being required to vote with the party leader when the leader desires (effectively making the leader an un-vetoable executive power). So then we end up situations like now where the leader can have some heinously low approval rating but we can't do anything to affect his stranglehold on executive authority because his entire party is guaranteed (more or less) dominance until the next election. Since the Senate is appointed and (at least in Canada) filled with puppets of the appointing Prime Minister, the only real barrier to parties passing whatever the fuck they want is the Supreme Court. It definitely is a tradeoff. I'm not even remotely sure what system I'd prefer, honestly.
Yeah, that's definitely an issue, but so is the Stonewalling possibility that you see in the US, or in countries where there's a constant minority government like Italy.
Basically, a working government system is hard...
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On July 10 2013 06:31 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:28 ziggurat wrote:
No one has commented (that I've seen) on Obama's decision to defer that ACA for one year as it affects corporations. It's actually a very interesting issue, because on the face of it the President doesn't have the power to do this. Can you imagine if Romney had won the election, tried and failed to repeal ACA, and then said "oh well I'll just defer the start date"? This entire debacle can be summed up rather nicely with 2 words: partisan process.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Care to elaborate?
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On July 10 2013 06:14 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:07 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 06:04 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 06:00 Shiori wrote:On July 10 2013 05:57 Klondikebar wrote:On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). Wut? Profit = Revenue - Costs. Raising costs directly reduces profits. A profit maximizing firm has every incentive to reduce costs. And your sentence about lawyers...wtf are you on about? Do you have any idea how health insurance works? If cost(lawyers) < cost(changing policy in question) then the ideal decision depends entirely on the likelihood of those lawyers succeeding versus the likelihood of a judgment against the corporation being greater than what it would have cost to begin with/force them to change their policy regardless. Umm...yeah but that's still a cost minimizing decision. It's more of a cost relative to revenue decision. If raising costs by x makes revenue go up by x^2 then it's a profit-maximizing as well as cost-raising decision. You're just splitting hairs and pretending to make a point. Obviously additional production has costs. More outputs require more inputs. But firms are still looking to reduce costs. They aren't just going to inflate costs without any additional revenue. I figured that was obvious in the spirit of what I wrote but apparently it needs to be said: Firms aren't paying more for inputs just for the hell of it. And when you're presented with two possible costs, you're going to pick the one that negatively impacts your profits the least aka. a cost minimizing decision.
In Denmark we have had several periods of liberalisation and removal of old monopolies. The experience has been that the private sector almost always are able to lower the cost. The reason? Not having to do as much legal bureaucracy and cutting quality to the absolute minimum of their contract and preferably lower. In some areas that is a good trade, in other areas it is a horrible trade.
Healthcare is actually an area where it has been a reasonably good trade as long as you keep the single payer structure and define exactly what each service is worth (if it is set too low, no private hospital/practitioner will take the job, while it will get very crowded if the profit margin is high. Either way, the result is a need for a pretty active price adjusting body.)!
Just saying that profitability is far from equal to benefit.
By privatizing, quality is moved from a professional assessment to a lawyers ability to write a contract. On the other hand, the bureaucratic and legal pressure for quality on public projects are significant to what can be saved.
Ultimately the definition of what is a good idea to privatize is a lot more complex than just the field of service. If lawyers were able to foresee every possible danger in the future, everything might be worth privatizing, but some areas like electricity are very hard to deregulate without significant market restrictions to avoid blackouts and heavy overproduction of electricity.
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Kinda jumping in the middle of this discussion, but it's very important to remember that the people that are in government are essentially the same people that are in business. Not EXACTLY the same people, but those with similar traits and skills will be found in both sectors.
This begs the question, "Why is government supposedly less efficient than the private market?" I would attribute it to 2 main traits. First, the size of government is so big. Not in the way that Libertarians drone on about, but in a comparative way to large corporations, which makes them lethargic and slow to respond to new trends and sudden changes in demand. There's also a strange phenomenon with large businesses and government that has to deal with placement of "undesireables." You'll see these in the private sector and public sector, where you stick people you don't want to or can't fire into useless departments or teams, hoping to minimize the damage they can do. This is where you get those guys that look at porn 6 out of 8 hours of every work day, instead of doing a job their superiors don't actually expect them to really do.
Second, government programs simply have a different mandate than the private sector (for the most part). Government programs normally have a social focus, with the intention of helping people first or completing some political task, with the cost being 2nd or later in the priority list. Meanwhile, private sector normally prioritizes costs, so that is why they can do things more efficiently with respect to cost.
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On July 10 2013 07:13 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 06:31 farvacola wrote:On July 10 2013 06:28 ziggurat wrote:
No one has commented (that I've seen) on Obama's decision to defer that ACA for one year as it affects corporations. It's actually a very interesting issue, because on the face of it the President doesn't have the power to do this. Can you imagine if Romney had won the election, tried and failed to repeal ACA, and then said "oh well I'll just defer the start date"? This entire debacle can be summed up rather nicely with 2 words: partisan process. I'm not sure what you're saying here. Care to elaborate?
I'm saying that the Obamacare we ended up with at the end of the day looks nothing like it should have, and this is due in large part to what happens as a result of the partisan process. What are called "concessions" end up being distorting enough to render the original concept unrecognizable.
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United States41965 Posts
On July 10 2013 05:57 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2013 05:45 DoubleReed wrote:On July 10 2013 05:35 renoB wrote:
I think when people refer to inefficiency and waste in government they're referring to programs that can be replaced by the private sector. The private sector has to worry about being profitable in order to continue on, and thus requires efficiency and therefore requires cost-benefit analyses when deciding on things like buying new computers and so forth. The public sector doesn't have to worry about it because they're going to get the same budget next year and they are actually encouraged to waste in some circumstances when they operate under budget.
But like Shiori suggested, this is where the partisan bickering comes in for deciding what requires government programs and what doesn't.
I think a good comparison would be the amount of money spent on traditional public schools vs. charter schools and their testing results. Charter schools providing better results with less money, whereas traditional public schools have received increased funding with a stagnation of testing scores. Uhh... No there's plenty of waste in the private sector. Remember that private companies want profit which automatically raises their costs. Making things private can often end up making things less efficient because the incentives are different. Very dependent on the situation. An example I like is how private healthcare companies hire huge numbers of lawyers to defend themselves from doing their job (which is to give you money when you get sick). Wut? Profit = Revenue - Costs. Raising costs directly reduces profits. A profit maximizing firm has every incentive to reduce costs. And your sentence about lawyers...wtf are you on about? Do you have any idea how health insurance works?
He's talking about waste in the grander societal sense, the same thing I meant in my thing about advertising. If a profit seeking company has two options, meeting its obligations or hiring a lawyer to weasel a way out of them, and the lawyer is cheaper then, assuming no externalities, they'll do that. In the case of health insurance it means premiums are higher than they ought to be and people who have paid for care through premiums don't get care because some of the money you pay into the pot is specifically devoted to paying people sitting in offices to find technicalities to deny you healthcare. If you shot each and every one of those lawyers then the insurance company would be giving out more healthcare per $ you paid them. The free market encourages that kind of waste.
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WASHINGTON -- Republicans are making more noise about dropping food stamps from farm legislation that previously failed to pass the House of Representatives because of disagreement over cuts in nutrition assistance.
Roll Call reported Tuesday that a vote could happen as soon as this week, but a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suggested leaders haven't made up their minds.
"There has been no decision made to schedule a vote on a farm bill, in any form," Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper told HuffPost. Cantor previously hinted that the House leadership was considering splitting the farm legislation.
The farm bill failed last month after Democrats voted against it because they felt its cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program went too far, while conservative Republicans voted nay because the cuts didn't go far enough. Many on both sides also consider its farm subsidies overly generous to agribusiness.
The House GOP could likely pass deeper SNAP cuts without any Democratic support, although it's unclear how such a conservative bill could pass in the Senate. While some of the farm subsidy provisions will expire in the fall without new legislation, food stamps will continue on autopilot, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told HuffPost last week.
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