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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On April 13 2017 14:13 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 14:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:57 Yurie wrote:On April 13 2017 13:52 WolfintheSheep wrote:On April 13 2017 12:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
More proof that Boomer generation will go down as the most selfish and destructive generation in history.
And this is why young people actually need to vote. It is an interesting subject on how to complete that goal though. Maybe enforced compulsory voting might be a decent idea for a few elections to promote the culture? A way to do it without adding direct costs to the government could be to deny passports and social security or similar subsidies if not voting or submitting a reason of why one can not. We don't need compulsory voting. What we need is a nationwide Sudbury style makeover for our education system. No amount of education is going to change the fact that a voter has to receive a highly diluted and simplified, catchy, and provocative message. We actually need more honest politicians who want to do good, which happens by removing money from politics OR having an extremely wealthy politicians who aren't as easily manipulated. It's 2017, most people have internet access. You've got it backwards. Our politicians are failures, and they are stuck in ideology, and in that sense, Trump is still the most reasonable one there. Politician should not be a career.
you get the people you vote for. if the politicians are bad, it's because people choose to vote for and support such people. You want better politicians you need better voters. Most voters suck at choosing people.
Removing money from politics isn't feasible; and the extremely wealthy politicians thing is absurd as others have pointed out.
should politician be a career? an interesting question; perhaps not, but on the other hand, the world is a VERY complicated place, you can't expect people to be good at their job without a lifetime of training and expertise. Specialization of labor would tend to imply there is considerable value to careerists.
On mandatory voting: It might be an improvement, hard to tell without more empirical data. While those who currently don't vote are often uninformed, they also tend to have lower levels of bias, and moderate amounts of info often increase bias and error in politics. So it might be a net improvement to the system.
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On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare?
The U.S., the only first-world country without UHC, also spends the highest per-capita on healthcare, has lower life expectancy, more infant deaths, higher medical bills, etc.
The question isn't "can the government manage healthcare?", it's "can we afford the government to not manage it?"
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The fact that it's cheaper in some cases to fly to another country, get a surgery done, and then take a vacation as opposed to just having it done here is an embarrassment.
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On April 13 2017 22:43 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? The U.S., the only first-world country without UHC, also spends the highest per-capita on healthcare, has lower life expectancy, more infant deaths, higher medical bills, etc. The question isn't "can the government manage healthcare?", it's "can we afford the government to not manage it?"
Except the US government already significantly manages healthcare (and in no first world country does the government totally manage all aspects of healthcare)
pre-Obamacare you had partially government funded healthcare if you were poor (Medicaid), old (Medicare), or employed/part of an employed family (tax deduction)
[Also as a side note, the US has had UHC since the 1980's, everyone can go into an ER and eventually get treated whether you can pay or not.]
The issue is how the government manages+funds healthcare. The issue is the vast majority of people (employed+old) who vote are ok with their heathcare system and don't want the government to change how they do it for fear that they could make it much worse.
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Where is your evidence that the vast majority of people who vote are ok with status quo healthcare?
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On April 13 2017 23:26 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 22:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? The U.S., the only first-world country without UHC, also spends the highest per-capita on healthcare, has lower life expectancy, more infant deaths, higher medical bills, etc. The question isn't "can the government manage healthcare?", it's "can we afford the government to not manage it?" Except the US government already significantly manages healthcare (and in no first world country does the government totally manage all aspects of healthcare) pre-Obamacare you had partially government funded healthcare if you were poor (Medicaid), old (Medicare), or employed/part of an employed family (tax deduction) [Also as a side note, the US has had UHC since the 1980's, everyone can go into an ER and eventually get treated whether you can pay or not.] The issue is how the government manages+funds healthcare. The issue is the vast majority of people (employed+old) who vote are ok with their heathcare system and don't want the government to change how they do it for fear that they could make it much worse.
Just so you know, ERs have no legal obligation to do anything beyond screen and stabilize you. They don't have to do a non-immediate surgery, don't have to treat a cold, don't have to do anything beyond make sure you don't drop dead.
Though considering people seem to want healthcare to be deathcare I guess maybe that does count as UHC to some people.
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The United States is a special case regarding health care. We fund a disproportionate amount of the world's medical research, which the rest of the developed world mooches off of. So of course our medical care is more expensive, right?
Nope, it turns out that the government has tied private medicine's hands behind its back! To start with, the Affordable Care Act has severely reduced the ability of consumers to customize their health insurance policy, which is one of the main draws of an open market. The health care itself hardly fares better; The electronic medical records mandates cost roughly as much as a physician's salary to implement, and complying with Medicare and Medicaid essentially requires one administrative employee per physician.
Local government has a tendency to compound the issue; A lot of places in the USA restrict building new hospitals to limit 'redundancy'. That leads to some local monopolies. Other places, such as New York, place unfair burdens on for-profit hospitals. Even where their hospitals are overpriced, and competition would drive those prices down dramatically, hospital companies can't enter the market.
These factors combined drive up health care costs by at least a factor of two.
No wonder single payer looks attractive - a single payer system wouldn't need to deal with the government sabotaging it at every turn.
(There's even more going on, but this post is already in tl;dr territory)
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On April 13 2017 14:05 Introvert wrote:
We complain about the ignorance of the American voter and yet want to force people who don't already vote to vote? Forget arguments about forcing participation, that doesn't make sense on its own.
I would argue that a lot of people who choose to abstain from voting are people who are actually well engaged and educated and simply become cynical. You're not new to the internet. You know the types. "Both parties are the same" and other similar reddit trash.
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On April 13 2017 23:27 farvacola wrote:
Where is your evidence that the vast majority of people who vote are ok with status quo healthcare?
49% through Employer
14% Medicare
The big arguments against health care revision either in the 90s or pre '10s were messing with employer provided insurance and messing with Medicare.
Not saying those 63% of the population (and old+employed vote more) are Happy with their health insurance, but most of them are convinced that change would mess things up.
On April 13 2017 23:30 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 23:26 Krikkitone wrote:On April 13 2017 22:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? The U.S., the only first-world country without UHC, also spends the highest per-capita on healthcare, has lower life expectancy, more infant deaths, higher medical bills, etc. The question isn't "can the government manage healthcare?", it's "can we afford the government to not manage it?" Except the US government already significantly manages healthcare (and in no first world country does the government totally manage all aspects of healthcare) pre-Obamacare you had partially government funded healthcare if you were poor (Medicaid), old (Medicare), or employed/part of an employed family (tax deduction) [Also as a side note, the US has had UHC since the 1980's, everyone can go into an ER and eventually get treated whether you can pay or not.] The issue is how the government manages+funds healthcare. The issue is the vast majority of people (employed+old) who vote are ok with their heathcare system and don't want the government to change how they do it for fear that they could make it much worse. Just so you know, ERs have no legal obligation to do anything beyond screen and stabilize you. They don't have to do a non-immediate surgery, don't have to treat a cold, don't have to do anything beyond make sure you don't drop dead. Though considering people seem to want healthcare to be deathcare I guess maybe that does count as UHC to some people.
Agreed, but the point is
Government managed UHC is already present, the issue is
-quality (UHC is very, very poor as you point out)
-cost (you don't have to pay up front but medical bankruptcy means the hospital charges more, particularly to noninsured patients .... causing more medical bankruptcy)
[and then the government managed nonUHC sections for poor, old, and employed are also badly managed... although the systems for the old and employed actually have a decent source of funding so they aren't as bad as ERcare or Medicaid]
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Given that I think turning Medicare into the single payer program is the best route forward, I suppose that works for me 
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On April 13 2017 23:26 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 22:43 LightSpectra wrote:On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? The U.S., the only first-world country without UHC, also spends the highest per-capita on healthcare, has lower life expectancy, more infant deaths, higher medical bills, etc. The question isn't "can the government manage healthcare?", it's "can we afford the government to not manage it?" Except the US government already significantly manages healthcare (and in no first world country does the government totally manage all aspects of healthcare) pre-Obamacare you had partially government funded healthcare if you were poor (Medicaid), old (Medicare), or employed/part of an employed family (tax deduction) [Also as a side note, the US has had UHC since the 1980's, everyone can go into an ER and eventually get treated whether you can pay or not.] The issue is how the government manages+funds healthcare. The issue is the vast majority of people (employed+old) who vote are ok with their heathcare system and don't want the government to change how they do it for fear that they could make it much worse.
Nobody important in America is calling for socialized medicine like Cuba, albeit they have better healthcare than we do. People are either calling for a universal two-payer system like Germany and France, or a single-payer like Canada.
The U.S. has never had UHC because you are billed if you go to the emergency room. Wanna know why not having UHC is so much more expensive? Because spending $20 on preventative care so homeless and very poor people can get vaccines and regular checkups is a lot cheaper than spending $8,000 on them when they visit the E.R. and then can't pay for the emergency services.
The U.S. has the worst healthcare system in the developed world; we pay more for less and have worse results to show for it. There is literally no good reason to continue the status quo.
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Wall Street titan Stephen Schwarzman has recently taken on a new, informal job: counselor to the president.
The CEO of Blackstone Group, who has known Trump for years, has become so close to the president that the two sometimes talk several times a week, covering everything from Chinese trade to tax policy to immigration.
White House and New York business officials say Schwarzman was critical to Trump keeping the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as the Dreamers program, with Trump making the decision after a call with the hedge fund billionaire. The two also recently chatted at Mar-a-Lago about a possible reorganization of the White House, two people familiar with the meeting say, though the conversation didn't include specific names.
Schwarzman's growing influence in Trump's circle is welcome news to New York business leaders and moderate Republicans, who want the president to abandon his nationalist positions and embrace a more nonideological White House amid lagging poll ratings and infighting dominating the West Wing.
In private conversations, a number of Trump's friends have told him he could be more popular — and accomplish more — if he embraced a moderate streak and listened to his business friends. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, is trying to orchestrate more power for New York business types, particularly National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, while diminishing the power of chief strategist Steve Bannon, who drives the populist wing of the White House.
“The president is a business person, so he’s very comfortable being around business people and he learns best by talking to people and observing things,” Schwarzman said in an interview after meeting on Tuesday with Trump and other business leaders. “I think he looks forward to these things and he likes being with business people who have run businesses that are bigger than his. It’s just a highly supportive environment, whether it’s Gary Cohn or Jared, certainly Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross and Dina Powell, these are all people who’ve had very similar experiences.”
One executive in regular contact with West Wing officials said it’s encouraging that Trump appears to be embracing more pragmatic allies. “It seems like he’s relying now on nonideological people like Gary who have business experience and just know how to execute and get stuff done,” the executive said.
Any possible shift certainly comes with risks. Democrats are never likely to embrace Trump. And the president could alienate his core supporters after winning the election by catering to blue-collar workers, mocking Hillary Clinton's paid speeches on Wall Street, and railing against the influence of elites and special interests.
Inside the White House, Bannon has at times clashed with Cohn and Kushner and has advocated for more strident positions. Cohn's rising influence has already attracted attacks from Bannon allies, and Kushner has drawn negative attention from conservative blogs. Several Trump campaign veterans have lambasted Cohn's influence in the White House. "He would be an Obama appointee at best," one longtime adviser said.
Whether Trump will be willing to modulate significantly from the scorched-earth strategy that won him the White House, and whether he wants more discipline in the White House, remains unclear. What has attracted him to much of his base is railing against trade deals that Wall Street executives like, building a massive border wall and implementing stricter immigration policies that they don't like. And he often avoids even the best-crafted advice by firing off an errant tweet.
Another executive said a summit last week with CEOs created good feelings about the White House, but some of that changed later in the week when Cohn suggested he would support separating investment and retail banking on Wall Street, something big banks strongly oppose.
“Yes, everyone left that meeting feeling good about the White House and the agenda and then we wake up on Thursday and Gary is saying he wants to break us up,” the executive said. “It could be that he sort of backed into it because it was in the Republican platform and that nothing will happen with it, but it still bothered people.”
This executive also said it was too soon to suggest Trump would really back away from ripping up existing trade deals or slapping tariffs on Mexico, China or other nations the president views as unfair competitors. “Trade in this administration is very complicated and there are so many players with different agendas jockeying for position,” the executive said.
Source
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On April 13 2017 23:32 Buckyman wrote:
The United States is a special case regarding health care. We fund a disproportionate amount of the world's medical research, which the rest of the developed world mooches off of. So of course our medical care is more expensive, right?
Nope, it turns out that the government has tied private medicine's hands behind its back! To start with, the Affordable Care Act has severely reduced the ability of consumers to customize their health insurance policy, which is one of the main draws of an open market. The health care itself hardly fares better; The electronic medical records mandates cost roughly as much as a physician's salary to implement, and complying with Medicare and Medicaid essentially requires one administrative employee per physician.
Local government has a tendency to compound the issue; A lot of places in the USA restrict building new hospitals to limit 'redundancy'. That leads to some local monopolies. Other places, such as New York, place unfair burdens on for-profit hospitals. Even where their hospitals are overpriced, and competition would drive those prices down dramatically, hospital companies can't enter the market.
These factors combined drive up health care costs by at least a factor of two.
No wonder single payer looks attractive - a single payer system wouldn't need to deal with the government sabotaging it at every turn.
(There's even more going on, but this post is already in tl;dr territory)
I'm sorry, you think everything was peachy keen before Obamacare? When, what, 40 million people had no insurance and it was commonplace for poor people with cancer to get zero treatment?
There's three reasons why Americans pay 2x than other countries per capita on healthcare, and it's not because we fund most of the world's medical research (per capita, we don't).
1. Private insurance companies are making huge profits -- the money goes to shareholders and executives, not to people with medical ailments.
2. Competition is inefficient. Every health insurance company has to pay for its own legal team, advertisement, research, corporate bonuses, etc.
3. Having uninsured people is really expensive on the system as a whole because emergency services are hundreds of times more expensive than preventative care.
An impoverished communist country a few miles south of Florida has better healthcare than America does as a whole. It's time to face the facts, capitalism is not the solution to everything.
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It looks like almost every intelligence agency in Europe noticed contacts between Trump people and known Russian Intelligence Operatives that they were surveying and warned the US about it. Pretty damning article in Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia
“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’
+ Show Spoiler +
Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said.
Donald Trump's first 100 days as president – daily updates
Read more
The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance, which also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.
Another source suggested the Dutch and the French spy agency, the General Directorate for External Security or DGSE, were contributors.
It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.
The issue of GCHQ’s role in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Moscow is highly sensitive. In March Trump tweeted that Barack Obama had illegally “wiretapped” him in Trump Tower.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, falsely claimed the “British spying agency” GCHQ had carried out the bugging. Spicer cited an unsubstantiated report on Fox News. Fox later distanced itself from the report.
The erroneous claims prompted an extremely unusual rebuke from GCHQ, which generally refrains from commenting on all intelligence matters. The agency described the allegations first made by a former judge turned media commentator, Andrew Napolitano, as “nonsense”.
“They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” a spokesperson for GCHQ said.
Instead both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016.
One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.
The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.
“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’
“The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”
According to one account, GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at “director level”. After an initially slow start Brennan used GCHQ information and intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation.
In late August and September Brennan gave a series of classified briefings to the Gang of Eight, the top-ranking Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. He told them the agency had evidence the Kremlin might be trying to help Trump to win the presidency, the New York Times reported.
One person familiar with the matter said Brennan did not reveal sources but made reference to the fact that America’s intelligence allies had provided information. Trump subsequently learned of GCHQ’s role, the person said.
The person described US intelligence as being “very late to the game”. The FBI’s director, James Comey, altered his position after the election and Trump’s victory, becoming “more affirmative” and with a “higher level of concern”.
Comey’s apparent shift may have followed a mid-October decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court to approve a secret surveillance order. The order gave permission for the justice department to investigate two banks suspected of being part of the Kremlin’s undercover influence operation.
According to the BBC, the justice department’s request came after a tipoff from an intelligence agency in one of the Baltic states. This is believed to be Estonia.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the same order covered Carter Page, one of Trump’s associates. It allowed the FBI and the justice department to monitor Page’s communications. Page, a former foreign policy aide, was suspected of being an agent of influence working for Russia, the paper said, citing US officials.
The application covered contacts Page allegedly had in 2013 with a Russian foreign intelligence agent, and other undisclosed meetings with Russian operatives, the Post said. Page denies wrongdoing and complained of “unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance”.
Late last year Comey threw more FBI resources into what became a far-reaching counter-intelligence investigation. In March he confirmed before the House intelligence committee that the agency was examining possible cooperation between Moscow and members of the Trump campaign to sway the US election.
Comey and the NSA director, Admiral Michael Rogers, said there was no basis for the president’s claim that he was a victim of Obama “wiretapping”. Trump had likened the unproven allegation to “McCarthyism”.
Britain’s MI6 spy agency played a part in intelligence sharing with the US, one source said. MI6 declined to comment. Its former chief Sir Richard Dearlove described Trump’s wiretapping claim on Thursday as “simply deeply embarrassing for Trump and the administration”.
“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,” Dearlove told Prospect magazine.
A GCHQ spokesperson said: “It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters”.
It is unclear which individuals were picked up by British surveillance.
In a report last month the New York Times, citing three US intelligence officials, said warning signs had been building throughout last summer but were far from clear. As WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, US agencies began picking up conversations in which Russians were discussing contacts with Trump associates, the paper said.
European allies were supplying information about people close to Trump meeting with Russians in Britain, the Netherlands, and in other countries, the Times said.
There are now multiple investigations going on in Washington into Trump campaign officials and Russia. They include the FBI-led counter-espionage investigation and probes by both the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House committee, has expressed an interest in hearing from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer whose dossier accuses the president of long-term cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Moscow. Trump and Putin have both dismissed the dossier as fake.
One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”
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On April 13 2017 23:32 Buckyman wrote:
The United States is a special case regarding health care. We fund a disproportionate amount of the world's medical research, which the rest of the developed world mooches off of. So of course our medical care is more expensive, right?
Nope, it turns out that the government has tied private medicine's hands behind its back! To start with, the Affordable Care Act has severely reduced the ability of consumers to customize their health insurance policy, which is one of the main draws of an open market.
If by customize you mean remove key protections that the average american wouldn't even be able to self insure against then whats the point. Sure, now I dont have to pay for ER visits cause i haven't had to go in the last 10 years, but when I do go now i have to pay 10k, those $20 per month that I saved sure were worth it. /s
The health care itself hardly fares better; The electronic medical records mandates cost roughly as much as a physician's salary to implement, and complying with Medicare and Medicaid essentially requires one administrative employee per physician.
We need to move on from a paper based records system. having to wait days/weeks for records to be transfered from hospital to hospital, in the same day and age where i can stream terabytes of video is an embarrassment. It is difficult to transition, and expensive, but the healthcare providers weren't making the right move for the consumers on their own and the gov't needed to force their hand.
Local government has a tendency to compound the issue; A lot of places in the USA restrict building new hospitals to limit 'redundancy'. That leads to some local monopolies. Other places, such as New York, place unfair burdens on for-profit hospitals. Even where their hospitals are overpriced, and competition would drive those prices down dramatically, hospital companies can't enter the market.
I dont know enough about individual markets to comment, but it sounds like poor zoning decisions on the part of individual cities, which would hardly change regardless of whether there was single payer or not.
These factors combined drive up health care costs by at least a factor of two.
No wonder single payer looks attractive - a single payer system wouldn't need to deal with the government sabotaging it at every turn.
(There's even more going on, but this post is already in tl;dr territory)
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On April 13 2017 23:43 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:It looks like almost every intelligence agency in Europe noticed contacts between Trump people and known Russian Intelligence Operatives that they were surveying and warned the US about it. Pretty damning article in Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’+ Show Spoiler +
Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said.
Donald Trump's first 100 days as president – daily updates
Read more
The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance, which also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.
Another source suggested the Dutch and the French spy agency, the General Directorate for External Security or DGSE, were contributors.
It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.
The issue of GCHQ’s role in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Moscow is highly sensitive. In March Trump tweeted that Barack Obama had illegally “wiretapped” him in Trump Tower.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, falsely claimed the “British spying agency” GCHQ had carried out the bugging. Spicer cited an unsubstantiated report on Fox News. Fox later distanced itself from the report.
The erroneous claims prompted an extremely unusual rebuke from GCHQ, which generally refrains from commenting on all intelligence matters. The agency described the allegations first made by a former judge turned media commentator, Andrew Napolitano, as “nonsense”.
“They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” a spokesperson for GCHQ said.
Instead both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016.
One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.
The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.
“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’
“The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”
According to one account, GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at “director level”. After an initially slow start Brennan used GCHQ information and intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation.
In late August and September Brennan gave a series of classified briefings to the Gang of Eight, the top-ranking Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. He told them the agency had evidence the Kremlin might be trying to help Trump to win the presidency, the New York Times reported.
One person familiar with the matter said Brennan did not reveal sources but made reference to the fact that America’s intelligence allies had provided information. Trump subsequently learned of GCHQ’s role, the person said.
The person described US intelligence as being “very late to the game”. The FBI’s director, James Comey, altered his position after the election and Trump’s victory, becoming “more affirmative” and with a “higher level of concern”.
Comey’s apparent shift may have followed a mid-October decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court to approve a secret surveillance order. The order gave permission for the justice department to investigate two banks suspected of being part of the Kremlin’s undercover influence operation.
According to the BBC, the justice department’s request came after a tipoff from an intelligence agency in one of the Baltic states. This is believed to be Estonia.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the same order covered Carter Page, one of Trump’s associates. It allowed the FBI and the justice department to monitor Page’s communications. Page, a former foreign policy aide, was suspected of being an agent of influence working for Russia, the paper said, citing US officials.
The application covered contacts Page allegedly had in 2013 with a Russian foreign intelligence agent, and other undisclosed meetings with Russian operatives, the Post said. Page denies wrongdoing and complained of “unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance”.
Late last year Comey threw more FBI resources into what became a far-reaching counter-intelligence investigation. In March he confirmed before the House intelligence committee that the agency was examining possible cooperation between Moscow and members of the Trump campaign to sway the US election.
Comey and the NSA director, Admiral Michael Rogers, said there was no basis for the president’s claim that he was a victim of Obama “wiretapping”. Trump had likened the unproven allegation to “McCarthyism”.
Britain’s MI6 spy agency played a part in intelligence sharing with the US, one source said. MI6 declined to comment. Its former chief Sir Richard Dearlove described Trump’s wiretapping claim on Thursday as “simply deeply embarrassing for Trump and the administration”.
“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,” Dearlove told Prospect magazine.
A GCHQ spokesperson said: “It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters”.
It is unclear which individuals were picked up by British surveillance.
In a report last month the New York Times, citing three US intelligence officials, said warning signs had been building throughout last summer but were far from clear. As WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, US agencies began picking up conversations in which Russians were discussing contacts with Trump associates, the paper said.
European allies were supplying information about people close to Trump meeting with Russians in Britain, the Netherlands, and in other countries, the Times said.
There are now multiple investigations going on in Washington into Trump campaign officials and Russia. They include the FBI-led counter-espionage investigation and probes by both the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House committee, has expressed an interest in hearing from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer whose dossier accuses the president of long-term cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Moscow. Trump and Putin have both dismissed the dossier as fake.
One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”
With so many different government agencies and officials having cause to be suspicious of the Trump campaign, I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that everything is just a coincidence.
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On April 13 2017 23:43 Trainrunnef wrote:
We need to move on from a paper based records system. having to wait days/weeks for records to be transfered from hospital to hospital, in the same day and age where i can stream terabytes of video is an embarrassment. It is difficult to transition, and expensive, but the healthcare providers weren't making the right move for the consumers on their own and the gov't needed to force their hand.
In practice, the main effect right now is transferring large amounts of money from doctors and hospitals to software vendors.
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United States42772 Posts
On April 13 2017 22:12 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? More that the same people that gave us Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA system, should be trusted to get your shiny socialized medicine program and not a version of it that goes horribly wrong.
Do you believe that healthcare is terrible in Britain? Serious question. If yes, why do you think the British and their statistics disagree? If no, do you believe that it's just the US government that is incapable of running a healthcare system?
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On April 13 2017 23:39 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 23:32 Buckyman wrote:
The United States is a special case regarding health care. We fund a disproportionate amount of the world's medical research, which the rest of the developed world mooches off of. So of course our medical care is more expensive, right?
Nope, it turns out that the government has tied private medicine's hands behind its back! To start with, the Affordable Care Act has severely reduced the ability of consumers to customize their health insurance policy, which is one of the main draws of an open market. The health care itself hardly fares better; The electronic medical records mandates cost roughly as much as a physician's salary to implement, and complying with Medicare and Medicaid essentially requires one administrative employee per physician.
Local government has a tendency to compound the issue; A lot of places in the USA restrict building new hospitals to limit 'redundancy'. That leads to some local monopolies. Other places, such as New York, place unfair burdens on for-profit hospitals. Even where their hospitals are overpriced, and competition would drive those prices down dramatically, hospital companies can't enter the market.
These factors combined drive up health care costs by at least a factor of two.
No wonder single payer looks attractive - a single payer system wouldn't need to deal with the government sabotaging it at every turn.
(There's even more going on, but this post is already in tl;dr territory) There's three reasons why Americans pay 2x than other countries per capita on healthcare, and it's not because we fund most of the world's medical research (per capita, we don't). 1. Private insurance companies are making huge profits -- the money goes to shareholders and executives, not to people with medical ailments. 2. Competition is inefficient. Every health insurance company has to pay for its own legal team, advertisement, research, corporate bonuses, etc. 3. Having uninsured people is really expensive on the system as a whole because emergency services are hundreds of times more expensive than preventative care. An impoverished communist country a few miles south of Florida has better healthcare than America does as a whole. It's time to face the facts, capitalism is not the solution to everything.
While there are inefficiencies in competition, there are usually worse inefficiencies in oligopoly/monopolies. And the problem is US healthcare is made up of multiple local/regional oligopolies/monopolies.
In many areas a hospital/insurance company can prevent another hospital/insurance company from opening in the same area. (that's part of what those legal teams are for... to stop competition)
Employer insurance often gives you only a limited set of options.
Emergency care is Often more expensive than preventative care (although part of the US problem is too much expensive, preventative care). But uninsured patients are definitely a problem, because the hospital knows if the cost to the hospital was $100,000 they need to charge $500,000 because 80% of that won't be gotten back due to people who can't pay $100,000 (at least among uninsured...if you have insurance, they only charge the insurance company $100,000 dollars because they know the bill will be paid)
The system could be significantly improved in a number of different ways... but any significant improvement would require getting rid of the thing that most people are afraid of losing in the current system (employer provided insurance)
On April 13 2017 23:50 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 22:12 Danglars wrote:On April 13 2017 17:32 Wegandi wrote:On April 13 2017 13:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 13 2017 13:43 LegalLord wrote:
Still, support for UHC is rather substantial these days. Progress, finally. That's a pretty unfavorable way to ask the question too. There was another poll out recently that had Republicans with a plurality in support. It's pretty clear UHC is one of those things we want and our politicians don't for.... rea$on$. I'm sure if you phrased the question honestly, "Do you support the Federal Government nationalizing Healthcare?", instead of calling it 'insurance' or 'universal health care' you'd get a significant difference in opinion. No one wants the VA to become the healthcare system and that's what "UHC" is. The Government can barely manage postage and you want to hand them healthcare? More that the same people that gave us Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA system, should be trusted to get your shiny socialized medicine program and not a version of it that goes horribly wrong. Do you believe that healthcare is terrible in Britain? Serious question. If yes, why do you think the British and their statistics disagree? If no, do you believe that it's just the US government that is incapable of running a healthcare system?
Not poster asked, but I don't think it is terrible, I do think it has significant flaws, which the British will tend to avoid for the same reason the (employed) people in the US like their system, it sort of works (just like the post office/DMV) and changing it would expose people to a lot of risk that a new system might be much worse.
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On April 13 2017 23:50 Buckyman wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2017 23:43 Trainrunnef wrote:
We need to move on from a paper based records system. having to wait days/weeks for records to be transfered from hospital to hospital, in the same day and age where i can stream terabytes of video is an embarrassment. It is difficult to transition, and expensive, but the healthcare providers weren't making the right move for the consumers on their own and the gov't needed to force their hand. In practice, the main effect right now is transferring large amounts of money from doctors and hospitals to software vendors.
I'll agree with this one actually. I couldn't tell you why our government often gives billion dollar contracts to software vendors (especially super shitty ones like Microsoft and Oracle) when the same thing can be done at-home for pennies on the dollar.
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EPT
