Wry Catcher
Diamond Member
- Banned
- #121
But Reagan didn't cut anything did he. He simply refused to agree to sign appropriations bills that increased social spending as much as the Democrats wanted to increase it and then capitulated by signing bills somewhere between his proposed budget and theirs. Social spending in EVERY category went up under Reagan every single year just as it did with President Bush 41 and President Clinton and President Bush 43.
And then you go on to say in a subsequent post:
You see, this is the OLD way of thinking about government. The only solution is not either borrowing what we don't cover in medicare costs or raising taxes to cover those costs. The better way is to look at how unreasonable those costs are or why they are unreasonable.
A different way of looking at government is that government has been most of the problem in those rising costs. Once government starts dickering around with the supply and demand of any product, you get artificially produced results, usually not in a good way. Good intentions invaribly produce unintended negative consequences. When Medicare went into effect in the 1960's, Congress and President Johnson promised a certain cost level for the program. But within a few short decades, that cost had been exceeded by hundreds of percent.
You can see that in prior decades, U.S. medical costs rocked along pretty steadily with the rate of inflation. From day one that Medicare and Medicaid went into effect, the costs started rising and have accelerated.
When Social Security went into effect, the people were guaranteed that we would never be taxed more than 1% of our income to support the program. We now pay 13.3% tax for social security and medicare thanks to an Obama tax reduction for 2011. Last year we paid more than 15% with additional federal and state taxes calculated to cover some of the Medicaid costs. And both programs are running on empty and will cost the people hundreds of billions more if something isn't done soon.
So it is with ALL entitlement programs.
A different way of looking a government these days is to realize that the private sector is the ONLY way to go if we want top quality at an affordable cost. The private sector always delivers what the people want and are willing or able to pay for. Government has proved that it can't.
The private sector is interested in profit not service. Not paying claims is job number one for the entire insurance industry. Stating the "private sector is the ONLY way to go if we want top quality at an affordable cost" is a joke, isn't it?
If the private sector's profit depends on delivering a service people want and are able and willing to pay for, the private sector becomes very interested in delivering that service. What other incentive is there for people to deliver products and services if not for profits? We should celebrate profit that encourages commerce and industry to deliver to us the most excellent and attractive and affordable products and services as that has produced one of the highest standards of living in the world.
As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations , ""It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest." Were it not for their skill and ability to deliver a product and services people want and are willing and able to pay for, they would not provide the product and services. And they must manage supply and demand and costs efficiently or they are unable to provide products and services. And they won't do it for long without adequate compensation for their labor.
Government, however, for many decades now hasn't had to show a profit or even a balanced ledger; therefore it hasn't cared about cost or efficiency or effectiveness. It blames the other guy for its failures, and just borrows or prints more money to cover costs it can't cover and it doesn't have to BE effective but simply convince enough people to "vote for me" and you'll get yours. Government has had no incentive to be cost conscious, effective, or efficient as it has the power to borrow as much as it wants, print as much money as it wants, tax as much as it wants, or promise whatever it thinks the people will believe.
So we need a whole new way of thinking about government in order to get the products and services that we want and need.
And if we think long and hard enough, most people should realize that the private sector does a better job of deivering products and services, including healthcare, at a price we can afford, than the government will ever do.
The private sector is interested in profit not service. Not paying claims is job number one for the entire insurance industry. Stating the "private sector is the ONLY way to go if we want top quality at an affordable cost" is a joke, isn't it?
If true, why is the private sector so scared of a public option? Isn't competition good (Adam Smith thought so).