Sen. Ted Kennedy is dead.

[Torie]

As we both aged, I mellowed on Ted. He was honest, of good humor, and well liked by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle as a straight shooter, hard working, and skillful at reaching compromises on difficult issues. He had an excellent working relationship with Orin Hatch for example. He was a major American political figure in his own right beyond his family name, who made a major difference in our political life.

It is also sad because he was one of the few remaining interesting and arresting characters in the Senate, in a growing sea of blow dried media and PR driven drones. 

RIP Ted. I will miss you.

[Torie]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

[Torie]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that singly payer health care saves lives net, just suggesting that our current system sucks. Oh and on fats lowering our life expectancy, gastric bypass surgery on the morbidly obese on the whole saves a net amount of money and would increase that. Seeing as huge amounts of the morbidly obese don't have insurance that would cover for this, we have a problem there. There is also almost no way to get rid of these health problems without severly restricting our populace, which would be much more politically unpopular than universal health care.

Oh sure, I agree with you but there are whole variety of reasons why preventable deaths happen largely because of lack of access.

I understand the need for access EMD, but don't see the necessity for a single payer system to effect that in lieu of subsidized private insurance. Am I missing something here?

[Torie]

John D Ford:  So now we can start just assuming guilt of a crime and judge that person based on our assumptions?

Guilty until proven otherwise:  The Republican idea on justice.

Society can't put him in jail without convicting him, but any person can make their own private judgements about his culpability without waiting for a court verdict to tell them what to think.

True.

And likewise I feel the policies advocated by many conservatives have led to many deaths (far more than Sen. Kennedy was responsible for), and can thus dislike them for that even though they haven't been convicted in a court of law of murder.

I’m sorry, which canard are you introducing into the conversation?  The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by The canard that Republicans kill people by being warmongers or the canard that Republicans kill people by refusing to nationalize the health care system?

lol this is your argument? There are heaps of evidence against the idea of a private health insurance system saving lives.

I would appreciate an expansion by you EMD of the notion suggested in your last sentence that a single payer government system saves lives net. I tend to doubt that if only because the US spends so much more on health care than anyone else.  And one must bear in mind, that one must correct for the percentage of fats in a society, etc.  For example, even though Japanese tend to smoke like chimneys, they also have relatively few fats, and tend not to eat a lot of red meat.

And some preventable deaths might be due more to ignorance than lack of access. In any event, there are ways to afford access without a nationalized system actually, so it is not as if we have a Hobson's choice here.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that singly payer health care saves lives net, just suggesting that our current system sucks. Oh and on fats lowering our life expectancy, gastric bypass surgery on the morbidly obese on the whole saves a net amount of money and would increase that. Seeing as huge amounts of the morbidly obese don't have insurance that would cover for this, we have a problem there. There is also almost no way to get rid of these health problems without severly restricting our populace, which would be much more politically unpopular than universal health care.

Oh sure, I agree with you but there are whole variety of reasons why preventable deaths happen largely because of lack of access.

I understand the need for access EMD, but don't see the necessity for a single payer system to effect that in lieu of subsidized private insurance. Am I missing something here?

Great post Snowguy. However, you will be amazed at how few people will end up earning $400,000 in annual taxable income if you make the marginal rate 60%.  There will be much more barter, fringe benefits, expensive restaurant tabs, and income spaced out over long periods, and of course the rich will just work less in industries where their is some flexibility as to how much one works, such as in the legal field. That is what happened when we had marginal rates in that range or higher. And state income and SS taxes to the extent they last forever would be on top of that I assume. In addition, in real dollars, rates above 50% only kicked in at higher numbers than 400K.  It was more like a couple of million in today's inflated dollars.

As I said before, you will get considerably less revenue than you hoped with that regime, and that is even before dealing with capital gains tax rates. If you get those too high, there will be less risk taking, and huge economic inefficiencies as folks refuse to recognize their capital gains, and just hang on to assets until they die. As it is, I will hold on to my real estate until I die, at far lower capital gains rates. It just makes no economic sense to sell it with that transaction costs lurking out there, in the case of real estate about 25%-35%, with a 15% federal capital gains rate (going up soon), and 25% for the recapture of previously taken depreciation, and a 10% state tax on top of that.

[Torie]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

[Torie]

EMD, there will be administrative costs, and huge ones, administering rationing under a single payer system, with appeals and all the rest. There are costs involved in gathering the facts as to whether a procedure is covered under any system. I consider that argument near make weight personally, absent some empirical evidence to the contrary of which I am unaware, and would be surprised if any such evidence exists.

The notion that the government would be more efficient at all of this strikes me as curious. What will save costs if there are any savings, is slashing drug prices thereby truncating future drug research, and more Draconian rationing - period. The rest is mostly smoke and mirrors I strongly suspect.

Well considering that right now 1/5th of costs is administrative for private insurance companies and only 3% for Medicare, I think that administrative costs on the whole will go down in a single payer system. Obviously there are huge differences between Medicare and a single payer system but with a public option, things would be very similar to Medicare. I could see administrative costs going up somewhat under a bill with a public option but not up to the 15% or higher that exists in the private insurance industry.

Medicare does not have Draconian rationing, but it soon will, along with the rest. Medicare is collapsing along with the rest of the system, and will be revamped, hook, line and sinker. And in our litigious society, this regime of rationing will involve administrative costs. As it is, medicare does not ration really at all, and that is part of the problem that simply cannot be sustained financially.

[Torie]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

[Torie]

Alot of Medicare's expenses come from private doctors abusing the shit out of the fact that Medicare rarely (I don't even think they legally can) denies anything, such as tests and the like, while the doctors get paid for the additional procedures. So, like EMD says, some rationing and control of procedures isn't a bad thing.

It most certainly isn't indeed a bad thing. But then that was not the point of disagreement between EMD and myself.

It probably wasn't, I'm barely paying attention, honestly.

That's OK. Some of my posts lead to near terminal ennui. I understand.