Real World

When government employees, and politicians, are rolled into gubmit care, then I'll be open to considering it as an option. Until then, the writing is on the wall. When the people pushing healthcare reform, won't even take the reforms they're pushing, there's a problem.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

BelichickFan

I'm talking about the current bills which aren't nationalized healthcare but are, as you know, to pay for the uninsured. My insurance won't be going down. It will likely be going up, not because I have a "Cadillac plan" but because the health insurers will be taxed more and it will be passed on to all of us. My coverage won't be going up. My premiums will be going up. That equals a big NO THANK YOU from me.

Wolfpack

As soon as I saw the name Amitabh Chandra in this article, I knew it was just the same logical fallacy being repeated over and over. He did a widely publicized report about the costs of malpractice, but the problem is he only included actual jury verdicts when calculating it. The true cost of malpractice goes far above and beyond simple jury verdicts. Increased premiums, unnecessary tests, legal fees, and payments made via settling out of court (which happens quite often) were not included in his calculations.

Not to mention the fact that you have doctors practicing bad medicine out of a fear of being sued. For example, thanks to John Edwards, the rates of Caesarian Sections have risen dramatically even though all evidence suggests they do nothing to prevent cerebral palsy.

I am on the fence regarding health care reform and I think both sides have some very valid points. But I cannot for the life of me understand why the people who are loudest in favor of it are also the loudest in opposition to tort reform.

Real World

Howard Dean said it himself. The reason why tort reform isn't in the bill, is because the pols who wrote it, didn't want to piss off the trial lawyers. No more special interests right?

YouTube - Howard Dean on Tort Reform, Trial Lawyers and Health Care

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

alvinnf

You put Guarantee and Government in the same sentence.....Good luck with that.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

You do understand that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are uninsured but who WANT to pay for the privledge of becoming insured, don't you?

Much of what the health care reform bill is about it making health care not just affordable but available.

It doesn't matter how much money you have - if you or one of your family members has a pre-existing condition the insurance companies, as it stands now, are just flat-out refusing to write you a policy.

The part no one here seems to understand is that any one of us can easily become one of them.

All it'll take is one lousy bad diagnosis which will follow you around forever. Cancer, even a curable type, diabetes, asthma, depression, HIV, Lupus, CP in a newborn, Altzheimers in a 50 year old, a suicide attempt, an accidental drug overdose, any one of a hundred different illnesses or injuries is more than enough for an insurance company to drop you like a hot potato and for every other insurance company to refuse to pick up coverage for you or your family. Medicare won't take you on unless you're over 65 or totally disabled and Medicaid won't touch you unless your disabled and destitute.....there are more sick people working than there are sick people on disability - they're not "deadbeats," they're not "poor," or "illegal aliens," or "scum sucking leeches," or "social parasites," either. They're decent hardworking men and women who, through no fault of their own, got sick.

Opps. My bad. Shoulda known better.

PatsFanInVa

Yeah, putting those two words together, hoo boy! That's some irony!

Now "Enron" and "Guarantee," that's a natural! Or how about Studebaker and guarantee? Oops that's right, they bailed on their pensions and stuck their guys with pennies on the dollar. In fact, that's why there's such a thing as federal pension law.

As to the whole "what's the difference" idiocy, there's a world of difference. If you're angry at a local garbage collector or postal employee, look into their regs -- don't just spew a bunch of misinformed anger, actually look into them -- and present real facts.

What PR did here was simply make up a bunch of priviledges that don't pertain, ascribe them to "da gubmit," complain that "da gubmit" is paid with YOUR TAX DOLLARS, and presto, the bad gubmit is screwing the people.

PR, allow me to do your homework for you, yet again. (I feel like at some point you're supposed to beat up a bully for me. Christ.)

Fact: a new Fed gets 13 vacation days a year. A 15-year veteran gets 26 days, or five weeks. None get 30 vacation days, or 6 weeks.

Fact: The CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System) was available for feds hired through 1983. Since 1984 new Feds have been covered under FERS.

Fact: CSRS is purely a defined benefit pension, like the ones that 44 million American workers in the private sector have. The only difference is that when you collect the federal pension, you "offset" your social security. That is, you subtract it from the amount of pension you earn. So if you are entitled to a $3000/month pension and a $1000/month social security check, it adds up to... $3000. This does not pertain for private sector workers.

Fact: FERS - the system that new feds have entered since January 1 1984, has a much less generous defined benefit pension (1% x years of service. If you stay in the government 20 years, you get 20% of your salary when you retire, up to 30% for 30 years' service.) It does not have the social security offset provision. So if you retire after 30 years' service, and your pension is based on a salary of 75K, you get .3 x 75 per year (22.5K, or $1,875 per month.) However you also get (and pay) social security. In addition, you pay .8% salary to the FERS fund in every paycheck.

Fact: In addition to FERS and social security, current Feds have the option of a thrift savings plan (TSP,) which is basically a very well run defined contribution plan. The match is good but not outstanding: 1 to 1 match up to 4% of pay, and 50% match on the fifth percent you contribute. After that, no match. I've seen plenty of private 401(k)s with a better one. However, management of the funds isn't wild-west casino management; moving money around is discouraged particularly on momentary speculative impulses (moves do not take effect in real time or close enough to it that you can buy a rumor and sell the news.) All the choices are designed to be rebalanced a few times per year, or per career in the lifecycle funds, not every day. Predictably, the fees are quite low given the set-up.

Fact: One can get fired from a federal job, just not capriciously. You can also be laid off, in a RIF situation. It is more recession-proof, because gubmit services are not optional or to be jettisoned when there's a downturn in "demand." If people stop driving as much, you still need to know what the rules are for cars carrying large lithium ion batteries, as that technology matures... just for example. And of course, a momentary downturn in motor traffic does not mean you don't still need to fill the potholes. Your garbage still needs collecting... just watch all the "anti-gubmit" twits go nuts the next time the local sanitation engineers strike.

So you're more protected, because a great deal of what we buy out there is purely catering to impulses for luxury. In good times, much of the private sector is sucking the luxury tit, face it. Your job ends up depending on a bunch of useless sh1t people didn't need in the first place.

So yes it's one great benefit to government work that it isn't as volatile because it is always necessary. You should look into it.

USAJOBS - Search Jobs

Sounds like being a government employee is some sort of paradise in you guys' minds. Knock yourself out. (Unless you've already given it a shot and didn't make the cut.)

Good luck with that,

PFnV

the opinions in this post are purely my own and do not represent the policy of the US government or any agency thereof.

BelichickFan

If you want that to change - great - but the obamans need to be honest about the cost. If you add a requirement that sick people have to be able to get insurance then the premiums go up on the rest of us. That's why Pawlenty is right, you can't fix health care until you attack the cost issue. It can be done with a combination of tort reform, competition across state lines, competition with lower cost and only catastrophic policies, increasing the usages and benefits of health savings accounts, etc. But if you pretend that insurance companies' profits are the only cost issue worth discussing then you're burying your head in the sand and playing a shell game.

PatsFanInVa

You and I both know that "competition across state lines" is the saddest crock of sh1t out there on this issue.

We would simply have a mass exodus from all health plans to the ones situated with the most lenient regulation of insurance. The less leniently regulated states would follow suit. That insures nothing but competition among state legislatures to get out of insurance regulation fastest; i.e., no capitalization requirements, the most favorable laws possible in terms of favoring the companies over the plaintiffs in claims courts, the whole nine yards. It's a race to the bottom dressed up as competition among insurance companies.... but as long as you put the word "competition" in the latest corporate giveaway you can gul the gullible into believing it's a good ol'-fashioned, red-white-and-blue common sense solution.

What the hell is supposed to be the mechanism, other than forcing states with less favorable terms for these corporations adopt more favorable terms? Do they really think the people of Delaware have discovered a new and better process for stamping out credit cards? Or are tons of credit cards originated from banks in Delaware because of their favorable credit card regulations?

Same sing.

PFnV

alvinnf

Testy, testy. Obviously you work at some sort of government job, thank you. This must be a somewhat annoying time for a government employee. Your constantly hearing how your part of the problem, and so on. The point I was trying to make is a simple one. How can anyone be stupid enough to ask for or expect a guarantee from the government. I think all of us, non government employees and government employees could agree that as of right now. All bets are off in Washington. I'm not trying to be cynical, it's just the way it is. We have policy being made midst streams and currents of self serving bipartisan politics, scary indeed. So on and on it goes, so thanks for your service whatever it is. Rest assured we will find a way to persevere their policy no matter how perverse. I guarantee it......