by Xumi in Civic Action, Politics
Posted on August 5, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Last Modified on August 5, 2009 at 9:46 pm
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How do we get the silent majority of residents in Somerville — most in this city are either blue-dog, conservative or liberterian — more active and attend city meetings to voice our displeasure with the agenda of the city/state and federal government? We all need to wake up – things are out of control now.
I am watching the news and notice people are voicing their displeasure all over the nation and shouting down the politicians that don’t represent them. How do we do that here? How do we stop this socialist tilt at the city, state and federal level that wants to just spend, spend and spend our tax dollars?
Lots of issues for us to get involved with and voice our displeasure to our reps/senators (state and federal) including:
1. Excessive taxation and fees
2. Healthcare is about to be rationed via a socialist agenda
3. Gun control that allows criminals to carry, but not law abiding folks in this city
and most importantly…
4. Out of control spending at all levels!
I would be interested in forming a meeting and getting as many like minded folks together to start attending meetings and to start taking this city back. I would be willing to build a website to organize us locally and maybe have an informal get together at Johnny D’s or somewhere to get the ball rolling.
Who is with me? I am ready to roll with this. Are you all?
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Hi Xumi, I share your frustration about tax policy and government waste at all levels. Although I’m not sure what you mean about problems with gun controls and health care rationing (health care is being rationed now by private health insurance companies), I totally agree that things are getting out of control and people need to get active and involved!
This August Congressional recess will be a great time to meet with our Rep.s and Senators to let them know how we feel. Participation in local government is needed, too! There are 8 unfilled positions on the Somerville Human Rights Commission (I am the chair), as just one example of how residents can easily get involved and make a difference. The meetings listed in the calendar on the right side of the screen are other great opportunities to find out what’s going on and get involved.
Folks might also want to check out the monthly meetings of the Progressive Democrats of Somerville (4th Tuesdays).
Also check out AskYourLawmaker.org
Xumi, if you do set up a meeting, I hope you’ll announce it here on the blog. Thanks for posting!
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There is no “socialist” tilt to the federal or state legislative agendas. It probably would be best if we could discuss different forms of economic organization without labeling them with terms that have been become toxic and are not well understood by many who use them.
Taxation is not in itself evil – that’s how we pay for police, fire, and other city services that most would be loathe to give up. The issue is what do we tax, how do we structure the tax, and what are the policy implications of the tax. For example, an increase in the state income tax and the implementation of a tax structure that taxes those with the highest wages at a higher rate is more fair to the majority of people, including those that live in Somerville, than an increase in the sales tax. Unfortunately, the mere mention of raising income taxes seems to result in political suicide.
And I don’t believe there is “out of control spending,” with the exception of a few federal agencies (including the Defense Department, e.g., Halliburton contracts). There are numerous websites that are interactive that allow you to try to balance the budget without harming people. Those who truly believe all government is wasteful might try their hand at achieving a civilized society with inadequate resources. Also interactive tools concerning health care reform like http://www.randcompare.org/analysis/reports/. Of course, all tools have their biases, but we should be able to speak about all options of economic arrangements. The jobless can speak to how the great push for trickle down capitalism that was hawked since the 1980s has worked for them so far.
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Barry, my comment about healthcare was aimed at the far left agenda to socialize our healthcare system (and out whole government) by having the government take it over. A government that can’t run a “cash for clunkers” program wants to run a program that accounts for 1/6 of our economy. Yeah, I have a lot of faith in that and a congress that doesn’t even read the bills they dream up. That will work real well.
Susan, the only fair tax is a flat tax. Say 10%. If you make 40k you pay 4k… 400k then you pay 40k. Get rid of all the complexity and loopholes with a flat tax. Simple. If you keep raising taxes/fees then you will have LESS revenue coming in – people will do more to avoid paying. Study after study proves. Your way to keep hiking taxes on those who work to give to the layabouts and those that are unwilling to work will bankrupt the system. You can’t just keep taking (via taxes/fees/etc) from those of us who work – we’ve reached the breaking point.
The activism I am talking about is the type we’re seeing all over the news now with folks organizing at the grassroots level and getting in their representative’s faces. We know the folks who claim to represent us don’t seem to listen, so we need to “turn up” the volume a notch. No more taxes. No more bailouts. No more spending and keep the government out of our business. And no more socialist programs.
I am tryig to organize something through: Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks – http://www.freedomworks.org/ . Be nice if we can have hundreds of folks show up and demand better aocountability from our representatives at the city/state and federal levels. I will keep people posted on progress.
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Xumi, I will be there. Just let me know when.
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Flat taxes are not fair. Ten percent of a low-income person’s wages hurts that person (who is already struggling to pay for the basics) far more than ten percent of a wealthy person’s income. If there were a tax structure that taxed wealthier people at a higher rate, as well as fair estate taxes, then those of us who are low-income and middle class would not be at a breaking point with respect to taxes.
I’d be interested in the studies to which you refer concerning tax avoidance. I do agree that certain tax loopholes should be closed. When our representatives at the State House – and we have some of the best in the Commonwealth – tried to get rid of corporate tax loopholes, where was the voice of the people? It took way too long to close any of those loopholes – but not because of Somerville representatives.
Again, taxes reflect policy choices. Unfortunately, all too often taxes themselves are the target for outrage, and the non-wealthy are encouraged to start attacking each other as well as the government programs that reflect humane and decent goals. Quite self defeating.
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Susan you said “…If there were a tax structure that taxed wealthier people at a higher rate, as well as fair estate taxes, then those of us who are low-income and middle class would not be at a breaking point with respect to taxes.”
What do you think we have now? What do you want folks who work to be taxed at? 80%. And throw in a 50% death tax? Would that be enough? I would just like to know how much more you want from those of us who DO pay taxes.
Excerpts you need to get your mind around from a good article from CBS News.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/15/politics/otherpeoplesmoney/main4945874.shtml
An astonishing 43.4 percent of Americans now pay zero or negative federal income taxes. The number of single or jointly-filing “taxpayers” – the word must be applied sparingly – who pay no taxes or receive government handouts has reached 65.6 million, out of a total of 151 million.
Those numbers come from an analysis published by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. Neither is a low-tax or conservative advocacy group; the Urban Institute was created under the Johnson administration during the Great Society era, and it receives most of its funding from the federal government.
“You’ve got a larger and larger share of people paying less and less for the services provided by the federal government,” says Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “The concern is that the majority can say, ‘Let’s have more benefits, spend more,’ if they’re not paying for it. It’s ‘free.’ That’s not a good thing to have.”
By historic standards, today’s situation is an aberration. Between 1950 and 1990, the number of owe-no-money federal tax returns averaged 21 percent, dipping to 18 percent in 1986, according to Tax Foundation data. In the 1990s, the owe-no-money percentage hovered around 25 percent of taxpayers.
Do you see the problem? 43.3% of the population pays no taxes. That means the rest of us are carrying those people. We’re tired of carrying ‘em – at this point the only thing I can say is “Get off. The 43.4% of you are too damn heavy”.
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Xumi,
You said “No more spending and keep the government out of our business.” So are you saying the government should dissolve or that we should freeze the budget where it is and leave it there?
Why do you say the government can’t run the “cash for clunkers” program? It was apparently so successful that it ran out of money in about a week. But the point is that the only way to ensure that all Americans have access to good quality health care is to set up a government-run universal health insurance program and cut the cancerous private for-profit health insurance industry out of the system.
Probably the vast majority of the people who pay no taxes are low-income folks. Taxing them won’t raise much money and will push them further into poverty. The high cost of health insurance as well as the lack of health insurance is a big reason why many under- or un-insured people become or stay poor. It’s also why so many small businesses can not afford to hire more workers. America deserves better.
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Barry, when I refer to “no more spending” I am referring to the corporate bailouts of multi-nationals that own our government now and the reckless spending on social(ist)-engineering programs. When I refer to keeping the government keeping out of our business I am referring to the nanny-state we’re becoming with government bureaucrats telling us what to pay people, what to eat and – soon – what procedures we can have/when to die.
Now, cash for clunkers is the type of program that I would usually support, but – of course – it was not well designed and the waste in the program is already well documented. Also, 60% of the dollars in the program went to Japanese, Korean and European automakers – not so much for the US automakers. There should have been a tiered system built in to give higher rebates for folks who buy cars where the majority of parts are manufactured/assembled in the US. They did not put that in.
Also, do you think this is a good use of materials? I don’t. Looks wasteful to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waj2KrKYTZo
43.4% of our population is LOW-income? Come on now. If that were the case then it’s time for many people to immigrate to China or Mexico – their populations aren’t that bad off. A lot of people are gaming the system and they can because our tax code is a mess. We need a flat tax or a fair tax – this tax system we have now can’t get any more complicated and unfair.
Healthcare? When exactly did healthcare become so expensive? And why do we even NEED insurance? When I was a kid we didn’t have health insurance most of the time. If you broke your arm you went to the doctor and explained what you could afford. Since – in those days (late 70s and early 80s) – doctors didn’t have the burden of all these lawyers suing people doctors willy-nilly they could fix the arm for a reasonable payment plan or you’d just pay him if you had enough. I got my wisdom teeth out by negotiating – the dentist asked me if I had dental… I said “Nope” and so she said “Well, then I can do it for X and Y if you decide on no anesthesia.” I went with the no anesthesia and it was cheap. If I had dental she said it would have been at least 2 * .
The issue with healthcare is the COST – not who is insuring you. If the government becomes the de-facto health insurer for citizens (under single payer – public option it will) then you can bet the private insurers will fold (no company can compete with our trillions of our tax dollars). Then we get a bloated bureaucracy running our healthcare and mandating/rationing our care. No thanks.
Fix healthcare by getting the lawyers out (Tort Reform) and then tax employer-provided health-care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance. Simple solution and then there is no need for the government to become our overlord and nanny.
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Just want to dispel some false equations here:
1. the public option is NOT a single-payer plan, and it would be an “option” in addition to the option of keeping your current insurance.
2. the idea that bureaucrats would “tell us when to die” is a blatant distortion of a policy that would allow doctors (whoever your doctor is) to talk with you about end-of-life decisions so that you’ll have on record what YOU want to happen if, say, you’re in a coma in your 90s. If you want the doctor to do everything he or she can to keep you alive, that will be in your directive. The idea is that your health insurance policy would have to pay the doctor for taking the time to have this very important discussion with you and answering whatever questions you have about the choices.
As for Xumi’s question, “Why do we even need insurance?” I went to many doctors in the 60s through 80s and never got to negotiate a payment. In fact, when my parents’ insurance plan for me lapsed after college, I got charged much more than the rate charged insurance companies.
My grandfather lost his business in the 1950s because he didn’t have health insurance and needed major surgery. Although he fully recovered, he was never able to own a business again, my grandmother and uncle had to work in the mills, and he worked for other people, well past retirement age. So not having a health insurance policy basically changed his life (and his family’s life) for the worse. I’m sure there are many more stories like this today.
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Paula, I own a small business and I pay 50% of my employee’s health premiums. I happen to have > 11 employees, so – in MA – I would have had to anyway (33%), but I always have paid that higher %. The point I am trying to make is that if the public option comes through then – as nice a guy as I am – I may be very tempted to move my employees on to the public option. I am sure the public option will be less expensive, though it probably won’t be as good of a plan as I offer them now (BCBS). Do you think it will be?
And if I do that than one would have to assume many other employers – big and small – would do that as well. How do the private insurers (with better options, but higher premiums) compete when everyone is going to go with the “public option”? It will be cheaper. And how do people “stay on their current insurance” if their employers shift to the public option. They won’t.
As far as the “death panel” that Obama wants to institute – talks with your family and your physician about what procedures (pull-the-plug, etc) you want done when terminal is your own business. The government has no business mandating it or being involved at all. The other issue; who sits on the death panel that does the thumbs up/down on getting medical care? Who decides if one’s recovery is a good investment for the government?
As far as your grandfather; as a business owner who is starting to age… I make sure I have life, disability and HEALTH insurance. Yes, at this stage of my life health insurance is a good investment. When I was 18 to 30 – not so much as I very rarely got sick. Still don’t get sick that often, but my odds increase every year. And the reason when you were younger that you never got a better price from a doctor going direct was that you must have never asked. I did. It works. Or maybe I am just an extra-charming guy? Nah… it just works.
Again…. Healthcare reform should center around reducing the costs/risks. Fix healthcare by getting the lawyers out (Tort Reform) and then tax employer-provided health-care benefits and return the money to the employee with a government check to buy his own medical insurance, just as he buys his own car or home insurance. Simple solution and then there is no need for the government to become our overlord and nanny.
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Xumi, let me disabuse you of the “death panel” lie. All that the proposed legislation says is that the government would reimburse doctors for their time if the patient requests an appointment to discuss end-of-life decisions. These meetings would not be mandated, nor would there be any panel involved.
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Paula, thanks for sharing your insights and story.
Xumi,
It sounds like you would support single payer health care if it provided good quality coverage. I think that is not only possible, but necessary. If small businesses like yours didn’t have to shoulder the burden of health insurance for your employees, you could invest that money in other ways that would expand your business, like hiring more employees, or compensating them and yourself better.
It is quite absurd to think that people could just negotiate their health care costs down to reasonable levels. I bet not many doctors would go through with that, since they have to earn enough to support their practices. That’s even less likely to work when expensive medical emergencies happen.
Furthermore, millions of Americans who do not have access to quality health care would be covered under a single payer plan. Think about all the working class people who are able and ready to work now but are unemployed, they are uninsured and would go bankrupt if they had a medical emergency under the current system. COBRA insurance doesn’t last forever.
The problem with the “public plan option” is that its costs would balloon as the private insurers try to avoid covering the sicker, more expensive people who would therefore gravitate towards the public plan. Perhaps the private insurers could not legally deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, but they would find ways to game the system as they always do.
A third of the costs in the health care system are due to the administrative overhead of the private health care industry. Eliminate the private insurers and you’ve just made a huge savings that can be applied directly back to health care itself.
Xumi, why would employees need government checks to buy health insurance if their employers already provided it to them?
No one would seriously consider privatizing public safety services like police and fire, or the public roads or the public schools. But for some reason, good quality health care, a universal human right, is held out by folks like Xumi, as something that should remain a market commodity, available only to those fortunate enough to have a good job or the money to buy it themselves.
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Barry, of course! Who wouldn’t support a cheaper/better plan!?!? Yes, I would. The issue is that I have dealt with the government long enough to know that they are the least efficient at providing services. You brought up police/fire/schools – do you believe that our public unions are in any way efficient? Did you not see the salaries and the OT these folks are pulling in? How efficient is that? It’s all political payola and hackerama. Why would a healthcare bureaucracy be more efficient than our current mess of bureaucracies? They won’t.
Remember in MA we have the first step towards universal healthcare via the MA healthcare mandate in the nation. How has that worked out for us? It’s been a universal mess and budget buster. I realize it’s not exactly what Obama is pitching now — we didn’t get a public option or a single payer option, but we were still promised that rates would decrease with the additional people getting insured. Ha! My premiums went up 53.4% this year alone. State/Government control really worked well so far here, huh?
The public option /single payer option would just be a complete disaster of inefficiency and ruin competition in the marketplace. That’s if Obama even gets that into any “reform”. And don’t be silly about that 30% administrative cost number – if that were true than a small & efficient HMO would have cropped up by now and crushed that competition. The government is not efficient.
You want me to reinvest more in my business then convince our politicians to reduce the health care costs and TAXES/FEES we get hit with. That’s the quickest and most efficient way to get low-income people back to work and covered. For me to hand more control to the government and more $$$ to them for them to distribute is the least efficient.
I think the real disconnect that we have is that when someone from the government comes to the door and says “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” – you progressives want to hug ‘em…. with me my butt puckers up and my wallet starts throbbing.
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Xumi, a single payer health insurance plan would by definition be more efficient than the complex network of myriad private insurers that must be tracked by all their affiliated medical providers necessitating a bloated administrative overhead which accounts for about a third of the costs in the system.
A single payer plan would not ruin competition among health care providers since they would remain in place. Only the health care insurers would go away.
Under a single payer plan, costs would go down as the government could leverage its massive buying power to get drugs and medical supplies cheaply. It would also be less expensive for health care providers who would no longer need to keep track of all the different private insurers. More savings would derive from studies tracking national trends in the success rates and costs of various medical procedures.
A universal single payer health insurance plan would probably make taxes go up, but wouldn’t you rather pay that modest increase instead of continuing to pay the high premiums for your employees? The unfortunate thing is that Congress has not asked its budget office to calculate what it would actually cost to go to a single payer plan. If they did run the numbers, they would see that it would be the only truly affordable and sustainable option for the country.
No system is perfectly efficient. But when government services become inefficient, there are public officials to hold accountable for that. In private companies, CEOs often jump away with golden parachutes even if the bottom line goes into the red.
Are you claiming that the police should be privatized? If they were, then you certainly wouldn’t even know what their salaries or OT look like. At least with public safety, you can complain to your elected officials about rates of police compensation. There are many other strong reasons why we want the laws of the state to be enforced by public rather than private employees.
So you think poor people should just leave the country? Not only is that heartless, it’s ridiculous (how could poor people afford to move to a foreign country?) and avoids the underlying causes of poverty. You can’t blame poor people for being poor, just like you can’t blame the sick for having health problems or the elderly for being old. The solution is to find a way to spread the costs of health care around the whole country so that we all pay a little and no one is left without medical care.
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Barry, please show me an example of an efficient a system as you are claiming that government run single healthcare will be as you are claiming. The single payer system that you are espousing is some government run efficiency dream that exists only in your own private Idaho only. It is not reality and it will never happen as it has never happened. I have history on my side showing government’s failures and ineptness to deliver anything efficiently. Medicaid/Medicaire/VA are all a mess and rationed, and let’s not start to discuss public housing (LBJ’s Great Society – LOL). That is a joke on to itself.
Public officials to be held accoutable? How? Do we hold anyone accountable now in this one-party state? Of course not and you know it. Same thing at the federal level now that the public-union loving democrats are in charge. How about the city level? Does anyone call the mayor out? No. No one can. He has the power.
On the other hand, private enterprise DOES hold people/firms accountable because if an enterprise does not deliver quality services at affordable costs it will fail. If one insurer is not delivering services at affordable rates at least now you can shop around to the other ones. Idealy; we would also be able to shop individual health care – not just insurance.
Finally, on the poor people you ask “…how could poor people afford to move to a foreign country?…” For many of them….the same way they got here.
Ideally everyone should pay their share. There should not be some people getting a free ride that can contribute, but that is what happens with insurance and taxes (see: 43.4% don’t pay federal taxes now). That needs to stop.
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Xumi, I don’t know how you define efficiency nor how efficiently various government programs are running or have been run. But that’s all besides the point which is that we need a single payer plan to fix the broken system and provide health care access to all Americans. You say that this can’t be done, but then again “they” said the country would never elect a black man for president, yet Obama won. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
How are public officials held accountable? Well, a good start would be to organize a grassroots opposition, as you described in your post at the top of this conversation! The mayor is not immune to public scrutiny.
Yes, private insurers are quite good at insuring health people and jacking up premiums on unhealthy people. That’s how they keep costs down and profits up. But that doesn’t accomplish the goal of providing universal access to health care.
Yes, many immigrants do come to the U.S. as poor people. Isn’t America supposed to be the land of opportunity where people can pick themselves up by the bootstraps if they only work hard enough? Well, unfortunately that’s a myth for the vast majority of people. Kicking out poor people is un-American and immoral. How would you like to be kicked out of your home or your country? Wouldn’t that just be an egregious example of the government meddling in our lives?
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Barry, I am going to take the liberty to paraphrase your first paragraph above as “No, I can’t name one single efficiently run government program, but we should still just blindly trust the government to do it now anyway”. I can’t remember any efficiently run government programs either, so I can’t afford any more well-meaning, but mis-run programs being implemented by progressive democrats. I wish I could. Oh… and electing an eloquent, intelligent man or woman (white, black, green or grey) for president is a heck of a lot more common than then the government running programs efficiently. We get sold an empty suit by the corporations just about every 4 years. Some not quite as eloquent as the one we have now; which is why the buyer’s remorse setting in is so extra painful and disappointing.
The mayor’s problem that I see is that he is 100% revenue driven (read: taxes/fees), but he has to be to maintain all the programs that have been promised out to all the special interest groups (progressive) in the city. What we would tell the mayor is that he needs to cut costs and re-prioritize spending money and how that money is spent. No more OT for these union hacks. Hire more firemen/police/teachers if there is extra work out there, but there is no reason all these folks are piling on the OT the way they are. Not only is that an inefficient way to spend taxpayer’s money (1.5 * pay or 2 * pay) it’s dangerous to have these guys “working” all those hours. Plus, you hire more people and you reduce unemployment – you “spread the wealth” as whats-his-face said not too long ago during the campaign.
Though, to be candid, the city level inefficiencies (mayor) are the least my concerns at this point. What is happening at the state and federal level dwarfs the waste & fraud of the city. The big thing they have in common is that they are all run by progressive friendly democrats. I see a trend and who’d a thunk it?
I am no friend of private insurers – I have just been yelling and screaming at them for the last 2 months for jacking the rates up on my business, but – by law – they can’t do a “look back” to see if someone is healthy or not. I accused them of that. To be quite candid the only consistent response that I got from the insurers and brokers was that the huge spike in rates was due to the MA healthcare mandate. It seems that some poor saps (people who work) have to pay for all those folks who are not working who are gaming the system. You know….going on (when they need stuff done) and then off (once the procedure is done) of Commonwealth Care. Someone had to pay for all those uninsured folks at the state level – can you imagine what that cost is going to rise to at the federal level when 48 million (many illegally here) need to be covered? Can you say Costa Rica here I come?
I never said “kick the poor out”… what I said is if there are that many poor people and – according to you – those 43.4% of the people not paying federal taxes are just poor and downtrodden then maybe they should leave and seek better opportunities in countries that still have lots of work (Brazil, Russia, India, China). And for those that came here recently under less than legal methods — if they came here to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” and they still can’t or won’t afford a pair of boots then maybe it’s time get back on that plane, boat or back over the fence. If they did that then many of the poor Americans that have been looking for work would find some.
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Xumi, we agree with you. I just read about Tsongas getting blasted at her townhall this past weekend.
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_13026303?IADID=Search-www.lowellsun.com-www.lowellsun.com
Where is Capuano hiding? Why won’t he hear us? Is he hiding down the Vineyard and hiding from his constituents again? Must be lobby pay month, so he’s busy stuffing the truck of his car.
Xumi, keep calling it like it is!
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I find it very depressing that some people view “shouting down” politicians and citizens who don’t agree with them as a good thing! If you look at the suggestions posted by right-wingers, they’re all about making loud, obnoxious noise (booing, shouting down, hissing) at townhall meetings rather than about listening and responding point-by-point.
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Paula, yeah… these rightwing “mobs” are so out of control! I’m so ascared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZkKxVAPMRg
Maybe you should broaden your horizen a bit more and see that many of us (Blue Dogs and Republicans) are just very concerned about this issue and the methods used by this administration to block those concerns from being heard.
Have you ever bothered to try and talk with anyone who isn’t a progressive? We don’t bite and many of us are your neighbors.
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Hi Xumi,
Yes, many of my family members and some neighbors are conservatives on various issues. But we discuss issues; we don’t shout at each other to drown out what the other person is saying.
I hope you and John will explain why you think it’s better to “shout down” people who don’t agree with you than to address issues of disagreement civilly? And why you think it’s better to spread untruths than to consider the facts and then make a decision?
thanks.
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Thanks, John/Janine. I am trying to organize things locally here for when Mike Capuano holds a townhall meeting. He needs to get his head on straight and get on the side of the people. I plan to be in attendance tommorrow in Portsmouth, NH when Obama is there feeding the news his dis-information campaign. I want to make sure the national and international news organizantions pick up how angry we are about the attempted socialization of our healthcare system.
Barry, still waiting for examples of efficiently run government programs. I can list a lot of inefficiently run ones if you’d like. We may need a bigger blog though – I doubt the list will fit.
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Xumi, I still have no idea what you mean when you talk about efficiency. Care to define that for us and why it makes a difference about how to restructure our broken health care system? If by efficiency you mean the price the country pays compared to the quality of our health outcomes, then the US is currently ranking last at the end of the list of all other industrialized nations. Shouldn’t that motivate us to try a form of single payer which other countries are using quite successfully?
If you are saying that you don’t trust the government to run “efficiently”, whatever that means, then what’s the logical conclusion? – that we should abolish the government? Or that we should rise up and demand higher efficiency? And if you believe that we can get higher efficiency by demanding it, then shouldn’t we demand an efficiently run single payer health insurance program? That’s exactly what I’m talking about!
You’re drinking the xenophobic, anti-immigrant, isolationist cool-aid, my friend. The truth is that low-income immigrants end up doing many of the hard-labor type jobs that most Americans don’t want to do such as tending the fields and working in factories. I’ll refer you to a recent SN article for more on this subject in Historian Aviva Chomsky debunks immigration myths
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Barry, does this help? Efficiency is a common word, though it does appear progressives have no use for it as it isn’t your money being wasted.
ef⋅fi⋅cient
Pronunciation [i-fish-uhnt]
–adjective 1. performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort; having and using requisite knowledge, skill, and industry; competent; capable: a reliable, efficient secretary.
2. satisfactory and economical to use: Our new air conditioner is more efficient than our old one.
3. producing an effect, as a cause; causative.
4. utilizing a particular commodity or product with maximum efficiency (usually used in combination): a fuel-efficient engine.
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We’re all products of immigrants (though I do have some native-american blood in me) – no one wants to stop immigration. We all agree that is how an economy grows, but you can’t have uncontrolled, illegal immigration as we’ve had. And please stop the “Americans won’t do the work”. With unemployment at 9.4% and headed north there are plenty of people willing to do anything, but as long as you have the illegals working for cash (under the table) then unscrupulous employers will go that way. I have nephews (unskilled) who graduated high school (Somerville) a couple of years back and can’t find work. I can’t find work for them and I talked to a lot of contrctors I know — they outright tell me the illegals are cheap and they don’t have the overhead of taxes/FICA/FUTA/etc with the illegals.
Aviva Chomsky (born April 20, 1957)She is the eldest daughter of linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. Puuhhh-leeeease, anyone related to Noam Chomsky has no opinion I need to hear. Noam Chomsky is so left he’d make Che Guevera look like Dick Cheney.
So again… to try and stay on topic….you cannot point to one program that the government runs efficiently, but yet you want to hand them 1/6th (healthcare) of our economy to run? Not me.
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Xumi,
If your contractor friends are abiding by the law, then they should be paying taxes for their employees regardless of their immigration status. Are you saying your friends aren’t only unscrupulous but also acting illegally?
Why do you listen to the left-leaning opinions on this blog, but not consider the research-based findings of Aviva Chomsky?
The dictionary definition of efficiency still doesn’t tell us how you would measure the efficiency of any government program.
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I’m not sure when the Xumi stops and the bullshittery begins. You know contractors who would rather hire “illegals” than your unskilled nephews? I’d suggest you go to the proper authorities and drop a dime on these people, if they indeed exist and aren’t a figment of your imagination. Put your money where your mouth is, or shut up. Be a good citizen, c’mon now.
BTW, I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to point out the Freedom Works web site Xumi mentioned earlier is basically a grassroots front for none other than Dick Armey and his pro-insurance industry lobbying efforts on the healthcare front.
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(This was posted earlier under a reply to Xumi, but might get “buried” there.)
Yes, many of my family members and some neighbors are conservatives on various issues. But we discuss issues; we don’t shout at each other to drown out what the other person is saying.
I hope you and John will explain why you think it’s better to “shout down” people who don’t agree with you than to address issues of disagreement civilly? And why you think it’s better to spread untruths than to consider the facts and then make a decision?
thanks.
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Paula:
I share in Xumi’s frustration in dealing with some PDSers on this site. Speaking from my own experience, when asked questions by certain people, I have responded and posed my own questions to which I received no response or get sarcastic responses back. See, it goes both ways and is not just from Xumi or me. Constant questioning gets one nowhere.
I am a conservative democrat and feel that I cannot support an issue such as health care until I know all the facts. I am fortunate enough to work full time and have health coverage for which I am thankful. I am pregnant and am a type 1 diabetic. I see more doctors than most people I know. I would not want my coverage to change at all and am willing to pay for it. I feel sorry for those who do not work, do not have coverage, etc.
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Janine, I like that you are a fact-based decider. Where do you turn to get your facts?
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I also agree with Janine/Xumi/John as I see those folks asking pointed questions and getting labeled as BS’ers or screamers by the progressives on here. They haven’t yelled, lied or written anything inapproriate that I have seen, so has the progressive movement become the new facists? It appears so.
Xumi, you won’t get an answer to your questions as the progressives can’t debate the facts. They just drink the koolaid that Obama has fed them and question nothing. Keep up the good fight! Many of us share your frustrations.
If I may, let me anser your question: The government has NEVER run any program efficiently. The progressives know it too, but instead of admitting that they would rather just label people who don’t drink their “brand” of koolaid.
Wait until Obama starts the nonesense with the ‘Card Check Act’ or the ‘Employee Free Choice Act’ (EFCA). You want to see demonstrations. Whew.
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Sol, Xumi is having trouble defining how to measure the efficiency of government programs. So what method do you use to evaluate government efficiency?
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Sol, you were warned that your questions would be answered with questions – no answers. The progressives have no answers, so thet just spin whilst gurling their koolaid.
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Thanks Sol. You do realize your comment will be responded with more questions.
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Barry, sounds like maybe this website should have been called http://www.somervillePDSvoicesONLY.org. If you find any Chomsky opinion “well reasoned” then the chasm between you and the vast majority of folks living in Somerville is huge. Noam Chomsky is a legendary anti-semite and leftist kook and his daughter ain’t far behind.
Janine, John & Sol, I just got back from Portsmouth. Wow! Those of us against ramming this healthcare plan down our throats outnumbered the ACORN thugs that the left shipped in by – at least – 10 to 1. Of course, the SS wouldn’t let any of US in – they loaded the place with union reps and ACORN. I noticed a few scuffles – initiated by ACORN folks, but everyone kept their cool (for the most part). There were a few ACORN people on the ground at one point, but I think that was just because there were so many of us that the overflow just was too much and they were backing up/running off.
I highly recommend everyone get active. Democracy is wondeful and we just need to exercise it more. Here too. We need to get our leftwing politicians back in line with what the majority of residens think… not the vocal (ACORN-sponsored) progressive minority!
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Tricky, just read your post…. I am from Somerville. We don’t drop a dime on friends… just how we roll here.
And… who mows your lawn?
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Are you saying you approve of your friends employing “illegals”, then? You’ve got the best of both worlds there, amigo: your friends have their low-salaried workstaff, and you get to crap and moan about it to us about how screwed up things are without taking a step to fix the situation.
I seem to recall you advocating turning businesses who employ “illegals” in at one point. You couldn’t keep your hypotheticals straight during the Sciortino-Trane smackdown, so I’m not surprised you’re spinning a web you can’t keep track of once again.
Sounds like the only ones getting the short end of the stick here are your two “nephews” (if they actually exist). My grass is getting kind of long: send them over. But they’re going to have to beat the going rate down at Foss Park. After all, it’s a free market, right?
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Xumi, I’m confused. You rail against free-loading tax-avoiders and illegal immigrants, yet you are friends with folks who not only avoid paying federal taxes but actually knowingly employ undocumented immigrants. Are you also implying that undocumented immigrants mow your lawn? I am shocked!
And why don’t you “drop a dime on friends” when those friends are breaking the law and employing undocumented immigrants? Shouldn’t the law apply to everyone, even friends?
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Barry, as I mentioned to the Trickster…“…You have made me see the light! I have never approved of anyone hiring illegals and as someone who has always advocated law & order I have decided to drop a dime to ICE about those employers. In fact, your point got me so riled up that I even called ICE on some of the illegals that I suspect live in my nieghborhood. They seemed like nice enough folks and I’ve always gotten along with them (good Churrasco!), but you are are so right and we do have to draw the line somewhere! Thank you for setting me straight…”
All set. Can you now answer the questions?
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“All set”?
Sir, your pants are on fire.
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Tricky, thank you….. thank you… THANK YOU! You have made me see the light! I have never approved of anyone hiring illegals and as someone who has always advocated law & order I have decided to drop a dime to ICE about those employers. In fact, your point got me so riled up that I even called ICE on some of the illegals that I suspect live in my nieghborhood. They seemed like nice enough folks and I’ve always gotten along with them (good Churrasco!), but you are are so right and we do have to draw the line somewhere! Thank you for setting me straight.
Whilst ICE rounds everyone up, can we get back to the point of this thread? We have lots of issues for all of us to get involved with and voice our displeasure to our reps/senators (state and federal). Are you going to get involved?
Oh… and maybe you can answer the question that all these other progressives keep avoiding… the question?
Can you point to any programs that the government runs efficiently?
And yet you want to hand them 1/6th (healthcare) of our economy to run? Not me.
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First, no bureaucracy — including a corporate bureaucracy — can be truly efficient, because a bureaucracy requires group process. Only individuals can be efficient.
I’ve worked in the private sector for over 30 years. By my personal observation, the private sector isn’t especially efficient. It’s good at cutting costs, but it does that mainly by laying people off and overworking the survivors. And personally, I don’t want my doctor to be looking at my cancer X-ray at the end of a double shift she had to take because her assistant got “downsized” for “cost cutting”.
Second, the U.S. Government already runs, reasonably efficiently, the U.S. Military, said to have the finest front-line health care in the world. Oh, and by the way, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, all reasonably well run. On the other hand, under the present private insurance system, the U.S. has the highest health care costs in the world and is nowhere near the top in measures like length of life and infant mortality. The countries at the top tend to be places like Sweden that spread the risks and costs over the largest possible risk pool, the entire nation.
Third, nobody elects the insurance companies to public office. They are not responsible to you and me the way a program hired by an elected government would be. According to the corporate ethos, the insurance companies are responsible to their shareholders, period. Therefore, absent effective government regulation, the chief incentives of the insurance companies are to raise premiums and reduce care.
In the last seven years, something like 10,000,000 more Americans lost their health insurance (the total is somewhere between 36 and 46 million uninsured), while at the same time health insurance company profits went up by a factor of four. Where do you think all those profits came from?
Private sector competition makes a good sound bite, but if the insurance companies are all jacking up premiums and cutting benefits, where is an ordinary person going to find real competition?
If we had a public option, we’d have an alternative to price gouging. Now that would be real competition.
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Hi David, let me refute your post point-by-point and you progressives ought to try it sometime too.
”…the private sector isn’t especially efficient. It’s good at cutting costs, but it does that mainly by laying people off and overworking the survivors…” So what you’re saying is that private is not efficient and they only way capitalism works is by being ruthless. You’re saying that government programs (Socialism) are as efficient – or more – than the private sector (Capitalism). Hate to burst your bubble, but your Messiah (Obama) admitted yesterday that that is never true when he diss’d the US Post Service (USPS) and said that FEDEX/UPS are more efficient. We all know that anyway, so why would he want to create another inefficient tax burden run by the government? And this one will be exponentially larger than the mess the USPS is.
”…I don’t want my doctor to be looking at my cancer X-ray at the end of a double shift she had to take because her assistant got “downsized” for “cost cutting”…” Well then I guess you’d rather have a government bureaucrat look at your chart and deem your care unworthy of the investment. Most healthcare institutions are short staff – the issue is that no one wants to be in general practice anymore. The big bucks are doing tummy-tucks and liposuction for all the liberal elite. I don’t see how a government program will affect that unless they mandate what degrees people get. Maybe that’s Obama’s next move? The guy does seem to want to control every facet of our lives now.
”…Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, all reasonably well run…”. No, they don’t. But you already know that. Military? I was in – and we did nothing but “hurry up and wait”. And you haven’t heard of the $100 screwdrivers the government buys?
”…Private sector competition makes a good sound bite, but if the insurance companies are all jacking up premiums and cutting benefits, where is an ordinary person going to find real competition?…” If the government didn’t over-regulate the industry then new, leaner, meaner and smaller health insurance could enter the market. Right now the investment is too BIG for any company beyond the companies that are already there. Get the government out of the way – let companies compete across state lines and then see where prices go.
Lastly, you’re preaching to the choir when you say that our system needs reform. It does and Obama made some good points with electronic medical records and bringing more folks into healthcare to practice. Along with that, why don’t we try real Tort Reform (no more “hit-the-lottery” lawsuits), tax incentives, compete across state lines, electronic medicals and other cost cutting reform measures before we tell the government “Here – give it a go!”. We know from experience that the government can’t run a lemonade stand efficiently – why in the world trust them with this???
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So many myths to be debunked…
Rising doctors’ premiums not due to lawsuit awards
Study suggests insurers raise rates to make up for investment declines
By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | June 1, 2005
Re-igniting the medical malpractice overhaul debate, a new study by Dartmouth College researchers suggests that huge jury awards and financial settlements for injured patients have not caused the explosive increase in doctors’ insurance premiums.
The researchers said a more likely explanation for the escalation is that malpractice insurance companies have raised doctors’ premiums to compensate for falling investment returns.
The Dartmouth economists studied actual payments made to patients between 1991 and 2003, the results of which were published yesterday in the journal Health Affairs. Some previous studies have examined jury awards, which often are reduced after trial to comply with doctors’ insurance coverage maximums or because the plaintiff settles for less money to avoid an appeal. Researchers found that payments grew an average of 4 percent annually during the years covered by the study, or 52 percent overall since 1991, but only 1.6 percent a year since 2000. The increases are roughly equivalent to the overall rise in healthcare costs, said Amitabh Chandra, lead author and an assistant professor of economics at the New Hampshire college…
Meanwhile, malpractice insurance premiums for internists, general surgeons, and obstetricians have skyrocketed since 2000, jumping 20 to 25 percent in 2002 alone…
”It’s not payments that’s causing this,” Chandra said. ”The simple explanation that comes to mind is the underwriting cycle. If they’re making less money from the investment side of things, it’s going to cause [insurance companies] to raise rates.”
By the way, the Brooking Institution is a conservative think tank. If it’s been relabeled, it’s because what we consider liberal has moved so far to the right.
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Ooops… meant to put this response here….
Susan, you disagree that tort reform is needed? That’s fine – I still think that tort reform should be addressed. Again… if you have more insurers competing then you would have (via free market companies competing) lower rates. That way if some insurers are sticking it to people (for investment recoup) – we would be able to work with another. Make shopping for health insurance like shopping for car insurance or home insurance. You progressives would have the government run everything given the chance – the problem is the government does a lousy job of it and who is going to pay? Obama can’t keep printing money. At the rate he’s going – he’ll run out of ink!
Our solution…why don’t we try real Tort Reform (how much to be saved here can be disputed), tax incentives, competition across state lines, electronic medical records and other cost cutting reform measures before we tell the government “Here – give it a go!”. We know from experience that the government can’t run a lemonade stand efficiently – why in the world trust them with this???
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Interesting the amount that Obama’s cost cutting really is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt8hTayupE&feature=player_embedded
Shameful.
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