Folks who oppose Obamacare, or real reform like single-payer, will tell you, thinking they’re terribly wise in saying so, that “free” healthcare isn’t free.
Well, of course it isn’t. You have to come up with a way to pay for everything. (And I’m more than willing to pay my share of health coverage I can never lose — rather than paying and paying and paying into a private plan and suddenly one day I’m laid off, and it’s gone.)
And such is the case with this offer I got from the Democratic Party today:
Hi Brad —
We just wanted to say thank you for all of your support, so we’re giving away as many I Love Obamacare stickers as we can before supplies run out.
Want one for yourself? Want to give one to a friend?
Just click here and we’ll send you a sticker in the mail:http://dccc.org/Free-Sticker…
All you have to do is give up your contact information, so that the DCCC can hit you up for money several times a day. And believe me, that’s what they do. I’m not sure how I got on their list, but I’m pretty sure I get more emails from the DCCC and DSCC, combined, than any other source. All of them fatuously irritating. They do occasionally provide blog fodder, though.
Related Posts
Hopefully instead of seeing a doctor in person, we can just Skype with one, like they are switching to in Britain.
If you don’t want to pay for those stickers you could just get one that says “Key My Prius” and you’ll have the same results.
“I’m more than willing to pay my share of health coverage I can never lose”
Forever or just until you hit Medicare age?
How much is your share worth to you? Is it more than my share? Is it the same whether you are a smoker or not? How many other shares are you willing to pick up for those who can’t pay their share (but can afford cell phones, cable tv, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.)
I will support single payer when it means every single payer pays the same into the system. Otherwise, it’s exactly what we have now – a “some pay more” system.
You can unsubscribe from emails easily.
Life Expectancy by nation 2005-2010:
Japan – 82.7
Hong Kong
Israel
Italy
Iceland
Australia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Macau
France
Canada
New Zealand
Norway
United Kingdon
Austria
Neatherland
Martinique
Greece
Belgium
Malta
Germany
US Virgin Islands
Finland
Guadeloupe
Channel Islands
Cyprus
Ireland
Costa Rica
Puerto Rico
Luxembourg
United Arab Emirates
South Korea
Chile
Denmark
Cuba
USA – 78.2
Seriously folks this should speak volume about the failure of our healthcare system. Folks like Silence can snipe away at certain aspects of healthcare in other countries, in this case the UK, but the bottom line is the Republican brand of healthcare that Silence tries in vane to defend has been a complete, utter, total, 100% failure. And it’s a damn shame the conservatives have been allowed to get away with this national disgrace for so long.
@bud
We don’t have a “Republican” brand of health care. We never had it and never will. We have a mixed socialist/private system.
The health care system isn’t the cause of the the longevity differences. Lifestyles and genetics play a larger role than anything else.
I would bet that a white American female living in states like Minnesota or Utah lives as long as white females in nearly any other country…
And really, what difference does 4.5 years mean after you reach the age of 78? With our Medicare system already unable to handle the baby boomer generation, where would you expect to find the funds to pay for an additional 4.5 years of health care for non-contributors during the time when the majority of health care costs are incurred? An Alzheimers patient who lives an extra 4.5 years is going to cost a ton of money.
Gee, Doug, at least with “death panels,” old people have a CHANCE…
Brad, I think you touched a hot button with DR
Wrong, Doug. We used to have a “Republican” health system, all private pay, a hundred years ago. A lot of people went without, and doctors weren’t generally rich. Chickens and eggs won’t buy a beach house.
Single payer is the only way that there is any real savings. Obamacare is a mess, and the Supremes made it worse. A great deal of what you pay for through your private insurance is to compensate the losses suffered by providers at the hands of Caid and Care. And any cut you ever see proposed to Caid or Care is a cut to PROVIDERS, not to benefits (that’s Republican or Democrat). So any of those “magic cuts” will STILL be paid for by those with private insurance. Providers have to make a certain level of profit, and they are going to get it from somewhere. In a single payer system, the costs would be balanced. Yeah, you may end up with Skype healthcare, but you might be able to afford it.
One last thought: Are all the folks whose hours are being cut so employers don’t have to pay for their healthcare, are they now going to be forced to buy healthcare on their own or be fined? Wanna talk about unintended consequences?
Kathryn, I don’t know about a century ago, but I remember half that far back. Which is to say, I remember house calls…
@bud – How many of those countries above us have the obesity problem we have?
I couldn’t help but wonder how many of those standing in line on Black Friday waiting for the $200 60″ non-brand name televisions also are in the welfare database. My babies gotta have a tablet PC … I don’t have to worry about food or shelter, Obama takes care of that.
I can see it now, the new average work will be cut to 29 hours for a lot of retail and factory type businesses. Cut everyone to part-time and you don’t have to go bankrupt trying to pay their mandated healthcare premiums.
That is, I remember house calls when I was visiting my grandparents in Bennettsville. Navy doctors didn’t make house calls — we had to go to the hospital or dispensary to see them.
But it was “free” — that’s to say, paid for by my Father’s service.
To address Doug’s point about some paying more into the system. That’s a pretty typical way a libertarian looks at the world. Personally I find that way of thinking inadequate in the discussion of healthcare. Some people are certainly going to pay less than others in a single payer system. But by virtue of allowing some folks to pay less it allows everyone to pay less. In other words this is not a zero sum game. If you pay to have poor people take care of chronic problems early then the very expensive stuff may be avoidable. Since the very expensive stuff will be treated, regardless of ability to pay, everyone saves.
Heres a crude example. In the everyone pays the same scenerio patient a young woman develops a lump in her breast that is not detected until it is at stage 3. The cost of treatment is very high but she dies anyway. The hospital collects very little. That cost is passed along to everyone else in the healthcare system.
In the rich people pay more scenerio the woman gets a routine mammogram where the tumor is detected at stage 1. After surgery and chemo the tumor is eradicated and the patient lives on and continues to pay into the system visa vis taxes once she gets a nice high paying job rather than slowly rotting away as was the case in scenerio 1.
The difference between scenerio 1 and 2 reflects a huge unfunded liability for the system vs a much small liability that is eventually recouped back to the system. Everyone benefits.
House calls are not necessarily private pay. Employer health coverage took off after WW II. Not sure how long before that it was available, though not necessarily widespread.
@bud
Just last week, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that up to a third of breast cancers found by mammograms probably didn’t need to be treated.
“The study was conducted by Dr. Archie Blyer of St. Charles Health System in Oregon and Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice in New Hampshire. Welch, author of the book “Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health,” has long argued that too much of what is considered standard medical practice in the United States is either ineffective or, worse, harmful to our health.
For the NEJM study, Welch and Blyer used 32 years (1976 to 2008) of breast cancer data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program to determine the effectiveness of breast screening.
What they found was disappointing, to say the least, as Welch explained in an opinion piece he wrote last week for the New York Times:
After correcting for underlying trends and the use of hormone replacement therapy [which has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer], we found that the introduction of screening has been associated with about 1.5 million additional women receiving a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer.
That would be a good thing if it meant that 1.5 million fewer women had gotten a diagnosis of late-stage breast cancer. Then we could say that screening had advanced the time of diagnosis and provided the opportunity of reduced mortality for 1.5 million women.
But instead, we found that there were only around 0.1 million fewer women with a diagnosis of late-stage breast cancer. This discrepancy means there was a lot of overdiagnosis: more than a million women who were told they had early stage cancer — most of whom underwent surgery, chemotherapy or radiation — for a “cancer” that was never going to make them sick. Although it’s impossible to know which women these are, that’s some pretty serious harm.
But even more damaging is what these data suggest about the benefit of screening. If it does not advance the time of diagnosis of late-stage cancer, it won’t reduce mortality. In fact, we found no change in the number of women with life-threatening metastatic breast cancer.”
So, basically bud, in your example, the rich people will pay for millions of mammograms and billions of dollars worth of treatment.
Your “small liability” turns into a huge waste.
It’s amazing to me that people will talk on and on about single payer without ever stopping to take five minutes to figure out how it might possibly work without huge consequences on the health care system generally and the economy as a whole.
You will not see single payer in your lifetime. Or if you do, you will see a degradation in the quality of health care in this country. Single payer means the elimination of millions of jobs, the introduction of significantly more waste and fraud, a greater shortage of healthcare providers, a completely separate system for the wealthy who will be treated by doctors unwilling to take a pay cut…
@brad
Not sure I understood your death panels comment.
Are you suggesting that once a person hits 80, there is no decrease in capabilities, no loss of motor skills, no increased dependence on health care resources that they do not pay for? Do you believe there are an infinite number of dollars available to treat every person?
A libertarian view of the perfect healthcare system would be one where a doctor and a patient determine the best course of treatment and arrive at a price for the service. The patient would be responsible for paying for the service either with his own funds or by purchasing insurance. The libertarian would be free to donate his money to charitiable organizations that provide health care or insurance premiums to those who cannot afford it.
But we can’t do that because the generally held belief by liberals is that people are greedy and/or incompetent. Better to funnel money by force via taxation thru a bureacracy and hope that the people on the receiving end get enough to keep them dependent on the government.
@bud – you always create made up scenarios full of emotion and using few facts so that they’ll defend your point of view.
So what we’re to learn from your example is that rich women don’t get Stage 3 breast cancer because they always get routine mammograms and have a 100% survivability rate. Poor women don’t get mammograms and have a 100% fatality rate.
Don’t they have free mammogram screenings several times a year for women? I believe they even have buses outfitted with the equipment so they’ll come to a location near you.
Since bud summoned me – I’ll respond to his life expectancy list and his allegation that I support the current healthcare system:
1) I’m a geographer, not a demographer, but I’m very confident in saying that there are other causal factors more important than the availability of healthcare that influence that list. For instance, if you were to adjust for traffic fatalities, suicide and violence, our ranking would rise substantially. How many crack babies were born in Japan last year? Neonates that don’t make it pull the average down substantially. So do urban youths who OD or get murdered due to gang activity. There may also be some sociological differences in life expectancy that aren’t attributable to healthcare or income. For instance someone in a rural area might have to travel further to receive emergency care after an accident, with a negative effect on their health outcome. I don’t care who pays for the healthcare – a small town isn’t going to support a Level I trauma center.
2) I’ll be the first to admit that the current system is SNAFU. By separating the health consumer from the payer we’ve created a system that creates an incentive to use as much healthcare as possible. Tying health insurance to one’s job is a product of the wage/price controls of the new deal, so you can thank a Democrat, FDR for this one.
Once my family meets our annual deductible/coinsurance max – it’s a free for all.
Society might have been better off with fee for service system- the “Republican” system – because at least market forces might have kept the fees reasonable.
I’d be all for a mandatory high deductible policy that would kick in, say covering all expenses over $5,000, I’d even be OK with the government administering it – much like the high deductible plan offered to state workers.
If people (or their employers) wanted to provide a band aid and aspirin policy for colds and ouchies, that would be fine, but taxpayers shouldn’t have to absorb that.
3) Greg – how do you propose that we’ll see any “real savings” through single payer? Has government involvement really helped out anyone, or has it just caused substantial price inflation in the higher education and home purchasing markets?
All Obamacare is going to do in the short term is to convert health care providers/insurers into the equivalent of a regulated utility. They’ll still make a lot of money, and they won’t really have any incentive to keep costs down.
Regarding Silence’s mentioning “the high deductible plan offered to state workers” — the one proposal that comes closest to political consensus is that the gummint simply offer all of us the coverage that state and federal employees get. I truly don’t know enough about that to know what we can’t do that, although I suspect the problem is that it is so heavily subsidized by the employer (the gummint) that we can’t afford it for everybody. Anyone know better?
As for Silence’s “colds and ouchies” remark…
I feel that that’s aimed at me — a guy who in 59 years of life has never had a major $100,000-plus sort of medical episode (although a member of my family has) — but who has chronic conditions that are not life-threatening as long as I manage them. Which means taking certain meds every day of my life. Meds that on a conventional health insurance policy would cost me about $35 a month each, but on a high-deductible plan cost several hundred dollars per prescription, even by mail order.
I really don’t have a choice about taking those things, if there is to be any hope of my being any use to society at all.
But let’s set my chronic conditions aside. Let’s look at this weird thing I’ve got going on that’s causing me to rapidly lose hearing in one ear. We don’t know what it is yet, except that this is NOT the normal pattern for hearing loss, so there’s something weird going on. I’ve had two doctor visits, two hearing tests, blood work, and an MRI — all, so far, out of my pocket.
Since the MRI didn’t find a tumor, does this go under the heading of “colds and ouchies?” Is it not worth something to keep trying to arrest this process before I lose my hearing altogether? I think so, even though I am reluctant in the extreme to keep racking up these expenses (I was SUPER reluctant to get the MRI, and while I didn’t want a tumor, I was kinda ticked that it didn’t find a problem of SOME kind). Should I quit — just go deaf, along with experiencing whatever other ill effects might arise from the same cause? Or should I get to the bottom of it?
Really, I’d like to know. I have another doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, and hope the doc has a better idea what to do than I do…
Well Brad, the colds and ouchies wasn’t aimed at you, but since you took it that way – IIRC, SC’s high deductible plan (for the employee) is $9.70/month. The standard plan is 97.68/month. If you want to add a spouse to the high deductible plan, it adds $67.70/month. To add one to the standard plan is adds 155.68/month We’ll assume that spouses aren’t subsidized like the employee is – so it probably costs the insurer about 156/month to cover an adult.
Why couldn’t the feds step up and say “we’ll offer a high deductible plan to everyone in the country and it will cost $70/month”. It will pay for 100% of medical expenses over $5,000.”
That would do two things:
1) It covers everyone in the event of a catastrophic event (car wreck, cancer, etc.) and
2) it limits the liability of a traditional insurer to the first $5,000.
Right now your insurer or HMO is limited only by a lifetime or annual cap – probably a million dollars or more.
How cheap could a company sell a supplemental policy for if they knew that the downside was limited to 5k?
How cheap would a drug policy be if after 5k the high deductible policy kicked in?
People who rely on daily meds for a chronic problem (of which I am one) would still have options, and I think it would still be cheaper for the vast majority of people. If you figure premiums plus their out of pocket costs, deductibles, whatnot, you might even find that you’d be better off. Right now my generic daily medicine runs about $30.00/month. If I wasn’t covered it would run me about 130/month. Which is still pretty affordable – especially if my coverage was 10 bucks a month instead of a few hundred.
@Brad
How much is your hearing worth to you? I would think you’d want to allocate any vacation funds toward resolving that issue, right? Or would you prefer just to pay $500-$600 a month and get whatever you want for “free”?
My son just experienced his first kidney stone. It involved an ER visit, followups with the urologist, CT scans, multiple prescriptions. The bills have already started coming in. The ER bill was the one that was ridiculous – $970 dollars for what amounted to approximately five minutes of face time with a doctor, a saline IV, and an antibiotic. The CT scan showing the stone was a separate bill.
Out of that $970, we paid $125 when we walked in the ER door and will pay another couple hundred for deductibles and costs.
And you know why we (me and our insurance company) will pay such a ridiculous amount? Because the ER has to make up its costs for the waiting room full of people who can’t pay.. the ones with colds/flu, the ones seeking pain meds…
Please tell me how this would work in single payer? Would I see a bill? Would people with colds be turned away from the ER? Would prescriptions be free? I really want to understand how this will be paid for.
I think the consensus of what drove the employer based health care we have is the labor shortage during WWII. FDR implemented wage and price controls as part of the war effort. Health Care was offered to employees using the Baylor Model (the beginning of BCBS) as an incentive to get and keep a workforce in a small labor pool.
If FDR had his druthers, it would have been single payer.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/27/us-health-care-reform-efforts-through-history/
Losing your hearing in one ear, or your equilibrium, is serious. Could be disabling, depending on what you do or a living. Could interfere with major life functions.
More than a cold or ouchie.
When I was seriously ill in England, I paid for my meals and a few pounds per script. There is a gatekeeper physician who screens for colds and ouchies. Sudden severe shortness of breath in a 21 year old woman gets passed on for several screenings and monitoring. Since everyone can see a doctor, people don’t have rely on the ER docs.
Our insurer is offering very low copays on the Minute Clinic at CVS. Perfect for colds and ouchies. Steve went there last spring with a severe sore throat and was very satisfied with his treatment.
Why didn’t your son see a regular doctor instead of an ER doc?
Minute Clinic, who is the MD/PA who sits in a pharmacy/convenience store all day?
@Kathryn
Have you ever had a kidney stone attack at 9:00 pm on a Sunday night?
Do you have any idea what the pain is like? A pain that severe (worse than childbirth according to women who have experienced both) when you haven’t had a kidney stone before is not something you sit around waiting to figure out if it’s something deathly serious or not.
We are not ones to use the ER. Ever. That was the first time for any of my kids in 20+ years.
How can market forces ever effectively influence healthcare costs? Seriously, good outcomes are not rewarded monetarily. Good outcomes mean fewer trips to the doctor – if the doctor is paid by the trip, what incentive is there for the doctor to cure you? I’m not seriously suggesting that doctors purposely try to not cure their patients for monetary reasons, but I do seriously wonder how exactly the almighty market is supposed to bring a system like this into alignment – it’s pulling on the wrong things. For the market to work, I’d think you’d have to have some sort of system where better outcomes bring higher fees – which creates all kinds of messes to put into practice. Perhaps your doctor bill for surgery would be a base amount until you know if the surgery actually succeeded in doing what it was supposed to do. Then you have complications to do with the doctor’s fee being dependent on patient report of outcome and/or patient outcome being negatively impacted by patient not following doctor’s orders. I don’t know the answer – I just don’t see how traditional market forces are supposed to work in the healthcare market.
Doug, I don’t reject your perfect libertarian view of healthcare because of “greed” or “incompetence” but rather because it simply won’t get the job done for everyone. Like Kathryn already pointed out – we had that system already and many went without.
A system where everybody pays in the same amount would make sense if everybody was born with equal talents, resources, advantages, weaknesses, and needs. But we aren’t.
Senior White House adviser David Plouffe today on the fiscal cliff:
“Plouffe added that while the White House wants to engage in comprehensive tax reform, they know they must also “carefully” address the “chief drivers of our deficit”: Medicare and Medicaid.”
Wait? The single payer system that works so well to cover elderly Americans health care costs is one of the chief drivers of the deficit? How could that be? Maybe because there’s no profit incentive to control costs.
Or maybe because the cost of medical care has been rising at an alarming rate no matter what sort of system we have for paying for it.
I certainly hope your son is over that problem. I’ve always heard the pain is horrific.
I was in pretty awful pain the last time I went to an emergency room for myself. That was 1993. After my fever dropped down some from the high of 105.3 (they had to pack me in ice), they did exploratory surgery — cut me open with about a five-inch incision down the middle of my abdomen — but in the end just took out my appendix.
Anyway, I think that trip was justified. As was your son’s.
Weird experience. I woke from surgery to a strange woman lying across my belly and telling me to cough. So I did. Then I hollered, “WHY DID YOU TELL ME TO DO THAT?,” it hurt so much. She just kept her weight on my belly and told me to cough again.
It made perfect sense — the nurse was trying to keep me from getting pneumonia, and was lying across me (with a pillow sandwiched between us) to keep my metal staples from ripping open when I coughed.
But it was a weird way to wake up.
Where is the empathy for others and their medical needs as the sincere concern for one’s offspring? For those who post relative to their Sunday School perspectives and evidently profess, I hope Matt. 25:40 is taken seriously. I’ve always liked how Gen. JC Christian, Patriot, puts it.
http://webpages.charter.net/micah/repjesus55.gif
“A system where everybody pays in the same amount would make sense if everybody was born with equal talents, resources, advantages, weaknesses, and needs. But we aren’t.”
We are talking about an insurance system to pay for all people. If all people are included, the risk is spread across the entire pool thus the cost should be the same for everyone.
All we are talking about is how to pay for it. If your health and your family’s health is less important than a cellphone, cable tv, and other things, then what we are really talking about is people who want others to pay for their health care. The cost of a cell phone plan + a cable bill + an internet plan probably would pay for a decent high risk insurance policy. But that would mean sacrificing a want for a need.
For those who can truly not afford a high risk insurance plan, there are options available right now to handle that. Start with cutting military spending by 10%. I bet that would cover a lot of the costs. But our government doesn’t look at priorities. Each program is funded as a separate pool of money that rarely if ever gets cut.
Doug, I would suggest that the 100,000 women who are prevented from have late-stage breast cancer by mamograms would not consider the cost wasted. Not that we shouldn’t consider strategies that make the screening process more efficient but let’s not dismiss 100,000 success stories so cavalierly.
@bud
Did you read the quotes?
“But even more damaging is what these data suggest about the benefit of screening. If it does not advance the time of diagnosis of late-stage cancer, it won’t reduce mortality. In fact, we found no change in the number of women with life-threatening metastatic breast cancer.”
This is not some quack doctor… they did extensive research that proved that all the mammograms did was cause way too many women to be treated for cancer who shouldn’t have.
There are finite resources available. If you think it’s a good idea to waste them treating cancer that doesn’t exist, that’s a shame.
D R, I agree that the rationale for cutting the military budget is there, but you’ve got these military contractor & financial CEO’s who are hawking the cutting of “entitlements” but are sitting on their fat assets and their undeserved personal enrichment funded by US taxpayers. If there is ever a justified grip about unnecessary spending, it’s the military-industrial complex of which Ike warned. I served six years and have personally seen the waste but that’s not the justification for my assertion.
Yes, oddly enough – now that the government is going to start paying for screenings, there is lots of new evidence that women don’t need mammograms or pap smears nearly as often.
Coincidence?
Call me a cynic but if a private insurer had come out with these studies we’d have congress mandating that insurers pay for annual mammograms and pap smears…
@ BJ – as a sometimes defense contractor I resent your allegation that I have undeserved personal enrichment at the expense of taxpayers. When I traveled to Iraq or travel to Afghanistan I am exposed to the same dangers as our military personnel. I don’t earn any hazard pay, separation pay or location uplift, I also don’t get tax breaks, veteran’s benefits or SGLI. I often sleep in a tent, eat in the DFAC, and work a lot of unpaid overtime. I do good work and provide a service that uniformed DoD personnel cannot or do not provide.
I’m 100% for cutting budgets, defense and entitlements included, but don’t badmouth hardworking contractors.
You’re a cynic. I trust you support government sponsored research.
Please tell my why United Healthcare CEO deserves annual compensation of $124.8 million in 2005, $102M in 2009 and in 2010, his pay was cut in half, but even after a 50% reduction, he still received an exorbitant $48.8 million dollars in compensation.
I commend you for your well paid service. Compared to my E-7 son’s salary & benefits (with many years in service and in Afghanistan), your contractor salary was greatly inflated. The military can do your job and that of many other contractors. The Bush Admin sought to pursue two illegal wars and brought Dick’s former company, it’s many subsidiaries and other govt contractors in at exorbitant and inflated no bid contracts. Give us a break and some real silence.
A little cartoon relief… http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/11/27/cartoons-of-the-day-the-looming-fiscal-cliff/
BJ, I’m not aware of any “illegal wars” pursued by the Bush administration, or any other in my lifetime.
I’ve heard that completely inaccurate label applied to our involvement in Iraq, but what is the other “illegal war” you refer to? And what is the basis for your saying it was illegal?
BJ – How much money did the company raise under his leadership?
It’s the same reason football players who can’t write their name earn $40 million per year, or concert tickets cost $1200 to see strung out drug addicts. It’s what the market pays.
BJ – If your son is an E-7 with close to 20 years of service, he’s not exactly hurting either.
But thanks for the cartoon, BJ.
That points to an important truth — the measure of how dangerous the “fiscal cliff” really is is the extent to which the extremes of left and right both cheer for it, the left (and extreme libertarians) because they know it will eviscerate the military, and the right because they believe those worthless, no-good poor people will suffer (SDII provides a textbook example of that school of thought here).
@BJ – “The military can do your job and that of many other contractors.”
Then why don’t they? With liberals like you screaming for defense contract cuts, you’re not making any sense. Unless you’re expecting the military to do more with less.
Maybe you can take a Finance 101 class with bud.
Brad, it was the poster’s editorial license! Thanks for your allowing it. What a waste of mankind and money and what did we gain? Steven, it takes leadership to make tough decisions and Bush had and did neither. It would have required the re-instituting of the draft and that would not have endeared himself to the country nor would it have given the opportunity to enrich Dick and his army of contractors. Steven, Did you serve or have you ever served in the military? Were you ever in charge of developing and meeting a real budget? I have UHC as secondary insurance and have had it for many years, and I know what a circus it is. No one is worth that type of money and executive compensation is exorbitant relative to worker income. It’s gotten severely skewed over the past three decades. My graduate degree in finance isn’t necessary to assess this elementary situation.
Ill-advised or immoral would be a better choice.
I’ve heard that completely inaccurate label applied to our involvement in Iraq, but what is the other “illegal war” you refer to? And what is the basis for your saying it was illegal?
-Brad
Any undeclared war in a foreign country is illegal. Or at least it should be. I hereby proclaim that henceforth ANY attempt by ANY US president to send troops to a foreign country WITHOUT a formal congressional declaration of war against that country is, by definition illegal. The specific punishment will depend on many factors but could include impeachment and even a jail sentence. Lying about a war, as George W. Bush clearly did, in a cynical, and ultimately successful, attempt to get around the constitution through some backdoor mechanism shall carry a stiff penalty. In that case impeachment would have probably been appropriate.
@ BJ – The average active duty military member costs about 87k/year. (Overall MILITARY PERSONNEL PROGRAMS budget/# of pax). That’s from the lowest private/airman/seaman all the way to the generals. Many of our veterans have earned retirement pensions and lifetime healthcare. That’s as it should be. But there’s a cost, and it’s not captured in the current year’s 87k. My contract is year by year, and it’s a fixed price. When the government is done with me, they won’t owe me a thing. I have ten years of DoD experience, technical skills and multiple graduate degrees – and my performance reviews have always been excellent. I’ve earned my keep. I’m paid well, that’s why I do what I do, but I’m not overpaid.
The Master Sergeant (E-7) across the hall is the same age as me. She’s got an associates degree and 18 years in the Air Force. She’ll be retired in two years with a pension. At age 40 she’ll be collecting retirement for another 30-50 years…
I have to save for my own. The day my contract is up, I don’t cost the DoD another penny. I’m definitely cost effective.
How much the CEO of a public company earns is up to the shareholders, ultimately. If they are complacent or satisfied, the CEO can earn a lot. Many companies seem to be run for the benefit of top management, not of the owners. It’s unfortunate. If you don’t like the compensation practices of a company, vote with your feet. Sell the stock, do business with someone else.
For others, kindergarten playground lessons would be more beneficial.
You probably want to sign up for another contract tour and save us some more money.
@BJ – ” Steven, it takes leadership to make tough decisions and Bush had and did neither.”
So if I understand it, it’s Bush’s fault. What’s the excuse for the past four years?
Silence is one of the 47%, making a living off the hardworking folks in the private sector who actually do real work for a living.
Isn’t it remarkable how people can be so dismissive of those who earn money by doing work for the government? It is an inconvenient truth that most of us rely on government largesse at one time or another. We should acknowledge that government work is not some evil that needs to be exterminated. Rather we should thank those who serve the needs of the nation’s citizenry.
bj – Why not, if the contract is open for bids, and you are qualified and interested, why shouldn’t one bid for the contract? Should we follow your lead and not bid because the contract pays too much? I bid contracts on what I feel I’m worth, some I get some I don’t… it’s part of how the system works. I’m not going to bid minimum wage on a project just to save the company some money.
“Rather we should thank those who serve the needs of the nation’s citizenry.”
Like Lillian McBride and the Richland County election commission? Tell me which private sector employees could get away with her level of incompetence?
Or should I thank the Richland County road crews who take months to fill a pot hole, normally with three guys standing around watching another guy dig?
Yeah, that’s why Lillian McBride is on the front page of the paper every day — because she’s such a TYPICAL, ORDINARY public employee. It wouldn’t be because, you know, her incompetence is out of the ordinary or anything….
You have to stop and think, Doug: Why is this person considered NEWS?…
Lillian McBride (or McBribe as some call her) is the typical Richland County/Columbia City administrator.
What I want to know is why the distinguished church supplied Mercedes driving and tailored suit wearing, Reverend/Senator Darrell Jackson is so set on defending her.
Has anyone ever discussed how McBride got that job? Was it an advertised position, did she have the qualifications to hold that position or does having the tainted last name of her father override all of those requirements? I expected someone in that position to be able to read a practiced and prepared statement better than a 6 year old trying to read Latin.
It’s news because she isn’t being held accountable. It’s news because she went three weeks without having to explain herself. It’s news because when she had the first opportunity to explain herself, she said nothing.
You confuse news stories with consequences. You confuse words with actions.
If she holds onto her job, she’s a perfect example of how government “works”.
And let’s not pretend that McBride was the only incompetent person in this mess. She already threw one of her staffers under the bus for apparently being unable to read numbers on a spreadsheet. Then there are all the people who were supposed to have working machines available and failed.
Any private business with the same level of performance would be closed by now. That’s the difference between private and public sector. Public sector screw ups rarely are held accountable unless it is on a grand scale.
I just thanked Missy, the Columbia assistant manager,for her people’s yet again promptly responding to a service request and filling the numerous potholes down the street from me. It is a problematic surface and needs frequent repairs, and the city takes care of it right away. I get good service from my city workers!
I don’t think I’ve ever been dismissive of people who do WORK for the government. I do feel free to be dismissive of people who expect a handout.
Doug’s just not following what I’m saying, or something.
Doug, the norm among public employees is all those elections in the past that were not screwed up like this one. Or the elections THIS time in the other 45 counties that were not screwed up like Richland County’s.
This level of incompetence in running an election is an anomaly, the very opposite of business as usual. That’s what makes it news. This is man bites dog, not dog bites man.
Kathryn – I also usually get very good results from the city. We had a few water line breaks in the neighborhood and they were very fast. Also repaved an area that had been dug up for a water/sewer repair, it only took one email to Ms. Gentry. We definitely get good response.
@Brad
Elections weren’t screwed up BECAUSE IT IS NOT A HARD THING TO DO! If you had two years to prepare for a one day event how hard should it be?
And, using your logic, to screw up this badly when others were able to execute without any issues demands that the person in charge be relieved of her duties.
Any private business with the same level of performance would be closed by now.
-Doug
So you’re suggesting the elections be run by private companies? Here’s what would happen. For profit companies would set up shop to run the elections and would be paid for by the voters. In effect we would be charged a poll tax. Of course poll tax prohibitions would have to be repealed but that is a good thing in the mind of the libertarian. At first competition would effectively provide a reasonably good voting experience for voters in most counties. But eventually the most ruthless company, Voting Inc., would achieve monopoly status and control all elections. Without competition Voting Inc. would cut costs by cutting the number of voting machines and 5 hour waits would be the norm in all 46 counties. The CEO of Voting Inc. would make millions of course and there would be no accountability over the process. The tea party types would of course protest any and all efforts to reduce the wait times and eventually the escalating admission price for voting. What we have done is thrown out the baby (the 45 counties who did a great job) and kept the bathwater (Richland County) all so we can worship and the profit Messiah.
What was McBride doing on election day? One would think a director would be out visiting polling places to make sure things were running smoothly. McBride was probably getting her nails did.
In case anyone is confused… “Wad Brathen” is “Steven Davis II”… another in a long line of pseudonyms he has employed here.
Sorry, I changed it for one response, and forgot to change it back.
Silence,
Maybe we do get good value for our tax dollars!
Today’s news is that Richland County is moving forward with a plan to spend $22 million dollars on a soccer complex off Farrow Rd. $22 million.
In other recent news, the group that runs the homeless facilities downtown is running a $360K shortfall for the year.
Wonder if we could teach the homeless to play soccer?
And here we have a perfect illustration of the structural problem with government in South Carolina that I’ve been railing about for more than two decades…
You can’t shift priorities from the park to the homeless for the simple fact that there is no governmental body that deals with both issues — although there should be.
The Richland County Election Commission is a “special purpose district” appointed by the county legislative delegation — which walls it off from local accountability just as neatly as with the election commission. Same problem.
If you’re unhappy that the park is funded and not homeless services, there’s no one to blame, because no one has a say over both.
Which is why these vestiges of the days when legislators ran ALL of local government have to be done away with. We should be able to hold a county council, or better yet, a consolidated metro government, accountable for such priorities (or lack thereof). But in South Carolina, we can’t.
This isn’t some little esoteric political science thing. It’s a BIG DEAL, that has a big impact on whether we have responsive government on the local level. But I’m hear to tell you, it’s ridiculously hard to get the population to care enough to demand change on this from their elected representatives.
” it’s ridiculously hard to get the population to care enough to demand change on this from their elected representatives”
No, it’s because the representatives set up complex, unaccountable organizations, boards, commissions that people don’t understand. The politicians know what they are doing and the people can’t ever hold one person responsible… it’s a perfect monopoly. It’s the biggest fallacy of “representative democracy”. We have no real say in whether $22 million dollars goes for soccer fields because it’s impossible to navigate the org chart.
Actually, Doug, John Locke and the Lords Proprietors knew what they were doing, in setting up a system in SC back in the 17th century that fragmented power, keeping it diffused in the hands of a landed (and at the time, slaveholding) elite.
The sad truth is that most lawmakers don’t understand this system — or even know how atypical it is — any more than the average citizen. It’s appalling, but true. Most officeholders have little understanding of why things are the way they are.
There are a few who DO understand and deliberately resist change — Glenn McConnell is the person I can say that about with the greatest confidence.
There are others who have a dim, narrow understanding of certain aspects, and also resist change. For instance, a lawmaker of the Jake Knotts ilk might LIKE having the power to appoint local boards, and not want to surrender it for that reason alone — without any real understanding of how it affects effectiveness or accountability.
Far more common, I fear, is the lawmaker who merely accepts what he finds without question, and stumbles along trying to deal with the world the way it is…
The good news is that there are a few who seem to understand and want to change things. But there are never enough of them.
And there are also people who sort of halfway understand and use calls for reform as a means to personal political power. Mark Sanford and Nikki Haley fit into that category. Sometimes it’s helpful to form an alliance with people like that to get something done, sometimes not.
We could also stop adding special sales taxes directed to certain projects.
If you have one pool of dollars, you have to make decisions based on priorities.
The hospitality tax should be abolished.
@ Kathryn – I wouldn’t go that far! Government does some things very well, and other things very poorly. Overall I think that (locally) we have too many overlapping governments and layers of government. They also try to do a lot of things that I wouldn’t describe as neccessary. This prevents us from getting good value, as far as I’m concerned.
Until the following things occur, I won’t admit that we get good value:
1) Consolidate Richland County and the City of Columbia
2) Consolidate all of the school districts in the (actually in each) county. They are a vestige of racism and segregation.
3) Dissolve all of the minor incorporated towns in the county – Irmo, Forest Acres, Arcadia Lakes, Eastover (particularly corrupt) and wherever else I’ve forgotten.
4) Eliminate all of the state legislature created SPD’s and make them accountable by putting them under county council. There’s no reason we need two parks departments in the county.
5) Stop funding wasteful economic development projects – i.e. CCI, Eau Claire DC, etc.
Once all that is done, I’m on board!
Doug – It’s the County that’s looking at the soccer complex. Transitions (Midlands Housing Alliance, United Way, Big Rock Candy Mountain) told local government that they could “go it alone” and didn’t need any help when they were building their new $11 MILLION DOLLAR HOMELESS SHELTER! They told the city to butt out, that they’d put it where they damn well pleased, and rebuffed any offers of help that might have come with oversight or strings attached. Once they opened, then it was a different story. At that point they wanted to cozy up to the public purse. I have no sympathy for the management and board of Transitions. I will continue to support other organizations that aid the homeless, but I’ll never support giving them a dime.
@ Brad – update your blog’s clock for Daylight Savings Time. It’s confusing!
Doug,,
There are at least two homeless facilities downtown: the private Transitions Center, which is running the shortfall, and the city homeless shelter. The city shelter is financially fine. The private one, which shouldn’t have been private, except for the intervention of a former council person, and the opposition of some downtown neighborhoods, was opened on a wing and a prayer. No surprises here, nor any reasonable Knock on government.
How is Blythewood’s shelter doing? Oh, yeah, you don’t have one.
South Carolina has 300 years of holding itself back through structural disfunctionalism. I won’t be holding my breath either that any sort of progressivism will enter into the political landscape.
The real problem is that the pols themselves, who generally know better, remain focused on the near-term benefits of office.
It is unreasonable to expect the general population to understand long range politiclal restructuring – or the desirability of any kind of structural change. But the trick is much simpler; we just need to get the politicians to understand that they will ALWAYS wield significant personal and professional power as officeholders – so changing the status quo to a better system will not mean that they legislate themselves into irrelevancy. The way forward is achievable through cynicism; as amusing as that sounds (at least to me).
Nothing funny about that. I wouldn’t call it cynicism; pragmatism will do.
That is sort of what “Lincoln” was about.
As Frank Bruni wrote in his column this week:
“There’s no place for absolutists and absolutism in a democracy, which is designed for give-and-take, for compromise. That’s one of the lessons of ‘Lincoln,’ which moviegoers are thronging to and intellectuals are swooning for precisely because it illuminates and validates the intrinsic and purposeful messiness of our system. It exalts flexibility. It venerates pragmatism.”
@Doug – ”
Wonder if we could teach the homeless to play soccer?”
One step at a time, they’re currently busy learning how to ice skate.
Which, when you think about it, is harder. So once they manage the skating, the soccer should come easier…
@Kathryn
If you can find a homeless person in Blythewood, I will help pay for that person to find shelter. There aren’t any homeless people wandering around “downtown” Blythewood. It’s too boring. There are the occasional people who will come up to you at the gas station and ask you for $5 to buy gas to visit their sick mother.. I give them the $5 and they go on their way.
Not sure why you always go back to the “Columbia isn’t Blythewood” meme.. I know that. But as a taxpayer in Richland County, I pay attention to how those tax dollars are spent. In this case, a soccer complex very close to Blythewood seems to be a waste of money when there are other issues in the county that should be addressed first. Until every homeless person has a safe environment and access to the medical care and transition resources they might need, we shouldn’t spend $22 million so a third party organization can run soccer tournaments at a profit. These fields aren’t for the general public, they are for the lucrative travel team “industry”.
I agree with you about the sports complex.
The ice skating is the city, the soccer is the county or the Rec Commission.
FWIW, I had a meeting at 6PM near the Hampton St Vineyard. I, and several other attendees, figured there’d be no trouble finding parking then, on. Tuesday. ha! No parking for blocks and valet parking at the Vineyard, the steakhouse, and the ice rink. Seemed very successful, even with the rain showers!
@Kathryn – I figured you’d have walked or taken a city bus to your meeting.
Once they learn to ice skate, then learn the rules of soccer, hockey is going to be the next deal since hockey and soccer are similar. Next thing you know there will be fights at the hockey games and then the city council will be fearful of lawsuits and they’ll take the ice rink away and the homeless will be back to asking you for 13 cents. It’ll complete the circle.
@Kathryn
“Successful” starts when they’ve recouped the $150K spent on the ice rink and any other costs associated with that expense. Where do we find out the financial aspects of the rink?
Not sure what they are charging, but at $5 a head, you’d need 30,000 skaters to reach break even.
Answered my own question – $8 for kids, $10 for adults. So 15,000+ skaters to break even on the cost of installation / removal.
Would have walked, but it was pouring rain.
They are charging ten bucks a pop. I don’t know more than that. If you figure any increased business license revenues or H tax from people making an evening of it, who knows?
Also, there is a private biz partnering with the city.
I drove past there on the way home tonight to bypass whatever the hell they’re doing along Gervais Street during rush hour. I knew the rink was small, but wow… it’d be like skating in a two car garage. If I want to skate on ice that size I’ll just pull out a couple ice cube trays.
Is this another use of (in)hospitality tax money? Let’s face it, we’re not New York City and shouldn’t try to be.
@Kathryn
“If you figure any increased business license revenues or H tax from people making an evening of it, who knows?”
That’s the same type of “analysis” of the sales tax increase that resulted in the claims of 17,000 jobs and $350 savings in car maintenance. Assumptions piled on top of assumptions rather than a true cost benefit analysis. It’s just as likely that a family of 4 who spent $40 to skate won’t buy the dinner at a restaurant that they might have otherwise.
I’m thinking a couple who goes skating and dines afterwards downtown instead of in the burbs.
So you’re talking about the 2% hospitality tax being spent in one part of the county at the expense of another? Going to have to be a lot of ice skating couples with downtown dinner plans to amount to any real money. $1 on every $50 isn’t much.
Look, Doug, you gotta start somewhere. Main Street is picking up and that is good for the whole region. As I have said before, there’s a reason people live in Blythewood and Pontiac, and it is proximity to Columbia. The amenities of Allendale or McCormick are not as appealing. A healthy central city is good for the region.
I probably wouldn’t have chosen an ice skating rink, but I don’t know al the details of the deal with Magic whatever, the private partner. I do know that more bodies downtown is good for the health of the city.
Doug, that hospitality tax on skating is 20 cents per person. If they average 50 skaters, the city rakes in a whole $10 for the day.
No, SDII it’s the city’s skating rink (rented). They’ll make whatever it earns, less the expenses of renting the rink. I’d say we’ll lose a lot more than $10 bucks a day…. 😉
What restaurants are “downtown” these days? I mean besides the one or two where the bill will average $200 for a party of two and where they have to put a sauce on everything. I personally don’t enjoy a meal where “plating” takes more time than “cooking” the meal.
Stop touching my food!!!
Ruth Chris, Cowboy’s, Hennessy’s, the clubs that Brad goes to, several Miyo’s locations, Tonys, Drake’s Duck-In, etc. etc. etc.
Convincing USC to allow a minor league baseball team to play in “their” park would bring in a lot of revenue. Greenville , Charleston, Rock Hill, and Myrtle Beach all seem to be able to support teams very well… but the best place to put the park is probably somewhere on I77 around Farrow Road/Killian Road.
Henessy’s closed a while back.
Mac’s on Main, Brazilian Cowboy, Wine Down, Hampton Street Vineyard, Oak Table, Cola’s, M Cafe, Takosushi,….
It isn’t a matter of convincing USC. I recall there is some restriction in their financing. It may be that they cannot get UBIT from a for- profit since their bonds were 501( c)(3)
Brazilian Cowboy is a $200 meal for my family.. Takosushi usually about $110. Jillians and Mellow Mushroom are more cost effective for a five person family. And then there’s Ruth’s Chris – which is a $125 for two people.
A bit rich for my wallet.
Which y’all might think is odd coming from a guy who eats breakfast at Cap City every morning. But you’d be surprised. It’s really very reasonable. The way it works out, even including my dues, it costs me less than if I ate a much more modest breakfast (and it’s sort of my big meal of the day) at Lizard’s Thicket.
My whole month of breakfasts costs me a LOT less than it costs for you to take your family to Cowboy once.
I just wanted Kathryn to see how much money I pour into downtown Columbia’s economy…
Now, if she wants to come out to see the new Dunkin Donuts we have out in Blythewood, I think that would be only fair.
Lunch is the way to go. You can get an excellent, filling meal, for half the cost of dinner, and you don’t have to pay the marked up beverage costs. Breakfast and supper are home meals for me.
Steve and I had a marvelous three course lunch at Motor Supply Saturday for about fifty bucks. Oysters and free range pork chops and dessert. One course lunch for two is twenty to thirty, and all the excellent ingredients and interesting preparation of dinner.
There used to be a great-ish barbecue place we’d go to out there called Smoke. RIP
So Ruth Chris, Mellow Mushroom, Jillians, Motor Supply, and Cola’s are “downtown”? To me they’re in the Vista. I’m talking Main Street area.
$25 per person for lunch is reasonable? I complain if it’s above $15.
I liked Smoke a lot as well. I was sorry when it closed. I thought it was one of the better BBQ places around here.
A three course lunch….as I said, a regular lunch for TWO is twenty to thirty, or under your limit.
Cola’s and Mellow Mushroom are one block from Mian. Who said anything about Jillian’s?
And if you are coming from Blythewood, Ruth’s Chris is downtown.
The Oak Table, Wine Down, Hampton Street Vineyard, Cowboy Steakhouse, Mac’s on Main, M Cafe, as I said, are Main Street area. There’s also places north of Mac’s.