Deth, it's fairly clear that you're coming in with a bias against a government health system.
Sarcasm aside, these smaller countries have populations that expect if they pay for their government to pay for something, they should get a service they are happy with.
Biased? Me? Never. Until the ATF stops regulating and starts making deliveries id prefer the government out of my life, and unless they are going to subsidize hookers completely out of my bedroom.
You are correct they pay for a service, and they get an inferior one to the one we have in a lot of ways. It works for them, they like it. However trying to transplant it here is going to meet resistance from the people due to a difference in cultures. Thems the breaks.
There is no such thing as a perfect system. Attempting to disparage the 'good' in pursuit of the 'perfect' (this is not unique to health care, this is just in general) never works.
Correct but exchanging one broken system, for another broken system to me is just foolhardy. Id rather make a new broken system.
The United States has the best tech on the planet when it comes to health care. So *if* you have the money, of course you're going to spring for the best possible equipment- meaning you go to the US.
And under a lot of the proposed changes our ability to offer that level of care would suffer. I would rather no see that.
This one's obviously up for interpretation. Congress certainly has the power to spend money to improve the general welfare of US citizens. Even Obama's health care reform (which is projected to decrease the deficit) has survived most of its challenges, and the one challenge it's lost is being appealed.
Its DOA when it hits the Supreme Court. Obama opposed expediting the case to the Supreme court because he knows as things stand now he is looking at a 5-4 defeat. Right now we are looking at a ruling right before the election next July. Should be interesting.
There is *never* going to be a 100% in anything. Never. Is a new weather prediction system going to be 100% accurate? Do patches for Windows fix 100% of all user issues? I know those are examples in different areas, but you cannot possibly please everyone, you cannot possibly fix everything with a single attempt. You fix problems as you come across them in order to create a better system.
Except we are not attempting a "better system" we are attempting a "differently broken" system. Grass is greener etc.
Let's put aside your clear disdain for the idea of a single-payer system for a moment. This is the same kind of argument conservatives in other countries used when their single-payer (or something akin to thereof) were being implemented. They were ultimately proven wrong.
Except nowhere has the system been proven to be completely awesome and without fault. In a culture that expects the government to take care of you you are going to get better results than one that wants the government to leave you alone. We know it will cost money, we have little evidence it will make things better, and the only argument we have is that "it might be better than what we have now." I would rather pursue an actual solution.
In our current system, you could be denied coverage by just about everyone if you got sick as a kid. Ex: I had asthma as a kid. This is a condition I had before I could get onto a private plan. An attempt to get onto a private plan (before Obama health care reform) wouldn't be guaranteed, because I had a 'pre-existing condition'.
California has seen double-digit increases in premiums at least two years in a row now. In many states, one or two insurance companies hold a near-monopoly.
I find it difficult to comprehend that attempting to institute a new system could create problems worse than these.
Those terrible terrible monopolies that are denying you coverage are barely making 4% despite the double digit premium hikes. They are not making a lot of money despite working their hardest to both make money and screw you even with all their negotiations on bills and dirty tricks. That should tell you something, and that something is not "let the government run and pay for it, it will solve everything!"
This is probably the only point that I think is worthy of a frank discussion. And that's really a discussion more for the Health Care thread, though I'm not the authority on that call.
Either way, can we stop having a back and forth with Detharin on health care and focus more on the financial side of things?
Again, between 3.3-3.6 depending on year is the average net profit margin on insurance companies who live, eat, and breath every dirty trick in the book to avoid paying out. Add more people who are already paying nothing to your costs, and nothing to what you are taking in how exactly do you expect to cut costs lower than the insurance companies already do?
I'm not laughing about dead babies, I'm laughing about you.
Yes, the US is so different and unique that, unlike nations that clawed themselves out from under the heel of monarchy or fascism, there's no way the US could possibly refine it's laws and regulations to the point where it could approximate single payer health care that works for millions of people all over the world (edit: so as to save money!), at every range of population density compared to the US.
I swear, I know of no other nation so convinced that it is incapable of doing anything competently. For all the talk, a remarkable number of Americans have no faith in their nation.
Welcome to a country where half of the population does not want government actively involved in their health care at that level. We have more people that dislike the idea than the entire populations of Canada, UK, and Australia combined.
Besides have you seen our government lately? The only branch I have any faith in is the Judicial and there are some days I wonder about them. The executive is like a one legged man in the ass kicking semi-finals trying to do anything he can to make the cut that does not involve actually trying to kick an ass and risk looking bad. The legislative is like two groups of kids having a pissing contest while playing tug of war.
Except when you propose a change in a representative government is has to either be popular enough to get the votes, or not unpopular enough to cause people to vote for someone else come election time. Right now we have a nebulous ideal, with no guarantee to solve anything, and is unpopular and opposed by about half our population.
Sure we could burn some idiot strawmen pretending it is a civil rights issue, which it is not. You could try and shove it down our throats claiming it is for our own good, but that is not going to fly.
It is economically uncertain at best, expensive at worst, and politically poison.
Detharin, what I'm getting at is: you are not dumb. You are in a forum for debate and discourse. You are opposed to an idea, but your reasoning has been pretty well debunked in this thread and others. You ought not to be opposed to an idea simply because other people don't like it, once you've got the facts. You telling me that other Americans don't like it just doesn't mean a thing when it comes to why you oppose it.
I don't think Canada getting nationalized internet is going to happen, but I'm sure as heck not opposed to the idea simply because I think it won't happen in the current political climate. Because that would not make a lick of sense.
Oh why I oppose it? Personally I really do not like the nanny state approach we are taking where we attempt to ban everything bad, and regulate people from cradle to grave. It is expensive financially, and I do not like the long term social ramifications. Even were it implemented in an absolutely ideal way I am not convinced it would solve our problems, or reduce the deficit. The ideal you propose is fundamentally opposed by half our population.
Let us not even get into the fact that ignoring it is not a real solution to our problems, and constitutional issues aside even were such a bill to negotiate both houses of our legislative branch what the president ended up signing would probably be a badly written, mismanaged disaster.
Has any Serious Policy Talka-Talker offered a serious, start-to-finish explanation of why the expanding U.S. debt is such a bad thing? It's been going on for quite some time and (afaik) investors don't seem to be souring on the prospect of purchasing more U.S. debt, so what's the issue?
china-as-the-bookie analogies will be viewed with an extreme grain of salt
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I'm seeing a lot of probablies and vague assertions, but nothing that could be discussed. Also an attack on the "nanny state" strawman.
When it comes to single pay all we have is probablies, and vague assertions. As an ideal it is one way of rationing health care. In a "solve all of America's problems" sense it is a nebulous concept held together with magic and hope. Massachusetts is looking at it to solve the budget disaster that was their mandatory health care bill, personally I would like to see how it does.
I'm seeing a lot of probablies and vague assertions, but nothing that could be discussed. Also an attack on the "nanny state" strawman.
When it comes to single pay all we have is probablies, and vague assertions. As an ideal it is one way of rationing health care. In a "solve all of America's problems" sense it is a nebulous concept held together with magic and hope. Massachusetts is looking at it to solve the budget disaster that was their mandatory health care bill, personally I would like to see how it does.
Massachusetts overhauled its health care laws in 2006 to work toward universal coverage. Many consider it a model for national health care reform -- even critics, who say that Massachusetts’ problems with cost controls mean the national plan will have similar problems.
But Deval Patrick, the Democratic governor of the state, said the cost overruns aren’t as dramatic as some are claiming, when asked about it on This Week with Christiane Amanpour.
"Actually, it's added about 1 percent to our state budget, which is not what is generally reported on out there, but that is the truth," Patrick said.
Patrick added that the plan in Massachusetts was to cover the uninsured and then address cost controls. "And just as we have shown the nation how to provide universal care through a public-private model, I think we can crack the code on health care costs as well," he said.
Patrick promoted his own plan for reducing costs by paying doctors and hospitals for healthy outcomes, not per procedure.
We were interested in fact-checking Patrick’s statement that the 2006 Massachusetts health care law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, had added only 1 percent to the state budget.
We contacted Patrick’s office but didn’t hear back. Meanwhile, we tracked the claim back to a report from the Massachusetts Taxpayers’ Foundation, a nonpartisan policy research group backed by business that regularly analyzes state fiscal issues.
A report published in 2009 found that the state’s share of health care spending increased by $353 million in fiscal year 2010. The state’s entire budget is roughly $30 billion, so that comes out to about 1 percent, said Michael Widmer, the group’s president. He said the group has not updated the analysis with more recent numbers but has seen nothing to indicate the trend is any different.
Neither, I just do not make a habit of swallowing the fairy dust and unicorn piss kool-aid. You have an ideal that says taking over a barely profitable cut throat industry will magically solve a host of very complex interconnected problems in one of the largest industries in this country that would result in massive global changes all the while lacking any actual bill to discuss the specifics of and the fact I do not think it is more awesome than multiple orgasms, and being able to pee standing up combined somehow makes me either misleading you or malinformed.
The fact is in mandating insurance in Massachusetts their costs have gone up every year. There is little indication that single payer is the magic solution to all our problems. As an ideal its great, as a reality not so much.
My god you mean a plan designed to save us money is actually costing us 356 million more than what we had before and growing every year? I know as I look at America and think "Damn we have a high cost per capita when it comes to medical care, I know let us look to the state with the Highest cost per capita (and growing) and do what they did. That will fix everything!"
My god you mean a plan designed to save us money is actually costing us 356 million more than what we had before and growing every year? I know as I look at America and think "Damn we have a high cost per capita when it comes to medical care, I know let us look to the state with the Highest cost per capita (and growing) and do what they did. That will fix everything!"
You seem to be focusing on the fact that it was 356 million added to the budget, and not the fact that this number represents only 1% of the state budget.
I think that's a pretty strong argument for switching to single payer. Immagine if the US could do the same and only see an increase to the budget of 1%
My god you mean a plan designed to save us money is actually costing us 356 million more than what we had before and growing every year? I know as I look at America and think "Damn we have a high cost per capita when it comes to medical care, I know let us look to the state with the Highest cost per capita (and growing) and do what they did. That will fix everything!"
Is the thing that is supposed to save us money in fact saving us money? No. Now you can complain that I am moving the goalpost when you say "well it is only costing is 350$ million more than the alternative" and I say "It is costing us 350$ million more than the alternative." Sure on one hand you can say " Sure we have the highest cost per capita in the country." and I can move to saving money goalpost with "You still have the highest cost per capita in the country."
Has the Massachusetts plan implemented to save money caused costs to go up. Yes. It is really hard to move a goalpost on that. Even the link you provide indicates it has caused costs to go up so you will have to understand my confusion when in a topic about controlling debt when we are discussing legislative options to DECREASE health care costs you supply evidence that one plan in face increased health care costs then accuse me of moving the goalposts.
How about as a handy goalpost decreases health care costs? Or would you like to move that to somewhere say "Only increases health care costs by more than 400 million in the first year."
Neither, I just do not make a habit of swallowing the fairy dust and unicorn piss kool-aid. You have an ideal that says taking over a barely profitable cut throat industry
I'm sure glad that money is going to help the patients at lea...
On average, each of the six now devotes 20 cents on the dollar to non-medical services, compared to 16.5 cents last year and, according to HCAN, 5 cents in 1993.
Is the thing that is supposed to save us money in fact saving us money? No. Now you can complain that I am moving the goalpost when you say "well it is only costing is 350$ million more than the alternative" and I say "It is costing us 350$ million more than the alternative." Sure on one hand you can say " Sure we have the highest cost per capita in the country." and I can move to saving money goalpost with "You still have the highest cost per capita in the country."
Has the Massachusetts plan implemented to save money caused costs to go up. Yes. It is really hard to move a goalpost on that. Even the link you provide indicates it has caused costs to go up so you will have to understand my confusion when in a topic about controlling debt when we are discussing legislative options to DECREASE health care costs you supply evidence that one plan in face increased health care costs then accuse me of moving the goalposts.
How about as a handy goalpost decreases health care costs? Or would you like to move that to somewhere say "Only increases health care costs by more than 400 million in the first year."
No, you argued that MA was under some huge budget crisis brought on by their new health care law, when in actuality their budget only increased by 1%. When presented with that evidence, you changed to "It still increased the budget!" That is moving the goal post.
In 2008, US federal spending on health care increased by about 4%.
Neither, I just do not make a habit of swallowing the fairy dust and unicorn piss kool-aid. You have an ideal that says taking over a barely profitable cut throat industry
I'm sure glad that money is going to help the patients at lea...
On average, each of the six now devotes 20 cents on the dollar to non-medical services, compared to 16.5 cents last year and, according to HCAN, 5 cents in 1993.
However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage. This is a near perfect “apples to apples” comparison of administrative costs, because the public Medicare plan and Medicare Advantage plans are operating under similar rules and treating the same population.
Where's more of the waste on administrative costs here?
Is the thing that is supposed to save us money in fact saving us money? No. Now you can complain that I am moving the goalpost when you say "well it is only costing is 350$ million more than the alternative" and I say "It is costing us 350$ million more than the alternative." Sure on one hand you can say " Sure we have the highest cost per capita in the country." and I can move to saving money goalpost with "You still have the highest cost per capita in the country."
Has the Massachusetts plan implemented to save money caused costs to go up. Yes. It is really hard to move a goalpost on that. Even the link you provide indicates it has caused costs to go up so you will have to understand my confusion when in a topic about controlling debt when we are discussing legislative options to DECREASE health care costs you supply evidence that one plan in face increased health care costs then accuse me of moving the goalposts.
How about as a handy goalpost decreases health care costs? Or would you like to move that to somewhere say "Only increases health care costs by more than 400 million in the first year."
Increasing the state budget by $350 million and costing $350 million more are two entirely different things.
The State of California started charging a fee for monitor/television disposal when you bought them, and paying companies to dispose of them, so that taking them to toxic waste disposal would be, effectively, free.
If there were 1 million televisions sold in the first year, which cost $35 each to dispose of, that would mean that the program increased spending by $35 million, without actually costing anyone any money.
In fact, it would have saved money, by decreasing the costs for cleanup of TVs dumped off the side of the road, but that's not what the fiscal picture would say.
Really guys, who are you going to believe, non-partisan analysis groups and the CBO or unsupported Heritage foundation numbers and vague warnings about "the nanny state."
Deth, it's fairly clear that you're coming in with a bias against a government health system.
Sarcasm aside, these smaller countries have populations that expect if they pay for their government to pay for something, they should get a service they are happy with.
Biased? Me? Never. Until the ATF stops regulating and starts making deliveries id prefer the government out of my life, and unless they are going to subsidize hookers completely out of my bedroom.
You are correct they pay for a service, and they get an inferior one to the one we have in a lot of ways. It works for them, they like it. However trying to transplant it here is going to meet resistance from the people due to a difference in cultures. Thems the breaks.
And yet they maintain a single digit profit margin. Sure they are making a lot of money, they are also increasing their costs. At this rate they might even make it over 4 to 5 or even 6%. And yes, profit margins that low do qualify as barely profitable. Good news is they are doing a ton of business, quite a bit of that is likely due to companies ramping up to deal with Obamacare as they cannot afford to wait until it finishes its days in court.
Now let us all take a moment to thank the democratic party for increasing the profits of the health care industry, because god knows that is going to keep costs down.
Wait are the forums glitching out on me or is is this actually the healthcare thread? o_O
Meaningful debt reduction is entirely about health care.
Well, revenue matters, and defense too. But healthcare towards the top of the list when you are talking about long term US budgetary concerns.
In fact, let's do a rapid subject change and start talking about defense.
I assert that we aren't going to "tidy up our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya". We might move them from one country to another, but the fact is that we, and by "we" I mean the American government, don't really know what to do with foreign policy when we don't have a designated enemy to fuck with. We didn't hesitate for a full year after the Soviet Union fell before we started getting into wars in Iraq and Kosovo that we probably would have tried to avoid if we still had a superpower rival. We aren't going to stop dicking around in the Middle East until we get another Cold War started up (with who? Hopefully not China, they're smarter than the USSR was, at least), and maybe not even then.
Daedalus on
0
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
In what world is 2.9 billion dollars (Wellpoint's 2010 profit) "barely profitable"?
Profit is only meaningful in relation to capital; the real question is not "how much raw money are they taking in," but "what return are investors making?" For a sufficiently large company, 2.9 billion dollars in profit could represent a return-on-investment for the owners worse that what you're getting at the bank.
Wait are the forums glitching out on me or is is this actually the healthcare thread? o_O
Meaningful debt reduction is entirely about health care.
Well, revenue matters, and defense too. But healthcare towards the top of the list when you are talking about long term US budgetary concerns.
In fact, let's do a rapid subject change and start talking about defense.
I assert that we aren't going to "tidy up our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya". We might move them from one country to another, but the fact is that we, and by "we" I mean the American government, don't really know what to do with foreign policy when we don't have a designated enemy to fuck with. We didn't hesitate for a full year after the Soviet Union fell before we started getting into wars in Iraq and Kosovo that we probably would have tried to avoid if we still had a superpower rival. We aren't going to stop dicking around in the Middle East until we get another Cold War started up (with who? Hopefully not China, they're smarter than the USSR was, at least), and maybe not even then.
Getting out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and shutting down a lot of foreign bases are all good ideas, but the military is not really a primary culprit in the deficit story. Even with both wars ongoing the military's budget, including war funding, is at historic lows both as a percentage of GDP and the government's budget.
Medicare also needs to become not a blank check for every new mind blowing procedure that American medicine can come up with. Spending 80 trillion dollars to keep "Old Person X-42" alive for 5 more seconds is not reasonable by any standard. Republican complaints against curtailing Medicare's reach are also absurd. If people are going to rely on government, they're going to be subject to its limitations. We're quickly learning that blank-check Medicare is not within reasonable limits.
FPA20111 on
The paranoid man believes that everyone is out to get him. The intelligent man knows that everyone is out to get him.
Getting out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and shutting down a lot of foreign bases are all good ideas, but the military is not really a primary culprit in the deficit story. Even with both wars ongoing the military's budget, including war funding, is at historic lows both as a percentage of GDP and the government's budget.
Care to back that up? Because I was under the impression that we are currently spending $Texas on the military and it has a huge impact on the deficit
If the budget deficit for 2010 is $1.3 trillion, than the wars account for 10% of the budget deficit, while (non-war) military spending equals a little less than half the budget deficit. So if we shaved off some military spending, while dropping down to maybe one war, it might help a bit. Every few $100 billion helps, after all.
But yeah, we aren't going to balance the budget solely by cutting military spending.
Posts
You are correct they pay for a service, and they get an inferior one to the one we have in a lot of ways. It works for them, they like it. However trying to transplant it here is going to meet resistance from the people due to a difference in cultures. Thems the breaks.
Correct but exchanging one broken system, for another broken system to me is just foolhardy. Id rather make a new broken system.
And under a lot of the proposed changes our ability to offer that level of care would suffer. I would rather no see that.
Its DOA when it hits the Supreme Court. Obama opposed expediting the case to the Supreme court because he knows as things stand now he is looking at a 5-4 defeat. Right now we are looking at a ruling right before the election next July. Should be interesting.
Except we are not attempting a "better system" we are attempting a "differently broken" system. Grass is greener etc.
Except nowhere has the system been proven to be completely awesome and without fault. In a culture that expects the government to take care of you you are going to get better results than one that wants the government to leave you alone. We know it will cost money, we have little evidence it will make things better, and the only argument we have is that "it might be better than what we have now." I would rather pursue an actual solution.
Those terrible terrible monopolies that are denying you coverage are barely making 4% despite the double digit premium hikes. They are not making a lot of money despite working their hardest to both make money and screw you even with all their negotiations on bills and dirty tricks. That should tell you something, and that something is not "let the government run and pay for it, it will solve everything!"
Again, between 3.3-3.6 depending on year is the average net profit margin on insurance companies who live, eat, and breath every dirty trick in the book to avoid paying out. Add more people who are already paying nothing to your costs, and nothing to what you are taking in how exactly do you expect to cut costs lower than the insurance companies already do?
Welcome to a country where half of the population does not want government actively involved in their health care at that level. We have more people that dislike the idea than the entire populations of Canada, UK, and Australia combined.
Besides have you seen our government lately? The only branch I have any faith in is the Judicial and there are some days I wonder about them. The executive is like a one legged man in the ass kicking semi-finals trying to do anything he can to make the cut that does not involve actually trying to kick an ass and risk looking bad. The legislative is like two groups of kids having a pissing contest while playing tug of war.
It's like saying 'well, we can't get gay rights, because half of the nation doesn't like homosexuals!'
Likewise, 'the government sucks' is hardly an argument against what amount to proposals to change the direction of government.
Sure we could burn some idiot strawmen pretending it is a civil rights issue, which it is not. You could try and shove it down our throats claiming it is for our own good, but that is not going to fly.
It is economically uncertain at best, expensive at worst, and politically poison.
I don't think Canada getting nationalized internet is going to happen, but I'm sure as heck not opposed to the idea simply because I think it won't happen in the current political climate. Because that would not make a lick of sense.
Let us not even get into the fact that ignoring it is not a real solution to our problems, and constitutional issues aside even were such a bill to negotiate both houses of our legislative branch what the president ended up signing would probably be a badly written, mismanaged disaster.
china-as-the-bookie analogies will be viewed with an extreme grain of salt
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
When it comes to single pay all we have is probablies, and vague assertions. As an ideal it is one way of rationing health care. In a "solve all of America's problems" sense it is a nebulous concept held together with magic and hope. Massachusetts is looking at it to solve the budget disaster that was their mandatory health care bill, personally I would like to see how it does.
Wow...what a disaster
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The fact is in mandating insurance in Massachusetts their costs have gone up every year. There is little indication that single payer is the magic solution to all our problems. As an ideal its great, as a reality not so much.
Meanwhile, in detharin's magical fantasy world, health care costs everywhere else have gone down
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
My god you mean a plan designed to save us money is actually costing us 356 million more than what we had before and growing every year? I know as I look at America and think "Damn we have a high cost per capita when it comes to medical care, I know let us look to the state with the Highest cost per capita (and growing) and do what they did. That will fix everything!"
You seem to be focusing on the fact that it was 356 million added to the budget, and not the fact that this number represents only 1% of the state budget.
I think that's a pretty strong argument for switching to single payer. Immagine if the US could do the same and only see an increase to the budget of 1%
Vermont is about to sign/recently signed single player into law, so they'll have single payer.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Whoops, my mistake. Got the plans mixed up.
Is the thing that is supposed to save us money in fact saving us money? No. Now you can complain that I am moving the goalpost when you say "well it is only costing is 350$ million more than the alternative" and I say "It is costing us 350$ million more than the alternative." Sure on one hand you can say " Sure we have the highest cost per capita in the country." and I can move to saving money goalpost with "You still have the highest cost per capita in the country."
Has the Massachusetts plan implemented to save money caused costs to go up. Yes. It is really hard to move a goalpost on that. Even the link you provide indicates it has caused costs to go up so you will have to understand my confusion when in a topic about controlling debt when we are discussing legislative options to DECREASE health care costs you supply evidence that one plan in face increased health care costs then accuse me of moving the goalposts.
How about as a handy goalpost decreases health care costs? Or would you like to move that to somewhere say "Only increases health care costs by more than 400 million in the first year."
You know that it's not "barely profitable" by any sense of the word, right?
I'm sure glad that money is going to help the patients at lea...
No, you argued that MA was under some huge budget crisis brought on by their new health care law, when in actuality their budget only increased by 1%. When presented with that evidence, you changed to "It still increased the budget!" That is moving the goal post.
In 2008, US federal spending on health care increased by about 4%.
Which number is smaller?
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Also, I hate to quote myself BUT
Where's more of the waste on administrative costs here?
The State of California started charging a fee for monitor/television disposal when you bought them, and paying companies to dispose of them, so that taking them to toxic waste disposal would be, effectively, free.
If there were 1 million televisions sold in the first year, which cost $35 each to dispose of, that would mean that the program increased spending by $35 million, without actually costing anyone any money.
In fact, it would have saved money, by decreasing the costs for cleanup of TVs dumped off the side of the road, but that's not what the fiscal picture would say.
Stop laughing!
Now let us all take a moment to thank the democratic party for increasing the profits of the health care industry, because god knows that is going to keep costs down.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Meaningful debt reduction is entirely about health care.
Well, revenue matters, and defense too. But healthcare towards the top of the list when you are talking about long term US budgetary concerns.
Exxon stopped rolling around in money long enough to smile and quaintly comment "that's ok...i guess".
Short term isn't meaningful, in my world.
In fact, let's do a rapid subject change and start talking about defense.
I assert that we aren't going to "tidy up our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya". We might move them from one country to another, but the fact is that we, and by "we" I mean the American government, don't really know what to do with foreign policy when we don't have a designated enemy to fuck with. We didn't hesitate for a full year after the Soviet Union fell before we started getting into wars in Iraq and Kosovo that we probably would have tried to avoid if we still had a superpower rival. We aren't going to stop dicking around in the Middle East until we get another Cold War started up (with who? Hopefully not China, they're smarter than the USSR was, at least), and maybe not even then.
Profit is only meaningful in relation to capital; the real question is not "how much raw money are they taking in," but "what return are investors making?" For a sufficiently large company, 2.9 billion dollars in profit could represent a return-on-investment for the owners worse that what you're getting at the bank.
Getting out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and shutting down a lot of foreign bases are all good ideas, but the military is not really a primary culprit in the deficit story. Even with both wars ongoing the military's budget, including war funding, is at historic lows both as a percentage of GDP and the government's budget.
Medicare also needs to become not a blank check for every new mind blowing procedure that American medicine can come up with. Spending 80 trillion dollars to keep "Old Person X-42" alive for 5 more seconds is not reasonable by any standard. Republican complaints against curtailing Medicare's reach are also absurd. If people are going to rely on government, they're going to be subject to its limitations. We're quickly learning that blank-check Medicare is not within reasonable limits.
Care to back that up? Because I was under the impression that we are currently spending $Texas on the military and it has a huge impact on the deficit
If the budget deficit for 2010 is $1.3 trillion, than the wars account for 10% of the budget deficit, while (non-war) military spending equals a little less than half the budget deficit. So if we shaved off some military spending, while dropping down to maybe one war, it might help a bit. Every few $100 billion helps, after all.
But yeah, we aren't going to balance the budget solely by cutting military spending.
Not that it shouldn't be cut and streamlined and wars gotten out of and all that, but it's not gonna solve the problem on it's own.