People “are hardwired to”. Generally used by evolutionary psychologists, misogynists and overall asswipes.
For example “Men aren’t hard-wired to follow women into danger.”
Lemme tell ya folks- there are only a handful of things that people are actually hardwired to do.
Breathe, eat, sleep, fuck, shit, piss and drink. That’s all folks.
Not really, but that’s what I’m writing about right now.
So why doesn’t private health care work?
A little econ 101- people make rational choices based on the information they have. The more perfect the information, the better the choices. With perfect information, supply and demand work to keep prices competitive.
Unlike shopping for apples or cars, we do not generally know how much health care we are going to need or what we are going to need it to cover. We also don’t get much of a choice in what our plans will be because they are decided on by human resource managers long before we ever sign up for it. Human resource managers also don’t know how much coverage we are going to need, all they know is that they need to find the lowest priced plan for the business.
Comparing plans is more like comparing all fruit for price, quality, size , nutritional value, and calories instead of comparing the quality of one apple to another. It’s not even apples and oranges, it’s every damn fruit there is.
Just a few things you would be looking for as a private individual shopping for health insurance:
Since we don’t have crystal balls, it’s that last one that screws us up sometimes. With life insurance, you know that someday you will die and you know exactly what the insurance company will pay out. With car insurance, you may never be in an accident but you know if you can afford the risk of not carrying full coverage to pay off your car if it’s totaled in a wreck. You also know what the legal limits of insurance you must carry are.
With health insurance, you never know when you are going to need it and how much you are going to need, but in everyone’s life there is some point when they will need to see a doctor.
Health insurance plans don’t all cover the same things at the same levels. If they did, there would be real competition in the market because people would have perfect information regardless of what their future needs might be. But instead we play the health care shell game. Coverage changes from year to year and plan to plan and prices rise because there isn’t enough information for consumers to effectively shop for coverage.
Universal coverage changes that system. A government may not know exactly who is going to get cancer or have a massive car accident, but they do know about how many people will. And from that they can effectively keep prices for services competitive and can change what is covered based on trends in what services are needed. This is the exact reverse of what normally happens in the free market because normally it is individuals who know what they are going to need well before government does. I can tell you how many new pairs of jeans or shoes my Kid may go through this year, how much I need to budget for coffee and milk to keep myself charming and erudite, but I have no idea if we are going to have a major medical issue this year.
In universal health care, the government creates one giant pool of of consumers (everyone) and one giant pool of providers (every doctor, nurse, hospital and clinic). Competition then comes in by making sure that providers are supplying the best care in order to keep consumers coming to them instead of providers providing the cheapest care so that the insurance companies will keep them in their network.
Or how to create class warfare without really trying.
Welfare programs are kept strictly limited to the very poorest people for a reason. Once something becomes a universal program (like say social security or free public education for K-12) it is nearly impossible to kill. Conservatives know this. As long as a program is kept restricted to the very bottom of society, the middle class can see itself as benevolent when the mood strikes and will also be less concerned when those programs are de-funded or scrapped altogether.
Let’s look at Social Security. Social Security is the third rail of politics- touch it and die. Bush only thought he could get privatization of Social Security though because he had a Republican House and Senate and a large number of younger Gen Xers that think that Social Security isn’t going to be around for them anyways- why pay into it now. Even with that- privatizing Social Security was a no-go. It is a universal program, meaning everyone regardless of income gets some benefit from it. There is no means testing (though certain Republicans have floated that idea too) because everyone pays into it and even the richest of the rich get some benefit. Fair- absolutely. They may not need the money, but they paid into it too.
Now let’s look at 2 programs that do basically the same thing- they provide people with no job a small income for a limited amount of time- Unemployment insurance and TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families). Unemployment is mostly not means tested. The amount of savings, investments, property that you own makes no difference in whether or not you’ll receive Unemployment. If your spouse or children work- that makes no difference to Unemployment. If you receive child support- that makes no difference to Unemployment. You simply have to have been laid off from your job and have worked enough hours to have paid into the system. And you have to certify every week that you have looked for work. You don’t even have to go into the unemployment office most of the time, just keep a log of where you applied and submit it when asked.
TANF on the other hand is means tested. You cannot own a newer car, have money in savings, a 401K, a retirement fund. You must be flat broke. No one in your home can have any sort of income. If you get child support- it will go to pay back your TANF grant before it goes to you. You must agree to participate in a job search program of no less than 35 hours a week. You must be in the Welfare office everyday looking for work and participating in really asinine programs to teach you how to be “professional”. You must agree to having a whole hell of a lot of your life examined by a caseworker.
TANF has had it’s programs slashed while the participants requirements have increased. Unemployment, not so much. We don’t hear much about the Unemployment Kings taking our hard earned money and spending it on beer and hot rods, but we hear a whole hell of a lot about the worthless single moms on Welfare. Welfare is not universal, but unemployment is for anyone who has been laid off.
So passing SCHIP 10 years ago when it was just supposed to be for kids whose parents were too wealthy for Medicaid (most people who are not on Welfare, including those on Unemployment are too wealthy for Medicaid) but too poor to afford insurance on their own was easy. It’s still keeping the means test pretty strict. But once you start including more middle class families, it starts to look more like a universal program. And universal programs generally grow (hello Medicare Drug plans) not shrink.
So when you hear a Republican crying about how SCHIP would cover “wealthy families” what you are really hearing is “and once those families realize it works better than our for profit system, we are never getting rid of it”. It’s much easier to take from the poor than it is to take from everyone.
So I was talking to a couple of student council reps from work the other day (Student Council votes on the funds that pay for my position) and for the 4th time in 4 years I was asked if I would be willing to work more hours if they approved it in the budget.
Of course I would. My willingness and availability has never been the problem with keeping the lab open more hours. The problem is that the school (which is very quietly run by a private company and not by the state) keeps certain employees like lab monitors and tutors in a Walmart style part time ghetto. I am not allowed to work more the 16 hours a week because then the school would have to provide benefits. If I work more the 16 hours a week- I will be fired, period. I am also not eligible for merit or cost of living raises.
So I told the student council people this. I didn’t tell them that last year I did the math to figure out what it would cost to employ me full time including benefits. The income increase would only be about $10,000 per year (a huge amount for me but not so much on the grand scale) but the benefits increase would add a minimum of $12,000 per year. That would mean tripling the tech fees that the students pay each quarter – from about 30 dollars a quarter to over 90.
Now if they just wanted to increase the weekly lab hours to 24, I’m fine with that. I don’t really want to work full time and I could live on 24 hours a week. But even with an 8 hour weekly increase the $12000 in benefits still applies. Without benefits, the cost to the students in increased tech fees is less than $10 per quarter. With benefits, the increase in fees is over $42 per quarter.
If insurance was universal, then the students could get what they want (more lab hours), I could get what I want (more hours worked and a bigger paycheck and healthcare) and the school would be able to retain experienced tutors and lab personnel rather than having a high turnover rate ( I know at least a few tutors who have moved to the UW because the pay and benefits are better and when I did my little temp position there I was very well taken care of).
This is not a problem that is unique to public education, in fact it more of a problem in the private sector. To keep qualified employees you need to provide benefits, but the cost of health insurance is climbing so fast that it puts an unfair burden on businesses. (I know- I’m a pinko progressive, who would have thought I’d be talking about business needs). How can we expect business to keep hiring people if the cost of health care makes the cost of labor unbearable?
I know- the horrors and shame of being an artsy intellectual who also watches TV. I’m addicted to Heroes (ZOMG I want to have Dr. Surresh’s babies!) I love trashy sci-fi like Stargate (before you even ask- I like both SG1 and Atlantis- shudup)and silly British stuff like the League of gentlemen and Red Dwarf.
Sad but true.
I also love Master Piece Theater & Mystery on PBS. Last night was the beginning of “The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard” on Master Piece. It is a sweet and idealistic story about a middle aged woman who accidentally becomes Prime Minister of England (She just meant to run as an independent for an MP spot and managed to start a political party in the process).
This is every bit as much of a fluff piece as The American President was, but that doesn’t stop it from having merit. The point in Mrs. Pritchard is that we need to be involved in politics and not keep ourselves away from it out of disgust and frustration. Hey, I’m a poly sci major and even I get apathetic sometimes out of disgust and frustration. Every now and then we need a little something to remind us how awesome the idea of democracy is. And since we no longer have the West Wing to keep our spirits up on a weekly basis, a little dose of British optimism can’t hurt. Neither can classic West Wing clips from YouTube
Cause the one thing I do know is that the really awful experiences make for great story telling.
So this guy sends me an email- Hey Gorgeous, would you like to meet sometime.
I check out his profile. His pics are cute but there really isn’t anything else written in his profile. My profile looks like fricken Chaucer in comparison, lots of things for someone point out a shared interest in.
But he’s kinda cute so I send him this email- Maybe, but I need to know more about you first.
Him: Give me your phone number and I’ll call you.
Me: I don’t give out my number to men I don’t know. Your profile doesn’t say much about you. Why don’t you tell me about yourself.
Him: There’s lots in my profile. What do you want to know. When can we meet for coffee.
Me (after his profile has been changed very very slightly) All your profile says is that your a middle aged man who lives with his parents. From your emails I gathered that you cannot start a conversation and that you are pushy and demanding. I think I have enough information to say that no- I will never be meeting you for anything.
Him (evolving into that strange place that men go when put down by women – you know the I can’t form a sentence place): Your a abuser thats why you wil always be alone never cotnact me agin
I think there is a line in Pride and Prejudice about “what do we live for but to make sport for our friends and neighbors”. Enjoy the sport my friends.
Everyone is going on about who the nominees from each party are going to be for president.
I have my favorites, but the truth is I don’t care which one ends up driving the party machine as long as the machine that wins is the one less likely to kill people. (Meaning the Dems of course)
Since I am a hopeful person, I want to think about the things that a Democratic legislature should push through ASAP after electing a Democratic president. It makes me happy (I know- current milquetoast crop of Dems- I’m talking to you Harry Reid!- probably can’t find their ass with both hands, let alone show some fucking gumption – but without hope we are nothing)
Here’s my off the top of my head list
Like I said- this is just a quick list. Feel free to include anything else that might be missing in comments.
Also, since the republicans have been very good at framing arguments through the use of doublespeak- I am going to take a cue from them.
I will not be referring to the current war in Iraq as the Iraq War any longer. While it is a true technical name- I think we should all start calling it the Bush War. He started it, he wants to keep us in it, he wants it to be his great legacy, I think he should own it.
Emilie du Chatelet is who I want to be when I grow up.
She was brilliant, I mean scary off the charts brilliant as well as being a bit of a party girl. She was Voltaire’s lover and they clashed over they way that energy is measured. Voltaire believed in Newton’s method, du Chatelet believed in Leibniz. Eventually, du Chatelet set up an experiment to prove that Leibniz was correct (if you read Candide there are several references to Leibniz as Voltaire played out the disagreement on paper).
She spoke 5 languages. She sang opera. She threw fab theater parties. She studied math and philosophy and wrote books on physics. She took many lovers. She wrote the definitive French translation of Newton. She fenced and danced and gambled.
She died at 42 after giving birth, a birth that she was sure would kill her. If only they had birth control, who knows what else she could have done.
Over on the Shakesville MRA thread that will never die is a lot of whining about how us evil feminists are DESTROYING THE FAMILY!
Wev. My family, for as many generations as I can count back, doesn’t do too much of the nuclear family thing (with the exception of my Auntie Cate and Uncle Jim- but they are both pretty progressive egalitarian types). Maybe we’re just big fat failures at the nuclear family thing, or maybe the Cherokee in us makes us more of a matrilineal family.
What I had always heard from my mom was that us Cherokee women got the house and the property. When you were done with a man, you sat his stuff on the steps and sent him back to his mama. I don’t know how much of that is true, but it sure does seem like that’s how we things (minus the whole owning property thing- we’ve been poor for a couple of generations).
Most of my family is still in North Carolina, which is a pretty big accomplishment considering the Trail of Tears marched so many people out to Oklahoma. From what I can tell through genealogy stuff, the Cherokee men just kinda disappeared off the family tree while the Cherokee women married Europeans. (Rumor is that the men went and lived in caves, but again these are just the stories I’ve heard). I can’t fault them for using whatever survival methods they needed, but I do wonder if that is what pushed us throughly into poverty. Going from property owners and family leaders to property of husbands and baby machines is bound to have a cost, especially in a capitalist society where inheritance is the main force of social mobility.
So all this whining about the destruction of the “traditional” family leaves me a little bored. We went through the destruction of our type of traditional family over a century ago. I have no interest in a traditional marriage, though every now and then enough societal pressure builds up and I loose my head over a guy for a while, but I always come back to earth realizing how incredibly stupid a combination of me and marriage would be. It’s like mixing ammonia and bleach.
The only benefit I can see in traditional marriage is financial. But I don’t think that the price I would have to pay in loss of autonomy makes up for the financial gain (and I don’t generally date poor or dumb unless they are really hot, so the financial gain would be considerable).
I guess what I’m trying to say is- who cares if the traditional family structure doesn’t work? Other structures may work better.
And all of the comments have been eaten. Oops.
That kinda sucked.