Beanpot Primary Thread (was Re: Beanpot 2/4)

Jim Hyla

Chris '03
Beanpot U misses the final for the first time in 14 years. Harvard makes it for the first time in ten. Everything is backwards in Boston today.

You mean Romney is losing to McCain?

After the stellar job Romney did as governor, especially the way he talked up Massachusetts all over the country, most people probably put him below root canal on their list of preferences.

Killer
After the stellar job Romney did as governor, especially the way he talked up Massachusetts all over the country, most people probably put him below root canal on their list of preferences.

Yeah, but of the 10 Massachusetts Republicans, 7 of them are still voting for him in the primary.

DeltaOne81

Killer
After the stellar job Romney did as governor, especially the way he talked up Massachusetts all over the country, most people probably put him below root canal on their list of preferences.

Yeah, but of the 10 Massachusetts Republicans, 7 of them are still voting for him in the primary.

I didn't

Killer
I didn't

I voted for Ron Paul (big surprise, right?).

If Paul and Huck get a few delegates, and McCain (lemme get my barf bag ready...) doesn't wrap up the nomination this week, there's a chance for a very ugly GOP convention. The possibility of being able to watch these assholes tear each other apart is too much to pass up. A brokered convention is what any libertarian or paleocon should be shooting for.

Kyle

krose

Killer
I didn't

I voted for Ron Paul (big surprise, right?).

If Paul and Huck get a few delegates, and McCain (lemme get my barf bag ready...) doesn't wrap up the nomination this week, there's a chance for a very ugly GOP convention. The possibility of being able to watch these assholes tear each other apart is too much to pass up. A brokered convention is what any libertarian or paleocon should be shooting for.

I'm curious as to what (or rather, who) you think would be a likely and/or good-in-your-opinion outcome of such a brokered GOP convention, but we should probably take it to the John Spencer forum.

krose

Killer
I didn't

I voted for Ron Paul (big surprise, right?).

If Paul and Huck get a few delegates, and McCain (lemme get my barf bag ready...) doesn't wrap up the nomination this week, there's a chance for a very ugly GOP convention. The possibility of being able to watch these assholes tear each other apart is too much to pass up. A brokered convention is what any libertarian or paleocon should be shooting for.

Kyle

Ron Paul is a certified "whack job". Mitt and the Huckleberry both make me want to vomit. McCain is just a little more tolerable on some issues. What's a mother to do?

[www.boston.com]

Killer

krose

Killer
I didn't

I voted for Ron Paul (big surprise, right?).

If Paul and Huck get a few delegates, and McCain (lemme get my barf bag ready...) doesn't wrap up the nomination this week, there's a chance for a very ugly GOP convention. The possibility of being able to watch these assholes tear each other apart is too much to pass up. A brokered convention is what any libertarian or paleocon should be shooting for.

Kyle

Ron Paul is a certified "whack job". Mitt and the Huckleberry both make me want to vomit. McCain is just a little more tolerable on some issues. What's a mother to do?

Come over to the dark side.

Killer
Ron Paul is a certified "whack job".

He's a whack job in the same way Jefferson, Washington, and Samuel Adams were whack jobs. I'll take that kind of whack job over the big government, military interventionist, anti-Constitutionalist, pro-centralization, anti-liberty criminals who comprise every other candidate on the list.

Kyle

krose

Killer
Ron Paul is a certified "whack job".

He's a whack job in the same way Jefferson, Washington, and Samuel Adams were whack jobs. I'll take that kind of whack job over the big government, military interventionist, anti-Constitutionalist, pro-centralization, anti-liberty criminals who comprise every other candidate on the list.

Kyle

I like a lot of his ideas, and I was definitely planning on voting for him until I looked at some of his other ideas. They're far enough off the deep end that I decided not to in the end.

Beeeej
but we should probably take it to the John Spencer forum.

*cough*

krose

Killer
I didn't

I voted for Ron Paul (big surprise, right?).

If Paul and Huck get a few delegates, and McCain (lemme get my barf bag ready...) doesn't wrap up the nomination this week, there's a chance for a very ugly GOP convention. The possibility of being able to watch these assholes tear each other apart is too much to pass up. A brokered convention is what any libertarian or paleocon should be shooting for.

Kyle

If the GOP nominates McCain, he'll win. There are lots of people in this country who would say to a pollster that they will vote for (heaven forbid) a woman or (heaven double forbid) an African American for president, but will pull the lever for the (gentile) white guy in the booth. I still firmly believe that the reason that Gore didn't win in 1980 was not because of 'hanging chads,' but because a significant percentage of the population would never vote for a Jew for executive office. If the creationists Romney or Huckabee win the nomination, I think the Dems will win. If, by some miracle, Romney or Huckabee, win, I will move to Canada, where they at least love hockey and favor science over myth.

BillCharlton
....If the creationists Romney or Huckabee....

You live in Kansas, Bill. You should know by now they call themselves "intelligent designers" not "creationists". I'm so glad I moved to a blue state...

KenP
You live in Kansas, Bill. You should know by now they call themselves "intelligent designers" not "creationists". I'm so glad I moved to a blue state...

The important thing is that this is the absolute, most appropriate forum on ELynah for this idiotic discu...oh wait.

I will move to Canada

Blah, blah, blah... my money's against your doing this, even if preacher "HAIL JESUS!" Huckabee wins. Everyone says this, and then very few actually follow through once they realize what else Canada stands for. For instance, their single payer health care system indicates to me that they don't believe in economic science.

I think the more important point is that I fail to see why I should be able to be driven from my home by a bunch of thugs who think they have an increasing right to control my life and diminish my freedoms. I still have hope that once enough people get stepped on, they'll rediscover the concept of natural law and recognize the state for what it is: an illegal criminal gang whose only goal is to enrich itself at our expense.

Kyle

krose
For instance, their single payer health care system indicates to me that they don't believe in economic science.

Just to clarify, you're aware that Medicare in the U.S. for the elderly (65+) and disabled persons is a single-payer system, right?

krose

I will move to Canada

I think the more important point is that I fail to see why I should be able to be driven from my home by a bunch of thugs who think they have an increasing right to control my life and diminish my freedoms. I still have hope that once enough people get stepped on, they'll rediscover the concept of natural law and recognize the state for what it is: an illegal criminal gang whose only goal is to enrich itself at our expense.

OH SHIT! Kyle is being driven from his home and we're arguing about POLITICS!?

TO ARMS, MY BROTHERS!!!

min
Just to clarify, you're aware that Medicare in the U.S. for the elderly (65+) and disabled persons is a single-payer system, right?

OMG! Someone forgot to tell me!

I'll wait for things to quiet down before I continue to comment. Pointing out fallacies to a bunch of ardent statists is not high on my fun list.

Kyle

krose

min
Just to clarify, you're aware that Medicare in the U.S. for the elderly (65+) and disabled persons is a single-payer system, right?

OMG! Someone forgot to tell me!

I'll wait for things to quiet down before I continue to comment. Pointing out fallacies to a bunch of ardent statists is not high on my fun list.

Kyle

Just so you know, Medicare's percentage administrative expense is way below any private insurer. We have a lot of problems with our health system, but Medicare is not responsible.

Jim Hyla
Just so you know, Medicare's percentage administrative expense is way below any private insurer. We have a lot of problems with our health system, but Medicare is not responsible.

And yet, as always, the truth is never as simple as the sound bite:

[healthcare-economist.com]
[alankatz.wordpress.com]

Kyle

krose

Jim Hyla
Just so you know, Medicare's percentage administrative expense is way below any private insurer. We have a lot of problems with our health system, but Medicare is not responsible.

And yet, as always, the truth is never as simple as the sound bite:

[healthcare-economist.com]
[alankatz.wordpress.com]

Kyle

Unfortunately, your first link won't go anywhere for me. The second starts out by saying that a study in 1/06 shows the difference to be 5% vs. 16-17%. That certainly seems like a sig difference to me. It then goes on to try and boost Medicare costs to 8% by the difference in payouts. When it can't find statistics to show higher Medicare costs, it lists a number of items to increase the costs. He even tries to show how the private insurance costs would be less if "commissions, profits and premium taxes are excluded". But that's the point you can't eliminate those because they are part of the premium costs.

Even the article cited states in the second paragraph "To be sure, the cost of administering Medicare is substantially less than the cost of administering private coverage (although this doesn’t count the the free-ride Medicare receives on the cost of its capital and customer service services provided by Congressional offices)." Whether Medicare's cost are 1/4 or 1/2 or even just 10% below the private sector, is not the point (and yes I know I stated they were way below), no one has shown it's more costly to do Medicare than private.

For another interesting article, which looks at other heath cost and benefits of single payer look at this weeks New England Journal of Medicine.

I doubt we can resolve this, but as much as you dislike stats that you disagree with, I dislike arguments that don't have the numbers to back them up.

Jim Hyla

krose
And yet, as always, the truth is never as simple as the sound bite:

[healthcare-economist.com]
[alankatz.wordpress.com]

Kyle

Unfortunately, your first link won't go anywhere for me.

It seem to have disappeared since I posted it. Here's a google cache version:

[www.google.com]

The reason I posted links rather than an argument of my own is that I don't want to get into a discussion in which the facts have to compete with your overwhelming rhetoric, but I also didn't want to leave your unsupported assertion unchallenged. You and the other readers can draw conclusions from the presented material.

Kyle

krose
... to compete with your overwhelming rhetoric ...

I take it from the google searches on the costs of health insurance administration and all that the jackbooted troops have retreated from the Rose homestead and I can call off the militia?

ugarte
I take it from the google searches on the costs of health insurance administration and all that the jackbooted troops have retreated from the Rose homestead and I can call off the militia?

I've already redeployed them on troll lookout.

Kyle

krose

Jim Hyla

krose
And yet, as always, the truth is never as simple as the sound bite:

[healthcare-economist.com]
[alankatz.wordpress.com]

Kyle

Unfortunately, your first link won't go anywhere for me.

It seem to have disappeared since I posted it. Here's a google cache version:

[www.google.com]

The reason I posted links rather than an argument of my own is that I don't want to get into a discussion in which the facts have to compete with your overwhelming rhetoric, but I also didn't want to leave your unsupported assertion unchallenged. You and the other readers can draw conclusions from the presented material.

Kyle

You may not want to get into a discussion of facts vs my "overwhelming rhetoric" (but you certainly don't mind subtle put downs, do you?), but I'd like to respond to your second article. To summarize, it still admits that Medicare probably has lower costs. With a lot of rhetoric it does however try and defend the position that what the insurance companies cost is justified. As an aside, my point was just that Medicare costs are less, not that it's better.

But, I digress from my main point.

Article
Private Insurance on average has administrative costs of 16.7% (varying between 30% for individual policies to 12.5% for large group policies). Yet these figures are inflated. If we exclude taxes and profits, as well as sales commissions, then the total administrative costs decrease to 8.9% overall and 8.0% for large group policies. I do not agree that commissions should be deducted from this this figure but profits and taxes certainly should.

Why should taxes and profits be subtracted? They are a cost of doing business that a non-profit doesn't have. The cost of a policyholder's plan has to take that into account.


To try and further explain away the differences, without any facts, I should point out, the following is quoted:

Economies of scale: There are large economies of scale in the insurance business; however ,large insurance companies can certainly replicate the majority of the scale economies Medicare enjoys.

Unfortunately, he shows no example of this happening.

Cost of Capital: Medicare incorrectly counts its cost of capital as 0. The true cost would take into account the direct cost of hiring IRS workers to collect the taxes which pay for Medicare as well as taking into account the distortionary effects of income taxation on workers labor supply decisions. For the private sector, the costs of capital is transparent: it is simply the interest rate.

So let's see them put these into the equation and estimate the costs. And ,is distortionary a word?

Demographics: Medicare serves the elderly population and thus has a high cost per enrollee. In 2003, the average medical cost for Medicare was $6,600 per person per year, while the same figure for private insurance was $2,700. Thus, if public and private health insurance had the same administrative cost per person, Medicare would still be seen as ‘more efficient’ since Medicare’s administrative cost ratio would be less than half the size of the private insurance’s cost ratio.

This is the argument that Medicare patients have higher health costs, therefore Medicare spends more per person, making their relative cost less. If Medicare spends more per person, then they also have more claims to process per person, and that would also increase their costs. You see rhetoric without the facts can sometimes be deceiving. As an aside once Medicare processes their claim, they electronically send it to the private plan to process copayements, deductibles, etc.. That's a cost that privates don't often do.

Finally, we need to realize that administrative costs are like people: some are good, and some are bad. What if a private insurance company raised its administrative costs by 1% , but was able to reduce fraudulent claims by 10% and reduce the premium charged to customers by 8%. This is an example of how an increase in the administrative cost ratio can add value. It is likely that private companies try to avoid paying for unnecessary medical treatment and are more vigilant to detect fraudulent claims then Medicare.

The operative word, likely, is highlighted here. Again this is an assertion that is not supported by any facts. I don't know of any studies that show that. Nor do I know any insurance company that's lowering their price because of fraudulent claims found.

So, I've given a lot of my rhetoric, which I know you don't like, however, what you post is full of unsubstantiated rhetoric of its own. You don't say the rhetoric, you just quote it.

Try reading the NEJM article, it's full of its own rhetoric.