It is one thing to be too stupid to turn off the establishment outlets and conduct your own research.

It is entirely another to be a big government sycophant/operative who discourages people from getting weened off the system.

I have never met anyone that does that. Every person i've ever talked to that is in favor of social assistance has being off the system as an end goal.

Whether our methods work has always been the argument, not that anyone actively tries to keep people on it.

 

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All the families I work with too want to be off of it, but the problem becomes getting all the safety nets yanked away at once and then being worse off than you were when you made less money because of all the benefits. The programs are not set up to reward achievements. They need to graduate people off of things like Medicaid, subsidized childcare, housing, etc. If you get all the subsidizes at $22,000 but loose them all at $25,000 you are now worse off. Instead it should be tiered to allow people to acclimatize and work towards self-sufficiency.

The insurance industry is ridiculous. Clearly there is something going on when there are two different prices for things: one with insurance and one without. There are even instances when doctors will not perform certain procedures because the Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement is too low. So something like a C-section and then a tubal ligation, which can be done at the same time while the patient is opened up, is broken up into two different surgeries so that the hospital can charge more

It's not always the recipients of welfare programs that are scamming the government. It's the Rick Scotts and other greedy individuals at the top who are also stealing from taxpayers.

 

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Do you know what medicare actually pays for it? Not what they were billed but what they pay? Its usually less than what they are billed.

This is only true currently because of legislation going all the way back to the LBJ era. Illegal government mandates have completely shattered the normal insurance model.

The counter claim to this that is typically bandied about is that; "without government the insurance companies will rip us off!!".

There are two main problems with this counter claim. One, we're getting ripped off under the current system. Two, ending the unconstitutional government mandates and regulations that enable corporatism does NOT mean that you would be getting rid of criminal laws against fraud, collusion, racketeering, monopolizing, etc.

Lets say your back hurts and you go to the doctor - 9 times out of 10, youll walk out with a prescription for ibuprofen and vicodin.

Was the dr visit necessary?
Why not make those drugs OTC. They are both generic and cheap.

The dr office visit was added by the government as a way to force us to waste money.

The biggest problem with your argument is that it is not supported very well by history.

We've all seen the result of un regulated capitalism, and it wasn't pretty for most people.

 

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False, prior to the unconstitutional mandates of the LBJ era blue collar workers could readily afford routine medical care and insurance policies. (You can check that with NBER) It is the illegal and direct involvement of government that has since skyrocketed the costs, which corporatists so love.

It is highly ironic that the horrific and sweeping legislation of the LBJ era was called; "the war on poverty".

Those same blue collar workers were making a helluva lot more than blue collar workers are today...

 

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Ibuprofen sure......vicodin not so sure.

 

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