America's Debts.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I agree with Col. Crackpot that those figures must include the mortgage.
It makes for a misleading figure because most people owe less than the house is worth and you normally don't treat a mortgage as consumer debt.
If the were the case, I'd be 225,000 dollars in debt which is my mortgage balance. I dont have any other debt at all.

[Stuart Mackey]

there would have to be parallel pay-extra services.

That's what I was imagining. Do you think that it would be feasible to run?

New Zealand runs a paralell public-private system of hospitals and it seems to work, kind of, yet better than what the US has.

[The Dude]

Those wait-times are caused by the fact that when someone is deemed to have a more immediately life-threatening problem, they get to jump the queue.

This is true of both Canada and the US - and so is not an explanation for our considerably worse wait times. Even if surgeries in US hospitals were prioritized primarily by wealth rather than urgency, as you seem to suggest, this does nothing to alter the median wait times: it simply changes who goes immdiately and who waits.

Our problem is that there is insufficient capacity (a virtually inevitable consequence of the government's monopsony) to handle both the urgent cases as well enough elective cases to keep the wait times reasonable.

It's a minor consolation that you will get to jump the line once your merely serious condition becomes critical while you wait.

[The Dude]

They do not allow rich people to jump the queue here because it's considered a social injustice.

Unless you're a politician or a pro athlete, that is.

[Edi]

Thing is, I'd imagine Canada also has some private hospitals where you have to pay costs out of pocket and which will cost you a lot more than the public health care system, but you won't have to wait. At least we have that kind of thing here. I've had one "elective" operation done privately (paid by my parents, it would have been impossible for me to come up with the money), because it would have been a several year wait for an operation to fix a problem that seriously decreased quality of life without being in the least bit life-threatening. I'd asked and asked from the public system, but it was always "We have no idea when", and they finally got back to me two fucking years after I'd already had the op privately. I'd already spent well over a year before the op trying to get some answer out of the public sector.

For that kind of things, which from the medical standpoint are not health problems at all but which just completely fuck up your life nonetheless, private practice is about the only way to have them fixed in anything resembling a reasonable time.

Edi

[moku]

Aha, but they still aren't spending nearly enough on the military. Just ask Shep.

The military is not the prime suspect, and you know it. It's entitlements pure and simple

the US Federal govenrment spends more than twice as much on social security & medicare than is does on the military.



simple pareto analsys shows us where the most effective cuts would be.

Shit, I am gone for 24 hours and 4 pages of intricate replies to sift through. Okay, bear with me, I have only read 2 pages, and out of those, this struck me as oddly incorrect.


Col. Crackpot, where did you get you graph from, I woulkd surely want to know, especially since those figures are quite wrong. In 2001 the US spent over half of the world's 1 trillion on the military. Added to a cumulative 18% that year. Then by the same institute (Stockholm International Peace Reseach Institute), in 2004 the US reached $956 billion, which is thanks to an 11% percent increase since 2001. Now 11% x 3 does not equal 14%.

Also 14% does not seem correct when you go through these figures:
* The US military budget is more than six times larger than the Russian budget, the second largest spender.
* The US military budget is more than twenty six times as large as the combined spending of the seven "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).
* It is more than the combined spending of the next twenty five nations., back then, but now tops the world altogether.
* The seven potential "enemies," Russia and China together spend $117 billion, less than 30% of the U.S. military budget.
* During his election campaign, President George Bush had promised an an additional 45 billion dollars over nine years to the military budget. Yet, that increase was seen in just the Fiscal Year 2003 request alone. This large increase is attributed to the "War on Terror". (First election, not the recent one).

And these figures, guess where they come from:
World Military Expenditures from the Center for Defense Information (CDI) and their Miltary Spending: U.S. vs the World table.

Take a peak at this:

$ 379 billion (2003) - United States
$48 billion - increase from Fiscal 2002 to 2003

$ 34.8 billion ( 2001 ) - United Kingdom

$ 29 billion ( 2000 ) - Russia

$ 27 billion ( 2000 ) - France

$ 23.1 billion ( 2001 ) - Germany

$ 18.7 billion ( 2000 ) - Saudi Arabia

$ 15.9 billion ( 2000 ) - India

$ 14.5 billion ( 2000 ) - China

$ 12.8 billion ( 2000 ) - South Korea

$ 12.8 billion ( 2000 ) - Taiwan

$ 7.5 billion ( 2000 ) - Iran

$ 3.3 billion ( 2000 ) - Pakistan

$ 1.8 billion ( 2000 ) - Syria

$ 1.4 billion ( 1999 ) - Iraq

$ 1.3 billion ( 2000 ) - North Korea

$ 1.3 billion ( 2000 ) - Yugoslavia

$ 1.2 billion ( 2000 ) - Libya

$ 425 million ( 2000) - Sudan

$ 31 million ( 2000 ) - Cuba

Source: The International Institute for Strategic Studies
The Military Balance 2000-2001


Now let's do the maths:
If we know that currently the figure is roughly $379 billion (2003) on the military, which is 14% of the pie graph, and we know the Social Security is 41% then:

379 B$ / 14 = 1/100th of the total graph. (27.07142857 B$)
(27.07142857 B$ x 41 = 1109.928571 B$

I don't know too much about politics, history, budgets (still kinda young), but in my eyes that looks like a delerious number almost 1110 billion dollars on Social Security and Medicare? Could you work out if 1110 billion dollars on Social Security and Medicare for 2003/4 are correct (going to bed)



Links and Sources:
[+] -- United For Peace.org - US Military Spending
[+] -- CBS World Military Spending Close to 1 Trillion
[+] -- CDI - Center for Defense Information
[+] -- CDI Resources - Military Spending
[+] -- Military Spending/Budget Articles


[+] -- How your government spends your taxes

[frigidmagi]

I disagree with the graft, but comparing the US spending doesn't tell us what percentage of it's own budget it spends on the military.

[Darth Wong]

Crackpot, saying that we should always cut the largest budget item first is like saying that a homeowner with a budget problem should cut his mortgage payments before he cancels his order for that new big-screen TV.

[Col. Crackpot]

Crackpot, saying that we should always cut the largest budget item first is like saying that a homeowner with a budget problem should cut his mortgage payments before he cancels his order for that new big-screen TV.

Don't misrepresentmy point. What i'm saying is that the potential for cutting waste is greater in the largetst programs than it is in smaller programs. Or do you disagree with the concept of pareto analysis?

[Darth Wong]

Crackpot, saying that we should always cut the largest budget item first is like saying that a homeowner with a budget problem should cut his mortgage payments before he cancels his order for that new big-screen TV.

Don't misrepresentmy point. What i'm saying is that the potential for cutting waste is greater in the largetst programs than it is in smaller programs. Or do you disagree with the concept of pareto analysis?

Yes, for the simple reason that it assumes the largest program must be the most wasteful and least necessary. That was the point of my analogy.

[Xon]

I don't know too much about the Canadian healthcare system, so bear with me.

Is there any way in Canada itself that a person who COULD pay for it get their sugery as a top priority? Even if it was something completely elective?

In Australia, we also have a very similar healthcare system to Canada. There exists private hospitals for that type of thing.

[The Dude]

In Australia, we also have a very similar healthcare system to Canada. There exists private hospitals for that type of thing.

In Canada, it simply cannot happen without significant reform; it is presently a criminal act to charge a Canadian citizen for gov't-insured services.

[phongn]

Moku, those numbers are pretty much correct. Here's some brief information on outlays for the FY05 budget:

Defense: 474 billion
Health & Human Services: 580 billion
Social Security: 554 billion
Treasury: 395 billion

Total: 2.4 trillion

[Enforcer Talen]

do we even *have* that much money?

[Beowulf]

do we even *have* that much money?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac ... os/us.html

US GDP: $11 trillion.

[phongn]

As it so happens, we have a deficit of 363 billion on 2036 billion in revenue. That (obviously) is made up in the way of loans.

[The_Nice_Guy]

On the issue of healthcare, I've read somewhere that part of the heavy burden on consumers in the US is due to the pharma companies recouping their R&D costs in the US, because they can't recoup the costs elsewhere. In other words, US consumers were subsidizing the rest of the world's(read: Canada's) drug needs.

I also remember somebody saying that implementing a Canadian health care system would kill whatever profits the pharma companies can presently drag out of the US. The most poignant sentence I read, IIRC, was 'The US is already the last bastion for our profits. If it's lost, we can forget about R&D in the future."

I imagine if we discount the fund transfer caused by R&D, the costs of US consumers may shrink dramatically. And if transferred onto Canadians, increase their already substantial costs by quite a bit more.

TWG

[moku]

Moku, those numbers are pretty much correct. Here's some brief information on outlays for the FY05 budget:

Defense: 474 billion
Health & Human Services: 580 billion
Social Security: 554 billion
Treasury: 395 billion

Total: 2.4 trillion

Which proves that Crackpot's graph is incorrect. Hehehe 1110 B$ to the actuall 580 B$... Thanks

[phongn]

What are you talking about? His graph says that the budget for Social Security and Medicare is 41% of the budget. My numbers show that the budget for SSA and DHHS is ~47% of the budget (the difference is probably that DHHS is not entirely Medicare).

[tharkûn]

And this is supposed to make us decide against it despite the fact that the alternative involves higher costs and the human tragedy of uninsured families ... why?

Because monopsonies tend to retard research and development. And the US faces far more diminished returns for going monopsonic than anyone else.

I am not convinced that the US government would actually be able to lower costs, call me cynical but their record of rank incompotence just doesn't inspire, particulary when the electorate doesn't vote on the issue. I'm also leery of turning all healthcare in the country over to the partisan process; I can do without either the extreme left or the extreme right trying to dick over the health services offered for ideological reasons. And if you don't think the fundies or the greens wouldn't try it, I have a bridge you might like to buy.

[moku]

What are you talking about? His graph says that the budget for Social Security and Medicare is 41% of the budget. My numbers show that the budget for SSA and DHHS is ~47% of the budget (the difference is probably that DHHS is not entirely Medicare).

What? I think I am thoroughly confused...

[phongn]

You said that Crackpot's original chart was incorrect and claimed that with present US defense spending his chart would imply Social Security and Medicare spending of ~1100 billion. You then implied that such a number was incorrect.

I then responded by posting the top spenders of the US budget which affirmed Crackpot's post. You misinterpreted my numbers by only taking into account Health and Human Services (DHHS) whilst ignoring Social Security (SSA). Summing up the amounts for DHHS and SSA gives spending of 1134 billion, close enough to my original number.

Ergo, your assertation regarding Crackpot's chart is incorrect.

[moku]

You said that Crackpot's original chart was incorrect and claimed that with present US defense spending his chart would imply Social Security and Medicare spending of ~1100 billion. You then implied that such a number was incorrect.

I then responded by posting the top spenders of the US budget which affirmed Crackpot's post. You misinterpreted my numbers by only taking into account Health and Human Services (DHHS) whilst ignoring Social Security (SSA). Summing up the amounts for DHHS and SSA gives spending of 1134 billion, close enough to my original number.

Ergo, your assertation regarding Crackpot's chart is incorrect.

Ahh. So Crackpot's chart is right, but I wish someone could add that amount that actually is. When people look at that chart (like I did), they might think the US is not spendning much at all, but ~400 billion is a shitload of tax payer money going into the military. They pulled out some important figures from that graph...

[frigidmagi]

but ~400 billion is a shitload of tax payer money going into the military.

Well the military has to do a shitload of stuff in a shitload of places. That takes money.

[moku]

but ~400 billion is a shitload of tax payer money going into the military.

Well the military has to do a shitload of stuff in a shitload of places. That takes money.

'For the good of the world" as Bush would put it. Fucking hell, the US should cut down on their weapons. They go and fuck up some poor country on the other half of the planet, claiming that they had nukes, bio weapons and a whole range of non-existant stuff, while the US has the largest nuke arsenal in the world. I smell hipocrasy.

They'll probably screw up their economy just like the Soviets did...