In article ,

The $400B figure is over 10 years. About 1/3 of that would be from
elimination of subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare
Advantage (Medicare part C).
This BS. Everybody on the MCare Advantage would have to go elsewhere.
So a lot of this is transferring the same dollars around hoping people
get lost.

This is a insurance company subsidy used by
maybe 20% of Medicare recipients. I have not seen a clear explanation of
the rest of it. Fraud is a major Medicare problem. One of the ways
health costs, in general, can be reduces is by looking at 'best
practices', which is in the bill. It is highly unlikely there would be
major cuts to health care that is provided under Medicare. That simply
does not work politically. Reducing medical costs, in general, needs a
lot more work.


Everything I have seen indicates that the single biggest money batch
comes from changing Dr.'s and hospital reimbursments. Of course this is
also the largest part of "magic money". I call this magic money because
it is just supposed to appear. The major reason this is MM is because a
day or two before the bill passed with all of these"savings" in doctor's
payment the COngress voted to suspend a 30% cut in Dr's payments. The
reason it was so big was because that is the cumulated "cuts" since that
had not occurred since the "Sustainable Medciare Growth formula had been
passed in 1997, and overruled every year since.
(Another piece of irony, the SMG formula was part of the Balanced
Budget Act of 1997).
Reducing medical costs isn't a politically viable option. If
anything, the hooha around the healthcare bill last year shows that
EVERYBODY now not only views healthcare as a right, but an absolute
right to however they much that they want at no (unhidden) cost to them,

This is, of course, not taking place in a vacuum. How much would
Medicare be reduced if republicans got what they wanted? The only
concrete proposal I remember was from Paul Ryan which the CBO scored at
$650B/10yr cuts to Medicare (with Medicare becoming a voucher system).
That is, of course, a lot larger than the $400B that the republicans and
Fox were hyping.
In real life? Probably about as much as the Dems, meaning little or
nothing.


One of the Medicare changes is elimination of the "donut hole", a major
problem for some people.
But still a lot less than before with NO coverage whatsoever. Also,
if you followed the debate at the time, the hole was largely put in to
placate a couple of Democrats who were concerned about not "paying for
it".

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On Jan 1, 1:48*pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 31 2010, 12:31 pm, Higgs Boson wrote:

Fox viewers are a self-selected group, imperfectly acquainted with the
idea, much less the technique, of critical thinking. *You must have
seen the recent study that showed these viewers to be the most
misinformed of any group. * They hungrily cling to any myth that
validates their own tiny, frightened self-image.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

And you must have seen the results of the last election that showed
most of mainstream
America thinks a lot more like Fox than Obama and the libs.

The smart republicans know the election was not an endorsement of
republican ideas.

It was however an endorsement of conservative ideas. Unfortunately,
many
republicans lost their way over the last decade in that regard,
particularly with
regard to out of control spending.


It was a cry for change in the economic disaster that is still too much
in force which had not sufficiently abated under democratic government.

I hope the dems keep believing that and go right on with their liberal
approach.



I really don't think, for example, that voters would be happy to remove
regulations on the financial system that would allow a repeat of what
just happened - likely in a different form.

--
bud--

The last part is what is most interesting --- "in a different form"

There have been financial panics, recessions, depressions, throughout
history,
without much regard to how much regulation there was. In the current
fiasco
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just as responsible as some of the
players
on wall street that created exotic derivatives. But those two quasi-
govt players
were under the supervision of Congress. They were run by liberal,
regulation
minded executives, who got paid hundreds of millions of dollars.
Barney Frank
himself stated Fannie was in no danger of failure just months before
it failed.

And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

The mistake liberals make is that they look at every imperfection in
the free market
system and assume that just one more law, one more regulatory agency,
will
solve it. I'm not saying that some new rules and regulation aren't
appropriate. But
at the root of the current mess is the simple fact that house prices
had gone up
dramatically, the govt itself thought that was cool and promotes easy
home ownership
for the most people possible. And you'd have to have been a
total idiot to not realize that in a market with rapid price
appreciation, be it stocks or houses
there is a real risk of a serious correction. Did we not see that in
the stock market in 2000
and learn from it? And that in such environments, creative
financing is being employed. The FED was providing easy money and if
there
wasn't anyone at the FED, Treasury, FNMAE, Congress, SEC, etc
knowledgable enough to know
that with easy money, rapidly rising housing prices, creative
financing, there is a very real risk of
something bad happening, then I don't see how more regulation, more
agencies, is going to avoid
the next crisis either.

On Jan 1, 1:46*pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 31 2010, 11:23 am, bud-- wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
bud-- wrote:
A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press about a
year ago
http://people-press.org/report/537/
found that almost half of regular Fox viewers thought "health care
legislation will create death panels", an absurd propaganda piece.
## And guess what? They were correct.
(Wall Street Journal, December 29th)
"On [last] Sunday, Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that Medicare
will now pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling as part of seniors' annual
physicals. A similar provision was originally included in ObamaCare, but
Democrats stripped it out amid the death panel furor. Now Medicare will
enact the same policy through regulation."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...57604570280391....
(San Jose Mercury News, December 27-28th)
"Welcome back, death panels. Really.
"New Medicare regulations taking effect Saturday will pay doctors who advise
patients on end-of-life care, including options for advance directives on
how they want to be treated. This is all the health care reform proposal
ever intended."
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stori...nclick_check=1
"They were correct"???
The Palin, et al, propaganda was that a "panel" would deny care to the
elderly.
- Where is the panel?
- Where is the denial? There is only counseling? Patients get the care
they decide they want. They can change their minds. Are republicans
against choice? (Or do they just lie about what is in legislation to try
to defeat it?)

What was/is proposed is only a "death panel" to an idiot like Sarah
Palin or someone who is dishonest (Fox?).

A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll about a year ago had 75% of Fox viewers
believing the health care reform would "Stop Care To The Elderly". Why
did such a high percentage of Fox viewers believe this insane lie?

--
bud--- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Bud, in all honesty, there is a death panel at every insurance
company, be it private or
government. * Surely you've heard all the stories over the years of
patients with a terminal
disease being denied access to a new, expensive treatmentthat offers
some chance of
success because the insurer does not believe the treatment is
justified. *In other words
they are making a judgement call on the cost/benefit of the treatment
options, some of
which will result in patients dying.

Of course. Also losing insurance if have big claims and caps on lifetime
payout.

It is one of the stupidities of the Palin, et al, death panel nonsense.
So is Palin too stupid to understand, or just dishonest?

I'd say a big part of the argument is that conservatives have a deep
seated
distrust of government and don't believe the founding fathers ever
intended that the
constitution give the fed govt the power to be in that position.





Progress was held up for 3 months while 3 democrats and 3 republicans
supposedly tried to negotiate a bill. Toward the end one of the
republicans, Charles Grassley, talked about "death panels".



As for Fox viewers believing that the bill passed would "Stop Care to
the Elderly", I can see
why they would answer Yes. * The bill was being sold to the public
partly on the basis that it
was going to be funded through huge savings in the current Medicare
program, to the tune of
$400Bil. * *I think many of
us believe if you reduce funding to Medicare, it will reduce some care
available to the elderly under
the current program. *The pollsters obviously chose and worded that
particular question to get
the results they wanted. *I believe if they actually do cut funding,
then it will stop some care to the
elderly.

Not likely there were problems with poll questions. There were problems
of people believing lies. The percentage of Fox viewers that believed
this was well over double the percentage of MSNBC and CNN viewers. (The
percentage of Fox viewers that believed there were death panels was
almost double the percentage for network news.)

First, I don't know what actual questions were asked or how they were
worded.
But clearly, if the wording was as you stated it, ie "Will the
proposed healthcare
legislation stop care to the elderly?", then I'd say there is a big
problem in the
polling honesty. That is a poorly worded question. What does it
mean? Stop
all care? Stop some care? IF it means the former, then the answer
is no.
If it means the latter, then IMO, the answer is yes. Unless you
believe the nonsense
that you can cut $400bil from Medicare and not have it reduce some of
the care.

So, I'd say what you are seeing is that Fox viewers, being more
informed, understand
the implications of what is happening. And if the poll was done
honestly and fairly, a
much better question could be asked. I'd like to start with a poll
asking those that say they
watch NBC or CBS news and those that watch Fox news who the VP,
Secretary of State, and
Senate Majority leader are. Let's see what those percentages are.



The $400B figure is over 10 years. About 1/3 of that would be from
elimination of subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare
Advantage (Medicare part C). This is a insurance company subsidy used by
maybe 20% of Medicare recipients.

Sounds like "stopping some care to the elderly to me"



I have not seen a clear explanation of
the rest of it. Fraud is a major Medicare problem. One of the ways
health costs, in general, can be reduces is by looking at 'best
practices', which is in the bill. It is highly unlikely there would be
major cuts to health care that is provided under Medicare. That simply
does not work politically.

Bingo! Yet that's the BS they used to push this bill, which no one
read, through
Congress. You admit that fraud is a major Medicare problem, but are
willing to
accept that eliminating that fraud will be a major source of funding
for an even
bigger govt program. And that there is no "clear explanation", is
precisely why
this should never have been passed.


Reducing medical costs, in general, needs a
lot more work.

Then why don't we get together the likes of Bill Gates, Jack Welch,
Andy Grove, Drs
health industry experts and figure out how to make the free market do
that, instead of
just passing some cobbled together new program based on lies?



This is, of course, not taking place in a vacuum. How much would
Medicare be reduced if republicans got what they wanted? The only
concrete proposal I remember was from Paul Ryan which the CBO scored at
$650B/10yr cuts to Medicare (with Medicare becoming a voucher system).
That is, of course, a lot larger than the $400B that the republicans and
Fox were hyping.

Let's look at one key republican proposal. That was to make it so
that insurance
companies could sell insurance policies across state lines anywhere in
the country.
That would open up choices for people and let free market principles
drive down
the cost. The Dems said no way. Not going to happen.

I saw Obama talking about how in one southern state, one medical
insurance company
has 80% of the market. Yet, the same day, when one of the democrat
leadership were
asked about fixing that, opening the market up to competition, the
answer was simple:

"That's a state issue and it's up to the state"

Yet, they have no problem forcing this national healthcare and all
it's requirements on the
states. Clearly they did not want any part of a free market solution.

And don't even get me started on the way they tried to get this
legislation through. Remember
the special $200mil for Louisiana to buy off the senator? The
$200mil to buy off the senator
from Nebraska? That alone was enough to tell you this stinks to
high heaven and should not
be passed until such time as it can be done right.



One of the Medicare changes is elimination of the "donut hole", a major
problem for some people.

And it'd going to create a lot more problems for other people. Right
now rates are going up for
most people with private insurance. You think the fact that they now
have to cover kids with pre-
existing conditions and "children" on parents policies until they are
27 have anything to do with it?

As for the donut hole, a simple one page bill could have fixed that.







And that brings up one of the stupidist parts of this whole plan. *The
govt actually wants us to
believe they are going to partly *fund a new program by simply
reducing waste and mismanagement
in a current govt program, ie Medicare. * Wouldn't a rational person
simply say, you've been running
that program for 45 years and it's full of waste, fraud and
mismanagent that comes to $400Bil.
Go straighten it out FIRST, then when we see the
results, we can consider letting you expand into a bigger program?

There are, in fact, a number *of funding mechanisms. Medicare cuts are
only one of them.

The CBO estimates the deficit will be reduced by over $100 billion in
the first 10 years and over $1 trillion in the second decade. Other
'independent' economists I have seen also say the deficit will be reduced..

The same has been said for every other govt program that then ended up
costing
3X. And CBO has to go with certain premises provided by Congress.
Do they know
how much all the existing fraud is? No. Do they know how much can
or will be
eliminated? N0.

It's incredible that you admit that Mdicare/Medicaid is full of fraud
and yet want
to let the same guys create yet another, bigger program. 60 Mins went
down to Florida
and showed some of the places billing Medicare/Medicaid. This one
billed $300K
last month for treatments, wheel chairs, its. That one billed $400K
for rehabilitation.
Only problem, when they went there, the places were empty offices,
with no people.
They interviewed guys that were former drug dealers, telling how they
move from that
tom Medicare fraud because they could make as much money, and if
caught, the
penalties are less.

The right thing to say to that is "You've screwed this one up badly.
You have 2 years to
fix it, get rid of the fraud, waste, etc." Instead it was, OK, here;s
another new program for
you to screw up based on the notion that a large part of the funding
is coming from fixing
the program you've demonstrated you can't run right.



The health care system we can't afford is the one we had.

IF you thinnk this one is bad, wait until you see what's coming.


--
bud--- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

wrote:
On Jan 1, 1:48 pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 31 2010, 12:31 pm, Higgs Boson wrote:
Fox viewers are a self-selected group, imperfectly acquainted with the
idea, much less the technique, of critical thinking. You must have
seen the recent study that showed these viewers to be the most
misinformed of any group. They hungrily cling to any myth that
validates their own tiny, frightened self-image.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
And you must have seen the results of the last election that showed
most of mainstream
America thinks a lot more like Fox than Obama and the libs.
The smart republicans know the election was not an endorsement of
republican ideas.

It was however an endorsement of conservative ideas. Unfortunately,
many
republicans lost their way over the last decade in that regard,
particularly with
regard to out of control spending.

Funny - conservatives didn't complain about huge deficits until
democrats were back in power. The deficit increased by about 80%, if I
remember right, under Bush 2. Under conservative darling Reagan the
deficit almost tripled. Trickle down economics worked so well...

The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.


It was a cry for change in the economic disaster that is still too much
in force which had not sufficiently abated under democratic government.

I hope the dems keep believing that and go right on with their liberal
approach.

I hope republicans actualy try repealing the health care bill. People
really want to get back to no insurance for preexisting conditions,
lifetime caps, losing insurance,....



I really don't think, for example, that voters would be happy to remove
regulations on the financial system that would allow a repeat of what
just happened - likely in a different form.

--
bud--

The last part is what is most interesting --- "in a different form"

There have been financial panics, recessions, depressions, throughout
history,
without much regard to how much regulation there was. In the current
fiasco
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just as responsible as some of the
players
on wall street that created exotic derivatives. But those two quasi-
govt players
were under the supervision of Congress. They were run by liberal,
regulation
minded executives, who got paid hundreds of millions of dollars.
Barney Frank
himself stated Fannie was in no danger of failure just months before
it failed.

Fanny and Freddie saw the money being made by other players and did the
same thing they did. They shouldn't have.


And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.

One consequence of deregulation was S&Ls got into investments that they
didn't understand.

There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).

Maybe 1/5 of the failures were fraud, or funding bad projects of
insiders. Changes that had been made in laws made fraud easier. One of
the famous ones was Silverado S&L which included Neil Bush, son of Bush 1.


The mistake liberals make is that they look at every imperfection in
the free market
system and assume that just one more law, one more regulatory agency,
will
solve it. I'm not saying that some new rules and regulation aren't
appropriate. But
at the root of the current mess is the simple fact that house prices
had gone up
dramatically, the govt itself thought that was cool and promotes easy
home ownership
for the most people possible. And you'd have to have been a
total idiot to not realize that in a market with rapid price
appreciation, be it stocks or houses
there is a real risk of a serious correction. Did we not see that in
the stock market in 2000
and learn from it? And that in such environments, creative
financing is being employed. The FED was providing easy money and if
there
wasn't anyone at the FED, Treasury, FNMAE, Congress, SEC, etc
knowledgable enough to know
that with easy money, rapidly rising housing prices, creative
financing, there is a very real risk of
something bad happening, then I don't see how more regulation, more
agencies, is going to avoid
the next crisis either.

Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).
- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.
- The housing bubble in general, but specifically
- Mortgagees that would likely fail. The originators didn't care because
the mortgage was sold to investors and the originator got big money.
Countrywide was a major source. Some of these used fraudulent
documentation, such as income verification, which the borrower knew
nothing about.
- Mortgages that were a scam by mortgage originators, appraisers, straw
buyers and others.
- "Monetization" of mortgages - a derivative The mortgages that were
likely toxic were chopped up and combined with other toxic mortgages.
Pieces of multiple toxic mortgages became an investment. (There may not
be legal documentation of original mortgages to foreclose on many of
these mortgages.)
- Rating houses like Standard and Poors believed mathematical voodoo and
highly rated the "monetized" toxic mortgages. (Or they just liked the
big bucks they got from the rating).
- "Credit default swaps" - another derivative. I can buy "insurance"
that my monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your
monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your investments
will fail. (I can see insurance on investments that are owned, but not
on others.)
One of the investment houses (Goldman Sachs?) created an investment for
others (at the request of an investor) that had a high probably of
failing. If I remember right big money was made on CDS. (Goldman Sachs
also created derivatives for Greece to hide its debt - with the recent
financial crisis in the EU as the result.)

The ban on regulating any derivatives, engineered by Phil Gramm, was a
major benefit to Enron. Gramm's wife worked at Enron. (Gramm was the
senior economic advisor to McCain-for-president until Gramm said, after
the crash, "we have sort of become a nation of whiners".)

Greenspan was also strongly opposed to regulating derivatives. (So was
Summers.).

Derivative were probably the major component of the crash. If no one
bought the likely toxic assets (un-monetorized) they wouldn't have
continued to be made. CDSs were what brought AIG down. Since derivatives
were not regulated no one knew what the exposure was. (Maybe AIG should
have just failed.)

Greenspan used to be a big fan of "self regulating markets". Who needs
regulation. After the crash Greenspan said he had been wrong.

So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".

--
bud--

wrote:
On Jan 1, 1:46 pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 31 2010, 11:23 am, bud-- wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
bud-- wrote:
A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press about a
year ago
http://people-press.org/report/537/
found that almost half of regular Fox viewers thought "health care
legislation will create death panels", an absurd propaganda piece.
## And guess what? They were correct.
(Wall Street Journal, December 29th)
"On [last] Sunday, Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that Medicare
will now pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling as part of seniors' annual
physicals. A similar provision was originally included in ObamaCare, but
Democrats stripped it out amid the death panel furor. Now Medicare will
enact the same policy through regulation."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...57604570280391...
(San Jose Mercury News, December 27-28th)
"Welcome back, death panels. Really.
"New Medicare regulations taking effect Saturday will pay doctors who advise
patients on end-of-life care, including options for advance directives on
how they want to be treated. This is all the health care reform proposal
ever intended."
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stori...nclick_check=1
"They were correct"???
The Palin, et al, propaganda was that a "panel" would deny care to the
elderly.
- Where is the panel?
- Where is the denial? There is only counseling? Patients get the care
they decide they want. They can change their minds. Are republicans
against choice? (Or do they just lie about what is in legislation to try
to defeat it?)
What was/is proposed is only a "death panel" to an idiot like Sarah
Palin or someone who is dishonest (Fox?).
A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll about a year ago had 75% of Fox viewers
believing the health care reform would "Stop Care To The Elderly". Why
did such a high percentage of Fox viewers believe this insane lie?
--
bud--- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Bud, in all honesty, there is a death panel at every insurance
company, be it private or
government. Surely you've heard all the stories over the years of
patients with a terminal
disease being denied access to a new, expensive treatmentthat offers
some chance of
success because the insurer does not believe the treatment is
justified. In other words
they are making a judgement call on the cost/benefit of the treatment
options, some of
which will result in patients dying.
Of course. Also losing insurance if have big claims and caps on lifetime
payout.

It is one of the stupidities of the Palin, et al, death panel nonsense.
So is Palin too stupid to understand, or just dishonest?

I'd say a big part of the argument is that conservatives have a deep
seated
distrust of government and don't believe the founding fathers ever
intended that the
constitution give the fed govt the power to be in that position.

So conservatives are prone to believe incredibly stupid ideas like
"death panels"?

The founding fathers never intended we have an air force or regulate the
airwaves.



Progress was held up for 3 months while 3 democrats and 3 republicans
supposedly tried to negotiate a bill. Toward the end one of the
republicans, Charles Grassley, talked about "death panels".



As for Fox viewers believing that the bill passed would "Stop Care to
the Elderly", I can see
why they would answer Yes. The bill was being sold to the public
partly on the basis that it
was going to be funded through huge savings in the current Medicare
program, to the tune of
$400Bil. I think many of
us believe if you reduce funding to Medicare, it will reduce some care
available to the elderly under
the current program. The pollsters obviously chose and worded that
particular question to get
the results they wanted. I believe if they actually do cut funding,
then it will stop some care to the
elderly.
Not likely there were problems with poll questions. There were problems
of people believing lies. The percentage of Fox viewers that believed
this was well over double the percentage of MSNBC and CNN viewers. (The
percentage of Fox viewers that believed there were death panels was
almost double the percentage for network news.)

First, I don't know what actual questions were asked or how they were
worded.
But clearly, if the wording was as you stated it, ie "Will the
proposed healthcare
legislation stop care to the elderly?", then I'd say there is a big
problem in the
polling honesty. That is a poorly worded question. What does it
mean? Stop
all care? Stop some care? IF it means the former, then the answer
is no.
If it means the latter, then IMO, the answer is yes. Unless you
believe the nonsense
that you can cut $400bil from Medicare and not have it reduce some of
the care.

So, I'd say what you are seeing is that Fox viewers, being more
informed, understand
the implications of what is happening. And if the poll was done
honestly and fairly, a
much better question could be asked. I'd like to start with a poll
asking those that say they
watch NBC or CBS news and those that watch Fox news who the VP,
Secretary of State, and
Senate Majority leader are. Let's see what those percentages are.

The conclusion of the poll is that Fox viewers are more misinformed.

I agree.




The $400B figure is over 10 years. About 1/3 of that would be from
elimination of subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare
Advantage (Medicare part C). This is a insurance company subsidy used by
maybe 20% of Medicare recipients.

Sounds like "stopping some care to the elderly to me"

Certainly not consistent with the paranoia seen in the home-town
meetings held by legislators about a year ago. It was fed by "death
panels" and other propaganda.




I have not seen a clear explanation of
the rest of it. Fraud is a major Medicare problem. One of the ways
health costs, in general, can be reduces is by looking at 'best
practices', which is in the bill. It is highly unlikely there would be
major cuts to health care that is provided under Medicare. That simply
does not work politically.

Bingo! Yet that's the BS they used to push this bill, which no one
read, through
Congress. You admit that fraud is a major Medicare problem, but are
willing to
accept that eliminating that fraud will be a major source of funding
for an even
bigger govt program. And that there is no "clear explanation", is
precisely why
this should never have been passed.

I didn't say there is no clear explanation, just that I haven't seen it.
It seems to be harder these days to get depth news programs that explain
complicated issues.

Probably not many people know that insuring preexisting conditions
requires a major change, like everyone having insurance.

Or that uninsured people still get health care - at emergency rooms.
Often more expensive than ordinary care would have been, and generally
paid for by others in medical costs. Estimates I have heard are
$1000/year for the rest of us. It is one of the reasons to try to insure
everyone.



Reducing medical costs, in general, needs a
lot more work.

Then why don't we get together the likes of Bill Gates, Jack Welch,
Andy Grove, Drs
health industry experts and figure out how to make the free market do
that, instead of
just passing some cobbled together new program based on lies?

Why haven't the republicans created reforms over the many years they
were in power.

And the new program is only based on lies for viewers of Fox.
The poll cited previously shows viewers of Fox are, on average, misinformed.



This is, of course, not taking place in a vacuum. How much would
Medicare be reduced if republicans got what they wanted? The only
concrete proposal I remember was from Paul Ryan which the CBO scored at
$650B/10yr cuts to Medicare (with Medicare becoming a voucher system).
That is, of course, a lot larger than the $400B that the republicans and
Fox were hyping.

Let's look at one key republican proposal. That was to make it so
that insurance
companies could sell insurance policies across state lines anywhere in
the country.
That would open up choices for people and let free market principles
drive down
the cost. The Dems said no way. Not going to happen.

It works if everyone wants the health coverage you can get in
Mississippi. A race to the bottom.


I saw Obama talking about how in one southern state, one medical
insurance company
has 80% of the market. Yet, the same day, when one of the democrat
leadership were
asked about fixing that, opening the market up to competition, the
answer was simple:

"That's a state issue and it's up to the state"

Yet, they have no problem forcing this national healthcare and all
it's requirements on the
states. Clearly they did not want any part of a free market solution.

The health care bill is still substantially free market. There is no
"public option".

And the free market has worked so well up to now.


And don't even get me started on the way they tried to get this
legislation through. Remember
the special $200mil for Louisiana to buy off the senator? The
$200mil to buy off the senator
from Nebraska? That alone was enough to tell you this stinks to
high heaven and should not
be passed until such time as it can be done right.

Wouldn't have happened if the republicans had not required a 60% vote
to make anything happen.

The purpose stated by republicans of requiring a 60% senate vote on
about everything was get rid of Obama in 2012. Maybe now republicans
will have to be part of governing the country.



One of the Medicare changes is elimination of the "donut hole", a major
problem for some people.

And it'd going to create a lot more problems for other people. Right
now rates are going up for
most people with private insurance. You think the fact that they now
have to cover kids with pre-
existing conditions and "children" on parents policies until they are
27 have anything to do with it?

The only practical way you can eliminate "preexisting conditions" is for
everyone to have insurance.

In Medicare, if you do not have other insurance you are required to
enroll in part B (or equivalent part C) or there is a 1% (if I remember
right) increase in the cost for every year you miss. Same reason as above.


As for the donut hole, a simple one page bill could have fixed that.

Funded by what?
Why didn't republicans pass the one page bill when they were in power?

(Bush's Medicare drug bill was not funded. And the administration
threaten one of the bureaucrats that knew that the plan would actually
cost to make sure he kept quiet.)




And that brings up one of the stupidist parts of this whole plan. The
govt actually wants us to
believe they are going to partly fund a new program by simply
reducing waste and mismanagement
in a current govt program, ie Medicare. Wouldn't a rational person
simply say, you've been running
that program for 45 years and it's full of waste, fraud and
mismanagent that comes to $400Bil.
Go straighten it out FIRST, then when we see the
results, we can consider letting you expand into a bigger program?
There are, in fact, a number of funding mechanisms. Medicare cuts are
only one of them.

The CBO estimates the deficit will be reduced by over $100 billion in
the first 10 years and over $1 trillion in the second decade. Other
'independent' economists I have seen also say the deficit will be reduced.

The same has been said for every other govt program that then ended up
costing
3X. And CBO has to go with certain premises provided by Congress.
Do they know
how much all the existing fraud is? No. Do they know how much can
or will be
eliminated? N0.

Does the CBO know how much can be saved by innovation? NO.
So they make estimates. It is what the CBO does.

Plus there are other funding mechanisms which you ignore.


It's incredible that you admit that Mdicare/Medicaid is full of fraud
and yet want
to let the same guys create yet another, bigger program. 60 Mins went
down to Florida
and showed some of the places billing Medicare/Medicaid. This one
billed $300K
last month for treatments, wheel chairs, its. That one billed $400K
for rehabilitation.
Only problem, when they went there, the places were empty offices,
with no people.
They interviewed guys that were former drug dealers, telling how they
move from that
tom Medicare fraud because they could make as much money, and if
caught, the
penalties are less.

The right thing to say to that is "You've screwed this one up badly.
You have 2 years to
fix it, get rid of the fraud, waste, etc." Instead it was, OK, here;s
another new program for
you to screw up based on the notion that a large part of the funding
is coming from fixing
the program you've demonstrated you can't run right.

You can put more money into catching crooks. (More money for catching
tax frauds would also make more money than it costs.)

Even with whatever fraud there is, most people would say medicare is a
good program with low overhead. The "public option" would be similar to
medicare. If medicare is so bad why did republicans oppose the "public
option"? Obviously the public option shouldn't be able to compete with
free markets.



The health care system we can't afford is the one we had.

IF you thinnk this one is bad, wait until you see what's coming.

Gotta be better.

--
bud--

In article ,
bud-- wrote:


The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.


Revisionist history. The surplus had peaked by FY 2000 and was almost
gone by FY 2001 (starting a full month before the election). So Bush did
not inherit a surplus and there is nothing to indicate that the debt got
paid off. Clinton just happened to be around during the Greenspan-Gates
bubble (Greenspan for the large length of time with easy money, and
Gates as a proxy for the great (one-time) changes in productivity
brought about by computers.




And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.
Nope. There were three major tides in the S&L. The first was during
the inflation before the regulators (mostly Dem at the time) got around
to letting S&Ls do things to balance the fact that before they had to
loan long term for mortgages, but got their money most short term. WHen
inflation took off S&L were saddled (by regulation) with income from
long term mortgages that were nowhere near the interest rate needed to
pay out what they needed to in interest.
Second was when Congress screwed around with taxes (big surprise
there). There were some major building projects that had been made
"viable" by tax rules, they were more or less shelters. The tax laws
were changed retroactive, and all of a sudden these project were no
longer viable on paper. (So, two debates, whether Congress should have
played with tax laws and whether banks should have loaned based on tax
related issues instead of actual economics).
The third wave was when Congress played with the rules again and
again retroactively. In order to get good S&Ls to pick up bad ones, the
appropriate regulators came up with "regulatory good will." This was an
asset that the acquiring banks could use to offset some of the bad loans
that they were taking on at the behest of the Government. Otherwise, the
acquiring bank couldn't take the bad loans and stay solvent. Essentially
the regulators said "We know you did not make this bad bet and since we
appreciate your taking it (and the bad S&L) off your hands, we won't
punish you.
Congress later came around legislated the ending of regulatory
goodwill and put a whole bunch of S&Ls out of business literally
overnight. BTW: A whole line of cases where the courts said that
Congress did indeed change the deal the federal government had made,
that they had no right to, and that the S&Ls closed were owed billions
of dollars in damages.


There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).
McCain was the only GOP member of the Keating Five, he was the only
one of the five who agreed to testify for the plaintiffs in the ensuing
civil trials. The Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of McCain
(and in the spirit of full disclosure- John Glenn) in the scheme was
also minimal, and he too was cleared of all charges against him.


Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).

Passed Congress (as required) by large (bipartisan0 votes in both
Houses. 90-8 in the Senate and 362 to 7 in the House (BTW: of the people
currently pontificating on how bad the bill was, only Barney Franks
voted against (and did so in the House Committee, and the first House
vote). Pelosi and Reid both voted to pass.
BTW: If you go look at most of the bills that people point to, the
same voting pattern holds. That idiot econ columnist for the New York
Times tried to put it all on Reagan (big surpirse there, not) pointing
to the repeal of some law (forget which one). At the time, I went to
Thomas.gov and looked it up. It passed with only 5 dissenting votes in
the House (Barney Frank again, I don;t like the man's politics, but you
have to admire his steadfastness to his ideals). It was passed by
unanimous acclimation in the Senate.

- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.
Yes those Evil Republicans once again "sneaking" things passed the
Dems. Just read the damn things or shut up (and that goes for both sides
of the aisle).



Greenspan was also strongly opposed to regulating derivatives. (So was
Summers.).

Bipartisan agreement (grin)


So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".

But the record is also ripe with indications that governments manage
to mess it as bad.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

In article ,
bud-- wrote:


So conservatives are prone to believe incredibly stupid ideas like
"death panels"?
Death panels exist and have for years. Heck, look at Oregon's Medicaid
program. They are the poster children for "good" health care rationing.
They have a certain amount of money to spend, a list of priorities and
when the money is gone it is gone. Whenever an Oregon health reporter
gets lazy and wants an easy tear jerker, they go find a cancer patient.
If you don't have above a certain likelihood that you will survive five
years, you don't get the treatment. Then the Oregon reporters note that
the Evil Pharmaceutical companies step in and give the person treatment.


The founding fathers never intended we have an air force or regulate the
airwaves.
Air force I might give you. It can be argued the only thing that they
called for was a standing Navy. Of course, the other side is that they
did not specifically ban and did give the Commander in Chief wide
latitude on purpose. Regulation of airwaves is a bogus argument (no
matter who makes it) since again, there was quite a bit of lattitude in
allowed under the Interstate Commerce Clause.


Probably not many people know that insuring preexisting conditions
requires a major change, like everyone having insurance.
No, it doesn't. You could have just as easily set things up as they
are now with groups. If you have insurance (or had within a certain
period) you are covered immediately. If not, then it gets sticky, but
seems at least as good a way to cover people.
Actually in MA under their current program, there is a line of studies
showing that people are coming into and out of the program as needed.
Seems that enforcement in real life is not viable.


Or that uninsured people still get health care - at emergency rooms.
Often more expensive than ordinary care would have been, and generally
paid for by others in medical costs. Estimates I have heard are
$1000/year for the rest of us. It is one of the reasons to try to insure
everyone.
Yet there are a long line of studies (from at least the mid-80s) that
show people with regular insurance use the ERs just as much, if not more
in some series, as those without insurance or with MCaid. The main thing
with ERs is open later so they don't have to miss work.



The health care bill is still substantially free market. There is no
"public option".

And the free market has worked so well up to now.
What we have now is not even remotely related to free
markets. First of all, as has been shown by the Annual Health Care
Expenditures study (put out by the Office of Actuary of Medicare but
covering everything.. BTW: The new is due out in a couple of weeks), you
don't pay all that much of the costs. Over the last 20 or so years, this
study has shown that less than 20% of all healthcare costs come from
pocket (and that includes the out-of-pocket expense of the premiums).
Nothing that is subsidized oer 80% by someone else is remotely free
market. Add in the fact that payor of services (your company or federal
programs) is divorced from the user of services (you and me) and makes
the problems even worse. Which, is further exacerbated by the fact that
since the subsidy is so heavy, we over consume to "not leave anything on
the table" at the end of year. There are more reasons why I keep saying
we should actually TRY free markets before we shut down. Lord knows,
there is nothing remotely resembling a free market in what we see, now.


Wouldn't have happened if the republicans had not required a 60% vote
to make anything happen.

Revisionist history yet again. The Dems major problems were within
their party. They couldn't get enough Dems to vote for it. They had an
absolute, filibuster-proof majority for most of the first two years and
couldn't get it through. The buying of the Dem Senators was to get the
Dems to vote for it, not because of anything the GOP was doing.




The only practical way you can eliminate "preexisting conditions" is for
everyone to have insurance.
See above. Unless you are going to send the IRS guys out to bring in
people and talk some sense into them, the everyone having insurance is
just a pipedream. MA shows us that.




Does the CBO know how much can be saved by innovation? NO.
So they make estimates. It is what the CBO does.
Interesting studies suggest that the CBO doesn't do all that good of
a job estimating. Back at least as far as the original MCare which was
past 10 year spending within 6 years.


You can put more money into catching crooks. (More money for catching
tax frauds would also make more money than it costs.)
The FBI was given enough money a few years ago to hire a bunch of agents
specifically tasked to MCare Fraud. Not a lot of good luck so far. This
is one of those things that the politicians have been chasing since at
least the mid-70s with little or no long term success. Too much money
floating around not to be syphoned off. This failure is pretty much
bipartisan.


Even with whatever fraud there is, most people would say medicare is a
good program with low overhead. The "public option" would be similar to
medicare. If medicare is so bad why did republicans oppose the "public
option"? Obviously the public option shouldn't be able to compete with
free markets.
Another untruth. There is a myth floating around that Mcare has this
really small number for administration. This is taking the part that
Mcare spends on its own staff, Congressional workers, some research and
looking over the shoulders of the Fiscal Intermediaries (FI). The FI
(EDS, the Blues, etc) are the ones that do the heavy lifting of actually
paying and processing claims and doing most of the reports. If you
factor in what the FIs are paid, the low overhead largely goes away.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

bud-- wrote:

It was however an endorsement of conservative ideas. Unfortunately,
many
republicans lost their way over the last decade in that regard,
particularly with
regard to out of control spending.

Funny - conservatives didn't complain about huge deficits until
democrats were back in power. The deficit increased by about 80%, if I
remember right, under Bush 2. Under conservative darling Reagan the
deficit almost tripled. Trickle down economics worked so well...

The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me
see....musta been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a
surplus that was paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.


Some conservatives bemoaned the deficit. Regarding Bush II, don't forget
the nation experienced 9-11, Katrina, and two wars.

Still, as regrettable as the increase in the deficit was over the eight year
period (some $800 billion), it was small potatoes compared to the $4
trillion debt under two years of the Obama administration.

On Jan 3, 3:16 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,

bud-- wrote:
So conservatives are prone to believe incredibly stupid ideas like
"death panels"?

Death panels exist and have for years. Heck, look at Oregon's Medicaid
program. They are the poster children for "good" health care rationing.
They have a certain amount of money to spend, a list of priorities and
when the money is gone it is gone.

The subject is the just-passed health care bill. There were no death
panels. It was a lie.
What was in the bill that allegedly were death panels is the same as
what trader referred to in recent changes in rules, reported in news
stories. [trader never said there were death panels.]

Death panels were either a lie or gross stupidity on the part of
Palin, Grassley, and others.
A lot of conservatives seem to be prone to believe absurd lies.


The founding fathers never intended we have an air force or regulate the
airwaves.

Air force I might give you. It can be argued the only thing that they
called for was a standing Navy. Of course, the other side is that they
did not specifically ban and did give the Commander in Chief wide
latitude on purpose. Regulation of airwaves is a bogus argument (no
matter who makes it) since again, there was quite a bit of lattitude in
allowed under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

There is "quite a bit of latitude" in many areas.

If a law is unconstitutional the Supreme Court will throw it out.
Where is the Supreme Court action on everything the tea party people
say is unconstitutional? Like social security. Medicare. Unemployment
insurance. The Federal Reserve Bank.


Probably not many people know that insuring preexisting conditions
requires a major change, like everyone having insurance.

No, it doesn't. You could have just as easily set things up as they
are now with groups. If you have insurance (or had within a certain
period) you are covered immediately. If not, then it gets sticky, but
seems at least as good a way to cover people.

As I said, "a major change..."

If you require substantially continuous coverage what happens if
someone, say age 22, doesn't have coverage and gets acute fungomungo
requiring hospitalization? They can't pay and don't have insurance.
The rest of us still pay through increased health costs. As I said,
estimates are $1000/yr for the rest of us now.


Or that uninsured people still get health care - at emergency rooms.
Often more expensive than ordinary care would have been, and generally
paid for by others in medical costs. Estimates I have heard are
$1000/year for the rest of us. It is one of the reasons to try to insure
everyone.

Yet there are a long line of studies (from at least the mid-80s) that
show people with regular insurance use the ERs just as much, if not more
in some series, as those without insurance or with MCaid. The main thing
with ERs is open later so they don't have to miss work.

I have an after hours clinic I can go to. They are easy to set up and
far cheaper than an ER. Also easy to build in disincentives, like high
deductible, for inappropriate use of an ER.

If you are uninsured you don't have that option. You can wind up in
the ER - they have to provide emergency care - and ignoring the cost
just for the ER, the care for a much worse condition can be far more
than treating the problem in a timely manner.


The health care bill is still substantially free market. There is no
"public option".

And the free market has worked so well up to now.

What we have now is not even remotely related to free
markets. First of all, as has been shown by the Annual Health Care
Expenditures study (put out by the Office of Actuary of Medicare but
covering everything.. BTW: The new is due out in a couple of weeks), you
don't pay all that much of the costs. Over the last 20 or so years, this
study has shown that less than 20% of all healthcare costs come from
pocket (and that includes the out-of-pocket expense of the premiums).
Nothing that is subsidized oer 80% by someone else is remotely free
market. Add in the fact that payor of services (your company or federal
programs) is divorced from the user of services (you and me) and makes
the problems even worse. Which, is further exacerbated by the fact that
since the subsidy is so heavy, we over consume to "not leave anything on
the table" at the end of year. There are more reasons why I keep saying
we should actually TRY free markets before we shut down. Lord knows,
there is nothing remotely resembling a free market in what we see, now.

What a wonderful idea. Everyone gets, and pays for, their own
insurance. If they want to. If they can get it. Better not have
preexisting conditions. Or run into lifetime (or sometimes yearly)
caps. And better not cost the insurance companies a lot - they
increase your premiums or figure out a way to drop you.

As an advocate of free markets I am sure you would not want to
regulate insurance companies.


Wouldn't have happened if the republicans had not required a 60% vote
to make anything happen.

Revisionist history yet again. The Dems major problems were within
their party. They couldn't get enough Dems to vote for it. They had an
absolute, filibuster-proof majority for most of the first two years and
couldn't get it through. The buying of the Dem Senators was to get the
Dems to vote for it, not because of anything the GOP was doing.

Revisionist? The republicans did not require 60% vote to make almost
anything happen?

The democrats are less ideologically pure and do have more problems
all voting the same. (Seems like that would be viewed as a plus).

It is asinine to think 60% votes should be required to do anything.

John Roberts is complaining about vacancies in the federal court
system. That isn't even a 60% problem. Why do republicans block the
senate from even considering appointments?


You can put more money into catching crooks. (More money for catching
tax frauds would also make more money than it costs.)

The FBI was given enough money a few years ago to hire a bunch of agents
specifically tasked to MCare Fraud. Not a lot of good luck so far. This
is one of those things that the politicians have been chasing since at
least the mid-70s with little or no long term success. Too much money
floating around not to be syphoned off. This failure is pretty much
bipartisan.

A lot of problems are bipartisan.

I would have to see cites for effort expended and lack of results. If
I remember right, the horror stories from trader included really big
red flags.


Even with whatever fraud there is, most people would say medicare is a
good program with low overhead. The "public option" would be similar to
medicare. If medicare is so bad why did republicans oppose the "public
option"? Obviously the public option shouldn't be able to compete with
free markets.

Another untruth. There is a myth floating around that Mcare has this
really small number for administration. This is taking the part that
Mcare spends on its own staff, Congressional workers, some research and
looking over the shoulders of the Fiscal Intermediaries (FI). The FI
(EDS, the Blues, etc) are the ones that do the heavy lifting of actually
paying and processing claims and doing most of the reports. If you
factor in what the FIs are paid, the low overhead largely goes away.

Cite - using a reliable source.

--
bud--

On Jan 3, 2:39 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,

bud-- wrote:
The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.

Revisionist history.

Revisionist? Clinton surpluses were paying down the national debt. The
surpluses under Clinton were in large part the result of (gasp) tax
increases.

The surplus had peaked by FY 2000 and was almost
gone by FY 2001 (starting a full month before the election).

Cite.


And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.

Nope. There were three major tides in the S&L.

What I wrote is what I have read from multiple sources.

It is consistent with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
While wiki is not always right, I suspect articles like these are
heavily edited (and may wind up locked).


There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).

McCain was the only GOP member of the Keating Five

McCain is a side issue and I said democrats were involved. McCain is,
I think, the only current senator involved and a recognizable name. I
could have looked up "Keating" - it is still probably a rather well
know name, and example of political interference which the intended
point of the McCain reference.



Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).

Passed Congress (as required) by large (bipartisan0 votes in both
Houses.

Significant parts of the underpinning of the disaster were
bipartisan.
One of the problems was believing Greenspan was God.

But I believe republicans, with an active hostility to regulation,
contributed more. A major player was Phil Gramm. And Bush 2 was
adverse to regulation.


- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.

Yes those Evil Republicans once again "sneaking" things passed the
Dems. Just read the damn things or shut up (and that goes for both sides
of the aisle).

It was an appropriations bill of something like 15,000 lines. "Just
read the damn thing" doesn't work so well. And I don't know about this
one, but it is common for appropriations bills to appear shortly
before they are voted on.

Gramm snuck the provision into the bill.


So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".

But the record is also ripe with indications that governments manage
to mess it as bad.

Governments can and sometimes do mangle things.

The crash was largely the result of lack of regulation. Also an
ideology that regulation is bad, and not using the regulatory power
that was there.

(And the usual suspects - greed, fraud, moral hazard, immoral
behavior.)

--
bud--

On Jan 3, 2:58*pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Jan 1, 1:48 pm, bud-- wrote:
wrote:
On Dec 31 2010, 12:31 pm, Higgs Boson wrote:
Fox viewers are a self-selected group, imperfectly acquainted with the
idea, much less the technique, of critical thinking. *You must have
seen the recent study that showed these viewers to be the most
misinformed of any group. * They hungrily cling to any myth that
validates their own tiny, frightened self-image.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
And you must have seen the results of the last election that showed
most of mainstream
America thinks a lot more like Fox than Obama and the libs.
The smart republicans know the election was not an endorsement of
republican ideas.

It was however an endorsement of conservative ideas. *Unfortunately,
many
republicans lost their way over the last decade in that regard,
particularly with
regard to out of control spending.

Funny - conservatives didn't complain about huge deficits until
democrats were back in power.

You keep confusing conservatives with republicans. Many
conservatives spoke
out about the deficits caused by out of control spending during the
Bush years and
criticzed him and the republicans in congress for it. They warned
that the republicans
had lost their way and ultimately it cost them control of congress and
the white house.
I was no big fan of Bush.




The deficit increased by about 80%, if I
remember right, under Bush 2. Under conservative darling Reagan the
deficit almost tripled. *Trickle down economics worked so well...

The economics of Reagan did in fact work extremely well and all
American benefited
enormously His policies turned an economy
that had high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates and no
growth, into
the marvel of the world, with 4% GDP growth, inflation and interest
rates cut in half
and people working again. Have you forgotten 18% interest rates on
US Tbonds?
10% inflation and 9% unemployment? What kind of federal debt and
deficit would
we have today, if we were paying 18% rates, instead of 4%?


And you can't look at deficits in a vacuum. When Reagan
came into office, the first year's deficit was 2.65% of GDP. In his
last year, it was 3% of
GDP. That hardly sounds like a tripling or an unmanagable amount of
deficit to service.
They are well withing the historical norms.
Contrary to the claims of the libs, cutting income taxes from 70% tp
35%, didn't cause
the deficits. Total revenue into the govt was $956bil in 1980 and by
1989 it had increased
to $1.2Tril. That's right, cutting taxes generated MORE revenue.
Along the way, we rebuilt
the economy, rebuilt US military power, and won the cold war.
Maybe it's time to stop bitching
about deficits and look at the big picture. Would we have been
better off with 70% tax rates, high
unemployemnt, stagflation and unable to respond to our enemies?





The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.


If you look at the big picture, that brief surplus was part of the
same long term
economic boom created when Reagan lowered the confiscatory 70% tax
rates.
cut deregulation, and re-ignited the American economy. That same
long term
period of tremendous growth, low inflation, low interest rates,
started from the early
days of the Reagan administration. Even under Clinton, while he
screwed around
with income tax rates a bit, they remained then and to this day, very
close to where
Reagan lowered them too. As Kurt pointed out, a large part of the
revenue that made
the brief surplus was from the bubble on Wall Street, which had
already peaked and
started it's bear market 9 months before Clinton left office. All
those internet and high
tech wonder stocks at 30000 times earings created a lot of capital
gains. You think
that was Clinton's doing or sustainable?







It was a cry for change in the economic disaster that is still too much
in force which had not sufficiently abated under democratic government..

I hope the dems keep believing that and go right on with their liberal
approach.

I hope republicans actualy try repealing the health care bill. People
really want to get back to no insurance for preexisting conditions,
lifetime caps, losing insurance,....



Apparently they do, because polls consistently show that most
Americans
didn't like Obama care. As for pre-existing conditions, can you get
a fire
insurance policy after your house is already on fire? I mean libs
through this
out like it's some horrific, evil business practice. In reality,
it's straightforward
business.

Now, note, I'm not saying that some part of an overall solution that
uses the free
markets could not include coverage for pre-existing conditions. But
to do so
basicly requires that everyone be required to have insurance. That
could be part
of a new plan. But the current one, the methods used to pass it,
stinks to high
heaven. So, I don't care if the republicans try to repeal it. Of
course it won't get
passed.











I really don't think, for example, that voters would be happy to remove
regulations on the financial system that would allow a repeat of what
just happened - likely in a different form.

--
bud--

The last part is what is most interesting --- "in a different form"

There have been financial panics, recessions, depressions, throughout
history,
without much regard to how much regulation there was. *In the current
fiasco
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just as responsible as some of the
players
on wall street that created exotic derivatives. * But those two quasi-
govt players
were under the supervision of Congress. *They were run by liberal,
regulation
minded executives, who got paid hundreds of millions of dollars.
Barney Frank
himself stated Fannie was in no danger of failure just months before
it failed.

Fanny and Freddie saw the money being made by other players and did the
same thing they did. They shouldn't have.



And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.

One consequence of deregulation was S&Ls got into investments that they
didn't understand.

There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).


Yet the solution is more regulators, right?



Maybe 1/5 of the failures were fraud, or funding bad projects of
insiders. Changes that had been made in laws made fraud easier. One of
the famous ones was Silverado S&L which included Neil Bush, son of Bush 1..







The mistake liberals make is that they look at every imperfection in
the free market
system and assume that just one more law, one more regulatory agency,
will
solve it. * I'm not saying that some new rules and regulation aren't
appropriate. *But
at the root of the current mess is the simple fact that house prices
had gone up
dramatically, the govt itself thought that was cool and promotes easy
home ownership
for the most people possible. * *And you'd have to have been a
total idiot to not realize that in a market with rapid price
appreciation, be it stocks or houses
there is a real risk of a serious correction. *Did we not see that in
the stock market in 2000
and learn from it? * And that in such environments, creative
financing is being employed. * The FED was providing easy money and if
there
wasn't anyone at the FED, Treasury, FNMAE, Congress, SEC, etc
knowledgable enough to know
*that with easy money, rapidly rising housing prices, creative
financing, there is a very real risk of
*something bad happening, then I don't see how more regulation, more
agencies, is going to avoid
*the next crisis either.

Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).
- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.
- The housing bubble in general, but specifically
- Mortgagees that would likely fail. The originators didn't care because
the mortgage was sold to investors and the originator got big money.
Countrywide was a major source. Some of these used fraudulent
documentation, such as income verification, which the borrower knew
nothing about.
- Mortgages that were a scam by mortgage originators, appraisers, straw
buyers and others.
- "Monetization" of mortgages - a derivative The mortgages that were
likely toxic were chopped up and combined with other toxic mortgages.
Pieces of multiple toxic mortgages became an investment. (There may not
be legal documentation of original mortgages to foreclose on many of
these mortgages.)
- Rating houses like Standard and Poors believed mathematical voodoo and
highly rated the "monetized" toxic mortgages. (Or they just liked the
big bucks they got from the rating).
- "Credit default swaps" - another derivative. *I can buy "insurance"
that my monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your
monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your investments
will fail. (I can see insurance on investments that are owned, but not
on others.)
One of the investment houses (Goldman Sachs?) created an investment for
others (at the request of an investor) that had a high probably of
failing. If I remember right big money was made on CDS. (Goldman Sachs
also created derivatives for Greece to hide its debt - with the recent
financial crisis in the EU as the result.)

The ban on regulating any derivatives, engineered by Phil Gramm, was a
major benefit to Enron. Gramm's wife worked at Enron. (Gramm was the
senior economic advisor to McCain-for-president until Gramm said, after
the crash, "we have sort of become a nation of whiners".)

Greenspan was also strongly opposed to regulating derivatives. (So was
Summers.).

Derivative were probably the major component of the crash. If *no one
bought the likely toxic assets (un-monetorized) they wouldn't have
continued to be made. CDSs were what brought AIG down. Since derivatives
were not regulated no one knew what the exposure was. (Maybe AIG should
have just failed.)

Greenspan used to be a big fan of "self regulating markets". Who needs
regulation. After the crash Greenspan said he had been wrong.

So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".



I believe you can put together a bunch of new regulations, a bunch of
new regulators,
massive new agencies, and collectively they will cost us untold
trillions in dollars, reduce
long term growth, make us less competitive in a world wide economy.
And then just like
in the past, you'll have the next financial panic. This isn't just a
US problem. Many countries
in Europe are in worse shape and they have followed precisely the libs
prescription for
economic success for decades: big govt, lots of regulation, public
works programs, govt
healthcare, etc.

A large part of what is happening today is a complete loss of personal
responsibility and values. Three
decades ago, if you declared bankruptcy, it was a personal disgrace.
IF you bought a house on flimsy
financing and lost it, it was a disgrace. If you ran a company
and it went bankrupt, it was an embarrasement and you'd be lucky to
get a high executive job
again. If you got caught getting a blow job from an intern, you
resigned. Today, it's all now
OK and whatever you can get away with, well it's just no big deal.
You just walk away and move
on and it's accepted.

wrote:

You keep confusing conservatives with republicans. Many
conservatives spoke
out about the deficits caused by out of control spending during the
Bush years and
criticzed him and the republicans in congress for it. They warned
that the republicans
had lost their way and ultimately it cost them control of congress and
the white house.
I was no big fan of Bush.

It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart.

On Jan 4, 6:23*pm, wrote:

The economics of Reagan did in fact work extremely well and all
American benefited
enormously *His policies turned an economy
that had high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates and no
growth, into
the marvel of the world, with 4% GDP growth, inflation and interest
rates cut in half
and people working again. * Have you forgotten 18% interest rates on
US Tbonds?

I remember 10% (or greater) interest on mortgages.

Cindy Hamilton

Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Jan 4, 6:23 pm, wrote:

The economics of Reagan did in fact work extremely well and all
American benefited
enormously His policies turned an economy
that had high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates and
no growth, into
the marvel of the world, with 4% GDP growth, inflation and interest
rates cut in half
and people working again. Have you forgotten 18% interest rates on
US Tbonds?

I remember 10% (or greater) interest on mortgages.


Me too.

I sold a house and put $10,000 in a CD paying 9%. Yippee! I made $900.00.

Regrettably, inflation that year was 13% and I had to pay about $180 tax on
the $900.00!

The Carter administration was just awful.

On Jan 4, 5:23 pm, wrote:
On Jan 3, 2:58 pm, bud-- wrote:

wrote:
On Jan 1, 1:48 pm, bud-- wrote:

The smart republicans know the election was not an endorsement of
republican ideas.

It was however an endorsement of conservative ideas. Unfortunately,
many
republicans lost their way over the last decade in that regard,
particularly with
regard to out of control spending.

Funny - conservatives didn't complain about huge deficits until
democrats were back in power.

You keep confusing conservatives with republicans. Many
conservatives spoke
out about the deficits caused by out of control spending during the
Bush years and
criticzed him and the republicans in congress for it. They warned
that the republicans
had lost their way and ultimately it cost them control of congress and
the white house.
I was no big fan of Bush.

I don't remember the big ruckus.


The deficit increased by about 80%, if I
remember right, under Bush 2. Under conservative darling Reagan the
deficit almost tripled. Trickle down economics worked so well...

The economics of Reagan did in fact work extremely well and all
American benefited
enormously His policies turned an economy
that had high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates and no
growth, into
the marvel of the world

If you borrow thousands of dollars from everyone (the deficit) it is a
lot easier.

....

That's right, cutting taxes generated MORE revenue.

I don't know of too many mainstream economists that believe the Lafler
(sp?) curve.

Maybe it's time to stop bitching
about deficits and look at the big picture.

So the stimulus package which, contrary to continuing lies, created or
kept millions of jobs (source CBO) is not a problem.


The last president that balanced the budget was .... let me see....musta
been a long time ago...Clinton. Bush 2 inherited a surplus that was
paying down the national debt. Didn't last long.

If you look at the big picture, that brief surplus was part of the
same long term
economic boom created when Reagan lowered the confiscatory 70% tax
rates.
cut deregulation, and re-ignited the American economy.

So the Clinton surpluses were caused by Reagan.


It was a cry for change in the economic disaster that is still too much
in force which had not sufficiently abated under democratic government.

I hope the dems keep believing that and go right on with their liberal
approach.

I hope republicans actualy try repealing the health care bill. People
really want to get back to no insurance for preexisting conditions,
lifetime caps, losing insurance,....

Apparently they do, because polls consistently show that most
Americans
didn't like Obama care.

Most Americans don't know what is in the new health bill or why it is
there.

What percentage believe lies like "death panels". About a year ago 47%
of republicans thought there were "death panels".

Republicans and propaganda mills have been very effective at lying
about what is in the bill. Part of the problem is there was no final
bill to defend. Part of the problem that democrats simply did not
respond to the lies. Part of the problem is the truth takes longer to
communicate than sound bites.

If the house actually tries to repeal the health bill it could be an
good forum to make it clear what the bill actually does.

As for pre-existing conditions, can you get
a fire
insurance policy after your house is already on fire? I mean libs
through this
out like it's some horrific, evil business practice. In reality,
it's straightforward
business.

I don't have much sympathy for people that intentionally didn't get
insurance. (But if their condition becomes critical they can still get
health care at emergence rooms, which the rest of us likely pay for).

But it may mean that you can't safely quit a job where you have
insurance and a 'condition', because you may not be able to get new
insurance.

Or if you loose your job with insurance you may not be able to get
insurance.

Preexisting conditions are a major reason for requiring almost
everyone to have insurance.


Now, note, I'm not saying that some part of an overall solution that
uses the free
markets could not include coverage for pre-existing conditions. But
to do so
basicly requires that everyone be required to have insurance. That
could be part
of a new plan.

Which is exactly why almost everyone has to have insurance in the new
health bill. Glad you agree.

But the current one, the methods used to pass it,
stinks to high
heaven.

Perhaps if the republicans didn't require 60% to pass anything you
would have fewer objections to the process.

Perhaps if republicans did not have a stated goal of preventing Obama
from getting a second term they would have participated in governing.


And in the recent past, we had the savings and loan debacle, which was
about
as regulated an industry as you can get.

That's pretty funny. Deregulation of S&Ls was a major cause. Most
deregulation was under Reagan.

One consequence of deregulation was S&Ls got into investments that they
didn't understand.

There was also inadequate supervision by regulators, and in some cases
political interference. A famous one involved McCain (don't remember who
else, but also democarats).

Yet the solution is more regulators, right?

The stated problem was inadequate supervision by regulators.
If there were not enough regulators the solution is more regulators.
If the regulators were opposed to regulation the solution is different
regulators.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my
view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the
banks,"
Source - Spencer Bachus, the new republican chair of the house
Banking Committee.

Does that sound like a good idea?


Some major causes of the crash:
- Repeal of Glass-Steagall, which kept previously kept banks, investment
houses and insurance companies as separate entities. This came out of
the Great Depression. Apparently we forgot its lessons. Repealed 1999
largely on the efforts of Phil Gramm (signed by Clinton).
- Ban on regulating derivatives. Snuck into an appropriation bill by
Phil Gramm.
- The housing bubble in general, but specifically
- Mortgagees that would likely fail. The originators didn't care because
the mortgage was sold to investors and the originator got big money.
Countrywide was a major source. Some of these used fraudulent
documentation, such as income verification, which the borrower knew
nothing about.
- Mortgages that were a scam by mortgage originators, appraisers, straw
buyers and others.
- "Monetization" of mortgages - a derivative The mortgages that were
likely toxic were chopped up and combined with other toxic mortgages.
Pieces of multiple toxic mortgages became an investment. (There may not
be legal documentation of original mortgages to foreclose on many of
these mortgages.)
- Rating houses like Standard and Poors believed mathematical voodoo and
highly rated the "monetized" toxic mortgages. (Or they just liked the
big bucks they got from the rating).
- "Credit default swaps" - another derivative. I can buy "insurance"
that my monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your
monetized mortgage investments will not fail. Or that your investments
will fail. (I can see insurance on investments that are owned, but not
on others.)
One of the investment houses (Goldman Sachs?) created an investment for
others (at the request of an investor) that had a high probably of
failing. If I remember right big money was made on CDS. (Goldman Sachs
also created derivatives for Greece to hide its debt - with the recent
financial crisis in the EU as the result.)

The ban on regulating any derivatives, engineered by Phil Gramm, was a
major benefit to Enron. Gramm's wife worked at Enron. (Gramm was the
senior economic advisor to McCain-for-president until Gramm said, after
the crash, "we have sort of become a nation of whiners".)

Greenspan was also strongly opposed to regulating derivatives. (So was
Summers.).

Derivative were probably the major component of the crash. If no one
bought the likely toxic assets (un-monetorized) they wouldn't have
continued to be made. CDSs were what brought AIG down. Since derivatives
were not regulated no one knew what the exposure was. (Maybe AIG should
have just failed.)

Greenspan used to be a big fan of "self regulating markets". Who needs
regulation. After the crash Greenspan said he had been wrong.

So, maybe you have not learned and still believe in "self regulating
markets".

I believe you can put together a bunch of new regulations, a bunch of
new regulators,
massive new agencies, and collectively they will cost us untold
trillions in dollars, reduce
long term growth, make us less competitive in a world wide economy.
And then just like
in the past, you'll have the next financial panic.

Much better to keep the old regulation (and regulators). It worked so
well a couple years ago.

This isn't just a
US problem. Many countries
in Europe are in worse shape and they have followed precisely the libs
prescription for
economic success for decades: big govt, lots of regulation, public
works programs, govt
healthcare, etc.

They stupidly invested in the derivatives created by Wall Street. Our
crash was also their crash.

And Goldman Sachs helped Greece conceal their debt - which was way
over what was allowed in the EU. Another big cause of EU problems.

If there was no linked EU, some countries would be doing well. Some
others, like Greece and Ireland, would be doing far worse than they
are (and they are in rough condition now).


A large part of what is happening today is a complete loss of personal
responsibility and values. Three
decades ago, if you declared bankruptcy, it was a personal disgrace.
IF you bought a house on flimsy
financing and lost it, it was a disgrace. If you ran a company
and it went bankrupt, it was an embarrasement and you'd be lucky to
get a high executive job
again. If you got caught getting a blow job from an intern, you
resigned. Today, it's all now
OK and whatever you can get away with, well it's just no big deal.
You just walk away and move
on and it's accepted.

Largely small time character flaws.

If you sell mortgages that are almost guaranteed to fail you get big
money.
If you package those mortgages into securitized investments you get
big money.
If you do voodoo math that 'proves' the securitized investments are
safe you get big money.
If you are in a rating house that says the securitized investments are
a good investment you get big money.
If you create and sell credit default swaps you get big money.

When what you created causes the financial system to crash you keep
the big money, almost always keep your job, and continue to make big
money.

--
bud--

On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 07:30:52 -0800 (PST), Cindy Hamilton
wrote:

On Jan 4, 6:23*pm, wrote:

The economics of Reagan did in fact work extremely well and all
American benefited
enormously *His policies turned an economy
that had high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates and no
growth, into
the marvel of the world, with 4% GDP growth, inflation and interest
rates cut in half
and people working again. * Have you forgotten 18% interest rates on
US Tbonds?

I remember 10% (or greater) interest on mortgages.

My first mortgage was 14.5%, down from 18.5% earlier that year when we were
looking for a house.