Trust in institutions

This is for discussions about news, politics, sports, other games, culture, philosophy etc.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

Dolan wrote:We don't need growing populations. That mentality that growth should be eternal and supported by growing demographics is close-minded and unimaginative. You can increase productivity and live better with smaller populations. And since automation is improving a lot lately, chances are we'll all be working in automation in a couple of decades.

EZ

Hope that works out for you then, when there are 2 pentionares for every working person :!:
But you raise a very interesting topic here? Automation and who will benefit from that.
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Sweden Gendarme
Gendarme
Donator 03
Posts: 5132
Joined: Sep 11, 2016
ESO: Gendarme

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Gendarme »

Gotta keep the pyramid scheme going, amirite?
Pay more attention to detail.
User avatar
Nauru Dolan
Ninja
Posts: 13064
Joined: Sep 17, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Dolan »

@spanky4ever
It might get worse faster, actually, considering most young people in Romania are leaving the country or getting ready to do so.

It wouldn't be such a bad thing if only pensioners stayed back in Romania. Because they're the ones who vote corrupt socialists every 4 years. And they're the ones who want the government to give them pension raises in exchange for keeping their eyes closed on the socialists' corrupt dealings.

Eventually if all taxpaying young people left the country, socialists would run out of working people from whom they can suck money to pay for electoral bribes and get elected by pensioners. It'll be justice being done. These pensioners have destroyed our future already, by voting corrupt socialist scum in power. They're going to get their comeuppance when we're all gonna leave the country and they'll run out of suckers to pay for their electoral clients.

Welp, this is a gross simplification, there are lots of pensioners who vote for reformists too, but the huge % of pensioners vote for socialists, because according to them, corrupt political sugar daddies are more trustworthy to run things. You're going to reap just what you saw, I guess.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

hmmm @Dolan I get that you are angry about corruption, and so you should!! I also guess you have experience of it. I agree with you totally on this one, corruption are basically the root of everything evil in governmenting. Lucky we do not have that big of a problem with corruption in Scandinavia. Not saying it is non-existing, but there are heavy bills to pay if you get cought.
One more thing, the freeloaders are a far less problem to the western communities, than the rich ppls tax avoidances.
I really hope that the western countries will cooperate to reduce this problem, in the near future.
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

Dolan wrote:@spanky4ever
It might get worse faster, actually, considering most young people in Romania are leaving the country or getting ready to do so.

What you are saying here, are strenghtening my argumentation about supporting young ppl who want to raise children?
The way its going for you right now, is like a ticking bomb, waiting to explode in your face :o
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
No Flag deleted_user
Ninja
Posts: 14364
Joined: Mar 26, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by deleted_user »

Dolan wrote:
deleted_user wrote:I didn't mention Europe and Communism once btw. Those were a surprising two sentences to read. They came out of nowhere. (Phleeoooooow! Is how it sounded in my head when I read them)



We agree that prevention is preferred.

Why do you focus on some casual remark about Communism, instead of addressing the whole wall of text that includes the arguments? That remark was only meant to emphasise that a flat tax is fairer than a progressive tax rate.

I said I'd reply in full tomorrow. Don't be dull now, Dolan.

I addressed the remark because I have never even once said a word about Europe and or Communism. It caught me by surprise and gave me laugh.
User avatar
Italy gamevideo113
Howdah
Posts: 1899
Joined: Apr 26, 2017
ESO: gamevideo113

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by gamevideo113 »

Not sure about how it is in Romania but here the government doesn't just "pay everything for you" if you are poor. I agree with you on the point that the hard working people should be rewarded for their work but on the other hand i also think that it would be unfair if kids didn't have roughly the same possibilities.
Take for example a kid born from a rich couple and a kid born from a poor couple. Why should the poor kid have less possibilities than the rich one? It's not my merit if i was born from rich parents, and i am already taking benefit from the fact that i was born in a rich family in many aspects of my life (i can afford clothes, vacations, technology etc etc) . At least let young people build their future! If the poor kid could not affor instruction because the government does not offer any economical aid then the social gap between rich people and poor people would simply become bigger and bigger and imo that's a social trend that really belongs to the past centuries and that i am glad that is now somewhat changed.
It's pretty obvious as you say that the government should not pay for poor people's whims. But having kids is not a whim imo. It takes effort and sacrifices to raise a kid properly and from the government's perspective it is important to invest in the new generations.
[Some people aspire to be pr30+, some people aspire to have fun, and some people aspire to play 3v3 Deccan.] - vividlyplain - 2019 Who (nationality) rape ?
stupid logic. noob players can say op?
toxic, Insult, Racism ?
User avatar
Nauru Dolan
Ninja
Posts: 13064
Joined: Sep 17, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Dolan »

Basic education up to the first master's degree is free here. If you're willing to get a free education, you can get it as long as you are willing to put the effort into it. Parents' wealth doesn't have much of an effect on someone's chances to get an education here. Though, very often, rich people here send their children abroad, to study at private colleges in the UK or Switzerland.

There is another effect of high wealth on education though. Quite often children of rich parents don't want to achieve much, since they already feel like they already have everything. So it's not uncommon to see them failing to even graduate from high school. There is a guy whose dad is one of the richest people in Romania and he failed to pass the basic baccalauréat exams, even though they were quite simple. He was driving to school in a Ferrari or in an SUV with bodyguards. Not sure what happened after he failed to pass the exams, but during the summer holiday he was flying to a seaside resort with chicks on board of an helicopter.

[spoiler=fatso]Image[/spoiler]

So wealth can also make people complacent and unwilling to put much effort into getting a good education. Since most of the time they actually don't need it. It's the middle and lower classes which invest more in education, because their life chances depend on it.

There isn't really such a thing as poor kids not affording education in Romania, I mean this is not a phenomenon. I'm sure there must be some peasants' kids who can't afford to go to school because sometimes their school might be too far from their house. Though, I think now they have some school buses that can take them there. You might still find some kids in broken homes whose parents don't work, but use their child allowance money to buy booze and then say they can't afford to send their kids to school. These are social cases, that probably happen in many countries, including the US. Education, up to the 10th grade is compulsory here, whether you get it in public/private schools or at home.
No Flag deleted_user0
Ninja
Posts: 13004
Joined: Apr 28, 2020

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by deleted_user0 »

Dolan wrote:
umeu wrote:
So you're suggesting poor people don't think of kids in terms of ends in themselves, but primarily as means to an end? There you go, that's the mentality I was talking about. How removed from everyday social reality Enlightenment tenets are.. And yeah, I know they're imperatives, not descriptions of people's real reasons to act the way they do. It's still a hilarious comparison. What is even more hilarious is that people who might be as rational as Kant expected them to be and avoid treating other people as means to an end are less likely to have kids, because they value human life more than those who spawn like rabbits. ^^


I wasn't suggesting that at all. I was saying, that if you consider it rationally, in our time, and not kant's time, because there was no such thing as a welfare state back then, it's actually rational to have many kids when you are poor. I'm not saying that that's how poor people think or that that's why they have many kids. What Kant says is about a moral code, it indeed isn't very practical, directly. But I'm quite sure that he was aware of that, you can call it naive, but I doubt it was directly naive. He's describing how we ought to live, not how we actually live. I've seen you talk like that about poor people and children and how they value life in general before, and it really shows a general cluelessness of the feelings most parents have about their children. I would say Kant was indeed wrong to assume many people would care to treat most strangers also as an end, rather than as means, but when it comes to parents, most parents probably do consider their children as ends in themselves, and not just as means. Even though they often are also a means, that means is usually happiness, and not leeching off welfare. Your views of which, as many others have already pointed out, are not quite hitting the mark. it's strange that when it comes to people not attending school in romania, you're able to distinguish between the fact that when some people do it, it doesnt meant it's an systemic problem. whereas when it comes to welfare leeching, you make it out to be systemic, even though most numbers don't support this. Even then, welfare leeching costs the state only a fraction of what tax evasion of the rich and multinationals costs them. Why not focus on the bigger fish first?
User avatar
Italy gamevideo113
Howdah
Posts: 1899
Joined: Apr 26, 2017
ESO: gamevideo113

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by gamevideo113 »

Well, i was rather referring to university. Attending university here costs 2000/3000 euros per year for a student coming from an average family. The price can increase a bit for rich people or decrease a bit for poor people, but you can clearly tell that if the price was set to 10000 euros per year for everyone a lot of students wouldn't be able to afford it and they would have to find a job or do something else even if they wanted to keep studying. This is what i meant with roughly equal possibilities for everyone. Then ofc super rich spoiled kids won't need to study as they can live by with no problems from their dad's income, but that is another matter.
[Some people aspire to be pr30+, some people aspire to have fun, and some people aspire to play 3v3 Deccan.] - vividlyplain - 2019 Who (nationality) rape ?
stupid logic. noob players can say op?
toxic, Insult, Racism ?
User avatar
Nauru Dolan
Ninja
Posts: 13064
Joined: Sep 17, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Dolan »

Your views of which, as many others have already pointed out, are not quite hitting the mark.

I described a phenomenon, I didn't make an exhaustive social assessment of what's going on in specific countries. It was a discussion about principles and welfare, that's where it all started.

Since when is others' opinions an argument, though?
User avatar
Nauru Dolan
Ninja
Posts: 13064
Joined: Sep 17, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Dolan »

umeu wrote: it's strange that when it comes to people not attending school in romania, you're able to distinguish between the fact that when some people do it, it doesnt meant it's an systemic problem. whereas when it comes to welfare leeching, you make it out to be systemic, even though most numbers don't support this. Even then, welfare leeching costs the state only a fraction of what tax evasion of the rich and multinationals costs them. Why not focus on the bigger fish first?

Yeah, because in Romania living exclusively on welfare is not as profitable as in the West. And since we don't have a progressive taxation system, there's not as much drama over redistributing wealth to increase the level of welfare. We know very well if we did that, we'd be overrun by requests for welfare. So it's better to keep welfare payments low, to motivate the unemployed to look for jobs.

I support cracking down on tax evasion of all sorts, especially on the rich. But bear in mind, some Western countries have insane levels of taxation. I know a fren from Australia who makes about $18600 per month from programming and this is how his tax bill looks like:
49% income tax
10% GST
9.5% superannuation
-------------------------------------------------------
68.5% of your money goes to the government

5k/year land tax
3k/year council rates

If I were in his situation, I'd skip the country and move elsewhere to work remotely. So I could probably understand, when you work hard for your high pay, you wouldn't want to only keep 32% of your hard-earned money, and send the rest to the government to fund higher payments for welfare queens.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

I get it, you have lots of Rom ppl in Romania, and that could explain some of your views on welfare freeloaders. @Dolan . You where pretty happy when lot of those ppl moved to other EU countries (I think), but I would like to ask you; how can we help that ppl in getting educated, and a steady job etc etc?? Did you do enough to help them previous?? Or is it just "in their blood"?? Im very curious to know your take on this, cos it clearly is a big problem, and not only to your country anymore.
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Nauru Dolan
Ninja
Posts: 13064
Joined: Sep 17, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Dolan »

It's a long story. And it starts with their name. They like to call themselves "Romani" or "Roma" which comes from "rom", which is how a married man or husband is called in their language. They came from northern India about 1300 years ago, after they got chased out of India, probably because they belonged to the lowest caste. Some genetic studies confirm they are descendants of the Dalit people from India, which are a caste of "untouchables". There's an article about this study here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... shows.html

When they arrived in Europe, as a nomadic people, they first settled in the territories which today are called Romania, because that was the entry gate of our continent, through which most migratory populations came. People have called them gypsies for centuries, probably because they thought they were related to Egyptians, since they have a darker skin. They spread throughout Eastern Europe and Russia where they lived like nomads, in caravans of wagons. They were enslaved by boyars from Eastern Europe (including from "Romania", which didn't exist with this name and territory back then), who used them for different jobs on their domains (as smiths, agricultural workers or as amateur musicians - aka lăutari). The first ruler or modern Romania, Alexandru Ioan Cuza abolished slavery and freed them from any dependency on boyars during the 1850s.

After they were freed from slavery, Romanian authorities tried to make them adopt mixed marriages, to make them integrate. Very few of them did that, most of them refused to mix with Romanians. So eventually they were settled in villages, usually in their own closed camps, because that's how they liked to live. They never wanted to mix with Romanians, not even in the same habitats. Communists tried to integrate them by giving them jobs, free housing and free education. They took the houses, but refused the jobs and education. And since they were used to live like nomads, they made a pigsty of those apartments they were given, which made people in the cities despise them. Since they didn't want education and refused jobs, they lived on the edge of society, on petty crimes, from stealing, swindling people. Those who didn't live a life of crime became smiths or lăutari (ie, amateur musicians who played Oriental music at parties). Some of them settled at the edge of villages, some in the cities (in the flats given to them by Communists) and some continued to live like nomads in caravans.

They continue to hold fast to their old customs, such as arranging marriages for their kids when they're 12, having their own laws and judges, and refusing to mix with other ethnic groups. So, the reason why they live like this, I think, is both cultural and genetic. I think there are some deep ties between genetics and culture, which keep this bond between them and make them reject mixing with other people. There are exceptions, of course, a small percentage of them integrated and mixed with other people and are hard to distinguish from ordinary Romanians today.

So, it's hard to predict whether it's possible to integrate them. I think it's impossible to do that without breaking up their communities and spreading them throughout the general population. Then maybe they would have to adapt to modern life, since they couldn't rely on their ethnic group to make a living on the edge of society.

Btw, not only Romania has gypsies, I just discovered that the biggest population of gypsies is in America and in Brazil. But lots of them still live in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe, since that's where they first settled when they left India and crossed the whole Asian continent to get to Europe.
No Flag lejend
Jaeger
Posts: 2461
Joined: Nov 15, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by lejend »

WickedCossack wrote:I think you are unaware just how poor the American health care system is. It is consistently rated the worst system out of every high-income country and has been for a long time. Approx 20k~40K people die each year in the US because they can't even get access to the worst rated healthcare that they offer.

To put it into perspective the average American taxpayer gives $10,345 (2016) per year to the government to fund healthcare. Add onto that any private healthcare insurance costs. In the UK it's $3,749 (2014) which covers pretty much anything. We spend less for higher outcomes which is the same story for every other high-income country.

It absolutely does not work.

You seem to think that this plan would cost more and provide worse outcomes (in the sense that they'd want to opt out) than the current system America has?


I think you'll find that most of the bad aspects about America's system are wildly exaggerated. But that's not entirely relevant to the discussion. The fact is that the system, despite being imperfect, works well for the vast majority of people. And you don't have to take my word for it.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/195605/amer ... -down.aspx

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/ ... poll-finds

So that's 60% to 70% who are happy with their health care plan.

I see your point that something should be done to address the concerns of the 30%. But do you see my point, that it shouldn't come at the cost of disrupting and worsening the system for the 70%? :|
Great Britain WickedCossack
Retired Contributor
Posts: 1904
Joined: Feb 11, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

  • Quote

Post by WickedCossack »

lejend wrote:I think you'll find that most of the bad aspects about America's system are wildly exaggerated. But that's not entirely relevant to the discussion. The fact is that the system, despite being imperfect, works well for the vast majority of people. And you don't have to take my word for it.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/195605/amer ... -down.aspx

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/ ... poll-finds

So that's 60% to 70% who are happy with their health care plan.

I see your point that something should be done to address the concerns of the 30%. But do you see my point, that it shouldn't come at the cost of disrupting and worsening the system for the 70%? :|


But .. it doesn't work well for the vast majority of people.

Even if we look at only Americans who can afford health care plans the percentage that are happy with the health care system is still lower than every other high-income country.

I mean we can take a more in-depth look at your links you posted since your 60% to 70% is potentially misleading?

Looking at the gallup poll we can break down satisfaction down into 3 groups, i) people whose healthcare is funded/supported by the government, ii) people who pay insurance towards a healthcare plan and iii) people who can't afford insurance and don't qualify to be supported by the government.

Group i) Medicare 75%, Veterans 75%, Medicaid 73%
Group ii) Union, 71%, Employer 66%, Personal 62%
Group iii) Uninsured 40%

Wait holdup a second! People who have a variant of social healthcare are more satisfied than people who don't? What?!?!?!

Your 60% - 70% includes a significant part of the population who have access to social healthcare, when we remove that the picture looks considerably bleaker. By saying 60% to 70% of people are happy you are essentially using the positive satisfaction of social healthcare to argue against social healthcare!

Looking at ages as well we can see that the 65+ category is bumping the stats up. For working people between 30-64 we can see an average of ~60% satisfaction. Which you seem to think figures of 60% are adequate regardless, I can't stress enough again just how shit and poorly ranked that is. Especially when individual Americans have to pay 3x more for worse outcomes than the UK and similar countries.

I don't know how much of it is down to just not having experienced healthcare in other countries and just not knowing the potential that is out there.

And again to your last sentence why are you so insistent that the system would be worse for those for those who are already "satisfied?" It absolutely shouldn't be as evidenced by social healthcare in every other high-income country working out with better health outcomes for more people at ludicrously cheaper costs? I get you have to believe that it will be worse though or else your argument falls apart?

The disruption concern is more legitimate but I think America is a well-off enough country to manage it.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

wickedly nailed it @WickedCossack - thx for that enlightenment :idea: :idea: :flowers:
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

Health care insurance in USA are so profitable (greedy), that even Amazon are getting insurance for their own workers. The rest of the "industry" are shivering with fear, that they have to share this lucrative "buiness".
SEATTLE — Three corporate behemoths — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase — announced on Tuesday that they would form an independent health care company for their employees in the United States.

The alliance was a sign of just how frustrated American businesses are with the state of the nation’s health care system and the rapidly spiraling cost of medical treatment. It also caused further turmoil in an industry reeling from attempts by new players to attack a notoriously inefficient, intractable web of doctors, hospitals, insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?redir_ ... escription

phpBB [video]


I would say this is good news - cos it could reduce the price for the individual person, and be like a band-aid, until a single payer are implemented (soon)

If some of you are interested in the Bernie Sanders townhall "medicare for all" who attracted over a million viewers when it was streamed by TYT? here it is https://youtu.be/lezXTpEFzJ8
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Russia Acolyte
Dragoon
Posts: 257
Joined: May 19, 2017

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by Acolyte »

:wood:
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

things are going to change in USA! right (@n0el - hope you are on the right side of history here)
so how do you raise money for it? well, do not get money from Big _Copr if you want to be get allected!
phpBB [video]


progressives : ppl who want to get your stinky money out of politics - guess what? they are going to kick your azzes pretty soon. Why? cos the US ppl are seeign though your shenaigans - FINALLY :flowers:
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
User avatar
Norway spanky4ever
Gendarme
iwillspankyou
Posts: 8389
Joined: Apr 13, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by spanky4ever »

Acolyte wrote:Poeple who voted Donald Trump can give you a picture of their low education. Its easy to manipulate lowest poeple of the society. Sadly that reflect true reality most of US country at this moment. I suggest poeple to maximise their school education and home education to undurstand of principle of the society. We must give our apolagize to poeple who voted trump cause their level school education.............


your though on this are not right though :cry: yeah. some of the poore ppl where lead on to beleavin in his lies. But the republican base did elect Trump + the evangelicals and the rich ppl + the desperate poor ppl- hoping Trump has some truth in what he was saying!
I really cannot blame them, cos the oponent was Clinton - just another corporate shill :hmm:

sorry for my english. hope you got the message thoug ;)
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.
No Flag lejend
Jaeger
Posts: 2461
Joined: Nov 15, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by lejend »

WickedCossack wrote:
lejend wrote:I think you'll find that most of the bad aspects about America's system are wildly exaggerated. But that's not entirely relevant to the discussion. The fact is that the system, despite being imperfect, works well for the vast majority of people. And you don't have to take my word for it.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/195605/amer ... -down.aspx

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/ ... poll-finds

So that's 60% to 70% who are happy with their health care plan.

I see your point that something should be done to address the concerns of the 30%. But do you see my point, that it shouldn't come at the cost of disrupting and worsening the system for the 70%? :|


But .. it doesn't work well for the vast majority of people.

Even if we look at only Americans who can afford health care plans the percentage that are happy with the health care system is still lower than every other high-income country.

I mean we can take a more in-depth look at your links you posted since your 60% to 70% is potentially misleading?

Looking at the gallup poll we can break down satisfaction down into 3 groups, i) people whose healthcare is funded/supported by the government, ii) people who pay insurance towards a healthcare plan and iii) people who can't afford insurance and don't qualify to be supported by the government.

Group i) Medicare 75%, Veterans 75%, Medicaid 73%
Group ii) Union, 71%, Employer 66%, Personal 62%
Group iii) Uninsured 40%

Wait holdup a second! People who have a variant of social healthcare are more satisfied than people who don't? What?!?!?!

Your 60% - 70% includes a significant part of the population who have access to social healthcare, when we remove that the picture looks considerably bleaker. By saying 60% to 70% of people are happy you are essentially using the positive satisfaction of social healthcare to argue against social healthcare!

Looking at ages as well we can see that the 65+ category is bumping the stats up. For working people between 30-64 we can see an average of ~60% satisfaction. Which you seem to think figures of 60% are adequate regardless, I can't stress enough again just how shit and poorly ranked that is. Especially when individual Americans have to pay 3x more for worse outcomes than the UK and similar countries.

I don't know how much of it is down to just not having experienced healthcare in other countries and just not knowing the potential that is out there.


Now you keep saying how people's subjective ratings of the health care system are unimportant, because, supposedly, it results in poorer health outcomes than other countries' systems do.

But studies show that, in America, people on government health insurance programs show no improved health outcomes compared to uninsured people. By your logic, then, aren't these government health insurance programs a waste of money?

Now I don't want to have another long and drawn-out discussion about health care. I just encourage you to dedicate a little time to haring the other side's argument. Like I said before, a lot of the popular beliefs about the US health system are false or exaggerated. There is a difference between what politicians, advocacy researchers and laymen say, and what neutral researchers who study the topic say.

And again to your last sentence why are you so insistent that the system would be worse for those for those who are already "satisfied?" It absolutely shouldn't be as evidenced by social healthcare in every other high-income country working out with better health outcomes for more people at ludicrously cheaper costs? I get you have to believe that it will be worse though or else your argument falls apart?

The disruption concern is more legitimate but I think America is a well-off enough country to manage it.


Well that is not very reassuring when an issue of life and death is involved. Most people abhor change. Most people feel that the current system works well for them. People are not going to give up a system that works for their families, in exchange for a vaguely-described, unprecedented, and major overhaul of the system. "I'm sure we'll manage", and, "we'll figure something out", aren't really serious plans. "You'll have to pay more now, but it'll be cheaper in the long run. Honest!", isn't credible coming from politicians. People would rather have one bird in the hand than two in the bush. Everyone understands this. That is why Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike are united against socialized medicine. If it can't pass in California, Vermont and Colorado, then it won't pass nationally.

The preferred system for most people right now is private for those who can afford it, and government subsidies for those who can't afford it. There is also widespread support for measures to reduce the cost of health care and insurance.

But pretty much nobody other than fringe progressive activists, shunned by their own party, supports government insurance for the general population. The government control and the taxes needed to support it are just too unpopular.
Great Britain WickedCossack
Retired Contributor
Posts: 1904
Joined: Feb 11, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

  • Quote

Post by WickedCossack »

lejend wrote:Now you keep saying how people's subjective ratings of the health care system are unimportant, because, supposedly, it results in poorer health outcomes than other countries' systems do.


Lol wait what, have I said they are unimportant or even alluded to that even once let alone repeatedly? :huh:

To clarify my previous post was highlighting how you were using people's positive subjective ratings of social health care programs in America (relative to other options) to argue against social health programs by disingenuously lumping their opinions in with insured/uninsured people to manipulate your statistic. Yes I absolutely value their opinion, it seems you are the one who doesn't?

Not supposedly, America does have poorer health outcomes than every other high-income country. A cursory google search would reveal that. Here's just one link from the commonwealth fund demonstrating just that: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/interactives/2017/july/mirror-mirror/

lejend wrote:But studies show that, in America, people on government health insurance programs show no improved health outcomes compared to uninsured people. By your logic, then, aren't these government health insurance programs a waste of money?


What studies show that insured people have no improved health outcomes over uninsured?

Again I just did a cursory google search of uninsured vs insured and almost every single study/article/link paints a rather different picture. These are studies cited hundreds of times.

Just to humour you here are a couple of the very first results:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2881446/
"Based on the evidence to date, the health consequences of uninsurance are real, vary in magnitude in a clinically consistent manner, strengthen the argument for universal coverage in the United States, and underscore the importance of evidence-based determinations in providing health care to a diverse population of adults."
https://www.kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/
"People without insurance coverage have worse access to care than people who are insured. One in five uninsured adults in 2016 went without needed medical care due to cost."

I don't like to include anecdotal evidence usually but just to add in I was reading about a type 1 diabetic a few weeks ago (https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/insulin-access-deaths) who because he couldn't afford his medical supplies started a crowd funding campaign on gofundme to raise money. He didn't raise enough money and died. But you're telling me there's no difference between insured and uninsured health outcomes?

Actually to be fair to you I did just find one study coming out of Oregon that people are debating over on Medicaid that seems to be the lynch-pin for every counter argument on this topic. Factcheck https://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/is-medicaid-bad-for-your-health/ seems to suggest it's bullshit. Is it just this one study or are there others, I'd be interested to see?

lejend wrote:Now I don't want to have another long and drawn-out discussion about health care. I just encourage you to dedicate a little time to haring the other side's argument. Like I said before, a lot of the popular beliefs about the US health system are false or exaggerated. There is a difference between what politicians, advocacy researchers and laymen say, and what neutral researchers who study the topic say.

Well that is not very reassuring when an issue of life and death is involved. Most people abhor change. Most people feel that the current system works well for them. People are not going to give up a system that works for their families, in exchange for a vaguely-described, unprecedented, and major overhaul of the system. "I'm sure we'll manage", and, "we'll figure something out", aren't really serious plans. "You'll have to pay more now, but it'll be cheaper in the long run. Honest!", isn't credible coming from politicians. People would rather have one bird in the hand than two in the bush. Everyone understands this. That is why Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike are united against socialized medicine. If it can't pass in California, Vermont and Colorado, then it won't pass nationally.

The preferred system for most people right now is private for those who can afford it, and government subsidies for those who can't afford it. There is also widespread support for measures to reduce the cost of health care and insurance.

But pretty much nobody other than fringe progressive activists, shunned by their own party, supports government insurance for the general population. The government control and the taxes needed to support it are just too unpopular.


You keep saying the current system works? You are paying 3x more than me for worse health care, 20k-40k people die each year purely because they can't afford to get access to healthcare, your public satisfaction rates are lower than every other high-income country. How is that working?

Now I'm not going to argue for the specifics of the plan but I imagine if the entire plan was "I'm sure we'll manage" and "We'll figure something out" I probably wouldn't be in favour of it either. My point is that social healthcare has been shown to work in other countries providing better health outcomes at cheaper costs. I fail to see why this wouldn't be possible in America also.

The American health care system is plagued by corruption, possibly more-so in any other country. Anytime you have significant market forces involved you'll get politicians and industry workers with financial interests dominating hence why you pay insanely more than I do. Socialised health care drastically reduces market forces and in theory costs should go down. Of course the industry and corrupted politicians do a good job convincing Americans that transitioning away would involve your taxes going up.

In response to you saying "I just need to hear the other side of the argument", well what is it?

-That some people don't like change? Sure that's always been true.
-That there's one study coming out of Oregon saying that Medicaid doesn't show an improvement over uninsured? Sure I'll probably side with the vast mountains of evidence on the other side over that, maybe Medicaid could use significant changes too I don't really know a lot about it.
-That it will cost more? It's hard for me to take this seriously when I pay so much less than you do for better results.

What's the convincing argument here? Help me to see it!
No Flag lejend
Jaeger
Posts: 2461
Joined: Nov 15, 2015

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by lejend »

I will give you a response within a few days. It's good to have a productive discussion without personal attacks around here. :flowers: @WickedCossack
No Flag deleted_user0
Ninja
Posts: 13004
Joined: Apr 28, 2020

Re: Trust in institutions

Post by deleted_user0 »

He will soon realise who he's talking to and either give up or start calling you out for what you are :)

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests

Which top 10 players do you wish to see listed?

All-time

Active last two weeks

Active last month

Supremacy

Treaty

Official

ESOC Patch

Treaty Patch

1v1 Elo

2v2 Elo

3v3 Elo

Power Rating

Which streams do you wish to see listed?

Twitch

Age of Empires III

Age of Empires IV