#government #CuttingGovernment #GovernmentService #SocialSecurity #Medicare #Medicaid
It’s really easy to hate government.
It’s really easy to presume that government services are for “someone else,” perhaps someone undeserving of the favor.
It’s easy, until something gets taken away from you that you did not believe was a “government” program, or that you had “earned.”
Certainly, government is extremely in debt and that needs to be addressed.
Certainly, also, there are places and agencies in government that could run more efficiently.
But, think of government as a porcelain piggy bank. When it gets full, normally one would yank the stopper, take out some coins to buy what he or she had saved for and replace the stopper.
Generally, one does not take a hammer and break the bank to smithereens just to get some money out.
Also, believe it or not, bureaucrats are people, too. If you impulsively admire the sledgehammer or chain-saw approach to cutting government, you could be personally affected by it. Or, your spouse. Or, one or more of your children. Or, someone else you know and love.
If you are used to getting government help through, say, veteran’s benefits or Social Security, how would you feel if those benefits were taken away? Yes, you have earned them, through service or contribution, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t, or can’t, take them away.
Medicaid, which helps provide health care to those in financial distress, is used by more “everyday people” than you might think. It is not just for “welfare queens” and others you might dismiss as “undeserving.”
For example, do you receive health insurance through your employer, or through your own insurance policy? If you don’t, chances are you are using Medicaid.
Or, do you have a relative in a nursing home? Chances are, Medicaid is paying a good portion of that person’s care. Even if you are paying for the care yourself, most other patients in a nursing home rely on Medicaid because they simply cannot afford the daily fee for care.
If Medicaid goes away, the nursing home likely would close. Then what, for your relative?
The other danger from this meat-ax approach to cutting government is the access by unnamed, and certainly unapproved people to everyone’s personal data. Do you want your name, address, Social Security number and banking information in the hands of someone who should not have it?
Some may extrapolate this concept to ask who might BUY all that data, and who would get the proceeds?
In short, there is a right way and a wrong way to reform government. We all want government that is lean, but effective. The chain-saw approach might make great television, and some might say is long overdue.
But, government agencies need to work for everyone. Former U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, when he ran for president, said that 47 percent of the population is dependent on government for some funding in their lives.
In reality, we are ALL dependent on government for something. The best things politicians can do is to make sure it works well for everyone, that everyone pays for it according to their ability to pay and that it runs as efficiently and fairly as possible.
Peter
Tag Archives: government
ECONOMY IN PERIL
#economy #government #GovernmentEmployees #tariffs #inflation #eggs
Egg prices are soaring because of the bird-flu spread.
That is likely to affect prices diners will pay in restaurants.
If the market doesn’t bear those higher prices, restaurants could go out of business.
Then, if a number of federal employees lose their jobs, unemployment could go way up.
If those workers do not have paychecks, they won’t spend as much. It could put other stores out of business.
Will those furloughed federal workers find private-sector jobs? Perhaps some will. Perhaps others may have to take jobs that don’t pay as well as their government jobs, or do not have the same benefits they had with the government.
That will affect their spending, which could trickle down to other businesses.
When tariffs are added to the mix, they will raise the cost of many other goods. Most, if not all, of those increased costs will be passed on to consumers.
Much of this economic turmoil is government inflicted. Much of it is unnecessary.
Most people want to see government run as efficiently as possible. Many want to see less government overall.
Almost no one wants to see a broken government – particularly one that was broken deliberately.
The act of breaking government eventually will affect most, if not all, U.S. citizens and residents.
Even if you believe government needs to be overhauled, there are ways to do it that are both legal, humane and proper. They do not involve potential invasions of individual privacy.
Objections to what is going on are largely not objections to efficiency and lowering costs. They are over the manner in which they are being accomplished.
Perhaps some good will come from this turmoil. Perhaps we will be in a better place after the operatives are finished.
But, in the meantime, the economy – and the personal wealth and well-being of many individuals—could be adversely affected.
If you don’t like what’s going on, tell your representatives. Their jobs are on the line if the outcome is not good.
It’s easy to be frustrated, exhausted and demoralized by what is happening.
But, as with most adversity, one has to look for what is good in one’s life, what can’t be taken away and what each person can do to improve his or her own future.
It takes great personal strength to do that during these times.
Here’s hoping that everyone finds that strength and uses it to better his or her own life, and the lives of others.
Things are what they are, but they don’t have to be this way.
Peter
Egg prices are soaring because of the bird-flu spread.
That is likely to affect prices diners will pay in restaurants.
If the market doesn’t bear those higher prices, restaurants could go out of business.
Then, if a number of federal employees lose their jobs, unemployment could go way up.
If those workers do not have paychecks, they won’t spend as much. It could put other stores out of business.
Will those furloughed federal workers find private-sector jobs? Perhaps some will. Perhaps others may have to take jobs that don’t pay as well as their government jobs, or do not have the same benefits they had with the government.
That will affect their spending, which could trickle down to other businesses.
When tariffs are added to the mix, they will raise the cost of many other goods. Most, if not all, of those increased costs will be passed on to consumers.
Much of this economic turmoil is government inflicted. Much of it is unnecessary.
Most people want to see government run as efficiently as possible. Many want to see less government overall.
Almost no one wants to see a broken government – particularly one that was broken deliberately.
The act of breaking government eventually will affect most, if not all, U.S. citizens and residents.
Even if you believe government needs to be overhauled, there are ways to do it that are both legal, humane and proper. They do not involve potential invasions of individual privacy.
Objections to what is going on are largely not objections to efficiency and lowering costs. They are over the manner in which they are being accomplished.
Perhaps some good will come from this turmoil. Perhaps we will be in a better place after the operatives are finished.
But, in the meantime, the economy – and the personal wealth and well-being of many individuals—could be adversely affected.
If you don’t like what’s going on, tell your representatives. Their jobs are on the line if the outcome is not good.
It’s easy to be frustrated, exhausted and demoralized by what is happening.
But, as with most adversity, one has to look for what is good in one’s life, what can’t be taken away and what each person can do to improve his or her own future.
It takes great personal strength to do that during these times.
Here’s hoping that everyone finds that strength and uses it to better his or her own life, and the lives of others.
Things are what they are, but they don’t have to be this way.
Peter
PRESCRIPTION DRUGS, THE U.S. SYSTEM AND NEGOTIATIONS
#PrescriptionDrugs #DrugPriceNegotiations #DrugCompanies #tgovernment #PrivateSector
The United States is the only country in the world that puts medical care in the free market.
That tells the country that you get what you can afford, or, perhaps, you suffer or die.
The large drug companies, as well as academic research institutions, do the research that creates the newest, perhaps blockbuster, drugs, therapies and treatments.
That research, in the case of private companies, is funded largely by the (mostly U.S.) profits it makes from drugs, when they are approved and sold.
These companies want to maximize their profit initially because they know that drugs will eventually come off patent and can be duplicated by rivals.
That will lower the cost of the drug, usually.
Once a drug is developed and approved, the cost of manufacturing usually drops. Some drugs that cost relative pennies per dose to make are sold for up to thousands of dollars because the companies are trying to recover all their research costs.
So, the question becomes: why should a drug that has been prescribed for many years, that costs relative pennies to make, still cost so much long after the companies have recovered most or all of their research costs?
Perhaps it could be argued that the company is trying to pay for current research on drugs not yet approved. (What will they charge for that drug later, if approved?) Perhaps it could be argued that the companies are also trying to recover research costs on drugs that turned out to be busts, and never approved for sale.
Most of the drugs in the initial rollout of Medicare price negotiations with companies are drugs that have been around awhile. The companies by now should have recovered most, if not all, of their research costs on those drugs.
In some cases, companies are spending millions of dollars on television and other advertising to get people to ask their doctors about these drugs.
Perhaps, when Medicare starts negotiating prices it will pay for some of those drugs, the TV ads for those drugs will stop, or be cut back. That’s not good news for the TV networks and other media outlets that depend on such advertising.
In essentially every other country, drug price negotiations are the norm. There is usually only one buyer – the government – for the whole country. That gives those countries leverage to determine how much drugs will cost within their boundaries. (That’s why a lot of Americans buy their drugs from Canada or Mexico).
Because most medical care in the U.S. is in the free market, that hasn’t been possible here. Because of that, people not only had to be concerned whether a drug, or other medical treatment, was going to be the best for their conditions, they had to worry how they were going to pay for it. That’s stress atop stress unnecessarily.
In the U.S. private sector, a large-volume buyer usually negotiates prices. The more one buys, the lower the price per unit. The sellers want to sell lots of product. The buyer wants to pay as little as possible. So, they negotiate. Medicare is a bulk buyer of prescription drugs, and has never been allowed to negotiate prices – until now.
There is no telling yet how much prescription drug price negotiations will bring down the federal deficit, but, very likely, it could be considerable over a few years.
Therefore, there could be a two-part bang for the buck here. Medicare, and, ultimately, patients will pay less for the drugs they need, and the federal deficit could come down a lot. As a bonus, the drug companies will still make plenty of money.
And, over time, as the number of drugs that are subject to price negotiation increases, the difference could be huge, compared to the current situation.
The actual results have not yet been realized, but the whole idea could be a game-changer for the country.
Peter
WHAT IS DECEIT, AND WHO IS DECEIVING YOU?
#truth #deceit #4CornersOfDeceit #debate #facts #conspiracies
The “Four Corners of Deceit”: government, science, academia and the media.
The late radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh coined this term several years ago, as he claimed climate change was a hoax.
Contrary to that theory, former Vice President Al Gore called climate change “An Inconvenient Truth” in his book.
This is not just a simple debate. This “dispute” creates parallel universes of “truth.” One is smart to treat everything one reads or hears, purported as fact, with a skeptic’s ear.
But to take on our origins of knowledge without any basis of fact is reckless, even dangerous.
It has led to debates about what children should learn in school. Do we want our kids to learn only what we want them to know, or hear? Or, do we want them to learn the truth and follow the facts wherever they lead? We shouldn’t want them to believe things just because we want them to believe them. We should want them to be thoughtful, mindful and diligent about discerning truth from conspiracy, then making up their own minds about what to believe.
For example, certain types of discrimination are carefully taught in some households. But, as children go out into the world, they often find that what they were taught to hate cannot, and should not, be hated.
They may come across people whose behaviors they do not understand. But they learn that that is no reason to hate them.
Limbaugh may have found those institutions to be deceitful because they exposed things that were contrary to HIS version of the truth.
Certainly, one knows that not everything that comes out of those four corners is true. One can also ascertain that government, or some forms of media, can and do create narratives intended to make people believe what those institutions want them to believe.
But academia’s and science’s sole purpose is, or should be, to find the truth, teach the truth and not dress the truth in something that might make it look like something it is not.
By labeling our institutions as pillars of deceit does a disservice to our way of life. It does a disservice to our ability to advance our society, progress with new inventions and find ways to live even better lives.
Facts can be pesky things. They can get in the way of a good story. But, they can also expose REAL deceit among people and entities.
We’ve morphed into a society that, when someone doesn’t like something, he or she feels free to make up something different. We’ve come to believe that if someone with a big megaphone says something loud enough, often enough and unwaveringly enough, at least some – enough? — people will presume it is true, even if it isn’t.
Such a society is not a good place to raise and educate children. Children must learn how their ancestors created the world, and the tactics they used. Some of those tactics need teaching so the next generation will behave differently, and for the better.
No one is perfect. No one acts perfectly all the time. We make mistakes. But we, or those who come after us, must acknowledge those mistakes for what they are, so they will not be repeated.
Challenging certain truths can do real damage to the world we so carefully want to preserve.
Peter