61–70 of 133 posts
In the US a lot of us grew up with the idea that when something really bad was happening you would dial 911 and people would appear very soon to help you. I don't know whether this myth was ever true, but it certainly is not true today. I have called 911 or its equivalent more than a dozen times on three continents. No magic helping people appear within five minutes. Or ten. Usually not twenty either. Sometimes not a…
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I founded and ran a VoIP 9-1-1 company for a few years. 911 is run and financed at the very local level. There's around 9000 PSAPs (public safety answering points) in the US, most of them have a large amount of leeway in doing their own thing. (Some states have better state-level coordination.) It's a not-excellently-paid job that is extremely stressful. It's extremely traumatic to hear someone dying, begging you for…
Could you and your guantamllan neighbors cooperate to share those guards amongst several houses? You could even create an easy to remember phone number ;) Kidding aside, thank you for the thoughtful post.
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Depends on where you live. In some areas you pay for something akin to fire insurance - a yearly fee that covers fire service. You don't have to pay, but the fire department isn't under any obligation to help you if you don't. And if you engage their services on an as-needed basis it's going to be very expensive.
Someone shouldn't be able to opt out of fire insurance - a fire can start more fires and have other repercuasions beyond the owner's property
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But does the public version cost less than the private one. I would be shocked if it did.
You'd have to analyze it on a case-by-case basis. The hope would be that public programs have less of a profit incentive to gouge people. That said, public programs are often bloated. However, that bloat often comes from contracting out to private entities with connections. Going pure private, profit motives may cause an entity to strive for efficiency, or it could make them strive to have a monopoly stranglehold on…
They have great diversification. In some locations they have monopoly. If you need immediate help (you see or are member of accident, you have strong pain no matter where (head, teeth, back)) you have almost no choice. You are still calling emergency and/or paying to one pocket.
From one side, public hospital all very old and incredibly indebted, outdated medical devices, buildings are old and need renovation. Mentioned corp invested huge amount of money in renovation, improving environment and business process. People have better services and new private hospitals has very good financial health and level of customer services.
On the other hand, very sad thing is that public representatives are able only talk about nothing and perform reformation feasibility studies and studies about studies. They are not able to get needed public services to desired level. If private corps will own entire public health-care system this will be an issue. Charging for services will not limited at all. There is almost no competition in this area since have huge entry difficulties. And even someone would be able to get into competition with this shark corp. they simply buy him.
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Could you and your guantamllan neighbors cooperate to share those guards amongst several houses? You could even create an easy to remember phone number ;) Kidding aside, thank you for the thoughtful post.
What you're describing is a gated community. Those exist in Guatemala.
The US should look at Germany, once again: we do have private companies managing medical services - usually awarded in 3-5 year contracts, and e.g. in case of Munich, there are multiple companies in addition to the various NGOs (Malteser, Red Cross, Johanniter). All of them have to provide a standardized set of equipment and education for the personnel.
Oh, and there's a law that mandates that on long-term average, every caller has to be served in 10 minutes from call. This is called "Hilfsfrist" and is mandatory for firefighters, ambulances and cops.
911 responders are always in government hands, though.
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So why not fix the problem at the demand side and not the supply side. If people can't afford essential-to-life services, isn't that the problem? While I'm on the subject, centrally planning and allocating the services doesn't really solve the problem of whether it's worth the cost to have one ambulance to serve a town of five people who live in the middle of nowhere. Someone still has to make the decision. We can co…
You created a fictional scenario and fictional people taking fictional actions, and then object to it all. I'm not sure that represents (other than a frustrated narrator). I don't have the expertise or time to evaluate ambulance services, or water or police or road safety or much else; I have my own job to do. I don't want direct democracy, which is effectively what the comment describes (voting via checkbook). I lik…
As to fiction... the town is a real town. The programs are fictional. But there are actual examples of where the 'experts' are completely absent or otherwise less qualified than the average voter: bridges to nowhere; destroyers and jets built for the last war; subway tunnels that take 100 years to build; veterans hospitals that don't provide treatment; crop-specific agricultural subsidies. The list goes on and on. No president or congressman gets fired because they played favorites or funded even a multi-billion-dollar failed product. People vote on bigger issues (war, 'the economy') and identity.
I don't know why calling those perverse incentives 'republican' or 'government' should make me feel better about it.
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What you're describing is a gated community. Those exist in Guatemala.
You can share guards with a neighbor even without being behind the same fence. What he's describing is merely a community.
I've lived in loosely-gated communities, and the sense of security is just far less. Here I don't mind walking around at 2am -- there's simply zero crime inside the area. I don't even lock my doors sometimes. (There's cameras covering every part of the community.)
We have about 400 houses, each paying about $30 a month for security and commons/park maintenance. A guard makes $400 a month.
In the US a lot of us grew up with the idea that when something really bad was happening you would dial 911 and people would appear very soon to help you. I don't know whether this myth was ever true, but it certainly is not true today. I have called 911 or its equivalent more than a dozen times on three continents. No magic helping people appear within five minutes. Or ten. Usually not twenty either. Sometimes not a…
> A man in the suburban South watched a chimney fire burn his house to the ground as he waited for the fire department, which billed him anyway and then sued him for $15,000 when he did not pay. Is one typically billed when you have the fire department arrive? I thought it was a public good.