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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#291

Post by FoxPaw »

lacampbell wrote: post #272
etaty wrote: post #179

Just for fun, same sentence on health care. > I'm so happy about this. Private health care insure are the scum of the earth. They're totally antithetical to a free society that values human life. They often lobby for minimum health care coverage in law (effectively requiring by law a certain percentage of citizens to be marked as clients). Any profit they skim off the top is money that should be spent on research and…

How expensive is health care in the US? IE, in my country dentistry is fully private, and it costs about 100 USD for a teeth cleaning. How much is that in America?

Just a cleaning without x-rays? About $100-300.

Dental isn't really indicative of "how expensive health care is" though. Lots of U.S. dental and vision "insurance" plans are really just mandatory subscription plans since their bills are pretty consistent, and anything that might cost more gets you a referral to a hospital.

It's when you visit a hospital (voluntarily or via emergency ambulance) that you'll start getting the $1,000 - $100,000 bills that'll kill ya.

Re: California bans private prisons

#292

Post by triceratops »

dlphn___xyz wrote: post #247
arcticbull wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to your $600 epipen. Seriously. Canada doesn't even have socialized drug insurance for prescriptions and it costs $100 and in the UK $38. Drugs would be, in a perfect system with no socialist intervention, priced at whatever value they provide you. If that's your life, it's very expensive. There's no room for mercy in capitalism. There's a reason Sovaldi is $84,000 and it's not because it costs a lot to mak…

why does the healthcare discussion always regress to capitalism vs socialism? everyone cites canada as the ideal model of social healthcare but forget to mention the long wait times and the fact that their population is only a fraction of the US. i think our system could use some tweaks but throwing it out altogether for a socialist program is not it.

> the fact that their population is only a fraction of the US

I don't understand why that matters. But if it does, couldn't the US implement social healthcare at the state level? Canada and California have roughly equal populations, for instance.

Re: California bans private prisons

#293

Post by avocado4 »

55orolder wrote: post #185

I find it fascinating that private prisons draw such ire while the prison guard union draws so little, when the prison guard union has all the exact same incentives and is drastically more powerful. California would have had legal marijuana a decade sooner except for lobbing by the union, they're a major force for mandatory minimum sentences and tougher sentencing in general. This seems like a trivial easy-PR win for…

[flagged]

Re: California bans private prisons

#294

Post by luma »

kenhwang wrote: post #285
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works! I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

There's a choice component to health. Sure, you can lose the genetic or environmental lottery and just be unhealthy. Or you can choose to be unhealthy. Smoking, drinking, drugs, poor diet, lack of exercise. These are by far the biggest contributors to healthcare cost and they cost absolutely nothing to prevent. Many people just don't take responsibility for their health, and many others in the US don't like the idea…

I think what you're getting at is that in the US, people have a financial incentive to be healthier due to the cost of health care.

How is that working out? Does the average American eat healthier, do more exercise, consumer fewer drinks, or do fewer drugs?

Re: California bans private prisons

#295

Post by c0nducktr »

archie2 wrote: post #287
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works! I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

There is a step 4: pay exorbitant tax rates.

Incorrect. Americans spend twice as much for healthcare as other first world countries.

Re: California bans private prisons

#296

Post by DanBC »

archie2 wrote: post #287
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works! I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

There is a step 4: pay exorbitant tax rates.

When you remove all private insurance payments for health the US still spends more than other countries. The US government pays huge amounts for healthcare for lousy outcomes.

Re: California bans private prisons

#297

Post by archie2 »

c0nducktr wrote: post #295
archie2 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a step 4: pay exorbitant tax rates.

Incorrect. Americans spend twice as much for healthcare as other first world countries.

The US government already spends at least 10k per capita on healthcare - without even having a socialized medecine. More than double that of Canada at 4.8k per capita.

The United States is not a free market healthcare system - it's literally the worst parts of both capitalist and socialized systems with none of the benefits of either.

Also: I am Canadian, I spent nearly 50% of my earned income last year on just taxes. I also live in the most expensive city in the country. 90% of my medical expenses I've had in the past 10 years came from private practices that I paid out of pocket with a smidgen of private insurance that cushioned the blow a bit. The Canadian system is nowhere near as great as ignorant Americans like to believe.

Re: California bans private prisons

#298

Post by imsofuture »

csallen wrote: post #267
ako wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogmas are a disease. We have different economic & market tools. We should use the right tool for the problem. Some markets are best served with a free market system, others with a single payer system, others with a monopoly. There are studies (no reference) which indicate that every euro spent by government on education has a 10 times return on investment: better educated people, have better jobs, pay more taxes, cr…

> Dogmas are a disease… We should use the right tool for the problem. It's bizarre to me how rare this stance is. I understand disagreement over what exactly the "right tool" is, because these things are complex. But people who believe there is only one right tool for every job -- big government, small government, free markets, more regulation, whatever -- strike me as intellectually lazy.

Completely agree. The problem is not that capitalism is just blanket bad, or something reductive like that, but instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956786

Capitalism specifically enables a meta-game of spreading as dogma.

Re: California bans private prisons

#299

Post by Joakal »

archie2 wrote: post #287
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works! I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

There is a step 4: pay exorbitant tax rates.

Is there a story of poor people getting bankrupted by taxes anywhere in the world that has socialized healthcare?
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