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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#331

Post by kube-system »

jjeaff wrote: post #314
FoxPaw wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 getti…

I would wager just a cleaning without x-rays would rarely exceed $100. I live in a very expensive California city and it's about $160 for a cleaning with x-rays. And it's not a discount dental shop.

I live in a more affordable US city and go to a small dentistry, I paid $80 cash for my last cleaning and x-rays.

Re: California bans private prisons

#332

Post by tathougies »

pepega_chgo wrote: post #107
llarsson wrote: post #24

Good riddance. The whole premise of private, for-profit, prisons has always seemed deeply troubling to me. The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate people and help them turn their lives around so that they contribute positively to society. That can take years of hard work by the individual, and require assistance from professionals (therapists, teachers, ...). A for-profit company by definition…

The purpose of imprisonment is to punish criminals by depriving them of their liberty. As a side-effect, society benefits because a criminal has been forcibly removed from visiting further misery on law-abiding people. Imprisonment is and should be a deterrent punishment - it is not a support group. One can both be in favor of abolishing for-profit prisons and also in favor of severe deterrent sentences for law-break…

Exactly. Statements like the commenter above are not universal truths. Certainly, some people believe the purpose of prison is rehabilitation. That is neither a universal belief however, nor the focus of our legal system. Many people believe the point of prison is punishment, just as the point of fines (like a speeding ticket, for example) are to make someone hurt financially, not to recoup costs (one person speeding typically costs the state nothing).

Re: California bans private prisons

#333

Post by viraptor »

archie2 wrote: post #310
Joakal wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Different systems have different problems. In Canada, some people die due to wait times for treatable conditions, or are forced to wait so long that their condition worsens to be beyond repair and they are permanently debilitated. Over 50k people leave Canada per year to get their healthcare in the United States instead.

That has to be weighed against both the wait times in the US and the amount of people who do not even try to go to the doctor to check out potential treatable conditions. Sure, the wait may (haven't verified) be longer, but I've never heard "can't afford to go to the doctor to check it out" / "don't call an ambulance, I don't have an insurance" from people outside of the US.

So sure, the amount of patients is pretty much guaranteed to be higher once they can afford the care. If you optimise only for wait times, then the obvious solution is to have no doctors and 0 wait time.

Re: California bans private prisons

#334

Post by thanatos_dem »

avocado4 wrote: post #293
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]

Seems like the poster meant that going after private prisons was the easy PR win, and that going after the unions would be more difficult, but effective at addressing the underlying perverse incentive structure.

Re: California bans private prisons

#335

Post by _fq4v »

ineedasername wrote: post #165

I'm sure there's at least a few free market purists that will decry this move as it removes competition from the market, but this happens to be one instance where public prisons actually cost less on average than when outsourced to the private market [0] [0] https://www.criminaljusticeprograms.com/articles/private-pri...

I really doubt it, most libertarians and free market purists object to the idea of anyone but government being able to violently deprive someone of their rights without repercussion. The reaction on forums like /r/libertarian is mainly positive.

Re: California bans private prisons

#336

Post by jjeaff »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #248
ekianjo wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada doesn't even have socialized drug insurance for prescriptions and it costs $100 and in the UK $38 It's kind of easy for a country to dictate drug prices when they had no hand in developing them. Now show me a country like the US that develops just as many drugs. Ah, you can't, there is none.

Denmark comes very close per capita, while still having shockingly lower prices. Edit: found a good source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/ Note, per capita it looks like most of the countries studied are discovering new drugs (in the study's terminology "new molecular entity") at much faster rate than the United States when adjusted for population. The money quote: " Our data suggest that the U…

Denmark is so tiny compared to the US, it hardly makes sense to compare drug discovery per cápita. If Denmark happens to release just a single extra drug one year, it totally shifts their ratio.

Re: California bans private prisons

#337

Post by Paperweight »

archie2 wrote: post #312
tim333 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok you have to pay tax but the cost is usually far less than the US system.

I prefer not to have beaureaucrats decide how I spend my money. I've had a relative with a treatable condition wait so long for a surgery that her condition worsened and it couldn't be fixed and now she is permanently physically disabled.

They do the best they can with the budget they're given.

Private hospitals and health insurance are still allowed. Here in Canada, every public hospital still has a billing department for the uninsured & those with private insurance (foreigners, etc.) (I wonder if you can opt to pay to "skip the queue" here?)

Re: California bans private prisons

#338

Post by archie2 »

Paperweight wrote: post #337
archie2 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer not to have beaureaucrats decide how I spend my money. I've had a relative with a treatable condition wait so long for a surgery that her condition worsened and it couldn't be fixed and now she is permanently physically disabled.

They do the best they can with the budget they're given. Private hospitals and health insurance are still allowed. Here in Canada, every public hospital still has a billing department for the uninsured & those with private insurance (foreigners, etc.) (I wonder if you can opt to pay to "skip the queue" here?)

What you're talking (skipping the queue) about is a two-tiered system, which I would be in-favor of but it is taboo to even bring it up in Canada (or at least, that has been my experience).

Re: California bans private prisons

#340

Post by anarazel »

arcticbull wrote: post #27

I'm so happy about this. Private prisons are the scum of the earth. They're totally antithetical to a free society that values human life. They often lobby for minimum occupancy levels in law (effectively requiring by law a certain percentage of citizens to be marked as criminals). Any profit they skim off the top is money that should be spent rehabilitating criminals and making them functional members of society. Ne…

They directly benefit from not reducing recidivism... Talk about a fucked up reward structure.
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