FINALLY
California bans private prisons
351–360 of 646 posts
Re: California bans private prisons
#352Earlier 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.
Because when people talk about how terrible healthcare is here, it's usually people who don't have or can't afford good insurance. And by good, I mean covers most everything and doesn't have a huge out of pocket. If you have good health insurance, the healthcare in the US is absolutely top tier. Many people that complain are getting a plan with a huge deductible either because they are being cheap or can't afford bet…
Even people with good health insurance find all the paperwork a pain in the ass. I'd far rather have decent, not luxury healthcare and no damn paperwork, when I'm sick I am not interested in dealing with administrative nonsense. The entire health insurance industry is parasitical.
Re: California bans private prisons
#353Earlier 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.
I live in a European country with a public health care system.
The lowest tax bracket is ~34% and the highest ~44%.
However due to a minimum below which no taxes are paid and other features, the effective rax rate for a $35k salary is ~15%. For a $90k salary it’s about 32%. A median salary is about $70k.
This is excluding pension (the employer pays that on top to a pension fund).
Public services are pretty good and not expensive for me, they are even cheaper for people in lower income levels. (Putting a kid in kindergarten is about $100-200/month for example)
If you take everything into account, I suspect it’s the US system is a much worse deal for everyone except the top 5-10%.
Re: California bans private prisons
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The trope that wait times are materially worse in single-payer systems is precisely that: a trope. You do not have to dig hard to find examples of wait-times measured in months to get diagnostic procedures scheduled, and where I live — the San Francisco Bay Area — the wait time for an initial consultation with, e.g., a dermatologist has been about the same, for as long as I've lived here. I know doctors who work in h…
That's because California is a terribly run state, and one third of your population is on Medi-Cal. You literally have the same problems as Canada.
Re: California bans private prisons
#355Just 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…
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20955522.
Re: California bans private prisons
#356I heard a very interesting take on this topic on local radio. Basically, on average private prisons are no worse than public prisons as both make many of the same mistakes. The only difference is that public prisons are invulnerable to reform. https://wfhb.org/news/kite-line-september-6-2019-the-busines...
> The only difference is that public prisons are invulnerable to reform.
None are invulnerable to legislative reform. However, _private_ ones are closer to it, since they're, well, private.
> No worse
If you mean they're both terrible, exploitative, have guard violence, don't provide reasonable facilities, don't provide opportunities for personal development and education, and underfunded - maybe you're right. (although frankly I doubt it.)
Mass incarceration in general is a perverse US government sport / poor people population management/behavior shaping mechanism, anyway.
Re: California bans private prisons
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed]
The information is readily available - you could have taken 5 seconds and searched for it yourself instead of leaving a sarcastic unconstructive comment. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa...
Don't forget that the US's rapid access to all the healthcare the patient wants leads to huge amounts of harm in the form of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treatment.
Re: California bans private prisons
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Hm, this is a good point. US provably has the greatest incentive to live healthy due to having the provably highest health care costs. That is a rational and reasonable argument. Yet you get downvoted for it which is interesting. I think you make a good point though.
Re: California bans private prisons
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Non violent drug offenses is the example you’re looking for.
All drug offenses are violent. Illegal drugs channel money into large organized crime syndicates that kill, torture, terrorize and maim people. Just because those people are brown, poor, and not Americans doesn't mean we should care less. If you ask me, we need substantially more drug enforcement. There are severe inequalities in how we police for drugs that often result in only the poor and marginalized locked up. W…
X consumes a drug - This is not violent.
Drug dealer Y kills someone to protect territory - This is violent.
If X was willing to buy drugs from anyone, and/or if X would prefer to buy from a legal seller but none is available, Y is not the cause of the violence.
Also, you can get locked up for smoking weed that you grew yourself and had no intention of selling. What of that?
Re: California bans private prisons
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed]
The information is readily available - you could have taken 5 seconds and searched for it yourself instead of leaving a sarcastic unconstructive comment. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa...
Just like you could have picked a credible source instead of a libertarian think tank. You are surely aware that the burden of proof for an assertion is on the proponent, not the disputant.