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How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

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Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#151

Post by Consultant32452 »

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #150
ska wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because we have the highest quality healthcare in the world. This is one of those statements that kind-of true, but not in the sense that people bringing it up mostly mean. In fact "best in the world" care depends largely on disease, in many cases the best teams in the world are in the US, in others they are not. If you are (globally) rich, you go wherever the best care is. But that typically isn't "the US", tha…

Exactly, the US has many of the leading (highest quality) medical specialists, which you would expect from the richest country with the best research university system. That does not mean the US has the highest quality healthcare in terms of health outcomes for the population. If anyone reading this believes we (the US) have the highest quality health outcomes, please do some research with an open mind. We're not ter…

> For example, IIRC, we're quite middling/mediocre in life expectancy, infant mortality, heart attack mortality, % of diabetics with managed care, efficiency of spend, etc.

Life expectancy, infant mortality, and heart attack mortality are directly related to our culture more than access to health care. Go look at our obesity rates. Do you think not having to pay a copay to go to a doctor would fix that?

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#152

Post by ergothus »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #142
ergothus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe that's a good example of how to get right-wing politicians to agree to some left-wing ideals: prove that it will save money and let them lower taxes. I've certainly heard this argument from the (few) libertarian sources that are considering basic income. They are opposed to "entitlement" programs, but see a (theoretically) cheaper entitlement program as better than an expensive one. (Perhaps they also think t…

"Hmmm... My spreadsheet says you earned a bit more than your neighbor down the road last year. I'm going to have to take that, mmmkay?"

Funny sarcasm, but...what is the point you are trying to make?

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#153

Post by Tenhundfeld »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #140
otterley wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single-payer health care establishes a floor , not a ceiling of coverage. That in itself is a reason to do it, because it reduces overall costs due to the amortization effect of preventive medicine that people have a right to access. Single-payer coverage doesn't necessarily dry up the market for private insurance, either. Citizens of Canada and other countries have access to additional coverage that covers faster ac…

>That in itself is a reason to do it, because it reduces overall costs due to the amortization effect of preventive medicine that people have a right to access. Reducing the over-all cost isn't necessarily the only goal. One goal could also be to have the highest quality care in the world, which we have today. >Single-payer coverage doesn't necessarily dry up the market for private insurance, either. Comparing the pr…

The US has many of the "highest quality" specialists.

The US population does not receive the highest quality healthcare in the world.

If you are rich and sick, there's a decent chance that the world's leading specialist on your illness will be in the US. If you are poor and sick, you will receive higher quality healthcare in many other developed countries.

These are not the same thing; you are conflating them, I assume to support an ideological point. Just look at any ranking of healthcare outcomes for developed nations.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#154

Post by rhizome »

noonespecial wrote: post #83
MangentBrioche wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is being pushed by a subset of the wealthy primarily because it will be a juicy source of rent, in both the economic and colloquial senses. Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing costs absent the sort of regulation that would itself make UBI politically untenable (i.e. because it would not benefit the wealthy.)

>Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing cost I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere . They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.

The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.

Provided there are no location/COL adjustments.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#155

Post by linkregister »

ergothus wrote: post #115
tn13 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> . The US has known for at least a decade that spending more on IRS agents would earn more money than it would cost. Isn't that proven to be a mostly false notion? Lower taxes tend to bring in more revenue and create more employment.

> Lower taxes tend to bring in more revenue and create more employment. Two responses: 1) A bit of an irrelevant point, since we're not talking about RAISING taxes, we're talking about collecting taxes that are due under current rules. (You can argue that's an effective tax increase, but I doubt people/companies that aren't following the rules are a good basis for policy - with lower taxes they'll still cheat) 2) But…

Did Kansas's economy tank? I was under the impression that unemployment has dropped at similar rates to comparable states.

The primary impact has been massive reduction in the ability of the state government to provide services, including education. That is too long-term to be immediately measurable.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#156

Post by Consultant32452 »

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #153
Consultant32452 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That in itself is a reason to do it, because it reduces overall costs due to the amortization effect of preventive medicine that people have a right to access. Reducing the over-all cost isn't necessarily the only goal. One goal could also be to have the highest quality care in the world, which we have today. >Single-payer coverage doesn't necessarily dry up the market for private insurance, either. Comparing the pr…

The US has many of the "highest quality" specialists. The US population does not receive the highest quality healthcare in the world. If you are rich and sick, there's a decent chance that the world's leading specialist on your illness will be in the US. If you are poor and sick, you will receive higher quality healthcare in many other developed countries. These are not the same thing; you are conflating them, I assu…

>Just look at any ranking of healthcare outcomes for developed nations.

Yes, I addressed that. Look at our obesity rates. That has almost nothing to do with healthcare access and almost everything to do with our average lifespan.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#157

Post by linkregister »

madenine wrote: post #70
jtedward wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama lowered taxes, in fact no Democratic president has raised taxes during my lifetime (I'm 25). It's pretty strange people always claim this is a thing when it's just flat false.

probably expecting a lot from username "douche"

Maybe douche is just a francophile who appreciates hygiene.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#158

Post by Consultant32452 »

DanBC wrote: post #134
Consultant32452 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a wealthy person anywhere in the world and you have a really terrible disease you're probably going to come to the US to get care. Why? Because we have the highest quality healthcare in the world. There's a reason why there was some mild drama over Danny Williams (Premier of Canadian province) hopped the border to have heart surgery in the US. We're the best. What we lack is healthcare access for the poor.…

> Why? Because we have the highest quality healthcare in the world. If we ignore the fact that the US is in the 10 OECD nations with lowest life expectancy. There's a bunch of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treatment in the US. These make customers feel like they're getting good service, even though they're being harmed by it.

>If we ignore the fact that the US is in the 10 OECD nations with lowest life expectancy.

We have among the lowest life expectancy because we have among the highest obesity. That has almost nothing to do with healthcare access.

>There's a bunch of over-testing, over-diagnosis, and over-treatment in the US. These make customers feel like they're getting good service, even though they're being harmed by it.

If you really believe that getting too much access to healthcare treatments is the big problem in our country, you might be in the wrong discussion.

Re: How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness

#160

Post by ergothus »

NewCathargo wrote: post #93
noonespecial wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every cent of UBI will be absorbed by housing cost I think you're wrong about that because UBI frees people to go and live anywhere . They won't be trapped in lousy housing one bus-ride from their McJob anymore. The only way housing would suck up the entire UBI is if everyone were trapped in a California situation where new housing was impossible.

That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing. One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving…

> Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely

Leaving aside any evaluation of the quality of modern drugs...

You raise my one concern about UBI. I'm fairly liberal, and particularly with the rise in automation, I see something like UBI becoming necessary. Unlike some conservatives, I have no real concern about people "mooching" or getting money they don't "deserve". Some WILL mooch, IMNSHO, but not most. And if it generates a society where people CAN succeed if they put forth the effort, I'm generally okay with those that are choosing to be lazy being lazy - just get them safely out of the way of everyone that isn't lazy and make sure they have every opportunity to improve their situation should they try to.

BUT - two of the big arguments in favor of UBI are:

* that it could be cheaper than the social programs of today

* that giving people cash can be the most effective investment (I think it was here that I saw discussion that a program to give the poor of developing nations chickens was successful at a small scale, but couldn't grow because at some point too many people have chickens for the eggs to have much resale value).

My concern is that some people - I expect few, but enough - will spend money and NOT cover their basic needs (food/shelter). If you shrug and let them suffer/die, you aren't who I want to be. If we run all the social programs in ADDITION to UBI you've made it cost more. If you try to regulate how people spend their UBI, you're hurting everyone's ability to innovate their way to greater wealth. If you try to only regulate those that are decided to not be able to spend wisely...that sounds dangerous, having those in power determine what is and who are "wise".

So while I remain very interested in UBI, I'm watching the current and planned-for experiments with great interest to see what problems arise, which problems don't arise, and to see how any problems are handled.

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