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The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

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Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#251

Post by tzs »

cameldrv wrote: post #178
nathancahill wrote: post #3

Spent a long time reading about how vast bureaucratic inefficiencies are created by people worrying that "the wrong person" will benefit from government programs or that someone "undeserving" might get theirs before I do. This falls squarely in that bucket. Tragic.

This is the flip side of it though: https://abc7news.com/california-edd-unemployment-fraud-ca-sc... $30 billion in unemployment fraud in just a year, in just one state.

How does that compare to other years, both in total amount of fraud and in what percent of total paid out was for fraudulent claims?

If the system is fine except in situations like a once a century global pandemic that throws way more people out of work than normally happens even in most recessions and throws them out of work for longer than is normal where it jumps to a fraud rate of 30% or so (and presumably returns to normal when the pandemic is over), I'm OK with that.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#252

Post by dennis_jeeves »

nickpp wrote: post #198

Over and over again we re-learn that the single proven way to distribute scarce resources is the free market. Anything else we tried led to abuses, aberrations, waste and in the end fewer people gaining access to that resource. I have seen this in the planned economy I grew up in, which was unable to provide even toilet paper to its people - but it was ok, because we didn’t have any food either. Our blindness to the…

>Over and over again we re-learn that the single proven way to distribute scarce resources is the free market.

No 'we' ( meaning the vast majority) do not relearn. The _never_ will.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#253

Post by jszymborski »

bko wrote: post #249
BowBun wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally for social welfare programs, however the idea of "welfare queens (and kings)" is NOT fiction. I come from Belgium which has this problem quite notoriously. It is quite common for people to be abusing the social programs to stay unemployed and make more income than blue-collar workers. Like you allude to, I think we need to look more deeply to address this issue - why are people satisfied doing nothing a…

There's also cases where if you start working, you actually make less than you would by not working, due to eligibility requirements for certain programs. Long term, not engaging in meaningful work has many downsides (substance abuse, relationship, career growth, etc) and its not just about money. But going to a grueling 9-5 to make less money for long term benefits is still a tough sell

> Long term, not engaging in meaningful work has many downsides (substance abuse, relationship, career growth, etc) and its not just about money.

Not working leads to... substance abuse? That sounds like some very puritanical " Idle hands are the devil's workshop" mentality.

What's more, what is so meaningful about being overworked, underappreciated, and paid less than a living wage? That soul crushing work is where you start to see people seeking escape and/or less-than-legal sources of income.

In fact, what you often seen is that, given enough breathing room to do so, people can achieve remarkably productive works. Linus Torvalds and J.K. Rowling are oft-cited examples of people who created magnum opuses while on benefits. Had their days been occupied working multiple minimum wage jobs, we might never have gotten Linux or Harry Potter.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#254

Post by acover »

nickpp wrote: post #246
acover wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true. In emergencies we explicitly do not allow price gouging because it just doesn't work. If it was a free market then the vaccine would cost 10k and few of those who benefit most would get it. That's not efficient or fair.

Actually freezing prices is the best way to create long term shortages. We saw that last springs when countries with free markets kept having N95 masks available, at slightly elevated prices while countries that imposed priced controls did not have any until fall. In a free market the vaccine would’ve cost 10k for a month while producers would’ve been scrambling to increase availability and production to take advanta…

I agree that price controls create shortages in the long term. The issue is that emergencies are about the short term.

I would be very surprised if more money would have helped produce more vaccines. Canada is burning a billion a day to keep everything in lockdown - money does not seem relevant to the current situation. Adding it in just makes everyone pay more for the same limited amount of vaccines.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#255

Post by MisterTea »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #92
colechristensen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once involved with a young woman in a homeless program which was entirely defeated by this exact "wrong person" attitude. Get a homeless person an apartment? Great. But it didn't end there, there was a constant stream of documentation requirements, your employer had to, monthly, sign paperwork about how much you earned (advertise to employers that you are/were homeless). The program punished you for making mone…

A lot of this comes from the Reagan-era idea of "welfare queens" -- that because the idea of "government handouts" are so enticing, people will cheat the system to get them. There are two issues with this: - "government handouts" and a reliance on welfare are typically a symptom, not a root cause, of an ailing society -- there are bigger issues at play around wealth and ownership if a large segment of the population…

> A lot of this comes from the Reagan-era idea of "welfare queens"

Indeed. I also suspect "wrong people" is a slightly quieter dog whistle/code word for you know, "those people".

I also wonder how the welfare cheater statictic compares to the disability cheater statistic. I'd even wager disability is far more abused than welfare by ablebodied workers who make good money and have homes.

Now imagine if we used the same "wrong person" argument against disability and watch the same people who would vote against welfare vote in favor of disability because they might be affected.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#256

Post by edbob »

adamesque wrote: post #192
da_big_ghey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Houstonian and absolutely hate Ogg. She bills herself as the "most progressive DA" and therefore prosecutes/does not prosecute certain things based on their political appearance. That is not what a DA should be doing, and she is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the "progressive" left these days.

not to mention this is an insanely anti-progressive prosecution once you dig into the details. just dumb.

Why is this anti-progressive? It sounds like he's being prosecuted because he gave vaccines to lighter-skinned people. Kim Ogg wouldn't be prosecuting him if he'd given them all to dark-skinned Black people.

The official statements of the medical associations in the article state: “It is difficult to understand any justification for charging any well-intentioned physician in this situation with a criminal offense.” As there is clearly no legal justification, the only justification in sight is progressive identity politics attacking a "white-adjacent" physician.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#257

Post by clairity »

edbob wrote: post #244
clairity wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but again, your concern then is efficiency, so let's look at efficiency metrics directly rather than the poor proxy that size is. that also neatly sidesteps the manipulative use of "big government" as a tool by politicians to deploy power against the common interest.

You make a valid point when considering the total size of governments at all levels. However, I think what people most want to avoid is specifically an excessively large government at the federal and (to a much lesser degree) state levels. This is a worthy goal. This is not unrelated to efficiency: the legendary inefficiency of the federal government is correlated with its bloat and unaccountability, problems which a…

power will always try to overflow its limits, no matter the size. the fed has a fairly limited mandate via the constitution, but federal politicians of all stripes are constantly grubbing for power, which is where the inefficiencies largely come from. the answer is not to focus on size, but how and why it's overflowing via power grabs. focusing on size leads to the wrong conclusions and the wrong responses. that's the point.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#258

Post by TimTheTinker »

pas wrote: post #205
da_big_ghey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Houstonian and absolutely hate Ogg. She bills herself as the "most progressive DA" and therefore prosecutes/does not prosecute certain things based on their political appearance. That is not what a DA should be doing, and she is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the "progressive" left these days.

Could you explain a bit for those not familiar with US "progressive" stuff? What does she not prosecute and why, and why is that a problem? How left are we talking about?

Probably in this case OP is referring to identity politics and intersectionalism.

Basically, the more categories of historically marginalized people groups an individual belongs to, the more acceptable that person is, the more of a voice they’re allowed to have, and the more laudable it is to favor that person (and the more unacceptable it is to fail to favor that person regardless of the circumstances).

This doctor apparently “failed” to favor the right people. The progressive calculus around the case is all about “who”, and it intentionally excludes what, when, where, why, or how.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#259

Post by upbeat_general »

nickpp wrote: post #198

Over and over again we re-learn that the single proven way to distribute scarce resources is the free market. Anything else we tried led to abuses, aberrations, waste and in the end fewer people gaining access to that resource. I have seen this in the planned economy I grew up in, which was unable to provide even toilet paper to its people - but it was ok, because we didn’t have any food either. Our blindness to the…

So just to be clear you’re suggesting that we should determine access to the vaccine based on how much money you have?

This is ludicrous. The “free market” isn’t for everything.

The US is going to get enough shots in part because the companies are US companies.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#260

Post by zamadatix »

crispyambulance wrote: post #136
zamadatix wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the logic is reasonable but the response is too strong. A doctor driving around vaccinating whoever he can find at their house is clearly not how you want to distribute the vaccine in early December, it's not going to get to the most at risk people as soon as it can and any issues that arise are a huge liability problem unless he can fix it with what's in his car. At the same time not having any plan or proce…

> it's a story about how the vaccine rollout procedure wasn't good enough and left him in a shitty situation. Nothing done at this scale and speed is going to be perfect. There's always going to be problems. I wish that people like the administrator who fired him and the prosecutor who charged him would have used better judgement. This logic is not "reasonable" given how extreme the outcome is. It takes a lot of stea…

Nothing is ever perfect doesn't mean whatever response to the situation is okay. Like I said, the response was a bit too strong though.
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