What the Daily WTF?

both

I count three, not two.

Grow the fuck up, already.

What good is being forever young when you can be forever immature?

The days of being able to find a job that gives financial independence at age 18 are mostly over.

The 80% thing just guarantees that they'll jack up premiums because there's no such thing as a Good Year any more.

For being a conservative, you don't seem to have much faith in the free market. Granted, monopolies pose challenges, but when the rewards for undercutting become big enough, undercutting will happen.

Besides, insurance companies are generally money-grubbing bastards who stay in business by taking in money and weaseling out of paying it back. Isn't it satisfying to watch them squirm a little?

Ah, yes, the No True Socialist bullshit.

We seem to be operating on different definitions of "socialist." My understanding has been that Obama, like most American leaders, is center-right. Here's a handy-dandy chart:

Now, if we're going to get all pedantic, then I suppose you could call his policies "socialist," as well as many of the policies of his predecessors, from both parties. In fact, it's probably best just to bite the bullet and accept that we live in a socialist country that has been socialist for longer than you and I have been alive. A certain amount of socialism is healthy. Even Milton Friedman's paradise, Hong Kong, offers public health care.

Preventative care can be very fucking expensive.

True, but I was thinking more along the lines of non-invasive screenings such as annual physicals and the like so that people know early if they have hypertension or high cholesterol before it turns into a double bypass. Given the incidence of heart disease in this country, that seems like money well spent.

But we shouldn't pretend that we're not spending boat loads of money on other preventative care that doesn't actually prevent anything.

And in a perfect world, the less-effective methods per dollar spent would be crowded out by the more-effective methods.

@Jaime said:

If we actually worked on the cost of care problem, we wouldn't have to worry about the rest.

I think addressing that problem would have been the common-sense solution, and therefore would have hurt someone's bottom line, and would therefore be unacceptable.

boomzilla

For being a conservative, you don't seem to have much faith in the free market. Granted, monopolies pose challenges, but when the rewards for undercutting become big enough, undercutting will happen.

Why bring a free market into this discussion of forcing private companies to spend 80% of revenue or refund it?

Now, if we're going to get all pedantic, then I suppose you could call his policies "socialist," as well as many of the policies of his predecessors, from both parties.

If by pedantic, you mean correct.

In fact, it's probably best just to bite the bullet and accept that we live in a socialist country that has been socialist for longer than you and I have been alive.

Yes, this is largely true, but that doesn't mean it should be OK.

True, but I was thinking more along the lines of non-invasive screenings such as annual physicals and the like so that people know early if they have hypertension or high cholesterol before it turns into a double bypass.

Yes, and even there you may not be in cost effective territory.

And in a perfect world, the less-effective methods per dollar spent would be crowded out by the more-effective methods.

In a reasonable world, we at least wouldn't work to make this process more difficult. Instead we do the opposite and do Obamacare.

antiquarian

Groaner said:

For being a conservative, you don't seem to have much faith in the free market. Granted, monopolies pose challenges, but when the rewards for undercutting become big enough, undercutting will happen.

Why bring a free market into this discussion of forcing private companies to spend 80% of revenue or refund it?

Not to mention that @Groaner is assuming the health insurance industry is a free market.

abarker

For being a conservative, you don't seem to have much faith in the free market. Granted, monopolies pose challenges, but when the rewards for undercutting become big enough, undercutting will happen.

Except the 80% thing rewards them for not undercutting. If they bring in $1B and follow the 80% rule, then that's $200M for internal expenses and profit. If they bring in $2B and follow the 80% rule, then that's $400M for internal expenses and profit. So the 80% rule could in fact encourage the insurance companies to pay higher medical costs in order to raise premiums so that they can increase their profits.

Groaner

Why bring a free market into this discussion of forcing private companies to spend 80% of revenue or refund it?

Oops, my bad. I meant to type "that thingy where there are a sufficient number of buyers and sellers and sufficiently loose restrictions such that the price of a good or service can be allowed to converge toward its efficient, equilibrium value," and instead I typed "free market." Common typo - the keys are right next to each other, y'know!

If by pedantic, you mean correct.

A correctness that dilutes the connotations of the word. The government providing services could be construed as socialism. Even you occasionally begrudgingly concede that there is value in some of those services. Now, at the other end of the spectrum (but still under the umbrella of the word), you have the Socialist Party. That's what I meant by "real" Socialists. There's no haggis, no kilt and no bagpipes. Do you really want to be lumped together with those people?

@antiquarian said:

Not to mention that @Groaner is assuming the health insurance industry is a free market.

I'm not sure if there are examples of any truly "free markets" in the wild, anyhow. There's always some regulation, or an insufficient number of agents, or some other impediment. There are, however, a great deal of thingies, and thingies, by virtue of their conveniently vague definition, are free from such ideal constraints.

@abarker said:

Except the 80% thing rewards them for not undercutting. If they bring in $1B and follow the 80% rule, then that's $200M for internal expenses and profit. If they bring in $2B and follow the 80% rule, then that's $400M for internal expenses and profit. So the 80% rule could in fact encourage the insurance companies to pay higher medical costs in order to raise premiums so that they can increase their profits.

Then it becomes a question of volume. You can double your revenue by selling the original quantity at twice the price, or twice the quantity at the original price. Rational consumers aren't going to pick the expensive policy unless it offers significant value over the not-expensive one, and if two policies offer roughly equal benefits, the winner will be the less expensive one.

So some companies might try the high-premium strategy, while others might try the high-volume strategy. Which approach is more likely to be attractive to the consumer?

Now, there could be price-fixing or other collusion among the insurers, but fortunately, that sort of anti-competitive behavior is of questionable legality. Silly regulation, getting in the way of the market again!

As a side note, it is debatable how relevant Steam sales are in a discussion of health care pricing, but it's fascinating to see how a given percentage reduction in unit price can have hugely increasing returns to scale in revenue.

ben_lubar

It's still a free market. You could choose a different government if the one you are currently using does not suit your needs as well.

dkf

So some companies might try the high-premium strategy, while others might try the high-volume strategy. Which approach is more likely to be attractive to the consumer?

That depends whether customers feel that the additional quality associated with the additional cost is justifiable. If the products are exactly equivalent, customers are very likely to pick the cheaper one. Assuming that customers know about both offers.

The free market should be considered to be a model, an abstraction of reality, though sometimes reality is closer to it than others. Healthcare tends to be a long way from that model…

abarker

Now, there could be price-fixing or other collusion among the insurers, but fortunately, that sort of anti-competitive behavior is of questionable legality. Silly regulation, getting in the way of the market again!

Except that medical prices do get fixed, to a degree. "Fair" prices are determined by a panel of medical professionals, in meetings that are closed to the public. The charts that they put out are then used by the insurance companies to determine what to negotiate into their contracts with service providers. Medical prices in the US generally have little to do with supply and demand.

M_Adams

Now, there could be price-fixing or other collusion among the insurers, but fortunately, that sort of anti-competitive behavior is of questionable legality.

Here's the real kicker on the Sherman Antitrust Act, and there have been many papers written on this:

There is no way for any company ( from the mom&pop stores, all the way up to multi-nationals ) to avoid the possibility of being indicted under the Act, for any business practice or model they may use. It's a huge fucking nightmare of a law and is one of the ( unfortunately not rare ) laws in this country where the indictee is is guilty until they can prove otherwise.

xaade

So what you're saying is you'd rather be able to freely go into an ER, which is supposed to be reserved for people who are in emergency situations, like, I don't know, heart attack.
You'd like to be able to freely go and congest ER services, forcing people to wait on your pain situation, which you admit is minor.

No.

Of course you're charged prohibitively, that's the point.

You go to a pain or care clinic. Get the help of someone at the right expertise level to solve that problem. But of course, I wouldn't even go that far, you're clogging that up.

It's called ear drops. Solves that.

But, no, you're entitled to clog up a system and make others wait.

Yeah, that 250, wasn't subsidized by bleep. You pay much higher tax rates, you subsidize it.

xaade

If insurance doesn't work, then the liberals are doing what they always do...

... taking a system that doesn't work and growing it.

People need to take medical care back into their own hands. Be responsible for their own actions, and the current insurance situation rewards people for not being responsible.

Of course, now that we are all on high-deductible, as a result of Obamacare labeling everything else a Cadillac, we do have to make choices based on cost. And we'll see what happens from that.

But, that's really due to the fact that more people are on insurance now, and the working class is expected to pay for it.
So the quality of plans degrade.

And that's what happens folks. Socialism promises coverage for all, and accomplishes it by turning coverage into complete shit. Welkommin to your new Amerussia Union of the People. I hope that one sized boot fits.

It's all a push to a single payer system. That's what they really wanted. And they are jacking it all up so they can "rescue" us with a government only public only single payer only insurance system.

But what we currently have right now.... wow.... it's much better for the insurance companies than it has ever been.

You have to wonder, when the politicians are on stage calling insurance companies evil and doctors good, and off stage insurance likes your bill and doctors don't.

That says something...

But uh, ignore the man behind the curtain.

FrostCat

You'd like to be able to freely go and congest ER services,

Exactly. Dad spent 2 hours waiting to be seen, because the ER was full of people who don't understand what the E in ER stands for.

I've been to a semi-private hospital's ER before. They aren't always covered by EMTALA, and this one required a copay from everyone. Amazingly, it wasn't full of illegal immigrants and medicaid recipients, so the wait times were measured in single-digit minutes.

Captain

You're lucky. My premiums went up 25% this year,

Yes, the hedge funds pouring capital into the re-insurance markets are wreaking havoc. Costs are going up because there is an increased demand for uncorrelated risk.

This is also why insurance companies are actually hiring sales people now, instead of just training independent agents. (Compare this to "predatory lending', back when hedge funds were buying up real estate risk -- but note that I am not accusing insurance companies of predatory insurance. Yet.)

Reading through this thread, I get the sense that most of you don't know how insurance works, or how its pricing works. Hedgefunds raised the cost of insurance.

blakeyrat

People in the US go to the ER because they're required to serve all-comers without consideration of ability to pay. Most uninsured people can't afford to go anywhere else to get ear drop prescriptions.

If that happens in Canada too, well, that just means Canadians are dumb as shit doesn't it?

FrostCat

@blakeyrat said:

People in the US go to the ER because they're required to serve all-comers without consideration of ability to pay

Yes. Perhaps you noticed I used the acronym EMTALA repeatedly. Some people might have Googled it.

blakeyrat

Some people might've but them people ain't Blakeyrat people!!!

Rhywden

So what you're saying is you'd rather be able to freely go into an ER, which is supposed to be reserved for people who are in emergency situations, like, I don't know, heart attack.
You'd like to be able to freely go and congest ER services, forcing people to wait on your pain situation, which you admit is minor.

No.

Of course you're charged prohibitively, that's the point.

You go to a pain or care clinic. Get the help of someone at the right expertise level to solve that problem. But of course, I wouldn't even go that far, you're clogging that up.

It's called ear drops. Solves that.

But, no, you're entitled to clog up a system and make others wait.

Yeah, that 250, wasn't subsidized by bleep. You pay much higher tax rates, you subsidize it.

You missed so many clues in my post that you're effectively clueless. I'll mark them for you.

He's a foreigner. If you suddenly experienced massive ear pains in the middle of the night in a foreign country would you ask around, going: "But this place, is that expensive?" No. You go to the place you're first told to go to. And that would be an ER. And you wouldn't ask if that makes sense because that's where you'd go in Germany, too!
They were sudden and unexpected ear pains. That's indeed kind of an emergency. And no, problems on the level of a heart attack are not the only things an ER is supposed to deal with. You're probably confusing intensive care with emergency care.
"Ear drops"? So, first of all, you expect my dad to be a doctor so that he knows the right kind of ear drops (okay, a pharmacist might help there, but:) Secondly, you expect him to be anatomically gifted so that he can look into his own ear without the right tools. Thirdly, you expect ear drops to help where any doctor would tell you that you need either a specially shaped hook or some canned air to remove this blockage.
It's your moronic system in the US which congests your ER services.
And yes, those 250€ were not subsidized. My insurance company does not get tax money, it pays taxes (we've got two systems in Germany and I'm on the other one, the one that is not subsidized by tax money). And the hospital I went to? 100% privately owned. They sure as hell don't get any tax money either (because that's what they're complaining about on a regular basis...)

xaade

@Rhywden said:

You missed so many clues in my post that you're effectively clueless. I'll mark them for you.

He's a foreigner. If you suddenly experienced massive ear pains in the middle of the night in a foreign country would you ask around, going: "But this place, is that expensive?" No. You go to the place you're first told to go to. And that would be an ER. And you wouldn't ask if that makes sense because that's where you'd go in Germany, too!

They were sudden and unexpected ear pains. That's indeed kind of an emergency. And no, problems on the level of a heart attack are not the only things an ER is supposed to deal with. You're probably confusing intensive care with emergency care.

"Ear drops"? So, first of all, you expect my dad to be a doctor so that he knows the right kind of ear drops (okay, a pharmacist might help there, but:) Secondly, you expect him to be anatomically gifted so that he can look into his own ear without the right tools. Thirdly, you expect ear drops to help where any doctor would tell you that you need either a specially shaped hook or some canned air to remove this blockage.

It's your moronic system in the US which congests your ER services.

And yes, those 250€ were not subsidized. My insurance company does not get tax money, it pays taxes (we've got two systems in Germany and I'm on the other one, the one that is not subsidized by tax money). And the hospital I went to? 100% privately owned. They sure as hell don't get any tax money either (because that's what they're complaining about on a regular basis...)

In fact I would. If it wasn't life threatening and I was in a foreign country, I would in fact, be checking into what options I had. Or wait... no.... I am going to the third foreign country, and I already know what my options are. Maybe I like researching like that.

For pain, I go to a pain clinic. Unless it's so bad I thought it was going to kill me. The first time I went to an ER it was because I was so dehydrated that I thought I was dying. Another time, I had a kidney stone that almost killed my kidney. The time I got the swine flu and I really thought I was dying, I went to a clinic and got treatment immediately just like an ER, simply because I knew it was the flu, they had tamiflu, and all I needed was to control my fever. So yes, education does help

Taught all my life, try the simplest things first. If the ear drops help, that prevents a couple of hours wait, because if there's anyone with a real emergency at the ER, you will have to wait, with ear pain. It's not life threatening. Plus if it did help, it's instant help. You can also use hydrogen peroxide to loosen ear wax, and I have that at my house all the time. Helps with mucus buildup, and all kinds of things. I always bring first aid kits when traveling.

No, it's the amount of people visiting the ER with a cold. Seriously, the ER is congested with people that don't need to be there. And these people that visit the ER because they get free help is a myth. If they can be found, they get charged later, trust me. If they are undocumented, well that's a real problem now, isn't it. And if they are there for free help, they wait all day, because again, not a real emergency. Not only that, but these people have cell phones, cars, TVs, cable service, internet, then they also get food stamps, and all kinds of help. Compare that to a third world country and our boo hoo poverty level is freaking rich. First things that go if I'm in financial red zone is cable, cell phone, and all those other luxuries.

I'm getting the suspicion that the privately owned ER is at the sophistication level of our clinics. You get what you pay for. If you're sitting in a hospital room, damn sure you're going to get charged. It's a freaken technological hotel room. Not like the curtain drawn mass rooms I see in Europe. Should have said, no I'll wait in the lobby until I see the doctor. You have to take responsibility for your own health costs. That alone was probably half your bill.

And just to make things fair.

250 euro is $328.

Rhywden

Oh, great, an armchair general who knows everything about medicine and is prepared for EVERYTHING under the sun. Geeze. No use bothering with the likes of you.

Just take your first reply: How do you know that it's not life threatening? Just because it's "only" in the ear?

And there are no "curtain drawn mass rooms" in Germany. I don't know where you got that nonsense from. By the way, "Europe" is not a country. This may come as a shock.

Furthermore, the search term "pain clinic" doesn't exactly yield many results for New York. It yields "pain management" clinics and specialists which is a whole different beast. And I'm highly doubtful that those clinics are open at night. And if they're open, it's their ER that's open.

And if you're letting yourself become so dehydrated that you're nearly dying or letting a kidney stone nearly take your kidney - then I fear that you're not exactly the intellectual powerhouse you make yourself out to be. What with the relationship between dehydration and kidney stones.
How long did you wait until you went to the clinic for your kidney stones? A week? Because such stones don't kill your kidney really fast. And yes, I'm talking from experience. Five stones so far (genetic disposition, nothing I can do).

Not to mention your absurd belief that Tamiflu actually helped you...

Captain

Pain clinics are for chronic pain... if you go to a pain clinic because you have a new pain, you're being much more stupid than people who go to the ER because they have a reasonable suspicion that they might have pneumonia.

Groaner

@dkf said:

That depends whether customers feel that the additional quality associated with the additional cost is justifiable. If the products are exactly equivalent, customers are very likely to pick the cheaper one. Assuming that customers know about both offers.

That's more or less what I was getting at. It could be that everyone rationally picks the more expensive plan, and in that case, The Thingy Has Spoken™ and it's the efficient result.

@dkf said:

The free market should be considered to be a model, an abstraction of reality, though sometimes reality is closer to it than others.

Yes, such ideal systems rarely (if ever) manifest themselves in the wild. Thingies, however, are much more common.

@dkf said:

Healthcare tends to be a long way from that model…

But is the Healthcare thingy entirely immune from the self-correcting mechanisms inherent in thingies?

@abarker said:

Except that medical prices do get fixed, to a degree. "Fair" prices are determined by a panel of medical professionals, in meetings that are closed to the public. The charts that they put out are then used by the insurance companies to determine what to negotiate into their contracts with service providers. Medical prices in the US generally have little to do with supply and demand.

Is there anything to bar someone from establishing, say, Earl's Discount Cardiac Surgery Clinic (Slogan: Everyone else rips you off. We just rip you open!) and charging, say, $100 less for cardiac surgery?

I'm not sure what benefit public access to these meetings would confer. You could have a bunch of auto mechanics convening to decide how much, for example, a brake service for a given make, model and trim should cost, but then the public would get angry that brake rotors are priced at $300 each ("It's just scrap metal in a disc shape!") and that labor is priced too generously ("Those guys are just following directions from a manual. All the hard work is done. Why are they making more than minimum wage?").

@M_Adams said:

It's a huge fucking nightmare of a law and is one of the ( unfortunately not rare ) laws in this country where the indictee is is guilty until they can prove otherwise.

Oh, you mean like... sexual harassment?

Don't get me wrong, rape and sexual harassment are terrible and should be punished harshly when proven, but when allegations can derail careers and destroy reputations, we've got a serious problem.

Even Hammurabi appreciated how destructive false accusations are.

FrostCat

Yeah, we know.

Blakeyrat people would rather bitch about something than lift a mouse finger to enlighten themselves.

darkmatter

For pain, I go to a pain clinic.

If you are among the 50 million Americans living with chronic pain, a full and active life may seem like an impossible dream. But don't give up. If the pain treatment you have tried doesn't provide relief, a pain clinic may help.
A pain clinic is a health care facility that focuses on the diagnosis and management of chronic pain.

I think you're doing it more wrongerest than they are.

then again, if the one by you is willing to give you all kinds of pain pills for random non-chronic pains, I probably wouldn't stop going there for everything either.

FrostCat

@darkmatter said:

I think you're doing it more wrongerest than they are.

then again, if the one by you is willing to give you all kinds of pain pills for random non-chronic pains, I probably wouldn't stop going there for everything either.

Exactly. Again--and a foreigner may be forgiven for not knowing this--the place to go for non-emergency problems like ear issues is an urgent care center. It'll be a lot cheaper.

Back to what I just quoted, QFT x2. I think most people in the US know how much trouble the government is giving doctors who prescribe pain meds, and how much doctors and hospitals are cutting back prescribing in fear of being sent to jail. A co-worker told me recently she went to the doctor about some relatively-mild pain--oh, it was a clicking in her hip now that she's hitting her 40s, I think, even though she's in good shape. My rendition of her description of the doctor offering her pain meds is more or less "he threw a huge bottle of Norco at me."

I told her any number of middle-aged WASP women would love to get his number.

chubertdev

Usability issue

A foreigner won't be able to read up on "urgent care" versus "emergency care" without a wall of text.

FrostCat

@chubertdev said:

A foreigner won't be able to read up on "urgent care" versus "emergency care" without a wall of text.

I doubt they're going away. I don't know if there are any impediments to creating such a thing in, say, Europe. ISTM, though, it's a good idea for people who travel internationally to learn about the concept ahead of time.

And yeah, I realize that's kind of a Platonic ideal

boomzilla

A correctness that dilutes the connotations of the word. The government providing services could be construed as socialism. Even you occasionally begrudgingly concede that there is value in some of those services. Now, at the other end of the spectrum (but still under the umbrella of the word), you have the Socialist Party. That's what I meant by "real" Socialists. There's no haggis, no kilt and no bagpipes. Do you really want to be lumped together with those people?

There's a world of different between genuine public goods and bullshit. I like Kevin Williamson's definition of socialism, personally, which basically boils down to the government controlling / planning. The owner of the means of production is less important than who decides how it's used. This doesn't fit typical dictionary definitions, but is better at capturing the essence of the thing.

But then, I also believe in the rule of law, which implies that you should be really fucking careful what you write down as a law.

boomzilla

Thingies, however, are much more common.

My house (and attic) is goddamned filled with them.

Is there anything to bar someone from establishing, say, Earl's Discount Cardiac Surgery Clinic (Slogan: Everyone else rips you off. We just rip you open!) and charging, say, $100 less for cardiac surgery?

Yes, in most (many? some?) states, there are.

dkf

@FrostCat said:

Again--and a foreigner may be forgiven for not knowing this--the place to go for non-emergency problems like ear issues is an urgent care center. It'll be a lot cheaper.

In a lot of the world, the same department handles both: quick triage to determine which care pathway you need (emergency, urgent, simple out-of-hours) then separate queues. Emergency care gets the quickest response, of course.

xaade

Yeah, I mean care clinic. It was a mental slip, because I just typed pain.

Our system is getting very tiered as a way to avoid the crap the new laws have created. To me, I seriously don't care if it's a Nurse Practitioner diagnosing my infection or pain.

This is exactly how it works in China. There's one doctor at the pharmacy, he is there in case the nurses can't diagnose, and to cover the licensing of the business. Walked in, no appointment, 10 of those ladies there talking to people. Walked up to the next one, described my pain, was handed a z-pac for infection. Cleared up in two days. No ER. Minimal cost of $40.

Same thing here, went to a care clinic for tooth pain because it'll be a week until I see the dentist and I need the infection cleared up anyway. Paid $90 before insurance. After insurance, out of pocket was $9, medicine was $15 for the three generics.

The new laws didn't do any of that.

Groaner

There's a world of different between genuine public goods and bullshit.

Agreed.

I like Kevin Williamson's definition of socialism, personally, which basically boils down to the government controlling / planning. The owner of the means of production is less important than who decides how it's used. This doesn't fit typical dictionary definitions, but is better at capturing the essence of the thing.

That seems a much more sensible definition than the raw denotation we got from Wikipedia. It seems where we differ is where the line gets drawn.

But then, I also believe in the rule of law, which implies that you should be really fucking careful what you write down as a law.

This is also a good goal, but it's difficult when political power is often controlled by The Highest Bidder™, whose interests often do not align with those of the public.

The best, I guess, we can hope for is incremental improvements, but it's depressing to look at how much time, political willpower and political capital it took for the PPACA to get where it is.

Groaner said:
Is there anything to bar someone from establishing, say, Earl's Discount Cardiac Surgery Clinic (Slogan: Everyone else rips you off. We just rip you open!) and charging, say, $100 less for cardiac surgery?

Yes, in most (many? some?) states, there are.

Well, that's heartbreaking.

boomzilla

This is also a good goal, but it's difficult when political power is often controlled by The Highest Bidder™, whose interests often do not align with those of the public.

I agree. But the solution here is to make the object of the bidding less valuable, not apply ever more complicated rules to the bidding process.

I won't say that these Interests are necessarily aligned with the interests of the public, but I think this sort of argument is used in place of "my policy preferences."

antiquarian

I don't remember where I heard this quote:

The only way to get money out of politics is to get politics out of money.

xaade

http://quotes.dictionary.com/when_an_opponent_declares_i_will_not_come

There's a world of different between genuine public goods and bullshit. I like Kevin Williamson's definition of socialism, personally, which basically boils down to the government controlling / planning. The owner of the means of production is less important than who decides how it's used. This doesn't fit typical dictionary definitions, but is better at capturing the essence of the thing.

That's because the definition of socialism is unobtainable in reality.

Before we even get to the point of who decides how it is used (as in day to day, it will operate at this capacity with John, Mary, and Suzy during the hours of 9-11). Let me introduce a simpler model. Assuming everyone can use it at any time. If everyone owns the means of production, how do you decide who gets to do what with it? Assume there's a 3d printer that can have infinite users. If you take it and "print" another printer, is it yours? It's now a means of production, so it belongs to everyone. However, if you print a shoe, is it yours? So now you have to decide how it will be used.

But now, how do we value the materials it uses?

If we have to mine 3d printer stuff, does the stuff belong to anyone, or does it also belong to everyone?

What ends up happening, is that only terminal items belong to a single person? Or does everything belong to everyone? If my shoe belongs to everyone, who gets to decide when I get to wear it instead of my neighbor?

Belongings are an important fundamental concept to life. Ultimately in any culture there is some sense of private belongings, however small. And socialism fails to draw the line as to what can belong to a person.

And so, we end up with situations like soviet Russia, where everything belonged to the government, even the people. Because, gasp, people are a means of production.

So, before we even get into the fact that socialism results in a government that owns everything, because the public at large can't "own" everything, we already see that people are just a cog in the wheel and they belong to everyone.

This kind of mentality is where we get that school children don't belong to their parents. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/04/09/critics-slam-msnbc-hosts-claim-that-kids-belong-to-community-not-parents/

What is the community? And how can the community decide how the child is allocated? It can't. Therefore the only viable implementation is what results from all implemented forms of socialism. What "belongs" to the people, belongs to the government. And therefore, we have liberals saying our children belong to the government, because that's the only possible outcome from "public" ownership.

HELLO, WAKE UP!!!

The only way to circumvent this is making sure the government answers to the people.

And that's exactly what the American Democratic Republic was designed to be.

antiquarian

You might find this interesting:

Unqualified Reservations: An open letter to open-minded progressives (part 1)

Bort