Two-tier health care

Recently Konrad posted a reply to my question about a two-tier health care system. I agree with him (I don't say that likely) on many points. The idea he puts forward is almost completely sound and brings up a important topic. In the argument there is an assumption that this person is paying $1000 for heath care via taxes. How much one is paying in taxes for services is only knowable if you take the entire amount of taxes you have paid (federally for instance) and the find out the percentage breakup of the budget for that year. So, it's pretty hard to figure out how much we are paying. This make me wary since if I was to go into a private insurance how mush more would I be paying? The point is that the current tax system obscures how much we are paying for services. All we get is that the federal government is loaded and spending X billions on ... Not a good idea.

So I purpose we change the collection system slightly (on the government side). Every year at income tax time we should have a breakdown of our tax burden. So when you go to figure out how much you pay you would have the big ticket items paid directly (like on a credit card statement). For instance:
210 Health care .... 8.6% __what you pay here______
211 Private health care deduction .... 40% of the 8.6 amount in line 211

so you'd still be paying 60% of the health care cost to the federal plan. In the end you would be paying the same percentage but the deductions would be directly on the service not general revenues. This would also then inform everyone what (mostly) we are paying for. Also it would help during election time since we'd know where the money would come from. For instance when one party says we'd put more money into the military they would have to say they would either increase the military tax rate or divert funds from other revenues, but since it isn't just a big pot of money we can watch our money better. Obviously there would be a general category that would include all the smaller things and the danger is watching that unearmarked money.

This would pave the way for more two tier systems like education. The previous discussions about privatization of education has finally made sense to me. Mostly because I feel the only way parents will acre what there kids are doing in school if they pay some of it directly, except those who can't afford it. The libertarian arguments of private schools partially funded by the gov I agree with. It will most likely be a better system and encourage better education. But to ensure that everyone can go we'd need to know how much we are subsidizing the system and how much we are saving/spending. The main idea for education would be to have the parents pay the education tax directly to the school making a more free-market system (and getting those benefits) and getting the benefit of making parents more involved since they now realize they are dishing out hard cash.

This is still an infant idea so be gentle.

Death if som time

Well my primary hard drive died recently (cause of death seems to have been proximity to Jesus/Igor). So currently I'm in the mist of an instalathon. Of course it had to happen right after I just finished a program to calculate some coefficients so there was no opportunuty for me to save it somewhere else. Top that with a prep'd military force to teach Ceaser some manners (civ4) it sucks! At least it was the old hard drive not the newer bigger one.

Fighting nonsense with nonsense

This article is an amusing current event where a Democrate has put forward a ridiculous bill to illustrate that a previous rebublican bill is nonsense. The rebublican bill wants to ban the adoption of children by gay (etc) people saying there is "evidence" that there is some problem with these children. So the democrate is putting forward a bill that says rebublicans shouldn't be allowe to adopt citing "cedible evidence" that these children grow up with

emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.

I have not been able to come up with a better way to deal with peoples nonsense than just using other nonsense (like asking a Intellegent Design person if he thinks aliens did a good job on his knees).

Two tier health care

Were is my flaw in logic here.
Currently the rich can pay out of pocket for healthcare and get anything immediately.
So access for them is not an issue and they are small in number.

Now say Canada opens up the health care system and allows private insurance. So now there is a public system and a private system. You can only go to the private clinic if you have insurance. The insurance companies want people who won't use the healthcare services so they can make a profit. So they will mostly take healthy middle class people (assume the lower class can't afford it easily). Most of these insured people will still go to the public system (to avoid increased premiums) for small things (cost to the public system). If they need something big they will likely go to the private clinic but this will be rare since the insurers will insure people who are unlikely to need something. The public system will be diluted since less money will be given (since people paying for insurance will likely get tax breaks or something) and will still be paying for some on insurance but using the system.

So basically what I am saying since the insurers only want people who won't use there services, so we will divert doctors and resources (taxes will become insurance payments) and the only people that will be taken out of the public system are the healthy middle class and rich.

Right to the Point!

Ezra Levant the editor of the Western Standard has called the North American media on it' slack of balls in the whole cartoon thing. In this interview and others he very poignantly puts the argument of why it is nonsense to refrain from publishing the cartoons. Well said sir! It's about freeking time!

Hypocrisy

Well when all is said and done about the cartoon affair I hope the European will be more anti-religion not anti-muslim. I can't believe this. An advertiser basically had 12 women take a similar pose to Leonardo's last supper and the Catholic church won the injunction!! That's simple hypocrisy! Both the cartoon and the ad should be allowed! The ad isn't even sacred or blasphemous since it's 1500 years older than the myth in the first place!! Idiots!

Trying to show the Jesus myth

Recently a brave old man (Luigi Cascioli) tried to stop the indoctrination and lies of the Catholic church by citing two obscure laws in Italy: [paraphrasing] it is illegal to con the public and it is illegal to gain in anyway from a con. So he took a local priest to court since the priest was saying that Jesus had actually existed as the (four) gospels say (the whole man-god thingy). As I'm sure my usual readers see this makes a compelling argument, except that it is Italy a very religious country. Unfortunately the case was thrown out (not unexpected), but he may take it to the European court!

On another front the [christian] American are starting to make themselves look even dumber with:what would Jesus eat diet. So just in case the cartoon thing doesn't last I'm sure christianity will still provide much amusement!

Cartoons on the Cartoons

Here is a nice site of cartoons about the Mohammed cartoon. Quite funny and ironic! What else can we do now except laugh at it, they are still going... it's like reasoning with a child throwing a tantrum.

Small snipit about the cartoons

There is a fantastic article on the cartoon issue here. Like this:

Muslim leaders say the cartoons are not just offensive. They're blasphemy--the mother of all offenses. That's because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet, even benign ones. Should non-Muslims respect this taboo? I see no reason why. You can respect a religion without honoring its taboos. I eat pork, and I'm not an anti-Semite. As a Catholic, I don't expect atheists to genuflect before an altar. If violating a taboo is necessary to illustrate a political point, then the call is an easy one. Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.

Talk about hitting the nail on the head!
Just like:

Blasphemy, after all, is commonplace in the West. In America, Christians have become accustomed to artists' offending their religious symbols. They can protest, and cut off public funding--but the right of the individual to say or depict offensive messages or symbols is not really in dispute. Blasphemy, moreover, is common in the Muslim world, and sanctioned by Arab governments. The Arab media run cartoons depicting Jews and the symbols of the Jewish faith with imagery indistinguishable from that used in the Third Reich. But I have yet to see Jews or Israelis threaten the lives of Muslims because of it.

To bad the protesters can't see this, they'd realize how ridiculous they are being (assuming ability to reason, not usualy present in a mob mentality).

Cartoon conspiracy

Firstly I like this quote (here:
"Who offends Islam more? A foreigner who draws the Prophet as described by his followers, or a Muslim with an explosive belt who commits suicide in Amman or anywhere else," the editorial said.

Secondly do you think there is another motivation for all this? There is still negotiations for Turkeys membership into the EU mostly because of it's size poverty and religion. But the religion is a big issue in Europe which already has a problem with it's muslim population. The cartoon shows the tension between the two societies. Plenty of Blasphemous Christian and Jewish stuff is published in Europe with no attention, but these simple cartoons have inflamed the muslims (nothing wrong with being angry and annoyed) to the point where they are uttering death threats and violating trade laws (the WTO is set to step in and take action against the Danish boycott). This is a strong argument for those who do not want Turkey in the EU but more importantly it's a strong public perception campaign in the EU since moderates and level headed muslims like the [former] editor quoted above are tossed aside for the wailing death threats. Not a good PR campaign for Turkey.

So a planned conspiracy, doubtful. But taking advantage of a situation maybe. If I was retired I could go through all the papers that repubished the cartoons and see there editorials on Turkeys memebership...

And still More on the Cartoon

Some are claiming this is hate mongering (mostly the one of Mohammed with his turban being a bomb). The implication is that Islam has bombing/attacking on the mind. As I understand it to have a hate crime you need to incite hate against a party. This is not inciting hate. It is the same as saying: Christianity has antisemitism on the mind. An opinion but not hate mongering.

It would be cool if the Muslims talk about the hypocrisy of the Germans with there "can't deny the holocaust" law! It won't give them a good argument but may force the Germans to reconsider there stupid law!

More insult to the Muslim world

As I had previously mentioned about the cartoon, the story continues. I remember thinking that the Danish paper has very right and should republish the cartoons, but then I'm always provoking religion. But it seems I wasn't the only one with that idea!! BURN!! It just goes to show what the problem with the middle east: they don't even understand the concept of freedom! Not even freedom of thought (obviously I'm pointing to devout religious majority, not the sensible secularists... my homies)! They already can't eat some stuff, dance, drink, date etc, so I guess they have great poetry?

Now I think all religions/cults are stupid but when the people can't even conceive of freedom what's the point of trying to engage them. Maybe we should let them catch up to us.

Planet Dilemma

There is an Astronomy debate as to what is a planet and if Pluto should be demoted. The whole problem really centers around the definition of what a planet is. This has become more complicated with the discovery of the Kupler belt. Clearly (from what we now know) planets, suns, moons and asteroids are not discontinuous categories, so where do we draw the line. Scientifically it make no difference but astronomy gets a lot of funding and has simple enough feature for the public to learn. Therefore I propose adding any new Kupler belt objects to the list of planets. It will only increase what simple things the public can learn about our solar system. Sticking with the obvious 8 planets means less stuff they can learn. Adding new planet will mean they can publish new astronomy books and kids will be delighted to hear there was a new planet discovered which can only enhance the interest in astronomy which is the only thing that matters to non-astronomers.