Average ObamaCare price: $328 per month.

[piezoe]

Quote from chisel:

My insurance co. sent me a letter which said that nothing will be changing, but I have a high-deductible health plan and an HSA.

You all can debate back and forth all day, but has the gov't. been involved in anything which brought (apples to apples) costs down?

Medicare maybe? But do the cost controls under medicare cause the rates to go up for everyone not under medicare?

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from dbphoenix:

The question was whether or not the government has been involved in anything that brought costs down? Asked and answered.

Including the total REAL cost including subsidies to farmers plus the massive sums of dollars to fund the various bureaucracies? All paid for by the same consumer/tax payer.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from piezoe:

I second your thought on the DEA and "War on Drugs".
It's not working . Let's change.

Yet there is no change and little talk of any real change in the foreseeable future. Our government does not measure success in terms of measurable metrics. It measures "success" in terms of program's budgets. Obamacare like all other federal programs not working or not bearing measurable results will not be improved or struck down. It, like the rest, will simply be given larger and larger budgets.

I don't think all government programs are bad....

Nor do I, but ALL of them ARE inefficient wasteful and incompetent to one degree or another.

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from Lucrum:

Including the total REAL cost including subsidies to farmers plus the massive sums of dollars to fund the various bureaucracies? All paid for by the same consumer/tax payer.

That wasn't the question. But, be that as it may, are you campaigning for an end to agricultural subsidies? And the subsidies to the oil companies?

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from dbphoenix:

That wasn't the question.

Considering TOTAL REAL cost, I believe it was or at least should have been the question.

But, be that as it may, are you campaigning for an end to agricultural subsidies? And the subsidies to the oil companies?

Both actually and have been for many years. Along with virtually all corporate welfare, most individual welfare, most foreign aid, congressional pensions...

 

[dbphoenix]

Quote from Lucrum:

Both actually and have been for many years.

Best of luck to you. But beware the monkey's paw.

 

[clacy]

Quote from dbphoenix:

The question was whether or not the government has been involved in anything that brought costs down? Asked and answered.

Where is the proof that these subsidies brought costs down? I'm not sure how a farmer making more because of a subsidy actually brings costs down? From my experience, when the government starts picking winners and losers, costs actually go up.

 

[Kevin Schmit]

Quote from dbphoenix:

The question was whether or not the government has been involved in anything that brought costs down?

The number of areas where government intervention has brought down costs is too high to catalog, even if you confine yourself to the US Federal Government.

One off the top of my head is long-haul transportation costs -- the railroads (grants of right-of-way, eminent domain etc.) and the interstate highway system (funding nearly the whole thing, eminent domain again).

Another is as insurer of last resort (Fannie, Freddie, and insuring nuclear power plants) brought down the cost of home-buying and electricity respectively. And the Fed's backstopping of the entire economy (another form of insurance) has kept the cost of capital at reasonable levels.

To those who think boosting taxes and government spending never boosted the economy, see Revolution, Glorious. When the Commons got the [nearly unfettered] power to levy taxes, the English economy exploded, taking the rest of Europe with it. It also tied taxation directly to representation.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from piezoe:


"If you believe government is bad, you will create bad government" -- George Soros.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

--Thomas Jefferson

 

[bighog]

It is a exercise in futility to argue with anyone that votes republican. The latest real life example is the "tea party".

How some persons see their own "reality" is something hard to take in.

I feel sorry for the turkey at a dinner table of those folks, imagine if you will being sacrificed for that crowd of clowns.. BYE!!