Another Smoking Gun - LBJ & Medicare

[DeeZire]

For the economic illiterates and innumerates:

When the historians get around to explaining the how and the why of the bankruptcy of the United States, one of the events they will point to is the blank check on its Treasury provided to the public by Lyndon Baines Johnson. The creation of that blank check was accomplished by his intentional and deliberate lie.


http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=24535854&postcount=1

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=31788704&postcount=23

Another one of the events they will point to is the unwillingness of the American people to accept responsibility for the extra services they're benefitting from by paying higher taxes.

What I would like to see from you, Trysail, is a breakdown on which governemt services you would like to see eliminated. Then you could spend your time trying to drum up a consensus on the elimination of these particular government services.

In lieu of that, your only alternative is to lobby for a higher tax rate. You do want to solve the financial crisis, don't you? Or are you only here to whine?

 

[trysail]

You, apparently, think this is all a big joke. It ain't. If time hasn't already run out, it's about to.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/GAO_Slide.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Medicare_%26_Social_Security_Deficits_Chart.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Medicare_and_Medicaid_GDP_Chart.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Growth_Rates_GDP_vs._Entitlements.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

 

[sr71plt]

Perhaps the joke is wasting your gunpowder on an Internet porn board. I think that's a bit funny. Have a little trouble gathering audiences, do you?

 

[trysail]

Perhaps the joke is wasting your gunpowder on an Internet porn board. I think that's a bit funny. Have a little trouble gathering audiences, do you?

Don't make the mistake of thinking I give a fuck or that I'm even slightly interested in trying to save idiots from themselves.

As to my actual motivation— you'd never understand ( not that I give a damn ) so why should I bother informing you— 'sides, it's "nunya."

You, apparently, think this is all a big joke. It ain't. If time hasn't already run out, it's about to.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/GAO_Slide.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/Medicare_%26_Social_Security_Deficits_Chart.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b3/Medicare_and_Medicaid_GDP_Chart.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/13/Growth_Rates_GDP_vs._Entitlements.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

 

[sr71plt]

I might understand, Trysail. I have four university degrees. Making me care what you think and push at me might be a harder sell. I know enough that if I had an impassioned position to take, I'd take it in its own environment--I certainly wouldn't preach economics on a porn board--beyond wondering how much of a percentage the pimp should get. Again, I guess you aren't given much of an ear in other quarters, right?

 

[trysail]

[ Highlights mine ]



When you hand out blank checks, it is inevitable that you will eventually go bankrupt. It's not a question of "if," it is a matter of "when." The outcome of a system like this is as predictable as sunrise:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124090475

...The story goes all the way back to 1965, when the federal government was about to launch Medicare — the health-insurance plan for the elderly.

The idea of a government-run health-insurance plan made doctors nervous, and Lyndon Johnson's administration was worried that doctors wouldn't take Medicare patients. So Joseph Califano, Johnson's adviser for domestic affairs, made what seemed like a small concession: Medicare would pay doctors whatever they thought was reasonable.

That worked out well for doctors. They had been providing lots of free care for old people, and they started getting paid whatever they asked for, as long as it wasn't wildly out of line with what others were charging.

We found what the general fee for a service was and charged that or maybe added 10 percent, because of course I'm better than average," says Lucian Leape, who was a practicing surgeon at the time. "So it was an incentive for doctors to charge what they thought was reasonable for them, and then of course to increase it every year by, say, 5 or 10 percent."

Within two years, Johnson's advisers saw that the amount Medicare was paying doctors was rising far more quickly than had been anticipated. They wanted to Congress to change the payment structure. But doctors, who had a lot of sway with Congress, found they liked the payment system. So the system stayed in place for decades, as medicine got more expensive...

"An elephant. A mouse built to government specifications."
- Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough For Love
"The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"

 

[3113]

I certainly wouldn't preach economics on a porn board--beyond wondering how much of a percentage the pimp should get.

But the prostitute gets free health care, right? I mean, if the prostitutes have health care but the pimps still get money then that kinda disproves the pie chart....

 

[WRJames]

I have to say that for somone who scoffs at the hockey stick curve the Global Warming folks put up, Trysail is really guilty of about the same bullshit with his entitlement graph.

Come on! How about pulling that revenue curve up a bit?

 

[3113]

I have to say that for somone who scoffs at the hockey stick curve the Global Warming folks put up, Trysail is really guilty of about the same bullshit with his entitlement graph.

Well, to be fair, his charts do use prettier colors.

 

[trysail]

...Trysail is really guilty of about the same bullshit with his entitlement graph.

Come on! How about pulling that revenue curve up a bit?

Look carefully; I think you will see that the amounts measured by the "x-axis" are variable and dynamic.