Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!godot!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <1919@inmet.UUCP> Date: Sun, 27-Jan-85 01:21:35 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1919 Posted: Sun Jan 27 01:21:35 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 21:16:43 EST Lines: 91 Nf-ID: #R:houxu:-50900:inmet:7800278:177600:4864 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 26 00:37:00 1985 Xref: seismo net.politics:7478 >***** inmet:net.politics / ucbcad!faustus / 4:01 pm Jan 21, 1985 >> Now for some kickers. Banks are still failing, and not all banks are FDIC >> insured. Also to get 10% on your money you have to use non FDIC insured >> form of investment. Or another words people have to RISK their savings >> just to maintain a decent return. Finally, the single biggest expense >> older people have is medical. Medical expenses have gone up more than any >> other type, so the probability of older people being able to not touch >> their principle is low, since they would need to pay their medical >> expenses. > >It would be a lot easier to just have the government pay all the >medical expenses of people over a certain age. Oh no! Wayne, consider, you can spend ANY AMOUNT of money on keeping someone alive. You can spend ANY AMOUNT of money to try and keep them just a little healthier than they already are. If you put the government in charge of paying all medical bills for people over a certain age you do a couple of horrible things: 1. You put the government in the position of deciding who is "too expensive" to keep alive. 2. By artificially lowering the price of medical services to zero, you give old people "signals" through the price system that medical help is plentiful. It is not. Doctors do not come out of nowhere just because more old people want them to, and yet this is the situation that would be consistent with the new price scheme. How will you provide the extra doctors? 3. You will establish a monopsony, that is, a one-buyer situation. The government will no doubt choose a particular price to pay doctors for a given service, and no doubt the price will be modified by complex local criteria, but what it comes down to is this: some things (those that cost on average, more than government is willing to pay) will be undersupplied. Others will be oversupplied. Do you really want to have people suffer because there are not enough kidney-machines, when there are too many hospital beds? This is the sort of nightmare you're going to let the elderly in for. 4. You will create great pressure for government to control the diet of the elderly, and later, everybody. I bring this up as an excuse to mention F. Paul Wilson's wonderful story "Lipidleggin'", which is reprinted in "The Survival of Freedom", a collection edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr. >Also there could be >government run "old people's homes" for those people who by some bad >luck have lost all their savings. Similar problems here, I think. How to prevent hell-holes? Who do you sue when the GOVERNMENT gives old people a half-destroyed, dangerous building to live in. Don't think it would happen? You must never have read about the fate of "project" housing for the poor. >GIving SS money to people who don't >absolutely need it is silly. Instead of letting people think, "I don't >have to save up for my old age because I will get social security", >they should be thinking "I'd better save my money and be careful with >it, because all I can be sure of is that the government won't let me >starve to death". Most people won't look forward to this sort of >minimal support, but at least they won't die because of lack of food >and medical care. Look, Wayne. I don't want you to starve, (really!) but I don't propose to feed you off the government dole. To say that adults cannot fend for themselves, to tell them that government will take care of them, is no service to the adults involved. What has happened, do you suppose, to those who were on government pensions in hyperinflated Germany? It's difficult to imagine what could cause the collapse of the dollar now, but it was probably as hard to imagine what could kill the Mark in Germany. It is true that pension funds go belly-up, and it is true that their insurers go belly-up, but it is also true that this is pretty rare, that such people are the legitimate objects of (private) charity, and that what you propose has serious side-effects. On top of everything else, once in place, if your plan became obviously a bad idea, it would be about as hard to remove as Social Security is now. >> What social security needs is not to be disbanded, it should be >> strengthened. How? Simple, put the tax on one's whole income and make it >> progressive. Also, charge employers a progressive social security tax. >> For every dollar of an employees salary that is over a hundred thousand >> dollars, the employer must add a a matching dollar to the social security >> fund. Further, every time prices are raised for a given service or >> product, then the social security fund must get half the amount of the gross >> income due to the increase in price. > >Great, more incentives not to make money. Just what we need. Amen, Wayne, Amen.