Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[tantric superman 4667]

3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Am I losing my mind? I don't hear vocal fry when she speaks but a few posters can't stop harping on it. Is that shit like yanni/laurel or something?

Strong end of sentence vocal fry game in the first video I found.  She does start out her sentences strong with no vf, so there is hope for her.

Strong vocal fry game -- not near as bad as it could be.

.  

[Anastasis 23390]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

I've had enough of this either-or bullshit.

Mark me as #bothsides on this one too. 

[Brisketexan 104537]

3 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

it's quite frightening that anyone with her ideology receives anything other than absolute admonishment and scorn.  It all sounds good.  It is always a spectacular failure.  

The funny thing is, that's utterly false.  Not that long ago, we effectively DID have pretty close to "free" college education -- public universities were accessible to all for next-to-nothing.  Check out what tuition was at UT 50 years ago (1969).  Compare that to the average wage, and you'll see that a person could pay their college tuition by working just a few hours a week.  Today, it takes 56 hours a week of work to pay tuition (in other words, it can't be done).

Not that long ago, we had a top marginal tax rate of over NINETY percent.  Those periods coincided with the most prosperous decades in US history.

Just a couple of examples of the OPPOSITE being true.  During the Great Prosperity, we had high marginal tax rates, we had nearly-free public university tuition, health care costs as a percent of GDP were WAY lower, etc. etc.

Having strong mechanisms to insure the continuation of the common good is actually ESSENTIAL to healthy, functioning capitalism.  Not only is it not "socialism" (a meaningless word, as nobody of any substance is advocating for the workers to own the means of production), it's actually hand-in-hand with high-functioning capitalism.  The irony, it's amazing.

[Js1 85085]

10 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

it's quite frightening that anyone with her ideology receives anything other than absolute admonishment and scorn.  It all sounds good.  It is always a spectacular failure.  

Donald Trump is president.

Kindly go fuck yourself.

[tantric superman 4667]

At my law school reunion, one of my classmates reminded me that a bunch of us went to protest (I didn't remember) them increasing tuition from something like $4 an hour to $8 an hour. 

My UT education was essentially free. 

When I graduated from law school I had a loan balance of a couple of thousand dollars.

[SquishMitten 10397]

21 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

I think something to remember is that guys on the wrong side of 50 like me are generally grouchy, and are pretty prejudiced against millennials unless they are pouring us beer or bringing us food.  AOC is throwing down the vocal fry and millennial vibe pretty hard, and I'm going to have to fight through some of those prejudices pretty hard just to give her a fair shake.

I will because my disgust at the GOP is stronger than old-man millennial hate, but not that much stronger.

That's kind of the same thing I'm talking about when I say she has a long way to go. She's still too young to play the game at the highest levels, but she's coming in strong. A lot of politicians have come in strong and eventually burned out though. Time will tell, but as long as the party is drawing in people like her then they can share some of that burden and make a stronger, more sustainable impact.

[Brisketexan 104537]

6 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

At my law school reunion, one of my classmates reminded me that a bunch of us went to protest (I didn't remember) them increasing tuition from something like $4 an hour to $8 an hour. 

My UT education was essentially free. 

When I graduated from law school I had a loan balance of a couple of thousand dollars.

Posrep.  That's what I'm saying.  All of these folks saying "these things can never work" ignore the fact that 1) they DID work, for decades, and 2) those decades coincide with our most prosperous era as a nation.  It's amazing.

[Incredulity 11541]

3 minutes ago, tantric superman said:

At my law school reunion, one of my classmates reminded me that a bunch of us went to protest (I didn't remember) them increasing tuition from something like $4 an hour to $8 an hour. 

My UT education was essentially free. 

When I graduated from law school I had a loan balance of a couple of thousand dollars.

 

10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The funny thing is, that's utterly false.  Not that long ago, we effectively DID have pretty close to "free" college education -- public universities were accessible to all for next-to-nothing.  Check out what tuition was at UT 50 years ago (1969).  Compare that to the average wage, and you'll see that a person could pay their college tuition by working just a few hours a week.  Today, it takes 56 hours a week of work to pay tuition (in other words, it can't be done).

Not that long ago, we had a top marginal tax rate of over NINETY percent.  Those periods coincided with the most prosperous decades in US history.

Just a couple of examples of the OPPOSITE being true.  During the Great Prosperity, we had high marginal tax rates, we had nearly-free public university tuition, health care costs as a percent of GDP were WAY lower, etc. etc.

Having strong mechanisms to insure the continuation of the common good is actually ESSENTIAL to healthy, functioning capitalism.  Not only is it not "socialism" (a meaningless word, as nobody of any substance is advocating for the workers to own the means of production), it's actually hand-in-hand with high-functioning capitalism.  The irony, it's amazing.

 

Tax collections as a percentage of GDP are flat over the same period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser's_law

So what has changed that has caused education costs to balloon so much?  Would it be the ability of every a-hole out of high school to borrow essentially unlimited amounts of money to pay from a product they are told is absolutely essential to their future with NO accountability for the quality of said product???

[tantric superman 4667]

Agree.  Just because the Dems could screw up, doesn't mean the party didn't need lots of disruption.

We've gotta keep our heads until this disruption craze blows over.

[Anastasis 23390]

Government policies and manipulation of the money flowing into the educational system played a key role in education inflation over the last 30 years. Healthcare inflation going warp speed tracks very closely to greater government involvement in healthcare. The housing and financial crisis last decade, government involvement and manipulation of the markets.  But maybe M4A and free education and guaranteed basic income for everyone will turn out awesome and there will be no broad unintended consequences. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Anastasis

[retread 2951]

 

[Anastasis 23390]

She's a straight up cold killer on twitter. 

[jimmyjazz 45538]

26 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Am I losing my mind? I don't hear vocal fry when she speaks but a few posters can't stop harping on it. Is that shit like yanni/laurel or something?

No, she doesn't speak with a vocal fry.  It's one of the new catchphrases that can't get dead soon enough.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Posrep.  That's what I'm saying.  All of these folks saying "these things can never work" ignore the fact that 1) they DID work, for decades, and 2) those decades coincide with our most prosperous era as a nation.  It's amazing.

Like I said a few days ago, we have become a nation of whipped dogs. If it's not good for the one percent, and only the one percent, we don't believe we deserve it. Shit like healthcare and education is for pansies in Europe and shit -- we just want tax breaks for the rich, subsidies for big ag and awl, and a bloated military. Yee fucking haw. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by MaybeACoordinator

[hayden_horn 11360]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Posrep.  That's what I'm saying.  All of these folks saying "these things can never work" ignore the fact that 1) they DID work, for decades, and 2) those decades coincide with our most prosperous era as a nation.  It's amazing.

you mean, uh, back when america was allegedly great?

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

No, she doesn't speak with a vocal fry.  It's one of the new catchphrases that can't get dead soon enough.

Vocal fry is very real but she doesn't have it. 

[wildcat09 29213]

9 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

you mean, uh, back when america was allegedly great?

What y'all are forgetting is that America was great then because all of that good shit was accessible to white people but not non-white people. That's what made it great! I mean, if non-white people can go to college and shit, we might as well just scrap everything and go back to pure feudalism. 

[jimmyjazz 45538]

6 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Vocal fry is very real but she doesn't have it. 

Oh, I'm well aware that it's real, but it's been co-opted to explain almost any speech anomaly.  It's like "OCD" -- no, you don't have OCD just because you don't like a messy kitchen.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

Just now, jimmyjazz said:

Oh, I'm well aware that it's real, but it's been co-opted to explain almost any speech anomaly.  It's like "OCD" -- no, you don't have OCD just because you don't like a messy kitchen.

Yeah, agreed. 

[tantric superman 4667]

That's obvious, classic, vocal fry.  Go to 1:45 of my clip. When she names the countries that is clear vocal fry. 

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/buzzword/entries/vocal-fry.html

And she isn't near as terrible about it as some.

No question that younger folks don't mind it as much as older folks.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by tantric superman

[Chad Fuck 17548]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I've had enough of this either-or bullshit.

This is America.  My grandfather didn't carry a rifle to Berlin so I could be restricted to liking one or the other.  I like 'em all, cuz freedom.

If your grandfather carried a rifle to Berlin, he'd be Russian.

But carry on.  

[Incredulity 11541]

1 minute ago, Chad Fuck said:

If your grandfather carried a rifle to Berlin, he'd be Russian.

But carry on.  

@Hugo Stiglitz

 

THE SMOKING GUN!!!!

[Brisketexan 104537]

19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Government policies and manipulation of the money flowing into the educational system played a key role in education inflation over the last 30 years. Healthcare inflation going warp speed tracks very closely to greater government involvement in healthcare. The housing and financial crisis last decade, government involvement and manipulation of the markets.  But maybe M4A and free education and guaranteed basic income for everyone will turn out awesome and there will be no broad unintended consequences. 

 

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

What y'all are forgetting is that America was great then because all of that good shit was accessible to white people but not non-white people. That's what made it great! I mean, if non-white people can go to college and shit, we might as well just scrap everything and go back to pure feudalism. 

There is truth in both of these posts....but neither is insurmountable.

Yes, I've long-agreed that the government stepping into the student loan market to the degree that it did created an utterly predictable economic outcome: open the spigot of money for commodity X, the price of commodity X will go up commensurate with the flow of money out of the spigot.  BUT, we also have seen the public/taxpayer support for state universities plummet.  There are solutions out there that address both -- just to speak to one of the issues.

And, we do need to look at the fact that some economic fundamentals have changed -- when 15% of the population was carved out of higher education, higher-level employment, etc., that was a different economy.  Of course, we're still doing our level-best to insure that the ratio remains skewed (war on drugs, holla!).  Add in the change of women as part of the work force -- that is also big.

The point is, responding to policies and circumstances that long-existed and saying "it can't work!" and "SOCIALISM!" is ridiculous and foolish.

[Brisketexan 104537]

2 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

If your grandfather carried a rifle to Berlin, he'd be Russian.

But carry on.  

Well, I ain't sure where he stopped.  I know that he thought the French were pretty, but snooty, he thought the Dutch were lazy, and he thought the Germans were amazingly industrious (the smoke hadn't cleared after battles, and they'd be out in the street, sorting through the rubble and separating out the usable bricks).  And he would have wanted us to admire ALL the pretty women.

[Dahobbs 17420]

16 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Government policies and manipulation of the money flowing into the educational system played a key role in education inflation over the last 30 years. Healthcare inflation going warp speed tracks very closely to greater government involvement in healthcare. The housing and financial crisis last decade, government involvement and manipulation of the markets.  But maybe M4A and free education and guaranteed basic income for everyone will turn out awesome and there will be no broad unintended consequences. 

This is way oversimplified. First, government involvement in education and healthcare has been very different. I don't think you can really make a direct analogy between the two. Second,  I think government involvement is like item #1000 on the list of causes of healthcare inflation.  Chief causes of rising healthcare costs are almost certainly (1) older population, (2) system designed to treat rather than prevent, (3) worsening health of population (see 1 and 2), (4) separation of patients from actual medical costs, and (5) insurers are actual incentivized  to allow higher costs as their overall profit and revenue are positively correlated with the price of healthcare. 

[Fozzz 152]

Saez and Zucman are essential reading.

Quote

But that’s not the fundamental reason higher top marginal income tax rates are desirable. Their root justification is not about collecting revenue. It is about regulating inequality and the market economy. It is also about safeguarding democracy against oligarchy.

It has always been about that. Look at the history of the United States. From 1930 to 1980, the top marginal income tax rate averaged 78 percent; it exceeded 90 percent from 1951 to 1963. What’s important to realize is that these rates applied to extraordinarily high incomes only, the equivalent of more than several million dollars today. Only the ultrarich were subjected to them. In 1960, for example, the top marginal tax rate of 91 percent started biting above a threshold that was nearly 100 times the average national income per adult, the equivalent of $6.7 million in annual income today. The merely rich — the high-earning professionals, the medium-size company executives, people with incomes in the hundreds of thousands in today’s dollars — were taxed at marginal rates in a range of 25 percent to 50 percent, in line with what’s typical nowadays (for instance, in states like California and New York, including state income taxes).

That few people faced the 90 percent top tax rates was not a bug; it was the feature that caused sky-high incomes to largely disappear. The point of high top marginal income tax rates is to constrain the immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches. From the 1930s to the 1980s, the United States came as close as any democratic country ever did to imposing a legal maximum income. The inequality of pretax income shrunk dramatically.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opinion/ocasio-cortez-taxes.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[Chad Fuck 17548]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Well, I ain't sure where he stopped.  I know that he thought the French were pretty, but snooty, he thought the Dutch were lazy, and he thought the Germans were amazingly industrious (the smoke hadn't cleared after battles, and they'd be out in the street, sorting through the rubble and separating out the usable bricks).  And he would have wanted us to admire ALL the pretty women.

We do (nods approvingly), we do.

[Cajun 11675]

38 minutes ago, retread said:

 

Ok, white flag fellas.  I know I'm missing something here.  I don't follow Chaffetz.  The only time I notice him is when he's lapdogging for Fox here and there.

When I think of the Healthcare/Cell phone thing it's this...

Again, white flag, hands up, palms out.  

What am I missing?

 

Edit: Nevermind, I found it.  

Edited January 22, 2019 by Cajun
The Googles, how do they work?

[Dahobbs 17420]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

There is truth in both of these posts....but neither is insurmountable.

Yes, I've long-agreed that the government stepping into the student loan market to the degree that it did created an utterly predictable economic outcome: open the spigot of money for commodity X, the price of commodity X will go up commensurate with the flow of money out of the spigot.  BUT, we also have seen the public/taxpayer support for state universities plummet.  There are solutions out there that address both -- just to speak to one of the issues.

While I agree to an extent,  simply blaming an influx of money ignores the other half of supply-demand curve. The other thing that happened is our demand for college educated workers and college education greatly increased, which of course  leads to an increase in prices. The interesting question might be whether the rise in availability in education loans indirectly led to our demand for college educated workers or whether those two things have a shared root cause. 

[Dahobbs 17420]

Cajun, here ya go: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Jason+Chaffetz+cell+phone

Literally click on ANY of the links on first few pages of results. Good luck. 

[Patrick Bateman 3903]

1 hour ago, Cajun said:

Using this as a standard I'm goin' with Tulsi.

Hmmm..... you seem like a guy who checks the exterior of a car and says, "I'll take it" without test driving it or looking under the hood.  Let's see the bottom half:

Like a fullback's.... canks, pass.

[Cajun 11675]

7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Cajun, here ya go: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Jason+Chaffetz+cell+phone

Literally click on ANY of the links on first few pages of results. Good luck. 

Yeah, he's a moron.

[Cajun 11675]

7 minutes ago, Patrick Bateman said:

Hmmm..... you seem like a guy who checks the exterior of a car and says, "I'll take it" without test driving it or looking under the hood.  Let's see the bottom half:

Like a fullback's.... canks, pass.

Oooh.  Reminds me of the broads on CNBC.  They give incredible face, but check around and lower and it's hard pass time.

I'm still not over what I found in my Meg Tirrel, uh, research.

With regard to the car analogy, I'm never buying any of these models, so yeah, I'm probably a bit trigger happy knowing I don't have to live with my own poor judgement.

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Cajun

[DaysOff 7843]

At my law school reunion, one of my classmates reminded me that a bunch of us went to protest (I didn't remember) them increasing tuition from something like $4 an hour to $8 an hour. 
My UT education was essentially free. 
When I graduated from law school I had a loan balance of a couple of thousand dollars.

Nah it tripled. Went from 4 to 12. I remember those protests. Seemed silly then and now, but it was foreshadowing of state governments that can't or won't fund higher education.

[Anastasis 23390]

47 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

This is way oversimplified. First, government involvement in education and healthcare has been very different. I don't think you can really make a direct analogy between the two. Second,  I think government involvement is like item #1000 on the list of causes of healthcare inflation.  Chief causes of rising healthcare costs are almost certainly (1) older population, (2) system designed to treat rather than prevent, (3) worsening health of population (see 1 and 2), (4) separation of patients from actual medical costs, and (5) insurers are actual incentivized  to allow higher costs as their overall profit and revenue are positively correlated with the price of healthcare. 

Of course there is some simplification involved.  The government via CMS basically shapes everything about the modern practice of medicine in the United States. We could debate where its influence falls relative to other factors, but there is no doubt it's in the top 5 factors associated with healthcare inflation. In fact of the 5 items that you listed, two (4 and 5) are directly related to the fee for service framework that CMS established for healthcare financing (I would debate the formulation you use for 5, insurer's revenue and profit is primarily driven by head count and managing utilization, but that's a separate discussion). And because graphs are fun:

 

[LCHorn 2585]

27 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

There’s also a pretty ridiculous bloat in college administrations and “student services”.  I’ll try to find the graph later, but a couple of years ago on shaggy when we had this discussion someone looked up what university expenditures had been increasing and the administrative costs were way ahead of inflation and everything else.

I think that is mostly due to the money spigot.   You allow universities to basically charge whatever they want, and they’ll find ways to need more and keep as much of it as they can going to their people and nice amenities even if it’s not really essential to the core purpose.

If we did get back to higher education being affordable, it would really entail some pretty draconian downsizing and streamlining.   I think it realistically needs to happen, but it would mean displacing a lot of employees and offering a lot less comfort to students.  There’s more to unpack there than just saying what’s changed is less taxpayer subsidies.

I’ve seen those same numbers and no doubt there’s bloat.  That said, I’m not familiar with university expenditures outside of the UT system, and in regards to them specifically, I’m not really offended seeing experienced admin staff make $60k a year or professors make enough so they don’t feel compelled to leave for more money.  

 

[tantric superman 4667]

1 hour ago, Patrick Bateman said:

Hmmm..... you seem like a guy who checks the exterior of a car and says, "I'll take it" without test driving it or looking under the hood.  Let's see the bottom half:

Like a fullback's.... canks, pass.

I'd surf all day with her (if I could grab her ankles while she paddled out), nab a plate lunch and a few longboard brews after, and then let her have her way with me while disciplining me for being a liberal snowflake all night long.

Edited January 22, 2019 by tantric superman

[Post Oak 20182]

1 hour ago, retread said:

 

Damn.  She's prime Jordan right now.  

I'd take 2 dozen more of her. 

[Dahobbs 17420]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

In fact of the 5 items that you listed, two (4 and 5) are directly related to the fee for service framework that CMS established for healthcare financing (I would debate the formulation you use for 5, insurer's revenue and profit is primarily driven by head count and managing utilization, but that's a separate discussion). And because graphs are fun:

 

 

I'm very familiar with healthcare pricing. While certainly the CMS framework is essentially the industry standard, it isn't clear to me at all that "fee-for-service" in some form or another wouldn't exist but for CMS. And, regardless of pricing methodology, the patient is still disconnected from the price of care due to the evolution of our healthcare system around insurance. Finally, while overhead certainly plays a role in insurer profitability, you really can't deny that insurer revenue/profitability can be expressed as a function of total healthcare costs. After all, insurers are looking to collect premiums at some percentage over their expected risk. And, if margins stay the same, then profit is ultimately maximized by higher total healthcare costs. Put another way, if an insurer's total exposure is low (healthcare costs), then so too are its premiums (revenue) and profit. 

[TwiceHorn 31240]

I vividly remember the 4-8-12 tuition increase.  I also recall that Ann Richards was either the impetus or a vocal supporter of the increase.  What I don't recall is what the lege was doing with funding at the time.  Because the governor has no real power, I assume that the tuition increase coincided with a funding cut from the lege, but didn't realize it went back that far.

[pepper brooks 579]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

The funny thing is, that's utterly false.  Not that long ago, we effectively DID have pretty close to "free" college education -- public universities were accessible to all for next-to-nothing.  Check out what tuition was at UT 50 years ago (1969).  Compare that to the average wage, and you'll see that a person could pay their college tuition by working just a few hours a week.  Today, it takes 56 hours a week of work to pay tuition (in other words, it can't be done).

Not that long ago, we had a top marginal tax rate of over NINETY percent.  Those periods coincided with the most prosperous decades in US history.

Just a couple of examples of the OPPOSITE being true.  During the Great Prosperity, we had high marginal tax rates, we had nearly-free public university tuition, health care costs as a percent of GDP were WAY lower, etc. etc.

Having strong mechanisms to insure the continuation of the common good is actually ESSENTIAL to healthy, functioning capitalism.  Not only is it not "socialism" (a meaningless word, as nobody of any substance is advocating for the workers to own the means of production), it's actually hand-in-hand with high-functioning capitalism.  The irony, it's amazing.

When we had those 90% marginal rates nobody paid anywhere close to that.  Tax receipts were about 16-20% of GDP.  Same as today.  The idea that somehow those rates would work is absurd.  They can't work.  YOu know that, and I'm frankly shocked someone of your intelligence would ever insinuate that those rates were actually paid and prosperity ensued.  You know better than that.  As for cost of education it's a pretty simple issue of supply and demand.  There is now endless financing available for college education, hence the latest trillion dollar crisis known as the student loan crisis.  Easy money translates to excess demand while supply has remained unchanged.  This isn't rocket science either.  When I attended UT my tuition for 15 hours was about $500-$750 per semester, but the supply of people trying to get in was quite a bit different.  So yeah, her absurd hard left socialism will fail again just as it has every other time and place it's been tried.  HEll, look at what has happened to the NY restaurant scene with their  huge jump in wages.  90% of restaurants reported price increases last year while the inflation resulting from it has not improved the lives of the restaurant workers, and been quite detrimental to the ones laid off.  

[pepper brooks 579]

2 hours ago, Js1 said:

Donald Trump is president.

Kindly go fuck yourself.

well thought out response.  What does trump have to do with the fact that ideology is a failure each and every time it is applied?  I didn't mention trump.  I am not a trump voter.  So you may kindly go....

[Dahobbs 17420]

1 minute ago, pepper brooks said:

When we had those 90% marginal rates nobody paid anywhere close to that.  Tax receipts were about 16-20% of GDP.  Same as today.  The idea that somehow those rates would work is absurd.  They can't work.  YOu know that, and I'm frankly shocked someone of your intelligence would ever insinuate that those rates were actually paid and prosperity ensued.  You know better than that.  As for cost of education it's a pretty simple issue of supply and demand.  There is now endless financing available for college education, hence the latest trillion dollar crisis known as the student loan crisis.  Easy money translates to excess demand while supply has remained unchanged.  This isn't rocket science either.  When I attended UT my tuition for 15 hours was about $500-$750 per semester, but the supply of people trying to get in was quite a bit different.  So yeah, her absurd hard left socialism will fail again just as it has every other time and place it's been tried.  HEll, look at what has happened to the NY restaurant scene with their  huge jump in wages.  90% of restaurants reported price increases last year while the inflation resulting from it has not improved the lives of the restaurant workers, and been quite detrimental to the ones laid off.  

Wait, why do we know those rates weren't paid? And, even if no one had income that resulted in those marginal rates going in to effect, why is the conclusion that the rates weren't effective? Couldn't it be that individuals avoided those rates by, for instance, re-investing in a business or paying more to employees? So, even without the rates actually be paid, the purpose would have been served by promoting economic expansion and inhibiting wealth disparity?  

[bad_teammate 13132]

4 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

When we had those 90% marginal rates nobody paid anywhere close to that.  Tax receipts were about 16-20% of GDP.  Same as today.  The idea that somehow those rates would work is absurd.  They can't work.

What do you mean by "work"?

[Fozzz 152]

As noted by Saez and Zucman in the linked article I provided, the point of the 90% top marginal rate was to curtail inequality by eliminating extremely high incomes.  It was a de facto maximum allowable income. 

[Anastasis 23390]

56 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm very familiar with healthcare pricing. While certainly the CMS framework is essentially the industry standard, it isn't clear to me at all that "fee-for-service" in some form or another wouldn't exist but for CMS. And, regardless of pricing methodology, the patient is still disconnected from the price of care due to the evolution of our healthcare system around insurance.

We are pretty much on the same page, with the additional point that the single greatest factor that has influenced the evolution of the healthcare financing system is the US is CMS.  The insurers operate within the basic framework established by CMS.  Most of the billing infrastructure, for example, is built around fee schedules, schemes, and protocols established by CMS. The disconnect between billed and paid amounts, as another example, is a direct artifact of CMS pricing mechanisms.   

 

56 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Finally, while overhead certainly plays a role in insurer profitability, you really can't deny that insurer revenue/profitability can be expressed as a function of total healthcare costs. After all, insurers are looking to collect premiums at some percentage over their expected risk. And, if margins stay the same, then profit is ultimately maximized by higher total healthcare costs. Put another way, if an insurer's total exposure is low (healthcare costs), then so too are its premiums (revenue) and profit. 

In the current environment, profit is best expressed as a function of total covered individuals (headcount, not overhead) and MLR. Nobody is the insurance industry is strategizing how to increase total healthcare spend. They spend a lot of time on the other hand trying to figure out how to compete on premium and manage utilization. Arguably, in the current system they are the only entity with a vested interest in reducing the total cost of healthcare. 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Anastasis

[Newy25 7638]

If the world is going to end in 12 years, that makes financial planning that much easier. That's a big relief. Also no need to create a 2031 recruiting thread. So sad. 

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by Newy25

[Cajun 11675]

46 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

What do you mean by "work"?

Bill, that you?

[Underdog 28443]

The pics of this Meg Tirrel chick isn’t showing up for me, anyone else having this problem? 

[elfenix 34169]

well thought out response.  What does trump have to do with the fact that ideology is a failure each and every time it is applied?  I didn't mention trump.  I am not a trump voter.  So you may kindly go....

"BUT VENEZUELA!"