Is it your opinion that there's not really waste, fraud, and abuse by the government? Or that the country should continue ignoring the massive financial waste, fraud, and abuse simply because Elon Musk is on the other side of the argument?
OT: rural healthcare
- Thread starter horshack.sixpack
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It's the biggest problem the same way for profit is the biggest problem in food, cars, clothes, etc. etc. As with housing, the problem is restricting supply and then reacting to the problems from restricting supply by subsidizing demand.
The former.
Most every government program was created for a reason. You can debate the worthiness of the reason all you want, but this whole fraud thing is incredible overblown. The government has too many competing eyes inside of it to ever truly pull off big scams on the regular. Obviously there are some things that happen but usually done by some elected folks with more power than the regular civilian workforce.
'Waste' is only waste in the eyes of people who don't care or depend on the program.
As far as Elon goes, most people liked him until he showed up in the Oval Office and started doing idiotic shlt, so it doesn't matter what side of this he is on. His savings were drastically below what he claimed, that's documented. Ultimately he's run out of Washington, by Trump of all people. Think about that. His only indictments so far have been related to USAID which was created under suspect conditions.
If you want to attack the deficit, it'll take major philosophical changes. And raising taxes, which we haven't done since the 90s.
Is it? Teaching to a test and holding back kids is all we're doing. Schools figured out how to game the process and I don't blame them for that. But the funding is still poor and consolidation isn't the answer for every county either and that's our take along with charter schools that are coming soon. Then you're going to really see public education limited
Hospitals can't turn away people and in MS, they lose money when there's no funding to cover it all.
There's waste, fraud and abuse. D'uh. How much is the issue and anyone who thinks Doge found a ton of it isn't paying attention or simply has a personal definition of waste fraud and abuse others don't share. DOGE was such a waste and barely did anything but find a few idiotic programs that saved barely anything and likely will cost more as we fired and pushed highly talented, competent people to retire, some of who are getting paid for months to sit at home and do nothing before they retire. It will likely cost more to fix some of the problems DOGE created. "They fired people so they definitely got rid of waste" is for people impressed by slogans who don't read much beyond that.
Ok? What does that have to do with the point that theres too many? If you have a hospital that is only utilized say 30% of the time, its either too big or there are too many.
And just b/c public funding exist doesnt mean you should have an excess of anything.
We need more money!! throw money at it but don't dare do anything that would lower the actual expenses!!!
It seems impossible to me that anyone can believe there is no waste (this is US taxpayer money we're talking about) after all the details that have come out. But I guess we'll just agree to disagree, even though it boggles my mind. Even if DOGE only saved a few billion total in the end, I'd rather not spend that money than waste it. I'm pretty sure most people against what DOGE did are either in on the grift or they just hate Trump so much they can't see straight.
But forgetting the politics and getting back to the original poster's point. It seems like if we stopped throwing money at foreign countries and spending boondoggles here at home it could help. Just one small example, but what if instead of sending $20M to Iraq to create their version of Sesame Street, we used that $20M on healthcare in this country? I know, "$20M is nothing and won't help", but I'd rather it go to some poor people here than anything in Iraq.
I don't see how anyone can take the other side on that, unless you're PBS in Iraq or the legislator here who got that passed and is getting the kickback personally.
You and Goat need to get together and discuss. He just answered and said there is no W, F, and A.
And we're going to fix something that ain't broke in 2026 with an omnibus voucher plan.
Uhh, yeah? But why do you keep considering that grift (and waste/fraud/abuse whatever other buzzword you want to come up with)? You are acting like it's organized crime, and THAT is what I'm arguing against. That's why nobody is getting arrested due to this 'fraud'. It's all being done in legal channels. I mean hell Thad Cochran was talking about bringing home the bacon years ago.
Your issue is with congressional spending, period. There are too many checks in place for people to just be openly stealing from the government. You might be mad because so and so got a government contract, but 99.99% of that is done completely legally and if you don't like it, go to Congress about the program.
Another thing that gets me is that so many people are all about firing IRS agents, calling them asssholes, etc. Did they write the law? No. Then why are you blaming them if you didn't follow the law? They are doing their job (ironically which is collecting tax money for the US, which would help the budget/deficit).
Stop listening to your elected leaders who get up there and blame everyone else. Hold THEM accountable.
Don't be that unreasonable gomer who goes to extremes. You're better than that. We generally agree on most things so don't start yelling at me like I'm some flaming liberal.
There is teaching to the test, but that is not what is driving our improvement in reading. We are essentially teaching phonics again. Phonics actually works but most school systems abandoned it and it's hammered education across the country.
And we are holding kids back in 3rd grade to make sure they can read. Putting a kid that can't read in older grades is setting them up for failure because they need to be able to read to learn all subjects. People act like reading is like athletics and being a year older just naturally makes you better. Yes, being a year more mature is helpful, but it's not like in sports where the different between 12 and 13 can often be massive. We are showing improvement in 8th grade not because more kids are held back in third grade and are a year older, but because our 8th graders haven't spent prior years struggling to learn anything because they can't read.
It's like dropping people into a spanish III class when they haven't had Spanish I or II. Doing it to them as a junior instead of as a freshman isn't going to make much of a difference. They are going to have to work much harder to learn anything when they don't have the basics and making sure they pass Spanish I and II before taking Spanish III is going to make them perform much better and you can't just replicate that by waiting until they're older to take Spanish III.
If all the claimed fraud is real, where are the arrests? Where are the indictments?
That word, fraud, was irresponsibly thrown around for months and slapped onto most anything that people simply didn't like money being spent on.
So it's either a BS term and irresponsible to use so often, or it's legit and there are countless arrests and pending trials for those who committed the fraud.
As for waste and abuse, yeah there is some waste. Goat saying there isn't, to me, meant he doesn't think it is widespread waste that reaches unethical levels. It doesn't reach the levels that were constantly claimed at the start of DOGE.
What is wasteful spending to one person is strategic to another. It's often a matter of priorities.
And abuse is not widespread. It exists, but it is not anything like what has been claimed for months.
Let's reduce redundant spending. Let's reduce spending that isn't necessary because other processes can handle it.
The irresponsible claims of fraud and abuse that have vilified private people is unconacionable.
How all this has been handled is disgraceful. The pagentry around releasing unknown or misconstrued data and claims, in order to whip up outrage, is sad to see.
This is where firing people and reducing the size of govt might be more expensive. We might end up with more tax cheats getting away with it, reducing tax revenue, because enforcement is down and we might have more fraud because we've eliminated inspector generals and others in govt who, for a small salary and benefits, find lots of fraud helping govt collected needed revenue. But hey, I get a hard on whenever someone mentions eliminating fraud, abuse and wasteful spending so I don't need to think beyond that slogan.
This is expertly stated.
It's wild to me that people can't understand how failing to teach kids to read in k-2 hampers them across the rest of their education and life.
Waste identified by DOGE is a rounding error. I get it. We're spending millions on some total bullshite stuff but that's peanuts. DOGE said it would save $2Trillion, then $1 trillion and it looks like less than $100 billion in savings. That's nothing to sneeze at but's unimpressive. For instance, the US saved money by not fully funding levee construction in Louisiana. Then it had to spend tens of billions more than it would have because Katrina happened. I could save my family money by not getting homeowners insurance even though I live in south Louisiana. But hurricanes don't care about that.
We did a really good job in MS the last few years. We had been feeding these kids breakfast and Lunch more and more. Now, the them seems to be let them starve. No matter what we do with schools, if we don't feed them properly, it will not work.
BTW, a federal govt that just passed a budget that adds trillions to our debt is distracting you into thinking there's some massive fraud that's the real problem.
Those educational improvements, even if a bit exaggerated, are still impressive.
Not really, We called for an ambulance. An hour later, nothing.. They were still on their way. We finally scooped up that person and drove 30 minutes to the nearest hospital. Everyone says wait, they will bring the hospital to you and get you better care quicker than driving but not in rural areas. You may get an local EMT to your locale and they are better than nothing but transport? Besides, ambulances cost $$$$$ big time.
This is the thing. Insurance companies keep 48 cents out of every dollar they receive. Medicare has overhead as well but it's somewhere in the 4-10 % range. 4 % seems doable if you actually ran it right.
I have no idea why people hate on universal healthcare if it cuts out insurance companies getting rich off our premiums and then refusing to pay for stuff when needed. I guess it's the fear mongers. We have proof from other countries that it does work and gives us better healthcare and costs less.
Musk was not allowed to touch the biggest waste in the Gov't which is our military and everyone knows that's where our money goes. We give Israel 50 million a day to wage war in 2023 and all the cuts Musk made meant virtually nothing in comparison. A meteorologist that was supposed to be monitoring early warning for floods in TX took a Musk package, his job still vacant. Not positive he could have saved lives but no even being on the job is a start.
Trump, when asked if there would be an investigation into whether that job being vacant cost lives. He said it was Biden's fault. Trump is a piece of work, of course he blames Biden when it was him that took him off the job and won't even investigate it.
Money? Yes, it takes money. We should be feeding these kids and educating them and that cost money. If we don't, we end up with a bunch of thugs instead of contributors to society. Not every kid gets 3 squares a day or has a good home life but if we are smart, we will feed them and educate them because that is far cheaper then housing them in for profit prisons.
A. it shouldn't be everyone's responsibility to take care of everyone else who can't
B. they get free food at school
C. they get SNAP
Not one single child who is really in NEED of food can't get what they NEED. Now maybe their parents abuse their snap funds and that causes them an issue, but if thats the case, they are going to do that with anything you give them.
Well you'd definitely know about that!
But here's a novel idea. Just ignore the emotional reactions.
We could cut it every single discretionary dollar out of the budget, including the military, and we still run a deficit. The real money goes to debt service, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
We identified a lot of it in the past 5.5 months. You can bury your head in the sand and say it was false info but it wasn't.
If $6,238 per person in federal spending was plenty in 2000, why isn't $12,000/person plenty now (thats beating inflation).
WE ARE PROJECTED TO BE AT $21,255/PERSON IN 2025. Thats more than double after adjusting for inflation. BUT ITS ALL NEEDED!!!!
They didn't add to the debt. They added to the debt ceiling. Thats different.
Do i think our debt is going to go up? Absolutely b/c they are all as dumb as some of you or they just want to get reelected OR BOTH.
Did we not fund levee construction? Or was there plenty of money available from one source or another that disappeared into the Louisiana black hole of graft? I honestly don't know the answer to that question, but I know which way I would bet.
I'm pretty skeptical of that being true anywhere. Maybe there are some particular types of health issue where getting an ambulance in 10 minutes is better than being in the hospital in 15, but for most things I'm calling an ambulance for, minutes matter and if minutes don't matter, I'm probably being driven to the hospital. I guess if there is a potential back or neck injury, I'm waiting. But otherwise, if it's me or my loved ones, we're going to the hospital the fastest way we can get there.
What the BBB does is make tons of folks ineligible for Medicaid. Most hospitals in Mississippi are community based, not private, and therefore can't turn away uninsured people for treatment. While a lot of people are cheering this bc their favorite news network convinced them that are sticking it to fraudsters, the reality is they are sticking it to the hospitals. Those people will still need treatment, but now the hospital won't even get the pittance Medicaid pays. They will all start to fold because it is unsustainable. And in MS, a huge number of those very people, "support" the BBB. Historians will forever be analyzing how a political party convinced droves of poor people to vote against their own interests, but we are watching it in real time. Red states like MS are the largest dependents of federal programs. Our hospitals already can barely attract any medical residents other than foreign born, and while likely very capable, the language barriers can affect care. Don't believe me, go look at any MS hospitals recent class of residents. By taking away the population's coverage under Medicaid, and it will only get worse.
I agree with that, I just thought it was funny that y'all gave two 180 degree opposite answers to my question.
And you have never seemed like a flaming liberal before, but you have to admit you have held a couple of their protest signs lately.
Would love to know where you get these numbers. Health insurers in the US generally have to 80% of premiums on healthcare or quality improvements. I'm sure there are plenty of ways to game that, but not to the extend of doubling those costs (and that's ignoring that classifying administrative costs as money the insurance companies "keep" is playing more than a little loose with the english language).
Because they are afraid that rationing care by political clout as opposed to utilizing something vaguely resembling a market system would result in them being unable to get the care they need.
No, we don't. Our system is a bad one and in many ways it's the worst of government controlled healthcare and market based care (although it's stretching it to call it market based with all the distortions), but it still provides generally better healthcare at a higher cost. It's certainly possible that we would be better off as a whole if we just did Medicaid for all (although it's hard to really say what counts as better off as a whole when we are already so far from a market based system), but people are understandably wary of it. Medicaid does not look appealing to most people compared to the status quo.
To be fair, the poor people of MS are not voting Republican. You are twisting that information. No need for a historian.