Originally Posted by
jungle
Where to start? As a mod it is my job to kill partisan posts, but this is such a good example of the failure of partisan politics that I thought it best to let it stand.
What many of us don't understand is that both sides have dwelt in a fantasy of high debt and the extreme fantasy of unlimited resources. Of course the congress critters have their very own special retirement and medical plans, so they can't be counted on for an honest judgement.
Looking at the actual numbers, the US spends more money on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other country. You need to talk to some real Doctors to find out why this massive injection of taxpayer funding has driven medical costs through the roof.
First, government has no money, any money they get is derived from the productive sectors of society. Many equate "free" with government funded, and have only a primitive concept of money as a symbol of the generation of wealth. The ultimate goal of government health care is to eliminate competion and jobs in the private sector. Ask yourself how this worked for the post office, social security, public education, and medicaid. The result were dismal and no rational person would buy the product.
Elimination of profit is really elimination of value.
Imagine going to the MVD and the person behind the desk actually got paid by how many services they performed? Think they would would all take their breaks with 50 people waiting anymore? Unfortunately, pay for performance is rare and getting fired for lack of performance is less likely than being promoted for it - but does it really have to be this way?
Public schools where I live are great, by the way, as was the one I grew up going to. Not surprisingly, public school performance correlates very well with the numbers of unbroken families attending and wealth in the system.
As far as the "government leeches off producers and doesn't produce anything" argument (paraphrased). No, government does not produce anything material, but it does provide services - preferably only services that the private sector does not have incentive to provide.