Deregulated Mopeds

North Americans are unusual in that they all seem to hate their own government but trust big business. This is in the land where underregulated banks gambled with other peoples money and everyone else lost.

I live in Australia. We have a medical safety net called Medicare, that means even poor people get medical treatment. Free medical treatment for transport injuries. Public schooling that lets even poor people get a decent education. Sufficient regulation of our banks so the GFC hardly affected us at all. Product regulation to keep me and my kids safe. The list could go on.

Oddly most Australians think this is a pretty good system.

Its the scum that floats to the top, the other stuff may or may not depending on your constitution.

As for our Aussie friend, well, they are following the American way and heading for the private health care model increasingly. I am very pleased Obama has had success.

In New Zealand we have a no fault accident health care system that is very good. You cannot sue, but then you don't need to. Why do you need lawyers to be paid when the problem is medical, we don't have any of these ridiculous law suits of countless millions for what is the "victims" idiocy. Look what happened to the light aircraft market in the US.

As for Ronald Reagan, the world needed less of his government. The world is a less interesting place without his (and Margaret Thatcher's) government and would have been safer if the Bushes had been kept out of power. Thanks for nothing, GWBush.

I agree that our tort system is out of control, but they are also a powerful lobby (too powerful) and the vast majority of legislators are/were layers themselves.

However, if a doctor does something wrong that is truly negligent, it makes sense that there is a venue for compensation.

"Why do you need lawyers to be paid when the problem is medical..."

Let's look at it another way or a different analogy. You hire a carpenter to put an addition onto your home. The carpenter does something wrong (i.e., does not use the correct lumber size for a truss) and the addition collapses.

You lost your addition and objects inside were damaged or destroyed. The logic you posted would say that you don't need a lawyer because the problem is an engineering problem. So, what do you do? Do you hire an engineer to get the carpenter to pay for the damages?

If I understand what you are saying, doctors and hospitals do not carry or need insurance? Is this true? By law they can not be held responsible for their actions?

"As for our Aussie friend, well, they are following the American way and heading for the private health care model increasingly. I am very pleased Obama has had success."

I am not sure if that makes sense. America is following the path of "socialistic medicine" with the new law that was just enacted, not privatization. Obama publicly stated that he wanted a 'single-payer' public system for health care and the new law moves us toward that direction. Are you sure that you understand what is really happening here?

"As for Ronald Reagan..." Now you are just ranting and this is gone so far off topic that it is a long distance call from where you are and where the original poster started. At least there is a very loose connection between England's new moped law and accident compensation. Why bring this up? Is there really an argument for anyone to take the last part of this statement seriously?

"Oddly most Australians think this is a pretty good system."

I am not clear as to what system you think most Americans approve, can you elaborate?

Do you have any data to support that claim?

"

I am not clear as to what system you think most Americans approve, can you elaborate?"

See post #9

"

Do you have any data to support that claim?"

See post #9

Personally I'm with the Aussies. Canada has a medicare system that works pretty well, not perfect but pretty well. Poverty is not a leading cause of death here. It would work better if Americans would stop coming up here, borrowing a medicare card and availing themselves of our free system.

As to the original topic. Am I to understand that people here oppose the licensing of drivers? A powered vehicle that can attain a certain speed is considered a motor vehicle, you need a license to operate it. Are we debating the license system or argueing over where the line is drawn between vehicle and bicycle?

The basic argument

who should set the standards/rules?

business or government?

It all went wrong when organizations gained status equal to or greater than people.

The free market is not always the best choice.

Do we really want to go back to the time, before seatbelts, safetyglass, reinforced doorbeams?

I think you are totally wrong about socialized medicine. I know you Americans are scared of it, tho i dont understand why! But it is a very good thing. The last time i went to the doctors an needed a prescription it didn't cost me a fortune, it was about £7.

Probably you are right about most of the other things tho i do like the ban on smoking in pubs. For a non-smoker like myself its great to be able to go to the pub and not have to sit in a cloud of smoke all night!

Your right about the knighting of certain singers and actors but thats the governments fault again because they pick them!

Let me respond to that. The US subsidizes the cost for drugs in many countries because those countries basically tell the drug companies what they will pay for the drug and if you don't like it, go home. It is a little more complex than that, but the gist of it is such.

In turn, drug companies ratchet up the price for every other customer they can get away with so that they can make a profit.

There is a lot of finger pointing at drug companies with claims that they gouge the customer, quite literally, to death. I think the buzz word is obscene profits.

The logic in this is absurd, which should be another buzz word used by the common people as an adjective for the those that use the obscene word. Simply put, the drug companies are publicly traded companies. If the profits were so great, we could all be rich by simply buying stock in drug companies. Sadly for us, that rainbow is not real. There are no crushing profits, just crushing rhetoric and ample mouths to swallow it.

If you apply the same scrutiny to the "Big" insurance companies that are claimed to be killing US health care. you find that they are also publicly traded. Again, look at their stock. No one is getting rich off of these stocks, either.

So, while it does not cost you a fortune to buy drugs, some of us end up paying a whole lot more to cover the difference.

Now, if the US government gets in the act and regulates the price for drugs here, then we will see cheaper prices too. However, there will be zero impetus to create new drugs because the cost of research and subsequent certification will not pay back at a rate that makes any sense for potential investors (stock owners).

Now if the drug companies will not do it, then I am sure the government will be happy to do it. The problem with that approach is three-fold:

1. Governments have no clue as to how to run a business efficiently. Just about every program they run, runs in the red and returns much less for every dollar invested than a private enterprise.

2. There will be no competition in the venture, so no other entity will push the government to do better. It is a lot like a foot race with one runner. Anything he does, including stopping for roadside sex, still assures them of getting first place.

3. Much to the surprise of some people, the government run company will need to have money. This does not simply come from some government printing press (or color laser printer), but from the wallets of the common people.

Of course we could just tax the rich more because they already make more money than they really need, right? The idiocy of that logic is that the money that is harvested via tax is prevented from entering the private sector. Contrary to what some people believe, rich people do not stuff huge mountains of cash under their mattresses. I know, because I know some rich people and if you still doubt my word, why not pull a few mattress delivery blokes aside and ask them.

So, where does this money go that rich people make in obscene profits? Actually, it gets into banks, stocks, and loans to other companies. These companies borrow that money from banks, sell stocks, and borrow venture capital to expand and operate their business.

These businesses need worker bees, many of them engineers. So, the money the government wants to harvest in greater taxes is directly affecting your wage and ability to stay employed.

Now let's talk about socialized medicine and doctors. I know a few things about this subject because; a: I know a few doctors as good friends, and b: I was half way through the process of becoming one myself when I decided I'd rather be an engineer. So I have seen a few things and consider myself reasonably informed on the subject.

Most doctors are concerned about the current state of health care. It is loaded with problems and that was one of the reasons I opted out of the profession. As an engineer I work less hours, get paid reasonably well, do not need to spend 40% of my income on insurance to keep the tort lawyers away, and my operating overhead is probably one to two orders of magnitude less than many of my doctor friends.

At the point I quit the path to medicine, doctors still had the lion's share of say as to how to treat their patients, received reasonable compensation for their hard work, and most were living quite comfortably with the few hours of downtime they get.

What looms ahead is pretty scary. The New England Journal of Medicine had a recent poll from US general practice doctors where 46% of them felt that with the passage of the health care bill that they would consider quitting the profession. I doubt that 46% will quit, but if 5% do we are in for a huge problem. In fact, if none quit we are still in for a huge problem as there may be as many a 30 million new patients looking for family doctors. I don't know if you have ever looked for a family doctor in the US, but it may be easier to find leprechauns than a doctor able to see you in a timely fashion or at all if you are not one of his patients.

The doctor load will get much heavier and the compensation will go down. Already the Mayo Clinic has limited or stopped taking Medicaid as a form of payment because the reimbursement is not enough to cover operating costs and the strings attached do not allow the doctors to exercise their best judgement as far as treatment goes.

I can go on and on, but I just don't have the time. Will our health care collapse? No, I think not, but we will no longer be quite the leader we were when it comes to the best treatments. You simply can not uphold the same level of excellent care when you:

1. dump 30 million more individuals into the plan,

2. reduce the amount of money for reimbursement, limit the freedom of doctors to make calls as far as which treatment to use, and

3. create working conditions for doctors, nurses, and staff that are more intolerable.

Many of these skilled individuals will begin looking for other venues for their talents and individuals like myself when I was a student will reconsider future career goals where their return in educational investment will bring them greater joy.

Do I regret my decision? Somewhat. I loved the romance of job. I fondly recall roving hospital halls with doctors leading me in tow to watch and learn procedures and techniques. My gross income is somewhat less than it could have been, but I have my time with friends and family. I have a good house, fun car, nice pool to relax in and around, pretty low stress, and many exciting problems to solve and good friends and family to share it all with. Not a bad life, I would say.

As I said earlier, I know a number of doctors and other health care professionals that do not claim a very high satisfaction quotient with their life. Not everybody is unhappy, but I remember a doctor conference where the speaker asked the audience if they had to do it all over again, what profession would you seek. I smiled when I learned the results of that ad hoc poll. The number one answer was engineer.

But what does that got to do with regulatory moped testing in Pomgolia?

I really can't speak for others, but I would suggest you ask that question further up the chain where it started to deviate off-track.

If you asking me specifically, my opinion is that there are many looking at this as another shot at the slow erosion of civil rights both in the UK and around the free world.

I think this is just another example of riding down that slippery slope. On one hand the people have expectations that as a group they will behave in a civil fashion, somewhere between anarchy and fascism.

The UK seems to be going through a phase where more and more government regulation is piled on in the forms of laws. In other words, a nanny state. The moped testing seems trivial and also trite. Then again, London was weighing in with idea of padding street lamps so pedestrians who are texting can reduce head injuries.

The downward spiral gets people asking the question of how much should we expect others (i.e., our government) to care and look out for us from cradle to grave. Have we lost our desire to be self responsible as a culture?

In this case, the public, by means of representing representatives, decided that they need a law to keep mopeds from going too fast because some people that ride them can not be responsible for their own actions.

The government also decided to not waste an opportunity to cash in on these "irresponsible" would-be moped riders and begin a revenue gathering campaign by stopping riders and having them prove they are in compliance with the law.

Good point, but...

I haven't ever looked for a doctor in the US but I live in the UK and am covered by the NHS. We do have socialised medicine but if you don't like it you can still go private if you want, so there is some competition.

If someone wasn't getting rich then Drug companies and Insurance companies wouldn't be doing it!

I am related to a number of doctors, unfortunately not close enough to get any cash but you can't have everything. They are exceedingly well paid within the NHS and can still do private work if they wish. Doctors here still have almost total control of how to treat there patients and live very comfortably in there downtime.

Socialized medicine may not be the complete answer but its got to be a whole lot better than someone getting rich while you get totaled screwed over while you are unwell.

Rather the NHS than have to sell my house in later life to pay for medicine!

"If someone wasn't getting rich then Drug companies and Insurance companies wouldn't be doing it!"

Well, that argument really doesn't make sense. That would imply that all businesses make some people rich and that is a little too general.

Yes, there has to be a profit in any for-profit business to keep it going. It is folly to expect someone to provide a service at a loss just because they feel their customers deserve it. So, yes, many small businesses are created with the hopes of getting rich for the hard work invested. Then again, some just want a cash cow that provide a steady and modest income and they can sleep at night in peace.

Getting back to large corporations and insurance companies in general. Yes, they need to make some sort of profit, but different companies make profits at different rates. The rate of return is almost always associated with the risk involved. Insurance companies in the US tend to generate a low rate of return, but they are pretty steady and reliable - mostly. Some companies are much riskier and expected to return a greater return on investment. Google's start-up phase is an excellent example.

This is where the rubber meets the road. There is a lot of misinformation about how a company works for profit. A lot of this misinformation is simply free-enterprise bashing for the sake of political power and I won't get into political arguments here. However, every publicly traded company sells stock and provides dividends of varying amounts.

Your pension, if/when you receive one, comes from the company you work for, but they don't have some stash of cash in some vault that they draw checks from. Rather, they buy stocks in a wide spectrum of companies with your pension dollars and the interest earned from those investments pay your pension. It is in your interest that insurance companies and all the other businesses your company buys stocks in do well. If they don't, your pension will get squeezed. Generally, companies invest pretty conservatively so that no surprises pop up.

There are two things that are true about for-profit companies. One, that there are incidents of fraud and corruption. Two, individuals within a profitable company tend to get rich. The first is the nature of human-kind, but it isn't as rampant as the media makes it out to be. However, when it is exposed, it should be dealt with in accordance with the law. The second is what drives people to do extraordinary things These players work a lot harder than you think (being a business owner myself) and carry a huge amount of risk. That job isn't for everybody and if you are going to give a person the CEO chair of a company that is worth a billion dollars it makes sense to pay the big bucks in salary to get someone who you can trust will not squander that billion dollar asset away. In fact, that large salary is but a drop in the bucket as far as operating costs go and considered good insurance.

"Socialized medicine may not be the complete answer but its got to be a whole lot better than someone getting rich while you get totaled screwed over while you are unwell."

That statement is really out of context. It assumes that a doctor that makes a lot of money doing what he does can only do that by screwing people and making them unwell. Are there bad doctors that overcharge? Probably yes. Are there really good doctors that charge a lot? Absolutely, yes (my partner is one of them). Is it better to have socialized medicine? Well, socialized medicine implies set fees for services. If you were very sick with cancer and your life as at stake, what kind of physician would you rather have?

Think of it. If you were a high flyer and had better than average job skills, which job offer would you take? Would you work for a socialized clinic at an average wage or would above average wages to work with a team of other high flyers have more appeal? Where are the best and brightest minds working?

I know that some people really want to help the poor and destitute and have extraordinary skills, but most of the best tend to follow the money. That doesn't mean that they don't help those in need. There is advantages to a free market, particularly when the regulation that governs the rules it operates under is fair and not overbearing. Again, that lies somewhere between tyranny and anarchy.

The original post has done a lot to stir up some healthy questions about where is it we are between those two poles and are we sliding one way or another along that continuum? What do you think?

Anyway, we are way, way off-topic, but it has been a great discussion, no?

I just want to make one comment about your post AH.

"Will our health care collapse? No, I think not, but we will no longer be quite the leader we were when it comes to the best treatments. You simply can not uphold the same level of excellent care when you:"

In all the debate south of the border I kept hearing about how great the system in place is, and I'm tired of it. The WHO ranks US health care 37th in the world. Behind such giants as Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Also well behind the countries with "socialized medicine". The only people who claim the U.S.A. had (had) a great system are those who are either covered by insurance or who have enough ready cash to pay for their own medical needs. (Or who don't need medical care) We won't see here anything posted by those dieing because they can't get care, because along wih not being able to afford medicine they can't afford computers or internet connections. Or they are dead!

As in so many other things the U.S.A. will continue to claim their systems is best, the rest of the civilized world is wrong. This topic is right up there with the metric system and gun control. In spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, USA knows better.

Let's assume that the WHO rating is really meaningful. Best I can see from the spreadsheet it is hard to understand what the categories really mean.

So, do you feel that we will be better or worse than we were after this law goes into effect and why?

"As in so many other things the U.S.A. will continue to claim their systems is best, the rest of the civilized world is wrong. This topic is right up there with the metric system and gun control. In spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, USA knows better."

Okay. Now I know where you are coming from. I can't and don't have time to argue all of these points (and they are simply diversions), but if these little nuggets you are using are the kernels of your argument, all I can say is that you are using superficial evidence without understanding the depth of the issues. All of the cited issues are very complex ones and to try to distill the nut of each argument to a simple factoid or two can't possibly address the real issues.

If all of those issues were really that simple there would not be a discussion about them, they would have been settled, but obviously they are not.

"do you feel that we will be better or worse than we were after this law goes into effect and why?"

Not having read the law or knowing what other things have been attached to it as politicians are prone to do I don't KNOW. But I believe that as a whole the country will be better off if millions of Americans who previously did not have access to medical care can now get that care.

Universal medical care has so many trickle down cost savings, some of which you touched on in your earlier posts. I will wager that mal-practice insurance costs are much lower in countries with medicare. Litigation over car accidents and all other injuries is greatly reduced because you can't sue for millions in medical costs if that medical care is provided to you free of charge. How many comunicable illnesses are more wide spread simply because those infected cannot afford the cure, and at what cost.

I'll never say the system is perfect just better than one where those who cannot afford basic medical care die. Yes there are waiting lines for some services in Canada, yes there are cracks in the system that sometimes swallow people, but in general I know if I am sick or injured I will see a doctor or be taken to a hospital without a credit check being necessary.

"...you can't sue for millions in medical costs if that medical care is provided to you free of charge."

No, no, no. Not so. Tort reform was not on the discussion table at all, which is one of the larger reasons we have high costs. It's not the only one, but a major factor.

Most lawsuits have nothing to do with not getting care. Everyone gets care here, whether you are insured or not. Go into an emergency room and you must be treated by law. Where things fall apart is primary care physicians. No insurance means you must pay for your care yourself, or do what many do and go to the emergency room for primary care.

The lawsuits are for things like pain and suffering, loss of function or inability to perform a function that may rob you of earnings or even quality of life. Then there is punitive damages that are typically awarded on top of that. Anyone can be held liable and they start with the deepest pockets and then build a list downward and sue them all at once as a shotgun approach. It is a nightmare and insurance for doctors is sky high. 15% to 40% of salary is typical. Pediatricians are particularly at risk. Any birth defect can result in a lawsuit. Many OBGYN doctors have simply stopped delivering babies because they can't afford the insurance and this is a crises in the health care industry because there are too few doctors already. Others have simply dropped their insurance and figure that if they don't have it lawyers are not as likely to sue for something that they can't easily get.

None of that changes with the new law because the lawyers are a huge lobby and the Democratic party is one of the largest recipients of funds from this lobby. It's a legal lottery down here and healthcare isn't the only venue for this. You think the emergency room is crowded, you should see how crowded the courts are here. You can wait upwards of a year to get simple things in front of a judge.

Five years ago an attorney giving a lecture told us that there were more attorneys waiting to graduate in the US than there were practicing law!

Here is a good collection of articles about the American health insurance system all written by people much more knowledgable than I am.

http://www.insurancereformwatch.org/

There are some really scary stories there.

My wife will also testify that the system needs fixing. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer her insurance "forgot" to cash two of her monthly cheques and then promptly canceled her insurance for non-payment.