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When a 4hr hospital visit to remove a food blockage from a kid (regardless the kid is legal or "illegal") costs $22,000, who do you think is really doing the "stealing"? Most of the 4hrs was spent on filling paperworks, and a physical exam; the endoscopy and procedure for taking out the food block (aka choke) take only 30min. Did the kid receive a $22,000 benefit from the system? or is it simply because medicine is licensed in this country with price unposted therefore the kid's parents can not shop elsewhere for a less expensive service provider, therefore the hospital can charge arbitrary prices?
In case you are so clueless as to think the hospital visit is actually worth $22,000, the hospital eventually settled with the kid's insurance company for $2800. That is, 13% of the original bill that the hospital would have claimed to have been "stolen" by any uninsured patient, both "legal" and "illegal." In other words, 87% of the bill is pure fluff designed to "gotcha" bill the uninsured and the government for reimbursement on treating the uninsured.
Now let's look at the $2800 for 4hrs of work (30min of real work), would you work for a little less than $700/hr as the insurance payout would indicate? Of course you would, so would I. However, we are prevented from doing that due to licensing requirement. The same licensing requirement also prevents doctors and nurses from receiving bulk of the money because they are also dealing with a monopolistic employer the hospital, which has enormous numbers of administrators and bankloans riding on the building and equipment, financed with the view of exploiting the rent seeking opportunity created by the licensing requirement. Out of the money that nurses (about $20-50/hr) and doctors (about $50-200/hr) that they do get, a huge percentage has to go to student loans, which were again the result of rent seeking.
Out of the $22000 that would have allegedly been spent on an uninsured, the patient probably gets a real benefit of about 1% of that amount had there been real competitive market:
$50 for using an endoscope camera without licensing requirement that would cost about $100 online; many car mechanics have probe cameras;
$150 for the remaining time in those 30minutes extracting the food block; 3.5hrs of paper pushing and waiting become unnecessary when supply is increased and price is reduced to $200. When was the last time you waited 3.5hrs to be seated at a restaurant? even a $200/plate one?.
So where did the other 99% of the money go? Why, "legalized" theft of course in the licensed rent-seeking opportunity, with banks happily financing who would extract the most from patients and taxpayers given the limit on supply.
"Other government resources" are even more laughable. If you think any recipient is getting benefit anywhere close to what the government spends on the programs, you are out of your mind. Most government programs are little more than licensed rent seeking for bureaucrats and big bankers underwriting the government loans.
Having a government license requirement for mere human existence would only make the situation even worse, far worse.
If you think the government programs are wasting too much money, then get rid of the programs. On a net-net basis, "illegal" immigrants probably pay in far more and get out far less than typical Americans like ourselves: their own births and childhood cost are not at the expense of anyone here (that is, unless government redefines people born and raised here as "illegals"); most of their retirement probably won't be either as their age group is not expected to enjoy much of a taxpayer funded retirement in a couple more decades, despite many of them using fake SS number paying into the "trust funds."
As the various government monopolistic resource allocation waste more and more resources, there is a viceral drive to bump more and more people off the wagon. The real cost and real reason why a warfare-welfare state goes bankrupt is not the various target groups gradually being bumped off, but the inefficient monopolistic resource allocation in the government and government licensed sectors. "Germany for Germans" did not save the German economy from bankruptcy even after bumping off all who had non-German grandparents, many who had disability, and many who were simply old or senile. The jackboot-advocating set often think the cost of bumping is zero, whereas in reality the cost of bumping is extremely high. The misanthropes hired to run those ovens, concentration camps and mere prisons have to be paid, and paid very well, with very high benefits and pensions. The more draconian the jackbooting is, the more the minds of those wearing the jackboots are poisoned by wearing it (just like wearing that Ring in "Lord of the Rings"). In the long very long run, they become the real dangers to the society.
posted by 75.67.1...
, Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:59:11
, Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:43:59
, Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:52:04
, Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:50:30
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