<p>^^the insurance companies??</p>
<p>Sewhappy, I like your post #119.</p>
<p>Me, too, sewhappy.
Thinking short-term ultimately leads to eating your seed-corn, as mentioned in other threads here. it is like a form of borrowing, borrowing from the future, till there is no future.</p>
<p>As to HC, even though it is private enterprise, it is funded by insurance and becomes a sort of public good or expectation. As a result, it may be a bit like government spending: sounds great, everyone benefits, is fair, is good for society. BUT it stops being efficient, has a lot of fat and mis-spending. And the consumer may not have the right attitude (here- we the public seem to be incented to be UNhealthy by the way care is doled out and reimbursed. And compliance is a big problem LOL) Same type of thing for education in the public schools at all levels: many students come to school with the wrong attitude about learning, and not enough family support.</p>
<p>Nothing is a gravy train; money does not grow on trees. Somebody has to work hard. The money needs to be spent well. The buyer needs to come in with eyes open about what HE needs to do for these things to be effective and also not cost-prohibitive.</p>
<p>A huge complexity about HC IS innovation, which is incredibly expensive and risky these days. Ironically, our ending supply of medical improvements (on the margin) may be reaching diminishing returns in terms of health. These very innovations could be fueling desperately needed growth in the US, but, instead, they are bloating our HC expenses. The problem is that curing or even managing health is showing up on the net bottom line, i.e. now healthier patient needs to get less care in the future, or something like that. There is a disconnect between effectiveness and profitability. The insurance model seems to cause this. But is there a way to maintain a fair way to distribute health care without losing awareness of the bottom line? Same q re education: can it become more effective without being privatized?</p>
<p>And, is more always better? Is the latest schtick really an improvement just because it is new and expensive?? Simpler may actually be better (more effective and cheaper)! And so many of our recent inventions are toxic and wasteful.</p>
<p>Just a note about grocery workers - there is a union. Before our current economic situation, the cashier might make $20/hour or so. In expensive urban centers, this is a low but probably liveable wage (depends on so many things like your rent or mortgage, kids, partner’s job, etc. - and probably the wages are different in different areas?). </p>
<p>What I have heard from grocery workers that we know is that they have negotiated to keep the long-time workers at their level of benefits. The new workers, however, start at minimum wage with no benefits, a schedule that changes every week, etc. and still pay union dues which a minimum wage job would cover after about two to four weeks of working! </p>
<p>So the point is, the union grocery job is NOT the union grocery job it once was. (In fact, since there are no benefits, another job at minimum wage would be better, since no dues would be required.)</p>