>> If you want to call Medicaid or Medicare something else, fine with me. But most of Obama Care is health insurance sold by health insurance companies. The fact that it will be near universal doesn't change it's definition any more than near universal car insurance makes it something else.
I can't comment on Lane's intent as she may be talking about something else, however, I do think you're no longer talking about health insurance when you can buy it after you get sick. Substantially, at least. In some cases that isn't strictly true -- when my brother was killed, he was essentially dead at the scene yet his ER costs were 10s of thousands of dollars. Obviously, he couldn't have purchased insurance after the fact. But for the long-term, expensive to treat chronic illnesses that we hear so much about, health insurance will cease to be insurance as there is no element of risk management.
Health insurance as we've known it starts to look a lot more like a new variety of annuity. It would be interesting to know how professional actuaries are handling it internally within insurance companies as the traditional meaning of risk premium is distorted so much by it.
>> Outside entitlements, the majority of government spending is for investments or maintenance; "discretionary spending". Roads, airports, military, Commerce Dept trade missions, all sorts of shit. Stuff that keeps the country moving. The countries that fall behind are those that don't invest or maintain. Look around.
That's in the eye of the beholder. I would argue that the Dept of Education isn't an investment; it is more akin to putting money in an incinerator. Others serve a purpose, but are neither entitlements nor investments; e.g., unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc. Still others are none of the above, like costs of running the Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative branches -- not an entitlement but certainly not an investment -- these are more kin to "period expenses" or "overhead" in accounting terminology. The huge expenses are entitlements and defense, of course, but very little of what government does can reasonably be classified as "investment" (i.e., something you expect a "return" on). |
