OMG another 1%

Hey since we all decided to get in bed together with the a big privatized social program called mandated health insurance...another 1% has popped out.

1% of people not institutionalized account for close to 22% of health care spending. We spend on average in the US $8400 per person, so since we insure that through companies we can assume that the cost via insurance is another 5-10% (they always say they only make a couple % profit, but then they have to pay all the employees, oh etc.). These #'s are a couple years old and there is high inflation in health care costs...we can also assume there will be a big jump in health care costs when everyone is covered (in the short term anyway).

But most of us are not typical and you are most likely to be the big user of the health costs if you are

old
female
white
or on public insurance.

(aka white grandmas)

The top 5% of health care consumers used 50% of the national expense. The least frequent users (the lower 50% of us) only used 2.9% of the total. 50% of Americans use 97% of the health resources by dollar. It makes sense why the free market came up with insurance to mitigate this. I wonder if this free market tool will have the same effect when used outside of a free market....or work with the same level of efficiency (that many would argue even now). I know people assume it will, but we assume wrong a lot. I guess in a couple years we will see if we are better off or not. Here is the article that likely made up all the facts I just spewed.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01 ... a-very-few

Oh and BTW since it is hidden everywhere else I will hide something here. Did you know that in 2011, the US made.used more power from renewables than splitting the atom. Thus reducing the likelyhood that we will end up like Japan (this sounds good to me). While Obama has been in office the renewable % has gone from 7.2-9.4% despite yuppies on the cape that don't want to see windmills. For those of you that attribute everything to the president, you might phrase this as Obama increased renewables over 30% in three years, but that would overlook the efforts of the other 300,000,000 of us (but we do it all the time on 285bound, so why not here?)...or even the last president that signed in many regs and tax breaks to encourage this..or the congress that put those regs in front of him. I personally think the market would have taken care of this just like most things, but perhaps the regs will keep us from having to get to brown skies and seas before we push the market in the cleaner direction. Drop in the bucket, but I still heard it go ping.

In response to your "hidden" topic...

Tax dollars backing some "risky" energy projects

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - Solar panel maker Solyndra received a $528 million Energy Department loan in 2009 - and went bankrupt last year. The government's risky investment strategy didn't stop there, as a CBS News investigation has uncovered a pattern of cases of the government pouring your tax dollars into clean energy.

CBS News counted 12 clean energy companies that are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five have filed for bankruptcy: The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES' subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.

Others are also struggling with potential problems. Nevada Geothermal -- a home state project personally endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- warns of multiple potential defaults in new SEC filings reviewed by CBS News. It was already having trouble paying the bills when it received $98.5 million in Energy Department loan guarantees.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162- ... -projects/

The only reason "the renewable % has gone from 7.2-9.4%" is because the "green industry" is so heavily shored up by tax payers money. Hey... I could sell ice to Eskimos if I got these sorts of guarantees of taxpayers money from the Federal government. Like... "First Solar was the biggest S&P 500 loser in 2011 and its CEO was cut loose - even as taxpayers were forced to back a whopping $3 billion in company loans." Going the way of Greece.

Drop in the bucket, but I still heard it go ping.

:thumbsup:

Well said...

LadyJazzer wrote:

Drop in the bucket, but I still heard it go ping.

:thumbsup:

Well said...

Yea... ping like flushing taxpayers money down the toilet.

My personal relationship to alt energy has nothing to do with the govt.

Just like the assessor is not allowed on my properties, I don't want another fuel delivery guy or power provider trapsing around like they have a right to be there either or some gas company employee walking through my house to turn off valves without asking. I also don't like loosing my resources randomly (like loosing power, can't remember the last time that happened). For me it is about having my place be mine and not needing you or anyone else to do anything to make it work after I set it up and trade to get the parts and pieces. I know, being off grid means I can't grow MMJ like a real Coloradan, but I get by.

Yeah, most govt investment, especially in particular ventures is off. I mean what's next building jails locally as businesses to make the local govt money, building more schools for kids that are leaving or more. Keep that crap up and you may have to fill the prisons with people that did not cry enough when the next BOCC member passes or tear down the new school because you can't even afford the LEED reduced heat bill.

I know, I know, the problem is that the rest of you wont reduce your consumption 90% so that the former 10% of alt E is more than enough. You don't have to say it over and over (I know you want to), it is true, I conceed...but I just can't get people to change, but I don't have to, the resources are theirs and they can burn them as they see fit, that's the cool part of old school ownership, you get to decide. If we don't keep using at the current rates we could be guilty of increasing unemployment amung cancer docs in the future, don't you want jr. to be a Doctor?...That's why I still burn lots of wood, even leave the windows cracked and burn more, I mean we have all kinds of beetle kill for free and since we are in south park, the wind just blows the smoke away to someone elses yard, I think all my smoke blows over to the valleys around Conifer and Bailey and down through Jefferson County, so I don't give a crap.

(brought to using solar power....right through your govt funded highspeed wires or waves... the same ones that fuel all our BS discussions).

ping.

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote:

Drop in the bucket, but I still heard it go ping.

:thumbsup:

Well said...

Yea... ping like flushing taxpayers money down the toilet.

I figure after putting close to a quarter million into other people's kids eduation "for the future of the country", I fell just ever so slightly ok with some investment. The recent credits dropped panels by 50%, without investing in any one venture. It's actually sick how easy it is to change behavior and private investment through regs. In many cases it fails so generally I am against it, but on the personal tax credit it drove and opened up a market, added value, made some jobs where they were not before. This is not the industry as a whole, but just the residental alt e market. Another example which you likely use of govt energy investment was the building America Program in the 90's. A few companies got assistance through federally granted consultants to make lower energy homes in major markets around the country. Very little was spent to fund just a handfull of hot shots. The hot shot calced and convinced the biggest builders in a number of markets to sell homes that used 50% of the energy of their previous homes. It sucked...sorta at the beginning, some chosen builders got free support to make their products so much better than the rest. The other builders were not selling homes well in these markets after the chosen companies were edging them out. Then all of a sudden, nationally like floodgate, the other builders figured it out, all they had to do was build better.

Just a few million ended up saving likely 100's of millions or billions in personally energy costs of people in these markets, but wait, just about every house built now uses some of the simple technologies propigated by this program, likely 50% of more of you save money and energy because of it. It likely also drove some companies under, which quite honestly sucks if they were making it in the free market and then sank because of regs. But anyway.

Very rare case, but this investment worked out, it was not the Park County jail, even though it had just about the same price tag.

Just interesting, brought to you from a guy that would vote against such things in the past and quite honestly would say the govt should not do it again, even though it worked last time.

So I have explained why there are some "liberal" streaks running through my otherwise "conservative" mindset. Wouldn't repeat most of it, but do see some govt programs help us as a whole, we would not make the investment ourselves in most cases. But many parents would educate their kids with thier own funds without the standard handouts, esp if they were required to by law.

So, Given some of the stuff you sling, I would really love to know if the Liberals GOP Twin took the govt handout to send his kids to school? You seem really conservative and I have been trying for some time to find a hard core conservative who sent their kids through the public schools who can justify why they deserved that big hand out. I will argue for the conservative perspective easily, but I have not taken this hand out so I don't have any real way to justify it in my own head (for a conservative. Someone who is claimed liberal does not need to justify, it seems consistant). If you haven;t taken it, I am more than glad to hear from anyone on the board who would claim to be conservative or Republican and how they feel about their neighbor's money forcably taken to be directed into your family. I think every time I bring this up in a thread with conservatives they just stop posting ...even if they posted earlier because they felt like they had no one to talk to. I promise to not even respond, if someone would just give me some detail on how this jives with the conservative philosophy, I thought you just don't take other people's property or weath against their will, especially in such large numbers.

Ah, whatever, nevermind, sometimes I actually think there will be response. I am ready for this thread to travel down the courthouse now. Sorry for wasting your time again, but you knew what you were getting into when you clicked.

Part of the reason we don't see more nuke power is because the general public is so scared of it and like that it is heavily regulated. But after fukushima, maybe they were right to fear it. Like a genie in a bottle, there is immense power, pun intended, but also much more danger compared to a windmill in a earthquake or a coal plant catching on fire.

Popcorn Eater wrote: I think every time I bring this up in a thread with conservatives they just stop posting ...even if they posted earlier because they felt like they had no one to talk to. I promise to not even respond, if someone would just give me some detail on how this jives with the conservative philosophy, I thought you just don't take other people's property or wealth against their will, especially in such large numbers.

[crickets chirping]....

Wow, you're right...

Popcorn Eater wrote:
[snip]

I figure after putting close to a quarter million into other people's kids eduation "for the future of the country", I fell just ever so slightly ok with some investment.

[snip]

Schools... jails... roads... defense... these are all areas that have PROVEN to have value added results... the "green industry" has not proven that it has or will have any advantage over current energy sources. I worked in the renewable business for almost 20 years, close to the science itself (not the "commercial" side of the industry... the research side) and guess what? While advances has been made, while there are feathers to place in caps, the science and technology is still very far from sustainable as an industry. Evidently I am not against renewable energy... I made a good living being associated with it. But facts are facts, the free market is what it is and currently no amount of propping up with taxpayers money is going to suddenly (or even slowly) vault renewables into a viable market. And that's not just an opinion from me. The article I linked to above is proof of what I am saying. Renewables is a political football, being tossed around by politicians who are looking to purchase votes with taxpayers money. We will have a viable renewable industry someday, but it's not going to happen just because politicians are greasing the palms of their favored contributors and special interest lobbyist.

I'm ok with investment in our countries future. Viable and proven investments. But the "green revolution" is loosing the battles. There is currently not a single aspect of the renewable energy technology that could sustain itself financially on it's own. I'm not interested in throwing money away. The federal government does spend taxpayers money yearly on renewables research... at sponsored labs and colleges. That's viable. The science can be measured, the results can be compared and future research can be adjusted to programs and research that shows the most promise. And the federal government has been backing up renewable research with taxpayers money for almost 40 years. Go to the DOE website and read up on the progress that has been made on renewable energy research financed and supported by your tax money.

But it's not anywhere near commercial readiness. And I'm not willing to have our tax money thrown up against the wall and hope to see what sticks. Especially when the money is being used as payback to political special interests. Don't worry... when a capitalist sees a renewable technology that can stand on it's own "legs"... you'll see that technology, wrapped, lock stock and barrel and delivered right to your door.

LadyJazzer wrote:

Popcorn Eater wrote: I think every time I bring this up in a thread with conservatives they just stop posting ...even if they posted earlier because they felt like they had no one to talk to. I promise to not even respond, if someone would just give me some detail on how this jives with the conservative philosophy, I thought you just don't take other people's property or wealth against their will, especially in such large numbers.

[crickets chirping]....

Wow, you're right...

Sorry Lady Jazzer... I'm not at your beck and call. I'm not one of your 285 Bound lap dogs. You have enough of them here... go play with them.