Although you see no need to pay for the health care of the less wealthy members of society, how long before your voucher scheme gets reduced to a bare minimum and only those on basic (keep you alive) benefit are the ones to receive them ?...
But they have just as big mechanisms and the costs can't be controlled - as you say, market forces will prevail, and as a cartel end user costs will rise.
That is an argument for increasing taxation then, just as much as it is for lowering it and making people pay. Trouble is, some will be able to but many won't, just as it was pre WW2...
"I'm alright, f*ck those who aren't" seems to be your ideal model for society. :~(
No he doesn't think like that. His brainwashing makes him prepared to see people killed to ensure that the rich remain rich. Sad but true. Common sense and reality do not come into it.
.. as it should have been before being privatised.
It should have been done under state ownership before privatisation and wasn't. That is the actual issue.
So they were doing it for love?
It's not *essential* at all. There are plenty of ways to get from A to B, assuming it's necessary to do so at all.
Why is there the notion of "getting people out of their cars"? This is the nonsense spouted by Llivingstone, Prescott and the others who get the press to film them on the Tube and then implement silly schemes like congestion charges which do nothing.
Public transport such as trains and buses are to a significant extent, flawed - there are too many obvious shortcomings:
- Don't operate between the places that people want to go
- Don't operate when required
- Involve too many changes and time wasted, so total journey time too long.
- Impossible to carry many things.
There are cases where public transport can be useful - e.g. people commuting in and out of major cities each day; but that's about it.
No, there isn't, right or wrong BT was sold to private investors, why should any private company be forced to allow their competitors to use their networks (that they have modernised since privatisation) - no one would dream of making Ford allow Rover Group to use their R&D departments or the production lines for little or no payment if at all.
Exactly, which is why competitors shouldn't have access to those exchanges and modernised cable networks.
So why do they want to use the BT networks then...
Apart from the HMOs, it doesn't operate as a "system" and that is the point. Customers have a choice both of financing organisation and delivery organisation. Here, most people have choice of neither and that is fundamentally wrong as well as being inefficient.
There are many who can't afford medical insurance (for what ever reason) but don't qualify for Medicare.
True, but they have no choice in the cost, one company put the cost up and the rest will follow [1] - human nature being what it is. I would love to live in the same utopia that you inhabit but most of us live in the real world !
[1] you only have to look as far as the UK motor insurance system to se this.
If they can't afford private medical care they have the full NHS service to fall back on, those in the USA don't have such a service.
Completely reasonable since they should have been provided with something of decent quality in the first place.
That is true, but IIRC British Rail used private contractors before.
That's an extrapolation
The infrastructure should have been delivered in a good quality condition at privatisation rather than as a pup.
State operations use as much, if not more consultant time as equivalent private enterprises. THe reason is the same either way and is generally a backside protection exercise.
Shareholders are entitled to a return on their investment whether it be directly, through savings schemes or for that matter state ownership. At least if I own something directly or through a scheme I have some control and can invest my money elsewhere.
I have and the results are patchy. Out of the above, I'm only impressed to a point with the German ICE. Dutch trains are filthy and no longer run to good time as they used to do. In Switzerland there are large numbers of private operators.
It has been. The problem is a legacy from the years of state control. You can't run something that badly for that length of time and expect a few years of some investment of state and private money to improve it that quickly.
I don't know where "there" was apart from hell in a handbasket.
The best recovery would be lack of state involvement and realistic prices charged to those who want to use the trains where they want to use them.
If the state were esimply to supply the money and not the bureaucracy it would be a far better situation. The problem is that the incompetents in government departments can't resist meddling.
I haven't said that at all. Why don't you read what I actually said rather than what you thought I said.
I said that *everybody* gets them regardless of means and that they are adequate to pay for at least the same level of treatment available in the NHS today.
The difference is about choice - i.e. that the voucher can be taken and spent outside the state system (if it were to remain) and can be supplemented with other funds such as private insurance or simply by paying.
If there is competition for the funding mechanisms and the delivery mechanisms efficiency and quality improves.
There's never an argument for increasing taxation. You obviously haven't understood what I have said or have chosen not to.
In summary:
- People pay taxes as today and according to earnings or consumption.
- The government provides vouchers for healthcare and where relevant, education. Everybody has the same entitlement to these.
- People can spend their vouchers where they like and receive services identical to or better than today without having to supplement.
- Those who wish to supplement can do so, spending their vouchers plus other funds or insurances if they choose.
This does not result in a loss of services for those who simply want to proceed as today, and gives those who wish to do so the freedom to choose alternatives without financial penalty.
That is what you think that I am saying because you have not understood or have chosen not to understand what I actually have said. At no point have I suggested anything that would have the potential to make anybody worse off, and would improve choice and quality considerably.
I think that perhaps you don't understand the technologies and investments.
Local Loop Unbundling refers to the copper under the ground from the end used to the exchange and terminating there. It does not involve the use of any of the active exchange equipment.
BT inherited the copper under the ground and in effect it now belongs to their shareholders. However, the major investment has been in active exchange equipment which is not part and parcel of LLU.
BT are not being asked to provide either for nothing.
LLU doesn't involve "modernised cable networks" - it s purely copper local loop, much of which is decades old.
Most BT exchange buildings have large amounts of empty space because they were built originally for mechanical switches. Modern equipment is much smaller. Parts of some exchanges have been used for office space, but there is still a lot of free space.
Because there is reasonable amount of cable under the ground in most areas from end users to the exchange. LLU simply involves using this section, not the active parts of the BT network such as switches and so forth.
With respect you don't, you have made that quite clear - why do you think you have had very little support (other than this thread boring the arse off most people that is...) ?
Err, cutting edge research (which is still in use today by the worlds railways), introduction of the highly successful HST trains on both the ER and WR regions in the mid to late '70's, extension to the west coast electrification from Crew to Glasgow, extension of the electrified services on the SW section of the old Southern region, electrification of part of the East Coast main line, electrification of part of the Midland main line, complete re-signalling of the Brighton main line, introduction of new locomotives designs etc. etc. etc. ...
As I said, you know nothing about the rail system and the whys and wherefores of it's recent history and are thus rather clueless to try and discuss it !
Then there would have been no reason to privatise, it was done by the Tories in the mistaken belief that private money would be used to pay for the modernisation that needed to be carried out.
See above.
If they are receiving public money then yes they should, at most all they are doing is acting as a project manager and only need to be paid a salary.
Just, sit in a traffic jam with others you mean...
You are totally clueless, have you ever driven in the rush-hour in most big towns or cities, not to mention on main trunk roads and motorways ?
You mean that they don't go door to door when selfish w*nkers like you want to go...
They do. Clinton was going to introduce an NHS, and it was in his manifesto, one of the reasons he was voted in. He never delivered as the profiteering health scum companies stood in his way at every opportunity, that it would have taken an eon to introduce. Unless it can be up and running in a few years, and seen to work come the next election, most US governments will not touch anything that costs.
US health care is fine if you well heeled otherwise it is the pits.
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