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The Center for American Progress reports
Congress [just] passed a bill that could result in complete, national data on police shootings and other deaths in law enforcement custody.
Right now, we have nothing close to that. Police departments are not required to report information about police to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some do, others don't, others submit it some years and not others or submit potentially incomplete numbers, making it near-impossible to know how many people police kill every year. Based on the figures that are reported to the federal government, ProPublica recently concluded that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.
Under the bill awaiting Obama's signature, states receiving federal funds would be required to report every quarter on deaths in law enforcement custody. This includes not [only] those who are killed by police during a stop, arrest, or other interaction. It also includes those who die in jail or prison. [Additionally,] it requires details about these shootings including gender, race, as well as at least some circumstances surrounding the death.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday December 18 2014, @02:45PM
At best you can optimize it by replacing insurers with the government.
Not true. The toxic insurer-patient relationship can be avoided completely. For instance, in a nationalised healthcare system, there is never a need to avoid medical tests in case they come back positive and drive up your insurance costs. Neither do you ever have to worry about being taken to the wrong hospital and having to pay the bill yourself. It is fundamentally different from a capitalistic insurance-based scheme.
This would do wonders, as government is always far more efficient than anyone else :-)
Well, yes, it is more efficient than the privatised approach. Brits pay less per-capita on healthcare, and on average get better treatment than Americans do.
Very well; then I will stop working, and you will be paying for my healthcare and for all my other needs. Deal?
All your other needs? That would be basic income [wikipedia.org], not nationalised healthcare. That's another topic.
That's because the government, having no need to compete for the patients, will minimize its expenses. You will be treated by poorly trained doctors, in decrepit facilities [falsities continue]
Again: Brits pay less per-capita on healthcare, and on average get better treatment than Americans do.
As you say yourself, a drug that was good and expensive 10 years ago may be cheaper today... but not so good anymore.
This issue is tangential, but: not so good anymore? Why not?
Nobody wants to be half-healed.
But there's often a balance. Neither an insurer nor the NHS will be always be willing to unconditionally spend as much as necessary for the very greatest treatment. It's just not practical.
Even worse, they are forcing other people to pay for medical needs more than they intended to pay. Young people are healthier; at the same they are poorer.
Well sure. It's just like with anything that's nationalised: tax reasonably.
Why do you insist on paying the useless bureaucracy instead of just cutting a check to the doctor?
Because I like the idea of a national safety-net for those who can't afford healthcare. I realise that maintaining a healthy population (and therefore a healthy work-force) is in the best interests of both the country and its citizens. I don't mind that the cost of healthcare is spread across all citizens, including those who are luck enough to be healthy (myself included). (Of course, literally paying your doctor per-treatment is so problematic that it's essentially never proposed as a viable strategy: we really have either insurance or nationalisation.)
Government-assisted extortion will only cost you more, as it is already the case with ACA.
I'm afraid I don't know the details of ACA.