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from the how-your-tax-dollars-are-spent dept.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), continued his efforts to reform the big-spending status quo with the release of a Summer 2019 edition of The Waste Report.
Once again, Dr. Paul's Waste Report turns the spotlight on just some of the ways the federal government spends the American people's hard-earned money, with this edition including stories of building up Tunisia's political system and the Pakistani film industry, supporting "green growth" in Peru, teaching English and IT skills at madrassas, studying frog mating calls, making improper payments, and more.
The biggest seem to be:
Converted an abandoned mental hospital into DHS HQ (GSA and DHS) .......... $2,120,040,355.35
Paid out billions from Medicare in improper payments (CMS) ....................... $48,000,000,000
[Editor's Comment: The full 15-page report is found in a Scribd display on the given link.]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 06 2019, @10:45PM (19 children)
Only forty-eight billion in improper Medicare spending? Damn, now I really want us some single-payer, government-run healthcare!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by istartedi on Friday September 06 2019, @10:55PM
Here here! A properly run private insurance plan would have found a way to deny such silly things, such as a prosthetic that's actually comfortable. A splintering wooden peg was good enough for Ahab, it's good enough for grandpa.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 06 2019, @11:46PM (8 children)
Except that every study that has been done about the topic has shown that a single payer system would save money. The current system has a massive amount of waste, and a single payer system would have a certain amount of waste too, but we'd still save money in the end. If you're going to make the topic about which system is cheaper, you're going to lose.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 07 2019, @12:42AM (7 children)
None of those wild-assed-guesses are based any more in reality than mine. And at least mine acknowledges the epic level of corruption in the government and medical/insurance corporations we have going on here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @02:25AM
And nowhere else. Just those places.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @02:42AM (5 children)
It may take the independent exercise of political power by the working class to prevent our so-called healthcare system from being controlled by D/R team, not libertarian, think tanks (Romney, Hillary, Obamacare oh my). If the Libertarian Party were capable of achieving any kind of mass support, that could be one way forward. But it is not, because minarchist capitalism opposes the class interests of workers, moreso than the mainstream parties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:18AM (4 children)
The US healthcare system is nearly a total waste of money, I don't see why anyone even wants to partake of it. Look at cuba where they have nearly none of the access to "modern healthcare" but nearly equal lifespans. All that "healthcare" is just a waste of money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @08:11AM (2 children)
And you know why? Because they smoke cuban cigars, that's why. Smoke is good for preservation, it's a fact that has been know for millenia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @02:15PM
Magical thinking at its finest.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:38PM
Puts a protective coating of tar on their lungs. Like Teflon against air pollution.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @03:05PM
Well, if we're talking about scare quoted "healthcare," then yes, there are perverse incentives at work to move away from proven treatments towards treatments that generate more profit for the hospital administrators and "insurance" companies (what they are selling is not insurance--it is a buyer's club). Cuba is a good go-to example for those concerned about bang-for-the-buck. Surely a wealthy nation like the USA can improve on the model. Why Is Cuba’s Health Care System the Best Model for Poor Countries? [2012] [blackagendareport.com]
The perverse incentives are harming care providers as administrators drive down wages and staffing levels in pursuit of private profit. The epidemic of nurse suicides and the US healthcare crisis [current] [wsws.org]:
The advent of concierge healthcare is an obscenity. Victors Care brings class-based medical care to University of Michigan hospital [2018] [wsws.org]:
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @12:15AM (8 children)
Yeah, well it helps to understand that any payment whatsoever that is questionable gets tagged as improper spending including quite a few items that are actually differences of opinion in coding or treatment and not 'improper'. Medical coding is not fully and completely deterministic, because what can happen to your body and what physicians do to it is not entirely deterministic.
Which isn't to say that there isn't waste to be found anywhere, just that what Medicare might define as improper spending might not be entirely accurate if it was your life on the line.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 07 2019, @12:43AM (7 children)
And you want the same folks who'd deny a procedure on purely bureaucratic grounds to be in charge of your healthcare? Interesting.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:42AM (1 child)
It only ranks as slightly better than choosing interventions based on the ongoing profitability of insurance companies, and treatments being rejected because they're not profitable enough even if they are better for an individual patient in a given situation.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:40PM
That's just foolish business practices and would be corrected by another company making a smart decision and offering coverage for the issue. Dead people don't pay premiums. If we're talking million dollar treatments though, not many people's lives are worth saving at that cost. They simply have never and will never contribute enough to society to ever return the value.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday September 07 2019, @04:53AM (3 children)
Well I don't know. Are these government or corporate bureaucrats?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @06:01PM (1 child)
That's the important difference. Are these bureaucrats deny you treatment innovative free market thinkers or appointed members on elite government death panels?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @02:08AM
Those so-called "free market thinkers" only answer to the insurance companies they work for. And, in case you haven't heard, insurance companies tend to make most of their decisions based on their bottom line. Not your bottom line. Not your personal health and well-being. And there are no government "death panels"; that was merely a scare tactic dreamed up by Sarah Palin. Her "inspiration" was a provision in the ACA which was supposed to encourage doctors to discuss end of life issues with their patients (particularly, their older patients) so that health care givers would understand what their patients would want if they were incapacitated and their end was approaching. (What's that? You thought you would live forever?) Also, government bureaucrats working for the government are answerable to the people through their elected representatives. At least theoretically.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:42PM
Corporate ones are under pressure to make the most sound financial decisions. Government ones are under no pressure whatsoever and have no reason to give a shit about much of anything. I'd prefer the former, so at least where I stand makes sense even if I don't agree.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @09:03PM
Awwwwwe yeaaaah
Another perfect example of TMB being a colossal fucking idiot. Good time!