this is why we can't afford health care

Pepe Silvia

proving the military budget is extremely overinflated

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/ ... 5985.shtml
More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/us/na ... ckets.html

The Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable, congressional investigators say. The department compounded the problem by reimbursing employee claims for tickets bought by the Pentagon, the investigators said. The General Accounting Office issued the findings in two reports on the Pentagon's lack of control over airline travel, copies of which The Associated Press obtained. The office concluded that the waste, from 1997 to 2003, went undetected because the department relied on individuals to report the unused tickets, and they did not do so. The Pentagon said it was working to ensure it received credit in the future for each unused ticket.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 251738.DTL

WHAT HAPPENED TO $1 TRILLION?

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

And before the Iraq war, when military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet "for pennies on the dollar," a GAO official said.

Given these glaring gaps in the management of a Pentagon budget that is approaching $400 billion, the coming debate is shaping up as a bid to gain the high ground in the battle against waste, fraud and abuse.

catefrances

holy crap! is deja vu a medical condition??? :P


anyhoo...



ive never had medical insurance. i just pray that God will look after me.

brandon10

Gooo America!!!!!!!! WOOO HOOOOOO

Were number 1!
Were number 1!
Were number 1!

gimmesometruth27

this is outrageous...how do you lose $1 trillion? easy. give no bid contracts to companies that will charge you $300 for a hammer and $700 for a toilet seat and will pay their security contractors upwards of 3-4 times what the government pays the average soldier....nice job to the accountants charged with accounting for this cash....

instead of on god we trust this shoudl be the motto on our cash:

america: strong on defense, screw you if you get sick....

FiveB247x

Actyally the real reason we can't afford healthcare in America is very simple but people don't like to hear it... we don't take care of ourselves. No diet, no exercise, too many vices, etc...

aerial

Pepe Silvia wrote:

proving the military budget is extremely overinflated

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/ ... 5985.shtml
More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/us/na ... ckets.html

The Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable, congressional investigators say. The department compounded the problem by reimbursing employee claims for tickets bought by the Pentagon, the investigators said. The General Accounting Office issued the findings in two reports on the Pentagon's lack of control over airline travel, copies of which The Associated Press obtained. The office concluded that the waste, from 1997 to 2003, went undetected because the department relied on individuals to report the unused tickets, and they did not do so. The Pentagon said it was working to ensure it received credit in the future for each unused ticket.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 251738.DTL

WHAT HAPPENED TO $1 TRILLION?

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

And before the Iraq war, when military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet "for pennies on the dollar," a GAO official said.

Given these glaring gaps in the management of a Pentagon budget that is approaching $400 billion, the coming debate is shaping up as a bid to gain the high ground in the battle against waste, fraud and abuse.

Another example of Government management ......another reason not to put health care in their hands...... corruption in the White House....I read about this awhile back. Is anyone trying to recover the money or find out who pocketed it?

ajedigecko

FiveB247x wrote:

Actyally the real reason we can't afford healthcare in America is very simple but people don't like to hear it... we don't take care of ourselves. No diet, no exercise, too many vices, etc...

well said.....people want to abuse their health with various forms of toxins.

catefrances

ajedigecko wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Actyally the real reason we can't afford healthcare in America is very simple but people don't like to hear it... we don't take care of ourselves. No diet, no exercise, too many vices, etc...

well said.....people want to abuse their health with various forms of toxins.

and some people reach their 70s without the use of any prescription medicines of any kind, are as fit as they can be and discover they have a brain tumour. but thank fuck theyre dead within a month so theyre not a monetary drain on society.

ajedigecko

people who take care of their health and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping them.

people who take toxins and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping the people who take care of their health first.

personnal accountability, i like it, some do not.

FiveB247x

exactly, it may be a generalization, but the vast majority of costs in our healthcare system are a result of not having preventative medicine... instead we have reactionary and then it's already too late. but it's ok America, enjoy your food and drink til you're obese and have health issues and then complain why your premiums are so high. wah wah wah.

ajedigecko wrote:

people who take care of their health and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping them.

people who take toxins and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping the people who take care of their health first.

personnal accountability, i like it, some do not.

Pepe Silvia

FiveB247x wrote:

exactly, it may be a generalization, but the vast majority of costs in our healthcare system are a result of not having preventative medicine... instead we have reactionary and then it's already too late. but it's ok America, enjoy your food and drink til you're obese and have health issues and then complain why your premiums are so high. wah wah wah.

ajedigecko wrote:

people who take care of their health and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping them.

people who take toxins and develop a disease or illness, i see no problem helping the people who take care of their health first.

personnal accountability, i like it, some do not.

premiums and other costs like prescriptions go up year after year regardless of a person's diet

FiveB247x

Oh and I suppose that everyone needs to be on lots of medication and prescriptions as a norm? Yes some are required as a person ages, but the vast, vast majority are results of people not taking care of themselves or the over-medication of our society... but let's not talk about that either. The highest selling prescriptions probably are for hard-ons, anti-depressants, pain killers and high blood pressure... of which half are probably legit as medically necessary and wouldn't be if people took care of themselves... but once again, let's just not hold people responsible for their actions and decisions and blame some other issue or factor instead.

Pepe Silvia wrote:

premiums and other costs like prescriptions go up year after year regardless of a person's diet

gimmesometruth27

FiveB247x wrote:

Oh and I suppose that everyone needs to be on lots of medication and prescriptions as a norm? Yes some are required as a person ages, but the vast, vast majority are results of people not taking care of themselves or the over-medication of our society... but let's not talk about that either. The highest selling prescriptions probably are for hard-ons, anti-depressants, pain killers and high blood pressure... of which half are probably legit as medically necessary and wouldn't be if people took care of themselves... but once again, let's just not hold people responsible for their actions and decisions and blame some other issue or factor instead.

Pepe Silvia wrote:

premiums and other costs like prescriptions go up year after year regardless of a person's diet

don't forget the cholesterol medications, lipitor, zocor, simvastatin, or any statin for that matter. high cholesterol is an epidemic in this country, and diet has a major impact on it, but it is also hereditary. many people can lose weight and change diet enough to get off of blood pressure meds, but cholesterol drugs are mostly permanent due to the issue of heredity....some doctors have suggested that since the statin drugs are so safe and so effective that we should consider putting them in the water...they were joking of course, but they make a good point with that comment.

FiveB247x

Yeah there's plenty of things that are not preventative and are hereditary regardless of the level of care you take of yourself... but I think this is not by any means the issue we're dealing with in terms of US healthcare.

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

don't forget the cholesterol medications, lipitor, zocor, simvastatin, or any statin for that matter. high cholesterol is an epidemic in this country, and diet has a major impact on it, but it is also hereditary. many people can lose weight and change diet enough to get off of blood pressure meds, but cholesterol drugs are mostly permanent due to the issue of heredity....some doctors have suggested that since the statin drugs are so safe and so effective that we should consider putting them in the water...they were joking of course, but they make a good point with that comment.

know1

The reason we can't afford health care is because we stopped paying for health care a long time ago and would rather pay some other entity (insurance) to handle it for us. The insurance industry seized on that opportunity and has now artificially driven health care costs so high that we're all under the illusion that health insurance = health care.

Godfather.

know1 wrote:

The reason we can't afford health care is because we stopped paying for health care a long time ago and would rather pay some other entity (insurance) to handle it for us. The insurance industry seized on that opportunity and has now artificially driven health care costs so high that we're all under the illusion that health insurance = health care.

that is a great statement, +1

Godfather.

darthvedder81

Godfather. wrote:

know1 wrote:

The reason we can't afford health care is because we stopped paying for health care a long time ago and would rather pay some other entity (insurance) to handle it for us. The insurance industry seized on that opportunity and has now artificially driven health care costs so high that we're all under the illusion that health insurance = health care.

that is a great statement, +1

Godfather.

Amen and Amen. We need to go back to a time when we actually paid for services rendered with actual money that we actually earned. The bureaucracy of employee health benefits, HMO's, and government services have completely removed all market forces from health care. What did we think was going to happen?
The has been ramping up for decades and no one party or entity is completely to blame.

Food, clothing and shelter are all equally (if not more important) than health care for our well-being yet we trust those things to the marketplace. Why is health care any different? Insurance should only be necessary for extreme and unexpected scenarios not everyday care.

And yes "health care" is not the same as "health insurance". This should be blindingly obvious to everyone but I'd say 95% of people in Washington don't see any difference so divorced are they from reality.

know1

Good point about food, clothing and shelter.

How much does a family of 4 spend on food in a week between groceries and eating out, lunches, etc.? I'm going to guess that it's around $150 at least. That's a lot of money. Why don't we have everyone covered by food insurance? Shouldn't food be a basic right....after all, you can't live without it.

catefrances

FiveB247x wrote:

Oh and I suppose that everyone needs to be on lots of medication and prescriptions as a norm? Yes some are required as a person ages, but the vast, vast majority are results of people not taking care of themselves or the over-medication of our society... but let's not talk about that either. The highest selling prescriptions probably are for hard-ons, anti-depressants, pain killers and high blood pressure... of which half are probably legit as medically necessary and wouldn't be if people took care of themselves... but once again, let's just not hold people responsible for their actions and decisions and blame some other issue or factor instead.

aah viagra. a guy cant get it up and the medical research industry amps up to fix the problem cause as we all know male penetration is the be all and end all of the sexual experience. :P

Heatherj43

The Reagan admin. spent more on military than all of US history combined before him.
This was for the so called Cold War that really never existed.

Pepe Silvia

Heatherj43 wrote:

The Reagan admin. spent more on military than all of US history combined before him.
This was for the so called Cold War that really never existed.

from the encarta encyclopedia:
G The CIA under President Reagan

President Reagan made good on his promise to rebuild the CIA and secured a major expansion in the budget and personnel of the agency. (The CIA budget was a secret until 1997, when it was officially revealed to be $26.6 billion. Rough estimates suggest that the agency’s budget was about $20 billion in 1981, and that it reached a Cold War high of about $36 billion at the end of the 1980s.) Reagan named CIA veteran William Casey as the agency’s director, and included him in the Cabinet where he became a key presidential advisor. Reagan relied heavily on Casey and the CIA to lead his campaign to end what he called the “evil empire” of Soviet Communism. At Reagan’s direction, the CIA created reports that exaggerated the economic and military threat presented by the Soviet Union. The distorted estimates helped Reagan persuade Congress to approve massive funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—a system of space-based defenses against nuclear attack. The Soviet economy, already hobbled by chronic problems, was too weak to support a Soviet military effort to match SDI.