Bailout / Stimulus Discussion (Hints Missed & Shartz Fired)

Filed last week of Jan. Got refund on 2/22.

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Nice, I am happy for you. I’m sure it isnt a universal thing and is controlled by certain circumstances. One of the biggest problems is there is no transparency at all on what the circumstances are or why there are delays.

Im one of the lucky ones. I have work and am not dependent on this refund. That isnt the case for many people out there, and I hope something comes together for them soon.

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The IRS is so backlogged at this point that it is barely functional. Calling them is next to impossible and fairly routine responses dating back to 2019 are getting continued “we need more time” letters. Not shocked to hear they are screwing up refunds.

Republicans literally defunded the IRS, now this is happening.

It’s almost like it was intentional.

The goto loop

  1. Claim government doesn’t work
  2. Defund or otherwise burden agencies (USPS)
  3. Agency doesn’t work
  4. Go on TV to proclaim 1.
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My company’s second-draw PPP loan was one of the tens of thousands caught in SBA’s delays, but it was just approved yesterday. This will mean restoring all the employees to 100% pay (although partners will likely stay at reduced salary) and will also likely result in re-hiring one of the people who was let go last year.

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Yeah very common right now it is a shitshow, will get straightened out eventually but what a PITA

Just from an organizational standpoint, they’re now in a self-reinforcing cycle where the more behind they get, the worse the situation becomes.

Like if they had their act together, they wouldn’t have sent Vict0ar the nonpayment letters (wasted action #1), and they wouldn’t have had to field his call(s) (wasted action #2). The more of those wasted actions they have to do, the less resources/capacity they have to do their basic functions. Do very much of that and it’s a pretty huge problem for them.

I talked to my brother, he is in the same boat. It sucks.

Yeah the long term plan of the GOP has always been to say government sucks and can’t do anything right, then when in power screw up everything as much as possible and then say they are right.

Unfortunately lots of people by into it. It is why ignorant people push back on the government overseeing UHC. They have been conditioned to believe the government can not manage anything regardless of the evidence.

Republicans are succeeding at starving the IRS and it’s going to be really hard for Dems to get people excited about the idea of hiring more IRS employees. Just another example of their messaging dominance.

I don’t have the exact stats or source in front of me, but when they poll people asking them how much they think the administrative costs to operate Medicare and SS are, the responses tend to average between 20-50%, when the truth is under 5%. Meanwhile private insurance overhead and administrative costs are ~20+%. Believing in the superiority of the holy free market and our saviour, his son, private for-profit enterprise’s ability to deliver public goods and benefits is on par with having the faith to accept that a blood sacrifice and resurrection was necessary to save us from eternal damnation.

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how much of this is due to the actual administration of medicare being increasingly outsourced to private insurance companies?

IDK. You may know more on that particular aspect.

Regardless, insurance is a middleman, who’s business model depends on denying or limiting access to healthcare. In order to profit they have to return less value than what they take in, and cover all of their administrative costs, which are more to do with billing than with providing care. From a simple math on the back of the envelope calculations, health insurance companies are a net negative when it comes to getting bang for our buck on health care spending.

Lot’s of sources with different numbers. Though they all seem to point in the same direction. Even this one article touches on a few different measurements that don’t all seem to congruently align.

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The only issue with this line of logic is that insurance companies paying higher rates subsidizes medicaid/medicare payers. A lot of hospitals (most maybe? not sure), could not survive on medicare rates alone. Even more could not survive on medicaid payment rates. The private payers keep hospitals in the black.

Even if we grant that private payers are subsidizing medicaid/care recipients, what is the argument for why we need a middle man to scrape off profits to push paperwork around? That seems like obvious waste and overhead. Wouldn’t we be able to keep hospitals even more in the black if instead of United Healthcare taking profits, we skipped that step?

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I’m not aware of any expansion of public health coverage that increases payor rates. Are you? I’d agree that isn’t some insurmountable problem, but your solution of increasing payor rates isn’t a proposal considered by anyone.

Anyways, doesn’t relate to the thread subject, which should be all checks now imo.

I don’t see how you’re taking my posts to be advocating for increasing payor rates. I’m simply pointing out an unnecessary middleman, and the waste associated with it. Cutting out the middleman(especially a profit taking one) reduces costs.

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I don’t know anything other than if you watch CNN for 10 minutes, 9 of those minutes are advertisements from private insurance companies trying to get you to sign up for medicare through them.

It may be related to what I posted upthread then.

https://www.medicare.gov/sign-up-change-plans/types-of-medicare-health-plans/medicare-advantage-plans/how-do-medicare-advantage-plans-work

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