Virtual Money For Real Lobbying

ogaraf writes "Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that health-insurance industry group 'Get Health Reform Right' paid Facebook users with virtual currency to be used in Facebook games in exchange for lobbying their Congressional Rep. 'Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep: "I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."'" Relatedly, Trailrunner7 illustrates growing concern over realistic spammer profiles in social networking sites and their potential to wreak havoc, especially if these two methods were combined. "Many spammers now have large staffs of people working on nothing but building out completely fake personas for non-existent users on social networking sites and blog networks. The spammers use these personas to create accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogspot and other sites that have high levels of user interaction."

I had one of those spam profiles already...

[BobMcD]

I got a request from a beautiful brunette that is friends with some of my friends and loves World of Warcraft and wanted to be my friend, too.

They really ought to work on making these things more believable...

Re:Health reform for the stupid

[NoYob]

Interesting. I'm going to send my wife, who's in health care, that link.

All I know is, regardless of what happens, when I need some sort of major treatment, I'll be on a plane to India to get treated by an American educated Indian doctor and then spend some time on a tropical beach with my wife to recuperate - all for a third of what it will cost here.

Re:Health reform for the stupid

[maxume]

Are you accounting for differences in lifestyle in those numbers?

Comparing years added to life expectancy by health care would be a lot more interesting than simply comparing life expectancy.

Also, what is your opinion on the impact of the different allocation systems involved? In the U.S., people with means receive extensive amounts of care without much analysis of whether the benefits of the care justify the costs, whereas most government run systems take a look at the benefits. Don't mistake that for wailing about rationing (there is a limited supply, so every system necessarily involves allocating the available resources), it is a statement that the U.S. system of allocation is not the same, a factor that muddies cost comparisons quite a bit.

(For what it's worth, I'd be fine with the U.S. having a health care system where it was a painless (on the bureaucratic side) process for that guy to get a new insulin pump paid for by the government, I just think you are framing your arguments rather unevenly)

Re:Health reform for the stupid

[causality]

The irony of course is that the US not only has the worst coverage it also has the most expensive healthcare in the world while also having a lower life expectancy than most other 1st world countries.

So to everyone who decrys the systems in Switzerland, France, Canada, UK, etc remember this. They save more lives, they result in a longer average life expectancy and they don't kill their citizens because they've lost their job. and they cost less, often half or less of the US spend per capita

I don't think it's reasonable to expect truly good reform from the same systems, bureaucracies, and political forces who created the current US system. The current healthcare debate in the US seems to gloss over this fallacy entirely.

The practice of having employers provide health benefits dates back to World War II. During this time, the federal government instituted a wage freeze. Put simply, this meant that your employer could not give you a raise even if he wanted to. However, the wage freeze only included the actual dollar amount of the paycheck. So to get around this, employers kept the amount on the paycheck the same but started providing benefits that the employee normally had to purchase separately. They either provided those benefits entirely or they subsidized them. The amount of money that this saved the employee was the same as the raise the employer would otherwise have given. This allowed employers to offer competitive compensation packages that attracted and retained desirable talent while following the letter of the law.

Like the income tax, this was a "temporary emergency wartime measure." That temporary measure destroyed any competitive market that existed for health benefits. It set a precedent where most people's benefits come from their employer, often a large one with many employees. The effect has been that to this day, an individual who independently purchases health insurance has no bargaining power. They are up against corporations with thousands of employees who can negotiate better prices in a way that individuals cannot. The individual generally receives a non-negotiable, "take it or leave it" offer in a market full of major players and little competition.

It also makes employees more dependent on their employers than what is strictly necessary. How many people stay with a job they don't really like because they are worried about losing their benefits? How many people lose their benefits when they lose a specific job, even though they could otherwise replace the income? In my opinion, the ideal balance is when the company needs its employees just as much as the employees need the company. Anytime that is not the case, the side which is more dependent gets the short end of the stick in any matter of bargaining or negotiation. Healthcare is just one of many ways that the corporations generally have us over a barrel, and know it.

I'd like to see all of that fixed. That would be real reform, or at least a good start. If that still doesn't work, then in the specific case of the USA I would be open to the idea of socialized health care. Right now most of what I am hearing in the news, from our leaders, consists of proposals for partial implementations of socialized care, except they go to some trouble to avoid calling it that, preferring to call it a "public option" etc.. I'm really not impressed. The unwillingness to call things what they are is better known as deception. The only reason for our politicians to be deceptive about this is because they are more interested in power than a smoothly-working system. I think this, above all, is what turns off many Americans to the prospect of socialism. If socialism turns out to be the right answer, it won't be because these clowns implemented it.