5 ms·

At what point do we hold people accountable? If a $10 fully refunded deposit is an insurmountable challenge (which, at least in the US does not at all apply to

by eric_b 9y ago

At what point do we hold people accountable? If a $10 fully refunded deposit is an insurmountable challenge (which, at least in the US does not at all apply to "many" people.) what would work? We can't just allow people who give no thought to others, who make bad choice after bad choice, the option to continue to ruin it for the rest of us. I'm sympathetic to low income folks, but surely a 10 dollar deposit you get back if you simply do what you say you're doing to do, is not too much to ask?

mirchibajji 9y ago
As a UK resident earning a comfortable wage, I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more, and hope the NHS continues to be easily accessible. Money can solve many problems, but these kind of "solutions" only adversely affect those don't have enough of it. It isn't like managing such a system has zero overhead.
- jon-wood 9y ago
  Glad to hear I'm not the last bleeding heart liberal round here! The solution is to increase taxes and properly fund the NHS.
  - gaius 9y ago
    The solution is to increase taxes and properly fund the NHS. What would you say that involves? The current budget is £125Bn, so are we looking at £150Bn, £200Bn, £500Bn? Put a number out there and we'll have a national debate on what we are willing to do to finance that. Noone seems to know what "properly fund" actually looks like, and noone has any appetite for tackling waste, such as missed appointments, or IT outsourcing contracts. £10Bn flushed down the toilet on NPfIT, when you say "save our NHS" you are really saying "save CSC's shareholders", do you realize that? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-... Windfall tax on Accenture et al I say.
    - toyg 9y ago
      Aren't you tired of rehashing the NPfIT failure, literally decades since it started and even 4 years since the press last covered it? It's just become a talking-point, a right-wing meme. The new systems are not faring much better; it's just a set of hard problems from an organizational perspective. Conflating IT mistakes (10bn over 20 years, 500m per year - peanuts, from a government perspective) with the entire NHS expenditure, is just misleading propaganda. This is why we can't have a civil debate on what the NHS should and should not provide: the fixation on cost-cutting and its opposite knee-jerk reactions stifle any attempt at reasoning about actual problems.
      - gaius 9y ago
        It's just become a talking-point, a right-wing meme. The new systems are not faring much better That's a really weird thing to say: are you asserting that the "right wing" is complaining about billions in public money being funnelled into the pockets of capitalist shareholders? Or is "right wing" just your word for "anyone who disagrees with me"? I'll grow tired of it when the government stops doing business with these companies, insources all the IT work, and hits them with a windfall tax to claw it all back. Is that what you call "right wing"?

by eric_b 9y ago

mirchibajji 9y ago

As a UK resident earning a comfortable wage, I personally wouldn't mind paying a bit more, and hope the NHS continues to be easily accessible. Money can solve many problems, but these kind of "solutions" only adversely affect those don't have enough of it. It isn't like managing such a system has zero overhead.

jon-wood 9y ago
Glad to hear I'm not the last bleeding heart liberal round here! The solution is to increase taxes and properly fund the NHS.
- gaius 9y ago
  The solution is to increase taxes and properly fund the NHS. What would you say that involves? The current budget is £125Bn, so are we looking at £150Bn, £200Bn, £500Bn? Put a number out there and we'll have a national debate on what we are willing to do to finance that. Noone seems to know what "properly fund" actually looks like, and noone has any appetite for tackling waste, such as missed appointments, or IT outsourcing contracts. £10Bn flushed down the toilet on NPfIT, when you say "save our NHS" you are really saying "save CSC's shareholders", do you realize that? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-... Windfall tax on Accenture et al I say.
  - toyg 9y ago
    Aren't you tired of rehashing the NPfIT failure, literally decades since it started and even 4 years since the press last covered it? It's just become a talking-point, a right-wing meme. The new systems are not faring much better; it's just a set of hard problems from an organizational perspective. Conflating IT mistakes (10bn over 20 years, 500m per year - peanuts, from a government perspective) with the entire NHS expenditure, is just misleading propaganda. This is why we can't have a civil debate on what the NHS should and should not provide: the fixation on cost-cutting and its opposite knee-jerk reactions stifle any attempt at reasoning about actual problems.
    - gaius 9y ago
      It's just become a talking-point, a right-wing meme. The new systems are not faring much better That's a really weird thing to say: are you asserting that the "right wing" is complaining about billions in public money being funnelled into the pockets of capitalist shareholders? Or is "right wing" just your word for "anyone who disagrees with me"? I'll grow tired of it when the government stops doing business with these companies, insources all the IT work, and hits them with a windfall tax to claw it all back. Is that what you call "right wing"?