4 ms·

Why thankfully? Don't workers' rights mean they ought to make their own choices about joining a union or not?

iandanforth 7y ago
Comments like the above fascinate me. The emotional appeal of "choice" seems to have no end. You can employ it to fight unions, health care, public schools anything you want. Similarly if you can successfully attach "right" (as in "a right") to your rhetoric you can draw out pride, anger, indignation, all sorts of powerful emotions. I recently learned that Frank Luntz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz) is one of the masters of this and came up with "Death Tax", using "choice" to fight universal healthcare, and "climate change" to soften the more frightening "global warming." We seem to be highly susceptible to emotional language triggers that just bypass our rational minds.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  Weirdly, this kind of "freedom" is often freedom that's of zero or negative value to me. Take the "freedom" lost by switching to single payer healthcare or similar: oh, no, I don't get to rely on private insurance and deal directly with private medical provider billing departments anymore, and spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me every time I use medical care, plus all the time trying to understand their deliberately-complicated policies to make any kind of mostly-useless attempt at comparison shopping, all while paying a premium for it, and instead I just pay taxes and get medical care when I need it. Like, OK, I'm losing some "freedom" of choice from a certain point of view, but damned if that wouldn't feel one hell of a lot more free.
  - booboolayla 7y ago
    Do left-leaning Americans truly feel this way about single payer healthcare? Do you really not understand that SPH fixes only one problem - poor people getting substandard healthcare for free, at the taxpayer's expense? Do you really think you won't have to "spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me" when dealing with poorly paid doctors and staff that can't get laid off due to insane rules of SPH? Do you really not know about the dirty secret of places with SPH, which is that whoever has the means still goes to a private healthcare because the service is 1000x better?
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    > Weirdly, this kind of "freedom" is often freedom that's of zero or negative value to me. As you said, _to you_. > Take the "freedom" lost by switching to single payer healthcare or similar: oh, no, I don't get to rely on private insurance and deal directly with private medical provider billing departments anymore, and spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me every time I use medical care, plus all the time trying to understand their deliberately-complicated policies to make any kind of mostly-useless attempt at comparison shopping, all while paying a premium for it, and instead I just pay taxes and get medical care when I need it. Well, this is a whole other can of worms, but here goes nothing. As a brief aside, possibly the only system more complicated than American medicine is the American tax code; both are horribly byzantine and have entire industries dedicated to wrangling the bureaucracy. Government involvement is what led to both being so messy. That aside, I oppose single-payer medicine for reasons out side of "which one costs more". I don't trust the government, and think it ought to stick to keeping the peace and enforcing property rights and contracts. There are a few other important things that can be done at the state and local level, and most things ought to be left up to the individual. I don't trust other people to run my life, be they union bureaucrats or federal ones, or even my fellow citizens. Leaving aside my concerns about the growth of federal government, why do you want everyone to use your government system instead of just offering it as an option? What business of yours is it if others choose to stay private?
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      > As you said, _to you_. Yeah, I like policies that benefit me over ones that don't, typically. > Government involvement is what led to both being so messy. Well considering one of the two things that "both" signifies is the tax code... well, yes? More to the substance, that such systems under other states are, in both cases, significantly less messy leads me to believe "it's messy" does not follow simply from "government was involved", such that I would believe "get government out" is a necessary step in fixing either (again, one's the tax code, so...) > I don't trust other people to run my life, be they union bureaucrats or federal ones, or even my fellow citizens. Corporations on the same list, surely? Unless you're lumping those in with the government, which makes sense. > Leaving aside my concerns about the growth of federal government, why do you want everyone to use your government system instead of just offering it as an option? What business of yours is it if others choose to stay private? I don't really care what the new system looks like as long as I don't have to waste any more time or money enjoying the "benefits" of my "freedom" of "choice" under our current system. Any system I'm aware of from any other OECD state would be anywhere from somewhat to way better, from that perspective. Given those are proven in the real world I'd say just pick one of those. I'm pretty sure a few (e.g. Switzerland) do retain private insurance. All (AFAIK) employ price controls, strict pro-citizen rules about how insurance companies have to operate, and something like a "public option" so as long as those elements are present it's probably fine. Anything else is likely to be experimental or otherwise unproven so I'd rather avoid it, given a wealth of demonstrably-fine systems to choose among.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    The other side of this is "Oh good, now I can get my health outcomes managed by the same people and with the same level of customer service/personal touch as my Department of Motor Vehicles and will have literally no alternative but to take it." Arguing the worst case of either system and representing it as the most common case is rarely productive.
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      My description's the typical case for the US system, in my experience, not a worst-case, and I've not seen evidence that my experience is unusual—quite the opposite. At least we haven't been bankrupted by it yet, so there's that, but only because our family's pretty healthy.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        As long as we’re sharing anecdotes and interpreting them as typical case outcomes: We’ve had two births, an uncomplicated broken arm, a complicated broken arm, another moderately complex issue that was many visits over a length of time, and countless pediatrics and adult GP visits and a few ER visits over the last decade with BCBS. I’d say that 95% of all visits go off with zero interactions beyond paying our part of the bill and waiting for paperwork to cycle around. The 5% cases are about half billing questions and half “just confirm that subscriber XYZ visited doctor D on date Q (so that we [as BCBS] know we’re not being scammed by the doc)”. We are nowhere near “tens of hours...every time [we] use medical care”. I doubt we’re even 10 hours per year on billing issues.
        karatestomp 7y ago
        We've ended up with many bills, multiple EOB documents, et c., trickling in over a span of many months, coming from a bunch of different sources, each time we've had someone in the actual hospital (not just a doctor's visit), including three births. We've managed to miss some trivial bill and end up with it in collections because there's just so much damn paperwork and usually a few of them are in some state of error or dispute for some time. Seems to be normal. You in Kaiser or something? I understand that's smoother than... basically everything else, since it's all run by one entity (ahem).
- pathseeker 7y ago
  Comments like the above fascinate me. They dehumanize someone else by implying they are just spreading propaganda while never directly addressing the point they were raising.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- big_chungus 7y ago
  I'm not making an emotional appeal, I'm making a logical one. Choice means I get to pick what I want to do and choose what's best for me. For instance, many unions give money to the Republican party, the Democratic party, or both. I'm not interested in funding either. Janus only covered public-sector unions, so I'd still be stuck paying for political speech in which I don't believe. As a second example, unions typically set the wage for a particular job with both a floor and a ceiling. This means that most employees get closer to the average wage for said job. That's great if you're a lower or average performer, but not if you typically make more. I do, and don't want my earning potential capped by the limits of my co-workers. Third and following up on my prior point, unions often make it harder to advance. I've been quickly promoted in most places I've worked, but that probably wouldn't happen in a union job. They're all about seniority, and I don't believe some boomer who has worked the same job for twenty years should be promoted ahead of a less-senior person with greater merit. Fourth, I don't want to be bound by the decisions of others. Unions often have the power to punish members who cross the picket line. If I'm happy with my job and others aren't, I shouldn't be stuck on strike. There you are, four logical reasons I don't want to join a union. I don't have an issue with them existing, just people being forced to join them. You can't hardly call them "workers' rights" but then say everyone's forced to exercise those "rights". You didn't give any argument of your own, though, nor did you answer my question, you just said "that's emotional reasoning." P.S. I've read Mr. Luntz' book, "Words that Work". I don't agree with him, but he's good at what he does, and it's worth reading. How you present things is just as important as what you present.

Comments like the above fascinate me. The emotional appeal of "choice" seems to have no end. You can employ it to fight unions, health care, public schools anything you want. Similarly if you can successfully attach "right" (as in "a right") to your rhetoric you can draw out pride, anger, indignation, all sorts of powerful emotions. I recently learned that Frank Luntz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz) is one of the masters of this and came up with "Death Tax", using "choice" to fight universal healthcare, and "climate change" to soften the more frightening "global warming." We seem to be highly susceptible to emotional language triggers that just bypass our rational minds.

karatestomp 7y ago
Weirdly, this kind of "freedom" is often freedom that's of zero or negative value to me. Take the "freedom" lost by switching to single payer healthcare or similar: oh, no, I don't get to rely on private insurance and deal directly with private medical provider billing departments anymore, and spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me every time I use medical care, plus all the time trying to understand their deliberately-complicated policies to make any kind of mostly-useless attempt at comparison shopping, all while paying a premium for it, and instead I just pay taxes and get medical care when I need it. Like, OK, I'm losing some "freedom" of choice from a certain point of view, but damned if that wouldn't feel one hell of a lot more free.
- booboolayla 7y ago
  Do left-leaning Americans truly feel this way about single payer healthcare? Do you really not understand that SPH fixes only one problem - poor people getting substandard healthcare for free, at the taxpayer's expense? Do you really think you won't have to "spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me" when dealing with poorly paid doctors and staff that can't get laid off due to insane rules of SPH? Do you really not know about the dirty secret of places with SPH, which is that whoever has the means still goes to a private healthcare because the service is 1000x better?
- big_chungus 7y ago
  > Weirdly, this kind of "freedom" is often freedom that's of zero or negative value to me. As you said, _to you_. > Take the "freedom" lost by switching to single payer healthcare or similar: oh, no, I don't get to rely on private insurance and deal directly with private medical provider billing departments anymore, and spend tens of hours fixing their mistakes and attempts to screw me every time I use medical care, plus all the time trying to understand their deliberately-complicated policies to make any kind of mostly-useless attempt at comparison shopping, all while paying a premium for it, and instead I just pay taxes and get medical care when I need it. Well, this is a whole other can of worms, but here goes nothing. As a brief aside, possibly the only system more complicated than American medicine is the American tax code; both are horribly byzantine and have entire industries dedicated to wrangling the bureaucracy. Government involvement is what led to both being so messy. That aside, I oppose single-payer medicine for reasons out side of "which one costs more". I don't trust the government, and think it ought to stick to keeping the peace and enforcing property rights and contracts. There are a few other important things that can be done at the state and local level, and most things ought to be left up to the individual. I don't trust other people to run my life, be they union bureaucrats or federal ones, or even my fellow citizens. Leaving aside my concerns about the growth of federal government, why do you want everyone to use your government system instead of just offering it as an option? What business of yours is it if others choose to stay private?
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    > As you said, _to you_. Yeah, I like policies that benefit me over ones that don't, typically. > Government involvement is what led to both being so messy. Well considering one of the two things that "both" signifies is the tax code... well, yes? More to the substance, that such systems under other states are, in both cases, significantly less messy leads me to believe "it's messy" does not follow simply from "government was involved", such that I would believe "get government out" is a necessary step in fixing either (again, one's the tax code, so...) > I don't trust other people to run my life, be they union bureaucrats or federal ones, or even my fellow citizens. Corporations on the same list, surely? Unless you're lumping those in with the government, which makes sense. > Leaving aside my concerns about the growth of federal government, why do you want everyone to use your government system instead of just offering it as an option? What business of yours is it if others choose to stay private? I don't really care what the new system looks like as long as I don't have to waste any more time or money enjoying the "benefits" of my "freedom" of "choice" under our current system. Any system I'm aware of from any other OECD state would be anywhere from somewhat to way better, from that perspective. Given those are proven in the real world I'd say just pick one of those. I'm pretty sure a few (e.g. Switzerland) do retain private insurance. All (AFAIK) employ price controls, strict pro-citizen rules about how insurance companies have to operate, and something like a "public option" so as long as those elements are present it's probably fine. Anything else is likely to be experimental or otherwise unproven so I'd rather avoid it, given a wealth of demonstrably-fine systems to choose among.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  The other side of this is "Oh good, now I can get my health outcomes managed by the same people and with the same level of customer service/personal touch as my Department of Motor Vehicles and will have literally no alternative but to take it." Arguing the worst case of either system and representing it as the most common case is rarely productive.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    My description's the typical case for the US system, in my experience, not a worst-case, and I've not seen evidence that my experience is unusual—quite the opposite. At least we haven't been bankrupted by it yet, so there's that, but only because our family's pretty healthy.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      As long as we’re sharing anecdotes and interpreting them as typical case outcomes: We’ve had two births, an uncomplicated broken arm, a complicated broken arm, another moderately complex issue that was many visits over a length of time, and countless pediatrics and adult GP visits and a few ER visits over the last decade with BCBS. I’d say that 95% of all visits go off with zero interactions beyond paying our part of the bill and waiting for paperwork to cycle around. The 5% cases are about half billing questions and half “just confirm that subscriber XYZ visited doctor D on date Q (so that we [as BCBS] know we’re not being scammed by the doc)”. We are nowhere near “tens of hours...every time [we] use medical care”. I doubt we’re even 10 hours per year on billing issues.
      - karatestomp 7y ago
        We've ended up with many bills, multiple EOB documents, et c., trickling in over a span of many months, coming from a bunch of different sources, each time we've had someone in the actual hospital (not just a doctor's visit), including three births. We've managed to miss some trivial bill and end up with it in collections because there's just so much damn paperwork and usually a few of them are in some state of error or dispute for some time. Seems to be normal. You in Kaiser or something? I understand that's smoother than... basically everything else, since it's all run by one entity (ahem).
pathseeker 7y ago
Comments like the above fascinate me. They dehumanize someone else by implying they are just spreading propaganda while never directly addressing the point they were raising.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
big_chungus 7y ago
I'm not making an emotional appeal, I'm making a logical one. Choice means I get to pick what I want to do and choose what's best for me. For instance, many unions give money to the Republican party, the Democratic party, or both. I'm not interested in funding either. Janus only covered public-sector unions, so I'd still be stuck paying for political speech in which I don't believe. As a second example, unions typically set the wage for a particular job with both a floor and a ceiling. This means that most employees get closer to the average wage for said job. That's great if you're a lower or average performer, but not if you typically make more. I do, and don't want my earning potential capped by the limits of my co-workers. Third and following up on my prior point, unions often make it harder to advance. I've been quickly promoted in most places I've worked, but that probably wouldn't happen in a union job. They're all about seniority, and I don't believe some boomer who has worked the same job for twenty years should be promoted ahead of a less-senior person with greater merit. Fourth, I don't want to be bound by the decisions of others. Unions often have the power to punish members who cross the picket line. If I'm happy with my job and others aren't, I shouldn't be stuck on strike. There you are, four logical reasons I don't want to join a union. I don't have an issue with them existing, just people being forced to join them. You can't hardly call them "workers' rights" but then say everyone's forced to exercise those "rights". You didn't give any argument of your own, though, nor did you answer my question, you just said "that's emotional reasoning." P.S. I've read Mr. Luntz' book, "Words that Work". I don't agree with him, but he's good at what he does, and it's worth reading. How you present things is just as important as what you present.