Government fees and services - what do we 'buy'

[FaridS 0]

Actually, immigration is one of those services that I don't mind having government control. Immigration is similar to national defense and we can't have each state dictate who can immigrate to what state.

however, as to the rest of the health care debate, we are a few decades late. Government run health care has been around for at least 30 years....and it is BROKE. It may work but it is broke. It cost at least 3 times as much as it was projected when it started, medicare that is. Social security is broke....and so on and so forth. We can go down the list of all government run services and they are all broke...and so is the economy which is also managed by quasi government controlled central economic planning, aka the FED.

I wasn't around 30-40 years ago but from I hear from the older generation, health care used to be affordable. you could see a doctor for a mere $3....and get the prescriptions you need without breaking the bank....until medicare started that is.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Im pretty sure that the people that process your applications for immigrations are private company that is contract byt the government. So that blows the whole - government is bad out of the water on this one. It is PRIVATE industry.

Also, there are are people bringing their finances and spouses to countries with universal healthcare - they do not frequent this site though, they have their own. And Universal healthcare is not free, people are taxed for it in other countires. They just pay nothing at point of visit and hardly anything for medicine. Funny that their tax percentage in countries like the UK is lower than my total yearly healthcare bill for our crappy insurance system.

You are wrong about the private employees so that is a good start. I did live in Ukraine and Canada (both have national health care stuff) In Ukraine all I can say is DON'T GET SICK!!!!!!!! And the taxes are so onnerous that most people in Ukraine have ceased to pay them by working under the table. It is estimated that 80% of the GNP is unclaimed. The country is in the bottom FIVE in the world financially and considered a major risk for a complete financail collapse. And that would the the second one in 10 years. So much for health care being necessary "for the country's" financial health

I now live 6 miles from Canada. So WHY are all the Canadians filling up our clinic's parking lots? I mean with all that FREE healthcare and wonderful service, what gives? Why is the hospital in Burlington and the one in Plattsburgh full of cars from Quebec? Very strange. I had an MRI a few months ago at Vermont Radiology. 13 cars in the lot (including mine) and 11 are from Quebec. All signage is French/English, and by far the waiting room chatter is dominantly French. WHY???????? You mean they leave that great FREE healthcare which they are taxed to death for (15% sales tax plus a maginal rate of income tax 11% higher than ours) PLUS a "Social Insurance" payroll tax, PLUS having to pay medical insurance premiums to the Province if you register a car!!!!!!! The Provincial medical insurance for each CAR now is more than $300 per year, don't even try it with a motorcycle!!! And yet they come here and pay CASH for MRIs (actually some are paid by national health care IF they have waited more than ONE YEAR!) I had my MRI two hours after the doctor ordered it. There are FOUR locations offering MRIs in Burlington VT. Population 50,000. There are TWO in Quebec, 500,000 square miles and population 7 million. Go figure.

Tell me a government program that is run the way you want your healthcare to be run.

No thanks, I think I will keep what I have and keep my tax money too.

I know this is going to come out wrong and I'm not trying to offend anyone, but have you ever driven in Quebec? Especially in/around Montreal... I guess if you live that close to it, you probably have and so you may know what I'm talking about. It's um... a little crazy, to put it mildly. It actually doesn't surprise me at all that Quebec residents have to pay extra for medical stuff when they register a car. I mean seriously, the health risks kinda skyrocket there because (many) drivers are frickin INSANE! Perhaps it's not necessarily fair to the um... 'safer' drivers, but it doesn't surprise me.

I'm not even touching the rest of the health care debate.

OUI!!!!!!!! J'habit a Rue Marcel Monette en Montreal Nord por un ans. Pres de Riviere du Prairie. I drove downtown every day and YES they are crazy drivers and the bike riders are worse! And the Quebecois bike riders come down here and ride around all our bike trails and they are just as crazy here! I really feel I should warn them that Alla is still not such a good driver and occasionally wanders off ther lane, risking an international incident of a Quebecois squashed by a Ukrainian in Vermont. But at least they have medical insurance! I was SURE I would witness a bike rider get killed every morning! They got killed every so often but I never witnessed it. We go to Montreal often and drive over the creepy Pont Champlain bridge (I hate that bridge!) But still $300+ paid to the Province for "medical insurance" for driving a car! And that is up 50% from when I lived there.

Still, they ARE coming here and upstate NY for medical treatment that they have to wait too long for in Quebec.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Some of their functions, those that benefit "all of us" are paid for with that money (this is all government theory-speak, by the way) and those functions which benefit an individual are paid for by the individual.

Well, that's what I keep hearing, but when we talk about functions that benefit all of us, I have to ask what the federal government does that benefits me. National security, through the DOD and DOHS is really the only answer I have thought of. I would have liked to say interstates, but all of the interstates near my home are toll roads and thus prohibitively expensive. And anyways, I thought that is why you pay 32 cents every time you buy a gallon of gas. Really, all I do is pay the federal government money.

Your federal tax dollars go to alot of different places but for a start: A huge portion is given to the military. Also every state in the union is given fund for everything from bridges, to senior and low income housing, schools, roads etc. Also alot of farming is subsidized by your tax dollars. If it wasn't you would be paying alot more for food. There are alot more, but you get the point.

Oh wow. First farm subsidies artificially RAISE the price of food, not lower it. By buying the food at a higher cost than the market offers or by subsidizing farmers to NOT grow crops it chokes the "supply" side and drives prices UP to the consumer to the benefit of the farmer who represents a pretty large portion of the vote in a large part of the country. Government subsidies are never designed to lower costs and never have been since the very first was paid for buffolo skins to keep the price up so buffolo hunters would keep killing buffalo and force native Amercans onto reservations for another government subsidy...food. Government subsidies are designed to CONTROL people or people's actions.

Cnada has a small military and still taxes heavily for their healthcare. As I may have mentioned, I live right at the border and OUR Vermont Air Guard is flying around all day in f-16s, loaded for bear, and they are maybe 15 seconds flying time from Montreal if they turn on the after burners (it is 43 miles, you figure it out...at mach 1.6 how long does that take to cover?) So Canada has a sfatey valve for medical care in the USA (90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border) plus they have a very loyal and trusted friend with really hot jets a cool guided weapons just seconds flying time from their biggest cities...really for FREE. PLUS we flew their portable Tim Hortons to Afghanistan for them in one of our C-5s So how will they afford health care when they can no longer come here?

(no offense to my good Canadian friends, whatever we supplement for defense is worth every penny for having a really good neighbor on 5000 miles of border)

[DIARD 1]

Im pretty sure that the people that process your applications for immigrations are private company that is contract byt the government. So that blows the whole - government is bad out of the water on this one. It is PRIVATE industry.

Also, there are are people bringing their finances and spouses to countries with universal healthcare - they do not frequent this site though, they have their own. And Universal healthcare is not free, people are taxed for it in other countires. They just pay nothing at point of visit and hardly anything for medicine. Funny that their tax percentage in countries like the UK is lower than my total yearly healthcare bill for our crappy insurance system.

Really? Let's see, National Insurance in the UK is a 23.8% payroll tax, so that must mean you're currently spending more than 23.8% of your wages on healthcare in the US. Correct? Or were you also including the average 35% income tax and 15% VAT in the UK?

BTW, if you really are spending that much for healthcare then most of that money is tax deductible.

National insurance includes their pension, did you know that?. NO I don't think you do. I have spent 26% of my yearly income in insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, medications and co-insurance this year so far. I am sure it will go higher, we have a quite a few month left in the year. By the way, it may be tax deductible, but not much more than standard deductions, so I am still paying a huge portion of my income in tax. The 15% VAT is added on and what you see on the price tag is what you get. Have you been to the Uk? Overall, for the higher wages they receive, I really didn't see a huge difference in prices (aside from gasoline of course). Shopping for week was about 30 pounds for 2 of us, so like $200-220 US a month. This is what I would spend at home.

[DIARD 1]

Im pretty sure that the people that process your applications for immigrations are private company that is contract byt the government. So that blows the whole - government is bad out of the water on this one. It is PRIVATE industry.

Also, there are are people bringing their finances and spouses to countries with universal healthcare - they do not frequent this site though, they have their own. And Universal healthcare is not free, people are taxed for it in other countires. They just pay nothing at point of visit and hardly anything for medicine. Funny that their tax percentage in countries like the UK is lower than my total yearly healthcare bill for our crappy insurance system.

I have never seen any evidence to indicate that the government outsources application processing. Outsourcing such a process would have serious privacy concerns. The call-center is outsourced, but the processing is done through the DOHS directly.

Even if the application process was outsourced, it wouldn't "blow the whole 'government is bad' [argument] out of the water." The point is that a lack of competition leads to lack of customer service, efficiency, and effectiveness. USCIS has no competition. Therefore, they are inefficient, backlogged, and lack anything that resembles reasonable customer service. If you don't like it, it isn't as if you can go to a competitor.

In terms of healthcare, our system has problems. But the point is, I can’t think of any government programs that are run the way I would like my healthcare to be run. Why would you expect the government to run healthcare well unless you can think of a government program that runs the way you want it to?

It’s true that the federal government spends a large portion of its budget on the military. Whether or not you think this is reasonable, you can justify that it is for everyone. Roads are paid for by gas taxes, tolls, weigh station fees, and registration fees (or at least could be. If the government is moving money around, it doesn’t affect the end number). Although farming is subsidized, you don’t understand the system if you think that prices would be higher without subsidizing. Actually, the government subsidizes farmers for not planting in order to keep prices higher. In terms of housing and education, I know I could do better if the government would just give me what they would have spent on me.

Actually it was a link right here on VJ that was talking about the private companies that took over processing applications at the CSC and VSC. Will try and find and post the link here for you to read.

I do understand subsizing and actually grew up in a family with a farm. Hundreds of acres of corn and soy. Yes, crops are subsidized to keep the farms planting. Because the price they could sell it for would not cover the cost of raising it. It might work the other way, but this is my personal experiance. Maybe your family grew different crops?

As far as the militar budget, I was just responding to you saying that you couldn't think of anything your tax dollars went to that benefits you. I think National security does, don't you? Roads may be paid for in part by tax on gas etc, but the federal governement does give each state money toward to cost of transportation needs like bridges, rail lines etc. I don't think you could do better education wise, have you tried? I homeschooled my children for 13 years, it is alot harder than you think.

[DIARD 1]

Some of their functions, those that benefit "all of us" are paid for with that money (this is all government theory-speak, by the way) and those functions which benefit an individual are paid for by the individual.

Well, that's what I keep hearing, but when we talk about functions that benefit all of us, I have to ask what the federal government does that benefits me. National security, through the DOD and DOHS is really the only answer I have thought of. I would have liked to say interstates, but all of the interstates near my home are toll roads and thus prohibitively expensive. And anyways, I thought that is why you pay 32 cents every time you buy a gallon of gas. Really, all I do is pay the federal government money.

Your federal tax dollars go to alot of different places but for a start: A huge portion is given to the military. Also every state in the union is given fund for everything from bridges, to senior and low income housing, schools, roads etc. Also alot of farming is subsidized by your tax dollars. If it wasn't you would be paying alot more for food. There are alot more, but you get the point.

Oh wow. First farm subsidies artificially RAISE the price of food, not lower it. By buying the food at a higher cost than the market offers or by subsidizing farmers to NOT grow crops it chokes the "supply" side and drives prices UP to the consumer to the benefit of the farmer who represents a pretty large portion of the vote in a large part of the country. Government subsidies are never designed to lower costs and never have been since the very first was paid for buffolo skins to keep the price up so buffolo hunters would keep killing buffalo and force native Amercans onto reservations for another government subsidy...food. Government subsidies are designed to CONTROL people or people's actions.

Cnada has a small military and still taxes heavily for their healthcare. As I may have mentioned, I live right at the border and OUR Vermont Air Guard is flying around all day in f-16s, loaded for bear, and they are maybe 15 seconds flying time from Montreal if they turn on the after burners (it is 43 miles, you figure it out...at mach 1.6 how long does that take to cover?) So Canada has a sfatey valve for medical care in the USA (90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border) plus they have a very loyal and trusted friend with really hot jets a cool guided weapons just seconds flying time from their biggest cities...really for FREE. PLUS we flew their portable Tim Hortons to Afghanistan for them in one of our C-5s So how will they afford health care when they can no longer come here?

(no offense to my good Canadian friends, whatever we supplement for defense is worth every penny for having a really good neighbor on 5000 miles of border)

See post above. I am talking from actual firsthand knowledge of some of the governemnt farming subsidies.

I wasn't really commenting about Canada, just responding to the poster that said he wanted to know what the federal government does that benefits him. I responded that a huge portion of our tax dollars go to the military. This benefits him, you and myself as well as everyone else in this country, does it not?

[DIARD 1]

I found it. Both Stanely Associates and Northrup Grumman provide contract services to the UCSIS. It was talking about how they are paid poorly by stanely and maybe that effects processing.

HEre is a link to the article that was in the post:

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200711/113007b.html

[MrsCat 6]

I know this is going to come out wrong and I'm not trying to offend anyone, but have you ever driven in Quebec? Especially in/around Montreal... I guess if you live that close to it, you probably have and so you may know what I'm talking about. It's um... a little crazy, to put it mildly. It actually doesn't surprise me at all that Quebec residents have to pay extra for medical stuff when they register a car. I mean seriously, the health risks kinda skyrocket there because (many) drivers are frickin INSANE! Perhaps it's not necessarily fair to the um... 'safer' drivers, but it doesn't surprise me.

I'm not even touching the rest of the health care debate.

Yup.

[MrsCat 6]

(no offense to my good Canadian friends, whatever we supplement for defense is worth every penny for having a really good neighbor on 5000 miles of border)

Whose gonna argue with you now.

[SMR 368]

Actually it was a link right here on VJ that was talking about the private companies that took over processing applications at the CSC and VSC. Will try and find and post the link here for you to read.

I do understand subsizing and actually grew up in a family with a farm. Hundreds of acres of corn and soy. Yes, crops are subsidized to keep the farms planting. Because the price they could sell it for would not cover the cost of raising it. It might work the other way, but this is my personal experiance. Maybe your family grew different crops?

As far as the militar budget, I was just responding to you saying that you couldn't think of anything your tax dollars went to that benefits you. I think National security does, don't you? Roads may be paid for in part by tax on gas etc, but the federal governement does give each state money toward to cost of transportation needs like bridges, rail lines etc. I don't think you could do better education wise, have you tried? I homeschooled my children for 13 years, it is alot harder than you think.

As I indicated, whether or not the government contracts out application processing is not relevant. The point is, the service sucks because the people who use it can't go to a competitor. If you want to enter the US legally, you have to go through the USCIS.

Regardless of how subsidies precisely work, the point is that if the government would just butt out, supply and demand would do it's job. If there really wasn't enough food, as you indicate, then prices would rise slightly, food production would become profitable for farmers without subsidies because the prices they could get for their crop would be higher. In the end, the system would inevitably be cheaper because you wouldn't be paying government bureaucrats to do something that the market would do better on its own.

In terms of education, I wasn't necessarily talking about homeschooling, although that is one option. I was talking about the fact that public education costs an average of almost $10,000 per child per year. Many good private schools can be found for less. Don't you think that homeschooling would have been more manageable if you had gotten $10,000 a year to home school (not saying that would cover your time, but it would have covered books and then some)?

As far as socialized medicine goes, the point I am making is that services the government provides cost more and do less. Although healthcare needs reform, the expectation that the U.S. government can provide a quality service for a reasonable price is unfounded and lacks precedent. Further, there is little precedent to suggest that any government has provided quality healthcare to it's populace at-large long-term for a reasonable price.

[mawilson 2,133]

Really? Let's see, National Insurance in the UK is a 23.8% payroll tax, so that must mean you're currently spending more than 23.8% of your wages on healthcare in the US. Correct?

Incorrect. The National Insurance tax is nowhere near 23.8%.

In the 2009/10 tax year, the National Insurance tax rate paid by workers is:

0% for the first £110 per week

11% on income up to £844 per week

1% on any income above £844 per week

HM Revenue and Customs: Rates and allowances - National Insurance contributions

Or were you also including the average 35% income tax?

Again, incorrect. The basic income tax rate in the UK is 22%. 35% (actually 40% now) is the highest rate, not "average".

[Heracles 417]

Im pretty sure that the people that process your applications for immigrations are private company that is contract byt the government. So that blows the whole - government is bad out of the water on this one. It is PRIVATE industry.

Also, there are are people bringing their finances and spouses to countries with universal healthcare - they do not frequent this site though, they have their own. And Universal healthcare is not free, people are taxed for it in other countires. They just pay nothing at point of visit and hardly anything for medicine. Funny that their tax percentage in countries like the UK is lower than my total yearly healthcare bill for our crappy insurance system.

Really? Let's see, National Insurance in the UK is a 23.8% payroll tax, so that must mean you're currently spending more than 23.8% of your wages on healthcare in the US. Correct? Or were you also including the average 35% income tax and 15% VAT in the UK?

BTW, if you really are spending that much for healthcare then most of that money is tax deductible.

NHS Tax - AUS

1.5% of your Income

2.5% if your earning over $75K

Other Taxes

Federal sales tax [GST like Canada]: 10%

No State Taxes

No personal property tax

No Housing / land tax

Depending in income bracket - income taxes are lower than the US

AUS INCOME TAX RATES

Tax Rate | Income

Nil - $0 > $6,000

12.3% - $6,001 > $34,000

22.5% - $34,001 > $80,000

32% - $80,001 > $180,000

45% - Over $180,000

---------------

US Income Tax rates

Tax Rate | Income

10% $0 > $8,025

15% $8,026 > $32,550

25% $32,551 > $78,850

28% $78,851 > $164,550

33% $164,551 > $357,700

35% $357,701+

Edited September 2, 2009 by Booyah!

[NickD 202]

Well over $2,000 in fees alone per person plus whatever that doctor charges you for the I-693, that can be a small fortune but required by the USCIS even though they say you can have every communicable disease in the world and still come here, as long as you agree to counseling. That was just the start of it with more cost for translation fees and getting some of those required documents for evidence can be quite expensive.

I knew it was going to cost me a small fortune to bring my wife and her daughter over here so had plenty of money in the bank to cover that and even hired a good immigration attorney to guide me on the best way to bring them here, and to chose which of the many forms to use. Plus if you do not cross every t and dot every i, your applications can be rejected and they keep your fee.

As a tax paying USC all my life and a decorated veteran of a foreign war didn't like being treated as a criminal for trying to commit fraud. I am guilty until I proved myself innocent. Journey for the most part was pretty good except for that stupid I-751 that cost us a lot of extra money and time because they misplaced our application. It's up to you to keep your family legal, they don't give a damn about that. If you want ten different answers to the same identical question, just call ten times. Every field office has it's own set of rules or procedures, whatever they want to call it. If it wasn't for Senator Feingolds' help, really don't know where we would be, he is on the finance committee for the USCIS, they listen to him, but not to us.

If I slapped my wife on the butt, could have claimed abuse, divorced me and still remained here according to that stupid I-751 form sticking me with that I-864. Ironically, it's the USC that is really at risk for fraud, but no protection from the USCIS for that. Sure didn't happen to me, got a good gal, but certainly read enough about it on this board. Then putting a Cuban refugee in charge just because Emilio helped Bush win the election, more for us to deal with, not only rules and regulations, but also politics. Glad it's over, except for my daughter, see just had to turn 18 before we could apply for USC, another 700 bucks and another thousand miles of driving out the door. And we are petitioning for my wife's son, over 21 but may take centuries to complete that.

[Heracles 417]

This is also a good lesson in social economics. The government has been and always will be notoriously bad at providing any sort of service at a reasonable cost. They are also notoriously bad at providing those services in a reasonable time frame, and with a reasonable level of customer service. They have no competition, so they have no motive to provide good quality service at a reasonable price. You'll find the same problem with any government agency you have to deal with, but immigration services really drive home the point because you have to give them money for the privilege of being treated like #######. There is no case I can think of in the history of the United States where the government has ever provided a better quality of service for less money than private industry.

...something to ponder for people who think the government should be providing more of the services we now get from private industry...

The majority of US governmental departments I have dealt with were quite efficient. To the contrary, dealing with the private industry has ranged from good to downright ridiculous. For example, when dealing with monopolies like cable companies. 35 calls to get a number transferred that took nearly 2 months to do. Or dealing with banks that get to call the shots as they go along. Dealing with insurance companies. Dealing with cell carriers. These have been extremely negative experiences.

The only companies I enjoy using regularly are UPS and Fedex. As they are the only two that have their stuff together. My cousin's wife is a politician in Aus for the right wing conservative party. Last time I spoke to her and she asked how things were going here, I told her never ever get rid of regulation and allow companies to do as they please. For example, crapcast over there would have have to pay me a penalty daily for delaying my phone transfer. Here I got a sorry to hear about. Aka we don't give a #######. short of suing us, what are you going to do about it; which i am sure they have some clause intheir agreement I signed protecting them against that anyway.

It's not as if we have a powerful federal consumer protection agency as Canada, Australia and the UK do. In Australia they are called the ACCC.

The ACCC promotes competition and fair trade in the market place to benefit consumers, businesses and the community. It also regulates national infrastructure services. Its primary responsibility is to ensure that individuals and businesses comply with the Commonwealth competition, fair trading and consumer protection laws.

[SMR 368]

NHS Tax - AUS

1.5% of your Income

2.5% if your earning over $75K

Other Taxes

Federal sales tax [GST like Canada]: 10%

No State Taxes

No personal property tax

No Housing / land tax

Depending in income bracket - income taxes are lower than the US

AUS INCOME TAX RATES

Tax Rate | Income

Nil - $0 > $6,000

12.3% - $6,001 > $34,000

22.5% - $34,001 > $80,000

32% - $80,001 > $180,000

45% - Over $180,000

---------------

US Income Tax rates

Tax Rate | Income

10% $0 > $8,025

15% $8,026 > $32,550

25% $32,551 > $78,850

28% $78,851 > $164,550

33% $164,551 > $357,700

35% $357,701+

You are comparing US dollars to American dollars which is slightly unfair since Australian dollars are only worth about .83USD. Thus the Australian tax brackets go up faster that it otherwise seems. Even so, the brackets are admittedly comparable for people in the lower brackets.

However, the only thing this data proves is that the US government provides less services but has comparable taxes. Why would that make me want to trust the US government with my healthcare?