Medicare for All and Insurance for None?

The demagogue-socialist-authoritarian-power-luster Bernie Sanders is very critical of private health insurance and wants to eliminate such insurance provided by employers, at least private for-profit employers. (Medigap and Medicare Advantage insurance will not be considered here.) His own website proposes separating health insurance from employment. But how sincere and consistent is he? Or is it lying propaganda?

Does BS intend eliminating insurance provided only by private for-profit employers or all employers? In other words, would he end all health insurance now provided to employees by the federal government, state governments, local governments, non-profits, unions, and public school systems? By what moral principle should those employees be more privileged than anybody else? If they continued to have employer-paid healthcare but nobody else, it would be a gross inequality and gross injustice. Government employees, union members, and public school teachers would get benefits denied to anybody else not a member of the privileged class. The not privileged would be treated as inferior, second rate citizens. The not privileged class with no insurance except Medicare would be forced to pay via taxes (and inflation) to serve the privileged, most of whose entire pay comes from taxes. The result would be a two-tier system -- one for government employees plus other favored groups, and a second, inferior one for the rest. It would be a two-tier system of masters and their servants. It would exemplify the situation in George Orwell's novel Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This is a proclamation made by the pigs who control the government in the novel. It is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the equality of their citizens but give power and privileges to a chosen elite.

BS claims to be a champion of equality, yet advocates Medicare for All which would treat all but the politically-privileged far worse. His advancing the power of the political ruling class and the subjugation and looting of the productive members of society is his primary goal, and has been for the last 40 years.

Nobody asks Bernie Sanders these questions

The demagogue-socialist-authoritarian Bernie Sanders wants Medicare for All. It would eliminate all private healthcare insurance (which pays more than one-third of all healthcare costs). He says he would raise taxes to implement it. He typically evades saying how much or in what form, and the fawning media doesn't press him for an answer. He hasn't said so, but he might target employers with a "healthcare tax" based on the $1 trillion or so employers now pay for health insurance for their employees.

Total healthcare spending was about $3.5 trillion in 2017. Sanders says total healthcare costs would be much less with Medicare for All. He believes other countries like Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom have as good or better healthcare than the United States while spending much less. The average per capita spending in these three counties for 2016 was $4832, but $9892 for the United States (link). It logically follows from BS's premises that with Medicare for All: (1) U.S. healthcare costs would be only $1.7 trillion, and (2) spending by healthcare providers will also be reduced to only $1.7 trillion.

Q1: Assume in aggregate healthcare provider outgo is about 75% to pay workers, 12% for supplies and equipment, and 13% for miscellaneous (malpractice premiums, property, interest, taxes, and surplus -- the last mainly saved to pay for future expansion, new technology, and capital equipment replacement). So the question for Bernie is how many jobs will be eliminated and how much will  pay to workers and other expenses be cut in order to cut total spending by health care providers more than 50%? More specifically, how many jobs of nurses, orderlies, receptionists, technicians, workers doing billing and collections and claim processing, accountants, doctors, and so forth will be eliminated and/or how much will their pay be reduced?

Q2: Many employers that are nonprofits, state and local governments, and public school systems provide health insurance for their employees. Would Bernie advocate the same healthcare tax on them that he does on private employers and eliminate the health insurance such employers provide for their employees? Why should these employees have anything better than private sector employees?

Q3: Would the current healthcare plan for federal employees and retirees (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) be eliminated? I much doubt it. Special and superior privileges for government employees is the usual for Sanders. But if not, why not? Why should federal employees have anything better than private sector employees?

Attention intruders

Glenn Harlan Reynolds has an article about Big Tech's efforts to get our attention (link). The cost of clickbait and advertising has apparently become so cheap, and/or the hosts want the revenue so much, that we are flooded with it. Most articles on the internet or a smart phone have several advertisements or other clickbait imposed within the article.  By other clickbait, I mean (a) links to other articles the host offers as a way to get more advertising revenues and (b) invitations to sign up to receive alerts or notifications to more content from the host by email or text messages.

I use ad-blockers to "gray" much of the content, but still find nearly all of it very annoying. If an advertiser or other clickbait maker had to pay me to show me their clickbait, my time on the internet and smart phone would be far more tolerable.

Crystal Fire #10

Despite his immense contributions, Shockley never became the millionaire he wanted to be. He recruited first-rate scientists and engineers, but many defected to start or join other more successful firms.

Neither Brattain nor Bardeen had anywhere near Shockley’s visionary appreciation of the transistor’s vast commercial potential. Both continued doing basic research – Brattain at Bell Labs and Bardeen on a variety of solid state physics topics, especially superconductivity, for which he won a second Nobel Prize.

Almost as important as the transistor’s invention are the techniques crystal growing and zone refining, which allow fabricating large single crystals of ultra-pure silicon and germanium. Without these crystals, the industry would not exist.

The transistor led to a startling transformation of technology and even culture and the nature of work  – computers (main-frame and then personal), modern televisions, the iPod, and cell phones.

The new Information Age comes with its own distinct challenges to human freedom and livelihood. The crystal fire has brought with it an intensity and immediacy of life in which many things become obsolete soon. Some people unable or unwilling to deal with the unceasing change widens the divisions between different peoples on a national and global scale. For as fire illuminates, it also consumes.

Some other challenges not mentioned in the book are privacy, cyber-crime on a global scale, and the proliferation of advertising.

This is my final post about Crystal Fire.

Crystal Fire #9

The use of transistors expanded rapidly. But a worrisome cloud loomed on the horizon. As the number of components – transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and connections – grew, the tedious task of assembly resulted in more defects. A few visionary engineers began looking for ways to fashion circuits from a single block of material. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments was a pioneer in making such “integrated circuits.” Kilby’s first successful attempt used germanium, but then silicon came to be recognized and used by Kilby and others -- its advantages outweighing its disadvantages. Photolithography was used to define the circuit elements. The monolithic idea also arose in a different form at Fairchild Semiconductor. Both companies got patents for their products.

Shockley Transistor also invented a diode. When manufactured in quantity, too many diodes being defective led to market failure. Another Shockley attempt at transistors didn’t fare well either. Observing Shockley Transistor’s hemorrhaging cash and Fairchild’s great success, Arnold Beckman finally sought to sell off his transistor division and did.

These miniature circuits were a new and revolutionary advance. They are the ultimate practical expression of the theoretical insights of Bardeen, Shockley, Noyes and others, filtered and amplified by hundreds of scientists following in their footsteps. Many of the insights came at Bell Labs, Bell Labs and Western Electric were slow to to appreciate the value of monolithic integration. The phone company did not have the same pressing need for miniaturization that prodded the computer and military markets. Other firms, especially Texas Instruments and Fairchild, led the way.

Crystal Fire #8

William Shockley was surpassed by others for promotion to head all research, so he left Bell Labs. Bell’s top managers felt he was most effective where he was. Other top physicists such as John Bardeen had complained of Shockley’s ham-handed management. Shockley lacked the broader organization skills for directing a wider variety of work. He sought positions at other businesses and as a university professor, but then decided to devote his efforts to start his own company in the semiconductor industry. He finally met with someone who was willing to back him for the $1 million he sought. This was Arnold Beckman, both a good scientist and a successful business man. He was the head of Beckman Instruments, a company that specialized in making analytical instruments, such as a pH meter, for controlling production processes.

Shockley flew Los Angeles and met with Beckman for a week to discuss and then form a business plan. Beckman wanted the new company to be in the LA area, but Shockley wanted it near San Francisco and Stanford University. The provost and dean of engineering at Stanford helped Shockley convince Beckman that being near Stanford would be the best place for recruiting employees and having contacts for getting business.

Shockley first tried to recruit people from Bell Labs, but wasn’t successful. He then sought recruits from other firms such as Motorola, Philco, Raytheon, and Sylvania. He also sought young PhDs at top schools like Berkeley, Cal Tech, and MIT. When Beckman announced the launch of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, there were only four Ph.D. scientists and engineers on board. As the facilities were being made for the laboratory, he recruited Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. Noyce and Moore would later became the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.

Beckman paid $25,000 to Western Electric to license patent rights in the transistor. Shockley’s contacts Bell Labs were helpful in gaining more info about production techniques. Still the going was tough. It was one thing to get methods working in the ultrahigh-technology environment of Bell Labs with its ample supply of first-rate scientists, engineers, and technicians and high-quality equipment. It was quite another to achieve the same results in the primitive surrounding of Shockley’s lab, even with the talent there.

In November, 1956 Shockley learned he was to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics along with Bardeen and Brattain. They all met in Stockholm to receive their award in December 1956. As 1957 began, his company was not doing well. It had been in operation more than a year, but was still struggling to produce anything for sale. Employee defections began. Beckman began to realize that Shockley was a brilliant physicist but a lousy business manager. Shockley devoted his efforts to developing one kind of transistor while Noyce, Moore, and others thought it was a waste of time. Several months later Noyce, Moore and six other of Shockley’s brightest recruits resigned to start their own company. They got financing from Fairchild Camera and Instruments and named their company Fairchild Semiconductor.

Crystal Fire #7

When Bell Labs hosted a symposium in 1951 about the transistors invented at Bell, absent was mention about the technologies involved in fabricating the gadgets. Bell’s subsidiary Western Electric began licensing rights to transistors for a fee. The art of fabricating them could not remain secret much longer. It was a challenge because the conflicting demands by the military for secrecy yet multiple suppliers and commercial openness were difficult to meet simultaneously. Anyway, Bell Labs invited licensees to visit its Western Electric plant in 1952, then published a comprehensive description of the state of the art of manufacturing transistors. One of the technologies then revealed was a powerful new method of purifying germanium, which Bell Labs had kept under wraps for almost two years at the military’s request.

Military applications provided an immediate market for transistors where cost was not a concern. Transistors were much more expensive than vacuum tubes. From 1953-55 almost half the revenue for transistors came from the military.

Other demand came from hearing aid manufacturers. Keeping with Alexander Graham bell’s devotion to the deaf and hard of hearing, AT&T extended royalty-free licenses to hearing aid manufacturers. Transistors were especially helpful for hearing aids. Ones that relied on vacuum tubes were bulky with a battery-powered amplifying unit worn around the waist. Also, the batteries were expensive.

Other demand came for use in pocket-size transistor radios. Texas Instruments was a leader in those, licensing the technology to other manufacturers in exchange for royalties. A Japanese company formed a subsidiary called Sony that became very successful making such radios.

Later in the 1950’s new kinds of transistors were invented, including using silicon instead of germanium.