The Navy is already at many and currently actively phasing out all non-shipboard positions.
The Marine Corps is in the process of centralizing and phasing out it's entire Admin corps, with the exception of planned unit liasions for interacting with the central civilian Admin. Supply, logistics, food service and the storage side of NBC have already been replaced or pruned down to field positions only.
For both services, it's a question of how long it will take to EAS or transfer the personnel they already have in those fields.
If you mean the Navy is temporarily assigning people to ships when they deploy in certain ratings(jobs) as opposed to being permanently assigned to the ship, that's true. The Navy is NOT phasing out non-sea going billets. It is downsizing, but not phasing out.
Down-sizing to skeleton crew levels with civilian contractors carrying the weight. The order itself states that the goal is to remove all but the barest shore-billets.
DON wants an all sea-billet Navy or as close to it as they can get.
I would love to know where you're getting this information. I'm active duty Navy and not heard anything close to this. Yes, ships are downsizing, but they aren't going to skeleton crews. Contractors are a heck of a lot more expensive to employ than Seaman Timmy.
Considering the number of shore billets that are absolutely essential to the Navy or DoD, this is not going to happen. The CNO wants the Navy to assist the Army and USMC in Iraq and Afghanistan by helping on the ground. Many of the sailors going to OIF/OEF are not assigned to ships.
Contractors are a heck of a lot more expensive to employ than Seaman Timmy.
...not that this actually stops the replacing of employees with contractors. After all, why pay an employee X when you can pay a campaign contributor 2X and get .1X back every year into your own pocket?
Not ships, bases. Specifically, stateside bases. It might be your MOS, I only know about it due to being assigned to a Navy MA unit for most of 2005. MAs and other MOSs with large groups of shore billets were informed by their chain of commands that they are being phased out as stateside shore personnel and that it is part of an overall plan to minimize said billets.
This would have been a relevant comparison 200 years ago, when the main health problem was plagues, which (like invading armies) run all over the nation unless stopped, and which (also like invading armies) tend to kill quickly and without asking about your insurance.
Today, most illnesses are picking their targets individually and without disturbing the neighbors. Police would be the best parallel today.
I'd argue exactly the opposite: the thing that happened about 200 years ago was that modern public health (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health#History_of_public_health) (as opposed to private health) blossomed. Private health can fix your broken arm. Public health prevents the TB/AIDS/SARS/H5N1 outbreak before it happens. Epidemiology is precisely about the fact that infectious diseases disturb the neighbors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu).
I don't so much disagree with this as we are talking about two subtly different but related things. Public health care as in caring for the public health is possible regardless of whether the healthcare is paid by public funds. You could refer to the two concepts as {public health} care vs public {health care}.
The two concepts certainly touch at some points. If a significant portion of the populace in some areas is too poor too afford vaccination, clean water and sanitation, then the "enemy" (germs) will secure a beachhead there and make constant incursions on the adjacent areas. For this reason, even countries with a mostly privately paid health service will still have basic services paid by the public, exactly to minimize the risks to the richer, tax-paying public. "We don't want you to get cholera, since it could infect us. But if you die from cancer, tough luck."
It's a little bit stronger than even this. Ignoring moral questions for the moment, letting the poor die of cancer is just bad economics. A healthy population is a productive population, and every citizen represents years of expensive investment.
The unspoken - and unspeakable - assumption is that the poor has failed his duty as a citizen. That he lacks the genetic disposition or the moral fiber to be useful. One way of reducing the risk of economic waste is to tie health care directly to employment. This is rare in civilized nations, but is actually fairly rational. Cynical, perhaps, but a direct response to the dilemma you point out.
I'll accept "fairly rational", but I'd suggest that the reason this approach is rare in civilized nations is that it's less rational than socialized alternatives. To equate weath with good citizenship requires more faith in the Invisible Hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Hand) than I'm willing to grant.
Making an appeal to naked empiricism: I've seen it argued elsewhere (http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/08/how_does_us_hea.html#more) that in the US at least, the practice of tying health care to employment is measurably less efficient than universal health care as practiced elsewhere. Could just be some other exceptional factor about the US of course (the weakness of any empirical approach without proper controls) but the argument seems persuasive.
The USA does indeed spend far more money (per capita) on health care than do other countries with comparable lifespan. I think this follows logically from its organization and the Law of Diminishing Returns. To improve the health of the poor is fairly cheap, because some of their afflictions are easy to heal. When this is not done, it pulls the average lifespan down for the whole nation. In order to pull it back up, the rich would have to live extremely long lives, and this is almost impossible to achieve despite pouring enormous resources into it. Humans are simply not made to last. But no place goes as far as the USA in trying, with those whose families can afford it.
What is rational to the nation is not necessarily rational to the voter. The voter may well think it is a good idea to live a month longer even if it means some bum will die a few years earlier.
I think you can simply this argument down to an instance of Prisoner's Dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_Dilemma) -- it seems to be rational to be selfish, but eventually one finds it more advantageous to be social.
I read that a few days ago and was highly amused by all the comments of, "But defense is nothing like health care and this is the dumbest Slate article EVAR!" in the Fray.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 07:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 01:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 07:11 pm (UTC)The Marine Corps is in the process of centralizing and phasing out it's entire Admin corps, with the exception of planned unit liasions for interacting with the central civilian Admin. Supply, logistics, food service and the storage side of NBC have already been replaced or pruned down to field positions only.
For both services, it's a question of how long it will take to EAS or transfer the personnel they already have in those fields.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 07:49 am (UTC)DON wants an all sea-billet Navy or as close to it as they can get.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 01:34 pm (UTC)Considering the number of shore billets that are absolutely essential to the Navy or DoD, this is not going to happen. The CNO wants the Navy to assist the Army and USMC in Iraq and Afghanistan by helping on the ground. Many of the sailors going to OIF/OEF are not assigned to ships.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 02:50 pm (UTC)...not that this actually stops the replacing of employees with contractors. After all, why pay an employee X when you can pay a campaign contributor 2X and get .1X back every year into your own pocket?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 05:50 pm (UTC)It might be your MOS, I only know about it due to being assigned to a Navy MA unit for most of 2005. MAs and other MOSs with large groups of shore billets were informed by their chain of commands that they are being phased out as stateside shore personnel and that it is part of an overall plan to minimize said billets.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 12:56 pm (UTC)Today, most illnesses are picking their targets individually and without disturbing the neighbors. Police would be the best parallel today.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 04:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 03:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-11 06:20 pm (UTC)The two concepts certainly touch at some points. If a significant portion of the populace in some areas is too poor too afford vaccination, clean water and sanitation, then the "enemy" (germs) will secure a beachhead there and make constant incursions on the adjacent areas. For this reason, even countries with a mostly privately paid health service will still have basic services paid by the public, exactly to minimize the risks to the richer, tax-paying public. "We don't want you to get cholera, since it could infect us. But if you die from cancer, tough luck."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-12 08:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-12 09:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-12 12:10 pm (UTC)Making an appeal to naked empiricism: I've seen it argued elsewhere (http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/08/how_does_us_hea.html#more) that in the US at least, the practice of tying health care to employment is measurably less efficient than universal health care as practiced elsewhere. Could just be some other exceptional factor about the US of course (the weakness of any empirical approach without proper controls) but the argument seems persuasive.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-12 02:22 pm (UTC)What is rational to the nation is not necessarily rational to the voter. The voter may well think it is a good idea to live a month longer even if it means some bum will die a few years earlier.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-12 03:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-10 03:58 pm (UTC)