I said no such thing. Your proposal was simply to raise the cap, and I don’t see how that could be considered any sort of reform.
If malpractice suits were capped at 250k, wouldn’t that have the potential to indirectly lower healthcare costs by easing the burden of malpractice insurance? Just curious.
That will accomplish nothing, since the base benefits of the people in that range would increase correspondingly. (No, you can’t change that. Not without breaking the illusion that the program “just pays back what you put it”, and thus absolutely guaranteeing that it will be privatized… perhaps not this time, or the next, but within a generation.)
So would simply capping insurance premiums. Both ideas are overly simplistic.
Studies of the issue reveal that insurance premiums are more closely linked to the performance of the insurance companies investments than in the costs of damages, so my guess on your question would be no.
And your last paragraph ilustrates perfectly well why this is really a class warfare issue. The new american bankrupcy law “punishes” one of the two parties tha composes a credit obligatiom, namely the debitor.
I recently read in the New York times an article by one of my favourite economist Paul Krugman, (yes I am Lenin´s great grand son), who claims that most of bankrpucies happen becasue of the huge cost of medical bills or becuase the debitor went unemployed.
Add to this that credit card companies are universally known for putting a plastic in the hands of people that are not such a good risk. They compensate the loss they suffer with the huge spread of interest rates that exist between a good and a bad risk. Let’s see if with this reform that spread goes down… I seriously doubt it.
If the current american administration was serious about protecting everyone’s interest they would have legislated against the abuses of credit companies.
I don’t know nothing about Social Security, (american or Argentinian), so I’ll shut up.-
Regarding the tort law reform. It is a disaster.
First of all it invades the prerrogatives of the judicial power, the judges are the one that applies the abstract law, (or precedents), to the concrete case they are judging. That kind of restraint, (the setting of a limit), effectively ties the judge hands who can not and will not dictate a fair sentence.
A case can be made that if the limits are reasonable then those limits are not against the law. I am sure these aren’t
What are your findings about people who feel the need to constantly insist that they have better morals than their opponents?
Color me surprised. I had thought insurance premiums were tied to risk/expenses. You learn something new every day! Thank you, Hentor! 
You know, If this bankruptcy bill actually closed the “keep your house and car loophole,” then I would call President Bush courageous, and think that this reform was needed.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
While I think your OP has a lot of merit, the changes in the bankruptcy law may not be the best example of that. Poorer debtors are, in fact, exempted from the more stringent conditions that will be in place for others. The basic idea is that if the debtor’s income is above the median for his/her state, than he or she has to pay something back. This may not be so horrible per se, though I do object to the new law because it does nothing to rein in aggressive and inappropriate marketing by the credit card companies.
Don’t you wonder if they saw this coming? That when they pulled such shit as jacking up the interest rate because the victim was late on a totally unrelated bill, this was moving said victim closer to the wall? After all, clearly that’s a sign that said victim is having financial trouble, no? Anyone here suspect that they began scratching their greedy little chins and pondered the prospect of more bankruptcy? A prospect that might have a damaging effect on their plunder ratio?
Well, or course they did! They knew exactly what they were doing! They knew what they were doing when they couched thier agreement language in business Ahramaic, to hide the wondrous effect of compound interest on their prey. They also discovered within themselves a deep and abiding committment to personal responsibility, the necessity for the individual citizen to fully discharge his debts. They found it right next to the shriveled and dessicated corpses of their civic and corporate responsibility.
Then the engine of civic virtue began to crank up, they began to contact like minded Congresscreeps, to offer thier support. To offer their support in no uncertain terms, pouring honey in the ears and money into the coffers.
You really think they didn’t see this coming a mile away? Do we not teach such prudence in our business schools? Pity that seems to be about all we teach. “Do unto others. Period. Full stop.”
And of course I am much relieved to hear that there are exemptions for people who don’t have any money to be squeezed anyway. How very generous. How noble and Christian of them to abstain from taking what doesn’t exist. So it isn’t class war against the poor after all! Its class war against the middle!
Though this time, they might just have pissed off the wrong bunch of people.
And how much you want to bet that the human avalanche of people dashing madly to bankruptcy court is soon to be remarked upon? And how much you want to bet that some sort of ex post facto mechanism isn’t in the works, somewhere?
And I do, but I’d be doing a whole hell of a lot better if I had that 15% of my income that the government currently forcibly takes from me “for my own benefit”, now wouldn’t I? If I had that, chances are that I wouldn’t need SS when I retire, and I might just be able to retire before I turn 67.
This, THIS is the attitude that really bothers me. Last time I looked, it’s already illegal to send a credit card to an individual unless s/he applies for it. Read that again. The individual has to make a conscious effort to acquire a credit card, and then he or she has to go and mismanage that card. Nobody is forcing them to get the card, or to use it. How is that anyone’s fault but their own? The argument is that government is needed to protect some people from themselves. NO, NO, a thousand times NO!
The argument is a lot more complicated than that and you know it. What with deregulation, hidden fees, variable interest rates, fine print, targetting certain “high-risk” people for incredibly greedy credit programs. At some point or another, it’s called usury. I happen to think that point has been reached and passed in a lot of cases.
Sending out One-Stop Identity Theft Paks (aka preapproved credit card applications) insures that credit cards will, in fact, be frequently sent without the consent of knowledge of the (intended) recipient.
The OP addresses some of the issues that have been building since LBJ’s “Great Society”. There are basically two classes of people in the United States…those who take more from society than they contribute and those for which the opposite is true. Some people are close to either side of the break even point, but for the purposes of my post, I will reference those who are at both ends of the spectrum…the “have nots” and the “haves”.
Regarding point 1 of the OP…taxes. When discussing (flipping through liberal talking points…ah, here it is) “tax cuts for the wealthy”, it’s usually not mentioned that the top 10% of wage earners pay almost fifty percent of the taxes. It’s difficult to cut the taxes of those who do not pay them to begin with. And as far as auditing those on the Earned Income Credit…all one would have to do is underreport income to receive many more dollars. Since this is essentially free money from the government, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make sure it’s going to those who actually qualify.
Point 2: Social security will not remain solvent in its present form. Bush is just daring to suggest that people take more personal responsibility for providing for their retirement.
Point 3: Bad debts cause a drag on profits, which has a negative effect on everything from available credit to employment rates. If businesses have to write off less, they become more solvent which benefits everyone. Last time I looked we were not operating within a socialist economy.
Point 4: Tort reform. If you oppose it after educating yourself on the facts, then I can’t help you. My wife goes to an OB/GYN who told us her malpractice insurance was 150,000 dollars a year. Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that a birth costs over 5000 dollars?
The bottom line is that the haves are tiring of paying for the poor life choices of the have nots. As I have said in other posts, we cannot sustain a socialist level of services for a population that is only willing to pay a capitalist rate of taxes.
Bohica?
Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.
This is interesting. You’re not entirely clear on it, but I leap to the presumption that, by and large, you determine the value of one’s contribution to society can best be measured in terms of income. Free market, and all that. To your way of thinking, the middle management douchebag who scrambles a good part of his life to keep up the illusion that he is somehow essential…,. this fellow is worth at least five times a lowly cabdriver, or garbage collector, or the person who bends all day at stoop labor to provide them their raddachio.
I quite disagree.
As per *luci I wholeheartedly agree. I value the guy who picks up my garbage at least as much, and more, than the CEO of any company I can think of.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
You’re not entirely clear on it, but I leap to the presumption that, by and large, you determine the value of one’s contribution to society can best be measured in terms of income. To your way of thinking, the middle management douchebag who scrambles a good part of his life to keep up the illusion that he is somehow essential…,. this fellow is worth at least five times a lowly cabdriver, or garbage collector, or the person who bends all day at stoop labor…
/QUOTE]
Not exactly. These people have jobs and contribute to society to the best of their abilities. As long as they stay out of the criminal justice system and keep their jobs, I would consider all of them productive members of society. That means that they contribute to the government at least as much as they consume.
Keep in mind that half of every federal dollar goes to entitlements. As the population bulge moves ever closer to Medicaid and Social Security eligibility, the crunch will come. Costs must be cut or revenue raised.
There is a class of people in this country that has come to expect the taxpayers to subsidize their poor life choices. (Yes, I dare to raise the heartless spectre of personal responsibility.) They either have no jobs, or the ones they do have do not provide the productivity or the taxes to make up for the resources they consume. I live in the state of Ohio…and the current budget being discussed devotes fifty percent of state resouces to Medicaid. This takes money away from schools, law enforcement and many other services that benefit the entire population rather than a few. Would I remove children or retarded adults from the Medicaid rolls? No. But able bodied adults are another matter. So are the elderly that had their entire lives to try to plan for the needs of their last years and didn’t do so.
The OP is trying to frame GWB’s priorities as a “war” on the poor. What it really is an attempt to change problems like social security insolvency and high medical costs. If medical malpractice insurance rates are lowered, medical costs will drop and tight state dollars will go further.
Like it or not, taxpayers who subsidize others should be able to have a say in how their money is spent.