Because I don’t care. Because I don’t believe most of what you post. You pick one, whichever makes you happiest.
That’s fine - why do you expect and demand that I pay for it?
The answer to that, of course, is to quit giving it to death row prisoners.
We already have (which we really cannot afford but that is a different thread) so when you get down to the level where Medicaid kicks in, you will be in that safety net.
I pay my taxes, I have always paid my taxes and I continue to pay more than you do. What you are now expecting and demanding it that I pay even more taxes, which might mean that I end up in financial trouble.
Ah, there’s the kicker - in a manner you deem fair. You do know that life isn’t fair, right?
Snort. Ignoring that I don’t really care what you think of me, you obviously haven’t been reading what I write.
Again. Life isn’t fair. You want fair, go find yourself a nice socialist country to live in. (Not that they turn out to be fair either…)
My taxpayer money. I pay no taxes in your state and have no interest or opinions on what your state does with the taxes in gets from you all there. See, it’s not me who goes about telling others what they should be doing with their money.
Oh fercrissakes. People suffer and die, and will continue to suffer and die no matter what we do. Do you also go on and on in an unrealistic fashion about children starving in (pick a country), the lack of a cure for cancer, drive-by killings, drug dealers in schools. The only reason you are on about universal healthcare is because it affects you and yours, and you have the gall to call me cold, heartless and nasty. :rolleyes:
OK, then, make that I resist the things that I can… :rolleyes:
ETA - actually that’s a great example of why it is better to have a private company to complain to/about than the government. Do you think a majority of citizens approved of those bailouts?
Parsing me to death, eh? I’ll go in reverse order.
In regards to a progrssive tax, I’d hope that the tax was only on income and/or Capital Gains…not accrued wealth. Once a retiree retires, their salary goes to $0 (in most cases). Their “income” consists of 401(k) withdrawals and investment earnings. Even the wealthy have been seriously dinged by the recession (reduced balances in withdrawal accounts), so don’t look for tax revenue there. I disagree with your statement that the “vast majority” or retirees have high taxable incomes.
Who said you had children (or cares?)? I think that “You and your children” is acceptable as an entry clause to a broad statement. It’s not all about you.
Yeah, we’ll be paying for the Boomers. A couple of things…first, Boomers won’t all work up to age 65, so there will be some medical costs (and UHC exposure) from ages X-65. If we say Boomers were extraordinarily successful in saving, and are retiring early, they’ll hit that UHC plan hard. Then (or at the same time, really), the Boomers hit the Medicare plans. Keep in mind that we’ll also be paying their Social Security. When you add all that (the Boomer wave is a scary thing, economically) to the recent bailouts, we’re laying a LOT of debt on “you and your children”. So…I gotta pay for the Boomers, the still-kicking elderly, the poor/indigent, and shoulder my share of investment losses.
When we say “fair”, why is it always sticking it to people who acted responsibly? Those who planned and worked hard have to fund others. That’s not “fair” to me.
I don’t have a huge problem in paying for others via Medicaid. Keep in mind that taxpayers are not the only ones paying for the Medicaid plan. Doctors get shitty reimbursements, hospitals have to write off huge amounts due to non-payment by underfunded plans. I’d be OK with raising the poverty threshold slightly, but why do I have to pay for literally every American citizen?
I’d like to see a cite on your statement that the majority of the uninsured work for a living. I’m not sure that’s the case.
You are so “pie-in-the-sky”. Again, I’m not a Republican, but one concept of theirs I agree with is that we’re going to have a truly massive amount of debt in a very short time. The Boomers will gut the economy with their social programs…do you think Medicare will be around post-Boomer? Social Security? I wonder.
-Cem
P.S. If your husband is having problems getting coverage, have you looked into state catastrophe plans? I don’t know what state you’re in…
“You’ve got a larger and larger share of people paying less and less for the services provided by the federal government,” says Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “The concern is that the majority can say, ‘Let’s have more benefits, spend more,’ if they’re not paying for it. It’s ‘free.’ That’s not a good thing to have.”
and
“It is somewhat odd that you have a decreasing number of folks paying into the federal income tax system, a decreasing number of folks who have a stake in what the government pays for,” says Matt Moon of the non-partisan Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C.
It then becomes tempting to vote for politicians promising more and more handouts, paid for by money forcibly extracted from an ever-shrinking number of their neighbors. In addition to being immoral, it’s poor public policy: people who pay no taxes but nevertheless get benefits are less likely to be careful overseers of their elected representatives.
“At some point people become less and less invested in making sure their government is accountable and frugal,” says Peter Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union, a lower-tax advocacy group. “If you pay very little for getting all kinds of government benefits, you might view those programs as a bargain, even though they may waste tens of billions of dollars a year.”
Seems like I’ve been saying something like this all along. And not only this but the fact that we have been creating and adding to an “entitlement class” for decades. How can it be a surprise that it is now biting us in the butt?
What gets me is how people happily take the governmental handouts. All of this “I want” stuff. What happened to that image of a hard-working person carrying 2-3 jobs?
I haven’t been in this debate, because I don’t post much and I am not very good at debating. But I just wanted to jump in and say that I support UHC even though it doesn’t directly affect me. It seems like a lot the time it’s implied that the people that want UHC are mostly the poor. I’ve never been close to being poor, and I would love it if the US got UHC. I’m a healthy single woman with no kids and I get pretty good health insurance through my company. As far as I know, none of my friends or family have had any major issues with their health care companies, and I haven’t heard any of them talk about how they want UHC. But I know that there are plenty of Americans who desperately need better health care coverage, and it seems UHC would help with that.
And obviously people will continue to suffer and die in the US, even if we institute UHC. Even if we institute a UHC system that is better and more efficient than any other country’s system. With any system, there will be people who will fall through the cracks. But there would be less people suffering, and that’s what I think the goal should be. Both that there would be less people suffering because of illnesses they can’t take care of, and there would also be less people going bankrupt because of insane medical bills.
Dunno, but it’s been going on for awhile. Back 30 years ago when I was digging my way out of poverty, I had two jobs for years as did many of my friends. Others were happy to sit on their prats and live off of the various welfare programs. I couldn’t understand it back then and I still don’t!
We have the most expensive health care in the world. Our medical care is rated 37 th in the world. Do you really not understand we overpay horribly for bad coverage, while we refuse to cover about 50 million citizens. The money for excellent coverage is already in the system. It just winds up in somebodies pockets instead of helping the masses.
I’m not overpaying nor do I have bad coverage, so I don’t know who it is that is having that problem. I’ve also noticed that every time having a UHC comes up with the politicos, it includes funding it by creating a new tax or adding to existing ones. Where is this money for excellent coverage already in the system that you speak of?
Ah, the truth at last! Yes, I absolutely believe that you don’t care. About anyone other than yourself.
Oh, stop acting like I’m mailing you a fucking itemized bill! Other taxpayers fund the SSDI that you collect monthly, yet you won’t return the favor to anyone else.
Actually, ALL prisoners are guaranteed health care. Yet no unconvicted citizen ever is. I feel that is a huge, fundamental flaw in our society.
The only way for me to get down to the level of Medicaid is to quit working entirely, lose everything I own, and move in with relatives. In which case I guess you will be free to despise me as one of those lazy poor people with no ambition. Not every state is California - in some places it is nearly impossible for an able-bodied adult to get Medicaid. Which is why I call our system “pirate health care” because it’s all about your money or your life.
And, contrary to your complaints YES, WE CAN AFFORD A SOCIAL SAFETY NET. The only hitch is that EVERYONE has to pay into it, including greedy, wealthy, disabled misers such as yourself.
Because other people in other countries manage to exist comfortably paying much higher taxes than in the US, so my conclusion is that if raising taxes for the common good of society gets you into financial trouble then you are mismanaging your finances.
Oh, horrors - you might get into financial trouble! Whereas there are people like my husband who, due to health problems beyond their control, ARE in financial trouble and even imminent danger of death. I have zero sympathy for you, curlcoat, you’re a bitter, greedy woman who must lead a miserable existance convinced that the damn, dirty, sick poor people are going to arrive on your doorstep to loot, pillage, and demand you widen your front door for proper wheelchair access.
Yes, but we can make it more fair than it would otherwise be. Shrugging your shoulders as you just did strikes me as selfish and lazy.
I prefer to change my native country into a better one. If you don’t like that go find some third world shithole where you can live it up like the aristocrat you believe yourself to be and have fun oppressing the little people.
Of course, your own state is completely fucked right now, isn’t it? Maybe that should be an indication that you Californians are not doing things right, huh?
Yes, I do call you cold, heartless, and nasty because that is how you appear to me. You also forgot to include “immoral”. Sure, people suffer and die but the whole reason for medicine is so we can do something about that! If someone is lying bleeding in the street do you just walk by, ignoring them, saying “oh, well, people suffer and die” or do you try to help that person? In my world, leaving people to bleed to death when you could help them is immoral and despicable - yet that is what you advocate.
Yes, healthcare affects ALL of us - that’s a damn good reason to care about it. Your earlier statement “why are you bitching, you have insurance” reveals all - you just don’t give a flying fuck about anyone else. I do. I was an advocate for universal health care back when I worked for corporate America and had a “Cadillac” policy second only to what Congress gets. Needless to say, that advocacy did not change when I became uninsured. It did not change when I acquired insurance again. I’ve been rather consistent with the stance for, oh, about 40 years.
There is also the detail that BCBS is NOT just one company - it’s really a confederation of independent companies. Based upon the figures I saw while actually working there BCBS plans do vary in the percentage of their costs going to administrative overhead, with the largest percentage being roughly double that of the lowest (but even the highest was right around the average for the industry as a whole). Really, though, BCBS is a demonstration that you can have multiple coverage systems working together as a whole to take advantage of economies of scale. I see no reason (other than ideological resistance) that we couldn’t have have state-leve UHC with the various state UHC’s coordinating on national coverage items. For those of you who may be unclear - that would mean, for example, if you were injured while away on vacation the state you are visiting would treat you and then bill your home state for the cost of the care. That is how national level BCBS works
I would also like to correct the erroneous impression you have that BCBS are all not for profit companies. They are not. Several of them, in fact, are traded publicly on the stock market and are very much for profit corporation. In fact, the largest of the Blues, Wellpoint, is a publicly traded for-profit company, NYSE ticker symbol WLP. If you have Blue Cross health insurance in Connecticut, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, or some parts of Virginia you have Wellpoint insurance and your insurer is very much for profit. If you have Blue Cross in Georgia or California (as opposed to Blue Shield, which in California is a separate company), or Empire BCBS in New York, your insurer is also for profit.
OK, how about we just elimimate all government programs. You want fire department protection? Find a private company and pay a month fee. You want police protection? Find a private security company and pay a monthly fee. You want roads? OK - pay a toll the minute you roll out of your driveway. You’re on your own for power generation, water, sewer, street lights… After all, cutting government is the ONLY way to solve problems, right?
Outright riots? No, but there have been public demonstrations over it, although not well reported in the press. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it couldn’t. Given how paranoid some people are about he peasents storming their homes and stealing all their stuff (I’m looking at you, curlcoat) I’m not sure why you discount the possibility.
So… people who have no money should be forced to pay money? You don’t see how stupid and ridiculous your statement is?
That’s Federal income tax - those same people WILL be paying social security tax. They may also be paying state taxes. They will CERTAINLY be paying sales tax.
Progressive tax structures predate Karl Marx and are a part of every capitalistic society, so please do not accuse me of communism.
Yes, but those items ARE taxable under our current system if their yearly income from such sources exceed a certain level.
One reason I favor a specific “healthcare tax” over taking it out of general funds is that it would allow us to fine tune it in a manner where we could include it for wages but exclude 401(k) withdrawals. Certain types, or levels, of investment income may or may not be subjected to it, that is certainly something to discuss.
Yes, but the wealthy aren’t looking at homelessness, unlike many formerly middle class people and even more blue collar folks at this point. I don’t deny the wealthy are suffering, too, but there suffering is NOT as bad as other segments of society.
It all depends - not only on “personal responsibility” but also how high their income was during their earning years, what investments they made when, and also to a degree many do not wish to acknowledge, on luck. If you bought your house in the wrong place and it was destroyed by wildfire, flood, hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster, as an example, you could wind up very screwed. On the flip side - someone who brought property cheap and that property suddenly became very desirable and they sell it for 10 or 100 times what they spent on it - that’s luck, too, and quite a windfall.
So there are some retirees who do very well, and others who do not. Let’s leave it at that.
I am tired of curlcoat’s constant assumptions about other people that are based on her prejudices, that’s all.
If you have a true UHC there will no longer be Medicare. It will be folded into the UHC. So will medicaid, for that matter. Everybody gets folded into the same pot. Not “well, you’re on UHC until 65, then you go on Medicare”, no, it becomes all one system.
As for retiring - I believe we should (with exceptions for the disabled who can’t work) raise the SS age to 70 or 75. There’s no damn good reason that able-bodied 65 year olds should retire at age 65. If you can AFFORD to quit work and pay for your retirement on your own dime, fine - retire at 25 if you can afford it - but I see no reason for the public system to support the idle able-bodied at 65. Making that change would solve a lot of the problems with funding Social Security. That, and stop allowing Congress to raid the trust fund, that really needs to stop, too.
What about people who planned and worked hard and got hit by some disaster? Should we just leave them out in the cold? Is that “fair”?
Because if EVERYONE pays into the system then the individual burden on each person will be smaller. The larger the risk pool the smaller the risk for any particular individual paying in.
Let’s take a hypothetical situation: someone has a serious and chronic health condition. If untreated, they will not be able to work and thus will be a drain not only on healthcare resources (with no care until a crisis, trips to the ER than he can’t pay for, etc.) but also on food stamps, subsidized housing, and so forth. If, however, this person gets medical care they will be healthy enough to hold down a job. They won’t need food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. They won’t be hospitalized as often, so overall the costs of their medical care go down. As they now have an income, they will be paying taxes and thus “reimbursing” the system in part for their care. That’s on of the rationales behind UHC - although it may appear that there is a sudden new expense, over the long term the burden on society as a whole is reduced. The fact that there are countries that cover ALL their citizens for 1/3 per captia that we do and yet have better medical outcomes on many measures - life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. - would seem to lend credence to this concept of UHC.
As someone who is completely destitute has a shot at Medicaid, but the “working poor” frequently do not, I fail to see why that notion is such an anathema to so many people. Is it that you fear that that might be true?
The fact that most of the $46 million people who are currently uninsured either have not been for long, or will not be for long, would seem to indicate working people between jobs that offer coverage. There is also the rather glaring fact that many employers in this country do not offer health insurance to their employees. Someone in a low-wage job will not be able to afford decent private health insurance, and frequently will not be able to afford any health coverage at all (after all, shelter and food do take priority) but could easily be above the official cut-off for Medicaid.
Yeah, I’m also an optimist… so horrible
Uh… no - we ALREADY have a “truly massive amount of debt”. It’s already here.
As I said - up the retirement age to 70 or 75, that will take care of most of SS’s problems.
I’m in Indiana. As I have mentioned previously, we’re in a state-subsidized health insurance plan where are premiums are tied to a percentage of our income. When my income goes up, we pay the same percentage but more in absolute dollars. When my income goes down we pay less. We always paying something, but not so much as to bankrupt us.
See, the problem isn’t just a need for catastrophic coverage - my husband’s daily medical needs are sufficient to wipe us out financially. Without medical coverage his monthly medical needs exceed the cost of rent and food combined for us. When I was making 50k a year would, theoretically, have been able to pay out of pocket for such costs - but we did not need to, because we had health insurance through my employer. Now that I do not make so much we can not pay such costs because we do not have the money to do so… yet for awhile we had no health insurance, either.
My 2-3 jobs (yes, I have held that many at one time over the past two years) don’t pay enough for me to survive without government help. This pisses me off because just two years ago ONE job was more than sufficient. Not all jobs are created each, neither are all paychecks. It’s not a matter of just working hard (I bust my ass), or education (I have a college degree. Right now that and $5 gets you a shitty cup of coffee at Starbucks).
What I want is a job that pays sufficient wages that I can pay all my bills, buy decent food, and have enough left over at the end of the month for a little nest egg and I don’t mind working hard for it. I used to have that, then through no fault of my own (I even have a legal document to that effect from my former employer) I no longer have that. Thank Og I did have a nestegg! Barring that, I’d prefer not to be homeless or starving or left to die because I didn’t have enough money to pay the doctor. I’m not too proud to take a government “handout” while I’m trying to get back on my feet because, dammit, I paid my taxes for decades so it’s not like I’m some free-loading asshole.
not sure if anybody has mentioned this downthread … certain employers refuse to enroll part time employees in the insurance/benefits programs. They also tend to refuse to schedule people with enough hours to qualify as full time, and able to get benefits. When you combine this with paying somewhere in the bottom of the pay scale, you end up with families making barely enough money to survive, and certainly not enough money to get independant insurance. So, they are working 30-35 hours, and getting no benefits.
A lot of companies schedule their employees 37.5 hours a week, to avoid paying benefits. It is weaselly. But common. Shows how much they care about the employees. Of course the company feels entitled to employee loyalty and they should work hard. But it would eat at you. They create an adversarial working condition .
My city schedules their municipal staff for 37.5.
Very true. My daughters friends who wanted to work full time in retail after high school universally got 30 or 35 hours for this reason. Not just WalMart, but any mall store, except I guess for the manager. According to Marketplace the other night WalMart actually covers more of its employees in healthcare than the industry average, which is why they are for retailers being forced to pay healthcare and the big association of retailers is against it. We’re in a sad state when WalMart is the responsible company, aren’t we?
