US Healthcare rant.

[Northern_Piper]

@cochrane

Here’s one cite. 45.3% of U.S. households paid no individual Federal income tax for 2015.

45% of Americans pay no federal income tax - MarketWatch

You didn’t provide a cite that 50% of Americans never pay tax in their lifetime, which was the question posed.

The cite simply says that currently about half of US household don’t pay federal income tax.

[Northern_Piper]

@octopus

And why do the migrants stop in the US instead of continuing to Canada where the health care and services are superior?

Anecdotal, but a friend of mine immigrated to Canada from the US, and one of his reasons was the healthcare system.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@cochrane

Here’s one cite. 45.3% of U.S. households paid no individual Federal income tax for 2015.

45% of Americans pay no federal income tax - MarketWatch

So that’s not 50% and it is not looking at lifetime tax payments.

Apart from that, great cite.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@galen_ubal

Budget Player Cadet’s answer to that the poster who’d put that up from earlier in the thread:

Thanks, I’d missed that.

It isn’t a tone I’d take but it certainly addresses the main points.

Plus, full marks for “semen-coated dunce cap”. That’s an image that won’t leave me in a hurry.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Novelty_Bobble

Thanks, I’d missed that.

It isn’t a tone I’d take but it certainly addresses the main points.

Plus, full marks for “semen-coated dunce cap”. That’s an image that won’t leave me in a hurry.

Sometimes inspiration hits me, what can I say.

Seriously, though, this is a pervasive right-wing myth, based on a bare nugget of truth:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no-federal-income-tax-2016-02-24

Which then turns into this:

“47 Percent” Remark: Quote of the Year

1. “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what…who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. …These are people who pay no income tax. …and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Which then turns into further right-wing memes, including “the 53%”, and the widespread republican idea that half of Americans are shiftless layabouts who are a drag on the system. And, of course, stupid posts by stupid posters, that show the value of something being incredibly misleading. When even Breitbart and The Daily Caller aren’t willing to go to the absurd extremes you go, you know you’re being a fucking idiot.

[septimus]

@Aspenglow

This is my new favorite thread on the Dope.

It lasers in on the underlying issue that prevents us from moving forward in our quest for a more sane health care system – and that issue is those who foster the selfishness of individual Americans.

Exploiting this more base aspect of our natures is the very purpose of much of the propaganda now rampant in our culture. Everything from the paranoid rantings of Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart to Fox “News” and others, acts in concert and feeds on the notion of American “exceptionalism,” and how we must “protect our way of life,” or “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here,” or “they hate us for our values,” or any number of mindless tropes that so many Americans now subscribe to as their reality. Every bit of it encourages selfish, paranoid individualism, distrust in others and hatred of anything that benefits anyone other than themselves or their “tribe,” whether based in their identification as a rural person v. an urban person or a Christian person v. everyone else, etc., etc.

Who benefits from this growing general attitude of fear and uncaring for “the other?” The wealthiest among us, of course. It contributes to the much overblown notions of the “self-made man” and “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,” among other unsupported memes, as well as the truly meaningless concept of “deservedness.” It causes otherwise rational people to act against their own best interests.

It doesn’t just affect our national conversation (if it can be characterized as such) about health care – although health care is a debate that reveals the schism between caring Americans and uncaring Americans in a particularly stark way. It affects discussions about everything. As it is meant to.

The Alt Right has taken a much firmer grip on our national psyche than many recognized prior to our recent election. I’m dubious we’ll ever be able to dig this horrendous cancer out of our character. It has been carefully nurtured and engineered by wealthy powerful corporate interests with whom we are all familiar (or should be). They have diligently worked for a very long time to undermine trust in our government, our scientists and anything else labeled as “librul.”

Until we address this massive assault on evidence-based reality, I have little hope we will ever get back to a sane system of government that actually exists for the general welfare of its citizens – including our health. Its purpose is to divert our attention away from the pillage of our national wealth into the pockets of ever-wealthier individuals. It’s working very well.

I hear people complain constantly about the extraordinary high costs of health care in this country. I seldom see people ask why. If you do ask that question and conduct some research, it’s a sad, predictable answer.

I’ve quoted Aspenglow’s post in its entirety for its truth and eloquence.

Maybe this suggests a good question for this thread. Are right-wing lies, after all, a big reason for the divide between Europe’s sanity and American insanity? How does propaganda in Europe à la Alex Jones and Fox News compare with the dismal disinformation in the U.S.A.? Is the Brexit vote a harbinger that some of Europe is following America’s unfortunate direction?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

@octopus

If millions across the globe migrate for economic reasons why aren’t Americans voting with their feet?

septimus raises his hand. I had a top-of-the-line stent installed in a coronary artery for a total of $8400, with most of that price being the imported-from-USA stent itself. This was at one of the very best hospitals in Asia. (My stent couldn’t have waited: walking a few yards gave me severe angina.)

I had no insurance and paid the $8400 myself. Visiting the U.S. was simply not an option for me. What would the price of another stent have been in U.S.? So high that I might have said “Don’t stop at the ER, drive me straight to the morgue.” Here I’ve had EKG’s for $10, a CAT scan for about $30. Medicine is cheap (generic viagra costs about 35 cents a dose here ). Doctor’s visit costs $1. Although I’m a foreigner and lack insurance, simple outpatient services are free.

I read a joke on Facebook. If you need your hip replaced, fly to Spain for the surgery, enjoy a nice vacation while you heal, run with the bulls at Pamplona, get injured by a bull, get another hip replacement, enjoy another vacation, all for less than the cost of hip replacement in the U.S.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

@Johnny_L.A

[QUOTE=Saint Cad]

But Obamacare fixed all the problems and lowered not only insurance costs but health costs are lower as well so we’re all good.

:rolleyes:

Someone hasn’t been paying attention.
[/QUOTE]

“Paying attention”? Since we’re in the Pit, let’s say it openly: Saint Cad is an intellectual midget who think he’s clever if he can rearrange the words of a Rush Limbaugh lie and make the sort of unfunny snark a 3rd-grader might come up with. Reading Saint Cad’s posts has no possible purpose except to explore the “thinking” of the stupidest Trump voters.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@septimus

Maybe this suggests a good question for this thread. Are right-wing lies, after all, a big reason for the divide between Europe’s sanity and American insanity? How does propaganda in Europe à la Alex Jones and Fox News compare with the dismal disinformation in the U.S.A.? Is the Brexit vote a harbinger that some of Europe is following America’s unfortunate direction?

In Germany, two names spring to mind: Bild, and Kopp-Verlag.

Bild is a low-quality tabloid magazine, in the same category as The Daily Mail. It’s generally crap. But it’s at least not hard-right bullshit the way, say, Breitbart is, and indeed are willing to call sites like Breitbart out when they spread bullshit about german issues. It’s not great that this is the most popular newspaper in Germany, but it’s a damn sight better than FOX News is, plus once a month there are titties on the second page, which is nice I guess.

Kopp-Verlag is basically the German “Infowars” - insane conspiracy theory bullshit, the worst of the worst. Their website is relatively uninfluential, but they published a handful of noteworthy bestsellers and are only growing by attacking the press in the same cynical, dishonest way as the American right-wing. Some of you may have heard of Markus Gärtner’s bestseller “Lügenpresse”, a dishonest and conspiratorial attempt to slander basically all of mainstream journalism. The fact that these guys are a substantial presence here in Germany is a really bad sign. Thankfully, the fact that they’re radically right-wing hurts them a lot in Germany, but yeah, they’re still disturbingly popular.

[Grim_Render]

@octopus

If millions across the globe migrate for economic reasons why aren’t Americans voting with their feet? I’m not denying that the US health care system can use some fixing. I’m just puzzled that if millions of others migrate, even to the US to work, why don’t any Americans migrate for better services?

Lots do. About 80 000 people come to the US for medical care every year, with cosmetic the biggest category.

It is estimated about 1,6 million Americans leave the US for healthcare every year. This number does not include people getting their prescriptions filled in Canada, about 2 million, and people filching free healthcare in Canada, a number in the hundreds of thousands.

Nor does it include people who retire before they qualify for Medicare, and move to a UHC country precisely for the healthcare.

If you are wondering why the people who do not have healthcare in the US do not move elsewhere for it -well, you can ask some of the people on this site. But often, I think it is the same reason they don’t have healthcare in the first place. They don’t have the health and resources.

@Novelty_Bobble

Actually I don’t think that is true for the US.

Look at the third pie chart down at this link.
The federal spending on healthcare is greater than for the military.

And yet, on top of that, people still need top cough up for insurance and out of pocket expenses and millions remain inadequately covered.?

The interesting bit is that the amount the US government spends on healthcare is more per citizen than the average developed nation spends on a system that covers 100 % of the population.

[Northern_Piper]

But that would be socialism! This is … I dunno … something else …

[Northern_Piper]

Grim Render, could you provide a cite for that 1,6 million? Not that I’m doubting, but it would be interesting to have that in future discussions.

[Nava]

@septimus

Maybe this suggests a good question for this thread. Are right-wing lies, after all, a big reason for the divide between Europe’s sanity and American insanity? How does propaganda in Europe à la Alex Jones and Fox News compare with the dismal disinformation in the U.S.A.? Is the Brexit vote a harbinger that some of Europe is following America’s unfortunate direction?

Read the same bit of news in El Mundo, El País, La Vanguardia, and diverse regional editions of El Periódico, and you may not be able to believe it all refers to the same actions. It’s all propaganda except for the parts that are “liver press” (previously called “heart press”).

@septimus

I read a joke on Facebook. If you need your hip replaced, fly to Spain for the surgery, enjoy a nice vacation while you heal, run with the bulls at Pamplona, get injured by a bull, get another hip replacement, enjoy another vacation, all for less than the cost of hip replacement in the U.S.

Just please do not add balconing to the mix. We’re not very good on face transplants yet.

[cochrane]

@Novelty_Bobble

So that’s not 50% and it is not looking at lifetime tax payments.

Apart from that, great cite.

To be fair, D’Anconia didn’t say. “in their lifetime.” He said that only 50% pay taxes. And 45% is close enough to 50% as to make the difference not worth quibbling about.

[monstro]

Every time a person buys something, they pay taxes.

Thus, just about everyone pays taxes.

That statement is fucking ridiculous, even for an idiot like D’Anconia.

[Northern_Piper]

@cochrane

To be fair, D’Anconia didn’t say. “in their lifetime.” He said that only 50% pay taxes. And 45% is close enough to 50% as to make the difference not worth quibbling about.

And the cite is only about the federal income tax. Still looking for a cite to show that 50% of Americans do not pay Social Security taxes, other payroll taxes, state income taxes, municipal taxes, or sales taxes.

[cochrane]

@Northern_Piper

And the cite is only about the federal income tax. Still looking for a cite to show that 50% of Americans do not pay Social Security taxes, other payroll taxes, state income taxes, municipal taxes, or sales taxes.

Fine, go look for one. D’Anconia wasn’t that specific, but if you want to go into that level of detail, knock yourself out. I’m not interested in quibbling over it.

[elucidator]

@jasg

This site pushes it back to 1906-1915 with a bill from the AALL.

IIRC, UHC was a plank in Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 campaign.

…Germany has the world’s oldest national social health insurance system,[1] with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck’s social legislation…

Healthcare in Germany

That radical lefty scamp!

[Chimera]

@Northern_Piper

And the cite is only about the federal income tax. Still looking for a cite to show that 50% of Americans do not pay Social Security taxes, other payroll taxes, state income taxes, municipal taxes, or sales taxes.

You won’t find one. Just because a lot of people don’t make enough to end up paying much (if anything) in Federal taxes at the end of the year doesn’t mean they aren’t having Social Security and other taxes removed from their paychecks.

Besides which I despise that entire line of reasoning in the first place. If someone isn’t making enough to pay Federal Income Tax, it isn’t because they’re lazy and are getting a free ride. It is because we recognize that they’re living in poverty and are essentially (in Republican language) granting them ‘tax credits’ in the form of standard deductions.

Someone being angry that poor people don’t make enough to pay taxes is the clearest and most obvious sign they’re a complete asshole, lacking basic human compassion and kindness.

If that same person ever tells you that they’re a Christian, laugh in their face. Then walk away, because they’re not someone you need in your life.

[Little_Nemo]

@Chimera

If that same person ever tells you that they’re a Christian, laugh in their face. Then walk away, because they’re not someone you need in your life.

They’re just trying to make it easier for you to get into Heaven but helping you stay poor.

[elucidator]

Scripture tells us that we need to construct a 100 yard long needle, with any eye that not only would allow a camel to go through, but a limousine loaded with cash.

[running_coach]

@elucidator

Scripture tells us that we need to construct a 100 yard long needle, with any eye that not only would allow a camel to go through, but a limousine loaded with cash.

Heaven knows, it’s actually quite simple for a rich man to shove a needle in the eye of a camel.