Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Figure out how to"get by"....Now that is an impressive stat.

Your compassion is overwhelming!

Compassion lies in the ability to learn how to get people how to help themselves, not do it for them.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

People figure out how to get by. We could have a completely socialized system if every swinging dick paid the same percent of their income. Ask a guy who makes $1000 a week if he would be willing to give up $60 a week for free health care I bet he would agree in a heart beat. Everyone should pay for it.

Somebody who makes a $1,000.00 per week will figure out how to get by. A single mom who makes a $1,000 or so a month is going to be hard pressed to come up with that extra money every month. Forcing a person into a situation where they either get health care or don't get quite enough to eat is not called allowing them to "contribute to their station." Its called putting them between a rock and a hard place.

Where did you ever get "contributing to their station," anyhow? You come off as sounding like some arrogant member of the Victorian upper class.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

Where did you ever get "contributing to their station," anyhow? You come off as sounding like some arrogant member of the Victorian upper class.

That is not my intention. Do you not believe we live in a stratified society? Every Western culture does. I believe we should help everyone help themselves. The money a single mother with have to come up with may be cheaper than the money she will have to come up with for mandatory insurance. Very few people would be on the lowest end. Everybody should pay into a system they benefit from. No one gets a pass.

[Undertoad]

During times of economic growth, the rich get richer faster. During times of economic contraction, the rich get poorer faster. So when they pick

from 2002 to 2007

...as the timeframe to measure, when one recession started in 2001 and another in 2008, that's pretty much the expected result.

[SamIam]

According to the US Census Bureau:

From 2000 to 2007, workers at the 20th percentile saw a 6.0% decline in income, followed in 2008 by a further decline of 1.7%. Workers at the 95th percentile saw an increase of 1.2 percent from 2000 to 2007, but a decrease of 2.1% in 2008

http://www.epi.org/publications/entr...ture_20090910/

So, the upper income bracket is still much better off over all. Let them eat cake.

[TheMercenary]

Oh look!

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE: $300 MILLION FOR MY VOTE!

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, November 22, 2009



Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.

On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping -- the bill survived Saturday's procedural test without a single vote to spare -- and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn't enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.

After Landrieu threw in her support (she asserted that the extra Medicaid funds were "not the reason" for her vote), the lone holdout in the 60-member Democratic caucus was Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Like other Democratic moderates who knew a single vote could kill the bill, she took a streetcar named Opportunism, transferred to one called Wavering and made off with concessions of her own. Indeed, the all-Saturday debate, which ended with an 8 p.m. vote, occurred only because Democratic leaders had yielded to her request for more time.

Even when she finally announced her support, at 2:30 in the afternoon, Lincoln made clear that she still planned to hold out for many more concessions in the debate that will consume the next month. "My decision to vote on the motion to proceed is not my last, nor only, chance to have an impact on health-care reform," she announced.

Landrieu and Lincoln got the attention because they were the last to decide, but the Senate really has 100 Blanche DuBoises, a full house of characters inclined toward the narcissistic. The health-care debate was worse than most. With all 40 Republicans in lockstep opposition, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus had to vote yes -- and that gave each one an opportunity to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) won a promise from Reid to support his plan to expand eligibility for health insurance. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got Reid to jettison a provision stripping health insurers of their antitrust exemption. Landrieu got the concessions for her money. And Lincoln won an extended, 72-hour period to study legislation.

And the big shakedown is yet to occur: That will happen when Reid comes back to his caucus in a few weeks to round up 60 votes for the final passage of the health bill.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102272_pf.html

[Clodfobble]

Let's not forget we've addressed Merc's magical 6% number before. 6% of everyone's income will not pay for healthcare for everyone. I believe the number we arrived at was around 20% the last time we discussed this, if you spread the tax rate equally among everyone. Or you can tax the lower end 6% after all, and the upper end 45%, and call it a day.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

... and the upper end 45%, and call it a day.

It already is that if you include state tax... and we still can't pay for it.

[TheMercenary]

Seriously, why don't we just kill them and take all their money? Gates, Clinton's, Kennedy's, Bush's, all of them...

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for more troops sent to Afghanistan and NATO should provide half of the new soldiers, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000” a year, could fund more troops, Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.

That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aPO6Hrw_x85A

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

It already is that if you include state tax... and we still can't pay for it.

Then why do you keep spouting arguments about a "6% rate for everyone" when you know it's foolish?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Then why do you keep spouting arguments about a "6% rate for everyone" when you know it's foolish?

Actually it is not foolish if you make everyone pay for it. Not as the sole source of tax, only a tax that everyone would pay for health care. Actually a number of 12-15% would be more realistic. I chose 6% as a starting point arbitrarily to make the point everyone should pay.

[TheMercenary]

Check out 60 Minutes NOW. Death in America and cost control of Healthcare. Read it and weep.

[classicman]

If Democrats succeed in passing their legislation, it may leave consumers feeling a little cheated.
Many middle-class families who'd be required to buy coverage would still find the premiums a stretch, even with government aid. A new federal fund to provide temporary coverage for people with health problems would quickly run out of cash.

Both House and Senate bills now provide for a government insurance plan, but Reid's bill would let states opt out.

If all the states opt out, does it still exist?

Link

[Clodfobble]

temporary coverage for people with health problems

I'm confused. If a person currently has health problems and no health insurance, in all likelihood they'd save money by jumping onto a government plan. It's the people who have no coverage and aren't sick that are getting sucked in against their will...

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I'm confused. If a person currently has health problems and no health insurance, in all likelihood they'd save money by jumping onto a government plan. It's the people who have no coverage and aren't sick that are getting sucked in against their will...

Clod...it is not jumping into a government plan.

Those w/o insurance would have the opportunity to purchase through the Insurance Exchange administered by the government, but with plans offered by the private sector.

To participate in the Exchange, insurance companies would be required to offer 4 plan levels, from basic to premium, priced accordingly....envision those companies competing for those millions of new consumers through more competitive pricing than presently exists. The public option would simply be one more plan to further drive competition.

The added benefit for those currently with insurance is that companies participating in the Exchange would be required to offer the same more competitive pricing to employer-based plans.

As to mandated those who have no coverage arent sick, consider that 1) insurance is not just for the sick, but as a safeguard against an unanticipated medical emergency and 2) when they many of those uninsured now get sick and go to the emergency room for routine treatment or face a catastrophic medical emergency and renege on the bill, then the rest of us pay for it in higher premiums.

Originally Posted by classicman

Me too, The problem is that I'd bet most of those who voted for this don't know the answer either.

If I know the answer, I dont think it is unreasonable to think that most members of Congress do as well.