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You lost me at "everyone does pay into taxes now".
Some 161 million tax units in the United States. You're going to have one here and there that isn't filing, so if you're filing, you're paying taxes. That's pretty much everyone.
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Originally Posted by Just a Bill
"Obamacare" is based on Republican ideas. Being a pragmatist, Obama offered up a more Republican style health care initiative, because it might stand a better chance. We see how that worked out. Silly Man (Obama).
I am against the mandate to buy health insurance, by the way. The rest of the program I am OK with.
The mandate is necessary in this back-assward plan we put together. Without it, there is no shared-risk. People can just break their arm then go buy insurance, which doesn't make any sense, and is contrary to how insurance works.
That, and the mandate is essentially the most transparent of taxes. It gives you specifically the information upon where your tax dollars are being spent. People object to it because they realize what they're paying for. Imagine if you actually knew what your tax dollars were paying for. Imagine if you will, that when you filed your taxes, you actually had to fill out individual boxes for everything our tax dollars pay for. $0.54 for NASA. $200.00 for SNAP, $1000.00 for the Department of Defense, broken down, of course, to $23.00 for the the F35 JSF. $18 for a new Aircraft Carrier. Etc.
But we don't do that. We toss a few thousand dollars into the government, and it disappears behind closed curtains where we don't give a **** and can claim anonymity and plausible deniability.
Which, of course, is why we really need single-payer. Throw money in, benefit everyone. You don't really need to know that $0.18 of your money is being spent on a kidney transplant for a heavy-smoker. If you knew that, you'd probably be against it.
Some 161 million tax units in the United States. You're going to have one here and there that isn't filing, so if you're filing, you're paying taxes. That's pretty much everyone.
The mandate is necessary in this back-assward plan we put together. Without it, there is no shared-risk. People can just break their arm then go buy insurance, which doesn't make any sense, and is contrary to how insurance works.
That, and the mandate is essentially the most transparent of taxes. It gives you specifically the information upon where your tax dollars are being spent. People object to it because they realize what they're paying for. Imagine if you actually knew what your tax dollars were paying for. Imagine if you will, that when you filed your taxes, you actually had to fill out individual boxes for everything our tax dollars pay for. $0.54 for NASA. $200.00 for SNAP, $1000.00 for the Department of Defense, broken down, of course, to $23.00 for the the F35 JSF. $18 for a new Aircraft Carrier. Etc.
But we don't do that. We toss a few thousand dollars into the government, and it disappears behind closed curtains where we don't give a **** and can claim anonymity and plausible deniability.
Which, of course, is why we really need single-payer. Throw money in, benefit everyone. You don't really need to know that $0.18 of your money is being spent on a kidney transplant for a heavy-smoker. If you knew that, you'd probably be against it.
It's not that I want to know the exact amount. I just disagree with it fundamentally.
I'm not following you on the "break your arm, go buy insurance" thing. I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just don't follow.
As for single-payer, I agree, but if you think the right is screaming now, just imagine if single-payer was.
"Obamacare" is based on Republican ideas. Being a pragmatist, Obama offered up a more Republican style health care initiative, because it might stand a better chance. We see how that worked out. Silly Man (Obama).
I am against the mandate to buy health insurance, by the way. The rest of the program I am OK with.
He wanted to pay for it by taxing the rich. How is that pragmatic?
He wanted to pay for it by taxing the rich. How is that pragmatic?
I meant pragmatic as in knowing that the Republicans weren't going to go for single-payer, so he tried to give them something that was similar to ideas that they had kicked around themselves, and in the case of Romney, enacted.
Do you know what a marginal tax rate is? The rich don't get taxed that rate until they make over 250K, and then it's only the earnings over 250K that are taxed at that rate. No rich people are going to go to bed hungry if we go back to pre-Bush 2 marginal rates, and no rich people are being asked to pay some special tax to support the health care initiative.
It's not that I want to know the exact amount. I just disagree with it fundamentally.
It's a subconscious level realization of taxes. When we realize what we're paying, we're up in arms about it. If all we did was 'pay taxes' and trust the government to handle things, we dissolve our responsibility and knowledge--the plausible deniability--of what we actually do with our tax dollars.
Nobody likes being forced to purchase anything, and I'm not particularly fond a few aspects of Obamacare either, but I'm well aware of the necessity of the mandate.
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I'm not following you on the "break your arm, go buy insurance" thing. I'm not trying to be obtuse, I just don't follow.
I perhaps didn't explain it well. Obamacare does a couple of things primarily. It sets up insurance exchanges, forces people to buy insurance, and guarantees everyone can get insurance, regardless, by forcing insurers to cover them.
If didn't have the mandate, we could literally go without insurance until we had a medical bill to cover--say developing cancer or breaking an arm. Then, while sitting in the ER, we call our insurance company, get covered for some exuberant rate (say, $3000 a month), and get covered for a few days. Then, we cancel, and we're back on our mary way. We get probated for the insurance we don't use, so my three day trip to the hospital for my broken arm and complications cost me a whopping $300. So on, so forth. Get it now, or do I need to explain that better? Concepts don't always transition well from brain to paper for me.
Paul Ryan's plan did the same thing as Obamacare, minus the mandate. It's why it sucked as a plan. His would kill insurance companies faster than Single-payer, because at least with that, they don't actually have to cover you.
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As for single-payer, I agree, but if you think the right is screaming now, just imagine if single-payer was.
It's because right-wing politicians are all kinds of bad. Right-wing people are just generally ignorant. When they're being told things like "government takeover of health" and "death-panels," they're going to be up in arms, possibly literally. If we told them things like "medicaid for everyone," they'd be a bit more accepting.
It's a subconscious level realization of taxes. When we realize what we're paying, we're up in arms about it. If all we did was 'pay taxes' and trust the government to handle things, we dissolve our responsibility and knowledge--the plausible deniability--of what we actually do with our tax dollars.
Nobody likes being forced to purchase anything, and I'm not particularly fond a few aspects of Obamacare either, but I'm well aware of the necessity of the mandate.
I perhaps didn't explain it well. Obamacare does a couple of things primarily. It sets up insurance exchanges, forces people to buy insurance, and guarantees everyone can get insurance, regardless, by forcing insurers to cover them.
If didn't have the mandate, we could literally go without insurance until we had a medical bill to cover--say developing cancer or breaking an arm. Then, while sitting in the ER, we call our insurance company, get covered for some exuberant rate (say, $3000 a month), and get covered for a few days. Then, we cancel, and we're back on our mary way. We get probated for the insurance we don't use, so my three day trip to the hospital for my broken arm and complications cost me a whopping $300. So on, so forth. Get it now, or do I need to explain that better? Concepts don't always transition well from brain to paper for me.
Paul Ryan's plan did the same thing as Obamacare, minus the mandate. It's why it sucked as a plan. His would kill insurance companies faster than Single-payer, because at least with that, they don't actually have to cover you.
It's because right-wing politicians are all kinds of bad. Right-wing people are just generally ignorant. When they're being told things like "government takeover of health" and "death-panels," they're going to be up in arms, possibly literally. If we told them things like "medicaid for everyone," they'd be a bit more accepting.
I don't mind the increased tax burden. My spouse and I get by very well and we don't have a problem paying our share. I just feel like telling people that they must have insurance, unless we get an actual single-payer system, feels "wrong". What's to stop a guy from breaking his arm and then going online and buying a policy before the HC initiative?
The problems lies here: we should have never tied HC to employers in the first place, and the fact that we have done so complicates the issue infinitely.
I meant pragmatic as in knowing that the Republicans weren't going to go for single-payer, so he tried to give them something that was similar to ideas that they had kicked around themselves, and in the case of Romney, enacted.
Do you know what a marginal tax rate is? The rich don't get taxed that rate until they make over 250K, and then it's only the earnings over 250K that are taxed at that rate. No rich people are going to go to bed hungry if we go back to pre-Bush 2 marginal rates, and no rich people are being asked to pay some special tax to support the health care initiative.
I know the tax code well. Do you know what a negative effective tax rate is? We have a huge segment getting money back as it is.
The problems lies here: we should have never tied HC to employers in the first place, and the fact that we have done so complicates the issue infinitely.
I think this is the problem too. I know it soothes some people to know that their tax dollars won't be used to take care of a dead-beat, unemployed, slacker sucking on the government's teat, but there are people in this world who don't have the types of jobs that offer health care. So then it becomes a morality issue: if you don't have a job, you must not be worthy of health insurance.
What about disabled people who can't work? What about children? What about people who are full-time caregivers for sick relatives? What about farmers? What about cancer patients who should be focused on getting well not working until the day they die? I had a relative whose husband was a farmer, she had cancer and 3 kids and was the person in their family who provided the health insurance with her job. She had to work until she was almost on her deathbed because COBRA was so expensive and they couldn't afford it. My mom was going through chemo for cancer a few years ago and there was a school teacher there getting chemo on her lunch break. Maybe that was her choice but what if she had to do that to stay employed to keep her insurance? That's no way to treat sick people.
And the trend today is for more employers to only offer part time jobs so that don't have to offer health benefits, or if they do, a part-timer can't afford them anyway.
I know the tax code well. Do you know what a negative effective tax rate is? We have a huge segment getting money back as it is.
Yeah, in fact, I used to be a board member of a large circuit board mfg. conglomerate (who has now relocated to China, imagine THAT!) who generally ended up paying about 12% tax, in the end.
I think this is the problem too. I know it soothes some people to know that their tax dollars won't be used to take care of a dead-beat, unemployed, slacker sucking on the government's teat, but there are people in this world who don't have the types of jobs that offer health care. So then it becomes a morality issue: if you don't have a job, you must not be worthy of health insurance.
What about disabled people who can't work? What about children? What about people who are full-time caregivers for sick relatives? What about farmers? What about cancer patients who should be focused on getting well not working until the day they die? I had a relative whose husband was a farmer, she had cancer and 3 kids and was the person in their family who provided the health insurance with her job. She had to work until she was almost on her deathbed because COBRA was so expensive and they couldn't afford it. My mom was going through chemo for cancer a few years ago and there was a school teacher there getting chemo on her lunch break. Maybe that was her choice but what if she had to do that to stay employed to keep her insurance? That's no way to treat sick people.
And the trend today is for more employers to only offer part time jobs so that don't have to offer health benefits, or if they do, a part-timer can't afford them anyway.
Yes. A thousand times. Why hire full-time if you can get out of providing benefits by hiring part-time, or temps, or better yet, Chinese families and their kids?
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