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Reprioritizing spending assumes disposable income that a large percentage of Americans don't have.
Sure, they do. In fact, American households have the most disposable income in the world.
Quote:
"Household net adjusted disposable income is the amount of money that a household earns, or gains, each year after taxes and transfers. It represents the money available to a household for spending on goods or services.
Household adjusted disposable income includes income from economic activity (wages and salaries; profits of self-employed business owners), property income (dividends, interests and rents), social benefits in cash (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.), and social transfers in kind (goods and services such as health care, education and housing, received either free of charge or at reduced prices). Across the OECD, the average household net adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 29 016 a year.
The average US household net adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 41 071 a year."
You can't repriotitize your mortgage without getting foreclosed on, for example. Not to mention that a VAT would act like an across the board nationwide wage cut; because a significant percentage of Americans have their health insurance highly subsidized by their employers (mostly large companies). So to summarize:
1. Those that can't afford the VAT would have their homes foreclosed, their cars repoed, their utilities shut off, etc...
2. This would create a cascading avalanche of defaults, throwing our economy into depression.
3. Wages would be pressed even further down.
4. Even more power and money would be consolidated into the hands of the mega corporations.
5. Crime would go through the roof, costing even more resources.
I would rather die than see this happen to our country.
Won't happen. That's all just unsubstantiated conjecture-based fearmongering. Or, in other words, an excuse used by a person who wants free stuff without having to contribute to the costs of that free stuff.
Then whyin the hell did my mother have to drag me down to the postoffice at the age of 16 to register me for the draft? i am an American citizen. That comes with certain obligations such as an obligation to defend my country if called upon. I expect something in return.
Housing can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so can food and clothing over a lifetime. The point is, no one has a "right" to them. The government doesn't provide them to everyone for free. People have to earn them, and some people have earned higher-quality food, clothing, and shelter than others.
It is not the overall cost over a lifetime, but the unexpected massive cost that can happened in a moment.
Won't happen. That's all just unsubstantiated conjecture-based fearmongering. Or, in other words, an excuse used by a person who wants free stuff without having to contribute to the costs of that free stuff.
First of all, using a skewed average to prove a point is intellectually dishonest.
Second, you are missing my point. I'm not in favor of a soup to nuts universal health care under any circumstances. Personally i would rather have no healthcare and die an untimely death. The notion that taxpayers will be paying for gender changing surgery and adderol/speed for kids is sickening to me.
I MAY be in favor of some kind of catastrophic plan but only if would be funded by large corporations with some kind of safeguard that prevents them from charging the monies back to the wage earner.
It is not the overall cost over a lifetime, but the unexpected massive cost that can happened in a moment.
These can also happen in a moment:
Hit by a bus and killed.
Struck by lightning and killed (happened to a friend of mine).
Struck by a drunk driver and killed.
Fall in your bathtub, suffer a fatal head injury (also happened to a friend of mine).
We could do this all day.
We can't protect everyone from everything. That's why people earn an education, get jobs, earn an income, buy health insurance* and try to make wise life/financial decisions.
Abusing drugs/alcohol, dropping out of high school, failing to prepare for an occupation, breeding 4 kids by the age of 22, overeating to the point of developing Diabetes Type 2 and/or COPD, etc., aren't wise life/financial decisions. Why do responsible people owe anything to those who don't even value their own lives or that of their children?
* As to the insurance, I LOVED the setup I had before Obamacare blew it all to hell. I self-insured for all but a catastrophic illness/injury. I had a very inexpensive catastrophic plan (cheap because they didn't have to pay for every cough and sniffle, or even for a broken bone), and it worked very well for me.
And if that ever turned out to not be enough, well, then I would suffer the consequence of my own choice to insure myself that way. Why not let everyone suffer the consequences of their own choices?
A 25% VAT tax would be a disaster for this country. People would lose their homes, businesses would be shuttered, depression would be just about guaranteed. I'm 'middle class' (at least my family income says I am), without health insurance, and I would rather die of an untreated disease than live to see a 25% VAT. I do have life insurance and my family would be just fine if I passed. Not so with a VAT.
I'm no economist, but I agree. Canada and Australia have a GST at 5% and 10% respectively, and have UHC.
My guess is that a change in income tax rates would be better. Take back those rates that the wealthy used to pay, start seriously looking at how much military spending is a waste, and start closing loop holes that create situations where individual and corporations pay no tax.
First of all, using a skewed average to prove a point is intellectually dishonest.
It's not skewed. The OECD explains their methodology, exactly. It's a direct apples to apples comparison.
Quote:
Second, you are missing my point. I'm not in favor of a soup to nuts universal health care under any circumstances. Personally i would rather have no healthcare and die an untimely death. The notion that taxpayers will be paying for gender changing surgery and adderol/speed for kids is sickening to me.
I MAY be in favor of some kind of catastrophic plan but only if would be funded by large corporations with some kind of safeguard that prevents them from charging the monies back to the wage earner.
Why should corporations pay for insurance? Guess who ends up paying for that when they do? The same people who pay for their corporate taxes...
The end user/consumer.
Those are costs of doing business and they're factored into corporations' goods/services pricing formula.
I'm no economist, but I agree. Canada and Australia have a GST at 5% and 10% respectively, and have UHC.
My guess is that a change in income tax rates would be better. Take back those rates that the wealthy used to pay, start seriously looking at how much military spending is a waste, and start closing loop holes that create situations where individual and corporations pay no tax.
Since you're not an economist, it might interest you to read how European/Scandinavian countries tax their citizens and why doing it that way allows them to provide more and better social program benefits than we have in the US. Info in this post:
Hit by a bus and killed.
Struck by lightning and killed (happened to a friend of mine).
Struck by a drunk driver and killed.
Fall in your bathtub, suffer a fatal head injury (also happened to a friend of mine).
We could do this all day.
We can't protect everyone from everything. That's why people earn an education, get jobs, earn an income, buy health insurance* and try to make wise life/financial decisions.
Abusing drugs/alcohol, dropping out of high school, failing to prepare for an occupation, breeding 4 kids by the age of 22, overeating to the point of developing Diabetes Type 2 and/or COPD, etc., aren't wise life/financial decisions. Why do responsible people owe anything to those who don't even value their own lives or that of their children?
* As to the insurance, I LOVED the setup I had before Obamacare blew it all to hell. I self-insured for all but a catastrophic illness/injury. I had a very inexpensive catastrophic plan (cheap because they didn't have to pay for every cough and sniffle, or even for a broken bone), and it worked very well for me.
And if that ever turned out to not be enough, well, then I would suffer the consequence of my own choice to insure myself that way. Why not let everyone suffer the consequences of their own choices?
Just by listing other things that can happen in a moment, isn't really an argument to not have UHC.
However take your list, minus out the " killed " and replace it with " seriously injured " and you do have an argument FOR UHC.
The argument about those who abuse is a weak one. You already pay for those people.
I guess everyone has a different experience pre and post ACA. My parents, who lived in California, had neighbours in the 1980's who went broke because the wife had cancer. Lost their house as premiums kept going up and up. Finally when they had nothing left, they went on the States care. She died anyway.
The other point about ACA is ??? So? Fix it America. Just because one attempt didn't work out for most ( apparently ) doesn't mean you just give up?
If your insurance turned out not be enough, you would be sharing those consequences with others who pick up the costs of your care, whether in insurance premiums or hospital charges.
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