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hot air... many people get their insurance through their employers and therefore do not pay very much for their premiums.
Employers do not want UHC because they know that in order to pay for it their taxes will go up. That being business tax, personal income tax, etc. There is even talk about increasing payroll tax.
What geenero doesn't tell you is that the Europeans pay a lot of taxes. Their income tax is over 40%, their gas prices are very high (like over $9.00/gallon) all because of taxes, their sales (vat) tax is much higher. I believe in Sweden there is a 25% vat tax. Income tax in Sweden is 60%. Corporate tax is higher there too. Our gas tax averages 17%. I read somewhere that many European countries have a 70% gas tax.
Lets keep the topic narrow...health care. What you are obviously not being told is that we pay taxes on the health care that companies provide. Companies are able to receive a tax deduction by providing health insurance to employees. Large companies are able to get reduced costs on health insurance because of their larger volume and then a big tax deduction for that cost. For Smaller companies it is not that worthwhile because they don't get the same lower costs as the larger companies.
The biggest reason in my opinion of the opposition of Big companies to UHC...greed. By law, Large companies may not give a few select individuals at the top of their food chain...CEO's etc excellent health care benefits unless they provide insurance to the rank and file, but these CEO's don't have to give themselves the same type of medical benefits...they can give themselves the cadillac versiion while the rank and file getthe yugo version and the medical benefits are not taxable.
What you have to keep in mind is that companies take into consideration the total compensation of an employee not just their salary. If a company does not provide insurance they usually make up for it in a higher salary, this is the total costs. These CEO's are screwing the whole country just so that they can get the absolute best health care without having to pay taxes on the benefits that they receive, eventhough it would make the company more competitive in the world market. Don't believe this happens then you have not been watching the news regarding CEO greed.
If the UHC was in place then the rank in file would not be paying for the company health insurance so if the company provided the key executives for the cadillac version then it would not be tax deductible for either the company or the executives. The executives are only looking at their money. The companies would still be better off not providing it even with the tax deductions.
Ever since the first day i started work i have paid my NI stamp for welfare, retirement and medical cover. It is at the moment about 11% of my earnings. This covers too many things to mention on here but basically..... Everyones health care needs. Everyones retirement pension, everyones schooling up to the age of 19. Once a pupil leaves school and goes to college they can apply for a grant to help them through college which is non returnable. Meals on wheels to the elderly... clinics for advice and many other things. unemployment offices to help people get jobs, incapacity benefit for those with illness preventing them from working, housing costs, etc etc etc.
America is only talking about taxing people for a UHC and so it will be much less to pay than the 11% i pay in the UK. Why is their such resentment towards other fellow Americans. Why is it such a problem to pay such a small tax so that EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN can have great healthcare. To the people who say that they do not believe in paying for others...don't be so smug as you or your family may be the ones in need of welfare or heath care from the state in the future...happens everyday to people who think it will NEVER happen to them.
There's no resentment, it's the fact that it's either all talk or if it does happen, it's going to end up a disaster because they're not going to address the real problem......which is the cost of health care and drugs.
BTW, I'm single and self-employed, when you add up what I have to pay in federal tax, state tax, FICA (which is social security....employees pay half and their employer pays the other half but, since I'm self-employed, I have to pay the whole amount myself....about 17%), property tax (which for some back east is hitting $10,000 annually on an average home), sales tax (of 6.75%) on anything I buy (except groceries), my car registration (which is basically a tax, the newer the car the higher the tax...for some a couple thousand annually), in some states people have to pay into unemployment but, it's only a hundred or two annually (I don't, it's included in my state tax), state and federal tax on gasoline....There's probably a few others I'm forgetting about at the moment but, when you get all done I pay over 50%, closer to 60% in taxes annually. I'm not complaining though, just letting you know how it works. My annual salary is now well below average so, maybe my federal taxes will be a little less this year. I pay around $400/month for an individual health insurance policy, with a high deductible....I'm perfectly healthy and 47 years old.
People who don't have health insurance because of low income, still get medical care when they need to go into the hospital. They qualify for Medicaid and it gets paid at 100% (that's part of welfare). When you don't have health insurance, what you miss out on is the wellness care...preventative care (unless you can pay cash for it). Anything that could be considered life threatening (even a compound fracture for example....since you're bleeding), would get paid through Medicaid if you don't have insurance because of low income. In this country illegal aliens can get welfare, even if they've never paid a dime into the system. It's real easy for women...all they have to do is have a baby while here in the U.S. and then the child is a U.S. citizen so, both mom and baby get medical care, food stamps and money for their housing and other expenses each month. If the mother and child are on welfare for several years, they'll want her to get off of it so, they'll even offer her job training (but, all she needs to do to stay on welfare is fail what ever training she's getting....some do that on purpose).
State and federal government are reaching their limit on what they can get away with from income tax. I've noticed when ever something big comes up now, that needs to get funded some way (paying off a state deficit, new stadiums, etc.), lawmakers try to figure out a way to hide the taxes they need to collect for it but, in the end it all adds up. They come up with special taxes....Obama is talking about a 1/4 of a penny tax per ounce on soda pop now.....cigarettes are something like $6-7 a pack now, mostly taxes....when you rent a car in AZ, they charge you a $5 Cactus League tax (something to do with spring training for baseball). My water bill is cheap but, half of it is taxes (there's one they collect a dollar a month for called "jail tax"????)....same thing with my phone bill on my house phone, it's half taxes.
Last edited by Danno3314; 05-18-2009 at 01:02 AM..
I agree.
The insurance companies are there for ONE reason...PROFIT.
Not your Health. Not your Welfare... Not even if you die a slow lingering death..just for PROFIT!
These are the ethics and reasons that some Americans are fighting to keep Healthcare under the control of Insurance Companies...they must be insane.
Yes the Govt could run it better and the Doctors would be the ones deciding what care you should get... NOT the CEO's of insurance companies who think with YOUR WALLET!
That is the image they have from the old days when they sold whole life insurance. By todays standards, it's a complete rip-off, that's why it's rarely sold any more....just certain cases where it's for estate planning purposes). I say by todays standards because, back then it wasn't....people couldn't invest in the stock market like they can today. The only place you got interest was with a passbook account....they didn't all mutual funds and the stock market was for the rich.
When you paid your whole life premium each month, 75% of it was for the insurance company to invest but, if you tried to cash out early, you didn't get much back. If you kept it until retirement, then you did OK, you got a descent return for what yoiu paid in. Now people buy just term life but, that, along with property and casualty, is where the money is for insurance companies....house, car and life insurance. Health insurance is not a big money maker, it often fails. A lot of times the insurance is mutual, which means they don't have stock holders that are expecting the company to may a profit and pay them dividends....with a mutual policy, the policy holders themselves are in a way the stockholders.
I finally looks like we will force back the big interests of the insurance companies and bloated few in the medical industry and get some type of National Health care. I also heard a great point from the Ed show, He said that Bill Clinton and Al Gore 1 year after their administration started had a foreign terrorist attack on the twin tower killing Americans, they did not resort to torture and kept us safe for 7 1/2 years. Did I say with out resorting to torture? Things seem to be moving away from letting the Christians run the show with out anyone standing up to say who is the crazy people swinging the bible through the air making US policy. Things are looking better then they have in 8 years.
Since you have two posts here, I'll take them in order. In 2002 and 2003 I had my hip joints replaced. My insurance covered the procedures with only small co-pays required of me. The insurance was provided as part of my compensation package from my employer. Since I have LUPUS, extra test were required prior to surgery and covered by my insurance. Before agreeing to work for this company, I inquired about the sort of health benefits that would be provided. If they didn't offer the benefits I wanted, I would have declined the job. It's just that simple. If you want to guarantee that all employers will stop offering health insurance, bring in a government run system. Then we'll have no other options. Right now we have the best health care system in the world. Aside from the left's desire to institute socialism in every area of our lives, What is the compelling reason for changing it?
Now on to your other post. The Clinton administration took the respond only after the fact law enforcement approach to the first attack on the WTC by al Qaeda. With respect to the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has told his American interrogators that Osama Bin Laden started planning the attacks in 1996, the Associated Press reports."
Would have been nice to know that little piece of information back in 1996. Wouldn't you agree?
"The interrogation records seen by AP indicate that al-Qaeda was still planning attacks on the US, Israeli and other Western targets this year."
Sure am glad we found that out. Aren't you?
"Before the attacks on New York and Washington, Sheikh Mohammed said he started working with Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the group suspected of being behind the Bali bombing in October 2002."
Too bad we weren't listening in on overseas phone calls in time to catch this one. Don't you think?
When will the left come to understand that these people are incapable of co-existing with people who have different political and religious views from their own. They want more than anything else to kill us and kill our children. There is no act beneath them. Reading them their rights and providing them a lawyer is a certain way to get people killed. They cannot be reasoned with and will not stop willingly.
Sometimes rights guaranteed by the Constitution conflict with one another. The preamble to the Constitution acknowledges my God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My right to not be killed is greater than a terrorists right to keep secret information that can and has prevented others loosing their Constitutionally protected right to live. "We don't torture!" is the new rally cry of the left who seem to have no issues with denying babies who have survived botched abortions medical treatment to prevent their death outside the womb. I'm not sure how that is not torture. But I guess for the sake of the discussion we'll have to overlook this glairing hypocrisy for the moment.
Every coin has a flip side. In this case that flip side is allowing the only people in this conversation actually protected by the Constitution, citizens of the United States, to be murdered by Islamic terrorists. This act of omission denies them their Constitutional right of life. We cannot have it both ways. Failing to do what is obviously justified to extract life saving information makes us co-conspiritors to the terrorism we are able to prevent.
no, not about the kosovo war - that story is about bush's "war on terror". It's just one more of the many locations we sent terror suspects so that they could be "questioned" off us soil while we appear to keep our hands clean.
Had nothing to do with clinton.
Ken
The detention centre at the US base Camp Bondsteel in south-eastern Kosovo in July 1999.
Does anybody really think the Ins companies, the Doctors, the Hospitals, the Drug companies, etc are going to put serious effort into reducing the costs of health care? They are perfectly content with continued escalation of the cost. The higher the cost, the higher the profit. It's as simple as that. The only real solution has to be a non-profit alternative for paying and free competition for the services.
Lets keep the topic narrow...health care. What you are obviously not being told is that we pay taxes on the health care that companies provide. Companies are able to receive a tax deduction by providing health insurance to employees. Large companies are able to get reduced costs on health insurance because of their larger volume and then a big tax deduction for that cost. For Smaller companies it is not that worthwhile because they don't get the same lower costs as the larger companies.
The biggest reason in my opinion of the opposition of Big companies to UHC...greed. By law, Large companies may not give a few select individuals at the top of their food chain...CEO's etc excellent health care benefits unless they provide insurance to the rank and file, but these CEO's don't have to give themselves the same type of medical benefits...they can give themselves the cadillac versiion while the rank and file getthe yugo version and the medical benefits are not taxable.
What you have to keep in mind is that companies take into consideration the total compensation of an employee not just their salary. If a company does not provide insurance they usually make up for it in a higher salary, this is the total costs. These CEO's are screwing the whole country just so that they can get the absolute best health care without having to pay taxes on the benefits that they receive, eventhough it would make the company more competitive in the world market. Don't believe this happens then you have not been watching the news regarding CEO greed.
If the UHC was in place then the rank in file would not be paying for the company health insurance so if the company provided the key executives for the cadillac version then it would not be tax deductible for either the company or the executives. The executives are only looking at their money. The companies would still be better off not providing it even with the tax deductions.
What you're saying is not true. A larger company doesn't necessarily get rates that are any better than a small company would. In fact, very often it's the opposite because of all the retirees that get coverage as part of their retirement package.
If a company is providing health insurance for it's employees, why wouldn't that cost come off their bottom line when they file their tax return....it's anexpense, just like any other expense....it's part of the cost of doing business.
A company can provide health insurance for it's management without offer it to it's hourly employees....it's called a carve out. That's rare and it's also rare for the management to have adifferent plan than the rest of the employees....there's no reason to do that witth one exception, when have a union for example. In that case the benefits are often tied in through the union so, the company needs to get a separate plan for management (since they can't be part of the union) and more often than not, it's not as good as the plan the union employees have.
You are NOT taxed on your benefits with a few exceptions. The portion of your insurance that an employee may be getting deducted out of their paycheck, is deducted pre-tax (so you're not taxed on it). The exception would be something like disability insurance (personal, not workman's comp). If you're getting that through your employer and paying for any part of it, you want that to be paid with after-tax dollors. The reason being, if you're ever disabled and you begin to receive checks from the disability insurrance company, if you paid for the premiums with pre-tax dollars, you're going to then have to pay tax on the checks you're getting. As long as you pay for the premiums with after-tax dollars, then you don't have tax on the checks you get.
health insurance is paid by some employers to attract employees. A Yugo plan is not even a thought, that would just make it difficult to hire good employees because they bad coverage and their competitors don't....so, your thinking is all wrong.
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