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Title: Taxpayers on the Hook as Obamacare Exchanges Near the Edge of Collapse
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URL Source: http://cnsnews.com/commentary/phil- ... e-exchanges-near-edge-collapse
Published: Aug 13, 2016
Author: Phil Kerpen
Post Date: 2016-08-13 09:35:51 by Justified
Keywords: None
Views: 11732
Comments: 96
The health insurance exchanges that are the beating heart of Obamacare are on the edge of collapse, with premiums rising sharply for ever narrower provider networks, non-profit health co-ops shuttering their doors, and even the biggest insurance companies heading for the exits amid mounting losses. Even the liberal Capitol Hill newspaper is warning of a possible “Obamacare meltdown” this fall. Three states – Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming – are already down to just a single insurance company, as are large parts of several other states, totaling at least 664 counties. UnitedHealth is pulling out completely, Humana is pulling out of 88 percent of counties it was in, and last weak Aetna strongly suggested it will be exiting, too, unless it gets bribed to stay with a huge, annual infusion of direct corporate bailout payments from taxpayers. Dealing with the wreckage will be at the top of the agenda for the new president and Congress next year, and their options will be limited – especially if, as appears likely, we will continue to have divided government. Most Democrats would prefer moving toward a totally government-run system while Republicans continue to favor repeal. The most likely outcome, then, is the muddled middle, keeping gravely ill Obamacare on life support, with the major policy fight being over the extent to which taxpayers should be forced to provide billions in direct corporate bailout cash infusions. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini was pretty blatant in a recent interview with Zachary Tracer of Bloomberg. Here’s the key part: “Rather than transferring money among insurers, the law should be changed to subsidize insurers with government funds, Bertolini said. ‘It needs to be a non-zero sum pool in order to fix it,’ Bertolini said. Right now, insurers ‘that are less worse off pay for those that are worse off.’” In other words: everybody is losing money, so taxpayers need to pick up the tab. The Obama administration is already playing fast and loose with the law to shovel as many bailout bucks to insurers as they can – on top of Obamacare’s huge subsidies to lower income consumers and a penalty tax on people who don’t buy in. They shortchanged taxpayers by $3.5 billion that, contrary to law, they sent to insurance companies instead. And their legal posture in a $5 billion lawsuit to contravene a funding restriction expressly enacted by Congress to prevent a bailout via the so-called risk corridor program amount to a promise that they will somehow get them paid in the future. Democrats will likely support legalizing these payments and authorizing even larger direct corporate bailouts on an ongoing basis as a way to keep insurance companies in the Obamacare exchanges and avoid admitting failure. Republicans will likely be attacked as saboteurs for resisting bailout payments, but that misses the point. Direct corporate welfare to bribe companies to participate in a poorly designed program is throwing good money after bad, masking rather than fixing problems while the cost to taxpayers climbs into the stratosphere. We won’t be able to get to a real solution until we acknowledge that Obamacare is too rigidly structured and regulated to offer products people actually want, and needs to be reformed or replaced with genuine, functioning markets that give us a much wider variety of plans with different benefit packages, provider networks, and payment structures. Before that can happen, Obamacare supporters need to be held accountable for the law’s manifest failures – not permitted to paper them over with billions more of our tax dollars. Phil Kerpen is head of American Commitment and a leading free-market policy analyst and advocate in Washington. Kerpen was the principal policy and legislative strategist at Americans for Prosperity for over five years. He previously worked at the Free Enterprise Fund, the Club for Growth, and the Cato Institute. Kerpen is also a nationally syndicated columnist, chairman of the Internet Freedom Coalition, and author of the 2011 book "Democracy Denied."
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#23. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
It doesn't work because it demands enslaving people to pay for other people. They can uses tricks like deflating the dollar so people have to work harder for less. Borrow/print money until other countries get tired of the game. In the end it will come crashing down. I guess the fact that the socialist have not only brought down the dollar so much that they actually are now paying special groups to take the money(negative rates). Yes sounds like utopia is working well!/s As long as we are on this earth life will be hard. Deal with it! Trying to make heaven out of this earth by cheating the system will only bring heart ache. What is the old saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".
Paying taxes of around 7% and getting valuable social insurance in return is not slavery. The problem you Republicans have is that your rhetoric is so ridiculous and over-the-top that nobody believes it but you, and the fact you persist with it causes you to seal yourselves off into a fever swamp of crazy. Slavery is slavery. Social Security and Medicare taxes are not slavery.
We DO deal with it. Universal public education, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security and now, universal health insurance, are our ways of "dealing with it". They work better than the alternative of not having them, and the vast majority of people know that, which is why your view is in the severe minority, always will be, and never wins.
Well, there's Canada and the United States, various well-to-do islands in the Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica also have m Latin America mostly has universal public education and Social Security. Mexico and almost all of Latin America (except for the very poorest of nations) has Social Security. In fact, every single country in the Americas has Social Security, and every country in the Americas except for Bermuda (really rich, no poverty) and Haiti - the poorest country of all - has public health assistance. So no, Social Security and health coverage, at least of the poor, is not something restricted to Europe. The whole free world has it. The places that don't have it are Africa and much of Asia - the saddest, poorest places in the world with the lowest life expectancies. You hate an IDEA - the IDEA of partial redistribution of wealth to ensure that everybody has at least a basic minimum of support and medicine. Your opposition is not based on actual economic performance: truth is, all of the highest performing economies in the world, and all of the places that have high longevity, have some form of Social Security and public health and education. And the places that do not have these things all have much lower standards of living, much shorter lives and high illiteracy rate. The modern social welfare state has been adopted in most of the world, and is the REASON that most of the world no longer dwells in abject poverty. In America, the few countries that don't have reasonable social welfare are also the ones in turmoil and the worst poverty - not coincidentally. The LACK of the basics means that people revolt. Want civil peace? Then you need social welfare. You'll never accept the facts. Republicans never do. It's why you lose. Even if the Democrat is execrable, like Hillary Clinton, people STILL face the choice of voting for an execrable human being, even a criminal, versus voting for boneheads who want to destroy the social welfare state. They grimace and vote to retain what all sensible people know we have to maintain. And the Republicans dwindle in number with each election, and rage from the fever swamps. Social Welfare works. The problem in Venezuela and similar places, and the United States for that matter, is the desire to give EXCESSIVE benefits to the politically favored. You Republicans have no sense of proportion. The need to house, feed, educate and ensure medical care for everybody doesn't mean that everybody needs to live in a mansion, drive a Mercedes, eat caviar, drink champagne and get a boob job at government expense. The alternative to insane profligacy is not penury, it's moderation. Sensible people understand the need for moderate, broad, universal social welfare programs, paid for by taxes. And they know full well that it's no Utopia. America, Finland, France, Japan, Mexico and Argentina are not Utopias by any means. But they're a damn sight better than Haiti, the Kongo, sub-Saharan Africa, and all of the backwards and hungry parts of Asia. Zero is not the alternative to "too much", but that's what you suggest we should have: zero. Republican beliefs on Social Security and other social protections are very Hindu (the poor deserve what they get) and not very Christian.
First off, I'm not a republican. And just as an aside, you never answered my question from upthread: I'll rephrase it here: 1. In the "single payer" nirvana you envision, who employs the health care workers? Related question - who pays for their years of training and education? 2. How does one "attract" the best and the brightest to these fields - especially when all they can expect to be paid is government wages? Now to return to our regularly scheduled program. I'll repeat - I am not a republican. Since I don't care if republicans "win" or "lose" it's not a case of me winning or losing. Given our current financial trajectory however and statists like the current Ds and Rs (and you, apparently) in charge, the country will be the loser. People will vote for Hil-liar-y Xlinton for a couple of reasons: One, she's a D - and for about 40 percent of voters that is enough. Thanks to the teachers' unions (who have taken over your "vaunted" public education system), people have been indoctrinated (not educated) for the last half century or so. No one is educated in classical liberal arts - things like history. Certainly not US history. And people ignorant of US history are PERFECT Xlinton voters. I also am curious as to why you wish to categorize those of us who simply wish for gov't to pay for benefits it decides to provide (vs. drowning us in red-ink) as "boneheads". Perhaps I missed exactly which republicans were "raging" from the swamps. Would it be Mitch the turtle McConnell - who just gave Obama and the democrats everything they wanted. Likewise Paul Ryan, and before him John "weepy" Boehner? The only vile comments ever directed out of the mouths of these hacks were toward members of their own party - not Obama. Who get's to define moderation? A politician looking for votes? (You've already convinced me the Constitution is old, outdated, and a relic. Which means we're a nation of men, not laws.) So once again - who gets to decide modeeration? Wake me up when one of the statist politicians you love so much has the guts to come up with a way to address the deficit and actually pay for the programs you propose. Till then, it's just mindless jabber and more of the same "kick the can down the road" crap we've heard from the ruling party. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
Dealing with it is not stealing from hard working people to fund your desires. Where does it stop? Progressives are like the camel in the tent. You start out innocently but before you know it the whole herd is in the tent and the humans are outside in the weather. They work better than the alternative of not having them, The only reason why people do not have it is because government got involved and now what cost 300 a month now cost 800 a month and you get less for what you pay for. If im in the minority then this country will collapse because there will be a point which its cheaper to get government gifts than to go and earn it! Let me tell you I would love to stay at home and make babies and not have to pay for a damn thing.
Paying taxes of around 7% and getting valuable social insurance in return is not slavery. Thats just part of it. Its the straw that breaks the camels back. We pay 50+% in taxes. The rich pay less and the poor pay less but the hard working middle class pays the most percentage of their income in taxes. No one ever considers the hidden taxes. Slavery is slavery. Social Security and Medicare taxes are not slavery. Really how can I opt out? I have to pay taxes so people can get freebee's without having representation. Progressives will never get this and thats one of many reasons why they should never be allowed to have power. Government is a filter a restrictor of rights and freedoms. Like I said "hell is paved with good intentions". Its amazing how 1% on income tax for the filthy rich turned into such anchor around the middle class! 90% of us want the best for all. But that means different things to people. Conservatives want to bring people up with standards and hard work whereas progressives want to restrict and hold down people so others can be equivalent. You really need to seek help because you have some crazy notion its okay to steal wealth in the name of God. Robinhood with all his good intention is still a crook. Godly men give freely whereas unGodly mean steal in the name of God.
The reports coming out of Venezuela are terrible. Socialism running its full coarse. I wonder how many women have turned to prostitution to survive? I wonder how many people have turned to stealing to survive? I wonder how many people have had to murder to survive? I just do not see socialism as something God would like. The evil that it brings is not measurable.
This was born from the Paultard "the lessor of two evils" bullshit propaganda. All those famous yella sales pitches to force the other 97% of America to vote for a kook. Now we have this bullshit... but hey, the republican didn't win, and that's all that a libtarded pothead Paultard cares about. Trump will kick them all in the balls until their bongs break. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
Yes. Justice should be administered. Example: French Revolution. Si vis pacem, para bellum Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us. President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood "I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
2. How does one "attract" the best and the brightest to these fields - especially when all they can expect to be paid is government wages? The way they do it everywhere else.
Taxation through the votes of democratically elected legislatures is not theft. It's not tyranny either.
Taxation with representation is not tyranny or theft. It stops where the people through their elected representatives decide to draw the line.
Not true. I knew a guy that claimed he was disabled. He never held a job. Lived off of his Mom & Dad. After 3 or 4 years, a lawyer was able to get him "disability". Call it what you want, his checks came from SS. He was in his late 30's. He even initially got a check for " back payments " in the amount of $50,000.00. He promptly had a party, bought a large amount of booze, food, drugs for all in his neighborhood. He also, while blasted out of his mind, burned a $100.00 bill, because "he always wanted to do that". Our tax dollars at work. Si vis pacem, para bellum Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us. President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood "I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
VICOMTE13 The way they do it everywhere else. Non answer to the first question and its corollary. And if it's intended to be your answer to the second question, it makes no sense until you address the first. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
And if it's intended to be your answer to the second question, it makes no sense until you address the first. Alright, so do you want to have a discussion of health care, a real discussion? Or do you just want to take cheap shots and play games? I don't envision any sort of "Nirvana". I live in the real world, and favor pragmatic solutions to the real world. Ideology has its place, but where ideology interferes with reality, I chuck ideology in favor of reality. A starter in having a real discussion is a degree of respect. I have no real interest in engaging, on my side, in a discussion with a man who is just going to sneer and make snide remarks. It's a waste of my time. If the position that you're coming from is one of "I don't see how this can work or be paid for, but I'm interested in what you have to say", it's worthwhile to have a discussion. If it's "You're a socialist moron and whatever you say will have no value", which is the impression you send calling a very pragmatic person a nirvana- seeking dreamer, then that game is not worth the candle from my perspective. I don't mind having a discussion with people who have very disparate viewpoints. But it's a waste of my time to try to have a serious talk with people who feel the need to insult and demean the person they're talking with in every question. I don't recognize any moral or intellectual superiority in the Right, so I don't have to answer your questions with my hat in my hand. And because the world is ultimately determined by power, and it is flowing in the general direction of what I want and away from what you want, I don't have to explain anything. I could just answer "You'll see" and that will be that, because you will see. So if you want a discussion - to actually know how and why a single payer system can work - I am willing to have that discussion and answer your questions. If you're just seeking to be an adolescent jerk and call names, then I'm uninterested in taking the time and effort that it takes to write out serious things about complicated subjects.
I believe I did refer to you as a "statist" - which simply is someone who believes in the power of "The State" to solve pretty much any problem. I don't mean it or intend it to be a pejorative term. Radio host Mark Levin uses it frequently - that's where I first heard it. When I use it, it's just meant to be shorthand. I consider all Ds and most Rs "statists" since the "go to" for them is always more government. For the record - in my 16 or so years in posting online I have never called anyone a moron. You see yourself as pragmatic. Okay. Let's continue the discussion, then. You seem intelligent - you certainly are verbose (again, just an observation. Not meant as a dig) Therefore, I am interested in what you have to say on the subject. I think we left off at you're in favor of a single payer, government run health care system. You believe taxes can be raised to a point that it can be paid for. Do I have your opinion summarized correctly thus far? Here are three problems I see. I have more, but we can start with these. You can choose to respond (or not): 1. The government is currently trillions of dollars in debt. Granted - I do not pretend to understand government economics, nor do I have the mind that can grasp numbers of that scale. Be that as it may, I have a problem - given the debt - of adding even ADDITIONAL burdens to it. 2. Health care providers - particularly doctors - tend to make large salaries - definitely in multiple six-figures. On the flip side of that however is the expense of getting to the point where one IS a doctor (the years of training PLUS the hundreds of thousand dollars expense.) These health care positions currently exist in the private sector. Do you propose leaving them in the private sector (and how would that work if it's GOVERNMENT RUN health care). If not - if you think making them government jobs is a good idea - then how can the salaries compete to make them atractive to the "best and the brightest" 3. There is currently a shortage of doctors and health care workers in general. It is only projected to get worse, as more doctors retire early (before O-care is completely implemented) and demand skyrockets. Given those conditions, I see long-lines for even the most rudimentary of medical procedures - and for more serious ones perhaps a life and death situation. (See the V.A.) Can you convince me I am in error? Again, I am sorry my use of the word "nirvana" offended. Utopia had been overused to that point, I'm afraid, and I was searching for some variety. And I already explained "statist". Never claimed to be morally superior to anyone. Don't know where that's coming from. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
Taxation through the votes of democratically elected legislatures is not theft. It's not tyranny either. Taking money by force is theft. Taking money from one group and giving to another without the consent of the first group is theft when force or the threat of force is used. Im not sure where you live but thats just flat extortion! We have long left the road of "for the betterment of man" and into the crony capitalism ie socialism.
Just keep telling yourself this. Taxation(borrowing/printing/confiscation) is nothing more than payoffs and bribery anymore. Your idealism is clouding your judgement. Government's crony capitalism has so distorted the income of America that people who are sucking of tit of government make much more than would otherwise be which has so destroyed the free market that Im not sure how it will ever be repaired short of a total economic meltdown. There is no capitalism left in America.
Taxation in a democratic republic is not theft.
And whose fault is that? If you systematically, as a dogmatic ideological matter, refuse to take care of all of your people, you accumulate a large mass of struggling, desperate people. If enough are suffering, they have the numbers to act, and they DO act. And when they do, your ideology is shoved aside for theirs. In the 1920s, the stock market and banks were essentially unregulated. They blew a massive bubble, then crashed. The Federal Reserve intervened in ways that did not successfully address the situation. Meanwhile, there was massive unemployment, massive poverty and massive suffering. Nobody would do anything about it, and when they tried, the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional. So the people got fed up, after years and years of suffering, and elected FDR, and he came in, and capitalism was significantly regulated, altered, taxed, reigned in. The same thing happened with racial segregation. The loss of liberty of businesses to decide which members of the public with whom they can choose to do business stems directly from the fact that a whole quadrant of the country was full of businessmen who simply decided that they would not do business with black people - or let them in their businesses. This is obnoxious, and so the people intervened, and the wings of business liberty were further clipped. You have the right to decide who you serve, but only to a point. If you decide that you won't serve blacks, you have exceeded your rights. That logic has now been extended to gays. Now, the rule is that if you're open to the stream of commerce, you do NOT have the right to decide whom you will serve, for any reason and no reason. You have no right to refuse to serve blacks, or women, or gays. Had the racists not abused the blacks, people would have not lost the right to decide whom they must serve. But because of the way that people chose to, en masse, abuse that right, that right was taken away. Abuse it and lose it. Capitalists without regulation chose to pour mercury into the waters and to poison the air, and to put chains on fire exits so that employees could not shirk. Then a fire happened and a lot of employees were burnt alive because they could not escape. And the air became dirty and the fish died. Net result, capitalism had its wings clipped further, now forcing it to provide safe working conditions, and imposing environmental regulations upon it. Had the capitalists done the right thing from the beginning, it would not have been reigned back. But the capitalists didn't do the right thing with their liberty. They abused it and abused others in the process. So they lost a lot of that freedom, since they didn't handle it responsibly.
You do realize your statement could be turned around: Question: Who is it left up to - to see that the anti-capitalists lose their power, since they didn't handle it responsibly? "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
"It" is always left up to power. Everywhere. In every time. In every nation. One can talk in abstractions and theories as much as one likes, but there will be rules, there will be money flows, and they will be controlled by those with power. Over time, power drifts to those with the numbers - God is generally on the side of the bigger battalions. For a time, a cabal here, a junta there, can seize power and do as they please. This happens in many countries. A decade, two, three sometimes these rulers and their little oligarchy lasts. But over time, they age, and as they age and weaken, others challenge them. Meanwhile, underneath, there is the relentless, steady pressure of human need that affects a huge swath of the population. That also represents a unique, large, strong interest, one that cannot be suppressed and disregarded forever. The left-wing dictators who cater to what the public needs tend to live longer and have power longer than the right-wingers who despise the people. The Castros will die in office. Pinochet nearly died in prison. If one decides to make a career out of ignoring what people need, sooner or later one will lose power and not get it back. Conversely, if one seeks to get the people what they need, even if one slips for a time, after that time, the people bring them back. All of the right wing dictators of Latin America in the 1830s and 1940s were eventually driven out, never to return. But though the aristocracy drove out the left wing dictator Juan Peron in Argentina, the people brought him back over a decade later. People's needs do not go away, and the only reliable, permanent power base that can be built in politics must be built on that fact. Build it on anything else, and sooner or later the power derived from the needs of the People will drive you out. The set of the current will keep pushing those who tend to the People back to power. A war can put a war leader on top, but once the war is over, he is out and his party is out, back in favor of the people who tend to the needs of the People. An incompetent leader can lose the flagship office, but the set of the current below continues to be with the party that tends to the needs of the People. One can play tricks to win elections, but one has to keep on playing such tricks to hold out against the People, and once the People have their people return to power, the justice, or revenge, is inevitable. Capitalism or anti-capitalism are the sources of power, but the relentless current of needs that drive the People along in their daily lives are always the source of greater, more enduring power. That is why the party of FDR, and the focus of FDR, established a permanent, unalterable new river bed for American politics. He was elected to four terms because he was the first President to focus directly on using government power to directly tend to the needs of a suffering people, and to use the power of taxation and spending to redistribute wealth to provide for the most crying of needs. Because the leaders of every other major country in the world failed to do so, and instead focused on armament and nationalism - but would not clip the wings of their oligarchies - the rest of the countries plunged into war, which ultimately FDR also won, once we were dragged into it. There is no answer from the Right OR the farther Left to what Roosevelt did. He tapped directly into the greatest source of human power and was, therefore, politically invincible and could do no wrong in the eyes of the vast majority of the People. It's why he was the greatest American President of the century, and why the others tried to emulate him in some fashion.
You make a good case for your point of view. I'm curious however as to how you factor in basic human shortcomings (i.e. sin?) Let's look at and compare the "greedy capitalist" vs. the "corrupt politician." I think we'll agree that they have more in common than not. The greedy capitalist does what he does to satisfy a basic human trait - greed. That is basic, but it is not to say greedy capitalists have not evolved over the years. The robber barons of the late 19th early 20th centuries got to where they were by providing something "for the masses" - be it oil, steel, railroads or automobiles. They did whatever they had to do to keep the wealth rolling in and acquire more of it. When their names were sullied - as in the case of Andrew Carnegie - they created "foundations" to placate the masses. These foundations themselves evolved to shelter their riches. It can be argued whether or not the robber barons of today - the Gates, Buffets, Soros, et.al. - produce anything as tangible as oil or steel. In these days of leveraged buyouts, selling short, and international intrigue, who can tell? But they have - unlike those of old - put aside their disdain for big powerful centralized goverment (at least on the surface), and embraced it wholeheartedly. In fact, "big government" is just another tool in their arsenal. Which brings us to the "corrupt politician". He too does what he does to satisfy a basic human trait - in this case lust for power. Unlike the robber baron capitalist, he produces nothing tangible (in that regard, he may have more in common with the modern day capitalist) He spends money that is not his. He passes laws that he doesn't have to live under. All at the same time convincing those who support him that he has their best interests at heart. If he's good at what he does (say reading a teleprompter or feigning empathy), he's rewarded with even MORE power. So can we at least agree that - morally - one is not superior to the other? Obama care's bastard love-child, single payer, will soon be the law of the land. As you say, it is in the interests of the powerful and the connected to (as Jean-Luc Picard would say) "make it so." One more point - and then I'll be done Sine waves occur in nature - everything seems to be cyclical. Ebbs and flows, ups and downs, etc. Needs are addressed, and then corrected. And then over-corrected. And then the masses have to address the over- correction. And that gets corrected. And then over-corrected. And the cycle continues. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
What you say about corrupt politicians and business leaders is certainly true, and always has been, but I would have to modify what you said about sine waves. It is true that in human affairs there are oscillations around a center point, but that center point does not remain static over the years. Rather, over time, it moves inexorably in the direction of what is best for meeting the needs of the great mass of people. An example: FDR established Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Farm Subsidies and the GI Bill. Ike was elected as a Republican, but he did not tamper with any of those programs. LBJ established Medicare and Medicaid. Nixon established Affirmative Action. Reagan was the "right wing revanche". It was "Morning in America" again, and he went about attacking the "overgrown state". And he controlled the Supreme Court and the Senate, in addition to the White House. The pendulum had swung back! Except that Reagan did not touch any of those programs: Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, the GI Bill, Farm Subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid - they all remained exactly as they were. All that Reagan did was cut taxes, temporarily, without cutting any programs, and with increasing the size of the military. The net result was the greatest explosion of debt in American history up to that point. And also, huge popularity for a "right wing" Republican President. Reagan was, in fact, a militarist populist. He spoke in terms of free market economics, and he did deregulate the Savings & Loan industry...to his sorrow. As a direct result, it went corrupt and blew apart on his watch, at a cost of half a trillion dollars to the US Treasury. So, Reagan DID reward a certain set of crony capitalists, and he DID reward the rich by cutting their taxes, but the Reagan Revolution was unable to change one single feature of the social welfare state. What the people had gained could not be taken back. No President since has attempted it. Bush 43 expanded it, with Medicare prescription drug benefits, because prescription drug prices were so out of hand that tens of millions of people were suffering. By doing so, he won re-election. Had he refused to do so, the Democrats would have offered it, and the screaming need for economic relief would have resulted in retirees voting en masse for the Democrat who offered the drug benefit. Obama has established the principle of universal government-paid health insurance. And that will never be reversed, not ever. The people won it. The people need it. And the people, having gained it, will never, ever give it back. When Ronald Reagan attempted to tamper with Social Security, the backlash caused the collapse of his popularity and would have resulted in his being run from the White House in 1984. He would have been a failed President. So he pivoted, caved completely, and thereafter became a great champion of Social Security, never, ever again even suggesting touching it. He just ordered the Treasury to print money, bought the oligarchs with tax breaks, and got the public support by a muscular foreign policy, optimism and the temporary economic boom caused by deregulation and tax cuts. His VP, Bush, lost re-election because by the time HW Bush took office on his first term, the country was already in an economic recession because Reagan's irresponsible tax cut bubble and deregulation bubble had burst spectacularly, and Bush had no tools to right the ship. Clinton reformed welfare, but that was in good economic times. With the bust, the restrictions of welfare reform were removed, and the programs expanded to provide for the millions and millions of Americans stranded by the financial crisis. The sine wave oscillates around a center point, but over time the center point always moves linearly in the direction of social welfare, and it never (ever, ever, not even once) goes back. People are ultimately power, and in modern industrial society, where most working people live in rented property and do not have farms by which to feed themselves, social welfare (including middle class welfare such as Social Security, Disability, Workers Comp, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare and Universal Public education) is fundamental to their lifestyles. It cannot be changed. It will not be changed. And it SHOULD not be changed. I see right wingers make "moral" points against Social Security. It's like the drug nuts saying we should legalize heroin. It's a marginal position, it's stupid, and if we ever really did it, the very people advocating it would all end up - ALL OF THEM - in destitution in their old age, with their lifespans cut by 10-15 years. They rail on, but they're flat earthers. The USSR is another case study. Its military empire overreached and it collapsed, but government did not disappear. It became Russia. And in broke, new Russia, Social Security, universal health care, universal public education all remained. With a broken economy the amounts were not significant enough to sustain the standard of living of the old USSR, so life expectancies declined by 15 years. But there were still checks coming and bare subsistence in food. Had social welfare stopped being paid, 70 million Russians would have starved to death. Nazi Germany inherited a social welfare system from the Deutsches Reich that preceded it. They did not undo it. The Nazi government fell and the Bundesrepublik was born, but the social welfare programs of the Third Reich, and the Deutsches Reich before it, always continued. Once in place, social welfare never, ever is turned off again. It is fundamental for the physical survival of the population, they know it, and it cannot ever be turned off without mass starvation - and violent revolution. These are the realities of the world, and they will never change. I am a realist. Now, because I'm a nationalist, and a militarist, and morally conservative, I've always identified with the Right and not the Left. That's why I was on Free Republic, and here, and why I was the founder and first President of the Columbia Law School Republican Club, right in the heart of New York City, back in the 1990s. There was none - I stood up and proudly did it, and took some flak too. I believe in conservative Catholic morality, and in strong national defense. Republican economics, when it has focused on expanding the economy, has been fine. But Reaganomics were really stupid. Deregulating the financial industry results in a boom, followed inevitably by a spectacular crash because of corruption. Reagan was not stimulating the economy - he sold out the American people to the short term private profit of crony capitalists in the Savings and Loan industry, and delivered a half-trillion dollar insurance bill to the American people when it all crashed - as an unregulated financial industry inevitably does. I think Reagan was sincere, but he was pretty dumb when it came to economics. Today, we're on the cusp of an election. Trump always favored single-payer, but is trying to find a free-market solution to saving Obamacare. Hillary will go straight to single payer. What will not happen is the repeal of universal health insurance. Fools on the Right want that, but they are the minority of the people, and they will never, ever get it - and though they will never admit it, they will also benefit from its existence. It's sort of like the first American welfare program: universal public education. There are people who rail against it. 90% of them are literate solely BECAUSE it exists. Their parents did not have the means to buy them private schooling. So, we can be sympathetic to people who are cranky and who need to complain about the corruption, excess and mismanagement of social welfare programs. But we cannot go so far as to ever check into the Roach Motel of Insanity by joining those misguided souls who actually seriously want to dismantle it. Reagan, to his credit, realized that Social Security was untouchable when he nearly wrecked his Presidency trying to change it. After that, he was always its greatest champion. The rational political discussion should be how to properly fund the government, keep down corruption and provide for the needs. Trying to figure out how to dismantle the social welfare state is a fool's errand. It's fighting the full power of the People on an issue that is, for the people, a matter of literal life and death. The People cannot be defeated, not ever, and they have never been - not in any Western or Latin country, not in the Soviet Union or Russia, not in the Third Reich, not ever. The policies I myself advocate recognize reality, and move directly towards the endgame, so that the supports that are inefficiently and haphazardly provided to the people, spottily and at greater than necessary expense, are addressed comprehensively and as permanently as possible, with the full understanding that these are not temporary programs to cover a crisis, but intended to be permanent and sustainable. The objective would be to get away from temporary poverty relief in favor of permanent basic social benefits.
I won't have time to respond to the extent I'd like, but I've highlighted one area that is worth a discussion on its own. Considering the current debt in the US and no political party or individual seemingly even willing to address the issue, it's good place to start. Later . . . "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
Taxation in a democratic republic is not theft. It is if you are the one doing all the giving and working. While nearly 50% do not pay and do nothing but take. If you decide no more then government will send its people with guns to get you and take everything you have including your life for what? Your money! At least with street extortionist you can fight back and be called a hero but never against a crooked socialist system of extorting from hard working people. We already pay enough in taxes. This is beyond taxation and about killing the middle class. Truth is there is never enough money to be gotten by taxation to satisfy the socialist because it has nothing to do with taxation but control. You give them everything they want and next year they will ask for more until you have none or pay them on the side to give you a tax loophole. Government is not the answer and never can be the answer. Its just a necessary evil we must use for peace among the people.
And whose fault is that? Thats an answer that is quiet big. First we gave into government thinking it was the answer to the problem and it was not. All it did was take and take and take and give and promoted the corrupted. The answer has always been trust in God. We didn't like that answer so we trusted in man and govenrment. Which again failed us. If your such a man of faith why do you not have faith in God but Government instead?
That is not true. The homeless guy who has no income and no welfare benefits lives off of soup kitchens and begging. When he goes and buys something with the money people give him, he pays sales taxes. When he buys alcohol, he pays state and federal excise taxes. When he buys cigarettes, he pays state and federal excise taxes. All in, he pays about 20% of his begging income as taxes. Cigarette and Alcohol taxes are very, very high. The little kid whose mom gives him money for candy pays taxes on the candy. Everybody pays taxes. There is nobody not paying taxes. There are no freeloaders in society - none. There are people who earn more and pay more taxes. There are people who earn nothing, and they STILL pay taxes when they buy anything. Everybody is a taxpayer. So all of the argument that follows from "nearly 50% do not pay and do nothing but take" is just hooey, because 100% pay taxes. The income tax is not the world of taxes. It's only about a third of al taxes collected, actually. Taxes that are not income taxes account for two-thirds of taxes paid.
I have faith in God. God's law: the land is given, for free, to each individual, as a birthright, and cannot be taken even to collect debt, or taxes, or as punishment. So, there's the start: HOUSING IS FREE. That's the FIRST ECONOMIC LAW OF GOD. And the second is: money cannot be lent at interest for primary human needs, and the poor have the RIGHT to borrow it, at zero interest, to be repaid over seven years. And in the seventh year, the debt is FORGIVEN and wiped clean. God's THIRD law of economics is: 10% of excess production is given to the clergy for poverty relief, not as voluntary charity, but as mandatory, enforceable taxation, without deductions. I am very well content with God's laws of economics, and would impose them as the law of the land if I were King. I have never met a single other Christian who was willing to submit to God on economic matters, but I have had a lot of Christians lie to me about what God actually said on the matter, pretending that God did not impose those three laws. He did. Christians, and Jews, and just about everybody else, absolutely DETEST God's law of money and land and debt and economics. They detest it, and they say it is impossible and unworkable, and thereby they call God an ignoramus who doesn't understand how the real world works. All of my resort to simple welfare and Social Security is an ALLOWANCE to evil Christians and evil Jews who defy God outright, lie about what he said, and who categorically refuse to EVEN CONSIDER God's ACTUAL Law of economics. So, you wanna talk about God's and God's law? THAT IS WHAT I FAVOR! Free housing without debt as a birthright, mandatory lending at zero interest to cover human needs that cannot otherwise be paid, absolute debt forgiveness of such lending in the seventh year, no confiscation of housing for taxation, or for debt collection, or as punishment for crime. The birthright to the piece of land for housing is superior to all economic, criminal or national law. It is an absolute title that is not subject to government override, including for national emergencies or as punishment for treason. In that case, you execute the criminal and his heirs get the land. So, if you really want to live under the Law of God, I am way ahead of you. I know that law, and as I said, that is the law I would impose as a godly King. But I think that you don't want to have ANYTHING TO DO WITH GOD when it comes to his economic law. And I think that most Christians, given a choice between obeying God's economic laws and walking away from God, would walk away from God. What Christians do instead is IGNORE God's economic law and PRETEND they are following God. Which is hypocrisy. I'm not a hypocrite. I'm a realist. Christians will not obey God. I would, but they won't. Therefore, I work with the people I've got and settle for the lesser solution of public welfare through taxation. It would be MUCH BETTER to go straight with the law of God. But YOU will never go there. And you'll even pretend at length that God's law isn't really God's law, and blah, blah, blah, all of those lies that Christians have told themselves for centuries, which is why nobody takes them seriously.
Thats hidden tax which is a whole other argument. So all of the argument that follows from "nearly 50% do not pay and do nothing but take" is just hooey, Income tax is only paid if you make above a certain about per person you claim as a dependent. 50% do not pay income tax(Clarified for you). As for hidden taxes look to the socialist/progressives if you want to argue that point. I have many times told people the hidden tax stifling. The fact is we are way over taxed which means government is way to big. Taxes are about controlling society by a few elites who get to determine who gets taxed and why. Once you understand this taxation is easy. The least control govenrment has on people the freer they are to live.
Then why do you insist on placing government between God and the people? If govenrment is taxing people so much that they have to work all the time. Women have to work with the husband to make ends meet then its too much! So, there's the start: HOUSING IS FREE. Nothing has ever been free but government did not build it people did and corrupt government is trying to steal it from the hard working people through taxation and regulations. I can not put it any simpler than this. The problem here and for most progressive socialist[communist Christians] is that you look to government for the answer and a Godly man looks to God for answers. So where does your faith lie? God or Government?
God ran a nation once. And the foundation of that nation was an assignment of the land, unalienably, to the people, by family, for free.
There's nothing "Hidden" about sales taxes or property taxes. I have had folks who did not want to admit that the poor pay taxes argue with me that car registration fees are not "taxes", but they are. I don't need to "argue" anything. My point is, and has always been, that everybody pays taxes, and therefore everybody has a stake. I understand that many people treat income taxes as though they are special, different, and the only real taxes. This is not a viable position, and I won't argue it with anybody because it's a waste of time. Because all of these things are taxes, I treat them all the same, and I look at the aggregate total of money that comes out of people's hides, not the simple income tax, because it is only the smaller piece of taxes most people pay. Social Security and Medicare tax are not income taxes, they are taxes on WAGES, just wages, and the Social Security tax is highly regressive, hitting the first dollar of wages with no deduction, but ceasing to apply to wages once they are high. That is a class-based tax, but I did not make it so - it IS so, and it particularly hits the lower and middle classes. Likewise, property tax on homes, car registration taxes and sales taxes all aim at middle class and working class wealth and necessities. The income sources for the upper class are mostly capital gains and dividends, and these sources of income have the lowest taxes of all income sources. That form of property is not hit with sales taxes or property taxes, or social security or Medicare taxes. That is why Romney pays lower taxes, as a percentage of his income, and FAR lower taxes as a percentage of his gross wealth, than his secretary. The system is rigged that way by the rich, and it is not morally defensible. That, in turn, is why I support replacing all taxes with a flat gross wealth tax of about 2.5%, without deductions. Gross wealth taxation is completely fair, it is not regressive (it is flat), and it distributes the burden evenly on everyone per dollar of wealth. Those with more wealth do not pay more taxes as a percentage of their wealth than those with less, but there are no loopholes and games. That is fair on the revenue side. On the expenditure side - that is where things really need to change if we are to sustain a budget.
Im not sure what this has to do with anything? He told people how to live and left it up to them to live.
You do not pay taxes if you are given money from other peoples taxes. I don't need to "argue" anything. My point is, and has always been, that everybody pays taxes, and therefore everybody has a stake. 50% plus do not pay income tax. Thats just a fact. The tax system is broken and those that want to keep raising taxes are nuts. If $3.5 Trillion dollars is not enough to run the federal govenrment alone then what amount is enough? Tax is not about money but about control of one group over another by using the power of taxation. God only ask 10% which should be more than enough for government but it never is enough. To some 100% is not enough. Forced robinhood will not work and will always cause resentment. Im not sure how you fix such a broken system. Socialism has just destroyed capitalism. Sad.
Of course you're not. And yet you'll wield "God" against me in an argument, as if "God" is supposed to somehow force me to do and think and believe this or that. But when I wield God, what God ACTUALLY SAID, and ACTUALLY DID, it's of no consequence and irrelevant. In truth, we are both nobodies, and any conversation we have about anything is also of no consequence and irrelevant. So why even bother to have it? There is no reason to at all. Everything will be determined by power. Neither you nor I have any, and to the extent that supernatural power COULD be harnessed to help the weak, it's a cinch that God will offer no help whatsoever to people who don't think that what he said or did is of any consequence. God, please lend your power to my weakness so that my will can be done, but yours is irrelevant and of no interest to me? That has never worked, and never will. So, our masters will be the ones with the money on this earth. and what they want is clear. We will have President Clinton, and she will do all of those things she has said I'm already adjusting my mind to that reality, to numb myself to it. I won't be out there screaming and bleeding out the eyes and ears when it happened. I invoked the ONLY POWER that could help, and everybody has essentially told God to fuck off. So I know there will be no help from that vector. I also know that the ridiculous bullshit the Right Wingers CLAIM is the will of God bears no resemblance to what God ACTUALLY SAID and ACTUALLY DID. THAT I have studied extensively, and thought about, and it's about 120 degrees (not quite 180) out from what the Right says. So I know that the Right will be defeated, having no appreciable allies in God OR men. Simply being the weaker, poorer side of a debate - with neither the morality to make them acceptable NOR the money to make their will stick. They just make noise and then lose. I'm content to let them. Men will not listen to God, and if they won't listen to God they're CERTAINLY not going to listen to ME, so it's all pointless.
Actually, slavery destroyed American capitalism. But really, these conversations are just pointless. Signing off.
No I just point out that you are doing the devils bid by forcing others to be over taxed and over regulated because you somehow think Government is God. God is God and he told you how to live. Using government to force compliance in some vindictive manner is my problem. Even if you are pure as a snow flake others are not and they will use that power you so desire to do good to do far more harm that could ever be done in good. Like I said the road to hell is littered with good deeds!
Why only America? Every country upon this earth has seen slavery. Why is it only America that is to be punished with crimes of slavery? But really, these conversations are just pointless. I agree. But I will leave you with this because I can not be any clearer or more concise. The difference between us is you believe in the benevolent of government and are willing to surrender all to it but your above statement proves govenrment can never be trusted and the real power should be left to the individual with govenrment only having the power to regulate basic human rights.
Ever met God? I have. Our conversation is already bearing bad fruit. Notably, the line I quoted above. So let's end it now.
Comments (64 - 96) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestYou have it exactly backwards. It works in every major developed country in the world. The countries that do not have social security and health care systems and universal education are the shitholes.
#24. To: Justified (#23)
It doesn't work because it demands enslaving people to pay for other people.
#25. To: Justified (#23)
As long as we are on this earth life will be hard. Deal with it!
#26. To: Rufus T Firefly (#21)
Most of those developed countries that are so "progressive" are in Western Europe, are they not?
#27. To: Vicomte13 (#26)
(Edited)
You'll never accept the facts. Republicans never do. It's why you lose.
Even if the Democrat is execrable, like Hillary Clinton, people STILL face the choice of voting for an execrable human being, even a criminal, versus voting for boneheads who want to destroy the social welfare state.
They grimace and vote to retain what all sensible people know we have to maintain. And the Republicans dwindle in number with each election, and rage from the fever swamps.
Social Welfare works.
The problem in Venezuela and similar places, and the United States for that matter, is the desire to give EXCESSIVE benefits to the politically favored.
Since you mentioned Venezuela . . . 
You Republicans have no sense of proportion.
{sigh} You know, if republicans didn't exist, statists would have to invent them. Strawman much? The need to house, feed, educate and ensure medical care for everybody doesn't mean that everybody needs to live in a mansion, drive a Mercedes, eat caviar, drink champagne and get a boob job at government expense.
Who decides? Once we go down the "it's not fair that somebody has more than me" route, the sky's the limit. The alternative to insane profligacy is not penury, it's moderation.
Sensible people understand the need for moderate, broad, universal social welfare programs, paid for by taxes. And they know full well that it's no Utopia. America, Finland, France, Japan, Mexico and Argentina are not Utopias by any means. But they're a damn sight better than Haiti, the Kongo, sub-Saharan Africa, and all of the backwards and hungry parts of Asia.
Zero is not the alternative to "too much", but that's what you suggest we should have: zero.
Uh-huh. Nice try, but "nyet." Never suggested there be zero - just that when benefits are doled out we should't be doing it with debt financed by the likes of China. Republican beliefs on Social Security and other social protections are very Hindu (the poor deserve what they get) and not very Christian.
First I was mis-labeled a republican - now I'm a Hindu. Wait til the tell the people at my traditional protestant church.
#28. To: Vicomte13 (#25)
We DO deal with it.
#29. To: Vicomte13 (#24)
It doesn't work because it demands enslaving people to pay for other people.
#30. To: Rufus T Firefly, Vicomte13 (#27)
#31. To: Justified (#0)
(Edited)
Taxpayers on the Hook as Obamacare Exchanges Near the Edge of Collapse
#32. To: Justified (#1)
" too small a group who are not held responsible for the damage they do. Example Hillary Clinton! "
#33. To: Rufus T Firefly (#27)
1. In the "single payer" nirvana you envision, who employs the health care workers? Related question - who pays for their years of training and education?
#34. To: Justified (#29)
(Edited)
You really need to seek help because you have some crazy notion its okay to steal wealth in the name of God.
#35. To: Justified (#28)
Dealing with it is not stealing from hard working people to fund your desires. Where does it stop?
#36. To: Vicomte13 (#18)
" People who don't work get neither Social Security nor Medicare. "
#37. To: Vicomte13 (#33)
RTF: 1. In the "single payer" nirvana you envision, who employs the health care workers? Related question - who pays for their years of training and education?
2. How does one "attract" the best and the brightest to these fields - especially when all they can expect to be paid is government wages?
#38. To: Rufus T Firefly (#37)
Non answer to the first question and its corollary.
#39. To: Vicomte13 (#38)
If it's "You're a socialist moron and whatever you say will have no value", which is the impression you send calling a very pragmatic person a nirvana- seeking dreamer, then that game is not worth the candle from my perspective.
I don't mind having a discussion with people who have very disparate viewpoints. But it's a waste of my time to try to have a serious talk with people who feel the need to insult and demean the person they're talking with in every question.
I don't recognize any moral or intellectual superiority in the Right, so I don't have to answer your questions with my hat in my hand.
And because the world is ultimately determined by power, and it is flowing in the general direction of what I want and away from what you want, I don't have to explain anything.
I had to think for a moment on how to respond to that. All I could come up with is a sports analogy: Let's say someone was a NY Yankees fan (back in their heyday). The average fan back then could cheer them on - celebrate when they won - but unless they were on the team or in some way part of the team's day to day operations - to say "we won" was somewhat ridiculous. Friend, you have as much power in the real way the "world" works as I do - which is to say NONE. I could just answer "You'll see" and that will be that, because you will see.
So if you want a discussion - to actually know how and why a single payer system can work - I am willing to have that discussion and answer your questions. If you're just seeking to be an adolescent jerk and call names, then I'm uninterested in taking the time and effort that it takes to write out serious things about complicated subjects.
Go for it.
#40. To: Vicomte13 (#34)
You really need to seek help because you have some crazy notion its okay to steal wealth in the name of God.
#41. To: Vicomte13 (#35)
Taxation with representation is not tyranny or theft. It stops where the people through their elected representatives decide to draw the line.
#42. To: Justified (#40)
Taking money by force is theft.
#43. To: Justified (#41)
There is no capitalism left in America.
#44. To: Vicomte13 (#43)
But the capitalists didn't do the right thing with their liberty. They abused it and abused others in the process. So they lost a lot of that freedom, since they didn't handle it responsibly.
But the anti-capitalists didn't do the right thing with their power. They abused it and abused others in the process.
#45. To: Rufus T Firefly (#44)
Question: Who is it left up to - to see that the anti-capitalists lose their power, since they didn't handle it responsibly?
#46. To: Vicomte13 (#45)
(Edited)
#47. To: Rufus T Firefly (#46)
#48. To: Vicomte13 (#47)
The rational political discussion should be how to properly fund the government, keep down corruption and provide for the needs.
#49. To: Vicomte13 (#42)
Taking money by force is theft.
#50. To: Vicomte13 (#43)
There is no capitalism left in America.
#51. To: Justified (#49)
(Edited)
While nearly 50% do not pay and do nothing but take.
#52. To: Justified (#50)
(Edited)
#53. To: Vicomte13 (#51)
That is not true. The homeless guy who has no income and no welfare benefits lives off of soup kitchens and begging. When he goes and buys something with the money people give him, he pays sales taxes.
#54. To: Vicomte13 (#52)
I have faith in God. God's law:
#55. To: Justified (#54)
#56. To: Justified (#53)
As for hidden taxes look to the socialist/progressives if you want to argue that point. I have many times told people the hidden tax stifling.
#57. To: Vicomte13 (#55)
God ran a nation once. And the foundation of that nation was an assignment of the land, unalienably, to the people, by family, for free.
#58. To: Vicomte13 (#56)
There's nothing "Hidden" about sales taxes or property taxes. I have had folks who did not want to admit that the poor pay taxes argue with me that car registration fees are not "taxes", but they are.
#59. To: Justified (#57)
Im not sure what this has to do with anything?
#60. To: Justified (#58)
Socialism has just destroyed capitalism. Sad.
#61. To: Vicomte13 (#59)
nd yet you'll wield "God" against me in an argument, as if "God" is supposed to somehow force me to do and think and believe this or that.
#62. To: Vicomte13 (#60)
Actually, slavery destroyed American capitalism.
#63. To: Justified (#61)
No I just point out that you are doing the devils bid by forcing others to be over taxed and over regulated because you somehow think Government is God.
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