Health/Medical
See other Health/Medical Articles
Title: Taxpayers on the Hook as Obamacare Exchanges Near the Edge of Collapse
Source:
[None]
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: 11751
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."
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: All (#0)
Like always make the hard working keep your nose clean guy pay for everyone else! People wonder why I despises the federal government! Too much power under the control of too small a group who are not held responsible for the damage they do. Example Hillary Clinton!
The better answer: SINCE the private sector cannot do it, nationalize it and have single payer. That's where we will go. Clinton has always supported that, and Trump thinks it was a good idea in Canada. I expect that Trump will push for deregulation, which could help some, but which won't really address it. My view: there is no reason for, and no room for, any middleman insurance company profit in health care. Insurance companies provide nothing of value. They simply impose a premium on the cost of health care. The answer is single payer health insurance, without profit, paid for out of taxes. This takes the burden off of employers completely. Health insurance should not be tied to a job. It's a fundamental human need, and should be part of the tableau of basic rights, like Social Security and universal public education.
like private If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
Yeah! And we can call it ... Hillarycare! And who better to implement that once-rejected solution? Hillary! It was rejected because it was worse than what we had. Now the Democrats (and you) think it will be accepted because it's better than what we have now.
I think we will have universal, government-paid health insurance, because it is necessary in the civilized world, and our people suffer too much for the lack of it. How we get there is a transient matter to me. That we need tog et there, and will, is what I care about. I think that Republicans who continue to resist it are simply digging their own political grave. It's like those who continue to resist the concept of Social Security. Luddites always lose in the end, always. Social Security is necessary, for reasons that are manifest to everybody. Some cranky fringe of Republicans STILL argue about it, 80 years on. Nobody listens to them anymore, nobody cares. They lost, and they're not going to ever turn over that decision. Just like the slavers and segregationists lost, never to rise again. Health care is a place where the fight is still going on. Obamacare was not well-conceived, but the key markers - that universal insurance will exist, that it will be government organized, that the government has the power to do it, and that the people will re-elect the politicians who advance it - have all been established. Trump is not promising to roll it all back, but to make it work. As is Hillary. Republican Luddites are still stuck trying to STOP it, and Social Security. They've always been wrong, and they will be defeated in the end. That we will have universal, government-funded health insurance is a given, because it is a necessity. A substantial minority, continue to argue otherwise, but they are doomed to lose that fight, just as those who would argue against letting gays be have lost that fight. The real question is what it will look like. Once the philosophical and economic point is accepted that we will have federally supervised universal health insurance, the question shifts to how to do it. Republicans would like to derail it, but they've already failed. It's here, and it will stay. It is Obama's great victory and legacy that he was able to set that marker in the ground and hold onto it against all tides and opposition. It certainly can be a whole lot better than Obamacare, which doesn't work. Universal health care works, because every other civilized nation has it. The Republicans think that by making a wreck of Obamacare they will succeed in repealing the philosophy of universal health insurance. They're wrong. It's here to stay because we need it. How we structure it will be influenced by whether Trump wins or Hillary. Either way, when the next President leaves office, universal health insurance will be more and more and more of a reality.
I assume you are one of those "health care is a right" people. If I assume correctly, here are a couple of questions I ask every time I encounter one of you folks: If health care is a "right", where is it spelled out in the Constitution and/or the Bill of Rights? And please do not respond with "emanations" and "penumbrae" - i.e. where the (non-existent) right to abortions were found. I mean specifically. The Founders were clear - they were able to spell out exactly what they meant without equivocation. Free press meant FREE PRESS. Free speech meant FREE SPEECH. The right to unwarranted searches and seizures meant EXACTLY THAT. Please note the aforementioned rights (and all the others in the B of R) were addressing the individual. I have a RIGHT to free speech - YOU do not have to provide it to me. I have a RIGHT to operate a free press - YOU do not have to provide it to me (or to buy my paper, for that matter.) I have a right not to be searched without a warrant or have my property seized. NO ONE has to provide that for me. So if "health care" is a right - who provides it for me? I cannot provide my own health care (beyond taking meds or applying band-aids, that is.) Do you "health care is a right" folks propose having government slaves provide it? Are all doctors, nurses, and other HC workers now to be on the government payroll? If so, do you really think people will spend the hundreds to thousands of dollars to become doctors - when all they're going get is a government job? I realize that ship has sailed - and no one in modern day AmeriKKa cares much about the constitution anymore - as long as we can get our freebees. So let's provide "free" healthcare along with the free government cheese. We can eat the cheese while we die in waiting lines or in offices waiting for the one doctor who has to treat 100 thousand patients. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
I can't says that federal government has done anything better than what the market could do. In fact federal government cost much more and gives much less and demands complete control with just a few corrupt people putting crazy demands on the system. Single payer is crazy and the only option is to let the people decide what they want for the price they want it for. To spend more on healthcare than your house payment with no end in sight is crazy. Single payer will demand everyone pay for abortions, transgender mutilations, fertilization gay couples, HIV for gay men, illegal alien coverage with out paying and who knows what else. Market always beats government. Somewhere in time we deemed government and especially central government was for the people when it has shown its not and never has been. Thats why the founding fathers wanted most the power to be in the state where you could easily meet with the government official and they would have to listen to them.
Health care is a necessity. It is a right by necessity, like air. It isn't spelled out in the Bill of Rights and isn't in the Constitution, as written, and the Founders would never have agreed to government-paid health insurance. They were busy bleeding and putting leeches on sick people and shortening their lives by what amounted to witchcraft as medicine. It doesn't matter to me that it's not in the Constitution. Social Security isn't in the Constitution. Neither is universal public education. Neither is the industrial revolution or germ theory or sewer systems or food standards or the gasoline engine or paved concrete roadways or the steam engine. None of that is in there. The country that the Constitution was written in was a rural wilderness with a couple million people in it, not an industrialized continent of 320 million. The founders DID leave slavery in there, and we had to actually in effect suspend the Constitution in all but name to get rid of that. So the Constitution already had in it some fatal flaws. Faced with the necessities and realities of the modern world, we have two choices: we can work with our old Constitution, sticking to its general structure, more or less, and periodically revising our understanding of the words through court cases and politics, and more rarely by rewriting the words through amendments. This preserves a sense of continuity of institutions, and allows for a long legal tradition and historical sense to grow. It links us to the past, with its warts, but allows the seams to be opened to allow the necessities of the present to be addressed. That's what we actually DO. Or we could do with some conservatives want, which is to turn the language of the Constitution into an iron straight jacket, a political sarcophagus that fixes the political attitudes and governmental beliefs and understanding of 1789 (or 1865) in place, and does not allow flexibility. Do that, and take the suppleness and make the document unable to address present necessities, and a certain arch-conservative viewpoint will hold sway until it's swept away in a left-wing revolution, like everywhere else. I like the way we do it a lot better. But in direct answer to your question: social welfare is not very well addressed in the Constitution. There is broad power given to Congress to spend money, and a generic "general welfare" clause that has been used to cover what needs to be done. The Founders certainly didn't intend the document to be read that way. So, the Constitution is inadequate as written, and we've had to politically decide how to get to social welfare in spite of it. We could have gone the revolutionary route. Instead, we chose to let the power of the purse and the general welfare clause suffice, with the Supreme Court's blessing, which got us to where we can do what the document doesn't say we can do. So, we preserved some of the document and the tradition. Perhaps you'd prefer we just have a revolution and ditch the thing in its entirety, since we cannot get to the social welfare we have to have, or the federal enforcement of equal rights for blacks, on the document as written. I never suggested that government-paid healthcare is free. Nothing is free. Health insurance is expensive no matter who pays for it. Universal health insurance is so expensive that it cannot be provided by the private sector: there are vast swathes of the people who cannot afford it, and the insurance companies cannot make a profit providing it to everybody. It's expensive to cover everybody, and burdensome. That burden has to be borne by the whole society, through taxes. There is no such thing as a free lunch. We don't need free government cheese, most of us. Most of us DO need taxpayer-subsidized health care, particularly in our old age. So we have it. Everybody doesn't have it yet. Obamacare was an effort to get there. It is not going to succeed and we will end up with a single-payer government-operated system, at the end of it all. And that's a good thing.
The "market" without Social Security and Medicare means life expenctancies that are ten years lower than they are. That's the price of the free market in eldercare and financial support for the elderly. We as a people have decided that it is better for the government redistribute some of the wealth of the nation into providing health care and income support for old people, because we don't like what the market produces. As sovereign people, we have the right and power to do it, and we have, and we believe that we were right. You are part of the minority who disagrees. Your side lost this argument in the 1930s and the 1960s, and is losing it on health care in the 2010s. It's a free country and you are free to grouse about it until the cows come home. But the rest of us will continue to move along with the settled answers that the majority thinks is best, which is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, universal public education and, in time, universal health insurance paid for by taxes. In an imperfect world where the market does not work well enough to address such things, people form governments and vest government with the power to override private interest and find broader national solutions, using the sovereign power to tax to collect the resources necessary to pay for what is needed. The conservative argument is that the government cannot do any of this well, that the market does it better. If the market did it adequately, we wouldn't have the political pressure for a government solution, and your side would have won the argument. You lost because in real life the market doesn't do a good job at addressing infrastructural issues where there is no profit in what must be done.
It might actually go up because its cheaper to live and you will not have to work as hard as you once did. SS and Medicare is not needed but have been part of society for so long that it would be near impossible to get rid of. We as a people have decided that it is better for the government redistribute some of the wealth of the nation into providing health care and income support for old people, because we don't like what the market produces. Thats how it always starts out. Its the demoncrap way the progressive way. "I really meant to do good but how was I suppose too know it would ruin the world"? Its happens so often that its a shame. If the leaders would be held responsible for their actions then I might budge but since their every actions causes more harm than good in the name of "I meant well" government should always be kept to the minimal as possible as to do the least amount of harm possible. Once government enacts a program you have a better chance of converting a Moslem to Christianity broadcasted on world TV and have them still live in the same neighborhood. In an imperfect world where the market does not work well enough to address such things, people form governments and vest government with the power to override private interest and find broader national solutions, using the sovereign power to tax to collect the resources necessary to pay for what is needed. If you can not trust the people what makes you think you can trust the government run by people?! In simple terms corrupt people will elect corrupt people to government and government will be corrupt. Nothing the government has ever claimed has ever panned out but we still are paying for it and our children are paying for it and someday our children's children will pay the heaviest price because you are jealous that some people make to much. I believe that is a sin is it not? Look life is not fair deal with it. Janitors and hamburger flippers do not deserve to make as much tradesman who do not deserve to make as much as doctors and business owners. People at the low end of pay deserve that low pay because they refuse to sacrifice to get the educations necessary to earn the pay they want. Every time govenrment steps into the market to make it more fair it only screws the middle class because no matter what you do the rich will always be rich. The rich will payoff the the corrupt government leaders to give them loopholes. Even Warren Buffett mocked the system and knows it when he claimed that his secretary pays more in income tax then he does. Never forget government and taxation is a restriction on society and can never bring up a group without bringing down another. You may want to do God's work but end up doing the devils bid!
SS and Medicare are absolutely needed.
Social Security and Medicare did not "ruin the world". They make life markedly better, and longer, for virtually every old person in America.
Life is not fair. Life is difficult. We HAVE dealt with it, with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance. And our world is immeasurably better because we have these things. That's why the general public will not ever let Republican ideologues strip these things away. In fact, we are going to double down and cover everybody with health insurance, and move towards government funding of college education, since college is now as necessary as high school. This is the great divide between Republicans and everybody else. It's why you guys are the 30% minority, and why you have to rely on the Democrats screwing up spectacularly in order to get power. Because the people, writ large, never vote FOR you and your economics. We rejected those long ago and are never going back.
Yes and no. The only reason it's needed is because people quit saving for retirement. Medicare sucks. Near worthless.
The relinquish it and do without it.
Why I pay heavily for it. It would be like being forced to buy crappy lunch everyday whether you eat it or not. BTW I will probably die the day I retire and all the paying into the system will go to sorry ass freeloaders who have never worked a real day in their life but demand I pay so they can sit at home making babies.
Actually the world is much worse off. Before you were responsible for your actions. Nowadays we just blame others for our own actions. Its always someone else fault I did not save for real needs but hey I have a new 60"TV, couch set that holds 10 people and a brand new vehicle. The selfish generations. That's why the general public will not ever let Republican ideologues strip these things away. Thats why my countries is bankrupt. How much longer will the other countries keep selling their goods for iou's? In fact, we are going to double down and cover everybody with health insurance, and move towards government funding of college education, since college is now as necessary as high school. Why not fund everything? Gas, power, water, sewer, food, clothing, vehicles, insurance[why have insurance when everything is free!], housing, entertainment, vacations, healthcare, dental care, mental care and whatever else you can think of? Hey we can let the rich pay for it! Right? Before govenrment got involved all this above was cheap and affordable. Now no one can afford a damn thing. Government has to print money and borrow money just too pay for the give a ways. No you can not get rid of military and pay for jack shit because then you will lose more high paying jobs which means less money coming into the government through taxes. Let me put it to you this way. Your utopian desires does not and can not work ever. Someone has to pay the bills and when you piss them all off they will stop working and then you have no one paying the bills! Communism doesn't which has been proven over and over again. Look at Cuba or Venezuela. Just pure shitholes where government rules by killing people who dare point out the truth! To get want you want someone has to be the slave and someone gets to be the master.
People who don't work get neither Social Security nor Medicare.
You 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.
For what purpose - it is not honest to pretend to abide by a document if we're going to ignore it. Not all revolutions involve bombs and bullets. We've had the revolution, we just won't admit it. It IS intended to be free to a large percentage of it's users. And like all welfare programs, the universe of free-loaders will only increase and increase. Utopia does not exist on this earth. Productivity is not keeping up with taxes, and the situation will only get worse as taxes have to increase to provide utopia. What do you propose to do when the house of cards collapses? When SS came out, something like 20 workers supported one retiree. Like every government program, it has become bloated and wasteful - now it is something like two workers per retirees (there's a link for this, you can look it up if you want.) It's not a question of IF SS will collapse, it's a matter of when. Obamacare was not about health care - it was about power and control. It was written by a corrupt president and a corrupt Congress and passed by smoke and mirrors. It was and is a travesty and a disgrace. Whatever "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
You 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. Most of those developed countries that are so "progressive" are in Western Europe, are they not? The same basket case groups of countries that have given the world Nazism, Fascism, and Communism? The same countries that have spent squat on their own defense post WW II - instead relying on Uncle Sucker to take care of that for them? And currently the same group of countries (Germany, Sweden, France and others) that are currently being overrun by Muslims? Yeah - let's model ourselves after those. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD . . . " ~Psalm 33:12a
Not True. I know people who do. I know them personally.
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.
Comments (42 - 96) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest“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.’”
#2. To: Justified (#0)
#3. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
universal public education
vouchers
schools
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
"The better answer: SINCE the private sector cannot do it, nationalize it and have single payer."
#5. To: misterwhite (#4)
Now the Democrats (and you) think it will be accepted because it's better than what we have now.
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#5)
(Edited)
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#2)
#8. To: Rufus T Firefly (#6)
If health care is a "right", where is it spelled out in the Constitution and/or the Bill of Rights? And please do not respond with "emanations" and "penumbrae" - i.e. where the (non-existent) right to abortions were found.
#9. To: Justified (#7)
Market always beats government.
#10. To: Vicomte13 (#9)
The "market" without Social Security and Medicare means life expenctancies that are ten years lower than they are.
#11. To: Justified (#10)
SS and Medicare is not needed but have been part of society for so long that it would be near impossible to get rid of.
#12. To: Justified (#10)
"I really meant to do good but how was I suppose too know it would ruin the world"? I
#13. To: Justified (#10)
Look life is not fair deal with it.
#14. To: Vicomte13 (#11)
#15. To: Justified (#14)
#16. To: Vicomte13 (#15)
The relinquish it and do without it.
#17. To: Vicomte13 (#13)
Life is not fair. Life is difficult. We HAVE dealt with it, with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance. And our world is immeasurably better because we have these things.
#18. To: Justified (#16)
#19. To: Justified (#17)
Your utopian desires does not and can not work ever.
#20. To: Vicomte13 (#8)
So, we preserved some of the document and the tradition.
Perhaps you'd prefer we just have a revolution and ditch the thing in its entirety, since we cannot get to the social welfare we have to have, or the federal enforcement of equal rights for blacks, on the document as written.
I never suggested that government-paid healthcare is free. Nothing is free. Health insurance is expensive no matter who pays for it.
Universal health insurance is so expensive that it cannot be provided by the private sector: there are vast swathes of the people who cannot afford it, and the insurance companies cannot make a profit providing it to everybody. It's expensive to cover everybody, and burdensome. That burden has to be borne by the whole society, through taxes. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
We don't need free government cheese, most of us. Most of us DO need taxpayer-subsidized health care, particularly in our old age. So we have it. Everybody doesn't have it yet.
Obamacare was an effort to get there. It is not going to succeed and we will end up with a single-payer government-operated system, at the end of it all.
And that's a good thing.
#21. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
(Edited)
Your utopian desires does not and can not work ever.
#22. To: Vicomte13 (#18)
People who don't work get neither Social Security nor Medicare.
#23. To: Vicomte13 (#19)
You 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.
.
.
.
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]