sparkling husband primitive being complex

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5790929

Oh my.

The sparkling husband primitive:

Stinky The Clown  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 02:53 PM
Original message
 
"How do we pay for healthcare?" seems a bullshit question, even on its face

First, what is the national priority? We can afford wars. Why not health care?

Then there's the whole notion that it has to involve an increase in taxes. Well ......... maybe. But maybe what now gets paid to the Insuresters gets diverted to the public option.

This is not an issue that can be reduced to a right-wing-favoring sound bite. It is a serious and **very** complex issue.

phantom power  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Absolutely. The whole point is, we *wouldn't* be paying huge private premiums.

At worst, it would be a wash, and it should be easy to show an improvement, due to higher efficiencies of scale and reduced profit motives.

spanone  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-05-09 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
 
2. how do we pay for anything?

Well, usually the primitives get something by having "other people" pay for it.

Auggie  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-05-09 03:01 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. It is a bullshit question, meant to confuse, mislead and delay.

Greyhound  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #3
 
12. Bingo! We are already paying more than is needed, it is the insurance industry that sucks up so much that there isn't enough left to care for all.

stray cat  (1000+ posts)     Fri Jun-05-09 03:04 PM
Response to Original message

4. You and I pay for it with tax dollars - easy - increase taxes across the board

since it is coverage for all. If its that important to us individuals have to pay for it with increased taxes - nothing is free.

YOY  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:08 PM
Response to Reply #4
 
5. You forgot to mention one thing. When you're not paying for Medical Insurance you have more money.

That same amount is taxed (perhaps less even) and it goes into a proper single payer system.

The only one who loses out are the middleman parasites.

Sebastian Doyle (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-05-09 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #4

11. Before that

We should make sure that taxes are actually paid. Kill all the loopholes, THEN roll the taxes back to where they were when Eisenhower was President. And make that retroactive for anyone who has a billion or more.

ljm2002  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:09 PM
Response to Original message
 
6. I disagree with one thing you say here:

"This is not an issue that can be reduced to a right-wing-favoring sound bite."

In fact it has been reduced to exactly that, i.e. the question that you cite in the OP title: "How do we pay for healthcare?"

You have identified the exact core of the problem with our healthcare debate. It is indeed being presented as "How do we pay for it", which is a very effective sleight-of-hand which distracts from the real-world issues of "Why do we pay more for health care than any other industrialized nation?" and "Why are our outcomes so poor compared to other industrialized nations?" and "Why do so many people in this country lack any health care at all?" and "Why do even the insured have to fight for every penny from the insurance companies?" and "Why is it acceptable to trap people in jobs they don't like because they can't get health coverage for pre-existing conditions?" and "Why is it okay to hamstring our domestic companies with high health care costs so they cannot be competitive with foreign companies?" et-****ing-cetera.

Sorry I couldn't break the paragraph above down, to make it more readable.

Triana  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:22 PM
Response to Original message
 
7. ...

1. get out of Iraq and reduce military spending
2. tax religious groups and churches
3. crack down on corporate loopholes and overseas tax havens
4. return tax levels for the richest Americans back to Clinton-era levels (puny increase that they can well afford)

That's a start....

Psychic Consortium  (823 posts)       Fri Jun-05-09 03:29 PM
Response to Original message
 
8. No more millionaires and billionaires in the insurance and health care industry. 

Then there will be plenty of money to take care of all sick people.

ejpoeta  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:40 PM
Response to Original message
 
9. perhaps the fact that we are already paying for it more than once should count for something.

I mean, we pay our insurance premiums, we pay our taxes which go towards medicare and medicaid... plus we pay extra because we pay higher prices when the uninsured get sick and end up at the ER. I wonder what the total cost is when you factor all these things in together.

Another thing is... is germany have a system like ours? because they say there would be no innovation if there were national healthcare... but when i was watching that story about the missing link (the lemur fossil)... they went to the place where the most modern and advanced MRI machine in the world is.... and it was in germany. just sayin. i thought we were the only country innovating for drugs and medical advances because we have the BEST system and the one everyone else envies.

The NanceGreggs idiot wannabe:

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:55 PM
Response to Reply #9
 
14. It's a flat-out lie.

Much of Europe and Scandinavia has been on the leading edge for years...decades, even.

More disinformation to confuse the masses. Unfortunately, for them, I'm not sure the masses are all that confused anymore.

Mythsaje  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:53 PM
Response to Original message
 
13. I think the real question is 

"How can we afford NOT to pay for health care?"

rhett o rick  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
 
15. Same way we pay for defense. Defense isn't worth much if you can't keep you population alive.

truedelphi  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 03:59 PM
Response to Original message

16. We pay for NOThaving health care by

Consigning anyone over the age of forty five who is jobless with an impression that they may always be jobless.

I have been told to my face that my being hired would mean my new employer would face higher premiums, so to "Not hold my breath"

GM went overseas in part to avoid paying the $ 2200 per annum in health care fees they were shelling out for the workers' health care.

Et Cetera.

Papa Boule (118 posts)      Fri Jun-05-09 04:07 PM
Response to Original message
 
17. I doubt they'll be asking "how do we pay for it" if there's another round of bank bailouts like some are predicting.

So yes it's a bullshit question.

cascadiance  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-05-09 04:13 PM
Response to Original message
 
18. Simple... remove the cap for payroll tax and expand medicare funded by it to cover everyone...

A) payroll tax currently is a regressive tax that works against us in so many ways, and perhaps if the lower half of our economy continues to get decimated it will have far less funds and therefore undergo more than just the recent update to not index social security benefits for inflation this year...

B) Medicare is funded by it already. With more revenue coming in to it by removing the cap, it could be made the mechanism to fund single payer, and at the same time be made a progressive tax instead (even if it is kept a flat rate).

Removing the cap could be called a way of giving tax increases to those making under $250k that would violate Obama's commitment not to increase taxes on this group of people.

This could be solved by lowering the percentage rate of payroll tax to make it so there's no increase at all for those under $250k. Now, if that still doesn't generate enough revenue to cover social security and an expanded medicare program, then perhaps find other ways to address this via income tax supplements or other corporate tax supplements to the fund or the like. But that would be a good chunk for starters, and if it could be made self-contained without any additional taxes, other than making it progressive, would be a simple way to do it.

And even if those between $100k and $250k pay a little more on a graduated basis as they approach $250k, I'd bet many of them would prefer to pay that small chunk of payroll tax than the bigger insurance liabilities (and problems with what's covered, etc.) that we have today with our present system.

truedelphi  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 04:25 PM
Response to Reply #19
 
22. Our household's bankrupcy was medical related. And -

And if Congress would simply change some of the tax laws, we would have avoided it.

I mean, I am all for Universal Single Payer, but in the mean time, while the Powers that be get their act together, let people take money out of certain rigidly guided retirement plans, without incurring penalties or huge taxes.

And let everyone who pays out of pocket health or insurance costs get those at 100% deductible.

We are waiting right now to see if the exclusions we just made on an amended return will cut it with the people in the IRS "amendments" Department. It all depends on which person in that dept gets to work on it.

One woman there is wonderful, and understands every in and out. Another person there is a major jack ass and told me over the phone not to bother, because he has the power to refuse any and all applications for amendment.

Stinky The Clown  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-05-09 04:16 PM
Response to Original message

20. Consider this:

If you are paying for insurance now and you opt for a public plan, the dollars you and your employer pay get diverted to that plan ...... and you will probably get a rebate on the collective amount.

If you are paying for insurance out of pocket, you pay that money in taxes if you opt for a public plan ..... and you will either get a rebate or you will get better insurance than you have now.

In short ..... we are paying for first rate health care right now. We just aren't getting what we're paying for.

Mike 03  (1000+ posts)     Fri Jun-05-09 04:19 PM
Response to Original message
 
21. Absolutely correct. Any excuse regarding the alleged unaffordability of health care is a crock of the first magnitude, and we must keep repeating this over and over.

We just squandered a trillion on an illegal war.

Oh my again.

"Free medical care for all" -- the issue that just won't go away.

[The Village Idiot]

when you wait 6 months to see a specialist or for a lifesaving medicine to be denied by a bureaucrat. That sounds like fun huh??

[USA4ME]

And if we got singlepayer/universal, they'd complain when the excessive costs created a situation where healthcare would have to continually be restricted, so why bother taking their views into consideration.

It's a no-win situation when it comes to pleasing the primitives, so they're automatically out of the discussion loop.  It's best that these types of inquiries are done without their imput, so they will remain confined to their little corners of the internet and ignored.

.

[franksolich]

when you wait 6 months to see a specialist or for a lifesaving medicine to be denied by a bureaucrat. That sounds like fun huh??

Oh no.

You forget, sir, this time, it'll be immediate service, five-star restaurant hospital food, registered nurses and physicians waiting on one hand-in-foot, luxury suites for hospital rooms, and an all-you-can-eat buffet of pharmaceuticals to choose from.

It'll be different this time.  

[The Village Idiot]

lol.

In Washington DC for the friends of polticians maybe.