2013 3.8% Health Care Tax

[briansd1]

[quote=ocrenter]
Not surprising at all. People are intrinsically selfish. They will always look out for number one first. If left up to the individual, we would all not have car insurance and simply call All State or Farmers to sign up after a collision.
[/quote]

Funny, Antonin Scalia remarked that young people are not stupid. They’ll sign up for insurance when they need it.

[quote=ocrenter]
A San Diego city retiree once bragged to me that when she goes to the doctor, she always demands branded medications. When I simply suggested why not try equivalent generics and maybe save fellow taxpayers some money, she said she earned the rights to use branded medications working for the city. A LA Unified retiree had the same sentiment in a different convo. again, as long as I benefit, screw the rest of y’all.[/quote]

The funny thing is that people think that more medication is better. Advertising is so pernicious that it convinces people they need expensive medication to feel better. And people do feel like they got something when they get $10/pill “free.”

The truth is that, health wise, you’re better off to change your lifestyle to do without medication.

I don’t feel sorry for those who’s lifestyles induce sickness. They will have it coming to them sooner or later.

But I still feel that the humane thing to do is to have universal baseline health coverage for everyone. In the long run, that will reduce costs for society.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=briansd1]…The funny thing is that people think that more medication is better. Advertising is so pernicious that it convinces people they need expensive medication to feel better. And people do feel like they got something when they get $10/pill “free.”

The truth is that, health wise, you’re better off to change your lifestyle to do without medication.

I don’t feel sorry for those who’s lifestyles induce sickness. They will have it coming to them sooner or later.

But I still feel that the humane thing to do is to have universal baseline health coverage for everyone. In the long run, that will reduce costs for society.[/quote]

brian, this is actually a very good post!

[an]

[quote=pri_dk]Try “building wealth” in a place that has no taxes and see which environment is more favorable.

Of course not all taxes are a good idea, but the idea that “more government is always bad” or “more taxes are always bad” is silly.

The Constitution was written with the purpose of creating a government with the power to tax. Some people were arguing “more government is bad” back then too.[/quote]
Isn’t that a little bit of a hyperbole? No one, AFAIK, is advocating no taxes. The counter of your first sentence would be, try “building wealth” in a place that has 100% taxes and see which environment is more favorable. I’m sure you’re not advocating that either, but it’s just as useless of an argument.

Also, AFAIK, no one is saying “more government is always bad” or “more taxes are always bad”. Yes, it’s silly as you say. But then, to flip that around, it’s just just as silly saying “less taxes are always bad” and “less government is always bad”.

[CardiffBaseball]

Wifey just had a double mastectomy with stage 2 breast cancer.

I hadn’t thought that she was just a leech thanks. Soon Chemo starts up I’ll be sure at that time to let her know she’s a total leech. If only she’d maintained Brian’s lifestyle, she’d be cancer free. Not that every one of her aunt’s had the surgery and her sister died of Ovarian cancer at 42, family history alone makes her an automatic leech in the new progressive thinking world.

Viva la Revolucion!!!

[all]

[quote=no_such_reality]

So Obama’s ‘millionaire’s tax’ starts at $250K too. yea, Millionaire…

This tax starts at $250.

Jerry’s tax starts at $250.

with another at $300.

and nother at $500.

We should have universal healthcare. We should have ALL paying for it.[/quote]

There is no adjustment for inflation built in. In a decade or two everyone will be paying for it (alternatively, politicians will have another thing to bargain about every year since AMT and Medicare payments are not enough)

[bearishgurl]

[quote=CardiffBaseball]Wifey just had a double mastectomy with stage 2 breast cancer.

I hadn’t thought that she was just a leech thanks. Soon Chemo starts up I’ll be sure at that time to let her know she’s a total leech. If only she’d maintained Brian’s lifestyle, she’d be cancer free. Not that every one of her aunt’s had the surgery and her sister died of Ovarian cancer at 42, family history alone makes her an automatic leech in the new progressive thinking world.

Viva la Revolucion!!![/quote]

I’m sorry to hear this, CardiffBaseball. We can’t choose our parents. I myself am close to being the sole survivor of a family of six. We have to deal with the cards we’re dealt in life. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if we have made the effort to keep fit throughout life and didn’t smoke and become addicted to alcohol and/or other substances.

I wish for your spouse full recovery from her treatments and a full remission!

[briansd1]

Actually the reason I used the word leech is that, in the ACA suit, the plaintiffs are arguing that one reason we shouldn’t have the individual mandate or personal responsibility is because we should not force young healthy golden geese (their word) to pay for the leeches (my terminology). I’m just carrying on with the animal metaphor.

I wonder if we could challenge Mello Roos because it’s not really a tax. It’s an assessment to pay private bondholders and services. If I’m not using the services and the facilities I should not be forced to pay that assessment.

[sdrealtor]

Good thoughts and prayers your way CB. My Mom is a 2 time winner beating it in 1991 and again 2010. They have come a long way in helping women win that battle.

[Anonymous]

[quote=no_such_reality]We should have universal healthcare. We should have ALL paying for it.[/quote]

That’s a great idea, but mathematically impossible.

In your sentence above we could replace the word “universal healthcare” with anything the government provides (defense, roads, education, …)

BTW, Most of the healthcare legislation (“Obamacare”) is not about government paying for healthcare. This specific tax is only a small part of it. Obamacare an attempt to provide consistent access to healthcare, not a system where the government pays for it. That’s an important distinction.

As far as who pays this tax, we have a progressive tax system for just about everything. Nothing new here.

[ocrenter]

Brian, you need to stop defending yourself for the very unfortunate use of the term leech. It was wrong, insensitive, and frankly very hurtful to any one that’s ever been sick, or has love ones with a major illness.

Plus it is just not true.

If you look at flu, he is in the category known in medicine as a true underutilizer. (Asian men in general do not seek care needlessly, they as a group have the least somatic complaints.) yet all underutilizers (including you, Brian) have a potential to get sick and become a utilizer. And that’s why we have insurance.

The argument FOR the mandate is simple.

If we as a country and as a society have laws and expectations that anyone sick or dying (utilizer) will not be turned away. And all underutilizers may potentially become a utilizer at any given moment of time. Then ALL (regardless of utilizing status) should be mandated to have insurance because we ALL may potentially utilize the health care system.

If we don’t want the mandate, then we as a country and society need to move away from the laws and expectations that all sick and dying should be treated.

The best example here is China. It is the ultimate in the capitalist model. health care is available purely by cash. You do not have enough cash, you WILL be turned away even while you are clinching your chest or if you are bleeding nonstop. And if you only have partial cash, expect the care to be partial as well. (like the woman who didn’t have enough to give to her obgyn, and her vagina was sutured closed until she came up with the money).

We absolutely can’t have it both ways, that leads to bankruptcy, as we are clearly well on our way.

[Anonymous]

There is nothing selfish about filing a legitimate insurance claim.

That’s the whole point of insurance.

[briansd1]

Of course, ocrenter, you’re very right and reasonable.

Sometimes I like to push the envelope of the absurd.

Good piece in WaPo on the point you made about insurance:

An essential element of the Republican strategy these days is that, whenever confronted with an obvious failure of the free market, the correct response is always to try to turn the tables and blame it on misguided government policy. So it was this week when the solicitor general and several justices tried to make the obvious point that one reason so many Americans lack health insurance is that the market is inherently unlike any other in that we don’t deny medical care to sick people who can’t pay for it. It is from this anomaly that springs the “individual mandate,” a requirement that all citizens buy health insurance, to prevent them from becoming free-riders on a system paid for by others.

Rather than wrestling with this obvious anomaly, however, Scalia and Alito simply gave it the old Republican razzmatazz, blaming the government for creating the problem in the first place by obligating hospitals to treat the sick even if they are uninsured and cannot pay for the care. It was the kind of sophomoric logic you’d expect from high school debaters — or a Republican presidential candidate at a tea party rally — not from members of the highest court in the richest country on Earth.

Michael Carvin, the lawyer representing the NFIB, was clever enough to see that this was not going to be a winning constitutional argument. The proper constitutional solution to that dilemma, he explained, was not to shut the emergency room door on the uninsured, but simply require them to buy insurance when they show up seeking emergency care.

Ah, I get it! An insurance market in which nobody has to sign up for coverage until they’re ready to make a claim. Why didn’t Aetna and Kaiser think of that? And if it works for health insurance, why not extend it to fire, auto and flood insurance as well? Scalia and Alito, of course, wasted no time in taking up this brilliant idea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/steven-pearlstein-eat-your-broccoli-justice-scalia/2012/03/30/gIQAyGkynS_story.html

[ocrenter]

[quote=briansd1]Of course, ocrenter, you’re very right and reasonable.

Sometimes I like to push the envelope of the absurd.

Good piece in WaPo on the point you made about insurance:

An essential element of the Republican strategy these days is that, whenever confronted with an obvious failure of the free market, the correct response is always to try to turn the tables and blame it on misguided government policy. So it was this week when the solicitor general and several justices tried to make the obvious point that one reason so many Americans lack health insurance is that the market is inherently unlike any other in that we don’t deny medical care to sick people who can’t pay for it. It is from this anomaly that springs the “individual mandate,” a requirement that all citizens buy health insurance, to prevent them from becoming free-riders on a system paid for by others.

Rather than wrestling with this obvious anomaly, however, Scalia and Alito simply gave it the old Republican razzmatazz, blaming the government for creating the problem in the first place by obligating hospitals to treat the sick even if they are uninsured and cannot pay for the care. It was the kind of sophomoric logic you’d expect from high school debaters — or a Republican presidential candidate at a tea party rally — not from members of the highest court in the richest country on Earth.

Michael Carvin, the lawyer representing the NFIB, was clever enough to see that this was not going to be a winning constitutional argument. The proper constitutional solution to that dilemma, he explained, was not to shut the emergency room door on the uninsured, but simply require them to buy insurance when they show up seeking emergency care.

Ah, I get it! An insurance market in which nobody has to sign up for coverage until they’re ready to make a claim. Why didn’t Aetna and Kaiser think of that? And if it works for health insurance, why not extend it to fire, auto and flood insurance as well? Scalia and Alito, of course, wasted no time in taking up this brilliant idea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/steven-pearlstein-eat-your-broccoli-justice-scalia/2012/03/30/gIQAyGkynS_story.html

[/quote]

Personally, I would say this: if the individual mandate is thrown out, it is the federal governments responsibility to challenge all of the laws local and state that guarantee the right to be treated regardless of ability to pay and allow this country to let people die on the streets.

I really am ok with that and the government should make it clear that would be their strategy moving forward.

Btw, the individual mandate has always been a Republican idea, period.

[scaredyclassic]

I’m not sure there are local laws requiring hospitals to treat emergency cases. Maybe there are.

Doctors have independent ethical duties.

Certainly seems like a fertile ground for lawsuits when hospitals let corpses start to pile up at the emergency room door while the doctors are inside busily doing nose jobs.

[briansd1]

[quote=ocrenter]
Btw, the individual mandate has always been a Republican idea, period.[/quote]

Yes, it was the answer to Clinton’s health reform.

Skeptics of government should clearly prefer the individual mandate to single-payer. In fact, the individual mandate was developed by conservative economist Mark Pauly as an alternative to single-payer. “We did it because we were concerned about the specter of single-payer insurance, which isn’t market-oriented, and we didn’t think was a good idea,” Pauly told me last year. In the 1990s, the individual mandate was also the Republican counterproposal to President Bill Clinton’s health-care bill, and in 2005, it was the centerpiece of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s health-care reforms.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/individual-mandate-is-ryan-tax-credit-by-other-name/2012/03/31/gIQA0uB1nS_story.html

[Author]

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