The tax man cometh to police you on health care

[Oddball]

It's time you moochers stop free loading off the rest of us who purchase health insurance.

Do you purchase your health insurance or does your employer?

There is no difference. Benefits paid by the employer are considered income, maybe not taxable income but they are an expense to the company just as are wages.

Easy to see that you don't know jack shit about the tax code.

 

[dblack]

No, you don't get off that easy. You're skipping out on my key point. If your beef is with laws that require that costs for uncompensated care are transferred to "you" (actually, they're transferred to all of us in various ways - not just you and not just people who are insured) then why aren't you lobbying to have those laws changed. It seems like a far simpler approach than indulging ever more corporate/government collusion.

And what law would that be? Costs are transferred to us simply for profit motives. If a hospital gets stiffed on a payment by someone uninsured they raise their prices to make up for it. The rest of us pay those higher prices and thus pay for those who choose not to pay. If there is a law that forces this action to take place, let me know.

Ahh.. I thought you were complaining about EMTALA, which does require that some hospitals (those receiving federal subsidies) treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. Some people use that as a justification to force us to buy insurance. If that's the issue, then it should be repealed.

But what your talking about is something that's up to the hospitals involved, which is completely voluntary. As is your choice to do business with these hospitals. How hospitals balance their books or deal with delinquent accounts isn't really any of your business. If you think their fees are too high, for whatever reason, your free to go somewhere else. If you want to look for a hospital that takes a hard line against freeloaders, demanding everyone pay up front, so you can save a few bucks, you can do that. I'd rather avoid businesses with that kind of draconian outlook toward community responsibility.

It could be fixed by dramatically decreasing the cost of medical care across the board but that hasn't happened and it wont happen with insurance companies and big pharma in full control of the system.

This perplexes me, in light of the fact that you are vigorously defending a law that grants them even more control. What gives? Doesn't your statement imply that we should do the opposite?

I thought I made myself clear in other threads that I don't love the ACA and wish it went MUCH further to take power away from insurance companies.

Further? It's not question of how "far" it's going - it's going in the wrong direction. It gives them more power than they already have. If ACA remains on the books, we've lost the most fundamental right we have as consumers - the right to refuse to buy goods or services we don't think are worth the money.

 

[arKangel]

Yes... sarcasm tags would be handy.

Freewill does a perhaps too-accurate impersonation of an authoritarian jackass.

I second that motion.

 

[RDD_1210]

No, you don't get off that easy. You're skipping out on my key point. If your beef is with laws that require that costs for uncompensated care are transferred to "you" (actually, they're transferred to all of us in various ways - not just you and not just people who are insured) then why aren't you lobbying to have those laws changed. It seems like a far simpler approach than indulging ever more corporate/government collusion.

And what law would that be? Costs are transferred to us simply for profit motives. If a hospital gets stiffed on a payment by someone uninsured they raise their prices to make up for it. The rest of us pay those higher prices and thus pay for those who choose not to pay. If there is a law that forces this action to take place, let me know.

Ahh.. I thought you were complaining about EMTALA, which does require that some hospitals (those receiving federal subsidies) treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. Some people use that as a justification to force us to buy insurance. If that's the issue, then it should be repealed.

But what your talking about is something that's up to the hospitals involved, which is completely voluntary. As is your choice to do business with these hospitals. How hospitals balance their books or deal with delinquent accounts isn't really any of your business. If you think their fees are too high, for whatever reason, your free to go somewhere else. If you want to look for a hospital that takes a hard line against freeloaders, demanding everyone pay up front, so you can save a few bucks, you can do that. I'd rather avoid businesses with that kind of draconian outlook toward community responsibility.

This perplexes me, in light of the fact that you are vigorously defending a law that grants them even more control. What gives? Doesn't your statement imply that we should do the opposite?

I thought I made myself clear in other threads that I don't love the ACA and wish it went MUCH further to take power away from insurance companies.

Further? It's not question of how "far" it's going - it's going in the wrong direction. It gives them more power than they already have. If ACA remains on the books, we've lost the most fundamental right we have as consumers - the right to refuse to buy goods or services we don't think are worth the money.

It's hard to reply to you when you edit out half of my response. You've done this a few times before, so I'm guessing thats par for the course? Thanks for the conversation.

 

[dblack]

And what law would that be? Costs are transferred to us simply for profit motives. If a hospital gets stiffed on a payment by someone uninsured they raise their prices to make up for it. The rest of us pay those higher prices and thus pay for those who choose not to pay. If there is a law that forces this action to take place, let me know.

Ahh.. I thought you were complaining about EMTALA, which does require that some hospitals (those receiving federal subsidies) treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. Some people use that as a justification to force us to buy insurance. If that's the issue, then it should be repealed.

But what your talking about is something that's up to the hospitals involved, which is completely voluntary. As is your choice to do business with these hospitals. How hospitals balance their books or deal with delinquent accounts isn't really any of your business. If you think their fees are too high, for whatever reason, your free to go somewhere else. If you want to look for a hospital that takes a hard line against freeloaders, demanding everyone pay up front, so you can save a few bucks, you can do that. I'd rather avoid businesses with that kind of draconian outlook toward community responsibility.

I thought I made myself clear in other threads that I don't love the ACA and wish it went MUCH further to take power away from insurance companies.

Further? It's not question of how "far" it's going - it's going in the wrong direction. It gives them more power than they already have. If ACA remains on the books, we've lost the most fundamental right we have as consumers - the right to refuse to buy goods or services we don't think are worth the money.

It's hard to reply to you when you edit out half of my response. You've done this a few times before, so I'm guessing thats par for the course? Thanks for the conversation.

I just do that so it's clear what I'm responding to. I don't see how it changed the gist of what you were saying. I'll just quote the whole mess from now if that's what you prefer.

 

[g5000]

Don't you just love the left wing illogic on display in this topic?

One third of all involuntarily uninsured people are high school dropouts. So what brilliant solution have the liberals come up with to fix this problem?

Make some other people pay a penalty, of course!

"Because it's the right thing to do."

 

[g5000]

Did you make a bunch of bad decisions in your life? Got pregnant four times by four different fathers? Quit three jobs in the past year? Quit high school?

Don't you worry! We are going to make that guy over there pay for your fuckups. And we are going to make it look like it is all his fault!

We are going to make him carry you on his back.

"Because it's the right thing to do."

I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message

 

[g5000]

The Insurance Mandate Shell Game

The mandate is not for making the voluntarily uninsured pay for their own medical care when they need it years from now.

The mandate is for the purpose of paying for the cost of all those high school dropouts being added today.

No amount of lies will cover up the fact that adding millions of people to the government dole will be extremely expensive. The Democrats want you to believe it will somehow be free.

Of course it won't be. Only a true blue moron would believe it is free.

It will add billions of dollars a year to every state's budget starting in 2019. The fuse on that bomb is that long because the Democrats pay for all the high school dropouts Medicaid with federal dollars for the first few years before yanking that money away. Classic Democratic dependency creation.

In 2019, when the federal money goes away, the states are going to be between a rock and hard place, exactly where Obama wants them. The ACA will have added millions of high school dropouts to the Medicaid rolls, paid for with federal dollars. That goes on for five years. That's the dependency creation. Then the federal money goes away. So the states will either have to eliminate all those new high school dropouts they added for the previous five years and face riots in the streets, or they will have to raise taxes on everyone else.

And where will Obama be in 2019?

Yeah. Ain't that quite a trick?

Good luck with that.

There is no study out there which proves the meme that adding people to the dole will lower costs due to preventative care. In fact, the latest and greatest and most comprehensive study proves it is extremely costly.

Remember, this was supposed to be about bending down the cost of health care. We were told over and over and over that the status quo was just going to keep driving up the cost of health care. Remember all that shit about per capita spending?

Funny, we don't hear that any more. And that is because the one thing the ACA was supposed to accomplish, it won't accomplish.

The cost of health care is going to continue to rise.

So the Democrats have nothing to go on except, "it's the right thing to do."

It's the right thing to force a mandate and extra state taxes on people to pay for other people's fuckups. All those high school dropouts and all those single mothers. That's the thinking at work here. Don't kid yourself.

Fact: One third of all involuntarily uninsured are high school dropouts.
Fact: One third of all black children are in single parent families.

When the fuck are you assholes going to solve the actual problems instead of making the rest of us pay for them?

The (Poor) State of Black Families

 

[RDD_1210]

Don't you just love the left wing illogic on display in this topic?

One third of all involuntarily uninsured people are high school dropouts. So what brilliant solution have the liberals come up with to fix this problem?

Make some other people pay a penalty, of course!

"Because it's the right thing to do."

And your logic fails to address the other 2/3rds .

 

[RDD_1210]

Did you make a bunch of bad decisions in your life? Got pregnant four times by four different fathers? Quit three jobs in the past year? Quit high school?

Don't you worry! We are going to make that guy over there pay for your fuckups. And we are going to make it look like it is all his fault!

We are going to make him carry you on his back.

"Because it's the right thing to do."

I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message

Sweeping generalizations are fun!!!

 

[g5000]

Don't you just love the left wing illogic on display in this topic?

One third of all involuntarily uninsured people are high school dropouts. So what brilliant solution have the liberals come up with to fix this problem?

Make some other people pay a penalty, of course!

"Because it's the right thing to do."

And your logic fails to address the other 2/3rds .

Okay. Let's do that. This was addressed in a link I provided earlier, but I can outline what it contained.

Another third are immigrants, many of whom are here illegally. Should we be paying for their healthcare?


40 percent are people who did not work in the past year. The people in this category who are uninsured today are not the same people who are uninsured tomorrow. These are transiently uninsured, not chronically uninsured. An obvious solution to this part of the problem is to get people jobs.

There are more high school dropouts who are uninsured than there are people who are voluntarily uninsured.


The ACA does not solve any of these problems.

 

[RDD_1210]

Don't you just love the left wing illogic on display in this topic?

One third of all involuntarily uninsured people are high school dropouts. So what brilliant solution have the liberals come up with to fix this problem?

Make some other people pay a penalty, of course!

"Because it's the right thing to do."

And your logic fails to address the other 2/3rds .

Okay. Let's do that.

Another third are immigrants, many of whom are here illegally. Should we be paying for their healthcare?


40 percent are people who did not work in the past year. The people in this category who are uninsured today are not the same people who are uninsured tomorrow. These are transiently uninsured, not chronically uninsured. An obvious solution to this part of the problem is to get people jobs.

There are more high school dropouts who are uninsured than there are people who are voluntarily uninsured.


The ACA does not solve any of these problems.

"Get jobs" he says. Are you suggesting that the 8.2% or whatever number it is you want to look at of people who are unemployed could just go and get jobs tomorrow if they wanted? Jobs with health insurance?

 

[g5000]

The involuntarily uninsured differ in some significant
ways from the voluntarily uninsured. They are more likely
to be Hispanic and to be foreign-born non-citizens and
their educational level is considerably lower. One-third
of the involuntarily uninsured are high school dropouts
compared to 20 percent of the voluntarily uninsured and
the involuntarily uninsured are almost twice as likely as
the voluntarily uninsured to have never worked during
the year. About 15 percent of the voluntarily uninsured
were self-employed, a much larger proportion than the
involuntarily uninsured or privately insured.

http://epionline.org/studies/oneill_06-2009.pdf

 

[g5000]

"Get jobs" he says. Are you suggesting that the 8.2% or whatever number it is you want to look at of people who are unemployed could just go and get jobs tomorrow if they wanted? Jobs with health insurance?

That's exactly the problem! Create an economy which provides jobs and you solve a lot of the uninsured problem.

The ACA does not create jobs. Therefore, it does not solve the core problem.

The ACA addresses symptoms, and badly, instead of causes.

 

[RDD_1210]

"Get jobs" he says. Are you suggesting that the 8.2% or whatever number it is you want to look at of people who are unemployed could just go and get jobs tomorrow if they wanted? Jobs with health insurance?

That's exactly the problem! Create jobs and you solve a lot of the uninsured problem.

The ACA does not create jobs. Therefore, it does not solve the core problem.

The ACA addresses symptoms instead of causes.

Definitely can not disagree with that.

 

[Cowman]

How about you make a stand by dropping your current coverage(if you have any) and just stick it to the man.

 

[g5000]

How about you make a stand by dropping your current coverage(if you have any) and just stick it to the man.

It would be cheaper to do so. The penalty is far smaller than the cost of insurance. So drop your coverage until you get sick. Then the ACA requires the insurance company to cover your pre-existing condition.

There is another penalty in the ACA. Employers who have more than 50 employees are required to provide health insurance or pay a penalty, thus entrenching one of the very things which bends the cost curve of healthcare up.

The Democrats had no honest intentions of driving down the cost of healthcare. Nor were they the slightest bit interested in eliminating the causes of being uninsured.

Their motives were votes and power, and nothing more.

 

[RDD_1210]

How about you make a stand by dropping your current coverage(if you have any) and just stick it to the man.

It would be cheaper to do so. The penalty is far smaller than the cost of insurance. So drop your coverage until you get sick. Then the ACA requires the insurance company to cover your pre-existing condition.

There is another penalty in the ACA. Employers who have more than 50 employees are required to provide health insurance or pay a penalty, thus entrenching one of the very things which bends the cost curve of healthcare up.

The Democrats had no honest intentions of driving down the cost of healthcare. Nor were they the slightest bit interested in eliminating the causes of being uninsured.

Their motives were votes and power, and nothing more.

You've mentioned your drop your coverage idea before but it wont work. You can't simply call up and get insurance in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. There are designated enrollment periods put in to place to prevent exactly this type of attempted loophole.

 

[Wry Catcher]

How special-interest groups have their way with Congress

The influence of Washington lobbyists is felt in many ways. It's not just the laws they get enacted. It's also the ones they stop.

Editor's note: The following story ran Oct. 28, 1991, on last day of the nine-day "America: What went wrong?" series published in the Inquirer.


* * *

In Washington, where 11,000 organizations are lobbying Congress, there is an old adage:

Successful lobbies are measured by the legislation they stop, not by the laws they get passed.

By that yardstick, the Alliance for Capital Access was phenomenally successful.

Let's watch the Alliance in action in 1985, the year it stopped a big one. At the time, pressure was building on Congress to do something about the wave of hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts and corporate mergers that were sweeping America.

Rep. Timothy E. Wirth (D., Colo.), then chairman of a House subcommittee, was concerned that "shareholders, companies, employees and entire communities have been harmed in these battles for corporate control. " He wanted hearings to "assess the fairness" of the takeovers.

To schedule witnesses and set the agenda for the hearings, which were expected to lead to new legislation, Wirth turned to a close aide, David K. Aylward, the subcommittee's staff director and chief counsel.

Aylward indicated that the hearings would go beyond a probe of the tactics used by raiders and explore the role that high-yield (junk) bonds were playing in financing corporate takeovers.

"We really don't know where this money is coming from, and whether it could be better used for something else in the long term," Aylward told the New York Times on Feb. 18, 1985.

Shortly after the hearings convened, Aylward resigned from Wirth's staff and took a new job.

He joined a lobbying company whose first clients would include the newly formed Alliance for Capital Access. Its sole aim: to block any legislation that would restrict junk bonds.

For the rest of the story, see:

How special-interest groups have their way with Congress

 

[Cecilie1200]

It is called being responsible. If a person decides not to be responsible then the government will force them to be. So if you have a decent job and pay for your own benefits then you are responsible for paying for those who don't work as hard. If you don't want too tough, the government will force your compliance to what they say is your responsibility.

Yep, just like car insurance.

Why should I have to pay someone elses medical expenses? I'm sick of rw's whining because they have to pay their own way.

I just have to ask: do you idiots REALLY think you're going to sell this particular line of spin to anyone who isn't already one of you?