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Americans don't want to shoulder the cost of President Obama's health care overhaul themselves, strongly preferring that the rich should pay for it.
That's the finding from a new Associated Press poll, and it could be a boost for House Democrats, who have already voted to tax upper-income people to fund their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system. Their plan, narrowly approved earlier this month, would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
The poll, conducted by Stanford University with the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found survey participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress.
The unpopular options include taxing insurers on the high-value coverage packages derided by President Obama and Democrats as "Cadillac plans." That approach, being weighed in the Senate, is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help rein in the nation's health expenditures while bringing in new funds. But the idea has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.
Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical-device makers. But the only approach that got majority support in the Associated Press poll was a tax on the wealthiest Americans.
The House bill would impose a 5.4 percent income-tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 a year and households making more than $1 million.
"You know, I mean, why not? If they have that much money, it should be taxed," said Mary Pat Rondthaler, 60, of Menlo Park, Calif. "It isn't the same way that the guy making $21,000 is."
Not everyone agreed.
"They earn their money. And they shouldn't have to pay for somebody else. It doesn't seem fair," said Emerson Wilkins, 62, of Powder Springs, Ga.
Overall, the poll found the public split on Congress' health care plans. In response to some questions, participants said the current system needed to be changed, but they also voiced concerns about the impact on their own pocketbooks, preferring to push any new costs onto wealthier Americans.
For example, 77 percent said the cost of health care in the United States was higher than it should be, and 74 percent favored the broad goal of reducing the amount of money paid by patients and their insurers. But 49 percent said any changes made by the government probably would cause them to pay more for health care. Thirty-two percent said it wouldn't change what they pay, and just 12 percent said they thought they would end up paying less.
The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,502 adults from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8. It has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points. The interviews were conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Congress believes that 'taxing the rich' to pay for this is a good idea.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Congress believes that 'taxing the rich' to pay for this is a good idea.
The current Congress believes that 'taxing the rich' to pay for anything is a good idea, or at least they tell us that. But, in the long run as with HRC, what they are really looking at doing is adding to the deficit and sticking our great grandchildren with the bill.
Immie
Throwing more money at health care is NOT going to do anything to "fix" it.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Throwing more money at health care is NOT going to do anything to "fix" it.
Right we do not need another pill bill.
That is just another way to route tax dollars to the health care industry.
As is pretty much what this health care bill has turned out to be after the lobbyists influence.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Throwing more money at health care is NOT going to do anything to "fix" it.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
Congress believes that 'taxing the rich' to pay for this is a good idea.
Wonder what happens when the rich run out of money?? Who will pay the taxes and support all those Americans who don't pay for anything??? Kinda hard to spread that wealth when there isn't any.
Most Americans agree that our health care system is broken. Not that the ability of our health care pratictioners is poor or inadequite, but that the method of paying for health care has grown at a faster pace than inflation and is a burden to small and large business and individual tax payers.
'Conservatives', Republicans and the health care industry aside, most Americans want the system fixed.
The Washington Times is a great source for propaganda; anyone interested in informed debate knows it's editiorial content is completely partisan and little more than a tool used by Murdoch to spread far right talking points and fear. Hyperbole works well to stir the emotions but, does little to encourage rational dialogue.
No one is arguing that there aren't problems with our system that require attention. But just because a bill is called "health care reform" does NOT mean it will fix a damn thing though! The 2,000 page atrocities Congress is considering in both the House and Senate bills won't address a single one of those problems and instead will only add MASSIVE new ones -ones that will be even more resistant to any fix. Did YOUR insurance company require 2000 pages to set up your insurance plan? Get real. Government needs 2,000+ pages because this has NOTHING to do with health or care and EVERYTHING to do with the greatest expansion of government power and control over our lives in our history. These bills are the equivalent of finding your kitchen sink to be draining slowly and deciding the only solution is to burn down the house and then insisting that because the fire destroyed your sink in the process, it fixed the clog that was in it! Technically it did fix the clog but are you really stupid enough to believe it is the best way to fix a clogged sink? If I call torching your house the "Clogged Sink Reform" bill, would that make it sound better? Work for you then?
I am so sick of the IDIOTS who in spite of the numerous examples around the world that government run health care is far worse than what it claims to be fixing -insist that is the "cure" we all need here. IT DOESN'T WORK. IT ISN'T FREE. THE "RICH" CAN'T PAY FOR IT YOU STUPID, STUPID PEOPLE.
If passed we will ALL be hit with more taxes than you have ever paid in your life -and those taxes will only go up from there. Government front loading this with tax increases that we will pay for YEARS before the program even kicks in at all is a bait-and-switch so they can stand there in public and LIE to us all about the true costs. Would you REALLY make mortgage payments on a house you weren't allowed to live in for YEARS? The true cost of any of these bills is TRILLIONS of dollars we don't have and never will and the loss of millions more jobs. Even as the unemployment rate continues to rise well into double digits now. Even as Obama LIES and claims the wasted billions in stimulus are working and continues doing so even while those LIES are being exposed. Isn't it odd that these so-called "innocent" errors only go one way? Always claiming MORE jobs were saved or created than were and not a single error of reporting fewer jobs than were really created. How do you "innocently" report nonexistent results from nonexistent districts in state after state? The notion that government can better spend that money than the private sector is an historically proven lie. Whatever number they come up with, if that money had been spent by the private sector instead by means of tax cuts and tax rebates - the results would have been far better.
The massive tax increases included in both the House and Senate versions are for ALL of us, not just the "rich". (As if that would be fine and dandy even if it were.) Sorry for you parasitic BOZOS who think the "rich" should be forced to work to pay for whatever you want and insist they "owe" it to you -but there not only aren't enough rich people to pay for it, but no matter how much they publicly lie about it, the liberals pushing this consider our entire middle class on up to be "rich". Because compared to the rest of the world -THEY ARE. It is a fact that when government confiscates the wealth from those who earned it, they stop bothering to earn it since they receive no benefit from that additional effort. (The liberal myths about who the rich are and how they got rich is used to fuel the flames of class envy -but ARE lies.) So if you think just the "rich" will be stuck paying the bulk of the bill and your costs will be less than you pay now AND have a system that works better at the same time -then you are in for a really ugly shock. You will pay FAR more and get much less in return -and fewer freedoms to go with it. What a bargain, huh? If you think the rich will be the ones paying the entire bill so its free for you -you are an idiot. But exactly the kind of person the far left wants to see mass produced by our public school system. Ignorant about history, ignorant about the founding principles of this country, ignorant about why our system is the longest continuing government in the world even though among the youngest of nations, ignorant about why it is necessary to keep the power of government in check, taught to place little value on your real freedoms while indoctrinated to believe the proper role of government is to take "care" of you. Just plain ignorant -and taught to envy those who did what you didn't bother to do. All while told repeatedly that the real enemies of this country are fellow Americans who place far greater value on their freedoms than you do and have a different opinion about the wisdom and desirability of being dependent on government.
We will end paying FAR more for health care than we would have voluntarily chosen to pay for it. Ever. And in exchange we will get an overburdened, over utilized system that is far less responsive to YOUR needs and where the quality of your care MUST be compromised.
Government run health care ALWAYS ends up being paid for with peoples' life expectancy and quality of life. Along with their freedoms. Government control of health care is pushed by people who claim to be nobly motivated by touchy-feely sentiments and concern for the unfortunate etc. But in reality these are people who love the force and power of big government and will insist the ONLY solution for any problem is bigger, more powerful government. These are people who have no faith in people to even know what is in their own best interests, they will insist that an impersonal institution run by other PEOPLE who are no smarter or wiser and don't know you at all -still know far better how to run your life than you do. And while they never admit it publicly, these are people who truly despise liberty and freedom -because they don't like how others choose to exercise their freedoms and want government to force them to stop doing so -for their own good of course. All while claiming to be the real champions of liberty and defenders of our rights. BULLSHIT. These are people constantly trying to figure out how to deprive you of more and more of your freedoms while parting you from more of your money. For your own good. All because they insist government can run your life better than you can and if government first confiscates the bulk of your money and then doles it back out to you, you must dance to THEIR tune in order to get back even some of what was yours in the first place. Liberals believe government should be the master of the people and free people believe the opposite. Pretty simple. That was supposed to be a long settled question since our Revolutionary War was all about which would be the master in THIS country. History has repeatedly proven how ridiculously easy it is to lose your freedoms and likewise proven it is near impossible to re-claim them without the use of violence.
The Democrats and the most corrupt Congress in modern history are going to ram this down our throats against our will and no matter the fact that opposition only grows stronger and most people now oppose it. Even as they choose to ignore the fact the level of anger people have towards their own government continues to grow.
