Should Billionaires Even Exist?

[gipper]

Here's the thing, Brain357. I actually agree that many large corporations enjoy market domination via collusion with government. They use their lobbying clout to manipulate regulation in their favor, and to penalize their competition. If you are interested in targeting that kind of corruption, I'm down with that. But what is usually going on, among those concerned about income inequality, is that it's simply the fact that a given company has a large market share that makes them a target. There's rarely any effort to go after the actual corruption. The goal is remedial solutions that assume the guilt of the company without really identifying, much less, proving it.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying. We need serious campaign finance reform. Then we need to break up all the near monopolies and get markets working. We need to get some power back to the workers.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

You mean like lying to get a big war going that cost trillions?

 

[Brain357]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying. We need serious campaign finance reform. Then we need to break up all the near monopolies and get markets working. We need to get some power back to the workers.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

 

[Redfish]

Is he the only psychopath who won't use their personal funds to end homelessness?
If I don't use some of my money, does that mean I'm a psychopath?

And why do you think it would only take $20 billion?

Read the article I linked. I didn’t come up with the $20 billion, silly.

You aren’t thinking, which is commonplace today.

I’m not suggesting government take his wealth. I’m stating he has the power and wealth to end homelessness, but he doesn’t. He isn’t the only one who could, silly. All the wealthiest people could do it.

Homeless people should quit doing drugs and get a job instead of asking people who don't do drugs and who work to change their diapers for them every day.

Easy for you to say. Why is it so many Americans don’t give a shit about the poor and downtrodden? Are they dumb *****?

funny that you say that, when two of the most liberal cities in the USA SFO and LA, have thousands of homeless living and shitting in the streets. Do the rulers of California give a shit about those people? apparently not.

Oh brother. Not the binary thinker again.

Like it or not, politics in the USA today is binary. Since the reign of the kenyan messiah it has gotten even more binary.

we have the dem/lib faction and the conservative/GOP faction, there is no other of any significance or influence.

 

[The Original Tree]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

Heil Schiffler!

 

[Redfish]

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

 

[Redfish]

You know what’s not cool anymore? Billionaires.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren believe some Americans have too much money, and they’re not alone.

Their very existence is now the subject of political debate, sparked most recently by tax-the-rich proposals from two prominent politicians.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed placing a 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million and 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she wants to increase the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $10 million a year.

Their ideas went viral, starting a mainstream conversation about inequality and wealth.

This kind of talk has always existed among a certain group of hard-core progressives and left-leaning economists, but heading into next year’s presidential election, the idea that the super-rich should pay their fair share is gaining real momentum.

Marshall Steinbaum, a research director at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, has advocated taxing the rich at higher rates for years. “We do not need billionaires,” Steinbaum told HuffPost. “The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past.”

For Steinbaum, higher taxes on the wealthy would mean freeing up more money for everyone else. If you think of the economy as a pie, right now, billionaires are getting just about all of it, while we’re all left splitting just one slice.

If you raise taxes on the richest, their incentive to grab at every morsel declines. The theory is they’ll fight a little less hard to depress everyone else’s wages if they know that every extra million is going to get taxed away. A high-paid CEO has less incentive to keep workers’ wages low so he can get a bigger payday.

Billionaires were once a rare breed. In the past few decades, as the U.S. has slashed tax rates, their numbers have exploded, far outpacing inflation.

Since 2008, the number of billionaires in the world has doubled, according to a report published last week by the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam. In just the last year, billionaires raked in an astonishing $2.5 billion each day.

In 1982, the first year Forbes debuted its list of the 400 richest Americans, there were about a dozen billionaires. The richest man in the U.S. back then was an 85-year-old shipping magnate with an estimated worth of $2 billion, or $5.2 billion in today’s dollars.

"We do not need billionaires. The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past."
--Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute​

Nowadays, Forbes’ list is entirely billionaires. The richest is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $160 billion.

More: Should Billionaires Even Exist?

I agree! Billionaires aren't cool anymore! The playing field is tilted like the Titanic before it went down. There is no logical reason for so few to have so much. What do you think?

Probably not, The massive wealth of so few shows our capitalism is broken.

And if those "few" were government bureaucrats, rather than private entrepreneurs, that'd be all good, eh?

Those few have gotten a lot of help from government bureaucrats.

yes they have and the lifetime congresspersons have all made themselves rich at our expense. Our system is just fine, whats missing is any punishment for those who abuse it through government jobs and corruption.

 

[Redfish]

Here's the thing, Brain357. I actually agree that many large corporations enjoy market domination via collusion with government. They use their lobbying clout to manipulate regulation in their favor, and to penalize their competition. If you are interested in targeting that kind of corruption, I'm down with that. But what is usually going on, among those concerned about income inequality, is that it's simply the fact that a given company has a large market share that makes them a target. There's rarely any effort to go after the actual corruption. The goal is remedial solutions that assume the guilt of the company without really identifying, much less, proving it.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying. We need serious campaign finance reform. Then we need to break up all the near monopolies and get markets working. We need to get some power back to the workers.

Clearly we need to stop the lobbying.

Shrink the government by 75%, people will have less incentive to buy government.

We need serious campaign finance reform.

I agree, remove all contribution limits.

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

You mean like lying to get a big war going that cost trillions?

are you talking about Kennedy and Johnson's Viet Nam?

 

[Redfish]

The biggest causes of homelessness are mental illness and drug addiction and/or a combination of both.

Agreed and a billionaire with the ability to help them, should do so. I’m not suggesting they be forced to but if you could help these people, wouldn’t you?

I'm sure many of us would, but that's why we're not wealthy. People with money are usually obsessed with it. That's what drove them to being wealthy in the first place. After they made one million, they wanted two. After they made ten million, they wanted twenty. Can you imagine how much money one billion dollars is? There is no way to reasonably spend that kind of dough. But people who make that billion dollars want to turn it into two billion dollars even though there is no way to spend it. It's an obsession.

Hence, they are ******* psychopaths.

And those psychopaths continue to produce.

That is why a free market is a win for everyone.

People don’t blame them for their problems. They blame them for ******* up the country.

There is no free market. It’s a fiction the right likes to talk about, to dupe the dumb.

Is it a free market when Walmart comes to a town and undercuts all of the small businesses and runs them out of business? I say it is, what do you say?

 

[ThunderKiss1965]

You know what’s not cool anymore? Billionaires.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren believe some Americans have too much money, and they’re not alone.

Their very existence is now the subject of political debate, sparked most recently by tax-the-rich proposals from two prominent politicians.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed placing a 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million and 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she wants to increase the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $10 million a year.

Their ideas went viral, starting a mainstream conversation about inequality and wealth.

This kind of talk has always existed among a certain group of hard-core progressives and left-leaning economists, but heading into next year’s presidential election, the idea that the super-rich should pay their fair share is gaining real momentum.

Marshall Steinbaum, a research director at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, has advocated taxing the rich at higher rates for years. “We do not need billionaires,” Steinbaum told HuffPost. “The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past.”

For Steinbaum, higher taxes on the wealthy would mean freeing up more money for everyone else. If you think of the economy as a pie, right now, billionaires are getting just about all of it, while we’re all left splitting just one slice.

If you raise taxes on the richest, their incentive to grab at every morsel declines. The theory is they’ll fight a little less hard to depress everyone else’s wages if they know that every extra million is going to get taxed away. A high-paid CEO has less incentive to keep workers’ wages low so he can get a bigger payday.

Billionaires were once a rare breed. In the past few decades, as the U.S. has slashed tax rates, their numbers have exploded, far outpacing inflation.

Since 2008, the number of billionaires in the world has doubled, according to a report published last week by the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam. In just the last year, billionaires raked in an astonishing $2.5 billion each day.

In 1982, the first year Forbes debuted its list of the 400 richest Americans, there were about a dozen billionaires. The richest man in the U.S. back then was an 85-year-old shipping magnate with an estimated worth of $2 billion, or $5.2 billion in today’s dollars.

"We do not need billionaires. The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past."
--Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute​

Nowadays, Forbes’ list is entirely billionaires. The richest is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $160 billion.

More: Should Billionaires Even Exist?

I agree! Billionaires aren't cool anymore! The playing field is tilted like the Titanic before it went down. There is no logical reason for so few to have so much. What do you think?

I hate successful people thread.

​

 

[Redfish]

You know what’s not cool anymore? Billionaires.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren believe some Americans have too much money, and they’re not alone.

Their very existence is now the subject of political debate, sparked most recently by tax-the-rich proposals from two prominent politicians.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed placing a 2 percent tax on wealth over $50 million and 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she wants to increase the marginal tax rate on those earning more than $10 million a year.

Their ideas went viral, starting a mainstream conversation about inequality and wealth.

This kind of talk has always existed among a certain group of hard-core progressives and left-leaning economists, but heading into next year’s presidential election, the idea that the super-rich should pay their fair share is gaining real momentum.

Marshall Steinbaum, a research director at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, has advocated taxing the rich at higher rates for years. “We do not need billionaires,” Steinbaum told HuffPost. “The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past.”

For Steinbaum, higher taxes on the wealthy would mean freeing up more money for everyone else. If you think of the economy as a pie, right now, billionaires are getting just about all of it, while we’re all left splitting just one slice.

If you raise taxes on the richest, their incentive to grab at every morsel declines. The theory is they’ll fight a little less hard to depress everyone else’s wages if they know that every extra million is going to get taxed away. A high-paid CEO has less incentive to keep workers’ wages low so he can get a bigger payday.

Billionaires were once a rare breed. In the past few decades, as the U.S. has slashed tax rates, their numbers have exploded, far outpacing inflation.

Since 2008, the number of billionaires in the world has doubled, according to a report published last week by the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam. In just the last year, billionaires raked in an astonishing $2.5 billion each day.

In 1982, the first year Forbes debuted its list of the 400 richest Americans, there were about a dozen billionaires. The richest man in the U.S. back then was an 85-year-old shipping magnate with an estimated worth of $2 billion, or $5.2 billion in today’s dollars.

"We do not need billionaires. The economy’s done better without billionaires in the past."
--Marshall Steinbaum, Roosevelt Institute​

Nowadays, Forbes’ list is entirely billionaires. The richest is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $160 billion.

More: Should Billionaires Even Exist?

I agree! Billionaires aren't cool anymore! The playing field is tilted like the Titanic before it went down. There is no logical reason for so few to have so much. What do you think?

I hate successful people thread.

​

they hate them unless they are hollyloonies or democrats. those rich people they worship

 

[Redfish]

Of course not. Do you have any idea how much wealth the billionaires have?

What the hell difference does that make, they have no more obligation as a citizen of this country than you.

.

The point was they have the wealth to easily fix the problem. Sorry you are incapable of deciphering the point.

Please don’t take me out of context to fit your screwed beliefs.

No commie, your the one that doesn't seem to be getting the point. The US has spent more than 22 trillion dollars over the last 50 years on the war on poverty, tell the class how that's ******* worked out? Add to that another close to 5 trillion wasted on the dept of indoctrination and you'll quickly see that taking all our billionaires money won't do squat. No citizen should pay a penny more than the law says is owed.

.

LOL. Now I’m a commie. You repubes have lost your minds.

That’s peanuts compared to the trillions paid out to big corporations. If only you could think.

The commie is sleeping in the White House.

wrong, obama was kicked out in 2016

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

No. Just vote Republican. Good things happen when ya do.

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

 

[Redfish]

Well, I can say for certain, that if you vote Democrat, bad things will happen to you. Bad things happened to me, thanks to democrats.

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

 

[gipper]

Agreed and a billionaire with the ability to help them, should do so. I’m not suggesting they be forced to but if you could help these people, wouldn’t you?

I'm sure many of us would, but that's why we're not wealthy. People with money are usually obsessed with it. That's what drove them to being wealthy in the first place. After they made one million, they wanted two. After they made ten million, they wanted twenty. Can you imagine how much money one billion dollars is? There is no way to reasonably spend that kind of dough. But people who make that billion dollars want to turn it into two billion dollars even though there is no way to spend it. It's an obsession.

Hence, they are ******* psychopaths.

And those psychopaths continue to produce.

That is why a free market is a win for everyone.

People don’t blame them for their problems. They blame them for ******* up the country.

There is no free market. It’s a fiction the right likes to talk about, to dupe the dumb.

Is it a free market when Walmart comes to a town and undercuts all of the small businesses and runs them out of business? I say it is, what do you say?

Means nothing. You need to recognize the macro view.

We clearly have a crony capitalist economy.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

Losses don't make up all that much, just a portion. I worked in medical equipment for ten years, and that's the way we used to do it. You can't have different charges for different coverages. The law is you have to charge the same for everybody. Since you can't charge government more than private insurance, you just increase the cost to all. That's one of the many reasons private insurance is nearly unaffordable.

It's also a problem when people like Sander's talks about Medicare for all. His calculations are based on what they are currently paying. But if those rates remained the same, doctors and hospitals would close down across the country because there would be no private insurance to make up the losses on. So whatever figure they come up with, you have to add at least 30% to their estimates in order to keep these places in business.

After I eat breakfast, I have to head out to Sam's Club and Walmart's to pick up my insulin. Why do I have to go all the way over there? Because the manufacture of my insulin made a dirty deal with Walmart. Any other pharmacy, they charge between $65.00 and $80.00 a vial, and I use four a month. Walmart has it for $24.99 per vial.

I pay cash for my medication because I have no coverage. But people who do have coverage just go to any pharmacy, and their insurance pays over three times what I pay for mine at Walmart and Sam's, which is the same company. They have a limit of 4 vials per month each which is why I have to go to both stores. They have the limit so you don't black market the stuff and make a profit off of people that didn't investigate these huge price differences.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

What bad things did Democrats cast upon you?

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K.

You can't claim a tax loss based on an imaginary price.
If the depreciation expense on the surgery equipment and operating room, doctor's and nurse's salaries, blood, oxygen, anesthesia, insurance, recovery room, etc., etc., etc., comes to $60,000...they have a net profit of $20,000, whether they billed $80,000.....$250,000 or $1 million.

 

[Redfish]

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K.

You can't claim a tax loss based on an imaginary price.
If the depreciation expense on the surgery equipment and operating room, doctor's and nurse's salaries, blood, oxygen, anesthesia, insurance, recovery room, etc., etc., etc., comes to $60,000...they have a net profit of $20,000, whether they billed $80,000.....$250,000 or $1 million.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct. None of them shows a profit for tax purposes. Now, you are correct that they actually make a profit, but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

 

[LaDairis]

The more government gets involved in healthcare, the higher the cost, and the worse the service....

Free markets reduce cost, flush out waste, fraud, and theft....

Government always increases cost, waste, fraud, and kleptocratic theft.

Doctors make $500k per year
Nurses make $150k per year
Drug companies make billions
Senators who voted to socialize senior drugs got drug company checks on the Senate floor, and billed the taxpayer for RETAIL COST, no volume discount...

 

[Redfish]

So in 2006, I had a great private insurance policy, that was $67 a month, and covered everything I needed.

By 2010, to this day, no such plans exist. The cheapest plan that is available at all, is $350/month, and that's with a lower max cap, and a higher deductible, than my $67/month plan back in 2006. Obama wrecked all of it.

Healthcare costs started skyrocketing long before 2010. Increases were inevitable.

and why do you think that happened? any idea?

it started when people assumed that their insurance should pay for all medical expenses. So the medical providers could raise prices since the insurers would just pay up and raise premiums on the people.

same reason that college tuition went up when the government started guaranteeing student loans of any amount.

Its not complicated if you actually think about it for a few seconds.

Actually, the government underpays doctors and hospitals for their patients. Some are actually refusing new Medicare and Medicaid patients. The increases by the providers are because of government. If the government only pays 2/3 of the bill for a doctors visit, no big deal, but on a 500K surgery? That's a problem. They have to recoup that money somehow.

That's why when a provider closes down, it's usually in lower income areas where there are few private and insurance paying customers. It's mostly government covered customers.

partially correct, but its a tax game being played by medical providers. They create a bill of 250K for a surgery, accept a medicare or insurance payment of 80K and then claim a tax loss for the other 170K. that's why you see a charge of $5 for one aspirin on your hospital bill. Its a game.

Losses don't make up all that much, just a portion. I worked in medical equipment for ten years, and that's the way we used to do it. You can't have different charges for different coverages. The law is you have to charge the same for everybody. Since you can't charge government more than private insurance, you just increase the cost to all. That's one of the many reasons private insurance is nearly unaffordable.

It's also a problem when people like Sander's talks about Medicare for all. His calculations are based on what they are currently paying. But if those rates remained the same, doctors and hospitals would close down across the country because there would be no private insurance to make up the losses on. So whatever figure they come up with, you have to add at least 30% to their estimates in order to keep these places in business.

After I eat breakfast, I have to head out to Sam's Club and Walmart's to pick up my insulin. Why do I have to go all the way over there? Because the manufacture of my insulin made a dirty deal with Walmart. Any other pharmacy, they charge between $65.00 and $80.00 a vial, and I use four a month. Walmart has it for $24.99 per vial.

I pay cash for my medication because I have no coverage. But people who do have coverage just go to any pharmacy, and their insurance pays over three times what I pay for mine at Walmart and Sam's, which is the same company. They have a limit of 4 vials per month each which is why I have to go to both stores. They have the limit so you don't black market the stuff and make a profit off of people that didn't investigate these huge price differences.

I get all that. But if you have no insurance you will get a bill for the entire 250K (in my example) then they will agree to give you a discount to the 80K that they would collect from insurance or medicare if you had it. then, for tax purposes, they will write off the 170K as a loss.

please don't confuse financial reality with tax avoidance schemes, even though they are technically legal.

 

[skookerasbil]

People have to remember with this kind of topic........what is the experience and what is the perception?

The OP lives in the middle of nowhere. THE consummate definition of Bumfook. He has to drive hours to even see a structure that stands taller than one story. Offuckingcourse he is going to be angry and miserable as hell. You will find that most hard core socialist guys are that way because they are angry and miserable for being relative losers and they want to blame somebody else for their shitty lot in life........its consistent with all who love socialists. They want EVERYBODY to be as miserable as they are.

Nobody is making highly wealthy people go away ever.......its just the way it is. Raise the bar for yourself...........d0y.