Should Billionaires Even Exist?

[Ray From Cleveland]

So lets review. I paid $67 a month, for a very good insurance policy. It had lower deductibles, and higher max lifetime cap.

Saying that healthcare cost were skyrocketing before hand, doesn't mean much, if they were still dramatically cheaper than today. And the research shows this.

See the problem? The cost of healthcare by most estimates quadrupled in 10 years.

The average individual insurance premium went from $160 to $400 in 10 years.

Would you claim the that in 1998 that the premium was barely $50? Of course not.

The average insurance deductible $2084 to $4328 in 10 years.

Do you think that the average deductible in 1998 was under $1,000?

By that logic, in the 1980s, health insurance should have been barely $20 a month for a $200 deductible.

Of course not. Insurance costs have dramatically increased under Obama care.

Insurance costs were not going insane prior to Obama care. They simply were not. It was fabricated by the left, as an excuse to socialize the system, and make people dependent on government. And it worked.

But it did not make anything any better. It made every aspect of the system worse.

It has been increasing for a very long time, sorry to burst your bubble.

See for Yourself If Obamacare Increased Health Care Costs
In 2017, U.S. health care costs were $3.5 trillion. That makes health care one of the country's largest industries. It equals 17.9% of gross domestic product. In comparison, health care cost $27.2 billion in 1960, just 5% of GDP. That translates to an annual health care cost of $10,739 per person in 2017 versus just $146 per person in 1960. Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income.1 Health care consumed 4% of income in 1960 compared to 6% in 2013.

We're living a lot longer. And I don't mean like 2-3 years since 1960. More like 15 years. And the boomer generation which is huge is aging and it is a huge generation of people. So yeah, more health care is needed. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons for it going up and being a greater portion of the GDP but it's a very large chunk of it.

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

That's not what I was responding to. You stated our lifespan is shorter than other countries insinuating that it's because of our medical care system. I was explaining how it's not necessarily our healthcare system responsible. There are a lot of reasons for it.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

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.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct

A balance sheet shows assets and liabilities. Not cash flow or income.

None of them shows a profit for tax purposes.

Most are non-profit. But if your tax claim was true, it would still have nothing to do with imaginary prices.

but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Again, nothing to do with accepting an $80,000 payment for a $60,000 expense originally billed at $250,000.

not sure what you are arguing about. we are in agreement that medical facilities overcharge. That is a different topic from how they avoid federal taxes.

not sure what you are arguing about.

Accounting.

Saying I'm going to charge you $1000 to mow your lawn and then writing down my bill to $20 does not give me a tax loss of $980 as far as the IRS is concerned.

 

[Redfish]

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.

Look at any hospital's balance sheet, you will see that I am correct

A balance sheet shows assets and liabilities. Not cash flow or income.

None of them shows a profit for tax purposes.

Most are non-profit. But if your tax claim was true, it would still have nothing to do with imaginary prices.

but they pay no corporate taxes because of the way they account for costs and revenue.

Again, nothing to do with accepting an $80,000 payment for a $60,000 expense originally billed at $250,000.

not sure what you are arguing about. we are in agreement that medical facilities overcharge. That is a different topic from how they avoid federal taxes.

not sure what you are arguing about.

Accounting.

Saying I'm going to charge you $1000 to mow your lawn and then writing down my bill to $20 does not give me a tax loss of $980 as far as the IRS is concerned.

actually it does. all you have to do is put the $980 in the bad debt column of your P&L sheet and you have a tax loss. That is exactly what hospitals do today.

to the IRS I owed you 1000 but only paid 20. It doesn't matter that it only cost you 15 to mow my grass. accounting 101

 

[Brain357]

It has been increasing for a very long time, sorry to burst your bubble.

See for Yourself If Obamacare Increased Health Care Costs
In 2017, U.S. health care costs were $3.5 trillion. That makes health care one of the country's largest industries. It equals 17.9% of gross domestic product. In comparison, health care cost $27.2 billion in 1960, just 5% of GDP. That translates to an annual health care cost of $10,739 per person in 2017 versus just $146 per person in 1960. Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income.1 Health care consumed 4% of income in 1960 compared to 6% in 2013.

We're living a lot longer. And I don't mean like 2-3 years since 1960. More like 15 years. And the boomer generation which is huge is aging and it is a huge generation of people. So yeah, more health care is needed. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons for it going up and being a greater portion of the GDP but it's a very large chunk of it.

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

That's true, for a number of reasons.

1. The bleeding edge technology is always the most expensive.

Take France. France usually does not get the same medications that we do in the US, for usually several years. Why? too expensive. If it costs too much, then they simply don't let their citizens have those medications.

You want to reduce the cost of medications in the US? Simply let people die, and don't let them have expensive medications, just like France.

2. For smaller markets, companies are willing to cut prices.

As has been posted a number of times, the cost to bring a single medication to market, is upward of a billion to two billion dollars, or even more. How can you spend billions of dollars, and sell a pill for $1 each? You can't. You'd end up bankrupt. Again, basic math comes into effect.

So the companies absolutely must charge enough in their main market, in order to recover their investment. To not do this, means closing the company.

However, once you have that cost recovered.... then you can make whatever deal you want. So you have the US, and lets say, Taiwan. Taiwan only has 20 million people or so. It's a small market. Once you have the US market covering the cost of R&D.... then selling the same medication to Taiwan, is just gravy. Even selling it for $1 a pill, is still worth it.

But you can't sell that pill in the US for $1 each, because someone has to cover that billion+ investment you spent to create the pill.

Someone has to pay the bill. Or you don't have any medication at all. And by the way... why does it cost over a billion dollars to bring a pill to market? Government controls and regulations. Just like I said before.... all costs and taxes, all end up being passed onto the consumer.

3. and lastly but likely more important than even the first two, the research and design.

Medical breakthroughs are costly It can take decades of endless testing, to even come up with one single valid treatment on anything.

You realize that France was the mother country of the modern pharmaceutical revolution. We all learned that in history class (or at least I did).

Did you know that today, France is one of the least innovative countries in the field of medicine? Why do you think that is? Why do most of the medical innovations in the whole world, happen in the US?

Because the profits, fuel innovation. France killed the profits, thus there is little innovation.

The French live longer than us...

 

[Brain357]

It has been increasing for a very long time, sorry to burst your bubble.

See for Yourself If Obamacare Increased Health Care Costs
In 2017, U.S. health care costs were $3.5 trillion. That makes health care one of the country's largest industries. It equals 17.9% of gross domestic product. In comparison, health care cost $27.2 billion in 1960, just 5% of GDP. That translates to an annual health care cost of $10,739 per person in 2017 versus just $146 per person in 1960. Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income.1 Health care consumed 4% of income in 1960 compared to 6% in 2013.

We're living a lot longer. And I don't mean like 2-3 years since 1960. More like 15 years. And the boomer generation which is huge is aging and it is a huge generation of people. So yeah, more health care is needed. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons for it going up and being a greater portion of the GDP but it's a very large chunk of it.

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

its up to the individual rich person what they do with their money. If you don't like how a CEO acts boycott his business. The government should never tell any person what they must do with their money.

What do you think the board libs would say if they were lucky enough to be that rich? Never get an answer to that one.

its also funny that they never criticize with the idiot millionaires in hollywood do with their money, or the rich liberals in congress do with theirs.

hypocrites, every one of them.

Actually any kind of entertainment. They have a problem when a CEO gets paid 5 million dollars a year, but no problem when their favorite actor gets paid 10 million for one single movie.

Years ago I bought a new television. I usually don't watch the boob tube outside of news programs. So I got involved with the Big Bang Theory show, and started watching all the reruns. After I really started to enjoy the show, I looked up the actors to see who they were and what they were about.

I found that each main actor got paid over a million dollars per episode. They also got a bunch of other perks like pay for reruns and things like that. How much work does it take to make a half-hour show? Take out the commercials, it's more like 22 minutes of work. One million dollars to work 22 minutes a week.

It's the same with sports. When you look onto a baseball or football field, you are looking at a field of millionaires who are playing a kids game. It's estimated that Mick Jagger is worth over 350 million dollars for singing.

 

[Redfish]

We're living a lot longer. And I don't mean like 2-3 years since 1960. More like 15 years. And the boomer generation which is huge is aging and it is a huge generation of people. So yeah, more health care is needed. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons for it going up and being a greater portion of the GDP but it's a very large chunk of it.

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

 

[Brain357]

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

Your stupid level is impressive.

Health care in the U.S. most costly in the world by far

 

[Redfish]

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

its up to the individual rich person what they do with their money. If you don't like how a CEO acts boycott his business. The government should never tell any person what they must do with their money.

What do you think the board libs would say if they were lucky enough to be that rich? Never get an answer to that one.

its also funny that they never criticize with the idiot millionaires in hollywood do with their money, or the rich liberals in congress do with theirs.

hypocrites, every one of them.

Actually any kind of entertainment. They have a problem when a CEO gets paid 5 million dollars a year, but no problem when their favorite actor gets paid 10 million for one single movie.

Years ago I bought a new television. I usually don't watch the boob tube outside of news programs. So I got involved with the Big Bang Theory show, and started watching all the reruns. After I really started to enjoy the show, I looked up the actors to see who they were and what they were about.

I found that each main actor got paid over a million dollars per episode. They also got a bunch of other perks like pay for reruns and things like that. How much work does it take to make a half-hour show? Take out the commercials, it's more like 22 minutes of work. One million dollars to work 22 minutes a week.

It's the same with sports. When you look onto a baseball or football field, you are looking at a field of millionaires who are playing a kids game. It's estimated that Mick Jagger is worth over 350 million dollars for singing.

I thinks it says a lot about a society when its athletes and entertainers are the highest paid people.

 

[Ame®icano]

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?

Politicians deciding who should have something, and in what amount. Billionaire are not cool, because you're jealous of them?

Yes, Bezos is worth $130 billion. It's not that he has billions in cash his bank account, waiting for you to take it away. How do you tax his "assets" over $1 billion, confiscate part of his shares in Amazon and other companies and give it to whom? These socialists are insane.

 

[Redfish]

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

Your stupid level is impressive.

Health care in the U.S. most costly in the world by far

so you post a propaganda piece from a left wing rag as proof? LOL, you continue to make a fool of yourself and are too dumb to realize it.

 

[Grace Is Stoked]

I don't necessarily believe that being a billionaire should be illegal but I personally would not be comfortable having that much money and I also personally believe that simple living is more in line with my own moral, ethical, and religious beliefs than having all the money in the world.

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

its up to the individual rich person what they do with their money. If you don't like how a CEO acts boycott his business. The government should never tell any person what they must do with their money.

I would agree that the government shouldn’t tell people what to do with their money. I guess my point was that in my opinion if the wealthiest CEO’s were to reinvest their wealth into their employees and the communities that their employees live it would help create a more stable life for millions of people across the country. Many CEOs are philanthropists, I’m aware of that, but if you are a multi-millionaire or especially a billionaire business owner or CEO I personally think that you have more to share. Money is not the end all be all and so I’m not saying employees need to be millionaires or anything like that but many large companies have employees that are barely making it by while the top executives have generational wealth. I’m not saying to force them to do anything but I am saying that I personally believe that they should close that gap more between them. I know I would if I were in that position.

 

[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?

Politicians deciding who should have something, and in what amount. Billionaire are not cool, because you're jealous of them?

Yes, Bezos is worth $130 billion. It's not that he has billions in cash his bank account, waiting for you to take it away. How do you tax his "assets" over $1 billion, confiscate part of his shares in Amazon and other companies and give it to whom? These socialists are insane.

and they are only jealous of billionaires who have earned their money, billionaires like the pervert Michael Jackson are their idols.

 

[Ken Mac]

We're living a lot longer. And I don't mean like 2-3 years since 1960. More like 15 years. And the boomer generation which is huge is aging and it is a huge generation of people. So yeah, more health care is needed. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons for it going up and being a greater portion of the GDP but it's a very large chunk of it.

It's the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and we don't live the longest....

Longevity is not a direct result of our healthcare system. We have drugs killing over 90,000 Americans a year now, and that's not including the thousands of murders that take place over drug sales in the streets. We drive more than most other people around the world, and we lose a lot of people in traffic accidents; 27,000 last year alone. Professional women have children much later in life than women in other countries. The later a woman gets pregnant, the more likely she is to lose the child after birth.

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

That's true, for a number of reasons.

1. The bleeding edge technology is always the most expensive.

Take France. France usually does not get the same medications that we do in the US, for usually several years. Why? too expensive. If it costs too much, then they simply don't let their citizens have those medications.

You want to reduce the cost of medications in the US? Simply let people die, and don't let them have expensive medications, just like France.

2. For smaller markets, companies are willing to cut prices.

As has been posted a number of times, the cost to bring a single medication to market, is upward of a billion to two billion dollars, or even more. How can you spend billions of dollars, and sell a pill for $1 each? You can't. You'd end up bankrupt. Again, basic math comes into effect.

So the companies absolutely must charge enough in their main market, in order to recover their investment. To not do this, means closing the company.

However, once you have that cost recovered.... then you can make whatever deal you want. So you have the US, and lets say, Taiwan. Taiwan only has 20 million people or so. It's a small market. Once you have the US market covering the cost of R&D.... then selling the same medication to Taiwan, is just gravy. Even selling it for $1 a pill, is still worth it.

But you can't sell that pill in the US for $1 each, because someone has to cover that billion+ investment you spent to create the pill.

Someone has to pay the bill. Or you don't have any medication at all. And by the way... why does it cost over a billion dollars to bring a pill to market? Government controls and regulations. Just like I said before.... all costs and taxes, all end up being passed onto the consumer.

3. and lastly but likely more important than even the first two, the research and design.

Medical breakthroughs are costly It can take decades of endless testing, to even come up with one single valid treatment on anything.

You realize that France was the mother country of the modern pharmaceutical revolution. We all learned that in history class (or at least I did).

Did you know that today, France is one of the least innovative countries in the field of medicine? Why do you think that is? Why do most of the medical innovations in the whole world, happen in the US?

Because the profits, fuel innovation. France killed the profits, thus there is little innovation.

The French live longer than us...

Two comments:

1. So what

2. Life should be measured by your happiness achieved throughout it . The length is irrelevant when it comes to average life span.

 

[Redfish]

It is not HAVING the money. It is the EARNING that is fun. If one is the type able to do it in the first place.

Yes, people who end up being millionaires and billionaires have a different mindset that's for sure.

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

its up to the individual rich person what they do with their money. If you don't like how a CEO acts boycott his business. The government should never tell any person what they must do with their money.

I would agree that the government shouldn’t tell people what to do with their money. I guess my point was that in my opinion if the wealthiest CEO’s were to reinvest their wealth into their employees and the communities that their employees live it would help create a more stable life for millions of people across the country. Many CEOs are philanthropists, I’m aware of that, but if you are a multi-millionaire or especially a billionaire business owner or CEO I personally think that you have more to share. Money is not the end all be all and so I’m not saying employees need to be millionaires or anything like that but many large companies have employees that are barely making it by while the top executives have generational wealth. I’m not saying to force them to do anything but I am saying that I personally believe that they should close that gap more between them. I know I would if I were in that position.

many do exactly that. the Mypillow guy is a good example. But there are also some like Bezos who keep it all for themselves. thats why I don't do business with amazon.

 

[Brain357]

Not gonna dispute it's the most expensive eh? Pretty sure other countries have drugs and cars and all manner of ways to die too.

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

Your stupid level is impressive.

Health care in the U.S. most costly in the world by far

so you post a propaganda piece from a left wing rag as proof? LOL, you continue to make a fool of yourself and are too dumb to realize it.

It’s a well known fact. I notice you post nothing. You are a joke, stop the lying,

 

[Ken Mac]

Yes. Some people forget that they create JOBS.

They do but I guess my personal opinion is that you would think that their company and especially their employees would be better off if the multi-millionaire or billionaire founder or owner didn’t allow themselves to get to that level because they gave more money back into the company and it’s employees beyond simple employment.

its up to the individual rich person what they do with their money. If you don't like how a CEO acts boycott his business. The government should never tell any person what they must do with their money.

What do you think the board libs would say if they were lucky enough to be that rich? Never get an answer to that one.

its also funny that they never criticize with the idiot millionaires in hollywood do with their money, or the rich liberals in congress do with theirs.

hypocrites, every one of them.

Actually any kind of entertainment. They have a problem when a CEO gets paid 5 million dollars a year, but no problem when their favorite actor gets paid 10 million for one single movie.

Years ago I bought a new television. I usually don't watch the boob tube outside of news programs. So I got involved with the Big Bang Theory show, and started watching all the reruns. After I really started to enjoy the show, I looked up the actors to see who they were and what they were about.

I found that each main actor got paid over a million dollars per episode. They also got a bunch of other perks like pay for reruns and things like that. How much work does it take to make a half-hour show? Take out the commercials, it's more like 22 minutes of work. One million dollars to work 22 minutes a week.

It's the same with sports. When you look onto a baseball or football field, you are looking at a field of millionaires who are playing a kids game. It's estimated that Mick Jagger is worth over 350 million dollars for singing.

Commiewood doesn't count. They are liberal!

*eyeroll*

 

[ChrisL]

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.

Funny how some will ignore that it is the politicians who are responsible for this system of cronyism. They allow it. Of course the businesses will take advantage of the fact that politicians can be bought and sold. If they were serious about making changes, they would START with the politicians and political culture of enriching themselves, and then fooling the silly naïve people by blaming it entirely on corporations and businesses.

 

[Redfish]

we are not the most expensive and we are the best. Would you rather pay 55% of your income to the government and have to wait months for routine care? Thats what they have in countries with socialized medicine, ask any Brit, Swede, or Canadian how the government run medicine works for them. It sucks.

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

Your stupid level is impressive.

Health care in the U.S. most costly in the world by far

so you post a propaganda piece from a left wing rag as proof? LOL, you continue to make a fool of yourself and are too dumb to realize it.

It’s a well known fact. I notice you post nothing. You are a joke, stop the lying,

here is a study done on the satisfaction with the british NHS

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/...satisfaction_with_NHS_social_care_in_2018.pdf

 

[Brain357]

You are lying.

no, I am not. do some research before making a fool of yourself on a public message board.

Your stupid level is impressive.

Health care in the U.S. most costly in the world by far

so you post a propaganda piece from a left wing rag as proof? LOL, you continue to make a fool of yourself and are too dumb to realize it.

It’s a well known fact. I notice you post nothing. You are a joke, stop the lying,

here is a study done on the satisfaction with the british NHS

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/...satisfaction_with_NHS_social_care_in_2018.pdf

What country spends the most on healthcare?