Opinion based on opinion (another T-P Passion Play): Oh, and Healthcare!
A way to rationalize the cost based arguments for and against The Dreaded Single Payer Plan©:
I read this comment on the npr site regarding an story that, as usual, has nothing to do with the subject of the story
Wise Adz (wiseadz) wrote:
Ethan Carter: "I'd rather have higher taxes and single-payer healthcare."
Funny you should mention that. I asked my boss how much it costs to employ me (including health care), and it's roughly double my salary when you include payroll taxes and my health plan. If you consider all of the money that I earn, and call the rest "taxes", I pay a 67% "tax rate". If I'm paying such a "socialist" tax rate, why don't my neighbors have socialist access to medical care and socialist access to education?
But let's pretend that the health care plan is all that matters. The cost of my health plan is about $18k/year. My pre-tax salary is $60-something, and my post-tax salary is around $40-something. So, running the same thought-experiment on just my take-home salary and my pretax salary+healthplan, that still puts me just under a 50% tax rate. Again, this is the kind of "socialist" tax rate that Republicans like to scare me with - so where are the socialist benefits for my neighbors?
If anyone thinks that health plan only covers me, they're misinformed. It also pays costs for the uninsured to visit the emergency room, and the hospital overcharges me (and undercharges others) to make the bottom line work out.
Hat tip to Wise Adz. He said it as well as anything I have heard. And it got me to thinking.
Note his last comment. No matter what kind of private insured system there is, there will always be uninsured whose costs has to be paid by someone, typically us through high premiums. A premium is just like a tax. To my wallet, there is no difference. No amount of GOP whiny shrillness will drown out that simple fact. And this morals based society is not going to let too many people die for lack of basic care. Endgame: maintain the status quo with non sequitur rhetoric about TAXPAYER ENABLING OF THE LAZY.
I feel access to health care in a society that can technologically provide it (and health care only, draw no parallels with me on this one) is a fundamental right. I want my employees to have health care. But we can't afford it (see above). We would simply labor cost ourselves out of existence. How DARE the GOP spout pro-business doublespeak. Supporting the Obamacare program is helping small business and families. Much more than any trickle downs every GOP politician insists will be the result of repealing 'unwanted' aspects of the program.
I don't claim to know all the facts and figures and arguments with tax charts and Bruceisms. I am just telling you from my practical business experience business needs this program. American's need this program. Either in its current form, or modified. the cost of the healthcare business is not going to change direction, and that is not a good direction to go.
Premium or tax. If you want healthcare with less administrative, and more R&D and preventative programs do you think the premium based system is the answer, or the tax supported system? Maybe some of both?
Now for the obligatory factual visual thingie. This time it is a collection of the most commonly used terms when discussing 'healthcare' on the internet.
Note the word insurance is bigger than the word people.
And that is a problem.
I read this comment on the npr site regarding an story that, as usual, has nothing to do with the subject of the story
Wise Adz (wiseadz) wrote:
Ethan Carter: "I'd rather have higher taxes and single-payer healthcare."
Funny you should mention that. I asked my boss how much it costs to employ me (including health care), and it's roughly double my salary when you include payroll taxes and my health plan. If you consider all of the money that I earn, and call the rest "taxes", I pay a 67% "tax rate". If I'm paying such a "socialist" tax rate, why don't my neighbors have socialist access to medical care and socialist access to education?
But let's pretend that the health care plan is all that matters. The cost of my health plan is about $18k/year. My pre-tax salary is $60-something, and my post-tax salary is around $40-something. So, running the same thought-experiment on just my take-home salary and my pretax salary+healthplan, that still puts me just under a 50% tax rate. Again, this is the kind of "socialist" tax rate that Republicans like to scare me with - so where are the socialist benefits for my neighbors?
If anyone thinks that health plan only covers me, they're misinformed. It also pays costs for the uninsured to visit the emergency room, and the hospital overcharges me (and undercharges others) to make the bottom line work out.
Hat tip to Wise Adz. He said it as well as anything I have heard. And it got me to thinking.
Note his last comment. No matter what kind of private insured system there is, there will always be uninsured whose costs has to be paid by someone, typically us through high premiums. A premium is just like a tax. To my wallet, there is no difference. No amount of GOP whiny shrillness will drown out that simple fact. And this morals based society is not going to let too many people die for lack of basic care. Endgame: maintain the status quo with non sequitur rhetoric about TAXPAYER ENABLING OF THE LAZY.
I feel access to health care in a society that can technologically provide it (and health care only, draw no parallels with me on this one) is a fundamental right. I want my employees to have health care. But we can't afford it (see above). We would simply labor cost ourselves out of existence. How DARE the GOP spout pro-business doublespeak. Supporting the Obamacare program is helping small business and families. Much more than any trickle downs every GOP politician insists will be the result of repealing 'unwanted' aspects of the program.
I don't claim to know all the facts and figures and arguments with tax charts and Bruceisms. I am just telling you from my practical business experience business needs this program. American's need this program. Either in its current form, or modified. the cost of the healthcare business is not going to change direction, and that is not a good direction to go.
Premium or tax. If you want healthcare with less administrative, and more R&D and preventative programs do you think the premium based system is the answer, or the tax supported system? Maybe some of both?
Now for the obligatory factual visual thingie. This time it is a collection of the most commonly used terms when discussing 'healthcare' on the internet.
Note the word insurance is bigger than the word people.
And that is a problem.