The new slave trade

[Arathena]

I'd also prefer to see a national single-payer health care system so that the cost of medical care isn't concentrated solely on the businesses, but spread out. It would also free employers to offer bigger wages to attract workers, since they wouldn't need to spend as much of their income on non-cash benefits.

Unfortunately for this point of view, the most viable collection point for the 1.5 trillion dollars and rapidly rising amount not already handled by the government is likely to be a payroll tax, effectively replacing the current benefit system. Alternately, the mean income tax bill needs to go up by about 4,200. Probably closer to 6,000 by the time such a system is implemented. You can rape their paychecks on the back end, or you can rape them on the front end, but the guy who's already covered won't see much benefit.

The only companies that will really benefit from a single payer system are those who are forced to work with unions that saw them as cash cows to slaughter, rather than as partners in money-making. (Hai2U, UAW.)

Just don't half-ass it like Massachussettes did. Mandating the purchase of insurance from a private provider is asinine.

[Partha]

Ask people if they'd pay more in taxes to have universal health coverage.

[Ddrak]

Raise income taxes (or the VAT level if you're keen on eliminating the IRS) if you want to implement socialized health care. It's the only sane way to do it. Burying it in a payroll tax is evil. The hike would be around 5-10% and while you wouldn't see a lot of benefit at the consumer end, the benefits to business of not having to deal with health care idiocy which has no logical reason to be tied to employment would make a lot of people dance and sing.

And I'm happily paying higher taxes for semi-socialized health care (although the system here is much weirder than I remember it)

Dd

[Kulaf]

Ask people if they'd pay more in taxes to have universal health coverage.

I'd be interested in the results of that if the question quantified the increase in taxes either as a percentage of increase.....or a direct dollar figure. "More" is much too ambiguous.

[Arathena]

Ask people if they'd pay more in taxes to have universal health coverage.

Universal health coverage will cost more than the current federal discretionary budget. It is difficult for me to decide between seeing that my nephews have insurance and feeding and housing myself.

[Partha]

Bzzt! Falsity!

The US currently spends more per person in both government and private spending on health care than any nation with socialized health care - that includes spending double what Germany does and more than double what France, Canada, and the UK do. Hell, in government spending ALONE, we spend more than all those nations, with a worse result.

[Arathena]

Bzzt! Falsity!

The US currently spends more per person in both government and private spending on health care than any nation with socialized health care - that includes spending double what Germany does and more than double what France, Canada, and the UK do. Hell, in government spending ALONE, we spend more than all those nations, with a worse result.

Okay. Let's wave your magic wand of cost reduction, and ignore the political pressure from below when Little Suzy gets the x-ray she needs when she breaks her leg instead of the MRI. So, instead of adding 2.1 trillion to the budget, we'll only add .8 trillion - That's a 50% savings, counting what we already spend on health care - rawer numbers are 2.5 and 1.2 trillion That brings the Federal budget for '09 to about 3.9 trillion dollars. Assuming growth similar to '08 and '07, we can assume a total federal reciept of ~2.9 trillion dollars, of which a total of 2.2 trillion will come from the individual taxpayer. Deficit of... 1 trillion dollars. We need only multiply our current tax burden by 150%, thank goodness. Is it going to come out of the front end(direct tax), or the back end of my paycheck(payroll)? Let me know when you decide. I'd kind of prefer the back end, since that way, the company I work for can't just drop my old health insurance without increasing my pay, and stick me with the bill.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

what you're failing to relize is what you're currently paying out for health insurance is more then the tax hike you'd see. you won't miss another 1-2 percent of your paycheck, because you'll still be getting more money because you're not paying into your insurance plan. You won't have to choose between feeding yourself and your kids or relatives having health coverage. Back to Lulu and her families problem, if you're paying 250 a month, for a single person, expect to probably triple that by adding someone else. What you'd pay for Centralized Health Care is no where near the cost, per person, that the average person spends on health insurance, and thats before co pays, and prescription costs.

It has nothing to do with the budgets and the deficient and needing a tax hike to cover the added expenses. There's no more fighting over price hikes or decreases, everything costs the same no matter if you go to the specialist or to the regular doctor because you have a cold. You won't have to worry about your kids being really sick and needing antibiotics, and breathing medications, AND steroids and having the total come up to 500.00. you wouldn't have to worry about how your parents were going to pay for their medications, you wouldn't have to worry about if you could afford the premium hikes when the baby was born or wonder if you could afford to take your kid to the ER if something really serious happened... it'd all be taken care of... and for less per person, with everyone covered, then what the average person is paying PER YEAR to their insurance company.

It'll never happen of course because the pharmaceutical companies have too big of a stake in shareholders interests and what's going on with the FDA and with the insurance companies themselves, so the lobbyists will continue to pay congress millions of dollars in persuasion to keep things like Centralized Health Care out of the hands of americans , where it could really be doing some good.

[Kulaf]

Bzzt! Falsity!

The US currently spends more per person in both government and private spending on health care than any nation with socialized health care - that includes spending double what Germany does and more than double what France, Canada, and the UK do. Hell, in government spending ALONE, we spend more than all those nations, with a worse result.

Data please.

[Arathena]

what you're failing to relize is what you're currently paying out for health insurance is more then the tax hike you'd see. you won't miss another 1-2 percent of your paycheck, because you'll still be getting more money because you're not paying into your insurance plan. You won't have to choose between feeding yourself and your kids or relatives having health coverage. Back to Lulu and her families problem, if you're paying 250 a month, for a single person, expect to probably triple that by adding someone else. What you'd pay for Centralized Health Care is no where near the cost, per person, that the average person spends on health insurance, and thats before co pays, and prescription costs.

It has nothing to do with the budgets and the deficient and needing a tax hike to cover the added expenses. There's no more fighting over price hikes or decreases, everything costs the same no matter if you go to the specialist or to the regular doctor because you have a cold. You won't have to worry about your kids being really sick and needing antibiotics, and breathing medications, AND steroids and having the total come up to 500.00. you wouldn't have to worry about how your parents were going to pay for their medications, you wouldn't have to worry about if you could afford the premium hikes when the baby was born or wonder if you could afford to take your kid to the ER if something really serious happened... it'd all be taken care of... and for less per person, with everyone covered, then what the average person is paying PER YEAR to their insurance company.

It'll never happen of course because the pharmaceutical companies have too big of a stake in shareholders interests and what's going on with the FDA and with the insurance companies themselves, so the lobbyists will continue to pay congress millions of dollars in persuasion to keep things like Centralized Health Care out of the hands of americans , where it could really be doing some good.

See, Ari, this is true - If And Only If you are already paying directly for your health insurance, into a system that is and must be designed such that 90%+ of Americans lose money on the proposition in any given year. For the very significant portion of the population that is covered by employer-subsidized insurance, and not being assraped on it like Fingle was, it will be a loss. I am paying less than $40 a month in direct premiums... and probably about $500 a month in indirect premiums. Another 1% of my income won't hurt very much, but taking the $500 that my employer pays out of my pocket instead of his, well that's my rent. Without the subsidized insurance, I simply went without.

I have an annual healthcare expenditure of less than $300. Even the year I got sick as death, needed two rounds of antibiotics and a round of steroids only cost me $200 out of pocket. Most people, actually, do have very low expenditures. It's how insurance works, you bilk Peter, Paul, and Mary to pay John's hospital bill. It's how ALL collective expenses work. Someone, somewhere, gets fucked. Fine, I'm willing to be assraped on this one. All I'm asking for is some lube. Because while my company might be kind enough to raise my pay by the cost of insurance after you force us onto the government run system, there are going to be a shitload of companies where they just pocket the difference and run.

[Embar Angylwrath]

The business I run pays for 100% of the health care premiums for my employees. And then pays even more (up to a cap) for dependents. The bottom line... an employee at my company pays about $50 bucks max out his or her pocket to insure an entire family.

If the "universal health care" system takes the form of a payroll tax, there will most likely be a split between employer and employee. AND the cost is likely to go up, because if its a payroll tax, everyone who works will be covering everyone who doesn't.

So.. companies like mine who pay the almost all of the insurance for their employees won't get hurt too much, but the employee will, because the pay will go down in order to contirbute their share of the payroll tax. On the other side, employees that already pay a large share of their insurance will just see that cost shifted to the payroll tax portion, but the company will have to pay more, and I guarantee you that wages will go down to compensate.

Either way, universal health will cost every employed person more money, either through wage reductions, or through additional payroll tax burdens.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

Now correct me if i'm wrong dear friends, but I believe that the majority of coverage, aka Blue Cross etc, is a deductible based coverage, and most of it is around 2500 per year or so, meaning you must pay that first amount, and if you only go to the doctor once and you pay 200 then you're still paying your monthly fees no matter what... in which case you're simply losing a ton of money every year, and even IF you have to go often, you still have to come up with the originally stated 2500. I specifically remember women from my pregnancy board having to work with their physicans to spread out their deductible over to the birth of their child, because they couldn't make that kind of payment all at once. Obviously pregnancy costs well over 2500 as the bill for a birth alone runs around 7k (and it's something obvious that comes to mind that a lot of people our age are facing, or thinking about facing). So i'm under the impression, and correct me if i'm wrong, that you're in the minority of people with good health coverage. Not to say other coverage isn't as good, but that people are paying more for it.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I'm not an expert on all the plans out there, but we offer several, including Blue Cross. For our plans, there are three different types of cost sharing mechanisms in the plans. They are:

Co-Payment

Insurance Cap

Deductible

First, all of our HMO plans have no deductible, only co-pays. The deductubles do come in with our PPOs, and they range from $1000 to $2400. However, all of our employees prefer the HMOs.

Co-payment is the share of the visit. It'a about $25-$40 for a doctor visit, and $500 for a hospital stay. $10 for prescriptions, with a max out-of-pocket per year of about $2500.

None of our insurance plans have a cap, meaning teh insurance will cover an unlimited amount of medical expenses.

[Partha]

Bzzt! Falsity!

The US currently spends more per person in both government and private spending on health care than any nation with socialized health care - that includes spending double what Germany does and more than double what France, Canada, and the UK do. Hell, in government spending ALONE, we spend more than all those nations, with a worse result.

Data please.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/12/ ... niver.html

I've heard no one, on either side of the political spectrum, play up the fact that the government in the U.S. already spends more on health care than almost every other country on earth. I'm talking government spending, not private spending. According to the U.S. Statistical Abstract, government spending on health care in the U.S was $2,168 per person in 2001 (the last year for which comparison data are available). Here were the top 10 government spenders on health care in 2001.

* Norway: $2,550
* U.S.: $2,168
* Denmark: $2,098
* Iceland: $2,025
* Sweden: $1,832
* Germany: $1,803
* France: $1,599
* Canada: $1,531
* UK: $1,518
* Belgium: $1,417.

If we add in private spending as well, it's not even close.

* U.S.: $4,887
* Switzerland: $3,690
* Norway: $2,982
* Denmark: $2,545
* Iceland: $2,441
* Germany: $2,407
* Canada: $2,161
* Sweden: $2,149
* Netherlands: $2,134
* France: $2,104.

Note that the countries frequently cited as models of universal health care, Canada and the U.K., spent less on public health than the U.S. did. Sweden, the notorious welfare state, spent 15% less than the U.S.. The only country to spend more, Norway, has about the size and population of Colorado, with oil exports over 3 million barrels per day.

Even as a fraction of GDP, government in the U.S. spent a comparable amount to other nations (6.6% in 2002). Canada spent just slightly more (6.7%), and Japan and the U.K. spent less (6.4%). Only seven countries of the 28 countries listed spent a greater fraction of GDP on public health funding than the U.S..

Business would love you to pay more for an inferior service, trust me. It's your health care on AOL.

Oh, and Embar -

The business I run pays for 100% of the health care premiums for my employees. And then pays even more (up to a cap) for dependents. The bottom line... an employee at my company pays about $50 bucks max out his or her pocket to insure an entire family

Didn't we go over this when you asked about it last time? Your insurance is exceptional and nowhere near the average. Go look at a Starbridge plan and tell me universal coverage with an increase in income taxes isn't preferable.

[Ddrak]

I don't see why socialized health care would cost as much as Ara suggests. The money is already being paid by people to their insurers or to their hospitals, so to have it go via the government while cutting out the insurance companies should have an upper limit as the current payments.

People without insurance still go to doctors and still either pay or the hospital eats the bill. People with insurance would just pay a similar amount as tax instead of insurance. Employers wouldn't have to deal with the whole insurance mess (all large companies are self-funded anyway). At a basic level it just streamlines the existing system through a single clearing house (ie the government).

The danger of socialized care comes when you pull away from the simplicity of just having the government as a single large "insurer" and tinker with the rules to please particular politically sensitive groups. Sadly, it always happens.

On Ari's statement, most health care plans have a relatively small deductible (if any) and just use co-pays. Typically you're forced to use a particular set of doctors. The plans with deductibles are actually more affordable in the long term. Also, you can't view it as "tossing money away" - after all, would you go without any car insurance even though you've probably made far less claims than you've paid out in your life? Can you afford the spike in costs *if* something happens or is a comparatively small amount monthly suit you better?

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

All I'm saying Partha, is that companies that offer plans like mine won't feel the pain, because we are already shelling out a goodly amount for our employees. The employees, however, WILL feel the pinch, as they are required to reduce the amount of their checks to help fund the universal healthcare. On the flip side, companies that spend little on emplyee healthcare, will reduce wages to compensate for the increased cost.. or.. they'll raise prices. Either way, the consumer/employee will feel it.

Maybe they are ok with the trade-off, I don't know. Or maybe they want to spend time looking for work in companies that offer benefits similar to ours. Its not like every person I'd like to work for us takes a position with us. They make a choice, that includes a well thought out decision including wages and healthcare benefits. And beleive me, we pay better than industry standards. Much better. Our salespeople make over 100K/year if they are effective at their job, and have no limit on earnings. Our experienced field people can easily make 80K/year, and even a person with no experience will make close to 50K. In fact, I think the lowest paid position here is about $45K, and thats for an admin postion.

My point, even with good pay and great benefits (we also offer a profit sharing plan), some people still pass on the job offer. They may want to work in a larger organization, or maybe in a different area of the environmental sector. But if pay and healthcare benefits were the driving factor in most decisions to accept an employment offer, we'd land a larger porion of the prospects we recruit. So maybe people claim healthcare benefits are more important than they really are? (And I agree, healthcare benefits ARE important, which is why we as a company are committed to providing them to our employees). I just don't agree that universal healthcare is the way to go to address the issue.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

I don't see why socialized health care would cost as much as Ara suggests. The money is already being paid by people to their insurers or to their hospitals, so to have it go via the government while cutting out the insurance companies should have an upper limit as the current payments.

HI ! Thats MY point !

I've recently been discussing my friends health insurance with them, as the ONLY Health coverage I've had in my entire life HAS been Tricare (whom i'm currently very unhappy with, for a multitude of reasons, but thats not my expense when they messed everything up). Frankly I can't see that anyone I know in person has such a great health plan that Embar has or Ara has. My friend has a HSA and her deductible is 2500. she just went to the OB/GYN and paid 80 out of pocket, just for the appointment, she's paying for her birth control out of pocket as well. Another friend of mine works for PNC bank and she recently paid over 78 dollars for 2 prescriptions for her sick child.

Lets use my friend with the HSA as an example. She has a 2500 deductible. now again if we go back to a pregnancy she'll far exceed her deductible and be more then covered however she doesn't have 2500 sitting around to pay for it. now lets say she goes the opposite way and she gets say an IUD. thats 600 for the IUD, she has to pay upfront, plus the appointment to get it ordered, plus the appointment to have it inserted, so she's still no where close to her max amount, and in one visit she's had to come up with appx 800, just to prevent pregnancy. Now obviously she's going to use a cheaper form of birth control but it's the point.

Now lets say you go to the hospital, because you slip on the ice and your break your ankle, then you're still having to come up with the entire amount out pocket. An ER visit, with a cast, x-rays and a follow up appointment with an orthopedic surgeon will probably ap your 2500 but I still dont know who has the money right up front. At least the advantage with an HSA is you can have money deducted from your paycheck to set aside topay for said medical costs, but thats in addition to the amount being removed from the check for the coverage to begin with.

The US is far behind in it's healthcare, it's educational help , it's daycare and it's public transportation (in a lot of places ). Now i'm not suggesting we link the entire US via mass transit, but such a plan would increase available jobs to both build and maintain a system, it could cut down on pollution, and that gets us right back to the points of climat control and man made hells doesn't it ?

Anyway theres another little bit of a tangent. I simply can't see how we could go wrong with a centralized health care plan, but again more people would feel like they were losing money then was worth it to stabalize certain aspects of American living, and as such it'll never happen. I mean we wouldn't want ole Senator so n so to go without 800k in expenses while making 160k + a year would we ? Oh wait sorry those guys /HAVE great health coverage...

[Ddrak]

All I'm saying Partha, is that companies that offer plans like mine won't feel the pain, because we are already shelling out a goodly amount for our employees. The employees, however, WILL feel the pinch, as they are required to reduce the amount of their checks to help fund the universal healthcare. On the flip side, companies that spend little on emplyee healthcare, will reduce wages to compensate for the increased cost.. or.. they'll raise prices. Either way, the consumer/employee will feel it.

That makes no sense. First you're assuming a payroll tax (which is a silly idea anyway), and secondly you're assuming that the cost will increase over the average health plan. Like I said before - there's no money disappearing in this system from the way it is today. The employees you suggest are feeling the "pinch" are seeing lower (or no) co-pays at the doctors, so they're getting something for their money.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

How many times you been to the doctor last year Dd? Once, twice? Maybe none? That's the norm for most people without serious health issues. So say you go an average of three times, and get, oh, I don't know, 3 prescriptions. Depending on the plans out there currently offered with the co-pays.. you're going to pay what... $50-200 bucks maybe? You think that will be an economic wash for whatever tax system, payroll or otherwise, a government must impose to pay for the services? No way.

If not a payroll tax, then what.. income tax? If its an income tax, its still linked to payroll, isn't it? The more you make, the more you pay? If its "universal" healthcare, you certainly can't tax a person with no job, because they have no income.

Tell me, how do you expect to pay for the program? If the common lament is not enough people have health care, then the solution is.. give healthcare to everyone who doesn't have it. So if you're going to increase the service demand, how do you pay for the increase in service?

Answer.. you'll have to tax people for it. See.. teh issue isn't the people who have healthcare now... its the people who don't. Someone has to pay for those people. That someone is the taxpayer. And the only people who pay taxes, are people with income. So call it a payroll tax, or an income tax.. whatever... bottom line is those who take a paycheck in any form will see their tax burden increase. No way around that.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

It's not about how many times you currently go. what do you do when you have some sort of emergency, or you develop some sort of condition, or you've been around biochemical waste to long and no onw knows what the hell to do with you and your insurance won't approve you going to a research facility ? Insurance is like anything else, it's about the "what if" not the facts