A Question for you Pro-Heathcare Reformers

[KrisHawkXXX]

Why should I, a hard-working citizen who pays his taxes and is able to hold his own job, have to pay for someone else's care? Now my taxes are gonna go up to pay for some drug addict bum who can't keep a job. And by the way, get ready to have hospitals overcrowded and you guys having to wait long lines with this "universal healthcare" idea. If you want to help out crackwhore jobless bum that's your business, but I shouldn't be obligated to pay for someone's life insurance.

Because according to the religious right.. we are founded on Christian principals. Jesus said love the poor and suffering and give what you can. Love Like family and you shall be rewarded in heaven. But of course you only reach for the good book to discriminate.

The liberals try to reach out and help the vast majority of poor and middle class that suffer because the rich capitalists that profit higher and higher put us in the shitty position we are in to begin with.

 

[foodandart]

Because according to the religious right.. we are founded on Christian principals. Jesus said love the poor and suffering and give what you can. Love Like family and you shall be rewarded in heaven. But of course you only reach for the good book to discriminate.

The liberals try to reach out and help the vast majority of poor and middle class that suffer because the rich capitalists that profit higher and higher put us in the shitty position we are in to begin with.

Not to throw down on the classist game, but the "middle" never had it so good, and absolutely squandered almost everything they had. They deserve to feel a bit of PAIN.

When Reagan became president he said the working poor were "shiftless, lazy and just out to steal taxpayers dollars.." How do you think *I* felt as a teen-ager that even the President of the US thought that of me because I lived in the back of a VW bus and got food stamps? ..and there was the middle-class right along with the President going "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Poor people suck!"

Fuck you.

NOW three decades later, after the obscene spending spree that saw trickle-down be less about wealth and more about draining the kidneys on the 'little' people - WHOOP! - NOW the middle-class needs help? What's the matter? Thought you wouldn't be on the menu next? Who could resist such big fat squabs of targets?

Fuck you.

Maybe if the middle-class wasn't so mind-meltingly shallow and materialistic and lived within their means instead of trying to keep up with "the neighbors" they wouldn't be crying like a bunch of beggars crying for handouts now.

Welcome to the world of the working poor. Suck it up and go without you spoiled, indulged pussies.

Venemously,

 

[Kulindahr]

I thought that the MARKETPLACE in a capitalistic society set wages and prices???

Supply and Demand -- NOT the "wealthy people"...

In point of fact, the wealthy people tend to own the companies that set the wages and prices. Of course if those wealthy people ignore market forces, they have a tendency to stop being in a position to set wages and prices....

You maybe didn't think of this but you're ALREADY paying for those people you look down on whether they're on crack or not. See, all those "free clinics" and emergency rooms full of poor people who get "free" care?

Who do you think is paying for that now? (hint: you, Mr. Tax Payer.)

Emergency Care is the most expensive and least-effective care there is.

The taxpayer isn't paying for a good number of free clinics. There are several churches which run such, notably the Seventh-Day Adventists.

As for Emergency Care -- yes. When an "immediate care" clinic opened near where I went to college, and took the common ailment cases which had been going to the emergency room, the per capita spending for health care in the town plunged dramatically: instead of a bill of $700 just for being in the ER, plus costs of whatever was done, people got bills of $50, plus costs that were lower because the doctors weren't as stressed so they didn't charge as much, and their malpractice insurance was lower, and they didn't have to employ an extra doctor or two just to do triage.... So the typical cost of a visit for care you needed sudden;y without warning but wasn't really an ER issue went from about $1000 to $100.

As a result, bills for hospital visits dropped across the board.

A little slower, insurance rates there went down.

This is why I kept writing to my congresscritters as well as to Obama saying that the bill should have provided for the establishment of "immediate care" clinics all over the map. Of course that would require more doctors, so I recommended strong incentives for establishing new medical schools.

Those two are measures, BTW, that good Republicans should support, because both would increase competition, which tends to improve efficiency and effectiveness, due to -- don't hold your breath -- market forces.

So to me, the bill that was passed was a wimp-out.

Because the lowest-cost way for you to deal with that person is medical treatment. It is cheaper for you to send someone to rehab than to pay for them to be arrested, pay deductibles when they break into your house, pay with your life when they're on a meth-induced paranoia trip.

It isn't just compassion that should motivate you to give your fellow citizen a second chance, it is also your own greed. Health care is cheaper than any alternative. Addicts don't just go and efficiently die somewhere to save you money. In their own despair, they cause lots of expensive mayhem for you, my fellow taxpayer.

By the way, some very good research has been done by Dr. Gabor Maté on the path to addiction. Check it out http://www.drgabormate.com/

I have a friend who just got out of prison. He gets off telling me about people he was in with. Here are some interesting ones:

Burg I: guy caught stealing from a pharmacy to get medicines for his daughter
" : guy lifted medications from a doctor's office because he couldn't afford the prescriptions
Assault w. deadly: guy shot & injured a store owner after lifting a backpack full of medical supplies for his kid because he couldn't afford a doctor
Distributing (drugs): guy's wife was self-medicating with marijuana for pain because they couldn't afford the powerful prescription drugs the doctors ordered; he couldn't afford the weed, either, so he turned to dealing
Sex abuse (felony): jobless guy turned to prostitution to pay his gf's baby's doctor (ER) bills; got caught taking a minor as a "client", and under the law it's never, ever the minor's fault

My view of this whole thing shifted substantially from hearing these accounts. I know my friend isn't making them up; he's not that bright. And the last one is just too bizarre for anyone I know to have imagined!

So it isn't just addicts; there are hurting people out there who are desperate, and they will steal, sell drugs, or sell their bodies to help themselves or people they love.

I think the hilarious thing is that my state's Attorney General is suing the federal government over this on the basis that "you can't force citizens to buy a product", even though anyone who drives a car in Florida is forced to buy auto insurance. The point being that it's not an unheard of demand. And isn't this the same sort of system that many Republicans said they wanted in the beginning of this debate? Where you're strong-armed into buying from the private-sector cronies. The only way to achieve any meaningful reform is overhauling the system, and going single-payer.

Yeah, the argument is that forcing people to buy health insurance is equivalent to forcing them to buy a car. There may be some merit in that, but the stronger argument is that as the law stands, it may be requiring states to cough up money as part of the deal. That's called an "unfunded mandate", which the courts have tossed out at pretty much every turn.


At any rate, it's statistically in everyone's best interest to have access to at least basic and emergency health care for everyone. The problem is that this bill treats some of the problems but merely strengthens others, and may actually make some people worse off than before. It fails to pull market forces into the effort, instead just crowning the existing players, and that's a huge fault. In so doing it ignores one of the biggest issues, which is the limited supply of doctors (a number controlled by the AMA).

It's extremely sad, and pathetic, that this takes so long to get fully implemented. During that period, no one is likely to take a look at the glaring weaknesses in this law and address them.

 

[NickCole]

We are being choked to death by conservative political ideology!

No we are being choked to death by lies and greed and narcissism, and incredibly naive people who are actually cheering it on.

 

[NickCole]

New payroll taxes start at an income of $200,000.

Newsflash. In many parts of the United States $200,000 annual family income is not wealthy.

And anyway, increased payroll tax is by no means the only new tax or fee or fine or whatever other nifty words ObamaCo pulled out of their bag of tricks that ObamaCare imposes. The middle class will be paying for this health care bill big time. Not that I don't have a growing disdain for the middle class who have become complicit in bringing this upon themselves, but the middle class has been the secret of our phenominal success as a nation and we're destroying it.

I've always been fascinated with the downfall of great civilizations, read tons about them, visited their ruins worldwide. And pretty early on I had to laugh when there was supposedly a mystery about how one or another disappeared. Because it's always the same. Always. It happens from within while the masses cheer.

 

[grantt]

Employees of large companies are getting the squeeze. We had already heard about Caterpiller, and now AT&T employees are getting cuts in benefits. Good news keep rollin' along.

 

[Jack Springer]

No we are being choked to death by lies and greed and narcissism, and incredibly naive people who are actually cheering it on.

AMEN Nick!!!!

 

[wastingmymind]

Newsflash. In many parts of the United States $200,000 annual family income is not wealthy.

A poor person who has no health care, not their fault. Someone with no dependents making $200,000 and chooses to live in prime real estate and is stupid enough not to give to charity, their fault. I have no mercy for people who make that much money and not know how to keep it.

 

[Kulindahr]

A poor person who has no health care, not their fault. Someone with no dependents making $200,000 and chooses to live in prime real estate and is stupid enough not to give to charity, their fault. I have no mercy for people who make that much money and not know how to keep it.

Consider someone whose job type is very rare and commands good dollars.

Consider that he is required to live within twenty minutes of his office.

Consider that the cheapest apartment available in that radius is $3500/month.


The value of money is relative to location -- that's why world currencies fluctuate. It's why a house in one state may cost $120k but the identical house in a similar setting in another state could cost $300k.

 

[opinterph]

New payroll taxes start at an income of $200,000.

And that amount is for individuals. For families (couples filing jointly), the tax begins at $250,000. But keep in mind that what you are calling “payroll tax” is more specifically a Medicare tax. Under the new plan, it is also imposed on non-payroll income, such as dividends and capital gains.

Newsflash. In many parts of the United States $200,000 annual family income is not wealthy.

All things are relative.

Less than 3% of US households make $200,000 or more annually. Only 1.5% make $250,000 or more annually. [Link]

 

[JB3]

200,000 a year is wealthy, NickCole, I don't care what you say.

That is way past what the average family makes in any state.

Depends where you are. Some states are incredibly expensive to live in (I'm looking at you California), so while $200,000 IS wealthy, costs for living may exhaust that wealth faster depending where you live. My parents average between 110k and 130k, but can barely make ends meet in Illinois, and we're VERY careful with our money and save wherever we can.

 

[NickCole]

It really depends on the lifestyle one wants to live.

If you can barely make ends meet at a household income of 110-130k, something is wrong.

In case it's passed your notice, something IS wrong, very wrong, with the American lifestyle and the United States economy right now. We haven't just recovered from a crisis, we're headed into one.

And yes as someone said upthread, what's considered wealthy is relative.

For instance, if you're 25 without debt and single earning $200k, that can be very different from 45, the responsibilities one has at mid-life in America today and the needs of retirement looming.

Furthermore, living on $200k, or any amont, in Manhattan is very different from living on the same income in Maryland or Tennessee or Nebraska, or even Southern California. Some places are simply more expensive to live in.

The way most people in NYC and similar places live on a $200k income is what we grow up defining as comfortably middle class, not wealthy; a $200k income today after taxes, in a place like NYC, will get you an average one bedroom apartment with middle-class furnishings, wardrobe, entertainment, vacation, etc. Unless one is really good at scamming or already set up really well, people in NYC making $200k are not living the way most of us perceive as "wealthy," in penthouses or fabulous lofts, with gorgeous wardrobes and jewelry and traveling; and that matters psychologically when new taxes are imposed and the burden is dismissed by calling those people in average one bedroom apartments wealthy. People who are just able to pay their bills, even in a nice lifestyle, don't feel good about paying higher taxes when the general perception of their sacrifice is that they have cushy lives of extravagance and extra money and that they should pay higher taxes without benefit.

And not insignificantly there's the changes that happened in the past year. When you're earning $200k and your retirement money is growing and a few investments are doing well, you're happy in your job and know if something happens you can easily find another that'll pay as well or better, $200k feels kind of wealthy, and new taxes are not so much a burden as a mild annoyance. "It's okay we'll make it up next year." But when the economy is in crisis, the value of property has plummeted and not recovered, you're not all that happy with your job, you didn't get a raise last year and got a token raise this year, and you can't find something better, your retirement funds are less than two years ago, your investments are sputtering, expenses have gone up, believe me you're not feeling wealthy.

No doubt, to someone who makes $50k and can't see beyond their own life experience, $200k seems wealthy. But to someone who's actually living on $200k and accustomed to what that meant two years ago, they're struggling. So maybe Americans are spoiled and should recognize that $200k is wealthy and that giving up some luxuries is not a terrible burden, I happen to think that's true, but that altered lifestyle is meaningful to those downsizing and if fellow Americans dismiss the impact of that with a cavalier, "these taxes are only on the wealthy," that's going to add to our nation's demoralization, which is already eating at many Americans.

It would be different if this health care bill were true reform. If higher taxes were paying for lowered costs for prescription drugs and insurance premiums and deductibles and co-pays, if everybody with a pre-existing condition would be assured of coverage, if the antitrust exemption had been repealed. If, in short, paying higher taxes were part of a package that meant a better health care system for Americans. But this bill will not deliver that.

Is $200k a year wealthy? In the big scheme of things, yes you bet it's wealthy. But do people earning $200k a year feel wealthy, will increased taxes make them feel sacrifice without gain, will next year be better or worse for them? When you talk about real people's lives and how changes impact our society as a whole, the imposition of new taxes like this is more complex and consequential than simple numbers.

 

[bankside]

I think it is absolutely comical that anyone would bemoan the plight of a family with a USD 200 000 annual income.

Oh those self-absorbed $50 000 per-year-earners! What do they know of the struggles faced by a family earning 4 times more!

 

[NickCole]

I think it is absolutely comical that anyone would bemoan the plight of a family with a USD 200 000 annual income.

Oh those self-absorbed $50 000 per-year-earners! What do they know of the struggles faced by a family earning 4 times more!

Failing to know, and failing to care, only deepens divisions.

$200k a year earners not understanding the struggles of those earning $50k a year, as was obviously the case with those who wrote the "subsidy" tax credit part of the health care bill, is no different than the other way around. Americans, to a crippling degree, have lost the capacity for empathy, the ability and desire to understand, choosing instead to ridicule and belittle the concerns of others.

$200k a year is no longer wealthy the way it used to be, not in places like Manhattan anyway, and when the working middle class, whether they live in New York or Michigan, have less this year than last year, and less next year than this year, that's going to further demoralize those parts of our population.

Who are tea partiers? They're demoralized people on lower rungs of the middle class. If you think people who earn more, have more, become any less frustrated or angry, or eventually desperate, when their lifestyles are threatened, you don't understand human nature.

How close are you to the street? How many months could you pay your rent, your utilities and insurance premiums, buy food and afford transportation, if you lost your job, if your credit cards were shut down? Almost all of us live within the context of our income. If you live in a $500 a month apartment and can pay only two month's rent if you're out of a job, or you live in a $5000 a month apartment and can pay only two month's rent if you're out of a job, what's the difference, practically speaking? $5000 a month in rent sounds like a fortune, and a stupid amount to pay, until you've worked your way up to a salary where you can afford your dream apartment and you think, hey I'm in my 30s, I work hard, I'll keep getting raises and promotions, I can afford this. Then the ecomomy goes to shit and the new President decides to impose new taxes and prices are going up and your job is twice the work but the same salary. Can you downsize? Should you? Of course. But what does that do to the individual's state of mind, and then the society's?

It's very easy for some to dismiss the concerns of others --they're lazy that's why they're poor so I'm not going to feel concern for them ... they're rich and self indulgent so I'm not going to feel concern for them-- but in some quiet moment maybe you'll have enough understanding of human nature and the nature of human societies to think, what kind of people does this lack of concern make us, who are Americans anyway? Or maybe you just won't care about people in certain income groups -- so then what's the cut-off?

 

[NickCole]

What are you trying to prove by narrowing down the argument to people living in wealthy parts of Manhattan?

I'm saying living in Manhattan on $200k gross income is very different from living in Poplar Bluff with the same income. And further, being 25 with no debt and no dependents on that income is different from being 45 with debt to pay off, aging parents who need help and your own inadequate retirement fund staring you in the face. My point is, every American who has a gross income of $200k is not in the same fiancial situation.

Am I to feel sorry for someone who can't live in Central Park West because they don't earn grossly more than the average American?

I don't think so.

Strawman nonsense. I never suggested anybody feel sorry for anyone who can't live on CPW for any reason.

I've also never heard a good explanation why the tea party movement is monolithically White.

The guy who just finished an argument about Germans and Eye-talians sees the same thing you do:

JohannBessler:

Eerily, every single one, to a man and woman, was white. You just think about that for a moment.

JockBoy87:

I've also never heard a good explanation why the tea party movement is monolithically White.

Oftentimes people with a race bias see what they expect to see or want to see. But some of us see the truth.

The tea party movement is not monolithically white.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think it is absolutely comical that anyone would bemoan the plight of a family with a USD 200 000 annual income.

Oh those self-absorbed $50 000 per-year-earners! What do they know of the struggles faced by a family earning 4 times more!

I have an old high school friend who lives in San Francisco. She has little choice about where she lives, because she has to be available to her workplace fast in case of a crisis.

Her annual housing cost is $42,000 -- two bedrooms, small dining area, medium-sized living room.

Location depends a lot. At $50k/yr in that area, you'd be in poverty. At $100k/yr you'd be struggling.

Now, $50k/yr where I am would be enough you could think about buying a house; at $100k/yr banks would be falling in line to loan the money to you.

 

[Kulindahr]

What are you trying to prove by narrowing down the argument to people living in wealthy parts of Manhattan?

Am I to feel sorry for someone who can't live in Central Park West because they don't earn grossly more than the average American?

Pay better attention: The point is that $200k/yr is wealth one place, but not another. It's irrelevant whether you feel sorry for them; what's relevant is recognizing an economic reality.

They're brainwashed White people who listen to Rush Limbaugh. How do I know this? I've never met a tea partier who doesn't look like a deer in headlights when confronted with a meaningful question.

I've also never heard a good explanation why the tea party movement is monolithically White.

I'd say you're meeting the wrong tea-partiers. I asked a question of a scruffy-looking old white guy, and got a lecture about economics and freedom that referenced Locke, Smith, Mill, George, and others. I asked a question of a black guy a bit farther on and found myself hearing a comparison between economics and fluid dynamics....

That gathering, which I ran into by accident, was maybe 3/4 white -- hardly "monolithic".

 

[NickCole]

I don't think you realize it's passive racism to post pictures of black people in a desperate and pathetic attempt to prove that the movement is not almost exclusively made up of Whites, which it is.

Posting pictures of people who attend, and speak from the podium at, those events is not racism, passive or otherwise. Americans have a right to think for themselves and to be counted. And your dismissing blacks who attend these events as "tokens" is disrespectful and racist.

I posted those pictures in respose to Johann saying, "Eerily, every single one, to a man and woman, was white. You just think about that for a moment," and you trotting along behind him with, "I've also never heard a good explanation why the tea party movement is monolithically White." You both were very clear in what you believe. And the evidence I posted was very clear in proving you both wrong.

Black people don't vote with the conservatives and Republicans, not even when the candidate is black him or herself. If you want to change that you best start figuring out why that is and stop your petty whining.

Black people do not vote monolithically.

And some blacks, no matter how much you may need to believe they don't, do vote with conservatives and Republicans. I'm pretty sure, for example, the Chairman of the Republican Party votes with conservatives and Republicans.

So do these folks: http://www.nbra.info/



You should deal with your race issues because they're blinding you to the truth.

 

[NickCole]

Spare me the psychological crap, ok? My mom is a mental health professional who has tried to manipulate me with psychology since I was a tiny tot.

Yikes. Well that speaks volumes.

 

[NickCole]

4. YOU'RE implying that I'M a racist? Man, that's rich.
You've been bustin' Obama's chops since day one. Who do you think you're foolin'? Not a single JUBber is fooled by you, NickCole.

Ah yes there it is rearing its ugly head right on cue.

Criticize Obama = racist.

Horseshit.