Another progressive meme smashed...

[Lukey]

We're frequently scolded when we point out the ongoing failure that is known as Obamacare. Progressives explain that we simply need to adopt the "single payer" system embraced by all our "more sophisticated" socialist counterparts, as the answer to any and every problem associated with the health care system. Less cost and better outcomes beckon all who embrace the big government solution of state run health care. So just how are these systems making out in these days of meager revenue growth because all that big government has retarded the creation of new "other people's money" to be acquired and spent on our neighbors' health care, including the limitless expense on the growing welfare class which tends to make serial bad life choices?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs

Oops! Who could have seen that coming? Well, me it turns out, among so many others who can read trends, as the examples of higher costs for lesser outcomes proliferate.

But somehow being constantly proven wrong doesn't seem to shake the progressives' faith in the religion of collectivism as practiced in the temples of the huge bureaucracy. Unfortunately they are winning, and taking us all down the rat hole with them. Oh, and don't forget to enjoy the decline...

 

[georgephillip]

We're frequently scolded when we point out the ongoing failure that is known as Obamacare. Progressives explain that we simply need to adopt the "single payer" system embraced by all our "more sophisticated" socialist counterparts, as the answer to any and every problem associated with the health care system.

Your link, Rockefeller

"The body that represents hospitals across England has issued a startling warning that the NHS is close to breaking point because of its escalating cash crisis.

"Years of underfunding have left the service facing such 'impossible' demands that without urgent extra investment in November’s autumn statement it will have to cut staff, bring in charges or introduce 'draconian rationing' of treatment – all options that will provoke public disquiet, it says."

Obviously, rich people in the UK should stop spending other people's money on luxuries while hospitals are failing, right?

 

[Lukey]

Your link, Rockefeller

"The body that represents hospitals across England has issued a startling warning that the NHS is close to breaking point because of its escalating cash crisis.

"Years of underfunding have left the service facing such 'impossible' demands that without urgent extra investment in November’s autumn statement it will have to cut staff, bring in charges or introduce 'draconian rationing' of treatment – all options that will provoke public disquiet, it says."

Obviously, rich people in the UK should stop spending other people's money on luxuries while hospitals are failing, right?

Yes, obviously. That's the problem in a nutshell - they just aren't (yet) spending enough other people's money...

 

[georgephillip]

Yes, obviously. That's the problem in a nutshell - they just aren't (yet) spending enough other people's money...

Key phrase: "other people's money."
Are the richest of the rich, who "earn" their income from the FIRE sector spending other people's money when they bribe politicians for low tax rates?

 

[justoffal]

We're frequently scolded when we point out the ongoing failure that is known as Obamacare. Progressives explain that we simply need to adopt the "single payer" system embraced by all our "more sophisticated" socialist counterparts, as the answer to any and every problem associated with the health care system. Less cost and better outcomes beckon all who embrace the big government solution of state run health care. So just how are these systems making out in these days of meager revenue growth because all that big government has retarded the creation of new "other people's money" to be acquired and spent on our neighbors' health care, including the limitless expense on the growing welfare class which tends to make serial bad life choices?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs

Oops! Who could have seen that coming? Well, me it turns out, among so many others who can read trends, as the examples of higher costs for lesser outcomes proliferate.

But somehow being constantly proven wrong doesn't seem to shake the progressives' faith in the religion of collectivism as practiced in the temples of the huge bureaucracy. Unfortunately they are winning, and taking us all down the rat hole with them. Oh, and don't forget to enjoy the decline...

You know this is not a very complex issue. You have cost on the one hand that is supplied by the hospitals, drug companies and HC professionals who do the billing. On the other hand you have the income of the entire nation. It would not surprise me to find that the total cost being generated on a daily basis actually outstrips by a factor of ten the amount ot total disposable income of the nation as a whole.

Looking beyond that is senseless....if you have those two elements in the mix no name like Obamacare or affordable care or one payer care is going to solve the problem.

JO

 

[Lukey]

Key phrase: "other people's money."
Are the richest of the rich, who "earn" their income from the FIRE sector spending other people's money when they bribe politicians for low tax rates?

I take issue with how you characterize that dynamic. The governmental ruling elite provide the free (fiat) money to the FIRE sector business elites, who use it to speculate (on sure profits as supported by the government spending) and then recycle some of it back to the political class. It is every bit as bad an act by the (corrupt) Feds as it is the (evil) bankers.

 

[middleview]

You know this is not a very complex issue. You have cost on the one hand that is supplied by the hospitals, drug companies and HC professionals who do the billing. On the other hand you have the income of the entire nation. It would not surprise me to find that the total cost being generated on a daily basis actually outstrips by a factor of ten the amount ot total disposable income of the nation as a whole.

Looking beyond that is senseless....if you have those two elements in the mix no name like Obamacare or affordable care or one payer care is going to solve the problem.

JO

It doesn't matter what it is called...what has to happen is our politicians need to take a good look at where the money goes. We have the CEO of United Healthcare getting a $250 million payday and have to wonder how we can continue to allow such exorbitant confiscation of wealth in a case of near monopoly.

Our politicians continue to play political games while we go broke and a few can extort the rest of us.

I had an appendectomy in 2008....The hospital billed $35,000 for two hours of OR time. That did not include any disposable supplies...oxygen was extra, disposable gloves were extra, laundering the sheets on the operating table were extra...that was just for the use of a room. The insurance company had negotiated that down to 10%....$3,500 and I paid $175 per hour. So who actually pays the $17,500 per hour? I'd like to know.

They charged me something like $50 for a couple of motrin.

I think it was Time magazine that did a study of hospital costs. Somehow the profits of those amazing prices are well hidden so that nobody really knows where the money goes.
I think we need to start there.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Your link, Rockefeller

"The body that represents hospitals across England has issued a startling warning that the NHS is close to breaking point because of its escalating cash crisis.

"Years of underfunding have left the service facing such 'impossible' demands that without urgent extra investment in November’s autumn statement it will have to cut staff, bring in charges or introduce 'draconian rationing' of treatment – all options that will provoke public disquiet, it says."

Obviously, rich people in the UK should stop spending other people's money on luxuries while hospitals are failing, right?

Yes, that's always the problem with leftists... they're not spending too much, they're "under-funded". My god man, are you not aware of how confiscatorily high tax rates already are in Europe????

 

[Deleted member 21794]

It doesn't matter what it is called...what has to happen is our politicians need to take a good look at where the money goes. We have the CEO of United Healthcare getting a $250 million payday and have to wonder how we can continue to allow such exorbitant confiscation of wealth in a case of near monopoly.

Our politicians continue to play political games while we go broke and a few can extort the rest of us.

I had an appendectomy in 2008....The hospital billed $35,000 for two hours of OR time. That did not include any disposable supplies...oxygen was extra, disposable gloves were extra, laundering the sheets on the operating table were extra...that was just for the use of a room. The insurance company had negotiated that down to 10%....$3,500 and I paid $175 per hour. So who actually pays the $17,500 per hour? I'd like to know.

They charged me something like $50 for a couple of motrin.

I think it was Time magazine that did a study of hospital costs. Somehow the profits of those amazing prices are well hidden so that nobody really knows where the money goes.
I think we need to start there.

The answer is the free market, where people have an incentive to shop around and find a better deal just like any other product or service.

As long as the end user is insulated from the price of a product or service, the cost of that product or service will continue to rise.

This is very basic common sense. Why do leftists have such trouble understanding it?

 

[Lukey]

It doesn't matter what it is called...what has to happen is our politicians need to take a good look at where the money goes. We have the CEO of United Healthcare getting a $250 million payday and have to wonder how we can continue to allow such exorbitant confiscation of wealth in a case of near monopoly.

Our politicians continue to play political games while we go broke and a few can extort the rest of us.

I had an appendectomy in 2008....The hospital billed $35,000 for two hours of OR time. That did not include any disposable supplies...oxygen was extra, disposable gloves were extra, laundering the sheets on the operating table were extra...that was just for the use of a room. The insurance company had negotiated that down to 10%....$3,500 and I paid $175 per hour. So who actually pays the $17,500 per hour? I'd like to know.

They charged me something like $50 for a couple of motrin.

I think it was Time magazine that did a study of hospital costs. Somehow the profits of those amazing prices are well hidden so that nobody really knows where the money goes.
I think we need to start there.

The really hilarious irony here is how you think more government control of healthcare is needed to address that "market failure" in health care pricing, when in fact, the exact opposite is the truth. They charged you that much because Medicare and Medicaid don't pay full cost, and the hospital has to make it up on the privately insured. How do you think even more government control of healthcare will work, better? Wrong again:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/10/hospitals-on-brink-of-collapse-say-health-chiefs

 

[georgephillip]

I take issue with how you characterize that dynamic. The governmental ruling elite provide the free (fiat) money to the FIRE sector business elites, who use it to speculate (on sure profits as supported by the government spending) and then recycle some of it back to the political class. It is every bit as bad an act by the (corrupt) Feds as it is the (evil) bankers.

Perhaps we have returned to our historical impasse, are taxpayers morally entitled to their pre or post tax incomes?

 

[Lukey]

Perhaps we have returned to our historical impasse, are taxpayers morally entitled to their pre or post tax incomes?

People are morally entitled to the fruits of their labor, including the ability to trade some of it for access to the means of production and steady work )))

 

[georgephillip]

Yes, that's always the problem with leftists... they're not spending too much, they're "under-funded". My god man, are you not aware of how confiscatorily high tax rates already are in Europe????

We are looking at levels of economic inequality today that rival those at the onset of the Great Depression and WWII, yet today's tax rates are much lower than those in place in 1929-41:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#20th_century

"Between October 1940 and 1973 the UK had a consumption tax called Purchase Tax, which was levied at different rates depending on goods' luxuriousness. Purchase Tax was applied to the wholesale price, initially at a rate of 331⁄3%.

"This was doubled in April 1942 to 662⁄3%, and further increased in April 1943 to a rate of 100%, before reverting in April 1946 to 331⁄3% again. Unlike VAT, Purchase Tax was applied at the point of manufacture and distribution, not at the point of sale. The rate of Purchase Tax at the start of 1973, when it gave way to VAT, was 25%..."

"Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s.[17] In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%.[18] The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988.[19] The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget. The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.

"Under the government of John Major the basic rate was reduced in stages to 23% by 1997."

Some of us believe we should raise top tax rates to twice their 1948 levels.( at least)

 

[Mr. Friscus]

Companies are running from Obamacare, it needs major work or it's going to crash and harm many people in our country.

It's not like Conservatives didn't see this coming, but..

 

[georgephillip]

People are morally entitled to the fruits of their labor, including the ability to trade some of it for access to the means of production and steady work )))

http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-c...h-poor-gap-in-classless-america/21284?print=1

"According to the Wall St. Journal, a 2008 study of wealth in the United States found that the richest .01% (that’s one-hundredth of one percent, or 14,000 American families) possess 22.2% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 90%, or over 133 million families, control just 4% of the nation’s wealth. The remaining top 9.99% made ends meet with what’s left, 73.8%."
If the above is accurate, do you see any problem with taxing the income of those 14000 families at a 90% rate?

 

[Lukey]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/what-c...h-poor-gap-in-classless-america/21284?print=1

"According to the Wall St. Journal, a 2008 study of wealth in the United States found that the richest .01% (that’s one-hundredth of one percent, or 14,000 American families) possess 22.2% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 90%, or over 133 million families, control just 4% of the nation’s wealth. The remaining top 9.99% made ends meet with what’s left, 73.8%."
If the above is accurate, do you see any problem with taxing the income of those 14000 families at a 90% rate?

Not in the cases where big government, working in cahoots with big business, enacted progressive regulatory and tax policies that favor their interests and stifle the creation of new (middle class) wealth while the Fed, in an effort to overcome all the anti-capitalist policy and get the economy moving again, simply blows bubbles in the super rentiers' existing wealth.

As for those who actually came up with a good idea, employed an honest business plan and created their wealth without the help of the government spending and regulatory advantages, why would you think society has a claim on that?

 

[georgephillip]

As for those who actually came up with a good idea, employed an honest business plan and created their wealth without the help of the government spending and regulatory advantages, why would you think society has a claim on that?

Possibly because no one's good idea will ever come to any kind of economic fruition without government spending on roads. courts, and regulatory institutions. Arguably, there is also no way anyone could justly acquire an absolute property right over any natural resource? The libertarian entitlement theory seems to concentrate solely on "freedom from" prohibitions while ignoring "freedom to" rights that apply equally to all human beings regardless of their individual birth accidents.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

We are looking at levels of economic inequality today that rival those at the onset of the Great Depression and WWII, yet today's tax rates are much lower than those in place in 1929-41:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#20th_century

"Between October 1940 and 1973 the UK had a consumption tax called Purchase Tax, which was levied at different rates depending on goods' luxuriousness. Purchase Tax was applied to the wholesale price, initially at a rate of 331⁄3%.

"This was doubled in April 1942 to 662⁄3%, and further increased in April 1943 to a rate of 100%, before reverting in April 1946 to 331⁄3% again. Unlike VAT, Purchase Tax was applied at the point of manufacture and distribution, not at the point of sale. The rate of Purchase Tax at the start of 1973, when it gave way to VAT, was 25%..."

"Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s.[17] In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%.[18] The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988.[19] The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget. The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.

"Under the government of John Major the basic rate was reduced in stages to 23% by 1997."

Some of us believe we should raise top tax rates to twice their 1948 levels.( at least)

Yes, because giving a corrupt, inept government that can't balance a checkbook or even manage our budget wisely will suddenly become brilliant fiscal stewards if we just give them more money.

 

[Lukey]

Possibly because no one's good idea will ever come to any kind of economic fruition without government spending on roads. courts, and regulatory institutions. Arguably, there is also no way anyone could justly acquire an absolute property right over any natural resource? The libertarian entitlement theory seems to concentrate solely on "freedom from" prohibitions while ignoring "freedom to" rights that apply equally to all human beings regardless of their individual birth accidents.

Well Geez man, they paid for all that. The employees they hire pay taxes to support that stuff. The only reason to tax business, because, lets face it, even the progressives know (and acknowledge) that business taxes chase business out:

https://startup.ny.gov/

After all, why else would the Democrats and lefty Republicans running New York come up with a plan to attract business by, wait for it...tax abatement!!! I just wonder how the long time NY businesses feel about their state government inviting in the competition and then giving them the advantage of a tax free program for 10 years. I think that's a pretty bad "bend over" move and a big FU to the New York business comunity, but I think it makes it impossible for lefties to claim business taxes have no effect of the level of business (and employment). So the DID "build that" by paying taxes all along the way and then the state pols hand free use to those who actually didn't "build that." But that's just how anti-capitalists roll.

So it is without question that everyone, even the left (through their actions if not their words) knows that higher taxes on business leads to less business. So why on earth would anyone want to tax enterprise and end up with fewer, smaller businesses??? I guess only if, like the progressives, you really don't want capitalism to succeed. So they insist businesses pay their "fair share" because "they didn't build that" when, in fact, they most certainly did. So the business taxes are designed to harm the business environment, and everyone (even lefties) knows it.

 

[georgephillip]

Yes, because giving a corrupt, inept government that can't balance a checkbook or even manage our budget wisely will suddenly become brilliant fiscal stewards if we just give them more money.

There's no doubt about the corruption inherent in government when it serves the interests of its richest 1% of citizens as 911 proved to all willing to look:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/
"What has also been lost in the official 9/11 Commission Report, Congressional hearings and academic studies, is how Wall Street, on the day the planes slammed into the World Trade Towers, was on the cusp of being exposed by the New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, as the orchestrator of a fraud of unprecedented proportion against the investing public.

"That investigation was stalled for more than six months.

"It would have been politically incorrect to do perp walks outside Wall Street’s biggest investment banks as families mourned the loss of their loved ones; as U.S. savings bonds were renamed Patriot Bonds to rally patriotism around the country; and Congress paid homage to the heroes at the big banks, the stock exchanges and the Federal Reserve for getting the system back up and running in less than a week."