The Obama plan is idiotic and costly. A single payer will save money in admin cost at first, but savings will erode over time with government inefficiency and bureaucracy. Without competition, you have no innovation. The liberal government claims there will be competition but when you can use public funds to undercut your competition its nearly impossible to find a perfect balance. Private options will better serve the public by offering wide selections of plans.
John Mackey used to be a liberal socialist, then he started an organic grocery business out of his garage. Now he's the CEO of Whole Foods and has learned a few things along the way. Here are his ideas.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
18 sucka ass fools had something to say:
Government mandates keep insurance companies from taking your money and providing nothing (as spelled out in the fine print).
The right to bring civil suit keeps practitioners from cutting corners (otherwise encouraged by the profit motive).
We dont know the cost breakdowns of any other good or service. Suggestion to the contrary is ludicrous.
Medicare/aid are bankrupt? Why isnt the military bankrupt? The notion that there is only a set pot of money for one program and unending streams of revenue for others is a faulty premise.
Relying on volunteer payments is unrealistically optimistic--and even if it worked would be like a regressive tax.
The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out
of blood.
When someone says SS or Medicare “will go bankrupt”, they obviously mean under current funding levels. You can always tax more, or so liberals think. But its clear that increased taxes lead to decreased incentive for profit, and therefore innovation, growth and other economic drivers. Yes, you could blame this bankruptcy on military spending, road construction, or the first lady’s shoes. whatever. The military, regardless of your opinion of its over-extension, inefficiency, or bloat, is viewed by most sane Americans as a vital arm of the government. Whether it is justified by security or national interests, its to some degree necessary, not like an income redistribution vehicle (or entitlement, if you prefer). Though actually, it creates jobs for mostly lower income citizens, so liberals should love it.
This is to say the “entitlements don’t bankrupt America, Americans with guns do” argument is even more of an oversimplification than “Entitlement X will go bankrupt in Y years”. The government is too big and every program under its umbrella risks going bankrupt. The solution is not to make it bigger.
Yes, lawsuits have their purpose but we are an extremely over-litigious nation and its inefficient, costly, and frankly pitiful the number of lawyers we have considering the societal role of the majority of them. Think of some of the degenerates in your undergrad experience who chose law simply because it was the easiest path to portly billfolds.
Beyond that, most of the reforms suggested went unquestioned. Shouldn’t we try those before embarking on yet another massive government spending program?
Everything will go bankrupt under current funding levels. My point was not to hijack your health care proposals with an assault on the military industrial complex. My point was just to dispel the uneven premises that these arguments rest on: that health and old age redistribution comes from a limited set of funds; while most other programs do not have artificial limitations built in to the starting point of any debate.
I contested the reforms that stood out as ridiculous or resting on faulty premises. The other reforms, I either did not understand or do not see anything troubling at first glance.
I am fine with these reforms if they guarantee that all citizens get health care. But the very nature of health care--quite different from other products and services--makes free market solutions suspect.
Strike "citizens"; replace with "residents documented or otherwise"
These argument don't rest on that premise. They rest on the premise of "too expensive". We don't talk about "too expensive" very often when it comes to military because its viewed differently, for good reason. When it is too expensive we pass bills to fund the overage. These tend to pass unanimously or close to it. Again, for reasons most Americans are comfortable with and want to support.
Most other programs DO have budgets or what you call "artificial limitations". The Highway Fund approaches bankruptcy and needs fixing, Fannie Mae needs a bailout, etc. etc.
Its not an artificial limitation just because you support the program of income redistribution.
Yes, residents would have been a better word.
There is an artificial distinction made between programs with trust funds and those that rely on routine congressional appropriations. I did not mean to say that social assistance or only my preferred programs are the only ones that have trust funds.
As I said, I did not mean to turn this into a binary health vs. military spending argument. Nevertheless, Ptera followed my unintended lead and rationalized military spending with wide public support.
The same logic deems the public option appropriate, as 77% of the US approves of its inclusion in health care reform.
I don't see what is artificial about the distinction. If the programs are, as you describe, funded by trust fund, that historical difference is worthy of distinction, no? When the fund runs out more taxes must fill the void, while programs with annual funding historically have a history and acceptance behind their funding mechanism.
If my parents kept giving me used cars and all the sudden I face a decision to take on a monthly lease payment to upgrade my car that decision is made with a distinctly different mindset than an increase in rent, even if either way they're both expenses under the household budget. (Or reverse the scenario for living at home and having car payment if it fits better.)
Most Americans also don't want to increase taxes. Thus a dilemma. The result is a spiraling debt, as fiscal conservatives and libertarians cry foul again. Neocons spending recklessly to obtain energy and stay atop the geopolitical pecking order replaced by liberals spending recklessly to comfort the impoverished. Both screwing over what American people want most - a strong economy.
Most Americans dont want to increase THEIR OWN taxes. But fewer fervently defend the superwealthy from incremental increases in impost liability.
You can tax the rich to death if you like. I'm sure Canada and Great Britain will appreciate the influx of entrepreneurs motivated by profit.
You are a spin machine: the outcome of death you assign to taxes, not the lack of health care.
I did not advocate taxing the rich. I simply pointed out (in response to your prior unqualified spin that people hate taxes) that people are not entirely opposed to taxing others.
Your rationalization for military spending was democratic support, which also applies to the public option and taxing the superwealthy.
You also assume that all the rich are entrepreneurial and productive, when in many cases, their wealth only ensures that their future generations remain idle.
In any event, it seems we cannot even tax the rich if we want to. Since UBS just sends liable capital to seek refuge in Switzerland.
I'm following the development of the conversation.
When I point out public preference it is "spin", I guess.
I'm simply pointing out the drawback to your tax-the-rich suggestion. The death is, it should be obvious, not literal. Displacement or dissipation.
I'm not so sure that the taxing the rich endlessly has the public support you claim it does.
I did not assume that all the rich are entrepreneurial and productive. I assumed that was the segment that Canada and Great Britain would appreciate most. Though the spending of the fat cat families of sustained or diminished wealth will be appreciated locally as well, I'm sure. They'll take Bill Gates happily but will be happy to take Paris Hilton's checks too.
Your pointing out of public preference was unqualified and made to sound like they are against all taxes of all entities.
I did not (yet) suggest taxing the rich. I simply mention that the poor majority are rationally not opposed to such measures. And why would the rich go to Canada and UK where higher tax rates prevail?
An entire leisure class of idle heirs means that willfully unproductive members of society must be sustained (at very high standards) by the productive members of society.
"GB and Canada...where higher taxes prevail"
Not if you have things your way!
I made a simple statement - that people don't want higher taxes. There are of course exceptions and qualifiers which are too boring to get into in every instance.
Poor people often vote against their self interests. Other times they recognize the benefit to the economy as a whole will find its way to them. What is in their interests is debatable, as is the degree to which it matters.
"An entire leisure class of idle heirs means that willfully unproductive members of society must be sustained (at very high standards) by the productive members of society."
Drivel. Heirs are essentially tourists who come from another time instead of another place. Tourists are welcomed whenever and wherever they spend money.
Tourists from another time! That is excellent; I am thoroughly entertained. Your spin knows no bounds, obliterates the space/time continuum.
To take you up on your inventive twisting, tourists through space are productive at home. Your father drinks beers in Trinidad, but is socially useful because he fixes teeth in Plymouth. Tourists through time did not produce something for society when they were toddlers.
You must have me confused with someone else. My father died 7 million years ago and was a hunter.
Does a dollar bill in my wallet obliterate space and time because I earned it weeks earlier?
When I said Canada or Great Britain would welcome heirs I said so because despite their lack of direct productivity they bring in cash (like tourists). While tourists spend cash generated from another place, the residents of the place where the money is spent don't really care if its generated in Sao Paolo, Singapore, or Saginaw. Right? Right. Likewise, they don't care if that money was generated in 2009, 2008, or 1932. Heirs, like tourists, bring cash, that is welcome regardless of its origins.
Anyway, going back... the whole reason this came up was that you brought up that not all rich people are productive or "socially useful". My response is that they are welcome regardless of that point. Florida has made a thriving industry out of a class of people you might term socially useless. Useful is in the eye of the beholder I guess.
Heirs are not a drain on economy just because you don't like their influence on society.
Apparently some capitalists like investing in socialism.
I'm shocked that a bank would invest where oil and profits converge. My worldview has been shattered.
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