[Jolie]

Viking,

That same tired old argument won't fly. The upper 1% of earners have already paid their fair share into SS for negative returns, in most instances.

The answer is not to confiscate more money from the wealthy (or anybody else). It is to insist on proper management of the money that is already in the hands of the federal government.

Unfortunately, that will never happen. (Lock box anyone?)

[jjjoy]

Originally Posted by Jolie

I'll bet my bottom dollar you wouldn't accept that kind of performance from a private investment plan.

SS isn't supposed to compete with a personal investment plan. It's more like insurance.

or your private health insurer.

Some insurance companies do go belly up. As I noted before, I don't think it's a sign of an overall failed social policy that SS needs revamping. Even private insurance companies often change the terms of agreement from year to year.

I don't think SS or UHC should be the only options out there. I prefer the idea of a combination of providing society-wide safety nets along with incentives for individual contributions & responsibility.

[PadawanLearner]

Originally Posted by HM2Viking

I can fix SS with one act of congress.
Repeal the Bush tax cuts on the upper 1% of the income distribution. (People who make more than 400,000/year)


That along with raising the income cap to cover 90% of payroll again would stabilize the system forever. (The alleged superiority of private accounts completely disappears after you factor in the administrative costs of private accounts. Fee erosion of accumulation results in upwards of 40% of accumulated values being taken for administrative purposes.)

One of the reasons we have consistent benefit packages for health care is to achieve a social redistribuion of risk associated with health care.
http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_08_29_a_hazard.html

Oh how I love it when people talk about how much a tax cut "cost the government". 1st clue: It was never the government's money to begin with. My IRA consistently makes between 5% and 7% return. That's 300% more (at least) than the return the public gets on SS. Since I pay income tax before I put money into my IRA, I won't pay income taxes when I take money out after I retire. I don't know how they do math, but there's no way fees make up that kind of difference.

The top 1% of earners pay around 1/3 of all income taxes, the top 10% of earners pay 2/3 of all income taxes. Giving them a tax cut only makes sense. Raising more taxes to cover a broken system is no way to fix it.

One way to encourage health insurance companies to lower their rates and/or take on higher risk individuals is to give the companies an incentive. For example, for every 1000 low income people they insure, the company gets a 1% federal income tax credit.

just a thought, ymmv

[HM2Viking]

I wasn't completely serious in my post. I was speaking to a matter of priorities. SS was never meant to be the sole source of retirement income. it was meant to provide a base part of the retirement system. "The three legged stool." I am in favor of personal savings but there needs to be serious tweaking of that system before we look at SS.

In the recent debate over privatizing Social Security, proponents of
privatization would often ridicule the existing Social Security system as being an
old-fashioned one-size-fits-all program. They were largely right in their
description, but they were wrong about its implications. The Social Security
system might be 70-years-old and simple in design, but it is also cheap to
operate. The administrative costs of the Social Security system are less than 0.5
percent of the tax revenue that it takes in each year.1 By comparison, the
administrative costs of the privatized Social Security systems that were held up
as models for the United States, like the ones in Chile and Britain, are between

15 - 20 percent of annual payments into the system.2
...

Private insurers
charge fees that range between 10-20 percent of the accumulated funds for
issuing annuities.3 This means that the share of workers’ payments into private
accounts that get eaten up by fees from the financial industry can run as high as

30-40 percent.

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cnswebbook.pdf

Tax policy ultimately is a matter of priorities. We cannot live in a tax free society and in fact the US is one of the lowest taxed industrial societies in the world. Taxes are the dues we pay to assure a civilized society. I question tax cuts that are focused at benefiting the most fortunate members of society from a social justice perspective as well as from a fairness perspective.





http://www.cbpp.org/2-4-08tax.htm

The tax cuts proposed by President Bush carry a greater price tag to society than the VA system, NIH and Federal education spending. Benefiting a few thousand people with tax cuts at the expense of millions is poor policy. Frankly, I think 25 billion in cuts for the upper 1% at the cost of decreased NIH funding which benefits everyone is poor policy.

To bring this back to the original thread topic. Building a better health care system doesn't necessarily require a public only or a private only system. It does require that EVERYONE is paying into the health care system either through private insurance or by being allowed to buy into Medicare.

[HM2Viking]

One other thought that I had at work last night. We are currently paying for National Health care but not getting it. See:

• Administrative costs consume 31 percent of US health spending, most of it unnecessary.
  (Woolhandler, et al “Costs of Health Administration in the U.S. and Canada,” NEJM 349(8) Sept. 21, 2003)

• Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Three-fourths of those bankrupted had health insurance at the time they got sick or injured.
  (“Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy,” Himmelstein et al, Health Affairs Web Exclusive, February 2, 2005.)

• Taxes already pay for more than 60 percent of US health spending
  
  Americans pay the highest health care taxes in the world. We pay for national health insurance, but don’t get it.
  (Woolhandler, et al. “Paying for National Health Insurance — And Not Getting It,” Health Affairs 21(4); July / Aug. 2002)
  http://pnhp.org/single_payer_resourc...th_program.php

http://www.cbpp.org/9-27-06tax.htm



http://www.cbpp.org/9-27-06tax.htm

[PadawanLearner]

I really don't know why you're harping about how much the tax cuts have "cost". We really should be focused on reducing government, not expanding it. Reducing the overall cost of government would give everyone a tax cut. Sure other countries pay more in taxes, but those are more than likely socialist countries. When you talk about "social justice" and "fairness", socialism is where you're headed.

If you really want to know where a big chunk of money goes, take a look at bills that get passed and look at all the pork in it. We all once paid for a Dr. Suess memorial, how is that an appropriate use of our money? No one holds Congress accountable to stay within the bounds of the Constitution, which is why we're now talking about a federal budget in the Trillions of dollars.

We can't trust the government to manage Amtrack to make a profit (or break even), and people want to turn over heath care to Hillary? I think not.

[Jolie]

Originally Posted by PadawanLearner

If you really want to know where a big chunk of money goes, take a look at bills that get passed and look at all the pork in it....We can't trust the government to manage Amtrack to make a profit (or break even), and people want to turn over heath care to Hillary? I think not.

You make some very good points, especially about ridiculous spending.

Another important factor in taxation is that most people have no clue what they pay a year in taxes. Payroll deduction for federal, state and local income taxes, as well as Medicare and SS lulls people into thinking that their "net" pay is all they are due. If taxpayers had to sit down and write a check to the federal government (and state and local) every week or every month, they would have a much better sense of how much they actually lose to taxes, and would be more proactive about holding politicians responsible for spending.

[HM2Viking]

To bring this back to the original thread topic. Building a better health care system doesn't necessarily require a public only or a private only system. It does require that EVERYONE is paying into the health care system either through private insurance or by being allowed to buy into Medicare.

Taxes already pay for more than 60 percent of US health spending

Americans pay the highest health care taxes in the world. We pay for national health insurance, but don’t get it.
(Woolhandler, et al. “Paying for National Health Insurance — And Not Getting It,” Health Affairs 21(4); July / Aug. 2002)
http://pnhp.org/single_payer_resourc...th_program.php

[Jolie]

Confiscation of money IS the original topic of this thread.

[HM2Viking]

There is a difference between a right and a duty (responsibility). I have a right to health care but I have a concomitant duty/responsibility to help pay for that health care by being appropriately insured.

Those who can afford to pay for insurance but refuse to do so are freeloaders on the rest of us who choose to be responsible.

See The Partial Constitution by Cass Sunstein for an interesting discussion about the differences between rights and duties to society at large.