Are you willing to pay more taxes to ensure health coverage for all?

Published

cbs/new york times poll, february 2 007

if you had to choose, which do you think is more important for the

country to do right now, maintain the tax cuts enacted in recent

years or make sure all americans have access to health care?

cutting taxes 18%

access to health insurance 76%

would you be willing or not willing to pay higher taxes so that all

americans have health insurance they can't lose, no matter what?

willing 60%

not willing 34%

(if "willing") would you be willing or not willing to pay $500 a

year more in taxes so that all americans have health insurance

they can't lose, no matter what?

willing 82%

not willing 6%

Yes, but these people are ALREADY taking your 'hard earned cash'. No one is ever completely turned away. They then go on medicaid which pays all their costs at a highly inflated medical rate.

Don't you understand?? The current system uses your hard earned cash inefficiently.

It makes the middle class or the working poor pay and pay for their health care. The non-working or illegals get Medicaid. And the wealthy, well, they can afford it anyways.

How much per month are you paying for health insurance... which then tells you where to go and who to see? If you took that money and halved it, I'll bet that would be all your quota for Universal would be...

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Specializes in Cardiac.

Don't you understand??

Do I understand? I live 40 miles from the Mexican border. I think I understand, can you? I know that we are already drained, and I'm not willing to pay more or earn less in order to be drained even more. No thank you.

As for how much I pay for medical insurance, well, I pay $10.21 a paycheck. So we can have universal health coverage for that much????? No, of course not.

As to being told where I can go and who I can see, well, I can care less about that. I can go see my doctor TOMORROW. I don't have to wait eons. I don't need a referral, I just go.

Great plan for me...

My answer remains the same.

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Bully for you! I am glad you get such cheap insurance. Obviously the system is working for you. I am glad that you are so lucky. At least some people are happy. I pay $80 per month for a family of 4 in Canada.

And contrary to popular belief... (I am in Canada right now - until I go to San Diego in the fall for 6 weeks to visit family/work) I can see my family doctor today if I felt I needed to. And if I really was urgent but did not want to bother with hospital ER and my doctor was closed, there are a plethoria of walk-in clinics right there, ready to serve me....all for free.

For specialists there might be a few weeks wait time, unless I was critical, then I get in right away (like my employee with the brain tumour).

Again, my point is that we are already paying. Universal healthcare would not necessarily mean higher anything. But as I said, I am not certain it would work in the US. Too many people want to profit off illness to prevent it...

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Specializes in Cardiac.
I am glad you get such cheap insurance. Obviously the system is working for you. I am glad that you are so lucky. At least some people are happy. ...

Thanks, I'm glad too.

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Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
Do you think that Canadians pay 47% of their income in taxes?

If you do, you don't understand what marginal tax rate means. Marginal tax rate is the amount of tax you'd pay on the next dollar you earn, it isn't the amount you pay as a percentage of your total income. You need to look at the average paid. From the links you posted, that figure is much lower.

For instance, if you are taxed 5% on the first 60K of your income and 10% on the next 40K and 40% on the next 20K, your marginal tax rate would be 40% if you made 101K (because any extra money you earn above 100K wold be taxed at 40%). BUT, since you aren't paying that on the first 100K you earn, the actual amount you pay is not 40%. You'd pay 5% of 60K which is 3K, plus 10% of 40K which is 4K, plus 40% of 1K which is $400. Your taxes paid would be $7400, which is less than 8% of your salary. That's a big difference from 40%. Marginal tax rates are not meant to tell you how much taxes a person pays overall. It's completely misleading.

BTW, from your very own link: "Due to the different ways that nations collect and categorize public finance data, however, Tax Freedom Days are not comparable from one country to another." The 47% figure on there is the same marginal tax rate from the Fraser Institute. It says nothing about the average taxes we actually pay. And also on the webpage: "For example, a 2002 study by Osgoode Hall Law Professor Neil Brooks argues the Fraser Institute's Tax Freedom Day analysis includes flawed accounting, including the exclusion of several important forms of income and overstating tax figures, moving the date nearly two months later.[1]"

Mmmmm, I just provided a link.

I do know that the 'average' tax rate in Canada is higher. I do know that references seem to be discredited for the purposes of maintaining support for personal anecdotal positions, which makes this an essentially pointless discussion.

The US also uses a marginal scale. I've been paying on it for a long time.

BTW, the highest federal marginal tax rate an American will pay this year is 35%. The highest state marginal tax any American will pay is about 9.9%. Some will pay zero, because around 7 states don't tax personal income at all, while a few only tax investment income. Even more will pay flat rates of 3%, some will pay around 5%. Someone in BC who makes $100K will pay 14.7% in provincial income tax, but if they made that money in Florida, Texas, Washington, or a few other places, they'd pay zero in state tax on that $100k. And I, like many, still believe we are overtaxed.

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
Darren, don't you think a Canadian citizen or someone who has LIVED and worked in Canada that has ACTUALLY PAID these taxes, would BETTER understand how they work?

Just because you post something over and over again....doesn't make it true.

I am totally with you Hopeful2009! or in other words "walk a mile in my shoes" then we'll talk.

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Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
I am totally with you Hopeful2009! or in other words "walk a mile in my shoes" then we'll talk.

So what we must assume that stupid Americans are not capable of understanding international issues unless they agree with you...

It's not that complicated, except for the part where I have to guess what references will pass people's personal litmus test.

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So what we must assume that stupid Americans are not capable of understanding international issues unless they agree with you...

It's not that complicated, except for the part where I have to guess what references will pass people's personal litmus test.

When speaking of things that can be looked up with references, I'm not sure why we have to walk a mile in someone's shoes . . . . .

Just because I'm not a math teacher doesn't mean I can't look up the formula . . . . and understand it.

(Bad analogy - I HATE MATH;);););););););))

steph:balloons:

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
So what we must assume that stupid Americans are not capable of understanding international issues unless they agree with you...

No that's not it at all. Unless you are actually living a particular situation you cannot be an "absolute" authority. I can truly feel sorrow for someone who has lost a sibling but I cannot truely understand unless God forbid I experienced that emotion for myself.

You cannot believe everything that you read in print. We can't raise children out of books written by experts because all children are different. We can get a general idea about things by reading and educating ourselves but cannot be the authority unless we've lived it.

Can someone truly appreciate what being a nurse is like by reading all about it? The answer is no. Give it up already!

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No that's not it at all. Unless you are actually living a particular situation you cannot be an "absolute" authority. I can truly feel sorrow for someone who has lost a child but I cannot truely understand unless God forbid I experienced that emotion for myself.

You cannot believe everything that you read in print. We can't raise children out of books written by experts because all children are different. We can get a general idea about things by reading and educating ourselves but cannot be the authority unless we've lived it.

Can someone truly appreciate what being a nurse is like by reading all about it? The answer is no.

But I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

Knowing what a parent goes through with the loss of a child is not the same as looking at taxation tables.

steph

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
But I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

Knowing what a parent goes through with the loss of a child is not the same as looking at taxation tables.

steph

I hear and understand what your saying steph but isn't trying to compare tax rates in different countries like trying to compare apples and oranges? If I compare Hollands tax system to ours it's extremely difficult because there's alot that goes into it that others are not aware of. We don't get paid maternity time unless we have the time save up. In Holland they get 12 months paid maternity leave (Dad gets 2 months maternity leave) and don't use any vacation time. When they take vacation time they not only get their full pay but they get it doubled so they have the money to take that much needed vacation. These are costs included in the tax rate that others don't realize unless they live it.

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Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
Give it up already!

Folks posted around a dozen more times since I took a break from this thread three days ago.

Telling me to "give it up now" is rather insulting. A little redirection of your exhortation may be in order.

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