The Other Side of ObamaCare - Nurse's Health Benefits

WIN007 · Apr 30, 2011

healthcare vouchers are typically ineffective. the problem is that for the people who really NEED them (ie have an expensive illness in the family or are over 60 ) a 1400-8000 voucher isn't going to amount to jack for what those premiums will cost. additionally influxing huge amounts of taxpayer money into a market just causes prices to rise - law of inflation. this is one of the reasons that privatization rarely saves any money and didn't with Medicare Advantage.

azhiker96, BSN, RN · Apr 30, 2011

I wish the vouchers were only 1400-8000. It looks like Pres. Obama's affordable care act will have vouchers of $14,799 -$22,740. That's a huge subsidy to the insurance industry!

WIN007 · Apr 30, 2011

I understood the AFCA maxout is 2% of family income only for people ineligible for medicaid and make not enough to be deemed to buy health insurance as a way of keeping them out of the Ed and offering preventative care via the establishment of HMO like co-ops. it's probably cheaper than having them all uninsured and going to the emergency room and preventative medicine is always better financially and outcome wisse than waiting till someone has a full blown chronic illness. I still lean against it tho

because I believe it will be inflationary and raise everyones premiums, and also feel it's unfair to people who make a enough to miss out on these ops but not enough to comfortably shell out 700-2000 a month on health insurance. And also , if history has any weight, infusing private companies with a big wad of taxpayer cash has fattened the companies bottom line but rarely saved the taxpayers any money.

Regardless, the House voted to repeal the appropriations for weeks ago so no need to stay awake at night as they'll almost certainly get their way.

8000 is annual the amount of subsidy that was suggested for

Regardless of where you stand on vouchers though the underlying problems are 1) elderly people account for about 80% of all national healthcare outlays (which is why no private insurance company is going to want to insure them any any number; they'd go broke)

2) healthcare inflation has skyrocketed off the charts for over 30 years

3) the diabetes epidemic.

dp1200 · May 1, 2011

Perhaps but politically it wasn't feasible. The president can't just do this by himself; he's gotta have congress. That's hard when people get their "news and information" from biased sources and their donors (insurance payors) are lobbying hard against them. We all know (hopefully) the efficiencies that come with a private payor system but you can't even suggest it without big monied interests riling up a truckload of rhetoric and having tens of thousands of ignoramuses screaming something about 'Socialism'.

If your intent was to be as obnoxious and offensive as possible, congratulations, mission accomplished. You might be surprised to learn that those of us who oppose government run ("single payor" being your euphemism of choice) health care are not necessarily uninformed "ignoramuses". You also need to get over your own delusion that your sources of "news and information" that speak in favor of government-run health care are every bit as biased and influenced by monied interests as those that you disagree with. Your opinion is not some universal truth that the rest of us are just to stupid to understand.

I reject your trivialization of the objection many have to single-payor on grounds that it constitutes socialist policy. It is a form of statist socialist policy. It is perfectly valid syntax to refer to it as such.

Our government is already bankrupt. They are borrowing $0.42 of every dollar they spend (try that math with your household budget and let me know how long you think you could keep that up), adding to our national debt with wild abandon, and are debasing the value of our currency with obscene disregard for what that does to us little people every time we need to buy food or put gas in our cars. And you think these career politicians can be trusted with our health care?! No thank you. I want no part of a government-run single payor system.

Our current insurance-based system is far from perfect, but its major deficiencies are due to their financial ties and influence with the government. Take the power and money away from the government and the insurance system reverts to accountability to the people they serve - us. It is dangerously naive to assume that vesting career politicians with even more power and money is going to solve this problem - it will only make it worse.

The rhetoric has reached a point where it is just impossible to have a sane, reasoned conversation on anything of significance and affecting the country. THAT is the "travesty" the other poster should have referred to.

I'm willing to have a sane, reasoned conversation about this, but that is difficult when folks start off with an obnoxious insult, calling anyone who disagrees with them an informed clueless ignoramus.

WIN007 · May 1, 2011

M'am;

1.There WAS nothing at all "obnoxious" in my posting. Same can not be said for yours.

2. There is nothing even remotely resembling "government run healthcare" in single payer, for Godsakes.

Not that I advocated for single-payer so I'm not sure what the blazes you're talking about. (there either).

3. As you're against government FUNDED programs I'm sure you're encouraging your parent to give up Medicare, right?

Well, I don't want to give it up either and I HAVE paid for it Ma'am.

Nor am I going to pretend that 8k is going to buy anybody a health insurance program that even resembles Medicare when they're 70.

You yourself will be damned happy for that when you're 70 I promise.

4. I'm well aware of the debt interest, M'am. And I suggest it's a product of candidates you supported rather than those I did. The last Presidency I actively supported left the nation with a 33 billion dollar annual surplus and the nation well set to cover the baber boomers retirement "entitlements".

By the time his "God appointed" successor left office the nation was awash in red ink to the tune of 1 trillion dollar deficits.

Thus I suggest you tell his well-heeled donors they need to shell out for the first time in 12 years instead of advocating for the liquidation of a healthcare plan over 90% of the nation is damned sure going to need.

5. The nation is not "broke". Just the middle class.The top 1/10th of 1% your party works for is swimming in luxury that's unimaginable and I'm sure it's to their benefit to scream the nation is broke than to be asked to help pay to run it for once.

Have a nice day, M'am.

azhiker96, BSN, RN · May 2, 2011

The nation is not "broke". Just the middle class.The top 1/10th of 1% your party works for is swimming in luxury that's unimaginable and I'm sure it's to their benefit to scream the nation is broke than to be asked to help pay to run it for once.

The top income earners are paying to help run the country, about 38% of income taxes collected come from the top 1%. The question is whether they should pay more or if they are paying a "fair" amount. That's a huge debate though. Pragmatically, we could hit a point of diminishing returns if the top rates are increased. Wealthy people have the means to move offshore. They just need sufficient motivation.

dp1200 · May 2, 2011

1.There WAS nothing at all "obnoxious" in my posting. Same can not be said for yours.

You led off with a post declaring those who opposed Obama's agenda as uninformed ignoramuses. How is that not obnoxious?

2. There is nothing even remotely resembling "government run healthcare" in single payer, for Godsakes.

How is a single-payer system, with the government as that single payer, not government-run healthcare?

Not that I advocated for single-payer so I'm not sure what the blazes you're talking about. (there either).

Your earlier response to Elkpark certainly gave the impression that you support single-payer and/or a "public option". Did I read this wrong? If you don't support single-payer or public option, then what's the problem?

3. As you're against government FUNDED programs I'm sure you're encouraging your parent to give up Medicare, right?
Well, I don't want to give it up either and I HAVE paid for it Ma'am.

Of course you don't. Nobody ever wants to give up a government entitlement once they've been promised it, particularly if they've been dumping their hard-earned money down the government black hole for decades. That's not the issue. The problem is, the government simply cannot continue this charade forever. Yes, the government is broke. They borrow $0.42 of every dollar they spend, and 60% of the Federal budget goes to entitlement programs such as social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, and unemployment. You can ignore these hard facts if you want, but denial doesn't make the reality go away.

You yourself will be damned happy for that when you're 70 I promise.

It won't be there when I'm 70. Of that I am certain, and I am certainly not counting on it.

4. I'm well aware of the debt interest, M'am. And I suggest it's a product of candidates you supported rather than those I did.

I won't make assumptions about which candidates you supported, but I can tell you that BOTH major parties are equally guilty of the excesses of government spending since World War II. Personally, I have no use for either party.

The last Presidency I actively supported left the nation with a 33 billion dollar annual surplus and the nation well set to cover the baber boomers retirement "entitlements".

You are talking about Clinton, correct? Well, you are incorrect about the "surplus" myth. There never was a surplus, and we were NEVER all set to cover entitlement programs. The Social Security "trust fund" is an absolute myth - the "surplus" revenues you referred to were given to the Treasury and immediately spent as part of the general budget. In exchange, the Treasury gave the Social Security administration non-marketable "special securities" which are in effect IOU's that the SSA is supposed to redeem when needed to pay out benefits. The $2.6 trillion in "trust fund assets" is in fact, DEBT, because the Treasury no longer has the cash - it was immediately spent. Democrats and Republicans alike are equally guilty of perpetrating this deception on all of us.

By the time his "God appointed" successor left office the nation was awash in red ink to the tune of 1 trillion dollar deficits.

Bush sucked. I never approved of his economic policy. You are making partisan assumptions once again.

Obama has QUADRUPLED the deficit in his first two years. How is that any better?

5. The nation is not "broke".

Yes, it is. You cannot continue borrowing $0.42 of every dollar you spend for very long. That is exactly what our government is doing.

Just the middle class.The top 1/10th of 1% your party works for is swimming in luxury that's unimaginable and I'm sure it's to their benefit to scream the nation is broke than to be asked to help pay to run it for once.

You really do not understand the magnitude of the debt problem our government has created. They could tax the top 1/10 of 1% - the ultra wealthy you apparently hate so much (many of whom are devout Democrats, by the way) - at a rate of 100% and it would barely put a dent in our deficit problem.

WIN007 · May 2, 2011

The top income earners are paying to help run the country, about 38% of income taxes collected come from the top 1%. The question is whether they should pay more or if they are paying a "fair" amount. That's a huge debate though. Pragmatically, we could hit a point of diminishing returns if the top rates are increased. Wealthy people have the means to move offshore. They just need sufficient motivation.

Correction. The top WAGE-EARNERS (people who earn salaries and wages) are paying about 33% of FEDERAL INCOME TAXES.

The top 1/10th of 1% I referred to, the benefits of your party's politics, don't live on WAGES and SALARY - but rather sources of income that are non-taxable or tax-evadable. Considering you obviously aren't in that select membership, it's very odd you do their bidding.

azhiker96, BSN, RN · May 2, 2011

Correction. The top WAGE-EARNERS (people who earn salaries and wages) are paying about 33% of FEDERAL INCOME TAXES.
The top 1/10th of 1% I referred to, the benefits of your party's politics, don't live on WAGES and SALARY - but rather sources of income that are non-taxable or tax-evadable. Considering you obviously aren't in that select membership, it's very odd you do their bidding.

Sorry that you're so misinformed. Those earning more than $380K/year AGI, which is the top 1%, pay 38% of federal personal income tax received by the government. That does include Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

I'm not talking about marginal tax rates here, I'm talking about actual dollars received by the feds. The top 10% pay about 70% of taxes. The bottom 50% pay less than 3%.

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

Tax rates are almost meaningless since there are so many credits and deductions built into the system. I doubt if anyone ends up paying their full tax rates. That goes for the millionaires as well as poor who get money due to credits that outweigh their tax bill.

azhiker96, BSN, RN · May 2, 2011

BTW, please try to keep your comments within the TOS. I do nobody's bidding except my own.

WIN007 · May 2, 2011

your accusation was that i called you an obnoxious ignoramus.

and i was responding to the publishing of a truckload of unsubstiantiable black helicopter conspiracy theories from crackpot political websites on a public nursing website. please keep in mind on average 50% of those who had to suffer through it do not share your politics. if that's not obnoxious i don't know what is. maybe you just assumed the readers are ignoramuses and nobody would interject any reality.

it never fails how people who do this can dish it out good and fast but never take an ounce of criticism back. if you don't want someone to respond then don't use public websites as as a place to launch your political rants.

obviously:

a single payer system would be a (typically a state) government paying a claim via a pooled insurance funds.

a government run healthcare system would mean the government is administering the healthcare service.

that's exactly why canada is actually not "socialized medicine".

pretty simple stuff.

don't be silly. i pointed out that nations that have single payor systems pay less per capita for healthcare than usa and the reason for that is largely because of reduced administration and bureacracy. economies of scale and less administration. again, easy stuff.

>

if i've paid for it then it's not an entitlement, ma'm.

do you realize before ss and medicare elderly poverty was close to 70% . i'm pretty sure the elderly wouldn't agree with you that it was "poured down a black hole". additionally the nation has transitioned from one of small family farms and co-op businesses where they had a certain amount of self-sufficiency to one of transational corporations and urbanization. including agriculture.

it would be far worse now.

furthermore the mouthbreathers that have always been against these programs and are chomping to dissolve them would be more convincing in their sky-is-falling hysteria if they weren't proposing another big windfall for the gilded age crowd right along with the termination of the last scraps for the middle class.

i mean we're either "broke" or we're not. if we're broke enough to steal trillions of dollars from hard-working americans, then we're too broke to keep extending tax cuts and windfalls to people who have seven homes and don't work.

it is also telling they never had peep to say about it during the previous administration whose fiscal policies

actually created these deficits and instead waited until an administration of another party inherited them.

>

considering 36% percent of the federal income source is from fica and less is paid out in ss you don't know what you're talking about. ss has always been in surplus and since reagan became the de facto way of financing deficits by cutting corporate and top individual taxes. (along with consumption taxes). clinton made the uber-wealthy shell out their first tax dollar in 12 years.

healthcare costs in the usa have skyrockted since the 80's and everytime someone has tried to address it sensibly the radical right could be counted upon to do the bidding of the regressives that opposed change.

including now.

>

hope you never get sick or old then. as i'm well aware of what the non-existance of medicare would mean to me and hundreds of millions others you'll pardon me, i hope, if i take issue of those who want to finance the banking industries reckless ventures and freebies for transnational corporations and the gilded class on the backs of people who actually have already made a lot of sacrifices. or, in otherwords, ask the middle class that has watched it's property values crash and it's jobs disappear to take another big punch in the face.

>

spending does increase over time as the population grows. naturally the nation would be spendi

ng more than it did 40 years ago and and naturally a dollar comparison that's unadjusted for inflation is meaningless. this is th reason that you measure federal spending and revenue a a percentage of the gdp.

deficits are a product of tax revenue - spending. you can increase deficits while doing nothing to spending at all.

i'm not in love with either of the political parties either but at least as responsible for the blame are the citizens. as jefferson said we'd have a democratic republic so long as the citizens fiercely guarded it. to me that means not only being informed, but getting my information from unbiased sources...

>

well thanks to you and the uber-rightwing congressman arizona whose website your spewing this crap from for telling us what the cbo, irs and greenbook don't know. actually interestingly the only other person to decrease the deficits in office was jimmy carter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/national_debt_by_u.s._presidential_terms#federal_spending.2c_federal_debt.2c_and_gdp

fiscal yearpresidentparty of presidentfederal spendingfederal debtgross domestic productinflation adjustor[color=#0645ad][10]billions[color=#0645ad][11]adjusted[color=#0645ad][12]increasebillions[color=#0645ad][13]adjusted[color=#0645ad][14]increasebillions[color=#0645ad][15]adjusted[color=#0645ad][16]increase1978-2005democratic9.9%4.2%12.6%1978-2005republican12.1%36.4%10.7%1978–1981carterdemocratic$678$1,21917.2%$994$1,787-0.4%$3,055$5,4929.4%1982–1985reaganrepublican$946$1,39614.5%$1,817$2,68049.0%$4,142$6,10811.2%1986–1989reaganrepublican$1,144$1,4997.4%$2,867$3,75740.2%$5,401$7,07715.9%1990–1993bushrepublican$1,410$1,6157.8%$4,351$4,98732.7%$6,576$7,5366.5%1994–1997clintondemocratic$1,601$1,6844.3%$5,369$5,64713.2%$8,182$8,60614.2%1998–2001clintondemocratic$1,863$1,8218.1%$5,769$5,638-0.2%$10,058$9,82914.2%2002–2005bushrepublican$2,472$2,16518.9%$7,905$6,92322.8%$12,238$10,7179.0%2006-2009*bushrepublican$3,107$2,45213.3%$10,413$8,21818.7%$15,027$11,85910.7%

how anyone can look at these hard numbers and pretend the gop is the party of 'fiscal responsibility' with a straight face is one of god's great mysteries.

>

you're correct in the first part but not the latter. ss has always and still is in surplus. any project for more than a couple of years is worthless because so much will depend on economic growth and the gdp.

>

i'm making assumptions based on your talking points. you're entitled to support whatever candidate you want and i would never suggest otherwise.

he hasn't quadrupled the deficits. my god, the man inherited a 1 trillion dollar deficit from his predecessor and a collapsed financial industry and an economy that was shedding 230,000 jobs a month!!!

and i have never claimed to be a fan of his. i just see no value in making stuff up and/or pretending that the nations fiscal problems started with him blaming policies that aren't even effective or that policies that have failed over and over again (supply side economics) are going to pull us out of it.

>

where are you getting the idea we're borrowing .42 on every tax dollar we're spending????

>

i understand plenty. and i'd be a lot more convinced of the sky-is-falling crowd had they not waited to speak up until there was a sitting president with a -d after his title and weren't advocating for billionaires to be taxed at rates a fraction of what i pay.

do you have anything but rhetoric to offer? i don't hate anyone but i do feel that the best off should count their blessings instead of corrupting the government and pouring out legions of misinformation to get an even bigger piece of the pie. and you don't know how many are democrats any more than i do.

taxing them at the same rates i'm taxed at would do far far more than put a "dent" in the deficits tho i agree that at this point it will take more yet.

i just don't understand what's in it for you to spout this stuff. you're obviously not in the walmart heir class and you will suffer right along with everyone else in a society where joblessness is high, wages are low and there's no infrastructure or social saftey net.

have a nice day, ma'm.

dp1200 · May 2, 2011

ok, gwin, if you are unaware of some incredibly basic facts such as the true magnitude of our federal deficit and how social security is funded and insist on either ignoring or trivializing these simple facts, then it is going to be impossible for us to have any meaningful discussion about these topics.

i'll try again:

where are you getting the idea we're borrowing .42 on every tax dollar we're spending????

it's rather shocking to hear such bold opinions put forth by one who does not have a handle on something as basic and accessible as what our government spends vs. what it takes in. my "idea" comes from hard government numbers on the budget.

for 2011, we are currently running running federal spending at an annual rate of $3.818 trillion on revenues of $2.174 trillion, for an annualized deficit of $1.644 trillion. this data is readily available on tables published directly on the white house website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals

so, we're borrowing $1.644t against spending of $3.818t. 1.644 / 3.818 = 0.43

i was being generous with my rounding when i quoted $0.42 borrowed of every dollar spent - it's actually $0.43.

i have now given you the numbers and shown you the math. this isn't spin or "uber-rightwing" talking points. it also isn't opinion. it is fact.

ss has always been in surplus and since reagan became the de facto way of financing deficits by cutting corporate and top individual taxes. (along with consumption taxes). clinton made the uber-wealthy shell out their first tax dollar in 12 years.

again, you are misinformed about how social security works. that isn't your fault, the government and the media have worked hard to obscure the accounting games used to perpetrate the myth of this surplus.

here is how it works: if you look at social security as an independent entity and ignore everything else the government does then yes, there were some years where the ssa took in more in withholding revenues than it paid out in benefits. this is where you get the idea of a "surplus". it would be great if social security actually banked the money from this surplus, in which case we would have a real trust fund. however, it is incredibly naive to look at social security as if it exists in a vaccuum and ignore everything else.

unfortunately, social security doesn't operate in a vaccuum. any surplus revenue from ss goes straight to the treasury, where it is immediately spent. in exchange, the treasury gives the ssa a pile of ious. when the ssa needs to redeem these ious to pay benefits, the treasury will have to borrow the money to cover it. thus, the social security "trust fund" is in fact debt.

this also not opinion or "uber right-wing talking points". it is pure fact, readily verifiable from the social security website q&a:

q.: what happens to the taxes that go into the trust funds?
a.:tax income is deposited on a daily basis and is invested in "special-issue" securities. the cash exchanged for the securities goes into the general fund of the treasury and is indistinguishable from other cash in the general fund.

there never was an actual surplus once you look past the accounting trick played by the ssa and treasury. the money was spent. it's gone, and all that remains is debt.

furthermore, social security is already in the red. payouts will exceed revenues to the tune of $45 billion this year, meaning they've got to start cashing in some of the treasury iou's - an act which adds to the national debt since the treasury doesn't have the money.

this isn't opinion or talking points. it's fact.