WCVB channel five Boston, is now airing, Healthcare Uncovered. A live panel show discussing healthcare and it's cost in Boston. The moderator, Timothy Johnson, MD. One of the panelist, Zane, the CEO of Tufts Medical Center whose 1100 RN's just voted 70%, to authorize a one day strike. This is what I just heard and this is verbatim.
"We may need fewer nurses in the hospital, but we will need more in the community, helping patients to stay healthy. so there maybe some modest job losses, I think there is a great opportunity to retrain caregivers in new professions."
"Doesn't the rank and file worry though, if I am dislocated as a healthcare worker. The job that may be available for me on the other end is nothing of the caliber of the job I trained for and gone to school for as a RN or whatever."
They avoid that question and go on about being unable to sustain the hospital budgets. Over half of budgets are employee salaries(nurses). We must address these salaries and benefits and look into job revocation. They go on to justify this thinking, due to small business unable to afford healthcare here in Mass and therefore leaving the state. There are great opportunities to shift our thinking from acute care to physician and patient remaining well. (paraphrase).
Helen Zane: what the trajectory we are on, the public will not tolerate. Better we get ahead of it. ( she is addressing nurses who want better nurse/ patient ratios). Fueling her position, against the nurses.
They go on and defend physicians who do needless test...talk about salaries and fraud in the same sentence. Implying, nurses must make sacrifices...my reading between the lines. Then go to prevention and teaching. Intervention is most important right now. (agree,but, where are nurses in this) Their focus, doctors, PA and NP.
You all need to watch this, there is so much more. Primary care doctors aren't paid enough, but no mention of professional nursing. Again, ANA where are you?? BSN's you are not being addressed at all. They are talking about eliminating your job. They are talking about retraining you and "retooling" your career. And you all are worried about the difficult patient? We need to get busy...are we even listening to what is happening right before our eyes? Are you all satisfied with your degrees when you have no say in policy? Do we even care?
The lie has been told so much, ever since I can remember 27 years ago. All we needed was BSN to get taken seriously...really?
While it's good for govt to get estate tax (so it's got more to spend) I'm not sure inheritance tax is a social leveler ???
I don't think it increases upward social mobility.
But it probably helps those at the top of the pile to stay there.
My reasoning is that most of those at the top have large amounts of real money making skill, connections, intelligence, high level of comfort with risk and other attributes that enable them to move upward more easily than average people.
So, have them pay inheritance tax .... but they'll move back up again
I think it does indirectly because obviously if you have really concentrated wealth then those people get represented and everybody else doesn't and get to increasingly manipulate the system in their favor. We kinda see that now. A really frustrated population that switches from voting from one party to another and thinking nothing much is changing.
It may be just me, but it makes no sense to me that people born to the right parents can not work, manipulate markets, globalize, buy Congressmen, get special laws written to evade taxes, establish offshore havens inaccessible to the rest of us, obtain taxpayer money to move businesses offshore,market in Asia, or to flood markets with low-wage immigrants domestically if they think they're paying too much for nurses, or engineers or technical workers, and much more. All this is going on while nurses for example are taxed at rates when all said and done close to 45% and dont know if they can ever retire or afford healthcare, or hell in these times even work at all. It seems insane to me that anybody without a net worth of a few hundred million would endorse this and I think it's obtained exactly by the promotion of misleading information like 'the richest 5%' pay 50% of federal income taxes". I guess I just don't see this system as being stable, to having first-rate nation, and it really particularly annoys me, as someone from working class parents who busted my butt to get an entire boatload of degrees and certifications, to then have aforementioned and their purchased demagogues and supporters (who typically have nothing to gain by endorsing this system at all) be screaming that people like me are somehow supposedly living on "handouts", "lazy", "envious", ad nauseum, and promoting "class warfare" even as the middle class evaporates before our very eyes. May they reap much of what they have harvested is my feeling toward them.
This all said, definitely not my idea of fun to have various participants (not you) so upset they're effectively foaming at the mouth in their responses. As Mom used to say, some folks gotta learn the hard way.
I wasn't giving you "orders". I was responding to a message YOU wrote that happened to have misinformation in it. If you don't want me to respond then don't post your tripe on a public forum.
Additionallly it is you who has used biased websites, cherry-picked select revenues to suit an agenda and proposed, ridiculously, that federal taxes vary where people live along with a boatload of other gems. I have supported mine with objective ones that like, you know, economists, the CBO, et al would use. This precisely because things can be made to suit an agenda as you say. You wouldn't "just google" for your medical references I hope.
I think you have it all wrong, including what I provided. I didn't purposefully pick a right wing website, unlike what you obviously, or so it seems to me, prefer (a left wing site.) If you want an unbiased website, then please feel free to provide one here, and I can be assured you will make sure that it is not biased to the left in any way, right?
I said I was talking about ONLY federal income taxes, because all the others DO vary according to where one chooses to live and I believe that is a great way to really see who pays what (by removing all other taxes from the equation). How is it fair to include a state like mine (WA) where no state income taxes are paid with a state that does? And even within our own state, sales taxes can vary by up to 1/2 of 1% from one town to the next, depending on what the voters have approved. That is no way to compare who pays what, because there is NO common demoninator. On the other hand, those who pay federal income tax, have no variations depending on where they live.
I didn't offer even one revenue level to "suit an agenda" (only that website) so I think you either misread what I posted or are projecting the accusation of tripe onto me when it is yours in the first place.
And the fact remains that 45%, or is it 48%, pay NO federal income tax at all. I don't for the life of me see this as fair, in any way.
If we had a federal sales tax and no income tax, it would not matter how you worked or got payed or how many little loop holes you can find. You would still pay the tax on what you buy. Those people that earn much higher salaries then most nurses i know also buy much more stuff and bigger toys too! Not to mention all of the people who work under the table or are visiting from other countries.
If we had a federal sales tax and no income tax, it would not matter how you worked or got payed or how many little loop holes you can find. You would still pay the tax on what you buy. Those people that earn much higher salaries then most nurses i know also buy much more stuff and bigger toys too! Not to mention all of the people who work under the table or are visiting from other countries.
Surely bigger ones than I'll ever have and more power to them if three yachts and 7 homes and castles truly buy them happiness. Obviously it does. But I don't need that stuff and I don't want it. A small, modest home in a safe neighborhood and a reliable car is plenty for me. I'd rather my legacy was sending a young girl to nursing school than one of excessive consumption. But I'm editorializing.
However if they buy a villa in the Swiss Alps or a Carribean excusion (or island for that matter) they're not paying taxes on it and even if they are paying more in dollars through purchases, they're not paying the same percentage of their income as a working mom who has to pay every penny she has on a car, tires, service, gas (which is hit with state and federal taxes) and items for her kids. Effectively all non-food items she buys on all her income is hit. Which is precisely why consumption taxes are called regressive taxes. By definition they hit people with less discretionary income harder. Put another way a 7% sales tax by very nature is going to hit somebody harder that earns 20k than 20million.
I know it's been proposed to replace the income tax with a consumption tax, not that I think it has a hairball's chance of becoming reality. Personally I thnk a VAT tax is more sensible as at least that taxes imports that come into the country. But I digress.
And yeah, I recognize illegals and people paid under the table still pay sales taxes on their purchases, and taxes on their fuel, et al. I don't buy into that makes it okay though. Providing the healthcare, infrastructure and education of their children to an illegal is costing the nation one hell of a lot more than theyre' paying back in sales taxes on a salary of 15k a year.
Surely bigger ones than I'll ever have and more power to them if three yachts and 7 homes and castles truly buy them happiness. Obviously it does. But I don't need that stuff and I don't want it. A small, modest home in a safe neighborhood and a reliable car is plenty for me. I'd rather my legacy was sending a young girl to nursing school than one of excessive consumption. However if they buy a villa in the Swiss Alps or a Carribean excusion (or island for that matter) they're not paying taxes on it and even if they are paying more in dollars through purchases, they're not paying the same percentage of their income as a working mom who has to pay every penny she has on a car, tires, service, gas (which is hit with state and federal taxes) and items for her kids. Effectively all non-food items she buys on all her income is hit. Which is precisely why consumption taxes are called regressive taxes. By definition they hit people with less discretionary income harder. Put another way a 7% sales tax by very nature is going to hit somebody harder that earns 20k than 20million.
Yes I do see your point, but I do not think that the upper upper portion of people that you mention (the ones buying homes in the swiss alps or owning several yachts) are the ones that avoid paying the kinda money that makes the country function. The people making 200-400k that have a good accountant so they don't pay much tax. There are lots more of those than the Bill Gates of the world. Oh and because he donate lots of money to charities, he avoids paying lots of income tax too. Silly kinda discussion on a nursing website, dontcha think?
Yes I do see your point, but I do not think that the upper upper portion of people that you mention (the ones buying homes in the swiss alps or owning several yachts) are the ones that avoid paying the kinda money that makes the country function. The people making 200-400k that have a good accountant so they don't pay much tax. There are lots more of those than the Bill Gates of the world. Oh and because he donate lots of money to charities, he avoids paying lots of income tax too. Silly kinda discussion on a nursing website, dontcha think?
Yes, true, not so related but somehow we're all on a roll. :-) I guess it is nursing related in that this has hit nurses very hard.
I would need to look at hard statistics to really answer this - if they were available for everyone and that's part of the problem with having a tax code that's 15 miles long. As I undestand it from the econ periodicals it's very difficult to measure what the estate class pays in taxes as they do have access to estate planners and offshore havens and this and that that makes it near impossible to trace -while at the same time controlling an ever increasing amount of the national income gains. By estimates maybe 5-8% in all. to which I can only say: "Where do I sign up?". I totally agree anybody in that 200-400k that's paying what's on the tax tables should immedidately fire their accountant. And in the end it's been true since 1980 that every time there's been a tax cut on the top the rest of us have seen our fica tax, state tax, retirement age, sales tax, gasoline tax, local tax, ad nausum go UP right along with those cuts. Not to mention a steadfast chipping away at the few deductions we COULD take advantage of.
I admit I don't like how they can bury it all. I think that people should demand a yearly statement that shows the sum of every single tax dollar they paid wherever it was. People would be shocked and I think it would put nicely to rest this idea that 45 percent of people aren't paying taxes. Course this will never happen I know.
I think it does indirectly because obviously if you have really concentrated wealth then those people get represented and everybody else doesn't and get to increasingly manipulate the system in their favor. We kinda see that now. A really frustrated population that switches from voting from one party to another and thinking nothing much is changing.
It may be just me, but it makes no sense to me that people born to the right parents can not work, manipulate markets, globalize, buy Congressmen, get special laws written to evade taxes, establish offshore havens inaccessible to the rest of us, obtain taxpayer money to move businesses offshore,market in Asia, or to flood markets with low-wage immigrants domestically if they think they're paying too much for nurses, or engineers or technical workers, and much more. All this is going on while nurses for example are taxed at rates when all said and done close to 45% and dont know if they can ever retire or afford healthcare, or hell in these times even work at all.
Yes I see your point GW - especially as you are from the US where this is more apparent than in Australia
Seems you have lots of very wealthy people who can politically influence - very scary indeed.
And very undemocratic .... modern day feudal England again ? The poor serfs working so hard but not getting ahead - infact going backward.
Middleclass going? It's a horrible trend and I see it happening in our lifetime.
Actually I think it's a trend in developed nations ...middleclass now budgeting, reduced std of living and worry about the future.
And yes it hurts as a nurse ... we work so hard to become educated and we are now working class??
I think we will see more people becoming more self-sufficient - getting a small bit of land somewhere and learning how to live off it.
Reducing their consumption and hurting big business that way.
Also I think people will choose to buy land instead of investing in the stock market so much ...this will also hurt big business.
I don't know how people can trust them with their retirement funds ??
We have seen business and financial leader walk away from their failures with big bonuses.
We know the threat of financial loss is not impetus for these people to take proper care and responsibility with citizens money
Yes I see your point GW - especially as you are from the US where this is more apparent than in Australia
Seems you have lots of very wealthy people who can politically influence - very scary indeed.
And very undemocratic .... modern day feudal England again ? The poor serfs working so hard but not getting ahead - infact going backward.
Middleclass going? It's a horrible trend and I see it happening in our lifetime.
Actually I think it's a trend in developed nations ...middleclass now budgeting, reduced std of living and worry about the future.
And yes it hurts as a nurse ... we work so hard to become educated and we are now working class??
I think we will see more people becoming more self-sufficient - getting a small bit of land somewhere and learning how to live off it.
Reducing their consumption and hurting big business that way.
Also I think people will choose to buy land instead of investing in the stock market so much ...this will also hurt big business.
I don't know how people can trust them with their retirement funds ??
We have seen business and financial leader walk away from their failures with big bonuses.
We know the threat of financial loss is not impetus for these people to take proper care and responsibility with citizens money
the US does have the worst disparity of any westernized, developed nation. It is comparable with the USSR and it's oligarchs and Iran rather than West Europe or Australia. And it's mostly been a post-70's development which I don't see how any fairminded person who has studied it can argue is other than a direct result of a consistent downward push of the tax code and resultant wealth concentration and it's affiliated deficits which have crowded out discretionary spending -like say, subsidies for state-based universities, grants for colleges and other things designed to help the middle class. Divide and conquer politics rule here; the demogogues have had a field day for 30 years pitting white collar workers against blue collar workers, men against women, old against young, blacks against whites, environmentalists against people working in resource based industries, evangelical Christians against mainline Christians and other religions, you name it - effectively diverting politicial decisions from core economic ones to smokescreen culture issues and keeping people who would be far better off joining together from doing so. (really who cares how many guns you can buy, if don't ask don't tell is repealed, etc if you can't pay your rent or afford to see a doctor). I think too because the population of the USA is so diverse it's easier to do this than it would be in a homogenous country like Japan. This said, I do think cultural changes ARE partially responsible for some of the change too - namely divorce as it is too often a sure ticket to poverty for many women and their kids have statistically a much lower chance of obtaining higher education. (Please note I am not at all advocating that people stay in abusive or unhappy marriages, just noting it's effect on income disparity).
You're so lucky there where you have so much unspoiled beautiful land. A big part of me agrees with you; a few nights ago I was even looking at undeveloped acreage in northern great lakes state - even though I absolutely hate the cold I can just see that land becoming very valuable in my lifetime (aka an abundance of fresh water). Like minded nurses take heed. :-)
Good point on retirement funds. We're on our own here as nobody can live on what SS pays and I'd agree with the hardline rightwingers if they said that it was not designed to be more than a supplement. Our 401k investments are not insured by the FDIC so if the market goes down or crashes you're SOL which is why the conventional wisdom is to move from stocks to bonds as you get older - though bonds unless triple A rated are not exempt from risk and there's also the minor detail that for what seems like eons now the interest rates have been extremely low on them (and if they do go up your bond becomes worth less in the market so it's sort of a darned if you do or don't kinda of thing). A few hospitals still do offer a fixed-benefit pension tho I would be surprised if those continued given that every other industry has bunked out on them and many hospitals here are truly struggling.
I think you have it all wrong, including what I provided. I didn't purposefully pick a right wing website, unlike what you obviously, or so it seems to me, prefer (a left wing site.) If you want an unbiased website, then please feel free to provide one here, and I can be assured you will make sure that it is not biased to the left in any way, right?
I said I was talking about ONLY federal income taxes, because all the others DO vary according to where one chooses to live and I believe that is a great way to really see who pays what (by removing all other taxes from the equation). How is it fair to include a state like mine (WA) where no state income taxes are paid with a state that does? And even within our own state, sales taxes can vary by up to 1/2 of 1% from one town to the next, depending on what the voters have approved. That is no way to compare who pays what, because there is NO common demoninator. On the other hand, those who pay federal income tax, have no variations depending on where they live.
I didn't offer even one revenue level to "suit an agenda" (only that website) so I think you either misread what I posted or are projecting the accusation of tripe onto me when it is yours in the first place.
And the fact remains that 45%, or is it 48%, pay NO federal income tax at all. I don't for the life of me see this as fair, in any way.
If you didn't deliberately pick that website I apologize for thinking you did. I stand by my statement that if you are going to argue economics then you should use credible resources for that domain rather than to google whatever comes up. Obviously if you were doing a medical research paper you'd go to Pubmed and look for peer-reviewed lit, the AMA, ANA, CDC, Health and Human services, etc. No different in other professions. I agree with you 100% that it's easy to take part of the picture and paint it to suit one agenda.
I've already addressed everything you're saying again here. In quick summary you did not initially discriminate federal income taxes in your response - you said "all of the taxes" and also were not right on the bracket you were using even for fit. The composition of federal tax revenue sources has changed dramatically over the past 35 years. From the cites I gave you yesterday still here, payroll taxes and consumption taxes which have been used to offset cuts in upper progressive federal income tax brackets are now composing a much bigger piece of the pie - about 47% , nearly half of it. Corporate taxes compose about another 12% and miscellaneous sources another 5%. Therefore it's very very misleading to use just the progressive tax collection to measure who pays what in fed taxes, and that's leaving aside state taxes, local taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc.
I agreed with you that 47-48% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes - just noted that this is not to be confused with them paying NO taxes or no federal taxes - independent of whether I do or do not agree with them paying no federal income taxes. I never said.
Please note the cap for this group is a family living on 35k and under, most being under, and in at least the higher bracket of that, if you want to call it that, taking advantage of deductions for college tuitions, et al. Which is fine by me. I'd much rather they sent their kids to college than not. It's also worth noting this percentage has actually risen, alarmingly IMO, over the past 10 years, which tells me it's another reflection of the economy and shifting economic demographics and downward wages.
Last, please note I am not in any way a fan of the current tax code. Whatsoever.
WIN007
281 Posts
I think it does indirectly because obviously if you have really concentrated wealth then those people get represented and everybody else doesn't and get to increasingly manipulate the system in their favor. We kinda see that now. A really frustrated population that switches from voting from one party to another and thinking nothing much is changing.
It may be just me, but it makes no sense to me that people born to the right parents can not work, manipulate markets, globalize, buy Congressmen, get special laws written to evade taxes, establish offshore havens inaccessible to the rest of us, obtain taxpayer money to move businesses offshore,market in Asia, or to flood markets with low-wage immigrants domestically if they think they're paying too much for nurses, or engineers or technical workers, and much more. All this is going on while nurses for example are taxed at rates when all said and done close to 45% and dont know if they can ever retire or afford healthcare, or hell in these times even work at all. It seems insane to me that anybody without a net worth of a few hundred million would endorse this and I think it's obtained exactly by the promotion of misleading information like 'the richest 5%' pay 50% of federal income taxes". I guess I just don't see this system as being stable, to having first-rate nation, and it really particularly annoys me, as someone from working class parents who busted my butt to get an entire boatload of degrees and certifications, to then have aforementioned and their purchased demagogues and supporters (who typically have nothing to gain by endorsing this system at all) be screaming that people like me are somehow supposedly living on "handouts", "lazy", "envious", ad nauseum, and promoting "class warfare" even as the middle class evaporates before our very eyes. May they reap much of what they have harvested is my feeling toward them.
This all said, definitely not my idea of fun to have various participants (not you) so upset they're effectively foaming at the mouth in their responses. As Mom used to say, some folks gotta learn the hard way.