Healthcare in America

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

It makes sense to me that people living on, under or near the poverty line shouldn't pay income tax and should receive assistance from the rest of society to ensure their continued health and safety in hopes that one day that income tax imbalance will be made up because those people/that family have access to things like education rather than becoming even more dependent (and expensive) wards of the state.

It makes so much sense to me I don't even give it a second thought.

Me too. Still trying to figure out where we differ.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by seattleflamer

You're referring to Earned Income Credit when you're talking about refunds on no federal tax liability. I assume you realize that all EIC recipients pay regressive taxes like sales tax on clothes and property tax (from landlords who pass the cost to the renters) as examples.

EIC is intended to mitigate those types of regressive taxes that affect EIC recipients disproportionately on the taxes they pay on basic needs.

IMO, the most egregious of all taxes that EIC receipents pay into is the 15% FICA/payroll tax which helps pay for medicare and social security up to the cap of ~$110K of income in 2012. Though that is slightly less since Congress passed a FICA tax holiday for the last two years.

The unfair part is any income over the cap of ~$110K is FICA free which means anyone lucky enough to make more than $110K is saving that the SS portion of the FICA tax to infinity. That is the very definition of regressive.

And the real kicker is since Reagan, the FICA contributions are used to pay for current government expenditures to make up for the lost revenue from those same Reagan tax cuts.

I suggest if you removed the FICA cap, that would go a long way to address the path to a solvent and, at the very least, a fairer funding mechanism for SS.

The Medicare portion of FICA is ridiculously underfunded by all FICA payers at a unsustainable 1.5% considering the benefits doled out.

I pay my full FICA to the cap and get almost another $2K in FICA savings while the rest of you schelps making less than $110K including the working poor are essentially subsidizing my full amount of SS and free medicare at 65.

Fair in your books, right?

I wasn't referring to EIC specifically. You certainly don't have to qualify for the Earned Income Credit to have a negative tax bill.

I have no idea why you wrote a huge post out as if I were against this situation. You seem to have taken an issue with me on something and it has now somehow interefered with your ability to retain and/or comprehend what you've read from me.

Same thing for Flash. I don't get it.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by seattleflamer

I like honesty too but can you tell me who is saying "these people are both over taxed and have no healthcare available"?

There was a ton of that sort of rhetoric out of the left leading up to the votes on the Obama Health Care plan.

Just like there's a lot of rhetoric now about how that same 47% are undertaxed from the right. Clearly, they are not as you pointed out earlier.

Both are disingenuous spin and are disgusting.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

I have to disagree. Most Americans I talk with don't want a Universal HC system because they hate, absolutely loathe, people getting things for free. They do not want to be paying into taxes that are going to pay for an illegal Mexican and their families or some welfare case's HC. IMO, that's why they are against it.

My brother is an American and loves the health care system they have now. Last summer he had to have his right knee operated on and bragged how he didn't have to wait months to get it done. At the same time he forgets how much anxiety he was dealing with when he was unemployed for a year and half and was trying to find a job that had health benefits. The reality is having health benefits hold Americans hostage to thier jobs.

[seattleflamer]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

I wasn't referring to EIC specifically. You certainly don't have to qualify for the Earned Income Credit to have a negative tax bill.

I have no idea why you wrote a huge post out as if I were against this situation. You seem to have taken an issue with me on something and it has now somehow interefered with your ability to retain and/or comprehend what you've read from me.

Same thing for Flash. I don't get it.

You explicitly made the connection that people on medicaid pay no income tax and agreed with others on the same sentiment. I'm not sure what paying or not paying taxes has to do with receiving or qualifying for a health care benefit?

IMO, you're making the "free lunch" connection with medicaid recipents when in fact people at these low income levels pay a similiar share of the overall tax burden as a percentage of their income.



link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...4yLT_blog.html

[T@T]

Sorry, kind of a long story.

Some of you might remember the story of a 42(ish) old guy about 12 odd years ago who took a massive heart attack in vegas(front page on the Sun) and was hit with a $350.000 hospital bill from spending about a month down there getting care. He was "admittedly" stupid for not getting travel insurance but this kind of bill caused a tonne of grief and eventually a bankruptcy to my poor buddy.

About a year after his heart attack we were golfing and the defibrillator that the Vegas doctors put in went off! Holy crap the guy levitated in front of me,I was freaked! we rushed him to the hospital where he stayed for months..I really thought he was toast, after a while he was down about 50 pounds and I was ready for a funeral. His heart was "forked" and without a new one he was done like dinner.

One afternoon on deaths bed he remembers a nurse waking him up and saying "your going to Edmonton in a half an hour,we have found a new heart for you" he couldn't believe it and only when he was transported on the plane with a little box with a red cross on it he started to believe.His new heart was traveling with him!

In a twist of fate the heart came from one of 3 young kids who died in an accident,one of those kids was a nephew of one of our buddy's that was also golfing with us that day. Crazy!!(they don't tell you who exactly the donor is)

Anyway,I'm very happy to say thanks to the Canadian health-care system and tax payers for saving a good friend, today he is very healthy, we still golf and joke about his "levitation" that day..He got over the financial problems from the US bills and is now very much successful. I truly believe if he lived in the USA he would be dead today,and so does he.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by seattleflamer

You explicitly made the connection that people on medicaid pay no income tax and agreed with others on the same sentiment. I'm not sure what paying or not paying taxes has to do with receiving or qualifying for a health care benefit?

IMO, you're making the "free lunch" connection with medicaid recipents when in fact people at these low income levels pay a similiar share of the overall tax burden as a percentage of their income.



link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...4yLT_blog.html

I pointed it out, largely because I don't think many Canadians have the full story, that there is health care available to low income Americans and that they don't pay income tax despite what was said leading up to the vote on Obama Health Care.

I also said I have no problem with it and that my own family benefited from it at one time. I guess you missed that part?

[Ice]

Originally Posted by flameswin

But just out of curiosity, what do you pay per month for that ideal health care scenario? Unless that's too personal, then just call me a jackass.

Our out of pocket cost for everything, medical, dental, vision, and supplemental is about 750 bucks for a family of four. I'm OK with paying that. We could insure all four of us for about half with an HMO, but we get faster service with our current insurance.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

I pointed it out, largely because I don't think many Canadians have the full story, that there is health care available to low income Americans and that they don't pay income tax despite what was said leading up to the vote on Obama Health Care.

I also said I have no problem with it and that my own family benefited from it at one time. I guess you missed that part?

It seems to me that the ones facing bankruptcy or arbitrarily losing their benefits are the middle class and from what I remember if you have a health care deliverer you like you don't need to change anything. The other problem Obamacare wants to address is if everyone has health care, they won't fill up the hospitals with super expensive emergency visits when a local doctor or clinic could handle the problem.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Ice

Our out of pocket cost for everything, medical, dental, vision, and supplemental is about 750 bucks for a family of four. I'm OK with paying that. We could insure all four of us for about half with an HMO, but we get faster service with our current insurance.

So the annual cost, for a family of four, on your insurance plan is $9,000.

With an HMO, let's call it 4,500 just for argument's sake.

Here's the problem. The median income in the U.S. is $55,000 dollars. For some, this means that they will pay in insurance premiums between 10 and 20 percent of their after-tax income!

In Canada, the cost is across the board far lower. In fact, in Alberta the comparable number is zero.

This is a big part of the reason that I moved my family from Boston to Calgary. I was paying nearly 700 dollars a month in health insurance--and the service was not better than what I get here. In fact, wait times were longer--and I STILL had out-of-pocket expenses after all of that.

I shake my head when people claim that the U.S. health care system is better. In Calgary I get the same level of care for me and my family (frequently better, actually)--and instead of being gouged by an insurance-company middleman, I pay for it with my taxes.

[onetwo_threefour]

While I don't disagree with the overall point, her plan includes dental and vision. To get that in Canada you do have to pay and my Blue Cross coverage for Dental and Vision costs my family of four somewhere around $200 a month. So it's not fair to say equivalent coverage coasts an Albertan $0

[Azure]

Not to mention prescription and hospital plans that you can also get with Blue Cross.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by onetwo_threefour

While I don't disagree with the overall point, her plan includes dental and vision. To get that in Canada you do have to pay and my Blue Cross coverage for Dental and Vision costs my family of four somewhere around $200 a month. So it's not fair to say equivalent coverage coasts an Albertan $0

When I worked my union covered all my dental, vision and prescription expenses and for five years after I retired. I thought most big companies did the same.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

When I worked my union covered all my dental, vision and prescription expenses and for five years after I retired. I thought most big companies did the same.

To illustrate how quickly things have progressed negatively for Americans, when I left the Flathead in January of 1997 to come here, Boeing paid our entire premium for insurance, health, dental and vision. Doctors visits were a $5 co-pay. Prescriptions were either $2 or $5. I doubt there is an employer in this country who pays 100% of their employee's health insurance premiums now. What a benefit that was though....and a financial anchor to the company I'm sure

[Montana Moe]

My health plan (city government) actually pays people to take the high deductible/health savings account option if it's just the worker themselves. They get $15 per pay period to choose that option vs. the high premium/low deductible option. The $5k deductible scares me, though.

At the turn of the century, everyone in the city government insurance pool had their premiums paid. Other than the above option, those days are gone. My coworkers bitch and moan about having to pay anything. When I moved from banking to government my premiums went from approx. $500/mo to $150 or so. I made sure to let them know how good they had it.

[seattleflamer]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

I pointed it out, largely because I don't think many Canadians have the full story, that there is health care available to low income Americans and that they don't pay income tax despite what was said leading up to the vote on Obama Health Care.

I also said I have no problem with it and that my own family benefited from it at one time. I guess you missed that part?

Yes, I did notice that but just cause you used something in the past doesn't mean you believe in the program. And,really, If you say you have no issues with the medicaid, who am I to say you do?

I'll just leave it at this, I find your (original and unqualified) comment that half the population don't pay income tax to be slightly misleading since everyone with W2 income is paying FICA/payroll tax which is used to pay for current gov't expenditures including medicaid payments. SS/Medicare and Income tax revenue have all been mixed in one big pot since Reagan.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Originally Posted by seattleflamer

Yes, I did notice that but just cause you used something in the past doesn't mean you believe in the program. And,really, If you say you have no issues with the medicaid, who am I to say you do?

I'll just leave it at this, I find your (original and unqualified) comment that half the population don't pay income tax to be slightly misleading since everyone with W2 income is paying FICA/payroll tax which is used to pay for current gov't expenditures including medicaid payments. SS/Medicare and Income tax revenue have all been mixed in one big pot since Reagan.

Well, I didn't use the term half at all. In fact, I didn't use a quantifier. It is actually 47% which is more than I would have thought. My intent wasn't to mislead, but to point out that the situation is used to mislead by both sides of the debate, as is often the case on hot button issues in this country.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

So the annual cost, for a family of four, on your insurance plan is $9,000.

With an HMO, let's call it 4,500 just for argument's sake.

Here's the problem. The median income in the U.S. is $55,000 dollars. For some, this means that they will pay in insurance premiums between 10 and 20 percent of their after-tax income!

In Canada, the cost is across the board far lower. In fact, in Alberta the comparable number is zero.

This is a big part of the reason that I moved my family from Boston to Calgary. I was paying nearly 700 dollars a month in health insurance--and the service was not better than what I get here. In fact, wait times were longer--and I STILL had out-of-pocket expenses after all of that.

I shake my head when people claim that the U.S. health care system is better. In Calgary I get the same level of care for me and my family (frequently better, actually)--and instead of being gouged by an insurance-company middleman, I pay for it with my taxes.

I think this is why this argument will never have a winner. I have fast service, great doctors, my choice of 4 excellent hospitals close to my home and I can go anywhere I want for treatment. I don't have an issue with my cost of benefits, I don't feel gouged and if I had to, I could alter my coverage to be more affordable. At this point in my life, I'm willing to pay more for options. If I want to go to UCLA Medical Center for a specialist in whatever cancer I may end up with, I want to do that. I don't have to get approval or referrals from my provider. I simply go to whatever doctor or hospital I want and get the treatment of my choosing. I get MRI's on 20 minutes notice, and with my son in hockey, having utilized the MRI more than once, I'm Ok with the cost to have that luxury. If I had an HMO, unless it was an emergency, the MRI would wait a couple of days. We all make choices in our health care. We all have opinions based on our experiences. I can't argue about Canadian healthcare because I've never experienced it. I'm not saying one system is better than the other, I think they both sound flawed. I just have no complaints with how medical needs are met for me and my family.

[Azure]

The strange part in all this is that many people in this thread have said that the sacrifice of longer waiting times is the price us Canadians have to pay in order to get 'universal' health care, and yet the fact is that there are certain people in Canada, like hockey players, who get faster and better treatment than 'normal' citizens.

Is it because of money? No idea, but I doubt they wait months for back surgery on a herniated disk like the rest of us would.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Azure

The strange part in all this is that many people in this thread have said that the sacrifice of longer waiting times is the price us Canadians have to pay in order to get 'universal' health care, and yet the fact is that there are certain people in Canada, like hockey players, who get faster and better treatment than 'normal' citizens.

Is it because of money? No idea, but I doubt they wait months for back surgery on a herniated disk like the rest of us would.

Many sports teams have doctors, specialists on staff. I was in the army with Kelly Brett, he is one of the Flames doctors. So they can get in and get seem by Dr Brett right away. He doesn't do surgery, but I reckon, many of them go south of the boarder for that. The diagnostics, MRI, etc...can be paid for at a number of clinics in town.