A Canadian experience with Canadian health-care

[TomAiello 25]

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Why is healthcare any less optional than good legal advice

Because no access to sound legal advise, usually, will not result in failing health or death.

It could result in homelessness or incarceration, though, and those are pretty serious things.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[futuredivot 0]

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How much are we taxed to get police and fire protection? Health care is not an optional experience, any more than personal protection. Socializing basic human needs doesn't make us communists

Apple, meet orange-fire and police protection are local options paid primarily with local taxes (grants are a different animal)-So if everyone in your city/county/parish/state wants a socialized plan ya'll put it together an pay for it....at a local level. Let me know how that works for you. I am insured, I have supplemental insurance because it is enough of a priority for me to sacrifice other things for. Is it fair for my level of care to be negatively impacted so that I can pay for someone who didn't plan? And don't feed me the "It's about the children bullshit". I've observed that most of the people that throw that lame platitude at me are pro abortion anyway.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[jcd11235 0]

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Is the proposal to fund this new healthcare plan out of something other than federal income tax revenues?

Currently, government supplied healthcare, such as Medicaid, is funded partially by the states. Your federal income tax argument is intellectually dishonest.

We're talking about a Federal program here. What's dishonest is that the federal government wants to make the states pay for it.

Do you have figures on State income tax payment rates? How many people who are not paying Federal Income Tax are making substantial payments to the states? What percentage of total income tax revenue is collected by the states, as opposed to the federal government?

You seem to be obsessing over income tax. Think sales tax. Very, very few people in the US escape taxation.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Andy9o8 0]

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You seem to be obsessing over income tax. Think sales tax. Very, very few people in the US escape taxation.

Eh, the place went to Hell in a handbasket once they got rid of the poll tax.

[jcd11235 0]

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It could result in homelessness or incarceration, though, and those are pretty serious things.

If it can result in incarceration (i.e. criminal charges), we are entitled to legal counsel in the US.

Typically civil judgements won't be to the extent that would force defendants into homelessness.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[mnealtx 0]

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You seem to be obsessing over income tax. Think sales tax. Very, very few people in the US escape taxation.

And YOU seem to be obsessing over state tax, when the issue being discussed is with FEDERAL tax.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[rushmc 18]

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You seem to be obsessing over income tax. Think sales tax. Very, very few people in the US escape taxation.

And YOU seem to be obsessing over state tax, when the issue being discussed is with FEDERAL tax.

To his point (and you dont know how much this pains me) the reason the states are so afraid of this is because of the Federal (non-funded) mandates that they have handed out before. I think that they may be worried that the Fed is going to increase the mandeated coverage to "keep federal costs down".

Your point is still correct however. The majority of those using the Medicade and Medicare programs pay little or no income taxes

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[FallingOsh 0]

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How much are people taxed in those countries? Does everyone in the population pay taxes or are 40% exempt? Does a small percentage pay for it while everyone reaps the benefits?

America has the most or second most progressive income tax out of the entire OECD.

Looking at the ratio of tax percentage to income percentage in the top decile we're ahead of Ireland, Italy, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, the Slovak Republic, Luxembouorg, Belgium, Austria, Jorean, Poland, Japan, Norway, France, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Switzerland.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23856.html

And it doesn't cover our budget now. Not by $1.7T. How are we going to add universal healthcare to that?

I don't know if it was intentional, but you've pretty well proven my point. The tax burden is more evenly distributed in all of those countries. More people pay a higher percentage. In our country, and especially with the dems, the budget burden is continually pushed on a smaller percentage of the population. My question is how far do people want to push it? Are they willing to increase taxes for the entire population to fund universal healthcare or do they just want to continue pushing it up the chain?

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Stay positive and love your life.

[FallingOsh 0]

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it's working in Finland - private and government run healthcare side by side.

"those who say it cannot be done are getting in the way of those that are already doing it"

It didn't work in Mass, Hawaii, or Oregon.

Tell me how we'll adopt Finland's policies and we'll go from there.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[rushmc 18]

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it's working in Finland - private and government run healthcare side by side.

"those who say it cannot be done are getting in the way of those that are already doing it"

It didn't work in Mass, Hawaii, or Oregon.

Tell me how we'll adopt Finland's policies and we'll go from there.

In Oregon did it last even a year?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[FallingOsh 0]

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it's working in Finland - private and government run healthcare side by side.

"those who say it cannot be done are getting in the way of those that are already doing it"

It didn't work in Mass, Hawaii, or Oregon.

Tell me how we'll adopt Finland's policies and we'll go from there.

In Oregon did it last even a year?

Hawaii didn't last a year. Oregon lasted about 10 before new enrollment was closed and a lottery was opened to select who would be allowed in. Lottery for health care. Awesome.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[TomAiello 25]

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Lottery for health care. Awesome.

Have you seen the video where John Stossel films a Canadian town having a lottery to see who wins the new patient appointment with the local primary care provider?

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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America has the most or second most progressive income tax out of the entire OECD.

And it doesn't cover our budget now. Not by $1.7T. How are we going to add universal healthcare to that?

1. Replace our military which is more expensive than every other country's put together and constitutes the largest Socialist program in America with one sized for defense. You could save $5T over 10 years.

2. Get rid of inefficiencies in our system (malpractice, wage distortion due to subsidized student loans, market size limitations from what MDs can do where a nurse would be fine, billing overhead) that have us spending as much to insure 25% of our population (Medicare and Medicaid cover 80M people between them, making the US government the largest health insurer in the country) as other first world countries (like France) do on their entire population. This disregards what we're spending privately to insure 180 million Americans.

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In our country, and especially with the dems, the budget burden is continually pushed on a smaller percentage of the population.

I'd say "especially with the Republicans" but that's a distraction. Wealth transfer is the inevitable path to power in a democracy regardless of what you call your political party. With 50% of the income tax payers covering 3% of the taxes we're past the point of the masses voting for their bread and circuses. Some people argue that this doesn't tell the whole story due to other taxes but that's dishonest. Most of the Federal remainder is FICA, although with Social Security benefits dependent on contributions it's more a mandatory retirement program than a tax and a progressive one at that since the rate of return decreases with income and savings (indirectly due to benefits becoming taxable with other tax deferred savings). Medicare is just 2.9% on employee+employer shares and FUTA stops at a silly low wage base (about $7000 the last time my LLC taxed as an S-corp had me as an employee).

Revisiting the "Republicans are no better" theme you can look at the ratio of income taxes to income share. Regan's reforms changed the AGI calculation so his increases in progressiveness are understated - sorry. I don't care enough to find numbers for Carter - my big deal here is that as a fiscal conservative neither party caters to you and when you choose the lesser of two evils it's probably a Democrat.

I've listed the final full year a president was in office, since although taxes are due on April 15th for most people it's on a Jan 1 - December 31 fiscal year. Tax is a percentage of income taxes, income a percentage of AGI, ratio the simple ratio between the two, and change per year the average annual change in the ratio so we're fair to one and two term presidents. If I planned ahead I'd have done Income/Tax so positive meant more progressive but I didn't; feel free to do your own better looking arithmetic. Tables don't seem to look good here; sorry.

President Year Tax Income Ratio Change per year
Carter 1980 7.04 17.68 .39
Reagan 1988 5.72 14.93 .38 -.001
Bush 41 1992 5.06 14.92 .34 -.01
Clinton 2000 3.91 12.99 .30 -.005
Bush 43 2008 3.01 12.51 .24 -.0075

IIRC data on the top 10% meant Bush 43 was more progressive than Clinton but I don't care enough to pull that up - the point is that even Republicans are giving token payers more while charging them less.

Raw data in convenient tables can be found here:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

The CBO and IRS web-sites have the same thing but don't make it as easy to extract incriminating information.

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My question is how far do people want to push it? Are they willing to increase taxes for the entire population to fund universal healthcare or do they just want to continue pushing it up the chain?

Your question is irrelevant. Nearly 30 years of history show that even with spending increases taxes will decrease on the low earning half (or more) of the population.

Most tax payers are voters. 50% of tax payers contribute only 3% of the Federal income taxes with the share decreasing faster than their share of income. It's not hard to see where this is going.

[TomAiello 25]

Great post. I wish you'd made it into a separate thread instead of burying it on page 7 of this one.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[FallingOsh 0]

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1. Replace our military which is more expensive than every other country's put together and constitutes the largest Socialist program in America with one sized for defense. You could save $5T over 10 years.

The military budget is roughly $500B a year. In order to save $5T over 10 years you would have to completely abolish the military. Reducing the size of the military is certainly a viable argument. Abolishing it is not. If the military is reduced to 'defense only' then there will be no more discussion on foreign aid or helping suffering people around the world. Some might be ok with that. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying we won't have the assets to help when needed. No more Tsunami releaf or pirate killin or anything like that. 'Defense only' also means we won't be prepared for an offensive when it's needed. That would probably mean reinstatement of the draft. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled by that. We won't even talk about how many jobs would be cut. Abolishing the military could be a whole thread by itself so I'll move on.

Just for grins, we'll say cutting the military would save $500B a year. That wouldn't even cover 1/3 of this year's projected deficit. That, obviously, is without a healthcare plan.

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2. Get rid of inefficiencies in our system (malpractice, wage distortion due to subsidized student loans, market size limitations from what MDs can do where a nurse would be fine, billing overhead) that have us spending as much to insure 25% of our population (Medicare and Medicaid cover 80M people between them, making the US government the largest health insurer in the country) as other first world countries (like France) do on their entire population. This disregards what we're spending privately to insure 180 million Americans.

Agreed that many inefficiencies need to be fixed. I would argue that most inefficiencies are a result of government intervention. Further involving the government in healthcare can only complicate things more. Obama's plan does nothing about tort reform anyway.

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My question is how far do people want to push it? Are they willing to increase taxes for the entire population to fund universal healthcare or do they just want to continue pushing it up the chain?

Your question is irrelevant. Nearly 30 years of history show that even with spending increases taxes will decrease on the low earning half (or more) of the population.

That's my point and consequently why my question is relevant. History has provided a tax system that doesn't cover our expenses. If it doesn't cover the expenses now then it certainly won't support a universal healthcare plan. Is someone willing to change what history has done thusfar? The charts and citations are great, but don't do anything to address the problem. I don't care what President did what. The point is that the counties who fund universal healthcare have a more evenly distributed tax system. More people paying more. Our country chooses to push the taxes uphill as much as possible. My question is whether or not the population is willing to take on more taxes to help fund the program or do they just want to push it on the upper class. The data you provided says less and less people pay taxes. That suggests that our expenses will never be covered, especially with new spending.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[TomAiello 25]

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If the military is reduced to 'defense only' then there will be no more discussion on foreign aid or helping suffering people around the world.

I'm ok with that. We should help people here, by letting them keep what they work for. Helping people elsewhere is a very tertiary concern.

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'Defense only' also means we won't be prepared for an offensive when it's needed. That would probably mean reinstatement of the draft.

I'd argue that a republic never needs to mount an offensive. That's something for empires. I want to live in a republic, not an empire.

I'd be willing to trade our huge military budget for a true defensive draft. Honestly, though, in truly defensive situations, you don't need a draft--you use state National Guard units and rely on a guerilla uprising in the event of a foreign occupation. I'd be very comfortable if we cut our defense spending by an order of magnitude, so that it's approximately the same as the spending of China or France (the next biggest spenders). With NATO spending totalling a much larger number, I don't really see a need for us to spend any more than that.

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Agreed that many inefficiencies need to be fixed. I would argue that most inefficiencies are a result of government intervention. Further involving the government in healthcare can only complicate things more.

Absolutely agreed.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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1. Replace our military which is more expensive than every other country's put together and constitutes the largest Socialist program in America with one sized for defense. You could save $5T over 10 years.

The military budget is roughly $500B a year.

During fiscal 2008 we spent $741B in the Department of Defense plus $52B separately for "Homeland Security" for a $793B total. We can cut $500B a year, still outspend #2, and still spend 7 times what another similar (slightly more land mass, a lot more coast line, first world labor costs, it's Canada eh ) country does.

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My question is how far do people want to push it? Are they willing to increase taxes for the entire population to fund universal healthcare or do they just want to continue pushing it up the chain?

Your question is irrelevant. Nearly 30 years of history show that even with spending increases taxes will decrease on the low earning half (or more) of the population.

That's my point and consequently why my question is relevant. History has provided a tax system that doesn't cover our expenses. If it doesn't cover the expenses now then it certainly won't support a universal healthcare plan.

[FallingOsh 0]

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I'm ok with that. We should help people here, by letting them keep what they work for. Helping people elsewhere is a very tertiary concern.

That's why I said I'm not judging or even saying that's right or wrong. It's just a concern.

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I'd argue that a republic never needs to mount an offensive. That's something for empires. I want to live in a republic, not an empire.

Maybe I chose my words poorly. I was thinking along the lines of D-Day. It will happen eventually. We will need to send the military somewhere eventually.

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I'd be willing to trade our huge military budget for a true defensive draft. Honestly, though, in truly defensive situations, you don't need a draft--you use state National Guard units and rely on a guerilla uprising in the event of a foreign occupation.

A guerilla uprising in the event of a military like china's occupation? That would be scary.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[Bolas 5]

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A guerilla uprising in the event of a military like china's occupation? That would be scary.

China is not going to use their military to take us over, they're just going to use their accountants and lawyers to forclose on us...

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[FallingOsh 0]

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During fiscal 2008 we spent $741B in the Department of Defense plus $52B separately for "Homeland Security" for a $793B total. We can cut $500B a year, still outspend #2, and still spend 7 times what another similar (slightly more land mass, a lot more coast line, first world labor costs, it's Canada eh ) country does.

The military budget was just over $500B. Add in emergency war appropriations, homeland security, and the rest of DOD's budget to get your number.

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It doesn't matter.

Including the Social Security Trust Fund and adjusting for inflation, debt has increased continuously since the 1970s. We've spent more than we took in for 30 years and will do the same for universal health care.

I still fail to see your point. We have been adding debt for 30 years so we should just keep doing it with no plan to offset cost?

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Correlation does not imply causality.

Ok. Correlate how we're going to pay for the proposals. Abolishing the military is not a viable answer, not would it come close to covering the cost.

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A majority of the population has supported deficit spending for 30 years.

A majority of the population has allowed a minority to cover an increasing share of taxes for 30 years.

None of that is likely to change unless something drastic happens,

Which, again, is my point. "That's the way it is" is not an acceptable answer. Find a way to pay for it. Find a way to balance the current budget before throwing on a few trillion more. It's not rocket surgery.

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That has little relevance on whether Universal Health Care will pass; only how the timing interacts with how the political winds are blowing.

Maybe, but it has lots of relevance on whether it should.

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The best you can hope for is minimal deficit + tax increases with benefit to the population being a bigger factor than benefit to the healthcare and insurance industries.

What benefit is there if the cost bankrupts the country? The best we can hope for should be a balanced budget. If the best we can hope for becomes deficit and tax increases then the bill shouldn't even be considered.

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I'm not saying that it's right; just that it is a political inevitability.

You're right about that. Which is why politics and government shouldn't be involved in healthcare. It's all about politics and not about well-being.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[Bolas 5]

Does anyone have the projected numbers on when the interest alone on the national debt will exceed the GDP?

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[TomAiello 25]

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Maybe I chose my words poorly. I was thinking along the lines of D-Day. It will happen eventually. We will need to send the military somewhere eventually.

Perhaps. But that doesn't mean we need to maintain a huge standing army, waiting for it to happen. It should be hard, and painful, to the average American (and to the politicians) to go to war. War should look like World War II--total commitment for a very good reason (i.e. a foreign power using military forces to assault our territory).

"War Light" is something that empires do, and something we've been doing ever since we failed to demobilize properly after the end of WW II (and again missed a demobilization opportunity at the end of the cold war).

I don't want our country to be able to maintain a couple low grade wars in remote parts of the world without terribly discomforting the average citizen. War is terrible stuff. When we, the people, decide it's worth going, we should feel the full effect of how terrible it is. And the rest of the time, we shouldn't have to pay for a wartime military.


***A guerilla uprising in the event of a military like china's occupation? That would be scary.

[TomAiello 25]

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I still fail to see your point. We have been adding debt for 30 years so we should just keep doing it with no plan to offset cost?

He's not saying we "should". He's saying that it's going to happen even though we shouldn't, and realistically, there's very little you, he or I can do about it.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Bolas 5]

3 main ways to reduce debt:

* New revenue streams - Nope, drugs and prostitution are still illegal and we're spending billions to fight them.
* Cut costs - Nope no big cuts here, still expanding. Still giving billions to other countries.
* Raise taxes - Well since we're not doing the other two...

But even if taxes are raised, it's not going to be enough to really make a dent in paying down the defecit.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[TomAiello 25]

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Abolishing the military is not a viable answer, not would it come close to covering the cost.

I don't think read him as being in favor of socialized medicine. It sounds to me more like he'd like to right-size the military, get the government out of healthcare, and try to get the country out of debt.

It also sounds like he's saying that there's no way any of that is really going to happen. And I'm sad to say that I'm pretty much in agreement on that.

It's going to take a catastrophic event (bankruptcy of the government, inability to sell further bonds, widespread emigration of taxpayers, all of the above) to actually change the (self-destructive) trajectory of this nation.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com