On November 10 2009 02:27 Sky101 wrote: Capitalism carried the U.S. from a nobody to the super power that it is today. Socialism will just make everyone lazy. Look at the Europeans, no offense, try to compare the work ethics and attitude to that of an American.
He has quite a valid point. In Europe you can get quite alot of social welfare in many countires, and I've seen ALOT of people get lazy. They sit at home and don't look for work while collecting welfare and play WoW. It's ridiculous. At least in America, people can realize far bigger dreams that getting to level 70 and also have to work to make ends meet.
In America, there are at least as many WoW-playing fatasses. America is no longer the nation of hard work and big dreams, it has long become a nation of fat consumerists. Long live capitalism!
In Europe, we actually do try help lower classes with their problems. In a wealthy, developed nation, people shouldn't have to be denied such simple things such as health treatment and proper schools.
On November 10 2009 02:27 Sky101 wrote: Capitalism carried the U.S. from a nobody to the super power that it is today. Socialism will just make everyone lazy. Look at the Europeans, no offense, try to compare the work ethics and attitude to that of an American.
He has quite a valid point. In Europe you can get quite alot of social welfare in many countires, and I've seen ALOT of people get lazy. They sit at home and don't look for work while collecting welfare and play WoW. It's ridiculous. At least in America, people can realize far bigger dreams that getting to level 70 and also have to work to make ends meet.
In America, there are at least as many WoW-playing fatasses. America is no longer the nation of hard work and big dreams, it has long become a nation of fat consumerists. Long live capitalism!
In Europe, we actually do try help lower classes with their problems. In a wealthy, developed nation, people shouldn't have to be denied such simple things such as health treatment and proper schools.
Elitist european hating America nothing to see here.
On November 10 2009 02:27 Sky101 wrote: Capitalism carried the U.S. from a nobody to the super power that it is today. Socialism will just make everyone lazy. Look at the Europeans, no offense, try to compare the work ethics and attitude to that of an American.
He has quite a valid point. In Europe you can get quite alot of social welfare in many countires, and I've seen ALOT of people get lazy. They sit at home and don't look for work while collecting welfare and play WoW. It's ridiculous. At least in America, people can realize far bigger dreams that getting to level 70 and also have to work to make ends meet.
In America, there are at least as many WoW-playing fatasses. America is no longer the nation of hard work and big dreams, it has long become a nation of fat consumerists. Long live capitalism!
In Europe, we actually do try help lower classes with their problems. In a wealthy, developed nation, people shouldn't have to be denied such simple things such as health treatment and proper schools.
This is true. I've seen much, much greater social responsibility from nearly every European I've met than from most people here in the US (and thanks to the internet, you can actually gain a broad perspective on this). Even when people here do have a drive to accomplish things, it is largely a personal, individualistic one. And as far as the lazy WoW-players go, I find it hard to believe you would blame the state over WoW itself. The problem persists in America as well, you know!
On November 10 2009 16:28 SWPIGWANG wrote: It would be irrational to maintain a price point below the maximum profit price. The elasticity in health care may very well lie in the ability of people to pay over the desires of people to get care.
Looking at the medical bankruptcy rate, health care may be hitting a cap in price. As a person won't pay any more if you bankrupt him once or three times over. -------------------- The "inelastic demand" up to bankruptcy thing on the other hand suggest that in a monopoly/oligopoly setting, prices would naturally be increased to "just below bankrupting a lot of people" for many medical services. If price discrimination is possible, we are looking at "however much you can pay" instead. This is also independent of the actual cost to provide the services.
Oh I agree with you. I was just pointing out to the poster that I responded to that whether profits go up or down in response to a price change is not just random guessing, but can reasonably assessed from the characteristics of the market in question.
"The new House bill, H.R. 3962, builds on its predecessor from July in increasing the financial burden on low-income and moderate-income Americans.
The Individual Mandate. Like the earlier version, this bill requires the uninsured to pay an extra income tax — 2.5% of adjusted gross income above the filing threshold, capped at the national average premium. Paying that tax wouldn’t “buy” anything; those paying this tax would remain uninsured. However, in a bid to decrease the government’s costs, this bill contains higher premiums that low- and moderate-income individuals and families would have to pay for health coverage to avoid the tax. Those premiums would increase rapidly with income, amounting to an additional tax on those with incomes below 4 times the federal poverty level (equivalent to about $88,000 per year for a family of four) ranging from 1.5% to 12%. This tax on low and moderate income Americans would be in addition to a “surtax” on higher incomes ranging up to 5.4%.
The Employer Mandate. The bill imposes a new 8% payroll tax on employers who don’t cover specified percentages of their employees’ health insurance. Employers would have to get the money to pay the tax from someplace, and much of it would come from cutting wages or other benefits. This tax would also not go to pay for any coverage; the bill specifically says that the tax paid by the employer “shall not be applied against the premium of the employee.” Furthermore, since this tax would be lower than the cost of providing health care, especially for low-income workers, this would reduce the incomes of those most likely to be uninsured, or cause them to lose their coverage.
Furthermore, health plans would have to meet new requirements to be specified later by the new “Health Choices Commissioner.” If your employer’s health plan doesn’t meet those requirements, you couldn’t keep it – employers would have five years to bring their plans into compliance. The Commissioner could require coverage of services people don’t want (increasing premiums), and then in the name of “cost containment” prohibit plans from covering services people want but that the Commissioner doesn’t want.
The bottom line is: Almost everybody will pay more, and a new appointed bureaucrat will make your health care choices for you."
First of all, I've pretty much skimmed throughout the thread. Even before beginning to skim I realized that YES this was going to end up into a flame war, because people like Undisputed bring their idiotic and mildly hilarious trolling skills into play.
Undisputed, if you are gonna cite something, have the fucking common sense not to cite it from a CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK. Think before you post.
On November 10 2009 02:27 Sky101 wrote: Capitalism carried the U.S. from a nobody to the super power that it is today. Socialism will just make everyone lazy. Look at the Europeans, no offense, try to compare the work ethics and attitude to that of an American.
He has quite a valid point. In Europe you can get quite alot of social welfare in many countires, and I've seen ALOT of people get lazy. They sit at home and don't look for work while collecting welfare and play WoW. It's ridiculous. At least in America, people can realize far bigger dreams that getting to level 70 and also have to work to make ends meet.
In America, there are at least as many WoW-playing fatasses. America is no longer the nation of hard work and big dreams, it has long become a nation of fat consumerists. Long live capitalism!
In Europe, we actually do try help lower classes with their problems. In a wealthy, developed nation, people shouldn't have to be denied such simple things such as health treatment and proper schools.
I don't want to start a Europe vs America tangent, but that is the actual worry of too much government involvement. It may be nice to say that we shouldn't deny simple things like health treatment (I agree with providing education, just to note), but this comes at the cost of private market growth. The government is vastly inefficient compared to the private market, so when you expand government programs, you are doing it at the expense of the private market. Markets have one target: growth; and when you are taking away money from these markets, you are sacrificing future growth. While it is nice to provide health care treatment now for those in need, but is it worth the cost of future well being of our off spring? As is, America still has impoverishment, still has shortages of education, and is no longer as dominant as it once was. I would argue that I prefer further growth at the expense of current "fairness" relief at this point in time. It will be interesting to see where the EU will be in the next few decades and how their socialized programs will hurt/benefit the economy. Arguably, you could even say that they are already reeling from their high taxation through their lack of internal growth. Much of the central European, France, and Sweden's growth the last decade has come through investment in the emerging eastern Europe market. Where will you grow from there once the investment opportunities run out? That and you also face the daunting joining of Turkey around the corner.
On November 11 2009 06:10 Mickey wrote: First of all, I've pretty much skimmed throughout the thread. Even before beginning to skim I realized that YES this was going to end up into a flame war, because people like Undisputed bring their idiotic and mildly hilarious trolling skills into play.
Undisputed, if you are gonna cite something, have the fucking common sense not to cite it from a CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK. Think before you post.
Did you get the satire?, it's related to your above comment.
Why beat around the bush. A large majority of this thread is people paraphrasing the filth spewed by liberal media outlets.
Anyway I doubt the bill will get the required 60 votes to pass the senate anyway as it skated by the house by the narrowest of margins. Even then it would have to go to conference.
So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
I doubt the bill will pass the senate. It is a bad bill anyway, from what I have seen. It is next to impossible to achieve the kind of healthcare reform required given the political situation in the United States anyway. Every major political and economic debate is framed, and the agenda dominated, by the interests of established wealth and power rather than the interests of the general population. I do not see that changing any time soon.
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
Are you kidding?
Well, we have to be careful here. There is no doubt that if you can afford it you get the very highest standards of healthcare in the United States.
Of course, overall the United States performs absolutely woefully in terms of internationally recognised health indicators, which makes the claim of being "the world's leading health care system" look rather hollow.
well i voted mccain and don't like the house bill at all (waste, jail time for people who don't get public care, high cost, bad for the market)
but i do think that government should provide some health care to the people, it's a basic necessity like defense and education, government spends money on far more useless stuff like arts and welfare and all the pork in the stimulus bill.
hopefully when the republicans take back everything they realize that health care is essential and only cut the democrat waste and pork.
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
Are you kidding?
for those who can afford it america has the best health care, period, people from all over come here. the trick is making it more accessible without losing quality.
On November 10 2009 02:04 Undisputed- wrote: Obamacare = legalized stealing
Yeah, just say shit. People will believe it.
It's pretty obvious, taxes will be used to pay for it. People who don't pay taxes will be covered under it. Pretty much stealing.
Yeah, fuck those poor people who can't afford healthcare.
We all know that being poor just means that you're too lazy/stupid to work and so othey have to steal from the hard working people.
/Sarcasm.
Healthcare is expensive. I ask you, if you had the opportunity to work twice as hard and make twice as much money, but the government would take half your money away to pay for poor people's health care, would you still have an incentive to work harder?
Or maybe you are just Mother Teresa. I'm sorry we're not as good of people as you are.
You have a really fucked up version of what this bill is proposing
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
Are you kidding?
lol, Americans.
he means the best QUALITY of care available. not necessarily the best system for providing it.
On November 11 2009 06:33 Undisputed- wrote: So, there is still a long way to go before the left is allowed to turn the world’s leading health care system into yet another entitlement program.
Are you kidding?
Well, we have to be careful here. There is no doubt that if you can afford it you get the very highest standards of healthcare in the United States.
Of course, overall the United States performs absolutely woefully in terms of internationally recognised health indicators, which makes the claim of being "the world's leading health care system" look rather hollow.
What are these indicators and metrics that you speak of??? Is it controlled for external factors like racial distribution, pre-mature birth rates, dietary quality or indulgences, and lifestyle factors, etc. I've never seen any metrics that have shown US health care to be worse when adjusted for external factors. In most cases, it's shown to be better.
EPT
