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On August 25 2010 07:57 Hynda wrote:
What I find really weird is that you blame welfare for stealing your money. I live in a country famous for being the one welfare state.I am also a pretty standard worker at the moment working in IT. I'm taxed at 31% which gets deducted to roughly 24-26% because of write-offs. Yet I get free health care, I pay less than 15 dollars a month and I'm covered for any hospital expense no matter how high. I live in a country were everyone gets to go on welfare aslong as they don't have any funds to support themselves. I also have more disposable income than the average Amercian. So if a country can offer welfare to pretty much everyone that wants it aswell as supporting free healthcare to everyone can manage to give their workers higher disposable income, then the logical conclution would be that welfare isn't the money drain.
Unfortunately we live in a country where welfare costs a higher percent of our budget and aids a smaller percent of people then in your country. This is in part because we have so many more people in our country that it's harder to design entitlement programs and regulate them, in part because we have more entitlement programs, and in part because our congress is full of fucktards.
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Sanya12364 Posts
It seems like there are two main groups of people. One group thinks of the woman as a victim. One group thinks of the woman as reaping what she has sown.
Is she really a victim? Are more fortunate souls merely lucky? Some people have worked really hard to get to where they are today and have accomplishments to their name. Others twiddled their time away not achieving anything of importance. For these two kinds of people, is the difference in wealth justified? I would hope so.
There is talk of the luxury of higher education, but higher education is hardly the differentiating factor. The futures of the successful and the unsuccessful diverge as early as childhood with the the successful putting in much more work and investing a lot more time into useful skills. Do successful people benefit from having good mentors? Undoubtedly. Yet, it's undeniable that the successful crowd invested more sweat and tears into their future. Their success is not purely accidental and is the accumulation of smart choice after smart choice over long long periods of time. Is it unfair to reward them for that? Is it unfair to punish the unsuccessful crowd for their indiscretions and destructive behavior. (There is of course luck and corruption - but those are other matters.)
A third group seems to think that health is a kind of sanctified matter that society should guarantee to the individual. Then what of self-destructive behavior? Should the smoker be allowed to trade away future health of his lungs in exchange for a short nicotine high? Should the woman even be allowed to get paid 8 dollars an hour for sorting waste? (She apparently was willing to mortgage her future health to put some food on her table and some money in her pocket.) Should anyone be allowed to ski mountains for pleasure or race cars as sport? Will there be someone jumping to people's bedrooms to check if men and women are using condoms?
There are a lot of dangerous activities that fly in the face of society's guarantee of individual health. If society is going to coddle the individual on paying for health care, then there will be a lot of private activities that society will soon deem its business.
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On August 25 2010 08:03 TanGeng wrote:
It seems like there are two main groups of people. One group thinks of the woman as a victim. One group thinks of the woman as reaping what she has sown.
What's fucked up is that the first group wants the second group to pay for her expenses, essentially.
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On August 25 2010 08:00 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2010 07:57 Hynda wrote:
What I find really weird is that you blame welfare for stealing your money. I live in a country famous for being the one welfare state.I am also a pretty standard worker at the moment working in IT. I'm taxed at 31% which gets deducted to roughly 24-26% because of write-offs. Yet I get free health care, I pay less than 15 dollars a month and I'm covered for any hospital expense no matter how high. I live in a country were everyone gets to go on welfare aslong as they don't have any funds to support themselves. I also have more disposable income than the average Amercian. So if a country can offer welfare to pretty much everyone that wants it aswell as supporting free healthcare to everyone can manage to give their workers higher disposable income, then the logical conclution would be that welfare isn't the money drain. Unfortunately we live in a country where welfare costs a higher percent of our budget and aids a smaller percent of people then in your country. This is in part because we have so many more people in our country that it's harder to design entitlement programs and regulate them, in part because we have more entitlement programs, and in part because our congress is full of fucktards.
Then it's still not welfare that is the problem but rather the system used and the foundation of how you buildt your society. Hence going welfare is horrible and will make everyone pay 50% taxes is just wrong. Saying that you can't provide for welfare in your current situation, that I can agree with, but acting as if it's a bad concept is just silly when it has been proven to work. The most important thing my example shows is that people wants to work, people don't want to be on welfare, it's not fun. You get by, but that's pretty much it. Ofcourse it's possible to find some guy that loves being on welfare, but the it shows that the general public still only go on welfare when they have no other options.
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On August 25 2010 08:03 TanGeng wrote:
It seems like there are two main groups of people. One group thinks of the woman as a victim. One group thinks of the woman as reaping what she has sown.
Is she really a victim? Are more fortunate souls merely lucky? Some people have worked really hard to get to where they are today and have accomplishments to their name. Others twiddled their time away not achieving anything of importance. For these two kinds of people, is the difference in wealth justified? I would hope so.
There is talk of the luxury of higher education, but higher education is hardly the differentiating factor. The futures of the successful and the unsuccessful diverge as early as childhood with the the successful putting in much more work and investing a lot more time into useful skills. Do successful people benefit from having good mentors? Undoubtedly. Yet, it's undeniable that the successful crowd invested more sweat and tears into their future. Their success is not purely accidental and is the accumulation of smart choice after smart choice over long long periods of time. Is it unfair to reward them for that? Is it unfair to punish the unsuccessful crowd for their indiscretions and destructive behavior. (There is of course luck and corruption - but those are other matters.)
A third group seems to think that health is a kind of sanctified matter that society should guarantee to the individual. Then what of self-destructive behavior? Should the smoker be allowed to trade away future health of his lungs in exchange for a short nicotine high? Should the woman even be allowed to get paid 8 dollars an hour for sorting waste? (She apparently was willing to mortgage her future health to put some food on her table and some money in her pocket.) Should anyone be allowed to ski mountains for pleasure or race cars as sport? Will there be someone jumping to people's bedrooms to check if men and women are using condoms?
There are a lot of dangerous activities that fly in the face of society's guarantee of individual health. If society is going to coddle the individual on paying for health care, then there will be a lot of private activities that society will soon deem its business.
One point I see alot of people miss is the fact that most if not all the things this woman has worked with was once "THE NEW MIRACLE SUBSTANCE THAT IS NO WAY DANGEROUS!" Nobody knew abestos was harmful when it came out, it was great new material you used. It's the same with people working with oil nobody knew that was harmful untill they all got cancer and then they realised they need saftey suits. It's so easy to look in hindsight and say "Well you shouldn't have worked with poisonous stuff" when it's not that easy when nobody actually knew it was poisonous.
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On August 25 2010 06:24 Vile Animus wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2010 05:10 StarBrift wrote:
... If you can't even find it in you to pay like an additional dollar a month to help save peoples lives you are truly truly sick and disguisting as a person. If you hate cooperation between people (economically or in what ever way) then why don't you live outside of society? Build a hut from sticks you find in the woods and eat only what you hunt. Half of you pretentious pricks that whine about miniscule taxes wouldn't even be able to survive in the wild if you were forced to. Wheres the moral line in the sand between a saint like you and a sick and disgusting person? A dollar a month? Every dollar you spend could go towards saving some else's life- you could live in a smaller place, sell your car, live on bread and water and live like a monk. Every one of those dollars could go towards saving lives. You aren't asking for charity from people, you are demanding forced labor towards ends you think are noble. Every dollar you demand is minutes of some taxpayer's life, try to realize that the policies you think are black and white have trade-offs. Why don't these people, who don't want to chain themselves together quite as tightly as you think is morally demanded, form their own country and live by different rules? maybe we can call it the USA. As far as your ridiculous aside on living outside of society, why would those who are most dependent on others for their food, water, clothing and health care fare better in the wild? Show nested quote +
Alot of people here also live in the fantasy world where everything is fair and if someone is poor or has a hard time it must be their fault. It seems like people can't understand that not everyone has a father that pays your way through college and gets you a job at his firm etc. Some people that are in trouble (medically or economically) really has just had a fucking shitty chance at life. To not help these people based ont he illusion that they had good chances that they fucked up due to lazyness or that they have made bad choices is just appalling.
Nobody is making the argument that life is completely fair- you seem to think we can make it fair through social programs though. Thats what I would call a fantasy world. If you remove all of the shitty results that are heaped on people who make shitty decisions, you get more people making shitty decisions. Its unavoidable, life is unfair. Show nested quote +
People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you don't want to pay a dime to less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion. But don't try make it seem like you're morally superior or what you are doing is actually good for the society. Its pure selfishness and inability to comprehend very simple facts.
People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you want to force people to pay to support less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion. But don't try make it seem like you're morally superior or what you are doing is actually good for the society. Charity is noble, taking money from others to fund charity is theft. Show nested quote +
Take note that this isn't directed to anyone in this thread specifically. But in every single one of these threads this type of person comes in and tries to undermine the entire point of health care and financial aid. Just because a very small ammount of people use the system to get things for free (which isn't easy if the system is regulated properly) that isn't a good enough reason to not help people who are living in pain and suffering.
An important point that is seldom brought up is that the US government spends enough on social programs (all of them put together at all levels) that they could cut checks for every person under the poverty line to bring them up to it. How much more money should they spend?
well, are you even sure about what you are saying? or just repeating your political standard people you follow. because it seems like political overrepeated statements that makes no sense to me, sorry.
on-moral line:
as high as it can get, thats an aim, not a special point, ever. your constitution... anyone?
on-it costs minutes of taxpayers work to help people heavily tormented:
what about spending better what is there ? waste? fraud? missorganisation? industrial lobby activitism? oil ? millitary-lobby-undustrial-producers+mercs. consider. win a elect without? no way.
on-life is not fair:
because it is not fair, shit on it even trying? NO. try as hard as it is possible. humanity deserves. but are we worth it ?
on-People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you don't want to pay a dime to less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion.:
If someone has the oppinion he is stronger than you, takes all what you have and dump you. and does coming through it. your arguement is actually valid. if you would like to live in that world.But. there are standards. basic needs. basic laws. shit on them, consider shit on them for you aswell, like in many many countries you benefit from. like your own. go to point one. if there is a point to even things out, that would not hurt you much, but save other peoples lifes and secures your state of beeing. it is not an option.
on-An important point that is seldom brought up is that the US government spends enough on social programs (all of them put together at all levels) that they could cut checks for every person under the poverty line to bring them up to it.:
So, do even you realize there is something going WRONG ?
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Sanya12364 Posts
One of the things I've noticed is that human society needs individual examples of success and failure to be successful as a whole. People need examples of successes to emulate and they need examples of failures to warn them away from screwing up their own lives the same way.
Now let's focus on the act of shooting herself in the shoulder. By making it into the news, this woman has made herself a teachable example. Reward this example with pity and you set the stage for many copycats inflicting injuries on themselves to get free health care, and society is well on its way to hell. Stigmatize the example and you dissuade others from trying similar tactics and society avoids one of many possible self-destructive activities.
By her own words, she was trying to game the system so that she could force the hospitals to treat her ailing shoulder, and the result was no change in the condition of her shoulder and a couple thousand dollars of expenses to be paid by someone - probably by those paying for health insurance. And at the very end, the woman has learned nothing from this experience. She's thinking how she might have been able to game the system better if she had inflicted an even more serious injury on herself. That's just insane!!!
I don't understand how anybody can have sympathy for this woman.
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On August 25 2010 08:35 TanGeng wrote:
One of the things I've noticed is that human society needs individual examples of success and failure to be successful as a whole. People need examples of successes to emulate and they need examples of failures to warn them away from screwing up their own lives the same way.
Now let's focus on the act of shooting herself in the shoulder. By making it into the news, this woman has made herself a teachable example. Reward this example with pity and you set the stage for many copycats inflicting injuries on themselves to get free health care, and society is well on its way to hell. Stigmatize the example and you dissuade others from trying similar tactics and society avoids one of many possible self-destructive activities.
By her own words, she was trying to game the system so that she could force the hospitals to treat her ailing shoulder, and the result was no change in the condition of her shoulder and a couple thousand dollars of expenses to be paid by someone - probably by those paying for health insurance. And at the very end, the woman has learned nothing from this experience. She's thinking how she might have been able to game the system better if she had inflicted an even more serious injury on herself. That's just insane!!!
I don't understand how anybody can have sympathy for this woman.
experimantally. i totally dissagree.
how can someone not have totally sympathy for this woman. she is super baller although and despite having a fucking bad live.
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You are telling me you feel no sympathy for a woman who was in so much pain, she shot herself in the god damn arm to try and get something done for it and not only was nothing done, they charged her 1800$ for what seems to be an xray, some pain meds, and a bandage?
And now she is thinking jail might not be so bad if she can actually get this pain resolved, and you see nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong at all?
People way less fortunate then ourselves get put into shitty situations, and have no way of getting out of them. Not everyone asking for healthcare reform or 'on the dole' is a lazy bum who never wants to work in his life, nor have they chosen their disabilities or injuries.
In your previous post you asked if we were merely fortunate souls, and hell yes we are. The fact that we can debate about this on the internet means we are much more fortunate then probably 95% of all the humans to ever live. Of course there will always be people who work harder, make more money, and are able to afford luxuries that others can only dream of, just as we need someone to serve us at Wendy's or Bestbuy or whatever. To say that the taxes we all pay to live in such a civilized society, with the protections it provides, is choking the rich and the middle class, is ridiculous.
It's a philosophical difference, I suppose. In almost, if not all other first world nations, the governments and people have decided that access to health care is a something that, whether rich or poor, all should be able to access. The people of the United States feel differently, which is something I do not understand, but it is not for me to. It is your country.
I think that smoking is one of the dumbest things someone can start doing with all we know about the health problems that it will most likely cause, but if someone was to get lung cancer, I'd still feel sympathy for what they're going through, and I'd like to think, at least, so would everyone else.
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On August 25 2010 05:36 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2010 05:10 StarBrift wrote:
Some of you heartless people really need to live in pain for a couple of years to put the real world in perspective. You've lived an extremely lucky life if you're healthy and make decent wage. The attitude that some people have that they don't want to pay for others is simply unacceptable. Other people help you live your life, that's what society is about. If you can't even find it in you to pay like an additional dollar a month to help save peoples lives you are truly truly sick and disguisting as a person. If you hate cooperation between people (economically or in what ever way) then why don't you live outside of society? Build a hut from sticks you find in the woods and eat only what you hunt. Half of you pretentious pricks that whine about miniscule taxes wouldn't even be able to survive in the wild if you were forced to.
Alot of people here also live in the fantasy world where everything is fair and if someone is poor or has a hard time it must be their fault. It seems like people can't understand that not everyone has a father that pays your way through college and gets you a job at his firm etc. Some people that are in trouble (medically or economically) really has just had a fucking shitty chance at life. To not help these people based ont he illusion that they had good chances that they fucked up due to lazyness or that they have made bad choices is just appalling.
People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you don't want to pay a dime to less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion. But don't try make it seem like you're morally superior or what you are doing is actually good for the society. Its pure selfishness and inability to comprehend very simple facts.
Take note that this isn't directed to anyone in this thread specifically. But in every single one of these threads this type of person comes in and tries to undermine the entire point of health care and financial aid. Just because a very small ammount of people use the system to get things for free (which isn't easy if the system is regulated properly) that isn't a good enough reason to not help people who are living in pain and suffering. What you say sounds nice and all if only it were true. First of all, taxes are barely considered to be "minute," and if it were the matter of merely paying a dollar I assure you almost no one would mind.
True, taxes are by no means small. However, to enable universal health care you don't need to impose new taxes. There are other means of obtaining the needed money such as cutting useless, unimportant expenses or restructuring inefficient institutions. Through setting new priorities and shifting budget money it would be perfectly feasible to achieve universal health care with a minimal or no tax increase.
But guess what, while some people are being taxed like ~8% of their salary like I am (and I have a $5,500 student loan out, so I'm not exactly swimming in money), others are paying over 50% of their salary.
I don't know about what taxes you are talking about but it surely can't be income tax. I would have been highly surprised if anywhere in the US people have to pay income taxes higher than in Germany, which is notorious for very high taxation. It turns out, if you are lucky enough to live in Hawaii or NJ and make more than $370k you actually do pay more. However, fed+state income tax would get you to max 46% in those two. There are many states where the max taxation is 40% or even 35%.
Don't say it's small, the accumulation of all the welfare taxes is CRAZY. Imagine your work telling you you're going to receive a $5,000 paycheck every 2 weeks and when you receive it... it's only $2,700. And guess why you're paying that much? Because some asshole you don't even know had a heart attack from eating too many double cheeseburgers and large fries.
First of all, do you mind to explain what a "welfare tax" is? As far as I know such a term does not exist. Welfare is funded by the government, but there is no specific welfare tax.
Income tax in the US cannot reduce your $5000 paycheck to $2700. Even in the most unfavorable situation you will still get about $3500 if you're married with a non-working wife/husband you will get at least $4000. I'd imagine you know better than giving such an example. It almost feels like you are trying to bend the truth to make your point...
I'm also pretty positive that the fatass makes up only a tiny fracture of what your taxes are spent on...
Of course there are the few exceptions where people are fucked. You seem to be highly misguided on what you think [most Republicans] think of fairness. What most think is quite simply that the world isn't fair, but you can't use that as a reason to make everyone care about everyone else.
You'd be surprised but every European believes that the world is unfair. This exactly is the reason why many believe that the more privileged have a moral and social obligation to help out making the world somewhat fairer.
There's a massive difference between what you're saying as well and what I'm saying. I'm saying the government shouldn't FORCE people to pay a dime to the unfortunate. If people want to help their fellow members they should do it because they want to, not because they are forced to. I don't know how old you are, but say your country suddenly cuts 100% of its welfare and your paycheck now increases by 25%. Are you now going to donate that extra 25% back to welfare? Probably not. But it wouldn't be any different for you really and by your principles you should.
And I'm saying that the government should force people to pay for supporting the unforunate simply because people tend to be careless, selfish assholes with a limited grasp on what's going on in the country they live in and exactly because nobody would ever come to the idea to spend 25% of his income on welfare.
Please tell me why you aren't acting purely selfish for failing to donate your extra dollars to those in Africa who are starving. Maybe there's a fallacy in that argument but no one in this thread has yet to even attempt to address it. Are their lives worth less because they don't live in a certain imaginary border?
Ok, I'd give it a try.
First of all, the "imaginary" border is a major reason, only that it isn't imaginary. Relating to somebody in your country is far easier than relating to somebody living in a land you don't even know it exists. Not many people could relate to being a starving black kid.
Also comparing paying (high) taxes to donating to a third world country is an unfitting example. Donating would be "just" feeding some "dude" and basically mending an ever growing hole. Paying taxes on the other hand can be seen as paying back your country for the opportunities you have received. The people that profit from welfare or universal health care can be seen as tiny parts of the construct that has helped you reach the place where you are right now. Also, you effectively help to improve the conditions in your country, which more or less affects you, too. And after all, it seems most adequate to try to eliminate the problems in your country first before trying to help others.
Of course, selfishness is a reason, too. People work, so they can improve their own situation after all. They want to feel that they are "living" and materialistic gain seems to work quite well for the overwhelming majority. However, there is a big difference between spending everything you can afford on charity and allocating only a part of your income to "charity" through taxation. The later ensures that while the society benefits from you, you are still able to be content and can enjoy yourself.
Btw if hypothetically everybody was to spent all his excess income on donations to Africa it would lead to an economic collapse of your country in less then a decade. Donations to Africa lower your country's GDP, so theoretically everytime you do it, you harm yourself and the society you live in :p
On August 25 2010 06:04 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2010 05:36 FabledIntegral wrote:On August 25 2010 05:10 StarBrift wrote:
Some of you heartless people really need to live in pain for a couple of years to put the real world in perspective. You've lived an extremely lucky life if you're healthy and make decent wage. The attitude that some people have that they don't want to pay for others is simply unacceptable. Other people help you live your life, that's what society is about. If you can't even find it in you to pay like an additional dollar a month to help save peoples lives you are truly truly sick and disguisting as a person. If you hate cooperation between people (economically or in what ever way) then why don't you live outside of society? Build a hut from sticks you find in the woods and eat only what you hunt. Half of you pretentious pricks that whine about miniscule taxes wouldn't even be able to survive in the wild if you were forced to.
Alot of people here also live in the fantasy world where everything is fair and if someone is poor or has a hard time it must be their fault. It seems like people can't understand that not everyone has a father that pays your way through college and gets you a job at his firm etc. Some people that are in trouble (medically or economically) really has just had a fucking shitty chance at life. To not help these people based ont he illusion that they had good chances that they fucked up due to lazyness or that they have made bad choices is just appalling.
People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you don't want to pay a dime to less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion. But don't try make it seem like you're morally superior or what you are doing is actually good for the society. Its pure selfishness and inability to comprehend very simple facts.
Take note that this isn't directed to anyone in this thread specifically. But in every single one of these threads this type of person comes in and tries to undermine the entire point of health care and financial aid. Just because a very small ammount of people use the system to get things for free (which isn't easy if the system is regulated properly) that isn't a good enough reason to not help people who are living in pain and suffering. What you say sounds nice and all if only it were true. First of all, taxes are barely considered to be "minute," and if it were the matter of merely paying a dollar I assure you almost no one would mind. But guess what, while some people are being taxed like ~8% of their salary like I am (and I have a $5,500 student loan out, so I'm not exactly swimming in money), others are paying over 50% of their salary. Don't say it's small, the accumulation of all the welfare taxes is CRAZY. Imagine your work telling you you're going to receive a $5,000 paycheck every 2 weeks and when you receive it... it's only $2,700. And guess why you're paying that much? Because some asshole you don't even know had a heart attack from eating too many double cheeseburgers and large fries. Of course there are the few exceptions where people are fucked. You seem to be highly misguided on what you think [most Republicans] think of fairness. What most think is quite simply that the world isn't fair, but you can't use that as a reason to make everyone care about everyone else. There's a massive difference between what you're saying as well and what I'm saying. I'm saying the government shouldn't FORCE people to pay a dime to the unfortunate. If people want to help their fellow members they should do it because they want to, not because they are forced to. I don't know how old you are, but say your country suddenly cuts 100% of its welfare and your paycheck now increases by 25%. Are you now going to donate that extra 25% back to welfare? Probably not. But it wouldn't be any different for you really and by your principles you should. Please tell me why you aren't acting purely selfish for failing to donate your extra dollars to those in Africa who are starving. Maybe there's a fallacy in that argument but no one in this thread has yet to even attempt to address it. Are their lives worth less because they don't live in a certain imaginary border? Excellent post and well worded. It's amazing how many "liberal-minded" people talk and talk about we're all heartless bastards but in the end they don't realize how much more money they'd have if they didn't have to pay, or consequentially how much their "compassion" costs. The average, middle-class person pays way way way more in taxes than they need to. Why is this? The rich invest everything into business, trust funds, and other loopholes to avoid the absurd taxes. Some of this is good because it can create jobs and growth (and the law should work in such a way as to promote business investment), but sometimes it's not. The poor pay nothing and receive MASSIVE compensation from the bloated welfare state (take a look at our national budget. Look how much is in SS, welfare, medicaid and medicare.) It's ridiculous that people think we don't do enough, because clearly when our budget for welfare is over twice our defense budget something is wrong with the gov't. Our primary objective sure isn't to give handouts. Unfortunately, we "republicans" do live in the real world. In the real world, sometimes shit happens, and sometimes some people have shitty lives. Is this perfect? No. Do we want this? No. But is it realistic to believe we can give everybody everything? No, it's really not.
I do know in fact that welfare spending is the biggest expenditure of the German government. I still support it. Health care costs a lot, too, but I view it as essential. I wonder what do you base your assumptions on?
So you are concerned with the fact that your "budget for welfare is over twice [y]our defense budget", but you are not concerned with the fact that your defense budget accounts for 50% of the world's military spending? Since you "primary object is not to give handouts", I'd guess it is to find creative ways of blowing up people? (by the way, most developed countries have a welfare to military spending of 10:1 while the US has 2:1, you sure are compassionate)
I don't know about "you" the republican, but if I were you I'd refrain from comparing myself to the ignorant, backward, brainwashed people as which most republicans are viewed all around the world (makes you wonder why people all over the world share a single opinion on this topic?)
On August 25 2010 06:08 FabledIntegral wrote:
Bahahaha you know absolutely nothing about taxes. Take an accounting course and get back to me. You can pay 0% tax on a $50,000 salary if you have enough deductions. Stop arguing with someone who is currently working in a CPA firm. Even just to check because I wasn't sure, I just asked our senior tax manager at the firm and he said you were full of shit. You had me doubting all I had learned for a sec.
I cannot know for sure how it is handled in the US, but in Germany it is absolutely impossible to pay 0% taxes on a $50,000 salary. It is perfectly possible to not pay income taxes if you are self-employed and make 100k per year for the reason that you can boost your expenses in every way you can imagine, but not paying taxes on salary is unheard of. Can you give me an example of how anyone with 50k salary would come even close to 0% taxes?
@Floophead_III
The highest income tax rate in Virginia is 40,75% at an annual income of $373k. The city you live in might impose another income tax, but I highly doubt that it is 10%. Btw property tax is by no means an income tax...
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Or... she could just move the a european country with healthcare, etc.? :O
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my old man collects 2% of what he bills for treating patients in the Emergency Room. That's our free healthcare right there. Granted, it's only for serious stuff (see the OP) but it's a crap situation for doctors too. The people who pay nothing are also more likely to sue
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One of the things I've noticed is that human society needs individual examples of success and failure to be successful as a whole. People need examples of successes to emulate and they need examples of failures to warn them away from screwing up their own lives the same way.
But is it really necessary for someone to potentially die from a condition that was primarily caused by the hazardous working place? Its like saying soldiers should come up with the money for healthcare issues produced by war injuries. As i see it, if an american soldier was to be injured and didnt get healthcare it would be an outrage. But as pointed out before you need people like this woman as much if not even more than soldiers. SOMEONE has to do jobs that put you into hazardous environments and MOST of them are not nearly as well paid as they should be. Shooting herself might not have been the right decision, and smoking certainly didnt help her health as well. But theres so much more things you guys who critized her do that arent good for your health. Obesity, drinking, excessive computer gaming (LOL). Why should you get healthcare if she doesnt. So to even this out everyone should at least get basic healthcare. If you want the good stuff you can always get a private insurance for those extra bucks it would cost compared to public healthcare. Man up people ... the world isnt just about yourself but about everyone.
On August 25 2010 09:30 MamiyaOtaru wrote:
my old man collects 2% of what he bills for treating patients in the Emergency Room. That's our free healthcare right there. Granted, it's only for serious stuff (see the OP) but it's a crap situation for doctors too. The people who pay nothing are also more likely to sue
Im looking into getting into medicine, and if theres one thing im sure about is that you should not become a doctor if you just want to make money off your job. Also if you dont screw up during an operation the patient probably wont sue you. So as long as you dont fuck up there should be no reason not to "safe a life".
edit: typos ;P
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As horrible as I feel for this lady (assuming that her story is true, and it is tragic), I do believe that people can do better for themselves, even when born into a shitty situation. Yes, US is in a hard time and there aren't TONS of jobs available, but I moved out on my own at 17 when the recession hit and got a job at togos, no benefits, lived in a cheap place, and moved my way up to where now I have a job, a house, and benefits. My point is, I believe that one can start from nothing and make something of themselves if they really have that inner fire (warcraft pun).
and this thread is about healthcare, so I won't derail it and talk about the people on wellfare who don't want to get their promotion because then they would not collect their wellfare check anymore....
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On August 25 2010 10:03 slappy wrote:
As horrible as I feel for this lady (assuming that her story is true, and it is tragic), I do believe that people can do better for themselves, even when born into a shitty situation. Yes, US is in a hard time and there aren't TONS of jobs available, but I moved out on my own at 17 when the recession hit and got a job at togos, no benefits, lived in a cheap place, and moved my way up to where now I have a job, a house, and benefits. My point is, I believe that one can start from nothing and make something of themselves if they really have that inner fire (warcraft pun).
and this thread is about healthcare, so I won't derail it and talk about the people on wellfare who don't want to get their promotion because then they would not collect their wellfare check anymore....
The problem is not everyone CAN get into the situation you are. As long as we are in a society like ours there will always be more poor than rich people, however you define those terms doesnt matter, there will always be more people with less money than with more. So even though you increase your chances to get a better job by working harder towards your goal thats all youre doing: raising your CHANCES.
Because of this unfairness i think everyone deserves to recieve some support from society. Just my humble opinion.
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On August 25 2010 09:39 ChinaRestaurant wrote:
Im looking into getting into medicine, and if theres one thing im sure about is that you should not become a doctor if you just want to make money off your job. Also if you dont screw up during an operation the patient probably wont sue you. So as long as you dont fuck up there should be no reason not to "safe a life".
The USA is a litigious society. He was sued for giving a lady an inflatable boot right after a hurt foot instead of a cast. This is standard procedure. As the swelling goes down, a plaster cast applied earlier would no longer fit. The boot allows for adjustments. Her parents thought that was wrong and threw a fit and went and had someone else put on a cast (that needed to be taken off and redone later) and took him to court. The judge threw it out with prejudice, but you never know. That's just the most recent one. People sue when they are unhappy or don't understand something, not just when something happens like the wrong leg getting amputated.
And sometimes shit happens. One of the other docs in town was doing a procedure to fuse two vertebrae. The patient was super obese, and it was stupid difficult to feel his vertebrae through the fat to count down to the right ones, so the wrong two got fused. Not life changing in the least, but the doc had to pay 1.5 million dollars.
Yeah, clearly money is not the objective. But he has to pay salary for the PA, the secretary, the assistant, the x-ray tech, the IT / billing guy, transcription service, medical supplies etc etc. He pays rent on two facilities. There's malpractice insurance (so you don't die to shitty lawsuits). Ideally you don't go into it to become rich, but you need some cash to stay in business, and collecting 2% of billed from ER patients doesn't do it. Neither does getting a fraction of what's billed from government paid medicare/medicaid (which are still going bankrupt. Will be great when the government is paying for even more people). All his paying patients end up subsidising his work on the freeloaders, which is bullcrap.
It's a shitty career (here). 13 years of higher education, and every day you work you face the possibility of losing everything you worked for your whole life. I know he was a lot happier when he was in the military, just doing operations all day and not dicking around with paperwork, bills and billing. As it is, he can't wait to retire and it's a shame, he's a damn good doc.
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I'm reminded of something I heard the other night on radio which goes something like:
"When people lose everything, and have nothing to lose, they lose it". Quite true
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Well especially the US have huge potential for better distribution of tax money. But i guess thats a bit off topic, dont want to upset anyone by suggesting your government is wasting money on playing world police.
The sueing part: true, sorry i forgot that sueing is like a national sport over there.
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Sanya12364 Posts
She's just finished shooting herself in the shoulder at great cost and to no great effect, and her first response to it was to tell the interviewer that it didn't fix the pain and that maybe she should have aimed it at the bone so she could have sustained a more serious injury?
I'm supposed to like her self-centered destructive attitude?
On August 25 2010 09:39 ChinaRestaurant wrote:
But is it really necessary for someone to potentially die from a condition that was primarily caused by the hazardous working place?
She supposed strained her shoulder while out with her dog. It's not directly to work. If it was at work, I'd argue that work should cover it even though legally that might not be the outcome. If work maliciously placed her at risk, she should sue for damages as well.
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On August 25 2010 05:36 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2010 05:10 StarBrift wrote:
Some of you heartless people really need to live in pain for a couple of years to put the real world in perspective. You've lived an extremely lucky life if you're healthy and make decent wage. The attitude that some people have that they don't want to pay for others is simply unacceptable. Other people help you live your life, that's what society is about. If you can't even find it in you to pay like an additional dollar a month to help save peoples lives you are truly truly sick and disguisting as a person. If you hate cooperation between people (economically or in what ever way) then why don't you live outside of society? Build a hut from sticks you find in the woods and eat only what you hunt. Half of you pretentious pricks that whine about miniscule taxes wouldn't even be able to survive in the wild if you were forced to.
Alot of people here also live in the fantasy world where everything is fair and if someone is poor or has a hard time it must be their fault. It seems like people can't understand that not everyone has a father that pays your way through college and gets you a job at his firm etc. Some people that are in trouble (medically or economically) really has just had a fucking shitty chance at life. To not help these people based ont he illusion that they had good chances that they fucked up due to lazyness or that they have made bad choices is just appalling.
People have their right to difference in opinion. If you say you don't want to pay a dime to less fortunate people then by all means go ahead and have that opinion. But don't try make it seem like you're morally superior or what you are doing is actually good for the society. Its pure selfishness and inability to comprehend very simple facts.
Take note that this isn't directed to anyone in this thread specifically. But in every single one of these threads this type of person comes in and tries to undermine the entire point of health care and financial aid. Just because a very small ammount of people use the system to get things for free (which isn't easy if the system is regulated properly) that isn't a good enough reason to not help people who are living in pain and suffering. What you say sounds nice and all if only it were true. First of all, taxes are barely considered to be "minute," and if it were the matter of merely paying a dollar I assure you almost no one would mind. But guess what, while some people are being taxed like ~8% of their salary like I am (and I have a $5,500 student loan out, so I'm not exactly swimming in money), others are paying over 50% of their salary. Don't say it's small, the accumulation of all the welfare taxes is CRAZY. Imagine your work telling you you're going to receive a $5,000 paycheck every 2 weeks and when you receive it... it's only $2,700. And guess why you're paying that much? Because some asshole you don't even know had a heart attack from eating too many double cheeseburgers and large fries. Of course there are the few exceptions where people are fucked. You seem to be highly misguided on what you think [most Republicans] think of fairness. What most think is quite simply that the world isn't fair, but you can't use that as a reason to make everyone care about everyone else. There's a massive difference between what you're saying as well and what I'm saying. I'm saying the government shouldn't FORCE people to pay a dime to the unfortunate. If people want to help their fellow members they should do it because they want to, not because they are forced to. I don't know how old you are, but say your country suddenly cuts 100% of its welfare and your paycheck now increases by 25%. Are you now going to donate that extra 25% back to welfare? Probably not. But it wouldn't be any different for you really and by your principles you should. Please tell me why you aren't acting purely selfish for failing to donate your extra dollars to those in Africa who are starving. Maybe there's a fallacy in that argument but no one in this thread has yet to even attempt to address it. Are their lives worth less because they don't live in a certain imaginary border?
How does skin cancer fit into your model? Some asshole spent too much time sitting in the sun? How about brain tumors? Some asshole spent too much time reading books? These are all events that are unpredictable and the whole point of having health insurance is to place an average price
on uncontrollable events.
Here's what's missing in the debate though. There's economies of scale in health insurance. So while you may end up paying for some asshole having too many cheeseburgers in a socialized health insurance scheme, you actually end up paying less. The socialized health insurance plans don't have to deal with advertising and they can trap more young people into the system. The private free market companies are perfectly fine trapping in young people with mandates. But in the end, it's young people paying for some asshole's health insurance, and you'll be that asshole in twenty years. So you may aswell stop complaining, because forced charity through the socialized systems saves each citizen as a whole on their health insurance.
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EPT
