drankin
Moridin said:You do understand that your health depends on the health of the people around you, yes?
Not entirely, that wouldn't make much sense. Explain your point, I'm getting bored.
Moridin said:You do understand that your health depends on the health of the people around you, yes?
drankin said:Not entirely, that wouldn't make much sense. Explain your point, I'm getting bored.
It is not only about taking care of the poor, I would add. Now we have two good reasons.Moridin said:It is not about taking care of the poor
EL said:It is not only about taking care of the poor, I would add. Now we have two good reasons.
Universal health care is the anti-market, why is this bad. The concept of universal health care limits peoples choices, it creates a lack of incentive for people to do work. DO you think you get your steak because of the benevolence of the cattle rancher or the butcher. I don't think so, same reason why individuals don't work for free you need to paid. Besides if you make Health care Universal, and don't attribute a cost to every visit to the doctor, what do you think the end result would be? Well I can tell you a lot of people will start going in for paper cuts just they can.
No. One of the reasons monopolies/oligopolies exist is because of high costs to entry into the market for a firm. There are natural barriers to entry in some markets (like astronomically high costs of getting started) that limit the amount of firms that can enter the market. Economists define an oligopolist market by the 4 firm ratio--the amount of the market that the largest 4 firms in the industry have a share of. If it is above 40% of the market then the market is considered oligopolist. Examine the market for health care. According to the GAO (govt accountability office)t-money said:First off, if it's true that a few firms are controlling all of the nations health care, then this should offer a great profit incentive for additional firms to enter the market, and try to bid away their customers by decreasing prices. I agree that the way our nations health care is run does not foster the free-market, but that's only because government is already too involved, and increasing their role will probably not be very beneficial.
Federal investigators have found that a handful of companies account for a growing share of the health insurance policies sold to small businesses in most states, leaving consumers with fewer options and higher costs.
t-money said:Sounds like you know a little bit about economics. If this is the case then you should know there is no such thing as a completely inelastic demand curve. Furthermore, if MRIs are really needed this bad then explain to me why they only charge $1000? Why not $2000? Why not $10,000? Why even stop there? If people are really "overcharging" others for MRIs, then why don't some people cut the cost a little bit and steal all the customers? In fact, you could probably make a killing by going in the business, if we are really as far off of equilibrium as you are claiming.
So you claim the law of diminishing utility is not all to be considered here, but then go on to talk about consumer demand behaviors? That doesn't make sense, seeing as demand is defined by marginal utility! This website actually explains how demand is derived through marginal utility pretty well:t-money said:Yes, people would over consume gas if the price was 50 cents. You should know about that actually happening in the US during the 1980s. The government put a price ceiling on gasoline, and there were rediculously long waiting lines. Many people didn't even get gas after waiting in line for hours, because by the time they got to the front of the line it was gone. Prices play a very important role, and if you don't ration goods and services with prices, then you'll be forced to do it some other way (like in the gasoline example above, or the waiting lines for doctors or dentists in Canada and Britain). Furthermore, this gives both suppliers and consumers proper incentives (like carpooling, or searching for additional oil reserves). The law of diminishing marginal utilities is not all to be considered in this example, considering that decreases in gas prices will cause people to alter other decisions which revolve around the price of gas. For example, why not get a house a little farther from work if gas is cheaper, or why carpool, or why ride you bike, or why ride metro, or buy a fuel efficient car (or make a fuel efficient car for that matter)? I'm not saying everyone will make these decisions, but a significant enough amount will in order to make a big difference in the aggregate. In fact, the laws that make it so that cars must get more miles to the gallon, have actually not decreased the amount of gas that people consume. Essentially these laws just make gas cheaper, and this has been a very heavily researched topic in the econometrics literature.
t-money said:Well you say health care is different because it is so important. Well why not get the government involved in food too, because that is even more important than health care? A market could never be expected to handle something as important to daily life as food. In my opinion, it is the exact opposite. The more important something is, the more you want the market handling it. By the way, some of the issues/problems with current "markets" are not market failures at all. In fact, many people argue that the current health care problems in the US arose because of government involvement in the first place. I am just trying to point out that what is sometimes referred to as "market failures" is sometimes no such thing. For example, I imagine that if there are some oligopolies in the health care industry, it probably comes from government involvement. This has been studying before in regards to the FDA, AMA, etc.
t-money said:I am a little confused about the pareto optimality argument here? Isn't pareto optimality the idea that you could make someone better off without making someone else worse off. Markets do not always lead to these solutions. However, who should decide the correct amount of wealth distribution? Furthermore, even trying to redistribute wealth always has unintended consequences, which can often lead to even worse problems than the original one you are trying to solve. For example, lowering the wages of doctors may allow them to leave the country as well as lead to fewer med school students in the future. I am not trying to say that the market is perfect, because it sure isn't. People generally like to compare the failures of the market to their utopia ideas of government. In actuality, it seems to me that when you compare the way in which markets actually work and governments actually work, you'll find that markets work pretty well. Do you really want DMV or Post Office quality in something as important as health care?
I guess you didn't bother reading the JAMA article I posted. Read it again before you make any conclusions. The 1 million+ children in the US who are unvaccinated against all recommended diseases aren't solely the poorest ones. Children who are not being vaccinated are ones that have health care but have plans that don't cover the costs of vaccinations! Hence they are labeled as being "underinsured". You don't have to be poor at all to be underinsured. The problem with health care in America isn't just solely the uninsured. Even for people with insurance, many times they have restricted access to health care or receive extremely poor care.Azael said:Well the poorest one million children is not representative of the avarage american.
It can be infuriatingly difficult to explain to idiots that while well-to-do people's children are vaccinated and very poor people's children can be vaccinated with the help of government programs, many children of working-class people are NOT vaccinated. In fact, some people have resorted to claiming religious arguments against vaccinations to justify why their kids are not vaccinated and should be allowed in schools, when in fact the real reason is that the parent's couldn't pay for it.gravenewworld said:I guess you didn't bother reading the JAMA article I posted. Read it again before you make any conclusions. The 1 million+ children in the US who are unvaccinated against all recommended diseases aren't solely the poorest ones. Children who are not being vaccinated are ones that have health care but have plans that don't cover the costs of vaccinations! Hence they are labeled as being "underinsured". You don't have to be poor at all to be underinsured. The problem with health care in America isn't just solely the uninsured. Even for people with insurance, many times they have restricted access to health care or receive extremely poor care.
gravenewworld said:No. One of the reasons monopolies/oligopolies exist is because of high costs to entry into the market for a firm. There are natural barriers to entry in some markets (like astronomically high costs of getting started) that limit the amount of firms that can enter the market. Economists define an oligopolist market by the 4 firm ratio--the amount of the market that the largest 4 firms in the industry have a share of. If it is above 40% of the market then the market is considered oligopolist. Examine the market for health care. According to the GAO (govt accountability office)
-Blue Cross and Blue shield had over 50% of the market in 9 states (THAT IS JUST 1 FIRM!)
-In almost every state, the largest insurer in that state had an average of 43% of the market (again only 1 firm!)
gravenewworld said:You preach freedom of choice and free markets for health care, but in reality WE ALREADY DON'T HAVE A FREE MARKET FOR HEALTH CARE! The insurance industry sure as hell is an oligopolist market! In almost every state 1 firm owns 40+% of the health insurance market! That completely blows out the 4-firm ratio litmus test that economists use to determine whether or not a market is run by an oligopoly.
gravenewworld said:You've answered your own question. Of course a perfectly inelastic demand doesn't exist. Even health care demand is not perfectly inelastic, however it is pretty damn inelastic. Once you go beyond a certain point for charging for a MRI, no one will demand it.
gravenewworld said:So you claim the law of diminishing utility is not all to be considered here, but then go on to talk about consumer demand behaviors? That doesn't make sense, seeing as demand is defined by marginal utility! This website actually explains how demand is derived through marginal utility pretty well:
gravenewworld said:You are comparing apples to oranges. The food market is not an oligopolist market! In fact, many times in basic econ the food market is used as an example of a type of market that is almost perfect competition! So according to you " the most important things" should be handled by the free market? Okay so how about national defense? Would you want private companies in charge of all of our nuclear weapons, tanks, and stealth bombers? The problem with health care in America is the fact that it is run by an oligopoly. Oligopolies and monopolies ALWAYS lead to inefficiencies, i.e. market faliures.
gravenewworld said:What is there to be confused about? You are the competitive market guy for health care. A competitive market tends toward equilibrium, this is one of the fundamental laws of economics. But a competitive equilibrium leads to Pareto Optimal efficiency. This however, does not imply at all that the most efficient allocations of resources are the most equitable. You still haven't answered my question. With a free market system for health care is it socially acceptable that thousands and even millions of people may be left without proper access to health care or insurance? A free market type of system for health care inherently leads to some people who will be shut out from health care even when resources are allocated most efficiently (i.e. equilibrium). So once again is this acceptable to you? If you still find this acceptable then tell me this, would you want someone who falls between the cracks in a competitive health care market and is uninsured running around with one of these diseases (see below) and avoiding hospitals and doctors because they had no insurance or couldn't afford it?
gravenewworld said:The uninsured put the general public (insured and uninsured) at huge risk. All its takes is one uninsured person going around with a multi resistant strain of TB to spread it to 100's of people because they didn't have access to a doctor or couldn't afford to seek medical care. But this is the risk you run with a free market system of health care.
I think you're the one who is actually forgetting the fundamental laws of economics. All societies have to allocate scarce resources. In fact, this is exactly what socialism and capitalism are, different ways for society to solve the economic problem
Is it fair that some people need to wait for 1 year to get a very important medical procedure? Is it fair that some people die waiting for these procedures? Is it fair that some people cannot pay a doctor for his/her services because it is illegal? Is it fair that some people live in countries in which they cannot get private health insurance because it is illegal?
Besides, many people are not dying because they can't afford health care in the US. People still go to the hospital and get treated, even in this "greedy, evil system." Hospitals have to treat them, even if they can't pay the bills. And yeah, some people do go bankrupt because of health care reasons. However, I still think it's better than a socialist approach.
Moridin said:Actually, the US health care system has long waiting periods as well, mostly due to being understaffed and having too few resources.
Moridin said:"Provided that a person with poor health, lack of education and lack of insurance understands that. Provided that the person understands that it is crucial to take the medication for years. Provided that the person is not being forced to sell the medicine for cash to buy food or rent to survive instead of taking them. I think that it takes public health imperatives both in education and a less hostile environment." (earlier post on the same subject).
So you think the waiting times are comparable huh?
How insulting that you seem to think being poor means your stupid. By the way, if poor people didn't know this, then hospitals wouldn't spend billions of dollars a year treating people who can't afford to pay them.
drankin said:You want to know where I come from?? I grew up dirt poor, broken home, about as dysfunctional a life one could have, lived on the streets and homeless shelters as a young adult and one day decided to take care of myself. Noone owes me a damn thing because of my situation. It's all me, I own it. I learned how to work, something I was never actually taught never having a father around, put myself thru school when I figured out flipping burgers, moving furniture, and whatever else I subjected myself too wasn't making the best use of my time. And damn it, I'm not well off, but I'm solid middle class now and I live in a country where anyone can do what I did if they get off there butt and quit whining about how aweful their situation is.
Tell me, what do you do when some homeless guy comes up to you asks you for money on the street?
huckmank said:If you went to a public university, took out subsidized loans or accepted grants or scholarships then no, you absolutely did not get where you are on your own.
I have a similar story to yours. I came from a poor household, worked service industry directly after high school and into my 20s and have lived in my car. But I decided to change all that one day and enrolled in a local community college. I busted my ass to do 60 credits in a year and a half with a 3.95 gpa and transferred into a top 10 engineering school where my GPA is a 4.0. So if I wanted to think I was hot **** and owed nothing to no-one, maybe I could.
Then I remember that 80% of the cost of CC is payed for by taxpayers, not me. And that I was given $5,000 in grants, fully paying for my portion of tuition plus some. In addition, the government gave me loans which I don't have to pay interest on until I'm employed. My engineering department payed for my tuition the first semester and grants payed for half the second.
So I hope you went to a private university (hell, private education all your life) and payed cash or took out standard loans to pay for you tuition. Otherwise you're full of **** and you owe your accomplishments in part to a society that helps its underprivileged.
Economist said:Well, you can benefit from something and still criticize and/or disagree with it.
Economist said:One thing you might be interested to know, is that higher education in the US tends to redistribute wealth from poor to rich (so does social security but that's another story). If you are a little confused about how this could be, just like I was when I first heard this, then think about it this way. Many low income people pay taxes that contribute to higher education in the US, however, the people who's children are most likely to get into and go to college are not low income people, in fact wealthy people send their children to college at much higher rates.
huckmank said:If you went to a public university, took out subsidized loans or accepted grants or scholarships then no, you absolutely did not get where you are on your own.
I have a similar story to yours. I came from a poor household, worked service industry directly after high school and into my 20s and have lived in my car. But I decided to change all that one day and enrolled in a local community college. I busted my ass to do 60 credits in a year and a half with a 3.95 gpa and transferred into a top 10 engineering school where my GPA is a 4.0. So if I wanted to think I was hot **** and owed nothing to no-one, maybe I could.
Then I remember that 80% of the cost of CC is payed for by taxpayers, not me. And that I was given $5,000 in grants, fully paying for my portion of tuition plus some. In addition, the government gave me loans which I don't have to pay interest on until I'm employed. My engineering department payed for my tuition the first semester and grants payed for half the second.
So I hope you went to a private university (hell, private education all your life) and payed cash or took out standard loans to pay for you tuition. Otherwise you're full of **** and you owe your accomplishments in part to a society that helps its underprivileged.
huckmank said:Sure can, but if you take free money from the government and then ***** about others doing the same, you're what we call a hypocrite.
huckmank said:Back up your statement with figures, not just a priori arguments. The poor also pay a lower tax rate. I'd be interested to see if the ratio of taxes paid by the wealthy vs. the poor outstrips the ratio of state university enrollment of the wealthy vs. poor. I doubt very highly that it does.
Regardless, federal grants are need-based and many scholarships are more easily obtained by minorities or those of limited means.
This is a point that many people miss. Sales taxes, taxes on gasoline, diesel, heating oil, clothing and non-food essentials like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc simply cannot be escaped. People with substantial incomes often don't have to pay more taxes for these essentials than poor people. The impact of regressive taxation is felt keenly here in Maine, where our northern climate and rural-type population densities make any increase in the prices (or taxes) on fuel oil (for heat) or gasoline and diesel (for commutes, or for forestry/agriculture) very painful. These increases cannot easily be evaded and they hit the bottom line directly.Economist said:Also, the poor probably pay more taxes than you think. When you take into account all taxes (not just income taxes) you'll find that taxes are fairly substantial for the poor. Things like sales taxes have been said to harm the poor much more than the rich. Furthermore, marginal tax rates can be very high for poor people in some cases.
turbo-1 said:This is a point that many people miss. Sales taxes, taxes on gasoline, diesel, heating oil, clothing and non-food essentials like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc simply cannot be escaped. People with substantial incomes often don't have to pay more taxes for these essentials than poor people. The impact of regressive taxation is felt keenly here in Maine, where our northern climate and rural-type population densities make any increase in the prices (or taxes) on fuel oil (for heat) or gasoline and diesel (for commutes, or for forestry/agriculture) very painful. These increases cannot easily be evaded and they hit the bottom line directly.
Right-wing sites? The NY Times? The Economist?turbo-1 said:You have posted links to right-wing sites that support your skewed view with no reliable statistics.
Economist said:Things like sales taxes have been said to harm the poor much more than the rich. Furthermore, marginal tax rates can be very high for poor people in some cases...
turbo-1 said:This is a point that many people miss. Sales taxes, taxes on gasoline, diesel, heating oil, clothing and non-food essentials like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc simply cannot be escaped...
mheslep said:Right-wing sites? The NY Times? The Economist?![]()
mheslep said:Guys - don't forget: Its the lotteries, the lotteries, the lotteries which are overwhelmingly paid by the poor.
Economist said:Also, the poor probably pay more taxes than you think. When you take into account all taxes (not just income taxes) you'll find that taxes are fairly substantial for the poor. Things like sales taxes have been said to harm the poor much more than the rich. Furthermore, marginal tax rates can be very high for poor people in some cases.
wildman said:In the US, the poor have to pay a 15% payroll tax off the top even if a person only makes a few dollars. This is an atrocious tax on the poor especially since it is only on the first $100,000 a person makes.
drankin said:I don't like paying taxes anymore than the next guy but to what country might you comparing our 15% tax to?
wildman said:In the US, the poor have to pay a 15% payroll tax off the top even if a person only makes a few dollars. This is an atrocious tax on the poor especially since it is only on the first $100,000 a person makes.
Doesn't Canada have a big VAT on top of that income tax?ShawnD said:Canada might be a good comparison.
I have never seen this and I am looking at a paystub. What exactly are you referring to?wildman said:In the US, the poor have to pay a 15% payroll tax off the top even if a person only makes a few dollars. This is an atrocious tax on the poor especially since it is only on the first $100,000 a person makes.
wildman said:In the US, the poor have to pay a 15% payroll tax off the top even if a person only makes a few dollars. This is an atrocious tax on the poor especially since it is only on the first $100,000 a person makes.
I think he's referring to the combination of SS tax, Medicare, and income tax or the entire SS tax including the part employers pay (a self-employed person has to pay the entire SS tax, although half is deducted from your income as an employment expense). A single non-self employed person might come close to 15%, but I think the end tax after deductions would be quite a bit less.Evo said:I have never seen this and I am looking at a paystub. What exactly are you referring to?
Ah, I see from DH's post it's Social Security. Social Security is 6.2%
I can't say that's a totally inaccurate statement, but part of the issue is that the 'victims' forced by law to pay into the scheme aren't willing to write off everything they've paid into Social Security as an expensive lesson learned. If the government isn't going to fulfill its promises to its citizens, then every Congressman from the 30's to the present should lose their Congressional pension plus spend at least a few months in prison. There's probably not much hope that Congress would vote for that solution.D H said:Fine. Let's eliminate Social Security.
This post is incorrect for many reasons. First, the employees only pay half of the tax. The employer pays the other half. Suppose the tax were eliminated. Most employers would not give their employees a 7.65% pay raise as a result. Calling the tax a 15% tax on the employees is a misdirection at best. Another misdirection: The Medicare part of the tax (1.45%) has no upper limit.
Social security is supposedly similar to a retirement account. At least that is what the silly annual letter than I get from the SSA implies. In actuality it is a pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme. Let's call it what it is: a wasteful, regressive welfare program that transfers wealth from the working middle class to the elderly who didn't have the wherewithall to save while they were working.
mheslep said:Ok, since the US has no federal VAT, then for your comparisons posted above you should add 6% (5%) to all the Canadian figures?
...
USA tax from $7,551 – $30,650 is 15%
Canada from $9,600 - $37,178 is 21%(20%)
and so on
mheslep said:Ok, since the US has no federal VAT, then for your comparisons posted above you should add 6% (5%) to all the Canadian figures?
...
USA tax from $7,551 – $30,650 is 15%
Canada from $9,600 - $37,178 is 21%(20%)
and so on
Fair enough for the daily expenses. However, Id say that changes if you include the major purchases of a car (lots of poor as we're defining them here still can buy a cheap car) and possibly even a low cost home / condo / duplex.ShawnD said:0.33 * 6% tax = ~2% tax (on total income)
Im not familiar with the source nor the methods usedIn 2005, the average Canadian family earned an income of $60,903 and paid total taxes equaling $28,467 (46.7 percent).
mheslep said:Also see this Fraser Institute sourced report for for a http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=591038".
Im not familiar with the source nor the methods used
ShawnD said:I have no idea how they come up with 46% tax. My first guess would be that they add up all the taxes that are applied on every money transaction. Let me give an example of how this works. Let's say I make $1000 and pay $200 in income tax. That's 20%. Then I buy $800 in alcohol, which is about 99% tax (feel free to google search what tax-free ethanol is actually worth). So that's another $792 in tax. Add that to the original $200 income tax to get $992 of tax paid on $1000 of income. OMG T4X RATES ARE 99.2%!
They can make up any stats they want if they tried hard enough.
ShawnD said:If they're accounting for total taxes taken, then it should be easy to start removing the ones that don't apply to me.
I was thinking more in terms of median and mode because each of them are not as strongly affected by outliers, so they give a better representation of distribution.mheslep said:I don't think that's useful either. The thread is about nationalized health care so by virtue of the topic we're only interested in average information.
Yes, the average is 46% (the way they calculated it). What is the median? If you pointed at somebody who represents the bulk of the population, such as the middle 80% (exclude the top and bottom 10%), how much would that guy be paying? It's probably not 46%.The idea is to weigh the costs vs the benefit, that is, how much total revenue a country using nationalized health care takes from its citizens vs what you get for it medically, so you need typical information. Then, theoretically, you have some predictive power. So in this case, how much total tax does the Canadian government take from a guy making an average salary? Well you go out and (do what Fraser Inst. did) pole a bunch of people and average income tax, all the lottery tickets, the smokes, the telephone taxes(check your bill), the airline ticket taxes, the social security (US name) taxes, the sales tax (did you buy a car?, a condo?), etc., everything the federal government takes in as revenue since it all goes into one pot in effect. In this case looks to me like its 46%.
Yeah, it sucks hard. This week it was also announced that there is a smoking ban in the entire province of Alberta. This officially makes smoking more illegal than drinking. You can drink at the bar until you pass out, but you better not light a cigarette! Those things kill you!BTW, $10 for smokes!
gsingh1015 said:Universal health care is a basic human right - enshrined in most european countries. There are different models but most of them are successful. OK the taxes are higher in Europe but at the end of the day taxes belong to the people and not governments and if they are ploughed back into the public in the form of better public services, social security and pensions then the vast majority of people don't mind paying higher taxes. I work as a doctor in the UK and have on many occassions treated US visitors who absolutely marvel at our system! Most of it is evidenced based and is one of the most cost effective systems in the world! We may not be as good as Sweden, France or Germany but when it comes to the crunch - when it really matters - no system in the world can beat our National Health Service.
t-money said:What was the primary reason patients from the U.S came into be treated. I say this because a lot of Brits come to the U.S for Dental work, because their universal healthcare system does not do teeth very well.