<p>Yes, there is so much money in medical insurance many large companies have gotten out of the business. Several doctors groups who thought they could do it cheaper and better havd also fallen by the wayside.</p>
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In other words, even raising taxes on those terrible, mean, greedy rich people will not generate enough revenue to cover the existing budget deficit. </p>
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<a href=“http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8935/01-24-Senate_Testimony.shtml[/url]”>http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8935/01-24-Senate_Testimony.shtml</a></p>
<p>Obama and Clinton will have to rape even more taxpayers in order to pay for their socialized medicine plans. Their plans are popular only so long as someone else is paying the cost. If the average American had to pay the cost of their plans, those plans would not pass.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, we don’t know what Clinton or Obama are going to do, but we know what Bush did.</p>
<p>I just watched on CNBC that the national debt (not the deficit which is undercounted) may go up $700 BILLION this year. 2008…under George Bush…a $700 Billion increase in national debt.</p>
<p>Of course the deficit was destined to go up after 911 when the economy virtually stopped and required tax cuts to stimulate it. If one wants to look at the potential pitfalls of any health care solution look at the actual versus projected costs for the medicare part D program, medicaid, and medicare projections(SS). In a few years those programs will soon cost yearly what the whole Iraq mess has cost and then some. Revenues have gone up at almost twice the inflationsrate for several years. Neither side has proposed any “cuts”. The irony is that defense spending for the past couple years including the wars and homeland security is actually lower as a percent of GDP than it has been in the past. Non discretionary and entititlement spending are issues that are ignored by both parties and areas where the rate of growth in expenditures is the greatest. Demagoging(sp) this issue or evoking class warfare on any of the big issues such as these or global warming and energy does little to solve the problems. I am not sure amy candidate is really offering any workable solutions that will not slow down the economy. Unfortunately, everybody wants solutions as long as someone else pays and as long as they do not have to give up anything. Same old story.
Would have been ncie to see what the deficit would have been if the y2k induced bubble had burst 6 years earlier.</p>
<p>“Yes, there is so much money in medical insurance many large companies have gotten out of the business.”</p>
<p>Yup. If they don’t figure out how to eat at the corporate socialist trough they go the way of the dinosaurs. Of course, when it comes to government contracts, they flit in and out. The way they do it is this (I’ve been watching this one for almost 20 years): they bid their way in to provide services. Then they advertise a lot. Collect premiums. Find systematic way to delay care, pay providers not to make needed referrals, deny care. Then 3-4 years later, when the real demand for care builds up, they get out of the game. Three-four years later they get back in - sometimes under the same name, sometimes under a new one.</p>
<p>If I am not mistaken most valid studies of public health care shows a larger administrative burden if cost of collectiing taxes is included than for private heath insurance. Most folks also tend to ignore the health care rationing issues too. Having lived in a universal system for a while I saw that it also has its flaws and it was not cheap.</p>
<p>By the way although this adminstration and congress have blown the budget, recommendations to reform social security have also been blown off by all parties. Also W has proposed some medicare reforms including means testing etc that would reduce long term unfunded medicare by about a quarter. Bet that has problems in an election year too.</p>
<p>“Most folks also tend to ignore the health care rationing issues too.”</p>
<p>We have rationing now under corporate socialism. Big time. And we have it whether we have insurance or not. It’s call “underwriting”, or “managing to care less”.</p>
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Nonsense. On a daily basis they are telling us what they are going to do. It’s called campaign promises and campaign platforms. What they are not telling us is how they are going to actually pay for the existing extraordinary levels of existing government spending and for the extraordinary additions of spending they will add as they socialize medicine.</p>
<p>“You can thank the Democratic party”</p>
<p>If the Democratic party actually had the power to design the budget when the presidency, Congress, and courts were all in Republican hands, then the Republicans must be a bunch of incompetent fools. The CEO and board of directors of a company do not usually allow the guys in the mail room to make the decisions.</p>
<p>You have to take the bitter with the sweet. You were running the show for the last 7 years; you get the credit, and you get the blame.</p>
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<p>And is Bush telling us today how he’s going to pay for the 7% increase in Defense and 11% in National Security? How is HE going to have us pay for this?? And what are we getting for our money spent in Iraq?</p>
<p>Razorsharp hasn’t progressed since the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and also supply-side economics to see that the mess we are in fiscally is a Republican invention.</p>
<p>My insurer is private through my firm. I have never been denied needed care or prescriptions. They probably have lost $$$ on me nearly every year. Mini’s constant throwing around of meaningless terms like “corporate socialism” that sound evil is becoming tiresome. What exactly does that mean? That companies lobby for laws that they want vs what you might want? Have you ever run a business more complex than a lemonade stand?</p>
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Wrong. Clearly the Republicans did not decrease spending enough. They like to spend money too. My point is that the welfare state that is killling us financially was created by Democrats under their giant income redistribution programs. The American people don’t want to pay for these programs, they want someone else to pay for them so the cost has been passed on to future generations. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are simply going to create more social programs that we can’t afford. How do I know that we can’t afford Clinton and Obama’s plans? Because we can’t afford the social programs we already have. </p>
<p>And where were all you democrats when Newt was trying to get a blanced budget amendment passed? I suspect you were saying the same old Democrat line that “we don’t need a balanced budget amendment”. Shame on anyone who opposed the balanced budget amendment.</p>
<p>Speaking of Ronald Regan, he was right on one point – the only thing that lives forever is a government program.</p>
<p>Quote:
Repealing the tax cuts on people who make $250,000 a year or more is expected to bring in about $50 billion a year. </p>
<p>In other words, even raising taxes on those terrible, mean, greedy rich people will not generate enough revenue to cover the existing budget deficit</p>
<p>No, it may not be enough, but it is a start. Since when do we abandon the cure for the problem because it lessens the issue rather than fully resolves it? That, to me, is slightly skewed thinking.</p>
<p>The welfare state keeps us from depressions and enables people to survive, and maybe, buy some products. Not many. Some.</p>
<p>A balanced budget amendment is political. Economically, its suicide.</p>
<p>If the republicans believed in mandatory balanced budgets, you would think maybe they would have had one in 20 of the last 28 years.</p>
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</p>
<p>And my point is that the war state that the Republicans fostered, and are financing through debt, is killing us financially.</p>
<p>“Corporate socialism. What exactly does that mean?”</p>
<p>I’ve said many times before, but you weren’t listening. The uniting and cooperation of the wealthy in their corporate class interests (which they well understand) and the use of government to achieve and maintain their class position."</p>
<p>If there is something you don’t understand about that, please ask. Actually, if you don’t understand it, you can just ask a large corporate CEO if you like, and he’ll explain it to you, I’m sure. </p>
<p>“Have you ever run a business more complex than a lemonade stand?”</p>
<p>How about a book publishing multinational, with employees both in the U.S. and Canada? Guess where the employees wanted to work when they had a choice. Guess why.</p>
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I think you mean Hillary Clinton and the Republicans fostered. Right?</p>
<p>I think you are overstating the alignment of interests as every group in the US seeks to have their interets heard–from the tort lawyers to the teachers to the corporations. As a capitalist country most people here have the belief that the success of corporations does align with their own success at the macro level. As most large corporations are shareholder owned you and I have every opportunity to align ourselves with that success even moreso.</p>
<p>So I think it’s just a term you like to throw around that has no basis in fact.</p>
<p>My wife continues to treat Canadians weekly seeking to escape that great system. They also get applications from numerous doctors wanting to move to the US.
From the NEJM-2005
“Canada actually enjoys a net positive position with regard to the United Kingdom and Australia but has lost 8990 physicians to the United States while gaining 519.”</p>
<p>if you give me all that money i can use it for better things.</p>
<p>actually throwing away that money instead of spending it on iraq would be a better alternative</p>