Smasharoo wrote:
You don't get something for nothing. The world simply doesn't work that way.
Unless it's benefit to all when you lower taxes on the extremely wealthy, then you get more for less!!
That's not "nothing" though. See. If I take less money from the extremely wealthy, they'll invest most of that money I didn't take from them. And some of that money will result in tech and methodology improvements which will increase the total amount of "something" we have. It didn't come from "nothing". It came about as a result of investing quite a bit of something to make the total amount of something greater.
You get that just mandating that a company increase coverage or benefits will just make the whole cost more. There's no technology improvement leading this. It's the same health care. They're just being forced by the government to provide more of it, while being paid out of the same pool of money.
Is it really confusing to you that they'll have to take a large share of that pool in order to pay for the difference? Cause it's not like the math is that hard to do...
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In the entire history of the world, of economics, of human civilization, the strongest causal links to increases in asset pricing is lack of regulation. Less regulation encourages de facto and de jure monopoly, price collusion, abject fraud, etc. etc.
Unregulated markets don't work, they've never worked. They're fundamentally flawed in that they will always, always, always, fail. Usually suddenly and catastrophically, sometimes slowly and boringly.
No one's arguing a case even remotely close to "no regulation" for the health care industry in the US. That is not the case now and it's not a case even being considered by anyone in the debate. Why then toss this silly straw man into the mix?
Within industries that are regulated, too much government involvement absolutely leads to corruption and waste. Mandated service may not increase "asset cost", but absolutely increases "total cost". Same deal with subsidies, tax incentives, kick backs, government funded contracts, and a host of other things.
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That said, this entire discussion is meaningless. There is zero chance any meaningful reform of the health care industry comes out of this legislative process.
While I'm sure your definition of "meaningful reform" is radically different than mine, you pretty much have the incompetence and overreaching inability to understand that their recent election wins really didn't come about as a result of a mandate of support for their agenda by the Dems to thank for that. I'd comment on the silliness and stupidity of spending millions of dollars and the better part of a decade building a "Republicans are evil" argument in the public mind in order to advance politically and then being surprised when the public which voted against the other guy instead of for you doesn't support your crazily moronic economic policies, but that would almost be redundant at this point.
If the Dems had a platform a majority of the public actually agreed with, things might be different. But as it stands, they have to trick the public into going along with them and hope they don't catch on until it's too late...
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You'll have to pay taxes on your health insurance, though, idiot. Enjoy the loss of money you've fought so hard for.
Er? And that's not going to happen under the various Dem plans? Look. At this point, I'm opposed to any legal changes with health care at all. So I'm not sure where you're getting this. But I'll tell you what. If I have to pay taxes on my health care dollars, but in return I get to decide how to spend them? That's certainly a better deal than what I'm getting right now. Do you have any clue how much I've paid for health care insurance over the last decade or so in comparison to what I've received? It's obscene.