The Glade 4.0

I don't take it seriously, but the sentiment is way more common than I thought. For example, wait until you've heard someone complain about how unfair it is that FDR couldn't push through a 100% income tax for incomes over $25k like he wanted, because the evil Republicans in Congress blocked it.



The military and police protect everyone equally. Public health care most certainly does not. The wealthier you are, the worse off you are under public health care. The progressive tax to fund it hits you harder and harder, and while you pay more and more you still get exactly the same benefits despite how much you pay. As you get older, you have to buy private care to stay healthy because your public ration isn't enough, so now you're not only paying many times the value of what you're getting from the public system, you have to pay even more to supplemental private care.

It's great if you're poor, because the alternative is getting no care. And since the poor outnumber the rich, the average life expectancy goes up a lot. But it's still taking money and by extension years of life away from the wealthy so the poor can live longer.



You might want to share that sentiment with Obama, since his original health care proposal was funded entirely by an excise tax on those making over $250,000 per year.



It's not putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger, but it's definitely taking years of life away from the wealthy elderly by decreasing the amount of money the have to provide health care for themselves.

Not in my experience, and frankly, I know and spend time with a great many liberal folks.



Sounds like a bit of creative re-imagining to me.



And frankly, I think the government has an equal responsibility when it comes to health care. I see it as no different than police, fire, rescue, and the military.



How so? When you are wealthy, you don't get the extra cool police protection. Same officers, same gear, same technology. Same thing with health care.




The same is arguably true about the military and the police, dissaster recovery, the internet, interstate highways, etc. However, I believe the wealthy gain a great deal more for their dollar in the social contract than the poor. In other words, they gain more, so it's not all that unfair in my eyes to tax them more.



This doesn't make sense to me, either. Seniors today are covered by Medicare until they die.



And public health should be revenue neutral. The rich should be able to access the same services as the poor. And how in the heck can you reasonably claim that it takes years of life away from the rich? How are they entitled to longer lives than the poor? Not a zero sum game.



Which is perfectly fine by me. That in no way adds up to a 90% tax burden on them, or anything even remotely close to that. A small tax increase on the biggest earner is a great way to fund this. His plan also calls for premiums to be paid by those that can afford it, in addition to that tax increase. In other words, his proposal is *not* exclusively funded by taxing the wealthy.




Your conclusion is seriously flawed. First of all, anyone at that age is eligible for medicare. Furthermore, a rich person would still be able to access the public option. Do you honestly think that small tax increase would come directly out of their health care? Doubtful. Likely, they have an excellent health care plan paid for by premium to a private company.

Now, if that rich person were to suddenly fall on hard times, or if their insurance company were to drop them, they would also have the option to use the public insurance plan. How great is that? A safety net, even for the wealthy.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Really? Which area do you think has more police officers per capita? East St. Louis or Beverly Hills?



I'm not sure what your point is. Medicare is a basic health care plan. It doesn't cover a lot of the expensive **** seniors might need to survive advanced chronic conditions. You have to buy private insurance if you want treatment for those.



Yes, this is the point. I'm not saying public health care is guaranteed bad, it's just that "access the same services as the poor" is far worse than the wealthy have it now, when they have many times the services that the poor do. They'll have less money to spend on health care for themselves and that translates to less years of life.



I never said it amounted to 90% on them. And you might want to rethink your position here. In your last post you said public health care shouldn't be exclusively funded by the wealthy. Now you're saying that.....public health care should be exclusively funded by the wealthy.



Where else is the tax increase going to come out of? They have less dollars than they did before, it has to come out of something. They will be less able to afford the very high premium for that excellent health care plan.

None of those things demonstrate anything other than you don't like it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Hmms...

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

My guess would be East Saint Louis. However, regardless of how it plays out in practice, Police are sworn to protect and serve everyone, not just the wealthy. If it doesn't play out that way, that doesn't actually refute my argument. It simply means reform is needed.



Actually, Private insurers are often unwilling to cover the most expensive treatments for many reasons. Experiemtnal therapies, etc, are often denied or excluded from coverage, even from the best plans.



Again, just because they are taxed more doesn't mean they won't be able to afford care. That does not lead to less years of life. I doubt it will lead to any less life at all.

I am not arguing that it should be *exclusively* funded by the wealthy, and Im not sure where you got that idea from. In fact, if you look at my suggestion, I say very clearly that people below the age of eligibility for medicare should pay a premium.



The yacht? The 5K a night hookers? The coke habit?


But that doesn't mean they will necessarily lose health coverage. You act as if the dollars will immediately fly out of their premiums instead of other places. Do the rich suddenly lose their personal responsibilty when they reach a certain age? Must they buy the yacht and not the health care?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Where do you think ESTL gets the money to pay for police officers? It's well known that rich areas have far more cops than poor ones. Even if we all assume they do an equal job, having more means the wealthy areas must have better protection. The military is a better example, but when Hurricane Katrina hit, we all saw what the National Guard secured first.



You think Medicare is better at paying for end-of-life care and experimental treatments than private insurance? What color is the sky in your world?



First of all, I was never talking about Medicare, I was talking about the proposed public option for everyone, which Obama wanted to fund with a tax on the wealthy and which you agreed with. Second, you cannot possibly claim that if you increase someone's tax burden they'll magically have the same money to spend on everything else.



See, this is the arrogant sentiment right here. Obviously, since they're wealthy, they MUST be criminals who waste their money on vice. They can't possibly be putting kids through college or wanting to retire years earlier or having half their income going towards treating advanced cancer or cardiovascular disease.



No, they won't lose health coverage, but their coverage will be of lower quality, because they have less money. This is simple logic, here.

Rich people never contribute to charities (despite the fact most charities run mostly by donations of those with over 10 million in net worth).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville