With health care the topic of the week, I found a friend of mine on Facebook…my old Republican foil at PBS…with an interesting status;
Obama wants universal healthcare solved by the august recess…HAHA how about we resolve THE ECONOMY FIRST so that WE can AFFORD healthcare…and the plan is to take money from the wealthy so the poor can waste time all day going to the hospital….AWESOME.
The thread the followed went for 30 comments and included mostly those in support of healthcare reform…but I got lumped into a spirited debate between my friend (titled as FRIENDS below) and some other dude (titled as OTHER GUY). Suddenly, I found myself in a scene remiscent of the one I was told occured in the 1960’s between Pat Buchanan and Hunter S. Thompson…minus the Wild Turkey.
OTHER GUY: Universal Health Care by August? Please. That is a joke. It is ideal, but so is communism. Ask the Canadians in there 5 hour long lines how that Universal Health Care is going.
FRIEND: ANDDDD cancer treatment is that much harder to come by 🙁
She’s a cancer survivor.
OTHER GUY: Exactly. I wish we could all have free and perfect health care, but I don’t want it to trickle down from what Obama first said as $250,000, then $100,000, then soon anyone making $25,000 will be considered “Rich” and get all these tax hikes. If we had a surplus, then okay, cut our health care costs. But when we have this huge national debt, we shouldn’t even be thinking about doing this.
ME: Hmm…since healthcare costs are a major reason why families are going bankrupt and mortages are going into default, healthcare reform will actually help the economy…as far as 5 hour waits in Canada, which are rare, it’s kind of a moot point since Obama doesn’t want the Canadian system here (even though most liberals do). It’s not universal as it would only cover 97% of those living in the United States…most of the other 3% being “illegal immigrants” so, no, illegals wouldn’t be part of this…veterans would.
OTHER GUY: So who is going to pay for my health care? You are? Thanks I guess… It all seems ideal but who is going to pay for all of this?
ME: We are…this bill, by law, cannot increase the deficit otherwise it would be subject to a point of order in the Senate and need to be passed with 60 votes…so it will be paid for with cuts in other areas of spending a tax hike on the richest Americans…yes a tax hike…to 40%, which may seem like a lot but is still ridiculously lower than the tax rate on the richest Americans in the 1950’s, a very productive decade for America, which was near 90%.
FRIEND: lol great points…but now tell me what doctors incentives will be…i was speaking with my cousin the other night who is a dr. in mass. and he was telling me completely honestly how much worse the practice has gotten there when romney enacted the statewide insurance because dr’s dont make as much..they’re only human and although that might … Read Moresound very wrong…they deserve to be making the great money they do considering they are the only people keeping us going….i just figured i’d throw that out there since you touched every other point. haha
ME: well you’ll find few Democrats applauding Romney’s plan because it failed to bring down costs because it still relies entirely on private insurance and in the end only the doctors got screwed…having said that, the incentives for doctors should… Read More be helping patients…they’ll still be making tons of money, doctors are among the wealthest people in France…if doctors are only doing their jobs because of money, then that’s a HUGE problem with our society. If they’re not willing to make a little less so that our healthcare system could be better and serve more people and bring down costs for the working class, then they shouldn’t be doctors. This would constitute a failure of free market captalism which can only survive if one’s desire to be wealthy and powerful also works in favor of the working class too.
OTHER GUY: So if I work so hard to earn a million dollars you are now taking the total of $400,000 from me. And then since I’m making all that money I won’t be using any of the programs I am funding. Someone making 95,000 a year, less than 10% of the million dollar earner honestly winds up with about 40% as much for earning 10% as much. That isn’t fair at all
ME:I reject the idea that someone making a million dollars obviously works harder than someone making $95k, while that may be true in some cases, in many cases millionaires got to where they not because they worked harder than those who are struggling, but because they’re in higher paying industries, different parts of the country, or just plain lucky… Read More. Personal wealth is not always a barometer to hard work otherwise Paris Hilton would be living on Skid Row…And I say this as a member of a wealthy family…and while you might not be using any of the progams funded, though you’d have the option to, you would benefit from it since insurance companies would have to bring down costs and premiums to compete with a government program, thus bringing down your own costs, which would, in many cases, negate the efect of the tax.
This of course comes the same day where the New York Post has a screaming (false) headline that I saw all over the city today;
SICK JOKE: Successful New Yorkers to pay 57% Mega-Tax under Obamacare
Anything to add? Thoughts?
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