I have to chime in here. Patrons to ER's expect to be seen quickly, get all the tests they've seen on TV, including CT's and MRI's, be diagnosed and treated on their time schedule. If Hilary get's her Healthplan thru, that will cease. You will have to wait for most tests that are done without haste now. A necessary surgery could wait 6months to 2 years. You could die before getting your aneurysm diagnosed and repaired under Socialized Medicine. Hospitals will close for lack of income, wait times will go thru the roof. Sorry for the long diatribe.
My take home from my paycheck the other day was about 57% and that was without a 401 K contribution. Still I will owe taxes this year in the thousands because of AMT. I am pretty disgruntled with staus quo. One thing...and I feel ever so strongly about this.... Items such as energy and medical services that all Americans MUST have do not belong in a free market economy. We have no choice but utilize these commodities in a big way and we are at the mercy of providers of these items and the ones that hold this domination over the hapless American public like oil companies are sporting record profits year after year. That's just plain wrong in my book.
So it's not wrong if you were to still be laying in bed waiting on the surgery you needed 6 months ago???
The very same people who rant about oil prices were the ones who prohibited our domestic oil companies from drilling for American oil in ANWAR. And the very same people who rant about the cost of medical care, support millions of illegal aliens absorbing much of our health care and support non professional medical care unions when they make higher wage demands. So if 50 million Americans who aren't insured are suddenly going to get free medical care just who is going to pay for it? We all know who. And if energy costs don't belong in the free market, maybe we should all move to Cuba. After all they have energy price controls, free health care and thousands and thousands of refugees and those that want to leave the people's eden.
I would rather see a national sales tax to subsidize or maybe take care of medical care. Then...even the wino on the street has to pay for health care when he buys his bottle. The very rich would pay more for healthcare when they buy luxury items and maybe I would spend less than the $11,000.00 per year clip that I am currently at. Even a 2% tax on goods and services I purchase would be several thousand dollars less than where I am at presently.
There is an awful lot of hyperbole when health care is discussed; on both sides. I believe that part of the problem can be helped by enlarging insurance pools...why should it cost more to cover a person who has no job benefit insurance than one who has the benefit? (Sure he would have to pay the part that the employer picks up now, but why should the total be five times as much? We will never, ever have a health care system that is affordable until folks cut back their expectations. Two thirds of Medicare dollars are spent during the last couple months of life. Everybody who has a headache gets an MRI or CT scan. We expect our doctors to make the right diagnosis and make it right now...John Ritter's family is suing his physicians for mis-diagnosing his dissecting aortic aneurism as a heart attack and treating it wrong. Was it malpractice? I don't know...but it had to be a very tough call to make, and it's going to settle for millions. Insurance companies, medical equipment manufacturers, drug companies, benefits managers, trial lawyers (both plaintiff and defense) are directly sucking billions of dollars out of the health care system...and it all comes out of our pockets. And the blame is on us...for our greed and our insistence on the best care for nothing out-of-pocket...and for our desire to cast fault whenever something has an adverse result.
Good post Stu. I don't want to jinx myself but I saved my insurance company some serious money a few months ago when I refused the initial hastily arrived at diagnosis on my leg that called for immediate surgery. The problem was two fold in that with my heart history I wanted to avoid unnecessary surgery if possible and the diagnosis was made by a PA and the ortho guy on call never came to see me and make his own diagnosis. I then came home and two days later on a Sunday went to the University of Michigan orthopedic trauma center and even though they did 1500-2,000 dollars worth of tests they advised that I could rehab without surgery although I had to undergo the cast/brace regimen anyway. In any event surgery would have cost thousands upon thousands more. So far...so good and with luck it will work out.
There are many societies today in which they are not......which one of those do you believe would provide a superior standard of living than the US? I don't think that is where we want to go....if we allow government to dictate energy/transportation options we'd still be dependent on buggy whips.
Easy chairs, swimming pools and pool tables you can live without. Fuel and medical services you have no choice and yet it is these two items that seem to be the most monopolistic and price fixed in our "free" market economy. How is that? Why do the powers that be allow that to happen? Billions upon billions in profits are enjoyed today by the oil companies and there is no concrete evidence that the current administration thinks anything other than they deserve it because of all of their "business acumen" while fuel costs to hard working Americans are through the roof.
Why is it that when we spend trillions and trillions of dollars...most of it on entitlements and income redistribution, it is not considered obscene... Yet when a huge company lawfully makes billions of dollars, which represent a small percentage of their outlay compared to other businesses, it is considered wrong...dollars which go to stockholders many of whom are retirees, pensioners, and other folks who have invested their hard-earned dollars. The high cost of oil is directly related to increasing global demand, and you cannot reverse that no matter how hard you try to screw the oil companies. I did hear somewhere that we have a little bit of oil of our own up north somewhere.
Allow what to happen? Who are the powers that be? As it relates to a barrel of oil, the price is "fixed" based upon how much somebody is willing to pay for it.....nothing mysterious or magical about that. The market for crude oil is very active, open and quite efficient. If you are unwilling to pay $105 per barrel for crude oil and its distilled products - you won't get any. However, there are tens of millions of others in every corner of the globe who are ready, willing and able to do so and until such time as they are unwilling, the price will react accordingly. Now, who ARE the powers that be?
As much as I would like to see the cost of gasoline go down, I don't know how our Govt could do it? Are you (MCG) suggesting that here in the US we should enact price controls? If so what is the price per gallon that would make you (MCG) say "now that is a fair price"? OPEC just gave us the finger the other day and said they aren't increasing production (even though they could easily), they like 100/barrell Oil thank you very much. Since Democrats and Environmentalists are not going to let us do much to increase domestic production...ie no drilling off the Fla or Calif coasts, no drilling in Anwar, probably won't let us do much with oil shale or whatever else is out there...certainly won't let us build more nuculear plants. Funny thing is that I haven't heard Obama or Hillary promise that they would get the price of gasoline down. I've heard them say that they are going to work to remove "special tax breaks" that the oil companies get but of course they don't say that they are going to reduce the price of gas. Because they know that they can't do anything about the price of gasoline. Terry
MCG, I can do without the pool table, but easy chairs and swimming pool...no way! BTW, my son is an oncologist. Visiting last week told me a small growth on my neck was skin cancer and should see a dermotologist to have it removed. He will do it tomorrow. I have medicare and a supplemental (Blue Cross Federal Plan.) My thinking. So if I were still on the farm in North Dakota, this would not be an issue. I am 83 years old. What the hell. Point being, people got sick and died. Nobody died healthy except those falling into the silo and that sort of thing.
OK let's discuss Exxon the boogy many. Less than 1% of the stock in that company is owned by its executives. Almost all the stock is owned by pension funds, mutual funds and individual investors. More than likely Hillary and Bill have some investments that include Exxon. Exxon pays dividends, these are taxed. Exxon makes prifits, these are taxed. Exxon pays BILLIONS of dollars in taxes. Unlike Bill and Hillary, you can read their yearly corporate economic statements. Now if energy and health costs should be controled by the government, how about food and housing? What about transportation? Welcome to the People's Republic of America.
The Gov of Alaska is playing Hardball with the Oil Companies, please note that they object of this hardball is raising more money for the Govt, not lowering Gas prices. Alaska Gov plays Harball with Exxon
First this sounds a bit obscene discussing who's on top? :twisted: :twisted: Second, if I was a betting man I would probably be willing to bet that a 65 - 35 split has a little or no chance of happening.
Actually Bill, now I am hearing that the winner of the superdelegate vote will lose general election votes if that SD vote propels that candidate to the nomination. Kind of a pickle for Hillary.