A health care question...

BEER!










Damn democrats! 

The Doctor wrote: Don't worry, if you can afford at least 5 beers, starting with the 5th beer, you get 100% of the beer for yourself only, you don't have to share it with anyone and there are many loopholes for the taxes.

I'm down with the Fair Tax.   

The Doctor wrote: The first step towards a fair tax is eliminating the caps on contributions to certain programs.  Two come to mind...the social security contribution cap, where you only have to contribute on earnings up to $7000 per month.  Or the German national health insurance contributions, which are capped at somewhere around 285 Euro per month, no matter how much you earn.  Eliminating the caps would at the very least help ease some of the pressure on those two systems.

I'm for eliminating social security altogether, but that's a different thread that I'm not gonna make.

Raff wrote: Atavachron wrote: except, 1: no one has shown that other countries with a national healthcare system are losing doctors..they may be, but where's the 'Canada's Doctor Shortage' stories?  2: I'd hope that a good majority of serious med students actually want to become physicians.  Sure good money is important (especially with that workload), but isn't scientific interest & curiosity just as?  And 3: If a reduction in doctor's fees - therefore a reduction in doctor/hospital profits - were to occur, presumably what we'd lose are those who want to make more $, which is fine of course.  I mean, there's always radiology. Italy has a surplus of doctors rather than a shortage. Young people are discouraged from studying medicine at the university because there will be too many of them to get jobs, at least in the short term.

Isn't that interesting.. and proves something I've suspected for awhile: no matter what a society does or progress it makes, there's always problems.  Too much this, not enough that, unseen problems, unseen solutions, a universal struggle that never really ends.  Which is fine I suppose because it keeps us on our toes.. imagine a world without problems?  BORE-ing...

rushfan4 wrote: This is what happens when people are bored.  http://cbs3.com/watercooler/streaker.tennessee.market.2.1597372.html

rushfan4 wrote: I was helping David imagine the world without problems.  His comment about it being BORE-ing reminded me of this story I had read this morning.

^^I'm with Slarti.  I want my money as well.  They have a crapload of it, and continue to take $5000+ per year.  No wonder I can't pay for the colonoscopy without insurance.

Epignosis wrote: The Doctor wrote: The first step towards a fair tax is eliminating the caps on contributions to certain programs.  Two come to mind...the social security contribution cap, where you only have to contribute on earnings up to $7000 per month.  Or the German national health insurance contributions, which are capped at somewhere around 285 Euro per month, no matter how much you earn.  Eliminating the caps would at the very least help ease some of the pressure on those two systems. I'm for eliminating social security altogether, but that's a different thread that I'm not gonna make.

And that will never, ever happen, even if by some catastrophe we default. Old people vote far too much. It greatly amuses me that some Republicans/Tea Partiers seem to be floating the idea of campaigning on killing social security--and the Democrats would love for them to try that!

Edited by Henry Plainview - March 30 2010 at 21:56

Are there any posters in this thread currently receiving social security payments on account of being unemployed but would endorse the removal of such benefits completely ? 
Presumably if the answer was Yes, the posters would deem it fair and proper to have to dine from dumpsters, sleep on the streets, dress in refuse sacks and practice DIY medical procedures ?

From memory, In the UK it was called 'National Insurance' i.e. if you became unemployed you would make a claim just like any other insured critter who had paid their premiums via taxes in the past.

I can't believe that anything that departs even slightly from this 'all or nothing/succeed or be damned' ethos embraced in the US gets branded 'filthy pinko commie handouts' etc

For those wealthy or employed, healthily fed, housed and entertained in the US, sleep easy, as your constitution had the canny foresight to arm you in the defence of your homesteads from invasion by the aforementioned dumpster legions.

^^You're referring to welfare, not social security. Social security takes a chunk of your paycheck and hides it away until you're old because you can't be trusted to save for your own retirement. The problem (other than the extreme condescension) is that the government was supposed to invest that money and return it to you, but instead they spent it and are now not taking in enough new money to pay retirees what they are owed.

Edited by thellama73 - March 31 2010 at 00:05