One of 2 things would happen with this. New products will either cost a ton more since the pharm companies now need to make the full lifecycle profit in 2-3 years instead of 15 or the more likely scenerio is they will simply not develop new drugs. Research budgets would be slashed by a tremendous amount if after all your work you got to make something for 3 years. Would you build a new house and incur all the development, material and labor costs associated with it if you were only allowed to live there for 3 years and then had to donate it for free? Of course not.

Big pharm companies are not nearly as lucrative as people believe. When a company makes 500 million profit off a new drug everyone thinks they are raking it in and they should give some of that back to the consumer. Looking deeper you see that it is a 100 billion dollar company though, and that 500 million is only a .5% return. I'm not implying that these companies don't make any money, but that the amount they make based on the size of the companies is already in line with other industries, and usually a little below. Why isn't the government stepping in to say i-Tunes can only charge $0.70 per song since they will still make a profit at that price?

Some of that I can agree with, but how about the advertising budgets where tens if not hundreds of millions are spent. What about the money spent on simple bribes in the form of food and deserts the Pharm reps bring into the Dr. offices.

There is probably a lot more spent on those things over the 15yrs after development than for development. Viagra alone has a 50 million advertising budget. Cialis is reported to have a 100 Million budget. That's ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. And I am sorry, but if your dick don't work and you haven't heard about Viagra/Cialis in the first 5 years it was out then you have been living in a glass bubble.



Give them a chance, at the rate they are rolling now it's probably next on the agenda.

_________________

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

I understand that point, but it's not the governments place to dictate how much someone can advertise. We don't charge a soda tax (well, Philadelphia will soon...ARGH!) just because Pepsi and Coke spend 10's of millions each on Superbowl advertising, and that's just in 1 night. I can guarantee you this, they have worked out a business model that the 50 million in Viagra ads are producing more revenue than they would without the ads. That is one area where big business is usually right on the money, mostly because they hate parting with that money.

Well, think what you want of this bill. People obviously hard split on both sides.

My only question is rhetorical. If we're adding 32 million people to the insurance rolls, presumably those people will be going to see the doctor. That is a 10% increase in patient load and I don't recall seeing anything in the legislation that will increase the number of physicians. Physicians already work longer hours than almost every other profession and this is only going to make matters worse. If there isn't anything in there to expand the ranks of physicians in this country then I hope they'll come up with some incentives or open additional schools soon.

It is all peaches and cream...

From WSJ.com


And to Magg, I have read reports that many doctors will be leaving the field due to the passage of this bill. Many of those are probably idle threats but becoming a doctor has lost a lot of it's glamor now.

Where are those reports from doctors saying they are quitting their profession?

As one of the heads of my company I am privy to financial info that others are not. Currently we offer insurance to all employees who work average 32hrs/week over the previous 12wk period.

For a family of 4 enrolled in our #1 (read premium) plan, we as a company pay out $8926, the worker pays $265/2wk pay period or $6890/yr. Currently we have 187 people enrolled in the top tier plan so with this 40% excise tax it is going to cost us 12496.40 per employee or $667,664.8.

That $750 penalty per employee if we don't offer insurance is looking pretty fucking good right about now...Hell, even the 2k/employee is looking good compared to 12k.

How many other companies will look at it like this? A lot I am betting.

_________________

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

"1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)"

I keep seeing this point brought up in a lot of places and I an wondering do these people even understand the concept of insurance.

Insurance is not a discount card that gets you cheeper prices.

You pay when you don't need it so you have it when you do. Its sloser to a savings plan than a discount card.

I'm tired of people thinking its OK to go through their young and healthy years without insurance and then when the get older and less healthy pick up insurance. These people are the reason the group rate where i work is so crappy. They dont buy the insurance when they are yoound and healthy and then about 15 years later they enroll and use the hell out of it.

And as far as why WE the monetarily better off have to pay to help the WORKING POOR. Its simple. We as a sociey have taken advantage of them for so long we dont even realize it any longer. We assume its normal for a hardworking toliet scrubber to earn minium wage even though this is not enough to cover healthcare.

So there are two ways to fix this. Raise wages so that they can afford healthcare which will also raise prices, cause inflation, and throw the economy into chaos or we can raise taxes. Either way it will be money out of my pocket. Personally i prefer the less chaotic approach.

That says it really well.

There's a lot of people out there that your lifestyle really depends on, people who do pretty crappy - but tough nonetheless - jobs that most of us don't want to do...but someone has to.

Most of us probably never even notice those people. The toilets are just clean every day and no one asks questions. That is, until the toilet-scrubber breaks a leg and can't afford the bill. Then we notice...we notice long enough to call him a drain on society, a lazy bum, a leech, all sorts of things.



Isn't this already the case with a lot of things from insurance to some utilities? Many times if they want to jack up prices, it has to be approved? Just recently here in Florida, State Farm wanted to jack up insurance rates some obscene number and it was denied.

That's not a bad thing, by the way. Don't think for a second that health care and insurance companies wouldn't stomp all over your face if there were no regulations. Like someone said earlier, it's a unique market and they could just make the cost, "Everything you have and everything you can borrow." because you probably don't have a spending limit on staying alive.

Don't believe it? Watch what happens when banking regulations get removed. Oh wait, we did just watch that. =( Maybe people aren't aware of them all, but there's plenty of good regulations in place that are intended to keep businesses from stepping on your face, because they will do just that.

Not bothering to read all of the above, so shoot me.

But I thought I would stop by and say "hot damn"... I didn't think the Dems could do it. Thank goodness Harry Reid failed to derail the entire party.

I am stunned by just how good this bill is.

Fuck the Republicans who support RomneyCare, but dare to oppose this. If the Dems can get their shit together and market this correctly, they should hold onto a decent majority in 2010.

Wow, I am stunned by your lack of knowledge on how bad this bill is...

_________________

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

I am not stunned by your inability to distinguish fact from opinion.

Some good news for you.

I think your math may be a bit off there but it does not matter anyway because from what i have been looking up the the excise tax only applied to plans that cost over $10,200 for individuals and $23,000 for family plans. Your plan falls well below this level and even if it was over the excise tax does not apply to the price of the whole plan but only to that portion that goes over the limit.

You should be OK that is if you are still at the same company in 2018 when this all takes effect.

In other words, this plan just saved you $667,664.8!

Thanks for fixing my screw up with the quotes. Maybe next time I'll remember to preview.

Timeline of Major Provisions in the Democrats’ Health Care Package
2009
•2‐year tax credit (total cap of $1B) for new chronic disease therapy investments
•Medicare cuts to hospitals begin (long‐term care (7/1/09) and inpatient and
rehabilitation facilities (FY10))

2010
•States and Federal officials review premium increases
•FDA authorized to approve "follow‐on" biologics
•Increase brand name pharmaceutical Medicaid rebate (from 15.1% to 23.1%)
•Medicare payments to physicians in primarily rural areas increase (2 years)
•Deny "black liquor" eligibility for cellulosic biofuel producers credit
•Tax credits provided to certain small employers for health care‐related expenses
•Increase adoption tax incentives for 2 years
•Codify economic substance doctrine and impose penalties for underpayments
(transactions on/after 3/23/10)
•Provide income exclusion for specified Indian tribe health benefits provided after
3/23/10
•Temporary high‐risk pool and high‐cost union retiree reinsurance ($5 B each for 3.5
years) (6/23/10)
•Impose 10% tax on indoor UV tanning (7/1/10)
•Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals (7/1/10)
•Prohibits lifetime and annual benefit spending limits (plan years beginning 9/23/10)
•Prohibits non‐group plans from canceling coverage (rescissions) (plan years
beginning 9/23/10)
•Requires plans to cover, at no charge, most preventive care (plan years beginning
9/23/10)
•Allows dependents to stay on parents’ policies through age 26 (plan years
beginning 9/23/10)
•Provides limited protections to children with pre‐existing conditions (plan years
beginning 9/23/10)
•Hospitals in "Frontier States" (ND, MT, WY, SD, UT ) receive higher Medicare
payments (FY11)
•Hospitals in “low‐cost” areas receive higher Medicare payments for 2 yrs ($400
million, FY11)

2011
•Medicare Advantage cuts begin
•No longer allowed to use FSA, HSA, HRA, Archer MSA distributions for over‐thecounter
medicines
•Medicare cuts to home health begin
•Wealthier seniors ($85k/$170k) begin paying higher Part D premiums (not indexed
for inflation in Parts B/D)
•Medicare reimbursement cuts when seniors use diagnostic imaging like MRIs, CT
scans, etc.
•Medicare cuts begin to ambulance services, ASCs, diagnostic labs, and durable
medical equipment
•Impose new annual tax on brand name pharmaceutical companies
•Americans begin paying premiums for federal long‐term care insurance (CLASS Act)
•Health plans required to spend a minimum of 80% of premiums on medical claims
•Physicians in "Frontier States" (ND, MT, WY, SD, UT ) receive higher Medicare
payments
•Prohibition on Medicare payments to new physician‐owned hospitals
•Penalties for non‐qualified HSA and Archer MSA distributions double (to 20%)
•Seniors prohibited from purchasing power wheelchairs unless they first rent for 13
months
•Brand name drug companies begin providing 50% discount in the Part D “donut
hole”
•10% Medicare bonus payment for primary care and general surgery (5 years)
•Employers required to report value of health benefits on W‐2
•Steps towards health insurance administrative simplification (reduced paperwork,
etc) begins (5 yr process)
•Additional funding for community health centers (5 years)
•Seniors who hit Part D “donut hole "in 2010 receive $250 check (3/15/11)
•New Medicare cuts to long‐term care hospitals begin (7/1/11)
•Additional Medicare cuts to hospitals and cuts to nursing homes and inpatient
rehab facilities begin (FY12)
•New tax on all private health insurance policies to pay for comp. eff. research (plan
years beginning FY12)

2012
•Medicare cuts to dialysis treatment begins
•Require information reporting on payments to corporations
•Medicare to reduce spending by using an HMO‐like coordinated care model
(Accountable Care Organizations)
•Medicare Advantage plans with a 4 or 5 star rating receive a quality bonus payment
•New Medicare cuts to inpatient psych hospitals (7/1/12)
•Hospital pay‐for‐quality program begins (FY13)
•Medicare cuts to hospitals with high readmission rates begin (FY13)
•Medicare cuts to hospice begin (FY13)

2013
•Impose $2,500 annual cap on FSA contributions (indexed to CPI)
•Increase Medicare wage tax by 0.9% and impose a new 3.8% tax on unearned , nonactive
business income for those earning over $200k/$250k (not indexed to inflation)
•Generally increases (7.5% to 10%) threshold at which medical expenses, as a % of
income, can be deductible
•Eliminate deduction for Part D retiree drug subsidy employers receive
•Impose 2.3% excise tax on medical devices
•Medicare cuts to hospitals who treat low‐income seniors begin
•Post‐acute pay for quality reporting begins
•CO‐OP Program: Secretary awards loans and grants for establishing nonprofit health
insurers
•$500,000 deduction cap on compensation paid to insurance company employees and
officers
•Part D “donut hole” reduction begins, reaching a 25% reduction by 2020

2014
•Individuals without gov't‐approved coverage are subject to a tax of the greater of
$695 or 2.5% of income
•Employers who fail to offer "affordable" coverage would pay a $3,000 penalty for
every employee that receives a subsidy through the Exchange
•Employers who do not offer insurance must pay a tax penalty of $2,000 for every fulltime
employee
•More Medicare cuts to home health begin
•States must have established Exchanges
•Employers with more than 200 employees can auto‐enroll employees in health
coverage, with opt‐out
•All non‐grandfathered and Exchange health plans required to meet federallymandated
levels of coverage
•States must cover parents /childless adults up to 138% of poverty on Medicaid,
receive increased FMAP
•Tax credits available for Exchange‐based coverage, amount varies by income up to
400% of poverty
•Insurers cannot impose any coverage restrictions on pre‐existing conditions
(guaranteed issue/renewability)
•Modified community rating: individual or family coverage; geography; 3:1 ratio for
age; 1.5 :1 for smoking
•Insurers must offer coverage to anyone wanting a policy and every policy has to be
renewed
•Limits out‐of‐pocket cost‐sharing (tied to limits in HSAs, currently $5,950/$11,900
indexed to COLA)
•Insurance plans must include government‐defined "essential benefits " and coverage
levels
•OPM must offer at least two multi‐state plans in every state
•Employers can offer some employees free choice vouchers for health insurance in the
Exchange
•Government board (IPAB) begins submitting proposals to cut Medicare
•Impose tax on nearly all private health insurance plans
•Medicare payment cuts for hospital‐acquired infections begin (FY15)

2015
•More Medicare cuts to home health begin

2016
•States can form interstate insurance compacts if the coverage with HHS approval (2016)

2017
•Physician pay‐for‐quality program begins for all physicians
•States may allow large employers and multi‐employer health plans to purchase coverage
in the Exchange.
•States may apply to the Secretary for a limited waiver from certain federal requirements

2018
•Impose "Cadillac tax on “high cost” plans, 40% tax on the benefit value above a certain
threshold: ($10,200 individual coverage, $27,500 family or self‐only union multiemployer
coverage)

From the Ways & Means Committee

The Democrats' Health Bill Does What?!!?! Eleven Alarming Tax Issues

Washington, D.C., Mar 20 - 1. Creates a special deal for union members. Starting in 2018, a single union worker in a multiemployer health plan would be completely exempt from the “Cadillac tax” (a 40% tax on high-cost plans) unless the price of that plan exceeds $27,500. In contrast, a single, non-union worker living right next door would start paying that Cadillac tax as soon as the value of her health plan exceeds $10,200.

2. Makes a bad surtax worse. Twenty-two House Democrats opposed a surtax contained in an earlier version of the Democrats’ health care bill. That surtax would have started at a rate of 2% and would have applied to Americans earning over $280,000 for singles and $350,000 for couples. Under the current version of the bill, however, the Medicare surtaxes on both earned income (imposed at a rate of 0.9%) and investment income (imposed at a higher rate of 3.8%) feature far lower thresholds – $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples.

3. Increases taxes on real estate investments. The 3.8% Medicare surtax would hit average, middle-class investors in real estate. A middle-class taxpayer who happens to sell real estate for a significant gain in a particular year would be liable for this new tax, regardless of how low her income might be in other, more typical years. The National Association of Realtors wrote to Speaker Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Levin urging that Congress reject this unfair tax increase, especially given the flagging economy.

4. Vastly expands IRS powers. According to a new report, the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service and would strengthen the IRS’s heavy hand in dealing with ordinary taxpayers who play by the rules. If this bill becomes law, the IRS may have to hire up to 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employees just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties. The bill would empower the IRS to: (1) verify that Americans have “acceptable” health care coverage; (2) fine Americans up to $2,085 or 2 percent of income (whichever is greater) for the failure to purchase “minimum essential coverage”; (3) confiscate tax refunds; and (4) increase audits.

5. Imposes new marriage penalties. Because the Democrats’ subsidies for health insurance are solely based on the federal poverty level, if two people make $32,000 per year, they would pay between $6,000 and $10,000 more for health insurance than before they said “I do.” This is because as singles they were poor enough to receive health care subsidies, but as a married couple, these Americans are too rich for federal assistance. A discussion of how a prior version of the bill would have imposed these marriage penalties can be accessed here.

6. Breaks the President’s pledge on not taxing the middle class in at least a dozen ways. The Democrats’ health care bill contains at least a dozen direct and indirect tax increases that would break President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples. These include: (1) a “Cadillac tax” on high-cost plans, (2) an individual mandate tax on Americans who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, (3) an increase in the 7.5% AGI floor for medical expense deductions to 10%, (4) limits on Flexible Spending Accounts in cafeteria plans, (5) increased penalties for nonqualified HSA distributions, (6) other restrictions on Health Savings Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts, and Flexible Spending Accounts, (7) a tax on tanning services, (8) an employer mandate tax, (9) a sales tax on medical devices, (10) a tax on health insurance premiums, (11) a tax on prescription drugs, and (12) a tax on insured and self-insured health plans.

7. Ensnares a growing number of people in the Cadillac tax. The Cadillac tax in the Democrats’ health care bill would not keep pace with medical inflation after it comes into effect in 2018, meaning a larger and larger tax hit over time. Beginning in 2020, this tax would be indexed by only the consumer price index. Given that health insurance premiums will likely increase faster than CPI, the Cadillac tax would hit more and more plans each year and take a bigger bite from those already covered

8. Repeats the mistakes of the AMT. Instead of learning the lesson of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which hits more and more Americans every year because the exemption level is not indexed for inflation, the Democrats’ bill repeats this mistake by failing to index the exemption threshold for the Medicare surtaxes on both earned and unearned income.

9. Forces those with catastrophic costs to pay even more. Current law provides important tax relief to Americans who suffer catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenses, permitting a deduction for costs above 7.5% of income. The Democrats’ bill would raise that threshold to 10% of income in 2012 (2016 for seniors and the disabled). This is a particularly hard hit on those with the highest medical costs who can least afford to pay more taxes. And, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 95% of the revenue generated from this tax increase would come from taxpayers earning less than $200,000.

10. Punishes investment in our economy. Under the Democrats’ bill, the Medicare tax would, for the very first time, apply to capital gains, dividends, interest, rents, royalties, and other investment income of singles earning over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000. Currently, capital gains and dividends are taxed at a top rate of 15%, but those rates are already scheduled to rise in 2011 to 20% and 39.6%, respectively. When the expansion of the Medicare tax is coupled with the already scheduled rate increase, capital gains rates on these types of investment income, long-term capital gains rates would rise by almost 60% next year – from 15% to 23.8% – and the top tax rate on dividends would nearly triple – from 15% to 43.4%.

11. Robs Peter and leaves Paul broke. The Senate-passed Tax Extenders bill (H.R. 4213, as amended) includes one-year extensions of important tax relief policies for both individuals and businesses that expired on December 31, 2009. These include the deduction for state and local sales taxes, the R&D tax credit, and numerous energy-related incentives. Just weeks ago, the Senate decided to “pay for” those provisions by making “black liquor” ineligible for the cellulosic biofuel producer credit and by codifying the economic substance doctrine into law. Yet Democrats have now chosen to steal those very same revenue offsets – totaling $28.1 billion – to help finance their trillion dollar health bill instead. This begs the question: To the extent Democratic Leaders decide to adhere to PAYGO on Tax Extenders, what new taxes will they raise to replace all that lost revenue?

_________________

_____
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Some valid points, however:



Does anyone really give a shit about this? So they're going to tax people who think they need to be brown and damage their skin in doing so. Does that really bother people? I couldn't give a shit less.

1. Creates a special deal for union members. Starting in 2018, a single union worker in a multiemployer health plan would be completely exempt from the “Cadillac tax” (a 40% tax on high-cost plans) unless the price of that plan exceeds $27,500. In contrast, a single, non-union worker living right next door would start paying that Cadillac tax as soon as the value of her health plan exceeds $10,200.

Blatant pandering to the unions because to buy thier votes. Very unfair.

2. Makes a bad surtax worse. Twenty-two House Democrats opposed a surtax contained in an earlier version of the Democrats’ health care bill. That surtax would have started at a rate of 2% and would have applied to Americans earning over $280,000 for singles and $350,000 for couples. Under the current version of the bill, however, the Medicare surtaxes on both earned income (imposed at a rate of 0.9%) and investment income (imposed at a higher rate of 3.8%) feature far lower thresholds – $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples.

These levels seem acceptable to me given the scope I always figured would be needed for national health care. I don't like the idea of paying more, but at least it's a good cause.

3. Increases taxes on real estate investments. The 3.8% Medicare surtax would hit average, middle-class investors in real estate. A middle-class taxpayer who happens to sell real estate for a significant gain in a particular year would be liable for this new tax, regardless of how low her income might be in other, more typical years. The National Association of Realtors wrote to Speaker Pelosi and Ways and Means Chairman Levin urging that Congress reject this unfair tax increase, especially given the flagging economy.

There are too many middle class real estate investors. This is bad for the economy for several reasons and I don't mind taxing profits to discourage more of it.

4. Vastly expands IRS powers. According to a new report, the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service and would strengthen the IRS’s heavy hand in dealing with ordinary taxpayers who play by the rules. If this bill becomes law, the IRS may have to hire up to 16,500 additional auditors, agents, and other employees just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties. The bill would empower the IRS to: (1) verify that Americans have “acceptable” health care coverage; (2) fine Americans up to $2,085 or 2 percent of income (whichever is greater) for the failure to purchase “minimum essential coverage”; (3) confiscate tax refunds; and (4) increase audits.

This is exaggerated. People will need to be hired to enforce new laws the govern the entire country. Big surprise.

5. Imposes new marriage penalties. Because the Democrats’ subsidies for health insurance are solely based on the federal poverty level, if two people make $32,000 per year, they would pay between $6,000 and $10,000 more for health insurance than before they said “I do.” This is because as singles they were poor enough to receive health care subsidies, but as a married couple, these Americans are too rich for federal assistance. A discussion of how a prior version of the bill would have imposed these marriage penalties can be accessed here.

I am suprised this made it through. It makes no sense at all to punish or reward marriage (financially) imo.

6. Breaks the President’s pledge on not taxing the middle class in at least a dozen ways. The Democrats’ health care bill contains at least a dozen direct and indirect tax increases that would break President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples. These include: (1) a “Cadillac tax” on high-cost plans, (2) an individual mandate tax on Americans who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, (3) an increase in the 7.5% AGI floor for medical expense deductions to 10%, (4) limits on Flexible Spending Accounts in cafeteria plans, (5) increased penalties for nonqualified HSA distributions, (6) other restrictions on Health Savings Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts, and Flexible Spending Accounts, (7) a tax on tanning services, (8) an employer mandate tax, (9) a sales tax on medical devices, (10) a tax on health insurance premiums, (11) a tax on prescription drugs, and (12) a tax on insured and self-insured health plans.

More exaggerations.

7. Ensnares a growing number of people in the Cadillac tax. The Cadillac tax in the Democrats’ health care bill would not keep pace with medical inflation after it comes into effect in 2018, meaning a larger and larger tax hit over time. Beginning in 2020, this tax would be indexed by only the consumer price index. Given that health insurance premiums will likely increase faster than CPI, the Cadillac tax would hit more and more plans each year and take a bigger bite from those already covered

The idea to financially punish those that purchase the best health care doesn't make sense. The idea is to have everyone get (and be able to afford) health care, so why penalize those that are already doing what you want? It sounds like more "stick it to the bastard rich man" rhetoric that is so popular among Democrat politicians.

8. Repeats the mistakes of the AMT. Instead of learning the lesson of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which hits more and more Americans every year because the exemption level is not indexed for inflation, the Democrats’ bill repeats this mistake by failing to index the exemption threshold for the Medicare surtaxes on both earned and unearned income.

This could be adjusted as needed as the plan progressed. The danger here is not really that significant.

9. Forces those with catastrophic costs to pay even more. Current law provides important tax relief to Americans who suffer catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenses, permitting a deduction for costs above 7.5% of income. The Democrats’ bill would raise that threshold to 10% of income in 2012 (2016 for seniors and the disabled). This is a particularly hard hit on those with the highest medical costs who can least afford to pay more taxes. And, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 95% of the revenue generated from this tax increase would come from taxpayers earning less than $200,000.

This really isn't as bad as it sounds since a good portion of those with catastrophic medical expenses have them due to a lack of health care in the first place.

10. Punishes investment in our economy. Under the Democrats’ bill, the Medicare tax would, for the very first time, apply to capital gains, dividends, interest, rents, royalties, and other investment income of singles earning over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000. Currently, capital gains and dividends are taxed at a top rate of 15%, but those rates are already scheduled to rise in 2011 to 20% and 39.6%, respectively. When the expansion of the Medicare tax is coupled with the already scheduled rate increase, capital gains rates on these types of investment income, long-term capital gains rates would rise by almost 60% next year – from 15% to 23.8% – and the top tax rate on dividends would nearly triple – from 15% to 43.4%.

I could go on for hours about how taxing dividends is an unfair double tax and discourages average investors from being able to get the same tax advantages wealthy people have through trusts that can avoid many such taxes. To save you all the eye bleeding boredom of that rant, I will keep it to a simple, this whole change sucks.



All in all, it's not the worst thing ever and I agree that we as a country should have a medically insured populace. In order to facillitate that, it makes sense that the government is involved, but I don't like how it is being implemented, and I am sceptical of how it is being paid for. I agree with the notion that doing something that includes a bunch of things wrong is sometimes better than not doing anything at all though. It's the law of inertia, just getting the ball rolling is the hardest thing. I am hopeful that we can improve some of the issues I have with the plan in the future. I think the Republicans should have realized this was going to pass even without thier support and instead of taking an all or nothing opposition approach, they should have fought for more compromises. I think they would have been successful in getting some of the issues listed above changed, and the finished bill would have been better for the country with that input.

Yes.

Yup, too bad the closed sessions pissed too many of them off.

Yes because they were so on board on voting for healthcare reform before that. The dance the devil deals were to get the votes needed to pass. I don't like them anymore than you do, but claiming the repubs were all onboard before that is disingenuous. Sometimes I really wish the line item veto had stood the test of constitutionality.

Never claimed that they were all onboard, of course there would be debate. I will claim that if the process had actually moved as intended the bill would have done better than zero votes from the party. They were excluded from the process, so it's somewhat comical that they are then dinged for not having taken part in it.

I mean, c'mon. Having the conference room booked off the calendar and not sending out invites even as a courtesy? That's leadership worthy of an eight year-old.

http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2010/03/1 ... sman-says/

At the point of the conference committee table in January Republicans had already divorced themselves from the process.

Heck, during the Baucus bill committees, Enzi had pretty much stated the only reason he was working on the nonpartisan bill was to weaken it as much as possible before it was passed.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archiv ... 019650.php

If a group of people consistently say they won't vote for it, and that the only assistance they will provide is to weaken the bill, I'm glad the dem's took them at their word.

Or to put it another way... once you've framed the debate as "this bill will kill your Grandmother and cause Socialism and Communism" with your constituents, then from a voting standpoint, you really can't be seen as backpedaling and dealing with the grandma killers.

I think that's one of the points the conservative blogger was making in the post that was linked earlier. They came out firing with all this "death panel", "grandma killer" and "Soviet America" stuff right from the get-go and that didn't leave a lot of room for anything else once people embraced it.

Confused. First link says nothing about the conferences? That meeting was not the first to which they weren't invited. My point is they were divorced by January regardless.

Isn't it a stretch to interpret Enzi's comments as undermining the bill? Perhaps he was defending his position in the process, against those who were telling him to be removed from it? An article linked by that very editorial points that out.

I'm just wondering why, if the Repubs were sooooo willing to compromise and some even suggesting that they actually wanted to see universal healthcare... Why then was no serious healthcare legislation even considered in the years they had a majority in Congress?

Bearing that in mind, it seems like the suggestion is that the Democrats should've invited a rather large pack of hungry wolves into a conference room to discuss whether or not they should be the next meal. Again, the very concept of universal healthcare was opposed by almost all the Republicans before it was even close to elaborated on, let alone in bill form. They were only open to compromise at the very end when it seemed inevitable. With some of the dirty tactics they used here and in the past on other issues, why wouldn't the Democrats go behind closed doors? You have to fight fire with fire sometimes. It's not as if the Repubs didn't do the exact same thing during their early-mid 2000's reign, and before that.

Do you remember what happened during the Social Security reform battle? Why bother. It's similar to when Dems talk about security, we hope the intentions are good, but don't really trust what we'll end up after having they get their hands on it.. Vise Versa.


Perhaps if all talks went better we'd have both pieces of shit programs fixed rather then the piece of shit we're left with.


The idea of social anything is what kills the argument before the battle... Personally.. I have np with a socialized health care program, however... I would like to see a system that shrinks rather then grow, over time. It's my opinion this is going the opposite direction of what I feel would be ideal. It's my opinion that help should be given help to get people out of ruts, not make them feel more comfortable within them.

yea i fucked that all up... too many helps..

Amusing news about the health care bill this week.

First: "If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what". Well, yeah that's not true. As many as 66% of small business plans and 47% of large business plans are ineligible to be grandfathered in. (link)

Second, that the mandate IS in fact a tax, as Obama scolded people for categorizing it.
The administration is now classifying it as a tax in order to avoid legal challenges. Of course, this makes total sense, because anything you are REQUIRED to pay, no matter what, is a tax. (link)

Hope and same!

Since I believe this particular item is a good thing for us as a nation, I really don't care if it's a tax increase or not.

In fact, conservatives are going to have to face the fact that we ARE going to have tax increases, or we are going to have serious, severe cuts sometime in the next 30 years. We have bought today on the backs of our kids for too long, and it seems like it really is goign to come back and bite us in the ass soon.

How does increasing taxes take any burden off anyone's back? We are as a country spending far beyond our means.

Our problem is not that we aren't collecting enough tax money. We need to reign in waste, fraud, and abuse and just maybe spend sensibly. The alternative to that is the serious, severe cuts.

Do you have any idea at all what's happening in Europe right now, Fribur?

I think maybe you misunderstood me. "off the backs of our kids" was a reference to the severe deficits we've been running. We are paying for government today using our kid's money, is what I was trying to say. It will all have to be paid back eventually.



Waste, fraud, and abuse don't account for the entire deficit. We expect huge amounts of services from our government without having to pay for it. This cannot continue, and it's not just "waste, fraud, and abuse" keeping us from balancing the budget.

Do you have any idea at all what's happening in Europe right now, Fribur?

You already posted that. I'm not going to respond to you when you're being a dumbass.

In 10 years, I've never put a block or ignore on anyone on these boards. It's crazy, but you are the first one that I am seriously considering.

You're posting about the need to increase taxes to pay the price for our spending.. but you're ignoring what is happening in Europe - specifically Greece and Spain, to name a few. The answer to your question is right there. You can't just increase taxes, you have to cut spending. Despite what some think, deficits actually do matter.

And asking Americans to pay more in taxes when we're spending at record levels, with no improvements as a result, is short sighted.

You talk about Keynesian economics and yet you ignore the result it has had in Europe, and the fact that the G20 has now stopped recommending increase spending into a deficit as a form of stimulus. The results are in and you're too blind to even research before you post your point about increasing spending.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You and others who supported the stimulus talking about increasing taxes is like a drug user telling someone who's clean that it's time for everyone to pay the price for YOUR drug addiction.

I never said "just" to increase taxes. Your entire post assumes that I am against cutting spending, which I never stated.

What do you propose cutting?

Here you go. Hot off the press:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100619/bs_ ... g20_merkel

here you go what?