Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
At the time the last official stats went down on coverage/lack of coverage, the percentage of Americans with employer-provided health coverage was 59% and going down quickly. That 59% statistic was from 2006, the most recent stats available, and coverage was diminishing by about 9 million Americans each year, so it's lower now.
From nchc.org

The increase in the number of uninsured in 2006 was focused among working age adults. The percentage of working adults (18 to 64) who had no health coverage climbed from 19.7 percent in 2005 to 20.2 percent in 2006. I

n comparison in 1987; since you didn't mention it, the uninsured was at 15.6%. I have this in a pdf file. I can try to find a link for it if you want to confirm this. A rise of less than 6% in 20 years.

An 11% drop between 1987 and 2007 of people with employer provided insurance and a 6% rise in confirmed uninsured Americans is not much for a 20 year span. This would indicate to me that there is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed; not the socialization of our health care system.








Those of us who do have employer-subsidized coverage, which isn't necessarily "blanket coverage" by any means in all circumstances, are increasingly shouldering a higher burden of that premium expense each year, as we are also shouldering more of the medical expenses themselves. To the tune of about 10 - 15% per year. About half of the uninsured population reside in households that earn more than $50,000 or more per year. So the "they-can-afford-their-own-coverage" argument doesn't hold water with health insurance expenses and medical expenses what they are. They cannot. Children, sadly, are vastly over-represented among the uninsured population. These stats apply to native or naturalized U.S. citizens, by the way, not to illegal immigrants (another common argument used against national health care).
I'm not sure if you're talking specifically to me or just in general but I've never said it was ok. I never said "they can afford it" as if I'm so callous; I fall in the middle class like most of America, but I don't agree with the socialization of our health care system.

You also failed to point out that Obama's tax plan isn't going to raise taxes for middle-class or low-income Americans. It's going to raise taxes on the wealthy and on large corporations, two groups who've had HUGE tax breaks under the Bush administration and will continue to receive such breaks under the McCain plan. This is one of the things that never fails to amaze me more than anything else--how anyone who falls into the low- or middle-income groups could ever think of voting Republican from a fiscal perspective.
How do you think this will effect the middle class? Think about this, Obama wants to increase the income tax to provide everyone insurance. Let's assume there's a pay hike.. we'll make it a signifigant amount like a 15% increase; it would have to be signifigant to provide healthcare for 300 million Americans.

Sure you can factor in the super rich which is about 0.7 percent (yes ZERO point SEVEN percent), and you can factor in the rich; which I can't find a figure but we'll say 10% and I feel I'm being generous here.

Do you think 10.7% of Americans with money are going to be able to support the remaining 89.3% of Americans and the cost it will take to maintain their health. Especially considering that the majority of our government officials will fall into the "Rich" category? In reality that's not that much money.

Insurance/Healthcare is a calculated risk business. If everyone is insured the the risk goes up dramatically. Do you honestly think insurance companies will be able to stay in business at a 15% tax increase on 10.7% of the population? Do you think the hospitals are going to be able to lower their operating costs? Things cost money. There is a reason why other governments with socialized health care has tax upward of 50%. Healthcare is expensive, even if you do regulate the insurance companies and regulate the hospitals and the doctors. Healthcare is still expensive.

How do you think this will Impact the doctors? How do you think they'll react. Being accustomed to getting paid well, and rightly so, for what they do.

Any different way I look at this plan I see it just setup to fail.

Think logically.. how is this plan going to work with the income tax increase he suggests... and let's assume he does get it passed somehow. Now we're paying 15% more income tax increase to go to overcrowded hospitals (if everyone has insurance then ALOT more people are going to go for even the most MINOR of problems.) where you're not sure if you're going to be seen in a timely manner if you have a legitimate issue. Doctor's pay would have to drop dramatically, staffing cut because hospitals simply can't operate on the cost of 15% tax increase on whatever 10.7% of the rich provide.

There is electricital costs, insurance costs for both the hospital and the doctors, there is payroll for all the staff of the hospital, stock for the hospital ie: needles, sheets, scrubs etc etc, maintenance and purchasing of new medical equipment, providing meals for patients etc etc. I don't know the in's and outs of a hospital but i know it is an expensive business to run.

Let's factor in getting the money from Large corporations. How do you think this will effect the middle class? Now these corporations are getting heavily taxed. They are naturally going to want to protect their profits and revenue. Less people = less money paid by payroll and less people that they have to be taxed on for this universal healthcare system. Really it's a win/win situation for them. Yes let's create the conditions to breed a unemployment rate increase. :thumbsup:

This isn't throw-away money, by the way. Not for legal due process for foreigners who're not even convicted criminals or for health care for our citizens. It's for human lives. Iraqi war money could more accurately be described as throw-away money considering the justification the war was based upon. You can characterize it as such, but it is not.
You have to admit that there are a number of people there, a signifigant number of people who are there for crimes they genuinely did commit. Should we pay for their trial? Should we allow them to drag it on and on. It is throw away money. Also if you've read any of my posts you would realize that I've never been in support for GOING to Iraq. So there is no argument on the us just throwing away money by us going to Iraq. If you were hoping to stupify me by hoping I would realize the Irony then you've failed here. I've never supported the United States going to Iraq and can agree that it's "throw-away money" as you've termed it.


Our taxes, by the way, are hugely affected by this war. We all pay an average of about $200 per month the support this war (some of us a lot more than that). If we can pay $250 million a day to support this war, then we can darn well find a way to cover our citizens with health care. That day is coming, too. Mark my words.
Domestic Economy in general is effected by foreign Policy. This is pretty obvious and I'm surprised you brought it up; but there are people who are unaware of this fact so I guess it's good information to have in this thread regardless. Again I've never supported the United States going to war in Iraq; but there is a need for us to remain there. I've used it as an example several times but look at Afghanistan/Russia... more specifically the formation of the Taliban in Afghanistan and how the country fell after Russia removed their presence. Very similar situations and we would just be creating oppurtunity for extremists who HAVE voiced their hatred towards us to overtake a vulnerable country. If that happens then everything we've done there, the money wasted, the lives lost, everything would have been for nothing. So even though I did not want to go to war, I will GLADLY pay that $200 a month to ensure that country is safe after we went in there and created a mess. I will gladly pay that fee to ensure we don't create yet another Hostile enviorment like with Russia and Afghanistan or even like with the US/Iran during the Carter administration. I'm half Iranian and I'm saying this :wtf:


The sad truth is, according to the office of the United States Comptroller of Currency (The UCC at the Dept of Treasury, our chief accountants, basically), we really can't afford what we're doing now, from supporting this war to funding the VA and social security and Medicare/Medicaid, which, compared to Defense, are comparatively small expenses, without higher taxes. We're already on a trajectory of fiscal disaster, and neither party wants to honestly acknowledge that. The truth is taxes are going to have to go up under any circumstances, even McCain's. They can either go up so that wealthier people and corporations pay more, or they can go up on middle- and low-income folks.
This I cannot argue with because I whole heartedly agree with you here. It's sad but pretty much true. The only thing is that as weird and backwards as it sounds; even if you tax the corporations and rich the middle class are still going to be the people that suffer. It's a snowball effect.

This thread really has diverged into another topic, but I wanted to go on the record with those facts about insurance/lack of insurance since you were using that as an argument against due process for Guantanamo "combatants" and Obama.
I actually thank you. I don't want to be the source of misinformation. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.