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Necros wrote:No announcement about benefits where I work, but my desk is 10 feet from the owners office, and he's been having a lot of closed-door meetings since the day the bill was signed, and he generally seems to be in a much pissier mood than normal.. He's always pissy, but now even more so than usual...

Could be an unrelated piece of legislation causing him grief, like the passage of the act to name a post office the "Roy Wilsons Post Office," probably in reference to one of several famous who bear that name.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d111:6:./temp/~bss59jM::

Relapse wrote:It almost seems like you're saying: Our food and buildings, brought to you by conservatives. People taking the the money laborors earned from working on farms and buildings to support those who don't or won't work, brought to you by liberals.

Oh it seems like I'm saying that?

....How?

They just sent out an office email just now. Seems to be no change other than our provider jacked up prices by 15% because they're crooks and they can, but my company is gonna cover 12% of the increase.

No, but then again I have had national health care since I was born. So the system had worked out all the kinks before I was born.

Most likely there will be some large hurtles ahead and lots of confusing situtations for the US, but in time (given a decent gov't) the problems get handled and you are back to an every day life with worry free coverage (from the point of view of not having enough money for X medical situation) exccept when you are traveling. I still have health insurance through my work benefits simply to cover me if I get in an accident in a foreign country.

Best of luck to you all. Once this is setup it will be one less reason to flee to our country (although I'm sure some of you will still be dodging drafts every now and then).

Edit: I'm Canadian sometimes my flag on this forum says otherwise.

Mad Rabbit wrote:

Relapse wrote:As long as the Dems are dipping everyone's hand into my pocket to pay for their health care

Yeah, why should we spend our valuable money to save the lives of other human beings?

See... it's statements like this that perfectly illustrate the progressive mindset. Take this quote:

"Why shouldn't we spend money on <food, clothes, health care, cell phones, housing, whatever> to provide for those that need?"

It assumes that the resources of the entire country belong to everyone and that some bum on the corner has as much right to my money and possessions as I do. The argument is stacked from the onset. They try to make it a moral judgment on the person who wants to retain the fruits of their labor. Well my relatively moralistic friend, there's another moral or two in play here that you are ignoring: theft is wrong. Sloth is wrong.

I have a right to keep the rewards of my labor just as much as you have a right to yours. Just because I may have amassed more than you doesn't give you the right to some of mine.

Besides, all you atheistic feths that believe in Darwinism WANT poor people to die. Isn't that survival of the fittest? And if you are so concerned with overcrowding and global warming wouldn't a few less people help those causes? Why in the hell would we want to take away from the most productive members of society by artificially keeping alive those that would otherwise not live as long?

So the Health Care bill is really running contrary to Darwin, natural selection, and morality. It's vote buying and power grabbing at it's most basic. This has nothing to do with Health Care. It's securing PresBO a place in the history books and vote whoring.

Strimen wrote:No, but then again I have had national health care since I was born. So the system had worked out all the kinks before I was born.

Most likely there will be some large hurtles ahead and lots of confusing situtations for the US, but in time (given a decent gov't) the problems get handled and you are back to an every day life with worry free coverage (from the point of view of not having enough money for X medical situation) exccept when you are traveling. I still have health insurance through my work benefits simply to cover me if I get in an accident in a foreign country.

Best of luck to you all. Once this is setup it will be one less reason to flee to our country (although I'm sure some of you will still be dodging drafts every now and then).

Edit: I'm Canadian sometimes my flag on this forum says otherwise.

Funny though all the Canadians I know hate the Canadian healthcare system. But they are older and have to deal with it more, especially in comparison to us US counterparts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You Vill Veport You Status Citizen!

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Tax/health-reform-law-expanded-irs-threat-taxpayers/story?id=10238411

Health Reform Law to Spawn More Tax Men?
IRS Says It Needs More 'Resources' to Implement Tax Provisions of New Law

12 comments By DEVIN DWYER
March 30, 2010
PrintRSSFont Size: Share:EmailTwitterFacebookMoreFarkTechnoratiGoogleLiveMy SpaceNewsvineBuzzDeliciousMixxYahoo
Ask critics of the Democrats' health care overhaul about the law's impact, and among the "horrors" they may describe is an army of Internal Revenue Service agents with "dangerously expanded authority."

Treasury officials claim that there have been about 900 threats in recent years.Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee warn that as many as 16,500 new IRS auditors and investigators -- or 17 percent of the agency's current work force -- could be needed to administer and enforce new health insurance rules under the law.

That could mean more audits, confiscated refunds and incursions into details of individuals' health insurance plans -- all at a cost of up to $10 billion over 10 years, they said in a report published last week.

Related
WATCH: The Best Online Tax Prep ServicesWATCH: 5 Best Free Tax ToolsWATCH: Struggling to Pay Uncle Sam"When most people think of health care reform, they think of more doctor exams, not more IRS exams," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, ranking member on the House Joint Economic Committee. "Isn't the federal government already intruding enough into our lives?"

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act authorizes the IRS, the agency that collects taxes and enforces internal revenue laws in the U.S., to collect penalties imposed on individuals for not having health insurance, and on companies for not offering it when the mandates take effect in 2014.

But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said taxpayers have nothing to fear.

"I think there have been some misconceptions out there," Shulman told a House committee last week, insisting the new law will not fundamentally alter the relationship between the agency and taxpayers.

Shulman said the new health care law puts the onus on taxpayers to report their insurance coverage on tax forms much as they report income and interest earnings.

"All that will happen with the IRS is similar to a current 1099, where a bank sends the IRS a statement that says 'here's the interest' someone owes, and they send it to the taxpayer," he said. "We expect to get a simple form that ... says this person has acceptable health coverage."

He said the Department of Health and Human Services will set guidelines for what constitutes "acceptable" health coverage. .

But just how the mandate will be enforced if a taxpayer doesn't report coverage -- or reports unacceptable coverage -- is unclear. Details of how the provision will work -- and IRS's role in how it will work, are still being determined.

Relapse wrote:It almost seems like you're saying: Our food and buildings, brought to you by conservatives. People taking the the money laborors earned from working on farms and buildings to support those who don't or won't work, brought to you by liberals.

It might seem like that, if one was completely ignorant as to which states in the union are net payers and which are net recipients. As a hint, the states coloured red at election time are almost universally recipients, and the big blue states are the payers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Green Git wrote:See... it's statements like this that perfectly illustrate the progressive mindset. Take this quote:

"Why shouldn't we spend money on <food, clothes, health care, cell phones, housing, whatever> to provide for those that need?"

It assumes that the resources of the entire country belong to everyone and that some bum on the corner has as much right to my money and possessions as I do. The argument is stacked from the onset. They try to make it a moral judgment on the person who wants to retain the fruits of their labor.

Actually, the stacked argument is yours, as you've started with the myth that an individual's paycheck is entirely the result of his own labour and nothing else. It's a big and badly flawed assumption that just about guarantees that anyone arguing anything from that starting point will be wrong. Thing is, the value of an individual's labour is based not just on his own skills and hard work, but on the capital stock built up in the economy, and more fundamentally on the property, contract and coporation laws written and enforced by government. It's why a hardworking dude in China gets about a tenth of the income of a hardworking dude in the US - the society he is working in makes a big difference.

It makes no sense to take part in that system, benefit from the countless laws and regulations, and from the systems supported or built by government, and then when your paycheck is received and you come to pay tax you cry foul - that suddenly now government has intruded.

Well my relatively moralistic friend, there's another moral or two in play here that you are ignoring: theft is wrong. Sloth is wrong.

Progressivism, Liberalism or whatever other tribal identifier you're trying to assign to the other side doesn't automatically correlate with moral relativism. If you're going to form decent opinions you're going to have stop presuming that anyone involved in the debate is anything like the strawmen Beck and Limbaugh pretend they are.

I have a right to keep the rewards of my labor just as much as you have a right to yours. Just because I may have amassed more than you doesn't give you the right to some of mine.

Continuing from my first point above, the income of the businessman is tied to the same system as the income of the janitor. The system we've built rewards the businessman more because rewarding additional effort and skill is efficient, but there's nothing saying that the income the businessman draws from the system is inherently all his with no further say from society at large. The laws of progressive taxation come from the same source as the property and contract laws that allow the businessman his income in the first place. It simply makes no sense to embrace the results of the latter while declaring the former wrong.

Besides, all you atheistic feths that believe in Darwinism WANT poor people to die. Isn't that survival of the fittest? And if you are so concerned with overcrowding and global warming wouldn't a few less people help those causes? Why in the hell would we want to take away from the most productive members of society by artificially keeping alive those that would otherwise not live as long?

You're confusing Darwinism (a scientific theory that the creatures most capable of reproducing will flourish, and so mutations that increase the chance of successful reproduction will become more common in a species over time, eventually leading to speciation) with Social Darwinism (the political argument that those that can't support themselves should be left to die, leaving only Randian superheroes). The former is science, the latter is pseudo-political theory, mostly used to justify letting other people live in misery. They're very different things, and one can believe one and not the other, especially considering acceptance of the former is based on acceptance of the scientific method and acceptance of the latter is based on being an amoral jackhole.

I don't know whether you got carried away in your argument or if you really don't know the difference, but it's a really poor error to confuse the two ideas. It is simply a mistake that shouldn't be made and is, like your assigning of moral relativism to progressives, a sign you see political debate as tribal thing rather than, you know, discussion based on fact and reason.

Swearing is against the rules, by the way. Perhaps more importantly, it shows you've taken a very antagonistic approach for your first post in the thread. If you want to be listened to, and more importantly if you want to develop your understanding of the political dialogue, I'd recommend coming into threads from a more moderated position.

Nurglitch wrote:Yeah, soon your country will be on par with 3rd world hellholes, like Sweden and Canada...

Frazzled wrote:
Funny though all the Canadians I know hate the Canadian healthcare system. But they are older and have to deal with it more, especially in comparison to us US counterparts.

That may be true and you are right I am not old and don't have to deal with it often. When I do I just simply hand them my card and walk away, transaction complete.

It works for me, but their are many ways to do similar things. On paid per play basis I could be saving money at the moment, but like all inhsurances the companies that run them are their to make money not help you. And so medical insurance, run by the gov't, is slightly better as I see it because at least in canada they rip us off less than corporations.

Funny though all the Canadians I know hate the Canadian healthcare system. But they are older and have to deal with it more, especially in comparison to us US counterparts.

I have never met a canadian that didn't think their system was superior. I also live in the middle of Maine, which is basically canada. That said, I don't hang out with canadians often. By contrast I have never met an American that didn't hate the American healthcare system.

Strimen wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Funny though all the Canadians I know hate the Canadian healthcare system. But they are older and have to deal with it more, especially in comparison to us US counterparts.

That may be true and you are right I am not old and don't have to deal with it often. When I do I just simply hand them my card and walk away, transaction complete.

It works for me, but their are many ways to do similar things. On paid per play basis I could be saving money at the moment, but like all inhsurances the companies that run them are their to make money not help you. And so medical insurance, run by the gov't, is slightly better as I see it because at least in canada they rip us off less than corporations.

how do you know? You're making a statement without proof one way or the other.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShumaGorath wrote:

Funny though all the Canadians I know hate the Canadian healthcare system. But they are older and have to deal with it more, especially in comparison to us US counterparts.

I have never met a canadian that didn't think their system was superior. I also live in the middle of Maine, which is basically canada. That said, I don't hang out with canadians often. By contrast I have never met an American that didn't hate the American healthcare system.

You should get out more.

Here in the UK we have both systems and I or close family members have been treated under both.

Advantage of private: Quicker treatment (except emergencies). Get any treatment you want including more expensive drugs.

Advantage of NHS: Free. (Dentistry excepted.)

You should get out more.

You should stop hanging out with the elderly. All old people hate all healthcare systems. It's part of being old.

ShumaGorath wrote:

You should get out more.

You should stop hanging out with the elderly. All old people hate everything. It's part of being old.

Corrected your typo.

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

You should get out more.

You should stop hanging out with the elderly. All old people hate everything. It's part of being old.

Corrected your typo.

No, they like Matlock.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

You should get out more.

You should stop hanging out with the elderly. All old people hate everything. It's part of being old.

Corrected your typo.

No, they like Matlock.

As well they should,indeed all Americans..and perhaps even the world,could benifit from the wisdom of the great Andy Griffith.

And grandchildren.

sebster wrote:
... as you've started with the myth that an individual's paycheck is entirely the result of his own labour and nothing else. <much typed diarrhea snipped>

The sheer ignorance of that statement left me unable to read farther. If I work, I get paid. If I don't work, I get nothing. Or at least without the divine hand of big government stepping in that's the way it would work.

Look, you can couch your argument in psychobabble all you want but you think it's OK to take possessions from a person by force of law and give to another who did nothing to earn it. That's immoral. It's called theft. It may be legalized theft, but it's theft nonetheless. Charity is not forced, it's derived by faith.

At the end of the day the Obama administration is enabling the largest entitlement program in the history of the United States, and they are doing it to placate their leftist base. You can't argue that.

The Green Git wrote:
It assumes that the resources of the entire country belong to everyone and that some bum on the corner has as much right to my money and possessions as I do.

No, no it doesn't. It assumes, at a minimum, that the state is obliged to utilize funds derived from taxation to offer a social safety net. That is not a claim to communal possession.

The Green Git wrote:
The argument is stacked from the onset. They try to make it a moral judgment on the person who wants to retain the fruits of their labor. Well my relatively moralistic friend, there's another moral or two in play here that you are ignoring: theft is wrong. Sloth is wrong.

Both are wrong by definition, but determining where each term can be applied for best effect is a far more complicated manner. You may think you're digging into the hidden truth of what was a criminally oblique statement, but you aren't. You're simply making one lazy, oblique argument to counter another lazy, oblique argument.

The Green Git wrote:
I have a right to keep the rewards of my labor just as much as you have a right to yours. Just because I may have amassed more than you doesn't give you the right to some of mine.

Of course, he isn't taking anything from you. The state is taking it from you, and giving it to him.

The Green Git wrote:
So the Health Care bill is really running contrary to Darwin, natural selection, and morality.

Wait, so Darwin was against healthcare reform? Is this like one of those "Jesus was a socialist!" arguments?

Either way, natural selection is distinct from Social Darwinism, which is actually what you're referencing. You should remember that the number of children in a given family correlates negatively with the level of income in the same family. Natural selection is all about birth rates, not the age of death.

Also, morality isn't a single thing. Even if you believe in an objective moral system, you must recognize that there is a large amount of variation across the whole of the discipline.

The sheer ignorance of that statement left me unable to read farther. If I work, I get paid. If I don't work, I get nothing. Or at least without the divine hand of big government stepping in that's the way it would work.

You know, laws set and enforced by the government are one of the nice things keeping me from shooting you with a tranq dart and having you makes shoes for me shackled to a metal ring in my back yard as a slave. Not that you could make a very good shoe. Freedom and compensation for work is not the natural state of things. The concept of recompense for labor is modern.

Look, you can couch your argument in psychobabble all you want but you think it's OK to take possessions from a person by force of law and give to another who did nothing to earn it. That's immoral. It's called theft. It may be legalized theft, but it's theft nonetheless. Charity is not forced, it's derived by faith.

At the end of the day the Obama administration is enabling the largest entitlement program in the history of the United States, and they are doing it to placate their leftist base. You can't argue that.

Largest by volume or by percentage of gdp?

The Green Git wrote:
The sheer ignorance of that statement left me unable to read farther. If I work, I get paid. If I don't work, I get nothing. Or at least without the divine hand of big government stepping in that's the way it would work.

So I take it you created all those job opportunities for yourself?

The Green Git wrote:
Look, you can couch your argument in psychobabble all you want but you think it's OK to take possessions from a person by force of law and give to another who did nothing to earn it. That's immoral. It's called theft. It may be legalized theft, but it's theft nonetheless.

No, its called taxation. There's no such thing as legalized theft, by definition. You're equivocating.

The Green Git wrote:
Charity is not forced, it's derived by faith.

Sometimes. It could also be derived from guilt, duty, honor, morality, or any number of other possibilities.

But Obama said that this bill would make healthcare cheaper...

Key in at 1.14 for it.

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:It almost seems like you're saying: Our food and buildings, brought to you by conservatives. People taking the the money laborors earned from working on farms and buildings to support those who don't or won't work, brought to you by liberals.

Oh it seems like I'm saying that?

....How?

By saying that John Deere and Catipillar cater to conservatives, then answering my comment that your remark was a bit strange with:

"You're kidding right? Agriculture especially is about the most conservative market there is. Hence why you find most places with a large agriculture sector are conservative/republican strongholds."

Relapse wrote:

whatwhat wrote:

Relapse wrote:It almost seems like you're saying: Our food and buildings, brought to you by conservatives. People taking the the money laborors earned from working on farms and buildings to support those who don't or won't work, brought to you by liberals.

Oh it seems like I'm saying that?

....How?

By saying that John Deere and Catipillar cater to conservatives, then answering my comment that your remark was a bit strange with:

"You're kidding right? Agriculture especially is about the most conservative market there is. Hence why you find most places with a large agriculture sector are conservative/republican strongholds."

But if CAT gives considerable amounts to conservative campaigns and lobbies, while most of its employees are foreign, while it operates in virtually every country on the planet, and at a revenue considerably in excess of the "hundred mil" this would cost them why does it have to be some sort of philosophical statement to say that they are a conservative company? By campaign and lobbying contributions alone you could easily draw the conclusion that they "cater to conservatives" though more accurately you could say that "conservatives cater to CAT". In which case, again, does this little healthcare issue not seem like smoke and mirrors to you? It would appear rather visibly to be a short term method of recouping losses suffered in the crash by doing something far less obvious than cutting wages or jobs. They have a scapegoat (the health bill) and are using it to cost cut by removing employee benefits. Something that in a vacuum they would have received considerable bad press about. At least in CATs case this is clearly a bottom line business decision taken because of the opportunity to place blame away from themselves (as opposed to cutting benefits then spending 150 million on pro CAT image adverts internationally).

lord_sutekh wrote:Even if their ability to pay for healthcare WAS going to be affected, eventually, by the bill... it wouldn't be yet, and there's no reason why coverage would be dropped NOW. It's a dodge, pure and simple. Too many companies are going with the "this will cost too much" idea (because at heart they don't WANT to give benefits to employees when it's much easier and cheaper to hire someone new if a worker gets sick) and ignoring the "my bargaining power just increased by at least double since I represent so many more potential customers; let's get a cheaper price for the same thing" idea... because, you know, workers are expendable.

A lot of businesses have temp employees as well as full time employees in large part because of the way the economy has been going. The reason for this is to help save costs and keep the business profitable while buying is at a low cycle. Since everyone has to be insured equally, expenses shoot up. The only viable option for a lot of businesses that are operating close to losing or losing money is to drop insurance altogether. This leaves a lot of employees that have tight family budgets to begin with in a very bad place as far as finances go.
When taxes go up to cover health insurance, these families could be worse off than ever.

Relapse wrote:

lord_sutekh wrote:Even if their ability to pay for healthcare WAS going to be affected, eventually, by the bill... it wouldn't be yet, and there's no reason why coverage would be dropped NOW. It's a dodge, pure and simple. Too many companies are going with the "this will cost too much" idea (because at heart they don't WANT to give benefits to employees when it's much easier and cheaper to hire someone new if a worker gets sick) and ignoring the "my bargaining power just increased by at least double since I represent so many more potential customers; let's get a cheaper price for the same thing" idea... because, you know, workers are expendable.

A lot of businesses have temp employees as well as full time employees in large part because of the way the economy has been going. The reason for this is to help save costs and keep the business profitable while buying is at a low cycle. Since everyone has to be insured equally, expenses shoot up. The only viable option for a lot of businesses that are operating close to losing or losing money is to drop insurance altogether. This leaves a lot of employees that have tight family budgets to begin with in a very bad place as far as finances go.
When taxes go up to cover health insurance, these families could be worse off than ever.

Yep, thats certainly a possible scenario. Another scenario is that those same temp workers that had no insurance now will, and that the people who no longer have what was likely god-awful inefficient and utterly useless company care can then take the money they were spending on it and invest in private insurance that will likely be as cheap and as useless in the private market. Something that didn't really work before because the insurance rackets had no reason to be competitive or affordable. it's a two way street and business insurance almost by design is gakky, expensive for the company, inefficient, and in the macro sense bad for the U.S. economy. The bill will either charge companies for not providing insurance (something they would have cut anyway if they're cutting it now, before anything even takes effect) or they will get insurance cheaper in the more streamlined and competitive insurance markets that they can. You're seeing nothing but the short term of a bill that hasn't even been put into effect yet. Thats little different than seeing the needle about to enter your arm and cringing reflexively. The needles gonna hurt, but you were dying before so no one cares.

Nurglitch wrote:Yeah, soon your country will be on par with 3rd world hellholes, like Sweden and Canada...

Let's check tax rates, shall we?

http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_201185_41498313_1_1_1_1,00.html

The Canadians I know tell me that they have to pay more taxes than we do in the states, and there can be hours long waits in the clinics there.

The Canadians I know tell me that they have to pay more taxes than we do in the states, and there can be hours long waits in the clinics there.

Good thing instead of taxes you pay ridiculous insurance premiums and then get charged several hundred thousand dollars in the event of an actual debilitating health issue! it would suck to have to actually schedule something because people are getting preventative care before you! You know why there are no lines in American hospitals? No one goes to see their damn doctor for fear of the bill.

Relapse wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Yeah, soon your country will be on par with 3rd world hellholes, like Sweden and Canada...

Let's check tax rates, shall we?

http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_201185_41498313_1_1_1_1,00.html

The funny thing about those tax rates are that they ignore a whole boatload of realiites. So lets take a bit of a reality check here

Canada Basic income tax rate
* 15% on the first $40,970 of taxable income, +
* 22% on the next $40,971 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income between $40,970 and $81,941), +
* 26% on the next $45,080 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income between $81,941 and $127,021), +
* 29% of taxable income over $127,021.

US Basic tax rate
married/filing jointly single
10% Not over $16,750 Not over $8,375
15% $16,750 – $68,000 $8,375 – $34,000
25% $68,000 – $137,300 $34,000 – $82,400
28% $137,300 – $209,250 $82,400 – $171,850
33% $209,250 – $373,650 $171,850 – $373,650
35% Over $373,650 Over $373,650

So Federal taxes are Identical, if not slightly favouring those of us in Canuckistan.
Now we do have provincial taxes but they vary a fair bit (but so do yours), they tend to work out to about 10%. It appears to vary dramatically on a state by state basis in the US.

The Green Git wrote:
Look, you can couch your argument in psychobabble all you want but you think it's OK to take possessions from a person by force of law and give to another who did nothing to earn it. That's immoral. It's called theft. It may be legalized theft, but it's theft nonetheless. Charity is not forced, it's derived by faith.

I sincerely hope that you aren't a Christian. I don't see how a follower of the man who told you that to be righteous, you should sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. The hypocrisy of Christians opposing universal healthcare is almost laughable.

If this is theft, then allowing the poor and the homeless to die without healthcare that you can provide cheaply is murder, isn't it? And those taxes that pay for roads, bridges, firemen, cops and everything else are theft too.

But no, you're right. feth the poor.