A (Mostly) Meaningless Post on Health Care

I'm not going to spend my day (0.00 / 0)

beating up on you Matt, but here's the correct URL to Yglesias' Healthtopia article.

FWIW, if you're going to advocate a mandated HSA with a 15% payroll infusion, you might as well just take a look at the whole entitlement buffet, and rework it, instead of going at it ala carte. Republicans love HSAs--especially when you can invest them in the stock market and mutual funds.

---

by: JC @ Sat Jul 18, 2009 at 20:27:39 PM UTC

I like the feedback Yglesia get's. That's rich. (0.00 / 0)

---

by: Steve W. @ Sat Jul 18, 2009 at 23:18:49 PM UTC

HSA'a (4.00 / 1)

are NOT the way to go here...first of all they are not cheap, especially for someone earning less than $40,000 per year...and second, they make money for those that administrate the plan, and do nothing to lower health care costs...

Look, I hear a lot of people ask how we'll pay for a universal, comprehensive, quality health care plan that is cost effective...and I remind them that the George Bush/Max Baucus tax cuts took $1.5 trillion off the table...

So lets be real here...you can NOT fight two wars, have health care for everyone, and run government, with a high end marginal tax rate of 35%...it just won't pencil out.

We would be far better off if we get over this notion that taxes are bad, evil, and growth killing...

If you can remember back to Reagan days...and Matt, I doubt you were even born back then...the top end tax rate was something like 78%....and Reagan cut it nearly in half.  But...look at the 50 years before Reagan...growth was steady, unemployment was low, and the high end marginal tax rate was nearly 95%! And we had a growing middle class...imagine that!!

Obama has proposed raising the top marginal rate to 39%...that is a Clinton era rate...personally, I think it should be higher...but this rate increase on top end earners will raise over $1 trillion dollars over 10 years...

When people voted for change they understood that it would require sacrifice..in poll after poll people have said they are willing to pay more to have the protection of health insurance...

You, and members of Congress, have to stop tossing up the "plan of the week"...they serve as little more than distractions from what is needed and what is desired.

---

by: big sage @ Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 14:19:57 PM UTC

Eisenhower income tax rates were 92% (0.00 / 0)

and with a good lawyer the top 400 families who earned an average $12.3 million paid 51.6% in taxes. The funny money was kept in check. The rich parked their money is boring places and not in Ponzi schemes.  Now the top 400 have an average of  263 million in income and pay 35%. So there is a whole lot of funny money which gets funneled into schemes that brought down the whole world's economy. (Sam Pizzagati.

This idea of slashing taxes (mostly for the rich, but sold to the working class) came in with a vengeance with the great front man Ronnie Reagan. This results  in "The Predator State" which is the name of the must read book by James Galbraith and coined by Veblen.  He writes that Denmark is the richest country in the world and has the most equality.  The big difference is that profits are pumped back into wages and research and development, not CEO salaries. If you become unemployed you also get money for schooling besides a weekly check.  You have a national pension which gives you a good retirement and, of course, you have cheap and dependable health care. There are still "rich" people, they just are not filthy, yes, filthy, rich.

We aren't going to get anything remotely "progressive" with the Goldman Gang running things. (Goldman Sachs only paid 1% corporate taxes and they should be in The Hague instead of the White House).  All this squabbling and whining going on in D.C. are all the neo-liberal dog and pony show. It is to mask the continued theft of public money through the fundamentals of shock therapy (deregulation, privatization, and cutting social programs). Even Tester is helping out with privatizing public lands.

We have a 15 trillion dollar economy.  We can easily afford 100 Billion a year for health care. But we won't. Real liberals are nowhere to be found in government or in the corporate think tanks.

   

---

by: Feral Cat @ Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 20:08:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Malleability (0.00 / 0)

"Malleability, a similar concept[to ductility]), refers to a material's ability to deform under compressive stress; this is often characterized by the material's ability to form a thin sheet by hammering or rolling."

I have tried all my life not to be hammered or rolled.  I lasted a total of 6 years in a company resisting hammering as best I could.  But then I was given a choice to become more malleable or go. So here I am in Montana with my own business.

Common usage of the term "malleable" can mean somebody who is "adaptive" to change" or "plastic".  For some situations it is good to "go with the flow".  It is good to understand a team member or a colleague's differences so that together you can use your strengths to get the job done.

If you are interested not in solving problems, but managing them then you can be a malleable material.  If you are interested in solving the problems of creating peace, jobs, and justice, you have to be the hammer, not the metal or the plastic.  

---

by: Feral Cat @ Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 23:10:27 PM UTC