I agree with you. But you've seen the responses here. Specifically folks have bitched about a potential $500 hike in taxes for the poor. That's a 5% tax on a $10/hr job.
honestly, i would definitely be willing to spend probably up to %5 more of salary in taxes if it meant getting single payer.
shoot, maybe even a little higher than that.
Would you say you don't work hard enough to make trump level money?
Well, I don't work as hard as I should. I blow way too much productive time bantering with folks like you...but I'll never be a billionaire regardless of how hard I work
I agree with you. But you've seen the responses here. Specifically folks have bitched about a potential $500 hike in taxes for the poor. That's a 5% tax on a $10/hr job.
So why can't you work hard enough? Far too stupid compared to Trump?
Damn right because people who already aren't making enough can't exactly cough up $42 a month without real impacts. Doesn't seem like much money to me or you but to some that's a lot.
Hell go find an old person living on social security only and ask them if they can lose another 5% to taxes.
I've got too many guilty pleasures I guess
The bigger point that I knew would come out here is this:
Lots of you want the gov't to put a system together that funds single payer...but you don't want to pay for it yourself. You want someone else to pay for it. As soon as I bring up an example where it might hit you, the middle class taxpayer, I start getting expletive laced retorts.
Folks its damn easy to spend other people's money. I'd be a lot more impressed with your calls for single payer if you were willing to pay for it
A percentage, yes. I never used the term percentage now did I? Please keep out terms consistent before calling me a liar
I don't see anyone doing what you're claiming. Besides the fact that makes literally no sense (you're literally claiming people are saying "I want single payer, I just don't want to support the change to single player...because?"). Its literal nonsensical argument. You're somehow conflating people saying that if the wealthy paid taxes commiserate with their gains, single-payer would be easy to fund and transition to as "I don't want my money going to support single-payer". That's not even remotely the same thing.
What examples did you bring up where it might hit them? I'm assuming you've made blanket claims about it causing taxes to skyrocket? There would be a tax increase that would have to predate the actual implementation (unless we showed some weird rationality and, I don't know, said, maybe if we cut some military spending a bit for just 5-10 years; or maybe tax things that have a massive adverse affect on public health a bit to help compensate for the health care costs that it creates) but we could transition to it over time, and if done smartly it wouldn't be that big of change to overall individual spending. Especially if we start by growing the medicaid group with the people that are constantly blamed for ballooning the private insurance costs (where the government then could tell companies taking advantage of people who's lives very likely depend on their product/service to both fuck off and pay a fine for being such a piece of shit; and thus reign in the costs for those groups - definitely not the bitchass "high risk pool" bullshit that would underfund the hell out of them while also letting insurers gouge them to death - potentially literally so), so then insurance premiums can fall while tax revenue increases (keeping overall costs more smooth) as we transition more and more people.
Plenty of studies show single-payer would very likely reduce individual spending on health care (meaning even with paying more taxes, you could potentially be spending less money overall as your health care costs could be reduced more than the amount your taxes increased), especially long term. It is one reason why some of the true rational "fiscal conservative" Republicans are actually starting to show some support, as it could actually reduce costs (and also could reduce government spending, or at least make better use of the money spent; for instance it makes a lot more sense that if people would get regular health care versus just when they really need it, it could help lessen or prevent the severity of the health issues that would put them on medicaid; the old ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure).
With guaranteed health care, I bet you would see a large uptick in the workforce, and so would increase tax revenue in general. Not only that but better health (and stability in health) leads to better workers/workforce. Plus it'd help with stress (which stress alone is a major health issue).
Single-payer would lead to more health care jobs (Obamacare alone actually did this, and its not even remotely close to what single payer would provide). It would almost definitely add more doctors, nurses, and care providers, and these are also jobs that are difficult to outsource. Plus it could help stay in front of potentially devastating health crises (take the antibiotic situation, where because it wasn't profitable enough, most major pharmaceutical companies had stopped even researching and developing new ones; or medicine costs, where companies chasing profits would stop producing low margin things, enabling one company to then control the market and slowly balloon costs more and more).
Folks, its damn easy to spout off bullshit. I'd be a lot more impressed if you showed even basic ability to understand the things people are actually talking about. That's why you're getting expletive laced retorts. You're obviously willfully ignoring things to prop up your own belief of how things are and would be.
Oh and one last thing. You mentioned how single payer would mean we also have to pay for the richest persons' health care. That's totally fine. They deserve health care too. Even if they aren't taxed like they absolutely should be (which even if they were, they'd still have more than enough money that if they wanted the absolute best health care cost be damned, they'd still have plenty of money to afford it; plus they'd get all the aggregated benefits of health care developments that single player would help create). Them being taxed how they are is a mostly separate (but definitely has some relation to this) issue. There's no reason we couldn't (or shouldn't) change both.
The only reason to use totals instead of percentages is to be misleading. Who gives a shit that the rich pay a higher amount of income taxes, when they pay a lower rate? My wife and I are around the top 10% and we spend only ~25% of our gross income, meanwhile we have friends who are teachers pulling 60K with two incomes for a family of 4, who spend basically every dime that comes in.
So yeah, at the end of the day I pay more sales tax than them, but nearly all of their income is subject to sales tax, while very little of mine is. I guess I should let them know I have it harder than them, because I pay more in taxes than them, even though my travel budget is larger than their housing budget.
A lot of words but very short on specifics. We're discussing methods of funding single payer. What's your solution?
We've discussed a sales tax and a payroll tax. Both will hit the poor hard so there's been a lot of resistance. The answer I keep getting is tax the rich. That tells me that folks want another entitlement but don't want to pay for it.
And wouldn't it be odd to find that a tax increase to pay for single payer would be less than the combined spending employers and employees already are spending on ins. premiums?
Sales tax can easily be increased but selectively, everyone needs food & gasoline so you don't tax that. Things like booze, tobacco, luxury goods are not things people " need" if I have to pay extra for that new iPad so what? If we need to tax basics, again do so selectively. I "need" produce & protein,I don't need chips & soda.
People who are struggling are able to grasp basic math, waiting a bit longer to afford a new toy or non essential grocery items is worth it because taxes on those things help fund my healthcare
Absorbed back into the company's coffers and the employee never sees it again?
https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/In most states gas and food are not taxed. I agree those things should not be taxed further.
And again I'll ask.....if we switch to a single payer system funded by tax payers, where does all the money paid for ins. premiums employees and employers currently spend go? Absorbed back into the company's coffers and the employee never sees it again? Or, more properly, the money should go right to the employee as pay---after all, the ins. premiums are a benefit "paid" for the employee, so should revert right back to the employee.
And wouldn't it be odd to find that a tax increase to pay for single payer would be less than the combined spending employers and employees already are spending on ins. premiums?
My HMO coverage was 1/3 employee and 2/3 employer. My employer was paying 20k per year. When we switched to my wife's health insurance, my employer gives me 30 per month for opting out. They just saved 19k+ per year, and can't give out any pay increases in years. Greed starts at the top.My portion for health insurance at work is 10K, employer says the plan would cost me 25K under COBRA. The 10K is a struggle but I would gladly see it put into a single payer fund, not sure about the employer part or how that would work, it would need to be simple, easy to implement.
The bigger problem is what is done with whatever tax is accrued by the state. It's often diverted away from infrastructure spending.Yeah, that site doesn't show which states apply their saes tax to gas. For example Michigan does but Ohio does not. No question that gas is heavily taxed all over.
The rich are rich because one system, capitalism, happens to allocate earnings to the owner class. Through tax policy, we can choose to allocate earnings in a different manner. "Entitlement" is just a tag we apply to allocations we don't like. Neither system is inherently more virtuous or the natural state. We can decide that covering everybody's healthcare is a better allocation of resources than allocating those resources to buying more politicians for the rich.A lot of words but very short on specifics. We're discussing methods of funding single payer. What's your solution?
We've discussed a sales tax and a payroll tax. Both will hit the poor hard so there's been a lot of resistance. The answer I keep getting is tax the rich. That tells me that folks want another entitlement but don't want to pay for it.
The rich are rich because one system, capitalism, happens to allocate earnings to the owner class. Through tax policy, we can choose to allocate earnings in a different manner. "Entitlement" is just a tag we apply to allocations we don't like. Neither system is inherently more virtuous or the natural state. We can decide that covering everybody's healthcare is a better allocation of resources than allocating those resources to buying more politicians for the rich.
Tax policy is very progressive. As I stated yesterday and documented:
The top 1%
--accounts for about 20% of all our income
--accounts for about 33% of our wealth
--pays nearly 50% of our income taxes
Sure sounds like they're paying their fair share. Perhaps we could raise their taxes a few more percentage pts but that's just nickels. They're taxed about as much as they're going to be