Obama open to new health benefits tax

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: waggy
not to mention the defense budget is not that huge compared to other things

:laugh:

That argument cuts both ways. The defense budget is huge compared to most things, save a few.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

Haha, don't look under your bed-- the boogeyman might get you!!! Must suck living in a constant state of fear.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: cubeless

Originally posted by: alchemize
It's funny that the whole "Medicare runs more efficiently than private health insurance" argument has vanished.

"The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,700 in 2008."
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

So 46 million uninsured, even if this covers all of them (which it won't), at $160 billion per year, that's about $3,500 each or $14,000 for a family of four.

that whole argument is bullshit, is why... "yeah, we pay less in admin costs" vs. "but we have so much overcharging/fraud"...

The argument is also bullshit because it sounds like Medicare pushes a lot of the costs private insurance deals with onto the providers. Easy to have low overhead when you arent doing the same amount of work.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

Haha, don't look under your bed-- the boogeyman might get you!!! Must suck living in a constant state of fear.

NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some fantastical "boogeyman", eh?

:roll:

If you want to talk about "boogeymen", let's talk about the "health care crisis", the "global warming crisis", "the economic crisis" etc. that the current administration is fear-mongering onto it's citizens.

The left is naively and/or ignorantly convinced that scare tactics are only a business of the right. What nonsense. It's a tactic of politicians everywhere to push their agendas.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some boogeyman, eh?

:roll:

Obama sleeps with the light on I heard.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some boogeyman, eh?

:roll:

Obama sleeps with the light on I heard.

What is so deliciously ironic about Obama proposing to tax employee benefits, before the thread got derailed by libs whining about defense spending, is the fact that Obama routinely slammed McCain during the campaign because McCain proposed taxing employee benefits.

Oh, and he also made the bold claim that nobody who makes under $250,000 will see one cent in tax increases. Sounds like another foolish "Read my lips; no new taxes" claim that will haunt him in the near future.

Hypocrisy much?

:roll:

 

[piasabird]

Employors use health benefits to attract better employees. So if it costs them more to offer the health benefits, there will be less money to pay the employees. Are you doing the math here? In many places you have to pay for some of or all of your own health benefits. Ever heard of a Co-Pay or a Deductable? Employees are already subsidising their Health care to some degree.

Making Health Care more expensive will not help anyone.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

What is so deliciously ironic about Obama proposing to tax employee benefits, before the thread got derailed by libs whining about defense spending, is the fact that Obama routinely slammed McCain during the campaign because McCain proposed taxing employee benefits.

Oh, and he also made the bold claim that nobody who makes under $250,000 will see one cent in tax increases. Sounds like another foolish "Read my lips; no new taxes" claim that will haunt him in the near future.

Hypocrisy much?

:roll:

However, this is great news to be honest. The sooner Obama loses Gawd status to the non-entrenched (D) voters, the sooner we can stop them from ramming expensive unread bills down our throats. Gotta think big picture.

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

What is so deliciously ironic about Obama proposing to tax employee benefits, before the thread got derailed by libs whining about defense spending, is the fact that Obama routinely slammed McCain during the campaign because McCain proposed taxing employee benefits.

Oh, and he also made the bold claim that nobody who makes under $250,000 will see one cent in tax increases. Sounds like another foolish "Read my lips; no new taxes" claim that will haunt him in the near future.

Hypocrisy much?

:roll:

However, this is great news to be honest. The sooner Obama loses Gawd status to the non-entrenched (D) voters, the sooner we can stop them from ramming expensive unread bills down our throats. Gotta think big picture.

just curious why u think that is the case... obama and congress are going to do what they interpret as their mandate, regardless of what the masses say... the congressional dems didn't get booted after not doing what they got elected for 2 years back, so why should they think they will now?

they know the masses are short memoried and gullible, so they will just tell them something later to make it all nice...

 

[theeedude]

Democrats don't really care that much about "read my lips, no new taxes" pledges. We do care about getting health care reform done already.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: cubeless

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

What is so deliciously ironic about Obama proposing to tax employee benefits, before the thread got derailed by libs whining about defense spending, is the fact that Obama routinely slammed McCain during the campaign because McCain proposed taxing employee benefits.

Oh, and he also made the bold claim that nobody who makes under $250,000 will see one cent in tax increases. Sounds like another foolish "Read my lips; no new taxes" claim that will haunt him in the near future.

Hypocrisy much?

:roll:

However, this is great news to be honest. The sooner Obama loses Gawd status to the non-entrenched (D) voters, the sooner we can stop them from ramming expensive unread bills down our throats. Gotta think big picture.

just curious why u think that is the case... obama and congress are going to do what they interpret as their mandate, regardless of what the masses say... the congressional dems didn't get booted after not doing what they got elected for 2 years back, so why should they think they will now?

They got booted in 1994 when they had a full autocracy with a Democrat president and Democrat Congress. Just like the Republicans got booted in 2006 and 2008.

Politics are cycles. One party gets absolute power and abuses it, the people get fed up and vote the other way, etc. etc.

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: cubeless

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

What is so deliciously ironic about Obama proposing to tax employee benefits, before the thread got derailed by libs whining about defense spending, is the fact that Obama routinely slammed McCain during the campaign because McCain proposed taxing employee benefits.

Oh, and he also made the bold claim that nobody who makes under $250,000 will see one cent in tax increases. Sounds like another foolish "Read my lips; no new taxes" claim that will haunt him in the near future.

Hypocrisy much?

:roll:

However, this is great news to be honest. The sooner Obama loses Gawd status to the non-entrenched (D) voters, the sooner we can stop them from ramming expensive unread bills down our throats. Gotta think big picture.

just curious why u think that is the case... obama and congress are going to do what they interpret as their mandate, regardless of what the masses say... the congressional dems didn't get booted after not doing what they got elected for 2 years back, so why should they think they will now?

They got booted in 1994 when they had a full autocracy with a Democrat president and Democrat Congress. Just like the Republicans got booted in 2006 and 2008.

Politics are cycles. One party gets absolute power and abuses it, the people get fed up and vote the other way, etc. etc.

two things are a bit different: 1) the demographics 2) the timeframe...

i think that it takes a few more years for folks to get their bile up... and the folks who elected bo and the dems aren't going to get any harder to fool in the next cycle or so...

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

With paranoid scaredy cats like you around, the Republican party will always have some voters. Why worry about health care when <insert enemy of the week> could NUKE YOU?

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Originally posted by: SammyJr

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

With paranoid scaredy cats like you around, the Republican party will always have some voters. Why worry about health care when <insert enemy of the week> could NUKE YOU?

:laugh:

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some fantastical "boogeyman", eh?

:roll:

If you want to talk about "boogeymen", let's talk about the "health care crisis", the "global warming crisis", "the economic crisis" etc. that the current administration is fear-mongering onto it's citizens.

The left is naively and/or ignorantly convinced that scare tactics are only a business of the right. What nonsense. It's a tactic of politicians everywhere to push their agendas.

Obama is a Republican now?



:laugh:

 

[Carmen813]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

Perhaps they'd stop bothering us if we stopped bothering them. Just a thought, but the more we meddle in foreign affairs, the more that meddling seems to bite us in the ass. Perhaps we should heed the founding father's advice and gtfo.

We spend $510 billion a year on defense, another $60 billion on "Homeland Security," and another $100 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military spending is more than 50% of the world total, and more than the next 14 countries combined.

Maybe, just maybe, we can afford to scale back a bit on fixing other people's problems to focus on fixing our own.

Hell, the $39 billion we spent on the Comanche program (which provided no useful combat tool) would have been enough to build what....300-400 schools?

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: SammyJr

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

With paranoid scaredy cats like you around, the Republican party will always have some voters. Why worry about health care when <insert enemy of the week> could NUKE YOU?

:laugh:

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some fantastical "boogeyman", eh?

:roll:

If you want to talk about "boogeymen", let's talk about the "health care crisis", the "global warming crisis", "the economic crisis" etc. that the current administration is fear-mongering onto it's citizens.

The left is naively and/or ignorantly convinced that scare tactics are only a business of the right. What nonsense. It's a tactic of politicians everywhere to push their agendas.

Obama is a Republican now?



:laugh:

oops...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

This is the most derailed thread ever. I thought I read the taking profits from Toyota to feed GM comment on this thread which would apply to the topic, but no.... Sigh.

SO YEAH..... can we talk about the plan to tax employer-based health insurance to fund a public plan? It seems rather unfair to me. Competition my ass.

 

[Carmen813]

Well, to be on topic, last time I read, this tax would apply to health insurance policies worth >17,000 a year (for a family of four). The average cost of all policies in the U.S. is around $13,000 a year (for a family of four). So this tax would only apply to the "luxury" health care plans.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: Carmen813
Well, to be on topic, last time I read, this tax would apply to health insurance policies worth >17,000 a year (for a family of four). The average cost of all policies in the U.S. is around $13,000 a year (for a family of four). So this tax would only apply to the "luxury" health care plans.

So what's "luxury"?

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer

Originally posted by: Carmen813

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Obama should pay for it by gutting the defense budget.

I'm glad most people are either too scared or too smart to ever let this happen.

Our military budget is absolutely ridiculous.

Since we have nuclear-armed dictatorships threatening us almost daily (amongst other threats), our military budget is NOT ridiculous. I'd reckon that the amount that we spend on wasteful hand-out social programs is way more ridiculous than the amount that we spend on protecting our nation from attack.

Thankfully, even the most liberal president can't completely gut the defense budget, because of the reality that we live in an incredibly dangerous world.

Haha, don't look under your bed-- the boogeyman might get you!!! Must suck living in a constant state of fear.

NKorea plans to fire missile toward Hawaii

"Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced."

Some fantastical "boogeyman", eh?

:roll:

If you want to talk about "boogeymen", let's talk about the "health care crisis", the "global warming crisis", "the economic crisis" etc. that the current administration is fear-mongering onto it's citizens.

The left is naively and/or ignorantly convinced that scare tactics are only a business of the right. What nonsense. It's a tactic of politicians everywhere to push their agendas.

Its called being bipartisan. He's trying to appeal to the cowards on the right. He's throwing you a bone.

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider

Originally posted by: Carmen813
Well, to be on topic, last time I read, this tax would apply to health insurance policies worth >17,000 a year (for a family of four). The average cost of all policies in the U.S. is around $13,000 a year (for a family of four). So this tax would only apply to the "luxury" health care plans.

So what's "luxury"?

Greater than $17k/year.

 

[classy]

Fact- This is only a proposal
Fact- We need to overhaul the healthcare system
Fact- It is going to be messy and complicated in the beginning
Fact- Criticism of Obama trying to tackle maybe the number 1 issue in this country, with no facts is just stupid

 

[ElFenix]

all i know is the local democrats want to extend SCHIP to families making $66,000+. WTF. if you don't buy insurance for your kids and you're making $66,000+ in Texas, then you're doing it wrong. CPS should come out and confiscate your escalade and your plasma.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: classy
Fact- This is only a proposal
Fact- We need to overhaul the healthcare system
Fact- It is going to be messy and complicated in the beginning
Fact- Criticism of Obama trying to tackle maybe the number 1 issue in this country, with no facts is just stupid

Fact, legislation is pending and no one has any facts about it. That's a huge issue. Just have faith in the government. BTW, those WMD must be somewhere in Iraq. We must believe.

This is a very important issue. Instead of inserting 400 pages at the last minute, why wasn't everyone given a complete copy to review for a good week to see what they were voting for? Why can't we get a look at what's being proposed and see for ourselves?

"We know what's in your best interest, you must trust us" isn't something I believe.

 

[Carmen813]

Luxury health insurance typically covers non-essential elective procedures, such as plastic surgery. The majority of people purchasing private insurance in the U.S. wouldn't even be affected by this proposed tax on benefits. If the average cost of people insured in the U.S. is $13,000 a year, than those who have policies costing over $17,000 a year are a minority. I think it's safe to say that if the majority of individuals have coverage under $13k a year policies, than those policies must be adequate for most major medical concerns, which is what insurance is supposed to exist for anyway.

If the tax works like any other tax, the first $13,000 wouldn't be taxed anyway (or whatever the "median" value is), so you are looking at a net increase of $4,000 taxable income for individuals affected by the tax.

As for there being no legislation to look at, you can probably look back two weeks in history to figure out why. That's when Republicans and Conservatives when bananas after the CBO released preliminary numbers on a partially completed plan. It's really not surprising more info hasn't come out yet, they don't want another PR headache.