And you think this works?
Our GOVERNMENT was forcing me to buy a product I did not want, and threatened to penalize me if I did not buy it? And as usual, they focused on putting the brakes on productivity to get it done.
Soda bans. ICE bans. Forcing people to buy things they do not want. Yeah, you're a libertarian......so full of S&%$.
I don’t think it works efficiently. And I didn’t support a soda ban.
If we are going to provide access to risk pool subsidized (since Pawdawg just can’t handle referring to it as “insurance”) care to everyone with pre-existing conditions (like Trump and the majority of Americans want), it would be far more efficient to provide a basic universal entitlement funded by taxes. The jacked up system we have is because Republicans cannot reconcile what they really want and what we have is the most jacked-up payment model for health care in the world.
Funded by taxes. I guess those are taxes on earnings. This is a tax on productivity, encouraging people to do less and make less to pay less for inefficient government goodies.
As an example, I never paid a penny for Obamacare. They said I HAD to go through the healthcare.gov exchange, so I just changed my cash flow sources for about 4 years (when retired, income doesn't matter as much as cash flow) so that whatever I got from this horrid plan I got at no expense to me. NONE. Basically, I got my catastrophic plan (with the wonderful 12,000 deductibles) for free, paid for my the poor saps that had to pay the penalties and high monthly premiums...all because our brilliant politicians told me I HAD to get it there. This was possible because they were taxing productivity (salaries and earnings) and I was no longer productive in the economic sense of things. This saved me about $100,000 over 4 years, which I will probably be able to add to what I leave to my children when I depart this life. I learned that having means exempts you from having to participate in things designed to take your means from you - ask Warren Buffett, a bunch of dead Kennedys or Jeff Bezos if you don't believe me.
Because I have a brain, I will legally avoid any bogus expenses the government dreams up for me to pay, just like Trump legally tries to limit his tax burden according to the tax laws. It would be foolish to do otherwise. And you can whine about Trump paying less than some secretary or hourly worker all you want, but neither of those are hiring people that DO end up paying the taxes. Wonder how many payrolls Biden has met?
You are barking up the wrong tree.
It makes no sense that capital gains are treated preferentially to income you generate with your labor.
Any of us can move our resources around to game the system. In fact, you can do the same to keep your income low enough to qualify for subsidized Obamacare plans, too.
Of course a tax is on productivity. Things aren’t free, and providing risk pool benefitted health care subsidies for people with pre existing conditions isn’t free either. If you want to do it as inefficiently as possible, we should keep it the way Trump just made it.
It was NEVER efficient. It was NEVER intended to be. The goal was/is to have single pay health care. The first thing that had to raze was individual health insurance and especially hospitalization insurance. Healthy individuals (including me) only needed to cover for major medical events, not doctor visits and annual checkups.
If they really wanted to take care of those with pre-existing conditions there are much more efficient ways than punishing the healthy for being healthy.
That is how risk pooling works, though, right? People who get sick are subsidized by those that don’t get sick.
Since Trump has decided that these people with pre existing conditions should be covered, why not just make it a taxes entitlement and be done with it? That create a larger pool and no weird inefficiencies by people who try to opt out and then still end up using the system or wait until they are sick to enroll.
So in addition to punishing labor productivity you would also punish the efficient use of capital (that makes the whole country rich)? Remind me to call you when I need someone to think outside of his tribal box....NOT!
Did it. That was the point of my post. Those that can WILL always find ways around these punitive measures. The one's being hurt are always the ones you claim to help. This insurance calculation was part of my budgeting/planning when I decided to retire.
Well, I am much happier now to be paying for my own health insurance, even though it is costing me about half what it cost the taxpayer to buy a horrid ACA policy for me. Never wanted it for free, but didn't want that crap coming from the ACA either. That should be a red flag for anyone with a brain that government intervention made the problem worse...and for those without a brain another kind of flag saying more government intervention will fix what a little destroyed.