The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

[Kepler]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Not only that but Obamacare is exactly that, collaboration between government and business.

Which reflects its roots as the Republican solution to head off a true government program.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Which is workable (albeit unconstitutional) up to the point where you have to cover pre-existing conditions. Once that is in place its like buying insurance after you house has already burned down.

The solution to this whole mess is to get rid of all the mandates and give individuals the deduction instead of employers. That would drive up wages (since those are still deductable) and allow people to get catestrophic coverage very cheaply at a minimum. It would certainly be less than people are already paying for cable, internet and their cell phones.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Even Karl Marx said that capitalism is the most efficient economic system ever devised. His critique was that "efficiency" should not be the top priority of a humane society.

As a student of Marx you also know he felt that the efficiencies of capitalism would also undermine it -- the most efficient firms would destroy their less efficient competitors, ad infinitum, until there were so few winners and so many losers that the system would collapse from lack of societal approval.

Marx and the 19th C Marxists didn't foresee the ability of democratic societies to effectively curb the self-destructive tendencies of capitalism by regulating businesses, breaking monopolies, broadening educational opportunities and creating social welfare mechanisms. They thought those things would be at best cynical and inadequate ways of co-opting the middle class to protect the interests of big capital against the proletariat. This isn't surprising, given the realities of 19th C business and politics. With the 20th C, power in democracies was held widely enough (for a while) that real improvements were made. Those have now been eroded to the point where the self-destructive nature of unregulated capitalism is again starting to be a problem.

The other criticism of Marx, which is more controversial, is that he didn't take into account the ability of capitalism to grow the pie so fast that even as the percentage of the pie owned by workers decreased the absolute size of their slice increased. This is controversial because later Marxists insist they did take this into account with world system theories, and that growth is in large part due to the exploitation of the third world by the first world. Today's globalization is actually very close to what those guys at the Second International thought was happening to their world in 1890. It's just happening a hundred years later -- maybe because the destructive world wars of the 20th C set the clock back a bit.

There are strongly moralistic tones in Marx, but it's important to recognize that the core of the theory (correct or not) is that the machine destroys itself quite apart from anybody's desires or anybody's ideals. In fact, the capitalists are just as screwed as the proles in the latter stages, because they are running faster and faster just to stay in one place.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

One of my many concerns with this is that we've seen how awful Social Security and Medicare have been handled, hence my weariness about a government-funded program.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

The solution to this whole mess is to get rid of all the mandates and give individuals the deduction instead of employers. That would drive up wages (since those are still deductable) .

Why do you think it would drive up wages? Why wouldn't employers just keep people at the same wages they're used to getting, and then keep the rest for themselves?

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Why do you think it would drive up wages? Why wouldn't employers just keep people at the same wages they're used to getting, and then keep the rest for themselves?

Let me introduce you to the concept of supply and demand. Supply and demand, Rover. Rover, supply and demand. I think you two will get along well. Cocktail, anyone?

 

[joecct]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Why do you think it would drive up wages? Why wouldn't employers just keep people at the same wages they're used to getting, and then keep the rest for themselves?

Remember, the employer contribution is still cash out the door and we pay very little attention to the Statement of Cash Flows when the Income Statement bottom line could all be accounting tricks to jack up the profit. By not including it, you've jacked up the profit (removing an expense), but kept the change in cash flows constant.

The employer contribution still a legitimate expense of doing business under GAAP. Changing the (unworkable) tax code to fit *another* social condition will result in some other f-up. If you want to move health care expense to "below the line" for employees like it was before, OK, but with wages being pretty much stagnant, I don't think that's a good idea right now.

 

[Plante26]

Source, please.

www.factsforhealthcare.com/whitepaper/healthcarewaste.pdf
Study conducted by Thomson Reuters.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Why do you think it would drive up wages? Why wouldn't employers just keep people at the same wages they're used to getting, and then keep the rest for themselves?

It won't. Just like the economic expansion from the Bush tax cuts didn't "drive up" wages. Driving up wages is fantasyland. Stock price? Profit? That's what will be driven up.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

www.factsforhealthcare.com/whitepaper/healthcarewaste.pdf
Study conducted by Thomson Reuters.

I bet that's not an approved news source.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

It won't. Just like the economic expansion from the Bush tax cuts didn't "drive up" wages. Driving up wages is fantasyland. Stock price? Profit? That's what will be driven up.

Invest now. The families you'll defend probably have enough coinage under the couch cushions to buy a few shares.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Invest now. The families you'll defend probably have enough coinage under the couch cushions to buy a few shares.

Won't help. Stock market is a racket for those in the know. The market goes up and then all the folks at the top pull all their profits out and rebuy everything at a discount. Investing hasn't helped or saved the middle class.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Won't help. Stock market is a racket for those in the know. The market goes up and then all the folks at the top pull all their profits out and rebuy everything at a discount. Investing hasn't helped or saved the middle class.

Get in the game. Know when to buy and know when to sell. Pay attention. If I can do it (and I have a day job), so can they.

Is it that difficult to walk to the library every week and research your stock of choice to know when it might be a good time to pull out?

 

[pirate]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Let me introduce you to the concept of supply and demand. Supply and demand, Rover. Rover, supply and demand. I think you two will get along well. Cocktail, anyone?

Could we also introduce the concepts of investment risk and expected return on investment? They appear to be absent from this discussion as well.

 

[French Rage]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Is it that difficult to walk to the library every week and research...when it might be a good time to pull out?

When did this turn into the birth control debate?

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Not only that but Obamacare is exactly that, collaboration between government and business.

Yes, exactly. For all the discussion about the evils of Big Pharma in the SCOTUS thread, Obamacare doesn't exactly bring them to heel.

In fact, quite the opposite:

"Pharma came out of this better than anyone else," said Ramsey Baghdadi, a Washington health policy analyst who projects a $30 billion, 10-year net gain for the industry. "I don't see how they could have done much better."

Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales. The industry will have to provide 50 percent discounts beginning next year to Medicare beneficiaries in the "doughnut hole" gap in pharmaceutical coverage, but those price cuts plus gradually rising federal subsidies will mean more elderly people will purchase more drugs.

Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies. They also defeated efforts to require more industry rebates for the 9 million beneficiaries of both Medicare and Medicaid, and to bar brand-name drugmakers' payments to generic companies to delay the marketing of competitor products.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Let me introduce you to the concept of supply and demand. Supply and demand, Rover. Rover, supply and demand. I think you two will get along well. Cocktail, anyone?

And in today's workforce, (by and large) Supply >>>>> Demand. So if you eliminate employer sponsored coverage, employers now have a lot more money lying around. The concept it seems out of some people is that they'll altruistically kick that back to their employees. I'm saying based on what? Corporations' long standing track record of doing things solely for the benefit of mankind? Maybe in Fantasyland, where borrowing money for tax cuts for wealthy campaign contributors decreases the deficit and divorce is eliminated because gays aren't allowed to marry, but not in reality.

 

[MinnFan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Why do you think it would drive up wages? Why wouldn't employers just keep people at the same wages they're used to getting, and then keep the rest for themselves?

How about I amend it to say, it would more likely than not drive up wages. If company A wanted to just keep the money and be taxed on it and company B wanted to improve their workforce so they raised wages how many employees leaving do you think it would take before company A raised their wages.

It goes along the lines of why doesn't every compnay just pay everyone the minimum wage. Not saying it would be a complete 1 for 1 tradeoff, but it would get rid of the 3rd party payor system which I believe is the biggest driver of cost increases in health care and over time be a net benefit to everyone.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

And in today's workforce, (by and large) Supply >>>>> Demand. So if you eliminate employer sponsored coverage, employers now have a lot more money lying around. The concept it seems out of some people is that they'll altruistically kick that back to their employees. I'm saying based on what? Corporations' long standing track record of doing things solely for the benefit of mankind? Maybe in Fantasyland, where borrowing money for tax cuts for wealthy campaign contributors decreases the deficit and divorce is eliminated because gays aren't allowed to marry, but not in reality.

MinnFan has it right - in order for wages to stay the same in your scenario, every single company out there would have to independently decide that the best thing to do with that money is to pay higher dividends or to invest in their infrastructure or to buy other companies (which are also now sitting on "piles of cash" which would still need to be invested somewhere). But if even a few companies said to themselves, "you know, another thing that we could do with this extra money is to upgrade the quality of our workforce by raising wages," that would kick off a wave of salary increases across the board. In order for your scenario to come true, 99% of companies would have to decide not to raise wages - the probability that all companies are going to act in this same way is zero.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

How about I amend it to say, it would more likely than not drive up wages. If company A wanted to just keep the money and be taxed on it and company B wanted to improve their workforce so they raised wages how many employees leaving do you think it would take before company A raised their wages.

It goes along the lines of why doesn't every compnay just pay everyone the minimum wage. Not saying it would be a complete 1 for 1 tradeoff, but it would get rid of the 3rd party payor system which I believe is the biggest driver of cost increases in health care and over time be a net benefit to everyone.

Much like tax cuts for the rich, your scenario only makes sense if there's two choices. 1) Pay employees more, or 2) keep the cash and pay higher taxes on earnings as there's less expense.

What it completely ignores is that there's other thing to do with those proceeds. Namely increasing shareholder value (you know, the people who actually own the company). They tend to like higher returns, and will want either a share buyback or higher dividends. Might I suggest they'll demand it. While this isn't a bad thing, and it benefits the shareholders tremendously, the avg worker ain't seeing a big raise. I'm not sure what about that you and Lynah are having trouble comprehending. Company management exists to benefit ownership first and foremosts, not employees.

Next to Lynah's assertion, you don't need collusion amongst 99% of companies to hold down wages. All you need is to be dictated by the same forces you always are when deciding what to pay the staff, which is availability of workers. Apple right now is sitting on $1Bn in cash reserves. Did they decide to A) kick that to the employees in the form of higher salaries, or B) pay a dividend? (I'll save you a search, the answer is B). So, while I tend to disagree with many of your postings, I never considered you to be an idiot. That's why I'm confused about your stance here. Companies will act in the interests of ownership instead of employees if they receive a windfall from not having to pay health insurance. For that reason, little of these profits will funnel back to their workers.