Health Care

[dashtrasher]

Family HSA plan premium at FlexJet just went up 51%.

Yep, sure did from $58/month to $88/month. $15 per paycheck.

 

[Praetorian]

Congrats then on paying no health care premiums as part of your contract and having a protected 401K match. Those can easily be taken away without a contract.

Thanks, we all feel like we worked very hard to earn what we have in our contract.

But for the record at Flops we do not have a 401k match, something we are all angry about, but the union was able to get it locked in when/if it comes back. Also -unlike NJ- we do pay health care premiums. However, the contract places a moratorium on increases to out of pocket expenses, co-pays etc and places a cap on how much the company can increase our employee contributions in the future. Not perfect, but we've seen health care costs increase dramatically recently and these contractual provisions should help us a lot.

 

[DAS at 10/250]

Hey I've got a better idea! Let's take 36 billion dollars and hand it out to the richest 2% of the population. And while were at it lets have more tax cuts while we're fighting two wars and not propose any corresponding spending cuts.

Let's promise the American people tax cuts that would, if implemented, require the elimination of all non-military spending from the budget. And lets make these cuts to government spending immediately, rather then phasing them in gradually while were in the middle of a slow economic recovery.

Praetorian:

Tax cuts INCREASE federal revenue, create more jobs, and raise GDP. If the .gov needs more money the answer is to LOWER TAXES and let the economy generate wealth.

From the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress:

The most outstanding policy differences between the two recoveries are in the realm of tax policy. Reagan instituted across-the-board reductions in tax rates, while Bush and Clinton both pushed massive tax increases. The most disturbing conclusion is that the 1990 and 1993 tax increases have cost Americans far more than the extra earnings collected by the IRS; they have cost the economy at least two years of growth. Comparing the two recoveries:

• Real GDP grew more in five years under Reagan (23 percent cumulative growth) than it is projected to grow in seven years under Bush/Clinton (21 percent cumulative growth).
• After four years, 4 million more jobs were created under Reagan than under Bush/Clinton.
• Federal revenues, adjusted for inflation, grew much faster under Reagan (33 percent cumulative growth) than projected under Bush/Clinton (20 percent cumulative growth).
• Real per capita disposable income grew more in two years under Reagan than in all four years combined thus far in the Bush/Clinton recovery (8.2 percent versus 7.8 percent).
• Median family income grew in all of the first three recovery years under Reagan, compared to three consecutive declines under Bush/Clinton.

In other words, during the economic expansion following Reagan's tax cuts, the economy grew faster, experienced stronger revenue growth, created more jobs, and saw more rapid income growth than the current expansion under the high tax policies of Presidents Bush and Clinton.



http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/taxpol/taxpol.htm

 

[Praetorian]

Praetorian:

Tax cuts INCREASE federal revenue, create more jobs, and raise GDP. If the .gov needs more money the answer is to LOWER TAXES and let the economy generate wealth.

From the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress:

The most outstanding policy differences between the two recoveries are in the realm of tax policy. Reagan instituted across-the-board reductions in tax rates, while Bush and Clinton both pushed massive tax increases. The most disturbing conclusion is that the 1990 and 1993 tax increases have cost Americans far more than the extra earnings collected by the IRS; they have cost the economy at least two years of growth. Comparing the two recoveries:

• Real GDP grew more in five years under Reagan (23 percent cumulative growth) than it is projected to grow in seven years under Bush/Clinton (21 percent cumulative growth).
• After four years, 4 million more jobs were created under Reagan than under Bush/Clinton.
• Federal revenues, adjusted for inflation, grew much faster under Reagan (33 percent cumulative growth) than projected under Bush/Clinton (20 percent cumulative growth).
• Real per capita disposable income grew more in two years under Reagan than in all four years combined thus far in the Bush/Clinton recovery (8.2 percent versus 7.8 percent).
• Median family income grew in all of the first three recovery years under Reagan, compared to three consecutive declines under Bush/Clinton.

In other words, during the economic expansion following Reagan's tax cuts, the economy grew faster, experienced stronger revenue growth, created more jobs, and saw more rapid income growth than the current expansion under the high tax policies of Presidents Bush and Clinton.



http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/taxpol/taxpol.htm

Ronald Reagan also increased defence spending (which is government spending no matter how you slice it) by 40% and trippled the national debt. He presided over the largest peace time tax increase in American history, by way of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1983, resulting in annual tax revenue increases of over 37 billion. However he famously insisted that for every dollar of tax increses under this act, there should be $3 dollars of spending cuts. While from what I read there is disagreement about weather these spending cuts actually occurred, his approach strikes me as being a lot different then the tax cutting -we'll worry about how to pay for it later- rhetoric I hear from the Republicans today. But I guess it's easier to get elected when you promise tax cuts without spelling out how they will be paid for.

I wonder if Reagan would even get the Republican nomination if he were running today? But for me, his willingness to level with the American people earns the respect of even a progressive like me.

 

[gunfyter]

Reagan had a Democratic Congress...

As you are aware ... the President cannot spend one dime. It is the Congress (Democrats) that overspent.

Military spending is Constitutional ... almost all the rest -- is NOT!

When the constitution was written, the only federal departments authorized were Navy, War, State and Treasury. The 10th amendment reserves all powers not specifically delegated to the United States, to the States and the People ...prohibits the United States from usurping those powers.

Looking at the 2008 spending... Only 40% appears to be Constitutional. We can easily afford to keep the tax cuts if we would obey the Constitution and abolish all the Federal Spending on programs the 10th amendment prohibits the United States from. And we could pay off the debt with the leftover revenues!

 

[jonjuan]

My biggest fear about this administration may plunge this country into an economic abyss, ala Japan.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/29/news/economy/quantitative_easing_liquidity_trap/index.htm

Why the Fed's bold move won't work

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Reserve is likely to announce a plan to pump more money into the economy next week. But some economists worry that the move won't work.

The Fed is expected to announce hundreds of billions of new asset purchases, particularly long-term Treasuries, in an attempt to jump start the struggling U.S. economy.

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The theory is that this so-called quantitative easing will further drive down interest rates and encourage businesses and consumers to borrow and spend more. The Fed's decision is expected to be unveiled at the conclusion of its two-day meeting next Wednesday.

Because the Fed already made about $2 trillion in similar purchases during the Great Recession, the next round has been dubbed QE2 by many economists and investors.

Critics of the Fed -- and even some Fed members -- point to various unintended consequences QE2, including the possibility of a new asset bubble in financial markets, a return of inflation at painful levels, and even a currency or trade war with U.S. trading partners due to a weakening dollar.

But some economists say the biggest problem with more easing is that such a move will have little if any positive effect on the economy.

Even if QE2 leads to lower rates, it's not as if rates are high currently. Businesses and consumers aren't borrowing or spending as much because of a lack of confidence and a desire to repair their own balance sheets.

Personal savings rates are up and businesses are sitting on record amounts of cash. Bank lending officers are reporting very weak demand for loans -- and some say QE2 is unlikely to change much in the credit markets.

"I think people are wasting time talking about monetary policy," said Richard Koo, chief economist with the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo and an expert on the massive quantitative easing efforts by Japan during the past two decades. "No one is borrowing money, even with rates near zero. So the economy has little reason to respond to QE2."

Koo's doubts about the effectiveness have been echoed in recent days by a number of top economists and analysts, including Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund at PIMCO.

Gross wrote in his most recent outlook that the economy is now in a "liquidity trap" -- in which lower interest rates no longer have any impact on spurring borrowing or spending.

"Escaping from a liquidity trap may be impossible, much like light trapped in a black hole," Gross wrote. "Just ask Japan."

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has maintained that the Fed's earlier round of quantitative easing was successful in helping to stop the economic free-fall in 2008 and early 2009. But others question that claim.

Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute, said there's a case to be made that unusual steps the Fed took to buy assets such as commercial paper and consumer debt after financial markets seized up in September 2008 had a more significant positive impact on the economy.

Achuthan said it is tougher to make the argument that the purchases of $1.25 trillion in mortgages and $300 billion in long-term Treasuries that started in March of last year helped turn around the economy and lift it from recession.

He added that the new round of QE may be coming too late. To have any chance to work, it needed to be put in place before the economy started to slow earlier this year.

The annual pace of economic growth in the third quarter was 2%, according to the government's gross domestic product report Friday. That's down from GDP growth of 3.7% in the first quarter.

"The single most important thing is getting the timing right," Achuthan said. "What we've seen is that with the Fed is that it is pretty reliably behind the curve all the time."

 

[Jack Campbell]

While I can see you a completely unencumbered by the thought process, I will point out for the benefit of others that I never advocated for socialized medicine, but was pointing out that Obama's health care reform is not.

Since you insist on splitting hairs, I will submit that the current system may not be purely socialist, but it is a marked change to that direction. It is a compromise law, however. It was widely discussed by the liberal politicians pushing for it earlier this year that the next step was the so-called "single payer" healthcare system. That was and is their goal. So, let's not fool ourselves here. We are still talking about socialized medicine because that is where they are trying to take it.

I wasn't implying anything. I was comparing your most recent paranoid rant to those heard from the right, during times of significant change in the past.

You have an overactive sense of imagination, which may be helpful for when you go to your "happy place", but I would hardly call my attempt to educate you a rant. And for the record, I love GOOD changes. For example, I'm hoping for some big changes in DC this Tuesday, and again in January, 2013.

As for you not apologizing for trying to put me in some racist, sexist box, I expect nothing more from you. Your response was quite predictable.

 

[Nolife]

Senoir Campbell,

I'm sure you're a nice guy and fun to fly with but your original post makes you sounds like a raving loon. "The governments coming for you and want to control you through legislation" btw... turn in your guns and and 50% of your paychecks so the Obamaians can rule the world.

Check out the Health care bill carefully. It helps us and yes it puts restrictions on corporations and the way the use healthcare for profit.

I got laid off in the resession and without help from the government in the form of reduced COBRA payments I wouldn't have been able to provide healthcare for my family. COBRA or private non-group insurance for a family runs $800 to $1000 PER MONTH. Try handling that when you're out of work. BTW there are certian medical conditions which insurance companies will not cover and so too bad, you die. Yes profits will go down from Healthcare reform because now insurance companies cannot drop sick kids, or institute a lifetime limit in the middle of your chemotherapy. Premiums are going up to cover the profit margin of insurance compannies. Read balance sheets for some of the publically traded health insurance companies. They do fine and will continue to do so as long as they can scare us into thinking social medicine is bad.

My problem with Healthcare reform is that it didn't do enough. Don't like government run social programs... ask your grandmother to give up her social security and medicare and see how well she lives on fixed income. We're not all rich and in positions to chose how well we live. Without governement and regulations "we the people" will suffer in the name of profits.

 

[Jack Campbell]

Senoir Campbell,

I'm sure you're a nice guy and fun to fly with but your original post makes you sounds like a raving loon. "The governments coming for you and want to control you through legislation" btw... turn in your guns and and 50% of your paychecks so the Obamaians can rule the world.

My main problem with the health care law is that it is too tightly controlled by the government. Every election cycle, we will all get to hear about how the "evil Republicans" will take away our health insurance, therefore vote Democrat. Its a grab for power. I've never heard what a "raving loon" sounds like, as I don't have any friends or relatives like that, so I going to have to defer to your expertise on that matter. j/k But I think my position is quite valid. A government with the power to make decisions about my healthcare, and your healthcare, is a government with too much power.

I got laid off in the resession and without help from the government in the form of reduced COBRA payments I wouldn't have been able to provide healthcare for my family. COBRA or private non-group insurance for a family runs $800 to $1000 PER MONTH. Try handling that when you're out of work.

I am also a furloughee. I support the government assisting anyone who cannot afford COBRA payments as I know they are very expensive.

I hope you and everyone else gets recalled or hired to a better place very soon. Really.

BTW there are certian medical conditions which insurance companies will not cover and so too bad, you die. Yes profits will go down from Healthcare reform because now insurance companies cannot drop sick kids, or institute a lifetime limit in the middle of your chemotherapy. Premiums are going up to cover the profit margin of insurance compannies. Read balance sheets for some of the publically traded health insurance companies. They do fine and will continue to do so as long as they can scare us into thinking social medicine is bad.

How can private insurance companies survive with the new law? Eventually, I think that coverage will actually DECREASE. Here's why. Individuals will have to sign up for coverage or pay a fine. People will defer coverage until they need it, thus NOT paying the premiums until they are sick. (Guess who picks up the tab...you and me). To make up the difference, coverage will have to decrease. Its a downward spiral. At the end of the day, we will wind up with less coverage for all. What then?

My problem with Healthcare reform is that it didn't do enough. Don't like government run social programs... ask your grandmother to give up her social security and medicare and see how well she lives on fixed income. We're not all rich and in positions to chose how well we live. Without governement and regulations "we the people" will suffer in the name of profits.

I would never ask anyone's Grandmother or Grandfather to give up their Social Security or Medicare. They were promised it, payed into it and planned on it. Now, it is their time to recieve it. However, if I were given the choice today, after paying 6% of every dime I've earned into SS and Medicare for the last 20 years, I would decline it and go on my own. Because I know that it won't be there when I need it. At least with my money, I can use it for my family, pass it to my heirs, or donate it. It is MY MONEY and MY CHOICE. But don't try to convince me those are successful programs. Maybe they were in the past, but no longer. They are running out of money.

I stand by my original comments. Big government is bad for the people. The current health care law is a stepping stone to a single payer system ~~~ socialized medicine. If that causes you to call me names, I really don't care. But I do care about what the future will be like for our children and grandchildren. Our health care system needs a lot of help, and for the reasons you mentioned. I just don't agree that a government-run system is the answer.