Posted by psychobot5000 on June 28, 2012, at 18:44:15
In reply to Re: Welcome USA To Socialism Healthcare Bill Passed » europerep, posted by Dinah on June 28, 2012, at 17:31:28
> You don't know me one bit. And you know what? That's perfectly ok with me, particularly after your post about Phillipa.
>
> I happened to be alive during the ninety percent marginal tax rates and stagflation of the Carter presidency. 16-18% interest rates! I thought Reagan's decrease of the top marginal tax rate to 50% or so was fabulous. The later reductions to already low rates I saw more as pandering to the electorate. I seem to remember one under the Clinton administration that I particularly disapproved of.
>
> Keep thinking whatever you like.
>
> "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."
> Source: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789.
>There were never 90% tax rates under carter--though during the period of 1940-1970, i.e. the period in which the US experienced the most rapid economic growth in its history (c. 2.8% per year), top tax rates did indeed fluctuate between 70% and 94% for the upper income of those making millions. With the junk deductibles that accompanied these top rates, the wealthy payed an -actual- top rate of about 45-50% on the upper end of their income. During Carter rates never went above 70. ...And the 18% interest rates occurred in 1981-2, under Reagan, not Carter.
On to Healthcare!
The Affordable Care Act is not Socialism. Rather, it's distinctive in the extent to which it works through the private insurance market to achieve its objective of helping more people get insurance coverage and pay their way into the market.People on this board stand to benefit tremendously from the bill, as you will now be able to purchase insurance at a reasonable cost regardless of pre-existing conditions or who you work for. Those with lower income will be provided modest, incomplete subsidies to help them afford that care.
Unions have been given only a -temporary- reprieve from paying the 'cadillac' tax, in recognition of the years of preparation and work that went into those contracts. After a couple of more years, they'll be on the same field as everyone else. As for the new 'mandate,' it amounts merely to a modest tax incentive encouraging you to buy health care or else pay a modest fee to the government instead.
That's about the size of it all. It's remarkable how much will stay the same. The worst insurer abuses will now be illegal, and people will have more access to insurance with a little help in paying for it if they're poor or middle class (subsidies that are payed for by cuts elsewhere, reorganizations of present health programs for greater efficiency, and a few carefully placed taxes like that on 'cadillac' plans and the employer 'mandate,' (which means that if an employer doesn't provide health insurance to its workers, it has to pay the government a large fee in its place--a policy deemed necessary to keep nearly every business from dropping their coverage to let the gov't pick up the tab) but that's about it. No reason to hyperventilate, folks. There are a lot of people out there who gain from making us scared of this bill, but the truth is: it's here for us :)
poster:psychobot5000
thread:1020322
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120608/msgs/1020363.html