I’m shocked, shocked:
The hardest hit won’t be those earning more than $250,000 a year–the group that he says needs to “pay their fair share.” Rather, it’s families whose combined annual income is around $100,000 who could be crushed under this plan.
Many of these middle-class families will probably opt to pay the federal fine, and go without health insurance until they get sick.These folks will be too “rich” to qualify for ObamaCare’s subsidies, but probably too poor to easily afford the pricey insurance that the president’s plan forces them to buy.
Many of these $100K families will be obliged to buy a policy costing an average of $14,700 for the mid-level, “silver” health plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. After income taxes, they’ll be spending almost a quarter of their net income for health insurance.
I think that if you pass a law that requires you to purchase something, and it’s enforced by the IRS, it’s not unfair to call it a tax. And it’s another demonstration that every one of Obama’s statements (this one about no raising taxes on people making less than a quarter million) has an expiration date.
[Late afternoon update]
A commenter asks what he can do to fight this in the final hours. This looks like a good place to start. Whatever your political affiliation, if you want to stop this, it’s all up to the Republicans at this point, and you’re going to have to help them this weekend, if not in the future. Don’t look for any help from the Democrats.
That’s not a fact, that’s an opinion based on this status quo.
Medicare has an unfunded liability of 38 TRILLION dollars. You go back to 1965 and find the speech or newspaper article quoting the politician’s saying, we coud be wrong.
The government has NEVER accurately forecast the cost of an entitlement.
They’re going to “help” people all right.
If they are so confident in their estimates, why are they sending out memos like this?
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025871.php
The government has NEVER accurately forecast the cost of an entitlement.
True; in fact the CBO has repeatedly underestimated the savings from health reforms.
Medicare has an unfunded liability of 38 TRILLION dollars.
Isn’t that a pretty strong argument for the cost control efforts in the health reform bill?
Jim.
Explain to us who are obviously a bit slower than you exactly how increasing the demand for something without increasing supply brings down the cost? Medical care requires a lot of (expensively educated) labor and a lot of (very expensively developed and manufactured) technology. Those are fixed costs. Nothing in this bill changes that.
Isn’t that a pretty strong argument for the cost control efforts in the health reform bill?
The implicit assumption here is that the cost control efforts of this bill, admittedly which do exist in some form, are sufficient to overcome the cost inflation efforts of this bill. I don’t see that happening. My view is that government screwed up Medicare and this is some larger, more ambitious attempt. I see no evidence in place that government knows what it is doing or that its actions will improve things rather than make them worse.
Here’s more on those “savings”
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/19/cbo-confirms-obamacare-with-doctor-fix-will-actually-add-billions-to-the-deficit/
This is going to sound nuts, but….
What if the final vote taley is close, say, 218 against, 214 for, and Pelosi bangs down her gavel to announce that it passed?? And then Obama signs the thing?
Crazy? Yes. But if anyone had said six months ago, we’d been seeing some of the nonsense we’ve already seen.
Would the above be consitutional? No… but then again, neither is the Slaughter maneuver, and that’s not stopping them.
I’m not exactly predicting this will happen, but I sure can’t rule it out, not with the insanity I’ve already seen.
Arizona,
Nothing crazy about that at all. It is very likely how it will go in fact. The bill gets passed, it is done. Obama declares victory and those who voted thinking of the changes get left holding the bag.
My tax claim was based on the following logic: if there’s no change to the debits/credits that apply to me but not to everybody else, then the change in my taxes must be due to a change in the 1040 that everyone fills out.
But looking over my taxes, the culprit is not tax rates – in 2009 my salary was a little bigger but my withholding is 10% smaller than last year’s. I’d have an explanation if I had worked a bunch of overtime in 2008 (the withholding rate is a lot bigger on overtime pay and bonuses), but that’s not the case.
Income taxes are so complex we don’t know how much we’re paying in taxes.
It galls me how much of my paycheck (6.2%) goes down the Social Security ponzi rathole. I could use that money *now*.
After eight decades, can we declare the War On Poverty a hopeless quagmire? Let’s end that war, simply declare victory and extricate ourselves.
After eight decades, can we declare the War On Poverty a hopeless quagmire?
First of all, the War On Poverty was declared in the 60s, or about five decades ago.
Second, it has succeeded in dramatically reducing poverty. We should be pleased, not discouraged.
Medical care requires a lot of (expensively educated) labor and a lot of (very expensively developed and manufactured) technology. Those are fixed costs.
They are not fixed. Every other developed country spends less and gets more. Our system is spectacularly wasteful.
The implicit assumption here is that the cost control efforts of this bill, admittedly which do exist in some form, are sufficient to overcome the cost inflation efforts of this bill. I don’t see that happening.
Even the CBO, which is very skeptical of the cost control efforts, disagrees with you.
But if anyone had said six months ago, we’d been seeing some of the nonsense we’ve already seen.
You wouldn’t have been surprised, because you’d seen all the same things (and much worse) between 2001 and 2007.
Here’s more on those “savings”
Yawn, the doctor fix argument again. The doctor fix isn’t part of ObamaCare — it was passed every year that Bush was in office, and it was going to be passed whether ObamaCare passed or not. You might as well tag ObamaCare with the expenses for treating vets from Afghanistan — that’s health care too!
But looking over my taxes, the culprit is not tax rates – in 2009 my salary was a little bigger but my withholding is 10% smaller than last year’s
That’s the ARRA Making Work Pay tax credit. In the past the government has issued temporary tax credits by mailing out checks, but research shows that the recipients would often save them, which defeats the purpose. By reducing withholding rates instead, the government quietly put the tax credit directly into people’s pockets, which makes it more likely to be spent, spurring economic activity.
Jim, can’t you just write one long post and then press “submit”? It’s really irritating to see a large post count and then realize it’s nothing but a long string of mini-comments by the same person. Then again, I realize that the opening between our universe and yours could possibly be a bit wonky, so maybe that’s the reason.
“Yawn, the doctor fix argument again. The doctor fix isn’t part of ObamaCare..”
You can put your condescension where the sun don’t shine. Obama made Medicare part of his program when he announced 500 billion in cuts to help pay for it.
Jim,
Other countries spend less because they are giving less. Are you suggesting that doctors here are giving care they should not be giving? If so, how does this bill fix that?
Barack Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope,” features a appealing title. It has a taste of bravery mixed confidently. You’ll find nothing Pollyanna regarding it. I might not support every little thing he tells, but he’s our president, and for me, he inspires confidence. That will do more for a nation than any volume of backroom deals. Hope gives us energy, and energy sustains us through trying times. Boy, we’ve had them.
I call this emotion “gullibility”. You’re basically telling us that because you read a book, you’ll thoughtlessly follow Obama anywhere.
The fight for progress and laying the foundations of prosperity is not over. I have seen the quips of those that don’t believe Obama is capable of doing it. But step back a moment. Would anyone have most of us fail in order to tarnish the star of an incumbent for whom they didn’t vote? Attempting to keep our priorities straight, let’s work together with our president and build our future.
After four years, I bet you will agree with us too. Obama hasn’t done much so far. He’s squandered considerable political capital on health care change (and more on ARRA, cap and trade, etc). While I’m willing to do my part to insure he has a lame duck presidency, we all need to keep in mind that his administration has demonstrated such rank incompetence and supported such vile and self-destructive legislation that even his own party won’t unite behind him in Congress.
“Devin Weiss” is either an Obama shillbot or a somewhat more sophisticated comment spammer. I doubt he’s even a real person — his name links back to a Twitter page of someone called “joselembardo” whose profile has no info or links. His latest twitter entry is this: “Breast Augmentation – A Gaze At The Signs Of Healing.” (I removed the link in the entry.) Audacious hope indeed!
I think you’re right, Andrea. I sent it to the spamhole.
Andrea Harris,
Jim is limited to a maximum number of characters per message by the type of BlackholeBerry Account he pays for. That’s why he does the split string comments.
Obama hasn’t done much so far.
Perhaps the biggest, under the radar, damage he has accomplished are direct appointments and appointments by his appointees. This could result in lingering damage to this country years after B.O. is gone.
That’s the ARRA Making Work Pay tax credit. In the past the government has issued temporary tax credits by mailing out checks, but research shows that the recipients would often save them, which defeats the purpose. By reducing withholding rates instead, the government quietly put the tax credit directly into people’s pockets, which makes it more likely to be spent, spurring economic activity.
In other words, the tax credit is designed to create a temporary boost in consumer spending, which is more of a psychological ploy than anything else.
Economic recovery hinges on long-lasting changes that increase net income for every month and not just one – and for businesses and individuals alike. Kemp-Roth was such a change.
Ingrid the Unemployed Insurance Agent confronts Obama after his healthcare rally speech. This could possibly be another Joe the Plumber moment.
It’s sad that Obama’s approval rating is actually one point lower right now than Bush’s was when he left office. Only took him 14 months to get there compared to Bush’s 8 years. Which pretty much tacks right along with the crazed out budgets and spending of this administration. Whatever realized saving of Obamacare after 10 years are going to be consumed in one quarter of spending under this administration, that’s 3 MONTHS. But Obama doesn’t appear to be swayed one bit by his dramatic drop in popularity. In fact, he seems to be determined to pass this immensely unpopular healthcare bill “based on the assumption that the American people like a winner even if the victory comes at their expense.”
Now I’m watching the Massachusetts Treasurer, Tom Cahill, on Glenn Beck and he say that if Obamacare passes the country will go bankrupt in 4 years. The only way that Massachusetts has been able to provide their comprehensive healthcare for so long is because the federal gov’t has been propping it up through Medicare reimbursements. The only problem is that the gov’t has only been paying .70 cents to the dollar forcing a number of suburban hospitals to sue the state of Massachusetts because they are going bankrupt. Who bails out the federal government’s health insurance exchanges when they run out of money in 4 years. My guess is that they are purposely trying to bankrupt insurance companies and hospital systems deemed superfluous to clear way for a total universal healthcare system. This is why Obama was so adamant about getting this legislation passed in his first year so that he could set the stage for universal healthcare before the end of his term. This is just absolute madness to consider it necessary to bankrupt 1/6 of the economy. I really am afraid that this thing is gonna pass tomorrow. *checks clock to see if it is too early to start drinking.
Der Schtumpy — I forgot about that explanation. Probably because I’ve never been able to afford fancy phones with full keyboards like Blackberries. (Though Jim strikes me as more of an iPhone guy. Aren’t most Obama fanatics Mac and Apple product people?)
If this evil monstrosity passes, future historians will mark it as the beginning of the Second American Civil War. Bank on it.
/I love Macs
It’s sad that Obama’s approval rating is actually one point lower right now than Bush’s was when he left office.
Where are you getting those numbers? Rasmussen (the most anti-Obama pollster) has him at 45% approval; Bush left office with 35%.
Now I’m watching the Massachusetts Treasurer, Tom Cahill, on Glenn Beck and he say that if Obamacare passes the country will go bankrupt in 4 years.
Which is ridiculous on its face, because the insurance subsidies (i.e. the expensive part) don’t even start during that period.
Though Jim strikes me as more of an iPhone guy
Guilty as charged, though I don’t usually post comments from my iPhone (the iPhone lacks a quick way to scroll to the bottom of a long web page, and I’m a lousy iPhone typist).
Aren’t most Obama fanatics Mac and Apple product people?
I’m not sure about that. Obama himself is a Blackberry fanatic, not an iPhone fan. Back in 2000 it was Mac user Bush vs. IBM user Gore. Gore has since joined Apple’s board, so I presume he uses a Mac these days.
In short: taste in computers and phones is a poor predictor of political ideology.
If this evil monstrosity passes, future historians will mark it as the beginning of the Second American Civil War. Bank on it.
I’ll bank all of my Confederate Dollars on it.
“Jim, can’t you just write one long post and then press “submit”? It’s really irritating to see a large post count and then realize it’s nothing but a long string of mini-comments by the same person. Then again, I realize that the opening between our universe and yours could possibly be a bit wonky, so maybe that’s the reason.”
Andrea, Jim could save himself even more trouble by writing one post–“Me lovey the Statey! Me lovey force!”–and simply compy-and-paste that repeatedly. That’s essentially what he does, only less efficiently.
I’ll bank all of my Confederate Dollars on it.
This is one of the reasons you have such great credibility on this site. You back your statements up with assets.