Only 35% and you get complete 100% health care with zero deductible for your entire family? And you can also put your entire family through four years of college for that, too? And you're guaranteed at least two weeks of paid vacation? Wow.

Pardon my cynical nature, but I doubt it.

But if you are, great. You're obviously in a much more socialist environment than most Americans. And why would you want to pay a little extra for other Americans? I guess you'd have to ask that young mother who just lost the father of her kids to a drunk driver. Or ask that elderly couple that just got flooded out of their home in Lewis County or Grays Harbor County. Or maybe that guy with a family that just lost his job of 15 years because it was shipped offshore and his child was recently diagnosed with cancer. Ask them why they didn't have their [censored] together.

Or you can continue to be an "it's all about me" kinda guy. You can have your country as a collection of individuals, or you can have America as a country of individuals cooperatively creating a civilized society.



Bolagna. A better idea would be to put a salary cap on the CEOs of those insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. But consider if you had a single-payer system there wouldn't be insurance costs to rise because of lawsuits. I've had socialized health care for 26 years and pay less annually to insure my entire family than many people pay monthy.

Per capita there are more self-employed (read small business owners) in France than here in the United States, which economists say is a result of the high cost of health insurance here.

Nice to hear from ya GH..........

If I saved 5% of my income and invested it wisely, it wouldn't be a stretch pay for my theorhetical kids college.. I know my parents did it. I have 2 weeks paid vacation and my medical deductible, including a surgery I had last year ran me less than 2.5% of my total income. Including my additional tax free retirement savings (also could have tax free college savings if one of my boys breaks through the a rain coat) I would say my total after expenditures including taxes right now are under 30% of my income. Remember in sweden, besides the 60% income tax, there is a 25% built in sales tax as well. Good thing they have one of the lowest GDP's of any of the origional EU countries.





No its all just decent life planning and not expecting the Goverment to take care of me.




Oh yeah your programs will definately create a civilized society..
Fema takes care of flood victims.. And while the other cases you can call tear jerkers. The single mother will be taken care of (atleast in my state) The Oregon health plan and myriad of other social programs. As for the other ones, as for the other ones it sounds like he has a work ethic and will be back on his feet soon.



How much did you pay in taxes for your socialized medicine just out of curiosity?

The former employees and investors of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, etc. got a good chuckle out of that.

Bet they wish they could have had something more secure like, oh, I dunno, Sweden? And speaking of that "25% sales tax," I wonder how that all works out given the value of the Euro to the dollar and built-in profit margins of American corporations. Also, because of the way the US computes its GDP, it is not the most accurate means of comparing countries.

Wanna buy a trailer real cheap? Today's FEMA is an example of what happens to well-meant organizations when they are overtaken by an "every man for himself" ideology.

I give you credit for being such an optimist concerning my hypothetical man who's lost his job and has a child stricken with cancer. But consider that having the greatest work ethic in the world does no good if there's no work to be had. Or because of the over abundance of unemployed, he cannot find a job paying what he used to make, or an employer that offers family health care coverage.

Monetarily, I pay no more in tax for my health coverage than any average middle-class American. The co-pay is less than $100 annually. So why can't more Americans have that?

"No its all just decent life planning and not expecting the Goverment to take care of me."

Just a guess but I bet the cost of your surgery was more than you've paid out of pocket for health insurance for yourself in your entire lifespan which means someone else "took care of you" you socialist.

He meant to say SOCIALIZED COMMUNITY. Sounds a lot like the communism type of society we fought for decades.

Take too much from the hard worker and the incentive is gone. Give too much to those without and they ALSO lose the incentive to work.

BUT GH will keep on preaching it anyway.

"Wanna buy a trailer real cheap? Today's FEMA is an example of what happens to well-meant organizations when they are overtaken by an "every man for himself" ideology."

That is a wonderful distortion of the facts. Try to make it look like buying to many trailers is "every man for himself" ideas. The problem with Fema is they are the big brother program trying to use our money to fix problems would be better taken care of a state level by on the ground personal deciding what needs to be done(with our money). Fema thinks they can throw a hundred billion at the problem and that will fix it. Hense renting cruise ships that house 3000 and having 80 on board. Buying to many trailers no one ever used and sat there to rot. Using the dome to house people, ect ,ect ,ect. And in this fine socialized society, we bail them out so they can rebiuld BELOW SEA LEVEL and do it agian in 30 years.

"I pay no more in tax for my health coverage than any average middle-class American. The co-pay is less than $100 annually. So why can't more Americans have that?"

You have a job that offers it and that is great. I pay 100% of all my employees health care. But take another 10% in taxes from your employers and soon there is not money to do that anymore. Health care benefits might only cost you $100 but your employer paid through the nose(unless you work for the government then someone elses employer paid) Keep raising taxes and there will be no jobs or health care coverage because employees and health care are the two biggest expenses and will go first in cutbacks.

"But consider that having the greatest work ethic in the world does no good if there's no work to be had. Or because of the over abundance of unemployed"

I love people who do this as well. Everythings terrible, lifes so hard, no work, no pay, jobs over seas. These are the same people who said how great it was in the nineties when the unemployment rate was 5.2%. Hense party affiliation. Now it is 4.9% which use to be concidered full employment and everyone is out of work. Job maket is flooded, No jobs blah blah blah. Once again, party affiliation. For the 4.9%, there are always jobs to be had if they want them. Might not be the same exact job they had or even need to take a pay cut but they are out there and you take what you can get and keep looking for something better. When it comes along and it will you jump at it. Work you way up or go get trained to do something diferent. The money is there is grants, loans and handouts(one of the variety I dont mind giving if someone is trying to better themselves) to do jsut that. But saying everything was wonderful in the nineties an terrible now is just plain B.S. and shows you will never be happy if your party can take the credit.

The problem with FEMA is that some jacka$$ appointed another jacka$$ to run it. He in turn awarded no bid contracts to fellow jacka$$'s. So we ended up with a whole lot of cronies fattening up at the trough while people were dying. As a taxpayer you should be appalled.

The 80's were worse than the 90's. The 2000's are worse than the 90's. What's your point? You contridict yourself here. According to you there are plenty of jobs, meaning employees have a lot of options, meaning if you are "forced" to cut health care employees can and will readily move on and work for someone who does offer healthcare. Net result in your world is only you, the employer, loses. Right?

BTW, you do know that unemployment figures do not include those who have run out of unemployment and still not found a job don't you? They also do not reflect those who have been forced out of desperation to take a significant pay cut just to survive. Kind of like the false inflation numbers.

No Stlhead what I said is if you raise taxes and take away profits so business have to make cuts, they will. If you dont get that I dont know how to explain it to you. And no I did not say the 2000's are worse if you read it.....I said that the impression is worse and it comes from what party you are with, not tough to tell from you. There is no contridiction. I did not say the job market is wide open. I said there are jobs and you take what you can get until something better comes up. i said that the #'s are better than the nineties and people who say clinton was teh worlds greatest for his job numbers now complain about better #s than there were then. And they use the same way of finguring teh #s that they did then.
As far as employees having options, they do. they can come and go if they like but we give every benefit adn none have. If we are forced to make cuts due to taxes it is sad but I am not dumb enough to think they would not move on. I hope it does not come to that because they are like family as we are a small business. My point was if we get killed with taxes then some would be let go making the job market much worse. This is economy wide when it happens. Employers loose profits and go into black=employees loose jobs and health care. Bad situation made worse.
The no bid contract thing is funny. I am sure you screamed that the response wasnt fast enough.....impeach bush right, hates black people, blow up the levee. Then you complain about not getting bids adn corporate fat cats(They did have bids after the inicial response by the way....look it up). But when you need a fast response you dont send bids to a government agency as they cant get out of there own way and to busy making political points and would rather hurt the other party than help the people(both parties). Lastly, I am sure you are the same guy that screamed about us not getting the contract for the fuel tankers because we got under bid. Lets get Bush for that too. You cant have it both ways to say they dont get bids then say how dare they when you dont like the outcome. I think that we should always get bids and the best bid and product get it. Capitalism at its finest.

"I pay no more in tax for my health coverage than any average middle-class American. The co-pay is less than $100 annually. So why can't more Americans have that?"

You have a job that offers it and that is great. I pay 100% of all my employees health care. But take another 10% in taxes from your employers and soon there is not money to do that anymore. Health care benefits might only cost you $100 but your employer paid through the nose(unless you work for the government then someone elses employer paid) Keep raising taxes and there will be no jobs or health care coverage because employees and health care are the two biggest expenses and will go first in cutbacks.

I'll say this once again. Our health care package where I work is negociated as part of a total wage package. Nothing is "given" to us, we defer wages into the health care package.

Depends on the purpose of the taxes. You are a small business and are thinking on that scale. Billions of our tax dollars are awarded corporate America commonly under the guise of "creating jobs". So, one could twist that into "taxes are good" "raising taxes will create jobs". If taxes are for providing health care then it just might lower your health care burden as a business. Myself I feel I pay way too much in taxes and big business pay's way too little. I feel there are too many loop holes and deductions for everybody but me it seems. But I'm not dumb enough to not think we won't have to all pay the piper due to a completely inept administrtation and it's policies.

Numbers do lie....the middle class has been under attack. Yes they do use the same way of figuring. A job is a job. They don't account for the fact that decent wage jobs have disappeared and have been replaced with just above poverty level wages. Add rampant inflation and the devaluation of the dollar and it's not a pretty picture. Why should we care if a small business, run by someone who supports this climate, goes out of business? You can find another job just like anyone else right?

Impeach Bush? That's only a start. I want him tried for treason. And it has little to do with Katrina but I think you need to do your homework. The rebuilding was a sham full of no-bid contracts. Do a search. Katrina is but one of an almost near perfect score of complete incompetence, failures and down right treasoness actions in my book.

The tanker bid I think should have factored in what country our tax dollars are going to benefit which it didn't. Would a factor of that sort have changed the outcome? Who knows. But it's pretty eye opening to see our military awarding contracts for equipment to foreign entities. Maybe the failures of KBR and Halliburton have soured them on quasi-U.S. corporations?

Then why are wages on average lower in Socialist countries (i.e. sweden france etc) than the US?

And why do they get over three weeks of guaranteed paid vacation annually? Why is the cost of living relatively equal? Why is the Euro worth twice that of the dollar? Why aren't they dieing left and right because of socialized medicine? Why are they considered healthier? Why is the number of people out of work relatively equal to that of America? Why isn't there rampant poverty?

And for Doc... Why is there a higher percentage of small business owners in France then the US?

So many questions, so few answers.

France, Sweden, and all of the other countries that provide health care and people friendly benefits are not socialist countries. A true socialist regime emphasizes the collective and ignores the rights of individuals and those in power are generally very corrupt. None of the countries mentioned in this thread are socialist countries and are far from it.

We have the most expensive health care system in the world, but yet we lag behind Canada and most European countries in infant mortality and life expectancy. 47 million people go without health care because they cannot afford it and untold numbers get limited health coverage. I think questioning such a system is not only proper, but the kind of conversation this country should be having. You bet we should re-think this sucker and by doing so does not make anyone a socialist.

Mike@NorthBend, totally agree with your post, well said.
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Many seem to be under the impression that insurance simply pays when they should, EYE OPENER – they do not, oftentimes it is better for their bottom line to force their customer to sue. Some claims are offset by interest made thru initial denials & continued delays while the original money due sits in interest accounts. They must have mathematicians working the #s, since they have determined that it is finacially beneficial to deny, delay & bet against a lawsuit because the percent of those who do not sue make the awards of those who do worth the while. Not in good hands, not a good neighbor, don’t kid yourself about insurance (of any kind) especially if your health is involved, only the naive believe. In order to have control we must cover all Americans, otherwise we live by the ins comp rules - can anyone see what I mean? If all were covered, they would find it difficult to deny, delay or exclude.

Not sure what that has to do with my point, but on to your question. Because of the higher rate of vacations and time off in European countries that means that there are more hours paid for that are not actual work hours, because of the end price of the manufactured item is basically fixed it means that the price for a hour of labor most be less to carry the burden of more time off.

I'd like to point out that we are all paying for those uninsured 47 million people either through taxes (medicare or similar public assistance) or higher insurance premiums. There is no escaping it, so why not get rid of HMO's - cut out the hugantic middle man that is screwing both hospitals/doctors and us?

The difference is now we're paying for reactive medicine via the Emergency Room, rather than paying for preventative medicine, which is significantly cheaper.

So yes, WRO, you're ALREADY paying for the uninsured. Only now, you're paying for it in its most expensive form.

And if you're real lucky, the night you get in a car accident, the ER will be so overwhelmed by the uninsured, that they'll not have the resources to save your life because 25 people are already in the ER.

It's best not to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

This is the same for most of Boeing.