punish people for getting the best healthcare available to them. That makes absolutely no sense.

10/23/2008 2:28:00 PM

Quote :

"What happened to $250,000 a year?"

1)250,000 is married filling jointly. Every stat that you hear from every politician is married filling jointly and they usually assume a two earner household.

Joe the plumber is not married but he has a child which qualifies him for filling head of household.

2) Every tax payer who has any amount in "Salary or Wages" that is not just investment, SS, child support or welfare and whose total income is less than 200,000K will recieve a $500 tax credit. (Two credits for a two income family)


By the way, there is nothing you do to recieve the credit you simply fill out your tax form. You cannot recieve the credit if you have no Salary or Wages.

There is also an additional tax credit for home mortgage interest




The McCain tax cut comes from an expansion in the exemption for children. It is now 3500. McCain will double it to 7000. That means your taxable income decreases by this much. To calculate your savings multiply times your tax bracket.

Ex 15% bracket and two kids would impy a savings of $1050.


The long and short of it. The more children you have the more likely you are to save under McCain. The higher the tax bracket the more likely you are to save under McCain. If you have no children you will probably not get a tax cut from McCain.

10/23/2008 2:31:51 PM

Sounds good. I could user $500.

10/23/2008 2:34:56 PM

Quote :

"punish people for getting the best healthcare available to them. That makes absolutely no sense. "

yet, taxing productivity is? You are still ignoring the point about choice. Also them having to pay something towards thier healthcare isnt bad, its still a bargain while going through the employer. They just will get taxed on what it costs.

So let me get this straight nuts. You think its nuts for an employee to have a choice on what kind of healthcare he gets, and pay taxes on that benefit if thier employers pays for it.

However, its perfectly acceptible to tax his income if the employer decides he did a good job and gives him a raise. Am I summing up your arguement well?

10/23/2008 2:48:55 PM

With employer provided health insurance there isn't much of a choice. You are given a few options to choose from.

the point is, you want to punish people who have good healthcare so that they will go and buy cheaper healthcare which will in time lead to higher healthcare costs.

Then of course, suppose for instance that people getting their healthcare through their employer decide sure, we'll go with the cheaper option and the tax credit. That tax credit will cease to be revenue neutral as the McCain camp is proposing.

Also, let's take a marriaged couple filing jointly. If they were to make $280,000, their tax bill would increase by only $900 compared to them maintaining a $250,000 income. Are you reall suggestion that people will work less and not want to make $30,000 more a year because they'll end up paying $900 more in taxes?

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 2:54 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 2:52:35 PM

WE agree, people should have more choices.

I dont want to punish anyone for having good healthcare, but you cant deny the fact that they have a choice in the matter, unlike an income tax hike.

What was the average healthcare cost obama used? 11k?

10/23/2008 2:56:54 PM

for a family the costs the average costs are about $12,000.

The point is, however, the failure of the McCain plan is that unlike income taxes that come with an increase in earnings, the increased taxes on the health insurance plan comes through maintaining the status quo.

10/23/2008 3:01:09 PM

12k at the highest bracket of 35% is 4,200 bucks. The cost of their health insurance at 35% bracket before they pay anything extra in taxes is a plan that costs over 14k a year.

So ill double the average expense. So a plan that is 24k dollars, provided by your employer would cost this person making over 350k, 3,500 a year in taxes.

Now a DOUBLE the average plan for a person making between 32k and 77k, would cost them 1k a year in taxes if they choose. Thats still a helluva discount huh.

10/23/2008 3:19:12 PM

how does a 24k plan cost someone less than a 14k plan?

10/23/2008 3:33:44 PM

yeah, sorry I thought you could figure out that 4,200 is less than 5k, so they would pay nothing extra in taxes for the first one. Thats why I said in that bracket before they would have to PAY anything is over 14k.

The others are figured with the tax credit already.

10/23/2008 3:45:12 PM

^

There is no question that if one keeps their health insurance most people will save money under McCain's plan

The concern (whether this is a feature or a bug depends on your perspective) is that the McCain plan will undermine the employer based system. Indeed, this is what the orginal authors of the credit-deduction-swap intended.

Why?

Because, young healthy people can get private insurance for much cheaper than their employee plan. For example, my wife buys independent insurance from BCBS for $169 a month but to add her to my state employees insurance would cost nearly $400 a month.

So, the young and healthy pour out of their employee plans because it saves them even more under McCain. This leaves employers with an older less healthy pool. This leads to rising costs, which in turn causes them to raise premiums and shed even more employees.

The risk is that virtually everyone who is not sick or over the age of 45 will eventually find it cheaper to buy on their own rather than face rising employer premiums. The result will be either huge premiums for the workers who are left or crushing contributions from employers.

Rough estimates I saw were that 20 Million people will lose their insurance involuntarily as premiums rise or companies dump their plans. Many of these people will not be able to afford health insurance with only a $5000 credit.


Now as I said this was the idea for the orginal creators of the plan because they believe and there is evidence to suggest that American's have too much insurance. If health was a cash business then costs woud come down as people shopped for the cheapest doctors.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 4:03 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 4:02:58 PM

I agree with most of your post KW. In fact when my wife's premium was rasied from 100 bucks to 300 bucks per paycheck through the office, we got her own plan at 109 a MONTH.

I LOVE the idea of PEOPLE getting the taxbreaks instead of business. Now people will educate themselves on thier options and THEY make a decision, instead of being passive in thier healthcare choices.

Where I find a flaw in your logic though. You state that younger people will opt for cheaper ins, which I agree with. Where I disagree with you is that the rates will then explode for the businesses. THe businesses buy their policies through the same companies that the individuals do. So now I have BC/BS and my wife has BC/BS, just one is paid for mostly by my employer and we pay 100% of the other. So the pool of people getting insurance will increase, along with healthy people getting insurance who either opt out of their expensive company plan currently, or thier employers dont offer one. Along with competition, this will allow people to shop for insurances which should lower premiums.

Absolutely companies can dump thier plans, its a free market. Actually companies dont have to offer it currently.. but do because it attracts workers.

10/23/2008 4:13:10 PM

^

So, the overall costs to the insurance company do not move but the relative cost of insuring companies rises.

In other words if insurance companies did not change their prices then they would find insuraning independent buyer profitbale but insuring companies not profitable. This will lead them to raise their prices on businesses.

Another way to think about it is this. The total cost to pay for health care doesn't change. So if young people are getting cheaper premiums, someone must be getting higher premiums. Those people are the old and sick and the companies that insure them.

10/23/2008 4:18:07 PM

well right now, insurance companies really only insure people until 65, bc they go on medicare. So they have a limited window to insure them.

I think you are missing the point that many NEW people will now go buy thier own insurance bc now they have an incentive or thier companies policy was too expensive before.
The larger the pool, the less the premiums are.

10/23/2008 4:36:41 PM

Quote :

"yeah, sorry I thought you could figure out that 4,200 is less than 5k, so they would pay nothing extra in taxes for the first one. Thats why I said in that bracket before they would have to PAY anything is over 14k."

and more expensive than $2,500

10/23/2008 4:53:30 PM

which is what?

10/23/2008 4:57:49 PM

^^^

Yes, some unisured people will become insured. However, they will be covered at the cost of their healthcare plus some margin for profits. This doesn't help lower costs for companies. The more people buy their insurance as indivdual the more the costs will be reflective of the actual usage of the indivdual. So companies who are insuring mostly older workers will find that they are paying higher premiums.

My basic point, however, is not that the plan is fundamentally flawed. It is that what the plan is, or at least was orginally, designed to do was reduce the total amount of insurance bought in the US.

There is a strong argument for this from a basic cost-benefit prespective. Much of our health care expenses do not contribute to making us much healthier. A large fraction of the cost goes to expensive diagnostic tests that allow doctors to practice "House, MD" style medicine.

However, the most frequent result of these test is negative. And in many cases when they are positive there is not much the doctor can do anyway. Sometimes its because the disease simply has to run its course. Sometimes its because the disease is terminal anyway.

In the cases where the doctor can do something it is common that the diagnostics simpy back up the doctors educated guess. So, in pure economic terms there is no gain.

Therefore, we would all be better off in a world with less health care.

Now, that having been said, people seem to be much happier with health care systems that provide them with more services and greater costs. Indeed, the big HMO debate seemed to show that. HMOs were quite effective at lowering costs in large part because they denied tests. However, people hated that.

[Edited on October 23, 2008 at 5:08 PM. Reason : .]

10/23/2008 5:08:23 PM

Quote :

"Yes, some unisured people will become insured. However, they will be covered at the cost of their healthcare plus some margin for profits. This doesn't help lower costs for companies. "

You realize that is how insurance companies run today? Even your car ins. If there wasnt money to be made, then they wouldnt exist.

There will be more people giving them money, right? Insurance, by definition, is the spreading of risks over the group.(A system to protect persons against the risks of financial loss by transferring the risks to a large group who share the financial losses.) So the larger the group, the less risks everyone shares. Follow me?

And I dont think the plan is designed at all to reduce the amount of ins. bought in the US. I say it gives individuals the incentive to shop for thier own. Which, in turn, promotes healthier lifestyles so they dont have to pay larger premiums.

10/23/2008 8:03:01 PM

But the PRICING will no longer be group based but indivdual based.

The relevant pool is the pool of people who all pay the same price. If everyone prices independently then the healthy will get low prices and the sick will get high prices.

This is a concern if you want wide coverage because the sick will not be able to afford it.

10/23/2008 8:23:28 PM

That is a concern KW, but the reality of it is that healthy people should pay less and unhealthy people should pay more.

For instance, do you think its unfair if my gas bill is twice what yours is because I drive twice as much?

10/24/2008 9:02:05 AM

(Haven't read the thread, just the last post...)


^The problem with universally charging "sick" people more for it, though, eyedrb, brings up the moral issue of when someone has a hereditary disease, or a medical condition that they are born with. A lot of people consider it to be unfair discrimination, and I can't say I entirely disagree with them.

Perhaps if there were exceptions in the cases of people who have had health issues from birth that are obviously no fault of their own, it would be a fair practice. I completely agree with someone who has unhealthy habits being charged more, but charging more for someone who obviously developed health problems through no fault of their own raises some of the same issues as racism and sexism: A person can't control how they're born.

10/24/2008 9:13:40 AM

I agree with that thought tromboner. The reality of it is, if there is money in doing it and there is a need a business will eventually fill that need. Regardless of the reasons, if you use MORE of a service it costs MORE.

And usually, those with disabilities get medicare.

[Edited on October 24, 2008 at 9:25 AM. Reason : .]

10/24/2008 9:25:11 AM

Quote :

"http://taxcut.barackobama.com/"

Umm, what a stupid and trivial calculator. There is practically no difference in tax savings between $0-$150,000. Lame. I figured if my household only made $50K I'd get more, but my prissy middle class, BMW driving, raking in $150K income neighbors will get the same exact tax savings. Sounds like a nice pander.

10/24/2008 9:43:43 AM

UPDATE
From personal experience, as someone who works with a lot of small businesses...

They ARE cutting back. Especially some of the law firms we do IT jobs for. I talked to the owner of one and he said they're cutting back because they are anticipating Obama winning the election. They're trying to save ahead of time, so that when taxes are due, they'll still make profit. He told me they were going to raise they're rates soon, just in anticipation. It kind of shocked me that he told me that.

He was telling me that his law firm makes much much more than $250K. He has 5 employees and just their salaries alone are over $250K. So, he's said he would definately have to pay more taxes.

I thought when Obama spoke of the "$250K" he was talking about net income earned, not gross... So is Obama speaking of net income or gross income being taxed?

Mixed ideas on google, but I think I found the correct answer.

[Edited on October 27, 2008 at 9:59 AM. Reason : nvm]

10/27/2008 9:44:41 AM

I just found out today that the MDs that come to the office 3x a month laid off a couple docs and cut thier staff. The head of the group sent out an email saying it was in anticipation for a prolonged recession, higher taxes, and uncertainty with healthcare reimbursements.

Sucks, the one doc they fired moved here from the midwest and came to my office.

10/27/2008 3:51:11 PM

Quote :

"He was telling me that his law firm makes much much more than $250K. He has 5 employees and just their salaries alone are over $250K. So, he's said he would definately have to pay more taxes."

This is a common misconception. It would be the profits of the company, so their salaries wouldn't count towards that, if that is what you were implying, and would be just one of their many deductions they would have to get their profit reduced. But being a law firm I could easily believe that they would have profits that would exceed those amounts.

but i do have a serious question


Regarding the Obama tax credits in which fashion is it done. Is it that people who work at all and have a job will see this tax credit returned to them even if they only pay SS and FICA in federal taxes, or will the credit only go to those who actually pay federal taxes. Assuming the latter is the case, if i only pay x in federal taxes do i get x >= 500 back or do i automatically get 500 just for paying into the tax system.

If when this is answered could someone provide a link as a source, that would be appreciated.

10/29/2008 9:18:43 AM

Joe "Plugs" Biden--The Human Gaffe Machine--Changes Obama's Tax Plan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8sWT_SSQwE



Is it $250K? $200K? 182K, as Krugman says? $150K?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-SavgJlBLA

10/29/2008 9:56:41 AM

Man, hooksaw has the propaganda machine in full effect today. Love it!

10/29/2008 10:51:16 AM

but seriously if that question i asked right before hooksaw's post could be addressed i'd be content. i don't know the answer to it, and i'll openly admit that.

i assume someone has to have the answer and evidence to back it up.

10/29/2008 11:18:11 AM

^ This is all you need.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910303529751345.html

10/29/2008 11:29:06 AM

i've read that, and i find aspects of it intentionally misleading, and i do not feel it fully addresses the question i had at hand. but it was a good read and provided a notable perspective.

10/29/2008 11:56:10 AM

Quote :

"A large fraction of the cost goes to expensive diagnostic tests that allow doctors to practice "House, MD" style medicine. However, the most frequent result of these test is negative."

I'm under the impression that drs run excessive tests so they don't get their asses sued. Maybe in days past when people couldn't get silly medical lawsuits to a judge, they wouldn't run these tests. But now you can sue doctors for plenty of ridiculous things, thus, excessive testing.

10/29/2008 12:29:48 PM

so no one knows the answer?

10/29/2008 4:48:20 PM

answer to what?

10/30/2008 11:20:33 AM

Quote :

"but i do have a serious question Regarding the Obama tax credits in which fashion is it done. Is it that people who work at all and have a job will see this tax credit returned to them even if they only pay SS and FICA in federal taxes, or will the credit only go to those who actually pay federal taxes. Assuming the latter is the case, if i only pay x in federal taxes do i get x >= 500 back or do i automatically get 500 just for paying into the tax system. If when this is answered could someone provide a link as a source, that would be appreciated. "

10/30/2008 11:31:29 AM

well everyone that works will still have thier fed withholding taken out. Its just that will get MORE back than they put in at the end of the year. (with all the credits)

This will just be more money being handed out seriouscat.

10/30/2008 1:00:49 PM

no use

he doesnt understand this

10/30/2008 1:01:36 PM

^^ Which means the person has a job and is working.

It's very similar to the EITC which was expanded significantly by that socialist cock gobbler Reagan.

10/30/2008 2:08:07 PM

you are correct, recently obama just said he would make a work requirement to get the credits.(which you can choose to believe or not) However, by expanding the child credits, one doesnt need to work to be eligible, i believe.

10/30/2008 2:11:07 PM

^ I'm not sure, it doesn't seem to indicate that: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106182,00.html

And McCain would double the child tax credit too.

In any case, there's absolutely no way that someone could survive without working on just these tax credits, if you assume they get them. I don't think that's an issue worth considering at this point in time.

10/30/2008 2:20:04 PM

so moron its your contention that those who work will automatically get the 500 credit, regardless of how much they work and how much (or little) they pay in taxes.

meaning that someone who pays only fica and ss will get back 500 yet still have the benefit of receiving full SS and medicare usage when they become of age?

are they not, then, getting more out of the system than they put in?

10/30/2008 2:28:09 PM

"If the amount of your Child Tax Credit is greater than the amount of income tax you owe, you may be able to claim some or all of the difference as an “Additional” Child Tax Credit. The Additional Child Tax Credit may give you a refund even if you do not owe any tax."

10/30/2008 2:31:16 PM

Quote :

"Regarding the Obama tax credits in which fashion is it done. Is it that people who work at all and have a job will see this tax credit returned to them even if they only pay SS and FICA in federal taxes, or will the credit only go to those who actually pay federal taxes. Assuming the latter is the case, if i only pay x in federal taxes do i get x >= 500 back or do i automatically get 500 just for paying into the tax system."

The credits are refundable which means that you will get the entire amount back. Your tax burden can go below zero.

It may be important to note that the tax code works this way already. This is not a new feature.


Nor, you may be interested to know, is it a liberal feature. Refundable tax credits and a negative tax burden were a hallmark of conservative economic policy for the last 40 years. Or, at least until the GOP decided to demonize its intellectuals and become the Party of Sarah Palin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

[Edited on October 30, 2008 at 2:32 PM. Reason : .]

10/30/2008 2:31:29 PM

^^^ That's not my "contention" that's how the systems actually is NOW, that's how it has been for at least 2 decades (i didn't bother to look back farther), and that's how it will continue to be under Obama.

[Edited on October 30, 2008 at 2:32 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2008 2:31:46 PM

i just wanted to make sure. i really had no sincere opposition to it, but it has come up in discussion with those "on the other side of the isle" and i wanted to be able to provide them with all the information possible.

10/30/2008 2:33:28 PM

^^^ Pretty much.

They were called "anti poverty programs" by republicans (including their hero Regan), until recently when they changed their rhetoric to be more negative and started calling them "entitlement programs".

10/30/2008 2:36:26 PM

^except there will be MORE people paying no tax and getting a net benefit from the govt. Are you denying this?

Currently its around 40% of workers pay no income tax and some actually have a negative tax rate.

I, personally, hate the idea of income tax, tax credits/deductions, etc..

10/30/2008 2:37:25 PM

^

How is this functionally different from progressive taxation or even flat taxation for that matter.


As long as the government spends money on things that are consumed by everyone and as long as taxes are proportional to income, the poor will be effectively subsidized by the rich.

10/30/2008 2:48:29 PM

I like the fairtax personally. Although a flat tax is the next fairest thing. imo

[Edited on October 30, 2008 at 3:15 PM. Reason : sorry, i misread your statement.]

10/30/2008 3:03:29 PM

Quote :

"Currently its around 40% of workers pay no income tax and some actually have a negative tax rate."

for starters what does it say about our system if 40% of workers can't make enough money to provide for themselves that surpasses what the government has deemed the living wage?

also, i think its 40% of working household pay none. which is a distinction. for example, if i had a wife and kid in my household i would no longer be paying any taxes, while now i pay a good amount.

10/31/2008 1:10:36 PM