Republicans' Solution to Health Care

[Lorizael]

No, but I suppose they're people too and the government shouldn't genocide them.

Please don't make me have to homicide you.

[Elok]

? Well, if they're not entirely fictional constructs and they have employees, then they "are people" in the sense that Romney and HC were alluding to, no? Maybe not a lot of people apiece, it's true, but no claims were made about quantity.

[Dinner]

Why should healthcare even be a responsibility of corporations? Does this connection hold back US companies making them less competitive?

Not just yes but hell yes. I remember back during health care debate several large manufacturing companies signed a letter saying health care costs were the single largest difference between them and their foreign competitors. German and Japanese car makers have their domestic work force on national health care while US car makers are forced to pay huge amounts to cover their workers. Airbus's workers are on national health care while Boeing has to pay by itself. Steel, chemicals, lumber, name the industry and it's at a disadvantage to some of it's largest competitors. Even Taiwan, South Korea, and Russia have universal care so the only major trading partners which don't are Mexico and China.

[Uncle Sparky]

Corporations ARE people. Groups of people, more accurately, which is what Romney was saying. If you can't understand why it's important to have healthcare plans that won't crush corporations, you aren't much better than kidicious.

Most sane democratic nations don't think corperations are people. Most sane democracies don't have corporations administer something as fundamental to real people as health care. Now, lets all applaud the idea of poor people who can't afford American health care dying.

Tea arty:

[Dinner]

Corporations ARE people. Groups of people, more accurately, which is what Romney was saying.

GREAT! Then let's tax them at the individual tax payer income tax rate instead of the 0%-2% rate most of the fortune 500 currently pays. They can't have it both ways where they get to dump unlimited funds into the election process "because they're people" but still not pay any net taxes.

[Berzerker]

Why should healthcare even be a responsibility of corporations? Does this connection hold back US companies making them less competitive?

I think Milton Friedman was one of the WWII advisers that recommended wage and price controls but a loophole allowed businesses to offer other incentives, like health care packages. Thats how businesses attracted better people and it wasn't a problem thanks to our economic advantage coming out of the war until health care costs skyrocketed.

[Berzerker]

GREAT! Then let's tax them at the individual tax payer income tax rate instead of the 0%-2% rate most of the fortune 500 currently pays. They can't have it both ways where they get to dump unlimited funds into the election process "because they're people" but still not pay any net taxes.

wont they pass that tax onto consumers? or lay off people? or move overseas?

they pay income taxes already, I can understand a small tax for infrastructure since they use more of it

[Hauldren Collider]

Most sane democratic nations don't think corperations are people. Most sane democracies don't have corporations administer something as fundamental to real people as health care. Now, lets all applaud the idea of poor people who can't afford American health care dying.

Tea arty:

How dare corporations administer healthcare? Holy ****, what a stupid comment.

[Tupac Shakur]

GREAT! Then let's tax them at the individual tax payer income tax rate instead of the 0%-2% rate most of the fortune 500 currently pays.

This is a good idea. Tax corporate profits once at the same rate as the individual income tax, then give the net income directly to the people who make up the corporation tax free.

[Dinner]

Once per transaction, dumb ass. If I earn income then I pay taxes on it but it I give it to someone else then he pays taxes on it too. "Corporations are people!" remember? So them giving money to other people is a taxable transaction, ****.

[Uncle Sparky]

How dare corporations administer healthcare? Holy ****, what a stupid comment.

OK... I accept your apology... assuming you are not blowing smoke out your ass, please explain the advantage of health care being administered by corporations.

[giblets]

Corporations are people, so we should let them vote in our elections once they're at least 18 years old.

[Dinner]

OK... I accept your apology... assuming you are not blowing smoke out your ass, please explain the advantage of health care being administered by corporations.

Well there is... Uh... That is... Gee... Other then increased costs (due to another layer of bureaucracy & massive profit taking) not to mention duplication of effort I can't think of anything. Especially since most states only have 1 or 2 large health insurance companies. In short, there just isn't much competition and the middle men in the duopoly are charge massively exorbitant rents without adding much of anything to end user value. Kill these abusive & politically corrupt organizations already because they serve zero, absolutely zero, purpose other then extracting rents from honest people.

[giblets]

They charge massively exorbitant rents? If I remember correctly the profit margins of health insurance companies are like 3-4%.

[Dinner]

HA! There are massive and I do mean MASSIVE ways to hide **** if you have a halfway decent accountant. "We only make 4% profit!" Oh, yeah? What about the 40% of income you spend on marketing and the 20% of income you pay executives for lavish, and I do mean truly lavish, pay packages even though these execs supposedly only produce tiny profit margins for shareholders? We can easily gut half the costs right there and then with the increased economies of scale which come from nationally purchasing medical supplies we can drive costs down even further the same way Walmart does.

In short, there is TONS and TONS of fat to be removed from this system, there are whole layers of middlemen to be cut out of the loop, it's just the most inefficient system in the 1st world today and if just about everyone else can cover more people with better coverage yet still pay half the cost then you know we're doing it wrong. Kill these wasteful rent seeking dinosaurs and copy any of two dozen other countries all of whom do it better and more efficiently than us. The sooner these corrupt insurance crooks are put out of business the better off the country will be.