You are spot on, Ford. My wife and I have 6 children between us. We pull down the filthy rich salary of about $55k between us yet DO NOT qualify for a health care subsidy because the means test of "affordability" (when considering your employer sponsored coverage) only looks at the premium for the employee alone. It completely ignores the cost of insuring the children. In our case, it's about $100 per month for a cadillac plan for just my wife, but over $1600 per month for the plan one step down if we cover all of us. How on earth is $20,000 a year for health insurance affordable?
The FACT that no one wants to deal with is that we were promised by our fearless leader that this sweeping, choice stealing, tax inflating legislation would bring quality health care within reach of the working poor. All of everyone's bullfluff about free this and free that and Canada gives you a hand job with every check up and no one ever gets a stubbed toe in England.......none of it changes or provides adequate defense for the fact that we were straight lied to, stolen from and stripped of yet one more ounce of freedom. None of anyone's anti-whatever rhetoric will detract one ounce of truth from that point.

just wait till the true costs of this are factored into the premiums

America's key problem with health insurance is letting "the market" decide the price of healthcare and force the receiver to pay for it (either by having an insurance company or by being on the hook for the whole bill) while congress is in the pocket of big health insurance lobbies helping line their pockets.

Everyone involved in the process of health care in America has the incentive to keep prices up.... except the patient. Those who make decisions on health care are usually rich and don't give a fluff about those who will struggle with whatever they decide. Those who don't have adequate health insurance should "pull up their bootstraps" to get it.

Unlike other markets, the actual buyer of the product doesn't really have choice or the knowledge to make a proper informed decision, which is a cornerstone of free market economics. When a doctor says "your child needs this test because they could be seriously ill..." you're very unlikely to pause and look for alternatives (although I'm sure some still do).

Obamacare is a neutered and watered down attempt to reform the health care system. The problem isn't the system, it's the people and leaders in America who are OK letting others loose out because they've got things set for themselves.

I've said it before on this forum; until America moves to a single payer system your health care system will be a laughing stock for the rest of the world. The longer term benefits will save money, make a more healthy/productive workforce and ensure the country has healthy people to fill its military ranks if another total war happens (that one is for the right-leaning folks ;-)).

On the topic of longer term money savings and looking at the whole picture, I just saw a report this week in Canada that said that if the government paid for all prescription drugs it would save the country many tens or hundreds of millions on health care annually. This is because people would be more apt to get drugs/treatment at the front end of an illness when it's easier and cheaper to treat rather than waiting until the problem becomes debilitating and requires more expensive solutions.

I'd encourage everyone to stop thinking about health care as a have/have not issue and think about it more from the perspective of improving the economic situation for the state/country. Assuming you have the best health care system because you're America doesn't cut it :p America, as a country, is getting fatter, sicker, and the average person is getting relatively poorer. A lot of that can be attributed to a bad health care system.

Lol, America is far from the only country getting fatter. We just got lazy first. A tribute that to the Healthcare system is a bit silly.

the fact that's all you picked up from that post pretty much sums up why your country is in such bad shape :p
pun intended.

it was your closing argument.... a flawed one. if you dont want it picked up on then dont end your thought process with it, along with its attack.

Canadians are funny lol "don't let the open market dictate" sure, let's have the all mighty effectiveness of government do it!

Viva Obama!

the affordable care act worked on the wrong of the problem. It needed to make sure to do away with the law suits against the doctors unless there was a clear case of negligence.Then demanding they lower the prices. If you want to cover those that are not insured make a separate tax for just that purpose so everyone see how much and what for.

+1 on pangs post

Fiscal Year Deficit for 2009 - When Obama took office - 1.4T
Fiscal Year Deficit for 2013 - 1st year in Obama's 2nd term - 680B.

I take it you won't factor in Obama's affordable care act costs...

The politicians are just playing a shell game of hiding the costs elsewhere.

KoH: I don't know what is in or not in those numbers. I assume everything, since it's actual fiscal year deficit (not projected budgets), but ultimately, I posted numbers. If you think they're wrong, find numbers you believe are right and post them. Otherwise accept the fact that you posted a comment based on a false narrative and open your mind to the fact that Pres. Obama isn't driving up the deficit as you believe he is.

In other words, Twain, Obama care is truly free, kool i'll just become another sheep and accept it :-)

Sure. It's easier to argue with a strawman than it is someone who actually asks you to prove your silly BS.

Twain - you are asking him for a set of numbers that aren't consolidated in the federal govt financials... how is he supposed to provide them? Before ACA, people without insurance got medical care, they just went to the ER and didn't pay. Everyone else paid for it through increased charges (ever wonder why Tylenol costs $300 a bottle in the hospital?). Now, we are paying even more by increasing the tax burdon on taxpayers and increasing premiums on policyholders for fluff they don't want or need. How is that not a shifting of costs? It is an indirect tax that won't show up on the federal books. If you want numbers, you seem capable enough to Google it and find plenty of credible articles showing the cost shift and lack of benefits.

Above was just one example. Also, the federal gov't financials are unaudited. The SEC wouldn't let a public company trade stock without having audited financial statements- so why should we as taxpayers accept government numbers unaudited as factual?

If the cost of the ACA is through the increase in premiums primarily, then it has absolutely zero to do with the federal deficit.
If the cost of the ACA is through other means that ARE part of the federal deficit, KoH is welcome to Google it himself and tell me if my numbers are wrong.

The point is: *I* provided numbers showing how KoH was wrong to imply that Pres. Obama failed to cut the deficit in half during his first term. All KoH has done is argue about the ACA, by stating that somehow that has an effect that SHOULD affect the deficit, but that it isn't reflected by my numbers. He's argued this without actually looking anything up. So no: the burden isn't on me to prove KoH's point for him by looking up articles for him.

And playing the conspiracy card without evidence, as you did in your 2nd post, is exactly what KoH did as well.

You want to make that case? Surely if the federal government is cooking their books, someone reputable out there has written about it. Back yourself up with some facts.

That's Rhetoric 101.

+.9% Increase in Medicare Tax Rate (plus next item…)
3.8% New Tax on unearned income for high-income taxpayers= $210.2 billion ($200,000 for individual and $250,000 for joint filers)
New Annual Fee on health insurance providers = $60 billion (For calculation - Sec 9010 (b) of the PPACA.)[1]
40% New Tax on health insurance policies which cost more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family, per year = $32 billion (inland tax as opposed to an importation tax)
New Annual Fee on manufacturers and importers of branded drugs = $27 billion (For calculation - Sec 9008 (b) of the PPACA)[2]
2.3% New Tax on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices = $20 billion
+2.5% Increase (7.5% to 10%) in the Adjusted Gross Income floor on medical expenses deduction = $15.2 billion
Limit annual contributions to $2,500 on flexible spending arrangements in cafeteria plans (plans that allow employees to choose between different types of benefits) = $13 billion
All other revenue sources = $14.9 billion
10% New Tax imposed on each individual for whom “indoor tanning services” are performed.
3.8% New Tax on investment income. Includes: gross income from interest, dividends, royalties, rents, and net capital gains. Investment income does not include interest on tax-exempt bonds, veterans’ benefits, excluded gain from the sale of a principle residence, distributions from retirement plans, or amounts subject to self-employment taxes. (The lesser of net investment income or the excess of modified Adjusted Gross Income over a the dollar amount at which the highest income tax bracket, typically $250,000 for married filing jointly and $200,000 filing as an individual).

I don't know why you guys are wasting your time with Twain, everyone knows ACA is a scam unconstitutionally shoved down our throats!

I don't even need to cite facts, I used to be an accountant within the Department of The Army as well as a consultant for one of the big 4 that was tasked with getting these clowns audit ready. The truth of the matter is account managers in the government can't verify balances and the Dod has no clue how much they have actually spent because they routinely violate federal law and spend more than they have been obligated. It is real and it is happening. No one is saying they are intentionally cooking the books, but theur books are so horrific that no accounting firm will take any amount of money to give them an oppinion on their consolidated financial statements. That is a fact.

Now, onto your lack of understanding of numbers. The costs of government are being pushed onto private citizens WITHOUT hitting the federal books. Indirect taxation is a motherfluffer and doesn't show up on your taxes.

The increased taxation covers part of previous deficits not anything new. The goverment cannot tell you how much they borrowed and cannot provide you verifiable financials - so how can they tell you they have reduced the deficit?

Thats Bill's doing KoH ! ;P

LOL

All I know is Hillary isn't a Bush.




*bonus*

It's clear you have nothing to add. You don't need to keep proving it.

[quote poster=farmer; 35503; 645480]+.9% Increase in Medicare Tax Rate (plus next item…)
3.8% New Tax on unearned income for high-income taxpayers= $210.2 billion ($200,000 for individual and $250,000 for joint filers)
New Annual Fee on health insurance providers = $60 billion (For calculation - Sec 9010 (b) of the PPACA.)[1]
40% New Tax on health insurance policies which cost more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family, per year = $32 billion (inland tax as opposed to an importation tax)
New Annual Fee on manufacturers and importers of branded drugs = $27 billion (For calculation - Sec 9008 (b) of the PPACA)[2]
2.3% New Tax on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices = $20 billion
+2.5% Increase (7.5% to 10%) in the Adjusted Gross Income floor on medical expenses deduction = $15.2 billion
Limit annual contributions to $2,500 on flexible spending arrangements in cafeteria plans (plans that allow employees to choose between different types of benefits) = $13 billion
All other revenue sources = $14.9 billion
10% New Tax imposed on each individual for whom “indoor tanning services” are performed.
3.8% New Tax on investment income. Includes: gross income from interest, dividends, royalties, rents, and net capital gains. Investment income does not include interest on tax-exempt bonds, veterans’ benefits, excluded gain from the sale of a principle residence, distributions from retirement plans, or amounts subject to self-employment taxes. (The lesser of net investment income or the excess of modified Adjusted Gross Income over a the dollar amount at which the highest income tax bracket, typically $250,000 for married filing jointly and $200,000 filing as an individual). [/quote]

The recent discussion has been on deficits, not taxes. If this has any bearing on whether the deficit numbers are real or not, I don't see it. Please explain.

Fair enough. This is at least a response that's worth continuing to discuss, but a few questions:

If costs are being pushed onto private citizens through indirect taxes, wouldn't that not necessarily increase the deficit though? If money is being collected to pay for such expenses, it's not a deficit issue. You want to argue that Pres. Obama increased taxes, that's a different discussion, and that at least seems to be the direction farmer is going, but ultimately, that wasn't what KoH brought up that I refuted him on. It's very possible I'm misunderstanding this point though. My degrees are all in the Humanities, and I have virtually no background in economics or accounting beyond the most basic levels. If I'm wrong, I am open-minded enough to hear what you have to say about this. I'm only closed-minded to KoH because he just shouts empty rhetoric and thinks everyone should adopt his viewpoint.

Secondly, if the books are so bad, I assume they've always been that bad. Please tell me if that's not a fair assumption.
If that's the case, then how they measure the deficit now vs. before probably still implies that there's SOME truth to the numbers even if it's not 100% accurate, because I would assume the outlays from 2009 are equally inaccurate as the outlays in 2013. Again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Your first and second statement are related. Firstly taxes went up under the current administration. The taxes were squandered and do not go to pay back the deficit.

let's go back to the original statement we were argueing - the deficit has been cut in half under the current adminstration. In 2008, the deficit was 485B under the prior administration. For 2014, the deficit was 486B... so clearly the only thing the current administration did was cut the own deficits they created. The increased taxes could have been used to pay down the deficit to a point lower than when the current adminstration took office, but that didn't happen. wouldn't it be nice if we could all go to work and make a problem 3x worse, then take 6 years to clean it up to the same point as where you started and say... Iook what a great job I did! Doesn't seem logical to me when you frame the argument around facts either.

As far as the numbers not being reliable - no one knows. I do know when we sampled expenses they were grossly understated and assets were grossly overstated. You would think over a 20 year period it would be somewhat consistent, but no one really knows because they have very little in the ways of internal control or ability to measure or report their financials. Congress recognized the problem in the early 90's and mandated that the government get audit ready, but they still aren't capable. They didn't even start trying until circa 2010.

You're being quite misleading with a lot of what you're arguing.

The 2009 budget would be a Bush budget, since we're talking fiscal years, which begin in October of the previous year when Bush was still in office. 2010 would be the first true Obama budget.

Secondly, the economic crash occurred in Sept. of 2008, so the 2009 Fiscal Year was going to have a much larger deficit no matter who was President and no matter what type of spending was done because the crash was going to cause a huge drop in tax revenues. And of course, the crash itself was no fault of Pres. Obama's, whether you want to try to trace it back to Pres. Bush or to policies of the 80s and 90s. So even saying that he cleaned up a mess in 6 years IS still a positive on his record, because it wasn't HIS mess that he cleaned up.

On your last point, it's certainly a reasonable thing to believe that perhaps the numbers aren't as accurate as many might think, but even you acknowledge that it's a reasonable assumption (although admittedly still an assumption) that the numbers would probably be consistently off, so if we use the first term numbers of FY 2009 and FY 2013 as I used before, we go from 1.4T to 680B, which is a 51-52% reduction in the deficit.

The thing is: If you want to argue that someone else might've handled the recession in a better way, fine. That's up for debate. If you want to argue that the ACA has hidden costs, fine. But if you want to debate whether Pres. Obama cut the deficit by 50% in his first term, you're simply debating against the facts. And if you want to debate that the economy hasn't markedly improved during Pres. Obama's tenure, you're debating against the facts there as well.

The 2009 budget was so large because of the bailout which Obama had input on and wanted. I do believe he helped Bush with it. The budget only runs until Sept 30 of each year as well. The deficit you are measuring is in "actual dollars" .http://en.m.wikipedia.org/...Stabilization_Act_of_2008

The current economy is a house of cards. I'm just waiting for the next bubble. You probably also believe the economy was booming because of Clinton as well. In case you havnt figured, the deficit keeps getting larger and larger because each president is simply one upping the next guy. Bush had 800b.

I don't believe any single politician helped fix the economy. All politicians do is create bubbles that one day burst and create an even larger problem than if they would have let the market correct itself. put down the kool-aid.

good job, you finally figured out that no politicians are able to help you and your system is corrupt. that's an improvement over blindly listening to what Fox News tells you is good for you :p

we've been moving in the same direction, unfortunately. Thanks, Harper.

I would actually argue that this economy actually is less a house of cards than the others. You imply that during the Clinton years there were bubbles leading us to prosperity, and with the housing bubble and the tech bubble, that's definitely true, but as of yet, there don't seem to be any bubbles that any economists I've seen/heard/read have discussed.

Also, while this recovery has certainly been consistent and sustained, Republicans have rightly pointed out in many ways it's been slow. And for the most part, it seems like the numbers are climbing in a way that, at least to me, seem like they make sense for a true recovery instead of a bubble. The stock market recovered first, after companies laid off large amounts of workers, became more efficient, and retooled themselves. Then they built up their balance sheets. Then the jobs started coming back.

Again, I'm no economist or accountant, but the fact that there hasn't been any wild speculation and growth in any markets (or maybe there has and I'm just unaware of it), and the fact that companies actually seem to be balancing themselves better when it comes to saving and spending mean that this probably is a healthier economy so far?

Lastly, if you're really endorsing completely laissez-faire economics with what you say about presidents not being able to help the economy, then I completely reject that premise. They certainly can't do it on their own, but I encourage you to study your late 19th century and early 20th century U.S. history and remind yourself of what a world with few to no restrictions on the market brought us.

I admire the way liberals blindly follow and trusts everything government does and says when there's a D next to their name, truly astonishing...

How is that any worse than inherently distrusting anything government says simply because a philosopher said you should 200 years ago?

The economy is not a house of cards? Well at lest you previously qualified yout knowledge of finance.

So the bubble for 2015 is the financial markets. Interest rates are back to the subprime rates that got us into the housing problem in the first place. Additionally, if prime is really low (especially artificially low dictated by the government) CDs, money market accounts, bonds, etc are a fairly unattractive investment - so this drives investors to investment in companies ...aka the stock market. With more people competing for the same shares, it drives the price of stock up. Eventually, this financial house of cards will fall and stock will crash and the financial market will once again collapse.

On to your second poin't about companies are healthier and have a greater ability to weather financial issues. The whole reason big business wasn't prepared for this whole mess is because they knew they would get a bailout from the government. They are healthy because the government keeps subsidizing them. If we would let the market regulate itself, businesses that make poor decisions go out of business and responsible businesses stay around and absorb the productive work (and workers) from the failed business. Why have we paid trillions to bail out companies which the market would do for free? Because big business has lobbied hard enough for bail outs, special interest, and safety nets by lining the pockets of politicians of both parties.

You are correct, I am asserting the govt has not net positive effect on the economy. It is 100% fact and can be proven with the broken window falacy. For example, Twain owns a failing business as a glass maker. The government feels sorry for poor Twain and orders the police to smash all the front windows of the local businesses so Twain can have his business base increased and save his poorly run business model. Twain would think that the government is doing a great job;however, the economy would be worse off because the local businesses would use capital to get new windows that would have been used for something more productive. The businesses who would have received the benifit of the capital wasted on replacing windows. Everyone loses except Twain and the economy is worse off than if the government would have done nothing.

If you want to talk about where the downfall of America truly got started we can surely do that. I would probably start with the 16th amendment and work forward. Without money the government has no power to intervene or cead power from the states. We can have the discussion if you would like but you may want to think of a program that has been rum effectivly and efficiently (you won't find one outside of taxation itself). The government fluffs up everything it touches.

Thanks for adding absolutely nothing to the conversation again.

I think he is forgetting that republicans are also liberals.

You've been indoctrinated into oblivion, no salvation available for you :-(

Republicans have been extinct for decades, we are stuck with Retardicans sadly enough..

He has been indoctrinated through decades of drinking the kool-aid, but we can save him.

No, he's a casualty, accept it and move on.

You guys do add very little to any conversation you participate in. Not sure how that makes Twain indoctrinated, and in fact that statement pretty much proves his point further.

Try to up your level of discourse because the statements you make just make you look asinine. There are intelligent conservatives with good opinions that are worth debating/discussing/learning from, but you folks are not part of that group.

I say this not to insult but to try and get you to expand your critical thinking and make this place a more interesting and engaging forum to participate in.

Says the commun8st canadian....

Case in point right there :p

Are you going to send us to some form of communist concentration camp? Also read Above where this was a constructive conversation.

Shut up Pang!

/me runs

:P

As the wheel turns... To say it has hurt the economy or not is arguable only on accepting assumption, like that the free market is actually efficient, as to the total to the economy in the broken glass example, it ends equal other then the assumption that moving the money from one set of hands to the other that the original people with the money would have created greater efficient use of the money, this we know isn't always true as we have cried foul internationally on plenty of occasions where countries have used import restriction to grow an industry, doing the same for an industry in this case glass windows allows the economies of scale in that industry to grow to where the country might then compete. As to the costs involved in the ACA the same applies instead of the costs for the ER freeloaders who never paid their bills getting paid for by the next person(s) who show up in the ER, its being paid for by everyone who pays taxes still amounts to the same bill being paid, albeit while maybe by collecting a thousand dollars for a 50 dollar bill, so that it can pay 500 dollar to the extra accounting/ medical billing/ middlemen that become involved but it still taking a grand taken out in taxes and a grand put back in, whether that is hurting the economy by curtailing more efficient aspects of the economy , and moving to less efficient could be true but hard to measure. where gains and loss could be measured would be the amount of the capital coming from foreign sources through the taxes being paid by foreign forms (such as the tax n equipment/medical device manufactures), and then subtracting the loses of the "profits" of the direct and indirect subsidized industry that went to foreign owners through dividends etc. As the American health insurance firm that has a headquarters here might actually be owned by a lot of foreign investors there by creating plenty of capital outflow from the economy.