So the nominee for secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Tom Price, thinks Obamacare interferes in a bad way with the doctor-patient relationship. Price is a surgeon.
I wonder what he thinks about the current system. Earlier this month I had to make 3 time-consuming and costly trips downtown to pick up and return a recording oxygen meter for my wife. Her doctor thinks she needs oxygen; she thinks she needs oxygen.
Their opinion counts for nothing. The decision whether her insurance (not Obamacare) will pay for it is made by a clerk with no medical training.
1. The Republican Party does not support a minimum wage of $15; it is not clear whether the tea party wing (of which Price is an ornament) believes in a minimum wage law at all.
2. Price's alternative to Obamacare is tax credits for purchasing private medical insurance.
3. As Mitt Romney famously complained, close to half of Americans make so little money (see point 1 in this summary) that they owe little or no tax.
4. A tax credit for a person not subject to tax is worth $0.00. (For people like Price it will be worth anything up to $1.00 per $1.00; a pattern emerges.)
Enjoy paying all your medical bills out of current income or savings, Trumpeters.
1. The Republican Party does not support a minimum wage of $15 ...
ReplyDeleteSupply and demand isn't just a good idea, it's the law.
3. As Mitt Romney famously complained, close to half of Americans make so little money (see point 1 in this summary) that they owe little or no tax.
As Mitt Romney famously did not complain.
Look it up.
4. A tax credit for a person not subject to tax is worth $0.00.
Is this written in stone somewhere?
'Supply and demand isn't just a good idea, it's the law.'
ReplyDeleteNot true but also not relevant. Distribution of national income can be adjusted. And it had better be
Not true (about supply & demand) but also not relevant.
ReplyDeleteWell, if that's true, then why don't we make the minimum wage $60/hour?
If that's true, then you have no problem explaining why youth unemployment is so high countries with high minimum wages.
Distribution of national income can be adjusted.
How?
And before you provide some painfully ill-thought answer, remember that characteristic and composition aren't the same thing.
Why is unemployment high in places where the jobs were shipped overseas? Gee, you ask such tough questions.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask you one. Considering the generally high level of incompetence among American CEOs, why are they paid dozens of times more than executives in similar jobs in other countries? And why were they not paid at such rates here until Reaganomics kicked in?
We redistribute income via minimum wages, child labor laws, unions, taxes, many ways. There is, for example, no reason connected to the work why pilots of big airliners are paid much more than pilots of medium airliners.
There was no reason to let Melania Trump unto the country to model on a special work permit; there were millions of American girls who would have been ready to do the work.
If you are going to try to defend wage structures in America today you are letting yourself in for a world of snark.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhy is unemployment high in places where the jobs were shipped overseas? Gee, you ask such tough questions.
ReplyDeleteHow about sticking to the point of your post, rather than changing the subject?
Considering the generally high level of incompetence among American CEOs, why are they paid dozens of times more than executives in similar jobs in other countries?
Bollocks
(And this reminds me of your last post, about CEOs, where you pontificated from perfect ignorance.)
There is, for example, no reason connected to the work why pilots of big airliners are paid much more than pilots of medium airliners.
Things would be much simpler for you if the world consisted only of the things about which you know. So why don't you try figuring out that one on your own, and learn something. Like why not to make blanket statements about things of which you are woefully ignorant.
We redistribute income via minimum wages …
Redistributed from whom?
And what is the minimum wage?
4. A tax credit for a person not subject to tax is worth $0.00.
ReplyDeleteYou were a business journalist and know nothing about the EITC? Seriously?