Lao Tse
Verified User
You still didn't answer why in your ideal system people would lose all assets if they used the service.
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You still didn't answer why in your ideal system people would lose all assets if they used the service.
You are mixing programs and confusing your own argument. We are speaking of Social Security.
Your "ideal" would be one where only those who are in need partake and then stress that it "wouldn't work" because people "wouldn't like it" and then throw in health care without regard to the subject at hand.
I suggest we give welfare to those that need it rather than force all people into it regardless of need, including that of health care. I also suggest (now talking about SS so you won't get confused) that people be subject to enforced savings (like SS, but with an actual account) that they can spend at will upon retirement passing the unused portion to their family as it is theirs and we save the insurance program for those who are in need rather than forcing everybody into subsistence welfare that never pays a return, one that they are forced to pay a lifetime for without regard for value to cost.
apple0154
MEOW
You're such a comical fella. I and Damocles explained it to you.
This is the last time so listen up. The service would be reserved for people who didn't have resources. An extreme example would be a guy who lived in a one room apartment rather than the guy who lived in and owned a million dollar home.
If you are still unable to comprehend I can't help you any further.
Does that face paint contain lead? Are you aware lead poisoning has been linked to learning disabilities?
apple0154
MEOW
Health care and SS have the same thing in common. There was a need to help some of the elderly, however, if the government simply decided to base help on a "need basis" people would have cried, "Stealing from the rich" so SS was made universal.
The same problem exists with medical. To imply the current system could stay the same while help would be available for those who couldn't afford it is the perfect example of what Obama describes as "old, worn out arguments". It doesn't work.
While people like to describe a universal system as the government trying to put everyone into a mediocre system the reality of it is some of the people do not want others getting something for nothing. If that wasn't the case the solution would be simple. Keep your plan and help pay for your neighbor. Problem solved.
Some people call it human nature but I see it as cultural/societal indoctrination when it comes to helping people. How can we, as a society, place true value on helping others when the "goal in life" is to be financially superior to as many people as possible?
There was a time when feeding someone meant we had less food. Before technology there was a limited amount of work one man could do. Helping one with life's necessities meant the helper did without themselves. That is not the case today.
That's fine but we're still going to end up with the same problem. The guy who works at a small, family owned business is not going to make anywhere near the equivalent of the fella who works for a large, multi-national company with benefits or even a decent sized, unionized company. There will always be those requiring assistance. Where do we get the money to help them?
Was it you who said 85% of the people are happy with their medical insurance plans? Let's say 85% of the people retire comfortably. What leads you to believe the 85% of retirees who are happy are going to be willing to pay for the 15% of retirees who require assistance when the 85% of those who are happy with their medical coverage rant about paying higher taxes to help the people requiring medical assistance?
Regardless of how logical it sounds it just does not work. Look at all the welfare schemes/plans/benefits.
"These programs are cash assistance (TANF), the child support program, child care, energy or utility assistance, food assistance, medical assistance, and vocational rehabilitation services." http://www.welfareinfo.org/programs/
Imagine retirees having a somewhat similar set-up. Who qualifies for what? Where they live? Who they live with? Are their benefits reduced if they look after their grandchildren part time?
It would be a nightmare. Why? Because many people always think someone is getting something for nothing. It doesn't matter if a person is living in abject poverty. Let them account for that extra hot dog. Show need for that Kraft Dinner.
It's a disgusting shame when they live in a country of plenty.
(Nothing like a good rant to make one feel better.)
Lao Tse
Verified User
Damo was mocking you, you cretin.
Lao Tse
Verified User
Wrong. When lefties like you insist on full control of healthcare, it's really to extend state power over life and death, and to implement your eugenics plans.
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What makes me think that? Because they already do. On top of paying for them they are also forced into inadequate plans that have no value to cost.Health care and SS have the same thing in common. There was a need to help some of the elderly, however, if the government simply decided to base help on a "need basis" people would have cried, "Stealing from the rich" so SS was made universal.
The same problem exists with medical. To imply the current system could stay the same while help would be available for those who couldn't afford it is the perfect example of what Obama describes as "old, worn out arguments". It doesn't work.
While people like to describe a universal system as the government trying to put everyone into a mediocre system the reality of it is some of the people do not want others getting something for nothing. If that wasn't the case the solution would be simple. Keep your plan and help pay for your neighbor. Problem solved.
Some people call it human nature but I see it as cultural/societal indoctrination when it comes to helping people. How can we, as a society, place true value on helping others when the "goal in life" is to be financially superior to as many people as possible?
There was a time when feeding someone meant we had less food. Before technology there was a limited amount of work one man could do. Helping one with life's necessities meant the helper did without themselves. That is not the case today.
That's fine but we're still going to end up with the same problem. The guy who works at a small, family owned business is not going to make anywhere near the equivalent of the fella who works for a large, multi-national company with benefits or even a decent sized, unionized company. There will always be those requiring assistance. Where do we get the money to help them?
Was it you who said 85% of the people are happy with their medical insurance plans? Let's say 85% of the people retire comfortably. What leads you to believe the 85% of retirees who are happy are going to be willing to pay for the 15% of retirees who require assistance when the 85% of those who are happy with their medical coverage rant about paying higher taxes to help the people requiring medical assistance?
Regardless of how logical it sounds it just does not work. Look at all the welfare schemes/plans/benefits.
"These programs are cash assistance (TANF), the child support program, child care, energy or utility assistance, food assistance, medical assistance, and vocational rehabilitation services." http://www.welfareinfo.org/programs/
Imagine retirees having a somewhat similar set-up. Who qualifies for what? Where they live? Who they live with? Are their benefits reduced if they look after their grandchildren part time?
It would be a nightmare. Why? Because many people always think someone is getting something for nothing. It doesn't matter if a person is living in abject poverty. Let them account for that extra hot dog. Show need for that Kraft Dinner.
It's a disgusting shame when they live in a country of plenty.
(Nothing like a good rant to make one feel better.)
USFREEDOM911
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
It is OH-SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO obvious.
Good Luck
New member
I am the one who does not get it? YOU were the one who was advocating changing SS to a system which only covers those who need it, in order to make it sustainable over the long term.
Those are your words, speaking about a properly designed SS plan. Cover the needy only. Limited in scope, limited in power. Yet then you make a complete about-face and claim it cannot work for health care because people would COMPLAIN too much for it to pass? And to support your idiotic stance, you use welfare plans, which are aimed only at the needy, which people complain about, and yet WHICH PASSED INTO LAW!!
Your whole defense of a universal plan over a free market plan with a government provided safety net is based on self-conflicted arguments.
The point is that Security Security, AS DESIGNED, is not sustainable in the long term. It will (has already) outgrown its revenue source and will need ever increasing subsidies until the burden of subsidy collapses the whole network. The only way to keep it going is to substantially redesign the program, increasing revenue sources (tax the rich) and limiting benefits to a narrowed band of the population (give to the poor), which you yourself admit, and support.
So what makes you think a universal health care plan will fare any better in the long run? SS is doomed to failure, yet you want another plan based on the same structure. Talk about the working definition of insanity. A universal health care plan is doomed to outgrowing its revenue sources, requiring ever increasing subsidies exactly as SS has proven. The end result, as will eventually happen with SS, will be a revamp where the universal socialist part is tossed in the garbage where it belongs, and a sustainable plan replace it where the only wealth redistribution will be for the actual needy. If that is the inevitable end result, why the hell not start out that way and forgo all the future troubles, to include massive deficit spending on a failed program until people finally give up and scrap the stupid plan for something that is more sustainable?
Your insistence that we only go with universal because that is what can be passed is assinine in the extreme. It's a stupid lame assed excuse, which has been pointed out many times before. You have been brain washed by your liberal philosophy into believing a universal plan is the only idea that will work because they TOLD you so. Drag your brains out of the donkey's ass and think for yourself for once.
Duh! Help them. Why is it you keep trying to imply not using over size government bureaucracies means not helping at all? Why do you insist we have to give to everyone in order to give to those who need it? Because lame assed excuses and self conflicting rhetoric are your only defense for supporting an ever increasing usurpation of power by the government.
No, there was a need for ASSISTANCE programs. Making them into social programs is what has caused more problems than they relieved.
EXACTLY. When the dipshits came out with their entitlement BS, the resulting programs ENCOURAGE the very factors that result in the need for a support programs in the first place. The more we spend on socialist based government programs, the more it grows. If the types of programs you support work, why is it the dependency on those programs has ballooned since their inception?
What you cannot see (rectal walls in the way of seeing reality) is the entire government "help" system was DESIGNED with those results in mind. They saw a real problem, and USED it to create in the minds of the gullible, the selfish, and egocentric the "need" for huge government bureaucracies, and ever increasing government encroachments on economic factors until the whole structure is based on a complex interaction of government-sponsored playing card houses. Your purpose I can acknowledge is honorable, but you have joined a corrupted philosophy whose real purpose is subjugation of the lower classes to provide a steady -and growing through a continually diminished middle class- power base.
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apple0154
MEOW
Noooooooo. Reeeeeally?
You are a comical fella. Your picture evokes a feel-good feeling similar to the smile button.
Lao Tse
Verified User
Noooooooo. Reeeeeally?
You are a comical fella. Your picture evokes a feel-good feeling similar to the smile button.
You have mutated genitalia.
apple0154
MEOW
Where do you get such strange ideas?
Lao Tse
Verified User
Smashing my nuts in a vise until i enter a paranormal state.
apple0154
MEOW
Do try to follow along. As I noted in my previous post a welfare type set-up for SS would be a nightmare because of the special programs, the entitlement requirements, the exclusions,etc, etc, etc. would drive elderly folks insane.
The easiest way is to tax back the benefits using a sliding scale as some other countries already do. Here's an example. Let's say ones SS benefit is $1000/mth. If their total income is $20,000/yr or less they are entitled to the full amount.
The next person has a total yearly income of $40,000. They collect their $1000 monthly check and when filing income tax they have to pay back a portion of the $12,000 they collected that year. Say $3,000, just to post a figure.
The next person's yearly income is $80,000. They collect their $1000 monthly check and when they file income tax they have to pay back $6,000.
No one is going to plan their retirement so they collect only $20,000/yr so they'll be entitled to $12,000 from SS if they can plan for a $40,000/yr retirement and collect $9,000 from the government.
The point is everyone will be covered based on need and few, if any, will take advantage of the system.
Lack of greed as a motivating factor. Even though one pays into a universal health plan they will not insist on collecting benefits by deliberately breaking their arm. In a sense it's self-policing. Only those who require medical attention will receive it which is not the case with SS. Everyone receives SS whether or not they require it.
No, it won't. As I explained above everyone wants the benefits of SS. Such is not the case with medical. People are not going to be breaking bones and deliberately contracting illnesses so as to be able to benefit from free medical.
To say a country can not afford a universal medical plan is to say the country is unable to look after it's ill which is not only utter nonsense but borders on the barbaric.
Why do you have such an aversion to learning?
Learn. Please learn. People won't contribute to programs unless there is something in it for them. The solution to SS is to tax back the benefits. As far as medical goes people hope they won't have to collect.
If you want to see the result of a "help as needed only" program check out welfare. Assorted governments have changed coverage on a whim. Obstacle courses have been set up to deliberately prevent people from receiving assistance. Is that how you want medical and pension plans to be run, government agencies whose only task is to trip people up, to set up entitlement requirements so they can poke through every aspect of your life?
I explained that. Society has changed. People are more mobile. Extended families do not inhabit a large farm house and live out their lives there. But more importantly people find they are better off being mobile and can afford to support an elderly parent even though they are not living together.
Once again, those problems which the government addresses were there first. That's why the government is addressing them. Private individuals kept mentioning the need for something to be done but nothing was done.
Those problems have been there for, literally, centuries. How do we look after the needy? With all the progress society has made people are still hungry and cold. It's outrageous!
Change. It's long overdue.
apple0154
MEOW
I imagine that would lead to an out-of-body experience. :lol:
Good Luck
New member
The solution for SS is to increase the complexity of tax codes? Give it to the people and then take it back? Yep. They won't catch onto that, will they? Typical brainless fucking central government TAX things until you get what you want "answer". And you think I need to learn something? I've learned that you haven't a foggy fucking clue about reality. I've learned that you will support socialism even while admitting it fails miserably. I've learned that you think people are stupid, thinking they are somehow fooled into thinking they benefit from SS when their contributions invested privately would result in 3-4 times the retirement income they get from SS. I've learned that you think you can further fool them by taxing their SS benefits at 40%, 50%, 100%, and think they won't notice and toss any politician stupid enough to try your "solution" out of office so fast they'll bounce twice.
I've learned you can admit a socialist design is not sustainable in the long run, thus needing significant changes to make it sustainable, but in the same breath support the creation of another government socialist program based on the same unsustainable design, because you think you can fool the people into accepting it under the "everyone will benefit" lie.
I've learned that your whole approach to government help systems is what you think you can fool the people into accepting, instead of focusing on what is actually needed. I've learned that despite the FACT that we have a progressive tax system which hits upper middle class hardest while leaving the truly rich alone, despite the FACT that we have multiple assistance programs which are specifically aimed at assisting the needy (including Medicaid), you still hold to your fiction that a health plan aimed only at the needy can never pass because "too many people would complain if they don't benefit".
It will never cease to amaze me how people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent can hold to the idea that the way to help people who are cold, hungry, and/or sick is to create stupid, unsustainable programs whose primary result is to make ever larger portions of society cold, hungry, and/or sick.
I've learned you can admit a socialist design is not sustainable in the long run, thus needing significant changes to make it sustainable, but in the same breath support the creation of another government socialist program based on the same unsustainable design, because you think you can fool the people into accepting it under the "everyone will benefit" lie.
I've learned that your whole approach to government help systems is what you think you can fool the people into accepting, instead of focusing on what is actually needed. I've learned that despite the FACT that we have a progressive tax system which hits upper middle class hardest while leaving the truly rich alone, despite the FACT that we have multiple assistance programs which are specifically aimed at assisting the needy (including Medicaid), you still hold to your fiction that a health plan aimed only at the needy can never pass because "too many people would complain if they don't benefit".
It will never cease to amaze me how people who are otherwise reasonably intelligent can hold to the idea that the way to help people who are cold, hungry, and/or sick is to create stupid, unsustainable programs whose primary result is to make ever larger portions of society cold, hungry, and/or sick.
apple0154
MEOW
Nonsense. You've learned nothing. You have no idea how the rest of the world operates.
Countries can and do look after their citizens and contrary to the BS you digest those citizens vote for governments who support such programs.
It's not a matter of lying or fooling anyone. If someone requires help and the government has the resources they do not give those resources to those who do not require them.
If you have difficulty understanding that it's no wonder you have difficulty understanding anything about social programs.
Good Luck
New member
How much of the rest of the world have you seen first hand? I have learned a lot over the years. I have not "learned" from you because you spout absolute nonsense.
I have no problem with assistance programs that only benefit those in need - as long as they are not designed to be dependence traps. But if they do not give to those without need, explain your (and their) undying dedication to universal socialist programs in which "everyone benefits" is the selling point?
Bullshit. Your own words show you supporting a do-nothing piece of shit legislation because your political masters intend to use it to push through a plan the people have clearly stated they do not want. Your own words state clearly you support the intent to sell the people on a system that provides benefits to everyone, while simultaneously supporting a counter scheme to tax those benefits back from those who do not need them. If that is not an intent to fool the people, what the fuck is it? It certainly is not being upfront and honest. Your entire political philosophy is based on lying to the people so you can "help" them later on. (Help them because your fucked up system will make it necessary.)
It is readily apparent you are the one in the dark about social programs. You support them, but do not even know how or why they have come about, you know zero about their original intent, and are completely clueless why they are not sustainable in the long term. You support a health care system based on a system you fully admit is not sustainable and needs to be significantly revamped - and you do so because you admit the only way to foist it on the people is to lie to them about your intent.
apple0154
MEOW
If you're referring to SS people would benefit on a sliding scale.
As for dependence traps, again, there are people who are so afraid of someone getting something for nothing or abusing the system they go to the absurd to ensure it doesn't happen. For example, if a welfare recipient gets part time work.
I would rather see those requiring help receiving it even if that means the occasional person abuses the system rather than by ensuring abuse does not occur it results in some people in need not being helped.
What plan(s) are you talking about? First you say "political masters intend to use it to push through a plan" which I assume you're referring to medical and then you go on to say, "tax those benefits back from those who do not need them" which sounds like you're referring to SS.
A health plan is sustainable. To say it isn't is to say a country can not look after it's ill. That is complete nonsense.
Universal health plans have been in existence in some countries for two or three generations. That's hundreds of millions of people who have benefited from them while some folks have gone on and on about how they're not sustainable. After 40 or 50 or 60 years the cost is still less than what the average US citizen pays.
All universal plans have slight differences and are tweaked to fit the corresponding country, however, they are all universal, less expensive and preferred by the citizens. What is it about that statement you have difficulty understanding?
As for why social programs came about it's because there was a need. People were doing without the basics and either no one was helping or the help wasn't sufficient.Therefore, the government stepped in.
There has been plenty of time to come up with a solution to the medical problem. The will wasn't there. So, now it's time to get it done. As I mentioned before the topic will change from "how do we fix the medical problem" to "how do we adjust the universal plan". People will be focused. They will be working on the same goal rather than everyone going off in different directions, nothing being agreed on, then dropped entirely.
Change. It's time has come.