Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

taxfoundation.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 363 posts

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#101

Post by texasbigdata »

cliftonk wrote: post #72
no_wizard wrote: post #4

> to fund a first-in-the-nation single-payer health-care system. This is key here. So instead of paying this out to a private insurance company I pay it in taxes, there by my actual change is net zero, in most cases. I have a feeling most reactions might be headline driven here. I think it’s worth doing the math on how much it costs you in healthcare coverage before really judging a book by its cover here. If my comp…

Families with kids w/ under 200k combined income pay > 10% of their income in health insurance. Premiums for a decent plan with 2 adults + 1 kid is $20k a year.

So $7k per person per year.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#103

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

uejfiweun wrote: post #3

If this happens, I will most certainly leave the state. I mean this is ridiculous. These people have consistently shown that their ability to spend our tax dollars is literal dog shit. People and companies are leaving the state in droves. And their response is to literally double taxes?

You haven't understood the proposal at all.

The idea is to stop paying health insurance to private insurance companies, and replace that with state taxes that pay for all health care instead.

Depending on your income level, the most likely outcome is that you'd see very little change in your overall compensation, plus your health insurance would no longer be tied to your job.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#104

Post by baq »

likeabbas wrote: post #24
jppope wrote: post #10

The healthcare system in the United States is debatably one of the worst in the world. Cheers to California for trying to find a way to guarantee that all Californian's have access to the worlds worst healthcare system.

The US health care treatments are the best in the world, just the costs are higher than the rest of the world.

the system is one of the worst in aggregate even if top percentiles are the best. it's extremely unbalanced.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#105

Post by standardUser »

alexjray wrote: post #66
distrill wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really aren't. 100 people moving to a town in Idaho makes a big impact on that town in Idaho but is not felt at all by California.

38% decrease in people moving to California 12% increase in residents moving out of state last year. In San Francisco Bay Area, it's even more stark. There was a 45% decrease in entrances from other states to the Bay Area and a 21% increase in residents leaving for other states.

"last year"

I'd hope most of us know better than to try and make arguments like this about once-in-a-hundred-year historical anomalies.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#106

Post by commandlinefan »

after_care wrote: post #13
no_wizard wrote: post #4

> to fund a first-in-the-nation single-payer health-care system. This is key here. So instead of paying this out to a private insurance company I pay it in taxes, there by my actual change is net zero, in most cases. I have a feeling most reactions might be headline driven here. I think it’s worth doing the math on how much it costs you in healthcare coverage before really judging a book by its cover here. If my comp…

It’s very hard to do the math here. It’s largely invisible to me how much my employer is paying in health insurance premiums and it’s unknown that they will add that sum to my salary.

> it’s unknown that they will add that sum to my salary

I'm pretty sure I do know the answer to that question...

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#109

Post by Fatnino »

jobu wrote: post #93
no_wizard wrote: post #4

> to fund a first-in-the-nation single-payer health-care system. This is key here. So instead of paying this out to a private insurance company I pay it in taxes, there by my actual change is net zero, in most cases. I have a feeling most reactions might be headline driven here. I think it’s worth doing the math on how much it costs you in healthcare coverage before really judging a book by its cover here. If my comp…

Yeah, the headline could easily be flipped with the subheading and most people's reaction would be drastically different. Overall I think a single-payer system is for the best. Having healthcare tied to your job creates another anchor to keep people tied to large, stable companies instead of taking risks with startups or small businesses. The main downside is that companies have started doing tiered healthcare costs…

Some system to earn tax credits if you can prove that you lead a healthy lifestyle. Maybe verified by the doctors in the unified health system.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#110

Post by toast0 »

hadrien01 wrote: post #40
davesque wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I guess in theory an employer could pass through the savings of paying for your insurance to your salary. Of course, I'm pretty cynical about that.

Can't you see how much of your salary goes to your insurance on your pay slip? In France, I can see how much "I" pay every month for my employer insurance plan (which covers most of the time 10% of the healthcare expenses, the other 90% being covered by the public healthcare system)

In the US, part of the insurance premium is paid by the employer and part by the employee; only the employee part would be shown on pay stubs. (however, yearly pay statements (w-2) mostly have the employer part listed as well). Of course, sometimes the employer part is zero.

It's a little trickier to account for when the employer is 'self-insured' for healthcare. They'll use an insurance company to administer benefits (and pay for that), but they'll pay the costs for treatment rather than paying into an insurance pool and having the pool pay the costs.

Post reply on HN