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California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

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Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#311

Post by fortran77 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #228
Maarten88 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sugar tax will accomplish a lot and is much easier.

Yeah I was going to say this. If you want smokers and the obese to partially fund their own healthcare, you can very easily slap taxes on cigarettes and soft drinks, earmark that money to go to insurance, and call it a day.

I think the obese should pay for their externalities directly. Also, if the best treatment for something is “lose weight” then that should be tried first and no other treatments given until the weight is lost.

80% of people with Type II diabetes who are also overweight or obese would be asymptomatic if they lost weight. Why spend public money if there exists a free treatment? Save the public resources for right-weight type IIs and type Is.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#312

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

ravenstine wrote: post #97
jamestimmins wrote: post #14

As a taxpayer I don't actually have a problem with this. However, as a California resident who has seen this state's inability to think through regulations effectively or solve housing problems, I'm incredibly skeptical of California's ability to implement single payer healthcare effectively. I would likely leave the state because I assume California would fail to deliver, and taxes would get raised for nothing.

Exactly. Leave it to California to foul something up. No matter what one's stance is on health care, I don't get how Californians can have faith in their establishment. The things we have that are relatively turnkey ways of bringing in money like the ports, the farmland, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley serve to paint over the rot. If we had none of those things and we governed ourselves the way we have been for decades…

> the ports, the farmland, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley serve to paint over the rot.

In what universe are these things a coat of paint? In California's economy, these things are the whole damn tree: the roots, the trunk, the leaves, all of it. It might have a couple rotting branches, but it yields so much fruit that people just don't care.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#313

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

Maxion wrote: post #243
Kye wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect "that won't work in the US" to become "the rest of the country isn't like California" after it's a resounding success.

It is an odd argument for many reasons, but it seems to be the one that is given more often. Yet I've never seen any specific reasons why a single-payer system can work in e.g. Finland and Sweden and not in the US. Healthcare benefits from having a larger population, and it is harder to provide quality care for a smaller population (read more expensive). Yet Finland spends less per capita and has better outcomes.

Imagine trying to roll out one giant healthcare system across the EU. The challenges of rolling out single-payer healthcare across the U.S. would be more similar to this than to one individual European nation, both in terms of scale (~330m vs ~450m population) and in complexity: it would require a ton of political coordination between different entities, as the individual states have a great deal of power.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#314

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

qaq wrote: post #234
mikestew wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you get your entire understanding of economics from an Ayn Rand novel? That's what it was reminding me of. (The USSR comparison should have given it away, but I can be slow that way.) Complete with the farmers going all "John Galt". Of course, what Rand forgot was that there's not going to be pitchforks at the granary. Like, what, folks are just going to let that land lie fallow? Like there isn't going to be some…

You have to realize that there is decent amount of people who lived through the collapse of USSR on HN, so just because someone mentions USSR in the context that is upsetting to someone with left leanings does not mean that it's without merit.

Yeah, USSR references betray one's age more than anything. When socialism comes up today, left-leaning people reference the Nordics, and right-leaning people reference Venezuela.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#315

Post by kcplate »

fortran77 wrote: post #311
jimbob45 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I was going to say this. If you want smokers and the obese to partially fund their own healthcare, you can very easily slap taxes on cigarettes and soft drinks, earmark that money to go to insurance, and call it a day.

I think the obese should pay for their externalities directly. Also, if the best treatment for something is “lose weight” then that should be tried first and no other treatments given until the weight is lost. 80% of people with Type II diabetes who are also overweight or obese would be asymptomatic if they lost weight. Why spend public money if there exists a free treatment? Save the public resources for right-weigh…

Ahh yes, the old “just lose weight” argument, likely spoken by someone who is not and has never been overweight or obese.

Speaking as someone who has lost over a 170lbs…it ain’t eas. It is the hardest damn thing I have ever done and your body fights you every step of the way…forever. It never ends—for the rest of your life your body is constantly fighting you to get back up to the weight you were.

Also, your concept of preventing all other treatments until someone loses weight is absolutely barbaric.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#316

Post by bsagdiyev »

jjav wrote: post #201
lax4ever wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually pay that much a year in insurance premiums? I don't live in CA, but I sure don't and my health coverage is pretty good. Keep in mind, this is also just the insurance premium, there's no talk of what co-pays or deductibles would be. In addition, your employer now has to pay more based on their gross receipts and if you make more than 150k a year you are paying even more.

$2500/month here (silicon valley) for blue shield PPO (company pays a small part of that, I pay directly most of it). So that's 30K/year just in the premiums plus of course a lot out of pocket since insurance fights against paying for so many services.

That is insane, I pay right around $100/mo for myself, my spouse and 2 year old. My employer pays less than $1000/mo as their part. Our health insurance is pretty damn good.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#317

Post by conanbatt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #250
conanbatt wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now it is tied to the government, which is way worse...You can't complain to the government.

> You can't complain to the government. Yes, you can. And you get a vote on who is running it, too

Voting is not a great way to give customer service feedback to your doctor

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#318

Post by fortran77 »

kcplate wrote: post #315
fortran77 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the obese should pay for their externalities directly. Also, if the best treatment for something is “lose weight” then that should be tried first and no other treatments given until the weight is lost. 80% of people with Type II diabetes who are also overweight or obese would be asymptomatic if they lost weight. Why spend public money if there exists a free treatment? Save the public resources for right-weigh…

Ahh yes, the old “just lose weight” argument, likely spoken by someone who is not and has never been overweight or obese. Speaking as someone who has lost over a 170lbs…it ain’t eas. It is the hardest damn thing I have ever done and your body fights you every step of the way…forever. It never ends—for the rest of your life your body is constantly fighting you to get back up to the weight you were. Also, your concept…

I have been obese. Please don't falsely accuse me of things.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#319

Post by jimbob45 »

kcplate wrote: post #315
fortran77 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the obese should pay for their externalities directly. Also, if the best treatment for something is “lose weight” then that should be tried first and no other treatments given until the weight is lost. 80% of people with Type II diabetes who are also overweight or obese would be asymptomatic if they lost weight. Why spend public money if there exists a free treatment? Save the public resources for right-weigh…

Ahh yes, the old “just lose weight” argument, likely spoken by someone who is not and has never been overweight or obese. Speaking as someone who has lost over a 170lbs…it ain’t eas. It is the hardest damn thing I have ever done and your body fights you every step of the way…forever. It never ends—for the rest of your life your body is constantly fighting you to get back up to the weight you were. Also, your concept…

That’s why you tax soft drinks instead of taxing weight directly. It may be difficult to lose weight but it isn’t particularly difficult to cut out the most extremely unhealthy foods.

Re: California Considers Doubling Its Taxes

#320

Post by RickJWagner »

eat_veggies wrote: post #83
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…

Another thing that people are missing is that a net zero change, or even a small loss would be worth it in terms of freedom. You're no longer compelled to stay at your current job just to keep your healthcare, and if you lose your job then you only have one problem rather than two -- especially in the middle of a pandemic, when lots of people are getting laid off and needing to go to the hospital due to covid

Yes. I imagine many homeless or underemployed people would love this.

Then again, with many wage-earners already leaving the state, this may turn toxic.

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