Hillary, Will You Keep Your Finger Outta My &*$%!?

Economics Economics Questions
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The full article appears at Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080203/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_rdp

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer 02-03-2008, 0010 CST

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to have workers’ wages garnished if they refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed during a television interview, she said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.”

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. Under her plan, she said, health care “will be affordable for everyone” because she would limit premium payments “to a low percent of your income.”

–End of Article

Dear God in heaven, does she actually believe this stuff or is she only interested in becoming the first woman president? I really want to know if she DOWN DEEP INSIDE REALLY AND TRULY BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT believes that the statement above makes economic sense? I know she has to have a high IQ. How can someone so smart be so dumb? I can see someone that doesn’t spend much time on this stuff being fooled by such nonsense, but when you’re like her and you think about it 24-7, how can you still be so wrong? Was it her professors? [;)]

I’m glad this so-called garnishment admission has been made. Let the ‘useful idiots’ (see Joseph Stalin) know how much they’re being taxed. All mandates, as well as regulations, are taxes. All coercion in economic activity is a tax. If someone else tells you how to spend it, you ain’t spendin’ it! The socialists hide their schemes by the creation of immoral laws and by obfuscating their extortionary activities. A little tax here, a little tax there, a little protection here, a little protection there, a little subsidy here, a little subsidy there, a little pain here, a little pain there, ad infinitum. It’s a freakin cancer! I’d like to garnish HER wages.

What happened to the right to die? Democrats are big on that, right?

Let me get this straight. Do we HAVE to go to a doctor? Do we HAVE to receive medical treatment? If we don’t HAVE to, then why would we HAVE to buy medical insurance? Hillary, “Do I have to be treated by a doctor? If so, what things must be treated by a doctor and what things do not have to be treated by a doctor?” (I want someone to pierce this argument so that I can fine-tune it)

I’d like to know exactly what a health insurance company has to cover. Maybe we could start an HMO that charges a $1/yr premium and it only covers some disease that no longer exists or some disease we made up that could never exist. But I’m sure the government mandates the type coverages you can agree to as well, right? What if we all become churches or non-profitting entities?

Somebody help me hate this woman…PLEASE!

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I really want to hear a good counter-argument to my argument, whether you believe your argument or not. I’ve already thought of some holes, but I’d like to see yours.

If I can refuse medical treatment, why should I have to buy healthcare insurance?

One counter is, I might change my mind and decide to receive medical treatment. Or, I might be unconscious and not in a position to decline medical care.

Any others? I want a good argument against this BS!

3

It’s all much easier to understand if you realize that she’s not interested in making you healthy, just in growing state power and entrenching political support for the welfare state. It’s like wondering why the mafia shakes down businesses for ‘protection’ money.

4

Problem with this argument is that she’s made comments in the past that she would require checkups, which leaves open the door to requiring compliance with what the doctor recommends at the checkups.

5

That’s just absolutely amazing.

Tell you what’s sad. I’m around a lot of people that are totally clueless about economics. They see their employees as greedy and evil. Never mind these same people are about as sorry and lazy as you can imagine, but they miss the irony…Well, I mentioned Hillary’s garnishment threat if we don’t let her stick her finger up our @ss. Amazingly, they had no criticism for that, but here’s what they started going on about. “I’d like to see them limit how much doctors cn make. I had a doctor see my son and he was only there for 10 minutes and he charged $X!” “Yea, they need to stop letting these hospitals charge so much.”

It never dawned on them that this government they’re wanting to control prices is the government thaty inflated them in the first place! It’s amazing how it works. The governments causes a huge mess and everyone thinks the government can clean it up. It’s like trying to wipe the $hit off your @sshole with the $hit you left in the toilet!

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CORRECTION: They see their EMPLOYERS as greedy and evil.

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My question is, why does she have to have a high IQ? I’m doubting Bill had that as a requirement for marriage which seems to be the only thing qualifying her for public office.

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Of course you must receive any treatments that the doctor recommends - in her plan your right to leave a condition untreated is just a future high cost (for emergency treatment of the developed condition) that could have been prevented. The state knows what is best for you , pairunoyd! No smoking, no pizza, soylent green for all! There was an email about a future pizza order I read once - with an extra cheese surcharge, and a reference to your archived cholesteral score as a term of sale. The customer could only order the sprout pizza with no cheese.

I believe that this is just another example of the creep Mises postulates must occur with socialism. Each small step towards socialism makes the next step necessary, then more steps are necessary…

I completely agree with your outrage. I should bear only the costs of healthcare that I choose to use. If I can’t pay, I don’t get it.

I wonder if it has occurred to them just to make the doctors slaves to the state “for the common good”. It would satisfy the need for universal health care - of course until no one wanted to be a doctor anymore.

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The only trick then for government is to make sure they don’t creep too fast, because then even the masses might notice. Throw a frog into a pot of boiling water and it freaks out, put it in cold water and turn on the flame and it allows itself to be cooked alive. I guess I was hoping this was a case of the former.

I think, although I am often wrong when attempting to rationalize the thought process of the masses, that many liberals see the problem as: it’s inhumane for the poor to be denied healthcare, and hospitals should not turn sick/dying people away, so something needs to be done. The “free riders” are taking advantage of this charitable system, so something needs to be done. The only answers they understand, given the 3 seconds most afford to the thought, is to give care to those poor and not allow those outside to “free ride”.

Of course, in reality, the main problem is health “insurance” is not insurance at all, and thus why it doesn’t work. People want to pay $x and get back $x+$y. If they don’t, naturally they drop out. Real insurance works because people don’t really want to use it. They are happy to pay and never have their house burned down, or washed away, etc. This is an attempt at insurance for an expected, reoccuring expense. It would be like having food insurance, putting in $100 week and expecting back $200. Couple this with the resulting loss of price competition as there is no reason to by cheeseburgers instead of steak when the out of pocket cost is the same, and you have a horribly crashing system.

Buuttt, what is the solution? Why/how has this system developed? I am no expert on this, but I am sure government is in there somewhere, with their HMOs and Medicares. I see the role of libertarians in this, and maybe you can do this Parynoid, is to convincingly explain that removing the government intervention will result in their desired ends, at least more so than this system will. I have to admit even I have not heard a succinct arguement I felt liberals would be won over with. I believe they are sincere in their concerns, and if we can provide a well-reasoned solution, not just a diagram pointing at the holes of Hillarycare, maybe we can make some progress. They are not concerned with the moral side of libertarianism, non-aggression towards non-aggressors. They want to know the needy will be helped, and they don’t want to hear, unfortunately, that private charities and mutual benefit organizations are crowded out by government.

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Dude, you sound just like me! Our employer is our insurer. Of course, their insuring comes out of our check, but a few yrs ago they start taking about $15-20/wk out of our check. Like I said, you know it’s already ‘coming out of’ our pay. If we make 500/wk, we’d probably make 550-600/wk if they didnt insure us. But nonetheless, the take the $15-20/wk. They always talk about our health care costs getting out of hand. It was about $10,000,000 a few yrs back, so I’m guessing it’s about $12 million per yr now.(?) This doesn’t even include worker’s comp. etc.

I keep telling everyone that employees want to make sure they get their ‘money’s worth’, so they go to the dentist to get that $1,200, etc.

Here’s a CRAZY idea I had. I had the medical account idea, where you’re alotted a certain amount of money and any not spent on health care you keep. But I thought a really weird one, one that probably wouldn’t work, but it’d be worth a shot.

If you’re making $25-$30,000/yr for the last 10 yrs, wouldn’t $100,000 or $200,000 sound like a dream come true? And you know how people love lotteries. What about a system where every dollar you spent less than the biggest spender would increase your chances of winning, let’s say, $200,000? Or your chances could be based on where you rank in the spending. If there’s 1,000 employees and you ranked 300th in spending (spent more than 700 others), you’d have 300 chances to win. If you ranked 1st in spending, you only get 1 chance of winning. So the total chance in the pot would be gotten by adding: 1+2+3+4+5…+997+998+999+1,000. But I like the idea of, every dollar I spend is 1 less chance I having of becoming RICH!

The prizes might be:

Winnings __# of employees receiving

$200,000__1
$100,000__1
$50,000___1
$20,000___2
$10,000___3
$5,000____10
$2,000____20
$1,000____40

Total Winnings:$550,000

I’m guessing/hoping, it’d reduce expenses by 25%. If so, it’d save $3 million and probably cost $650,000 to cover winnings and administration of system. Of course, the winnings could be adjusted, based upon the total health care cost for the company. The lower the overall cost, the bigger the winnings. This would help ensure they don’t get stuck paying for both winnings and another banner year for health care expenses. I think it’s worth a shot.