The New Republic

I think there are very few, if any, states where a Republican governor and legislature will be able to stand up against a population incensed at being denied access to insurance and tax credits that other states' residents get as a matter of course. This problem will remedy itself over time.

- IowaBeauty

November 20, 2012 at 7:08am

The main reason Medicare didn't have comparable challenges is because it's so simple as compared to ACA; ACA's complexity provides so many possibilities for legal challenges that the challenges may create more law than most legislatures. Indeed, ACA's existence has been used to support recent (losing) challenges to Medicare, and even C.J. Roberts' opinion upholding the constitutionality of ACA and the mandate circumscribes the commerce power and the ability of the federal government to implement ACA including the exchanges. And then there's the political angle, with the government so busy fighting the contraceptive wars that the development of minimum federal standards for health insurance has been relegated to an afterthought. How will the exchanges function effectively if there are no comprehensive minimum federal standards? My question: why would younger Americans continue to pay for the underfunded Medicare benefits for current seniors while the health insurance system for them chugs along like a crippled amphicoelias fragillimus.

- rayward

November 20, 2012 at 7:14am

The Federal government has done such a good job with the Constituionally mandated United States Postal Service that certainly the ACA, in all of it's mind-numbing complexity, will be okey-dokey.

- K2K

November 20, 2012 at 7:41am

Heck of a mandate, Jon: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84054.html?hp=r7

- K2K

November 20, 2012 at 8:03am

K2K, the Post Office would run perfectly fine if Congress either let them run it as a business, shutting down small offices that don't make economic sense (aka in lots of "Red" America), but Congress won't allow that, or else subsidize the USPO since they won't let it run as a business. Just fucking pick is all I say, which is something you obviously do not understand. As is typical for teabaggers and conservatives, they want it all and don't want to pay for it. The USPO has it's issues but it done a pretty damn good job of delivering a letter, for less than 50c, from the most remote areas of southern Florida to Hawaii or some isolated area of Alaska. Leave it to private business and it's guaranteed there would be no universal mail service. UPS and FedEx do NOT provide universal door-to-door service in the US nor will they ever, something the USPS guarantees and has for centuries. As for the brain-dead "opinion" piece you link to, he has a mandate as Obama ran on Obamacare as a central plank and won. Get over it, the sneering plutocrat and his teabagger minions lost, the ACA is the law of the land and even the SCOTUS put a stamp of approval on it. The wingers need to get over it or get beat up at the polls again until they're forced into permanent exile.

- tmmats

November 20, 2012 at 8:44am

They suffered a defeat in the polls -- in Blue and Purple states. The Red states reaffirmed their desire to remain in the 1890's, with lesser rights for women, minorities, immigrants, and non-Christians, no Unions, low taxes, low social services, crippled education systems, and a dedication to those principles Robber Barons find so appealing. Why did the people do this, since they're the normal victims of Robber Barons? Because Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the Koch Brothers told them to, blaming all their low wages, poor education systems, and lack of access to health care on the Democrats. Just let the ACA work for a year or two. You can only fool SOME of the people all of the time.

- AllanL5

November 20, 2012 at 8:47am

What IowaBeauty said. When people living in NW Oklahoma can't get insurance for their desperately sick child but someone living a few miles away over the Colorado border CAN, just watch the gop legislature in that state cave in. What the Dems should do is take to the airwaves and broadcast the exact details of the publicly-funded health care for the governor and legislature in each of the states trying to block it for their citizenry.

- Tristan

November 20, 2012 at 8:51am

K2K, you do know we don't have elections based on policy issues alone, right? Unless you are in places like California and we all know how that works out. The article is a little unclear to me, article claims Congress didn't allocate money for administering federal exchanges, and the law as written seems to prohibit federally run exchanges from providing subsidies to individuals. "seems" does not strike me as a particularly compelling legal term. As to Levin and Capretta, the article is a moral nightmare, full of ridiculous buzzwords like assault on religious liberty, as though an employer should have the right to effectively control the health care decisions of their employees who pay for their own premiums as part of their compensation via the tax distorted federal subsidy of tax credits for employers. And those assholes I am sure are happy to support companies like Papa Johns who want to refuse to offer their employees any insurance at all, throwing them to the mercy of the taxpayers who pay for uncompensated care at hospital er's. Their next argument of course will be to deny care to the poor at the er's as unaffordable and an intrusion in moral hazard. After all, if you choose to be poor you should choose not to get sick. As to the rest, I think Iowa gets it. Health insurance companies in places like Wisconsin are going to be eager to get their hands on the subsidies and hospitals will demand it as well and will jack up their charges that get passed onto premium payers, which will only reinforce the insurers demands. What Republican can argue that we must continue the chaotic system wherein tens of thousands of poor people bankrupt themselves and the taxpayers using the er as their only healthcare option while billions of dollars sits in DC in the form of subsidies to help these people buy insurance from private insurance companies, and that this system must continue because of "freedom" As to exchanges, it was only a few years ago Republicans argued for the creation of exchanges, in fact for Ryan's medicare voucher program exchanges are an absolute necessity. And K2K, as to the Post Office, the Republicans forced them to pay up front pension obligations something that does not happen in private business. And then they refuse them the right to raise rates. I hope then that offices are closed in rural areas first off as they are far less efficient.

- blackton

November 20, 2012 at 9:13am

let me add the one reason why these Governors are sure to fail: Patronage jobs. If I were a Democrat I would go to wealthy donors, especially in health care, and promise state insurance commissioner jobs to people who have the necessary expertise in the field wink wink nudge nudge. Federal exchanges would be run by GS types outside of the influence of the wealthy.

- blackton

November 20, 2012 at 9:32am

"The Federal government has done such a good job with the Constitutionally mandated United States Postal Service that certainly the ACA, in all of it's mind-numbing complexity, will be okey-dokey." K2K, The Internet is what is causing the Post Office to lose $16 billion this year. The Post Office has been ruthless in firing people and replacing them with machines over the past 20 years. They started this process well before the Internet began pounding them into the ground. Right now they are one of the most efficient businesses in America, if not the world. If you want the Post Office to start coming back, mail your comments on the articles here. I guarantee you the TNR staff will be more likely to read them. And BTW, the health care of all the citizens in a nation of over 300 million people is itself mind-numbingly complex. It was that way long before ACA. Ruthless profiteers dealing with captive consumers can make life very complex indeed.

- magboy47.

November 20, 2012 at 10:13am

The Conservative Republican attack on Government ran agencies are without merit. If you repeat a an erroneous formula often enough people will begin to believe it. The formula says that government can’t ran business. This is false on two counts: first the government is not a business, and second the “business” it’s been running are those that serve all people and not just willing and able to pay. Government serves the elderly on fixed incomes, poor families and people with disabilities. Businesses have employees and they have customers. Those who accept the idea that “government is a business” need to tell its citizens what is the status of the citizen would be? In the business model is the citizen and employee, or is she a customer. Now the record of government performance in those tasks (businesses) is pretty good. The PO isn’t failing because it’s ran by the government, it’s failing because the nature of mail has changed. Citizens use different forms of communication. The letter or even the phone call isn’t the only means of communicating any more. Still, the Post Office like private utility companies needs to serve people who still rely on the old technology. Still, the Post Office has done a better job managing their operations than did private car manufacturers over many decades. It has done a better job than steel companies. On the whole the record of government management is as good or better than many private enterprises. Government successfully managed and manages war, it successfully managed building atomic weapons, helped build the rail system in the 19th century, launched men into outer space. Even the new digital technologies came about as a result of government sponsored pioneer work. The list goes on. Without the aid of government which is say of of taxpayer funded operations very few of these programs would have come about. Conservative businessman like Romney or Reagan before him who think that business and not government should take the lead have never built any large scale company or brought about any kind of far reaching innovation. Reagan was good at acting and making speechds not good at managing any business. Romney is better at liquidating business than at creating them. His on achievement Staples was built over his objections since he didn’t think the company could work. Now, we have had health care ran as a business for a long time and millions of citizens have not been served because of it. Medicine should be delivered by a government because it impacts all our citizens and not just those who can pay. Only government will serve those without means. The idea that government should be run as a business is an idea without merit.

- arnon1

November 20, 2012 at 10:14am

As the not so proud citizen of the Bobby Jindal show called "Luzziana", I am not surprised at all that Bobby Jindal would turn down setting up an exchange or expanding the Medicare pool here in Louisiana considering that Jindal and his GOP pals in Baton Rouge have spent the last 2 years cutting healthcare budgets statewide and reducing access to healthcare for the working poor and poor. While I'm surprised that the very powerful medical industry here in LA wouldn't have lobbied for the exchange since it expands their client based, I can see why such a very conservative group of folks would lobby against these exchanges because it cuts into their profit margins and subsequently requires them to do more work for less pay (like the rest of America). What we will see instead, is the Feds setting up an exchange and running that more effectively than the inept and corrupt government here in LA. In fact, Bobby did us a favor by turning down the opportunity for the State run exchange. Because inevitably, there would be a Federal case against some law-maker that used funds to build himself a house or stashing cash in his freezer or hiring hookers on the side.

- singlspeed

November 20, 2012 at 10:38am

The argument by Adler and Cannon is that: (a) the Act provides credits only for "..purchase of qualifying health insurance plans in exchanges established by states..."; (b) the Act also requires, in the absence of an exchange, that the "[HHS] Secretary shall (directly or through agreement with a notforprofit entity) establish and operate such Exchange within the State"; therefore they claim credits are limited only to State created exchanges. The IRS issued a ruling to the contrary, which Adler and Cannon believe is unsupported by the statute. I disagree with their claim that it was not the intent of Congress to have tax credits apply to all exchanges.

- Nusholtz

November 20, 2012 at 11:41am

What Arnon said. K2K: If you want to be taken seriously, and not mocked, please forebear from repeating platitudes and speaking points. "Guv'mint ain't know running no business none" might work in Tuscaloosa, or even Peoria, but here, you need more than frankly idiotic generalisations. The Government of Canada recently spent $38 bn onjointly-funded infrastructure over a period of 2.5 years. The audit results may be found on the website of the independent Auditor General of Canada. No instance of fraud of waste was found. This, from an office that brought down a government in 2003 over missing receipts for $100 million in ad spending and only $3 million in fraud. The problem is not government's running things; the problem is the mandates that we impose on government agencies and then expect them to operate like private business. Again, it is not the mandates that is the problem; it is the expectation that is braindead. And any political comment based on that expectation that is also a generalised statement about the functioning of government falls into the "braindead" category.

- icarus-r

November 20, 2012 at 12:14pm

And what Iowa said as well. I have every confidence that the more the 30 Republican governors resist the ACA, the more likely it is that the Republicans will lose the statehouses after 2014. Either that, or health-care migration will do the trick. Make no mistake: the migration will not be of labour alone. Capital will see that the ACA will, in the long run, result in lower health-care costs. The market, in other words, will punish Republicans. Now there's irony for you.

- icarus-r

November 20, 2012 at 12:16pm

"The Federal government has done such a good job with the Constituionally mandated United States Postal Service that certainly the ACA, in all of it's mind-numbing complexity, will be okey-dokey." One thing you should think about, K, is that when you use evidence to support an argument, it usually works best when the evidence actually supports the argument. Let's talk USPS: It's the most reliable business I've dealt with, other than my local rural electric cooperative, in the 30 years I've lived on this farm. Mail arrives on time; mail I send invariably gets delivered for a predictable price. Yes, they are getting the livin' shit kicked out of them by the decline in mail volume, and accumulated some losses navigating that. But they are navigating it with their hands tied by political concerns - they can't abandon the dippy little post office like the one up the road that costs a postmistresses salary, but serves about 7 people a day, and they can't enter new businesses or even compete effectively in the one they are in, due to congressional mandates restricting them. I'd give the USPS a straight A so far on this one. Let's talk medicare: Medicare's administrative cost per claim is roughly 1/6 in percentage terms of the vaunted private insurance industry (Medicare runs about 2% administrative overhead; a good many insurance companies struggled mightily to meet the governments mandates 85% payments ratio). My parents have been on Medicare for 25 years. They've had fewer billing errors and screw-ups in that 25 years (with some pretty intense health care needs) than I've had with my private insurer in the last 18 months, over outpatient surgeries. If Medicare doesn't do it for you, take a look at the Veterans Administration hospital system. Maybe we should discuss the military: the costs of private employed security services in Iraq and Afghanistan far outweighed the costs of the Federal military, service for service. Government has its faults; inefficiency is not one of the inherent ones. There are surely inefficient government organizations, but there are many that are as well run as any private business.

- IowaBeauty

November 20, 2012 at 1:05pm

You are talking facts, IowaBeauty, K@K doesn't deal in facts. He deals in factoids culled from conservative websites, and not even intelligent conservative websites, but the bottom feeding conservative websites.

- arnon1

November 20, 2012 at 2:22pm

Iowa: K2K thought Perry was the best Republican candidate; he often sounds like Jindal on volcano monitoring: a smart-ass quip that is wide of the mark, if not outright nonsensical. Your comments about administration costs reminded me that there is a really good source of information about public health expenditure - across the board, and not just for old or poor people - in Ontario's Ministry of Health. The actual administration cost, aside from eHealth, is about 0.4%; adding eHealth (the electronic health data management system, which allows me to get care in any hospital in Ontario on the basis of information stored in any other hospital) would raise this to about 1.4% of total health expenditure. One interesting factoid: the ministerial salary of the Minister of Health of Ontario - she is responsible for $48 bn in annual expenditure - is $49 K. This is on top of her salary as a parliamentarian - around $120 K. No job security and no golden parachute. This is what I love about the public option. http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/estimates/2012-13/volume1/MOHLTC.html

- icarus-r

November 20, 2012 at 2:36pm

Canada has a great Health Care system which the ultra right in this country was trying to deny. The only way they could so was by misrepresentation. Unfortunately for them many Americans who visited Canada knew the facts and could tell their neighbors.

- arnon1

November 20, 2012 at 3:47pm

@IowaBeauty and your comment regarding the VA: as an Army veteran I can attest that the VA is consistently excellent. Moreover--and I've often pondered the great irony of this--the military and all its attendant institutions are probably the single example of a socialized system in the US. And it works well, with great efficiency and little-to-no corruption. Now, would I like all life in this country to be organized like the Army? Of course not. But the example shows that 1) efficient and effective nationalized healthcare is possible, and 2) this country in particular can manage it.

- bacchant

November 20, 2012 at 4:52pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/nocera-its-d-day-for-the-post-office.html This explains the forced prefunding of the pension obligations for the Post Office.

- blackton

November 20, 2012 at 4:53pm

From the article: "Two weeks ago, Republicans making the case against Obamacare suffered a defeat at the polls—in no small part because a majority of voters concluded the Republicans didn’t care about the financial struggles of poor or middle class Americans. Is it any wonder why?" Alas, it's not the first time voters have been wrong. The 30's were a great example of the masses repeatedly endorsing FDR in spite of FDR's policies hammering them mercilessly. Today, it's much of the same. Obama says he's for the poor and middle class, yet his policies have demonstrated over and over that he's more about helping his wealthy friends. Hollywood, the music industry, the fashion industry, banking, union bosses, university administration. All of those groups have thrived in the current economy, they thrived under Bush and they REALLY thrived under Clinton. The numbers today are more than horrible for the working poor and middle class. They they are even worse for minorities and women. And yet, with the help of the intelligentsia and a fawning media, the masses are led to believe this is the best we can expect. And much like the 30's, the unwashed masses lap it up. Truly clueless that it could ever be better. And yet, just 5 years ago, it WAS much better for them. And the 5 years before that was almost just as good. But of course, the working poor aren't where they are today because of their incredible deductive powers. If the president and media tell them over and over it was worse under Bush, and thank God weren't back to those days, they'll eventually believe it to be true. Remember when the middle class were upset that their salaries were only growing 2.5% each year under Bush? And that it used to be 3% under Clinton? Today that figure is negative. And yet they are happy. Sad. Alas, the EU always hated the US because our system highlighted just how bad their system was. When their middle class grew at 0.1%, ours grew at 2%. When theirs grew at -0.5%, ours grew at 1.5%. Thankfully, we don't have to worry about that anymore. Our middle class is now just as screwed as their middle class. We can all be miserable together for once.

- seattleeng

November 20, 2012 at 5:16pm

"Alas, the EU always hated the US because our system highlighted just how bad their system was." Alas, indeed. I remember those times, as millions of Europeans clamored for their health care systems to be dismantled and reformed into something more like America's. Happy Days! Except they never existed.

- ironyroad

November 20, 2012 at 6:30pm

irony writes: "Alas, indeed. I remember those times, as millions of Europeans clamored for their health care systems to be dismantled and reformed into something more like America's. Happy Days!" What the europeans clamor for is disposable income. If you earn $30K, the EU takes $10K of that in taxes and gives you health care that sucks at curing cancer. If you earn $30K in the US, the US gives you $3000 in tax credit, requires you to pay no taxes, and thus leaves you enough to buy health care if you wish. You can either force a person to buy health care, or let them chose. But either way, they are left with $20K. Personally, I think choice is always a good thing.

- seattleeng

November 20, 2012 at 8:16pm

just for the record: The United States Postal Service is one American institution. I do not care which party or which congress screwed the USPS. The USPS should be subsidized. I guess the idea that congress the USPS has no possible bearing on the complexitiy of ACA. I am in the category of : NEEDS REFORM. Especially since the LongtTermCare part was deemed unworkable earlier this year, by HHS. Based on how Medicaid has damaged New York, I assume a lot of governors have been able to compare ACA with New York and, well, we shall see... I have tried to be consistent in my criticism of ACA that it was 1) wrong priority at the time. housing and jobs was #1. still are. 2) access to medical insurance is not the problem - it is the way health care is 'practiced' in America. I tried to move to Germany in 2002 because their healthcare system is so superior to the USA. And, I am Jewish, so try to imagine the research that went into that conclusion. And, I guess it is impossible to imagine, in the fall of 2011, that any GOP candidate for the presidency in 2012, had a chance. Well, I did, and I was in the ABR segment. I liked the Defender of Jerusalem, Gov. Rick Perry, who grew up a democrat in LBJ's Texas.

- K2K

November 20, 2012 at 11:37pm

If Adler and Cannon are successful, don't they end up screwing states with Republican governors? That doesn't strike me as being very bright. Here in Wisconsin, I thought Governor Walker's decision to defer to the feds in setting up the exchanges was the right one. He had neither the motivation to make the exchanges successful nor the record of administrative competence that would give one confidence. But it won't look good if Minnesotans and Illinoisans get subsidies, but Wisconsinites don't.

- brthompson

November 21, 2012 at 12:10am

"But the example shows that 1) efficient and effective nationalized healthcare is possible, and 2) this country in particular can manage it." I agree, bacchant. I'm on VA Health Care, too (Air Force vet), and it's been excellent for me. And a couple of years ago VA socialized medicine was rated as the most efficient health care in the country, mainly because everything in the system has become computerized. And I've said before that if America were to have fully socialized medicine, it would be run efficiently, because of our native efficiency. And it's coming. We have no choice. Capitalism has made a price-gouging mess of our health care.

- magboy47.

November 21, 2012 at 12:17am

K2K, the link you supplied leads to an op ed by the head of an organization that, according to its website, planned an "ad buy (that) will run through Election Day in five battleground states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin" attacking Obama and Obamacare. Obviously, the voters in these states found it extremely persuasive.

- brthompson

November 21, 2012 at 12:17am

K2K's misguided link to the cantankerous Politico article is actually quite useful, aside from the worthless Carrie Lukas article itself. The more thoughtful comments tear apart the article very effectively, both in terms of statistics, polls and the like,as well as on philosophical terms. A sort of handy crib sheet for responding to her ilk--and K2K's churlishness.

- atlasqq

November 21, 2012 at 7:57am

Seattle: "If you earn $30K, the EU takes $10K of that in taxes and gives you health care that sucks at curing cancer." Either you lie. Or you are ignorant. Because this particular matter has already been aired before, and you keep making an assertion based that is on its face false, despite being corrected, I have to assumed that you lie. First, the "EU" - a common market of 27 countries ranging from Malta to Germany - does not have a single income tax regime. This is why there is so much talk of the need for a "fiscal union" in response to the Euro crisis. The premise of your comment is therefore simply wrong. You can talk about averages, but that says nothing at all. Second, of course, "sucks at curing cancer" is a calumny to begin with, and a non-sequitur. Health care in northern European countries is, on average, no worse than that in the US, on average; it covers every one and is vastly cheaper than in the US. In Southern and Eastern Europe, health care issues relate mostly to level of development. To compare the US with, say, Slovakia says nothing about Slovakia's health care system and much about the mind of the person who makes the comparison. Finally - and this has been brought to your attention before, though you keep making the inapposite comparisons - tax levels say nothing at all about the overall package of benefits someone receives. As I have said, you sound like my idiot cousin, also an engineer, who was complaining about his taxes in Germany and wanted to move to the US. As soon as I told him about vacation, sick leave, unemployment insurance, pensions, bankruptcy protection, health care, working conditions, union representation on company boards, management compensation, urban housing, food regulation and the quality of American "beer", he shut up about his taxes. So - please stop lying.

- icarus-r

November 21, 2012 at 10:17am

K2K: " I tried to move to Germany in 2002 because their healthcare system is so superior to the USA. And, I am Jewish, so try to imagine the research that went into that conclusion." Given that you have done the research, could you please help put a cork in Seattle's silly comments about the "EU" health care system?

- icarus-r

November 21, 2012 at 10:20am

Icarus writes: "So - please stop lying." Racist! Liar! Your standard defenses I see. Icarus writes "does not have a single income tax regime. No, but the effective tax rates on the major countries in the EU are substantially higher on the average earner versus the US. Your bringing up Malta is akin to noting taxes in Olathe, Kansas, aren't so bad. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Romania, Poland, UK...the population centers of the EU...all have crushing taxes on average earners. Well north of 40% effective tax rate. The US has perhaps 0% including all fed, state, local, ss, medicare on our average earner. Big difference. And not a lie. epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-28072011-AP/EN/3-28072011-AP-EN.PDF Icarus writes: "Second, of course, "sucks at curing cancer" is a calumny to begin with, and a non-sequitur." 5 year cancer survival rates for all cancers are 10 to 20% higher in the US than the EU across the board. See Arduino Verdecci et al, "Recent Cancer Survival in Europe: a 2000-02 Period Analysis of Eurocare-4", Lancet Ocncology 8 Sept 2007 10-20% survival rates are significant. There is a reason the world flocks to the US when they are sick. Icarus writes: "Finally - and this has been brought to your attention before, though you keep making the inapposite comparisons - tax levels say nothing at all about the overall package of benefits someone receives" Your idiot cousin should come to work and get the benefits one gets at Microsoft or Google. They put his state provided benefits to shame. But you have really avoided the question here. The question is this: Is it better to create a white-hot economy that gives a person all the disposable cash they need to purchase the benefits they want, or is it better to heavily tax them, blunting the economy in the process, and force upon them a list of benefits that many don't want or need?

- seattleeng

November 21, 2012 at 1:13pm

Europeans still manage to have longer vacations and travel more than Americans do, and that applies across more rungs of the social ladder too. So perhaps their lesser disposable income still goes further in the real world? Simple, when you think of it.

- ironyroad

November 21, 2012 at 1:31pm

"Is it better to create a white-hot economy that gives a person all the disposable cash they need to purchase the benefits they want, or is it better to heavily tax them, blunting the economy in the process, and force upon them a list of benefits that many don't want or need?" To begin with, the crushing taxes of the 1950s in the US did not blunt the economy, and the Reagan and Bush tax cuts did not lead to "white-hot" economies. The premise for each of your possibilities is incorrect, and so your conclusion is incorrect. As well, you keep avoiding the bigger "values" issue. Latest reports indicate that in l'il old socialist Canada, both income mobility and competitiveness are among the highest in the world. There are many factors for this, but every analysis of both income mobility and competitiveness in Canada puts our social safety net and social programs right at the top of the list. "Your idiot cousin should come to work and get the benefits one gets at Microsoft or Google. They put his state provided benefits to shame." Public policy is made on the basis not of what two major - and largely liberal - corporations provide, the benefits that should be provided to the entire society/community as a whole. For each Google, there is a "right to work" state manufacturer that barely pays minimum wage or provides any job security or proper vacation pay. "Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Romania, Poland, UK...the population centers of the EU...all have crushing taxes on average earners. Well north of 40% effective tax rate. The US has perhaps 0% including all fed, state, local, ss, medicare on our average earner." 1. So there is no "EU income tax", but you are referring to an a average of six countries of widely different social, economic and political make up that don't even necessarily share a single currency. 2. This US average earner is not the same worker at Google or Microsoft, I imagine. Of course, for the "average" earner, the figure of 0% is for all taxes and contributions appears suspicious. But that, in a way, is besides the point. 3. Averaging out the effective tax rates in six countries with widely different fiscal and social policies, and then comparing it to the the United States - which is, after all, a single state - is also problematic. There is, to say the least, a wide difference between minimum wage in Germany and Romania; there are huge differences in labour market practices between France and the UK; in terms of tax collection, regionalism, industrial policy and a host of other social and economic matters, Italy and Poland have widely different profiles. To average these out, not include social benefits, and compare "effective tax rates" is methodologically unsound, to say the least. I call you a liar when you lie, and a racist when you say racist stuff. Tell the truth and don't make racist comments, and I will reply accordingly.

- icarus-r

November 21, 2012 at 2:20pm

icarus - I researched Germany in 2002 solely because that was where Americans were going for surgery for a specific condition that I have. USA's FDA has been very backwards by NOT approving certain techniques/devices used in Germany, Finland, and Sweden, that make a huge difference for those with my condition. Those who boast that America has the "best" healthcare in the world are as delusional as those who think ACA is a landmark achievement. The main difference in Europe is that health care is NOT linked to your employer. If the Pelosi Party had paid any attention to McCain's 2008 ideas on de-linking, perhaps ACA would not be dividing America today. Perhaps America would be able to compete with Canada on unit labor cost, Canada being the destination for more than one million American manufacturing jobs since NAFTA. ACA in it's current form is a disaster. Using Medicaid to stealthily lead to single-payer health insurance is a really bad idea. And, for everyone happy with the VA in 2012? I am so glad the VA has improved. I never want anyone to watch their father die in a VA hospital due to absence of care, which was what it was like for my dad in 1992. I still remember asking the resident if she would want HER father in the VA. Her silence was the answer. btw, this post and that Politico survey I linked were both links at RealClearPolitics on Tuesday. TNR.com now seems to be the voice of destroying the U.S. Constitution, what with the eight ways Obama can shove his agenda thru without Congress. feh.

- K2K

November 21, 2012 at 3:47pm

Icarus, you have avoided the top-level question: Is it better to provide a fast-growing economy and provide the workers with enough disposable income to make their own decisions (hmmm. should I get a boat or health insurance?), or is it better to provide the workers with a mandated list of benefits and very little disposable income in the slower growing economy? Other rushed notes: * Nobody paid the high rates of the 60's. Nobody. There were so many deductions back then. Effective rates then were the same as now EXCEPT for the top 0.01%, which were about 10% higher. You need to study more history. I'm not your loser cousin. :) * The liberal corps you note are not liberal. Strong libertarian in parts, yes. The rest like to appear liberal. But make no mistake, the are the most self centered bunch of folks you will ever meet. They aren't liberal, they aren't conservative. They worship the church of money. I worked there for almost a decade. The like to appear liberal because it provides cover for what they do. They are all keenly aware of how to market everything from soap to themselves. And they dupe suckers like you in the process. * Lumping the EU into a single box ignores the Germany/Malta differences, but we do that all the time in the US where we ignore the California/Arkansas differences. No different. * See the CBO data. See table 7 here: www.cbo.gov/publication/43373. You'd be more effective arguing if you actually cited numbers. Icarus writes: "I call you a liar when you lie, and a racist when you say racist stuff. Tell the truth and don't make racist comments, and I will reply accordingly." You define "code words" as being racist. And you define facts you don't like as lies with nary a refutation except the charge "liar" I can easily define your sentence structure and mannerisms as being characteristic of a pedophile in my mind, and thus brand you accordingly. But I don't, because I feel to make a serious charge I need mounds of evidence to support it. You, on the other hand, merely need to hear the sentence "that man sure enjoys golf" and if he's black, you have all the evidence you need to charge the observer with racism. See the difference? Do you not remember telling me that my observing that Obama played too much golf was a code word for calling him lazy (which, btw, was YOUR connection, not mine) and thus I was racist? Biden just called Obama his home boy in a public forum. If Romney would have done that in a friendly way with zero ill intent, would the man have survived a minute? No he would not. Liberals use the racism charge to short circuit any argument they are loosing. Fortunately, it's been misused so much it's failing to carry the charge it once did. Just like equating someone to a nazi. It's so overplayed anymore it's a certain marker the argument has been lost. Imagine anymore, in the US of A, the most tolerant and accepting nation in the world by several orders of magnitude, and there are those like you that see racism lurking around every corner.

- seattleeng

November 21, 2012 at 8:20pm

k2k writes: "Those who boast that America has the "best" healthcare in the world are as delusional as those who think ACA is a landmark achievement." This is very true. What is important to understand is that the US has optimized it's health care to cure the sickest IF cost is not important. In making that optimization, we have specifically said that if someone doesn't have a lot of money, they will get substandard care. Other countries have optimized their health care to give everyone a minimum level of care, with a very crisp cap on how heroic the efforts will be. Those that favor giving care to everyone delude themselves into thinking they will still get the US's heroic efforts while treating everyone. They will not. As the data clearly shows, the sickest in the EU do not fair as well as the sickest in the US. The elderly in the EU are not treated as well as the elderly in the US. As we shift to the EU style of care, our ability to exceed the EU's heroics will drop and fall in line with theirs. We can hope we can still do better, but the data and samples sizes are enormous and the evidence is irrefutable. Optimizing for coverage reduces a medical system's ability to be heroic.

- seattleeng

November 21, 2012 at 8:28pm

Re relationship between taxes and spending, from The Weekly Standard, that bastion of socialism: http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/gorging-beast_663547.html?page=2 “Demand by current voters for federal spending,” he explained, “declines with the amount of this spending that is financed by current taxes.” When you make them pay for government benefits out of their own pockets, in other words, voters will want fewer of them.

- icarus-r

November 22, 2012 at 12:24pm

I agree with that article: As I've said, let's charge people precisely for the government they are getting. Obama is spending an extra $1T/year, and that means $6K/year more in taxes on the a $60K earner. And that has been my point all along: If we offer EU style benefits, then we must charge EU style tax rates.

- seattleeng

November 23, 2012 at 1:40pm