10 Comments on “Important Information: Medicare Surtax for High-Income Employees”

1. 
   Joe Killeen said at 10:16 am on August 23rd, 2012:

   The math is simple, ask the majority of citizens if they would mind paying .09 additional for the ability to have this fall back in case of hard times and they would say yes.
   The average worker, employed full time according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor is around 45K annually. Putting up another 1800 or so per year if they were making almost 4.5 times their current average wage would be a no brainer. That is the Republican common sense gap. The solutions they are offering make sense to a minority of the population in the economic reality of today. The same solutions coupled with a narrowly defined moral and social philosophy clouds the reality and substitutes an attempt to define a christian creed for practical considerations. Without the beard of the “moral majority” the math of the fiscal conservatives doesn’t add up economically or socially.

2. 
   MLaffey said at 12:59 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   I would mind paying it because I understand the real cost of government supplied medical care. An ever increasing tax burden and ever increasing costs, culminating in price controls, shortages and rationing. It has to do with economics not a “narrowly defined moral or social code” whatever that gibberish means.

3. 
   Joe Killeen said at 2:49 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   The real cost of medical care does not care if there is one source of the check or multiple sources. The recipients of open market medical care are the only one’s affected by the organization of the process.
   Why is it illegal for individuals to purchase their prescribed medications from Canada?
   One basic of market forces is that the larger your purchasing power the more valuable your leverage is on the price you pay.
   This costly exclusion from the funding authorizations for Medicare and Medicaid was a “compromise” forced into the legislation by supporters of the “free” in free market. The projected savings from that one area were estimated to have saved the tax payers and the individuals in the program on their prescription co-pays a good bit of money annually.
   As to your comment that government control of a business sector would lead to price controls, shortages and rationing, I disagree that this is the only and ultimate result of the process. As evidence I submit the current status of the defense industry and interstate public infrastructure projects.
   The fossil fuel energy discovery, extraction, production, distribution and sales industries. The for profit educational industry, the mortgage and small business assistance business, the banking insurance and regulatory industry. Etc. Etc.
   There is no silver bullet that can return the United States to a fantasy of what it never was. The self supporting, self contained, self motivated American exists by individual choice and motivation, it never existed because of government non involvement or a smaller less intrusive and expensive federal government. That myth was what brought the leaders of the revolution out of their semi-retirement and led to the Constitutional convention in 1789. The 13 years between the Declaration of Independence and the convention in 1789 were the hey day of states rights and little or no federal government. The document and principles that every political party chooses to wrap itself with as their security blanket today. It clearly was created to establish and strengthen the role of the federal government in the future of the American nation.

4. 
   Joe Killeen said at 3:02 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   Hopefully this comes across as a link. It is the most non partisan explanation of the economics of our present situation.

   http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/middle-class-broke-pew-study-reveals-real-problem-155018682.html;_ylc=X3oDMTNuYzJxaDc1BF9TAzExODMzMDgwNzMEYWN0A21haWxfY2IEY3QDYQRpbnRsA3VzBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEcGtnA2JlN2YzNmZjLTc4YWMtM2VlZC1hOTlmLTk0ODk3ODUyZTQzNQRzZWMDbWl0X3NoYXJlBHNsawNtYWlsBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

5. 
   Joe Killeen said at 3:10 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   Again hopefully a link that allows some different information into alternative perspectives.

6. 
   Joe Killeen said at 3:12 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   Apologize for my technical failings in internet process. Here is the link that was suppose to be included in above reply.
   http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/u-economy-rx-fix-unemployment-healthcare-first-says-160409951.html

7. 
   MLaffey said at 8:27 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   The more health care government provides the less naturual downward pressure on prices exists. Government then has 3 choices. 1. Raise taxes to pay for ever increasing costs. This might work in the short term but is untenable in the long term. 2. rationing care. This removes your freedom to determine when where and what type of care you will get. 3. Price controls. This will cause less providers to stay in or enter the market resulting in less access to health care for everyone. These are simple economic principles that history has proven to be true repeatedly.
   As to Canada drugs being cheaper. Canada is essentially being a leach on the USA. If we controlled prices the way Canada does their would be less incentive for the development of new drugs and American and Canadian health care would suffer. We being a larger and freeer market essentially wind up subsidizing Canada.

8. 
   MLaffey said at 9:53 pm on August 23rd, 2012:

   STATEMENT OF ACTUARIAL OPINION …

   While the Part B projections in this report are reasonable in their portrayal of future costs under current law, they are not reasonable as an indication of actual future costs. Current law would require a physician fee reduction of an estimated 29.4 percent on January 1, 2012—an implausible expectation.

   Further, while the Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook, there is a strong likelihood that certain of these changes will not be viable in the long range. Specifically, the annual price updates for most categories of non-physician health services will be adjusted downward each year by the growth in economy-wide productivity. The best available evidence indicates that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree—or even approach such a level—as a result of the labor-intensive nature of these services.

   Without major changes in health care delivery systems, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result. Overriding the productivity adjustments, as Congress has done repeatedly in the case of physician payment rates, would lead to far higher costs for Medicare in the long range than those projected under current law.

   [134] “2010 Actuarial Report on the Financial Outlook for Medicaid.” By Christopher J. Truffer and others. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary, December 21, 2010.

9. 
   Gene B. said at 1:03 pm on August 24th, 2012:

   Time for Fair Tax – eliminate the IRS and income taxes.

   The less toys that are available to be used against the free market, the better off we will be.

   Lack of an income tax will force a cap on spending via the sales tax amount. Legislatures would have to obviously RAISE the sales tax to collect increased taxes. This would affect EVERYONE and make the voters more observant and responsive.

   Vote ONLY for legislative candidates who support Fair Tax (H.R. 25 / S. 13) .

   We have good one running against Pallone who can be trusted to take the lead in the NJ delegation on this tax issue if elected.

10. 
    Joe Killeen said at 7:45 am on August 25th, 2012:

    Gene B- thank you for bringing up this proposal that at minimum should be part of the discussion on diverse yet possible solutions to our cost/revenue problem.
    In addition to the manipulated tax codes we operate under today, a “consumption” tax would lead to more sustainable life style coming into being. The ultimate question for our time.
    Hidden by all the budget proposals and counter proposals front and center is the real question. How do we support any growth or maintain any quality of life with growing population and an economy based upon increased “consumer confidence”, more and more consumption, within a confined space with finite resources?
    The CATO Institute, a very conservative economic think tank, produced a number of 35.2 Billion dollars difference between the last Paul Ryan budget and the Democrats proposed 2013 budget.
    Within a budget with numbers as large as the Federal budget that is on a scale of a rounding error in most small and medium sized business’.
    Yet we are all consumed in the question of which way do we go?
    Meanwhile the house is on fire, the woods next door are burning and we can’t get enough water to where it is needed from where it is overflowing.
    Sounds like a tax policy discussion to me. Not an either or, take it on the chin one way or the other, debate we are having now.