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Health Reform Poll: Tax the Rich, Don’t Tax Benefits

    • The tax should be on the HIT makers. The $ thousands they charge for 5 seconds of work to connect an extra is outrageous. This considers the companys' failure to consider any thing but their bottom line when designing these products. Patients be ware.

    • It is good even for the rich and american businessses if they want to survive. There ought to be a healthplan which is tax funded and available for all.

      The health tax should be a percentage of salary for all...low burden for low earners...after deducting may be 50K for cost of living.


    • I am still unclear what Mr. Obama wants to do in terms of reforming the health care. All his statements are superficial with no concrete ideas. All he is talking about is 'coverage for all'. How to achieve it? Where will the money come from is all very vague. It will certainly mean that just like Wall Street, he will look into being a Robin Hood again. Put the higher income on the chopping block again.
      How can you justify a Poll with no concrete ideas??

    • Is there any doubt that America is heading towards Socialism Chairman Obama?

    • Is this a great country or what? I want subsidized (ideally free) health insurance coverage and I want someone else (the "rich") to pay for it. To be "rich" in this country is to be the never-ending target of pure, unadulterated envy, ridicule, and scorn. It's almost not worth it, you know?

    • The "rich" are going to be stretched pretty thin being asked to fund all these Obama programs. Don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax that fellow behind the tree.

    • I thought the main reason for reform was to lower the cost, as a percent of GDP. There aren't enough rich people to fund what they want. Bottom line is the bottom line. If they don't fix the economy, nothing else will matter.

    • The poll is misleading because no one really understands how this step to socialise medicine will affect healthcare. If you ask people are they willing to pay higher taxes and have a lower quality of care so that the 15% of the population that chooses not to have health insurance can have free or low cost healthcare, I bet you would get different numbers.

    • The politics of other people's money. I am not surprised that a majority of people want the government to give away free stuff as long as they don't have to pay more, especially in additional taxes... so now it is OK for 51% of the population to compel the other 49% to pay the bills?
      Health care reform, as currently being discussed, is like adding a new room to your home when you can't even stay current with the mortgage you have... in this case rapidly growing an already impossible mortgage with the boomers pushing it off to their children and grand children!
      Reckless, irresponsible and meanspirited; America needs to learn to live withing its means.

    • What is needed is serious re-regulation of the large national and multinational corporations; namely insurance companies, pharma, devices.... the last 10-15 years has seen too much de-regulation or no regulation on a macro level. No oversight and not enough smart regulation is how our banking and housing sectors got into trouble. We can have healthy capitalism with regulation and not have to bad mouth others as "socialists".

      Why is that when "transfer of wealth happens" via greedy corporations we just sit back and say "oh well," but when the government does it it is some kind of mortal sin. Personally, it feel like insurance and pharma have been sucking off the teat with very little contribution for too long now. Doctors and other people, especially in private practice, who actually tend to patients actually deserve MORE compensation not less to make up for years of no increases in fees - in some cases decreases in fees.

      It so obvious that large nationals are transferring wealth from the provider sector to the insurance sector - essentially starving providers at all levels. Did anyone catch the Aetna CEO Williams on Charlie Rose the other night? His statement that he thinks its essential to get everyone covered by insurance (sure his stock holders would love it), and that they only make about 6% etc. Well, since they keep RAISING PREMIUMS year after year that 6% must be getting getting beefy now huh Ron? Although they raise premuims, fees don't go up in a large majority of cases. Wake up people, smell the coffee...

    • This is no surprise, seems like wealth distribution to me no matter how you spin it. Since when did making over 250k make you rich, maybe in Alabama but not in NJ or the NE. What the pols and their supporters are missing is that the more money the so called rich and the real rich have to pay in taxes the less they will have to invest in the economy, their business and supporting other peoples businesses. Seems like America and Americans are hell bent on becoming Europe, well I hope they like having to pay 40% plus income taxes, having low or flat GDP and economic growth and the flight of talent and capital to countries with a lower tax base.

    • Jay,
      I am a health care practitioner not "rich or real rich" by any means, but I spend my $ on a local and micro level where, in my view, it really counts.

    • "Why is that when “transfer of wealth happens” via greedy corporations we just sit back and say “oh well,” but when the government does it it is some kind of mortal sin. Personally, it feel like insurance and pharma have been sucking off the teat with very little contribution for too long now."

      Do you have any idea how much, collectively, pharma and insurance companies pay each year in federal and state taxes? Tens of billions of dollars, I would guess. No free rides here. If you want to nail the so-called "free riders" of "teat suckers", as you so eloquently put it, how about going after the thousands of non-profit hospitals that pay ZERO taxes even though they act little or nothing like non-profits in terms of their daily operations?

    • What a bunch of jerks those 62% of people are - outright theives. What else do you want to have and force me to pay for it? It is literally theft when you take money from me to do something with it for yourself because I go to jail if I refuse to pay. I'm sick and tired of it.

    • Dan,
      Then you have some understanding of how it feels to be a provider in private practice w/ 5 to 10 year wage freezes because Insurance con don't raise fees but give themselves increase all the while.

    • Policy, there are at least some choices you still have as long as this "reform" doesn't regulate who you can see. You can follow the thousands of other docs who have told the carriers to jump in a lake and go to a total concierge practice. Or if you don't see that practicing medicine is viable you can make a career move. You obviously have the intelligence to do it. But the one thing you can never get away from is onerous taxes no matter what kind of work you do.

    • Has anyone considered how this new Health Reform Policy is going to handle the millions of illegal aliens that visit our county hospitals? If Obama's plan requires "everyone" to have a health care policy, how will the illegals be held responsible for their health care costs?

    • Whilel it may seem that I'm picking at nits, the $1 Trillion price tag that has been making the rounds of all the meida outlets this week has nothing to do with health care reform. It is only the cost of providing some level of health insurance coverage for some portion of the uninsured population. Thismay be be classifiable as a reform in coverage policy or payment policy, but a reform of health care it's not. In fact, it's unlikely that providing this expanded coverage will have any positive impact on either improving health or reducing cost. That will take real health care reform

    • Bob is exactly right, there has been no mention of real reform in any of the proprosals floating around so far. We don't have the courage for real reform, and never will for as long as we deny people the chance to participate in the decisions about how healthcare dollars are spent on their behalf.


    • Regarding the health care reform. Health care corporations for profit should be phased out. Consider what could be done with the profit now realized. More research could be done for alternative energy, job creation, electric transportation alternatives. There is something wrong with making profit from peoples illness. Everyone who gets a dividend or increase in stock from health care corporations should examine their conscious.

    • The problem with American healthcare is that Americans want more healthcare than they are willing to pay for. They want someone else to pay for it. There is ony one way to reduce the cost of healthcare, reduce the amount people receive. Dead people represent a very large healathcare savings. There are two ways to do it. Let the old people die by denying them expensive procedures. They are going to die soon anyway. The other way is to ration healthcare the European way, by letting the Government decide who is going to die. This is what the Democrats favor because it will let then decide who lives and dies. A liberal nirvana. Of course once you put the Government in charge of healthcare 15% to 20% of US doctors will retire rather than take a big pay cut and be told how to deliver medicne. That in itself will reduce costs by causing more deaths. I am not opposed to Government run healthecare. I just want Americans to be told the truth about these Democrat plans.

    • Pick any subject. Ask "would you like to have free stuff, with someone else paying for it?" Guess the outcome.

      By the way, anyone who thinks there "should" be no profit in health care is free to volunteer for work at one of the many nonprofit health care providers. Or start a co-op that buys pharmaceuticals or medical supplies, and sells them at cost. You talk the talk, Mr. Latimer, but are you walking the walk? Comments from the peanut gallery about what others "should" do add nothing.

    • Americans want more of everything than they are willing to pay for: more nursing home services, more medical services, more social services, more education, more everything except entertainment- THAT we will pay for, with our own money, usuallly.

    • I am really bothered by how the Obama administration’s way to hide the REAL COST and TAX implication to the middle-class working people resulting from his “health reform” and “cap and trade”. I want a HONEST and REALISTIC calculation of COST and DEFICIT.

      I know a lot of abuse on medicade and medicare. People transfer their weath to their children and receive ware fair benifit. People covered under medicade received abundant medications, medical devices, like diebetes test strips, dipers, eye drops free, hospital bed, electric wheel chairs. Since they don’t have co-payment, they wasted.

      I strongly suggest to have a two year health reform to concentrate on cost reduction and business process improvement on the current government run medicare, medicade, and healthcare reimbursement process first before spending more money and create more unsustainable deficit.

      If Obama continues spending money without taking into account of income, the Federal government will be bankrupted by those programs just like the California government now.

      Dao Zi

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