Just A Bit Too Much!!
Man I shoulda broke these Shirley Ellis lyrics out when the story broke:
“Osama ama Obama
Banana Fanna Fo Fama!
Fee Fi Mo Mama
Obama!”
Read Paragraph Seven by Kennedy
“He said Medicare should be gradually expanded to cover all citizens, and the cost would be funded through payroll taxes and general revenues and offset by savings through advances in technology.”
Medicare costs are sky high. In some metro areas of the country, NY,MA, and CA, the cost is $18,000 a year per couple. OH please, lets drive everybodies cost up that high please.
HSA insurance is $125 a month in Des Moines, Iowa, for a 30 year old couple and two children in the free and open market.
The Des Moines Register wants this couple to be able to buy into Medicare with an editorial they just wrote. How insane is this? Who really believes Medicare premiums are less than the free and open market with competition holding down premiums?PLUS Medicare covered expenses are terrible. If this young family could by into Medicare the Out-Of-Pocket (OOP) just on drugs would be $7,200 plus 5% of the remaining drug charges annually, if they purchased the optional RX Coverage which starts in 2006. I assume the two children would also have a max of $3,600 each annually too. That would make a family OOP in Medicare $14,400 just on RX.
Then we pay for all this with raising PAYROLL taxes which are currently at 15.3% of income. PLUS Kennedy wants general revenues (income taxes) to go up too.
Then NY and MA gets a lot more in Medicare reimbursements than Iowa. Yet Medicare taxes are equal nationally. So let’s get everybody into a system that robs the midwest of taxation and feed a “monster revenue streem” (MRS) into New York City and Boston.
Iowa politicians run around the state screaming Iowa has the lowest reimbursement rates in America. NYC and Boston have HMOs in Medicare but not so in Des Moines. SO NYC elderly don’t have a Medigap premium on the HMO but poor Des Moines elderly have to purchase a Medigap plan and spend even more because traditional Medicare only pays 80% of doctor and hospital bills.
Don’t get me started on Medicare and how the country is being ripped off because I could go on for days.
It figures the Des Moines Register would want all citizens of the state ripped off.
And I have not even mentioned how the Medicare Rights Center (MRC) is ripping off the taxpayers of America yet.
Take a wild guess where the MRC is located? You guessed right, New York City.
Those New Yorkers like money flowing just one way --- the New York way.
Posted by Z Woof
01/17/2005 at 11:31 AM
Z Woof, go to http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxspending.html
Look up Iowa. For every dollar your state sent to the federal government it received $1.06 back in 2003 and a whopping $1.22 in 2002. NY got back $.80 both years. Your state, and all the other midwestern supplicants sipping from the public trough, can have it’s manhood back when it returns to NY the six cents on the dollar. It boggles my mind that NYers keep voting for Democrats when we should be supporting any candidate who would be willing to cut off your welfare state from our largesse. Robbing the Midwest, indeed.
You also misrepresented Medicare taxes. They are 2.9%, half of which comes from the employer. The rest of the 15.3% goes to Soc Sec, which is a separate horror. Even the grossest inequity in Medicare would not amount to one tenth of the inequity in federal taxation.
I think NYers will just keep your state testicles in a little lockbox until you start puilling your own weight.Posted by commander0
01/17/2005 at 02:16 PM
Sure Sure Commander0 like you know something about health insurance, please.
1st - I said payroll taxes are 15.3%. Ted Kennedy said he wanted to increase payroll taxes. And yes you are correct the Social Security taxes are 12.4%
2nd - You are mixing Medicare and everything else together, I’m not. It is TRUE that Medicare tax is the same nation wide - AND it is also TRUE that Iowa politicians were running around the state saying Iowa had the lowest reimbursment rates.
3rd.- Iowa has the lowest health insurance rates in America where New York City is about the highest. So large companies who make all employees pay the same and have employees in both NY and IA have the IA employees paying more than they need to and NY employees are paying less thn they should.
4th. - New York won’t let an insurance company sell individual insurance unless they are headquartered in NY. Like I said money only flows one way to NY.
5th - New York has a Senator that is trying to Socialize all of American health care.
6th - New York elderly can join an HMO in Medicare and have no monthly premiums and in Iowa they can’t.
SO commanderO you don’t mind larger amounts in Medicare going to NY and smaller amounts going to Iowa and Iowa having to close up their hospitals, cool.
And I’m surrounded by NY’ers because I’m living in Tampa Bay, Florida. But I still don’t like your attitude how you want to keep Iowa citizens testicles in your so-called lock box because the Medicare program is doing that now and needs to be reformed. You say it’s ok to rip of Iowa in Medicare but you are just ill informed about health care.
And self employed people pay the full 2.9% because they are not W-2 people like you, they are owners.
But other than that CommanderO you seem like a really nice guy.
Posted by Z Woof
01/17/2005 at 04:27 PM
1. I know you said payroll taxes were 15.3% but the discussion was about medicare and the portion for medicare is only 2.9%.
2. You’re right, I am mixing everything together. Because if you look at everything together then it is clear how fraudulent it is for you to assert that NY is ripping off Iowa.
3. Maybe you should discuss this with the companies that do work in both states.
4. NY’s stupidity in restricting who can sell in NY has certainly not harmed Iowa, obviously, since they have such low rates in Iowa and NY has such high rates. But it’s NYers who pay those rates, not Iowans.
5. NY has not one but two retarded senators. I’m sorry, indeed.
6. Bring this one up with Iowa.
Maybe Iowa should take some of the money it gets from NY and spend it on their hospitals themselves. We also have to pay higher state tax because the feds bleed us dry for Iowa and don’t send it back. Maybe the health insurance premiums in Iowa should be raised to pay for the hospitals????
It’s myopic to look only at medicare and conclude that NY is ripping off the midwest when the opposite is clearly true.
And I’m not only self-employed, but an employer. That’s how I know about the true cost of the soc sec/medicare rip-off.
Anyway, how’s your zombie toof?
Posted by commander0
01/17/2005 at 05:28 PM
You Must be the OWNWER commander because an employee would NEVER say that.
1. I have worked with a guy for 9 years that lives in NY. I have family that live in NY and IA. One of the smartest persons I ever met lived at 122 E. 38th Street. I saw him right after my first vote for president when I voted against Nixon and he called me the shmuck from Iowa. That Republican New Yorker helped me see how stoopid I was. My excuse when I’m an idiot is, “Excuse me I’m a little slow because I’m from Iowa.”
2. I’m sorry about your two Senators too.
3. You are correct about the soc sec/medicare rip-off.
4. Iowa has the Governor from Hell. It is almost as bad as Michigans or New Mexico. I can’t decide which one is worse. Tax payers from every state are being ripped off by the current health care system and government’s over regulating to limit competition and build monopolies.
5. My brother works in an Iowa casino and is in charge of a bunch of IA casino employees. He told me tonight that one dealer in Black Jack had a 19 and the “customer” had a 15 and the dealer was paying off the customer. He stepped in and said , “What are you doing?” They dealerthought the customer won, pathetic. He had to say which is bigger 15 or 19? Then he had to explain that means the house won. So I know what you mean about some Iowa people. My Chinese sister-in-law works for the casino too and her comment tonight about those IA dealers was, “They are so bad it makes your eyes bleed.”
6. I was named Z Woof by a Romanian salesmanager named Mariana. She was captain of the Romanian Olympic rowing team. I’m sure she was trying to say, “The Wolf.” But in VAMPIRE-eez it sounds like Z Woof to me.
But my left foot is bigger than the other one is, like a reg’lar Zomby hoof.commanderO do you believe we should have the “Ownership Society” with tax free HSAs and PSAs to reform or dismantle Social Security and Medicare?
If so you and I think exactly alike.
Posted by Z Woof
01/17/2005 at 10:41 PM
