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Can we pay for healthcare and SS with sales tax?

aociswundumho said:
All you did in this comment was explain how the state forces some people to pay for the healthcare of others. BFD.

Note that there is no sound moral argument to compel some people to pay for the healthcare of others
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Yes, there is. Allowing an otherwise innocent human being to die simply because they can't afford health care is by definition immoral. Ask every single solitary American if they believe it is acceptable to allow a human being to die because they are too poor to afford food, shelter, or health care and I guarantee you that 96% or more will say no. That is as close to objective morality that you will ever get. The other 4% of people or less are immoral and deplorable human beings that we can safely disregard.

There exists literally no credibly ethicist on the planet earth who would disagree with me on this.

aociswundumho said:
that's what you needed to correctly respond to violation of property rights caused by the coercion.
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Here's a fun idea. I dare you to attempt to provide a moral basis for Property rights. If you don't think there is a moral basis for paying for someone else's health care then there is definitely no moral basis for respecting someone's property rights.
 
jonny5 said:
No the rich dont need medicare. They could afford better care.
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Better care? What better care? We are talking about insurance.. and no.. they could not obtain it when they are elderly.

As far as better care? Medicare is one of the best insurances out there.
 
jaeger19 said:
Really?

Please explain the moral argument for letting a 9 year old die of acute appendicitis because his parents don't have the funds to pay for healthcare to save him. Please explain how morally you want to go back to a system that lets that kid die.
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Deplorables. Hillary Clinton should have never apologized for calling Trump supporters a basket of deplorable. That is exactly what they are. That term defines them with deadly accuracy. Just a bunch of self centered immoral assholes who have found away to convince themselves that their greed is actually a good quality.

I saw an interesting take on how Donald Trump is far and away the closest any President has ever been to following Ayn Rand's personal philosophy. Watching people like Paul Ryan(who loves her) squirm is kind of hilarious.
 
jonny5 said:
Its flat. The rate stays the same regardless of the value of the thing being taxed.
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I am thinking you do not know the meaning of 'regressive tax' Flat is not the opposite of regressive. It is the definition of regressive.

A regressive tax is a tax applied uniformly, taking a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners. It is in opposition to a progressive tax, which takes a larger percentage from high-income earners
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MrWonka said:
Deplorables. Hillary Clinton should have never apologized for calling Trump supporters a basket of deplorable. That is exactly what they are. That term defines them with deadly accuracy. Just a bunch of self centered immoral assholes who have found away to convince themselves that their greed is actually a good quality.

I saw an interesting take on how Donald Trump is far and away the closest any President has ever been to following Ayn Rand's personal philosophy. Watching people like Paul Ryan(who loves her) squirm is kind of hilarious.
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Yeah.. the problem is that many people who supported trump.. most independents.. were NOT deplorables. They were people that feared what Hillary would do to things like the second amendment.. taxes, etc. Hillary was a known and feared entity.
 
Can we? My take would be it's unconstitutional so no.

Should we? Ignoring the whole "unconstitutional" thing, it depends. Most European welfare states have far more broadbased taxes (like VATs) than we do, and if you want to be more like a European welfare state you probably need to hit up more than just the rich.
 
rjay said:
I am thinking you do not know the meaning of 'regressive tax' Flat is not the opposite of regressive. It is the definition of regressive.
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Flat taxes can be progressive. Most flat tax proposals are progressive.
 
jaeger19 said:
Yeah.. the problem is that many people who supported trump.. most independents.. were NOT deplorables. They were people that feared what Hillary would do to things like the second amendment.. taxes, etc. Hillary was a known and feared entity.
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Sorry, but I'm gonna with mild dependability there still. The amount of information that existed about Donald Trump before the election and the clear racism, sexism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia and general bigotry of his base cannot be overlooked and justified by bull**** about guns and taxes.

There are two excuses and two excuses only for voting for Donald Trump. 1.) you are a ****ing moron. 2.) you're a bad person. Sadly I'd say for the majority of his voters it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of Column B. To me it's no different than voting for Mussolini because you thought he'd make the Trains run on time. Whatever bull**** excuse you came up with in your mind that allowed you to believe Hillary would be worse cannot be excused for any reason.
 
jaeger19 said:
Flat taxes can be progressive. Most flat tax proposals are progressive.
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Are you talking about proposals that have multiple flat tax rates? If so, that proposal acknowledges that a flat tax is regressive and tries to mitigate some of the regressiveness(if that's a word).
 
Jimmy Who said:
Always about yourself? If something is a product is and paid for with a tax should I have your consent to use it?
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If you want to tax me to pay for something for you, you should have my consent.
 
jaeger19 said:
Better care? What better care? We are talking about insurance.. and no.. they could not obtain it when they are elderly.

As far as better care? Medicare is one of the best insurances out there.
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Insurance, concierge. Whatever they want. Warren Bufffet doesnt need medicare to pay his medical bills.
 
rjay said:
I am thinking you do not know the meaning of 'regressive tax' Flat is not the opposite of regressive. It is the definition of regressive.
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We arent talking about an income tax, though.
 
jaeger19 said:
aociswundumho said:
Note that there is no sound moral argument to compel some people to pay for the healthcare of others,...
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Really?

Please explain the moral argument for letting a 9 year old die of acute appendicitis because his parents don't have the funds to pay for healthcare to save him.
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First, where is the 9 year old with acute appendicitis located? Does your moral argument for forcing me to pay for his treatment still hold if he's in Uganda? It should, if it's a moral argument your making.
 
jonny5 said:
If you want to tax me to pay for something for you, you should have my consent.
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Most wealthy people are wealthy because of people that are not. If someone that works for a living or is part of a tax system and they do not have Healthcare or Retirement is sad! You the wealthy owe them at least that. So don't look for my consent anytime soon.
 
MrWonka said:
Ask every single solitary American if they believe it is acceptable to allow a human being to die because they are too poor to afford food, shelter, or health care and I guarantee you that 96% or more will say no.
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Perhaps you are right, but only for Americans. If the "human being" is another nationality then my guess is support for using American taxpayer dollars to provide him with food, shelter, and healthcare drops through the floor.

You can't make a moral argument that only applies to people of a certain nationality.
 
MrWonka said:
Yes, there is. Allowing an otherwise innocent human being to die simply because they can't afford health care is by definition immoral.
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Suppose an 85 year old American male needs 5 million dollars worth of medical treatment and there's only a 5% chance that the treatment will work. He's broke, but he wants the treatment. Should the American taxpayer be forced to pay for his treatment?
 
aociswundumho said:
Perhaps you are right, but only for Americans. If the "human being" is another nationality then my guess is support for using American taxpayer dollars to provide him with food, shelter, and healthcare drops through the floor.

You can't make a moral argument that only applies to people of a certain nationality.
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No, it would not drop to the floor at all Americans would still agree they would simply acknowledge that with more than 7 billion people in the world the United States alone can't save the life of everyone who deserves it. Even in the World of DC comics Superman can't save every single life. Each nation should be basically responsible for their own people within reason. Barring some kind of tragedy like a hurricane or earthquake we should certainly donate, but we cannot realistically be responsible for the citizens of every other country on earth.

Just as Americans believe that things like Due process, freedom of religion, free speech and democracy are things all human beings should have the right to we know that we can only realistically guarantee it for ourselves.
 
aociswundumho said:
Suppose an 85 year old American male needs 5 million dollars worth of medical treatment and there's only a 5% chance that the treatment will work. He's broke, but he wants the treatment. Should the American taxpayer be forced to pay for his treatment?
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Yes. I really seriously hope for your own sake that you were not actually expecting me to have a hard time answering that question.
 
Jimmy Who said:
Just asking why and why not?
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Aren't we already paying for SS and didn't we OVERPAY into SS so there was more money into the trust fund? But of course congress (both Democrats and Republicans) spent the trust fund. Which means we are paying not only into SS but repaying the money the government "borrowed" from the fund.
 
MrWonka said:
No, it would not drop to the floor at all Americans would still agree they would simply acknowledge that with more than 7 billion people in the world the United States alone can't save the life of everyone who deserves it.
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So just because you can't save everyone you shouldn't save anyone? Surely Americans could each donate 90% of their income and wealth in order to save the lives of other people outside of the U.S., correct? Or is the money more important than non-American human lives?

Each nation should be basically responsible for their own people within reason.
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That's straight up nationalism. Something Hitler or Mussolini would say.
 
MrWonka said:
Yes. I really seriously hope for your own sake that you were not actually expecting me to have a hard time answering that question.
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Then you shouldn't be for government run healthcare. Really look into INS (Indian health services) to see how the government will run the healthcare system. In the case that you were replying too, that treatment option wouldn't have been available too him. The success rate would have been to low for it to be considered a viable treatment, so he wouldn't have even been offered that chance.
 
rwee2000 said:
Then you shouldn't be for government run healthcare. Really look into INS (Indian health services) to see how the government will run the healthcare system. In the case that you were replying too, that treatment option wouldn't have been available too him. The success rate would have been to low for it to be considered a viable treatment, so he wouldn't have even been offered that chance.
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You're offering an example of a flawed government run health care system does nothing to argue against a properly run single payer system.

Furthermore, Private insurance companies reject patients like this all the ****ing time. In fact, capitalism drives surgeons to refuse to even perform many high risk procedures because the Surgeons can leverage higher salaries if they can promote a higher success rate.

The person who made this very suggestion is arguing from the conservative free market position as if this type of thing was perfectly okay. I can assure you Bernie Sanders of all people would not let something like this happen.
 
aociswundumho said:
So just because you can't save everyone you shouldn't save anyone?
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We donate billions of dollars around the world every year to help people in struggling countries obtain medical care. The Clinton Foundation at one point provided the medication free of charge to 3/4ths of the world's children with HIV.

aociswundumho said:
Surely Americans could each donate 90% of their income and wealth in order to save the lives of other people outside of the U.S., correct? Or is the money more important than non-American human lives?
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Neither, it is not necessary for Americans to donate significantly more of their income to save the lives of the rest of the world. Each individual nation has the resources necessary to do this on their own. The poverty of an individual person is understandable and cannot always be blamed on the person in poverty for many reasons. However, the poverty of an entire nation can almost certainly be blamed on the mismanagement of its leaders. Not educating enough doctors and nurses to handle your population is your own responsibility within reason.

Furthermore, the desire to make sure everyone in the world has what they need is the basis for being very generous when it comes to allowing immigration and refugee entry into the United States, as well as our overall attempts to export Democracy and modern economic ideas to the world. The United States also grants numerous Student Visas to all kinds of foreigners to come make use of our University systems to learn these skills and allows them to return home with them.

aociswundumho said:
That's straight up nationalism. Something Hitler or Mussolini would say.
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Nationalism is the belief that your own nations problems are being caused by foreigners and a belief that it is acceptable to actively trample on the rights of foreigners to lift your own people up.

Asking others to reasonably pull their own wait is perfectly reasonable. In fact that is the whole point of the ACA and the subsidization of health care premiums. It is to insure that even those who are struggling are still doing what they reasonably can to try and afford their own health care. If they cannot afford their full premium then at least they could pay half.
 
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