July 29, 2009
Otequay of the ayday
I still contend that brother jk is missin' out by not having cable. FNC's 'America's Newsroom' regularly features US congressmen or senators commenting on affairs of the day and they tend to say the darnedest things. Just yesterday a congressman said, in essence, "these people who have gold plated health care coverage don't have the right to force everyone else to subsidize their coverage and that's why we should tax them." I wanted to give the verbatim quote with attribution but didn't think to record him. I didn't make that mistake today.
Representative Steven Lynch (D-MA) is chairman of the Postal Service Oversight Subcommittee. Commenting on the GAO report downgrading the USPS' credit worthiness in the wake of $2.8 B lost last year and $7 B projected to be lost this year he was asked by FNC's Bill Hemmer, "Fed-Ex is profitable. UPS is profitable. Is it time to start taking a serious look at making this government service private?"
"Well look, if Fed-Ex did what the post office did and if UPS did what the post office did they would not be profitable."
I'll leave the obvious conclusion to the reader, but there's more. In the very next breath he seemed to be channeling Jon Caldera on healthcare reform, but in reverse, and without even realizing it.
"They provide universal coverage six days a week to every business and home in America for forty-four cents, basically, for a letter. If you don't want that service then you could probably reduce the postal service's costs as well."
He even called it "universal coverage!"
Health Care We're from the government, and here to help. Posted by JohnGalt at July 29, 2009 12:26 PM
We'll see how long I hold out. My lovely wife gets the eeeevil FOXNews on her phone. Curiously, my local-channels-only-in-analog cheapskate service includes CSPAN and much of the basic cable.
I hate to champion tax increases, but I think taxing gold plated coverage is an important step toward tax neutrality for individuals and corporations.
The Post Office quotes are awesome!
Posted by: jk at July 29, 2009 1:34 PM"these people who have gold plated health care coverage don't have the right to force everyone else to subsidize their coverage and that's why we should tax them."
____ him and the horse he rode in on. This coming from someone in the one group whose health coverage is the very best in the world, whose health coverage by definition is paid for by others' labor.
I by stark contrast have an excellent health insurance policy, and I don't ask anyone to "subsidize" it in any way.
"You do what you want with your own scalp, and not be tellin' us what to do with ours!"
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at July 29, 2009 1:36 PMI'm not defending the quote, Perry. But it is true that your employer gets tax treatment on your coverage that is not available to the individual of the self employed.
I want to break the cursed (please pronounce as two syllables) relationship between employers and health care -- I don't lose my car insurance if I change jobs.
The solution is to provide tax breaks for the individual, but also to -- sorry -- tax the employer until they are equal.
Posted by: jk at July 29, 2009 1:46 PMI know you're not defending the quote. I'm just pointing out the utter hypocrisy of the SOB who said it.
I'm sure you agree that, once again, it's the state and its convoluted tax policies that skew markets and push us toward inefficiencies. But the only resolution should come from not taxing what people pay for private insurance, not by taxing businesses on insurance benefits they provide. Just because some rapes are more vicious than others doesn't mean we must "equalize" the victims by requiring all to be beaten to the worst extent.
Also, I don't expect that your car insurance pays for regular maintenance, or even failed parts outside of an accident (unless you have an extended warranty policy, a form of insurance). That's true insurance: you hope you never need it, but it's there "just in case" something unfortunate happens. No small problem with American health care is that too many people think health insurance is the way to pay for routine checkups, eye exams and dentist visits that they ought to be paying for out of pocket. An American family will consume, say, $10,000 worth of health care resources in a year, after paying $8000 in premiums, and then complain that their premiums are going up.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at July 30, 2009 12:14 PMAnd yet, despite the obviousness of what PE says there is little hope this congress will do anything to fix those real problems, and achieve actual cost savings in the process.
Senator Udall, ARE YOU LISTENING?!!!!!
Posted by: johngalt at July 30, 2009 2:39 PM | What do you think? [5]