How To Destroy The Middle Class
 

About half of Americans benefit from the tax-free status of employer health insurance. Workers pay no income or payroll taxes on what their employer contributes for health insurance, and in most cases on their own share of premiums as well.

It's the single biggest tax break the government allows, outstripping the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for charitable giving and other better-known benefits. If the value of job-based health insurance were taxed like regular income, it would raise nearly $150 billion in 2013, according to congressional estimates. By comparison, wiping away the mortgage interest deduction would bring in only about $90 billion.

Once again the workers will get screwed hard. In the case of our employees..we contribute 70% which is about $900 per month per employee. Tax on that $900 will average an extra $250 in tax for every employee. If they do this and kill the mortgage deduction it is going to get very ugly for what's left of the middle class.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/health...080000868.html

somebody has to pay

$900 per month, per employee...... a faily large chunk. Where do people actually think it comes from? No wonder America can't compete any longer on a global scale. Just take a look at where most or your Christmas gifts came from, I bet its overwhelmingly offshore:2 cents:

I'd venture to guess none of us got anything made in Canada either.

The ONLY way this can end well is with a single payer healthcare system. It's the best way to maximize efficiency, leverage new technologies and spread risk effectively. The question is, how badly will they screw things up from here to there.

all this money being shifted around and 30 million people are still without health insurance after it's running and only cost just under 2 trillion. How many people were without health insurance to begin with?

The worst part of this, I am in a position to hire additional help with the current work load I have contracts for, next year, and currently am trying to find other ways of fulfilling my obligations. This push is not even fun to try and beat anymore.....


Just read the article and this one cut a nerve,

"Several economists say manufacturers should be able to pass on most of the cost"

????? how the fuck do we absorb the cost at our expense of losing the contract because we have to pad the bid to make this up??? Who are these idiots, and what school of business did they get their papers from?
Unreal

the article is a speculation on health insurance taxes. it says any tax on health insurance would likely be means tested. & that the main taxes happening this year only effect 200K & up investment income.

the real health care tax starts in 14 with the individual mandate. & obamacare is expanding medicaid & providing subsidies & exchanges & so much other shit nobody knows how it will play out right now.

obamacare could really put wind back in the sails of repubs if costs & taxes spiral out of control. that is, of course, if repubs would stop mouthing off about rape & abortion.

It's more than speculation. It's making the clear point that Washington doesn't have any other options to fund Obamacare. The tax on the wealthy and the medicaid reductions are already committed to reducing the $16t debt.

it's kinda amusing watching how this is playing out... those that were rallying in support of obamacare, will now get fucked the hardest... some small percentage will score free health insurance, while the vast majority of americans (middle class) will get stuck with few grand per year tax increase, just as will business owners get stuck with $1000s per year in additional obamacare related expenses... all while insurance companies laugh all the way to the bank...

How about a cut in military spending ? :2 cents:

everyone knows damn well that hell will freeze over way before military budget gets cut... :2 cents:

not really. there are unlimited ways to raise taxes. the article merely points out the biggest tax loophole. tbh i think the article is junk sensationalism. worst case scenario is the tax hike is limited to expensive plans or a persons income, just as the article stated.

to the extent the budget explodes, who cares. obviously not the political leaders. they will just tell bernanke to do QE 4,5, on & on until the dollar is worth dirt.

That would be a good start. However, the military structure has contractors in almost every state. The lobbyists a company like General Dynamics has makes the NRA look like a bunch of amateurs. Along with that, Obama seems to have the same bloodlust that Bush had.

Name 2 taxes that will pay for Obamacare..and reduce the deficit.

Am not trying to derail the thread, but as an employer like yourself, what is your take on hiring this year as opposed to years past? What do you see as a benefit, if any?

Our military is a contract, Pandora box can not and will never be closed.

i have to agree with you.

What is unfortunate for employees is usually fortunate for employers. There is an abundance of good labor available at bargain rates. We are hirng. We have added 25 new jobs since we moved into the new plant and plan on adding at least 75 more in 2013. We made some smart/lucky moves in 2008 and I don't see our business getting hurt to bad in the next recession.

This doesn't mean good things for the employee. Most of the new hires won't take the health insurance we offer now. Even though we pay 70% the 30% the employee has to pay is too much for most of the direct labor. I honestly don't know what they will do. I do know that the company would be far better off taking the penalty than paying for all of our people. At the end of the day I see the employee taking the penalty.

stand up to the insurance companies and the hospitals and drug companies - US healthcare is by far the most expensive in the world and no evidence that it's any better, there are some elite US specialists and clinics that people from all over the world seek out but the other 95% is no better care than anywhere else

Canada spends $4,600 per capita
Australia spends $3,445 per capita
US spends $8,000 per capita

Now multiply $4,000 x 315,000,000 = $1,260,000,000,000

Mind boggling

I have a friend that works at a medical devise company.
His stance on this is to outlaw health insurance.
They're just the middleman and the point of all huge price surges.
Remove the price surge and the costs of care will drop exponentially.

Time will tell, just hope when they figure out that the majority of people they are trying to help, decline said help, and there will be an over inflated program one of us will have to pay for.....based on your perspective hiring, I would be careful how many of them you choose to put on the books

A lot of young people who don't particularly need it. I never had health insurance until I was 41 years old.

Neither myself...nor most people I knew who were young and healthy really ever went to the doctor.

From the age of 17 until 41 I only saw a doctor once...and that was to get a physical when I went into college (my grandfather insisted on it, and he paid for my college so I did it).

I played in bands all over the country and worked with at least 100 guys playing in rock bands over the years. We stayed on the road 7 days a week/52 weeks a year. If we got sick we just rode it out. If you had a high fever, you got up onstage underneath 120 1000 watt par light cans and you sweated that fever out. lol

But I guess the insurance companies are going to make a nice chunk of change off of insuring millions of young healthy people who don't really need anything but perhaps catastrophic insurance for things like a car accident.

but if one of those young people wind up in a hospital with no insurance we all pay.

If the statistics didn't work insurance companies wouldn't be in business. We have employees that don't take the insurance. I know for a fact that the clinic/hospital works out a payment plan with people. It makes no sense for a hospital to simply write off a patient as a loss if they can collect.

Keep in mind, my experience is not in a LARGE city with lots of people that don't have jobs. I am only speaking from what I see in my little part of the world.

The doctors need the loss, or they will pay the government in gains.

Chapter 7 no muss no fuss

Less than the 2 trillion dollars the CBO says it's going to cost?

Health insurance companies will be making out better than oil companies have in recent years from this. That and of course hospitals and healthcare professionals who will likely get an influx of patients since paying for health insurance and not going periodically at least for checkups would be a waste.

I've not had health insurance for the past 4 years. I haven't needed it - I'd have thrown away $5,000+ that I probably have made $20k+ with otherwise.

Just seems like a waste - the money is going towards ridiculously inflated healthcare costs and of course advertising costs for the health insurance companies. Considering car insurance companies are some of the biggest ad spenders thanks to some of the states mandating car insurance, wouldn't be surprised to see health insurance join them up there.

Can anyone in this thread define what "paying for ObamaCare" entails and why the money is needed?

Im doing fine.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&tbo=d&s...3&pf=p&pdl=300


This will keep you out of trouble for a while. Lots of reading. :)

Exactly.

In the end you're going to pay either way. So you can take it in higher medical costs (for covering the uninsured) or you can pay it in taxes. Either way, you're going to pay for it as a society one way or the other.

:2 cents:

I'd actually like to add a question to the fire if you're taking requests.

Why does a guy who owns some sort of successful manufacturing plant with hundreds of employees hang out on an adult forum arguing U.S. and global economics and tax policy all day with a bunch of pornographers? Especially considering Minte makes more than 99% of the people on this forum.

:2 cents:

Make no mistake. NOTHING comes out of the Government that does not make them more money.

It stopped being for the people by the people a LONG time ago.

:thumbsup

it wouldn't be so bad if it was just the government, but throw in insurance companies into the mix, and everyone is going to get fucked hard...

*All day* is a few times a week for a few moments. The reason - there are still a lot of people here that I respect their opinion. And quite honestly, all of my friends and associates in my world are all on the exact same page as I am politically. Talking politics or social issues with people you agree with is like preaching to the choir.

Odd. There are many threads like this where you post throughout the day for as long as the thread is live or active. If that day, or for a few days. Either way, that is a decent chunk of time for someone in your position with hundreds of employees livelihood at your fingertips and your own net worth of millions.

It seems like a better use of your time would be inviting them all over to your house for tea, and high fiving each other for becoming master of the universe.... versus spending any amount of time arguing with a bunch of strangers and pornographers who are not on the same page as you financially or politically. As you have seen in many of your threads on this subject, the majority do not agree with you most of the time.

Food for thought.

:2 cents:

time to put health care insurance out of business and move to the 'socialist' model of just about every other developed country in the world.

One of the main reasons we should remove the tax deduction on health insurance and take it out of the realm of a perk. Let people buy there own. 14k/year just for health insurance? No one else thinks that is totally crazy?
Why should Minte have to choose and buy the health care for his employees? He is not in the health care business but based on the dumb way this whole thing was arranged, he is.

Accuracy is not your strong suit I see. I log in here when I have a few moments or having lunch,when I am not traveling,etc. But that aside. One of the upsides to growing a business is that we have a staff.
VP's..middle managers. People who are paid to do the heavy lifting. It's nice making money and not have to work 14 hours a day. I get to choose when and what I do.

I don't drink tea. I am not a master of the universe nor do I play one on the internet.
You are not a consultant. The board is a consultant. Listening to people that are on the other side of important issues is educational. My job requires that I have to be aware of things that don't necessarily affect me. No one that works here will ever talk honestly with me. That's the nature of the beast.

Sadly your post history is not up for debate. As all can be easily verified by a simple search on your posting. I was simply referencing that observation in regards to these sort of threads and their past outcome. Specifically, that most (not your friends) do not agree with your view point.

Duely noted fine sire.

Thank you for clearing that up top notch.

Nor ever claimed to be.

Ah ok. So you're here to be educated by the GFY masses on the topic of the day. Fair enough.

:pimp

If it is going to cost a trillion to save them, maybe it is time to die.


Wow; I thought you had been around a while. Minte has; friendships were made. Would you drop them all once you succeeded?

Last post for the morning..we are open and I have things to do. If I am available I will stop by at lunch.

True..my post history is easy to verify. 5400ish posts over 10+ years.

When you give advice it's typically considered to be consulting. So I will keep that in mind if I ever find the need for a GFY consultant.

When the time comes that logging in to GFY isn't worth my time or the makeup of people posting here has changed to the point that it's nothing but abusive I will be history.
Until that day arrives, if people don't want to discuss issues they will ignore me and I will get the message then Con Ti Partiro.

Minte are you near Leinenkugel Brewing Company? Our next wi trip to see my wifes family we want to go there,was curious if you ever went? Their Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss is sooooooooo good.

I think its time to go to socialized medicine as a baseline. You want to pay for a better plan great. I read an article in Harvard business and that is was time for universal coverage of some type and that from the business stand point it makes sense. Minte shouldnt have to be worrying about coverage when his competitors overseas dont.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/06/heal..._good_for.html

The Old system was terrible. Obamacare as it is will not be the answer.
Does anyone actually believe a single payer system with true data mining on a massive scale isn't on the horizon?
The real question is how far on the horizon it is...
My estimate is no more than 12 years away.

You completely missed the point.

Thank you for clearing that up top notch.

Obama, and those supporting it have all conceded or admitted that it's a "step in the right direction". Not the magic bullet.

:2 cents:

The "old system" was fine.

You got sick you went to the doctor and you paid for it. I even paid for an appendectomy for my stepson in 1985 out of my pocket (and I was just a musician playing in bands at nightclubs...the operation and hospital stay was $3500 complete).

It's the "new system" that is fucked up.

Once companies started being required to carry all sorts of insurance for people, and doctors started getting sued for astronomical amounts and also were required to carry all kinds of insurance...THAT is when the price of health care went through the roof over the last 20 years.

In my opinion from what I've seen in my lifetime, INSURANCE companies are a major part of the problem.
I lived my childhood in Fla. near Tampa. Nobody we knew had health insurance. Everybody just went to the doctor and/or hospital if needed and paid for it.

I lived my young adult life in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale in the 1980's Same thing.

But somewhere around the late 1980's I read all kinds of articles in Newsweek and Time about rising health care costs and what was causing it.

And today in 2012...if you go to the doctor it's a big deal financially.

My wife had a sinus infection a month ago. Doctor prescribed an antibiotic to kill it. A week later it came back. So he needed to prescribe a different antibiotic. Which he did and it worked....BUT, he also had her get a CAT scan of her sinuses to make sure.

Did she need the CAT scan? No. Our doctor and his wife are friends of ours as well as just my doctor. And he told me that his malpractice insurance pretty much forces him to order that CAT scan of her sinuses even though he already knows it's not needed!

That's the kind of thing that drives up costs (that and the fact that the big pharmaceutical companies price gouge the U.S. citizens by charging 2 and 3 times the cost of medications as compared to the rest of the world)

So the answer that our career politicians in Congress came up with and was approved by the President?
MORE INSURANCE FOR EVERYONE!!!

Pure genius. :disgust

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration unleashed a surge of deregulation. By 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act lay repealed. Banks could commingle with insurance companies at will. Ceilings on interest rates vanished. Banks could open branches anywhere. Unsurprisingly, the most highly educated returned to banking and finance. By 2005, the share of workers in the finance industry with a college education exceeded that of other industries by nearly 20 percentage points. By 2006, pay in the financial sector was again 70 percent higher than wages elsewhere in the private sector. A third of the 2009 Princeton graduates who got jobs after graduation went into finance; 6.3 percent took jobs in government.

Then the financial industry blew up, taking out a good chunk of the world economy.