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drscottGreg Mankiw points to this back-of-the-envelope calculation that suggests the working poor will find 70% of their increased income taxed or clawed back under the proposed health insurance reform bills (but since the details remain to be settled, a complete appraisal is not yet possible.)
This means many poor families will discover there's almost no incentive to taking a better, higher-paying job.
This, along with the high hidden tax in the form of compulsory, higher-cost insurance premiums for healthy younger people, makes this proposal one of the largest transfers of wealth in history from young working stiffs to over-50 slobs with lifelong bad habits.
While the proposals do allow for rewards to company-insured people who maintain good habits, on the whole it removes any financial incentive to maintain good diet and exercise habits for almost everyone else.
This means many poor families will discover there's almost no incentive to taking a better, higher-paying job.
This, along with the high hidden tax in the form of compulsory, higher-cost insurance premiums for healthy younger people, makes this proposal one of the largest transfers of wealth in history from young working stiffs to over-50 slobs with lifelong bad habits.
While the proposals do allow for rewards to company-insured people who maintain good habits, on the whole it removes any financial incentive to maintain good diet and exercise habits for almost everyone else.
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Date: 2009-10-08 10:16 pm (UTC)The polls I have heard have a majority favoring these. Perhaps it's the wording of the question.
In any event, the status quo is horrible and one reason Obama and the democrats won the last election was their promise of reform. I see most of the attacks on reform ideas as disingenuous nit picking whose real purpose is to stop all meaningful change. It's the "I like black people, but it's that this one isn't qualified" -type of false argument.
In my mind, it'd be very hard for a changed system to be as bad as the one we have. Unless, of course, you like going around chanting "We're 37th! We're 37th! We're 37th!" to celebrate the US's position in health delivery.