Snapped Shot

let me see if i can count the errors in this post:

(a) the obama administration isn't trying to "federalize" the health care system. something is "federalized" when it comes under the jurisdiction of federal law (as opposed to state law). health plans were "federalized" by ronald reagan when he signed the COBRA amendments to ERISA (which extended the federal jurisdiction over pension plans to health plans)

unless you mean "nationalize", but the obama administration isn't proposing doing that either. obama is not pushing for NHS-style socialized medicine or canadian style single payer. his plan depends upon private health insurance companies (with maybe a public plan to compete with them, although obama's support for that seems to change on a weekly basis).

so whether you mean "federalize" or "nationalize", neither is accurate when it comes to health insurance reform, at least as currently proposed by the president.

(b) "The $4,500 rebate you "got" from the government was actually taxed both as income and as a purchase?"

this isn't wrong as much as misleading. i mean, almost every purchase you make is "taxed twice" as is most of the income you make. if i buy some shoes here in philadelphia, the state charges a sales tax and so does the city. what i think of as the sales tax rate is actually the combination of the two.

similarly, with income. my check gets deductions from the federal government, state and city. it's taxed thrice! (and that's not counting the fact that there are different kinds of taxes that are all withdrawn--there's federal income tax and there's the social security tax. there's the state income tax and there's unemployment insurance, etc)

in this case, the blog you cite seems to assume that $4,500.00 that the federal government kicks in will be treated as income by the IRS. (that's not what the article it cites says exactly, it's talking about SD state taxes, not federal taxes, but let's assume that it's correct). all that means is that the $4,500 will be treated as income by the federal government and the full car cost will be treated as taxable by the state. there is no federal sales tax.

but how is that different from my paycheck or my shoe sale in my above examples? two different government entities are imposing different taxes, which is what happens in almost every economic transaction in this country. it's hardly specific to the cash for clunkers program.

if you're going to get excited that C4C includes stuff that is also involved in other non-C4C purchases, you might as well also get excited that C4C requires people to get license plates. holy shit! can you see the fascism on the march! the government is requiring registration of the vehicles that it helps you buy! OMG!!! (i think i peed myself)

(c) as far as i can tell, the IRS hasn't actually made a ruling on the C4C rebate. it's certainly possible that they could rule it to be income, but it's hardly a sure thing.
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wow, that is quite a rebuttal xerocky.

somehow i suspect that he doesn't know the difference between NHS-style socialized medicine and canadian style single payer.
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hey marko, i'm trying to have an actually policy discussion here, and all you're giving me is a bunch of the usual (much of it discredited) crap about what obama really wants to do.

none of us actually know what the president (or anyone else) is secretly thinking. what we do know is what is in the actual bills that are in congress, and which ones the president supports. none of the three that the administration has thrown its support behind even remotely resembles a "takeover of the health care industry", or put private insurers out of business. on the contrary, all three contain mandates which would require the uninsured to buy insurance, which will increase, not decrease the private insurance industry.

whenever i've seen rants like marko's, i'm struck by the complete ignorance much of the right has about the details of the actual health care debate. i guess it makes sense. when fox news and talk radio gives mostly wrong information, the people who take their word for gospel and don't bother to consider other points of view are going to be misinformed.
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"Obama HAS said he wants single payer. Other democrats (Barney Frank) have said the same thing"

yes, i've seen the same video you have. obama used to support single payer, but he backed away from it in the early days of the democratic primary and now openly opposes it. barney frank supports single payer in theory, but he doesn't believe it will pass, so he's willing to settle for something less than that, like the actual proposals before congress today

(side note: there is a single payer bill in the house. but it has neither the support of the president or representative frank)

"There are several provisions in the bill that will force individuals onto the public plan. If you change jobs for instance."

that's not true at all. at least not in any of the three bills i have reviewed. which bill are you referring to?

"Medicaid and Medicare are massive boondoggles draining the public coffers"

and yet both have much lower administrative costs than private health insurers. the reason that medicare and medicaid are in debt is because health care costs are rising much faster than inflation. but that's something that is hurting the private insurance market too. if you're talking about which is dealing with it more efficiently, study after study shows the government plans are doing it much better. that's largely because they don't have to hire thousands of doctors earning a half million dollars a day to review medical records to find ways of denying people coverage, like the private insurance companies do. that brings their admin costs to 15-20% of every dollar they get, as opposed to 2-3% for medicare.

"And we haven't even got to quality of care, such as in Oregon where cancer patients are prohibited from recieving life extending drugs in favor of end-of-life counselling"

how 'bout that! another discredited claim, that you seem to believe is true! that's awesome! and it pretty much illustrates what i said above. you've been fed false information and are thus unprepared to have a serious policy discussion.

"Government run Health Care always leads to rationing."

all health care systems lead to rationing. it's rationed now. i guess you'rwe canadian, so you've never had to read an american private health care plan documents (i'm a lawyer who specializes in employment and employee benefits law so i've unfortunately had that pleasure). you really should try, it's got pages and pages of fine print, listing all the procedures, treatments, and medications that are excluded from coverage. and then for the stuff it does cover, it lists how reimbursement won't kick in until a certain copay is met, and then cuts off once a certain maximum benefit is paid out. all of that is rationing.

"I doubt you run to Canada or Cuba for your health care."

i have had experience with health care in canada. it was a pretty minor thing. i was in the queen charlotte islands, in northern B.C. i can't say i went there specifically for health care (i wasn't expecting to get injured). but i got really good care there, on a walk-in basis, as good as the best care i've ever gotten back home. no doubt in a big system like the canadian one there are a lot of different experiences, both bad and good. i also got to see the flu shot ferry in victoria, where people from seattle ferried in to get flu shots in canada because it was easier and cheaper to get it there.
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once again, cap'n crunch is proving my point. that's not what i would call a coherent argument.
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