This is what the Republicans know, but they aren't saying...
In the U.S., those at the very top in the heath care industry are opportunists,charging "whatever the market can bear".
No matter what debilitating disease you might have, no matter how sick youare, no matter how much pain you're in, health care in this country is just likebuying an automobile --- you get what you pay for.
The rich don't need ObamaCare - they've been installing full-fledged emergencyrooms right inside their homes, each complete with an array of medical gearthat mirrors what the White House has available for the President. Theyeven have them installed on their yachts and private jets!
Somehospitals are specifically competing for wealthy clients by offering themperks like butlers, fancy beds, beautiful views, and fine food.
But if you're poor with a tooth ache, you'll need a pair of pliers and a shotof whiskey.
In the United States a neurosurgeon must complete four years of college, four years of medical school, a one year internship, and at least five years ofa neuro-surgery residency. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the topneurosurgeons made an annual salary of $225,390 in 2010.(From Forbes.Com - Seewhat other hospital employees earn)
The CEO of a hospital only needs a business degree. Among the highest-paid "public employees" inCalifornia was at the Palomar Pomerado Hospital. Chief Executive Michael Covert's paytotaled $1.04 million in 2009. The hospital's chief executive, Nancy Farber, wasthe second-highest-paid official and was paid about $874,000.
The healthcare publication Payers & Providers reported that the average compensation for "private hospital" chief executives averaged $732,000 a year, and far surpassed theannual salary of $225,390 that a top neurosurgeon might earn.
A neurosurgeon, the most educated and highest skilled person in the health careindustry, with an adjusted gross income of $225,390 a year, will pay 33% in federalincome taxes for 2013 --- and they will also paySocial Security taxes on their first $113,700 of income -- with themaximum of $7,049.40 in Social Security taxes.
By contrast, a corporate raider like Mitt Romney could have $100 millioninvested in a pharmaceutical company, earn $20 million a year in carriedinterest, and only pay a 20% capital gains tax (before deductions)and pay NO Social Security taxes at all. (Seethe 2013 tax rates). And the first $10 million Mitt and his wife leave their 5sons will be totally exempt from any inheritance taxes (which was meant to protectthe company assets of small family-owned businesses, not the heirs of the HiltonDynasty.)
But even the "average" of $732,000 a year for a hospital's CEO is paltrywhen compared to what many others earn in the health care industry. Some earn farmore than Mitt Romney; and few (if any) earn less than a neurosurgeon.
Our health care system, from the top down, seems more driven by"profits" and "pay" than about "health care", healthbeing the by-product of patented medicines, medical devices made in China, CEO'scompensation packages and Medicare fraud.
Our deficit problems and high Medicare costs (paid for with Medicare taxes, mostly by the bottom98% of wage earners because "investment income" hasn't been taxed for Medicare), isn't becauseold people were unnecessarily getting dual-hip replacements....two or threetimes.
And our senior citizens weren't busted in FBI sting operations for bribingdoctors for extra pain medications --- to use or sell on the black market tosupplement their meager Social Security incomes. Medicare costs are high because ofthe corporations and CEOs that the Republicans hold in higher esteem than God.
Heath care costs are more driven by greed (and many times fraud),plain and simple.
Richard Scrushy was once the superstar CEO of HealthSouth, a huge provider of outpatient rehab services until federal prosecutorsaccused him of masterminding a $2.7 billion fraud.
A Few Examples of Health Care Fraud (too numerous to list here)
In the U.S. about $70 billion is lost to heathcare fraud every year. And these people who cheated Medicare, most likelyalso cheated on their income tax return too -- and tax evasion costsus another $337 billion every year (Do you hear me Mitt?)
- CEO Earnest Gibson III of Riverside General Hospital, along with his son and five others, were arrested by the FBI as part a national Medicare fraud sweep involving $430 million in bogus billings and 91 health care providers in seven states.
- Kent Thiry, who's paid $15 million a year as CEO of DaVita Inc., defrauded the government by over-billing Medicare and Medicaid "hundreds of millions, easily!"
- Marcus Jenkins, the owner of several Detroit-area businesses that housed severely mentally-disabled Medicare recipients pleaded guilty for his role in a $13.2 million fraud scheme.
- Texas psychiatrist, Anthony Francis Valdez, wrongly billed over $42 million in medical procedures.
- Abshir Ahmed, operator of a home health care agency in northeast Minneapolis is charged with filing bogus Medicaid billings totaling more than $400,000.
Thousands of medical professionals have steadily billed Medicare for more complex and costly health care over the past decade -adding $11 billion or more to their fees - despite little evidence that elderly patientsrequired more treatment.
While Mitt Romney was a director of the Damon Corporation, the company was defrauding Medicare out ofmillions, and yet Romney’s and Paul Ryan's plan would have ended Medicare for the elderly as weknow it. (Romney also helped the MarriottHoteldodge millions in taxes, taxes that could have helped fund Medicare for All.)
Mister Rick Scott ran a company that paid a record fine for committing Medicare fraud;but then as Republican Governor Rick Scott, he cut millions from healthcare benefits for Florida's poor.
Now Florida's chief economist has warned the staff of Governor Rick Scott that his Medicaid cost estimates areall wrong, but Rick Scott keeps using them anyway.
Other CEOs in Health Care
The average pay of a CEO in the S&P 500 was $12.94 million. (Source: AFL-CIO Corporate Watch- December 2012).Here are some examples of excessive ANNUAL CEO salaries in the healthcareindustry, and another reason why the cost of healthcare might be so high:
- John Hammergren of McKesson Pharmaceuticals - $131.2 million
- George Paz at Express Scripts Healthcare - $51.5 million
- Stephen Hemsley at UnitedHealth Group - $48.8 million
- John C. Martin of Gilead Sciences (Biotech) - $42.7 million
- David Pyott at Allergan Pharmaceuticals - $33.8 million
- Gregory Lucier of Life Technologies (Biotech) - $33.8 million
- Louis Camilleri of Philip Morris (Tobacco) made $32.7 million (I justthrew this one in for good measure.) Source: Forbes.Com
Health Care, the Deficit and Government Spending
The deficit has grown mostly because of the Great Recession. Repeat: The deficit has ballooned, not because of specific spendingmeasures, but because of the recession. The deficit more than doubled between 2008 and 2009 as the economy was in free fall.Does anybody else remember that?
That was when 8.5 million laid-off American workers paid less in taxes and needed more benefits, such as unemployment benefits and food stamps.That was when millions lost their homes, life's savings and cars -- and sometheir spouses (and sometimes their lives to suicide). That was the "sharedsacrifice" the middle-class and poor had made during the Great Recession.
But evenstill, the actual deficit actually shrank in 2010 and 2011.
The 2008 stimulus bill cost much less than Bush's wars and tax cuts. Republicans frequently have blamed the $787 billion stimuluspackage for the deficit. But, when all government spending is taken into account, the stimulus wasn't that big. In contrast, the U.S.will have spent nearly $4 trillion on wars in the Middle East by the time ourconflict in Afghanistan comes to an end -- that, according to a recent report by Brown University. The Bush tax cuts alone have cost nearly $1.3 trillion over the last 10 years.
As everybody knows, the deficit grew under George W. Bush (we didn't have a Tea Partytelling us the sky was falling back then). When George W. Bush took office, the federal government was running a surplus of $86billion. When he left, that had turned into a $642 billion annual deficit, with over $10 trillion in national debt. Under Obama, the national debtgrew from $10 trillion to $16 trillion because of the Great Recession (Obama has4 more years to run up another $4 trillion in debt to TIE George W. Bush).
Last year's federal budget deficit was 12 percent lower than in 2009, according to the Office of Management andBudget. The deficit is projected to shrink even more over the next several years.
Investors are paying us to borrow money! The interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds is negative,according to the Treasury Department. Investors are even paying us for 30-year Treasury bonds, when adjusted for inflation. Investorsare not running away as the GOP like to claim. Conservative commentators have been warning for years that investors will run away from Treasury bondsbecause of the national debt. So far that's not happening. Interest rates on Treasury bonds continue to hover at historiclows.
Health care reform actually reduces the deficit. Republicans have blasted the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare®) as "budget-busting." But health carereform actually reduces the deficit, according to the Congressional BudgetOffice.
We spend too much on health care, especially when compared to all othermodern and industrialized nations. Health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, constituted 21 percent of federal spending lastyear. In contrast, education constituted only 2 percent of federal spending.
And the U.S. government is borrowing much less from foreign countries (such as China) than before the recession, according togovernment data cited by Paul Krugman. That is because the U.S. private sector is financing our bigger deficits.
We spend far too much on Defense. Defense spending constituted $718 billion of federal spending last year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This adds up to 41 percent of the world's defense spending, according to Bloomberg TV anchor AdamJohnson. (* Seemy post about defense spending)
And believe it or not, many Republicans may actually WANT larger deficits...fornow. The federal budget deficit ballooned under RonaldReagan, and that may be just the way Republicans like it. Some Republican thinkers have proposed"starving thebeast": that is, cutting taxes in order to use larger deficits to justify spending cuts later. Since Republicans ultimatelywant lower taxes and a smaller government, what better way is there to cut spending than to make it look urgent andnecessary?
Taxing to Fund Health Care
The top 1% doesn’t want to help fund our healthcare and Social Security; and most Americans don’t want to help subsidize their bigoil companies (making record profits), their bloated defense contractors (who outsource our jobs), their unnecessary wars (WMDs?),their big pharmas (who over charge us) and their corporate agribusinesses (such asbigdairy, big tobacco and Michele Bachmann's farm) who all get taxpayer subsidies.
50% of all American workers net less than $27,000 ayear and the average "HOUSEHOLD" income is $50,000 a year -- and 80% of all "HOUSEHOLDS" have(and need) two wage earners. Most can't afford to pay the high cost of the CEO'ssalaries in the health care industry.
Capital gains and dividends (CEO salaries called "investment income") should be taxed at the regular marginal income tax rate (the top rate being39.6%, not 20% like the billionaires will now have to pay (it was only 15% from2003 to 2013).As it is now, at 20% Warren Buffett's secretary will still pay a higher tax rate thanher boss.
All “investment income” (capital gains made from real estate, stocks, dividends, carried interest and fine art etc.) shouldalso be taxed for Social Security and Medicare...which is currently exempted. (I think ObamaCare® might start imposing a tax on this income). The $113,700 cap on Social Security taxes shouldalso be eliminated, because almost everyone else (especially the poorest) has to pay this tax on 100% of their earnings.
Bankers, oil barons, the CEOs of Apple and Hostess, hedge fund managers, Mitt Romney and othercorporate raiders will pay a 20% capital gains tax (before deductions) on theirstocks, stock-options and deferred interest --- Aha! But working Americans who have their pensions, IRAs and 401k plans investedin stocks are taxed at the regular marginal tax rate, depending on their annualadjusted gross income. Why aren't the ultra-wealthy taxed the same way aseverybody else?
Loopholes should be eliminated and deductions capped (like Mitt Romney’s show horse as a medical expense)when 16 percent of the U.S. population (48.6 million people) had no health insurance last year. Source: NPR (December 2012)
Six years ago Warren Buffettsaid: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war --- and we’rewinning.” And because of a lack of affordable health care for the"47%", that is anotherreason why therich are living longer than everyone else.
Readthis post to see what else our ultra-wealthy "captains ofindustry" have been up to, and then ask yourself, "Why don't theRepublicans want to tax the top 1% for our heath care, schools, and infrastructure?"
The Republicans know all these things, but they don't talk about it very muchwhen they get their faces on TV. It'smuch easier for the Republicans to go after "soft targets" --- the low hanging fruit --- like thefrail, the poor, the disabled, and the elderly (because they don't havelobbyists). These are the people that theRepublicans are saying "should put more skin in the game". These arethe people (the 47%) that Mitt Romney calls "free riders". But forsome odd reason, many of these people will still foolishly vote against theirown best interests and vote Republican. (Go figure.)
See the links below --- this is what the Republicans know, but aren't saying.
Starve the Beast - The GOP 30 Year Strategy
Corporate Profits Hit Record High --- Worker Wages Hit Record Low
The Corporate Tax Rate Is Lowest in Decades
CEO's in the S&P 500 Average $13 Million a Year, Year after Year
Capital Gains Taxeson the Wealthiest at Historical Lows
Every Year $1 Trillion Not Taxed on the Rich for Social Security or Medicare
$385 Billion A Year Lost to Tax Evasion
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