His full Name is: Willard Mitt Romney

[Dave2]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.
I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..
But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

This is an excellent question, but it's framed in a way that might cause folks to try and answer you in a narrow way...

A broader question would be "How do you fix healthcare so that fewer folks are without coverage?"
And as we all know, the answer is complicated... But, let me try and answer your question with some healthcare "fixes" and we'll see how it goes..

1. Postulate: If insurance costs less, more people will buy it. The cost of insurance is too high, because the cost of healthcare is too high and regulations and laws are misguided, causing further cost escalation.
- Reform healthcare tort, set limits on malpractice suits based on some reasonable categorization of injury/disability/etc.

That and bringing down the cost of medical education. The first two things I keep hearing people mention in defense of paying doctors a lot are "malpractice insurance" and "student loans". I'll bet you could say the same thing about medical companies and their employees, respectively, as well.

[talltex]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.
I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..
But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

This is an excellent question, but it's framed in a way that might cause folks to try and answer you in a narrow way...

A broader question would be "How do you fix healthcare so that fewer folks are without coverage?"
And as we all know, the answer is complicated... But, let me try and answer your question with some healthcare "fixes" and we'll see how it goes..

- Allow ad-hoc, industry, professional, trade and other groups to band together to purchase healthcare insurance as a group. Currently, for example, TAM, who appears to be self employed (making assumptions here) cannot join together with a "web developer" trade group and go to the insurance companies to purchase a group plan. TAM must apply for coverage as an individual. This is insurance over-regulation at it's worst. It impacts entrepreneurship severely. Who will take the risk to start a business if you can no longer afford health insurance because you lost your buying power? Stupidity.
-There are MYRIAD other regulatory changes that would make insurance cost less. I'll let you ponder that and move on.

YMMV

FYI...Texas passed a law allowing for small businesses to form collective groups for the purchase of health insurance which would allow them to qualify for "large group" status several years ago. You can look up various trade groups on the Insurance Commission's website and it sounds like a great idea...but the problem is the insurers won't recognize the groups and apparently there's no enforcement division to do anything about it. They will recognize "small business groups", but not large ones...this is a HUGE distinction, because the biggest advantage of "Large Group status is that the insurer cannot decline coverage on anyone, and everyone in the group pays the same rate. Small Groups are subject to underwriting and they can exclude you for ANY reason. I have had coverage for over 10 years with the same insurer. I originally switched to them because they did not refuse pre-existing conditions and 2 of my employees had had heart attacks previously. I sold that business in 2005 but retained my group coverage even though it now consisted only of my family (3 people). In 2008, they started rating each small group individually rather than collectively as they had in the past. My premiums went up the maximum allowed by law 4 years running (supposedly 20%) but each year I had to raise the deductible to try and pay for it, so it's a case of comparing apples and oranges. In 2005, I was paying $759 per month for my wife, son and myself w/0 deductible. I've gone to $500 ded, then $1500 ded., then $2500, and now at $5000 ded. and my current premium is $1135 p/mth. This was due to me having 3 heart stents in 2006, then gallbladder and adrenal gland removal surgery 3 months later. They explained that because my group consists of only 3 people the dollar amount of those claims on per capita basis puts it in top risk category. They offer individual plans that are NOT rated like the small groups and I applied for a separate policy on my wife and switched my son's coverage to an insurer provided by his grad school. They declined coverage on her and the reason they gave was that she was involved in a train wreck in 1988 and suffered from back pain and vertigo for several months...with no further treatment for the last 20 years! My plan had been to get her on individual plan at about $300p/mth and change my coverage under my group plan to $10,000 ded. for about $400 p/mth and save $400/mth. overall. When they declined coverage, I checked into the co-op deals, but because they won't write coverage on them except as "small groups" which are still subject to underwriting, The lowest premium I was offered (by 5 different insurers) was $1786 p/mth w/ $1500 deductible. So basically, my current insurer has me locked up like a prisoner...I can't afford to not have coverage because I have assets to protect for my family, and I have no place to switch to.

[sjfcontrol]

Did you check into the Texas Risk Pool?

[RoyGBiv]

A few years ago I worked for a small company in Grapevine. Our employee insurance rates were crazy high. We solved that by "leasing" all of our employees... We hired a company (like Manpower, but not Manpower) to take on all of our employees, then signed a lease for them to do work for us. Not only did this put our employees into a "large company" program at substantially lower rates but it also dropped our State unemployment rates as well. We saved enough with this move to improve benefits, start some 401(k) matching and still put money back into the bank.

Now imagine what a 1,000,000-strong trade association could do to negotiate better rates. The big players would be forced to reduce rates to complete... But.... NOooooooo.! Industry lobbyists are too good to allow that to happen.

This would be one of the best possible moves to spur entrepreneurship I can think of.

[2firfun50]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.
I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..
But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

This is an excellent question, but it's framed in a way that might cause folks to try and answer you in a narrow way...

A broader question would be "How do you fix healthcare so that fewer folks are without coverage?"
And as we all know, the answer is complicated... But, let me try and answer your question with some healthcare "fixes" and we'll see how it goes..

1. Postulate: If insurance costs less, more people will buy it. The cost of insurance is too high, because the cost of healthcare is too high and regulations and laws are misguided, causing further cost escalation.
- Reform healthcare tort, set limits on malpractice suits based on some reasonable categorization of injury/disability/etc.

That and bringing down the cost of medical education. The first two things I keep hearing people mention in defense of paying doctors a lot are "malpractice insurance" and "student loans". I'll bet you could say the same thing about medical companies and their employees, respectively, as well.

I think we can all agree that the cost of health care is way, way too high. I'm afraid we are never going to see the cost go down without drastic changes to the business model.

I suspect part of the answer to the original question "Plan B" goes something like described below.

People have an unexpected medical emergency, such as a heart attack. Someone dials 911. Patient receives a tax supported ambulance ride to a private, for profit hospital for minimum life support care. They then receive another tax supported ambulance ride to a tax supported hospital for the remainder of necessary treatment. Both hospitals, all doctors, and ambulance services try to collect, but the patient does not have the ability to pay. Patient goes bankrupt to get the bill collectors off their backs. Every provider then raise their fees to collect from the taxpayers and their customers with insurance. Local taxes go up and insurance premiums go up. The cycle repeats.

I absolutely am not talking about deadbeats, but people who work hard and the wages received barely takes care of essentials.

[Beiruty]

My family plan costs me $18k plus $4,000 deductible. Too much expensive, the system is falling apart.

[The Annoyed Man]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.

I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..

But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

I pay the bill.

A) Texas high risk pool requires (for me) a total annual investment of $19,500 (premium+deductible+out of pocket) over the course of the first year BEFORE I get any benefits. It's cheaper to pay the fine.

B) I pay for all of my healthcare out of pocket, just fine thank you. I don't need government charity to do it, and the roughly $1,000-$1,200 a year that it costs me out of my pocket is less than the $19,500 the THRP would cost me without covering me for the first year for those issues that cost me that $1,200.

C) In the event of a medical disaster, I own my home outright, and I have a sizable retirement account to draw on.

What I find absolutely outrageous is that A) anybody feels like I have to explain my personal arrangements to them regarding my healthcare......i.e. Big Gummint; and B) that even though I CANNOT afford my own health insurance; and C) that even though I manage to pay for my healthcare out of my own pocket by doing without other things; and even though my plan for a medical disaster involves obliterating my home equity AND my retirement account; that I must be FINED by a fascist government to pay for the healthcare of others.............and when it is done, I STILL HAVE NO HEALTHCARE INSURANCE, AND I AM LEFT WITH LESS ABILITY TO PAY FOR MY OWN CARE OUT OF POCKET!!! And those folks who TAKE my money through the auspices of this evil government will become permanent clients of the state, guaranteed to vote until the day they die for the party which continues to pass policies which benefit them by screwing me.

It is for THIS reason as much as any other that I hate the demoncrap party with a deep and abiding hatred, and I know that its voters are either A) deeply deluded, B) deliberately evil, or C) congenitally stupid. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together AND a moral center could possibly approve of such a situation.

Mitt Romney has pledged to give all states a waiver to the AHA on his first day in office, and then to begin the process of repealing this horrible tangle of new laws and regulations. THIS is a major reason (but not the only reason) for why I am so bitterly opposed to the idea of third party voting in this particular election, when the polling is so tight. Your vote for anybody but for Romney will have the effect of implementing of this abomination on me personally, and I will not forget that.

[bizarrenormality]

I've got a serious question for those opposed to paying for health insurance or being taxed for that decision.
I understand that Plan A is to never have a serious illness or injury, not pay any taxes, or health insurance, etc..
But if misfortune should strike, what is Plan B? Who pays the bill?

This is an excellent question, but it's framed in a way that might cause folks to try and answer you in a narrow way...

A broader question would be "How do you fix healthcare so that fewer folks are without coverage?"
And as we all know, the answer is complicated... But, let me try and answer your question with some healthcare "fixes" and we'll see how it goes..

1. Postulate: If insurance costs less, more people will buy it. The cost of insurance is too high, because the cost of healthcare is too high and regulations and laws are misguided, causing further cost escalation.
- Reform healthcare tort, set limits on malpractice suits based on some reasonable categorization of injury/disability/etc.

That and bringing down the cost of medical education. The first two things I keep hearing people mention in defense of paying doctors a lot are "malpractice insurance" and "student loans". I'll bet you could say the same thing about medical companies and their employees, respectively, as well.

More routine care performed by PAs and NPs would help drive down costs. Tort reform on a state level would allow the citizens of states to decide whether they want to enrich the legal profession at the cost of the medical profession, and improved reciprocity would allow professionals in both fields to vote with their feet. Those reforms at the state level could do a hundred times more than Obamacare to make healthcare affordable for Americans living in states that care about We The People.

[talltex]

I don't have the solution, but there has got to be a way to provide medical care for people who cannot possibly pay for private insurance at the current rates. Like most everyone else, I'm worried that government controlled medical care will be a horrible nightmare....show me ANY government agency that operates efficiently in an economical manner...it doesn't exist, because the nature of a bureacracy is to continously expand itself and it's budget requirements. Knowing hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year on government programs that primarily benefit government agencies themselves, it would seem that some of that could be funneled into some form of catastrophic coverage for all citizens. As it stands now, the hospitals cannot collect anything on over 50% of their billings, so when those of us who HAVE insurance coverage go into the hospital our policies are billed at 3 to 4 times the actual cost to a cash customer, to try and make up the difference. One of my sisters is a doctor, and she deals with it daily...for example, her husband needed to have a basic CT scan a couple of months ago and she sent him to a radiology clinic she uses...they sent her a bill for $1250...she called them and asked "what's the CASH price?... I'm not filing an insurance claim"....they told her $250. If I could get a reasonably priced...possibly government subsidized...catastrophic coverage, available to all citizens, so that I didn't have to worry about my family having to liquidate all my assets and being left with nothing, I would gladly pay for all routine care out of pocket. My cousin had a stroke earlier this year and while in the hospital for that, developed a blood clot in his leg which caused massive swelling and a clot broke off and went to his heart requiring open heart surgery and more complications...short story is he was in hospital for almost a month...total bill to date $600,000+...luckily he has good coverage, but if not, they would be wiped out...a lifetime of work and savings gone in a few weeks. If he had no insurance and no assets, he would still have received treatment...the hospital just wouldn't get paid for it. Oh, and if he should leave state employment he is now "uninsurable" except for the Risk Pool, which is very expensive. As I said, I don't have a simple answer, but it just doesn't seem right that those who work hard, play by the rules, and aquire assets over the years are required to put it all at risk, while others never pay for insurance, never save for retirement, and risk nothing.

[Dave2]

As RoyGBiv and I were getting at earlier, the problem isn't that health insurance is expensive, it's that health care is expensive. Figure that out, and the cost of insurance will come down.

[The Annoyed Man]

A very interesting series of articles, presented almost like a book, and based on a lot of investigative journalism by the Washington Times. Interestingly, all of this stuff is in the public domain.....you just have to be curious enough to go find it and report on it...............which is a trait lacking in the MSM these days...that of curiosity.

The Obama you don't know

• Introduction

  His admirers believe he deserves a special place alongside Wilson, the Roosevelts and LBJ as one of the architects of benevolent government.
  
  His critics believe he is trying to remake America in the image of Europe's social democracies, replacing America's ethos of independence and individual enterprise with a welfare state inflamed by class divisions.

• Chapter I: A childhood of privilege, not hardship

  First lady Michelle Obama told the Democratic National Convention that "Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions."
  
  It is a claim the president has repeated in his books, on the speech-making circuit and in countless media interviews. By his account, he grew up in a broken home with a single mom, struggled for years as a child in an impoverished Third World country and then was raised by his grandparents in difficult circumstances.
  
  The facts aren't nearly so clear-cut.

• Chapter II: The myth of the 'rock-star professor'

  Time magazine gushed in 2008 about Barack Obama's 12-year tenure as a law lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, saying, "Within a few years, he had become a rock-star professor with hordes of devoted students."
  
  That may have been true during his first two years, when he ranked first among the law school's 40 instructors, with students giving him a rating of 9.7 out of a possible 10.
  
  But law student evaluations made available to The Washington Examiner by the university showed that his popularity then fell steadily.

• The 1997 speech that launched Obama

  Few doubt that Barack Obama's stirring oration before the 2004 Democratic National Convention vaulted him into the national limelight.
  
  But another, less-heralded Obama address -- delivered on Valentine's Day 1997 at First Chicago Bank -- was equally essential to his later successes. Without it, it is doubtful that he would have ever been in position to assume so prominent a role in 2004.
  
  {snip}
  
  Chicago thus became the proving ground for Obama's vision, which, according to LISC spokesman Joel Bookman, "really changed the direction of community development in Chicago and ultimately nationally."
  
  It was an irresistible combination of money, politics and idealism that also offered endless opportunities for greed and tragic abuse of the poor.

• Chapter IV: For the slumlord's defense, Barack Obama, Esq.

  Writing in his 1995 autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama said he became "a civil rights lawyer" because "to lend meaning to a community's suffering and take part in its healing -- that required something more."
  
  There was indeed "something more" to Obama's legal career, but it wasn't civil rights litigation at the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where he was employed for a decade.
  
  {snip}
  
  In March 1994, a year before "Dreams" was published, Obama was the lead defense attorney on an obscure case in Cook County Court that has heretofore escaped examination by the national media.
  
  In this case, Obama defended a Chicago slumlord and powerful political ally who was charged with a long list of offenses against poor residents. The defendant was the Woodlawn Preservation & Investment Corp., controlled by Bishop Arthur Brazier, a South Side Chicago preacher and political operator.

• Chapter V: Obama's toughest critics on the Left

  Barack Obama's carefully constructed image as a civil rights lawyer who wanted to heal the black community was greeted with skepticism by some Chicago activists.
  
  "I never drank the Kool-Aid about Barack Obama," veteran Chicago black activist Eddie Read told The Washington Examiner. Read is president of the Black Independent Political Organization, one of Chicago's largest black community groups.
  
  Read -- who describes himself as a "black nationalist" -- said Chicago streets are filled with genuine "street gangsters" and phonies known as "studio gangsters." The latter are impersonators who make money acting in studio-produced rap videos.
  
  The same dichotomy is found among Chicago's street activists, Read said. "So what you get from me is I'm still up in the air on whether or not my brother Obama was a real activist or a studio activist."

• Chapter VI: The poor people Obama left behind

  Four years after Barack Obama's historic election as president, little seems to have changed for the African-American communities on Chicago's South Side.
  
  The lack of change -- or the sense that these neighborhoods are getting worse -- is eroding the president's standing among African-Americans in his hometown.
  
  In 2011, Chicago suffered the third-highest black jobless rate among the nation's major metropolitan areas, at 19 percent, according to the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

• Chapter VII: The myth of Obama as state Senate reformer

  "The two worst crime zones in Illinois are the governor's mansion in Springfield and the City Council Chambers in Chicago," said study author Dick Simpson.
  
  It was into such an environment that Obama stepped when he was first elected in 1996 as an Illinois state senator.
  
  Former Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, a maverick Republican and reformer, told The Washington Examiner that Obama never fought corruption, even when it was being done by Republicans.
  
  "I've never seen him fight corruption. He never wanted to upset the apple cart with the Chicago machine," Fitzgerald said.

• Chapter VIII: Obama's state pension scheme

  State Sen. Barack Obama and members of an Illinois lobbying group representing politically connected minority-owned businesses launched a campaign in 2000 to pressure state pension funds to help their friends and donors.
  
  Obama and his cohorts targeted state officials in charge of pension funds for teachers, police and firemen, and regular government employees.
  
  Much as the Rev. Jesse Jackson had been doing for years to Fortune 500 corporations, Obama and the Alliance of Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs, or ABLE, demanded that the officials set aside at least 15 percent of pension assets for management by minority-owned investment companies.

• Chapter IX: The Arab-American network behind Obama

  President Obama's controversial relationships with radical figures like Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi have been well-publicized in recent years.
  
  Prior to his academic career in the United States, Khalidi worked for Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization when it was classified by the State Department as a terrorist group.
  
  Less well-known is a cluster of Chicago businessmen who formed an Arab-American network at the heart of Obama's political apparatus.

• Chapter X: Obama brings Chicago politics to Washington

  Chicago has been called the home of "gangster government." How bad is it?
  
  Consider the following facts about the city from which President Obama rose through the ranks of American public life, from community organizer and local lawyer to the Illinois state legislature to the U.S. Senate and finally the Oval Office:
  
  » Chicago's 2.7 million residents make up only about 21 percent of the state of Illinois' population of nearly 13 million. Yet the city and its suburbs have accounted for 84 percent of the state's public corruption convictions in federal courts since 1976, according to a study released earlier this year by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
  
  » Four of the state's previous seven governors went to jail on public corruption charges, as did a third of Chicago aldermen who served during the period.

This is a compelling read.

[hi-power]

I doubt this will make Harry Reid shut his yap, but I also doubt anyone in elected office gives more money to charity than Mitt Romney.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/rom ... 52850.html

The Romney campaign is releasing Mitt and Ann Romney's 2011 tax return today. The campaign previews a few of the highlights here:

-In 2011, the Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income.
-The Romneys’ effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.1%.
-The Romneys donated $4,020,772 to charity in 2011, amounting to nearly 30% of their income.
-The Romneys claimed a deduction for $2.25 million of those charitable contributions.

The Romneys’ generous charitable donations in 2011 would have significantly reduced their tax obligation for the year. The Romneys thus limited their deduction of charitable contributions to conform to the Governor's statement in August, based upon the January estimate of income, that he paid at least 13% in income taxes in each of the last 10 years.

Additionally, the Romney campaign is releasing a summary of 20 years of taxes, between 1990-2009, detailing their tax expenditures during those years:

-In each year during the entire 20-year period, the Romneys owed both state and federal income taxes.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the average annual effective federal tax rate was 20.20%.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the lowest annual effective federal personal tax rate was 13.66%.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the Romneys gave to charity an average of 13.45% of their adjusted gross income.
-Over the entire 20-year period, the total federal and state taxes owed plus the total charitable donations deducted represented 38.49% of total AGI.

[Dave2]

Huh... I wonder why he released his records?

[powerboatr]

Huh... I wonder why he released his records?

he said he would earlier..
but now he can stick Reid in the eye so to speak
I sure hope when he wins, he gets to ride in an elevator with Reid and drop checks his rear right there


looks like he gave lots more money to charity than bo and biden combined by over 10 times

[The Annoyed Man]

Huh... I wonder why he released his records?

he said he would earlier..
but now he can stick Reid in the eye so to speak
I sure hope when he wins, he gets to ride in an elevator with Reid and drop checks his rear right there


looks like he gave lots more money to charity than bo and biden combined by over 10 times

It has started already.

Nevada Republican to Harry Reid: Make our day, release your 2011 tax return
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/ins ... -release-/

Shortly after Mr. Romney released the additional tax information, Mr. Buell blasted out the email calling for Mr. Reid to come clean and release hits tax records "so that all Nevadans can see that he is paying his fair share." He added, "In addition, Mr. Reid should explain to all of us how he became a millionaire on a bureaucrat's salary.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.