Will physicians be taxed out the a** if Bernie Sanders is president?

[nyxassassin]

The market should determine the rate of payment and cost of education for medicine...

Do you really believe so heavily in the free market, knowing all the crap it comes with? Medicine is one of the few almost perfectly inelastic services, a lot of people will and do go bankrupt without medicare/aid and die. Are you so selfish and callous? Do you think your right to hoarding property comes before your duty to the rest of humanity?

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[el_duderino]

Do you really believe so heavily in the free market, knowing all the crap it comes with? Medicine is one of the few almost perfectly inelastic services, a lot of people will and do go bankrupt without medicare/aid and die. Are you so selfish and callous? Do you think your right to hoarding property comes before your duty to the rest of humanity?

If I recall, he thinks those people will be taken care of via charities and whatnot. I suppose the reason charities don't take care of them now is because the market isn't free enough? I don't really get it. And, yeah, there's a big element of "too bad, so sad" to it.

 

[nyxassassin]

If I recall, he thinks those people will be taken care of via charities and whatnot. I suppose the reason charities don't take care of them now is because the market isn't free enough? I don't really get it. And, yeah, there's a big element of "too bad, so sad" to it.

He seems to really like Ayn Rand.

 

[deleted480308]

Do you really believe so heavily in the free market, knowing all the crap it comes with? Medicine is one of the few almost perfectly inelastic services, a lot of people will and do go bankrupt without medicare/aid and die. Are you so selfish and callous? Do you think your right to hoarding property comes before your duty to the rest of humanity?

Yes

 

[nyxassassin]

Yes

Great, why did you go into medicine again? There are much better jobs at acquiring currency and property given the intellectual load and time commitment.

 

[el_duderino]

Great, why did you go into medicine again? There are much better jobs at acquiring currency and property given the intellectual load and time commitment.

Very few professional tracks are quite as certain to produce the kind of income a doctor makes. There are a lot of lawyers, investment bankers, etc., who are unemployed, working in a different field, or making relatively little money compared to MDs (or DOs)

 

[efle]

Great, why did you go into medicine again? There are much better jobs at acquiring currency and property given the intellectual load and time commitment.

What other career paths than the best paid medical specialties can get you a quarter mil+ per year with certainty?

 

[nyxassassin]

I dont know, a ton of people from my college/high school are gonna be making 6 figures this or next year (probably a very biased sample but still) while I will be in training for a long time.

 

[deleted393595]

Whatever you think of the ACA (I can imagine lol), it has started to bend the healthcare spending curve.

Temporarily yes. But the rate of cost growth has started to rise again. A similar effect was seen around 1999 (I think) in Medicare right after managed care was implemented. And you know how effective that was.... Keep in mind also that the ACA has no cost growth containment mechanisms built into it so there's really no chance of it ever holding down healthcare spending.

 

[efle]

I dont know, a ton of people from my college/high school are gonna be making 6 figures this or next year (probably a very biased sample but still) while I will be in training for a long time.

Yeah see the critical part is the "certainty"...

 

[efle]

Temporarily yes. But the rate of cost growth has started to rise again. A similar effect was seen I think around 1999 with Medicare. It doesn't mean anything at all.

And the ACA has no cost growth containment mechanisms built into it.

The reforms in Britain and Scandinavia decades ago appear to have permanently helped ! But cost growth is just handled by huge taxes

 

[nyxassassin]

Yeah see the critical part is the "certainty"...

But if you have the GPA/MCAT/Hard working attitude to get into med school, you can probably make the same amount of money over a life time with less stress overall. Loans ain't cheap either.

 

[deleted393595]

The reforms in Britain and Scandinavia decades ago appear to have permanently helped ! But cost growth is just handled by huge taxes

+1. And what "Sicko" never showed is that elective care (knee replacements, cancer treatments etc) are much harder to obtain in those countries. Why? Because top-down government control is awful at making things work. We have the same issue with too much government control/corporate-welfare of healthcare in America - even more so than those countries - that results in a different looking system in which we instead have sky high costs for procedures and rationing by price.

 

[postbacpremed87]

I'm not going to medical school for the money, and I like 90% of what Bernie Sanders stands for. However, he has historically been for a very high tax rate for the top income earners. Like most med students, I'm dropping at least 200 k for the pleasure of a medical education. How are we going to pay that back if we have a massive tax hike for the "rich"? Do these tax rates account for the fact that you have 200 k in loans accumulating at 6.8%?

He won't be President. If you think that this race will be anything other than Bush v. Clinton then you are naive.

 

[el_duderino]

But if you have the GPA/MCAT/Hard working attitude to get into med school, you can probably make the same amount of money over a life time with less stress overall. Loans ain't cheap either.

In what field, exactly?

 

[xc_stallion92]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-tax-rates-dont-cause-bernie-sanders-flinch

It would be wrong to take 50 or 90% of my income so I won't support doing it to anyone else. It's already wrong to take my income to begin with

How do you feel about roads and fire departments?

 

[deleted480308]

How do you feel about roads and fire departments?

That they should be fee for use, everyone pays their own way.

 

[el_duderino]

That they should be fee for use, everyone pays their own way.

Do you have any idea how disastrous that would be to low-income or poor people?

 

[deleted407021]

That they should be fee for use, everyone pays their own way.

Tell that to the folks living in proverbial shacks who can barely pay for food.

I know you have strong beliefs on certain things, as do I. But living in a fantasy world where everything works perfectly and there's no gray area is just silly idealism. You have to work within reality, which you clearly aren't, as has been demonstrated time and again in many discussions here.

 

[xc_stallion92]

Do you have any idea how disastrous that would be to low-income or poor people?

Poor people can't afford cars and houses so it won't affect them.

/thread

 

[deleted480308]

Do you have any idea how disastrous that would be to low-income or poor people?

Roads are largely paid for by gas taxes at this point...at an exhorbitant rate because of how poorly government builds things on a budget (I know, I used to build roads). So everyone with a vehicle basically pays for the road in an indirect fashion. Fire should absolutely be fee for service and does not need to be ran by the government. The property owner can pay the bill for services required...the poor you reference already indirectly pay the inflated cost of government fire dept as it is passed to them in rent.

Both can be done much cheaper

 

[deleted407021]

Poor people can't afford cars and houses so it won't affect them.

/thread

People enter poverty after buying homes and cars. It happens all the time.

 

[nyxassassin]

Roads are largely paid for by gas taxes at this point...at an exhorbitant rate because of how poorly government builds things on a budget (I know, I used to build roads). So everyone with a vehicle basically pays for the road in an indirect fashion. Fire should absolutely be fee for service and does not need to be ran by the government. The property owner can pay the bill for services required...the poor you reference already indirectly pay the inflated cost of government fire dept as it is passed to them in rent.

Both can be done much cheaper

What do you think about medicare/medicaid then?

 

[deleted480308]

What do you think about medicare/medicaid then?

Neither should exist, not a jurisdiction for goverment. We are responsible for ourselves and then have the option to request help from our friends/family/neighbors/charity....those failing does not grant rights to a neighbor's property and income

 

[el_duderino]

Roads are largely paid for by gas taxes at this point...at an exhorbitant rate because of how poorly government builds things on a budget (I know, I used to build roads). So everyone with a vehicle basically pays for the road in an indirect fashion. Fire should absolutely be fee for service and does not need to be ran by the government. The property owner can pay the bill for services required...the poor you reference already indirectly pay the inflated cost of government fire dept as it is passed to them in rent.

Both can be done much cheaper

This would have an overwhelmingly negative impact on poor people.

 

[deleted480308]

This would have an overwhelmingly negative impact on poor people.

The horror of ending a free ride?

 

[el_duderino]

The horror of ending a free ride?

Well, yes. You might think it's "fair" somehow, but all of these policies you're advocating would devastate the lives of poor people.

 

[deleted480308]

Well, yes. You might think it's "fair" somehow, but all of these policies you're advocating would devastate the lives of poor people.

I've explained how I think the costs are already being handed to them indirectly. Costs that are made dramatically higher due to the set up. But you insist they aren't paying right now...If we're going to to go with the fact that they don't pay in....they should

 

[el_duderino]

I've explained how I think the costs are already being handed to them indirectly. Costs that are made dramatically higher due to the set up. But you insist they aren't paying right now...If we're going to to go with the fact that they don't pay in....they should

Some small measure of those costs, but only a small measure. That's the entire idea behind taxes. Poor people can't afford to pay for their own roads, their own fire services, and their own police services.

You keep talking about how it "should" be this or that, but the fact is that your policies would have an overwhelmingly negative effect on poor people. That's just how it is.

 

[nyxassassin]

I've explained how I think the costs are already being handed to them indirectly. Costs that are made dramatically higher due to the set up. But you insist they aren't paying right now...If we're going to to go with the fact that they don't pay in....they should

What happens if you don't have friends or family and are sick and poor? I just don't understand the hypocrisy of a med student advocating for the divinity of private property as if it isnt just a social construct (it is literally the first social construct too, if you believe Rousseau).

 

[deleted480308]

Some small measure of those costs, but only a small measure. That's the entire idea behind taxes. Poor people can't afford to pay for their own roads, their own fire services, and their own police services.

You keep talking about how it "should" be this or that, but the fact is that your policies would have an overwhelmingly negative effect on poor people. That's just how it is.

If it's "negatively affect" them or advocate they use police to steal from others....i choose the former

 

[el_duderino]

If it's "negatively affect" them or advocate they use police to steal from others....i choose the former

So be honest. Come out and say it. You care more about being able to keep your money than you do devastating the lives of millions of Americans.

 

[xc_stallion92]

So be honest. Come out and say it. You care more about being able to keep your money than you do devastating the lives of millions of Americans.

That's what it comes down to. Some people are just selfish.

 

[james11]

You talk like money is a god-given right... Money is federal property. Its part of the whole social contract thing. Sure your paystub may say 1 million or 1 dollar, but that's not accurate. Obviously individuals have no claim to each others money, but the government has a true claim to it. If you want to be in the 1% of salary, you gotta pay back for all the things you use in the government.

OK this is absurd. I'm all for the social contract, I'm a fairly big statist, but acting like all money inherently belongs to the federal government just because of public sector things like education, roads etc is absurd. Taxes pay for education and roads and the police force and taxes need not be 100% to accomplish this. If you truly believe all money belongs to the government then you are a communist-- and I don't mean that derogatorily just that you may as well take your principles to the extreme. If all money belongs to the government there is no incentive to take a higher paying job over a lower paying one. (all else being equal)

Furthermore your line of reasoning fails because being in the 1% doesn't necessarily mean you "used more" of the government than a middle-class worker. If you're a physician, you still have to pay back your student loans, so you didn't really "take" from the government. And saying that residency jobs are "taking" from the government is kind of silly because they aren't paying you this money to sit around and masturbate, you're being paid to .. you know, be a physician, see patients, provide health care. So I think you are a bit misguided here.

That they should be fee for use, everyone pays their own way.

LMAO. At least he's intellectually consistent.

 

[deleted480308]

So be honest. Come out and say it. You care more about being able to keep your money than you do devastating the lives of millions of Americans.

I've never been coy about that. My lack of something does not grant me the right to take it from someone else, nor does your lack...

 

[el_duderino]

I've never been coy about that. My lack of something does not grant me the right to take it from someone else, nor does your lack...

You never come out and say it.

 

[efle]

I love sb247s ideals in theory but look at what society is like during periods of deregulation and no protections...huge swaths of urban America were ghettos full of people entirely tied to their factories for everything, and children didn't even have the option to seek education and escape because there was no government protection for them and they were made to work full days in dangerous conditions just like their parents. Individuals and small groups choose selfishly and harm others throughout history.

@sb247 what would you have done about America in the early industrial revolution if not used government to enforce limits, minimums and protections? Was that a society you see as functioning well? How could even less regulation and the free market correct the situation?

 

[deleted480308]

I love sb247s ideals in theory but look at what society is like during periods of deregulation and no protections...huge swaths of urban America were ghettos full of people entirely tied to their factories for everything, and children didn't even have the option to seek education and escape because there was no government protection for them and they were made to work full days in dangerous conditions just like their parents. Individuals and small groups choose selfishly and harm others throughout history.

@sb247 what would you have done about America in the early industrial revolution if not used government to enforce limits, minimums and protections? Was that a society you see as functioning well? How could even less regulation and the free market correct the situation?

minimum wage has only hurt the unskilled worker because it raised the amount of value that they have to present to their employer to get started working

I also think overtime laws are a mistake. It cost a lot of people the opportunity to work more hours. If your labor is worth $15/hr to me and you want to work 60hrs then I say yes and we both win. If I have to start paying you $23 at 41hrs? Now you only have 40...too bad if you need more because your labor isn't worth $23.

I'd also posit that the apprentice model for education of tradesmen is superior to the mess we have now where huge swaths of our young people have useless college degrees and thousands of dollars of debt with no actual skills

 

[efle]

minimum wage has only hurt the unskilled worker because it raised the amount of value that they have to present to their employer to get started working

I also think overtime laws are a mistake. It cost a lot of people the opportunity to work more hours. If your labor is worth $15/hr to me and you want to work 60hrs then I say yes and we both win. If I have to start paying you $23 at 41hrs? Now you only have 40...too bad if you need more because your labor isn't worth $23.

I'd also posit that the apprentice model for education of tradesmen is superior to the mess we have now where huge swaths of our young people have useless college degrees and thousands of dollars of debt with no actual skills

Without minimum wage (or overtime or even hour limits) you have early industrial America. Everyone has a job, it takes up 10 hours 6 days a week, and nobody earns any more from it than exactly what's needed to get essentials from the very company that paid them. So ill ask again - such a setup strikes you as a correctly operating society?

Sure apprenticeship is great. But you face the same problem that was preventing education. When you need your child working factory shifts to create enough money for food and clothes, how can you afford to send them off to learn a trade? So I'd have to ask again - without passing child labor laws or any other government intervention, what would have driven change from this system? Or do you think this was a correctly operating society?

 

[deleted480308]

Without minimum wage (or overtime or even hour limits) you have early industrial America. Everyone has a job, it takes up 10 hours 6 days a week, and nobody earns any more from it than exactly what's needed to get essentials from the very company that paid them. So ill ask again - such a setup strikes you as a correctly operating society?

Sure apprenticeship is great. But you face the same problem that was preventing education. When you need your child working factory shifts to create enough money for food and clothes, how can you afford to send them off to learn a trade? So I'd have to ask again - without passing child labor laws or any other government intervention, what would have driven change from this system? Or do you think this was a correctly operating society?

children can't consent to terms so I'm fine with child labor laws...minimum wage is not a role for government when speaking of adults. It is not the government's business how much I sell my labor for...

This concept of "operating society" is the problem. It is not government's role to design and manage society, the only role is protect rights....not attempt to ensure outcomes

 

[efle]

But the fact that children can't consent is due to more law. There are plenty of 12 year olds able to understand what's happening; "you work this machine for ten hours and ill give you a nickel. You get no benefits, no help if you're injured, and can be replaced whenever we want" isn't hard to follow. You can remove the issue of consent altogether and say they had someone else ensure they fully understood and sign them up (what their parents were doing). You have to admit the driving problem here was that companies were evil scum who would push things to the point of slavery if someone didnt stop them. And if were going to start inventing rights like a right for children to be educated in trade or academics instead of made to labor, then you could add a right for everyone to have guarunteed access to socialist concepts of rights like health as well.

 

[deleted480308]

But the fact that children can't consent is due to more law. There are plenty of 12 year olds able to understand what's happening; "you work this machine for ten hours and ill give you a nickel. You get no benefits, no help if you're injured, and can be replaced whenever we want" isn't hard to follow. You can remove the issue of consent altogether and say they had someone else ensure they fully understood and sign them up (what their parents were doing). You have to admit the driving problem here was that companies were evil scum who would push things to the point of slavery if someone didnt stop them. And if were going to start inventing rights like a right for children to be educated in trade or academics instead of made to labor, then you could add a right for everyone to have guaranteed access to socialist concepts of rights like health as well.

There is an age at which consent isn't a child's to give regardless of the law, if you made sex legal at 12 it would still be impossible for the 12yr old to actually consent.

But we're dealing with adults and your reference to slavery is wrong. If I'm not being required to show back up tomorrow, no amount of money makes it slavery when I voluntarily appear the next morning for work.

 

[efle]

There is an age at which consent isn't a child's to give regardless of the law, if you made sex legal at 12 it would still be impossible for the 12yr old to actually consent.

But we're dealing with adults and your reference to slavery is wrong. If I'm not being required to show back up tomorrow, no amount of money makes it slavery when I voluntarily appear the next morning for work.

Then take the legal aspect out. I instead challenge that a 12-13 year old can't consent to labor. They can.

I'm not saying they were slaves, I'm saying the companies act entirely without ethics or morals and if they could buy compelled or coerced laborers they would. For your version of society to work, corporations would have to respect workers more than they do. They'd have to object to 13 year olds from impoverished homes becoming full-time workers instead of learning a trade or academics. They'd have to object to practices which prevented workers from taking business elsewhere (such as all paying workers in credit good at only that same company store). The periods of greatest deregulation and least government involvement created what I'd call pretty darn bad conditions that were in no way corrected by market forces for half a century.

I love your ideals and if companies all behaved like Costco it'd be great. But there's too many Walmarts. Pursuit of happiness for the masses has never been aided by the government being taken out of the markets.

 

[deleted480308]

Then take the legal aspect out. I instead challenge that a 12-13 year old can't consent to labor. They can.

I'm not saying they were slaves, I'm saying the companies act entirely without ethics or morals and if they could buy compelled or coerced laborers they would. For your version of society to work, corporations would have to respect workers more than they do. They'd have to object to 13 year olds from impoverished homes becoming full-time workers instead of learning a trade or academics. They'd have to object to practices which prevented workers from taking business elsewhere (such as all paying workers in credit good at only that same company store). The periods of greatest deregulation and least government involvement created what I'd call pretty darn bad conditions that were in no way corrected by market forces for half a century.

I love your ideals and if companies all behaved like Costco it'd be great. But there's too many Walmarts. Pursuit of happiness for the masses has never been aided by the government being taken out of the markets.

walmart is the largest employer in the country because it offers each and every one of it's employees the best job (based on their needs) that they have available to them. Every single one of them says it's the best they have when they show up each morning. It's not abusive to offer less than costco, it's a different model.

and referencing industrial era jobs, you'll need to define coercion more specifically as I find a lot of people in economic discussions tend to use it for "employment policies I don't like"

 

[mk04447]

I looked it up and could not find anything remotely like what you claim. It seems totally preposterous and impossible. Their 2014 revenue was almost $500 billion. You're saying that almost $400 billion of Walmart's 2014 revenue was from welfare programs?

The closest thing I could find is "as many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores using food stamps" which is a completely, completely different thing than what you claimed.

That food stamp scam is reserved for Obama's buddies (Walmart and GE to name a couple).

Walmart captures 20% of all food stamps. That's just one program, not nearly the biggest in terms of money either. Walmart's 10K discusses these income streams and the desire to capture them.

 

[efle]

walmart is the largest employer in the country because it offers each and every one of it's employees the best job (based on their needs) that they have available to them. Every single one of them says it's the best they have when they show up each morning. It's not abusive to offer less than costco, it's a different model.

and referencing industrial era jobs, you'll need to define coercion more specifically as I find a lot of people in economic discussions tend to use it for "employment policies I don't like"

Costco and Walmart are meant to represent different codes and goals for companies, I'm aware neither of them is an abusive equivalent to 1800s assembly lines.

I mean literal slavery, as in many companies around the world bought slaves until they were no longer able to because of their governments. Expecting corporations to respect life liberty and pursuit of happiness is a recipe for disaster. Too many will act with as much disregard for rights as they are able to within the confines of the government.

Can you tell me why things were so ****ty in early industrial America, if not because corporations behaved as badly as they could in pursuit of $? Do you think stripping away what little protections existed would have made things better via some market force now being able to operate?

 

[el_duderino]

That food stamp scam is reserved for Obama's buddies (Walmart and GE to name a couple).

Walmart captures 20% of all food stamps. That's just one program, not nearly the biggest in terms of money either. Walmart's 10K discusses these income streams and the desire to capture them.

So your initial post was simply a gross error.

 

[el_duderino]

Costco and Walmart are meant to represent different codes and goals for companies, I'm aware neither of them is an abusive equivalent to 1800s assembly lines.

I mean literal slavery, as in many companies around the world bought slaves until they were no longer able to because of their governments. Expecting corporations to respect life liberty and pursuit of happiness is a recipe for disaster. Too many will act with as much disregard for rights as they are able to within the confines of the government.

Can you tell me why things were so ****ty in early industrial America, if not because corporations behaved as badly as they could in pursuit of $? Do you think stripping away what little protections existed would have made things better via some market force now being able to operate?

The supposition is that "market forces" between employers and employees would take care of those issues.

The problem is that employers are constantly in a far better bargaining position than employees. They pretty much always have been. There's a reason that the standards we have today were almost all the result of government action and not voluntary action by corporations. Corporations have always exploited their workers to pretty much the fullest extent possible, and employees have largely been unable to do much about it without government intervention.

The net effect of sb's policies would be a drastic reduction in social mobility and increasing concentration of wealth at the top. Only a very, very few would actually benefit from this while the rest of us suffered greatly.

 

[efle]

The supposition is that "market forces" between employers and employees would take care of those issues.

The problem is that employers are constantly in a far better bargaining position than employees. They pretty much always have been. There's a reason that the standards we have today were almost all the result of government action and not voluntary action by corporations. Corporations have always exploited their workers to pretty much the fullest extent possible, and employees have largely been unable to do much about it without government intervention.

The net effect of sb's policies would be a drastic reduction in social mobility and increasing concentration of wealth at the top. Only a very, very few would actually benefit from this while the rest of us suffered greatly.

I'm curious whether sb thinks unionization should be protected as a collective workers' right

 

[deleted480308]

The supposition is that "market forces" between employers and employees would take care of those issues.

The problem is that employers are constantly in a far better bargaining position than employees. They pretty much always have been. There's a reason that the standards we have today were almost all the result of government action and not voluntary action by corporations. Corporations have always exploited their workers to pretty much the fullest extent possible, and employees have largely been unable to do much about it without government intervention.

The net effect of sb's policies would be a drastic reduction in social mobility and increasing concentration of wealth at the top. Only a very, very few would actually benefit from this while the rest of us suffered greatly.

government is clearly not needed to negotiate terms for people with marketable skills as they do just fine, government clearly raises the bar of entry into labor for the unskilled which is harmful to them as well. Just look at how many people lost hours when the government "helped" them with a new insurance law.

Far more important than my belief that government makes it worse is the more basic truth that a voluntary agreement between to adults is not something the government should interfere with