- Wal-Mart gets into the casket business
- Doug Holtz-Eakin about to lose health insurance, still opposes the Democrats' reform plans.
- Louisa May Alcott's private sorrows.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Holtz-Eakin is a very rich man. He's self-employed and makes a tidy income. "He is in no hurry to find full-time work."
He can afford DC office space on Constitution Avenue ... he can afford to pay for his own health insurance.
I fail to see why I, as a taxpayer, should have to pay for his health insurance or his health care. As he himself admits: "I'm a wealthy, affluent American in the big picture."
He's the poster boy for why we cannot afford Obama's health care reform, which would allow wealthy businessmen like Holtz-Eakin to ride the system on the backs of working men and women taxpayers.
movertypeguy: How will you be paying for his healthcare? You don't think a man with his income is going to qualify for subsidies, do you? Have you like, actually read one single piece on the, you know, actual plans making their way though Congress?
What is community rating if not possibly poor healthy subsidizing possibly rich sick people? The same goes for shall issue.
As long as the wealthy pay more in taxes, it's not the poor subsidizing the rich, but the other way around. To put it another way, if Bill Gates comes down with a preexisting condition and buys health insurance via the exchange, he won't be receiving any net taxpayer subsidies, because he pays millions in taxes (you could argue his insurance premiums are indeed subsidized by other premium payers -- all of whom are less affluent because it's Bill Gates we're talking about -- but this situation has existed for a very long time in the group health insurance world, so the phenomenon in general is hardly something you can blame on ObamaCare).
Just because Bill Gates pays other taxes doesn't mean he can't also be subsidized by healthy 25-year-olds who will now be forced to buy community-rated insurance.
"Just because Bill Gates pays other taxes doesn't mean he can't also be subsidized by healthy 25-year-olds who will now be forced to buy community-rated insurance."
This is exactly correct.
25-year-olds who now choose not to purchase unneeded and unnecessary health insurance (many do so becuase it is against their religion) will now be required to pay into the system to provide Bill Gates' subsidized community-rated health insurance.
Bill Gates, the world's richest man, already is in line to get a government Social Security check that I am paying for. He does not pay more than me into Social Security, even though he is the world's richest man.
So, dollar for dollar, I'm subsidizing him already for his old age insurance. And now you Democrats want me to pitch in for his health care too?
You people are seriously fucking deluded and therefore we're going to remove you from all positions of power shortly and send you back to grade school.
You mean have I read the 2,000 page House bill? Yes, I have ready it. And it states in there that taxpayers will pay for Mr. Holtz-Eakin's health care.
It's pretty obvious that you haven't read the 2,000-page bill, or you'd have known that.
Megan's link:
What an absurd propaganda piece. I especially love this sentence:
Well, of course, for this former CBO Director, it certainly won't mean buying a costly individual plan. It will mean going to work for a bank, or consultancy. Probably at a salary in the high sixes or more. And yes, his new gig will come fully equipped with a Cadillac group plan. How heroically! ruggedly! selfless of him to oppose making comprehensive and robust health insurance universal -- even available to the working poor. I'm getting verklempt.
I mean, a man with Holtz-Eakin's training can obviously come up with plenty of ideologically cogent arguments opposing the healthcare reform plans of the Democrats. But the obvious implication of the article -- even folks with tough-to-cover preexisting conditions oppose Obamacare! -- is utterly, ludicrously disingenuous. The Post really sucks these days.
Except he comes right out and says:
"Let's not whine too much about me," he said. "I'm a wealthy, affluent American in the big picture."
So I'm not sure where you see that premise. It seems more like a gloating "Oh look, a McCain adviser doesn't have insurance, teehee how fitting" article.
TallDave: The line you cite is a throwaway line meant to portray himself as "reasonable" and not "so utterly self-absorbed that he fails to realize how using himself as an example of people with preexisting conditions who nonetheless oppose ObamaCare" is lame and incongruous.
Earlier in the piece Holtz-Eakin is reported to say:
Which, of course, is utter BS. He doesn't "worry" in the manner "many Americans do" about jobs with good benefits. He knows full well he'll wind up at Goldman or Citi or Booz Allen or Carlyle. And he'll get first rate, gold-plated health insurance as part of his six or seven figure deal. Full stop.
Later on he's quoted as saying that:
Which again, is a completely disingenuous thing to say, and which any reporter worthy of the label of a once great newspaper should have called him on, because, you know, there's absolutely no possibility that, for Holtz-Eakin, getting a job means "buying an individual health insurance plan at an exorbitant premium." And that's because the law doesn't allow the Goldmans and Carlyles of the world to refrain from offering him group coverage even if they wanted to (which, of course, they don't, as they can well afford it).
Simply a ludicrously naive puff propaganda piece from WaPo.
Just to be clear, I have absolutely no objection to a well-connected former mandarin like Doug Holtz-Eakin winning a lucrative private sector sinecure and living a comfortable, even lavish lifestyle. What I object to is his opposition to allowing his fellow citizens -- the ones who used to pay his salary -- to get a few crumbs, and then having the monstrous cheek to fish for sympathy while doing so. He's way lower on the worthiness scale than pond scum.
"What I object to is his opposition to allowing his fellow citizens -- the ones who used to pay his salary -- to get a few crumbs"
Go make your own crumbs you friggin' leach.
Pay. Your. Own. Way. Like everybody else has to.
You want his crumbs. You're nothing but a leach. A rat under the table pissed off because the master is tidy and won't drop you a freebie. Have you no shame, sir?
If you ask me to, I'll give you some pity and charity.
Jasper, if you've ever met Holtz-Eakin, you'd know that he is actually a surprisingly decent and non-disingenuous guy. You're reading things in that aren't there. I guarantee the WaPo reporter pitched this story, not him.
because, you know, there's absolutely no possibility that, for Holtz-Eakin, getting a job means "buying an individual health insurance plan at an exorbitant premium."
Sure there is. Lots of political consultancy jobs pay hourly. So do speaking gigs.
using himself as an example of people with preexisting conditions who nonetheless oppose ObamaCare
He's a Republican adviser. It would be very strange if he didn't oppose the Dem plan.
It's a fairly stupid, dog-bites-man premise -- look, wealthy Republicans oppose Obamacare! -- but it's hard to see how it's written to change anyone's mind.
Caskets are in the "For the Home" department. Well, they do look pretty comfy actually.
Jasper, if you've ever met Holtz-Eakin, you'd know that he is actually a surprisingly decent and non-disingenuous guy.
Megan: I'm sure he's a perfectly nice and civil human being who loves his children. But his public actions -- opposing an incredibly modest extension of social insurance that would really help America's left behind -- while trading off his taxpayer-financed contacts -- are highly odious in my view. Oh, I almost forgot, he's idling away his hours "unemployed" on Connecticut Avenue, and hasn't yet traded in his political career for a golden parachute. I'll retract if he ends up foregoing K Street or Wall Street for a career working with Alzheimer's patients or troubled youth, okay? But I've gotta feeling that's not going to happen. And yes, as you no doubt know more about these things than I do, I'll agree with you that the WaPo reporter more or less had him for lunch. That part went over my head.
Go make your own crumbs you friggin' leach.Pay. Your. Own. Way. Like everybody else has to.
movertypeguy: I have health insurance. I just think those less fortunate than I should also have it, even if means taking some of your paycheck. Deal with it. And by the way, we fortunately don't live in a country where "everybody" has to pay their own way. Even in relatively rugged individualist America, we provide education to children, and medicine to old people, and retirement checks to retirees, all funded by "leaching" off heroic Galtians like you. Again, deal with it. (And I'm sure you will deal with it by, say, not cashing the Social Security checks the government will eventually send you; and you'll also no doubt volunteer to support your elderly relatives so the government doesn' have to, right?).
He's not on K Street or Wall Street--he's basically a think tank guy, so either would be a (not impossible) stretch. And I'm not sure what you're ngry at him for, except for disagreeing with you about the merits of the various democratic health care plans, or saying so.
I have the perfect way to deal with it: since you want it, we take it out of your paycheck.
I'll give them my paycheck for healthcare if you give them your paycheck for the F***-Up in Iraq, and the revenue lost from the estate tax. Thats the part that really kills me about the Republican party. I don't even really care THAT much about increasing insurance coverage. But violent opposition to assistance for health insurance after supporting assistance to, you know, FORMER SHIITE MILITIA MEMBERS, and making sure the heirs of the ultra-rich get theirs. Just wow.
anyone who opposes the current reforms MUST have supported Iraq? Assumptions, assumptions.
Estate tax is just you whining that you can't make other people pay for what you want.
"... a modest extension of social insurance ..."
Requiring poor people to pay $13,000 in new taxes per year for health insurance is not, as you describe it, an extension of social insurance.
You're incredibly uninformed - because you haven't read the bill.
Obama's health plan is nothing more than Socialists forcing people to buy a product they don't want and don't want - expensive health insurance that doesn't cover basic care.
It's nothing more than stealing from young people who tend not to vote to give to older people who do vote. It's out and out thievery on an unprecedented scale, and when Republicans take back the House and Senate in 2010 it's the end of your little experiment in kiddie government.
I wonder if Wal-mart will get many returns of the $12.88 item?
Dear Wal-mart:
We return this item. Uncle Joe didn't fit.
Yours truly
I imagine this is causing some consternation in mortuaries around the nation.
Derek
Can't we have one discussion where no one brings up Stalin?
If you bury a family member in a Wally World coffin they'll come back to haunt you.
One more time:
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+link+farm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a