...   
      
    JB>> The US Postal Service just announced how much more they are losing now   
    JB>> due to retiree healthcare benefits they are now paying in advance.   
      
    BA> These people have absolutely no concept of insurance.   
      
    The issue is the purpose of insurance. All else derives from   
    that. Most people believe the purpose of medical insuarance is   
    to insure that you get medical care when you need it.   
      
    BA> Shucks, I'm not an expert on the subject but I know more   
    BA> about it than Obama and his congresscrook henchmen do. Nor   
      
    Yet all I have seen from you is "risk management". For most   
    people the only risk they are concerned about managing is the   
    risk they will not get medical care, or go bankrupt getting the   
    care.   
      
    BA> am I an expert on business practices - although I do have a   
    ...   
    BA> graduate level ) - but I know that if the government   
    BA> raises the costs of hiring or keeping employees (such as by   
    BA> raising the unemployment insurance premiums, which are a   
    BA> percentage of payroll, or raising the minimum wage level)   
    BA> that businesses aren't going to run out and hire people or   
    BA> grant raises.   
      
    Unemployment insurance should be paid on a sales tax, not a   
    payroll tax. That being said, the bill has to be paid. The   
    minimum wage is still not enough to live on decently. A living   
    wage must be the goal.   
      
    BA> Government employees, including congresscrooks and the   
    BA> executive, always assume that whatever they do will   
    BA> have no effect on the population's behavior - despite a   
    BA> century and a half of evidence that they're wrong.  People   
    BA> will alter   
      
    On the contrary, they assume it will have an effect. Their   
    proble is, they don't recognize what the effect will be.   
    That and trying too hard for concensus. Now it's the fear   
    of the deficit that is forcing anti-deficit responses when   
    stimulus is really needed.   
      
    BA> Some people have been known to refuse overtime, and   
    BA> sometimes just quit working for several weeks or months   
    BA> (usually they own the company and can do that), to avoid   
    BA> making 'too much money.'   
      
    Which is rare, and irrelevant. Someone is going to do the   
    overtime, someone is going to do the work. Reagan claimed   
    one year he stopped making movies in January to keep from   
    paying too much in taxes. Does anyone think those movies   
    didn't get made with someone else? Does anyone think the   
    art of the theatre was deprived of any great work?   
      
    BA> I remember back in the late 1960s that a fellow in my unit   
    BA> - who was independently wealthy and a real SOB of an   
    BA> attitude case - tried to refuse a (n automatic) promotion   
    BA> from E-3 to E-4 because it would cost him more in income   
    BA> taxes than he'd get from the promotion.  IIRC the AF made   
      
    Which, of course, was highly unlikely. He probably bought   
    into the idea that all your income is taxed at the marginal   
    rate.   
      
    BA> him take the stripe anyway.  Obviously, he did not plan to   
    BA> make the AF a career - but a couple of years later I noted   
    BA> that a fellow with the same name and initial, now an E-5,   
    BA> was being transferred from Wakkanai, japan, to someplace in   
    BA> Europe (while I don't KNOW it was the same guy I suspect   
    BA> that it was, and he would've been on his second hitch).   
      
    IOW, it didn't turn out to be such a bad deal after all.   
      
    BA> I find it both amazing and amusing that after 80 years the   
    BA> American people haven't figured   
    BA> out that they're paying ALL of their Social Security and   
    BA> Medicare "contributions" - that half that the employers are   
    BA> supposedly paying is coming out of the employee's paycheck   
    BA> just as surely as the employee's half is, the employer's   
    BA> half just doesn't show up on the pay stub or W-2.   
      
    I am amazed that Americans haven't realized the employer   
    pays all of the social security and medicare tax. The   
    employer pays all taxes of any kind, as well as all other   
    bills. Unless you have a money tree in your backyard, that   
    is.   
      
    BA> as Obamacare is concerned, were I running a big insuror I'd   
    BA> give a year's notice policyholders that the company was   
    BA> abandoning the , and then do it. Little known   
      
    Go right ahead. Other will pick it up. Every other   
    industrialized country has national health care. Most use   
    an insurance based system. Insurance companies still   
    compete for clients under those systems, with a much lower   
    overall cost.   
      
    It works, deal with it.   
      
    BA> that a LOT of small insurors that marketed various   
    BA> insurance products have that market, my former employer is   
    BA> one of them.   
      
    And that was before Obamacare. The insurance industry has   
    been taken over by a few big players, and the small   
    operators have been squeezed out. IOW, insurance does not   
    have an effective free market.   
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... "Ho, haha, guard, turn, parry, dodge, spin, ha, whoops!!"   
   --- Via Silver Xpress V4.5/P [Reg]   
    * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)