One idea to fund universal care

One MORE Ferrari? I’ve been cheated!

I’m sorry, but where is it written about patient class?

A tax so that people who can’t or won’t cover themselves for their costs don’t run around and drive everyone else’s bills up willy- nilly.

At least it would spread the pain, and the willfully blind public would realize that consumption actually costs money, and waste costs even more.

“A tax so that providers can buy more Ferrari…No… Remember… do no harm to the PATIENT class.”

You must be another sad product of our public school system…

This idea is a great example of “The triumph of hope over experience”. Didn’t doctors learn anything from the tobacco business? Remember how physicians (especially ivy league academics) promoted the looting of Big Tobacco with visions of financial sugar plums funding healthcare dancing in their heads? When are doctors ever going to learn? When politicians get their hands on the additional revenue stream, they will spend it in the manner best calculated to buy their reelection, not on healthcare services for people who don’t vote.

This physician would have to trade the used Crown Vic I just bought back in for the Corolla I just got rid of–and go back to cotton farm to live–I swore off Medicare years ago as this fixed price system encourages low quality medicine and corruption and will not go back to it. In government fixed-price healthcare, bad care drives out good.

The [NO] produced by the amount of cars that drive everyday is the most important cause of ground-level ozone (ie. smog) in cities. Every time there is a smog alert, a couple days later there will be a substantial jump in hosptitalizations and deaths due to respiratory distress. The two are strongly correlated. If you need the stats I can find them. Gas and driving is definitely a public major health issue.

“Some families at present are barely making it with the gasoline prices already imposed by big oil.”

You may need to go back to econ 101.

The price of oil is not “imposed” by big oil, the price per barrel is set on the free market. To reduce gasoline prices at the pump, state and federal government can repeal their respective gas taxes. That would reduce the price at the pump dramatically. In MA, for example, it would drop the price by 65c per gallon immediately! In addition, for the short term, we need to build more refineries. For the long-term, we need to increase our use of ethanol and alternative fuels…

“The price of oil is not “imposed” by big oil, the price per barrel is set on the free market.”

Actually this is hardly true. For non-economists, the demand for oil, more specifically gasoline, is relatively inelastic. That means that price does not affect demand very much, especially over the short term. How many people really curtailed their gasoline use when prices increased? OPEC is a cartel. Cartels, if cohesive, can affect supply and thus price, given relatively inelastic demand. Then add the effect of speculators such as hedge fund managers. Add in wars and weather as wild cards affecting supply. The fact is that the “market”, particularly in the short term, is mostly supply driven. Consumers have very little power to affect prices.

OPEC is a cartel–of governments–not “big oil”. Gasoline demand is elastice–it just doesn’t change much within the price ranges we have yet seen because, despite all the bitching, it has yet to rise to a price to motivate the average American to inconvenience themselves by carpooling, taking public transportation, or eliminating all the unnecessary trips.