Everyone is over 60%....excuse me.... it still doesn't validate high tax rates.....
High tax rates hurt the overall growth of the economy. One of the reasons why the EU performs poorly. One of the reasons why most ppl in Europe aren't in the stock market... they don't have any money left over after rent and bread. Car... maybe they have one.... probably not. 2 cars is almost unheard of.... 2 homes is almost unheard of. They have no money to invest with.....
How does the insurance market work? It's not just a bunch of ppl get together and make a policy base that's for sure. It's all about exactly who is in the pool, not how many.
I am sorry man, but you make the EU seem like a third world country. They are right with us in per capita income. They do quite well, and the reason they don't have 2 cars is mostly due to 1. Not needing them (public transportation rocks over there). And 2. Because gas prices are crazy.
And they invest a lot in markets, it is just that America still remains the best place to invest.
In a lot of ways I could actually make the argument that they are much freer and have a higher standard of living than we do here.
But back to insurance.
People need to realize that this should be looked at as a whole. How much do we spend as a nation (total) right now in healthcare, and how much if we stay put will we be paying for it in 10 years. This is not insurance costs you make, but the country as a whole.
If instead of loophole after loophole allowing the insurance companies to push off their burden and place it onto us (via the government) it is still costing us that money, it is now just a hidden cost.
Instead wouldn't it be better to track the costs of our healthcare by having everyone with insurance, and not be kicked off when they get too expensive causing bankruptcies that we pay for, and extra emergency room costs, that get put into the peoples premiums that have insurance or written off on the end of year paperwork as a loss that is placed on the tax payer?
The reason why this insurance plan being enforced is that if we all pool the money (even if in different private companies) to cover the care, then the costs are mitigated over the entire population.
And seriously people look again when you piss and moan about illegal immigrants being able to buy health insurance to pay for themselves.
I mean do you have issue with foreigners being able to put money into our stock market? How about when they buy our cars? Or food? I mean should we stop all exports that foreigners pay for, because we want to become an alienated nation? So why does it matter if these people pay into the insurance pool? Look at it as a service that they would be paying for. That money does not hurt you at all, and in fact ends up putting even more mitigation into the system. This would allow you to pay less, because if they get sick and use the emergency room, we pay.