Comments on: Why Is Obama Taxing Insurance Companies More While Telling Them Bring Down Cost Or Government Will Take Over?

By: shortbus

shortbus — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:23:43 +0000

he is a marxist and wanna be dictator

By: RED

RED — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:54:05 +0000

Well, you could go work for the government. Plenty of jobs there.

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:42:55 +0000

Because you live in the Lieville district of Fantasyland.

By: dukemack

dukemack — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:53:44 +0000

Beacause he made deals with all the others that drive up costs (drug makers, hospitals, med assoc.) or is afraid to tackle them (lawyers).

By: Herald

Herald — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:17:14 +0000

He is taxing them as punishment for their despicable profits, and since their profits will be higher once they bring down costs in response, the revenue will increase accordingly. Makes perfect sense … to a leftist.

By: Too Full

Too Full — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:34:41 +0000

if you would just nationalize the insuring companies and the rest of the
private ENTERPRISES
~would this not be like the USSR before the Fall of Communism?
Maybe you have a valid point~~Comrade?

By: Teresa

Teresa — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:32:19 +0000

The insurance companies have been robbing the American people for years and now we are supposed to feel sorry for them because they are getting a tax increase? Taxes get increased for everyone and if they need to save money ask them to give smaller bonuses next year.

By: Cheeta

Cheeta — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:50:14 +0000

This is why Republicans do not want to tax because when you tax companies it always rolls over onto the consumer…and the dems know that, they just dont care …they like to have money to spend an all their pork.
Clinton got all this credit for balancing out out budget..when it was Reganomics that did that…
Clinton is responsible for allowing the sub-prime home mortage lending I dont have the link but there is a youtube video with President Bush addressing how they needed to do something about it and Barney Frank saying there is no problem and we will never need to borrow money from the govt…Barney Frank needs to go!!!!!!!!
McCain aslo tried to do something about it, but was blocked by the dems…
This is the real fleecing of america…the media has pulled the wool over the eyes of america…that why I switched to FOX news…they tell the truth..

By: B

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:39:24 +0000

Every company pays taxes. The higher the profits the more taxes they pay. They make obscene profits so they must pay higher taxes. The profits for the top 10 publicly traded health Insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007. I don’t think anyone feels sorry for the taxes they have to pay.

By: Big Brodie

Big Brodie — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:25:16 +0000

The federal government isn’t as bloated as you think. It is heavily in debt and paying a lot of interest. You should take a good hard look at what the federal government does for you before you are so quick to condemn it for following through on its promises and responsibilities.
Chances are your schools would close without their federal funding.
Milk, cheese, and other dairy products would become scarce.
Military veterans suffering both physical and mental damage are getting the care they need hopefully minimizing the risk of another incident like the one in Austin, TX back in the 1960s.
Now let’s look at these insurance companies. I would hazard to guess that 90% of Americans have no idea how an insurance company works, you included.
All insurance companies are financial corporations that are built on probability and chance. They take money from us gambling that we will never need it back and then once they have it they gamble again by loaning out that money on a variety of endeavors. Some high risk-high yield and some low risk-low yield. No matter how it plays out there is always a yield. Insurance companies make money at both ends so to be a stockholder in a stockholder is a wonderful thing because you are all that matters to that company.
The day the insurance company lose their bets that company ceases to exist. That was the problem with AIG. Taxation had no bearing on the fall of AIG.
Now there are some insurance companies that are sure things like health care insurance companies. They gamble on healthy people and when they get wind of somebody that is not so healthy well… the unhealthy person is jettisoned one way or another. They also strong arm doctors and hospitals accept what they get. Some companies are so powerful they can dictate to a doctor that they have the ability to pull 70% to 80% of their patients if they don’t cooperate or they can send more patients to them that they have at the rates the Insurance Company will pay and everybody makes money.
Bottom line, they have a steady stream of income coming from their clients, usually every week, biweekly, or monthly depending on how their clients get paid, and they have a steady stream coming from their investment yields. There is so much money coming in that after all the claims have been paid they can pay their CEOs and other executive officers over $10 million… each. After the bosses get paid there is still enough money left over to mail out sweet dividend checks to stockholders… but wait… there’s still millions left over to buy the influence of members of Congress through their lobbyists.
That means that precious few jobs in their industry will be destroyed. Sure they might dump some employees at the low end. Work the guys in the mailroom a little harder, data entry clerks will have to put in more hours. They can double the taxes on Insurance Companies and I assure you that the Insurance Companies won’t catch the damage you think. These companies are super top heavy with management and a CEO making $12 million a year will not give up his assistant making $90K a year or his secretary making $50K. Neither will the CFO or Chief Counsel making $8 million a year. They also will not give up the company car, the company expense accounts, or the home paid for by the company. They can scale back on all those perks and cover any tax increase the federal government can throw at them and look like heroes. Do you have any idea what a corporate jet complete with flight crew and maintenance team cost per year? Flying these guys first class on any airline would cover the increase in taxes.
What the insurance companies will do is dump their low end employees, replace them with temps, and then have their lobbyists or public relations firms put out how the tax increases put these people out of work. Keep in mind they need these people, they are lubricant of their machine but Pennzoil can be easily replaced by Quaker State. The low end employees are totally expendable and dumping a couple hundred clerks and janitors will put a lot of heat on elected officials. Nobody will hear about hiring the temps. Fox News would cover that story.
Unless you are a major stockholder you have no say over how an insurance covers you but your “bloated” government is totally accountable to you, and if you feel that the government is not then that is totally your fault. You abdicated your responsibility as a citizen.