1 in 5 adult Americans under age 65 is under-insured for health care

I will offer that the issue is not that everyone has access to affordable insurance -- Rather -- that everyone has access to healthcare. We created a health insurance industry nearly 40 years ago and it was one of the most devastating mistakes this country has ever made.

As to the more than 48,000,000 in this country without adequate healthcare access, someone like Balano would read off of his "conservative" talking points that they do in fact have coverage via the Emergency Room and other nonsense. When one relies on the Emergency Room as their Primary Care provider, the situation has resulted in a medical crisis. Add to the fact that these Emergencies are the number one cause for bankrupcy's in this country, and you have a self-perpetuating failure of a healthcare system.

On a side note:
I find it assinine that someone like Balano would even suggest that his opinion of anyone's political leanings, were as certain as someone's eye color. Did you make that one up all by yourself?

" Now libs want socialized medicine. I ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”"

The thing is, neither Obama nor Clinton are pushing for "socialized medicine."

The issue is ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance -- and we, collectively, in the form of the government, are in a uniquely qualified position to deliver health insurance to those that the for-profit insurance industry will not cover.

This isn't "socialized medicine" -- it's simply an insurance safety net for the worst off who can't afford any better. You and I will still be able to buy our own privately insured plans if we think we're getting more bang for the buck, just like folks using food stamps to keep from starving don't preclude you and I from shopping for the food we want at the grocery store.

This sort of collective aid (witness Medicare and Social Security as prime examples) is what has enabled America to have one of the world's highest standards of living.

as for plaintive cry, "The government wouldn’t have to borrow if it would only SPEND LESS!" I can only point, once again, to the $860 billion we've spent on Iraq and Afghanistan -- all borrowed, while at the same time cutting taxes.

Something is really wrong with that math.

Do you really read what I write before replying?

I don’t think you do or you would know that I also do not like the idea of borrowing in order to spend. I criticize both democrats and republicans for this practice although dems perfected the concept from the 1960’s to 1994. I do acknowledge that the GOP has been at least as bad the last several years.

The government wouldn’t have to borrow if it would only SPEND LESS! There is plenty of money collected to more than cover the duties as enumerated in the constitution plus many other things like highways and education.

The continuation of so many failed social programs and the invention of new ones together with ear marks and pork barrel spending constitute the black hole where OUR money disappears. Now libs want socialized medicine. I ask, “How are we going to pay for it?” Shall we borrow? I say no.

By the way; I don’t label anyone anything. “Liberal” is not a label. It is just a word that describes a person’s point of view. It is not intended to be pejorative any more than describing the color of your eyes or hair.

Of course I think my point of view is correct. You do you. So does everyone who has an opinion. I just think the things that liberalism embraces are bad for the country. Socialism is a theory that has failed in practice everywhere it has been tried. Who really wants to live in Cuba? Not me. I bet you don’t either. I think government should be smaller not larger. I the power should be with the people not with some government program. I believe in what is great about this country and what is good about its people and disagree with those who tell the world that this is a bad country.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

If there were a scorecard being kept on the arguments between Interface and Balano, it would be a shut out in favor of Interface.

It's easy to label anyone who disagrees with Balano's view a "Liberal".

In Balano's world, he is right and everyone else is wrong. There is little or no room for middle ground.

Where the bugbear is the oh-so-frightening "liberal," and Ross can always come up with another way to borrow money to avoid paying the bill now -- because once he's borrowed it, it's no longer his problem.

However, in the real world, bills do come due, and we can't just keep borrowing money left and right to pay for all those "socialized" services we invest in as a nation -- services like roads and unemployment aid and education and law enforcement and defense, to name a few.

When we are borrowing more money than ever before at the same time that we're cutting taxes, then yes, Virginia, we are indeed financing a tax cut

It's no different than maxing out our credit card by taking out cash advances so we can feel flush for a bit. It may feel great for a bit -- but it's delusional.

There's nothing remotely "conservative" about the borrow and spend approach Ross advocates. It's the height of fiscal irresponsibility -- and we can't blame some impersonal "government" for it, because in this great democracy of ours, the government is none other than "We, the people."

Sure, it's our money -- but unfortunately for Ross's worldview, it's also our debt. To continue to undermine our economic security, as Ross advocates (and as the Bush administration has practiced), is to undermine our national security.

The remarks by Interface illustrate the difference between liberals and conservatives.

Interface believes that all the money belongs to the government. The government knows best what to do with the money WE earn. Only the government has the right to allocate that money as they see fit. We should depend on the government to supply all of our needs because the average person is too stupid to do it for their self. Therefore, when we mention a tax cut he asks, “How are we going to pay for it?” A liberal such as Interface will never ask, “How are we going to pay for it” when it concerns new spending, say socialized health care. There is never a problem asking we who produce to get by with a little less in our bank accounts.

I, taking a conservative view point, believe that WE, the people who earn the money, should be able to keep most of it to do with as we wish as long as it is within the law. We see the money that is earned as our money, some of which we are obligated to turn over to the government to be used for the common good; defense of the country, law enforcement etc… We believe that, for a change, it is the government who should get by with a bit less spending.

When we talk of tax cuts, it is not something that the government has to pay for because it is not the government’s money in the first place. WE earn it! To want to keep a bit more of it is not unreasonable. Tax cuts are not a government program that must be administered. No contractors are hired and no equipment needs to be bought. It is simply US getting to keep more of what we earn. It is not a payout. Especially when you take into account that the result of every tax cut since Kennedy (yes I said Kennedy) in 1962 has resulted in increased revenue flowing into the treasury. Don’t take my word for it, go ahead and google it.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

how you'll dismiss an adjustment for inflation simply because it undermines your myth that tax cuts pay for themselves.

It's likewise amusing that in the midst of your silly invective against those boogeymen "liberals," you raise that very question that is at the heart of my point below: “How are we going to pay for it?”

Indeed. We're stuck in a nasty hole where a greater and greater part of our budget is being directed to financing the loans we're taking out to pay for tax cuts without having to shoulder any of the costs of Iraq, Afghanistan, Medicare, our transportation infrastructure, education, bailouts of Bear Stern, and so on and so forth.

Whatever happened to "pay as you go"? This "borrow and spend" approach that we've become addicted to will have to end, and we will have to cinch our collective belt.

All the mindless right-wing self-delusion in the world won't change that.

If your balloon is helium, Ross, it must have sprung a leak.

If the IRS numbers don’t prove to you that tax cuts increased revenues then there’s nothing else that will. You obviously don’t care about truth but only about spouting your liberal talking points.

You keep saying that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves. That is the most disturbing part of the liberal mind set. You act as though that money belongs to the government. They did nothing to earn it. That is OUR money and the idea that the government should be able to take more and more of it is totally wrong. Tax cuts don’t need to be paid for. It is US getting to KEEP more of what we earn.

Why do liberals never ask the same question of social programs? You want universal health care? How about asking, “How are we going to pay for it?” The question never gets asked when it comes to spending, only when we ask to keep more of our money.

Tax less and spend less, that’s the key to growing the economy.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

Ross, cut through all your balderdash, and what it comes down to is that you have no counter to the facts that (a) lowering taxes doesn't increase revenue -- i.e., tax cuts simply don't pay for themselves, and (b) our tax burden isn't going away anytime soon, in large part because of the utterly irresponsible deficit spending under Bush's tenure, spending that has pushed the national debt sky high. "Borrow and spend" only serves to dig ourselves even deeper into the economic hole in which we find ourselves.

There's nothing "liberal" about exposing the utter lack of substance (other than pure wishful thinking) of supply side economics. Lowering taxes doesn't increase revenue any more than perpetual motion machines are the solution to the energy crisis.

I suppose yours is the tired right-wing rant of facts "having a liberal bias."

as for the question you pose:

"Please tell me how [taxing oil companies] will lower the price of gas or increase supply."

It won't. Nothing will lower the price of gas or increase supply of the dwindling oil reserves to keep up with the ever-growing demand (China and India aren't going away, and demand from the rest of the world only continues to grow). All taxing oil companies can do is divert some of the windfall the oil companies are getting towards developing alternative energy sources and towards developing infrastructure change (e.g., better mass transit) that will enable our economy to continue to function and thrive in a world with spiraling energy costs. Such a move is vital to our national and economic security.

You are spinning so fast that you are making the entire blog dizzy and I’m not your son.

Don’t give me all your “inflation corrected” numbers. REAL numbers show that tax revenues were $519,375,273.00 when Reagan was elected and $1,013,332,133.00 the year he left office. That is pretty near double the way I see it. Those figures are right off the IRS web site.

Also, keep in mind that the economy was reeling from the failed policies of Jimmy Carter. Things were really in bad shape then (18% mortgage rates, 8% unemployment, gas lines) and it took Reagan and his tax cuts to bring us back to prosperity.

Those same tax cuts, especially lowering the capital gains tax rate, spurred new investment; mostly the dot com industry which largely fueled the economy of the 90’s that Clinton gets so much credit for. To look at revenues as a percentage of GDP is misleading any time but especially during the 90’s. The dot com boom produced so much that it virtually exploded the GDP. So it wasn’t that revenues went down but rather the GDP up. It’s like the same size slice of a much larger pie.

Remember; you don't pay for tax cuts, it's just us getting to keep more of what we earn.

Clinton also benefitted from the fact that Republicans took over congress and insisted on and got major cuts in social spending. Remember welfare reform? For some reason none of those dire predictions we heard back then ever came true.

Republicans in congress held to the concepts of the “Contract with America” for several years and then began to spend money the in same reckless way that their predecessors had done. It ultimately cost them congress as it will eventually cost the Dems in a future election.

Excuse me if I don’t trust anyone’s projections of what will happen. The same projections said we would go bust under Reagan and said that the Clinton economy had changed the way we look at things forever. The NASDAQ was going to 10,000 they told us then.

My balloon is not filled with hot air but rather helium. I want prosperity; to go upward, not down. Less taxes and less government is the way to accomplish that.

It always amazes me how the liberal idea of how to deal with anything is to tax it. Now they want more taxes on the oil companies. Please tell me how that will lower the price of gas or increase supply. Those tired old ideas just don't work.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

"Our problem is, and always has been, too much spending."

And if you cut taxes without reining in spending, counting on borrowing to keep government afloat, yes, Virginia, you're financing those tax cuts for nothing other than political expediency.

as to your mindless recitation of the supply side dogma that "when tax rates have been lowered more revenue flows to the treasury," that just ain't so, son.

Here's some commentary from the Wall Street Journal online:

July 11, 2006, 4:30 pm
Do Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves?
Not if you read the fine print in the new White House midsession review of budget trends. “While difficult to estimate precisely,” Treasury long-run analyses of the effects of President Bush’s tax cuts “may ultimately” raise total national output of goods and services by 0.7%.

So is that enough to pay for the tax cuts, even after allowing them to work their economic magic over the next 10 years? The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities, a Washington think tank and advocacy group that is distinctly unfriendly to Bush fiscal policies, says it isn’t. “A 0.7 percent increase in the economic output that the Congressional Budget Office has projected for 2016 would represent an additional $146 billion [in gross domestic product],” it says. “If new revenues equaled as much as 20% of the additional output, the increase in revenues resulting from making the tax cuts permanent (assuming Treasury’s best-case assumptions) would be $29 billion.”

That’s a lot of money. But how does it compare to the size of the president’s tax cuts? The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, using conventional analyses, says making the president’s tax cuts permanent would reduce federal revenues in 2016 by $314 billion. That is more than 10 times what the Treasury analysis suggests tax cuts would generate by prompting more hours of work, more savings and investment and more efficient use of resources. –David Wessel

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2006/07/11/do-tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves/

The National Center for Policy Analysis addresses the myth that Reagan tax cuts led to increased revenue (an idea that defies common sense for most folks anyhow):

http://www.ncpa.org/iss/bud/2002/pd020402a.html

this site gives an in-depth overview of the impacts of tax cuts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_cut

"President Reagan's tax cuts were indeed followed by increased growth and substantial job creation. However, real (inflation-corrected) tax revenues dropped from 1981 to 1983 and did not surpass their 1981 level until 1985 (as shown in Table 1.3 in the Historical Tables of the 2006 U.S Budget). [1] Even this recovery was arguably helped by the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the Social Security Amendments of 1983, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, all of which were estimated to have a positive effect on revenues. [2] In addition, the federal deficit grew from 2.6% of GDP in 1981 to 6.0% of GDP in 1983. It began shrinking steadily after 1992, becoming a surplus in 1998. However, this was after tax bills in 1990 and 1993 which raised the top marginal tax rate."

Good graphs here:
http://members.tripod.com/~zzpat/graphs.htm

"Receipts during the Reagan years increased by $310 billion and by $870.8 billion under Mr. Clinton. This chart show a sharp and steady increase in revenue under Mr. Clinton which may have helped him return us to fiscal responsibility.

Two conservative myths bite the dust in this category. First, tax increases do NOT decrease revenue and tax cuts do not increase revenue more than tax increases. Conservatives [like poor Ross Balano] also argue Mr. Reagan doubled revenue. This is NOT correct."

And some more on Reagan's tax cuts:

http://home.netcom.com/~rdavis2/taxcuts.html

"The argument that the near-doubling of revenues during Reagan's two terms proves the value of tax cuts is an old argument. It's also extremely flawed. At 99.6 percent, revenues did nearly double during the 80s. However, they had likewise doubled during EVERY SINGLE DECADE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! They went up 502.4% during the 40's, 134.5% during the 50's, 108.5% during the 60's, and 168.2% during the 70's. At 96.2 percent, they nearly doubled in the 90s as well. Hence, claiming that the Reagan tax cuts caused the doubling of revenues is like a rooster claiming credit for the dawn.

Furthermore, the receipts from individual income taxes (the only receipts directly affected by the tax cuts) went up only 91.3 percent during the 80's. Meanwhile, receipts from Social Insurance, which is directly affected by the FICA tax rate, went up 140.8 percent. This large increase was largely due to the fact that the FICA tax rate went up 25% from 6.13 to 7.65 percent of payroll. Hence, the claim that the doubling of TOTAL revenues proves the effectiveness of tax cuts is including revenues which resulted from a tax hike to prove the effectiveness of a tax cut. This seems like the height of hypocrisy.

Hence, what evidence there is suggests there to be a correlation between lower taxes and LOWER revenues, not HIGHER revenues as suggested by supply-siders. There may well be valid arguments in favor of tax cuts. But higher tax revenues does not appear to be one of them."

Ross's hot air balloon looks a bit deflated now, doesn't it?

Sometimes I cannot believe what I read! Two points:

First, nobody borrows to finance tax cuts. Tax cuts are not a government black hole program that requires funding and bureaucracy. Tax cuts are simply the government letting us, the tax payer, keep more of the money WE earn. To say that the government has to “pay for tax cuts” insinuates that the money belongs to the government and they are passing it out to us. That is not the case. That might be the way liberals want it but we aren’t there yet.

Second, and you can look it up if you want, when tax rates have been lowered more revenue flows to the treasury. During the Reagan years the top tax rate was cut by over half yet revenues to the treasury doubled. Revenues went way up in the wake of the Bush tax cuts.

Our problem is, and always has been, too much spending. I’m not blaming one party either because the GOP has been just as bad as the Dems. To add to social spending is a bad idea at any time but especially during slow economic times.

One additional note; health insurance is tied to employment BECAUSE of taxes. Years ago, employers trying to balance demands for more wages from employees with burdensome taxes found that they could provide “benefits” like health care to employees in lieu of actual payroll dollars. That was agreeable to the employees yet saved matching tax dollars and work comp insurance premiums that are tied to payroll for the employer.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

My point is that the reason we're in this fiscal mess right now is because the Bush administration and a bend-over-and-take-it Congress, instead of paying for the costs of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of government (I don't see Americans wanting us to chuck Medicare, Social Security, or the Interstate Highway System), instead borrowed, borrowed, and borrowed even more to finance tax cuts. If you're in a hole over your head, you don't dig deeper and expect to get out anytime soon.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Lets add to the Six Trillion we have spent already on social welfare programs since LBJ (and you weenies are still whinning) but lets not spend one damn dime on defense....

Oh how typical, "the Government can solve all my problems, because I am so helpless......."

Wake up, most Americans want the government just to get the hell out of our way! You want socialized health care, move your sorry butts to Canada!

Pardon me while I go puke up this leftist crap.

"With over 300 million Americans being overtaxed we must find a solution to the tax problem."

$860 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan -- all borrowed. I don't see taxes going away anytime soon. I do see our tax dollars being wasted on servicing the debt because the Bush administration and a lapdog Congress chose to borrow to finance tax cuts in the middle of a war for the first time in our nation's history.

If you want to blame someone for our tax burden, you need look no further than the current administration and its 8 years of dismantling our once prosperous economy.

She's right. Middle-income Americans are bearing the brunt of rising health care costs. We pay for the folks on Medicare, Medicaid and government payrolls, we chip in for indigent care and we pay more every year for our own insurance and health care. We hang onto our jobs for dear life, because of the risk of joining the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured that Denise talks about. And we life in fear of someone in the family developing a "pre-existing" condition that will jeopardize their ability to get a decent policy in the future.

The concept of tying health care to employment doesn't work any longer. We need a system that will offer people security.

So 10% of income is the threshold where we should begin to worry huh?

Why does that apply only to health care insurance? Why not to taxes? How many people in this country are forced to give up way more than 10% of their total income to various federal, state, county and city taxes? Then throw in sales taxes and excise taxes and tell me who gets off for anywhere near 10%?

Perhaps we should lower all taxes and let people keep more of their money so that they could more easily pay for their own insurance.

With over 300 million Americans being overtaxed we must find a solution to the tax problem.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008

See according to the Libs, and their fellow travelers in the Lame Stream media, not only do we have 40 million UNinsured Americans, we now have an additonal 25 million who are UNDERinsured. Folks that is a grand total of 65 million Americans with their FOOT IN THE GRAVE!!

Now the rest of you selfish sobs had best be prepared to accept health care, ran by the Government! If you loved the response to Katrina, or if you love going to the DMV, you will absolutely be enthralled with Obama Care!

Pardon me Denise, but I think most of us would prefer to struggle along with what we have. BTW, might I suggest you move to Canada where they have exactly the system you are seeking? I understand the wait for a cat scan is now down to only six months.

Yap yap yap - yada yada yada. The 'Commonwealth Fund' is simply the latest in a long line of liberal organs, well known to everyone, to be yapped about on here. Congratulations. Well done. Good party girl. You've done your sad part pitching the 'underinsured' angle so that Barack can try to build for his socialist state where everyone is insured for FREE. At my expense, of course.

To those of you who think this way - DROP DEAD.