Goodbye Joe the Plumber. Meet Dr. Ben Carson

[OmahaBlueDog]

Look forward to seeing this "common sense" solution to all that ails us. Bible, flat tax, and health savings accounts. It's all here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323452204578292302358207828.html

Late in his talk he dropped two very un-PC ideas. The first is an unusual case for a flat tax: "What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

"We don't necessarily have to do 10% but it's the principle. He didn't say if your crops fail, don't give me any tithe or if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 billion, you put in a billion. You make $10 you put in one. Of course you've got to get rid of the loopholes. Some people say, 'Well that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made 10.' Where does it say you've got to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs."

Not surprisingly, a practicing physician has un-PC thoughts on health care:

"Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed—pretax—from the time you're born 'til the time you die. If you die, you can pass it on to your family members, and there's nobody talking about death panels. We can make contributions for people who are indigent. Instead of sending all this money to some bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care. And very quickly they're going to learn how to be responsible

Look forward to seeing this one in e-mail forwards and on Facebook.

[pkdu]

1. "We can make contributions for people who are indigent"...

Who is this "we" this asshole speaks of?...and as any idea what decent healthcare costs? 99of working families would be bankrupt in a few short years.

A colleague of mine had a daughter delivered after a difficult pregnancy 7 years ago...the top lie bill to the insurance co.?..$ 330,000 , and only one day bed rest after the birth.

[OmahaBlueDog]

5. Yup

Thing 1 - Insurance doesn't pay that top line figure due to their large scale purchasing power. It's one of the ironies of health care -- it's about the only area of commerce where the cash buyer pays more -- a lot more.

Thing 2 - The only thing I agreed with the GOP on with the Obamacare negotiations: something has to be done to reduce malpractice insurance costs related to OB/GYNs and Neurosurgeons. It's a sizable cost driver. One simple solution (used in many other lines of insurance) would be a reinsurance fund just for their malpractice that would limit carrier exposure and make their costs more reasonable.

Thing 3 - There's a sizable group out there that does not believe that health care is a right, but a privilege that should only be available to those who've earned it (e.g. the 1%ers).

[2naSalit]

2. So...

after a HSA has been created at a bank, when the kid break his leg playing football or skiing or is found to have cancer at age ten, he will likely find that there are insufficient funds in that acct and he will then go untreated because the banking death panel will deny him the funds, even though it's his money. Yeah, I think single payer is the only answer but there will probably have to be a civil war to get it. It's still the "trust us, we're the bankers!" meme.

[golfguru]

6. HSA can pay for your health insurance premiums

so if your kid breaks his leg, the insurance will cover it. HSA is for paying what the health insurance DOES NOT PAY,
such as deductibles or non covered items such dental care, eye care etc.

I had HSA for 12 years when I worked full time, and it was a money saver.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. HSA's are the dumbest idea for health care coverage that I have ever heard about.

Most of us would never be able to accumulate enough money in one, even if we work every day of our lives, to cover one major health problem. Seems to me that doctors like this one will have to cut their costs dramatically, along with all the hospitals and testing facilities, to be affordable. Is he ready to do that? What is he prepared to do for the people who do not have enough in the HSA to cover the costs? And there is always the newborn who does not have money in the HSA that was created at birth who has problems. HSA's will only work for people who do not need them, like Rush Limbaugh, who can afford to pay whatever it costs out of pocket without having insurance.

And as to the flat tax, I don't think that anyone has ever said that we should be "hurting" people with taxes....well, except for the flat tax proponents.

[OmahaBlueDog]

4. Exactly

..but the theory is that if we stopped with all of the evil socialist health insurance, and simply paid cash, he costs of these procedures would come down. One argument along these lines goes "veterinarians charge nothing like what people are charged for comparable procedures on anmials. "

Here is the reality: Procedures like heart bypass, knee replacement, cancer surgery, etc. would:

a) only be available in the US to the upper 5%.
b) might be available to the upper middle class if they chose to travel to places like India or Costa Rica to get the work done.
c) would be unavailable to the rest of us.

An uncomplicated birth, with an epidural, costs about as muc as a good-quality used car. Any complication adds a minimum multiplier of 3. I the baby ends up in the NICU, the figure can easily soar to six figures.

HSAs do benefit people with a chronic condition, like diabetes or asthma, by allowing co-pays, lab work, and consumables to be purchased with pre-tax money. It also benefits those with larger-deductible, major-medical type plans.

[Bigredhunk]

7. I've heard of this guy before

There was that Cuba Gooding movie on TNT a couple years ago. I noticed he had some books out too.

I don't care about a prayer breakfast. I casually clicked on the link on HP (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/national-prayer-breakfast-2013-watch-live_n_2637887.html#slide=2074218) and was shocked to see the comments section being 99% trolled by teahadists who are now in love with this guy (the "We're not racists...there's a black guy here" - crowd). His crappy pull yourself up by the bootstraps/government aid ruins the lives of the poor books shot up the charts on Amazon yesterday.