Social Security,Medicare,Medicaid WHO is telling the truth? and who is lying? and Budget cuts!!

reply to post by dawnstar

it should be spread around by a more equal pay system, ya some people should be paid more than others, but not that much more, and before anyone is paid that much more in a company, there shouldn't be anyone in the company qualifying for the gov't handouts!!

Perhaps if you had halfway competent communication skills, I could discern what it is you are referring to.

Some people should be paid more than others - okay... how much more? When I am designing and servicing the power grid that the entire region relies upon; a job that requires technical and practical expertise... how much more should I get paid than the dishwasher in the back of a restaurant?

oh, ya, and as far as who builds the machines, ummm
that would be people like my husband, and like I said, his bosses aren't rich, and well, they lost money last year....
most of the small machine shops aren't doing too well...

Does that really change my point?

I made two points - placing industry into the perspective of the overall functional economy (and whether or not a particular business is doing well or not is not all that relevant to the point) - and that the 'rich' invest in starting businesses and purchasing machines. Your husbands' employers have loans, or stock holders who subsidized the start of the business and the expansion of the business. Some rich people head out on their own with their own resources - others simply find those with some ambition.

I doubt if there's any more fraud in medicare than there is in those defense contracts, or any other aspect of the gov't, or society at that matter

You doubt? Or you know?

Defense spending fraud is far more difficult to get away with. Waste is easy.

While you have no experience with the military, I do. So let me correct you where you have been found wanting.

Each command works on a command budget. Each CO gets a certain amount of money appropriated each year for various expenses. They can move some around in some cases - but they get a certain amount they can spend. However, since the military budget is a 'use it or lose it' system, commands that run under-budget are selected to have their budget reduced for the next year so that the funds can be diverted to another command that is in need of a larger budget. This leads to commands spending their maximum allowed for the budget on anything and everything they can find after taking care of their needs. This is to prevent their budget from being cut the following year, and encountering larger expenses than normal and having to pull teeth in order to get a larger budget.

There is also waste in the form of contractors. Civilian contractors were repairing Gulf Port even though it was staffed by hundreds of active-duty Construction Battalion. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Or how we would hire janitorial services for buildings used in training thousands of trainees annually.

I was singling out medicare because it was part of this discussion.

Whenever I say we need to make changes to spending - I mean all government spending. No pet projects. Everything gets to be assailed by my logic.

and well, at least I hear about people getting nailed for that fruad!!! where's the arrests for the fraud that took place in the housing scam????
oh, it isn't fraud if it's a rich buddy of someone in office????

You didn't even hear about the fraud until I linked to a story following agents being tasked with hunting down this form of fraud. The task forces are akin to beating back the tide with a fishing pole. They catch some people, but not all. It's the same with every task force assigned to investigating other crimes. The housing market could be considered a "scam" - but most of that is due to the Federal Reserve and consumer demand.

reply to post by desert

Thinking like the above demanded govt fingers off what remained of FDR's New Deal and what Reagan saw as a nemesis, Medicare. There was always an element of the Republican Party that wanted to do away with such things, calling it socialism/communism. With political support, citizen dollars for these programs could then flow to private business. And, yes, the way to do that was to "drown govt", in order to have no money to spend on such things. That is no conspiracy.

Enlighten me. Where is this money being funneled into private businesses from the government?

Be forewarned - I am engineering the next several posts.

Originally posted by Aim64C
Where is this money being funneled into private businesses from the government?

An overview.

My neighbor was showing me recently on his computer the govt grants his business is lining up. He was telling me how sick and tired he is of hearing for years his fellow Republican business owners bitch about govt spending, yet fall all over each other to get govt contracts. These are contracts for hundreds of thousands of $ to over $1 million.

reply to post by Aim64C


I got to thinking, you may have meant specifically SS and Medicare dollars going to business. Rep Ryan wants Medicare vouchers to be given to ins co's; he took privatizing SS off the table, leaving it for another time. What he promised for SS investment, however, sounded too good to be true, even to business analysts.

Pres Obama already gave away tax $ to the ins co's as his contribution to health care payment reform.

reply to post by neo96
Exactly, you didn't have private insurance you were in a group plan and as you said workmens comp and cobra. That is on the same order as the Patients healthcare reform act. PLease don't tell me to read the healthcare bill because I have. Basically the reform isn't healthcare reform, it's health insurance reform and it pools the insurers. Yes it gives the insurers a captive new group of clients but in exchange it does provide insurance at a drastically lower premium rate. According to the tables which are included in the bill a family of four earning $30,000.00 per year can get insurance for only $600.00 per year or $50.00 per month. That is a good deal by any measure. Many doctors are in favor of this because now they can practice preventitive medicine instead of having to practice crysis medicine.

Sorry for intruding,just thought I would bring a fresh look at this to the table
Richc

reply to post by Aim64C


contrary to what you believe, not every small business out there has a rich silent buisness partner sittiing back doling out the money.....
the company I work was pretty much debt free till one of my bosses retired this year....
and, my husband's boss sold his vacation home last year to prop his company up....
so well, where are all those rich people, funding the companies that making the machines?? the machine shops and tool and die makers......the ones who make the machines, and makes the tools and such for those machines, well, that has been a pretty sick industry in this country for decades now!!

Every time the gov't decides to revamp healthcare, expand schips, ect......well, the insurance companies get a nice windfall of taxpayer money. and, then shortly after, you read of all their top level managers getting salary increases, big bonuses.......and then well, they soon hike up the premiums.....
I'd wages ten to one, that there's quite a few clerks, secretaries, ect on these insurance companies payrolls, who have their kids on the schips program!!! now, if they have a that much left over for their managers to get million dollar bonuses, I'm sorry, but they have the money to pay those secretaries, clerks and such enough so that they can afford to insure their kids through the compnay that they work for!!!

and, I remember hearing about people getting busted for welfare fraud decades ago!!! happens alot really....
where's the arrest warrents for the fraud that was involved in the latest real estate scam???
hasn't happened, won't happen!!!

trickle down economics was a nice experiment that well, has helped get us to where we are now!!!
the money doesn't drip down, but well, if you can position yourself right, you can get a nice full stream, otherwise, well, be glad if you get a few drips!!

and, if you don't like the way I post, well, I guess you don't have to read them, what the heck, I tend to rush through them alot of times early in the morning in the short time I have before I end up rushing to work. what can I say, I don't have a cushy office job where I can sit and post on forums via the office computer all day....like some obviously do on these boards!

reply to post by desert

My neighbor was showing me recently on his computer the govt grants his business is lining up.

What are those grants for, exactly?

It's not uncommon for a company to be given a grant to develop a solution -for- the government. The problem, then, is whether or not the government knows what a reasonable value for these grants is, or if the end result of the grant is even necessary.

For example - government grants to develop a better mouse trap would not be all that necessary unless we were having that big of a problem with rodents.

The question is: "what does government need" versus "what is of government interest" versus "what is of private interest?" Government backing for water-based coolants and solvents following federal restrictions and bans of oil-based industrial supplies would make sense - the government told industry they cannot use something they rely upon in our country, and will probably go out of business or be forced into breaking the law without a replacement that meets standards. Meanwhile - places like China keep on trucking with how they have been doing things.

There are many different factors to consider - and each case of funding is really just that - a case to be looked at. The problem is that this has become an issue handled by congress and congressional laws passed with tens or hundreds of pages of grant-funding.

I would ask, however, just where the funding for this comes from - in the scope of the U.S. Federal budget? www.whitehouse.gov...

www.nytimes.com...

Either one of those works... where does the funding for all of these grants come from?

The answer is not just one 'block' of funding - operations costs for the military are not just for the materials and equipment consumed - but also for civilian contractors who support the network systems, logistic systems, payroll, etc.

Indeed, even your own cited document makes this highly relevant statement:

This report also supplies a typology of the various means through which federal
agencies and activities have been privatized. The typology shows that privatization
is not an either/or proposition. Rather, privatization, as this report’s definition
implies, is a matter of degree. Policymakers may transfer to the private sector one
or more of the components of government provision of goods and services —
however many they deem appropriate.

To this extent - all forms of government spending are a form of privatization, spare for the payroll of government employees. The government doesn't -really- own factories, ore mines, power plants, etc. Medicare is one giant privatized system as the only 'mostly' government healthcare facilities are for defense purposes and personnel - the overwhelming majority of medicare spending goes to private practices and hospitals that are not owned or operated by government.

The military is much the same way. Take Northrop-Grumman, for example. While they have their own private business and markets - one of their larger markets is in providing solutions and service for defense (the military). Airmen and sailors aren't out there building F-16s and F-18s - they only do limited maintenance and repair.

Many businesses -only- work on government contracts and have no activity in the private sector. While they are privately owned and operated, all of their work is for the government.

In such a case, the question then should be asked: are they really private businesses?

The original concept of government contracts goes back to community needs. A town would need a bridge built or repaired - so they would take up a collection to hire a local bridge-builder (or someone(s) of the related technical expertise) to perform the work. Local gun-smiths would be contracted to supply arms to the militia. While some businesses will likely see more government contract offers than others - the businesses contracted met most of their expenses in the private sector.

When you have entire business enterprises that can exist solely on government contracts - it is less obvious what is really a private industry, and what isn't. If the contract is in a competitive market, where a company must compete with dozens for the contract - then it is more likely to pass on the benefits of competition to the government. However - if the contracts are stagnant, only a few competing companies with historic records of contract awards (Northrop rarely gets Air Force contracts; Lockheed hardly ever sees Navy contracts) - then there is little competition to actually benefit the government.

Since there isn't much of a private market for ICBMs and jet-fighters (or one that most people want to see - I think it would make the world quite an interesting place, myself) - it is natural that certain areas of government spending in today's world are going to go into companies that deal mostly/only in government contracts.

I got to thinking, you may have meant specifically SS and Medicare dollars going to business. Rep Ryan wants Medicare vouchers to be given to ins co's; he took privatizing SS off the table, leaving it for another time.

While a voucher system is not an inherently bad idea - the main problem with the medicare system, currently, is that it's guaranteed payment. The laws do not allow time for proper auditing of expenses before the money is already 'gone.'

I'm more of the opinion that the solution is to hand Medicare off to each state and let them handle it. That way each state can answer more specifically to the concerns and dynamics of their region. States with their own health care insurance plans can roll medicare into that. States without it can seek privatized forms or establish an entirely new idea for how to handle it.

Of course, it would mean "retirement states" would end up getting a bit of a raw deal - so no one is going to be happy no matter what we do with it.

reply to post by dawnstar

contrary to what you believe, not every small business out there has a rich silent buisness partner sittiing back doling out the money.....

The 'business partner' may simply be the bank that issued the loan. The point is - the capital for starting up a business is quite large - even if you're just setting up a run-of-the-mill restaurant. By comparison to personal and family expenses, that is.

so well, where are all those rich people, funding the companies that making the machines?? the machine shops and tool and die makers...

You're confusing start-up costs with operating costs.

the ones who make the machines, and makes the tools and such for those machines, well, that has been a pretty sick industry in this country for decades now!!

Kind of depends, really. Businesses in this market that have been underbidding for the sake of volume got hammered when volume demand dropped. The more solid businesses that never bid less than what it actually cost to run the quote for the contract have largely managed to keep their heads above water.

That said - American industry has been hit fairly hard in general. This is due to an unfavorable political climate combined with the rising costs of operating in the U.S. Also, a number of these industries are facing competition from abroad - though China can't touch American tooling in a competitive manner... but the lower number of tooling users in the U.S. does present a problem for our tooling industry.

Every time the gov't decides to revamp healthcare, expand schips, ect......well, the insurance companies get a nice windfall of taxpayer money. and, then shortly after, you read of all their top level managers getting salary increases, big bonuses.......and then well, they soon hike up the premiums.....

When are top level managers not getting salary increases or some kind of big bonus? I'm really curious.

When are insurance premiums not rising? Or, more succinctly - when have healthcare costs gone down (notice, I said healthcare costs, not premiums)?

The bonuses and/or increases in pay to the higher level managers of a company are nothing by comparison to the company's overall flow of capital. Healthcare costs have been on the rise for the past 100 years and expecting the trend to change of its own volition is pretty ignorant.

I'd wages ten to one, that there's quite a few clerks, secretaries, ect on these insurance companies payrolls, who have their kids on the schips program!!!

Of course you would, because employee records are confidential and protected under law - so the challenge is moot.

now, if they have a that much left over for their managers to get million dollar bonuses, I'm sorry, but they have the money to pay those secretaries, clerks and such enough so that they can afford to insure their kids through the compnay that they work for!!!

Why is someone having kids they obviously cannot afford? Insurance secretarial and clerk positions are, by no means, meager job positions.

It is not your employer's responsibility to manage your life and expenses.

I'll give you an example from the world of government employees:

When DFAS messes up and pays one of us military guys more than they should, and then decide to simply take it all out of our next pay check (by not giving us a paycheck) - the first lecture we get out of our seniors is this: "You are in charge of your own finances and career and ultimately responsible for it. No one else." In other words - we should have been looking at our LES and hopping on the phone to ask why we were getting far more than we normally are getting (or far less).

If Admin happens to lose our service record (happens more often than you would think) - same lecture. Sure - we'll ultimately get the issue resolved, but we are expected to manage our own lives.

When we are up for our yearly evaluation (impact on promotion eligibility) - we are expected to give a synopsis of our duties and accomplishments - not our seniors. The reasoning? Again - we are expected to manage our own lives and are responsible for our own careers. If we don't know what we did to support the command, how in the hell should someone else?

So, I'll reflect this back at you: People are in charge of their own lives and responsible for living within their own means. We can sit here and play the "someone's wages are unfair" game all day long. What do you want me to do about it? Point a gun at them and make them hand it over to someone I think to be in more need? Sure - I'm capable of being rather altruistic and not being consumed by greed. But will my successors of gun-pointing?

You are simply trading the perception of a cabal for the more tangible variety.

where's the arrest warrents for the fraud that was involved in the latest real estate scam???
hasn't happened, won't happen!!!

Perhaps you should explain this real-estate scam.

trickle down economics was a nice experiment that well, has helped get us to where we are now!!!

Experiments have controls and defined variables. To try and single out the cause of today's mess as any one government act is the pentacle of ignorance.

the money doesn't drip down, but well, if you can position yourself right, you can get a nice full stream, otherwise, well, be glad if you get a few drips!!

The problem is that Trickle Down economics was the philosophy that lower industry and income taxes would stir greater economic activity.

Why is that a problem?

Because you seem to think that it lead to disproportionate shares of capital wealth. Which makes no sense at all. Since taxes are graded on income - for someone to be getting that hideously and disproportionately wealthy off of 5% tax cuts or so is in complete ignorance of the primary capital flow that is 1900% greater than the value 'gained' through a 5% tax cut.

Thus, your pretense is hideously flawed.

reply to post by Aim64C
Thank you for your thoughtful response. However I am not sure of who is paying such high deductables and or premiums regard the Mass. reform law. According to a poll that was conducted in Mass. and published in the Washington post leading up to the mid term elections, those polled were asked do you think that your candidate( Brown or Coakley) should support the national effort for healthcare reform. The results were that around 50% of Brown supporters opposed Brown to support the national effort for HC Reform while around 48% favored Brown to support the nationa effort

Of Coakley around 90% Favored her to support the national while around 10% opposed
Non voters around 60% favor while around 40 opposed.

Now I don't put polls as an absolute indicator of popular trends but it does give us some insight as to what the residents of Mass are thinking.

You mention Health Savings accounts. I would like to learn more from you on this subject but on it's face it would seem to me that if people are having problems making deductable and or premiums then how could they save for health care emergencies? Again I would like to refer you to my wife's situation, her operation cost $100,000.00. Does a healthcare savings account cover that kind of expense.

Peace and Blessings
Richc

reply to post by marg6043
I to my postings.would like to thank you for your thoughtful response. I would like to begin by saying that I don't think that the national plan or the Mass. Plan is the best we can do for our citizens. I believe that a single payer system will work best for all Americans.

As far as Mass asking for a bail out. The articles that I have read on that subject say that they didn't have a long term problem it was because the bond rates were unfavable at that time and they wanted a short term stimulus to get them threw. But even if that were not the case and their HC reform was costing them big bucks let's look at what they had leading up to the reform.

In 1986 under GHW Bush the Federal Emtala law was passed whic require all hospital and emergerncy services to render service to anyone in need regardless of their leagal status or abilility to pay. The Mass response to this was to set up a fund(I can't remember the funds name) and this fund got it's revenue from the tax base and it only partially reimbursed these emergency service for their losses.

The Mass hc bill was enacted in 2006 and between 2007 and 2009 the expenditures for this fund which reimburses the HC providers for their losses went down by 38 to 40% according to the Mass division of Healthcare finace and policy. This information seems to show me that there is atleast a transfer of the expeditures from one funding source to another.

You asked me to tell you where in the National plan did I get my stats. I am not too computer savy so I will try to give you the links but if I fail there please go to wikipedia look up H.C. reform and scroll down to bottom until you get to the tables in there you will see everything that I mentioned.

This is a very important discussion because it speaks to what kind of a nation that we see ouselves as. I personally believe that Jesus was correct in teaching us that "What you do for the least of these you do for me also". "If a man is with out his coat give him your own" If he is without food feed him"

Exxon/Mobile earned 19 billion dollars in 2009 and didn't pay one dime in taxes and they got back $156,000,000.00 and they weren't alone the list is long for corporate welfare. Since they don't pay the taxes and we do shouldn't we get something for our money??

Neither the Mass plan or the fed plan is what I would have like to see but it's a start. We can build on it.

Peace and Blessings
Richc

Nothing will change long as politicians continue to ignore the people and do what corporations want them to.
We could argue all day long what needs to change or who is telling the truth, it would be a waste of time until we can force all the politicians to do the peoples bidding and not its puppet masters aka big corporations.

Originally posted by Echo007
Nothing will change long as politicians continue to ignore the people and do what corporations want them to.
We could argue all day long what needs to change or who is telling the truth, it would be a waste of time until we can force all the politicians to do the peoples bidding and not its puppet masters aka big corporations.

We no longer live in a Democratic Republic. Even though we have elections to supposedly determine who will represent the citizens; they are soon corrupted by money, sexual favors, tickets to the superbowl, pledges of even more campaign contributions in the future or promise of a good position when they leave politics. What we have in place now should best be described as a Fascist Corporate Oligarchy.

The disconnect that astonishes me is that conservatives want a return to strict Constitutionality and individual freedom, while at the same time giving the corporate Fascist like HMOs, insurance companies, big Pharma, more and more control. The insurance companies continue to raise their premium rates, kick you off the program when you get sick then deny legitimate claims.

At one time I had hoped that the Tea Party Movement might be an awakening of the people but the TPM currently seems to have been taken over by the psychotic and control freaks like the Koch bros.

Originally posted by richc
Again I would like to refer you to my wife's situation, her operation cost $100,000.00. Does a healthcare savings account cover that kind of expense.

I have enjoyed reading all your informative and heartfelt posts. No, I do not believe anyone, save the very wealthy, can save enough to cover medical treatment like the one you mention.

My niece has health ins, but also a type of tax free plan to which she contributes premium $ plus anything else she might foresee as a medical expense. If any of the funds she puts in annually is not spent, it does not roll over or come back to her; any left over $ goes to the fund co.

Five years ago when I had the misfortune to visit a hospital/doctor's office, I was staggered by the number of different insurance plans my doctor's office had to be aware of. To me it was insane! How can a modern country like America have such a backward, patchwork payment system? Health care providers have to hire office workers just to wade through the mess of who pays what. It reminded me of the tangle of overhead power/phone lines of the past!

In order to provide service to a patient, no wonder a health care provider needs to look at the type of coverage first.

Single payer makes sense in this day and age. Let ins co's peddle their wares to some other country, and not hold Americans hostage to an insane payment system.

One last thing. I don't think every American understands (or cares) that the economy has pushed more and more individuals and families to living on the edge. Even one minor unexpected health condition might mean going over the economic edge.


Edit to add.....It is one thing to be unable to pay a debt due to overspending on items one doesn't truly need to function, and suffer the effects of non-payment. But it is quite another when one goes so far into debt with the cost of needed health care and suffer bad credit, that is truly inhumane.

In fact, I am reminded of the Good Samaritan who not only provided treatment to the stranger but paid for it! We are so far removed from being Good Samaritans today! Rather, it's, "Can't pay your medical bill? Too bad."

re ply to post by Echo007
Exactly!! Now the question becomes how do we force our politicians to do what we want? As I see it our politicians both right and left are but mere pupits on their corporate masters strings. I think they call them "Special Interest" Well they are special interest because they fund all our politics in America . Now with the "Citizens United Decision" were the Supreme Court has declared corporation "People" and as such they have constitutional rights especially first amendment rights "Free Speech" and since a corporation can only speek through it's money then you can not limit corporate money in the political arena. How can we the people have any influence over our government when so much money is dumped into the laps of oour elected official.?

One idea that has appeal to me is public finance of the elections. That will atleast get the money out of electoral process but what about loby money for legislation? The corporate tenacles go deep. How can we the American people clean this mess up when when so much money is available for the taking? So it's good that we have discusions about the various things affecting our nation but if we really want to have some control we will have only one way to achieve it. Get all thre money out of politics. Is that a mere dream?
Peace and Blessings
\Richc

reply to post by richc

You mention Health Savings accounts. I would like to learn more from you on this subject but on it's face it would seem to me that if people are having problems making deductable and or premiums then how could they save for health care emergencies? Again I would like to refer you to my wife's situation, her operation cost $100,000.00. Does a healthcare savings account cover that kind of expense.

A Health Savings Account is a high-deductible insurance program coupled with a tax-deferred savings account used to pay for medical expenses.

The key is that it's a high-deductible program. Those programs are often cheaper for all parties in the long run, as the Insurance company affiliation gets the member the negotiated fees of the service (usually lower than the fees encountered by the uninsured) while the member pays the fees to the service provider and reduces administrative overhead on the insurance company.

Here's a little more: money.cnn.com...

While you'll save on premiums over a traditional plan, the deductible (at least $1,200 for individuals; $2,400 for families) is a lot higher. You'll foot every dollar of your bills -- excluding, usually, preventive care -- up to that amount.

Enter the HSA: To cover costs, you can put pretax money in one -- up to $3,050 for individuals in 2011, $6,150 for families, plus $1,000 more if you're 55 or older. Your employer may also contribute. Withdrawals for medical bills are tax-free. Unused dough rolls over year to year, growing without being taxed.

Some people may save money by choosing a high-deductible plan. Young and healthy people, for example, can fare better because they pay low premiums and don't use much care.

From a medicare standpoint - it would make sense to use an HSA-structure on the younger populations. While it does not necessarily offer a short-term solution for the problem, it is geared towards a longer-term solution for restructuring.Medicare in general.

Of course - this is not unlike how Social Security was supposed to work. However, the mistake made with Social Security was to not back the account with any real, or even paper assets. The Social Security trust fund only exists on paper as a balance sheet that effectively amounts to how many dollars were paid that year versus how many were taken out of circulation.

In a federal government that was not perpetually spending into a deficit, this would not be such a big problem. However, when Social Security finally has to start paying "out of the fund" - the reality is that they will be immediately borrowing money from the general budget, as there is no surplus or fund anywhere in the federal budget. That time is projected at 2018, when the amount people are paying "into the trust fund" is exceeded by the amount being "drawn from the trust fund" (but since it is merely numbers on paper, and the government is already spending greatly into debt - money paid out of social security is essentially printed money and serves to devalue the dollar, since there are no hard assets that were ever backing the fund).

Thus - a medicare solution that involves HSAs, or any kind of trust/fund, should immediately avoid this issue by backing itself with some kind of asset; be it mutual funds, silver, or what have you.

As for the Mass. healthcare bill - it's really a case study that can be used as a lesson for how to avoid problems they have had in a national healthcare plan... or evidence for not pursuing a national healthcare plan.

I'm of the opinion that it isn't the national government's business, and a real long-term solution lies in a systematic de-escalation of medicare and social security in cooperation with state governments to take over funding and management if they so wish (so it isn't like stopping a bus by slamming it into the side of a cliff). But that would require an unrealistic amount of cooperation. At least at this point in time.

reply to post by richc

This is a very important discussion because it speaks to what kind of a nation that we see ouselves as. I personally believe that Jesus was correct in teaching us that "What you do for the least of these you do for me also". "If a man is with out his coat give him your own" If he is without food feed him"

Jesus is one of the most quoted and least understood personalities to have existed.

"Give a man a fish, and he shall eat for one night. Teach a man to fish, and he shall eat for a lifetime."

To statements like this - I must ask what is truly 'helping' a given person? Jesus advocated personal dedication/sacrifice/service. Neighbors helping neighbors.

"Spare the rod, spoil the child."

"Give to Caesar what is due to Caesar, and give to God what is due to God."

We can take quotes out of his life for all day and try to tailor them to our own logic. However - I see it as a failing to understand Jesus' teachings when we want to try and pass off the responsibility of helping others onto government agencies.

We go to the parable of the wealthy giving larger donations to the Synagogue than the poor, and gloating about it - to which Jesus responds that the donation of the poor means far more because of how much of a sacrifice it is for them.

To flip it around - is it really going to fix things to demand the wealthy pay more?

When the lessons were about serving each other, about personal service and glorification of God... I'm not sure it makes sense to then use those lessons to justify a system of monetary arbitration whereby one's 'donation' is established by elected officials and the service/quality set by bureaucrats.

I think it is merely as simple as you cannot legislate Utopian concepts and end up with Utopian existence.