Big one

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I always find it amusing when Americans can only come up with paying less taxes as the answer, then they don't understand why they get less services. It's almost like you should expect more from the tax dollars you already spend. But I guess that's the point of this post and I'm just beating a dead horse.
- To be fair, more taxes is not the immediate answer to America's problems that people think it is. The average American already pays more in taxes than most Europeans. The real issues come from the fact that the US Govt. can not legally produce goods or services (only in very specific circumstances) and has to contract it out to private companies. See roadwork and infrastructure maintenance as one of the most obvious examples. Regional companies exercise an uncontested monopoly on these contracts, causing budgets and schedules to balloon several times past what they would if handled by a service that was directly funded and administered by public office.
  Americans already do pay more. The problem is that they get less for their money than any other western nation. While I don't agree with the conclusion, it's not hard to see why so many people watch their country fall into disrepair- despite paying more taxes than ever- and say "to hell with it, I'd rather keep my money than throw it into the corrupt bureaucracy who won't even do anything."
  
  Even when they try to destroy the post office it outperforms private options. It's an incredible machine.
- what you’re missing is the fact that most of us pay for healthcare through our employer. Clearly a win, yes? no. no it is not.
  For those of us “lucky” americans that did the FUKCING MATH, i pay more in healthcare + taxes when you account for the $12,000 deductibles annually and (AND!!!!) the cost of the privilege for having insurance of anywhere 600-1600 per month. Nevermind the fact the stupid private party insurance gets to decide if “I” am allowed to get a procedure. So i pay for someone else to make a decision that my doctor determines is necessary, which is declined (of course), then appealed (and denied), and now somehow i’m hooked on some fucking opiate because the pain is so great while I wait for Jim at statefarm to approve my necessary procedure. Oh, somewhere in there lets throw in a termination from my employer for showing up high on synthetically prescribed heroin (dilaudid) and now i’ve lost said insurance that i’ve paid 12000 into.
  Or I could pay less in taxes by just hoping I will live longer that the conservative (and even some democrats) party dies a horrible death. All without the needed medication and coverage that is keeping me alive… am I winning yet?
  So there you have it, those not paying for insurance are winning the war against… fuck, i don’t know anymore, what are we fighting? Right, right, the evils of socialized healthcare and “higher taxes”.
  yes, i am ok. no the dilaudid story is true but it is not me, it was someone i knew… guy voted trump until he took care of his own mental issues permanently and fought you all the way.
  
  For future reference:
  Have your doctor write the literal phrase "medically necessary" on the order. If denied, contact the insurer and ask for the License Number of the Doctor who refuted the necessity. Keep in mind, if they're NOT a doctor it is ILLEGAL for them to make a medical decision.
  If they actually get back to you with a license number, you can use that to pull the credentials of the person denying the claim. Present that information to your doctor and I'm sure they'll help write you up a nice paper to send into the medical review board of the state they're licensed in.
  I've had to use this method twice with my wife's healthcare. Approvals came within an hour of requesting the license number of the person on their end making medical decisions. The key being the phrase. A doctor's order, or prescription, is a legal document. Your doc putting that phrase means "I believe in this treatment so much, I'm willing to bet my license that they need it."
  YMMV as I've only had to deal with BlueCross and they hate when I call.
  
  yeah, thanks. I know most of the tricks now with cigna and bluecross. i just hate dealing with it and it shouldn’t be necessary.
  feels good to vent though.
  
  Great trick, thanks for this.
- I always find it amusing when Americans can only come up with paying less taxes as the answer, then they don’t understand why they get less services.
  The ones for whom "less taxes" are always the answer know that they'll get less services. They are fine with that as long as it means the minorities they hate will also get less services. Particularly if they suspect that those minorities can't weather the lack of services as well as they can.
  These are the people who filled in municipal swimming pools with concrete instead of letting black people use them too.
- That's my argument. There's no need to raise taxes. It's all scare tactics from the GOP. In Texas, a hot topic last election was our increased property taxes. The democratic nominee for governor proposed legalizing weed and using those tax dollars to lower property taxes. He lost the "moderates" when he proposed stricter gun control the last time he ran and they never got over it. Conservatives would rather pay extra money and complain about it than legalize the devil's lettuce.
  Politics is theatre. They use buzz words to win the ignorant votes. I don't think we'll ever see a return on our taxes because of how much it would take to completely flip the system. Businesses would go bankrupt if we had access to socialized programs, and that goes against the capitalism that the country stands on.
  
  Removing tax havens within the country would also do a fair bit, and people wouldn't notice any difference from that, except that there is a lot more money that the country could spend on more useful things.
  
  Too bad spending money is considered "free speech" and all those tax haven dollars are used to buyout the people with the power to fix that problem
  
  What would be considered corruption in most of the world is just the modus operandi of US politics.
- As an American I’ve been taking a truly radical position of openly demanding higher taxes. Like fuck you none of us pay enough. It’s easy to say tax the rich, but they’ll get tax cuts real fast if we don’t break the taboo on raising taxes.

173 comments