Renegade

Of course it is a disadvantage, but are you saying that a poor person from a poor community doesn't have a reasonable shot at success? I know lots of single parents and I don't think simply being a single parent is a significant disadvantage. If you have single (or any) parents, who can't support their kids and cannot raise them in a fulfilling environment, then they have abrogated their responsibilities as parents. The "leg up" to those kids should be to relieve those parents of their parenting responsibilites and place kids into an environment where they have a shot at success.

you are of course entitled to your opinion. There is no reason an assessment of risk cannot be done yearly. When you say "we agreed", who do you mean? Certainly I had no say in an agreement which took place 40 years ago. Despite that, any "agreement" is subject to change at any time. Just look at the program changes to EI, welfare, etc. No, it is not saying that. It is saying that if you are fit, you contribubte less to the cost. If you are not, you contribute more. Somewhat different than what you are saying. Yes, and the longer you live, they more you pay because you pay annually. Conversely, once you die, you consume nothing, but you also pay nothing. Of course, and IMV everyone shoudl expect to contribute more to the system as they age and consume more.

It depends upon what you mean by success and what you mean by a leg up. In don't see being born poor as an obstacle to success. I define success as having a reasonable standard of living. I don't define success as being a multimillionaire. If kids are born into situations more disadvantagous than being poor, (such as to addicted parents), then I see that as the irresponsibility of the parents and to better ensure the success of the baby, the baby should be taken from the parents and placed with more deserving adoptive parents.

I don't dispute that the child of wealth has less obstacles rising to the top. My question is so what? Why is it necessary that they both have exactly the same ease at rising to the top? In my view it isn't necessary.

True, but not all risk factors can be used. A risk factor must be easily measurable, and a risk factor must have a significant impact on risk. If it doesn't meet these criteria it cannot be used. For example life insurance companies use a a binary factor (smoking or not-smoking) as a risk factor because it is easily measurable and it does significantly affect risk. It would be more precise to determine how many cigarettes are smoked, but that is much less measurable. Similarly age is easily measurable. In addition a risk factor used cannot violate legal statutes. For example, even if you could prove through data that aborignials have a higher risk, you may not be able to use race as a risk factor. You can't say definatively what is bad, but you can draw reasonable conclusions based upon data. That is what insurance companies do. Of course they revise their conclusions as new or more data emerges. No one has suggested that whatever risk factors are picked are set in stone for eternity.

Of course opportunity varies by individual circumstances. There are some variables both the individual and parents control and many they don't. Some variables have a large influence on results, others do not. IMV, the largest influence on success in life, is the individual themselves, much more so than the circumstances they are in. I don't think the the question which should be asked is whether there is equality of opportunity, because clearly there can never be equality of opportunity. The question to be asked is "Does the individual have a reasonable chance of succeeding, despite the circumstances they are born into?" I would answer yes.

No, not "bad" - ILLEGAL!

It is a start of Dancer's journey toward honesty and unambiguity.

I don't see a difference between a transaction tax and the GST. I agree that a sales tax is preferable than an income tax. I doubt your poll of a thousand citizens is valid, as you didn't ask them what they woudl replace an income tax with. (25% GST?) Witness how much disdain there is in the general public for the GST, and you will see it is not that easy to move away from the addiction to income taxes.

Who's huffy? I did not read your statement as one which "chide others for relying on government handouts". I read it as as statement which advocated illegally evading taxes. Was I wrong? I'm not sure there is a moral difference between evading and avoiding taxes, but there is a legal one. At least you've stopped defending that what you are doing is tax evasion. That's a start.

It is clear that both you and Dancer are unclear on the distinction between "evade" and "avoid" taxes. If it is "allowed by law" it is by definition not evasion. I would encourage anyone to avoid taxes as much as possible. The situation Dancer described goes beyond avoidance and is clearly evasion. Maybe this will help clear it up: Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance

The distinction between avoiding taxes and evading taxes is that one is legal and one is not. What you are doing is evading taxes because it is clearly illegal. I'm sorry if it offends your conscience to hear the word "evade" but that is what you are doing. BTW, I didn't dodge your question. I answered clearly that I didn't declare meals bought by a client and explained to you why. You simply chose to ask another question because you didn't get the answer you expected. No client has ever given me a LCD TV or anything of declarable value. If they did, I would declare it if I'm required to do so. It makes sense to do so, after all they will expense it, and I would be foolhardy to risk not declaring it.

Is that your way of saying that you evade taxes? Do you declare the value of your dinner if a client takes you out? I do if the law requires me to. In this case it doesn't. The law requires you to declare cash bonuses, so I ask again, are you admitting you evade taxes?

Is that your way of saying that you evade taxes?

No, not now I'm not but I once was, and yes, I too paid those high rates then. Doesn't change my view. I would happily address this, unfortunately this thread is not the place for it.

I don't point to the US system as a model. There are numerious inefficiencies in their system and no real cost containment. Much of the failure of their system is due to the high cost of coverage and the administrative overhead. If cost were constrained and the administrative and malpractice burden were reduced, overall costs would be much more affordable, despite the fact that health care premiums were risk based. Sorry to disappoint you, but this happens in many public insurance systems as well. Witness that males under 25 are charged extremely high rates just because of the cagegory they belong to. Personally I don't have a problem with it. I guess it is somewhat a question of where we draw the line on what is basic coverage. In my view, that line is pretty low. You may disagree.

The US has has a publicly funded medicare program for all seniors because seniors are a powerful political lobby. Most seniors can plan for the purchase of adequate medical coverage if it is their expectation that they have to do so. If they expect that the public will fund their healthcare, they will not set aside money to do so. Do you have any cite to your assertion that the majority cannot purchase adequate coverage? I live in a province where automobile insurance is not provided by the government, despite this virtually everyone who drives can purchase insurance. It is only a very small majority, who because of their record, are rightly denied coverage. ---------------- Your defence of a non-risk based system is based upon the premise that the majority of people would find it unacceptable that some people are denied coverage. People have been conditioned as to what is acceptable by the last 40 years of "free" medical coverage. As technology advances makes healthcare more and more expensive, I think people will question their acceptance of having to subsidize the health costs of heavy users of the system. This situation will come to a head as more boomers retire, and a ever larger percentage of the community requres healthcare subsidization. In the end, the government will be forced to ration healthcare, and allow private-risk based providers to supplement coverage. I would prefer if they simply went the risk-based route themselves.

The insurance companies are make money by simply refusing to sell insurance to people they decide are high risk. This means that many people are simply denied access to essential services - this is simply not acceptable solution for the overwhelming majority of people. You cannot argue that people are free to go to another insurance company because insurance companies tend to use exactly the same algorithms so once you are denied with one company you will be denied with all companies. I agree, some people will be denied coverage based upon risk. I think it will be a small minority. IMV, I don't have an issue if health coverage of those high-risk individuals were either left to charitable institutions or the government provided an insurance of last resort. I would say that auto and property insurance are essential services, yet they seem to work as well in practice as in theory.

I've thought about the implementation further. Suppose that once a year medical checkups were MANDATORY in order to obtain continued healthcare coverage. We all can agree that yearly checkups are a good practice anyway, and have a benefit as a preventative or proactive approach to medical care. The results of the yearly assessment, if uniform, can be fed into as system to assess risk and thereby price medical coverage. Of course this can be done privately as well. Of course there will be bureaucracy, just as there is in any institution private or public. I've never said that it shoudl be taxpayer funded. I've said that it shoudl be suscriber funded both for coverage and bureaucratic costs. Unfortunately I don't think it will die on its own in a suitably short period of time. Having it linger on for another 50 years does me no good. It looks like it is here to stay for a while, so practically my approach would be to adapt it to adopt many of the features of a free enterprise system.

I can not imagine how much EXTRA time, effort and money would be required to exact such a taxation system. A free market mechanism just might be able to achieve the same results more effectively: faster and cheaper with more satisfied customers. I would say that you are probably right. Pricing according to risk is done in private enterprise all the time. (Life insurance, auto insurance, home insurance, etc). I'm not sure if the government can do it efficiently. Right now the barriers are not efficiency, but mindset.

All the more reason to not provide these subsidized services to remote areas, and encourage people to move to urban areas where they can be serviced more cost effectively.

1. Not all taxation is to change behaviour. Taxation may be imposed to match the relative burden put on the system. 2. Consider the case of parents with genes for a potential birth defect. Let's assume that their offspring has a significant chance for having that birth defect. If they were going to incur significant healthcare "tax" as a result of having the child, they may forgo the decision to have that child. In essence, taxing people for bad genes, has changed their behaviour.

Yes in many cases it is in the genes. GOOD WORK, BOYS & GIRLS! The more baby-boomers that you manage to persuade that this bullcrap is true, the less of a burden they will be on our younger generations. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! Huh? The fact that genes affect health is bullcrap?

The logic is that if you agree that any risk factor should determine the funding contribution to health coverage, then it should extend to all risk factors. I'd go as far as is practically possible. Yes I would get rid of taxpayer funded universal health care as well. I would replace it by subscriber-funded health care.

Taken to its logical conclusion it should extend to other risk factors as well. Yes in many cases it is in the genes. Why shouldn't genes be a risk factor as well?