I work for a for a profit healthcare co. In anticipation of Obamacare raises are out this year and our health insurance is going up eleven percent.
I mentioned the other day that investment related tax changes are having a pretty big effect on corporate finance activity and individual portfolio management choices. People pretty much conclude that capital gains and dividend taxation are heading north so you have seen a lot more "sell my business now" activity and I am guessing tax planning will go into overdrive this morning. This is usually the nexus where limo liberals get outed in a big way. Warren Buffett and George Lucas will happily stump for President Obama and his arguments for tax hikes but will also do anything to minimize the tax burden on their investments.
Higher taxes for me on several levels. Also, more government intervention now that Obama is talking up a new carbon tax.
I get a lot more patients with lower reimbursement, more of the insurance companies and the government telling me what I can and can't do and higher cost for business and insurance in our small group practice. Just waiting to be swallowed up by Scott and White or other big healthcare corporation. My specialty (family med) will be in higher demand but I'm not sure who will want to practice in the environment. We'll probably dumb down healthcare with mid-level practitioners and even RN's making more independent practice decisions and LVN's and Med assistants doing the higher level nurses jobs and people barely out of high school doing the rest. Algorithms will make it less likely for a lower trained practitioner to make mistakes but medicine will become increasingly depersonalized.
We have a two income household and my wife has been out of work for months in the wasteland of a job market that Obama has created. My savings are hemorrhaging to cover all the bills that our combined incomes are needed to pay. Increasing prices in the stagnant economy, particularly for gas, aren't helping either. If something doesn't give soon, we might even lose our house. But gays have a chance to get married, women can "choose" to kill their unborn children, and people who have 6 kids they can't afford can get health care, so I guess I can take consolation in that. Those Obama voters had their priorities straight.
Allow me to rephrase: the wasteland of a job market that Obama has contributed to, and has failed miserably to improve. How's that?
I will pay about $5k more in income tax next year and about $2k more in payroll taxes. My health insurance premiums (I buy in the individual market as I'm self-employed) will go up about 12% next year. There are 3 more states in which the legal privileges of marriage will be available to me. My personal share of the national debt, if divided equally, will increase from about $50k to $53k (and so will yours) next year and well over $60k over the next four years. My personal share of unfunded government liabilities, if divided equally, will increase from about $250k to well over $300k in the next four years. As a result of the above, my likelihood of receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits will continue to decline. My twice weekly trip through airport security will continue to waste my time, waste your money, and expose me to x-rays that over the course of my lifetime are more likely to kill me than a terrorist attack. The roads and bridges I use will continue to deterioriate, and congestion will continue to grow, as spending on infrastructure continues to decline. Surveillance of my personal, financial, and social activities by government agencies will continue to grow. The likelihood that someone I know and/or love will be injured or killed in a foreign land as part of a US military operation will remain the same and probably increase. I could go on. I would have written exactly the same list if Romney had won.
doc, don't even bother. An elementary school educated welfare queen could do the same job as Obama and on occasion be successful. However, overall she would be a failure. And the same woman could do the job of a high level investment banker and make money at times. However, eventually she would go broke. And the same woman could take the place of a family doc and be successful many times. However, other times she most likely would screw up and kill people. But wait, there was a doc in Alaska who screwed up a few years ago so obviously doctors are no better at medicine than welfare queens.
The results of the election cause me to expect that gas will continue to stay above $3 and most likely rise in price. "Fair share" will never be defined, but used as a way to divide between those who have and those who have not. I will not care if unemployment in states that the majority voted for Mr. Obama rises to all time highs over the next four years, they deserve it. I will continue to be disappointed that our legislators cannot work together to provide our nation with a plan to reduce the deficit. If we go over the so called fiscal cliff I will be okay with that since that is what the current administration wants to happen and those who put him in office will have to live with those consequences just as I will. I will continue to be disappointed that welfare recipients won't have to do anything to earn their checks. It is just mind boggling to me that we have seemingly gotten so far off the tracks.
Considering how much time he spends on this board, I wonder how many patients he really has. I've never seen a doc with this much time on his hands.
