Who hurts the US Healthcare system worse?

meh... not worth it.Edited by Eli, : No reason given.

That's you, buddy.You have been shown to be wrong in almost every claim you have made.The reason people find fault with what you claim is because you make things up and call them facts or you post a source or chart that does not have anything to do with your claims.It has nothing to do with political ideology.It simply has to do with the fact that you are grossly wrong nearly all of the time.

Because that would be a stupid thing to do and not a solution to poverty.Raising minimum wage makes things worse because it decreases the value of the dollar. You get more dollars, but have to pay more dollars out. For those making minimum wage, the increase in wages and increase in cost of goods cancel each other out.It just raises the prices for everyone who makes more than minimum wage without including any sort of cost of living increase for us. Everyone else makes the same amount but things cost more, which actually put more people under the poverty line.Only people who make minimum wage and don't understand economics think raising it is a good idea, because they want a free handout. Why don't you take your training seriously and put forth every effort and a bit of time? You should earn your living, not ask the government to force your employer to pay you more than you are worth.Especially when you are bitching about welfare. Don't bitch about welfare and then ask for welfare in the form of a wage hike. It still comes out of other people's pocket.

That's because he makes assumptions and reaches conclusions based on assumptions before gathering data, then tries to retrofit whatever he skims off the internet into some flimsy support structure for his argument.Essentially he either doesn't bother to read what he sources or he can't actually comprehend what the sources mean if he does read them.Given that he will stick by his claims and repeatedly post the same material no matter how thoroughly the charts, models or concepts have been explained to be irrelevant to his conclusions, I think he probably does read them, but can't understand them.Or, his issue is simply pathological and he can't refrain from being dishonest, even though he knows he is wrong.

They have to do the same amount of work whether they get a hike or not, so the hike is essentially a handout.And what they are worth is a negotiation between employer and employee.I consider myself and everyone who works as self employed. They provide a service of labor to someone who hires them in exchange for compensation. It's purely contractual.The value of human time and effort is agreed upon within that contract, which either party can dissolve if they become dissatisfied with the arrangement.The value on human time and effort is only relative to what the market is willing to bear.And, yes, I fully understand that there are hard working people out there who work 40 hours a week or more and are still under the poverty line. It took me a long time of arguing that this could simply be solved by raising the minimum wage.I rationalized it much in the same way I imagine kofh2u does. If they had more money, they would be less poor. (forgive my wording.)But that fails to address the economic impact of inflation and the accompanying "basket of goods" as well as an employer having to decrease hours and cut back on payroll (employees) because of his or her increased costs, which actually puts more people out of work.There are other consequences as well.I agree with your point that making less than a livable wage bears a burden on the rest of society which is a problem that need to be addressed.But there are better solutions than raising minimum wage. Increasing the value of the dollar, for example, to maximize buying power without changing the nominal value of wages seems like a good way to push people over the poverty line, rather than moving the nominal value of wages and then moving the nominal value of the poverty line in the same direction.

Putting a price floor on wages forces a minimum wage. That does 3 things:I) Drives inflation: decreases the $, which the forced wage then becomes null for the person who receives it.
((a)) this puts the person in a worse position than when they started
((b)) hurts people making above the minimum wage because it essentially takes back a portion of earned incremental raises.
(((i))) Buying power decreases, so spending decreases
(((ii))) business suffersII) Increases Labor Costs
((a)) Employers have less to spend on labor expenses, so they cut back on hiring or lay people off.
((b))alternatively, they hire under the tableIII) Black Markets: always a necessary byproduct of any price floor.
((a)) creates illegal immigration
((b)) in turn, causes unemployment for legal workers who cannot compete with black market laborAll of these factors drive unemployment. And no, it isn't really a handout, because the person who receives a wage hike because the price floor is raised sees a very short term benefit before inflation catches up and they end up with less buying power than before the wage hike. Because the buying power increases.Would you rather have $3 that will buy one gallon of milk or $1 that will buy 1 gallon of milk?If $1 will buy milk when formerly $3 was necessary, does it matter if the nominal value of $ is less to divy up?Fewer $s in the till, but a better quality and quantity for those less dollars.This is simply a matter of allowing the market to naturally find its point of equilibrium.In the meantime, the working poor would benefit naturally from their same meager nominal wages buying more and that would afford them to get over the poverty line simply because the poverty line would drop even though their nominal dollars would remain the same.All at the same time, producers could produce at a lower cost, because of the combination of paying lower wages and having more bang for their buck, which means they can 1) hire more people and 2) sell items for less, which would enrich everyone at every level of the economic spectrum.

I should note that I consider people who desire that the minimum wage be raised out of personal benefit are essentially asking for a handout, even though that I agree that calling wage increases a "handout" is probably wrong.

That isn't true.