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Comment by lordlic | Hacker News Reader

The payroll tax holiday idea is bonkers. The people most in need of help here are hourly or gig workers who are told to stay home from work or who get sick and can't work. Paying less taxes on nonexistent wages doesn't help. It seems like the administration is more interested in propping up the markets than actually addressing the health crisis and its human costs.

Also, eliminating copays on coronavirus treatment is nice, but it's hard not to notice the glaring omission of anything to help the 9% of Americans who are uninsured.

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Also, do they mean SS and Medicare contributions in the payroll taxes, or just unemployment insurance?

Like if we have a health crisis that disproportionately affects people who rely on Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, taking away funding for it isn't bonkers. It's batshit insane! We should be doubling, tripling taxes in the short term on those that can pay it to make up the funding gap for testing, treatment, and surge capacity. And who better than the largest medical provider in the country, with contacts and infrastructure for directing funds to every medical provider in the country?

Are they going to cut off the water to the block when the house is burning down?

I'm all for expanding Medicare and Social Security, but to be fair the government is perfectly able to continue funding these things on a temporary basis without payroll tax receipts. Presumably a bill to freeze FICA taxes would also contain a provision for funding the expected shortfall with a transfer from the general fund or new federal debt issuance.

> It's batshit insane! We should be doubling, tripling taxes in the short term on those that can pay it to make up the funding gap for testing, treatment, and surge capacity

Taking money out of the economy by dramatically hiking taxes at this point seems _batshit insane_ to me. The government should be well equipped to absorb temporary shocks to revenue.

> The government should be well equipped to absorb temporary shocks to revenue.

Good thing the federal deficit is higher than it's ever been! No, wait, crap...

They aren't eliminating copays on treatment. Only testing.

https://twitter.com/owermohle/status/1237922717699014658

Yeah it's clearly a token move to pretend like they're doing something. The cv19 test is free but all the other tests they will undoubtedly and necessarily run before that are not. And if you end up in the er as a poor person, you'll likely go bankrupt or take a massive hit even with insurance. That'll keep people away. Who knows how long it'll be before we have massive testing like Korea. Maybe never.

Just because CV19 is a thing now doesn’t mean the US magically has Medicare for all.

No, but it is in the nation's interest to get as many people tested as possible (assuming we can solve the pesky test kit shortage). If people aren't getting tested because they can't afford it, that hurts the country just as much as it could potentially hurt them.

It is also in the nations interest to have free healthcare for everyone, so why should this be handled differently?

Because this virus overloads every hospital where there is an epidemic.

So in your mind, Medicare for all only covers covid 19? Because that's what I'm talking about. Covering treatment for the once in a hundred years pandemic. Clearly, even that's too much for our shitty, decaying American society. In the meantime every other developed nation has a proper healthcare system while we can barely test for this due to our incompetence and shit leaders.

Woah dude, slow your roll. I was saying M4A doesn't exist in the states at this time so, insurers will still expect payment if you get treated. That's all I'm saying.

> It seems like the administration is more interested in propping up the markets than actually addressing the health crisis and its human costs.

Pretty much. Trump is openly obsessed with the Dow.

And then we have the CDC, saying they're being told to wait on Jared Kushner "doing some research".

As far as I can tell the only research he could or would be realistically doing is determining which companies stand most to profit from measures, and make sure that family and friends positions in those companies are thoroughly set up.

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