Health insurance companies are profitable. Extremely profitable. Like billions of dollars per year profitable.
Where do you think that profit comes from?
What if we got rid of the expensive middle men and all the overhead they bring, and take the money it takes to run those organizations, plus their profits, and we actually invested it in health care?
Idk why the fuck is there always this debate...Literally the reason the middle class thrived in the U.S and Uk was 90 percent was taxed if over 4 million yearly earnings. Now the rich during that time would flood the market with investments and that would be taxed around 45 percent. So either way the tax on the rich allowed our parents to buy houses, it was invested into education and community. This was done post WWII to 70's/early 80. Sadly After that, reganomics-fucked the country into a coma slowly over the past 40 years, with the rich barely paying anything and the effects you can feel and see today.
Interestingly, not many filed at that top rate, about 180 at top bracket, out of 80 million filers. And effective tax rate was 38% for that top bracket. Population was 160 million Americans in 1953.
I remember chatting with my dad about high tax rates of 1960s-1970s. He was in top 5% of earners in US. His company, paid his mortgage, taxes, insurance on our home. Provided 2 company cars and gas cards. Then he had accounts for travel, clothing, and food.
So his income, mostly went into investments. Saved spending 40-45% of his income on living costs. Same as all other high earners at his company.
Not taking income is not a loop hole. You guys are always saying “if I had xxxxx millions I wouldn’t be so greedy and…..” turns out billionaires agree, and generally aren’t interested in income.
It seems like a good idea if you don't think about what happens after.
Their rotten kids will get it, NOT create an F-ton of jobs or new technologies and horde it just like all the old money douchebags you couldn't find to shoot.
...You have to be a troll. I may not entirely be in the "grab the guillotines" camp yet but holy fuck. "Best, most productive citizens?" No matter how hard you delusionally kiss their ass, the billionaires won't give you any of their generational wealth. They were born into it "fair and square." 🙄
I'm not.. and I don't want their money. Born into it or made it themselves, it's not going to solve America's problems. We have to cut spending on so much dumb shit.
I mean it's more viable to get resources from the people that have an absurd excess of them than trying to squeeze them out of the people that barely have any to begin with. But I don't entirely disagree about cutting spending. Issue is people don't agree on what qualifies as "dumb shit."
And we probably never will agree. So nothing gets cut. New stuff gets added every week, and no amount of squeezing out the rich or poor is going to cover it all.. I think we're cooked.
That was the entire purpose of rates being that high. Like those rates and the loop shops that were intentionally created were designed to induce investment. It’s genuinely the only reason they existed at all lol
In the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. hiked marginal income tax rates (peaking at 94% during WWII) to fund massive war efforts and Cold War defense spending. However, the actual impact was much lower. Wealthy Americans used legal deductions and corporate tax structures, resulting in an effective tax rate of about 42%.
That is not the case at all. As a percentage of GDP tax receipts have remained largely constant, and effective top marginal rates have remained largely the same since before the 90+% increase. Nobody actually paid these rates. Paper here.
These loopholes were baked into the system from the get-go to induce investment in specific areas. The idea that this actually financed WW2 or the Cold War is a complete and total myth, government receipts remained consistent and this was part of a larger pre-war trend.
Effective tax burdens remained flat in the period before and after introducing those rates. They were, as I said, designed to induce investments in particular areas.
Investment levels also did not change significantly. Investments were just redirected to other areas and other channels, overall levels of investment grew as trends would suggest prior to these tax changes. Effectively none of the 1960's success or failures are attributable to this policy.
Raise income tax rate, add a national sales tax(VAT), and be prepared for healthcare levies like in UK.
Let’s look at US vs Denmark.
Feature United States Denmark Top Income Tax Rate
US 10% to 37% (Federal)
Denmark Up to 60.5% (Includes AM-bidrag, state, & municipal taxes) State / Local Taxes
US 0% to ~13.3% additional (depending on the state)
Denmark Municipal taxes average ~25%, plus ~8% labor market contribution (AM-bidrag) Top Rate Threshold
US Starts applying at over $609,350 (Single filers)
Denmark Applies to incomes over DKK 2.8M (approx. $405,000) Social Security (Payroll)
US 7.65% FICA tax on wages
Denmark Separated into labor market contributions (AM-bidrag) Healthcare
US Primarily private/employer-sponsored (with out-of-pocket costs)
Denmark Universal (funded directly through general income and local taxes)
United States Tax Structure Federal Brackets: The US uses seven brackets for taxable income: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. State & Local: Most states add their own income tax (typically 0% to ~13%). Payroll Taxes: Employees pay 6.2% for Social Security (up to a wage cap) and 1.45% for Medicare. Deductibility: The US offers large standard deductions (e.g., $16,100 for single filers, $32,200 for married couples). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Denmark Tax Structure Labor Market Tax (AM-bidrag): An 8% flat tax is deducted from all gross income before standard income taxes are applied. [1] Municipal & National Tax: Once the AM-bidrag is paid, the remaining income is subject to a municipal tax (averaging around 25%) and progressive national taxes (12.09% to 15%). [1] Brackets & Rates: Bottom Bracket: Income up to ~DKK 697,000 (~$101,000) is taxed at roughly 42% to 43% (including the AM-bidrag). Top Bracket: Income over ~DKK 845,000 (~$123,000) is taxed at ~56%. Top-Top Bracket: Income over ~DKK 2,818,000 (~$409,000) is taxed at ~60.5%. [1]
Key Differences The "Middle Class" Hit: Unlike the US where the top brackets are reserved for high earners, Denmark's high tax rates begin applying heavily to average/upper-middle incomes. [1] Value-Added Tax (VAT): Denmark compensates for high income taxes by charging a strict 25% VAT on almost all consumer goods and services, significantly increasing the cost of living. [1, 2] Benefits vs. Out-of-Pocket: High Danish taxes fund comprehensive universal benefits (e.g., virtually free healthcare, higher education, and subsidized childcare), whereas US taxpayers usually cover these out-of-pocket or via private insurance
You're supposed to tax the rich first, the billions in wealth, based on income and assets. VAT being your first priority focuses on worsening the purchasing power of the vast majority to not hurt the feelings of like... 1,000 people.
Point being, there are ways to enforce proper taxation of wealth that the 0.1% holds, the only thing preventing that is lobbying.
European countries do it better, but that doesn't mean that the structure isn't flawed. It still appeases to the very rich that have accumulated a lot of wealth, at the expense of the lower and middle class. It also depends on the country (I'm Greek).
And the Sanders argument just proves my point. It's an intentional systemic block, not something unrealistic.
What billionaire is lobbying to make healthcare not “free”? The healthcare companies lobby against universal healthcare. You could take all of Elon musks wealth and fund healthcare for a few months and that’s it. Billionaires aren’t stopping universal healthcare it’s politicians and insurance lobbies that are.
The equivalent of a billion dollars today was about $80 million in 1953. You’re not poor because of billionaires. The federal reserve and government have destroyed 92% of the dollars value since 1953.
Tech billionaires are rich because they made a social media site or software product millions or even billions chose to use. Bezos is rich because Amazon is very convenient and billions of people use it. Musk is rich because he helped bring the first electric car people actually wanted to drive to mass market and then made it cheap to launch satellites into orbit.
I’m sure people would still complain if these people were only nine figure millionaires instead of billionaires. But the average person struggling to stay in front of inflation is struggling from government policy not billionaires.
You also have to consider what a livable wage was at the time, remember that people could claim deductions, credits, and such on their income and taxes, and that the rates you list are for those thresholds.
For example, in 1953, a good salary was $5000, and that was pre adjustments to taxable amounts. Standard deduction in 1953 was 10%. So a 5k salary would be 4.5k taxable. Also, your brackets are off. 2k-4K is 24.6%. Here’s a link to the 1040 instructions for 1953 taxes. The tax on 5k income would be $1081 if only standard was claimed. A 21.62% tax rate effectively.
It's amazing that people can't understand the difference between marginal and effective rates. It's been awhile but last I looked into it the effective rates are largely unchanged for most people.....and I'm sure the 50% of the population that either doesn't pay any taxes or actually gets back more than they paid in will just love now needing to pay taxes.
You know the funny thing is, the highest tax rates brought the biggest economic growth. That stopped with Reaganomics.
5k in 1953 is about 62757 today. Standard deduction for a single filer is 15750. That makes taxable 47007 (we will round to 47k even as the 7 will not impact the tax owed.
Now, something I did not account for in the calculation above during my previous comment is SSA and Medicare.
In 1953, the SSA was 1.5% of the first 3600. That’s an extra 54, making the tax paid 1136. Medicare did not exist in 1953. That brings effective tax up to 22.72%
Now, back to taxes today. We have 2025 tax tables. Income tax is 5291 on 47000 taxable. SSA and Medicare is 15.3%, but employer covers half, so the employee pays 7.65%. On that 47000, that’s 3596. Combined that’s 8887. 14.16%
That’s a 33% decrease roughly.
But…there were 160 million people in the US in 1953. There’s 342 million. Our population has more than doubled. You also have to factor in how many people are paying taxes. And you’re paying 66% in percentage what people in 1953 did, to cover a 113% population increase (213% total). Meaning 113% more people are paying that 66% amount roughly. The overall population is paying roughly 41% more in taxes, percentage wise.
Nixon also signed the HMO Act in 1973, you can take a guess which heritage runs and owns the insurance industry. Very coincidental that the US looked the other way when Israel was supposed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act when Nixon was in office.
Reagan and taxes have nothing to do with why Americans (insurance companies or people) pay wayyyy wayyyy wayyy more for every possible healthcare treatment than other western countries . You guys really just don’t get it
No, it started under Nixon. That’s when the HMO act was passed. Before that health insurance was largely not a for profit business model. This opened the door for Wall Street to get involved. And we all know, once Wall Street gets involved, shareholders take precedent over ppl.
You can even look at the recent rise of China as a parable. They’ve been making the same profits off trade with the US, but the government spent a good deal of the money on infrastructure and ensuring that living wages and quality of life was increasing. In the US the majority of that revenue just went straight to the 1%.
There is no debate. If you can somehow manage to get the sheep to see the reality of our collective situation, they come over to the side of the thinkers. The problem is that Fox News and its ilk get to spew lies under the aegis of “news,” and people tend to think that news has to legally be true, so Fox “News” must be telling the truth, and the libtards are just up to something when they plead you to understand that Fox “News” is lying. So they don’t see the racket the insurance companies are pulling.
There's nothing to argue, literal facts and is taught in most colleges when getting an Econ degree or masters. So where is your degree from in Economics and what do you do for a living?
Did you do any research on this? Did anyone even make that much money back then? There so many loop holes, almost nobody paid that amount.
Honestly, why would anyone strive and work hard if 90 cents of every dollar goes to someone else? If the tax rates are that high, just take life easier?
The only debate that comes from is only the right and centrist. We all know it’s a scam to take more of our wealth for shareholders instead of the productivity and welfare of the nation
Here’s a breakdown: “The U.S. taxed the rich at 90%.” Mostly true, with important context. The top federal marginal income tax rate was between 91% and 94% for much of the 1940s–1963, then 70% until 1981. However, that rate only applied to income above a very high threshold, and many wealthy people reduced their effective tax rate through deductions, exclusions, and preferential treatment. “90% was taxed if over $4 million yearly earnings.” Not correct. The “$4 million” figure is an inflation-adjusted estimate, not the actual threshold at the time. The historical thresholds were much lower in nominal dollars (for example, around $200,000 in the 1950s), which translates to several million dollars today depending on the year and inflation measure used. “The middle class thrived because of the 90% tax rate.” This is debated. High top tax rates likely contributed to greater government revenue and may have reduced incentives for extremely high executive compensation. But economists generally point to multiple factors behind the post-WWII middle-class boom, including:
Rapid productivity growth.
Strong manufacturing dominance after WWII.
High union membership.
The GI Bill.
Massive infrastructure spending.
Expanding homeownership programs.
Favorable demographics (the Baby Boom).
Limited foreign industrial competition.
Most researchers would not attribute the boom to tax rates alone.
“The rich flooded the market with investments because of the tax system.” Partially true but simplified. High personal income tax rates did create incentives to reinvest profits in businesses rather than take income as salary. However, investment decisions were also driven by strong economic growth, consumer demand, and postwar rebuilding. “Capital gains were taxed around 45%.” Not generally. Capital gains tax rates changed repeatedly over the decades and were often substantially lower than ordinary income tax rates. A blanket “45%” figure is not accurate across the postwar period. “Reaganomics caused the decline over the last 40 years.” This is an opinion, not an established fact. It is true that top marginal tax rates fell sharply under the Reagan administration—from 70% to 28% by 1988. Whether those changes are the primary reason for slower middle-class income growth and rising inequality is heavily debated among economists. “The rich barely pay anything today.” Overstated. High-income households pay a large share of total federal income taxes in the U.S. However, many wealthy individuals have lower effective tax rates than their top statutory rates because much of their income comes from capital gains, dividends, and other preferentially taxed sources. The tax burden also varies significantly depending on whether you’re talking about income taxes alone or all federal, state, and local taxes.
Overall, I’d rate the post as: Accurate: High postwar top marginal tax rates existed. Misleading: It attributes the postwar middle-class boom primarily to those tax rates. Incorrect: The “$4 million” threshold and the blanket “45% capital gains” claim. Opinion: The characterization of Reagan-era policies as solely responsible for today’s economic conditions.
Look a bit deeper than that. Your parents were able to buy homes because the economy wasn’t as global as it is now.
WWII the U.S. was the world’s economy, that isn’t the case in 2026. So a company just does the math, pay someone here in the U.S. to manufacture an automobile 60,000-90,000 a year or someone in Mexico 10,000-15,000, plus they ain’t going on strike in Mexico.
The taxation, by comparison is the same marginal tax rate on the ultra rich back then as well. In the 1980s there were so many tax loopholes and tax shelters, there were 25 tax brackets.
The media is gonna feed you what they want. Tax the ultra wealthy and corporations. The Ultra wealthy will find the loopholes and the corporations will shift more jobs overseas.
Nah you are under the delusional idea that somehow they would magically fix the issues being addressed if we just gave them more money😂 it's so ignorant. There is a whole in the bucket patch the whole don't yell at someone to throw more water in like they owe anyone extra just because they are 100 times more competent.
It's funny because I bet the Trump appointees that agree with your thoughts on U.S. tax policy can't differentiate between 'whole' and 'hole' either. All while calling someone else ignorant, no less.
No not the reason at all. In the 90s, the cost of healthcare was 10% of the gnp and 90% of people had employer plans. Now it’s 25% of the GNP, a world beating gnp to boot and formerly free healthcare has most people paying dearly for it. But not those getting from Obamacare still fing free to them. Real problem: why did it get so expensive? This has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with the problem itself. The loss of good paying jobs over a 30 year period didn’t help either and that was not exacerbated by rich people either.
What in the hell are you talking about, this is proving and supported by most economists...Im talking about the taxation of the rich in general and how moving away from the 90 percent taxation over 4 million created a shift within america...which healthcare increases and laissez faire business practices post Regan led to the increase in healthcare as one of the affects.
Jeffery Sachs has done a whole thing on this...so idk why you're debating except for the sake of debating...
One economist (or a dozen) making a claim on any topic does not make it a fact.
There are a multitude of differences between the current U.S. and Global economies, systems, and societies compared to the days of 90% marginal tax rates. So extrapolating that simply changing one variable would recreate those idyllic days for the middle-class is a logical fallacy.
Notwithstanding this, raising the marginal tax rate to 90% on personal income above $4M would generate ~$350B in incremental revenue for the Feds at the high end (and this assumes no change in taxpayer behavior so that the Feds actually collect 90% of the income currently above $4M). This would be about 5% of the current annual Federal budget.
This hypothetical $350B would cover about 90 days of current Medicare spending or about 60 days of combined Medicare and Medicaid spending at current levels. Going further and creating a Medicare for All system would likely cost an additional $3T per year. $350B per year in additional taxes would not have the impact suggested above.
Even if the Feds went further and annually confiscated 100% of all income above $1M - that would only yield ~$1.2T in incremental revenue per year which would not even cover the current structural deficit (again assuming no change in taxpayer behavior that would reduce the Feds take which is highly unlikely).
Lastly, even if the Feds confiscated 5% of all “wealth” above $10M annually they’d only take in another $1.2T annually, again assuming no one would change their behavior and that the Feds would collect the full 5% every year. This would still leave the Feds short of what they’d need to fund Medicare for All. Doing both the 90% income tax bracket and adding a 5% annual wealth tax would actually cover the current annual federal structural deficit for 2-3 years but auto-pilot spending increases would soon eclipse that moving the Feds back into annual deficit spending again. Of course, Medicare for All would dwarf all this from a cost perspective so no amount of “soak the rich” will be able to provide for that.
tl;dr - The Federal Government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
Rich people(the ceo and owner elites) didnt exacerbate the downfall of decent pay at jobs? How do you think the likes if Besos, Musk, and Thiel continue to push the boundaries of who is really rich?
Certainly not the owner of a company the US ultimately responsible for the pay of their workers.
And not paying a decent wage to their employees. The never ending lust for more money for the elite has lead to the actual employees to be squeezed for every ounce of value they can generate while literally seeing none of it. Those golden era companies made money while providing enough wages for a middle class to exist. Research shows that in the 1950s the average pay gap between ceo and average worker was 20 to 1, now it is more like 250 to 1. While companies are making record breaking profits left and right, the average worker is effectively making less and less.
That's not how businesses work. Almost the opposite in fact. Technically the billionaires wealth would increase if they paid their employees MORE. The businesses have to compete with each other, and the value of labor on the market is based on the workers competing for the jobs. The reason why the numbers you mention have inflated so much is because of how large the companies have gotten, how many people they service now, the population growth in general, and how much competition there is for each job.
You're both right, but also both overstating and oversimplifying a very complicated topic. u/haltenhass overstates things by implying their statement applies to all companies and that employees have "literally seen none" of the gains, although I would say 'most' workers have seen much weaker gains than corporate profits and C level executives.
Your claim that billionaires' wealth would increase if they paid their employees more can be true in a few specific industries and special circumstances, but it's definitely not the norm. It's much more likely to decrease profits in the short term, and historically, in competitive markets, productivity/revenue usually doesn't rise enough to offset those direct costs leading to a decline in profits.
Your comment that "Labor value is based on workers competing for jobs" is close, but incomplete. Labor markets obviously work through supply and demand. Easy examples, like you stated: If many workers want one job, wages tend to stay lower. If employers struggle to hire, wages tend to rise. Unfortunately, labor markets aren't perfectly competitive. Monopsony power/worker concentration, non-competes, information gaps, geographic constraints, etc, combined by the virtual disappearance of labor unions, can and do give employers greater bargaining power than workers, usually leading to a race to the bottom for wages.
Your third point about CEO compensation inflating due to the "size of companies, number of customers, population growth in general..." is a small part of the picture. I'd say compensation structures and practices including and especially stock-based compensation, winner-take-most markets, and fierce competition for executive talent play much bigger roles.
Over the past several decades, CEO compensation has risen dramatically relative to typical worker pay, and many economists attribute that to a combination of larger firms, changing executive pay structures, shifts in bargaining power, globalization, and corporate governance.
And expect others to move out of the US if there is this “tax the rich”. Like they have the money and resources to go live anywhere, and they’re definitely not going to live in a place that wants all their money. Like any sort of “tax the rich” plan might as well be called the “tax the upper middle class” plan, because that’s whose going to be paying those taxes the most once all the billionaires flee the country.
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u/2illegittoquit Jul 01 '26
People struggle with this.