Archive link. https://archive.is/N4Rqj

Some personal editorializing: This is a pretty remarkable first because of how captive we Americans are to pharma prices. Famously, when Medicare Part D was brought into existence by law it restricted the federal government from negotiating Part D drug prices. To me, shopping for drugs in Canada is tackling the symptom and ignores the cause. I wonder if this gets more traction with more states how it might affect drug prices in Canada, too.

The real solution to all this, of course, would be nationalize the healthcare industry in all aspects and to create a single payer healthcare system.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    Perhaps, I don’t know much about Canadian taxes. I do know that, at least in Scandinavia, socialized medicine is largely funded by the middle class, not by the wealthy, whereas the US tax system is a lot heavier on the wealthy than the middle class or the poor.

    But that’s not my point, my point is that US citizens buying Canadian drugs are benefiting from Canadian taxes. I’m not sure how that works in Florida here, I’m guessing Florida gets a worse deal than a citizen visiting Canada.

    • TheChurn@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      The US tax system is not at all ‘heavy’ on the wealthy. The largest burden, proprtionally, falls on those with high earned incomes, doctors, lawyers, etc. these are the people who will be paying the higher marginal tax rates on substantial portions of their income.

      The truly wealthy do not have high earned incomes, they acquire large assets and borrow against their value to pay for living expenses while avoiding taxes. This is the “buy, borrow, die” strategy, specifically designed to limit tax liability.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Yes, you’re right. I was a bit loose with the terminology.

        I think we should absolutely count stock options and whatnot as earned income, so CEOs and whatnot pay taxes upon receipt as the delta between purchase price and NAV. But that’s a separate discussion.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Nobody said there’s a clear separation between “working class” and “middle class,” and I think most people understand the upper end of the “working class” to be middle class or higher.

            Middle class is, by definition, the people in the middle of the income scale. A middle income welder is middle class. There are managers below middle class (i.e. fast food managers probably make like $30-40k), and there are tradespeople who make more than middle class. Middle class is literally just the people who are between 67% and 200% of the median income.

            The definition for “working class” is even more squishy, and it’s loosely defined as people without a college education (iffy Wikipedia article, claims it contains 30-35% of the population). There’s a lot of overlap with “lower middle class,” and it’s definitely not a “majority” by pretty much any “official” standard, though it’s often the biggest group (i.e. it’s a plurality). So you’ll have some overlap with income-based classes since “working class” is generally education-based instead of income-based.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Middle class is, by definition, the people in the middle of the income scale.

              Here is the definition from the The American Heritage Dictionary:

              1. The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class, usually including professionals, highly skilled laborers, and lower and middle management.

              2. A social and economic class lying above the working class and below the upper class.

              3. The groups in society composed of professionals, semi-professionals, and lower-to-middle managerial level workers.

              Class is not just about income. It’s about social hierarchy as well, and not bothering to capture that is really missing the point.

              There are managers below middle class (i.e. fast food managers probably make like $30-40k)

              They actually don’t. The annual mean wage of a restaurant food manager is $63,820.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                American heritage dictionary

                That’s an extremely vague definition, especially when “working class” and “upper class” are also very vague.

                Here’s the calculator Pew provides, along with its definition, and AFAIK that’s what’s used in articles like this that discuss the shrinking middle class.

                There’s no objective definition everyone agrees on, but I think Pew’s is fair and makes things really objective and easy to track, and it seems a lot of news agencies use their definitions, so I will too.

                mean wage of a restaurant food manager

                Mean is not median, so this is lumping in regional managers and whatnot which skews it heavily upward. I’m talking about the shift managers at a single store, someone hired by a franchisee to handle day to day operations. They won’t be there flipping burgers unless they’re severely understaffed, so they’re firmly in “manager” territory.

                I use “median” when I talk about averages in terms of demographics, because that has the nice property of splitting a group into two of equal size.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  That’s an extremely vague definition, especially when “working class” and “upper class” are also very vague.

                  Welcome to political science, where there aren’t neeat and tidy financialized definitions of every word we use. I get our disconnect, though, you’re hung up on numbers and I’m hung up on words and we’re just talking past each other.

                  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                    10 months ago

                    And that’s why the numbers exist, no? So we have a common, objective common ground?

                    Something vague like “worker” can be interpreted however you choose to suit your argument. Are doctors and surgeons “workers”? They work with their hands. If we limit it to uneducated people, what about professional athletes drafted from high school? Maybe playing sports doesn’t count. What about landscapers or general contractors, some can make hundreds of thousands if they service high end customers. Ok, maybe limit it to hourly employees, not small business owners. There are also lots of apprenticeship-based jobs that can pay six figs for highly proficient individuals.

                    It makes a lot more sense to just use income ranges for class segmentations instead of something vague that can be manipulated based on the discussion.