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Yup, appears a lot of companies are doing this now. In the pharmacuetical industry they are even farming out entire departments to India and it's not working out all that well. They usually aren't as up to date on reporting requirements and the people here in the US need to correct their data all the time. The contractor thing has always been around, but now it's getting to be a bigger and bigger part of their workforce. Incentives to hire full time non-outsourced employees and a national healthcare plan would slow or stop that I think.

Allowing what you are suggesting would bring up other problems. I think this has been talked about here last year.

You would have tor allow every state to still create their own health insurance regulations and enforcement as it is now, but be able to enforce it on a company that is not in their state. No state will allow that.

or

You nationalize regulations and enforcement to make every state's regulations the same. Conservatives won't allow that.

or

Every state must have the same regulations and enforcement, which is essentially the same as nationalizing it.

or

You drop regulation and enforcement entirely. Anyone want that?

What would more than likely be the result of that policy would be similar to the credit card industry where one state let's the industry write the rules, they all move there and force the public everywhere to live by the rules and regulations of the state they are in, which is essentially the health companies own plan and one that does not have the consumer in mind at all.

So I mean a national plan, for all, that everyone pays into either the way they do now by deductions from their salary or purchasing through a large group pool, which would be significanly lower because the overhead would be lower than multiple companies doing the same thing, the profit margin would be removed from insurance and the large group could and should be able to negotiate from a position of strength based on the size alone.

Buffett: Criticism is 'ridiculous'
By Steve Jordon


Debbie Bosanek and her boss both declined Thursday to disclose how much she's paid, saying it's private.

In an interview with The World-Herald, Buffett also said none of the online guesses about Bosanek's salary is right, and the critics are missing his point.

"I'm saying she is being treated unfairly in the tax code, as are tens of millions of others, compared to me," Buffett said. "They shouldn't change the rates on all the other people. They should change mine."

Buffett stuck to his long-held contention that it's unfair for high-income people to pay low tax rates, such as his own 17.4 percent in 2010, less than half Bosanek's 35.8 percent rate. That rate is for everything Bosanek pays to the federal government — income taxes as well as payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

Based on that 35.8 percent tax rate, Forbes blogger Paul Roderick Gregory wrote, "She is scarcely the symbol of injustice that Obama wishes her to project. I imagine that there are any number of secretaries who would want her job and her place in the Congress gallery for the President's State of the Union address."

Bosanek, he said, is being portrayed as a "downtrodden woman," but he estimated she makes between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, based on his assumptions about average income tax rates. Other Forbes bloggers disputed the figures, saying Buffett was quoted in the Times of London about five years ago saying he pays his secretary $60,000 a year.

Buffett said Gregory "doesn't have any idea, just zero. If I were to estimate his salary, I'd probably be closer than he is." You can't estimate salaries from tax rates, he said.

Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said the issue isn't Bosanek's income, nor is her tax rate unusually high. "They can't attack the facts, so they attack the person. It's ridiculous."

Bosanek said she's not complaining about her salary or the taxes she pays, nor will she apologize for the home she bought last year in Surprise, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb. One blogger announced that she made the purchase "despite a heavy tax burden."

"I just thought it was time to buy a home," she said. "Warren tells me that it will be the best opportunity in my lifetime. Mortgage rates are low and prices have dropped dramatically. Getting a nice home in a great climate for only a $30,000 down payment and a mortgage that has a low interest rate — I've been working 37 years and saving for an opportunity like this.

"I share Warren's view about the future of America, and we believe that our country will do just fine. I'm happy to make this investment.

"Hopefully in 10 years, when I turn 65 and Warren turns 92, I will be able to convince him to finally retire so I can retire, after working 47 years, and spend some time where the sun shines in the winter."

Bosanek, while declining to give her salary, said: "I feel like I'm treated fairly at Berkshire."

She said she is neither the lowest-paid nor the highest-paid person among the 21 employees at Berkshire's Omaha headquarters. Their 2010 tax rates ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent, according to Buffett's calculations.

Bosanek said neither she or Buffett ever implied that she was poor or underpaid.

"It's not like I look forward to paying taxes," she said. "But I don't mind paying taxes as long as everybody's treated fairly. . I'm not saying anyone should feel sorry for me or lower my taxes. I never even thought about it until he wrote the article."

Buffett wrote an article last August in the New York Times, calling on Congress to change the tax code so high-income people pay at least as much as middle-income taxpayers and using his secretary as an example.

Obama proposed just such a tax change, calling it the "Buffett rule" and emphasized it in his address on Tuesday by inviting Bosanek to sit in the first lady's box during the speech.

"They needed to pick one person, and I was the lucky person they picked, or unlucky," Bosanek said Thursday.

She said she and her husband, Jerry, looked at houses last June when they took their son, also named Jerry, to visit at the University of Northern Arizona campus in Flagstaff, where he is now a freshman. Her husband drives vans and other vehicles for a company that delivers air freight from Eppley Airfield to destinations in the Midwest. Her father was an Omaha firefighter.

The Bosaneks bought the four-bedroom house in Surprise last summer for $144,000, making a $30,000 down payment and taking out a mortgage on the rest.

In Bellevue, the Bosaneks live in a slightly larger house southeast of South 25th Street and Fairview Road, close to the Tregaron Golf Course. They bought it in 1999, paying $231,274. The tax value is now $217,716.

The Surprise house has a pool, as do many others in the area, and the side yard has an artificial turf putting green with four holes, which was installed before the Bosaneks looked at the house. They spent Thanksgiving weekend there.

"We just had a ball. It was very special for us," Bosanek said, giving their son a break from campus life and staying in their own house and not a hotel.

Bosanek said she is not used to being in the public eye but doesn't mind being used as an example because she agrees with Buffett's views on taxes.

"I'm not whining. I just want to set the record straight," she said. "I'm very lucky. I've got a wonderful job. I work for a wonderful person. I have a wonderful family, and I have a wonderful home in Bellevue and I've got this wonderful new home that, hopefully, I'll be able to pay off someday."

The Omaha World-Herald Co. is owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

http://www.omaha.com/article/20120127/NEWS01/301279949/672




LMFAO...now this wouldn't have been a big deal if the facts were reported to begin with! She makes MORE than Owedumba!

Liberal douchebaggery.

The issue is not that she makes too much or pays too much in taxes, it's that Buffet does not pay as much as she does regardless because his income is not taxed the same way. 17% is lower than his secretary no matter how much she paid even if was a lower rate than the top.

Double dip silent outrage....

Yeah...keep on telling yourself that.

What is profit then if not new money?

lmfao. You guys are just full of right wing talk radio talking points. The last 30 years the way the top's income has increased in relation to the income of regular working Americans has actually gone down.

This is no accident. It's a direct result of public policy. It's not an organic result of the capital market because there are laws and rules that change outcomes. And the saddest part is through their media arms they push these policies hard, giving reasons that when scrutinized, (if scrutinized) don't agree with facts and people still buy for whatever each person's reason is. Most of us lost TONS of money in our retirement accounts, housing value and real income and we're still asking to be sh*t on in the hopes of being a top earner. You will not be. The laws are killing the American dream. The middle class is either defined down or shrinking depending on who's talking and you have a better chance of winning the lottery 6 times than making it rich by working hard.

It's not jealousy, it's that everyone wants a chance, but the rules favor those who can afford their own lobbyist. The wealthy support the politicians that work for them, why can't the rest of us do that?

Nice rant but you offered no argument that this "Buffett Rule" talk is nothing more than a political talking point for the democrats. If you want to claim the Bush tax cuts are the sole reason for the plight of the middle class you are not intellectually honest. The democrats held unprecedented power for Obama's first two years and punted changing this tax rule to protect the seats of some of it's vulnerable members. To top it off, the Bush cuts, if repealed entirely, would generate about 42 billion, and even Obama only wants to change it for those over $250,000. This 42 billion sort of pales in comparison to a 1.5 trillion dollar yearly deficit, but the democrats make it sound like it is some major step in resolving the debt and maintaining 'fairness' for the middle class.

Believe me, I'm not saying in the discussion of fixing the debt issue this set of cuts does not need to be considered for removal, but the Obama administration is using it as a political ploy and if you can't see that there is no point in continuing the discussion.

Strawmen everywhere, don't light a match.

It is a politcal talking point, obviously, that is reflected in real life stats and history. The tax policies that started under Reagan, shifting the burden to the middle class and working people from the 'investment class' and getting rid of regulation is a failed policy. In my lifetime we have had no huge recessions/depressions/blow ups until now. Getting rid of the laws put in place after the great depression that protected the economy from blowing up caused the crisis. There could still have been a correction, like the dot com bubble, but it would have been more contained.

The talking points in your and other arguments, taxed money already, everyone is just jealous etc have only a slight basis in reality and most of the arguments attack the people instead of the idea, but that's not atypical.

"If you want to claim the Bush tax cuts are the sole reason for the plight of the middle class you are not intellectually honest."

I don't want to make that argument and I never have.

"The democrats held unprecedented power for Obama's first two years and punted changing this tax rule to protect the seats of some of it's vulnerable members."

Yes they did. Again, I didn't say otherwise, nor am I claiming Democrats aren't responsible. They are, in a huge way. President Clinton for one. He signed the law that got rid of the regulations that protected the economy and his administration was full of these banker guys, as is every other administration. Obama is doing the same damn thing as everyone else. At the very minimum at least Clinton worked on the debt and deficits and proved that raising taxes doesn't kill the economy, but other than that, same old.

Why is saying that it won't solve our entire budget crisis a way to shooting down the proposal? It's at least working toward the goal.

And again, a political ploy? In a way it is as it makes a stand politically, but it's not a political game like saying you will repeal abortion and never do anything about it.

Fuzz I give you credit for at lease admitting that both parties share the blame for the current economic envirnment. As a fairly staunch conservative myself, even I am not insane enough to believe that some amount of tax increases will be necessary to correct the current deficit. The trick is a double-edged sword for both parties as entitlements will have to be reduced, and taxes raised, both political suicide for the dems and reps.... As I've been saying for years, we do not need politicians, we need statesmen.