Pelosi wins....How does that make you feel luxury NYC RE: sellers

Tku for re-posting this - I am pretty sure we line up on opposite sides of this issue, but I hope that doesn't mean we can't be friends.

All I'll say on it, lest I get us yanked again is that if it costs me an additional $5400 per hundred grand I am fortunate enough to earn ABOVE $1mn a year to extend some form of healthcare to +/-30mn people then I can't wait to pay my fair share. Is it a perfect bill? No, assuredly not, but the status quo is deplorable to me and I welcome the chance to shoulder this level of burden to achieve this end. Well done House of Representatives!

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/background.php?cycle=2010&ind=K
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?cycle=2010&ind=K
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2010&ind=K

You don't really add all of the tax rates up, patient, as they offset each other. There are also very high income thresholds before those rates are reached. If you add in Social Security / Medicare and sales taxes, the tax system is still regressive. Those in the 57.62% tax bracket that you invented earn much more income in capital gains, taxed at a lower rate, or, if you're lucky enough to be a hedge fund manager, at the 15% "carried interest" rate. Warren Buffett pays a lower percentage of tax on his total income than his secretary.

lp: As a limousine liberal, I have enough dough to not let these things bother me. Still doesn't make it good economic sense for the long run health of the economy. That's the beauty of being a limousine liberal, I get to support all the idiots with their idiotic plans, while they thank me for caring about the poor, all the while I know perfectly well that the plans will just be economic disasters for those the policies were intended to help. And they all thank me for it. The media, the politicians and those being offered the handout. You know how the famous saying. "Give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day, buy a man a boat and he will lay around and drink beer all day"

http://www.libertysarmy.com/2009/10/27/taxes/rich-new-yorkers-leaving-the-state-because-of-high-taxes/

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/21/morning-bell-californias-high-tax-high-spending-disaster/

Brunt of the tax burden will be borne by those who make $ on their W2s. I don't think that's "fair", but I wholeheartedly support HC reform. Good outweighs the bad. In Canada, almost everyone pays taxes to support HC insurance. That gives everyone much more of a stake. Here, there will be some taxpayers (on both ends) who will not be paying for HC insurance.

steve: I was trying to keep it simple...no offset, but deductible yes, state, city, yes...add in 1.45 unlimited medi tax..call it 54.653% rate. Before the next wave of NYS and NYC tax increases.

Hey, I live here and want to continue doing so. However, with no adults in Washington or Albany, they will continue to drive folks out.

steve: re: how lucky hedge fund managers really might be feeling right now . . .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125756405277235519.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

Methinks these ripples are still spreading, and that actually the wind that makes the waves on the sea of money is blowing rather more than less briskly right now . . . i am thanking my stars in my long & storied career on wall street i never never never knew anything to pass along in the first place . . .

The masochist in me can't wait to see how people react to being smashed by higher taxes in the form of the healthcare surtax and the obviously "'round the corner" increases in NY state and city taxes.

I've already made a strategic decision to leave New York in the next 1-2 years. I can't stand to work this hard and pay so much in tax to continue this farce of a welfare state.

I also wonder if the increase in HC spending will mean (vain hope) a decrease in NYS and NYC taxes because we currently spend more on health care - some of which will be picked up by feds.

Robot - where to? In terms of my preferred lifestyle, I can't think of many, if any, places in the U.S. that beat NYC.

Especially since the proposed health care 5.4% surtax is federal, not local so unless one is prepared to leave the country, leaving NYC because of this is doesn't make any sense. Now if one says i am leaving NYC because of the NYC tax burden then that is at least logical in the sense that the action of leaving will alleviate the offending tax. Then the question of leaving to where becomes relevant.

The link from patient09 aside (which cited the NY Post as ultimate authority) aside, I don't think that taxes of the level in the OP with a threshold of a million bucks for joint filers are gong to drive many people out of the city. Some? sure, a few. But it won't change the make up of NYC. There's too much here for rich folks to enjoy, even after they fork over the $5400 per add'l $100,000.

Yeah but bonuses are back and the value of past bonuses issued in stock and options is up big. Don't count all this out.

http://www.triallawyersinc.com/updates/tli_update_healthcare_2009.html

n his nationally televised speech before both houses of Congress on September 9, President Obama made news by acknowledging that medical-malpractice litigation "may be contributing to unnecessary costs" in the U.S. health-care system. The president's comments were in keeping with popular opinion: 72 percent of Americans think that fear of lawsuits compromises doctor decisions, and fully 83 percent want any health-care reform to address medical-malpractice litigation.

Notwithstanding the president's remarks and popular opinion, Congress has been laboring to expand medical liability against nursing homes, medical-device makers, and military doctors—changes that would be expected to drive up, not down, health-care costs. The reason is simple: with massive campaign contributions and lobbying clout, the organized plaintiffs' bar—whom the Manhattan Institute has dubbed "Trial Lawyers, Inc."—has bought Congressional leaders' support. In the last election cycle, the trial lawyers' political action committee gave over $2.5 million to Congressional Democrats, making the plaintiffs' bar the second largest donor after the electrical workers' union (see graph). Overall, lawyers and law firms gave almost $234 million to federal campaigns in 2008, including almost $127 million to Congressional candidates—more than any other industry group and significantly more than all health-care-related contributions combined (see graph).

This legislation is very disappointing, It does nothing to cut costs, it just shifts the burden around. The legislation should have included Tort Reform and increased deductibles. How do you cut costs unless the consumer has an interest in seeking low cost alternatives. It's unfortunate the Trial Lawyers were able to block Obama's initiative in Tort reform. It's clear the law lobby spent a great deal of money and time to protect their interests at the expense of the grater good.

Actually, Riversider, the legislation includes several pilot programs that take direct aim at rising costs:

"Several pilot programs with similar aims have made it into some of the health-reform bills considered by Congress. One is a bundling program, in which Medicare would pay hospitals a set fee for certain operations or chronic illnesses, rather than paying piecemeal for every aspect of the treatment. Hospitals would then have an incentive to avoid complications and readmissions, because they would no longer be automatically reimbursed for them. The hospitals that did the best job of keeping their patients healthy would end up helping their bottom lines. The details are still being fleshed out, but Medicare or private hospital groups would most likely monitor outcomes to make sure the incentives didn’t lead hospitals to skimp on care or turn away the sickest patients.

These pilot programs have been largely overlooked in the public discussion of health reform, because they start small. At first, they would be voluntary. Places like Intermountain would presumably sign up for them, and high-cost hospitals would not. But the Obama administration is hoping to make the pilot programs national — and mandatory — if they are successful. In that case, the program would suddenly not be so small. It would begin to attack medicine’s most upside-down incentives."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Healthcare-t.html?pagewanted=8&_r=1&hpw

They're not going to happen overnight, but the move toward cutting costs is just getting started. Tort reform is another angle, but to categorically state that there is no attempt at cost reductions is incorrect.

That bill is 2000 pages long
Does anyone have a link to a 'pre-digested' recap of the bill in question?
It would be great to have an idea of what we are about to purchase.

I heard today that Obama was going to close Congress for 5 days after they have a final bill and require every member to read it before voting. Finally some rationality in Washington!

It is funny when sellers talk about bonuses being back. They were only gone for 1-year. So having them back is really not a huge deal. But it gives sellers hope to cling to. I would think the re-establishment of cash positions by those getting bonuses will be much more important than a RE investment. While stocks are still at depreciated levels, second home RE will not even be close to a wise investors first choice. There are still a record amount of properties for sale, and a record amount of RE equity in free fall.

manhattan RE is toast!

Im glad everyone will get health care now too.

For small business owners add 2.9% personal Medical, 4% UBT, the new MTA tax, Social Security and you are up to about 65% effective tax rate in NYC - basically working for the government until September 1. Why risk money in starting/expanding a business when you get 100% of losses and 35% of gains? Why retire in NYC and pay almost 14% in state and local taxes - which will be going up?

To the extent that businesses get hit they will just scale back employee comp. Those on salaries will suffer.

The employer healthcare mandates, to say nothing for the tax increases, will make small businesses much more likely to have fewer employees. Health care per employee is a fixed cost per employee (which is now going to rise significantly) so it is much more economic to have fewer more productive employees. Good for those who have a job, bad for those that need one.

A 2 page article and the Times doesn't even mention that tort reform wasn't included in the bill.
Intellectually bankrupt - the bill and the Times.

More would be done to lower health care costs with tort reform than with all of the other provisions in this bill combined.
Some of the ideas in the bill are great and will be a help to our country but the lack of tort reform just shows us that Washington is still Washington - not change I can believe in.

Democrats in Congress , are major recipients of Trial Lawyer money. Harry Reid tops the list. Tort reform never had a chance. The lawyers make too much money here. Never had a chance. Too bad nobody told Obama before he made that speech. Is he really in control of the process?

NY Times is a left wing paper, what did you expect Jazzman?

"or, if you're lucky enough to be a hedge fund manager, at the 15% "carried interest" rate."

There is no such rate, it is a common myth. Carried interest is mostly taxed as ordinary income (as many hedge funds elect MTM accounting so all gains are short term). Some long-term and qualified dividends are taxed at the lower 15%. Unrealized gains are not taxed at all until realized.

"I've already made a strategic decision to leave New York in the next 1-2 years. I can't stand to work this hard and pay so much in tax to continue this farce of a welfare state."

Me too, sometime over the next few years. But I will retain a place in NYC, and stay here under 180 days per year to avoid NYC taxes.

The problem is finding a nice state with no income tax, most of them don't appeal to me for part of the year. But I can have a nice house or condo in Florida for free, courtesy of my state tax savings.

Or I will try Arizona, though they have a state income tax is is less than half of NY/NYC tax rates.

"I've already made a strategic decision to leave New York in the next 1-2 years. I can't stand to work this hard and pay so much in tax to continue this farce of a welfare state."

deferring comp and then moving out for at least 180 days is a "no-brainer", can they really not nail you? something like the feds taxing for 10 years after giving up citizenship... incidentally, whoever was adding up tax rates forgot NY sales tax and soon to come VAT tax

what was that about running out of other people's money

I think deferred comp is taxable in NYS even after you move out, if you earned it while a resident of NY.

Given that the top 1% of earners in NYS pay 42% of state income taxes every high end earner who leaves NY or retires in another state is a large blow to revenues. While the coming 10% tax hike (expiration of Bush tax cuts and Pelosi health care tax) are not NYS tax increases they certainly magnify the total income being taken from high earners in NYS making it more likely people will try to offset the Federal tax increases by reducing their state and local taxes by moving (particularly after they retire). High earners moving away from NYC can't possibly be good for NYC real estate, the NYC economy and the remaining high earners who will be asked to pay an ever increasing amount of taxes to make up for the lost revenues.

We're in for an era of high tax rates with government subsidies to undo the damage of the high taxes. It won't be good. The rich will not suffer, they have good accountants. It will be the middle class.

do you have any better suggestions? we've consistently spent more than we had for at least the last 8 years...everyone is happy to cut gov't expenditures except when it affects them. get over it already.

NYS and NYC is the at epicenter of the Golden moment to drop the income tax and go to sales tax. Think of all the rich folks who live in NYS for 180 days and pay no income tax. They don't do this because they like Florida. Even if those folks added an additional 3-4 months of living here think what it would do for business activity. Its regressive?..yada, yada,yada..fine, no tax at grocery stores or kmart.

CC "do you have any better suggestions?" Yeah, instead of cutting government expenditures, as you point out are difficult politically, how about not creating new ones like this new giant health care program?

so...do you not believe that new taxes will pay for this? i have no idea personally but also have no reason to disbelieve the president when he says that he will not sign a bill that is at least revenue neutral. i think we are all sunk if we blithely assume that the president is lying because the previous one did.

Yea, Obama keeps his promises.....

shut up. you make everyone sick. you've got a problem which you need to work on. somewhere else.

you make everyone sick.

good thing you have health care now

I believe new taxes will pay for this and will have a significant negative impact on the economy, particularly in high tax states like NY. And that the ultimate cost of these taxes will fall largely on the middle class and poor due to killing job creation and providing disincentives for establishing/expanding new businesses.

nyalman, the GAO is very good at their job, but they measure based on what they are told to measure. This will cost more than we are told. It's the equivalent of George W Bush preparing a budget based on assumed productivity gains due to tax cuts. Totally irresponsible. Reid & Pelosi are very much on the left and do not care about the middle class.

so new taxes on couples making more than $1 million a year will fall on the middle class? i don't understand your logic.

There is a tax burden bifurcation between those who have high W2 incomes and those who derive income from self-employment, capital gains, dividend income etc. All "rich" folks are not the same. There are absolutely
no accounting tricks that some can take to get out of paying >50% marginal taxes. I can't pretend I'm 100% happy that I will be subsidizing people who don't necessarily take the best care of themselves, or make unwise choices (octo-mom, anyone) that cripple the system. Yet, just as I don't question free school bkfasts (in NYC) or free school lunches because greater good than harm is done, the day has come for some form of universal health care insurance. Particularly for children.

Whether or not the U.S. health care scheme will be a disaster or success - who knows? Every Western country has been down the road, and has not been broken - though of course, there are unique challenges ahead for Americans.

so new taxes on couples making more than $1 million a year will fall on the middle class? i don't understand your logic.

SO NAIVE...

oh wise one...tell us more...

actually, please don't.

and please don't post any more links for at least a week.

Most people that make $1 million plus a year are small to mid sized business owners. Higher taxes on them give them less of an incentive to spend money expanding their businesses or starting new ones since they only get to keep 35 cents for every $1 made in NYC. Less money invested in their businesses equals less jobs created equals higher unemployment which largely falls on the middle class.

you never offer any information or supporting information, just wise cracks and profanity, oh well..

Yes, clear the next few years will be one of low growth, perhaps some additional safety nets, and rising prices. There's nothing being discussed that would make one think we will have rising GDP

except for everyone who works on wall street.

business owners have the benefit of lower capital gains taxes.

and...finally...smart business owners invest and expand their businesses based on opportunity (or currently lack thereof)--not taxes. business owners have many more opportunities to play the tax game to their advantage than wage earners.

where is the evidence of rising prices?

Capital gains only occur when you sell a business. Business owners, of which I am one, weigh the risk/reward of expanding. Increased taxes means lower rewards which raises the threshold for investing in the business. "Tax games" - is such a myth - evenues and expenses are pretty straightforward numbers for most businesses.

I particularly like the fact that Congress has their own health care system. Nothing better than a cook that won't taste their own cooking. Besides majoority of Congress are millionaires. No way they can relate.

you make it sound so cut and dried. if you really are a business owner, you know its not. paying taxes in a business means you're making money....which is always good. and, once again, if you really are a business owner, you know that there are many things that you can do that are tax advantaged vs. a straight wage earner.

CC - believe what you want to believe. I am a business owner and this Pelosi tax increase (if it also passes the Senate) will accelerate my retirement date (where I can enjoy the money I have made) and move out of NYC (where I will have more post-retirement income to spend). I rather have less money and more time off than work for the government until September 1st.

so...then you'll sell your business and enjoy the benefits of the lower capital gains tax and the new owner will be off to the races. where he/she if faced with a new opportunity from an existing or new customer that looks good, will still take the plunge to try to raise the bottom line of the business.

if you're ready to move on, god bless. just don't blame the new health care bill.

Most small businesses, including mine, is not sellable. They just close when the owner retires.

forgive me...that's not a business. if you as the owner are making a living out of the business then of course its salable. if you're not making a living, then you have bigger problems that the new health care bill.

And who buys a business with low profit margins, the result of high government imposed costs? The logic astounds..

so...riversider...i presume we can assume that you have never run a business, much less bought or sold one? if the profit is there, its worth something. if there's no profit, then why bother in the first place? and of course in the case of a small business, the profit much very includes the owner's draw. are we to assume that the owner has been operating the business for no compensation?

Wrong!

Nyalman is correct.

and of course, most businesses are valued at pretax cash flows. but of course you know all about that.

Nyalman is correct.

well of course he's correct. and he's certainly met your test; he agrees with you.

If less people die because they now have health insurance, is that bullish for real estate?

don't know if he agrees with me, but he's correct.

My clients are paying me for my advice. I employee people to assist in this process. I'd love to pass this business along or sell it but that is not feasible. CC - have you ever taken a risk to start a business with your money and in the process create jobs which ultimately increase tax revenues? I think I know the answer given your commentary of this board.

nyalman, i just wonder what's the alternative. hospitals are firing people across the country, because so many people don't have health care any longer. what would be the eventual tax cost of pervasive lack of coverage, especially considering the numbers of people who are employed in the health care industry? anyone want to take a guess at how many of our employed work in health care? or what percent of the service GDP is derived from health care?

employer costs of health care have increased 149% since 2000. you can't even begin to convince me that that's because of medmal or defensive medical practices. yes, they occur, and in a few counties at inexplicably high rates. but generally, no. and individual contributions to medical cost have and are skyrocketing.

while initially as a small business owner it may cost more (and i'll confess that i don't know all the details of the plan, so i don't know the requirements for small business owners), having cheaper coverage available for employees would be a huge factor for mid to large-sized companies. a very big disincentive to increasing presence in the US is the cost of health care.

as with everything, the answers aren't simple. but almost every industrialized country in the world does health care better than we do, on a per population basis, and at far less cost.

i'm one of those people who is relatively well-off income wise, but not capital gains wise, and i will likely pay a great deal, proportionately. but i can't see how we could have continued long-term with the path we were taking. my husband is considered self-employed, so we pay our own insurance premiums. it's around $1800 a month for crappy coverage, high deductibles, frequent refusals to pay claims, high co-payments. i can afford that, although i don't like it. when i had to COBRA in the late 80's it was less than $200 per month. and medmal costs per population were much higher.

yes indeed....quite successfully. and not once did i ever think about taxes --- i had far more pressing problems like making a profit. so...do your clients value your advice and pay you for it? presumably, the answer is yes. have you made any attempt to groom a successor whom your clients might value as much as you? if so, that individual could take over your business and pay you some portion of future profits from existing clients. if not, well...are you really going to blame nancy pelosi for that?

Many small accountants are in a similar position. They have a good business, but the client base is not transferable. Same is true for many small shop owners. It's not clear why CC cannot grasp this.

i say bullshit to you. accountants can most definitely transfer their business if they work at and plan for it. my present accountant bought the business from my original accountant. i am not privy to the deal but they worked on it for a number of years in an intelligent planned fashion. small shop owners in the current environment are screwed but once again this is not because of health care but because of big box retailers and the internet.

this is so patently obvious that i want to scream. if an accountant has been providing reliable service for years to his/her client base and over a few years introduces a junior partner who continues to provide excellent service, why would the clients make the effort to find someone new? the answer is that they wouldn't.

AR: I have reached the same conclusion as you on HC. 1) My taxes will go up 2) The quality of health care I receive at current out-of-pocket costs will decrease, and I will likely have to pay even more out of pocket. But on a societal level, I really can't see an alternative. I have personal experience with both Canadian and UK health care systems and while they are not perfect, not even the most disgruntled citizen there have proposed any feasible alternatives.

And I also wonder how this will impact doctors from rest of the English-speaking world. For decades, Canadian, UK doctors have immigrated to the U.S. for big(ger) bucks. The U.S. has acted as an escape valve, so to speak, for those
unhappy with their compensation.

we're come to an unfortunate place where nobody can win without someone else losing. this won't be good long term for us doctor's comp either.

10023, during this bubble i'm not so sure that the major metropolitan areas have provided a great living for younger doctors. maybe seattle and the mayo system, but not generally. specialists who don't take insurance, other doctors who've been able to fill their dance cards without insurance patients, long-time doctors who have stable living costs, may be doing OK. radiologists and anathesiologists.

others, not so much. it's a huge educational investment, with enormous commitment post-graduation, and a great deal of stress. these people should be paid well. and well is a very interesting concept these days, no? with any student loans the odds of someone without parental support being able to both afford graduate school and save up enough money to establish a home is quite small. the law keeps people in one place because of the bar exam and state licensing requirements. medicine, i don't know about.

CC: yup. But things have reached a head, and it would have been so much easier had this been implemented 4 decades. But here we are.

AR: doctor's comp is public information in Ontario & the rest of Canada. The chief of a dept at a very prestigious hospital in Toronto "only" makes 400k. That person could make at least 2x that number in the U.S. Ditto U.K. People's expectations of the lifestyle that accompanies various professions (not singling out medicine) is very different outside the U.S. But then again, you don't have the same robber barons to compare yourself to.

. . . and with the FX rate involved, I mean C$400K is like what? Right about $400K . . . ok, never mind.

but what's the cost of living in Toronto? not being contentious. but if you can buy a decent place at a lower cost, and you're children's educational opportunities are much higher, i don't know..

i'd doubt that doctors don't have decent standards of living in Canada. they did in the US generally until recently. but i know a number of doctors who certainly aren't living large, like financial types.

lp, funny.

also, 10023, what is the cost of medical school in canada?

AR: That's why it would take at least 2 multiples of that 400k (maybe more now, with the exchange rate) to get them to leave a lower cost of living for the States. Also, they don't tend to move to NYC, anyway. Your kids (for the 1st gen. anyway) are still Canadian citizens, and benefit from low tuition rates for college. I'd say, in general, when the exchange rate was in the 70-cent, professionals (not docs) would move to the States for wage differentials as low as 20%. The tax brackets are different as well, so 20% at less than 300k (approx.) worked out to 30-40% differential depending on what state you move to. Outside CA, NY, Toronto RE is more expensive than the rest of major metro areas in the U.S.

Very low, AR. I don't keep up with the current fees, but a pittance (when I was in college in the early 90s, it was about 5k annually). So it has always been a win-win situation for Cdn doctors to move to the States. It is, on average, more difficult to get into med school in Canada.

AR: if you take a survey of your average Canadian graduating class in the "professional" disciplines, esp. the more portable disciplines (meds, dentistry, engineering, pharmacy, nursing, occupational/phys. therapy), depending on the vicissitudes of the economy - as many as half of the graduates end up in the U.S. at the 20 year point. It's not 100% compensation-driven, but close to it.

10023, interesting. when my husband went to law school here at a top 25 law school (state) we paid a total of $8000 for his education, 1991-94. no aid. that was tuition.

Probably more than half my class in the U.S. or have spent time working in the U.S. - we graduated at a time when the exchange rate was low, and tech was booming. Yeah, so the typical person left a C$40k job for a US$65k job. Also, when you're in your early 20s, you don't worry about the tuition costs of your future children.

AR: 91-94 wow, talk about robbing the cradle.....coooogggggeeerrrr!

http://www.shutterup.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Couger0532.jpg

U.S. economy has grown faster than Europe's. In general we have a higher average GDP too. Why do we want to emulate Europe?

go back into your hole. and stay there.

rs, because it's a better place to live? and our numbers our fucked up?

p09, roar, baby, roar. but i don't get your years. am i missing something? i did actualy have a great time recently dancing at the pyramid club. the other chicks didn't seem to appreciate my dancing skills.

Europe has many great things, but has not matched the u.s. when it comes to American entrepreneurship. It's a shame that's being sacrificed.

so...this is another result of the health care bill? you are ridiculous. people start businesses because they are driven and passionate...taxes are irrelevant.

and, you still seem to overlook the fact that a business needs to be profitable to pay taxes. you are a dumb shit.

really, rs. you think that all that will be focused on the US? right.

i'll take much of europe any day.

For one thing, Europe has a much lower infant mortality rate.

Hopefully, we will begin to catch up with Europe on much lower infant mortality rates. There is just no excuse.

As regards small business taxes - I am sympathetic to concerns here. As much as I dislike individual income taxes, I think that's where the increases should be. And yes, progressive income taxes...including the millionaires(income)tax. There is no free lunch as much as we Americans keep looking for one.

09, roooaaarrr.

topper, yes they have a much lower infant mortality rate. why? because they have access to health care. it has always been true that a dollar spent in early pregnancy education and earlier childhood medical care gave back a 1.5-1.8 times. but some people don't want to hear that. many expenditures can actaully make sense. others...

Health care costs as a percent of GDP

16% United States
11% France
10% Germany
10% Canada
9% Sweden
9% Norway

So why are we upping the ante by $1.1 Tril

Is it a contest to see how much we can spend?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92106731

No matter how you choose to investigate it, all data suggests money spent on healthcare is not a problem in the United States. We are the best in the World at that period. There is no debate on that point. We just simply SUCK at HOW we spend that money.

No, we can do better. If the country wants to make health care a right, it's fine by me. What bothers me is the Democrats are forcing upon us a bad plan. The only part that makes sense is mandating coverage. The rest is wrong.

gasbag.