that dividends are not an expense/cost.

They are not.  They are a charge against retained earnings

A "charge against" IS an expense or cost. A given sum of money can be retained (retained earnings) or paid out (dividends), but not both. 

You really don't comprehend this, do you? Your saying that a company that pays out dividends has the same operating costs as one that doesn't is one of the dumbest things you've said, and that's quite a feat.

I give up. Trying to educate Tom is like trying to teach a pig to fly a space shuttle.

Does rent cost and office supplies paid by the employer reduce the pay of employees?  That is essentially your very weak argument here with unemployment costs.  

Your argument is very flawed.  You assume any costs paid by the employer would go right back into employee wages if not incurred.  Ever hear of research and development?  Capital costs?  Marketing costs?  

Also,...........

Dividends paid by a corporation are not considered an expense in the context of financial accounting or taxation. This is a common misunderstanding because dividends represent a cash outflow from the business. A dividend is officially classified as a distribution of profits to the company’s owners, the shareholders. Instead of being recorded on the Income Statement as an expense, the payment is treated as a reduction of the company’s equity on the Balance Sheet.

The distribution represents a return on the capital that investors have already contributed to the company. This action reduces the pool of accumulated profits, known as Retained Earnings. Therefore, dividends do not factor into the calculation of a company’s Net Income.

Really? Guess you don't understand what people who work for small companies or are self-employed have to pay. Guess it's good to be a boomer.

Look at the chart; it very clearly says ER wait times

A "charge against" IS an expense or cost. A given sum of money can be retained (retained earnings) or paid out (dividends), but not both.

Once again cpa kevin shows his ignorance.

Dividends are a balance sheet entry.  Expenses/costs are a P&L entry

Absolutely!

The reason I like the French model, and it seems you didn't like this part, is that everyone gets basic health insurance, and the folks who can pay more can buy more. It's not single payer that makes sure everyone has complete coverage, but people can go out on the open market and buy the additional coverage they want. Benefit? Potentially less costly for a basic provided benefit compared to the coverages offered now from employers.

My current health insurance plan, from a publicly traded billion-dollar company, costs $10,258.08 per year. I pay $69.78 per pay period, and the company pays $296.58. Seems like a corporate tax, doesn't it? 

Remember when you recently said this? 

"Originally posted by: tom

Right in line with what I was paying yearly for coverage from my wife's employer. Seems reasonable.

For 2 people that would be $23,000."

Like I said right in line, WITHOUT employer subsidies. 

How would I handle it? As a quasi-government insurance company, similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In Colorado, Pinnacle Insurance handles workers' comp insurance as a quasi-government insurance company overseen by a board appointed by the governor.

Set up an insurance company, run by insurance people as a non-profit, have a board that oversees it, and offer basic medical coverage. Well visits, birth control, ER visits, Urgent care visits, minor specialist, etc. Then a base percentage coverage for major medical, specialist, and long-term hospital stays. 

At this point have an open national market from private/public health insurance companies that can provide additional benefits to anyone who can afford to buy them. 

How to pay for the basic coverage? Glad you asked, the same companies are paying, in my case, $8,304.24 per year to subsidize mine. The national coverage offered would be less than my current coverage and, hopefully, benefit from the "Law of large numbers", to bring the annual cost per person down.

Aah, it does, lower corner, my mistake. I quickly looked up Germany; they seem to have a similar system to France. Your chart shows their wait times are 22 minutes. Thoughts?

How about this part of the webpage? Thoughts?

Are Health Care Wait Times Longer in Countries with Universal Health Care than in the United States?

A common misconception in the U.S. is that countries with universal health care have much longer wait times. However, data from nations with universal coverage, coupled with historical data from coverage expansion in the United States, show that patients in other nations often have similar or shorter wait times."

They're similar.

But they DO count as income for taxation purposes, because that money that is ultimately paid out to shareholders is (or was, if you want to engage in semantics) INCOME. It doesn't matter whether the company retains it, pays it out, or sets fire to it.

That's why "net" income isn't an accurate representation of a company's profitability. If they make $50 million and pay out all but fifteen cents to shareholders, that doesn't mean that their profits were 0.0000003%. 

I'm well aware that dividends aren't considered an expense in modern accounting. That's because an expense is a cost that is a direct result of operations, like wages or the power bill. A dividend is a ROI for investors and is not needed to keep the company operational. 

Let's say that Tom Medical Group cares for 231,898 people. To do so and not lose money, it has to collect premiums amounting to $267,722.05. But, it also has to pay its shareholders a quarterly dividend of $5 per share, and there are 2 million of them. So, they must collect an additional $40 million in premiums to cover that. 

A not-for-profit organization--Nice Guys Health Care--would have to only collect the cost-covering amount in premiums, and not the dividend-covering amount. So Nice Guys would be cheaper than Tomcare.

The above is kind of "well, duh," but it seems to completely escape Tom.