Possibly paying off the student loans they used to get that college education? Or do you consider that another way of sponging off the government? :rolleyes:
Which I have never done. Even in what you quoted, I plainly said “I am tired of paying so many taxes to support people who cannot be bothered to be responsible”. That is not all. You are the one assuming that all people who are on assistance must be irresponsible.
You just said yourself “based on income”. The government conveniently has everyone report their income when they file their taxes. That’s how they’ll decide.
I can’t believe you are acting so incredulous about this. We’ve explained it over and over again.
I think certainly there should be rules about what is reasonable for a plan to cover and what isn’t. The plan doesn’t have to be carte blanche.
God I’m sick of this one. Look, it doesn’t matter what the government did with that money, the fact is they took it from me with the promise that I would get it back when I needed it. Even if they only took $100 a paycheck from me, and I’m sure it was more, over the 35 years +/- I worked, that is over $90,000. And if I’d been allowed to keep it and put it to retirement it would have been earning all kinds of interest so would be far more than that.
Even if the government is robbing Peter to pay Paul, I still paid all of that money in over the decades, which is far different than those who demand that I pay for them to have children and then pay to raise them, without contributing much if anything in the way of taxes. To even try to compare the two shows how desperate you all are to pretend that a UHC isn’t just another form of welfare.
ETA - this is the end of page 24 for me and all the time I have to spend on this today.
Jenaroph did, in her post a page ago:
More than 90% of medically related bankruptcies were caused by high medical bills. The bills were the cause of the bankruptcy, not a contribution to.
Hospital bills were the largest single expense for half of all medically bankrupt families. The largest single expense would be the only significant debt woud it not?
*Originally Posted by **Harvard Study **
They found that a number of medical factors contributed to a family’s financial disaster. **More than 90% of medically related bankruptcies were caused by high medical bills directly or medical costs that were so high the family was forced to mortgage their home. **The remaining 8% went bankrupt because a medical problem caused them to lose income. The authors were not able to track credit-card defaults caused by medical bills, but a 2007 study found that, of low- and middle-income households with credit-card debt, 29% used their plastic to pay off medical expenses.
Individuals with diabetes, one of the most common chronic diseases in the U.S., and those with neurological illnesses such as multiple sclerosis had the highest costs, an average of $26,971 and $34,167, respectively. Hospital bills were the largest single expense for half of all medically bankrupt families.*
Well, I’ll argue against this, because I’ve always thought that socialism didn’t even emerge as a coherent political philosophy until the nineteenth century. Who precisely was advocating anything like socialism in the late eighteenth century? And if the framers were such devout proto-libertarians, why didn’t they reject the idea of a government-controlled postal service as socialistic, too? How did THAT get into the Constitution, anyway?
Oh, brother. Just because “Socialism” wasn’t a coherent philosophy until after their time doesn’t mean that ideas couldn’t be more socialistic, in today’s parlance, regardless of how they would have described them. Do you really think they would have been welcoming of ideas from that direction? If so, why? On what evidence? Have you read much of the writings of the founders. Can you point me to something that would support that notion? I don’t think that the postal service, or the military (providing for the common defense) support your position. Even staunch conservatives and libertarians grant that their are some proper roles for government. And they both qualify. Especially in their time.
Rubystreak, I want to have your babies.
Admittedly, it will be kind of difficult, me being a man and all…but it’s the thought that counts.
Just thought I’d restate this in the vain hope that curlcoat will answer it.
“They” didn’t “take” anything from you. You agreed to pay this tax when you took that job. You signed up for it. You will get far more of Other People’s Money than the average taxpayer by virtue of your early retirement.
If you were so hell-bent on living in a self-sufficient bubble, you should have worked for yourself and gone off the grid. You made your bed…
Right - and under a UHC everybody pays taxes to support the system. It can even be engineered so that even if someone doesn’t pay income tax they still have a FICA-like tax on their earnings they can’t get out of.
In other words: curlcoat believes no one but her pays taxes, and that it’s OK to dump the chronically sick and/or poor out in the cold without medical care because… well, because she doesn’t care about pain and suffering that isn’t hers.
I am currently enrolled in a medical plan subsidized by the state of Indiana because of my low income. I was required to document my income, which documentation ran to 28 pages (in part because I had held multiple jobs that year - I’m told that most people don’t require quite that much paper). Among other things, when I stated I was no longer working for a particular company I was required to get a signed statement from that company stating that I was no longer an employee and my last date of work to prove I wasn’t still earning money from them. This was sent to a state government official, who examined the documents to assertain that they were in order and legitimate. I anticipate having to do this again within the month in order to remain in the program. I would expect a UHC with a subsidy for low-income people to enact similar requirements. I would imagine that a certain number of these applications are randomly audited as well.
Well, you obnoxious biddy, maybe you haven’t noticed but in some industries wages are falling, not rising. But why would you know that, you don’t work for a living, do you? Yes, there are “professional full time jobs” that require a college degree that do not provide insurance. My accountant, for example, is a college-educated professional who is in business for himself and as a sole proprietor does not have a group plan from work, there being no group. He must pay for all of his health insurance out of pocket. It consumes 40% of his income, as he has pre-existing conditions and thus his policy is very expensive. So, to answer “what the hell is he spending his money on” - mostly medical insurance. Except that after he was hospitalized for an MRSA infection last year his policy was cancelled and he has been unable to get new coverage. That’s just one example.
I used to work in the industry. Yes, that practice exists, and has existed for years. No, it’s NOT illegal.
If you have a UHC that sort of thing CAN NOT happen. It can’t - because EVERY doctor under UHC is “in network”. Please look up the definition of “universal”.
So… if a woman and/or her husband have a good job, the woman gets pregnant, and five months along the man/woman/both lose their job they should… what? Be forced to have an abortion? What is your obession with the whole baby issue? Did you want kids and wind up sterile and now have frothing jealousy towards fertile people or something?
You pay for poor women to have prenatal care NOT just for the sake of the women but for the sake of the child. It’s cheaper to give free prenatal care than to spend for a lifetime of caring for a child with a preventable birth defect. I realize it makes you want to vomit to release even a penny from your miserly clutches, but would you rather spend $5,000 to insure a healthy child who will grow up to be a productive adult paying FAR more back into the system than that, or spend $5,000,000 over a lifetime caring for someone with a preventable birth defect? Oh, sorry - I forgot, you’re stupid about math. Well, the longer number is a bigger number, that’s more money. Do the thing that costs less over the long term.
Equally clearly, our current system WON’T fix that, otherwise it would have already.
You know, even WITH insurance people themselves will choose to avoid “very expensive things” sometimes. My mother, for instance, could have had a LOT of very expensive care at the end of her life, all of it covered by Medicare and her “gap” insurance, but instead we chose to opt for hospice, at home, which was a LOT less money but money had nothing to do with our decision - because we didn’t have to worry about how to pay the bills. People choose to turn off the machines for the hopelessly brain dead every day in this country not because of money issues but because they know the person is dead and any further treatment is futile.
Perhaps it is incomprehensible to you, but normal people don’t enjoy medical procedures at all, even when paid for by someone else. “Let’s spend money” is not a motivation for normal people when faced with a medical crisis.
Ah-hah! You ADMIT it can happen!!!
^ Well, there’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black…
I’ve been following this trainwreck with the intention of being merely a spectator, cursing under my breath all the while. But this needs to be addressed:
I’ve been paying into the system for 20 years, but at 38 years old, I’m unlikely to be able to get any of the money I paid in because it will be depleted in the next 30 years because people generally receive more than they put in. I am currently paying for YOUR benefits! I’m sure as hell not paying for my own, to be used 30 years from now! You can justify it all you want, but you being supported by MY taxes!
You’re welcome.
No, I am quite serious. Why should I care if your taxes go up?
Evidently, what we motherfuckers really need is to provide entertainment for Curlcoat in her dotage. 
Most of the founders owned black people, too. They were a bunch of wealthy white landowners who won a war in which the odds were stacked against them and designed a rather good system of government. They’re not gods, though, and treating them as infallible and asking, “what would the founders do?” is not a sensible approach to governance.
Look, trying to determine what was in the minds of people 250 years ago is asinine. For one thing, people’s opinions change as they age- just look at you.
For another, taking the view of one man and applying it to an entire elected legislature is akin to watching George W. Bush speak and assuming America was united behind the Iraq invasion.
Third, if they wanted something defined rigidly, they should have done so. The fact that they didn’t suggests that they chose not to color the text of the law with their own feelings, or that they were unable to get the law passed with more rigid language included.
There is nothing in the text of the Constitution to suggest what the Founders meant by “general welfare”. Therefore, it is up to Congress, the courts, and the people to figure it out. It seems that the majority of people currently believe that it includes universal health coverage.
A person making $30,000 a year in 2009 pays about $160.00 per month into Social Security, which is a slightly higher percentage than when you were working. That’s in total, and the majority of it goes into the retirement benefits kitty. You’re receiving far more than you ever paid into the SSDI kitty.
Dr. Linda Peeno testifies before congress that her primary duty was to deny payments. (Video.)
I would like to get back to the OP and point out that a week later **Rand Rover **has yet to pony up on UHC, the car or my week in Hawaii… or a pony, for that matter.
I have two corporate cards with my current job–one I am responsile for paying the charges on (and filling out expense reports for reimbursement); the other the company pays for, and I reconcile the charges. **Both **of them must be surrendered if I leave the job, and I signed about fifty feet of documents to that effect when I received them.
Hrm, note that **curlcoat **hasn’t come back to explain away the card, either.
Yes, like having the money to feed your family. Shockingly, people who don’t have access to health insurance through their jobs and can’t afford it on their own probably aren’t going to be able to afford to drop everything and move to another state.
Because if you’re suckling at the government teat, you’re not making enough money to pay back into the system. The money hubby pays in doesn’t count.
What if you’d invested it with Madoff? 0% of $90,000 is $0. Do you even understand the concept of a safety net?
**And **getting completely whooshed.
This is exactly why I got out of Workman’s Comp after a year. Couldn’t stand it.