Would universal healthcare be more expensive or less than the current US system?

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

Oh fercrissakes, how about if the aliens land and while they are sticking a probe up your butt, you get an infection? I can afford to pay a million bucks to cover that just as much as I can cover AIDS or cancer, which is not at all. Which means I also cannot cover the thousands of people in the US that would need treatment for AIDS, cancer and alien probes.

Good lord, it’s not like you’re being asked to personally pay for the entire treatment of even one person. That’s the whole point of spreading the cost over a large group of people, so no one person gets overwhelmed.

If they even got treatment that is, which isn’t really likely - do you think the people of this country can afford to pay for all of that expensive treatment? Where is that money going to come from?

Taxes, of course. Funny, every other industrialized country manages this feat, why should the US be different?

Tell me, if went with your system and the disadvantaged got no treatment except what they could pay up front would you mind if we stored the dying on your front lawn? Because that’s what you’re advocating - that we let people die when we could otherwise save their lives, or prevent disability.

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

The technology to detect spina bifida before birth did not exist when my husband was born. NO ONE could have known he had the problem until he was born.

Then why did you say it was?

I never said it did - YOU made that assumption. I dare you to go back and find a direct quote where I made the claim that anyone could have known before hand in his case.

If my husband’s company folds and there is no COBRA and neither of us can get a job, then we just live on what we have now, for as long as we can. Because we have planned ahead, we have a house with a lot of equity, and between us we have five pensions as well as other IRAs, so we would probably last until we qualified for Medicare.

What if that scenario - you disabled and your husband loses his job with no COBRA - had happened when you were just 20 or 25 and had not had time to acquire a pension or IRA?

What happens if your house burns down, killing your husband? Your equity just went up in smoke and now you have no insurance.

What if you lose your pension(s)? That has happened to people in my area who worked all their lives in heavy industry, only to have their pensions cut or disappear entirely. They were responsible, worked hard, and avoided debt and yet no promises to them were kept.

Not my premiums, my taxes. Which you want to raise by giving free access to healthcare to everyone.

You are really having trouble with this, aren’t you? If we ever got a UHC system you’d pay taxes instead of premiums, you wouldn’t pay both. And why do you think access would be entirely free? Co-pays might still exist in a UHC (they do in some countries), there could still be deductibles. UHC does NOT mean people get whatever they want with no questions asked. One option is to just cover catastrophic costs, not routine or inexpensive care.

Apparently you do - did I say insurance? You asked how one plans ahead for a birth defect, and I said that parents should assume that any baby born with have something wrong with it that will require expensive care for years or life.

So, what are you saying? No one should have a child unless they have a million dollars sitting in the bank for just in case?

Insurance is part of this, but so is setting aside money for ongoing treatment, make sure that if the baby will be able to take care of itself in later life that it gets an education, that should something happen any time during the child’s life, there is a fallback plan. Other than being supported by the government.

So you’re asking everyone to be self-insured. Realistically, very few people are ever going to have the cash to pay up front for cancer treatment or burn treatment or a lot of other very expensive conditions. So you don’t mind condemning people to death?

Your in-laws last name is Duggar or Octomom? They have been in a movie or on TV? Where did you get the idea from what I said that I was talking about your in-laws?

You went from talking about my husband’s family to talking about Octomom and the Duggars in the same paragraph. Paragraphs usually contain related ideas.

It’s relevant because it is quite possible that your in-laws couldn’t even afford two children, I don’t know because I don’t know them, your husband or his sibling.

You ASSUMED they could not afford two children. That’s your kneejerk assumption, that anyone with a major medical expense is poor, uninsured, and irresponsible.

The necessary surgery to save my husband’s life and to correct related problems while he was growing cost well over a million dollars. I don’t know if you had children or not, but if you did, did you have a million in the bank to pay for care before you conceived? What insurance did not cover he himself paid for over 10 years while working in his twenties. Of course, the money he paid to cover those bills was money he could not put into savings or an IRA or otherwise use to cushion future disasters. That’s part of the problem with your thinking, this notion that you can always be ready ahead of time. When disaster strikes early in life you wind up spending a lot on paying the bills so you have that much less for building a nest egg. Because my husband had a birth defect there was never a “before” for him in which to prepare for the future. Unlike most people, he had to pay for the past AND save for the future.

OTOH, it is not at all uncommon for people to have children when they can’t afford them, or more than they can afford. And society supports it.

Right. Because children shouldn’t starve or die in agony because they have idiot parents. Why do you want to punish children for the problems of adults?

Oh, OK, then - you stay solvent and I’ll go bankrupt. Wait, no, how is that right? Isn’t this a country where I get to support myself on what I earn?

Only if what you earn exceeds your bills.

Because a safety net is what responsible people plan for so they don’t have to be supported by others, which is supposed to be the absolute last option. Somehow over the years, this has been turned into the government will take care of everyone and the “deserving” is anyone who has had a blip in their perfect life.

Yes, because blips happen. What you are railing against is a social or government safety net, which many other countries have demonstrated works and works quite well. Those same countries also come out ahead of us on numerous indicators of health, from infant mortality to overall life expectancy. Oh, and no one goes bankrupt from medical expense in those countries, unlike here. This would seem to indicate that a tax-supported UHC is superior to our current system

Actually, our premium is $500 something since there are two of us, and yes I am well aware that his employer also pays into it.

Your portion of the premium is $500, that is NOT the cost of your total premium. And hey, why aren’t you paying for all of it? You’re freeloading on the employer! Why should your husband’s employer be forking over for your problems?

I am not paying for them to anything near the level that I would be under a UHC.

Are you sure? Have you even looked into what the costs are?

The US spends 15% of GDP on healthcare. Canada, with a UHC, spends only 10%. France only 11%, Australia about 9%, Sweden just a little over 9%. Despite the fact the US pays more, ALL of those countries have a higher life expectancy that the US, in some cases by as much as 4 years. ALL of those counties have a lower infant mortality rate than the US. The per capita spending on healthcare in the US is $6,700. In Canada it’s $3,700 and they get better results! In fact, in ALL the countries I named they spend roughly half or less per captia than the US and they get better results. It takes two minutes on Google to find this out.

You might wind up paying less with a UHC.

ERs provide extremely basic care to those who cannot pay, and private hospitals flat turn them away. The amount of money those people suck out of the system wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket of the amount everyone would take if they had free access to all froms of healthcare.

As I pointed out, a UHC does not mean everything absolutely free. In Canada, for example, the government only covers 70% of the cost, the balance comes from either private employers or individuals paying for it. Copays can and do exist under various UHC systems. Once again you are operating on your prejudices rather than the facts.

Yes, Medicare doesn’t work - good idea to have that same government cover us all, huh?

In fact, Medicare DOES work - that’s why it’s impossible to get rid of it. EVERYONE over 65 in the US already has a UHC system - we just deny it to those younger. The younger folks pay into it, but can’t use it - is that fair? See, you already pay for other peoples’ health care, in fact, you’re paying for the most expensive segment of the population.

But, leaving that aside, this isn’t the sort of person you want covered by a UHC, you want everyone covered.

Yes, “everyone covered” is the “universal” part of a universal health care system. It’s right there in the name.

Yup. My life wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun and I’d have to buy all my drugs in Mexico, but we could do it.

Buying drugs across international lines is usually illegal - in other words, you’d break the law to stay alive. And what if whatever disaster befell you also took your husband? That would seriously cramp your style, wouldn’t it? Because YOU don’t pay for your healthcare, you sponge off your husband who, fortunately for your sake, is a far more generous human being than you appear to be. If you had been consistent with your stated stance you would have made provisions so that you alone could take care of your health insurance, your health care, indeed, every other expense you incur by breathing instead of winding up dependent on any other human being, including your spouse.

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

If you’re paying that much in taxes you need a competent accountant to help you with that problem.

Know all about California income tax do you?

You stated that you paid about 30% taxes, and that monthly this came out to $3,500. That pegs your annual income around $126,000 a year.

Got news for you - that’s NOT middle class!

Really, it’s not - the median income in the US is around $48,000. Less than half what you make. Most authorities that talk about this stuff say the upper range of middle class ranges from $90,000 to $97,000. You are in the 6% of households that make more than that upper figure. You are NOT middle class. You are actually upper class and wealthy, yet you say you struggle. If YOU’RE struggling what do you think the 94% of people who make less than your family do?

If living in California is causing you an undue tax burden then move somewhere else. Don’t sit there and whine about how victimized you are - despite being in the upper 6% of US income - do something about it! There are states with either far lower or even NO state income tax - if you hate taxes that much move to one. Inconvenient? Sure, probably, but YOU chose to live in California, no one forces you to stay.

Funny, though - my state (Indiana) has far less wealth and far lower taxes than your California, yet manages to subsidize healthcare for people with chronic and very expensive medical problems like organ transplants, HIV, hemophilia… and my husband.

Even in our highest earning years, when we, too, hit that slightly above middle class mark and lived in Chicago which has higher taxes than where we live now, we never paid more than 20% in income tax. Again - if you don’t get similar results either your accountant is incompetent or you should consider moving. When our income fell because my husband became disabled that’s what we did - we moved to where the cost of living was lower and our resources would go farther.

[Ocean_Annie]

@welby

Okay then, try this, which is the product of the Physicians for a National Healthcare Program, another obviously biased source, but in your direction.

The author agrees with the fact that Medicare overhead is underreported. I disagree with her obvious attempt to play with words and numbers, and completely disagree with her statement that Medicare costs are “excessive.”

I don’t think you read the entire page. The CAHI’s summery is followed a PNHP review that disputes the report.

The opponents will also point out that the percent of administrative costs for Medicare beneficiaries is lower because the per person health care costs are higher than in the relatively healthy private insurance sector. But shouldn’t the administrative spending be directed primarily toward claims processing, especially since Medicare enrollment is a low-cost, once-in-a-lifetime event? Why should a greater percentage of health care dollars be used to administer private insurance programs with a much lower rate of claims processing? The administrative costs of claims processing is related much more to the volume of claims and much less to the number of beneficiaries. Thus their “handicapped” numbers are specious.

In another section of their report they claim that administrative costs “add value.” Most of us have difficulty recognizing the value of marketing costs, medical underwriting, brokers’ fees, excessive executive compensation packages, insurer profits, and other such administrative excesses. This claim alone, that these excesses add value, should destroy the credibility of this report.

The most important component of administrative waste was totally left out of this report - the administrative burden placed on the providers of health care. The recent Health Affairs report by J. Kahn and his colleagues demonstrated that just the billing and insurance related costs of private insurance consume about 21 percent of premium dollars, in a large part due to the administrative burden of physicians and hospitals. A single, administratively-streamlined system of claims management would dramatically reduce the waste of our current fragmented system. Cite

@welby

Medicare costs are underreported, to the tune of almost half, and yet folks still insist on using the Medicare 3% thing with a smug smile and the implication that saving those costs will just pay the way for everyone. Further, you didn’t address the GAO report, which states that expenses should be higher than they are. One thing that higher administrative expenses would help with would be in the reduction of fraud in Medicare (GOA again).

The GAO report you linked doesn’t have any information about cost. It is a survey analysis of management perception of accountability and outcome. Maybe you linked the wrong document?

@welby

The question in this thread is whether national health care would cost more. If you want to show that it would not, then use accurate numbers. Funny thing is, even with accurate numbers Medicare still has lower costs. I’m not saying we won’t realize savings, I’m saying that they’re not as large as the pro-UHC crowd would have us beleive, and that affects the bottom line.

Let’s be fair. I provided information that has been well documented and widely accepted by economists. You provided information by the insurance industry and a lobbyist firm.

I don’t have enough information or knowledge to address the per claim cost, but I will say Blue Cross Blue Shield doesn’t provide the method used to estimate the cost.

Medicare does need an overhaul. The privatization schemes, new prescription drug plan, and *private insurance fraud *have decreased efficiancy and increased the cost for seniors and tax payers.

@welby

If you’re ever in D.C. let’s grab a beer downtown and find some lobbyists to beat. I’ll bring the bats.

Hey, I am not far from DC.

[welby]

@Ocean_Annie

I don’t think you read the entire page. The CAHI’s summery is followed a PNHP review that disputes the report.

I read it all, but the part that indicated agreement with the fact that expenses are higher is in a later paragraph labelled specious, which I missed. So my bad for looking in another place. Poor link. Bad welby.

That said, would you dispute the fact that not counting clinics and thier employees might contribute a teensy bit to the overhead being low?

The GAO report you linked doesn’t have any information about cost. It is a survey analysis of management perception of accountability and outcome. Maybe you linked the wrong document?

Yeah, that looks like the pre-report, and I can’t find the one I was looking at anymore. Somehow the exact combination of search terms to point me to the right document again is eluding me. So let’s look at similar stuff.

Let’s be fair. I provided information that has been well documented and widely accepted by economists. You provided information by the insurance industry and a lobbyist firm.

First - don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Medicare’s low overhead being higher will totally kill UHC and so ha ha I win. What I’m saying is that it’s higher than stated, and also that it’s not high enough.

To wit: A 2008 article from the Washington Post about Medicare Fraud, in which Kimberly L. Brandt, director of program integrity at CMS stated: “There’s always more fraud than we have resources to combat.”

There’s also this report from the National Academy of Social Insurance, which analyzed the administrative structure of CMS and came to the conclusion that not only was the agency poorly organized (it’s set up like a profit making entity, when it isn’t, and shouldn’t be) but that “In order to enable CMS to fulfill its responsibilities, Congress should increase administrative funding for the agency.”

The report goes on to note:

In the absence of a decision by Congress to
fundamentally reform Medicare, or provide substantial new investment of resources, both financial and human, the study panel urges Congress not to enact major changes to the program in the near term because CMS does not currently have either the resources or the capacity to implement such changes in a timely fashion while managing the existing program and the changes enacted in the last few years. The study panel also urges Congress to shift its focus from micromanaging CMS to giving the agency more administrative latitude to accomplish the goals Congress sets for it.

So whether you agree that the overhead is artificially low as asserted by CAHI the fact remains that the program has insufficient administrative overhead to properly fufill its mission. For pro-UHC folks to claim that Medicare’s overhead will translate into a nationwide system is disingenuous, and frankly dangerous, especially given the fact that most Medicare claims are paid without review, which makes fraud easier to accomplish.

Medicare does need an overhaul. The privatization schemes, new prescription drug plan, and *private insurance fraud *have decreased efficiancy and increased the cost for seniors and tax payers.

Frankly, I think it would be impossible to decrease efficiency no matter what we do. As of 2005 CMS only had the equivalent of 8.1 Full Time Equivalent resources to identifying and eliminating fraud. That sort of efficiency has everything to do with too few resources and poor management.

Hey, I am not far from DC.

PM me if you think you’re gonna find yourself here and I’ll buy.

[curlcoat]

@Broomstick

Good lord, it’s not like you’re being asked to personally pay for the entire treatment of even one person. That’s the whole point of spreading the cost over a large group of people, so no one person gets overwhelmed.

Except, once again, you are ignoring the fact that so many of the people in that large group will be paying no or very little premium. Meaning those who can pay a few hundred for a premium now will be expecting to take up the slack.

Taxes, of course.

And taxes come from where?

Funny, every other industrialized country manages this feat, why should the US be different?

What feat? The pie in the sky program you think a UHC would be, or the reality of what it actually is? Funded by the extremely high taxes they pay?

Tell me, if went with your system and the disadvantaged got no treatment except what they could pay up front would you mind if we stored the dying on your front lawn? Because that’s what you’re advocating - that we let people die when we could otherwise save their lives, or prevent disability.

I don’t really care what you do with them. It is so not my responsibility to pay for housing, food and healthcare for these hundreds of thousands of people in this country, and I resent being forced to do so more every day. Tell me, how much of your money do you spend every year supporting these folks? If it isn’t every available penny you can spare, where do you get off telling me that I have to do so?

[curlcoat]

@Broomstick

I never said it did - YOU made that assumption. I dare you to go back and find a direct quote where I made the claim that anyone could have known before hand in his case.

Have a look at #316 - why did you include the second sentence in that post?

What if that scenario

I have already answered the “what if” questions.

You are really having trouble with this, aren’t you? If we ever got a UHC system you’d pay taxes instead of premiums, you wouldn’t pay both. And why do you think access would be entirely free? Co-pays might still exist in a UHC (they do in some countries), there could still be deductibles. UHC does NOT mean people get whatever they want with no questions asked. One option is to just cover catastrophic costs, not routine or inexpensive care.

You are the one that is having trouble with this. Try this - if there are all these folks who cannot afford $600 a month in premiums now, where are they going to get the money to cover the extra in taxes if we had a UHC? How many of these people who are raising 2-3-4 kids on a minimum wage job will be able to afford to pay a $50 copay to see the doctor or $25 for lab work/xrays? This is what I am paying for healthcare now - if you add a couple hundred thousand people to my policy who cannot pay this much, how in the world can you say I won’t be paying more?

So, what are you saying? No one should have a child unless they have a million dollars sitting in the bank for just in case?

So you’re asking everyone to be self-insured. Realistically, very few people are ever going to have the cash to pay up front for cancer treatment or burn treatment or a lot of other very expensive conditions. So you don’t mind condemning people to death?

You went from talking about my husband’s family to talking about Octomom and the Duggars in the same paragraph. Paragraphs usually contain related ideas.

You ASSUMED they could not afford two children. That’s your kneejerk assumption, that anyone with a major medical expense is poor, uninsured, and irresponsible.

Perhaps if you actually read what I write you wouldn’t be so confused.

Right. Because children shouldn’t starve or die in agony because they have idiot parents. Why do you want to punish children for the problems of adults?

Why do you want to punish responsible adults because irresponsible ones make choices they cannot support?

Only if what you earn exceeds your bills.

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Snort. What we earn greatly exceeds our bills, so the government takes more and more of it, to the point that we can now barely pay our bills.

Your portion of the premium is $500, that is NOT the cost of your total premium. And hey, why aren’t you paying for all of it? You’re freeloading on the employer! Why should your husband’s employer be forking over for your problems?

It’s called a perk - you know, company car, three weeks paid vacation, in house child care, partially subsidized insurance premiums? (And no, we don’t have all of that.) Employers do that to try to ensure they will attract the best to work for them.

Are you sure? Have you even looked into what the costs are?

Quoting those same tired stats doesn’t mean anything, as has been proven in this thread as well as others.

In fact, Medicare DOES work -

Oh god. I have a bridge for sale - you interested?

Buying drugs across international lines is usually illegal

Huh. And yet, there are online pharmacies that ship drugs across the border all the time.

[curlcoat]

@Broomstick

Got news for you - that’s NOT middle class!

Well, you got the annual income wrong, but whether or not we are middle class depends on who you ask.

You are actually upper class and wealthy, yet you say you struggle. If YOU’RE struggling what do you think the 94% of people who make less than your family do?

Turn that around! If the upper class is having to struggle because of the tax burden we/they are under, why in the ever-lovin world do you think the answer is more taxes?

If living in California is causing you an undue tax burden then move somewhere else.

Oh, yeah, right. Because you have a bee in your bonnet about these folks that have to have someone else take care of them, we are supposed to sell the home my husband has lived in for 25 years, at a big loss, and leave the area he has lived in for almost 50 years, to go live someplace much less desireable, where he would probably make far less?

And that is it in a nutshell, isn’t it? Because we had the gall to work hard, plan ahead and be responsible, we are supposed suffer because there are people out there who didn’t do any of that. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be fair, would it?

Funny, though - my state (Indiana) has far less wealth and far lower taxes than your California, yet manages to subsidize healthcare for people with chronic and very expensive medical problems like organ transplants, HIV, hemophilia… and my husband.

A lot fewer people in Indiana and a hell of a lot fewer illegal aliens. Another example of why you cannot assume that just because something works one place, it must work in another.

[Desert_Nomad]

@curlcoat

Oh, yeah, right. Because you have a bee in your bonnet about these folks that have to have someone else take care of them, we are supposed to sell the home my husband has lived in for 25 years, at a big loss, and leave the area he has lived in for almost 50 years, to go live someplace much less desireable, where he would probably make far less?

So it’s ok for me to leave Nevada and go overseas for health care, but not ok for you to leave California? We took a huge cut in lifestyle when we left the US as we were living with only 4-6 hours of electricity per day (Tbilisi, Rep. of Georgia).

Nothing wrong with leaving home - I had to do it.

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

I never said it did - YOU made that assumption. I dare you to go back and find a direct quote where I made the claim that anyone could have known before hand in his case.

Have a look at #316 - why did you include the second sentence in that post?

To impress upon you that this is not a condition that is my husband’s fault. The fact that today we can detect this condition before birth does not mean we could do that fifty years ago. A half century ago no one knew when the hell the problem occurred during development, only that it was sometime before birth. I know 15 year olds who can figure that out, why do you need to have it beaten into your head?

You are the one that is having trouble with this. Try this - if there are all these folks who cannot afford $600 a month in premiums now, where are they going to get the money to cover the extra in taxes if we had a UHC?

You are assuming that everyone’s share will be that high, yet as I have pointed out that some countries spend HALF what we do on health care for comparable or better results. Maybe everyone will wind up paying $300 a month instead of $600. Also, EVERYONE will have to pay into the system, including people who are now choosing not to buy health insurance even if they could afford several hundred a month.

And, again, part of the money will come from premiums you are no longer paying to private insurers.

How many of these people who are raising 2-3-4 kids on a minimum wage job will be able to afford to pay a $50 copay to see the doctor or $25 for lab work/xrays?

Again, you are assuming that everyone without insurance is working minimum wage. That is not true - families with incomes in the $30,000-50,000 frequently find it difficult to impossible to purchase health insurance due to premium costs, yet manage to pay as much as $100 to visit a doctor (which, after all, most people don’t do on a monthly basis). You are assuming that people who can’t cough up $600 a month (your figure) can’t pony up $50 or $25. That is flat out ridiculous.

This is what I am paying for healthcare now - if you add a couple hundred thousand people to my policy…

Actually, it would be more like 50 million, but who’s counting?

…who cannot pay this much, how in the world can you say I won’t be paying more?

Because not everyone paying into the system will use all of the money they pay in within a given year. That’s how insurance works.

Why do you want to punish responsible adults because irresponsible ones make choices they cannot support?

That’s not what I asked, I said why do you want to punish CHILDREN for the mistakes of adults?

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Snort. What we earn greatly exceeds our bills, so the government takes more and more of it, to the point that we can now barely pay our bills.

My father raised 4 children on one-fourth of what you make, and managed to own a home and pay his bills and send us to college. Why should I have sympathy for someone unable to budget on an income multiple times the national median?

It’s called a perk - you know, company car, three weeks paid vacation, in house child care, partially subsidized insurance premiums? (And no, we don’t have all of that.) Employers do that to try to ensure they will attract the best to work for them.

Again, you have a distorted view that your rather luxurious collection of perks is somehow standard. Very, very few people get a company car, more than two weeks vacation, or child care. Again, you get a company car, earn above middle income wages, and you can still barely pay your bills? What the heck are you spending all that money on?

Huh. And yet, there are online pharmacies that ship drugs across the border all the time.

There are on-line companies selling illegal drugs, adulterated drugs, bogus CD’s, and sex with everything from underage boys to goats - that doesn’t make it right or legal.

Turn that around! If the upper class is having to struggle because of the tax burden we/they are under, why in the ever-lovin world do you think the answer is more taxes?

Gee, I dunno, because it’s immoral to have people suffer and die from very treatable conditions? Because other countries do it that way and get better results? Because the rest of us aren’t selfish jerks?

Oh, yeah, right. Because you have a bee in your bonnet about these folks that have to have someone else take care of them, we are supposed to sell the home my husband has lived in for 25 years, at a big loss

You are not ENTITLED to live in the same home for any length of time. Boo-frickin-hoo. There are people who have to sell their home of 25 years to pay for their medical bills. Oh, you’re going to lose money - well, maybe you shouldn’t have bought an over-priced McMansion. Funny, my parents managed to buy a house and 10 years later sold it for three times what they paid. Maybe your problem isn’t taxes, it’s a poor choice of investment.

and leave the area he has lived in for almost 50 years

And again, you are not ENTITLED to live anywhere. Millions of people have to move from one place to another for a variety for variety of reasons. Stamping your foot and whining "But it’s my home!" won’t get you any sympathy.

to go live someplace much less desireable

What’s “much less desirable” about lower taxes? Also, we don’t have earthquakes or wildfires or, as you point out, quite so many illegal aliens. Oh, and our state budget is in much better shape than yours. Not to mention you could move in next to the Amish, you’d probably like them with their self-sufficient ways and cash-up-front approach to paying for medical care. Why are you so convinced there is no place better than California?

where he would probably make far less?

Oh, I see - it’s not that you love your home so much, it’s just out-and-out greed. Well, given how miserable you seem to be what with the high taxes and costs out where you are I still have to question just how much benefit you’re really getting from that higher wage.

And that is it in a nutshell, isn’t it? Because we had the gall to work hard, plan ahead and be responsible, we are supposed suffer because there are people out there who didn’t do any of that. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be fair, would it?

Sounds to me like you’re suffering despite your planning… and you also seem to have this notion that there is no such thing as bad luck or chance. You automatically assume that anyone making less money than you, or living in a smaller house, or having more children, or in any way less than you is automatically irresponsible. There are catastrophes no individual can plan or prepare for, even if you don’t believe that.

[Desert_Nomad]

@curlcoat

Well, you got the annual income wrong, but whether or not we are middle class depends on who you ask.

If your monthly tax is $3500 and that is 30%, then your annual income is $140,000.

140000/12 * .3 = 3500

There is absolutely no way in hell that $140,000 makes you anywhere close to middle class. The median income is about $48,000, so you are earning nearly three times that. The Congressional Research Service issued a report in 2007 year pegging middle class income as between $19,000 a year and $91,000 a year.

While you may not be truly wealthy (i.e. able to live off your investments), you are certainly upper class in terms of your income. If you are not saving 30% or more, you are probably doing something wrong… that would be 30% to tax, 30% to savings, and living off the other $56000.

I lived in Dubai for 3 years which I am sure is at least as costly as where you live and we never spent anywhere close to $56K to live.

[Grumman]

@Broomstick

Because not everyone paying into the system will use all of the money they pay in within a given year. That’s how insurance works.

And some people use more money than they pay in within a given year. That’s also how insurance works. :rolleyes: Why should people be forced into the first category in order to subsidise people in the second?

[tumbleddown]

@Grumman

And some people use more money than they pay in within a given year. That’s also how insurance works. :rolleyes: Why should people be forced into the first category in order to subsidise people in the second?

You already do so if you have insurance under the current scheme. You also subsidize healthcare for:[ul][li]People who are covered under a public plan: Medicare recipients, Medicaid recipients, government employees and their dependents, military and their dependents.[]People who have no insurance but have to seek hospital care, by means of the government’s contribution to cover those costs.[]People who have no insurance but have to seek hospital care, by means of your insurer’s contribution to cover those costs.[]People who have no insurance but have to seek hospital care, by means of the higher costs levied to you, as an insured individual, for all of your care, to offset the lost revenue from care that cannot be paid for.[]People who are covered by your insurer who use more healthcare dollars than they pay into the system via their premiums.[/ul]The only people whose care you aren’t already subsidizing are those who have coverage from an insurance company other than yours.[/li]
The “I don’t want to pay for other people’s care” argument is a non-starter. Anything other than a system that requires 100% self-pay all the time with no duty to provide emergency care to those without the financial means to cover their own bills ahead of time will be a system in which care is subsidized at some level.

[curlcoat]

@Desert_Nomad

So it’s ok for me to leave Nevada and go overseas for health care, but not ok for you to leave California? We took a huge cut in lifestyle when we left the US as we were living with only 4-6 hours of electricity per day (Tbilisi, Rep. of Georgia).

Nothing wrong with leaving home - I had to do it.

Do you really think those are the same things?? You making the choice to go whereveryouare to get insurance is the same thing as telling me to move to Indiana (where the weather is likely to cripple me) so I’ll have money to waste on a UHC? Can you really not see how incredibly selfish you are being?

No, there is nothing wrong with leaving home - I made the choice to move to California after 35 years in Washington. The difference, besides it being far better for me, was it was a choice, and not a requirement because bleeding hearts want me to pay for something else to give to the “less fortunate”.

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

Do you really think those are the same things??

Well I do - what does it matter if the detail is moving for health insurance or moving for lower taxes? The point is that you move to a place more advantageous than where you are now.

You making the choice to go whereveryouare to get insurance is the same thing as telling me to move to Indiana (where the weather is likely to cripple me) so I’ll have money to waste on a UHC?

First, I fail to see how the weather in Indiana will “cripple” you. In any case, you claim to be disabled, so it’s really a matter of more or less crippled, if even that. I mean, we DO have disabled people in my state and they manage to get around despite the weather.

And I didn’t suggest it so you can “waste” money on a UHC - I sincerely suggested it as a means to lower your tax burden and put more of your money back in your pocket. It’s not like anyone is out to “get” you or “steal” your money with that suggestion.

Can you really not see how incredibly selfish you are being?

Can’t you see how petty you’re being? Whining about being the poor oppressed middle class when you make three times the median US income and aren’t middle class by anyone’s standard? Poor little rich girl.

[curlcoat]

@Broomstick

To impress upon you that this is not a condition that is my husband’s fault.

Whether or not it is anyone’s “fault”, it was first the responsibility of his parents and now it is his and yours. Not mine, not your next door neighbors’. Nobody’s life is golden, we all have our issues and none of them are anyone’s responsibility but our own.

Actually, it would be more like 50 million, but who’s counting?

I was. You love misinterpreting my posts, but that doesn’t change what I actually write. I have never assumed that every last person that would be on a US UHC would be “making minimum wage” or “unable to pony up $50”, but I do quite firmly believe that a large number of them will not be able to pay anything close to $500 a month or much of a copay. The only way we would know if they would be the majority would be if someone actually did a study - and they haven’t, have they? Because that would shoot that “UHC would be cheaper than private insurance for those who have it” dream right in the foot, wouldn’t it?

That’s not what I asked, I said why do you want to punish CHILDREN for the mistakes of adults?

I am not an advocate of “punishing” anyone, and I also feel that adults are far more valuable than CHILDREN. Think of da chylldren doesn’t fly for me.

My father raised 4 children on one-fourth of what you make, and managed to own a home and pay his bills and send us to college. Why should I have sympathy for someone unable to budget on an income multiple times the national median?

Because you are without a clue? First you compare an income from, what?, 60 years ago? to now, and then you keep insisting that not only is whatever my husband makes over our area’s median income, you also fail to notice that I told you that your assumption about it was wrong. But then, you keep taking one little fact and making assumptions about UHCs so I guess I’m not too surprised.

Again, you have a distorted view that your rather luxurious collection of perks is somehow standard. Very, very few people get a company car, more than two weeks vacation, or child care. Again, you get a company car, earn above middle income wages, and you can still barely pay your bills? What the heck are you spending all that money on?

Sigh. Again, you distort what I write. We don’t have a company car, more than two weeks vacation or inhouse child care, those were just example of different perks that different companies may offer in order to lure the best employees. The only perks my husband got was group insurance, and that is almost standard in his industry.

What the heck are we spending all that money on? We aren’t, the various governments are.

There are on-line companies selling illegal drugs, adulterated drugs, bogus CD’s, and sex with everything from underage boys to goats - that doesn’t make it right or legal.

Try checking out the legals online pharmacies eh?

Because the rest of us aren’t selfish jerks?

Actually, you are. Because you think I somehow have this much better life/income/whatever than you do, you are incensed that I am not eager to pour even more into taxes so that you can have cheaper healthcare. You keep coming back to this mythical richness that I am supposed to be living in because that is the real bottom line for you - “it just isn’t fair that those people have X and I don’t!”

You are not ENTITLED to live in the same home for any length of time. Boo-frickin-hoo. There are people who have to sell their home of 25 years to pay for their medical bills. Oh, you’re going to lose money - well, maybe you shouldn’t have bought an over-priced McMansion. Funny, my parents managed to buy a house and 10 years later sold it for three times what they paid. Maybe your problem isn’t taxes, it’s a poor choice of investment.

Ya know, if you weren’t so pathetic you’d be funny, tho I am getting the occasional chuckle here. Guess what? You aren’t ENTITLED to anything you want either! Particularly anyone else’s money. Stamping your foot and whining “but it’s not FAIR” won’t get you any sympathy for those of us who have actually been responsible and planned ahead.

Oh, I see - it’s not that you love your home so much, it’s just out-and-out greed.

No dear, it’s to point out to you that you cannot make assumptions of “wealth” based on amount of salary. If we moved to Indiana (where there probably aren’t any jobs in his field anyway), we would be making the same income to debt ratio we are now. Even tho things are cheaper there, the salaries tend to be lower too.

[curlcoat]

@Desert_Nomad

If your monthly tax is $3500 and that is 30%, then your annual income is $140,000.

Whee! First he was making $126,000 and now it’s $140,000! Too bad it’s not true…

[gonzomax]

Over half the bankruptcies are because of health cost issues. Most of them have coverage. It is not the idea that they are not covered. it is that the insurer refuses to cover or the policy is crappy.
The concept of for profit health care is flawed. In order to increase their profits they refuse care. They jack costs up endlessly and far beyond inflation. But every case they can reject makes money for the company. They are not in the health care business. They are in the health care refusing business.

[Ocean_Annie]

@tumbleddown

The only people whose care you aren’t already subsidizing are those who have coverage from an insurance company other than yours.

Although it is often overlooked, private insurance is heavily subsidized. Without the subsidies, fewer employers would be able to offer health insurance and the number of uninsured would be much higher.

The entire health care system is subsidized by taxpayers, including the tax dollars of workers who can’t afford to pay for private insurance.

The federal and state tax systems play an important part in the financing of private health insurance. The largest tax subsidy for private health insurance – federal exclusion from income and payroll taxes of employer and employee contributions for employer-sponsored health insurance – was estimated to cost the U.S. Treasury around $200 billion in lost revenue in 2007,1 or more than one-half of the estimated net federal outlays for the Medicare program for that year. Kaiserfamilyfoundation–pdf

The tax exemption for ESI provided more than $100 billion in income and payroll tax subsidies in 2002. Other tax subsidies for health insurance, primarily for the self employed and others purchasing nongroup coverage, amounted to about $7 billion dollars. Tax Policy Center --pdf

[Broomstick]

@curlcoat

Because you are without a clue? First you compare an income from, what?, 60 years ago? to now, and then you keep insisting that not only is whatever my husband makes over our area’s median income, you also fail to notice that I told you that your assumption about it was wrong.

If your cost of living in your area is so burdensome move elsewhere. Doesn’t even have to be to Indiana, there are a lot of other places with a lower cost of living (apparently) than where you are. You bitch that you’re paying 30% of your income in taxes - if you can’t stand that move elsewhere to a place that won’t tax you so heavily. If not now, then when your husband retires and he need no longer live near work.

Actually, you are. Because you think I somehow have this much better life/income/whatever than you do…

Given that I am existing on HALF what you pay in taxes a month I think it’s reasonable to conclude that yes, you DO have a better income than I do by any standard.

On the other hand, since I’m not nearly so bitter as you, or so selfish as you, and I actually find I have the means and ability to help others beyond my immediate friends and family… I probably have the better life overall. Despite the lower income.

…you are incensed that I am not eager to pour even more into taxes so that you can have cheaper healthcare.

Actually, MY health care problem is solved at the moment. You can’t seem to understand that I want UHC for the benefit of other people besides myself. Because I am generous and you, apparently, are not.

You keep coming back to this mythical richness that I am supposed to be living in because that is the real bottom line for you

Oh, but you ARE wealthy! Even if you don’t feel that you are. As I said, I am supporting two people, one of them disabled, on half of what you pay in taxes a month! That means… what, I have 1/6 the income you do? You are indeed wealthy compared to me. Why does calling yourself upper class trouble you so?

Guess what? You aren’t ENTITLED to anything you want either!

True. On the other hand, I own everything I have. I have no debt at all. None. I pay my rent, my bills, put food on my table and gas in my car. I have to bust my butt to do it, and we live a very basic existence, but I receive no government aid, no food stamps, nothing beyond a subsidized health insurance policy which, by the way, wasn’t handed out unquestioned. We had to apply for it and qualify for the program. Before that, we were paying for my husband’s medications entirely on our own. I’m not the freeloader you assume I am, even if I am officially poor.

Stamping your foot and whining “but it’s not FAIR” won’t get you any sympathy for those of us who have actually been responsible and planned ahead.

Oh, gosh - I pay my bills, take care of a dependent, and owe no one money and yet you call me irresponsible? How can that be? How more responsible can one be than paying the bills and owing no money to anyone?

No dear, it’s to point out to you that you cannot make assumptions of “wealth” based on amount of salary.

It’s actually a pretty good yardstick.

If we moved to Indiana (where there probably aren’t any jobs in his field anyway)

Not knowing his field I really couldn’t say, however, Indiana is about more than just growing corn and steel mills. You seem to know little about us. In any case, there are other states with lower taxes that might be more amenable to you. I urge you to consider them.

we would be making the same income to debt ratio we are now. Even tho things are cheaper there, the salaries tend to be lower too.

Well, that’s why for 10 years I lived in Indiana but worked in Chicago - Chicago wages for Indiana prices. There was a penalty paid in length of commute, but it was tolerable.

In any case, after he retires and his income is no longer tied to a location think about it then - you could have California pensions and much lower cost of living elsewhere. That is what my father-in-law did, he worked in Chicago for decades, then retired to Tennessee with its mild climate and no state income tax.

@curlcoat

Whee! First he was making $126,000 and now it’s $140,000! Too bad it’s not true…

Those were estimates made by two different people based on your stated tax burden per month. Of course, given limited information, they weren’t likely to be entirely accurate. And, of course, it would be horribly guache to ask you directly what your household income is. But unless you volunteer the information people will attempt to deduce the answer whether you want them to or not. By stating my income is half the number you stated your tax burden to be I expect there are readers attempting to deduce MY income from that information, too. I see no reason to get upset about it, why do you?