Do you have health insurance?

[Deep Dish]

I give people Medicaid, health insurance is a major issue debated by presidential candidates, and I have an appointment to see a gastroenterologist in a week. So, my mind would naturally wander in this direction of medicine. I'm very fortunate to have health insurance through my employer, but if I were someone else, if you were young, in college, away from your parents, you will find it very hard to afford insurance. Even if your employer offered insurance, it may very well only be offered if you work at least 30 hours a week, a tall task for most part-time jobs while you attend school. Assistance from the government is unavailable to those whom are young, not disabled, and without dependent children. What to do.

So, just out of my curiousity, do you have health insurance? By the time you are in your late twenties, you will learn the hard way how you are not invincible. (This is not a question which you find on Susuave every month, so at the very least it should be interesting.)

 

[Effington]

For those of us that aren't filthy rich, one trip to the ER could bankrupt you. I ended up in the ER about 10 months ago due to my own stupidity, and thankfully a couple hours later I was fine and out...the bill ended up being over $10k! With insurance I only had to pay out a couple hundred, but without it...I'd have very little left to my name. I can see why it's so important.

 

[DJDamage]

Is this poll for Americans only? 'cause I live in Canada and I get free health insurance.

 

[speakeasy]

Is this poll for Americans only? 'cause I live in Canada and I get free health insurance.

No such thing as free health healthcare. You guys pay for it through higher taxes.

I'm self-employed so I buy my own insurance. I'm 32, average size, non-smoker, no history of major illness, so with PPO health and dental combined, I pay around $150 a month. It's not the best plan as far as benefits, but it's fine for now. I'm not one of those people that goes to the doctor over every cut and scratch. I hate hospitals, I'd only go if I think there's something life threatening going on.

I just try to eat healthy, excercise and not do anything stupid like smoke, do drugs and have unprotected sex with risky partners. Hopefully I'll be fine.

 

[Aragon034]

i've got canada health insurance, and i pay for it in taxes.

Used to have employer benefits, but now i'm student so i'm under my parents.

Once i start working (either on my own or for company) i'll make sure to get extra insurance, i always find myself in dangerous situations and some nurses at my local hospital know me by name

 

[bigjohnson]

For those of us that aren't filthy rich, one trip to the ER could bankrupt you. ...the bill ended up being over $10k! With insurance I only had to pay out a couple hundred, but without it...I'd have very little left to my name. I can see why it's so important.

How can $10K bankrupt someone? WTH?

 

[Derek Flint]

For those of us that aren't filthy rich, one trip to the ER could bankrupt you. I ended up in the ER about 10 months ago due to my own stupidity, and thankfully a couple hours later I was fine and out...the bill ended up being over $10k! With insurance I only had to pay out a couple hundred, but without it...I'd have very little left to my name. I can see why it's so important.

I'm not filthy rich, but I do have health insurance because I have a job.

I pay 20% of the monthly premium and I also have co-pays for ER visits, Dr. visits, Prescriptions, etc...

It's a benefit, part of my compensation for which I work very hard for.
My job is the top priority in my life. I would love to go out and chase skirts 4 nights a week, but my work performance would inevitably suffer, and then I would no longer create value or make money for my employer, who would then replace me with someone who does.

Health care is not a right, and I shouldn't have to pay for people who choose not to work, or choose to buy 22" rims instead of prioritizing their needs over their wants.

And here in California, we have a program called "CMSP"

http://www.cmspcounties.org/

It provides basically "free" healthcare to "poor" people, at the expense of taxpayers.

They don't have to pay for anything. No co-pays, no nothing.
They actually have better coverage then I do.
To top it off, a large majority of recipients aren't even here legally.

Now, there are some people who are not victims of their own choosing, and are not responsible for the situation they are in, and that small percentage of people should have some taxpayer funded care.

But there is a much larger group of people who choose not to work, who choose to live off of the labor of others, who choose to spend their money on bling, or 22's, or drugs or whatever, then they cry and whine when they need to see a Dr.

I don't mind helping the truly needy, but I have a big problem with even more of my income (nearly 50% including income deductions, state sales tax, gas tax, phone tax, internet tax, property taxes, vehicle registration taxes, etc...) being confiscated from me to pay the way of those who choose not to help themselves.

And most young people who end up in the ER do so because of their own doing, not due to some life-threatening illness.

Should taxpayers be responsible for the lack of judgment of others?

Should they have to carry the cost to support those who choose not to work?

I know most of the people on this board are young, under 25 probably.

And I know most of you haven't really lived on your own or have had to support yourselves.

Someday that day will come and when it does, I think some viewpoints will change.

I'm not addressing anyone specifically here, but just making some general statements and voicing my opinion.

It sucks working your azz off, making sacrifices and barely seeing half the money after all the taxes.

Sorry, but enough is enough.

 

[Alle_Gory]

I can't vote.

Where's the "I live in Canada" option?

 

[bigjohnson]

Health care isn't a right?

Dude its ****ing 2008, we are the most powerful country in the world, and we can't give health care to our citizens?

Who is we? When I see this, I read that some of YOU fuckers want to reach in MY wallet and pay someone else's insurance. Nice. Whatever, when it get's to the point I don't get rewarded for busting my ass I'll stop carrying the 19 people I'm packing now.

 

[speakeasy]

Who is we? When I see this, I read that some of YOU fuckers want to reach in MY wallet and pay someone else's insurance. Nice. Whatever, when it get's to the point I don't get rewarded for busting my ass I'll stop carrying the 19 people I'm packing now.

I don't like seeing tax dollars wasted anymore than the next person, but you know, you could apply this to anything. Should we get rid of public education because many kids in school are wasting their time, are screwups, join gangs, do nothing but bang girls and not do their homework, etc? Public school is as much a transfer of wealth as public education, actually much more so since it cost like $10,000 a head in taxpayer money to educate a kid. So we've invested a total of $120,000 per kid from from time he entered school till he graduates. And what, the drop out rate in America is like 50% in some cities?

 

[bigjohnson]

.... Public school is as much a transfer of wealth as public education, actually much more....

Umm, what? Again?


Fact is most Americans are along for the ride, a minority of us actually pay in more than we consume, the rest are just effing money leaches.

 

[speakeasy]

Umm, what? Again?


Fact is most Americans are along for the ride, a minority of us actually pay in more than we consume, the rest are just effing money leaches.

But it's also true that 95% of America's wealth is held by 5% of the people, so it kind of makes sense. I'm just saying that "taxing the rich" and "spreading the wealth" is essentially what created a middle class in the country by giving the poor classes a guaranteed public education that they would otherwise never be able to afford if they had to pay it on their own. Public schools can spend anywhere from $5000 per student to three times that in some cases. If you have a normal middle class family of 3 kids for example, that's $30,000 per year from Kindergarten till higher school graduation. This is basically financed by the wealthy, because few families would ever be able to education their kids otherwise if they had to pay it, and then we'd revert right back to serfdom where you have a few super wealthy elites with everyone else wallowing in misery and poverty. Like it was in the past. Social Security is also a transfer of wealth from the rich. But we as a society decided that we cannot have our elderly and those disabled or too old to work to just be left to wither away in poverty so we created social security. What's interesting is that nobody ever talks about social security and public educaiton as "socialism". People just see it as something any decent society does in the interest of its own citizens. I think eventually, health care will be viewed the same way. It is in the rest of the industrial world, but it has not caught on here. But eventually it will. Even a county like Japan which is as capitalist as we are cover everybody's health.

 

[bigjohnson]

But it's also true that 95% of America's wealth is held by 5% of the people, so it kind of makes sense. I'm just saying that "taxing the rich" and "spreading the wealth" is essentially what created a middle class

Well without getting into a long pointless debate, let me just point at a few things. First, I was puzzled by the difference you found between public schools and public education. Expound?

Second the very very rich never pay enough for some people. If they did, we would have a marvelous system that worked as well as the former USSR. The fact is that 95% of the people are too goddamn stupid to save and invest, let alone work toward a fiscal goal. Every single American I know who actually had a #1 priority of being well off and worked toward that goal and was not a moron is now well off at least. Most of us want to be rich the same way fat girls want to be in shape.

I'm first to admit, being rich was never a goal, I'm just sort of lucky to be talented at something that pays about 4x - 8x the national average income.

Finally the engineers, doctors, lawyers and other motivated hardworking professionals end up paying for a disproportionate amount of ... well everything. Not cool. These are the people we want to punish for their efforts?

Public schools can spend .... a normal middle class family of 3 kids for example, that's $30,000 per year

I never claimed public education was efficient or did a good job. The apparent inability of many people I interact with to form a correct and meaningful thought in written form is a pretty rough indictment of the system.

.....

As for the rest, except for the ability to move up via effort and ability, public education seems to exist to create useful serfs. No one has any use for tens of millions of completely uneducated wage slaves in this country.

 

[speakeasy]

Well without getting into a long pointless debate, let me just point at a few things. First, I was puzzled by the difference you found between public schools and public education. Expound?

I didn't intend any difference.

Second the very very rich never pay enough for some people. If they did, we would have a marvelous system that worked as well as the former USSR.

On the flipside, we could also go the direction of a country like Brazil or Mexico where you have a small elite class of wealthy surrounded by masses of poverty with an extreme concentration of wealth. The problem is this has implications far outside of just the wealth itself. Wealth gives you power and when this gets tied up into politics and influence, you have a society full of oligarchs whose only purpose is retaining their wealth and influence and rigging society through special interest to work in their favor with no regard to the bottom 95%. I'm not saying we're at that point, but we are seeing some of that. For example, Americans are seeing their savings and 401ks being wiped out by corruption in wall st and inflation, yet wall st has given all these contributions to politicians pushing for this bailout so that they can essentially get a trillion dollars in welfare. And then on top of that, they tacked on another 150 billion in pork spending. It's one big feeding trough.

If you look back at the 50s the spread between what a CEO made and his average worker may have been something like 1:10, now it's like 1:1000 or something ridiculous like that. We might have more trinkets and cheap electronics to buy to give us the illusion that we in the middle class have more than ever, but the gap between the wealthy and the poor and middle classes is wider than it's been in recent memory. The middle class saw an increase in their wages through the Clinton years that haulted through the Bush years, and when you factor in low inflation at the time, the middle class saw real and measurable gain. But when Bush took office, not only did we see wages for the middle remain stagnant, we saw inflation rise which means when adjusted for inflation, the middle is making less than they did when Bush took office 8 years ago. At the same time, incomes at the top did handsomely well under Bush. We have to ask ourselves why. I don't think the answer is simplistically that those in the middle are simply too stupid and/or lazy to do well for themselves. First off, not everyone can have a 6 figure job. There simply aren't enough of them. There are many middle income jobs that someone needs to do regardless. Someone has to drive tractor trailers, someone has to be a police officer, someone has to stock supermarket shelves, someone has to fix the plumbing in your house or fix your car when it breaks down. None of these jobs are going to make you rich, but yet someone has to do them.

The fact is that 95% of the people are too goddamn stupid to save and invest, let alone work toward a fiscal goal.

I wouldn't say that, most people have 401ks through work, though obviously they aren't performing to well as of late.

Every single American I know who actually had a #1 priority of being well off and worked toward that goal and was not a moron is now well off at least. Most of us want to be rich the same way fat girls want to be in shape.

Wealth is like a pyramid. There are lots at the bottom but room for few at the top. Logically, even if everyone were intelligent and driven, there is not enough room for everyone to be rich. That's like having an army of all generals and no soldiers. That's not how an economy functions. We can't have a society where everyone is an investment banker, brain surgeon and silicon valley entrepreneur. Like I said, there are lots of necessary jobs out there that people have to do that won't make you rich but are just as necessary for a functioning society, like cops, garbage collectors, teachers and nurses.

I'm first to admit, being rich was never a goal, I'm just sort of lucky to be talented at something that pays about 4x - 8x the national average income.

What do you do if I may ask? FYI, I'm not some communist or socialist by anymeans, I believe that greed and the quest for profit is the engine of capitalism that has brought us many innovations and economic growth. But I think you can have extremes in either direction, too much of a welfare state like France, or too much free market like we're seeing in Wall St. right now after this latest debacle. I think we need an intelligent mix of both and we need to figure out ways of making sure the economy is growing at the center as well as the top. I don't care if there are guys that are driving Bentleys and stuff, I just want to make sure everyone else isn't seeing their jobs shipped off and clipping coupons to survive.

Finally the engineers, doctors, lawyers and other motivated hardworking professionals end up paying for a disproportionate amount of ... well everything. Not cool. These are the people we want to punish for their efforts?

Enginneers, doctors and lawyers and most professions may make 6 figures, but most of them don't make a quarter million a year. They will be unaffected by Obama's tax hikes. And even at the $250,000 the tax hike isnt -that- much, it starts to really go up after $600,000 though. But like Warren Buffet, the richest man in America admits, he pays less in taxes than his secretary when you consider taxation as a percentage of overall wealth.

 

[bigjohnson]

I don't like BigJohnson. He was one of the people to say he WOULDN'T vote for Obama just because of his skin.

Liar. I never said any such thing here or anywhere else.

.... Public school is as much a transfer of wealth as public education, actually much more....

I didn't intend any difference.

OK so now I'm really confused. Please reconcile those two quotes?

First off, not everyone can have a 6 figure job. There simply aren't enough of them.

With regard to my friends and relatives who have made being rich a life goal, none of them did so by landing a "job" that paid enough to make them rich and 6 figures isn't rich in my world view. Being worth 7-8 figures is getting into the realm of financial security.

Enginneers, doctors and lawyers and most professions may make 6 figures, but most of them don't make a quarter million a year. They will be unaffected by Obama's tax hikes. And even at the $250,000 the tax hike isnt -that- much, it starts to really go up after $600,000 though. But like Warren Buffet, the richest man in America admits, he pays less in taxes than his secretary when you consider taxation as a percentage of overall wealth.

Ideas like this form a virtually impenetrable wall that all but prevents the $160K per year earner from moving up while (1) not generating much real revenue and (2) not applying to the truly rich. People who are really making fortunes bury that money into businesses and other investments and don't pay much taxes on it anyway.

Note also that those buried investments ... create jobs. My closest 'rich' relative probably directly employs 100+ people and indirectly feeds a few thousand. I hope we can figure a way to tax that bastard into oblivion.

 

[speakeasy2]

OK so now I'm really confused. Please reconcile those two quotes?

I don't know what it is you're confused about and want to reconcile. I used "public school" and "public education" interchangeably. I wasn't trying to use a slight of hand.

With regard to my friends and relatives who have made being rich a life goal, none of them did so by landing a "job" that paid enough to make them rich and 6 figures isn't rich in my world view.

You are aware that most new business fail within the first 2 years right? What that means is that most people with these same goals don't end up being wealthy business owners. Just because you have the goals to do it doesn't mean you are going to be able to do it. Running a successful business is about lot more than the initiative to be rich, there are many other factors. Access to startup capital, having a corner on a certain market, a certain degree of luck and things aligning right, the right connections, etc.

Being worth 7-8 figures is getting into the realm of financial security.

Come on now, be realistic. You don't need a 7-8 figure income in order to be financially secure. There are people who make $80,000 a year who are financially secure because they saved, invested, and didn't piss their savings away on bling. If the only way to being financially secure is making 7 figures, then I guess 99.9% of this planet is doomed to financial insecurity given that half the world's population lives on a dollar a day.

Ideas like this form a virtually impenetrable wall that all but prevents the $160K per year earner from moving up while (1) not generating much real revenue and (2) not applying to the truly rich. People who are really making fortunes bury that money into businesses and other investments and don't pay much taxes on it anyway.

I look at it this way. We have a 10 TRILLION dollar national debt. That is $10,000,000,000,000 with 13 zeros. And when we look at unfunded obligations outside the budget like projected social security costs, that balloons to six times that amount. We had half the current debt when Clinton left office and we also had a budget surplus meaning we were on the verge of finally bringing down the debt. Bush was the only president in history to cut taxes at a time of war and also increase spending, and this is from the party that boasts about how financially responsible they are. Somebody has to pay down this debt or it is going to mean financial disaster for this country. Yet all I hear from the so-called party of fiscal responsibility, "cut taxes on the rich, cut taxes on the rich!" Clinton raised taxes on the rich and yet I don't recall any disaster arising from it. The result was paying down the national debt. McCain's tax plan will grow the debt larger than Obama, Alan Greenspan has even said such. We simply can't afford to cut taxes.

Note also that those buried investments ... create jobs. My closest 'rich' relative probably directly employs 100+ people and indirectly feeds a few thousand. I hope we can figure a way to tax that bastard into oblivion.

What you're saying is nothing new. It's called Reaganomics. Bush was a Reaganomist, is so is McCain. Give most tax cuts to those at the top and somehow supposed to help out everyone at the bottom because it supposedly "trickles down". At the same time, run up a national debt by cutting off the governments revenue and send the country into bankruptcy, all because you are ideologically committed to low taxes no matter what the result. Is that fiscally responsible? The last 8 years has shown no such evidence. It means Wall St. fat cats bankrupt companies then make out like bandits getting $60 million golden parachutes, like Stanley O'neill of Merrill Lynch, while the average family is seeing their incomes falling behind inflation. Helping out families at the bottom is called "socialism" and "spreading the wealth", yet giving a trillion dollars as bailouts to wall st is acceptable I guess.

Wealth in this country is going in an increasingly polarized direction and that's a bad trend. I don't think people in America realize that wealth here is about as unevenly distributed as it is in some 3rd world countries. How can anyone read something like this and not find it disturbing if they have any humanity in them: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article661055.ece

Look at this map that shows a global picture of income inequality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Report_2007-2008.png
Places like Japan are wealthy but have a pretty good income distribution, yet they are not socialist. What's wrong with being like Japan? A fully capitalist, wealthy country where income disparity is not that huge. America used to be like that but it has moved in the direction of polarization in recent decades. It's pathetic that our distribution of wealth is as bad as places like Thailand and Nigeria.

I mean sometimes you hear defenders of the rich and those that support those policies and you'd swear that it was the rich who were the victims.

Obama is not a radical, he's not a socialist anymore than Clinton. He wants to roll back Bush's tax cuts to where they were under Clinton and I don't recall the rich doing horribly under Clinton. Keep it in perspective.

 

[bigjohnson]

I don't know what it is you're confused about and want to reconcile. I used "public school" and "public education" interchangeably. I wasn't trying to use a slight of hand.

You said ".... Public school is as much a transfer of wealth as public education, actually much more...." , which means public school is "much more" a transfer of wealth than public education ... which seems ... odd.

You are aware that most new business fail within the first 2 years right? What that means is that most people with these same goals don't end up being wealthy business owners ...

Define goals. The fat girl can set a "goal" of being slim and a plan of running 14 miles a week, but that doesn't mean she will stick to it or be capable of it. Every one of the rich self made friends I had has also had MANY failed attempts. They also were determined to achieve their goal. In the case of the guy I was talking in more detail about I had to co-sign on one of his first major purchases 25 years ago.

Come on now, be realistic. You don't need a 7-8 figure
income in order to be financially secure.

Please read what I actually wrote. You have to be WORTH, not have income of. Also the American version of serfdom is all a lot of people really want, and if that makes them satisfied then good on them.

 

[speakeasy2]

You said ".... Public school is as much a transfer of wealth as public education, actually much more...." , which means public school is "much more" a transfer of wealth than public education ... which seems ... odd.

Ahhhh, I see what you mean now. I screwed up a sentence, didn't even mean to write that. I think what I meant to write is that public school is a transfer of wealth as much as public healthcare. I just wrote the wrong word from typing too fast.

Define goals. The fat girl can set a "goal" of being slim and a plan of running 14 miles a week, but that doesn't mean she will stick to it or be capable of it. Every one of the rich self made friends I had has also had MANY failed attempts. They also were determined to achieve their goal. In the case of the guy I was talking in more detail about I had to co-sign on one of his first major purchases 25 years ago.

I'm just saying that while I think there's great opportunity in America if you put your mind to it and have the resources, I just don't think it's possible for EVERYONE to be able to do it. Because everybody can't be a business owner or you'd have nobody to work for you because they are all out trying to start their own business. I'm just pointing out the paradox. There's not room at the top for everyone anymore than there's room for every kid who dreams of being in the NBA to become an NBA star even if they are all very good at the game and work their behinds off. I think it's the same sort of thing.

Please read what I actually wrote. You have to be WORTH, not have income of.

Okay. Though with the way the government is printing money like crazy, we might all end up with devalued networth.

 

[bigjohnson]

Thanks for clearing that typo up.

I'm just saying that while I think there's great opportunity in America if you put your mind to it and have the resources, I just don't think it's possible for EVERYONE to be able to do it.

While I agree that in theory "not everyone can do it" I believe that in practice everyone who has being rich as a goal and is not a retard and puts in the work WILL be financially rewarded the vast majority of the time. The fact is that such a small percentage of people can actually be bothered to put in the time that in practical terms there is always room for one more to come on up to the top.

I willingly and freely admit, being rich was never a goal but even now I could likely do it but it's just not important enough to me. I'm happy to enjoy life and be comfortable. Lazy? Maybe. Maybe not. I work hard but then I love what I do. A lot of people are not willing to be even mildly uncomfortable to achieve a goal that is not super motivating for them.

Can everyone look like Arnold in his prime? No. Can everyone be rich as Buffet? No. But we can all be extremely fit and quite well off financially, the opportunities for both exist for the vast majority.

 

[Smack]

Don't need it as I live in Britain and the NHS hospitals where I live are fine. However, should I move to another part of the UK I might consider it depending on the state of the NHS hospitals there.