Politics Thread

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Originally Posted by Xville

Out of pocket and deductible are two different things, and they are not increasing exponentially at least not across the board. Premiums are at about a 10% clip on average. Fuethermore, only 1-2% ever hit the max and only 10% of population have any measurable health costs (about 5 k a year). Ya know on a average the number of times people see a doctor every year? 1.5 times. If you run or work for a small company, I highly recommend looking at a peo to stabilize costs like benefits etc. Anyways, ACA did some good things like preexisting conditions and put in out of pocket limit but it also fucked the middle class because the gap of what people were paying in premiums shrank which means everyone paid more. ACA started to do some good things, but it needs to be tweaked in a lot of areas.

Yeah I love paying an effing medicare tax every check it's awesome. Almost as I love paying ss that I'll never see.

Medicare works great at this low participation, its not scalable.

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I hate this mentality. You pay taxes and you don't always benefit from them. It's how a Country works. Go live on an island if you don't want to do anything to provide for anybody else. Medicare tax is minimal anyways.

I'm fortunate to pay taxes. I'm aware of how fortunate I am, and I remind myself that that every year when I do my taxes and see how much I actually paid. I'd like for that money to go to helping run the country as efficiently as possible and to provide basic needs for people in a way that allows this great country to continue to be great for many years to come.

To address healthcare specifically: Healthcare is wildly regressive right now. If I take home $20K per month and pay $1K in premiums that is such a drop in the bucket that I don't even know I'm paying it. If I take home $4K per month that $1K in premiums is a significant part of my monthly expenses. That's not even getting into the expenses once you seek actual care. I had to take one of my kids to the ER a few months ago. The bill (after insurance adjustment) was over $3K. He received very little treatment and did not ride in an ambulance. If my financial situation was different I probably wouldn't have taken him in. That would have worked out this time as there was nothing seriously wrong with him, but had something been wrong it could have had major consequences.

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Originally Posted by Lloyd Braun

Cheaper per capita covered, not overall.

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Doubt it and believe care would suffer. Need an overhaul of the system or the aca needs to be tweaked. Dont see scaling Medicare to be the answer.

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Originally Posted by boozehound

Why is it crazy that a company would pay a percentage of your premium? Hell, they used to pay all of it. It was just a benefit. Like a pension. If you wanted to attract skilled employees you had to have benefits. You could argue that America worked best when companies provided health benefits and pensions for their employees. Employees were loyal to companies (somewhat forcibly, but regardless) and workers were able to retire with healthcare and a living wage. Now we have a system where 3 guys have half the country's wealth and the majority of people have no sufficient savings on which to retire and cannot afford their healthcare costs. It's difficult to see that working over the long haul. It's also why every government eventually fails. The wealthy continue to find ways to get wealthier at the expense of the rest of the populus until the wealth divide becomes so great that the people rise up and overthrow the regime. The best systems, in my opinion, balance capitalism with managing the wealth divide so that the average citizen stays relatively happy. Providing for affordable healthcare is at the very core of that.

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Efficiently as possible and the government together....thanks for the laugh this morning

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Originally Posted by boozehound

I hate this mentality. You pay taxes and you don't always benefit from them. It's how a Country works. Go live on an island if you don't want to do anything to provide for anybody else. Medicare tax is minimal anyways.

I'm fortunate to pay taxes. I'm aware of how fortunate I am, and I remind myself that that every year when I do my taxes and see how much I actually paid. I'd like for that money to go to helping run the country as efficiently as possible and to provide basic needs for people in a way that allows this great country to continue to be great for many years to come.

To address healthcare specifically: Healthcare is wildly regressive right now. If I take home $20K per month and pay $1K in premiums that is such a drop in the bucket that I don't even know I'm paying it. If I take home $4K per month that $1K in premiums is a significant part of my monthly expenses. That's not even getting into the expenses once you seek actual care. I had to take one of my kids to the ER a few months ago. The bill (after insurance adjustment) was over $3K. He received very little treatment and did not ride in an ambulance. If my financial situation was different I probably wouldn't have taken him in. That would have worked out this time as there was nothing seriously wrong with him, but had something been wrong it could have had major consequences.

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By the way, I know how effed up healthcare is right now. I have 3 year old twins and especially that first year we spent more time in the doctors office and hospital than anyone. Hell, they were born premature and were in the nicu for 6 plus weeks and my daughter has had multiple surgeries since then to fox her cleft pallet. We will probably have recurring payments to medical for years and years.

Definitely not saying healthcare is wonderful, but I also dont want to put in the hands of a federal government that in most cases doesnt know what the fuck they are doing.

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Originally Posted by boozehound

I hate this mentality. You pay taxes and you don't always benefit from them. It's how a Country works. Go live on an island if you don't want to do anything to provide for anybody else. Medicare tax is minimal anyways.

I'm fortunate to pay taxes. I'm aware of how fortunate I am, and I remind myself that that every year when I do my taxes and see how much I actually paid. I'd like for that money to go to helping run the country as efficiently as possible and to provide basic needs for people in a way that allows this great country to continue to be great for many years to come.

To address healthcare specifically: Healthcare is wildly regressive right now. If I take home $20K per month and pay $1K in premiums that is such a drop in the bucket that I don't even know I'm paying it. If I take home $4K per month that $1K in premiums is a significant part of my monthly expenses. That's not even getting into the expenses once you seek actual care. I had to take one of my kids to the ER a few months ago. The bill (after insurance adjustment) was over $3K. He received very little treatment and did not ride in an ambulance. If my financial situation was different I probably wouldn't have taken him in. That would have worked out this time as there was nothing seriously wrong with him, but had something been wrong it could have had major consequences.

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Also I'd love for you to tell that guy bringing home the 4k that the Medicare tax along with ss is minimal on top of premiums etc.

And your comment regarding living on an island if I dont want to provide for anybody else is complete bullshit by the way. I want to help in the way I want to help and causes I care about and where I think my money should go, not have it mandated by a government that doesnt give a shit about me.

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Originally Posted by Xville

By the way, I know how effed up healthcare is right now. I have 3 year old twins and especially that first year we spent more time in the doctors office and hospital than anyone. Hell, they were born premature and were in the nicu for 6 plus weeks and my daughter has had multiple surgeries since then to fox her cleft pallet. We will probably have recurring payments to medical for years and years.

Definitely not saying healthcare is wonderful, but I also dont want to put in the hands of a federal government that in most cases doesnt know what the fuck they are doing.

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Small world. I also have 3 year old twins (almost 4).

Listen, I agree with you that the government doesn't know what they are doing. I'm not really sure that the free market does either, in terms of healthcare, and I have

I'm not necessarily in the Medicare for all camp, but I'm not necessarily opposed to it. I would like to see major healthcare reform as an intermediate step regardless. If it works then we can stop talking about Medicare for all, because their won't be a need. If the current system worked better for more people then we wouldn't have everyone wanting Medicare for all.

We can start with some simple things like billing equity and transparency. A procedure should cost what a procedure costs. My insurance shouldn't get billed $2K for an MRI that I would pay $200 out of pocket for. If you go to a hospital you should get 1 bill from the hospital, not separate bills from every provider that treated you while you where there.

This week in Crazy Shit You're Ignoring Because You're Scared, the New York Federal Reserve has extended a $60B credit line to Indonesia! Someday, 'What was the Federal Reserves original mandate?' will be a trivia question.

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Originally Posted by Caf

U.S. Shale Driller Whiting Petroleum Files For Bankruptcy

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Makes me sick that this company paid out $14.6 million to their key employees in "bonuses" for bankrupting the company. The crooked bastard CEO also got an additional $6.4 million days before the filing. Meanwhile the Colorado taxpayers will eventually have the pay to clean up all their filthy drilling sites. Instead of bonuses, they should all go to jail for Fraud.

Coronavirus Crisis Legacy: Mountains of Debt - WSJ

I imagine this is not an isolated event

Company with zero employees awarded contract to manufacture masks.