August 2013 Pilot Discussion

[snapthis]

That's a cute story but it had absolutely nothing to do with my post. Nevermind. 😀

I'm not sure you understand what you are trying to say.

Yea, something about greed and wealth redistribution on your end. Maybe it's over your head that some folks can escape the cycle of poverty.

 

[767one]

For those of you approaching age 65 here are some thoughts about your hard earned health benefits. Actually these are not really benefits as you pay more for health care after you retire. You will have medciare taxes deducted from your social security check . You will need a supplemental health policy and you will have to get medicare part D (drugs) or pay a fine. For a couple the age of my wife and myself you will need to figure about $6,000 a year for these benefits. Keep in mind you may also (depending on your plan) have a deductible for both plans. As far as part D that appears to be one of the biggest scams the drug companies have perpetrated on the public and the government is complicit in the operation of the scam. On one occasion one of the "preferred mail providers" sent a generic drug even after getting the note from the doctor for the brand medication, charged us $225 for the generic and would not refund or take the medication for an exchange. They did however offer the brand medication for $775 additional dollars copay for a 90 day supply.

My wife recently heard a young (30 or so) couple talking about how sad it was they had to pay for all the medical bills and social security for old folks. Lucky for all my wife was able to stifle herself until out of earshot otherwise someone would have gone to the hospital to have my wife's foot removed from his Arse!

All the best,

Bob

Well, Bob that 30's couple may be facing $24,000 per year in insurance premiums because they are self employed and purchasing it on the open market.

Zero Social Security income to offset those premiums AND that generation will see only 24% of their social security taxes ( at 13 % ) ever returned.

I don't dispute that money is being wasted on many programs. That being said medicare by itself could be a good program IF it was being managed. Having dealt with my parents financial issues for the last 3 years of their lives I can tell you the drug and medical providers are using all of us and in particular older people as breathing ATM machines. I tried to tell medicare about the fact that my parents have been out of FL for over 3 three years, my mother has been dead for almost 3 years and we still get bills from providers in FL for services being provided after they died. The answer from medicare is that they only consider it fraud if they chose to pay the provider!!? There in lies the problem with almost every government program. It doesn't matter what the program is if it's not managed it is worthless. Medicare, part D, social security.

Bob

 

[im back..!!]

We don't need it, but I am of the opinion that a majority absolutely wants it.

There are a majority of greedy, entitlement voters that want the government to redistribute the wealth, a powerful elite that wants to be richer by skimming more, and enough guilt ridden idiots that want to console their conscience by giving back more because they "didn't build it".

What exactly is it "We don't need"?

Are you saying you dont need health insurance?

Others might want to have insurance, its what might keep un-insured from clogging up the emergency rooms....
Or, could it be you don't know what the ACA really is? Do you get most of your info from faux news? Ahh, I think I know the problem here then.

 

[Phoenix]

....some folks can escape the cycle of poverty.

Some? Some folks escaping the cycle of poverty... that's a cute story.

First "some" is not "most". And in case you missed it, elections are determined by "most".

And second, poverty in the days you describe has absolutely nothing in common with the "poverty" of today. In todays new poverty everyone can get free housing, free cable tv, free food, free medical care, affordable health insurance, free transportation, and free cellphones... and the IRS sends "poor" folks a check at the end of the year because they have "earned income credit" for being so "poor". What pray tell is the motivation to break the cycle of "poverty"? Uh, yeah, perhaps if we establish more social safety-net programs for them, the "poverty" stricken will be able to escape their "poverty" through self-improvement.... ya know like higher education, sweat, and toil... or they could just simply vote to protect the Redistributor in Chief and the rest of the Robin Hoods with him.

Your grand parents were in the minority, and their minority is getting smaller.

 

[Phoenix]

What exactly is it "We don't need"?
...
Others might want to have insurance,

I don't know about you, but what I don't need is the government or anyone else telling me what I need to buy with my money. 😀

If others want to have insurance, then they can buy it, just like any other purchase available to them, or they can vote to have others pay for it for them.

 

[nycbusdriver]

I don't know about you, but what I don't need is the government or anyone else telling me what I need to buy with my money. 😀

If others want to have insurance, then they can buy it, just like any other purchase available to them, or they can vote to have others pay for it for them.

There are ways to look at the requirement to buy health insurance.

In some states, you have a requirement to buy liability insurance in order to register a car. Why? So that the risk is spread to every car on the road, and there is some assurance that if somebody creams you with their car, insurance will cover it. In states that don't have this, companies offer uninsured motorist coverage, i.e. you are paying what the other guy refuses to pay in order to cover your own butt.

That's the idea behind requiring everyone to have health insurance. If your next door neighbor, the bullet-proof, I-am-young-so-I-do-not-need-insurance 19 year old, goes out and makes himself a paraplegic on his skateboard, he's covered by the policy he was required to purchase and the risk is spread. If he is NOT required to buy that policy, then he goes to the Emergency Room where he gets admitted for long-term care and rehab at taxpayer, i.e. YOUR, expense (of course, that's after the hospital bankrupts him by cleaning out the $42.39 he has in his checking account and assuming ownership of the small scraps that was once his skateboard.)

The law in this country requires the hospital to treat him, insured or not. If not insured, the taxpayer foots the bill.

If the law were otherwise, i.e. no insurance, no money, no treatment (it is that way in some countries), then mandatory insurance would not make financial sense. Ethical issues notwithstanding.

I am told (by a physician from one of these countries) that in some countries, if you are brought in for emergency surgery, the hospital and surgeon must know that they will be paid. If not, the surgeon simply walks away and you die on the table untreated. (My physician friend that I mentioned is NOT a surgeon, nor involved in emergency medicine.)

 

[Phoenix]

There are ways to look at the requirement to buy health insurance.

No matter how you look at it the government is mandating we buy it. And never before in our history has the government ever mandated we all buy something whether or not we wanted to.

There are ways to look at the requirement to buy health insurance.

In some states, you have a requirement to buy liability insurance in order to register a car. Why? So that the risk is spread to every car on the road, and there is some assurance that if somebody creams you with their car, insurance will cover it. In states that don't have this, companies offer uninsured motorist coverage, i.e. you are paying what the other guy refuses to pay in order to cover your own butt.

That's the idea behind requiring everyone to have health insurance. If your next door neighbor, the bullet-proof, I-am-young-so-I-do-not-need-insurance 19 year old, goes out and makes himself a paraplegic on his skateboard, he's covered by the policy he was required to purchase and the risk is spread. If he is NOT required to buy that policy, then he goes to the Emergency Room where he gets admitted for long-term care and rehab at taxpayer, i.e. YOUR, expense (of course, that's after the hospital bankrupts him by cleaning out the $42.39 he has in his checking account and assuming ownership of the small scraps that was once his skateboard.)

The law in this country requires the hospital to treat him, insured or not. If not insured, the taxpayer foots the bill.

If the law were otherwise, i.e. no insurance, no money, no treatment (it is that way in some countries), then mandatory insurance would not make financial sense. Ethical issues notwithstanding.

I am told (by a physician from one of these countries) that in some countries, if you are brought in for emergency surgery, the hospital and surgeon must know that they will be paid. If not, the surgeon simply walks away and you die on the table untreated. (My physician friend that I mentioned is NOT a surgeon, nor involved in emergency medicine.)

That's a very long explanation of why the government should be allowed to require me to buy something. I don't accept your premise that there are circumstances that allow others to dictate what an individual must purchase. I can come up with all kinds of sad stories and red herrings. Auto insurance is a non sequitur. The government doesn't require everyone to buy auto insurance. There are many people who don't have it and don't need it. The SCOTUS doesn't even buy the premise that the government can make you buy something. SCOTUS by fiat decided Obama Care is really a tax.

 

[CaptChill]

I don't dispute that money is being wasted on many programs. That being said medicare by itself could be a good program IF it was being managed. Having dealt with my parents financial issues for the last 3 years of their lives I can tell you the drug and medical providers are using all of us and in particular older people as breathing ATM machines. I tried to tell medicare about the fact that my parents have been out of FL for over 3 three years, my mother has been dead for almost 3 years and we still get bills from providers in FL for services being provided after they died. The answer from medicare is that they only consider it fraud if they chose to pay the provider!!? There in lies the problem with almost every government program. It doesn't matter what the program is if it's not managed it is worthless. Medicare, part D, social security.

Bob

AMEN Bob... and that is what scares the hell out of me about the ACA.

 

[CaptChill]

If the heart surgery was so critical that it could not be postponed (sounds like elective surgery to me), why didn't he simply head for the US, or another country, where he could purchase exactly what he needed when he wanted it?

I suspect I know why.

Maybe he could not afford that alternative...

 

[nycbusdriver]

That's a very long explanation of why the government should be allowed to require me to buy something. I don't accept your premise that there are circumstances that allow others to dictate what an individual must purchase. I can come up with all kinds of sad stories and red herrings. Auto insurance is a non sequitur. The government doesn't require everyone to buy auto insurance. There are many people who don't have it and don't need it. The SCOTUS doesn't buy the premise that the government can make you buy something. SCOTUS by fiat decided Obama Care is really a tax.

Yeah, you really had me agreeing. The auto thing is not a very good analogy.

And, as I was thinking of how to respond, you answered it yourself.

It's a tax. The government can require everyone to pay taxes, and does exactly that for the most part.

This is a bit of an odd tax in that it gets paid to private companies rather than to the government. It's a Republican plan in that respect, but since a black president managed to get himself elected and this law passed, the Republicans want to part of their own idea.

If President McCain passed this exact same originally Republican, Romney-esque health care plan, the Republicans would be triumphanty harping on how they saved health care for millions of Americans who could not have previously afforded it, and at the same time supported the health insurance business and not simply collecting more taxes into the treasury.

 

[CaptChill]

There are ways to look at the requirement to buy health insurance.

In some states, you have a requirement to buy liability insurance in order to register a car. Why? So that the risk is spread to every car on the road, and there is some assurance that if somebody creams you with their car, insurance will cover it. In states that don't have this, companies offer uninsured motorist coverage, i.e. you are paying what the other guy refuses to pay in order to cover your own butt.

That's the idea behind requiring everyone to have health insurance. If your next door neighbor, the bullet-proof, I-am-young-so-I-do-not-need-insurance 19 year old, goes out and makes himself a paraplegic on his skateboard, he's covered by the policy he was required to purchase and the risk is spread. If he is NOT required to buy that policy, then he goes to the Emergency Room where he gets admitted for long-term care and rehab at taxpayer, i.e. YOUR, expense (of course, that's after the hospital bankrupts him by cleaning out the $42.39 he has in his checking account and assuming ownership of the small scraps that was once his skateboard.)

The law in this country requires the hospital to treat him, insured or not. If not insured, the taxpayer foots the bill.

If the law were otherwise, i.e. no insurance, no money, no treatment (it is that way in some countries), then mandatory insurance would not make financial sense. Ethical issues notwithstanding.

I am told (by a physician from one of these countries) that in some countries, if you are brought in for emergency surgery, the hospital and surgeon must know that they will be paid. If not, the surgeon simply walks away and you die on the table untreated. (My physician friend that I mentioned is NOT a surgeon, nor involved in emergency medicine.)

Well, there is the option of not buying insurance, wherein the IRS will collect a "penalty" which as I understand it is a hell of a lot less. And we are still on the hook if that same thing occurred... So we're paying for it one way or another.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Maybe he could not afford that alternative...

Then there's the old adage: "Beggars can't be choosers."

 

[Phoenix]

Yeah, you really had me agreeing. The auto thing is not a very good analogy.

And, as I was thinking of how to respond, you answered it yourself.

It's a tax. The government can require everyone to pay taxes, and does exactly that for the most part.

This is a bit of an odd tax in that it gets paid to private companies rather than to the government. It's a Republican plan in that respect, but since a black president managed to get himself elected and this law passed, the Republicans want to part of their own idea.

If President McCain passed this exact same originally Republican, Romney-esque health care plan, the Republicans would be triumphanty harping on how they saved health care for millions of Americans who could not have previously afforded it, and at the same time supported the health insurance business and not simply collecting more taxes into the treasury.

It was declared a tax by fiat.

 

[nycbusdriver]

Well, there is the option of not buying insurance, wherein the IRS will collect a "penalty" which as I understand it is a hell of a lot less. And we are still on the hook if that same thing occurred... So we're paying for it one way or another.

Yeah, it looks like it is indeed much less in 2014. But by 2016, it gets a pit painful:

The tax penalties go into effect in 2014, which means, if you’re uninsured for more than three months in 2014, you may incur the tax penalty and that penalty would be applied when you file your 2014 income tax return.
If you don’t qualify for an exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to purchase qualifying health coverage, then you will be subject to a tax penalty.
The penalty is phased-in over a three year period.
In 2014, the penalty will be the greater of 1.0% of taxable income or $95 per adult and $47.50 per child (up to $285 per family).
In 2015, the penalty will be the greater of 2.0% of taxable income or $325 per adult and $162.50 per child (up to $975 per family).
In 2016, the penalty will be at the greater of 2.5% of taxable income or $695 per adult and $347.50 per child (up to $$2,085 per family).
After 2016, the penalty will be increased annually by the increase to the cost-of-living.
Households with incomes above 400% of FPL will be exempt from paying tax penalties if insurance in their area costs more than 8% of their taxable income, after taking into account employer contributions or tax credits.

 

[MUTATIS MUTANDIS]

Anyone know if the promises made to Texas are legally binding? The City of Pittsburgh wants to know. Congrats to the Bucks! RR

Promises, Promises, what is even more interesting is the questions, people are not asking. How did the texas AG know those cities were slated for service withdrawl, who told him? And if they know that, how much more of this plan involves job layoffs, and where and to whom?, TEXAS a safe bet, election fever leading to political pressures, everyone else, my guess the DOJ has the playbook!, Why would DUI DOUG want the names of who gave it to them? Fun to watch!