wrote in message
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On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:43:43 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:
The real problem is the whole idea of health insurance. It makes
medical care "free" and nothing is as expensive as something that
people think is free.
I hear this - or a version of it - all the time.
Most people know very well what they are paying in insurance premiums.
Even those on Medicare know what's coming out of their SS and what
they are paying for supplementals.
So do you know anybody who thinks medical care is "free?"
It's only "free" for those who have nothing with which to pay.
There is still a significant disconnect between premiums and what the
treatment costs. In the case of Medicare, that part B payment and the
supplement policy is a small fraction of the cost of treating the
average senior.
I don't go to the doctor much either and insurance has been a huge
loser for me but most of the people I know on medicare are at the
doctor all the time and most have had expensive procedures (new hips,
knees, cataracts etc). The other thing about medicare is that you have
everyone who works, paying premiums that only cover about 15% of the
population and the program is still upside down. The premiums people
pay, plus the payroll tay is only about half of what Medicare pays
out. The rest is taken from the general fund (40% of that being
borrowed)
The idea that we could let the age slide down to include younger
people without massive increases in the payroll tax is ludicrous.
I've read that all we have to do is stop the exemption from the payroll tax
that begins at a little over 100K. Doing that is no more ludicrous than
Obamacare's various provisions. One merely extends the existing system that
everyone understands and knows how to deal with, the other is Pure Unbridled
Uncertain Insanity.
We also might be able to better afford it if we weren't spending 1 to 4
trillion fighting Other People's Wars for them and creating severely wounded
vets by the thousands that we're going to have to pay to treat for decades
to come. We went in exactly the wrong direction. I like TR's motto: "Walk
softly but carry a big stick." These "brush wars" will leave us cutting
back the DoD at precisely the wrong time and all they're those brush wars
seem to be doing is spreading into countries we consider allies.
Sadly, I think Obama's stalled on returning the troops primarily to make job
figures look better. A lot of Reservists don't have a job to come back to -
their employers folded up. Others will have to sue to get their old jobs
back, which employers know they can eliminate by performing certain
bureaucratic actions to make it "nice and legal" and VERY hard for a
Reservist to prevail in court. I confess I don't know how Reservists figure
into the monthly government figures - I just know that a lot of Reservists
are unemployed and many have very employable skill sets.
This older article sums up the problem which my wife tells me has only got
worse in this sour economy.
http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/1691542
36 members of the Florida National Guard got letters, while serving in
combat in Iraq, informing them that their jobs in a federal
drug-interdiction program were abolished. The Denver magazine report told of
a 53-year-old Marine, in the service for 29 years, who deployed for nine
months in Kuwait and Iraq in 2002 and 2003. When he got home, he was fired
from his $88,000-a-year job in a firm where he'd worked for 19 years. He was
allegedly told by the Department of Labor, where his commanding officer
referred him, that he didn't have a legal case unless he heard somebody say
he was fired because of his military service.
The officer, a lawyer, was so outraged, that he fought for the Marine, who
won $324,082 in U.S. District Court in Colorado. As of late last year,
reporter Potter said the Marine was still looking for a job with health
insurance for his family.
Mostly Reservists end up being "good soldiers" and just move on without
raising a ruckus.
--
Bobby G.
Money doesn't buy happiness, it IS happiness!