It does look like states are responding to the current regime by stepping up to the plate. Maybe that's the silver lining to a very dark cloud. I hope California's single-payer plan is a success and I hope we can fend off Trump's war against women, immigrants, the environment, cannabis, etc. I expect the "Left Coast" to be a leader in this. I never thought I'd be an advocate for states' rights, but here we are.
Why ever not?Originally Posted by JaneV2.0
But in the end, each state can be just as dictitorial, as bloated, as corrupt as the big feds. Citizens must be ever vigilent, and not wax poetic about state go ernance.
I think it is great that Cali will be paying for all health care for its citizens. As to concerns mentioned above about paying for it, you guys are just downers.
Because it's been historically used to defend odious practices like segregation, and is still being used to promote religion in government, voter suppression, and other retrograde practices. Of course the devil is in the details of the California plan, but I have hope. A national plan would probably work better, but we work with the army we have, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.
Except that Cali isn't paying anything, the citizens will pay for state run healthcare along with all the problems such as waste, abuse, rationing and the reality of wealth fleeing the state for greener pastures.
I'm as much an idealist as anyone but I think it must be tempered with reality. Unicorns are extinct and rainbows are rare.
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
interesting point about elderly. Especially if the powers that be start screwing around with social security and Medicare. Which I would not put past any of them.
We lived for a few years in a house a company rented for us in Los Altos when DH was doing some work in Silicon Valley. We got to know the owners and they had four pieces property that had been in the family for years thus had very low taxes thanks to prop 13. Which is the case for some of the multi million dollar houses in California.
It it will be interesting to see what happens. If the Feds cut off funding to sanctuary cities, you have a large elderly population sucking up lots of healthcare, a large illegal population (who send their kids to taxpayer funded schools) and prop 13 and mix them all together it could prove to be an interesting ride.
Californians have been moving to NV in droves for the past 20 years that I have lived here for lower taxes, etc.
Gee, I'd hate to be accused of "sucking up lots of health care" as an old person. How dare I get sick and cost somebody something! (Didn't I pay into Medicare?) Glad I'm healthy. Of course if health care costs here were equivalent to what they are elsewhere, maybe I could just pay for them out of pocket, which I would be happy to do. But that's not about to change unless we kick the insurance/Pharma grifters out of the temple.
People like having the right to decide where their money goes and what causes to support or not. Taxes without representation or choosing how to use them helped push this country into being. People want transparency (which you won't get with federal black budgets or so large that people needed forensic accounting training to decipher hidden things) and to be able to see the results.
That doesn't mean people are not stupid enough to be duped. As politicians/preachers, etc. can infer one thing, and you actually get exactly what they said, and not what you thought because of what they inferred. (my states example is gambling and education. It was inferred that the gambling money would go to schools on top of the regular money, what happened was what they said, gambling taxes ONLY go to education, and the money that would have gone to education, went back into the general fund)
But there is always the fight about balance, because without the federal government, it would have been a cluster of problems to get highways across this country, or the internet started, and other things we do see that we like, use and want maintained.
here is the proof
https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statist...Highlights.pdf
i am 63. Many of my friends have had costly joint replacements, several have had strokes and cancers and many many have various skin cancers. The majority are not due to lifestyle but rather shit happens. Add to the lifestyle components of loss of activity and social contacts many seniors have is not helpful for circulation, mental acuity and just plain old wearing out and nursing home costs and seniors are a costly group indeed.
Yes, it's hell getting old. And costly, unless you just keel over. I guess I don't see the point. Soylent Green, maybe? Mandatory voluntary self-immolation?
Age-related illness seems to cost a lot less elsewhere (from a sports medicine site):
Hip replacement surgery
• $6,757 in Spain
• $7,685 in South Africa
• $15,465 in New Zealand
• $16,335 in the United Kingdom
• $17,112 in Switzerland
• $19,484 in Australia
• $29,067 in the Unites States
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