Will Trump behave himself at the G20 summit?

[iris lilies]

Also, frankly, it doesnt help my empathy to hear ad nauseum how one member of our group here despises the taxpayers of the U.S.A. for their lack of "human dignity" and yet sucked down a good quarter of a million $ in hospital care in recent years with no charge to him.

While I don't expect groveling thanks, I do expect simple recognition that he was taken care of. But his drumbeat of "not good enough, never good enough, despicable" leads me to think that there are a lot of people out there with unrealistic expectations of how much things cost and how much the taxpayer is willing to give. This attitude is extremely wearing.

[catherine]

This topic really burns me, and points out the flaws in the whole system. A system where you have a choice of wearing the golden handcuffs and get employer-based healthcare, or starting a business and being lucky enough to make the money to pay the exorbitant premiums on your own. These two choices demand a Plan C. In my mind that Plan C is one which provides an equal safety net to ALL people regardless of source of employment. The employer-based insurance system is a vestige of the end of 19th century/beginning of the Industrial Age when insurance was something brand new and it gave manufacturers a good perk for their employees. But it makes no sense now in an economy where those very jobs in manufacturing are dwindling fast, and where technology and lack of transparency in healthcare has driven costs exponentially higher.

There are flaws in the ACA, but there are also serious flaws in the foundation of the healthcare system, which poorer or unluckier people shouldn't have to pay for. We are creative and innovative people--we can come up with something better.

Yes, if you work for a company and reap their benefits, that's great, but it doesn't make you better or more deserving of a healthy life.

[iris lilies]

Many illnesses run in families. If you get hit by a bus when you are young and are paralyzed from your neck down you are not going to have the resources to provide for your family. Some of you need to pull your head out of your ass and realize that many people work hard and still have horribly bad things happen to them that is beyond their control. Many jobs now don't even come with health insurance. I have seen people go bankrupt even with medical insurance if they have cancer due to inability to work, large deductibles, co-pays, etc. Especially if the cancer keeps coming back. I had friends where her insurance came back 8x's and then he got cancer. Eventually they lost a paid for home because they took $ out of it to pay for medical expenses and then other expenses when too sick to work. They had health insurance. She first wqas unable to work due to being too sick. She loved to work so went back as soon as she was well. Unfortunately, her brain no longer worked right and after 2 years was fired. The doctors thought she had chemo brain but eventually after man years realized she had early onset alzheimer's. These people did everything right yet died broke. He sold everything they had before dying to pay all creditors. I eventually had to apply for Medicaid to pay for her nursing home care because her monthly pension and SS did not pay the whole bill. So this couple did everything right but it did not matter.

This is a lot of story, but I am not sure it relays the point you think you are making.

Isnt the main point: your friends were ill, your friends were taken care of? The end.

For more detail, they spent their own momey on their own care services before the taxpayers kicked in to take care of them.

if we all expect to blow our money on beer, weed, fast cars and fast women OR ELSE save it up for our legacy death gift, using none of it on our own health care, then taxes will have to be raised on everybody, not just The Rich. That level of support isnt built into the current system. Teresa May looked across the pond, at us, and suggested something similar in the U.K. And she was shouted right down. Once Nanny G. gives out a big soft blanket gift, it is dastardly jard to take it back. Thats what the Republicans in Congress and finding out. There are many enemies if the ACA but everyone wants to keep their gift piece and chuck the rest.

[iris lilies]

This topic really burns me, and points out the flaws in the whole system. A system where you have a choice of wearing the golden handcuffs and get employer-based healthcare, or starting a business and being lucky enough to make the money to pay the exorbitant premiums on your own. These two choices demand a Plan C. In my mind that Plan C is one which provides an equal safety net to ALL people regardless of source of employment. The employer-based insurance system is a vestige of the end of 19th century/beginning of the Industrial Age when insurance was something brand new and it gave manufacturers a good perk for their employees. But it makes no sense now in an economy where those very jobs in manufacturing are dwindling fast, and where technology and lack of transparency in healthcare has driven costs exponentially higher.

There are flaws in the ACA, but there are also serious flaws in the foundation of the healthcare system. We are creative and innovative people--we can come up with something better.

Yes, if you work for a company and reap their benefits, that's great, but it doesn't make you better or more deserving of a healthy life.

First of all, working for a company that picks up the cost of "exorbatant premiums" is just part of negotiated compensation. Either you, the employee, eats the $10,000 annual premium per person or the company eats it, its not magic accounting. I wouldnt term that simple computation of compensation " golden handcuffs."

The "handcuff" part comes in for pre-existing conditions, in a work encirnment where health screening is not required to get health insurance. So yeah, people with pre existing conditions may be stuck in that corporate role for the sake of their healt insurance. That is not an enviable position. But it IS the reality of life in these United States.

I actually would like to have a serious conversation about "pre existing conditions" because I have questions, but I have learned this is not the place for that, I would be assured almost immediately of the "people will DIE!" type of rhetoric. Sigh.

Anyway, in the general, I agree with you that our health system could be changed, and possibly for the better. But because all change agents dont talk abput the effect on the bottom li e of the U.S. budget, I am skeptical that we can afford their desired changes.

[catherine]

I wouldnt term that simple computation of compensation " golden handcuffs."

I've always wondered why Republicans aren't more in favor of a non-employer-based single-payer system, because I truly believe a lot more people would start small businesses if they weren't glued to their jobs because it's the only way they can afford healthcare. Sure, a lot of people also just like the steady paycheck, but I know other people who feel tied to their jobs because of the healthcare benefits--especially if they have families.

[dmc]

So if you have high blood pressure, and you--in part--caused it, you should just die. Got it.
One, and I think arguably the most important, reason for high blood pressure is stress. And poor people have that in spades.
Some minorities are prone to HBP, possibly exacerbated by the afore-mentioned stress.
When did we sink to the point that finger-pointing and judging replaced actual health care? Not a world I'm happy to live in.

you are more than welcome to give them as much of your money as you wish.

Health care is a service. You should pay for that service.

[JaneV2.0]

I would joyfully pay more taxes to provide basic health care for everyone. (Of course, that's a pretty hollow statement now that I pay much less in taxes than I used to--but I would have joyfully paid then, too.) We could cut the defense budget to make that happen. Haha. But seriously, if we got the (expletive deleted) insurance companies out of the mix, went back to not-for-profit health care, arm-wrestled greedy Pharma CEOs to bring drug costs down (and surely we could cut drug costs in a major way by just saying no to the mostly useless and harmful potions that make up the bulk of pharmaceuticals fouling our waterways), used expensive tests judiciously, and took a more practical and less profit-driven approach to health care, we could certainly make it happen.

(Geez--run-on sentence, much? I think that's a record.)

[JaneV2.0]

you are more than welcome to give them as much of your money as you wish.

Health care is a service. You should pay for that service.

Before profits and greed got in the way, most people could and did pay for medical services. I'm old enough to remember those times.

[dmc]

Before profits and greed got in the way, most people could and did pay for medical services. I'm old enough to remember those times.

like colleges, it was before the government got involved.

[bae]

I've always wondered why Republicans aren't more in favor of a non-employer-based single-payer system,...

As a lapsed Republican, and a lapsed employer, I've always wondered why the heck people want employers involved in their healthcare, or their health insurance. They don't (or typically didn't) ask that the employer provide their food, shelter, transportation, energy, or most of the other essentials of modern life. (I understand historically how we ended up in this place, it just seems absurd.)

When I budgeted for a new employee, I budgeted a certain total amount for the position. I wasn't providing health benefits out of magic money, it was money that otherwise would have gone into salary. In fact, I issued every employee a statement of benefits with their paychecks, breaking down the dollar cost of all the "free" benefits they were receiving.

On the "people are going to die" front - bad news for y'all: everyone's going to die, sooner or later.