Will Soldiers Have to Use Private Ins?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Pico and ME

Whats the monthly on a mortgage like that? $200O? That would really cut into the take home pay when you only earn $72000 a year.

FWIW - thats pretty common hereabouts too. Personally, I have neighbors that are doing that on combined incomes under 100k many less than 70k.

Originally Posted by Pico and ME

I guess we just like to live within our means.

You rebels you! ...

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

FWIW - thats pretty common hereabouts too. Personally, I have neighbors that are doing that on combined incomes under 100k many less than 70k.



You rebels you! ...

That is what ours is, a little higher but close.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by lookout123

Lol. You won't find many people in Arizona and probably none in California who have a mortgage of less than $250,000.

They pay 500k in a lot of places in Calif for a cardboard box. Another good reason to live in the SE.

[ZenGum]

A cardboard box? LUXURY! When I was a lad we lived for three years in the shadow of a hole in the road and trucks would ....


sorry.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

A cardboard box? LUXURY! When I was a lad we lived for three years in the shadow of a hole in the road and trucks would ....


sorry.

Yea, well when I lived in that hole in the lake, now that was some tough times!

[Cicero]

I lived in the center of a volcano once. I was finally shot out of it, and landed here on the cellar. Now water comes out of taps!! Good times!!

[BDS]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

[trolling]Why should we be providing any treatment to anyone? I thought you were in favor of "Natural selection and all of that." If people have a disease, maybe they're supposed to die.[/trolling]

urdoinitrong

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Cicero

I lived in the center of a volcano once. I was finally shot out of it, and landed here on the cellar. Now water comes out of taps!! Good times!!

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by lookout123

The people they are serving are their shareholders, just like any other company. They make money for their shareholders by serving clients in as cost effective manner as possible. Welcome to business. They aren't there to be everybody's friend, they are there to turn a profit. If they don't turn a profit they don't stay in business and then they don't get to serve anyone.

Sorry, but a corporation is there to supply a service or product to the public, and jobs to people. Shareholders profits should come after the people doing the work are actually compensated fairly for that work. If it weren't for the workers, there would be no product - no product, no profit. without workers, they go out of business.

Sounds great, but unless you can convince everyone in the medical fields to work strictly as volunteers then it must be paid for somehow. Any ideas other than "our government should do it"?

Why would they have to work as volunteers? I believe doctors and nurses and others in medicine make a very comfortable living in other countries that have a single payer system. Why should medicine be about profit? You see where it's gotten us?

Not that many of the so called rich people live purely off capital gains and dividends. If your 17% is accurate then I have two thoughts: 1) you can thank your progressive tax system for that, and 2) that 17% still equates to the lion's share of the tax dollars collected.

I'm talking about the top 2%. You are talking about average rich people with jobs instead of empires. If the progressive tax system was not riddled with loopholes it would be a very fair system. And so what? Why do hate the majority of the people in this country?

Let's think this one through slowly. If they earn so little they are unable to pay for insurance, then they most likely earn so little they aren't paying income taxes either. You know those people who get more back than they paid in each year?

If you have a family, then you should know how much insurance costs. AVERAGE insurance policies for an individual are over 5k/year, and for a family average over $15k/year. Even people who make $50k-60k/year would have trouble paying that, depending on where they live.

I wish. the beautiful thing is that if I work hard and make some good choices I can achieve some manner of financial independence in the future.

Maybe, maybe not. Hard work means nothing. If executive pay keeps rising the way it has, and nothing is done to address the wages of everyone else, even your job might be outsourced, or insourced, to cheaper workers.

This is a great country. For the most part, the harder/smarter I work the more I produce. The more I produce the more I get to keep. Sounds pretty fucking fair to me. Unfair is making it so everyone gets the same thing regardless of their abilities and choices along the way.

See, I never said everyone should get the same, and if you think I did, you haven't been listening. When you make more, you do keep more, even if you pay more in taxes, because you are making a much larger slice of the pie. And if you think people are rewarded simply for hard/smart work in this country, think again. There are tens of millions of really smart people out there, working really hard, who are completely taken advantage of and not paid fairly, which is why I am for unions.

I know it quite well. I have no idea how many BK's are filed each year because of this. I only know about my own some years ago when the insurance companies applied the letter of the law and chose not to cover my wife's problem pregnancy. It didn't ruin our lives one little bit.

It could have. You were lucky. It is happening a lot more now than in the past. It has gotten much worse over the years.

There is absolutely nothing in the constitution or other documents of the time to suggest the goal of the founding fathers was for all americans to achieve the same level of success and have all the same things. We are promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To people who whine and complain about the differences we see based on our work and decisions all I have to say is quit your bitching and start pursuing. It's up to you to achieve what you want.

I never said all Americans should achieve the same level of success or have all the same things. You keep putting those words in my mouth, and nowhere have I said that. But by the same token, it also isn't the Constitution that people should get obscenely rich while walking all over everyone else. They wanted a more equal and fair society. That doesn't mean completely equal in the sense that everyone has the same things. Corporations were not meant to have the power they have now.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

[trolling]Why should we be providing any treatment to anyone? I thought you were in favor of "Natural selection and all of that." If people have a disease, maybe they're supposed to die.[/trolling]

heh. I am, but since we have medicine, why should only people with means have access to it? Natural selection would apply to everyone, the way I think of it. That means even rich people wouldn't have access to any treatment they couldn't do themselves.

[jinx]

I am, but since we have medicine, why should only people with means have access to it?

Because medicine is a product and service like anything else. If you want things, whatever those things are, you need to work for them.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by jinx

Because medicine is a product and service like anything else. If you want things, whatever those things are, you need to work for them.

Medicine should not a be a product/service like every other product/service. We can just agree to disagree on that point because I can see where that argument is going.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Sorry, but a corporation is there to supply a service or product to the public, and jobs to people.

Dream on ya hippie. The corp/company is there to MAKE MONEY. Whatever they do that is the primary goal.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I believe doctors and nurses and others in medicine make a very comfortable living in other countries that have a single payer system. Why should medicine be about profit? You see where it's gotten us?

Really? I have no idea, but many do come here too.
Where has medicine for profit gotten us? Please elaborate.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I'm talking about the top 2%. You are talking about average rich people with jobs instead of empires. If the progressive tax system was not riddled with loopholes it would be a very fair system.

How much does the "average rich" person make?

Originally Posted by sugarpop

AVERAGE insurance policies for an individual are over 5k/year, and for a family average over $15k/year.

False. I pay for my own (ee+fam on a two tier system) and its about $432 a month - you do the math. Its an HMO with a very large company.

Originally Posted by sugarpop

Medicine should not a be a product/service like every other product/service. We can just agree to disagree on that point because I can see where that argument is going.

I agree with Jinx.

[lookout123]

Sorry, but a corporation is there to supply a service or product to the public, and jobs to people. Shareholders profits should come after the people doing the work are actually compensated fairly for that work. If it weren't for the workers, there would be no product - no product, no profit. without workers, they go out of business.

When I snap my fingers you will open your eyes slowly. Take a deep breath... did you feel like you were dreaming? I don't know what planet you are from but companies are not public service organizations. They exist to make a profit above all else. If they do, then employees will benefit.
If you have a family, then you should know how much insurance costs. AVERAGE insurance policies for an individual are over 5k/year, and for a family average over $15k/year.I do know. I am self employed and pay my own way.

because you are making a much larger slice of the pie.

the problem here is that you think income is a pie. That implies that it is zero sum. If I make 10% more someone has to make that much less. That isn't how it works. If I make more it is because I provided a service to more people. That service isn't robbing them of anything, in truth it is adding something to them. They win, I win. Then the beautiful thing is I take my new higher income and spend a bit of it, thus increasing the income of another service provider. One person getting rich does not necessitate another getting poor.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But that money you take as income, you could have used to buy turkeys and taken them up in a helicopter and let them fly to the poor starving people at the mall.