[quote=“lolipop_jones, post:38, topic:90485”]
and the dreadful “cash for clunkers” raised the price of transportation for lower income Americans.
[/quote]Uhh… what?
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Admittedly I live in Detroit and my father worked white-collar at Ford and GM, so I’m biased as hell… but I think we needed some sort of bailout. You’ve got to factor in the supply chain. The automakers don’t make everything any more, they outsource to other companies. Many, many other companies-- glassmakers, auto upholstery, you name it. So if even one of the Big Three goes down, those suppliers take a hard hit and send shock waves through the economy, on a regional if not a national level. Two of the three failing… would have been catastrophic, IMHO it could have triggered another recession at the very least. (Which is just one of the reasons I could never vote Romney for president. “Let Detroit burn”? He’s from Michigan, FFS, and he didn’t get the economic implications?)
Now I won’t argue that the bailouts could have been implemented better, or whether or not Cash for Clunkers was a good idea. (I had to buy a used car back in 2009. Thanks to that program, there were far less decent used cars available for purchase than I would have liked. I think the prices wound up higher too, given the lack of supply. I managed to get a good deal from a closing dealership, but I got lucky.) But at least the government got paid back for the bailouts, which is something good I suppose.
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Here’s the next one he needs to bribe. Again, Indiana, so Pence can give this one a tax handout too. I see a pattern emerging…
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This. This is exactly why our premiums have gone up over the years. The for-profit insurance system is not effective in addressing people’s real medical needs.
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It’s probably because he didn’t tap her for a position in his cabinet, I’d guess, that she’s criticizing him. If he’d given her a job, she’d be backing this all the way.
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Which goes nowhere on solving the underlying economic issues, of course.
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Reminds me of one of Jimmy Fallon’s lines in Almost Famous -
“You effectively traveled a long way to pay that promoter to electrocute you.”
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Why should that surprise you?
Yes I do, and no they don’t. They are transparent about the total cost of our plans and how much they pay for them. Their percentage paid has not changed from 2014-2017. Up until 2016 we had the option of a standard deductible plan (with co-pays and the like) and a high deductible plan (pay out of pocket until you hit your deductible). For 2016 the standard plan was dropped due to rising costs and the only plan offered was the HDHC plan.
Here is a breakdown per pay period of what my family plan is costing me (if you are curious the company pays more than 66% of the total cost, nor did benefits/coverage change among any of these years).
2014 (standard plan) - $145
2015 (standard plan) - $151
2016 (HDHC plan) - $133
2017 (HDHC plan) - $148
While my cost did decrease switching to the HDHC plan I have also paid out more than $1k this year just for routine medical visits (colds/flu while preventative is covered 100%). Not to mention the $5k I am placing into a HSA account to offset the medical cost if anything serious did happen.
Yes, for just mere pennies a decade I can cover millions of terminally ill patients that would not have been able to get coverage before…
While the greed you speak of is very true, I also place a large amount of blame with Obama and his administration for simply forcing insurance companies to take on all these extra people. As much greed as there may be in the medical field the insurance area is rife with much more. The way the ACA is implemented now people like me are subsidizing people buying into the market place. Yes a single payer system would help fix parts of that - if it was tax based we would all be pay something in toward the communal pool. However I do not believe we (the US) have reach some state of post scarcity healthcare system, simply fostering everyone into a huge pool will force medical organization to make choices in who receives what care. As it is now that is basically done through the financial market - and yes that’s probably the less humane to deal with it, but the reality is, there is no everyone gets everything just because.
Are you paid twice a month? Because if so, your insurance costs are minimal in comparison to those of us who don’t get insurance through work. You are part of a privileged minority in the States. Own it.
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So because I chose I job that’s third shift but pays well and has benefits, one that doesn’t allow me as much quality time with my family as I’d like, but helps ensure they have a quality of life and future, that makes me privileged. Gee growing up I was taught that makes me an adult. But sure I’ll own it, if I’m part of some privileged minority I guess that just makes me better than everyone else.
Yes, being able to work only one job and have health insurance covered at 66% by that employer really does make you privileged in the U.S. It would be considered normal in more civilized parts of the world, but we’re still an emerging nation, so it’s the best we can do so far.
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My heart says yes but actuarial tables say no. He’d be a full decade older than Reagan was when he started the job and Reagan was showing clear signs of age-related dementia before the end of his first term. Some people manage to stay healthy and spry into their late 80s but it’s a hell of a gamble—Bernie’s own dad died at 58 and his mom died at 46.
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Uncle Joe Biden is considering running, apparently.
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My wife works also, so it’s not like I’m in some special class of single income family earners here. But who’s privileged in having a job with benefits doesn’t change the fact that minority group of people is paying into an insurance system that now supports the majority. I know a great deal of families (including mine) where only one parent has the option for insurance. Yet we are working even harder to get less so everyone else can have a little slice of it. Instead of realer alternatives to fixing the system like a serious overhaul of medical costs and the insurance costs associated with them, a single payer system/taxed based system, or as I’d like to see it private companies that cover catastrophic events and a single payer/medicare system to cover everything else.
A key part of the insurance problem is the fact tens to hundreds of thousands of people are employed to make all that happen…it’s not a system to “big to fail”, but it certainly has to change.
I’ll vote for Joe if he chooses Obama as his running mate. It would all be worth it just to watch the haters’ heads explode.
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You mean Michelle Obama, right?
Barack Obama isn’t eligible to run for either job again (in order to run for VP, you have to be eligible to run for President, and a President who has served two terms isn’t).
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I’m sure they could figure out some kind of sneaky workaround kind of like how Putin was able to snub the rules on term limits in Russia by doing a do-si-do with his Prime Minister. Remember, normal rules for who gets to be President no longer apply!
That has never been tested.
The constitutional requirements for eligibility don’t say anything about it.
It’s not going to happen anyway.
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I’m reminded of the part in Battlestar Galactica when they reinstated Laura Roslin as President by letting Baltar’s VP Tom Zarek assume the role after Baltar abandoned the office, appoint Roslin as his VP, then immediately resign from the post. The whole transfer of power took like 30 seconds. All you need is some creative lawyerin’ and a few signatures!
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Ah, this makes much more sense.
We won’t agree on all the details of where to go from here, but yes I agree with you that the ACA compromise benefited insurance companies first, and those of us who fell through the cracks (a majority of the country) a distant second, and didn’t help those who already had insurance through their workplace at all.
