heywood on 13/2/2020 at 13:23
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Question: how many USD does a single person pay per month for a decent/basic health-care insurance ? Or if the employer pays for it, how much does the employer pay ? How much do you pay for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children under 18) ?
According to my W-2 (tax form), my employer and I paid a total of $33630.48 for health care coverage in 2019. For 2020, the estimate is $34936.32, of which $27474.12 comes from my employer and $7462.20 comes from me via payroll deduction. Percentage-wise, that's the smallest year to year increase I can remember. And my contribution has actually gone down over the last two years because my employer has been desperate to hire, so they're picking up more of the cost. My contribution to the premium was over $10k at one point.
This is for a family of four; two adults, two children. It's an HSA plan with a high deductible and high out-of-pocket cap. There are no out of pocket costs for generic prescription drugs and we get one annual physical exam for each family member at no cost. We also have basic dental coverage that pays for cleanings and minor work like fillings, but coverage is limited to $2k/year maximum. Overall, I would describe it as a good health plan, but not gold plated. I have high blood pressure, but my wife and kids have no notable conditions or risk factors. So the cost of our coverage is typical for this area, which is one of the most expensive in the country for health care.
A bit of price history:
$8k in 2006 with no kids and traditional plan
$13k in 2009
$20k in 2013
$25k in 2014 with one kid
$27k in 2017 with two kids, and change to a high deductible HSA plan
$33.6k in 2019
$35k in 2020
jkcerda on 13/2/2020 at 15:12
Quote Posted by Renzatic
The problem is that it enforces a penalty for one group who doesn't have insurance, while allowing another access without any overhead. Providing healthcare to those who can't afford it is all well and good, but that does come across as a bit unfair.
This is America, damnit! Everyone deserves to suffer!
LIKE I said, I would NOT have a problem IF we did NOT get a fine for NOT having insurance. it IS fucking unfair to FINE legal US citizens just to give it to ILLEGALS who should NOT be here in the first place.
heywood on 13/2/2020 at 15:37
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Which leads to the next conundrum. Whoever wins the 2020 election will be blamed for what's inevitably coming as a consequence of our politics. The stock market is growing primarily on corporate profit margins exceeding expectations, not job growth or trade, which is pretty decent, but not spectacular at the moment. It's a bubble built around the strength of a top heavy economy, one excited over itself, and its own performance. It'll burst whenever we find out it hasn't touched every corner of the economy, and people are being a lot more frugal with their money than the forecasted estimates.
When it happens, and we find that we've already cut taxes to near historic lows, and thus won't be able to cut them any lower to spur the economy back into a recovery with without risking a massive debt increase, then things will get even worse. No path to an immediate recovery leads to a bearish stock market. A bearish stock market leads to conservative hiring practices from big businesses trying to maintain their profit margins. Conservative hiring practices lead to tepid job markets. Tepid job markets lead to so on and so on. It's possible we'll be facing a decade long low level recession with flat growth. There are a lot of reasons to assume we're heading towards a stagnant economy.
Maybe Trump does need to be a two term president. It's easy to claim he's awesome when he's working within an economy that was already booming when he took office. Let's see how he fares in one that isn't playing to his favor.
I hate to be pessimistic, but... um, yeah, I think you're right.
There are a couple things that could partially save our ass in the next recession, but not ones you'd want to count on.
First, the rest of the world could sink into recession before us. Thus even though we're headed towards insolvency over the long term, our debt might still look relatively safe compared other alternatives. That might buy us enough time to get through another short recession.
Second, there could be another technological revolution that spurs another boom, much like the internet saved us in the 1990s. Perhaps machine learning this time.
Quote Posted by Renzatic
The problem is that it enforces a penalty for one group who doesn't have insurance, while allowing another access without any overhead. Providing healthcare to those who can't afford it is all well and good, but that does come across as a bit unfair.
This is America, damnit! Everyone deserves to suffer!
Take Medicare as the model. Everyone who earns a legit wage pays the Medicare payroll tax, so everyone has skin in the game, and everyone gets the benefit. I've yet to know a retiree on Medicare who's upset they paid too much into it or upset that a lower class person paid less payroll tax over their working life. I even have a couple of family members who preached absurdist libertarian utopianism for as long as I can remember, who are now quite happy to be on Medicare.
As far as I can tell, the thing that really rubs people's fairness bone the wrong way is when people can live their life on the dole, taking all the benefits and not contributing anything to economic production. There are people out there who make a career out of exploiting the welfare system and the charities around it, and it's hard to feel empathy for them. I'm not saying everyone who takes benefits is like that, but it is a real thing. And despite the welfare block grants allowing states freedom to explore different systems, I don't think any state has found a solution that's fair to those people and fair to the taxpayers. For those who can't (or won't) find work in the private sector, there has to be a way to contribute something in return for benefits, at least community service. If they're physically disabled and can't perform manual labor like picking up trash or gardening, there ought to be a way for them to perform useful work for the community or town/city/state online. I think the main reason why this hasn't happened is that public sector unions don't want benefit recipients taking work from their members.
Gryzemuis on 13/2/2020 at 15:39
So a family of 4 in the US pays $30K+ per year. A family of 4 in NL pays 5K euros for the same thing. Six times as expensive. With the risk of stuff not being covered after all (because of the small letters).
USA, bestest country in the world !!
It's a miracle that people are actually opposing a decent health-care system (the "Obamacare is socialism" bullshit). I guess it is because the Republicans first destroyed the public education-system. And now that they are destroying the health-care system, there is nobody left who can do basic math. :/ Do you know what the next system is gonna be that the Republicans plan to destroy ? (It won't be the military system, that's for sure).
PS. We also have a "your own risk factor", which means you have to pay the first few hunderds euros of costs per year (to discourage you to go to the doctor for every tiny little issue). That's 385 euros this year.
PPS. I also think that our health-care system (in NL) is actually more expensive than the systems in most other European countries.
Gryzemuis on 13/2/2020 at 15:58
Quote Posted by heywood
Perhaps machine learning this time.
Dream on.
If you want a more skeptical view on Machine Learning (and A.I.) you should watch this keynote presentation by James Mickens (a professor at Harvard).
And yes, I agree with Mickens.
The keynote-presentation is almost an hour long. But it's very good. Very interesting, and also pretty funny. Worth spending an hour to view (some time when you have time to spend).
(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajGX7odA87k)
jkcerda on 13/2/2020 at 16:00
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
So a family of 4 in the US pays $30K+ per year. A family of 4 in NL pays 5K euros for the same thing. Six times as expensive. With the risk of stuff not being covered after all (because of the small letters).
USA, bestest country in the world !!
It's a miracle that people are actually opposing a decent health-care system (the "Obamacare is socialism" bullshit). I guess it is because the Republicans first destroyed the public education-system. And now that they are destroying the health-care system, there is nobody left who can do basic math. :/ Do you know what the next system is gonna be that the Republicans plan to destroy ? (It won't be the military system, that's for sure).
PS. We also have a "your own risk factor", which means you have to pay the first few hunderds euros of costs per year (to discourage you to go to the doctor for every tiny little issue). That's 385 euros this year.
PPS. I also think that our health-care system (in NL) is actually more expensive than the systems in most other European countries.
Oretard sold the population to the insurance industry, pay me or else. that is dictator like.
Gryzemuis on 13/2/2020 at 16:21
Quote Posted by jkcerda
Oretard sold the population to the insurance industry, pay me or else. that is dictator like.
The way I understood it (I'm not in the US) is that Obama wanted a single-payer system, where everyone gets coverage. And via that way pressure the pharmaceuticals and the health-care industry to lower their prices. I think that is the correct approach.
Republicans have undermined the system so much that the result is pretty messy and far from perfect. When you are going to slam-hammer cracks in the system, it will happen that some people will fall into those cracks. Who are you going to blame, Obama or the nihilists and arseholes of the Republican party ? (That's a rhetorical question. The answer is: the Republicans).
jkcerda on 13/2/2020 at 16:41
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
The way I understood it (I'm not in the US) is that Obama wanted a single-payer system, where everyone gets coverage. And via that way pressure the pharmaceuticals and the health-care industry to lower their prices. I think that is the correct approach.
Republicans have undermined the system so much that the result is pretty messy and far from perfect. When you are going to slam-hammer cracks in the system, it will happen that some people will fall into those cracks. Who are you going to blame, Obama or the nihilists and arseholes of the Republican party ? (That's a rhetorical question. The answer is: the Republicans).
well you understood it wrong since that is not what passed. hell he did not bother proposing single payer, demotards passed oretard care all on their own, had they wanted single payer they could have done that all on their own. Obama pisses on liberals backs & calls it rain and you guys believe the shit because you don't know any better.
heywood on 13/2/2020 at 16:46
Gryz,
I think you were making an apples vs. oranges comparison wrt health care costs. Out of pocket costs for basic insurance and excesses doesn't fund your whole system. As I understand it, most of the funding managed by the insurers comes from the government.
A fairer comparison of health care spending is here:
(
https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-healthcare-countries-ranked-2019-3) https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-healthcare-countries-ranked-2019-3
Per capita:
United States — $10,209
Netherlands — $5,386
Second, I don't think we've reached the point where even a majority of Democrats want a single-payer system. It wasn't even on the table when Obama came into office. What was on the table, but got traded away, was a public option. Don't blame the Republicans for that, they were in the minority in both chambers. Blame Max Baucus and other Democrats in Congress who sold out to the industry. And blame Obama for letting the Senate come up with the solution. He was too hands-off and wouldn't take on Max.
Starker on 13/2/2020 at 16:59
Why not blame Republicans? If a single Republican had pitched in, you would have had your public option. Instead it came down to Lieberman for whom the running joke was that the "I" in "Lieberman (I-CT)" stood for insurance companies.
Democrats were 59/60 there to get public option done and Republicans and Lieberman were 0/0 there for the people and all in for their own interest.
