Repealing the ACA under Trump

[Elf]

 

 

 

Then you get a job that offers health insurance as a benefit.

 

If the situation changes rapidly enough that I can't get health insurance in time? Then that's my fault and I'm the only one responsible for the debt and the decision that put me in debt.

People get cancer diagnoses out of the clear blue sky. And then what do you do? Just not accept healthcare? Accept it, run debt up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars (two different family members have had cancer costing over two hundred thousand in healthcare), and then either spend the rest of your life in debt? Or you die, and your family is burdened with that debt?

 

What's the solution there? You're OK with going into lifelong debt, not accepting healthcare you can't pay for, or passing that debt along to your kin?

 

Why, when every other first-world nation has figured out how to treat their citizens without them going into debt? Why should America/Americans be uniquely burdened like this?

 

Funny that you mention cancer. My grandma died from cancer when my dad was 11 years old. My grandpa would hear of a rumor of a new cure for cancer so he'd pack up grandma in the car and take off. He racked up a debt of over $250,000 in the late 40's/early 50's. He was a blacksmith and he still managed to repay every penny.

 

Grandpa believed that you do what it takes to pay your debt as long as its honest work. They just don't make men like grandpa anymore.

 

I'll ask that if things in America aren't to your liking, and you already know where things ARE to your liking, why have you not moved? Its a serious question because it's what I would do.

 

Right now my wife and I both receive benefits. My wife is in medicine, I'm in education. If for some unforeseen circumstances we lose our insurance and one of us, or our kids, get sick and the only realistic solution is to move to Canada, we'll be on the next plane to Winnipeg. Moving to Canada isn't as straight forward as one would think.

 

It's not a straightforward deal when moving to any country from my understanding. Thanks for that honesty.

[Elf]

Per bolded:

 

Thus the mandate.

Why the mandate for only this? Why not mandate insurance for every single debt we incur....just in case?

 

People die all the time with unpaid debt, medical or otherwise.

[Elf]

 

 

 

Then you get a job that offers health insurance as a benefit.

 

If the situation changes rapidly enough that I can't get health insurance in time? Then that's my fault and I'm the only one responsible for the debt and the decision that put me in debt.

People get cancer diagnoses out of the clear blue sky. And then what do you do? Just not accept healthcare? Accept it, run debt up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars (two different family members have had cancer costing over two hundred thousand in healthcare), and then either spend the rest of your life in debt? Or you die, and your family is burdened with that debt?

 

What's the solution there? You're OK with going into lifelong debt, not accepting healthcare you can't pay for, or passing that debt along to your kin?

 

Why, when every other first-world nation has figured out how to treat their citizens without them going into debt? Why should America/Americans be uniquely burdened like this?

 

Funny that you mention cancer. My grandma died from cancer when my dad was 11 years old. My grandpa would hear of a rumor of a new cure for cancer so he'd pack up grandma in the car and take off. He racked up a debt of over $250,000 in the late 40's/early 50's. He was a blacksmith and he still managed to repay every penny.

 

Grandpa believed that you do what it takes to pay your debt as long as its honest work. They just don't make men like grandpa anymore.

 

I'll ask that if things in America aren't to your liking, and you already know where things ARE to your liking, why have you not moved? Its a serious question because it's what I would do.

 

I'll call 100% bullsh#t on a 1950s-era American Blacksmith making enough money to 1) pay off a $250,000 debt starting in the 1950s and 2) doing it while working as a Blacksmith.

 

First, a Blacksmith is a uniquely unusual trade to be engaged in in the 1950s. But they exist today, so let's say he had a tremendously unique niche job. OK.

 

Today, a Blacksmith will make between $30,000 and $75,000. In 1950s money, that's $2,500-$6,300 per year. Presuming your grandpa was an EXCELLENT Blacksmith, let's make him a top earner at $6,300/year, and heck, because we're generous, let's double his salary.

 

So your grandpa, as a 1950s-era Blacksmith par excellence, made $12,600 per year. He had bills, obviously, like food (29% of his expenditures in the 1950s), housing (27%), apparel (11%), and healthcare (5%). We won't even count his expenditures on kids (presuming only one, your dad), travel (for grandma's treatment) entertainment, or anything else. He lived a Spartan life. At $12,600 per year, with those normal expenditures, he would have had about $3,500 per year to apply to that debt.

 

Even presuming no interest on that debt, it would have taken him 71 years to pay it off, again presuming zero other expenditures and no money spent on children or anything like travel, a new couch, a TV - nothing else. We could even give him cost-of-living raises as the years go by and it would still have taken him over 40 years, starting from 1950, to pay that off. If he wasn't the best Blacksmith in the country and didn't make double that salary, we're talking a debt that isn't paid off to this day.

 

Either you're not telling us the whole story, you're not privy to the actual story, or this isn't remotely true.

 

I'll be the first to admit I'm no economist, so if someone wants to fact-check my numbers by all means please do.

 

 

 

Further, what is this nonsensical idea that, if I don't like what's happening in my country, I need to leave?

 

Is that what America is to you? As soon as you don't like it, if you know of a better system somewhere else, you give up your citizenship and move on? I think America is much more than that, personally. I think it's worth fighting for. I think if I don't like something about this country, it's my obligation to roll up my sleeves and work to make it better. Sounds like, according to your story, that's what your grandpa would have done. Maybe they just don't make men like your grandpa anymore in your family.

 

I just noticed the personal attack at the end. Why don't you take that attack and shove it right up your f'ing ass?

[funhusker]

^^^^no it's not.

 

Regarding everyday healthcare and maternity leave, Canada would be better for us right now. (we have friends and family there). But our familiarity with the area, our Nationalistic pride, jobs, etc.... it wouldn't make sense to move. But if necessity arrived, only a buffoon, would ride the American system if other choices were available. I think that is the point Knapp is trying to make. The United States should NOT be trailing in this, unless we are okay with a messed up order of priorities.

[funhusker]

Welp, Elfs gone...

[funhusker]

 

Per bolded:

 

Thus the mandate.

Why the mandate for only this? Why not mandate insurance for every single debt we incur....just in case?

 

People die all the time with unpaid debt, medical or otherwise.

 

If you die, kids pay difference on your house (equity)

If you die, kids pay difference on car loan (car/equity)

If you die, kids pay difference on CC bill (sell all your stuff)

 

If you live in a shack with no assets, good luck getting that $500,000 you owe Methodist...

 

edit: if you honestly can't see why some sort of a mandate is needed looking at your own posts, that's on you. You have done a better job defending the mandate with personal anecdotes than anyone else could have.

[Moiraine]

That wasn't a personal attack, Elf. You used an anecdote of your grandpa then made a big assumption based on your own anecdotal experiences that people like him don't exist anymore, thus knapp's reply about how they must just not make them like your grandpa in your family - since that is the only narrow experience you based everything off of.

 

It wasn't a personal attack it was a logical response to your post. You were basically saying everyone sucks now. Honestly that was more of an attack than what he said. It was just all-encompassing.

[mrandyk]

Google tells me a new home cost $8,450 in 1950. A medical bill of $250,000 would be equal to purchasing 30 brand new homes in 1950. No one working with their hands is pulling that off. Even $25,000 sounds unrealistic.

[RedDenver]

So now a doctor is going to be banned from owning his own practice.

What? That's a total non-sequitur.

[JJ Husker]

 

edit: if you honestly can't see why some sort of a mandate is needed looking at your own posts, that's on you. You have done a better job defending the mandate with personal anecdotes than anyone else could have.

Yeah, it makes it really tough to have a well reasoned discussion when somebody provides so many examples that disproves their own position and yet they fail to see or understand it. Kind of drives me nuts when the facts are so obvious and yet they don't get it. I really wanted to engage him further but I just didn't see the point when 2+2 was not equalling 4 for him.

 

I do feel the comment knapp made was a little out of line and baited him in to that type of response. Hopefully that is considered and neither is given a vacay. Unless of course there have been prior warnings for that type of thing... Posters have to learn when to let those little personal shots go.

[Moiraine]

 

 

edit: if you honestly can't see why some sort of a mandate is needed looking at your own posts, that's on you. You have done a better job defending the mandate with personal anecdotes than anyone else could have.

Yeah, it makes it really tough to have a well reasoned discussion when somebody provides so many examples that disprove their position and yet they fail to see or understand it. Kind of drives me nuts when the facts are so obvious and yet they don't get it. I really wanted to engage him further but I just didn't see the point when 2+2 was not equalling 4 for him.

 

I do feel the comment knapp made was a little out of line and baited him in to that type of response. Hopefully that is considered and neither is given a vacay. Unless of course there have been prior warnings for that type of thing... Posters have to learn when to let those little personal shots go.

 

 

 

Again, I don't see how it was personal at all. The guy said nobody on earth is like his grandpa anymore. What knapp said equates to saying he just hasn't met them.

[JJ Husker]

 

 

edit: if you honestly can't see why some sort of a mandate is needed looking at your own posts, that's on you. You have done a better job defending the mandate with personal anecdotes than anyone else could have.

 

Yeah, it makes it really tough to have a well reasoned discussion when somebody provides so many examples that disprove their position and yet they fail to see or understand it. Kind of drives me nuts when the facts are so obvious and yet they don't get it. I really wanted to engage him further but I just didn't see the point when 2+2 was not equalling 4 for him.

I do feel the comment knapp made was a little out of line and baited him in to that type of response. Hopefully that is considered and neither is given a vacay. Unless of course there have been prior warnings for that type of thing... Posters have to learn when to let those little personal shots go.

 

Again, I don't see how it was personal at all. The guy said nobody on earth is like his grandpa anymore. What knapp said equates to saying he just hasn't met them.

I'm not going to claim Elf's prior tone didn't beg for the shot but I read it as "apparently you aren't the man your grandpa was". I think most people would interpret that as a personal shot, especially when they had just expressed such admiration for the man. But, in a sense you're right. Very skilled and articulate posters have been known to take those types of shots while leaving some room for innocent interpretation. There is more in the background influencing my thoughts but I'm not going into detail. Let's just say I understand why the shot was taken. Thus why I hope neither of them is punished for it.

 

Like we say at work when something inevitable happens; you'll have that on a job this size.

[Landlord]

Again, I don't see how it was personal at all. The guy said nobody on earth is like his grandpa anymore. What knapp said equates to saying he just hasn't met them.

 

 

He said maybe they don't make people like his grandpa in his family anymore. Knapp might not have meant it that way, but when I read it it came across as fairly snide.

[knapplc]

Google tells me a new home cost $8,450 in 1950. A medical bill of $250,000 would be equal to purchasing 30 brand new homes in 1950. No one working with their hands is pulling that off. Even $25,000 sounds unrealistic.

It literally took all of two minutes to google enough sources to completely debunk that post.

 

 

You can call bullsh#t all you want, it won't make you right. He worked his ass off for years to pay off that debt. It took him upwards of 25 years to pay it all off. And get this, blacksmithing is what he was by trade but it wasn't all he did. Good job on your assumptions.

 

 

And now this makes even less economic sense. A 1950's era Blacksmith making an exorbitant salary of $12,600/year would have had to live off of $2,600/year for 25 years to pay this off. $12,600 is double the highest salary for a 1950's Blacksmith, so basically in the math I used he's working two full time jobs. What was his other job, neurosurgeon?

 

That isn't even remotely realistic.

[cornstar]

Well, Obamacare has increased my co-pays and my insurance costs, but I don't get any benefit from it.

 

It's a failure.