Healthcare Reform

[BigRedBuster]

2 hours ago, Redux said:

Apparently the big kick back was from back pay for x Ray's for a few years.  He isn't disabled.  He's obese.

 

I'm not going to sit here and tell you people don't need assistance, I sure as hell could use some.  But we fall in between, like most people, where we make "too much" to qualify but not enough to actually put any income aside.  But if you think people aren't taking advantage of it you're turning a blind eye to it.

 

Okay, so because daycare and healthcare are so expensive and it would be more affordable for my wife to NOT work, how does that make sense? Why is that okay?

It’s not ok. 

 

However, I believe Americans need to get past a paradigm we have had with healthcare for way too long. 

 

If you lived in Germany, you would not have this frustration and the entire country’s overall cost of healthcare would possibly be one third of what we pay here. 

 

Im not angry when people get access to health care. I get angry when industries are making trillions of dollars while you have to make this tough decision. 

 

Fact:  we are already paying for all these people’s healthcare....but at multiple times more than we should be. 

[Redux]

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[knapplc]

1 minute ago, Redux said:

They are getting real money for no reason other than they can and there is no set guidelines for how they have to spend it.  There's another massive problem with assistance that goes unchanged because new vehicles and vacations inflate the economy better than paying off debt or buying groceries.

 

This sounds like an insurance settlement or maybe something to do with Worker's Comp. I just don't know of any government program that gives people cash to do with as they please. Most government benefits, like SNAP or Medicaid, are tied to very specific things. It's not like you can use your SNAP benefits to buy a car. 

 

Regardless, I think we all agree that people who sponge off others are bad. 

[Landlord]

26 minutes ago, Redux said:

Health insurance costs are completely unfair considering we have no choice whether or not to have them.  A forced expense that's allowed to be price gouged.  That's insane.

 

 

Careful you're starting to sound like a LIBERAL

[Redux]

6 minutes ago, Landlord said:

Careful you're starting to sound like a LIBERAL

 

Reported

[Redux]

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[knapplc]

SSI benefits top out at $750 for an individual and $1,250 for a couple. If that's the government money they're getting, they're either going heavily into debt or they're getting assistance from some other source.

[StPaulHusker]

Government disability doesn't pay that well.

 

I think what you have here is a common case of credit card debt.

[Redux]

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[Ulty]

2 hours ago, Redux said:

I work 50hrs a week at an elevator and my wife works around 40 as a Coordinator at an assisted living home.  Combined we make well under 90k a year.  To do this, we have to send our 3 children to daycare 4 days a week which costs around $1,500 a month.  Her work pays 90% of her health insurance, mine covers my entire portion plus a little bonus towards our HSA account. 

 

If this snippet above was the only thing you posted, most people would say you have been doing pretty well for yourself. Both having full time jobs with healthcare mostly paid for, is a pretty fortunate situation.

 

Daycare is hella expensive, but I imagine that within the next couple of years at least one of your kids will be in school, which should be a relief on your bills.

 

When you started comparing yourself to others, you saw some bigger problems. We shouldn't necessarily look on people receiving government assistance with any sort of envy, just like we shouldn't try to "keep up with the Joneses" in terms of making expensive purchases we can't afford. 

 

I spent a couple of years working in child protective services, which included working with lots of families in poverty. Helping folks get signed up for social services was no picnic, and whatever money people typically get from welfare, not to mention disability or SSI if they qualify for it, or even the big wad of unearned tax returns they get each year, in addition to whatever other subsidies, free legal help, and a whole team of advocates can provide: there is nothing to envy about people in this situation.

 

I've seen plenty of folks in dire financial straits making extremely poor decisions with their money and their credit. For example, every trailer home I ever went into contained a humongous flatscreen TV that was at least twice the size of what I have at home. Some people need government services due to a crappy hand they've been dealt, because of mental illness or addiction, because of injury, because of children that need to be cared for, etc. And sometimes there is abuse of the system. Those abuses need to be addressed, and there is a lot of other things that you mentioned that are problematic for a lot of Americans (like the health insurance industry and the cost of healthcare altogether). But otherwise consider yourself lucky in most respects. And being educated on the issues and then voting, is important for everyone.

[StPaulHusker]

https://www.disabilitycarecenter.org/state-resources/nebraska-social-security-disability/

 

 

[Redux]

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[Redux]

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[Cdog923]

Childcare is a gigantic money sink, and there needs to be some way of alleviating costs for it. I love our provider, and she's worth every penny, but it's an incredibly large portion of our budget. 

[Redux]

3 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

Childcare is a gigantic money sink, and there needs to be some way of alleviating costs for it. I love our provider, and she's worth every penny, but it's an incredibly large portion of our budget. 

 

Exactly.  I couldn't take my kids out, the care is top notch considering this is rural NE.  And I like that my 3yr old gets the interaction, learning and is making friends for when he goes to school.