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As if on cue, since the "victims" are white, many of the comments say "I feel sorry for all these people who are in pain due to hard physical work, etc." - while the truth is that like almost NONE of the Opiate problem is due to that. There are so few miners...and even fewer of them that do actual physical mining! Driving a dump truck or loader certainly isn't different in a rural area from an exurb or the like.
Well as far as health care goes we should just do what literally every other wealthy democracy does and has done for decades (not a single one of whom has any desire to emulate our system). But for some reason our political right has a monumental problem with this.
Get the averag income earner in the US to agree to pay a 45% effective federal income tax rate, and we can have national health care, too. The facts? Look at the average income and then the effective national tax rate the average income earner in the EU-28 has to pay for socialist-type benefits programs like national health care. See what's left with which people have to pay for housing, food, clothing and only IF there's anything left over... wants and entertainment. EU-28 comparative chart on page 9. Effective national tax rate in the 2nd column from the right:
That's like an average American earner ($52,000/year) trying to pay for housing, food, and clothing at a bare minimum on take home pay of just $28,600 or just $2,383/month. Rent/mortgage, alone, eats up at least half of that.
This is true. A lot of people avoid finding jobs because they learn on interviews that the pay is less than what they receive in unemployment benefits. Also, people receiving welfare are afraid to work because they are afraid of losing their government subsidized life line. Why face all the unknowns with full-time employment when government checks seem to be a sure thing.
The government is taking away the incentive to work. Obamacare perpetuates this as you no longer need to work in order to have health insurance, which used to be some people's sole purpose for employment. Can't believe Biden touted this as something to be proud of.
How many jobs pay less than unemployment benefits? In Georgia the maximum unemployment check is $330 a week for 14 weeks, in Arizona the maximum is $240 a week for 26 weeks. That's not a lot of money and it's not for a very long time, and as far as I know you lose those benefits if you are referred to a job and refuse it.
As far as people being afraid to work because they will lose their welfare benefits... what do you think they get? Only people with minor children get welfare benefits and the cash benefit is very small, and time limited. In Arizona a parent with one child gets $220 a month for a maximum of 12 months. Housing vouchers almost anywhere in the US have waiting lists, some as long as 7 years. Only about 1/4 of the poor receive any type of housing subsidy. So basically they get a few hundred a month in cash, SNAP benefits and medicaid and you are claiming they would turn down a job to keep that? The people receiving those benefits are parents with kids who most likely need child care either all day or at least after school, if they turn down jobs it's because paying for childcare would eat up most of their paycheck.
Single non-disabled, non-elderly people get no cash benefits and SNAP benefits are limited to 3 months every 3 years, they may or may not be eligible for medicaid depending on the laws of their state.
And what makes you think that only people who work should get health insurance? What about a 60 year old with cancer who can't work but isn't eligible for medicare, you think they should just lay down on the sidewalk and die?
Because the richer you are, the less % of your income you truly need. Would you really be in support of making someone at the bottom struggling to make ends meet have to pay more than they currently do, while keeping a billionaire, sorry I meant..... "Job creator" (who has probably been responsible for creating more jobs overseas) Buy another boat? Also, why whine about the rates now, when the richest bracket was 70% under Saint Regan.
Who decides what percentage of my income I truly need? LOL.
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