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Old 11-14-2018, 03:00 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,821 posts, read 30,885,993 times
Reputation: 47106

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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri View Post
I can speak to that. I was there.

I lived in rural TN in the early 70's. My wage as a helper at a residential construction site (unskilled) was $5 an hour. That is about $25 today.

I guess the first question is whether such a person makes $25 an hour today? I'll bet not - more like $15 or $16.

Next in line, the living wage. Construction can't go on 100% of the time due to weather, financing and other such delays. You might get lucky to work 4 days per week. We lived VERY simply at the time and could barely make it on that $5 an hour.

This is in low-wage TN.

It's not hard to figure out the real cost of living. Sure, you can throw out somewhere in bumfork, ID where you can claim you hunt your own Bear. But short of that.....

Let's talk about a married couple with one child. He makes 30K ($15 per) and she is raising the child so only makes 10K doing some part time. Household income = 40K

1. It cost 11K per year per person for health care in this country. That's a real number....either you pay it or someone else does. So 33K per year for this family.

2. It cost 12K per year for public school - we pay it in property and other taxes. 12K to our sample family - again, one way or another.

3. Each household pays many thousands of dollars for our Federal and other Governments - military, police, etc - a low figure would be 6K. Let's add that to the mix - 6K.

4. The family needs at least one car. Any way you look at it, the total cost for a car and gas and insurance, etc. is $300 a month. We'll add $3600 to the tally.

5. Housing - at the very lowest end, $1500 a months for apt, utilities, etc - add 18K to the total.

6. Clothes, household goods, phone, etc - we'll be frugal and add $2 per year - 2K.

I'm sure that I missed a lot, but that is a foundation for a low-end life.

Credits = 40K - Net=34K (after all taxes, SS, medicare, etc.)
Debits above = 58K

Yeah, I'm sure you can figure out how they can take more welfare or live in mom's basement, but I didn't put a penny in there for travel to attend a funeral or a wedding nor anything about saving for the future - nor anything about what happens if either parent gets sick, etc.

It shouldn't be too hard to grasp the facts in these matters. States with household incomes approaching the figures given have incredibly high poverty rates along with many of the other social ills (opiate addiction, suicide, etc.)....

If we want to go back to squatters cities then we can live on those wages. But we can't live decently.
It might cost $12,000 per student per school, but those costs are not fully borne by any individual family. I don't have any children, and probably never will. A portion of my property taxes, modest though they are here in my neck of the woods of Tennessee, go to support other people's school children.

$1,500 is fairly expensive for housing here. It's cheap elsewhere.

You're overestimating the cost of living in rural TN quite a bit.
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Old 11-14-2018, 03:05 PM
 
Location: Ohio
24,624 posts, read 19,041,484 times
Reputation: 21728
Quote:
Originally Posted by lieqiang View Post
I'm actually in awe that craigiri could read somewhere that the United States spends 11k per person on healthcare then translate that into something that would appear in a budget line item for a typical family, per person. BLS publishes actual household spending figures, median is 5k annually per household on medical expenses across all families.

What if they don't have health insurance through work? According to the Kaiser ACA calculator their monthly premiums for a Silver Plan would be $206 with subsidies. Also, since they are within 400% of FPL they'd qualify for cost sharing so their total out of pocket costs would be no more than $2,600/year for the entire family.
Those are some good points. I never even thought about actual Obamacare coverage through CMS.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140 View Post
That seems really high.
It's an average. I really hate using averages for some things.

The cost of health plan coverage varies wildly among the 50 States, because States mandate coverage for thousands of medical conditions (injuries, illnesses and diseases), medical treatments and medical procedures, or not.

Originally, the only option you had was catastrophic health plan coverage. Then, in the late 1950s, some States started mandating that pregnancy/maternity be covered. Some health plan providers in some States voluntarily covered pregnancy/maternity, but by the mid-1960s, all States had mandated it.

Even so, it only covered married women. It wasn't until the mid-1970s that States started mandating that unwed mothers be covered. Again, some health plan providers in some States voluntarily covered unwed mothers, but by the end of the 1980s, all States had mandated it.

In the 1990s, States started mandating doctor office visits be covered.

With each mandate, the cost of health plan coverage goes up, so if you're in a State that mandates autism coverage, you'll pay more than those States that do not mandate autism coverage.

Not only do States mandate coverage, they mandate the percentage of coverage. So, some States mandate colorectal screening, some do not, and for those States that do, they mandate that 50% or 100% or 80% or 60% or 75% of the cost be covered.

These mandates are the product of lobbyists. Since the 1990s, lobbyists went around lobbying for breast cancer coverage, then treatments and procedures, then screening and diagnostics, and then prescription drugs used in such treatments, and then lobbied to up the percentages covered. Lobbyists for autism groups got some States to mandate coverage.

That's how it works.
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Old 11-14-2018, 05:08 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,785,573 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by rodentraiser View Post
And Libertarian? You're a little off the mark there. Libertarians hate people like me.
Not really. Libertarians don't hate anyone. Libertarians are quite pragmatic that their view is in the very small minority, and our government at any level will never be Libertarian or even close. The only political groups I see engaged in active hate and loathing are progressives who suffer from TDS, who avowedly hate our current president.
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Old 11-14-2018, 05:13 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,785,573 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri View Post
Let's talk about a married couple with one child. He makes 30K ($15 per) and she is raising the child so only makes 10K doing some part time. Household income = 40K
Let's talk about two other people; they realized that at $15 per hour for him and part time for her ($10K), they could not afford to get married let alone have children.

So they didn't.

They both focused on raising their meager human capital to the point where they both earn $50,000 per year.

That's when they get married and start a family.

See the difference?
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Old 11-14-2018, 05:16 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,785,573 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
But I am on 1 mg of primeglide every other day .
Is that a typo? I googled it and came up empty.
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Old 11-14-2018, 05:19 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,785,573 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by ddm2k View Post
If most employers with >100 employees are on self-insured plans ...
For a company to be self-insured and just use an insurance company for administration, they would need to be much larger than 100 employees. I'd guess probably in the 10,000+ range.
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Old 11-14-2018, 05:23 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,785,573 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post
These mandates are the product of lobbyists. Since the 1990s, lobbyists went around lobbying for breast cancer coverage, then treatments and procedures, then screening and diagnostics, and then prescription drugs used in such treatments, and then lobbied to up the percentages covered. Lobbyists for autism groups got some States to mandate coverage.

That's how it works.
The above should be a sticky and required reading for all who post on the topic of health insurance/health care.
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Old 11-15-2018, 04:58 PM
 
Location: Ohio
24,624 posts, read 19,041,484 times
Reputation: 21728
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
The above should be a sticky and required reading for all who post on the topic of health insurance/health care.
If you had a Free Market, then people could buy only catastrophic coverage, and it'd be affordable for everyone.

And, if you repealed the federal law that changed the IRS tax code, it'd be a Win-Win for everyone, because then you could tie life-insurance and catastrophic healthcare coverage into one policy, you pay premiums for 10 years, and then you never pay another dime the rest of your life, but you're covered, and when you die, whatever catastrophic healthcare you didn't use gets disbursed to your beneficiaries.

That's how it was until 1954, when the American Hospital Association lobbied Congress to screw Americans.

People should be able to purchase a policy for emergency room coverage.

You should be able to buy a $100,000 policy for ER coverage, and pay a small monthly premium. If you wanted $250,000 in coverage, you should be able to buy that, too, but you'll pay an higher premium.

It's manifestly unfair to force older people to buy pregnancy/maternity and birth control coverage. People who want it should buy it and leave the restivus alone.

People whose families have a history of cancer will probably want a rider for cancer.

People who are too lame can buy coverage for doctor office visits, and let the restivus keep are money and pay as we go.

A lot of things can be done to reduce the cost of health plan coverage, but lobbyists get in the way.
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Old 11-15-2018, 06:50 PM
 
Location: Middle of the valley
48,280 posts, read 34,411,101 times
Reputation: 73221
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
Only thing I will comment on is as a type 2 diabetic I have been a gym rat for 18 years .

I was running 4 miles every other day , recently cut it to 3 and weight lift the days I don’t run. I held levels for years at prediabetic levels but finally at 66 I turned fully diabetic and was put on some light duty meds last week .

You may be able to stall diabetes but exercise and diet only work just so long and you can’t fight genetics forever . Eventually they win no matter how much you exercise .
Yeah, her post is way off base.

I am pre-diabetic. I do strenuous workouts on a regular basis, 99.9% whole food, home cooked meals loaded with veggies and whole grains, I am 5'5 and 117 pounds.

Every year my numbers are worse. For me it may be in part due to other inflammatory and auto immune diseases I have.
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Old 11-15-2018, 07:16 PM
 
105,713 posts, read 107,700,939 times
Reputation: 79329
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
Is that a typo? I googled it and came up empty.
Ha ha ha was it ever . Glimpride
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