Healthcare costs.

[zannej]

havasu, thanks for that tip. There is no Costco in my state, but I'll see about Sam's Club. I know that the only good dentist in town doesn't take Medicare/Medicaid (I always get the two confused).

oldog, I have a policy to not devolve into ad hominem arguments, although I have been amused when I've been debating with people I don't know and they start name-calling. I recently played a little game with a troll on another forum where I countered his argument with logic and used his own words against him and he apparently had such a hissy in reply that the admins deleted his post and banned him from the forum.

Anyway, I think another problem is that we have generations of people who are being taught that they should depend on the government to take care of them. Look at what happened to the Philippines after the US let them have control back. The people were being taken care of and supported financially by the US but they wanted their independence. Once they got it, they didn't know how to take care of themselves and their economy really took a dive.

So some people are not even being taught how to provide for themselves and are not being encouraged to do so. Another thing we need to revamp is the education system. We need to make it more about being able to go out in the world and join the workforce instead of preparing for the next level of school. Children need to start learning practical things from an early age. They need basic life skills to be taught because its obvious that a lot of parents aren't doing that. But then, there is the problem of how to pay for it all and also, how to get the system revised. The government really shouldn't be having to play the part of the parents-- so I think there also needs to be more training/education for parents on how to teach their children to be self sufficient while still providing necessary support and love.

There are so many changes that need to be made in our country and I know none of them can happen overnight.

And now I'm just rambling on...

Oh, and Chris, I hope that you can find a good chiropractor that also has massage therapy as part of the treatment. That can help with the pain. Hot tubs and swimming pools will also help to take some of the pressure off.

Speaking of the penalty fee for not having insurance, my mother got something in the mail saying the government was going to bill her because my brother and I are in her household. I went on the healthcare.gov site and put in my info and it said I was not eligible for any of the government plans. Then it gave me a list of insurance companies and such that I could try to get plans with, but they all had ridiculously high premiums and deductibles. Unless something catastrophic happened, I would not be able to meet the deductibles. The only benefit I would gain would be to have the insurance company negotiate the prices down, but then the premiums would pretty much nullify any monetary savings.

 

[Chris]

I'd go for that myself. I just paid 44% last year.

 

[nealtw]

I did the math, 23 a month for my friend and his family from the ACA is just over 1% of his annual income. I would be ok with giving 5%.

Heck I would be ok with a flat tax for it I guess to. We can all pay 5%?

No you don't understand.
add your income tax and health care and road toles and toilet charges and any other fixed taxes you have and add them up a figure that %
Then do that for lower income people that live near you and have the same daily charges
Flat tax only hurts the poor. Don't forget they don't get to write off the truck and fuel, telephones etc.

 

[nealtw]

We see it here where the prices in the city are comparible to NY or LA and the low wage earners live in the suburbs. Instead of raising the taxes to pay for the new bridge they got investers to pay for it and they placed a tole on it. $6 per day out of a day that some earn less than $70 a day. That's a 10% increase in cost of living over night

 

[nealtw]

I understand what you're saying Neal, but when I buy groceries, gas, electric, clothes, etc I pay what everyone else pays. When I buy health ins it's based on my income. Should I pay more for groceries, that's more important than health ins.

And the poorer you are those questions get bigger.

 

[Chris]

Here you are not forced to use the toll lanes or toll roads, they just save you time if you use them, you can not figure that in to the cost of living because it is easily avoided, same with pay bathrooms, all avoidable. You don't need to own a car, there is public transportation everywhere around here. Lifes luxuries should never be included in the cost of living. Sure I can spend 50 bucks a day and drive my truck to LA or I can spend 4 bucks and take the train.

Instead of raising their tax percentage to meet mine why not lower mine to meet theirs? If they are paying 12% of their income and I am paying 44% of mine obviously they can not afford to pay 44% of theirs, what makes you or anyone else think I can afford it? It hurts me and my family just as much as it does theirs. I live paycheck to paycheck just like them, If I didn't have a company to help me out and borrow from that I would be having the same problems. Thinking that raising taxes for the middle class is going to help anything is wrong.

By bringing my take home earnings down to the same level as someone making 20k a year the only thing you will do is kill that drive I have to succeed. If I can to the bare minimum and have the same as I have now than why do I loose sleep keeping up with what I have? Why would I even think of trying to do better if it is only to benifit someone else?

 

[nealtw]

So back to my point. You have a problem the Gov. and how they set up the ACA, shouldn't be at different site.
Should I not say how I feel, When I think if nothing is said people coming here will think we all beleive like you do.
Have a look around we have people having trouble buying houses for $30K we have no idea of their story but should they be made to feel like second class citizens.
That is an easy, yes or no.

 

[frodo]

so, what your saying is Frodo makes $10.00 hr. at $400.00 each week [usd]
if he paid a flat tax of 15% that would be. $60.00 [usd] each week. correct?

years back, I made $ 400.00 per week and Uncle same and state relieved me of 25% each week. $100.00 even

seems if frodo paid a 15% flat tax he would be better off not worse

correct?

 

[nealtw]

Here you are not forced to use the toll lanes or toll roads, they just save you time if you use them, you can not figure that in to the cost of living because it is easily avoided, same with pay bathrooms, all avoidable. You don't need to own a car, there is public transportation everywhere around here. Lifes luxuries should never be included in the cost of living. Sure I can spend 50 bucks a day and drive my truck to LA or I can spend 4 bucks and take the train.

Instead of raising their tax percentage to meet mine why not lower mine to meet theirs? If they are paying 12% of their income and I am paying 44% of mine obviously they can not afford to pay 44% of theirs, what makes you or anyone else think I can afford it? It hurts me and my family just as much as it does theirs. I live paycheck to paycheck just like them, If I didn't have a company to help me out and borrow from that I would be having the same problems. Thinking that raising taxes for the middle class is going to help anything is wrong.

By bringing my take home earnings down to the same level as someone making 20k a year the only thing you will do is kill that drive I have to succeed. If I can to the bare minimum and have the same as I have now than why do I loose sleep keeping up with what I have? Why would I even think of trying to do better if it is only to benifit someone else?

See with just a little thought you figured out there is no real way to compare your expences with some one at a different level.
I understand and am well aware that the middle class hasn't really had a raise in 25 years
The last statement youi made here is exactly how some one is thinking when they don't make any effort to get ahead. So you do understand.:beer:

 

[nealtw]

so, what your saying is Frodo makes $10.00 hr. at $400.00 each week [usd]
if he paid a flat tax of 15% that would be. $60.00 [usd] each week. correct?

years back, I made $ 400.00 per week and Uncle same and state relieved me of 25% each week. $100.00 even

seems if frodo paid a 15% flat tax he would be better off not worse

correct?

I still think that's a fair arguement but not here.

 

[zannej]

Samwise took 25% of Frodo's cheese each week? Filthy hobbitses!
(sorry, couldn't help myself)

 

[Chris]

See with just a little thought you figured out there is no real way to compare your expences with some one at a different level.
I understand and am well aware that the middle class hasn't really had a raise in 25 years
The last statement youi made here is exactly how some one is thinking when they don't make any effort to get ahead. So you do understand.:beer:

My expenses far exceed someone who makes less but it is not by my choice. I have always known that. Are you saying that to truly succeed in America I need to just give up and get a minimum wage job? That way I won't dislike the government and I can get something that someone else is forced to pay for? Thats about the same mentality that my friend has that won't look for work. If everyone feels that way this country will never get any better.

Remember I grew up with nothing I ate top ramen and boiled chicken for years, the one thing my family never had and we were proud of was government assistance in any way. We struggled for everything and we also knew that if we didn't work for it that it wasn't ours. We took pride in what we had and didn't foolishly spend our money, we never went out to eat or bought things we didn't need. We lived on far less than 20k a year. I made a choice in life to not raise my kids that way so I worked my *** off and now I am being punished for it by having most everything I work for taken from me to pay for someone else like you say that doesn't want to make that jump and do better for themselves. We all live in America, the land of the free, you can be anything you want to be here.

 

[nealtw]

I think you should fight for or argur for anything you think is right, that is freedom of speech and the right to vote.
Have you been to the politcal forums, do you want this site to look that?

Are you here to mentor?

Should others feeling be considered?

As a mod. your opinion does reflect on the site

 

[Chris]

I don't go to political sites at all. Never been to one. This was just my little venting about paying so much for health insurance and I have tried to keep it on that topic but that topic includes many other topics, much of which you have brought up.

I don't see how it hurts someones feeling that I am being forced to pay more than someone else? If someone is upset because someone else makes more money than them I am sorry for that.

Everyone talks about things needing to be more fair but when they do they are talking about being more fair to them and not whoever that fairness is truly effecting.

By making healthcare fair and affordable to a certain group it is making it unfair and not affordable to another group. This is what you keep saying is the right thing to do.

If anyone else has a problem with this thread being here I will delete it immediately.

 

[zannej]

I think it is an interesting and informative thread. I've learned some things and it is good to see other points of view on matters without it devolving into namecalling and such.

 

[bud16415]

When I was in Mexico We drove between two cities about 100 miles and we took the new express road. I didn’t really know what was going on and sat back to see the country side. We went thru a toll booth and took off the toll seemed kind of high but the road was beautiful and brand new and smooth as silk traveling thru the wild lands. Beside this modern highway was a dirt road the service road used to build the road was my thoughts and full of dust and holes and on that road was bumper to bumper traffic. We were flying past all these old cars at 90MPH and I asked the driver what’s with all these cars on the dirt road where are they going? Answer same place we are. He said when they opened the new road the toll was about 5 bucks but that was a day’s pay for most and people wouldn’t pay it except us few rich gringos. Honestly I didn’t see one other car on the new road the whole trip. He said the road wasn’t paying for itself so they raised it to 10 bucks and then fewer people used it so they lost more money. To fix the problem they raised it to 20 bucks and now fewer still so it went to 40 and on and on. I forget what we ended up paying for the whole length but it was like 6 month’s pay for the average guy if he used it. So everyone went on the dirt road. There was talk of closing the new road as the government was losing so much money. It was clear to see if they charged 20 cents to ride on the road and everyone that was on the dirt road came up on the highway they would be making more money than could ever need.

The same thing applies to Chris. He is playing by the rules and creating jobs. Every job he makes gives the government a new tax payer. Every time he expands his private business he is making wealth for himself yes but he is also helping the country along with helping the families he is employing. Every time he has to back away from expanding and growing and conserve funds to pay for his ever increasing personal burden he is reducing the number of people that are paying taxes. Assuming all small business is feeling this as well the person he didn’t hire is also not working for someone else and is relying on some sort of aid thus raising the demand on what Chris has to now pay. If the person he didn’t hire now finds a job outside the private sector and works for the government where does the money come to pay that guy. Yep from Chris.
Those of you that build houses who are you selling them to? People that are working. The more money that stays in the hands of the guy that earns it is going to be spent. Money is only good when it is moving the faster it is moving the better everything is. When you suck it off into a black hole it stops moving or it stops moving in your local area. There is no longer a fixed amount of money flowing around a circle in the pipeline. It slows down for the above reason, so in a ill-advised way they try and stimulate it to get it moving by printing more money and injecting it into the system. What happens in a closed hydraulic circuit when you add more fluid to a system that is full? Something has to inflate. When you add one dollar that doesn’t belong every other dollar in the system just got worth a little bit less. That is the tax Chris doesn’t even know he’s paying.

Maybe the system should be you reward the guy that’s hiring a person. Most people like Chris are not asking for a reward they just want equal. They just want a profit so they can “A” feel like it pays to do what they are doing, “B” can see something nice they can do or provide for their family, “C” they can reinvest and grow their business and hire another tax payer.

 

[nealtw]

I wouldn't want it removed either way. I would just as soon show people that they can complain if the don't like something. And it never got to mean and nasty and we'll remain freinds.

 

[oldognewtrick]

Spot on Bud!!!

 

[Chris]

Thanks Neal and very well said Bud! That is pretty much how I feel. It just feels as the better I do the more I have to give away. I really really need two more employees right now but insurance and taxes do make it difficult to do. There is regulation everywhere in being a small business and I have learned that I am guilty until proven innocent.

I just bought my new house and it was a 30 day struggle proving to the banks that I even have a job. I run my business on the up and up, I don't hide or cheat anything and I pay myself with a paycheck just like any other employed person. The government has made lending rules so that I can not use my current years income to qualify for a home loan. I kept getting told as a business owner I am probably making things up to buy a home and i constantly had to keep proving myself. What kind of country is this where trying to get ahead is a crime?

 

[nealtw]

Thanks Neal and very well said Bud! That is pretty much how I feel. It just feels as the better I do the more I have to give away. I really really need two more employees right now but insurance and taxes do make it difficult to do. There is regulation everywhere in being a small business and I have learned that I am guilty until proven innocent.

I just bought my new house and it was a 30 day struggle proving to the banks that I even have a job. I run my business on the up and up, I don't hide or cheat anything and I pay myself with a paycheck just like any other employed person. The government has made lending rules so that I can not use my current years income to qualify for a home loan. I kept getting told as a business owner I am probably making things up to buy a home and i constantly had to keep proving myself. What kind of country is this where trying to get ahead is a crime?

Bin there done that, If you have incorperated the business just tell them you work there. If you need a letter from your employer, have the accountant write it.