OT: Health insurance

[Kurt Ullman]

That is why I said "talk about". Five year survival is just the first cut (grin)

[Ed Pawlowski]

Pretty meaningless chart. The town sets the rate, not the state. Take CT for instance. In my small town in the NE corner, a decent house can be had for $200,000. That same house on the same size lot will be about $800,000 in Greenwich in the opposite corner. Yet they give a single tax rate for the state. We have few millionaires, Greenwich has a half dozen of every block.

Using that same $200k house, taxes in my town are $2400 a year, but one town over, it would be about $3000.

I see New Hampshire has a very high rate. They have no sales tax though so you save about 5% to 8% on the price of a $40,000 car. Not bad.

I see high rates for other states, but what is the price of housing there? Is a 2000 square foot house in Wyoming going to sell for the same as the identical house in Ridgewood, NJ? How about Fortescue, NJ?

[Stormin Mormon]

My grand father died of ALS, I saw him in some of the early stages. He could walk, but not lift his arms. In my grand father's case, they chose not to use respirator.

Another LDS friend (I drive by his house every few days on the way to other places) died of ALS. In the friend's case, they did. I visited him in bed, and brought him news from the church. He seemed to like to hear what was going on.

Didn't look like a good way to go.

. Christ>

[Kurt Ullman]

Been there, done that, have the knife scars on my back (grin). I went around and around with both the hospital and nursing administration about the staffing form we were filling out to decide the unit's acuity. They did no studies of inter and intra rater reliability to see if they were filled out correctly. They did no other testing to see if it actually measured acuity.. especially since my own indicators (I was recently post-stats class whilst persuing my MHA at the time and acutely aware of all this stuff) suggested that they were cutting staff. '

[Robert Green]

Agreed (if you're talking about hard-line "wingnuts" of any party - let not forget libertarians!).

SM seems to conveniently forget Republican transgressions when enumerating the sins of people he clearly doesn't like. He forgets Boehner jumping on the "save Terri Schiavo" bandwagon and invading that family's personal grief so they could "save" a certified brain-dead woman from a liberal "murder plot" - as emotional a basis of action as you can get.

The bottom line is that all political parties are composed of human beings who do very human things. To claim one side is superior just isn't credible and contributes to people forming poor opinions of SM.

I admire you for trying to illuminate SM's understanding of the world, Wes, but I suspect you will get no farther than you might by throwing a potato chip.

[trader4]

competent government union workers? fat pensions and completely free heal th care and I don?t mean the police and fire workers who actually work.

According to economics 101, it matters as much as the cost of anything else to the third party that is paying it, provided of course that the third party is a private, for profit company. I gave auto insurance as an example. We have a competitive market there, and the rates, for the most part, are not exorbitant or rising out of control year after year. Same thing with home insurance policies. Both of those are third party payer systems that are working well in the free market. The auto insurance one even has some of the same problems with exorbitant lawsuits that healthcare does.

Look at the difference

The level of

I think taking a look at what the differences are with vets would be an excellent idea. I've said for many years that what we need is an independent commission, with some people from the healthcare industry, but mostly people like Jack Welch and Andy Grove, to figure out why free market forces aren't working in healthcare. But I'm not buying that in the case of vets, the cost of treatment is entirely due to consumers paying directly. I agree, that can be part of it. But there are other major differences. Many of the expensive procedures for humans, eg bypass, organ transplants, aren't available for pets. And the vet hospital isn't treating a bunch of illegal alien dogs in the ER for free.

[Stormin Mormon]

I've often said that. The older I get, the more true it becomes.

. Christ> >

[The Daring Dufas]

You could always drink hemlock like Socrates but you would have to sentence yourself to death. I always thought suicide was a crime and I always wondered how a dead person could be punished? O_o

TDD

[dadiOH]

"Vic Smith" wrote in message news: [e-mail]

I'm sorry she is gone but glad she had a good life.

I think that in some ways it is harder to lose an animal friend than a human one. I mean, the human knows that they will die, the animal does not; the animal gives us unqualified love, can't always say the same for humans; the animal is almost never cross or crabby, doesn't nag.

My sweet Lila died four years ago, she was only 13. I still miss her. I miss the walks we used to take arounf\d our ten acres each morning although the last few years neither of us were able to manage that.

Enjoy the memories of her time with you.

[Norminn]

Damn straight! There oughta be a law :o) (Call me Libby)

[Norminn]

What does a month of renal dialysis cost?

[dadiOH]

Tax rate means nothing without knowing how much the house is valued for taxation. Some places assess it at FMV, others at a small fraction of that. And, of course, FMV varies widely from place to place...FMV for something in Hawaii is many times what it would be in, say, Iowa.

[Vic Smith]

Dogs don't mean much except to their owners. It was just an example of what I thought was a full healthy life and a "good" death. My BIL's wake was the day before my dog died. He was a real good guy, only 56. Always pretty healthy too. Only guy I knew who did the type of brutal work I did forging hot metal, except his was even more brutal, tonging big hammers. He had my respect. Good husband to sis, good father, good grandfather, good neighbor. He was a better man than me. Spent the last month of his life thrashing in a hospital bed, as doctors butchered him trying to save him. False hope after false hope, in a slow and continual downward spiral. Late diagnosed aspergillosis. Grieving our dog made us feel guilty, and I didn't even mention her death to our extended family. But grieve we did. In the end I'll grieve Dave much, much more. RIP Dave. We miss you.

[Vic Smith]

Around here (Cook County, IL) none of that means much. They just manipulate whatever factor needed to get the money they want. My house is worth about $200k on the market. A few years ago it was $400k. Taxes are a few hundred shy of $6k. Every assessment (3 years) I pay a tax lawyer to protest my assessment. The last time I talked to one of his staff and asked why my taxes went up while my "market value" was halved. He said, "They just adjust the rate to get what they want." Since I'm on a fixed income now, taxes are a huge hit. It's mostly "public" worker high pay, and rich pensions causing that from what I see. The only answer I see is to bite the bullet, or move. Haven't decided yet.

[Vic Smith]

Thanks.

Yep. With this one the main memory is how sweet she was. Always. She was NEVER cross or crabby.

I do. She was the stupidest dog I've had, and the most undemanding. But pure sweetheart.

[dadiOH]

"Vic Smith" wrote in

I have the answer for you, Vic. See sig :)

[Allan]

I asked my dentist what the best dental insurance was. She said a tooth brush and dental floss...if you actually use them as prescribed.

I asked my doctor what the best medical insurance was. He said daily exercise and eat real food. Don't eat junk food.

[Higgs Boson]

I thought you'd never ask, Bobby

Big Pharma and Big Insurance and Big Medicine are ALL linked to the w****s in Congress who pay them off -- via "campaign contributions" and post-Congr ess revolving-door jobs -- to put profits ahead of people. The Citizens Un ited decision by the corporate wing of the Roberts Court codified the abili ty of Our Corporate Masters to pour their money into elections with no acco untability.

People dump on capitalism because they haven't studied how a perfectly usef ul contributing part of society has been corrupted over the past 40+ years into a private piggy-bank for thieves, with the connivance of our elected r epresentatives.

Who sits in Congress? How did they get there? Didn't SOMEBODY vote for th em? Was it YOU? Or your friends? Associates?

Or did most people either not bother to vote out of disgust, disillusionmen t or ignorance? Why do decent people not come forward to populate the thir d branch of government? Is a terrifying percentage of the American elector ate so ignorant that they don't know -- or care - how the lobbyists work Co ngress? How redistricting corruptly favors [Party], creating safe seats? How private money now floods into the system, thanks to the SCOTUS' above-m entioned Citizens United decision.

The system IS broken. Let's face it. It will take years, maybe generations , to fix it -- IF there is the will. Even though some of us are on the pre carious edge of things, most of us still have a roof over our heads, food i n our bellies, medical coverage. It is virtually impossible for us to unde rstand how people can sicken and die from lack of medical care in such a ri ch society ***where health care is commodified instead of treated as a publ ic good.***

Gotta say I'm a little disappointed, though not really surprised, that this thread drifted into anecdotal material instead of addressing the basic iss ue of health care commodification. It's at the root of the matter, whethe r from a pocket-book POV (major $$ saved down the road by early interventio n) or a human rights POV (OK, I think he's a lazy bum but he's still a huma n being; who am I (ping Pope Francis) to judge him).

Society works better when people are healthy, can work, can pay taxes, can contribute their brains and creativity.

The 1% doesn't give a fracking fig as long as they get theirs.

CUI BONO?

HB

[Robert Green]

(Celebate? My speeling checker is seek)

Indeed. Maybe they could work as gay marriage counselors?

What's surprised me a lot in the last decade was how many cases there were of men abucting children and forcing them to live as slaves. I think there have been five or six sensational cases in just the last few years. Do these ideas spawn from the minds of the mentally ill out of nothingness or do they see something like "Silence of the Lambs" and say "hmm, a slave pit seems like a great idea!" Why don't these kids run away sooner? Many seem to have been able to leave and get help, but didn't. We live in a very strange world.

[Robert Green]

Gotcha. Stress hits people in different ways but it really has an effect. My dad had a TIA in the car during a fight with his older brother about where they were going. Dad worked for notorious tyrant boss Hyman Rickover, father of the nuclear navy and a man who did not just scream at subordinates, he tried to break them. Dad always said that Rickover gave him the first of his two heart attacks.

That was certainly my experience. They just flopped around in the cars like ragdolls and didn't get the kind of injuries that come from bracing yourself hard against an auto body that's about to collapse. It really disgusted me at how much death and injury drunk drivers cause and how often they escape the immediate consequences.

It's a self-perpetuating cycle. My the daughter of my former boss is a bright, beautiful young woman but she's already a serious alcoholic as were both her parents. I've had to work with her to help move her dad to assisted living and it's very hard for me given my experience with alcoholics.

Er, no. It took a "flat spin" on the Capital Beltway at 60mph after four vodka collinses to have that little talk with God. Haven't gone near a car anything but stone sober since the time God or some mysterious force saved my life that day. I still don't remember why I thought I was perfectly capable of driving. That's the problem with alcohol. A false sense of competency.

I had a nightmare last night about that guy blubbering "forgive me" that horrible night. I think I am troubled by how little empathy I felt for him when in reality, I could have killed a bunch of people the one time I drove plastered. I have mini-flashbacks whenever I am standing close enough to someone to smell alcohol on their breath. That crash bothers me to this day and unlike that poor retching rookie trooper, I didn't look in the car (papers don't ever show those kinds of photos so there wasn't much point to looking).

weight? Exercise?

Got a wife who knows how to massage them away and dog that keeps me active and reduces my stress.

I would garden more but there's something about me that makes bugs adore me, and I have every insect repellent known to man. Bees, wasps, chiggers, gnats, noseeums - anything you can name including ticks. I guess I was born a city boy and I'll die one. Then the bugs will have their way with me for sure. )-: