CFLs vs LEDs vs incandescents: round 1,538

[Pete C.]

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Yes, however they greatly benefit by not being stuck in some miserable big city :)

[Pete C.]

I disagree.

The availability of inexpensive AEDs helps a great deal with that last issue.

[HeyBub]

They ARE among the 45 million who do not have health insurance.

Once again, absence of health insurance is not the same as absence of health care. The scare-mongering politicians have NEVER said we have 45 million people who do not have access to health care.

[HeyBub]

Remember, those who were killed by the Canadian system can't tell you their side of the story.

[Kurt Ullman]

Actually have gone pretty far out of their way to AVOID saying that. Things that make you go "HMMMM".

[Don Klipstein]

Maybe I need to clarify: About 12-13% of USA's population is citizens and legal residents not covered by even so much as what soldiers have.

Roughly 38 million USA citizens and legal residents are "self pay", with hospital bills roughly quadruple of allowable hospital billing to Americans (and "coverers" thereof) who obtain "coverage".

Many of these Americans are ones taking their chances at betting on "which is the least evil" of evils that include at least one certainly-unaffordable and another only-possibly-bankrupting.

Please keep in kind others saying in this thread how their family costs $13K annually for private sector healthcare coverage, while professing to desire "keep gubmint out of it", while USA gubmint spends as high a percentage of GDP on gubmint spending on healthcare as Canada and most other industrialized democracies do.

Who wants to maintain American gubmint spending as high a percentage of GDP on healthcare as Canada has while in addition having private sector spending $13K for coverage of 1 family that inflates at roughly 10% annually, in the "name of" "Keep Gubmint out of this"? I do concede that some and many-influential Americans want such ...

Makes me want to find a way to move to Canada, though someone I would be married to (under law of all of Canada and a few USA "states") is unwilling to be uprooted from a metropolitan area where he has family ties.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

Most of the many Canadians that I know who commented at all in this area are of ages from upper-30's to about-60, with exception for a few

16-25-or-so-year-old "rug rats". As in at least 50% "old farts" of age mid-40's to about-60.

Absolutely 100% of the "Canuck Old Farts" that I know, sense negative effect of moving "south of the border". This includes owner of a business having dozens of employees, a hired CEO thereof, all adult and adolescent family members of these, everyone I met at this business, and a recently-retired detective of the Toronto Police Force and his wife and his college-age children. Along with spouses and adult/adolescent children of everyone else I met in this area - 100%.

This is very high rate of Canadians sensing that they are better off with their "healthcare system" than with what they would have if they "moved south of the border".

I suspect that the "Canucks" that I know are knowing well enough what is "The Truth" - since their gubmint *Does Not* spend higher percentage of GDP on healthcare coverage than USA does, where the USA version of % of GDP spent by gubmint on healthcare *excludes* "private sector", supplemental Medicare plans, and furthermore even employer contributions to healthcare coverage premiums of government employees outside healthcare agencies - such as public school teachers, court employees, and most police officers.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Kurt Ullman]

But the rate of people in the US sensing they are better off than Canadians is roughly the same. I think these show more of a familiarity and comfort with the known than anything interesting. I would also like to point out that polls of this sort generally are overwhelmingly made up of people who don't use either system more than sporadically. I have often wondered how the 20% who use around 80% of the resources of either system would poll out differently.

[Pete C.]

I am currently paying approximately 1.5% of my gross income as my direct contribution to my health insurance costs, and have very good coverage.

If this claimed wonderful socialized health care materializes, can you honestly tell me that I will not see either a substantial increase in my costs to maintain the same quality of coverage, or experience a substantial loss of coverage?

[Nate Nagel]

How much is your employer contributing? It's got to be a lot more than that.

I have decent health insurance, but I suspect that may be a big part of the reason I didn't get a raise this year.

I'm not saying that socialized health care is the answer, but costs are increasing at an alarming rate.

nate

[h]

You are either very wealthy or you have very cheap premiums. The cheapest I could find was 35% of my gross income with a $3k deductible. Completely out of my reach.

[Don Klipstein]

Except that is not my experience. Unlike all of the Canadians that I know, many of my fellow Americans that I know would rather have their healthcare system substantially different and like that of a country other than their own.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

How much are you paying? If it's the $12-13 K annually that is USA average cost for private health insurance coverage for a family, then it is 1.5% of an income level that very few Americans have.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Pete C.]

I expect so, however that number is rather difficult to locate, I'd guess 60-70% of the total cost. It doesn't really matter much however since in the event of socialized health care, it is extremely unlikely that many people will see their gross pay increase be the amount of their employers former health insurance contributions, i.e. if my employer is currently paying $4k/yr towards my health insurance, I'm unlikely to receive that $4k in my pay when my employer provided health insurance is replaced by the government and my taxes go up to fund it.

That could be. Raises were delayed several months this year vs. previous years, but somehow I still managed to get a decent raise (4.73%).

Yes, they are, and many of the underlying causes for this will not be addressed at all with socialized health care. Indeed I expect the law of unintended consequences will go into full swing and there will be tremendous fallout when the forced contributions to various "community reinvestment" from insurance companies dry up along with their health insurance business. These forced contributions have long been a way to sidestep direct taxation of the populace to fund pet projects, so there are a lot of those pet projects that will suddenly be unfunded.

[Pete C.]

The later. I expect my income puts me solidly in the nebulas "upper-middle-class" category, but I'm certainly not at all wealthy. No yachts, private jets, summer homes, etc. here.

Well, since I work for a very large company, I expect that they get some of the best group rates available, in addition to covering the largest percentage of the costs. Regulation of the insurance companies to set a maximum differential between individual rates and the best group rates would fix this issue without resorting to socialized health care. I expect my costs would go up some in this case, but probably still far less than with the government running things.

[Pete C.]

Try ~$1,500 annual pre-tax contribution for medical and dental combined.

[Kurt Ullman]

Well if they are your friends and neighbors then it must be REAL truth and the rest of the polls are all wrong. That ends the discussion. Nothing here to see. Just move along.

[CSquared]

> >> >>>>>

Big sigh. Couldn't agree more.

[HeyBub]

I'm reminded of the CBS correspondent who said at a cocktail party: "I can't belive Nixon won! I don't know anybody who voted for him."

You need to enlarge your circle of acquaintances.

[HeyBub]

If you Google "health+care+poll" the top entries support socialized medicine. These top entries were polls taken by the New York Times, ABC, and NBC. Then you get to the honest pollsters:

Rasmussen: "...just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That's down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago."