We’ve had a great run of it. Ronald Reagan cut our taxes in the 80s. We surfed the DotCom boom in the 90s, and mortgaged our way into profligate excess at the turn of the millennium. We’ve been self-absorbed navel gazers since we left the womb, always looking for the next new thing to adopt, seize, discard.
We had a chance to reform the health care system back in the 90s, but it went wildly off track and anyway it wasn’t our problem. We were young and healthy. But now we’re facing a crisis.
Because now we’re heading into our golden years. We’re starting to age. With that comes certain expenses.
Which, by the way, you’re going to have to pay for:
As health-care legislation advances through Congress, the young adults who were so vital to President Obama’s election are emerging as a significant beneficiary of his top domestic priority, but they are also likely to play a major role in funding any reform…
Drafting young adults into any health-care reform package is crucial to paying for it. As low-cost additions to insurance pools, young adults would help dilute the expense of covering older, sicker people. Depending on how Congress requires insurers to price their policies, this group could even wind up paying disproportionately hefty premiums — effectively subsidizing coverage for their parents.
Thanks for that.
No one to blame but themselves. Obama got 66% of the 18-29 vote, 52% of the 30-44ers, then went 49-49 in the 45-59 cohort and fell off to 47% 60 and older. If only boomers could have voted, McCain would be president, and this discussion would be OBE.
That’s what happens when you use the criteria to pick a prom king, to elect the school superintendent. Cool, stylish, hip — ganz spielt keine rolle. They should send the bills to Jon Stewart since he’s their most reliable source for political news.
Any way you cut, forcing the young purchase health coverage they neither need nor afford amounts to a tax on health. If I were yound, I would not take such an unconstotional violation of by right lying down.
It took a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to tax personal income. Now they want to tax personal health.
Current measure being considered would impose almost $1,000 “fee” on any person who doesn’t have health insurance. Guess someone is going to have to cut down on Jagermeisters or Colt 45s … oh no, they’ll just have a child out of wedlock and pass the bill onto welfare and Medicaid.
Hey, a lot of “us” share some blame too. I remember to back in ’64 when a fellow named Barry Goldwater said we needed to take a hard look at Social Security as it was on the road to busted. So many laughed. So, we got LBJ and Medicare. W.T.F.
Johnson said if I voted for Goldwater we’d be in a war in Vietnam. I did, and he was right!
I voted for Goldwater. I did my part.
P…I worked on Goldwater’s campaign…he was a goody..imho, lol..
Pixel,
Yes. A short, succinct, and exactly to the point comment. Back then, I was one of those indestructable voters paying for Medicare.
How the world turns.
Then you get to the Seniors, who marched on Washington Sept. 12, more than a million of us, to make their concerns known. We saw this train wreck coming down the track, and have been saving money as best we could to protect ourselves. But now the Democrats are including this nasty feature in their healthcare bill. We might want to pay for the medical care we need with our own carefully saved money, but they plan to keep us from offering to pay cash by fining our physicians [the figure mentioned is in excess of $10,000] for treating us and taking cash payments. And fining us too.
You can’t win for losing, if that happens.
Marianne
Yes, Marianne, and the MSM reported that there were 10′s of thousands, low-balling the count so as to not upset the progress of their vision of how things should be. Typical! The media is to blame for so much of what’s wrong with the results of current events, under which we’re obliged to deal with.
1.7 Million according to some fancy fandangled software that counts heads in photos…
We have only ourselves to blame. Both parties have been buying votes with handouts (social security, welfare, medicare) for years. Democrats are more agile in this arena, but republicans jump on the band wagon whenever they can. The resultant growth in federal power has shattered the concept of limited powers. I become more convinced each day that most Americans are entirely unaware of things like enumerated powers, checks and balances and where our rights actually originated.
And why would they? Check the school curriculum on the subjects. Oh yeah – those aren’t exactly covered anymore…
If you’re against health care reform, you’re a racist! How do I know? Jimmy Carter tells me so.
I wish he would go away, with prejudice.
As a former coach of youth league athletics, I recall a health insurance policy was mandatory to participate in those sports. States mandate that all drivers must have some auto insurance.
How many here realize the Massachusetts has a law requiring all citizens to obtain health insurance? This mandatory insurance was promoted and signed by Republican Governor Mitt Romney and supported by a coalition of both Democrats and Republicans. It works.
Any groups of generally healthy, young adults still do have medical needs. Moreover, they risk catastrophic accidents or injuries at a greater rate than their elders, can and do contract major illnesses that will deny them future insurance, and bankrupt them and their parents.
Most young people starting out cannot afford the ever increasing, exorbitant premium rates for adequate health insurance. Nevertheless they still get treated when needed, – and at the most expensive place – the ER! And if they cannot pay, we all end up paying for their top dollar treatment in higher premiums for our employers or ourselves.
We have friends whose daughter was just diagnosed with a serious, long-term, life-changing and debilitating illness. Her husband was laid off from work months ago and they now have no insurance. They have 2 small children. She will not be able to get insurance with her pre-existing condition, and her medical bills will soon bankrupt them and her parents if they provide any support, and we all will be picking up the tab, paying top dollar because she was not insured.
Obviously the larger the pool the better insurance works and rates can come down for all.
By paying high premiums for mandatory auto insurance, although I have never had an accident in over four decades (and do have a small good driver discount), am I not also subsidizing the younger drivers for many years? That is the nature of the beast. Accept it.
Yea, Flit — the Massachusetts plan works great. If you keep your eyes closed:
Flit, there’s a slight difference between “mandatory to play a voluntary sport, pay up your Andrew Jackson” (or, that’s how much it was when I played…) and “mandatory to maintain your citizenship and not go to prison, pay up a couple-three Grover Clevelands.” What I want to know is, with so many (still) losing their jobs, just how Congress plans to squeeze blood from a few million turnips, so to speak. In point of fact, I’m not a lawyer, but I’d be very curious as to whether or not this proposed “non-contribution fee” meets the requirements for a bill of attainder.
Say Flit, youse has a mighty nice lookin place here. Howbout you pony up some protection money now so we don’t have to come back here and do something awful to your daughter….huh?
Massachusetts nobly extorts money from everyone fills me with shame. The shame of knowing that an entire state elected, reelected, reelected, reelected and reelected a scumbag like Ted Kennedy and an equally disgusting creature as their Senators. Who really cares what they do there? What happens in Massachusetts should definitely stay in Massachusetts.
So a guy comes round your house Flit and tells you that you better start paying protection money or something awful will happen. I call that extortion. What do you call it? And what kind of a slave gives the nod to that sort of behavior by his government? Oops did I answer for you?
Anyone listen to NPR today? They interviewed a Mass. resident that was positively incensed that when he got a raise and went over the income limit for insurance subsidies he suddenly had to start paying his own $1,500/month premiums. I missed the next thing he said because I was yelling “Welcome to the club!” at him, but I think it was a complaint that the coverage he was paying for wasn’t worth the money, but he had no choice but to pay. Know who else was distinctly lacking in choice? Yep, all of those other rubes that were over the subsidy line and were not paying for just their own insurance, but his too. Well, right up until the time he was forced to join their club.
How nice.
Now, I was steadfastly opposed to such a plan on a national level until I realized that I myself am a Boomer, and thus well positioned to reap the benefits of a new generation of government subservient wage slaves. So, you know, never mind all that stuff I said about Obamacare bankrupting the country. I’m gonna get my slice of the pie and tough noogies to the Gen Y that voted for a shiny new racially correct president. Thanks, suckers! It’ll be a nice break for me to no longer have to carry the burden like a America’s rented mule. Hell, I might even take up smoking and boozing since personal decisions like that will now be someone else’s job to pay for.
I listened to that story. 700 a month is steep. They never mentioned who his employer was-so my first question is this: why wasn’t his employer contributing to his health insurance? He never said he didn’t like his insurance he thought 700 to 1000 a month is too much to have to pay. I agree.
Skippy..my wife is self employed..she pays 700/m for a $2500 deductible in So Cal
fliterman – the sports example won’t wash. No one makes you play or coach. Making people buy health insurance as a requirement to exist is an entirely different thing.
Taxachusetts, as a state, is free to do whatever they wish with health care as the US Constitution does not bar them from doing so. There is no enumerated power for the federal government to do the same. Those citizens of Taxachusetts who like the system are satisfied and happy to live in their little socialist world. Those who don’t like it can move to a state that enjoys more freedom or stay and fight to change the system. If they choose to stay and fight they have a much better chance fighting the state than those of us who choose to fight the federal government.
It was not that long ago that no one had health care insurance. My parents did not. I did not and I paid for doctors visits out of my pocket until I joined the Navy. Why the push? It’s for the power it brings – nothing else. Politicians crave power and control of health care with its significant portion of the GDP is big power.
We have friends whose daughter was just diagnosed with a serious, long-term, life-changing and debilitating illness. Her husband was laid off from work months ago and they now have no insurance. They have 2 small children.
Fliterman, I’m sorry they made a poor decision, but decisions come with consequences. My husband was laid off in January. We still have insurance coverage because we made the responsible decision to revise our budget to ensure that we could pay the COBRA premiums. If we don’t have access to another group plan when COBRA runs out, we’ll purchase coverage through the state health insurance risk sharing pool (the carrier of last resort here). Every state has a carrier of last resort; it was mandated when the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed.
To point this out to Filt: Likely, that daughter will still be treated. At no point in time will the medical community say “just die since you can’t pay”. Depending on the illness, most hospitals (administrators, practitioners, etc) will work their damnedest to find programs to treat. Yes, there will be a mountain of debt at the end, but since the game is already rigged so to speak, the hospitals *know* they wouldn’t collect.
A similar situation happened to a relative to a co-worker. I asked her, even with no obvious means of paying, did the hospital still treat the child. The answer was yes. The hospital is now trying to get the GOVT. to pay whats due, but at *NO* step of the line did they say “oh, lets just let the poor sucker die.”
Three cheers for you, Sandi. Yes, you and your husband did make the “responsible decision”! Too many people are tied to their life-style in such a way as to make the smart, responsible choice possible. Congratulations on your wisdom!
“this group could even wind up paying disproportionately hefty premiums — effectively subsidizing coverage for their parents.”
Maybe they will get sent a bill, but maybe, if they are smart enough, they’ll decide not to pay. Maybe that is why the left keeps sabotaging education?
These silly kids. They didn’t understand that when Candidate Obama, attacking Clinton’s position on health insurance mandates, said “mandating adults has problems”, or when he said “No need to mandate coverage”, he really didn’t mean it.
They should have listened to Otter (FF to 1:10).
LOL SCOTT, I’d totally forgotten THAT part! I WOULD say it applies to Obama in spades–but Jimmy Carter might call me names….you know, now that words like “niggardly” have been struck from the dictionary by the PC Police, LOTS of formerly perfectly good words have become verboten–we’re ALL racists now….And God knows, with Michelle O as First Lady, even certain garden implements are off limits now too–we’ve got that rotten “racist” Bill Maher to thank for that…
SCOTT/
It also reminds me of that C & W novelty song “The Snake” where the woman finds half dead frozen snake by the wayside and takes it home and nurses it back to health–and in return for the favor snake bites her, and when woman complains that she is going to die and asks why, the snake replies: “Oh shut up silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin. “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”
This has nothing to do with health care-but I’m tired of hearing that Boomers somehow have to hang their heads and be ashamed of being boomers. Most of us are the same as another generation-we raised hell in our youth, got older, settled down and lived our lives. We had issues to deal with, we worked and paid more than our fair share so Gen Y could enjoy life now. I’ve paid more than my fair share so my kids could succeed. If they have to give some back-I’m not feeling any guilt about that.
The world was supposed to have evolved from its stupid ways. It didn’t. Bad on us for letting that happen and its even more bad when the money is out there to pay this bill-but we won’t do the things people have told us over the years we need to do.
Gen Y will be just as selfish as any other. If anything the current discussion proves that. Its just human nature-and has nothing to do with when folks were born.
Folks to some extent we all suffer from a bit of cranial rectal insertion on the question of health care. I’ve got some health care lawyer friends who say that the system we have simply can’t go on–it’s going to bankrupt all of us.
Now being a right thinking conservative, I look at that statement (these guys are smart, but they’ve got that West Los Angeles liberal attitude about them) and ask why?
Part of the answer is that medicine and medical treatment has become very expensive just because we can afford it–or at least think we can because most medical bills get paid by a third party. We don’t see the bill, so we’re like a drunk who staggers into a high priced French restaurant in Paris and continues to get likkered up on $1,000 a bottle champagne.
My two daughters (now nearly 40 years old) were born in a suburban hospital in San Diego–the hospital bill back in those days was $300 for each birth.
A friend of one of my daughters recently had a child delivered by Caesarian section in a suburban Los Angeles hospital–hospital bill alone (forget the anesthetist and the obstretrician) was more than $20,000.
So we’ve developed an addiction to high priced medicine.
Now never let it be said that your average American ought not to be allowed to buy anything he wants–that he can pay for. But since that same average American (whether as an individual or as a Congress Critter) tends to spend other people’s money with gay abandon, our medical cost control system has “done got out of hand”.
Medicaid and Medicare already force steep discounts on reimbursement rates to doctors treating Medicaid and Medicare patients; the difference is made up by collecting greater fees from those patients with employer provided or private insurance. The Pelosi Obama prescription for saving money and avoiding “waste” in Medicare is to drive those discounts even deeper. And the next step will be to bar certain kinds of treatments from Medicare altogether. Since I’m close to 66 now, I guess that when I need a heart pacemaker some bureaucratic minion of the ancien Pelosi Obama regime will hand me two Advil instead. They might as well hand me two stiff shots of Jack Daniels and a 9 mm Glock with one bullet in the chamber.
So rationing is indeed on the way; we have a sort of medical “crack addiction” and the stuff is getting more expensive. To the extent that one thinks that rationing will not happen–then to that extent you’re self deluded.
Mike Meyers/
Right behind you (was 65 in May) I guess it’s going to be the old Eskimo “walk-out-into-the-blizzard” or “onto-the ice-flo” time for us under Obamacare, eh?
Whatever. This is the last straw, should it come to pass. Just a few more years until retirement and my ‘ant’ days are over. I’m going to live out my remaining years as the ‘grasshopper’ and let some other sucker pick up the tab.
I’m just tired of being taken for granted. Half of my income to one tax or another, funding crap like ACORN and NPR? Taxed on every penny that I earn, spend, or save? And it STILL isn’t my “fair share”? It’s not like I’m asking for a ticker tape parade or even the remotest hint of gratitude for those benefiting from my forced largess, after all. Just to not constantly be accused of abject greed and now racism would probably be enough. But it clearly ain’t gonna happen. Rebellious taxpayers are demonized for their alleged greed when they protest, but in my book those with their hands out begging the gov’t to pick my pocket aren’t exactly the selfless victims liberals and their pals in the media portray them to me.
If I can’t win at a rigged game, I will just refuse to play. And you know what? I don’t think I’m alone. Just ask anyone that went to DC last Saturday. We have had enough!