To put it in easier to understand terms: President Barack Obama's (Who sits in an office and signs papers and goes on vacation in exotic locales rather frequently for "Business trips"..) base salary is $400,000 a year. He also has access to a $150,000 expense account as well as a $100,000 tax free travel account and $20,000 entertainment budget. (source) The base pay rates for US Army Soldiers (Who generally get deployed to exotic locations rather frequently but cannot enjoy them because they are generally in active warzones..), based on pay schedule: (source) (Note: The forums formatted this oddly, please view the source file to see the table accurately.. <,<) Rank <2 Years Experience4 Years Experience6 Years Experience Private (E1) $18,194** — — Private (E2) $20,398 $20,398 $20,398 Private First Class(E3) $21,449 $24,178 $24,178 Specialist or Corporal (E4) $23,756 $27,659 $28,840 Sergeant (E5) $25,913 $30,359 $32,490 Staff Sergeant (E6) $28,285 $33,833 $35,226 *Based on 2013 pay tables. **Pay for Private (E1) will be slightly lower for the first four months of service. Definition of "Business trips": a pleasurable vacation paid for by one's place of employment. In the terms of the presidency, paid for by taxpayers.
I'm just waiting for the "affordable" part of the "Affordable Health Care Act" to start. Wife & I were doing some shopping on the official gov't sponsored website last night and we found out our healthcare cost will quadruple. So...how exactly does this help me? We both work for small businesses who will no longer offer benefits. Our hours are being cut, other staff members are being let go, and now I'm going to have to shovel out more money? Yeah, this makes a ton of sense. We have a budget, we have small savings, and this junk is going to kill us financially. But I guess that's the endgame of this entire thing. Bankrupt the average American and make them rely more on the government programs (foodstamps, wellfare, etc...)
i'm feeling the same way, the affordable part just never will come. obama tells us he's cutting funds for the older veterans of this country but still plans to take his (not joking) 100 million $ vacation to China. its just running us down, we are living paycheck to paycheck, usually having to go with a negative balance in our bank account for at least a week before our pays come in. life just sucks, and i doubt its ever going to get any better. perhaps moving country needs to happen? lol but even then, we applied for foodstamps 6 months ago, because we fight so hard with paying rent or having food.. and because my husband makes JUST enough they consider us too wealthy, and they said we only qualified for 30$ A MONTH for food.... even with a 3 year old. i don't even understand how people free ride that system.. its just so bad
I've read recently that if you make between 24 and 94 thousand per year, anything you pay over 8% of your income is eligible for a 100% tax credit. For many people the credit won't mean a thing because 8% of the average income(around 50 thousand) is going to be more than what most people are going to be paying for insurance anyway. In the case of someone who is somewhere below average income, at least you can get some of it back. That's good and bad news I suppose, but I am hoping that it will eventually lead to some changes to our health care system that are better in the long run. I keep thinking of how similar this is to Prohibition. When the Prohibition Amendment was enacted it was also done without funding to administrate or enforce it. Most people ignored it and a lot of criminals got rich off of selling alcohol. Probably not a good analogy because ignoring it means we pay anyway if we file taxes. Whatever happens, I hope it turns out better than Prohibition did.
It's not to brag - it's to steal oil from Eastern countries EDIT: Also, you guys have no idea how lucky you are to have Obama. He actually tried to get the U.S to have FREE Healthcare paid for by Taxes, like the U.K has, but the rest of the government didn't like the idea and shut it off.
...... Wow, that is low pay compared to the British Army! Especially when you consider that $1 = £0.62. eg. a staff sergeant is on £33.5k - £40k!
I'm sorry, but this statement needs to be pointed out. By being paid for by taxes means it's 100% not free...but the complete opposite as we're the ones who pay taxes. In order for healthcare to be 100% free, doctors would need to donate 100% of their time to work on people without accepting a penny as a payment.
... Which isn't going to happen because we humans aren't that altruistic. The goal of "free healthcare" in countries that support it is less of a "free" thing, than a "government insurance". You pay taxes (insurance fees) to the government, and they subsidize your healthcare costs. The reason this only really works in an all-or-nothing way is because if only some people buy their insurance, but must still pay taxes, then there will be some who cannot or do not buy health insurance, and will be funded by government (i.e. the people's) money when they need it. If everyone pays taxes, and gets government insurance, its harder to abuse the system. Similarly, if healthcare is entirely private, people will always buy insurance for their own benefit, and will be smart about their insurance too. Leaving too much space between the extremes opens up space for a few to take advantage, much to the dismay of the many.
This isn't including the equipment and research that's also involved. Which would have to be donated.
A reason are that overall quality would go down, since when the government touches any industry, the level of competition becomes less. I know that you are talking about paying for healthcare, not the actual healthcare itself, but if the government became the only insurer, we would see them being able to bully down costs and profits to a level where there isn't as much motivation anymore to be spectacular. Another reason is that we would have a problem like Canada and the UK has, long waits. I have a great Aunt who lives in Canada. She needed to get a hip replaced, and so she scheduled a replacement. She had to wait eight months from day she scheduled it. My grandmother, on the other hand, scheduled her hip replacement recently, and only has to wait one month. As an American, I like being able to go in and not have to wait long for anything. And my last reason is costs. Its not efficient to give everyone free healthcare. Economics tells us that there is a cut off point where the costs outweigh the gains, and that is true in every category. You can't ever have 100% of something, either the top or bottom will have to have some cut off, depending on the situation. Plus, all the costs will just come back as taxes. I dislike the level of taxes that I will have to pay in the future, and I don't want them to rise anymore then they have to. Why should I give the government more of my money to pay for someone else who costs more than I, when I can get a plan that works for me just fine? My government has already proven inefficient and irresponsible with what they already have, so I don't want to give them anything more to play around with.
Every time I hear this phrase I sit and think "If my education is/will be free then why did my parents have to pay fees each year I went to school? Why did and will I have to get FAFSA grants to pay college tuition for the couple years I was/will be going back to community college?" I think if it was technically free and I didn't have to pay for it, I'd be able to decide what I want to go to school for and not feel pressured. I'm still undecided and it pushes me away from going back. You and I are in the same boat sort of, only I don't have a child yet. I wish I could move all the time because I hate it here and people make me feel ashamed of things that are out of my hands. My husband works and we budget and we get food stamps and still barely make it. I've looked and looked for jobs but there aren't many openings unless you have a degree. There's a couple I know who get all kinds of help for their two kids, lie and claim they're separated and get twice as much food stamps as we do. People I went to school with started popping out kids as soon as we graduated and they get all kinds of help. When Irene hit us a couple years ago, people were being told to go apply for food stamps for help. I remember one lady saying she was the only one in a family of 8 that still had a job and they wanted to give her $6 a month.
I'd rather pay higher taxes then have to pay for health insurance or medical care and stuff. In the long run, it is way more beneficial than having health insurance. I know that privately orthodontic treatment can be very expensive, costing like £3000-£4000 but I get it free on the NHS (that's not because my family is low earning, almost everyone gets free orthodontic treatment if they need it). Sure it isn't free, but I know my parents would much rather pay higher taxes over years instead of paying for orthodontic treatment up front. Now I know Britain's government isn't perfect at all, but I like the way they do the NHS along with other things. (Sorry for the off topicness, but everyone's off topic so..)
Thats actually one of the issues that would bother me the most about free healthcare. Orthodontics should be dealt with as a luxury treatment, unless something is severe enough that it could potentially harm the patient. The general numbers say that about 50-60% of people in the US end up with braces. At around a $6000 average, I would consider that to be a huge waste of money.
Orthodontics is actually quite important. You might not realise it, but even though your teeth might be fairly straight, your bite could end up being really horrible. My teeth were fairly straight, but I was missing two teeth and I had an overbite. Although, if you just want it cosmetically, then it is a fairly big waste of money, unless your teeth are really bad.
You could consider A LOT of government things to be a waste of money but I think orthodontic treatment is fairly important, of course, not as important as basic healthcare and emergency healthcare, although I do see where you're coming from.
Thats the thing though, there has been a large increase of people getting them to fix what the orthodontists consider little issues. And of course, as soon as someone else will pay for it, lots of people will jump to get it done. Orthodontics might not be the best example of why I would be bothered by government spending. Plastic surgery would be, gender changes, and other things like that would really grind my gears. I don't know about what it is like in Australia, but there is always some ridiculous "human rights" group here who will protest everything and make it seem like it is needed to have luxury medical treatments. The costs would be so outrageously high that there is no way it could be effective. Believe me, I do.
