Thanks for the Insurance Subsidy, Young Workers!

Don said:

Is that cool, or what?

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Guess that depends - it would help to define a coolness standard here. Are medical bankruptcies cool? I mean, I don't happen to think they are, but some people seem to really really like them.

I'll think fondly of y'all when I fire up my new bandsaw or router to work some of that beautiful walnut I couldn't afford before. Maybe I can even afford some zebrawood now. Of course, I may have to wrestle the wife; she sees another cruise or two in our future instead.

Thanks again!

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Try Afromasia if you can ever find it. Nice figure, totally clear. On the bright side, you'll be covered for splinters.

[derail again]
It's gorgeous stuff - I made a top for a vanity sink out of it a couple years back. Not kidding about the splinters though
[/derail again]

It looks good to me. No one really pays their own insurance. You pay into a pool and those who get really unlucky get back many times what they pay in.

All things considered I would rather subsidize those unlucky people than be one.

I think it's really important for everyone to be able to afford healthcare, and the bottom line is that if you don't have health insurance and you're sick without being wealthy, then you're pretty much sunk.

When I was self-employed, I had to go without insurance through a medical problem and it really, really put me behind financially. Lots of debt to pay off, lots of belongings sold off to buy food during a really rough three week period when my paycheck was delayed.

When I finally got to where I could purchase health insurance, it took an act of god to get approved and then cost around $360 a month for the coverage I needed.

I was really struck by the difference it made--being employed by a company that provided my coverage and being on my own paying the whole thing on top of my self-employment taxes. I thought then that self-employed people without workplace benefits should get some kind of tax cut if they're paying for their own insurance.... so in principle, I don't necessarily object to this.

This, in particular, looks open to abusive loopholes, from the little I've read.

Regardless of anything else happening, the real solution is to reduce the cost of healthcare. Everything else, in my opinion, is too little, too late.

raburrell said:

Try Afromasia if you can ever find it. Nice figure, totally clear. On the bright side, you'll be covered for splinters.

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Knowing nothing about this wood, I thought you were trying to get Don to go sailing off to Afromasia, which sounded like an island roughly between Africa and Asia.

heza said:

I thought then that self-employed people without workplace benefits should get some kind of tax cut if they're paying for their own insurance.... so in principle, I don't necessarily object to this.

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They can, though like all things IRS, it's tricky.

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc502.html

Lors sake.....

Pay tax in, get free medical care out. Much simpler system.

Dang it. I make too much in my bill paying job to qualify for said subsidies... unless they base it on tax returns. Must go back and reread article...

Medievalist said:

They can, though like all things IRS, it's tricky.

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc502.html

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I definitely need a new tax guy.

mirandashell said:

Lors sake.....

Pay tax in, get free medical care out. Much simpler system.

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exactly. single-payer is the way.

William Haskins said:

exactly. single-payer is the way.

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I don't know any physicians who would disagree, but many hospital administrators.

Errmmmmm..... you are aware that Monty Python didn't actually make documentaries, aren't you?

no, i'm a fucking dumbass.

Ok then......


Boy, somebody pushed a button..

was it the one that goes "bing!"?

No it's the one that goes fucking dumbass.


Are you joking or what? Give me a clue here.

no clue needed. no riddle to solve. i agreed with you about single-payer and responded to george's notion that it would not sit well with hospital admins by posting a clip lampooning the commodification of health care.

Ah! Ok. Then I misunderstood as that not what that clip is about, is it? Unless I'm misremembering the clip. Unfortunately I have no sound on my puter so can't really tell which of the Hospital clips this is.

it's the one where they are more concerned about showing off the fancy equipment than they are treating the patient, and the medical procedure serves as little more than a set piece for kissing the administrator's ass when he shows up.

it was pretty fucking spot-on.

sorry your jibe fell flat. buy some speakers.

Ah no, it is the one I thought it was and that's not what it's about.

At the time this was filmed there where a lot of complaints about how the NHS had changed maternity services, making it all easier for the staff and pretty much removing the mother and child from the situation. It had more to do with women's rights then with the commodification of the NHS.

Not everywhere has the same problems as America.

BTW, the machine goes ping.

And speakers don't help when there's no sound card in your puter.