By Eric Blair
We recently moved back to the mainland United States after ten years of traveling and living abroad. Our homeschooled kids are getting older and want more opportunities for learning, friendships, sports and entertainment.
Because the cost of living in America is significantly higher than we are used to, particularly the cost of healthcare, my wife renewed her nursing license in order to make extra income and provide our health insurance.
In other countries we simply paid for health services as we needed them. It was remarkably affordable. We even had our third child abroad at a nice private hospital, C-section for $3500. Unfortunately, using this “à la carte” approach to healthcare is against the law in the US and results in a fine.
Although my wife takes pride in being a great nurse, she hates to leave her family to go to work. That’s why she chose a 3-day-a-week schedule, working 12 hours a day, for a total of 36 hours a week. Despite working full time, her barely adequate employer-provided health insurance still costs us about $5200/year which is deducted from her pay.
Today we got a letter in the mail announcing that those benefits are being terminated. Apparently it’s against the law (Obamacare) for employers to provide insurance to workers who average less than 30 hours per week over a 12-month period.
We assumed Obamacare was awful, but we were still surprised to get this letter.
It may be true that my wife averaged less than 30 hours a week when measured over twelve months. Earlier this year we moved from Hawaii to Washington state, and my wife took a month off to handle logistics. She also takes the occasional unpaid vacation because we like to enjoy life.
We are now reevaluating our options. We will NOT be going to the “Exchange Marketplace” at Healthcare.gov. We may look into health share options.
And we are strongly considering leaving the US again.
Eric Blair writes for ActivistPost.com where this article first appeared. This article is under Creative Commons and can be reposted in full with attribution.
So… you let your children dictate your life, then when that doesn’t work out, you make your next move based on health insurance? Not being mean or anything, but there’s a lesson in there for you. We already knew ObamaCare is a mess.
You make a great point, OS, seems like we have to ground ourselves however we can, and given we’re awake we have a pretty good idea what’s around the next corner. The writing is on the wall, the banksters are gearing up for serious inflation (debasement). China is preparing to relocate 100 million farmers to the empty “ghost” cities (Agenda 21 / 30); govt engineered resurgences of cult-like adoration of Mao and Stalin in China and Russia, respectively, timed with brutal crackdowns on mild peaceful dissent and hundreds to thousands of Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters ‘disappeared’ to the mainland for indefinite detention. Zuckerberg descending on Africa (with Gates, no doubt) to place every last inhabitant into the “Mark of The Beast” RFID biometric tracking system. Where could a person go to permanently escape the tentacles? “Beam me up, Scotty!”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f077d752dca09b3f2db7148c33b71eb90f447de5323e8f1b68830173be54e16.jpg
hahahaha!
Glad you can still laugh. All is not lost. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5f86c4aa9d710c71a697cca152612747e03bee7a401f9edae3c8eea278701c5.jpg
You’re a riot OS! We have to laugh or we’ll go nuts. I’m literally laughing throughout the day when I check ‘serious’ news feeds. 😉
Oh gawd, I know. It’s gone beyond farcical into total meltdown stupid. I’m not voting, as you probably know, but my husband voted on one local issue regarding banning animal traps on public lands because dogs get caught in them. He’s a good doobie for that. He also wrote my name in for president. Do you think they’ll give me a some of those stud Secret Service dudes and my own plane?
No wait… Huma Abedin for President!
Hahaha… laugh till it hurts.
You got it! And you have my vote too, in spirit, as I’m not voting either.
You are both idiots with so much at stake! I’d be ashamed instead of boasting in your ineptitudes. Losers both!
Charitable and empathic? Not. Rude? Yes! Time for more Kool-Aid dear.
Exactly right cabo — and it seems you have more below you. Not voting is just adding to the destruction of this ONCE great nation.
Most of us that are awake no longer fall for this left vs right paradigm.
You can’t reject what doesn’t exist: the US has no effective left and the Republicans have moved to far right while Democrat have moved to center-right.
The awakening is to the constriction of our choices thru lack of a an effective left (as most other nations have) and a narrow spectrum of center right to far right: that is the false choice. Only when the left rebuilds (vote Stein) will there be alternatives and new choices.
Most Americans support “progressive 67%”, progressive programs (single payer, ubc, raising minimum wages, legalization of pot and immigrants) and all polls showed mild leftist (center-left) Sanders beating Trump and Clinton badly.
But, the people have no power because there is no effective Left, which historically is the voice of the common man, the workers, the exploited. The oligarchy (and don’t pretend born rich Trump is not an oligarch, a man who outsources jobs to slave labor countries and pays no taxes) is based on a duopoly which pretends be different, but far right and center right is a lack of a voice for ordinary people.
The people want progressives but the people don’t count.
The solution is real democracy, a transformation from corporate fascism to government “of, for, and by the people.”
You cannot reject what does not exist, but we can create a strong left and meet the wishes of the people for a progressive America, with equal rights for all and a shared prosperity.
The US Congress of 500 has exactly one “socialist” whose socialism is the mildest variety which seeks to restrain the worst crimes of capitalism. The Right actually has control of Congress, and a center -right President, once thought slightly left, is the furthest edge.
We need a left to give voice to labor and work for ordinary people; we need a political system which represents the people. That will not come without building the Left….
Not voting will end election fraud and rigging….not sure how.
????? Never said not to vote.
Troll alert: insult wagon spills venom.
But of course you’re a winner because you’re going to vote for one of the losers running to rule you. I’d be ashamed to be so drearily gullible.
I have a Wiki Gift for you, blue. The castle has been taken! Hahaha… this is so freaking rich! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/504d453764687b1da55a790757ae20435c6a1be5759914b20e7cc7e44af9775c.jpg
Thank you, OS, you’re such sweetheart, you know how to make me smile and laugh at the insanity of it all. 😉 As you can probably, guess, my hunch would be this is a planted email to be leaked for more fire stoking of the polarization, to fuel street brawls and rioting between Trump-bots and Soros useful Marxist idiots. There are plenty of quislings and cutouts too, what a wild circus show!
I know. Are you ready for my latest theory? The government has become one giant casino, right? The globalists have selected a billionaire casino owner named Trump to finish it off for good. It’s their little inside joke, Get it? They planned this thing out like a duplicate bridge hand, down to Assange blowing holes in Hillary right before the election, and then they toss in their Trump Card. It’s a freaking Bollywood script, and a pi$$ poor one at that.
Def: Trump Card- a valuable resource that may be used, especially as a surprise, in order to gain an advantage.
I’ve always thought this about Trump, I just wasn’t sure how it would all play out in the end. Too bad we can’t hang the little Huma witch. The male jihadi martyrs get 70 virgins or something. The females get Wieners. It’s a freaking circus!
Global casino…Trump card…Bollywood script = you’re brilliant , luv it!! LOL
I was really on the fence about Julian until you noted his refusal to address 9/11. That and the fact Trump bowed before AIPAC while they put the crown on his pompadour, proves who is behind it all, as if we didn’t know already. Score one for the truth team, yo.
It’s incredibly frustrating Assange isn’t known as an intel entity to the majority of the alt media media readers given when he first emerged there was plenty of damning info, solid evidence dug up by Lila Rajiva (journalist and Libertarian author), backed up by analyses from “left-wing” academics Drs Michel Chussodovsky (Global Research) and Webster Tarpley. A wide platter served up and unmistakable red flags (Assange had a Rothschild lawyer), already the 9/11 stance, pro-tyranny/statism statements in his past, and a lot more. I went out of my way to share the details, mainly on infowars being the biggest alt site and before Disqus, thus fewer comments. The Assange ship finally went down on that site after relentless infowarring there and sites like A. Post. Then the Snowjob, doing a much better job covering tracks while slowly Wikileaks is resurrected again. It was floated on this website and beaten back, then an avalanche. Speaks to the distractions, overload of info, and generations of dumbing down. Round & round we go…. Thanks for letting me vent, Wise Olde Soul. Hey, yesterday there was some uncanny synchronicity involving your reply to me and near simultaneous emails / calls from two very awake close friends along with a big 5D Shazam(!). Wow!! Keep up the awesome Shaman magic, I’m seeing it! 😉
Woo hoo! Thanks for that handy summary, blue. All your hard work is paying off in the ethos. The globalists’ ships are falling out of the sky.
Raven is a very magical being, as I’m sure you’re aware. It flies high and calls out whenever it spots a carcass somewhere, alerting magpies and eagles to come and feast. The carcasses need to be spotted and cleaned up, the magpies and eagles stay fed. The magic swirls, 5D materializes around us. I’m glad you’re seeing it, it helps keep us on track. Caw!
Luv ya, sister! When do I start? 😉 Someone shared this piece o’ work, a reminder why we need to get our magic wands fully charged and set on vaporize. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDJ5SjQGL6E
Thanks! Looks like RV agrees with us. I’ve never seen him before. Is this one of your normal sources?
The thing holding the goat head is definitely a hybrid. The sicker they can make themselves look, the less people will believe what they’re doing is real. Regardless, they’re gross and I hope they all enjoy wallowing in their own juices.
hahahahahahaha!
What do you expect of a right wing plan, pro-corporate, pro profit, intended to transfer public funds to the insurers, which Heritage designed in 89 and Republicans promoted as alternative to Hillarycare.
The reason the Republicans have no plan is that the Democrats stole there’s, and at that point they unanimously abandoned their own child.
The orignal Koch funded Heritage plan, as well as the Gingrich version, and Obamacare all are the same: mandatory insurance with government subsidies. This transfers public money into private pockets, as the private insurers take out 90% more for overhead to pay salaries up to 106 miillion (United CEO/2009). tThis is hundreds of billions that are NOT going for healthcare but for private jets and corporate art collections and salaries of CEOs 98% higher than top government officials, who actually have more people under their management.
TRump has come out for the same basic concept: insurance for all (ie as a right) with government subsidies for those who cannot afford the obscenely high prices the parasitic private insurers charge through monopoly pricing (turf is parceled out Mafia style).
So only Clinton (and the hapless “What is a Lepo?” Johnson are opposed to a Medicare for all, with government subsidies going to private medicine.
Can we trust a pathological liar?
They’re all pathological liars, dear one.
You are referring to all demoSCUM ??????? We haven’t heard a whisper of truth from this administration in 8 years and you want to blame the repubs.
What don’t you understand about the word ALL? The whole rotten DC pig sty is pathological, party affiliation is a complex hoax, an illusion. They only want us to think there are Dems and Reps so we take sides and fight each other. WTFU and stop writing “demoSCUM” like this has real meaning whatsoever.
If you can leave its more likely the best thing I can think to do, America has become a crap hole on ALL levels.
I retired and moved to Mexico with about 1 million other Americans. We can enroll in Seguro Popular a free medical program.
It’s amazing that poor Mexico can provide free medical coverage for ALL LEGAL RESIDENTS including foreigners and the U.S. can’t, making it the only 1st World Country that doesn’t.
If Mexico is so great, why are they breaking into our country to have their babies?
They come for jobs, to feed their families. Once they get here, they find they have no healthcare. They come not to have babies but to make money, and once they settle in, like everyone else, they raise a family.
Mexico has a good healthcare system but a lousy economy (except for the rich) for which the US bears much responsibility as well as the oligarchy that rules.
Worker immigrants are younger and healthy, with little medical needs, so the Mexican superior system is rarely needed. In the US, they can only pay out of pocket or go to ER in an emergency. But if you are young and healthy, you can get by without.
No undocumented immigrants can get govt subsidized healthcare or foodstamps or anything else, tho their children, if US citizens, can.
You clearly position yourself as part of the fascist right which scapegoats immigrants, who have a 50% lower incarceration/crime rate than US citizens (“They are% rapists…and criminals!” with most of the crimes being non violent, 65% related to lack of documentation and perhaps 20% related to drug possession or sales).
They are the least criminal part of our population, except for Asians with PH.ds. Border cities, which Trump called very dangerous and said he was very brave to even visit one, are the safest cities.
Our largest border city, San Diego, is the safest large city in the nation, with a violent crime rate about 30% lower than the national average. Border cities, populated mostly by Mexicans, have much lower crime rates than inland cities.
BS, they come here illegally to have their babies, and they know how to work the system. I worked in the medical profession. The children of illegals get free dental, medical, and they can go to the WIC office and get free milk, cheese, bread, cereal, and other stuff. All at the expense of the American taxpayer. Meanwhile, middle class Americans are struggling to get by to pay for their dental and medical needs.
I see you are not int facts, but here’ one: all high income nations have below replacement birth rates, which means without immigrant, who are on average younger and have higher birth rates, our population (as well as that of the European nations, Canada, Australia, etc) would decline. That is all documented fact:
Here is an economic fact: when populations decline, consumption decreases, leading to less economic activity and loss of jobs. This leads to recession or depression.
Here is another: younger healthier undocumented workers pay payroll taxes to subsidize our Medicare and Medicaid programs, on which their children, if the family is poor enough, may qualify for but not the workers themselves.
Here is another fact: the ration of workers to retirees would lead to insolvency without immigrant labor increasing the ratio to provide more funding for the growing retired population. This is a result of the fact that immigrants tend to be young and healthy.
US citizens, regardless of their parents status or ethnicity, qualify for government aid if they qualify. The very medical costs you say the middle class cannot afford is being subsidized the the immigrants. If they left, both Social Security and Medicare would be underfunded, leading to higher taxes or lower benefits.
The “free food”: program was a project of Big Ag to transfer public funds to private corporations. Big Ag is the major supporter of SNAP, which…are you getting the picture?….transfers public funds to private corporations.
Blaming our most hard working and vulnerable and unprotected population for declining middle class wages (which began in 1989 as a result of Reagans crushing he private union movement) is scapegoating people the victims to mask the real criminals who undermined the voice of labor, which for 35 years after WWII, with growing union growth, of shared prosperity wiht all classes gaining. Since 1989, the income of the top 1% has nearly tripled while the median wage has declined by nearly 40%. This started when the undocumented population was not 4%, as today, but less than 1%.”
When Reagan left, there were 2 million. By 2000, there were 5 million; it peaked under Bush at over 12 million and has declined to about 11 million today. The loss in wages started when the undoc pop was very small and grew as workers lost power to leverage the increasing productivity and profits into wage gains, as they had from 1950 to the 7Os. The loss was not due to a million Mexican labors but the lack of collective bargaiinng power.
That is the actual history of the decline of the middle class engineered by destroying private unions and trickle down economics, which never trickled down.
Immigrants are used a scapegoat to mask the real destruction of the middle class by the rule of oligarchy, seeking to shift blame to the one group that could not fight back. This is called kicking a man to the gutter and then blaming him for being in your way and arresting him.
Our economy (ie the economy of ordinary people) has not been destroyed by the poorest among us but by those who have blamed the poorest as they pick our pockets…..and you have fallen for it. Wake up. Look at a chart of rising wages and union growth,,and then the reverse at
http://www.epi.org/blog/union-decline-rising-inequality-charts/
How come Mexicans know how to the work the system but Americans can’t seem to figure it out?
dale ruff- you have no clue about what you are talking about, especially in California, where, not only do they get all the things Squatch said they get, they have also learned how to take the drivers license that they can get in Cali(what a wonderful state) to register to vote.
Sir, how wrong you are. I have a world class education in political science and have lived in California for over 70 years. Undocumented workers may get drivers’s liscences but by Federal law, they are banned from Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, or TANF. Look it up.
Nor can they nor do they vote, since it is illegal and the punishment is 10 years in prison.
‘
California has the 7th largest undocumented population and 7th largest economy in the world, with 3 straight years of large budget surpluses. All of our family, including our beloved Mexican and Asian immigrants, are doing quite well.
I have studied immigration for many years and interviewed dozens of immigrants: they come for jobs, they stay to raise their families and renew the American Dream. There are part of why California is the most prosperous and tolerant state. They are part of our community, pushing us all up from the bottom, just as our ancestors once did not too long ago.
Sir, you have no clue………and I challenge you to fact check my claims. We have many serious problems from poverty to drought. But we are the most creative state (hosting both the film industry and the high tech innovation center of the world) so we are able to solve our problems. Right now, the biggest problem is how to spend the huge surplus…..education , healthcare, infrastructure?
politicususa headlines:
“California Crisis! How To Spend Budget Surpluses
, Apr 18th, 2016
Democrats push the governor to relax his grip on surplus money because the state is “overflowing with billions of dollars in extra cash”
I blame the illegal aliens for this crisis!
California is a wonderful state, beautiful, diverse, and rich. If you travel abroad and people ask where you are from, if you say “California,” they will smile and tell yout about their counsin who moved there and lives in San Jose. California world wide is recognize as one of the most successful states in the world.
And guess what? Their medical care is paid for with American tax dollars!
Mexican healthcare is not paid with U.S. dollars. Since this site deletes posts with links, look up how many billions illegals pay in U.S. taxes.
If I see a private doctor it could cost me from $3 USD to $35 USD. I buy my medications for a fraction of what is charged in the U.S. and I buy them from retail pharmacies.
In comparison of surgeries, at a very fancy Guadalajara hospital with a private room, excellent food, room service with the servers wearing tuxedos, a gallbladder removal costs about $2400 USD. The same surgery at a cheap U.S. hospital and not staying overnight is about $30,000 USD.
See the difference? The medical people here are not gouging the patients and trying to get rich. Doctors will spend an hour or more talking to a patient and will make house calls.
Good for you, what do you want? A cookie? FYI, myself & anyone here in USA can see a doctor for $40 flat fee, prescriptions as low as $3 WITHOUT obamaCrap! If USA did away with all health insurance, costs would plummet, leaving insurance for large emergencis only, like it was when it began, until “the system” figured it could price gouge. No doubt our current system is effD up, but O-Crap NOT the answer NOR gov’t healthcare, as proven by VA & Medicare! Something dramatic must be done, start with that big effN WALL!
My Medicare part B was over $100 a month so estimate $1200 a year. Then I needed a supplemental insurance to cover the 20 percent Part A and B didn’t cover so figure another $1000 or more a year. Then I still paid some out of pocket.
How do you think the wall will be built? Do you think the landowners will sell their property to the U.S. without a fight? The Rio Grande moves its location, so sometimes a person’s property will be on the South side of the fence. The U.S. will need roads to build the fence and will need permission to cross private property. That will be decades of legal fights.
The next Mexican billionaire will be selling ladders or tickets to the tunnels under the fence. Your redneck wingers are so gullible.
USAToday:
“At the state and local level alone, undocumented immigrants nationwide collectively pay an estimated $11.64 billion each year in taxes, according to a recent report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Our calculations, based on academic, congressional, and think-tank research, show that total includes more than $6.9 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and over $1 billion in personal income taxes.”
PEW Research:
“More Mexican immigrants have returned to Mexico from the U.S. than have migrated here since the end of the Great Recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from both countries. The same data sources also show the overall flow of Mexican immigrants between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s, mostly due to a drop in the number of Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.”
You are correct about the costs of medicare. I pay about $115/mo for part B and about $19/mo for plan D (medications) and about $170/mo for plan F supplemental.
That is why so many retirees are moving to Mexico. Mexico did change its immigration requirements and many foreigners cannot financially pass the test now. You can check with nearest MX consulate and they can bend the rules.
You will not meet a foreign retiree who is not happy with the medical care here and many self insure. If they save the $1300 a year in Part B payments, in a couple of years that will pay for the best private hospital care and almost any surgery.
For less, they can join IMSS for $300 a year IMSS pays for 100% of all medical including hospitalizations, tests, doctors and medicines.
Most of us are changing to Seguro Popular which is free for retirees. It also covers 100% of everything.
Google assisted living centers at Lake Chapala. They are nothing like up North. Beautiful homes with 24/7 care. You cannot afford a full time nursing home or assisted living up there like the beautiful, well furnished, gorgeous gardens like down here.
Mexicans are often hired for hard work like digging because they are both motivated and physically strong and healthy. How hard then to dig under a fence?
It’s just a way to get suckers like you to vote for Trump; it’s his form of snake oil. He says he will have the Mexicans pay, but any Mexican President who agreed would be impeached as a traitor. He says he will threaten them with tariffs to make them do it (The Art of the Steal), but that would set off a trade war which would bankrupt American corporations (and lose the jobs) , which sell over 200 billion a year to Mexico. That would likely cause a recession, lower govt revenue and higher overhead for welfare for the newly unemployed.
In economics, its’s call a vicious cycle. Either Trump is too stupid to know this, or he is just using it to fool you. I suggest he is using you by appealing to bigotry and knows that such a wall would be useless.
Here is my plan to reduce the motive for immigrants, who come to make money to feed their families: raise the minimum wage to a level that US workers will take it. Then let the chips fall where they may.
Apologies to the ADD types…….I just can’t express myself in wisecracks and tweets.
“suckers like you to vote for Trump;”
Where did you get that? I wouldn’t vote for that child rapist for anything.
I think it is funny that the far right who claim Hillary lies, are for Trump, a man who rapes children, ran around with mafiosa, his closest advisors are the filthiest men on Earth and on top of that, Trump is an idiot.
You want to see the funniest clip of Trump’s wall? It is a commercial made by an Australian company and no network in the U.S. would run it.
I can’t post a link because this site deletes links so go to Youtube, “Australian Trump’s Wall Ad Banned In America”
I love the Churros wagon and the gardener flying over the wall with leaf blowers.
I aplogizze for misreading you. You are very decent about y bad judgement. The truth is, I was intending this for Rick.
It turns out we are on the same page, tho I voted for Stein. Did you? Hillary has too much blood on her hands and has been promoting war with Russia.
Sorry!
Your sarcasm is sad: obviously what all Americans want is good healthcare at an affordable price, something that every other of the 34 developed nations have (at half the cost) and which many poor nations like Mexico, Cuba, and Costa Rica do have.
We want our right to healthcare, which is not a cookie (free stuff?) but a human right. We want quality healthcare we can afford for our children.
VA and Medicare are opposites: VA is socialized medicine, adopted in its earliest form by our Founding Fathers in Congress without one dissenting vote, setting up a government run system for those in the critical maritime trades, which they had to pay for out of their wages, and with government employed doctors and hospitals. This was expanded and expanded as the need for a healthy workforce became evident led to the VA being similarly a socialize medicine plan (PS, despite being underfunded by Republicans vote against hikes (“We can’t afford them”), VA quality is top rated, higher than private. What is needed is more doctors to treat the great escalation of wounded vets from our recent criminal wars.
Every penny of VA money goes to government employees (and of course private drug companies); this is the system in the UK, with government doctors and hospitals but the option to get private care.
In the UK, you walk in the door and show your card. It’s that simple and efficient and Brits live longer and pay half as much.
Medicare and Medicaid are very different, as both use exclusively private doctors and hospitals and for every dollar that goes in, 98cents goes to the private medicine sector. With private insurance, 85-90 cents goes to private medicine, a wasted overhead of 150 billion which does not improve our medical research, healthcare or care.
Medicare for all is not socialized, as the government adminsters payment to private doctors at less than 2% overhead, giving 90% more to private medicine than the parasitic private insurers, whose CEOs in the depths of recession taken home, after taxes, up to 85 billion (United/2009) and have corporate art collections, private jets, etc.
Medicare, with less than 2% overhead, pays its top managers $150-200,000, or less than 2% of the average CEO of one of the major insurers. Fiscal conservatives: this is your issue! Do you want the worst care in the advanced world (and worse than many very poor nations) for twice the cost….or would you like a system that serves everyone and saves money? Do you want Medicare returning 98 cents of every dollar of payroll taxes for private medical treatment or 85-90 cents returned by monopolistic corporations (this next year, over 20% of regions will have only one provider (ie monopoly pricing control) as the big boys parcel out territory Mafia style so insurers can fix prices with no competition?
I challenge anyone to refute with evidence any of these claims which are based on years of study and several published articles.
Brainwashed yahoos can go back to eating their candy and leave me in peace: what I am proposing would save you money, but you are too stupid (as Trump said in Iowa) to reject schemes which pick your pocket, so you end up supporting the very system which is depriving you of affordable healthcare.
The ACA is the old Heritage (koch funded) design that Republicans pushed as the alternative to Hillarycare, based on the twin pillar a mandate to purchase private insurance and govt subsidies for those who can’t afford the jacked up prices, which is the right wing plan to transfer public wealth into private pockets.
Private insurers are reaping record profits while lying to us that they are leaving exchanges in some states because they are losing money, while the truth is, they are richer than ever with 12 million new captive,subsidized customers, and the purpose of the lie is to give a pretext for Mafi-style parcelling out turn for monopoly control. which will grow from 2% last year to over 20% this year.
It’s a terrible system, the worst in the world and and the most expensive by far. Americans rank at the bottom for health and longevity of all developed and many poor nations. We have been ripped for trillions, and 30 million have no coverage at all, mostly due to Republican states refusing the hundreds of billion that would come into the states with Medicare expansion.
I call this treason, as the purpose is to destroy the ACA and discredit Obama who has 20% more approval now than disapproval) at the expense of the health of its most vulnerable citizens, some of who will die for lack of healthcare coverage. To put a partisan political goal to deny the President success (even if that is success is providing medical treatment) above the Constitutional mandate to “promote…and provide for the general welfare (the reason given in 1798 with the Maritime Seaman’s Act of socialized medicine for national security, to have a healthy maritime industry).”
This is a betrayal of the Constitution, harming not only those without coverage but everyone by refusing hundreds of billions from the Feds.
It’s treason.
The downside is that doctors do not become millionaires.
Undocumented workers pay payroll taxes they can never collect, so they are keeping SS and Medicare from collapsing by adding tens of billions a year. They create value and wealth for their employers and they subsidize our social programs.
The only medical care at public expense is ER, which is for emergencies. The cost is much less than what undoc workers pay into SS and Medicare.
An unauthorized immigrant can go to a regular doctor if he pays for it himself….so you are right: he is paying for his medical care with US dollars he earned working at our most dangerous jobs. Meanwhile the tens of billions paid into SS and Medicare each year go to our accounts, so they are also using US Dollars they earned to fund OUR healthcare and pensions.
The US can’t afford it! We have to spend all our money on war.
Costa Rica, with household income of $10, 000 universal healthcare and a top medical treatment program. I worked 40 years in the US for Medicare benefits, and now pay $120 a month for 80% coverage with no vision and dental. Supplemental in my area is over $200. And dental/vision insurance is about $100…so after 40 years of payroll taxes, I pay $400 a month to be fully covered.
As a legal resident in Costa Rica, I could join their national program for about $90 a month, and dental and vision costs 1/3 as in the US. I have paid nothing into the CR treasury.
In Cuba, where the monthly wage is $20 (ie a buck a day) but education, healthcare and housing are basically free, everyone is covered at no cost.
Cubans live longer than Americans! So one of the poorest nations on earth can afford universal healthcare with superior health results but the richest nation in all history cannot!
In
Why pay for Part B? Are you flying back to the U.S. for medical care?
I can drive back but I don’t. I cancelled my Part B and gave myself a raise.
We get better healthcare in these so called, “poor countries.”
Axixic: You are right on; our government provides health care to some aliens FREE OF CHARGE. Free housing, free food, free transportation, everything for the select few, and Obama personally wants every American to pay the bill. Every American that is born in this country comes in owing many thousands of dollars the moment they take their very first breath. It is no wonder folks are leaving the sinking ship of America; Obama did a great job of finishing the ruination of the country after Kill/Bill Clinton left the office. Now these idiots want 4 more years of those skunks; how long before someone finally shows some brains??/ This nation is becoming a rat hole with a snake as their Poppa Daddy. I’m wondering if we would ever get the smell of the Obama Gang out of the White House; they need to use lots of bleach to get that job done, so rotten, they must smell of it.
Those aliens are Cubans, and they alone. But that was part of the deal to get them to come from Castro’s Cuba. Perhaps because Castro introduced free medical and dental care to help bring Cuba from being a 3rd world state to first world status. Cuba actually produces a surplus of Nurses and Doctors which are a great contribution to the Cuban myth especially in the non-western world. Cuba provides aid often in the form of medical personnel. All a Cuban has to do is to set a dry foot on American soil to win the lottery. Since Cuba has eases some restrictions, they now fly to Mexico, and walk across the US border. Between the Cuban-American community and the government help, they hardly are refugees or even immigrants. And excellent example of Republicans buying votes, although they are beginning to doubt especially Trump.
Read the laws. Illegals cannot receive any benefits.
Legal immigrants must wait 5 years to receive any benefits.
USNEWS:
“‘Undocumented’ Immigrants Pay Billions in Taxes”
“Immigrants illegally in the U.S. collectively contribute nearly $12 billion each year to state and local tax coffers, according to a new report that challenges recent election cycle rhetoric.
The study from the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy found that immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission kick in their billions in the form of income, property, sales or excise taxes.
There were roughly 11 million immigrants estimated to be in the U.S. illegally as of 2013, according to the report. And each and every state collects at least a few million dollars from tax payments made by such immigrants each year, ranging from Montana’s $2.2 million to California’s $3.2 billion.”
You have listening to Trump, haven’t you? He does have one good idea tho:
Donald Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.
Scott Pelley: The uninsured person is going to be taken care of. How? How?
Donald Trump: They’re going to be taken care of. I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. And, you know what, if this is probably–
Scott Pelley: Make a deal? Who pays for it
Donald Trump: —the government’s gonna pay for it.” hmn: you must have insurance and if you can’t afford it, the government will subsidize you. That’s the basis of the right wing designed (Heritage Foundation 1989) plan which Speaker Gingrich pushed in the 90’s as the alternative Hillarycare.
Trump says Obamacare (an odd name for a right wing plan) will be replaced by everyone having to have insurance and government subsidies. Wait, isn’t that the foundation of the ACA? His one trick is a hoax: he says you will be able to buy health insurance sold in another state. Well, there is no law that prevents insurers to sell in all states, so it’s really not significant. He also says states will handle Medicaid, but of the 20 states that refused Medicaid expansion under the ACA (with Feds paying 90%), it appears they already handle it, and he will force theRm to accept it (how else cn everyone be covered.)
6
Here’s a simpler plan, still 100% with private medicine, like The ACA, Medicare, and Medicaid: Medicare for all, which the majority supports and which would save 150 billion a year in wasted private overhead, ER costs ( 170 billion, more than needed to insure the insured who use it, since average visit is $2000), and 300 billion of tax breaks for medical, since there would be, aside from taxes, no premiums, no co-pays, no nothing to deduct.
Of 35 advanced nations, 34 have national programs, most single payer, a few socialized (ie medical is not private, as with Medicare: UK is socialized, as is the VA), which all have superior health outcomes and longer life expectancy than the US (which ranks below nations like Cuba and Costa Rica) at half the cost, due to eliminating the kinds of costs detailed above (all with sources of professional medical associations (see documentation at my article on Medicare for all at opednews.com.
Canadians are now richer than Americans (on average) not only because they make more money (average household income: $76, 000 compared to $54,000 in US) but also because they spend only 60% as much on healthcare through their taxes as US citizens do. With the average percapita medical cost of over $9000 in the states (ie $36,000 for a family of 4) and Canadians paying about $5000, that leaves both the Treasury and the household stash with thousands more.
Some nations, like Singapore and Japan, with universal healthcare, and the healthiest people, living well into their 80’s, pay 1/3 as much as the US.
So if Trump wins, I hope his support universal healthcare as a right is not just a hoax, and since he knows it pisses off the Republicans who hate their own plan once the Dems adopted it, he probably does. But given that he is a pathological liar, who knows?
Those who leave should stay gone & don’t come back. You’d rather run away from your homeland (if you were born here) than try & organize & stop the government in any ways you can. That’s cowardice. It’s true, many are that way, unfortunately. I won’t run from this crap, this is my Home. If I must die one day engaged in combat against this tyrannical regime, so be it. At least there are those of us who would do something, instead of nothing.
FREE of charge, PERFECT HEALTH = GO RAW VEGAN!
Breakfast: fruits
Lunch: salades with lemon juice and oils from cold/mechanical pressions
Dinner : nuts, almonds…
No polyarthrits, no diabetes, no cardiac issues, no cancer… can be under such diet!
All physical, mental and even genetic disorders DISAPPEAR !
Perfect, Gift Economy! “Let food be thy medicine.”
if it tastes good, spit it out, chances are it’s not good for ya.
The best diet studies in the world (Loma Linda Medical) show that vegetarians in the sample live 8 yrs longer than the average Californian but that vegans (and I have been one for 15 years, mostly raw) do not live as long.
I have been on vegetarian cancer diet for 35 years, then vegan for the last 15. I got cancer ten years and ago, had surgery and was cancer free for 8 yrs, now it is low but coming back (PSA of .]6). I am on mostly raw diet with a dozen anti-cancer supplements. My 4 month Rick Simpson cannabis extract did not help. I am all natural, no prescriptions drugs,
Vegans get all these diseases, including raw vegans. The evidence is that the healthiest diet is vegetarian.
I am vegan for ethical and ecological reasons…….and I continue to use and seek new natural stuff that will cure my recurring cancer.
My cancer has not disappeared but reappeared, despite this delibeately anti-cancer vegan diet.
I stayed with raw vegan guru Eric Rivkin at Jewel of the Sun in Costa Rica, and I learned a lot, but the fact is that vegan diet is NOT a guarantee against cancer or other diseases, many of which have a genetic factor as well as pollution.
You are kind in your diet (I respect all who renounce violence) but dangerous in your claims. The evidence of the most peer-reviewed diet studies in history, with a perfect control group (7th day Adventists don’t smoke or drink and have same lifestyles except some are on a meat-based diet, some vegetarian, a smaller group vegan. After 50 years of study with hundreds of thousands, the evidence is that vegetarians live the longest with the best health. Vegans die sooner. I don’t like those facts, but facts are facts, and this is the best research in the world.
My approach is to figure out what vegetarians get that vegans don’t and it includes things like B-12. So I supplement, seeking to avoid the violence in dairy production.
I’m 75 with cancer but actively using natural remedies with immunotherapy as Plan B. I am in no pain and have not been sick (flue, colds, etc for 10 or 15 years. I credit my diet, but understand it did not prevent or cure my cancer….so I struggle on, more or less at peace (I’ve had a long life full of great success and great failure with a wonderful set of kids) and if cancer doesn’t take me, something else will.
I have tried nearly every “certain cure” in the books and none has worked as promised. I party on, for each day must be tasted and tested deeply….it is not how many days you live but how well you live.
I am going to introduce into my menu of supplements B-16 and mitoq with aspirin, as these have solid research behind them. If I run out of natural options, I will go for immunotherpy which uses the body’s own defense system to kill the cancer, with a little genetic modification of your own cells to target and destroy the cancer.
I am pushing my vegan diet to more rawness as I go along, there is a learning curve. Right now, having been writing the last 7 hrs, I am starving. The cannabis treatment didn’t kick my cancer but it left me so sedated I did not eat much and have lost 40 lbs, now at 170, my old athletic weight, and I am hoping getting rid of the fat and the stored toxins will also contribute to the battle. Ok off to New leaf for some….maybe curried tofu and broccoli,a treat for holding my weight under 175) with a vegge/friuit smoothie and nuts for desert. Tofu, which the Okinawan centenarians eat twice a day, is very antic cancer, tho guru Eric is convinced it causes cancer……..but I listen to the evidence and have no gurus…..just friends who have their own ideas.
Good luck to you on your diet, but please don’t make claims that will create false hope. If we cleave to the truth, there is no reason to exaggerate or hype. I wish you only the best and feel a special solidarity with you, as I do with all who renounce violence.
That’s it, gotta go
Activist Post? More like DipSHit Post. THis place is full of the dimmest people I have ever seen!
Dipshit for exposing the fraud of Obamacare? Or do you have a specific grievance you can share? Maybe some people are more awake to elaborate Kabuki theater than you are. Something to consider for mind expansion, boost in IQ discernment.
The avatar gives his IQ score away… hehehe.
cheers
Full of yourself much? Or the truth hurts you and are angry about it? Or, are you just another Internet troll bully who likes to call ppl names? Do yourself a favor and spend a few months on this website and at church, you will be amazed at the wisdom gained in such a short time.
”Every party has a pooper that’s why we invited you…party pooper”….or you invited your ad hominem self….luv the way you like to point your finger …when ya got 3 more pointing backatcha….which shows hostility …because you secretly have very low self esteem & are very angry about your lot in life …so you resort to lashing out at ‘cyber ghosts’ out of internalized frustration…….’drinking poison & thinking the other person will die’…….. is quite frankly…. imbecillic.
By now it’sobvious to most above room temperature IQ’s the unaffordable uncaring act is a veiled tax, designed to put an end to all outside insurance companies.
Next, that’s a breathing and letting out carbons tax.
They never tire of dreaming up new schemes.
TAXATION is THEFT.
TRUMP ON.
ANYONE who paid attention should have known exactly what was going to happen. It was meant to be a failure — which is why the demoSCUM passed it in the middle of the night behind not only closed doors but locked doors. The plan for a long time(at least the last 3 presidents) has been to bring America down and the unaffordable care act was just one more designed fiasco to help accomplish that agenda.
The ACA is the Republican plan from the 90’s based on the twin pillars of mandated coverage and subsidies with private insurers. The Republicans offered it as the alternative to Hilllarycare. When the Dems adopted it, despairing of single payer (which the majority want), the Republicans denounced it. The reason the Republicans don’t have a plan is that the Dems stole it.
Now let’s give the public what it wants: Medicare for all and huge savings by eliminating 700 billion in bloated private overhead, ER costs for the uninsured (average visit of $2000), and 300 billion in tax breaks for medical expenses: This is enough to insure everyone, including dental and vision.
Such systems, in all other advanced nations with variations) produce better health and longer life at half the cost. It is fiscal suicide to get the worst results for twice the price, which is why most Americans (80% of Dems,60% of Independents) support a Medicare for All system, based on a working and very approved model with 50 years of success at an overhead 90% lower than private which spends 85-90 cents of every dollar on medical treatment compared to Medicare and Medicaid returning 98 cent to the private medical industry. Which is most important: huge profits for a handful of near monopolies with lavish lifestyles, or healthcare for our families based on need? And which system puts the most back into private healthcare?
I describe; you decide.
I am assuming that this plan would be for American citizens only NOT the 40 million illegals and the ever increasing radical muslims that obozo is bringing in and the witch wants to increase the number leeching off the tax payers.
Little over blown numbers there. But why bother with facts, when there is a point to be made. But comb your hair right and they may not notice.
So now it’s the scary radical muslims. It used to be the scary hippy radicals, and the scary militia radicals, and the scary black radicals, and the scary jihadi radicals, and the scary al Qaida radicals, and then… You’re being played for a fool, tool.
Obamacare needs to be repealed. Middle class Americans are getting screwed in order to support the subsidies and Medicaid for others, while not getting any benefit for themselves. Like Bill Clinton said “crazy”. I would even go along with Bernie Sander’s plan to expand Medicare to replace the Obamacare subsidies and expansion of Medicaid. By having one public national plan and then the rest be private national plans, people will have a choice, and the plans could be used anywhere in the country instead of be restricted by states. Either way, Obamacare needs to go, and we need to take a look at some other options.
Obamacare is all private insurance because the Republicans didn’t want a government single payer which would be cheaper but cut out private companies. So they copied the Republican Romney plan. Not having direct government payer was the first thing given away to get Republicans on board their own plan but they never did.
So how much did you spend on health related issues when out of the country? I spent a total of $10,000 on health related issues for my family from 1985 through 2006. That included the birth of my son, all his medical needs, including orthodontia, and all my and my wife’s medical needs. That was out of pocket expense, I had no insurance, and still don’t have insurance.
I don’t receive a tax return, because I don’t allow excess withholding, and usually owe about $300 at the end of the year.
We don’t HAVE to have anything. This is not an enumerated power in the Constitution granted to the government. And we do have a remedy to fix this kind of mess (this isn’t the only thing, this is just 1 of millions of tyrannies gone unpunished) when the government is against us & isn’t the limited, representative one we’re to have. Too many years have gone by, it’s past time to use our weapons & organize all over to forcefully remove every cop, judge, politician all the way to the White House & arrest them all & go from there. We, those of us who believe in liberty & rule of law anyway, reserve that right to use these remedies to remove a govt that is in constant violation of the rule of law, like ours has been since before we were born.
hahahahahaha….luv yer macabre sense of humor…cheers