Health Care for the Service Industry

[pcgeek11]

Well then we agree to disagree on the fundamental right issue. I would not try to change your mind on this but to bring up a few points.

1. Your kids future was given away by every politician that spent the next generations money. I'm still young and without kids and I am of a generation that as a whole will do worse then their parents. Thank you.

2. "bleeding hearts" haven't been in charge in a long long time. They are now the boogie man that you can warn your children about along with commies and blacks.

3. The real idea behind health care reform is to control costs so your children can spend their money on other things. You are seeing it as taking your money but really in the long run it "should" save you money.

1. Well with respect to the Government giving my money away; I didn't try and limit it to just the current situation. I agree it has gone on for decades and it needs to be stopped. I have done my best to provide for my children and ensure they will be better off than myself. This meant lots of planning, saving and doing without at times.

2. My son was very liberal when he was living at home and didn't have a care in the world. Then he moved out on his own and saw the real world for what it is. I give to various charities etc, but I choose who I give my money to. I do not want the Government making this choice for me. This has nothing to do with my feelings about " Commies or Blacks ". Who the hell was talking about " Commies or Blacks " anyway? Liberals are the Boogie man as far as I am concerned.

3. I'm all for controlling the cost of health care. I am not for subsidizing it for people that will not strive to better themselves and their situation.

 

[MJinZ]

1. Well with respect to the Government giving my money away; I didn't try and limit it to just the current situation. I agree it has gone on for decades and it needs to be stopped. I have done my best to provide for my children and ensure they will be better off than myself. This meant lots of planning, saving and doing without at times.

2. My son was very liberal when he was living at home and didn't have a care in the world. Then he moved out on his own and saw the real world for what it is. I give to various charities etc, but I choose who I give my money to. I do not want the Government making this choice for me. This has nothing to do with my feelings about " Commies or Blacks ". Who the hell was talking about " Commies or Blacks " anyway? Liberals are the Boogie man as far as I am concerned.

3. I'm all for controlling the cost of health care. I am not for subsidizing it for people that will not strive to better themselves and their situation.

The only way you could actually afford to live the way you do and save the way you do is because of the low level grunts that make so much less an hour serving you and mass producing crap for you to buy. The difference is that the "rights" think the grunts deserve what they get, living and dying by the almighty dollar. The "left" may be in exactly your situation, but by advocating that health care is a right and helping those too poor to pay for it, they at least are partially able to redeem their own lifestyles and good fortunes.

If you value a human being by the amount they bring in, their motivation, or even their intelligence level openly like you propose, then you dehumanize us ALL. Congrats on lowering humanity to yet another level of self interest and apathy.

 

[pcgeek11]

You're wrong - you're definitely Right.

Well my feeling either right or left are mine... I don't use the all encompassing label of right or left. I am independent. I have voted for Dem and Rep alike. I see the man and not the Party.

That's preeetty damn arrogant. And in all likelihood, those richer than your mom at the time paid taxes that put you through school. You were poor right? Yea you definitely pay your own way through if you used Public Education.

How was it arrogant? Your statements are " in all likelihood " is just another one of your assumptions. My mother never took welfare etc and paid her taxes that were due.

Most politicians have Law degrees. Are you saying Congressmen and Senators are Tort Lawyers too? LMAO.

No I didn't say that Congressmen and Senators were Tort Lawyers. They are lawyers and they all look out for one another. Have you ever tried to get a lawyer to sue another? Good luck if you ever try. You will be in for a rude awakening.

It was your insurance that paid most of it, and your insurance company makes money from premiums from people who do NOT get sick. You are a money pit to the insurance company, take that how you will. Let's play this game a little longer. You drive insurance premiums up for the rest of us. We paid for your wife's surgeries in the end.

1.You have no idea how much my insurance paid or didn't pay for that matter.
2. Anyone that buys insurance is making a bet that they will get sick. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
3. Why would me purchasing insurance insurance drive your premium up. That is absurd. The cost of persons without insurance drives your cost up, along with excessive malpractice insurance cost.
4. You didn't pay squat for my wifes surgeries.

See the difference between the right and left is that the right thinks that they are ENTITLED to their situation in life. No, you were born in the right time and right place just like the rest of us.

I am entitled to everything that I have worked for. How could you say that I'm not entitled. I left home with a few dollars and the clothes that I owned, I had a 10th grade education. From these I worked hard and made progress and finally I am pretty comfortable in my life. Why would I not be entitled. So me being born poor with a single mother and having to quit school to work to support my family was the right place and time? I want some of what your smoking. It must be some really premium sh1t.

 

[Patranus]

I am entitled to everything that I have worked for. How could you say that I'm not entitled.

No, OTHERS are entitled to the fruits of your labor. You should be thankful that the government lets you keep the scraps it lets you keep.

Didn't you get the memo?

 

[MJinZ]

I am entitled to everything that I have worked for. How could you say that I'm not entitled. I left home with a few dollars and the clothes that I owned, I had a 10th grade education. From these I worked hard and made progress and finally I am pretty comfortable in my life. Why would I not be entitled. So me being born poor with a single mother and having to quit school to work to support my family was the right place and time? I want some of what your smoking. It must be some really premium sh1t.

1) You were born in America. Would you like a History lesson that perhaps the 11th grade or 12th grade should have taught you?

2) You were born in this Time.

3) You were not born with debilitations and your parents were GOOD.

You are only as good and undamaged as those who helped you and the situations which enabled you. You are only so arrogant to think otherwise.

Life's not fair, that's a no-brainer. The difference between the millionaire or billionaire liberals and the millionaire and billionaire conservatives is that that conservatives like YOU only give charity to people LIKE YOU (or people you think are like you), and the liberals are compassionate enough to give everyone else the benefit of human empathy.

 

[CitizenKain]

If you can't afford health care, then you shouldn't have it. If you're making 22 thousand a year, then get a few roommates. Shun beer and cigs. Buy only rice and beans. Then purchase your insurance individually from an insurer.

Look, the clueless child posts again.

 

[Throckmorton]

No, thats a government handout. Health insurance is a product. You buy it. Obama and other liberals want to steal money from taxpayer pockets so the "unfortunate" will have "free" insurance.

If you really can't afford health care, you should go to your local church or other community support systems to try to get it. There are people who willingly donate money to help. I have no problems with that.

Health care is a right. Without it, you die. Money is a made up thing, but life is real.

 

[ebaycj]

It may be anecdotal, but my best friend is a waiter at Outback and somehow affords their *GROUP DISCOUNTED* Cigna plan. It is doable.

Fixed for you.

Also, good luck to your friend if he ever has to use said insurance.

 

[ebaycj]

My oldest stepson waited tables at a nice restaurant in the area for over two years. He had health insurance through his employer. He contributed part of the cost. He did so, which makes me have to assume it was affordable for him.

He was very glad he had it when he had to have an emergency appendectomy.

Instead of griping about the job he had, the pay, the hours and his health care coverage, he found himself a better job.

There's a lesson in this story OP. Hope I made it transparent enough for you to figure it out.

Again, Fixed.

 

[JSt0rm]

Fixed for you.

Also, good luck to your friend if he ever has to use said insurance.

The beauty is if he cant maintain his hours i.e. gets too sick to work he loses his healthcare muahahahahah

 

[Patranus]

Again, Fixed.

So you think an employee should contribute nothing towards health insurance?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

A lot of people grease the wheels of American society, and in those service industry jobs, no health care is provided. Is it that low-paying service industry jobs don't deserve health care?

Is there any free market model to address the health care availability to service-industry employees?

Yes. The free market plan for poverty-wage peasants is:

Don't get sick, and if you do, die quickly.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

And there is your problem. This hypothetical indivudial in unwilling to put the amount of effort required to have heath insurance that is their choice.

People in their twenties can work 10 hours/day for 365 days/year, maybe, living like slaves so that health insurance executives can purchase 5 new yachts and vacation homes every year. That's not going to be possible for many if not most people who are older than age 35.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

It is not about one 'deserving' health insurance rather why you think that a service employee 'deserves' the hard work of others when in many cases they can afford health insurance but put other 'luxury items' ahead in the decision making process.

This is what it all comes down, to, isn't it. How do we know that some people such as CEOs are not receiving more compensation than they should and that it should really be going to low-wage workers instead? Is it possible that some people are grossly overpaid and do not deserve the wealth they are receiving and that some people are underpaid and deserve more compensation than what they are receiving?

How do we know that you aren't receiving more compensation that what you deserve? What if you are unjustly and unfairly benefiting from government-created wage deflation in the form of lower prices for goods and service? (By allowing businesses to send jobs overseas and to import foreigners, wages have been driven down and ladders of upward mobility destroyed.)

If you have cut out every 'luxury item', have a roommate, taken a 2nd jobs, ect ect ect....and still cannot get health insurance than we will talk.

So your vision for America is that Americans should live like people do in the third world?

What I am opposed to is raising taxes to pay for something that someone has chosen to not purchase when could purchase if they made it a priority.

We need the taxes to redistribute the wealth that was stolen or at least unjustly taken in various ways from these people by the upper classes.

The one sure way to make sure you have health insurance is to obtain an education.

LOL! A great many of those waiters HAVE COLLEGE DEGREES!!! In fact a great many college degree holders are unemployed or underemployed and involuntarily out of field because too many people have gone to college.

Patraneus, if we were to double the number of Engineers, would the number of jobs available for engineers at currently prevailing wages also double? Of course not! Likewise, if everyone goes to college the number of college-education-requiring jobs will not increase to meet the supply of people qualified to work them. Expensive and unneeded education is not the solution to our nation's economic problems.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Strive to move onward to a better job?

You mean the ones growing on trees? The ones next to the ice cream trees? The ones in your free market fantasy land?

You really have no idea just how difficult it is to find an entry-level job in your field with a college degree today, do you? I have been spending a lot of time talking to law students looking for internships lately and they are bright, hard-working, ambitious people who decided to invest 3 years of their lives and often over $100,000 "striving to move onward to a better job." Guess what? I don't think too many of them, in spite of their abilities, will find jobs in the legal profession because it's a contracting field. It's the same story for a great many other people with college degrees. So much for "striving to move onward to a better job."

If the jobs do not exist--which people seem to have difficulty getting through their heads--it doesn't matter how hard you strive.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I worked hard, went to school when I could. I did without quite often, but now I have all I need and want. I work as an electronics tech with a world class company Robert Bosch LLC and make very close to 6 figures every year.

When did you graduate? 1970?

It's not like that today, at least for almost every non-engineering degree and perhaps even for people who have the mathematical aptitude needed to become engineers. In the past you graduated from college, found a job in your field, obtained marketable and valuable experience, and were able to work your way up.

Today you graduate from college with often crippling student loan debt, cannot find a job in your field, lose the economic value of your undergraduate degree, and then end up unemployable in your field since you couldn't find a job in it.

 

[glenn1]

You mean the ones growing on trees? The ones next to the ice cream trees? The ones in your free market fantasy land?

You really have no idea just how difficult it is to find an entry-level job in your field with a college degree today, do you? I have been spending a lot of time talking to law students looking for internships lately and they are bright, hard-working, ambitious people who decided to invest 3 years of their lives and often over $100,000 "striving to move onward to a better job." Guess what? I don't think too many of them, in spite of their abilities, will find jobs in the legal profession because it's a contracting field. It's the same story for a great many other people with college degrees. So much for "striving to move onward to a better job."

If the jobs do not exist--which people seem to have difficulty getting through their heads--it doesn't matter how hard you strive.

I wonder why wealthy folks aren't hiring anyone when people like you go around saying things like this: "We need the taxes to redistribute the wealth that was stolen or at least unjustly taken in various ways from these people by the upper classes."

 

[Ozoned]

How about 8*40*52, you have to remember, if a service employee can work 40 hours a week, that's a privilige. That's 16640 dollars. How much a month to live? 1000? That's 4640 extra, that's 387 bucks extra a month person gets to "live" with. Tell me health care is affordable.

The person making those kind of wages already get benefits from the government that are nearly equal to their wages. The earned income credit alone would pay for a decent high deductible health care plan for them.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Health care is expensive and limited. There is no perfect solution. Look, "the rich" will always have access to the best care. Beyond that, what should we do? We can either structure the system to favor "the poor" over the middle class, or structure the system to favor the middle class over "the poor".

Given that choice to make, I would prefer the system be tilted towards those who are trying to better themselves, to be more productive, creative, innovative. I'd rather those get the perks than the guy who strives for nothing better than a career as a McDonald's cashier.

I have an even better idea! An option you've completely ignored.

Why don't we scrap our current non-functional, overly expensive system and adopt real socialized medicine--which has been PROVEN to be less expensive in other nations while providing 100% coverage. The U.S. is currently spending 17% of its GDP on health care while other nations spend a much smaller percentage of their GDP on health care. The U.S. should try to do the same.

(Note however that paper pushers who consume health care expenditures yet contribute nothing to actual health care would be out of work and that wealthy health insurance company executives could no longer afford to purchase five new yachts every year. Oh the humanity.)

 

[Ozoned]

1) You were born in America. Would you like a History lesson that perhaps the 11th grade or 12th grade should have taught you?

2) You were born in this Time.

3) You were not born with debilitations and your parents were GOOD.

You are only as good and undamaged as those who helped you and the situations which enabled you. You are only so arrogant to think otherwise.

Life's not fair, that's a no-brainer. The difference between the millionaire or billionaire liberals and the millionaire and billionaire conservatives is that that conservatives like YOU only give charity to people LIKE YOU (or people you think are like you), and the liberals are compassionate enough to give everyone else the benefit of human empathy.

Charity is something you can hold in your hand. Human empathy puts you at the mercy of the Liberals confiscatory intensions. Wel,,,at least in the situation you are relating to.

 

[Ozoned]

I have an even better idea! An option you've completely ignored.

Why don't we scrap our current non-functional, overly expensive system and adopt real socialized medicine--which has been PROVEN to be less expensive in other nations while providing 100% coverage. The U.S. is currently spending 17% of its GDP on health care while other nations spend a much smaller percentage of their GDP on health care. The U.S. should try to do the same.

(Note however that paper pushers who consume health care expenditures yet contribute nothing to actual health care would be out of work and that wealthy health insurance company executives could no longer afford to purchase five new yachts every year. Oh the humanity.)

I have a better idea. Why don't you go to one of those places that have the kind of health care sytem you like, and leave the one I like alone?

 

[Hacp]

I have an even better idea! An option you've completely ignored.

Why don't we scrap our current non-functional, overly expensive system and adopt real socialized medicine--which has been PROVEN to be less expensive in other nations while providing 100% coverage. The U.S. is currently spending 17% of its GDP on health care while other nations spend a much smaller percentage of their GDP on health care. The U.S. should try to do the same.

(Note however that paper pushers who consume health care expenditures yet contribute nothing to actual health care would be out of work and that wealthy health insurance company executives could no longer afford to purchase five new yachts every year. Oh the humanity.)

How about we try to contain costs WITHOUT providing 100% coverage? If 100% coverage is so cheap, then less than 100% coverage will be cheaper will it not?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

So. It would be what it will be. Payments... I do agree we need to get a grip on health care cost. How do you spell Tort Reform. Get rid of all the BS law suits ( the lawyers are the only ones making anything on these anyway ). The only reason that Congress and the Senate don't want Tort Reform is because they are mostly Lawyers.

Congrats, you just bought into one of the red herrings that the opponents of health care reform feed to the sheeple. Tort reform will save, what, perhaps 2%?

What happens to people who are legitimately injured through medical negligence? Should they eat the costs of that?

What specific reforms to our tort system do you propose?[/QUOTE]

 

[drebo]

This is what it all comes down, to, isn't it. How do we know that some people such as CEOs are not receiving more compensation than they should and that it should really be going to low-wage workers instead? Is it possible that some people are grossly overpaid and do not deserve the wealth they are receiving and that some people are underpaid and deserve more compensation than what they are receiving?

The problem with blaming the "suffering" and "disadvantage" of the "poor" on evil execs is that it more often than not doesn't hold any water.

Consider Hewlett-Packard as a company. You would agree that they are a massive organization with a well compensated executive at the top, yes? You would also agree that at least a few of their 304 THOUSAND employees are compensated relatively poorly, am I right?

Well, let's take the entirety of that CEOs pay and redistribute it among the 304,000 workers that work at HP. $30,000,000 in cash and stocks divided by 304,000 workers = <$100/worker/year. That's less than an extra two days' pay per year. How, exactly, is that supposed to save the unskilled labor from poverty?

Look, the bottom line is that it takes a lot of intelligence to run a company and it takes a lot of hard work to keep that company afloat. Pay grades are not arbitrarily decided. Should a Private in the Army make as much money as a General? Should he be treated with the same respect and offered the same confidences? I should think not. Why, then, do you feel that the guy cleaning the toilets or mopping the floors for HP should get the same benefits package as the guy who makes the strategic decisions that allow the business to continue operating? It defies logic.

No, it's not always possible for people to improve their station in life, but the plain fact of the matter is that the vast, VAST majority of people are content with mediocrity and just don't want to put forth that effort. That laziness should not be rewarded any more than the CEO's ambition should be penalized.

There is no innate right to medical insurance. But, as has been pointed out before and probably will need to be pointed out in every single thread about the subject, medical insurance and health care are NOT the same thing. There is a law in this country that a person CANNOT be turned away from an ER for lack of payment. Anyone can go to the ER and be treated for anything, and they cannot be turned away. In addition, there are thousands of free clinics for preventative care. Health care is available already for those who cannot afford to see private doctors or who don't have the medical insurance that would allow them to visit a private urgent care clinic.

Why do you feel that those who cannot pay are entitled to the same standard of care that those who pay thousands of dollars per year? If this is about life and health as you say it is, the programs are already there...so why do we need legislation to tell us what private enterprise and existing legislation has already done?

No, this isn't about health or the poor, and it never was. It's always only ever been about control, and that's not about to change any time soon.

 

[Ozoned]

Health care is a right. Without it, you die. Money is a made up thing, but life is real.

No it isn't.