Little rant about health insurance

[Ninjahedge]

This happened to me...freaking sucked, but I got them back though. 8 months later that year, I had a relapse and needed another surgery.

YOU SHOWED THEM!!!!


um....

 

[Ninjahedge]

I concur!

I crossed party lines and voted for him -- he lost my re-election vote b/c of this!

He shouldn't... Not unless someone better comes along and that does not look like it is going to happen....


I think we need to shuffle up the incumbents in congress first. Get some of the Life-ers outta there and see if we can get a new batch of scum in that will, for at least the first term or two, try to make us feel better before they sell out.

 

[Nebor]

Um, your last comment made no sense.

You do not get more tax money back than you paid. Different systems you are referring to....

The standard deduction & earned income credit can exceed the amount of taxes that a low income individual originally payed in.

 

[Ninjahedge]

I was under the impression that the amount refunded could not be more than the amount taken....

If you could link us to something about this....



But my original point still stands, why bother taking taxes you cannot keep, especially when the sheer $ amount is so low?

For any individual earning less than X$ a year, or family earning less than XX$ a year, just don't take ANYTHING. As they earn more, slowly add in bits and pieces to compensate. NEVER chunk it on so you get that wage lip (where earning an extra $1000 in a year makes your income taxable, kicks in other payments like SS, etc etc).

The major expense here is not the taxes lost, but the sheer man power hours going through millions of returns that never needed to be filed in the first place.

 

[Zebo]

It's worse than your rant. What other industry is in an open conspiracy to engage in price discrimination and cost-shifting? Which BTW is a felony unlawful restraint of trade as it violates The Sherman Act until they were exempted. People with insurance or cash make up the difference of the loss/breaking even providers are FORCED to take on medicare and medicaid.

If a hospital decided to tomorrow it would refuse Medicare and Medicaid entirely, and not cost-shift, your wife's care would much cheaper for private patients. Of course they can't so you pay twice. Once to the tax man and again when you go see a doctor.

As far as cost of HC itself. You can thank govt again for licensing, sanctioning, patenting and other forms of protectionism to make HC providers rich while never regulating. You can't regulate supply with unregulated demand. Human nature will drive costs to the moon.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Zebo, you were going good untill you lumped the world evil on Medicare.

US Healthcare only pays doctors what THEY say they should be paid by their plans. Way back when that was about $40.

The doctors normal fees were $75 for a visit. Break even was somewhere over $50.

Laying blame at the foot of Medicare is a sham. Laying blame on BOTH is plausible, however.

(Like I siad, why would it have cost me ~$250K for my surgeries, but it only cost the insurance company ~$80K? That ain't Medicare.)