On November 25, 2017 at 09:40, highfigh said...
Want vs need becomes 'Keeping Up With The Jones' ' very quickly. Does anyone need to erect the tallest building? Indoor plumbing is great- don't have to go out during Winter to chip ice off of a well pump or find that it's frozen solid. However, with progress comes needs- we didn't need roads until wheeled transportation became common.
Living in a tall building is great. You can see much further than your front porch.
So does "great" = "need"? Trying to figure out where you are drawing the line. Seems to be moving.
I don't know what you're looking for on the internet, but if corn and nagging boobs does it for ya, carry on.
I will be thinking of you each time i put my cursor in the search hole.
So, charging for quantity is pure capitalism? Do you sell one foot of cable for the same price as 1000 feet? No, of course not. You charge, based on your cost and if you don't charge for additional products and services, you lose money. The concept of saving personal income is EXACTLY the same as making a profit. There's nothing wrong with recovering your cost or even making a profit. More bandwidth costs more to provide for one user, or a million. Why is saving for retirement OK and corporate profit bad? Both are done as a way to save for the future. Well, without the shareholder aspect.
Selling things for whatever you want is pure capitalism. "Charging based on cost" could include the fact that Comcast wants to double their CEOs salary this year.
How can you pick a random number like $100/month? What is your basis for that? That would require ALL health care to cost less than that, if you want people who provide it to earn a living, build hospitals and buy supplies. The problem is the insurance industry- they charge doctors and hospitals for protection, they charge us so our health care will be partially paid for by their having collected a shitload of money so that "we can share in the cost" but what do they do with it? Do they ONLY spend what we paid? No, absolutely not! They pay big bonuses, build impressive headquarters, send their top agents on paid trips, etc. Let's audit them, if we want to see how much insurance SHOULD cost.
I can pick $100 a month at random the same way the insurance company randomly decides to charge me $500 a month.
'Affordable' is relative, for sure but after posting yesterday, I did some number crunching on an insurance site- if someone needs no care and they're in the lowest income range used for the rates, they might pay about $165/month. That lowest range starts at $11K/year. I didn't look for subsidies but if they don't get any, a single person who can only afford that premium might end up paying more than they make for a year if they eat the deductible, co-pay and drug costs for an event or a recurring problem. That's not affordable.
It might seem that way until they actually need that insurance. My brother fought and lost the battle with liver disease for 3 years. Whole Foods Insurance covered (so far) 3/4 of a million dollars. Only a few hundred out of pocket expenses that would probably be covered if we took the time to submit the claim.
Which brings up another good point. Why am i paying $500 for insurance that doesn't cover me as well as my brothers insurance covered him? He paid a fraction of what i pay. More random numbers.
As I wrote before, administrative costs are the single highest expense for the insurers- some kind of HSA and direct payment would reduce EVERYONE's costs. If they want to make it easier for poor people to be insured, I would bet that 1% of everyone's gross income would pay for it with ease. Personal income in the US came in at about $16 Trillion last year and health care cost about $3.2Trillion, up about 6% form the year before. Why did it rise so much? Because people spent more for their insurance! Health care expense will hit $10K/person this year, but what about those who spend almost nothing?
Eliminate insurance companies. $100 a month per person. We can bankroll most of the poor people with the tax break we are planning to give the Waltons.
I have never been a fan of the insurance industry- we're betting that we'll have an insurable event an they're betting against it. They usually win.
WRT the bold section- if we could resist paying the IRS when we disagree on what the government spends, they wouldn't have much choice, in theory. Even when most people pay their taxes, it hasn't stopped Congress from over-spending, so.....
