@ David Casemore


You know as of today there are still planes that fly one way right? 

Had a friend helping me at my place doing some renovation. He missed the last step coming down from a ladder and twisted thencrap out of his foot then proceeded to fall open hand first into a metal stud that shredded his open palm up. Huge deep gash.

Took him to the hospital. Stitches on the hand, cast on the leg.

At the end they asked if he had insurance, he said no. They said if you can pay right now can we can do it for $400. My eyes shot wide open and I paid the bill for him due to guilt.

I guarantee you if he had insurance they would of charged him thousands.

Being from Quebec, Canada and at the highest tax bracket, that is my reality, and I am OK with it.


Let me explain while bringing it back on topic. When I was in University (early 90's) there was a massive snow fall one night and I had courses only the next afternoon, so I decided to go to my dad's home in the morning and help him shovel. We went out shoveled the snow went inside and he felt "tired" so lied down on the couch and I went upstairs to take a quick shower and change before leaving for school. When I came down I saw him lying on the floor in the hall. I called 911, the ambulance picked him up fast and rushed him to the hospital where he was more or less immediately put in the ICU. He had a massive heart attack and just a few minutes more would have been the difference between life and death. After that he spent a week or two in the ICU until he got strong enough for surgery. He is still alive today, takes a bunch of medication for his heart and has to see his cardiologist twice a year.


Is more then 1/2 what I make going to income tax too much? maybe, but I can afford what I want and so it is not really missed. But if back then there was no public health care that would have been a big issue, probably for my dad's health and for my future (my dad had lost his job a month or two earlier and I was making around 20k a year back then working part time)

good luck wish her all the best

Glad that worked out!

You do realize here in the US if my dad has ZERO insurance, and I find him on the floor, he goes to hospital, goes in ICU, same end result, he walks out. He may get a bill but he simply could chose not pay it. Thats how it works here. Right or wrong, good or bad. It wouldnt ruin him financially. The hospital would simply stop attempting to get paid. FACT. I know quite a few people that went thru this EXACT same scenario. Just the way it is.

Walk into any emergency room. You will CERTAINLY find uninsured people there with as little as the sniffles. Some dont even speak english so you can pretty much bet (not all bets win remember, before some of you go up in a tizzy), they dont have insurance. The bills are rarely ever paid. Thats our system. It needs to change. Universal heath care as the left wants it is not the answer.

Health care providers have staff who handle billing, insurers have staff who handle billing- how is it possible that we would need more people involved? It's inefficient because people tend to be complacent and lazy when their job is very secure. The shutdown was for non-essential people and it took almost three weeks for air traffic to reach the point where it was back-logged. How many other areas were negatively impacted?

You can be as OK with that as you want- if they jack our tax rates in a short time, it's going to be a huge bite in the ass for too many people in this country.

We have health care- anyone can be taken to a hospital for emergency care but Obama and everyone who was behind the Affordable Care Act lied their asses off- it's NOT affordable and it's getting worse. People can't afford the new premiums and I know of some whose fancy new insurance that they had to sign up for is more than their mortgage. They had to change their plan and doctor (you heard about Obama saying "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" and "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor", right?) because the insurer either left the market or it was no longer affordable and what they were left with is less expensive.

Glad to hear that your dad survived, but you can't compare Canada with the US.

Sore point, here- the closest hospital closed because so many people in MKE didn't have insurance and used the ER for ALL of their medical care. I'm in a suburb that has a very convoluted border that interlocks with MKE on the South end and the hospital was only about a mile from my house. Now, if I need to go in for something major, I'm going out of the freaking county! If a road is closed on the way, it could be curtains.

You do realize those were quotation marks, right? No, I guess you don't.

Actually it would ruin him financially:

[Link: cnbc.com]

LOL. That is the best you have? Oh you are so smart, I am just in awe!

(note to self-DC is on the look out for grammatical errors as that's all he can offer, so be careful or prepare for the oh so foreboding ridicule).

But it's also one of the most common reasons for bankruptcy.

The system SHOULD HAVE been fixed long ago but at this point, there's no easy or quick way- being forced to join and the way it has been implemented doesn't work, flipping a switch and letting the Fed Gov handle it won't work, forcing the health care industry to give it away and drastically raising taxes in one step (or using the IRS as a punitive agency) won't work.

The total cost of US health care in several links shows it at about $3.5T/year and total personal income is around $16T. A 5% tax on personal income would provide around $80B/year, if corporations pay the same and premiums are adjusted downward so they're affordable, it might fund enough health insurance to cover just about everyone.

5% beats the hell out of 127% increase in premiums since the beginning of Obamacare and it's looking like the jump over the next couple of years is gonna be painful.

So much for 'affordable'.

And before anyone start with the "The evil wealthy don't pay enough", from the link, "In 2015, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $568 billion, or 39.04 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid $428 billion, or 29.41 percent of all income taxes.".

[Link: taxfoundation.org]

I didn't know Canada was communist. Always suspected it though.

From your link.

NerdWallet estimates that households containing 1.7 million people will file for bankruptcy protection this year.

And if you think only Americans without health insurance face financial troubles, think again. NerdWallet estimates nearly 10 million adults with year-round health-insurance coverage will still accumulate medical bills that they can't pay off this year.

If my post came out as preachy or judgemental on your system, it was not intended to. highfigh asked a question and I just wanted to point out that in my case it is not just hypothetical, that last 1$ of taxable income I earn, 33 cents goes to the federal gouvernment and 25.75 goes to the provincial gouvernment and that leaves 41.25 cents in my pocket.

I wanted to explain why it does not bother me and decided to go with the reasons that fits with the original topic (instead of one of the other ones)

Now as for the details of your post.

1) maybe, like you said, things would have happened exactly the same way be it private or public. It was just meant as an acknowledgment that when I was in University money was tight and other tax payers helped us foot the bill for the hospital and my education, in the future who knows if things might be tight again and I might need other tax payers help again. Now I can afford to help foot the bill and that is why I am OK with it.


2) If you die from a heart attack the story ends there but if you survive the story just begins there. You need rehabilitation after the bed rest, you need drugs and monitoring the rest of your life to make sure that it does not happen again (like I said he still needs to visit his cardiologist twice a year), it is not only that one bill

3) I just told you a story where I left my apartment and went home in a snow storm to help my dad shovel the snow in his drive way, I had just told you that I am OK paying more then 50% of my salary in income tax, what makes you think that just because there are a lot of people willing to skip out on paying their medical bills that I (or my dad) would necessarily be one of them. I don't judge people that would be OK with that, but we all need to live with our actions and I have a very strong code of personal ethics.

4) it was not about financial ruin but more an acknowledgement of reality. I am where I am today because of some key events and the luck of perfect timing. It would not have taken much for my life not to be on the track it is now and me not making as much as I am making.



curious,
a) things as they are now: is not acceptable
b) Universal heath care as the left wants it: is not acceptable

what do you think
c)_____: only acceptable answer
should be?

don't get me wrong, I am not advocating any of the above options I am curious to hear your opinion on the better/best option.