I did not say there will be more people involved, there might be more or there might be less or there might be exactly the same amount. what I was saying was that the only thing unreasonable is that there will be 0 people involved (i.e. there are 1.4M people now and afterwards there will be 0 so there will be 1.4M jobs lost)

I don't remember writing that all 1.4 million would be out of work.

Best case, most of those who might lose their job have some additional marketable job skills because I'm not sure we need that much help in admin. If they're actually willing to do something else, great. If they aren't, we'll have more people collecting some kind of assistance.

Whatever they (Congress) do, I expect it to come with lots of bickering, debate and for about half of the public will hate it, some won't like it but they'll accept it, and some will be absolutely delighted because the rich have to pay more because they hate people who have more.

If AOC gets her way, I may have to leave the country.

Don't let the fake wall stop you on the way out.

A bit of background, I have had the unique opportunity to live in Canada and the USA. I was born in Canada and lived in the USA for 14 years.

Now being in Canada, I have had several injuries relating to skateboarding, cycling, normal things one would expect of a child growing up and other stuff throughout my years. I have always had no issues going to see my family doctor and getting x-rays, MRIs, etc. No issues whatsoever in going to the ER and getting the help I needed.
Being a child and I had no concept of health coverage, just never ever came up. I wouldn't have known about it if you hit me in the head with it. That is probably one of the greatest thing about growing up, never having to worry about going to the hospital. Not worrying about much in general.

Fast forward a few years (18 years ago) I was sick for a while, and saw my doctor, and got bloodwork done. I had to get to the hospital ASAP due to kidney failure.
I was transferred to the U of A hospital and started on dialysis immediately and 2 years of dialysis later, and I was called about getting a donor and went straight to the OR and got me a new kidney. A long hospital stay to monitor everything, a few years of extensive drug regimen and I conversation with my nephrologist about moving to USA and we agreed that I would fly to see her twice a year and she would sign off on renewing my medications and I would get supplied with enough meds to carry me through to the next appointment.

I have had nothing but the best care I could imagine. No waiting for anything I needed. I say this to give anyone a first hand account of my medical needs in Canada.

While I was living in the USA, I could NOT get health insurance due to the previous condition clause. Not even if my employer wanted to pay extra for myself. Could not get coverage no matter what we tried. So my emergency ER was a credit card to buy the first flight back to Canada that I could find. I was fortunate not to ever need that option but I found that an issue, with the US system, that needs to be corrected.

While there I still needed to do blood work every 2 months and went to the local hospital to get them done. They always asked me if I had insurance, I said no and wanted to pay in cash. Blood work would have been around $400 for insurance, but only $145 in cash. That got me thinking about the way health is paid for in the USA.

I think the average family pays around $833 per month for health insurance in USA, I pay a little less in federal taxes on my paychecks per month. That pays for the single payer healthcare we have in Canada and everything else the federal government pays for.
I am trying to understand how this would bankrupt America if you moved to universal coverage? The pay is about the same whether you pay an insurance company or in taxes.

Some people here are worried about the future of employees at these health insurance companies, but I wouldn't worry about that since other opportunities exist. Here in Canada the health coverage doesn't pay for everything, dental, eyesight and other areas aren't covered and still need health coverage from companies like Blue Shield and they still need employees.

* my 2 pennies (which we don't use anymore in Canada)

There are plenty of people on this forum who will argue with your facts (fake news). Thank you for your story to help set the record straight. I'm glad you got the life-saving medical attention you needed and without having to file for bankruptcy.

Have you actually read or heard about what she wants, or do you just get gooey thinking about her being in office, so you can all have a nice, warm cluster f&Ck?

What she says she want can't happen. There's not enough money on the planet.


How much money have the Democrats agreed to allocate for this, over the decades?

And that can lead to people doing things that could injure them because they don't worry about the consequences of risky behavior. Don't get me wrong, I like to go fast and I used to downhill ski but if people never give it a thought, it would seem that the Darwin Awards has plenty of competitors. I could never afford to be off of work in the event of a bad injury, though.



Could you give a ballpark for the cost of the additional insurance?


The number of people in the US who don't pay ANY income tax is far more than the total population of Canada and I already posted a link that shows the top 1% pays about 39% of the total revenue for personal tax- the problem with the US is that the system has been allowed to become what it is, by politicians who avoided doing anything to stop it, for decades.


|The pay is about the same whether you pay an insurance company or in taxes.


Have you heard about the way the US government's practice of taking money that was earmarked for one thing and using it for something else? The Federal Government is the largest employer in the US- around 2.1 million employees, averaging over $90K/year.

Also, you don't have our politicians.

[Link: downsizinggovernment.org]



If the US needed that many people to do that kind of work, our job reports would reflect it- they don't. We have very low unemployment at the moment (subject to the figures for those who have stopped looking or reporting)- what we need is people for skilled trades and manufacturing.




No, they must have been sent down here- every time I take my change to the bank to get paper bills, I find Canadian coins and I'm sure some have come from banks. Do they accept them from me? Nooooooooo!

Do you want some, for old time's sake?

I agree that there is a lot to fix in the US tax system and getting large corporations to pay taxes.
Too many loopholes and the recent tax cut doesn't help at all.

What the corporate tax decrease does is make the US more attractive and on a more level playing field with the rest of the World. The problem, is lobbyists getting Congress to write and pass legislation that allows corporations to pay nothing, like Amazon. $11.2B in profit, zero tax for last year. They probably have a lot of legitimate write-offs, but they could chip in, if they wanted. I guess his likely divorce is figuring into this.

No more lobbyists, no more laws written as favors, term limits and change the way health care insurers grind the providers on the cost- it's the insurers who deny coverage.

reefresher



it is not about skills or those people. Let me go with a simpler example. IOt is simple heartless math.


a few months ago we hired a guy, hew as not the right fit for the job and we had to let him go, did that guy lose his job? yes was it a job lost? no the job still existed we still needed more people and so someone else got that job the nexct day.


let me go with a simpler example then health care, There is a guy I know, every year he goes to Greece , he gets off the boat in the main town on the island and grabs a Taxi to bring him to a neighboring town where he owns a place. Let's say the people in charge on the island decides to get rid of taxis and go full Uber instead. Do you agree that every Taxi driver will lose his job? do you agree that my friend that summer will need to take a Uber instead? do you agree Taxi or Uber he will need a driver and it will probably take that driver roughly the same amount of time to bring him to his place? so in order to know job losses what we need to do is # of Uber drivers after the switch - # of Taxi drivers before, if the number is positive then there is jobs gained if the number is negative there are jobs lost. One can also go a bit more complicated since a part time job is not the same as a full time job and talk about full time equivalence .



In this case we need to do the same thing but it is a lot more complicated, in the 1.4 M was the billing department at the hospital included in that number? how about the CEO of the insurance company? CFO,COO....?Does it make sense to assume those positions will go down to 0 employed. Does the public health insurance cover everyone and everything now? If not does it make sense that if the amount of work grows by a lot that the number of people needed to do the job will remain stable? If business is good and you decided to double the amount of installs you are doing in a week will you need more people to do it?