No. There is a constant fight with the insruance what should be covered as required by the law. The more I fought with the insurance, the more I felt how broken the current system is. Not necessarily to say the Obama care will be good. The insurance wields too much power and to a large extent sawys how the law should be enforced. We are hight income earners, I am a lawyer working for a biglaw firm and my wife is a registered nurse. But still we cannot afford to give the care he needs if they are not covered. I have a good insurance coverage, but the problem is it does not cover a lot of care my son needs, which is very clearly mandated by the law by the letter.
I assume by 'no savings' he means no 'accessible' savings. Although if he is that concerned about it, he could knock his IRA down a bit and use that money to fund a 529 plan for college and/or start a "rainy day" fund.
This **** really really sucks. Initially the hospital sent a bill of close to 40k for the diagnosis alone for me to pay because the insurance wouldn't cover it. And later on after a little more communication, the hospital told me to discard the bill for now and the insurance company told me they will pay such and such and nothing should be out of my own pocket. The hospital did send an inflated bill to the insurance company, IMO. The insurance then try their best to cut the numbers. There is an endless cat and mouse game going on between them. Both of them have little integrity in terms of billing and paying, but at least the hospital and doctors did something good to cure your illness. The insurance company, on the other hand, is like parasites creating profits from thin air and sucking the blood out of people. They pocket about 50% of the insurance money and the compensation of the CEOs doubled or tripled during the past several years. How can you call them make it from fairness? They become richer simply by being crooks.
A thoughtful saint carries more responsibility and more interactions with other ideas that aren't in harmony with others. I'd suspect it's the thoughtful saints out there that prevent the blissful pigs from being led to the slaughter. For some, it's a choice. For others, it's a duty.
The insurance sets their premium in view of the laws required upon them. They are in the business assessing the risk, and they do pretty darn good job in making profits. I dont mind them making money. They are franchised for a purpose that is for the good of the poeple as well, so I recognize there are mutual benefits and we don't necessarily want the insurance to fail. I get that. However, things go bad when they make so much money and the greed never stops. It's not about setting a reasonable premium to share risk among everybody anymore, but rather about how to doge the laws and crush the little guys. The claim process is lengthy and difficult. Often they make you jump through hoops to weed out those who don't have the resource or time for it. That is very wrong. On top of that is the capricious decision making on different cases. They also grab so much lobbying power to influence how the law should be enforced. There is no perfect system, but some drawbacks of the current system should be fixed as I see.
Fact: The highest UE has risen to since 1948 is 10.8%, under President Reagan. Conclusion: Ronald Reagan brought about the highest unemployment we've had since the Great Depression. What's Left Out Of This: It went down quickly after it peaked at 10.8%. Although many jobs were lost under Reagan's 1st term, many were gained during his 2nd term, the fastest decrease since Truman. What Smart People Conclude: There Are All Types of Ways to Post Facts Without Context to Make Someone Look Bad.
Here's what Basso leaves out of this: 1. UE started at 8.3% under Obama. 2. It peaked at 10% within the first 10 months. 3. It went down from 10% to 8.1%. The way you can REALLY gauge the UE performance under a President is whether it improved or not. Obama had nothing to do with UE being at 8.3% when he entered office; the same with Reagan and 7.4%. Yet, under both, it improved from its peak. If you are looking at a rate from a President's 1st full month in office in their 1st year (can't count January b/c it's not a full month, so since it's the 21st, you have to round to February) to August of their 4th (I have to use August b/c that's where Obama is now), here's how it looks: Truman 1: 4.7 to 3.4 Eisenhower 1: 2.6 to 4.1 Eisenhower 2: 4.2 to 5.6 Kennedy 1: 6.9 to 5.5 (up to 10/63) Johnson 1: 5.1 to 3.5 Nixon 1: 3.4 to 5.6 Nixon 2: 5.0 to 5.5 (up to 7/74) Ford 1: 5.9 to 7.8 Carter 1: 7.6 to 7.7 Reagan 1: 7.4 to 7.5 Reagan 2: 7.2 to 5.6 HW Bush 1: 5.2 to 7.6 Clinton 1: 7.1 to 5.1 Clinton 2: 5.2 to 4.1 W Bush 1: 4.2 to 5.4 W Bush 2: 5.4 to 6.1 Obama: 8.3 to 8.1 So, the ranking in terms of improvement: UE DECREASED (these are in order from fastest to least fastest decrease): 1. Reagan 2 2. Clinton 1 3. Truman 1 4. Johnson 1 5. Kennedy 1 6. Clinton 2 7. Obama 1 UE INCREASED (THESE ARE NOT IN ORDER, I WAS TOO TIRED TO FIGURE IT OUT) 8. Eisenhower 1 9. Eisenhower 2 10. Nixon 1 11. Nixon 2 12. Ford 1 13. Carter 1 14. Reagan 1 15. HW Bush 1 16. W Bush 1 17. W Bush 2 In terms of improvement from February of the 1st year to August of the 4th year, with the exceptions being Kennedy and Ford since they didn't have full 4-year tenures, Obama ranks #7 among 17.
They are no longer allowed under the law to do this. 80% of insurance moneys must now be spent on actual care; this is one of the many important reforms in the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare if you prefer). Refund checks were issued to some people and businesses under that law in recent months. This was the first hit that came up on a simple google search to demonstrate the statistic.
Funny, the record is missing someone who also happened to inherit a great big mess from Republicans... BLS stats? blah.
How about you have a job with generous annual raises offset by increase in living expenses Compared to having NO JOB at all. Though its not as easy nowadays to lay off workers for frivolous reasons as it used to be, companies and managers still have rights reserved to lay off and fire people for a variety of reasons. But when you can't GET a job again, its "your own fault" for not looking ahead in 1998 predicting today's job market and economy, and not having just a "little more" credentials. Cuz somehow everyone has the same amount of time, money, low responsiblity low struggle life to decide their path, same access to higher education So my answer is obvious, no I'm not better off. I have faith in my ability to bounce back maybe a year from now to previous levels. Cuz its all I can have really. And hope the American way of 2nd chances and fluidity in changing jobs still is there. Basically, yeah spending power isnt the same and that sucks. What sucks even more is once you're out of work, its even harder to get back IN.
