squirrelyburt

The need for basics is very well covered in Canada, but if you need any specialty work, color yourself screwed!! My good friend who is 43 needs a hip replacement due to disease, she either has to pay for it or wait till she is 58, the government sanctioned age... She has plans to have it done in the States...go figure...

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If you've ever felt there was a reason to be afraid of the dark, you were right.

Superbelt

Yeah, I'm sure there are problems.

But I wonder if we counted up all the people in the states who were dissatisfied with their quality, or lack of health care.
And counted up all the Canucks who were dissatsified with theirs, who would have the greater percentage of the disgruntled?
How many Canadians would rather take their chances with American HMO's?

kutulu

If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it. The break in coverage is pretty small. Just be sure to use birth control.

$900? What kind of health care do you have? If both of you are under 30 and healthy your coverage should be about $100/mo and your wife's coverage should be about $450/mo if you want maternity care covered.

Superbelt

Like I said, before I got my current job I toughed it out and was lucky to not get sick or injured in my 3 months before insurance kicked in.
I could have extended my old insurance for 470 per month. I wasn't going to do that. When my wife was released from her parents insurance two months before we got married, she opted to pay for her own coverage in that period. She isn't willing to take risks like that like I was. It cost her around 400. We get bc from Planned Parenthood because the govt subsidies bring it down to $13 per month rather than the normal $40

I'd be happy to find a source for health insurance that costs me 100. Wanna direct me to it? Any kind of decent care I can find costs substantially more than that.

No need for maternity. We double protect with pills and condoms. We really don't want to have to bother with kids until we had at least a year out of school to enjoy life before that kind of responsibility.

kutulu

I was thinking of leaving my employer's plan last year and I went to www.healthnet.com They have all sorts of individual plans. For a male between 25-29, the rates went from about 70-150 depending on HMO, PPO, and decudibles but that is in AZ. Your location says Pa and I don't think they have individual plans there. They might be able to refer you to a company that does, however.

Shop around, you'll be surprised what you can find.

flstf

I don't live in Arizona but just for the heck of it I went to the website to see what my wife and I would have to pay (age 55). The prices ranged from about $450 to $2100. We are currently paying about $330 in Ohio for $10,000 deductible. Looks like things get expensive fast as you age. We are currently opening up a HSA account which will cut costs a little.

Noob

The argument seems to stem around cost, and whether we should bear it as a private expense or in the form of taxes. If it's simply a matter of cost socialized health care is cheaper per capita than private health care for 2 very good reasons.

1) No profit motive. By eliminating the profit margin you're looking at a direct reduction in cost. The profit motive is a good one for an actual business but insurance companies produce no goods and have little to do with innovation.

2) A national plan could exert monopoly influence, negotiating lower prices for services and drugs. The scale of a national health care plan could exert pressure on the health industry like no HMO ever could.

My idea is a federal program, separate from the general fund. It would receive a large amount of money for startup and give it a math model designed to generate a profit margin only as large as the inflation rate. Pay the management competitive wages and let it stand on its own feet after that. Let private companies try to compete with another with effectively a zero margin of profit. You'd still have to pay in (or your employer would) but the payment would be much lower.

kutulu

Yes, it gets quite expensive as you get older, but all individual insurance plans do. Men aged 25-30 are the lowest risk group, where on the other hand people start having big time health problems in their 50's.

Insurance through your employer is usually different. Maybe it's just Arizona, but everyone in my office pays the same rate for the same plan.

Be carefull with the HSA. There are some HSA's where you lose your contributions at the end of the year. Overall, I do not trust them. My employer almost went to a high deductible plan with a HSA. The employees practically revolted. Basically, the deductible and co-insurance would have gone from 500/1000 to 1500/3000. This would have given me a 25% drop in my premium. Sounds great until you do the math. In order for me to get back to a max out of pocket of 1500, I would have had to put all the savings plus a little extra into my HSA for the next three years. Once I put a total of 3k into my HSA, I could then enjoy my reduced premium. Of course, that money gets wiped out in the event of a medical emergency.

Before you actually go with the HSA, figure out the difference in max out of pocket per year. Then divide it by the premium savings. That will give you the number of months that you have to transfer all of the savings into the HSA. If it takes more than a year (maybe two) then stick with the higher premium and lower deductible plan.

The reason is the until you build up enough money in your HSA to cover the higher out of pocket costs you are saving no money. At that same time, you are taking the risk of having to pay out more money if you go to the hospital. Once you pass 55, it's not completely unreasonable to have a hospital visit every three years or so and the risks get worse as your age increases.

HSA's are a scam.

NCB

Not true. You don't need to build up money over time with them. For example, if you want to alot 4000 dollars into a flexcare acct, you recieve the total amount on Jan 1. True, if you don't use the entire amount by the end of the year, you lose it. But if you know what you're gonna use it for and know the amount of the services to be used, HSA are great plans.

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flstf

I thought the HSAs build up money just like IRAs. Plus the money you put in every year (up to about $5250 for couples) is tax deductible. Also the money you take out every year for medical/dental is tax free.

Telluride

How does a national health care service that is funded by confiscating the property of citizens match up against the basic standards of a free nation?

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"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

guy44

I won't be glib and simply mention that, of course, you have a Milton Friedman (free markets! free markets! free markets!) quote as your signiture.

Taxes are a reality. It is not "class warfare" or anything like that. It is a realistic payment by citizens for the operation of a working government. In addition, progressive taxes are not the devil; in fact, they are inherently more fair and less burdensome on those who can afford taxes least. To be fair, you didn't mention any of these above things, I'm just anticipating.

Many European countries and Canada have exceedingly comparable standards of health care to the U.S., yet pay signficantly less than we do for it. A societal good. I apologize for being unable to find it now, but the Washington Monthly had an amazingly well-written, detailed article on why the government achieves greater results with better efficiency in VA Hospitals. I believe it was in their January edition.

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Telluride

I chose that quote because it's frequenly true.

I like your quotes, by the way. I'm a big sports fan.

Technically it would be "warfare" declared on individual rights, though a progressive income tax will almost certainly bring the issue of class into the discussion.

Not everyone needs or wants the government to be "working" in this manner.

A flat tax would be more fair. The wealthy would still pay a higher dollar amount than the poor (though it would be the same percentage of their income, which is the important thing), but we could avoid all of the unpleasantness of treating the successful as plow-horses working for the sake of everyone else.

This doesn't really address my concerns regarding the inevitable violation of individual rights that goes hand-in-hand with socialism.

As for individual rights?

This doesn't really address my concerns regarding the inevitable violation of individual rights that goes hand-in-hand with socialism.

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"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

sob

I'd sure like to hear more about how universal care "cuts waste." To paraphrase from another subject, universal care is a system by which everyone tries to get health care at the expense of everyone else.

James T. Kirk also didn't mention the people who were getting taxed out of their houses (according to my guide in Victoria the last time I was there, admittedly quite a few years ago).

Besides, you're getting amazingly high insurance quotes. My FAMILY insurance is around $500/month. You ought to consider increasing your deductible, as well as doing the other options to "configure" it toward catastrophic coverage during your internship.

kutulu

Spare me from the poor exploited rich people arguement. They only have that much money because they chose to pay the masses slave wages. For that reason alone they DESERVE higher tax rates.

KMA-628

This is an example of extreme over-generalizing and gross exaggeration.

I read this and think the person is beyond rationale and incapable of accepting any position, regardless of how the position is presented. In other words, this comment is a debate ender, because it would be futile to try and discuss this with you. Rather than further discussion, you have killed it.

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Before you criticize someone, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. That way, if they get angry at you.......you're a mile away.......and they're barefoot.

kutulu

I'm not the one bringing up that flat tax bs saying we need to make things fair for the exploited upper class. Hummers and 4000 ft2 houses, sure those people are really being treated like plow horses.

Anyone who wants to pimp some flat tax needs to realize that there is no f-in way that we'd be able to tax everyone at the same rate without substantially raising taxes on the poor (people who are making 1/1,000th of what the plow horse exec bringing in $10M).

NCB

The people who earn the higher incomes deserve what they earn. And yes, they work far harder and have sacrificed more that the poor. Why punish achievemnt and reward laziness?

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Manx

How can you possibly hold this opinion? It's so obviously false. There is absolutely no 1 to 1 ratio of money to energy output.

One celebrity or one mutual fund manager does not work NEARLY as hard as one book store clerk moonlighting as a janitor while cleaning homes on the weekend.

Seriously - why do you hold onto an opinion that is so clearly based on nothing at all? Particularly when that opinion is such a cornerstone of your philosophy.

kutulu

That right there is the problem in your logic. You assume that people are rich because they work hard and poor because they are lazy. That's total bullshit and if you really think it then take a day off and observe the jobs performed by the people that keep the country running.

Poor people know more about sacrifice that the upper class. They sacrifice their dignity to work embarrasing jobs so that they can put crappy food on the table for the family. They sacrifice time with their families to get a second low paying job so that they can afford to pay for the health insurance (if they are even privilidged enough to have been bestowed a descent HC plan by their cheap ass employer).

Hard work and sacrifice gets you shit until you bring in luck, connections, and opportunity. Most people in the upper class would not be there if they came from the backgrounds that the average poor person came from.

Charlatan

That is such a croc... A guy who works five days a week on a factory line, or hauling garbage, etc... is *not* any more lazy than some executive who sits on his ass in an office all day...

Many people who earn higher wages only do so because they have an education that others couldn't *ever* afford to get. Not because they worked harder.












What ALL of this thread comes down to is the ongoing balancing act of EQUALITY vs. FREEDOMS.

Some nations have chosen a path where they believe their citizens should be treated equally (to the best of their ability) and others beileve, like the US, in freedom for individuals.

In the case of health care, it is all well and good to have a free market when you can afford it...

Like many Canadians, I am proud that in our balancing act between equality and freedom we have chosen to lean closer to the equality side. A little socialism is ultimatly good for everyone.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

kutulu

Well according to the current administration it's fine to exchange freedom for security but we can't exchange it for equality. I guess it's better to have a system that forces families into bankruptcy because of a medical emergency.

NCB

What freedoms have you lost because of the PA?

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Manx

That's atleast the 3rd time you've asked that question, and each time someone answers you and you ignore it and wait a bit and then ask the question again. If memory serves me, Host answered you last time by describing the PA aspect that forces the owners/operators of TFP to divulge information about users at any request by the gov't.

Why do you keep asking the question when you're obviously not looking for the answer? Do you think if you just keep asking it, we're suddenly going to think we haven't had gov't intrusion into our lives?

And are you going to answer my question from a couple of posts above, or was that another post you made which was supposed to mean something but actually didn't?

NCB

That's not true.

The employee works a set schedule and risks nothing. Hhe recieves her set amount and knows what she'll get every week. He didn't go get extra training to be a clerk or a janitor.

The mutual fund manager works constantly. But before he got his job, he went to college and earned at least his BA and probably his MBA (though he may have earned his MBA at night while working during the day). As you know, people do not get paid when they go to college, thus he sacrificed his wages for 4-6 years while at the same time accruing debt via a college loan.

He then puts in 50-70 hours at his investment firm job that he recieved right out of college. Aside from putting in his time at the office, he takes clients out to dinner during the week and such in which he of course does not get paid. He countinues to work tirelessly, even at home, until he finally gets the job he's wanted.

And oh, the new job he got?? He's now working harder, not less.

1. I doubt that is true

2. How is that a loss of freedom (if true, of course) and how has the TFP suffered because of it?

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Manx

Yes it is. Even when you start making up lots of numbers for one side of the equation while not making up numbers for the other side.

Why? Because there is no such thing as a 1 to 1 ratio of money to energy output. It simply doesn't exist. No matter the artificial numbers you come up with.
So you're saying that you don't understand how a lack of privacy is a loss of freedom?

NCB

What was artifical about what I posted? What part is inaccurate? Just disagreeing with it doesn't make it false.

1. Show me where in the PA it states this

2. Show me how (if true) it's harming you or anyone else here. This is an internet forum, thus there is not much privacy here anyways

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Manx

It's not that your example is necessarily false, it simply doesn't mean anything. I could also make up information about some hypothetical book clerk/janitor/house cleaner.

You're claiming there is a direct correlation, without any outside influence, between money and energy.

Giving me a hypothetical example of a mutual fund manager's life story doesn't support your claim at all.
I'm not your research lackey.
What? OK then - what's my IP address? Who's my internet service provider? You don't know, do you? But the gov't can now easily obtain that information simply by forcing TFP to divulge it., which could then easily be used to find out my name and address, etc etc etc. In another thread, you were very adamanant about liberty and freedom - and now you don't care if the gov't is watching you?

NCB

Manx, the govt could already have recieved your IP address, service provider, ect.. pre PA via a suponea. Are you saying that they do not need a suponea now?

I'm not the one that pull that example out of my ass. I just assumed you knew the hard facts about it.

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Manx

Maybe you should research something before you imply (for the who-knows-how-many-times) that it hasn't affected people. (And by "people" I mean a single, random, forum user.)

Yakk

If you "punish" the unproductive, they starve.
If you "punish" the rich, they don't.

People who make lots of money are benefitting hugely from a stable society and strong economy.

People who make little money are benefitting less from a stable society and strong economy.

Who should pay the upkeep and rent on a stable society and strong economy, those who benefit alot, or those who benefit a little?

I'd be in favour of a flat tax + national dividend.

You get X,000$ a year (monthly payments) as the national dividend. Any income is taxed at a flat rate of Y%.

No welfare, no changes in marginal tax rates, no starvation. The marginal incentive to produce for people on welfare stops being punative, encouragine people to crawl out of welfare.

Possibly you'd have to be a citizen for 18 years in order to get access to the national dividend (the age of majority for born citizens).

It's a progressive flat tax.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

sapiens

I don't like laziness in myself or others, but I don't think that people should be paid based on how hard they work.

I don't think that it is availability of education that's driving wage differences. I think it's stable individual differences like talent. There is a stronger relationship between IQ and high wages than there is between availability of education and high wages (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994).

Manx

I don't have any study to point to, but I'd bet $1 that there is a much stronger relationship between family wealth and future wages than there is between IQ and future wages.

smooth

??????

please, don't do that. *cries*



EDIT: Manx, he just cited the Bell Curve.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

sapiens

Have you ever read it? Or are you basing your judgment on it's PR?

EDIT (Addition): If you have a particular criticism of the studies demonstrating the results I cite, I'm interested, but a kneejerk *cries* reaction to effects demonstrated in peer reviewed journals doesn't forward the discussion (in my mind anyway). Also, if you require more specific references, I can dig 'em up, but not today. (Herrnstein and Murray's book is a summary of many studies done by many different people).

In any comparison, I would look at the effect of SES controlled for IQ and compare it to the effect of IQ controlled for SES.

IQ predicts likelihood of permanently dropping out of high school and likelihood of obtaining a GED instead of a high school diploma. IQ predicted both effects better than socioeconomic status. IQ correlates with military grade achieved and job performance in studies of civilians. IQ scores more strongly predict job performance than other variable typically associated with job performance (biographical information, education, etc.). High IQ lowers the probability of having a month or more period of unemployment. Thirty-five percent of adult income can be accounted for by IQ level in junior high. High IQ occupations are well-paid occupations. IQ also moderately predicts the probability of being in poverty. I could go on.

SES does have an effect on educational outcome independent of IQ. SES affects a variety of social outcomes. I might even agree that "Many people who earn higher wages only do so because they have an education that others couldn't *ever* afford to get. Not because they worked harder." (because "many people" is not very specific), but I would not draw the conclusion that SES predicts income or educational attainment better than IQ. Regardless of study outcomes, I'm most concerned about studies demonstrating the power of SES that do not account for stable individual differences between people.

EDIT (Addition): I'm realizing that this line of discussion might become a bit of a threadjack. Whether or not IQ and income are related doesn't have a bearing on questions about universal health care (in my mind anyway).

I don't know enough about universal healthcare, but if the US goverment currently spends more on healthcare than Canada does for their universal system (per capita, I guess?) what would be wrong with a similar universal health care system in the US (perhaps supplemented by private health care plans)?

smooth

lol, Herrnstein and Murray didn't publish their work for peer-review.

Re-tests of their work have been published for peer-review, however, and illustrate the flaws in their original work nicely enough for anyone so inclined to read up on.



But how important do you view this "debate" anyway? Your claims presuppose that IQ is an objective measure of intelligence. You claim respect for peer-reviewed articles...what say they on the value of IQ as a valid and reliable objective measure of intelligence?

I contest that rather than H+M's sloppy analyses.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

sapiens

You are correct. The Bell Curve was published without peer-review and the analysis of the NLSY published therein were not peer reviewed. I don't have the book in front of me, but the majority of the findings I cited regarding IQ are not drawn from the national longitudinal study of youth described in the Bell Curve, but are mentioned in The Bell Curve. The Bell Curve draws its evidence from more than 1,000 sources. Of course, the Bell Curve was not peer-reviewed. It is a book. The conclusions drawn from the NLSY by Herrnstein and Murray still stand despite this.

Regarding attacks on the book and Herrnstein and Murray: I had a professor who suggested that Hernnstein had the good fortune to die before the book was released

I have not read any re-tests of their work that illustrate the "flaws" in their original work nicely.

This is an interesting question! Many disparate sources of evidence support the construct validity of a domain general intelligence (what is normally referred to as g, or big g). Studies of the internal structure of IQ tests, studies of the predictive validity of IQ tests, studies of the stability of IQ test over time and despite experimental intervention, the heritability of intelligence, etc. all support the construct validity of intelligence and IQ as it's measured (by something like the WISC or the WAIS). That said, the construct validity of IQ has been demonstrated in western cultures. I'm not familiar with tests of validity in non-western countries.

All that said, I don't like the conclusions drawn by authors like Herrnstein and Murray (and I'm not just talking about the one chapter everyone gets upset about). It's depressing and I don't know what the answer is, but I cannot deny the mounds of evidence supporting the construct validity of a domain general intelligence. Whatever is measured by an IQ test is stable (especially after age 10), heritable, and predicts a heck of a lot.

Manx

I don't have the resources or time to discern the effect of SES controlled for IQ and vice versa. For now, I'll stick with common sense.

I'll bet another dollar that if you take a sample of people with identical IQs, one group coming from wealth, the other from poverty - you'll find the one that comes from wealth receives far more.

There is a simple reason for this: poor people don't typically socialize with rich people and it's much easier to receive money if you are surrounded by money.

Not to say there aren't plenty of other factors involved, but I would not draw the conclusion that IQ predicts income better than SES.

RangerDick

Translation:
I don't have the time to research facts on this subject, and therefore, I'll stick with my pre-conceived notions.

Receives....? Or earns? This would also be highly dependant on what you consider "poverty" and what you consider "rich". Unless you can prove this assertion, pay me my dollar.

So THAT'S the soution. If only poor people and rich people socialized more, poor people would receive more money? And there it is folks, it's all about receiving, not earning.

I don't necessarily see it as the only conclusion, but it does appear to be a factor.

sapiens

Well, I wouldn't draw that conclusion either. SES certainly predicts income better than IQ. Looking back at my posts, I should have been more specific: IQ (controlled for SES OF PARENTS) predicts income better than SES of PARENTS (controlled for IQ).

Within family studies of IQ and SES support the primacy of IQ over parental SES in determining SES. Waller (I don't remeber the year) found that biological children above the average IQ of their family tend to go up in SES while those below the family average tend to go down in SES.

Also, IQ is heritable (broad sense heritability estimates range from 0.67 to 0.78). This means that ~40-60% in the variation in IQ can be attributed to variation in genes. It also means that 40-60% of the variation in IQ can be explained by environmental variation (if we neglect the fact that people may choose their own environments based on their intelligence). So, IQ is not immutable. There is something about low IQ/Low SES environments that lowers IQ of children, perhaps contributing to negative social outcomes. No one has been able to come up with good ways of altering environments to play with the variance due to environment . Other than adoption: Adoption studies have found that the IQs of children adopted away from their biological parents and into higher IQ environments were nearly a standard deviation higher than what would be expected from their mother's IQ. (Though still lower IQ than biological children of parents of high IQ).