Thread Article: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

You guys are basically saying we should support these people indefinitely because they had shitty upbringings.
You said that. You and no one else.
People need to get on their own two feet, but if you have an unending cycle of parents who cannot support themselves, they will have children that cannot support themselves, those children will eventually have children that cannot support themselves.
You have to break the cycle somewhere, somehow, that does not mean you substitute that cycle for one where the Govt takes care of them
 
You said that. You and no one else.
People need to get on their own two feet, but if you have an unending cycle of parents who cannot support themselves, they will have children that cannot support themselves, those children will eventually have children that cannot support themselves.
You have to break the cycle somewhere, somehow, that does not mean you substitute that cycle for one where the Govt takes care of them

You basically just described my post you laughed at on the first page of this thread.

The rest of our "less fortunate" need some tough love, cut them off and they'll work or starve, give everyone the option to work 4 hours a day cleaning ditches or something for a check instead of just handing them money.

What exactly do we disagree on here?
 
So he disagree's with my solution to breaking the cycle? I'm fine with that, and would like to hear his suggestions. We both agree there's a problem, what the problem is, and what needs to happen to ultimately fix the problem. There's just a disconnect on how to get to the end goal to fix the problem.
 
Spousal Coverage:

Message from your employer: They're not our bitch.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-your-boss-is-dumping-your-wife-2013-02-22

By denying coverage to spouses, employers not only save the annual premiums, but also the new fees that went into effect as part of the Affordable Care Act. This year, companies have to pay $1 or $2 “per life” covered on their plans, a sum that jumps to $65 in 2014. And health law guidelines proposed recently mandate coverage of employees’ dependent children (up to age 26), but husbands and wives are optional. “The question about whether it’s obligatory to cover the family of the employee is being thought through more than ever before,” says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health.

While surcharges for spousal coverage are more common, last year, 6% of large employers excluded spouses, up from 5% in 2010, as did 4% of huge companies with at least 20,000 employees, twice as many as in 2010, according to human resources firm Mercer. These “spousal carve-outs,” or “working spouse provisions,” generally prohibit only people who could get coverage through their own job from enrolling in their spouse’s plan.


 
Last edited:
Can we dispense with the myth that it's easier for minorities and the poor to succeed now than it used to be. Can we also dispense with the myth that it doesn;t matter where you start out in life. If you're born poor in the USA (and here too) you are almost certainly going to die poor.

"Family origins matter more in the United States in determining where one ends up in life compared to other wealthy democratic countries. This is a recent development. Studies of social mobility as far back as the 1950s and 1960s showed that rates of movement in the United States were generally comparable to other developed countries. This finding itself challenged the longstanding image of America as exceptionally open, but it is a far cry from today, when the United States rates at or near the bottom in comparative studies of social mobility.
To take just two examples, a study by Jo Blanden and colleagues at the London School of Economics found that a father's income was a better predictor of a son's income in the United States than in seven other countries, including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And a review article by Miles Corak at the University of Ottawa, based on 50 studies of nine countries, found the United States tied with the United Kingdom as having the least social mobility, trailing not only Norway and Denmark but France, Germany, and Canada."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerom...quality-and-the-american-dream_b_1933238.html
 
Can we dispense with the myth that it's easier for minorities and the poor to succeed now than it used to be. Can we also dispense with the myth that it doesn;t matter where you start out in life. If you're born poor in the USA (and here too) you are almost certainly going to die poor.

"Family origins matter more in the United States in determining where one ends up in life compared to other wealthy democratic countries. This is a recent development. Studies of social mobility as far back as the 1950s and 1960s showed that rates of movement in the United States were generally comparable to other developed countries. This finding itself challenged the longstanding image of America as exceptionally open, but it is a far cry from today, when the United States rates at or near the bottom in comparative studies of social mobility.
To take just two examples, a study by Jo Blanden and colleagues at the London School of Economics found that a father's income was a better predictor of a son's income in the United States than in seven other countries, including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And a review article by Miles Corak at the University of Ottawa, based on 50 studies of nine countries, found the United States tied with the United Kingdom as having the least social mobility, trailing not only Norway and Denmark but France, Germany, and Canada."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerom...quality-and-the-american-dream_b_1933238.html

I think you're arguing for the end of countless social programs here. Clearly you think they're a waste of time and money.
 
I think you're arguing for the end of countless social programs here. Clearly you think they're a waste of time and money.


No, I'm arguing that you can't just shrug your shoulders and say that the poor only have themselves to blame, if only they wanted to work etc. It's immeasurably harder to work your way out of poverty than it is to work your way from a middle-class background. To pretend otherwise is crass.