ExKiwilass

oooh good point.

For all it's private and shit, my US friends are regularly complaining about not being able to get doctor they need cos of network issues, paperwork, arguing with some minion about having their claim denied, etc etc

it just seems, as an outsider, like a chronically inefficient, badly run system which rewards bureacracy, obsfucation and lack of integrity. In other words, it sucks.

Those are the friends that have insurance. The rest don't and they just don't get care.


When in Arizona, we got talking to some long-time Home Depot employees. Due to obamacare changes (allegedly) their hours are being cut to below a certain amount where HD doesn't have to provide health insurance for them anymore. Nice system. Nice way to kick the older, less healthy people.

MarkG

In the bad old days, people just paid for their own healthcare. Then the US government -- in WWII, I believe? -- imposed wage controls, so companies could no longer increase wages for their employees. Needless to say, they just began giving them benefits like health insurance instead.

The health insurance market is heavily controlled and regulated, and businesses have to keep paying the premiums or tell their employees that they're no longer getting health insurance. As I understand it, some states limit insurance company profits to a percentage of spending, so they have every incentive to spend as much money as possible so they can make more profit; rather than, as you would expect, the companies wanting to keep healthcare costs low, they want healthcare costs as high as possible, because that means they can make more money. Others invest the float in the stock market, so again they want to spend as much as they can to maximise the size of the float.

So, yeah, it's a disaster. Fortunately it's so out of control that the whole thing is going to have to be fixed before long.

Yes, thanks to Obamacare, the cost of employing people now increases substantially at 30 (I think?) hours a week. So low-paid workers are seeing their hours cut to avoid it. This was such an obvious consequence of the law that I can't see how they didn't intend it.

BristolUK

At least they don't have "Death Panels" in the US like they do in the UK.

Oh, wait, that was just lies put about by the Republicans and the pharm industry.


From what my step daughter says, Homesense here (Winners etc) has the same policy, hiring more staff to keep individual hours down.

Mike Gas

Housing market in most countries is a bubble and like all bubbles it will eventually get popped. Housing markets never go straight up look back in history. Be carefull what you invest in

ExKiwilass

too much of a generalization, at least in Canada. Prices in NB, NS and other areas are hardly in a bubble. What about Thunder Bay or Windsor, Ontario. There are very specific places in Canada that are $$$, so that indicates there is a demand/supply isse as well.

Mike Gas

Same as every country no housing market is Nationwide, tell you what though Vancouver has a very long way to fall

ExKiwilass

well then, if a housing market is not nationwide, ergo housing bubbles are not national.

Mike Gas

Who said hey were? I was generalizing when I said Canada do you expect me to list very region

ExKiwilass

okay Mike.

Zen10

I recently looked at a house here in Australia. Three bedrooms, 30 minute drive from CBD, no back garden (I mean no back garden, just a metre-wide strip at the back for storage) and it was $420,000. I'm betting it's more expensive than BC, even though BC is one of Canada's most expensive areas, but we live in one of Australia's cheapest areas.

not2old

rural 100 mile house location in BC is one of the best places on the planet to live

http://bc.onepercentrealty.com/listi...etails&start=2

Zen10

It does look nice, but unless I've got the wrong place, this is 500 kms from Vancouver. If you were to go 500 kms from an Australian city you could get much more for your money than my previous example, to be fair.

This is a quick example I just found about 300 kms from Brisbane.

http://www.realestate.com.au/propert...rnon-114435287

ExKiwilass

Where was that, if you don't mind me being nosey?

Zen10

Adelaide.

Supermum1

I'm going off the idea of purchasing my own property, when my utilities are all included in my not too expensive rent, and I'll lose more paying bills on top of a mortgage etc.

Besides, when we get old they'll take our homes off us anyway, which pays for us to live in senior housing along with our pensions.