Re: 2020 Election
 

I am not convinced that there is currently majority support for Repatriations.

Re: 2020 Election
 

I found a really good analysis of all major European systems some time back, broke them into 'types', and showed costs, government spend per head of population, etc. But I can't find it now! From reading around recently, I noted that Switzerland and the Netherlands sounded very much like the ACA - private insurance as the primary funding source, individual mandate, subsidies for anyone who needed it. Even those countries that don't use insurance as a primary vehicle allow more private insurance participation than what I'm hearing about in the Bernie and Warren plans. It seems crazy that the US would pursue an approach that is more 'aggressive' (aggressively anti-insurance) than the majority of European systems. Maybe they will moderate their proposals if/when they win the primary.

Also, It honestly never occurred to me that CURRENT (over 65) Medicare users would be part of the 'free for everyone' approach; I don't know anyone who gets Medicare today that complains about the cost; sure people would prefer 'free' in a simplistic sense, but it's not clear to me what problem we are trying to fix here ....

Re: 2020 Election
 

How can it be logical for people over 65 to pay and under 65 to get it free?

Also not everybody over 65 gets the basic part free, you have to pay in to it, or buys the extras. Say you want to bring elderly parents over, now they would have to wait 5 years and the buy in. Bringing Parents over who say were 60 and have free cover and then hot 65 and would have to buy in makes not a lot of sense.

Re: 2020 Election
 

:nod:

Re: 2020 Election
 

In countries like Switzerland and The Netherlands, insurance is regulated to a much higher degree than is the case even with an ACA policy.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Presumably everyone gets it for "free" even the over 65's. How you can square that with folks having paid all the working life into the Medicare trust fund is the interesting part.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Seems Warren and Sanders idea of healthcare is similiar to what we have in Canada. Canada takes an aggressive stance on private insurance, private insurance is not permitted to cover anything covered by provincial health-plan.

Re: 2020 Election
 

The world would be a better place if everyone kept that in mind, just because you did it or because someone else did, doesn't mean every can.

No amount of hard work will get me a 3.5+ GPA which many training programs to get a good job require these days due to the competitive nature of entry for such training, and just because there are people who can doesn't mean we all can. I can put 100% effort 24/7 and I still wouild not come close to that high a GPA, trust me I have tried, I am a 2.8-3.0 student, always have been, I worked my butt off to get said GPA, if I didn't it would be much lower.

But schools only want the best of the best in their programs to make stats look better so lots of us get left behind and can't gain the skills necessary to get into better paying fields.

Koop was a lineman, I would need a B+ in physics and math along with the mechanical aptitude to get into the apprentice program, trades are not easy to train in as people seem to think they are.

Re: 2020 Election
 

The people who had low cost education (now grown to be at 8 times higher than wages grew) and low cost housing (grown at 4 times the rate)? Yeah, it wouldn't be fair that they paid for something and then everyone else gets a much easier time of it.

Re: 2020 Election
 

You can bleat all you like about "fairness", but the reality is if you get people to pay a tax for "x" and it's spent for "y' you're going to have a political problem. I'm open to being convinced on this because logically one system for all is absolutely the way to go, but getting there from here is going to be extremely difficult.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Exactly, I left school with no qualifications whatsoever. I got an engineering apprenticeship with a company making trucks and buses.
Free daytime off work for further education and ultimately ended up in the Engineering design office. A background that stood me into good stead for the rest of my working life.
Something that would be most unlikely or impossible today. So in spite of others of my generation," I bought myself up by my bootstraps claims". Some of my generations denials, we had it easy or at least very much easier career wise. The wrapping of today's throwaway society, maybe not.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Mmmm hmmm.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Cost of living and wages seemed to better align as well. My parents never went to college, but they had a decent life, we took trips, had a house, 2 cars, and they provided what we needed, the job my dad retired from now requires a college degree at minimum, and the starting level jobs are like $14/hr and casual now because its cheaper then full-time employees for the employer, my MIL worked at Sears in Canada (and whatever it was called before Sears) and raised 2 kids, and bought a house, not going to happen today working retail unless in management, store management and above.

Even skilled jobs don't always pay a wage that actually matches cost of living, nurses for example, their salary isn't sufficient for them to buy 1 million dollar houses which is what a basic old fixer upper will run these days, median income for a family is only 78,000 a year or so, closer to 50,000 for a single worker.

It's crazy really the costs of basics vs wages.

I would certainly have benefited if companies/employers did more training and relied less on college degrees but it is what it is, I doubt it will change in my lifetime, and at 40, have largely given up, low wage jobs never lead to anything in my experience unless you have the ability to get some sort of college education.

Re: 2020 Election
 

Can we just agree to be adult and not take everything to heart? After all what ever differences we do have it amounts to nothing in the big scheme of things.

Re: 2020 Election
 

It's not. What I said was, during all this talk of Medicare For All, it simply didn't occur to me that all the 'free' stuff would now be made available to people over 65. It's perfectly logical that the same payment structure would apply ... I just didn't consider it. Is that clear now?
Since when have you been able to bring elderly parents over? As part of what program? I looked into bringing my mum over after I became a citizen and there was virtually zero chance.