Off topic posts split from "How do u live on $700/month, truly?"

[rruff]

Who would pay for it?

Other developed countries have better performing HC for ~1/2 the price. So we would pay... a lot less for it!

 

[bullfrog !]

Maybe we could subcontract it to another country since it seems most of our doctors are immigrants! Lol!!! Seems that is what happened to prescription medicines!

 

[wayne49]

Bullfrog,

The sick care reform was called "Affordable Care Act". Just make it affordable what ever it takes.

One way they made sick care more affordable was by redefining PCP, from Primary Care Physician to Primary Care Practitioner, which are usually Registered Nurses with advanced training. For emergency care, sutures, etc., and basic issues, they are good.

After the ACA was passed, shortly before I retired, I was getting my meds evaluated by a young guy, instead of the previous MD. The young guy mostly looked at his computer screen, then would ask me a question that was suggested by the computer. He was going through the steps of a flow chart on his computer. I would have been more comfortable sitting at home on the phone to an overseas call center.

With the record high, and still growing, national debt, the US cannot afford to provide universal sick care nor a universal basic income. The Federal Reserve is, and has been, printing US Dollars to infinity. There will be an end of that rainbow at some point and that end won't be a RV park in Texas.

There are billions per month doled out by Congress to Ukraine, but for US citizens (actual voters) and US states, not so much.

Priorities.

The Federal money pie has more than a few pieces that demand massive budgets. Each piece has congress critters and lobbyists ready and willing to defend those budgets from cuts.

The for profit sick care industry has its own lobbyists, who push the industry's needs over the needs of the People.

 

[bullfrog !]

I guess my viewpoint has been formed from early childhood in a remote Eastern Kentucky coal town where everything was owned and controlled by the coal company which grew by leaps and bounds into a large corporation. Basically you were a finical slave. Most if not all of your paycheck was in company script which could only be spent in company stores which were the only stores. Seems nobody in the rest of the country cared enough or had enough political power to stop the corporations from destroying the land and the people that lived there. Generations of my family even before the coal companies came lived in poverty and struggled to survive. I have watched corporations grow by monopolizing capitalism doing what they did from the very beginning exploiting people and resources to become rich. In my opinion it is time they are penalized and forced to pay the fortunes they made illegally in my opinion to improve the lives of the people they have abused. Medical care, universal basic income and free education will pay for themselves by creating work force similar to the one that we saw after World War II and Veterans Education benefits brought prosperity to a large portion of this country’s population. Imagine what can be achieved with a healthy, well educated population that isn’t afraid to take risks in their endeavors because they know they and their children won’t end up on the streets living in poverty, homeless, most likely with drug or mental problems like they are now because of our pathetic under funded medical, education and social programs. $700 a month is only worth $700 if the big corporations decide it is not the government. No individual is truly free until everyone is no matter where they are. Nothing is impossible to people that are motivated to live free. Moderators feel free to delete this post I just needed to vent.

 

[eDJ_]

Good vent Bullfrog. I come from the same area of the USA and wonder how many people here have even heard of "Script" or understand it's concept. (a way of keeping employees trapped in financial slavery) I live in southern Ohio now which is better.

Basically it is worth 80% of a dollar and the reason is the company
charges 20 cent on the dollar for establishing the "Company Store"
where miners in their remote locations have to buy any and all goods to work their job and provide for their families. (But the company makes a handsome profit on what they sell just the same) Any other group of businesses doing this would be seen as counterfeiting.

In many cases miners weren't allowed to leave the coal camp unless they were paid off to the company store. (which wasn't likely) If a miner died often his widow and kids were summarily packed up and moved out immediately. (to be homeless or what ever)

If a miner were a shooter (one who blast coal lose for others to load into coal cars) he had to buy his gunpowder or dynamite at the company store.. (it wasn't furnished by the company just as an example)

Tennessee Ernie Ford summed it up in this ballad:

16 Tons

 

[Morgana]

And here's Darrell Scott singing "You'll never leave Harlan alive"

 

[bullfrog !]

Unfortunately it took a lot of lives to get the United Mine Workers Union formed. The homeless veterans are a little better organized and therefore represented a little better than the average group of people living on the streets. Having someplace secure to store your things with a shower and some form of communication as in cell phone or internet are what allows a person to keep a job. Getting a job now days seems easy if you are healthy able bodied person, keeping the job and your belongings is the difficultly. It is not unusual to find seasonal work with housing in remote locations like Lake Powell paying $15 to $17 if you are healthy and physically able. Having a health care and education system that works to keep people working would solve a lot of peoples problems.