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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 00:48 Plansix wrote:
Ryan’s statements give me comfort. That he and the Republican House get exactly what they deserve around November of next year. My only hope is that they don’t pass any version of this nightmare bill. Don't leave work early, dress well, stay assertive and keep your job. That's honestly the perspective I've been taking with regards to all this. Whatever you do, do not lose your job. You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist.
The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself.
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On May 26 2017 02:02 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 00:28 brian wrote:On May 26 2017 00:14 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 00:07 brian wrote:
can anyone explain why that would ever be construed as an unreasonable little speech? seems like the most sensible few words he's strung together. but i don't know any nuances that may be involved wrt NATO There isn't a 2% contribution rule, there certainly is no suggestion that anyone might owe another country money for it, there is no mechanism for Trump to collect on a debt nor any mechanism by which that debt would even exist, there is no reason to use total US defence spending as a comparison to NATO (NATO covers the North Atlantic, the US has other alliances like SEATO, for every dollar the US spends in any region on any project they seem to want to go to each alliance and say "that dollar benefited you somehow, match me" and that's fucking retarded). If US completely pulled out of the North Atlantic their military spending would still be high enough for them to insist that they're carrying too much of the burden. The subtext of this speech is "we spent all our money fucking up the Middle East and causing the refugee crisis and you didn't spend any money doing that so here's a bill so you can share the cost, you're welcome". Not only does he have no idea how NATO works, he's actually got together a group of leaders of American allies so he can collectively make a total idiot of himself in front of them because the desired audience of his speech isn't them, it's the American public, most of whom know even less than he does. Literally nothing will come of this speech other than some minor civil servant in each of the NATO governments drafting a letter to the Trump administration explaining how NATO works. i mean i have no doubt he's insinuated it before but nowhere in that speech did i hear him suggest any member owes the united states money. just because there's no 2% rules doesn't make it an unreasonable goal? and again, he didn't suggest member nations match the US by any metric? like i said, i'm working from this one video alone. so if this happened else wise i understand. but i'm definitely not seeing any of this here. He said they owe a debt... and he said they aren't living up to their obligations of 2% ... How is that not implying theres a goal/debt/issue and he compared their spending to the US spending Its like you've completely ignored the words he used and thought he said something like "everyone should contribute more to strengthen NATO" and not "we spend too much, so much, you all aren't pulling your weight like the US is. You owe us" -- which is in short what the speech was actually about. In public. Throwing his ALLIES under a bus. This amid reports that the US does not agree with the rest of NATO on Russia coming out of this meeting. And also amid reports that Trump has not actually recommitted to Article 5 of NATO and hasn't every actually supported it publicly. You know, the whole thing that implies that if one member of NATO is attacked, effectively all of them have been? You know, the thing that Russia is most vehemently against with regards to the way NATO is structured and why they don't want any of their border states to join NATO?
so like i said earlier, i'm only working off this one video alone. i recognize it doesn't exist in a vacuum and said as much before. the bill kwark linked is embarrassing, and so now the opinion makes more sense to me. (thanks kwark)
but to my point- it sounds like you're not listening to his words, or at least are making some up. he never said 'they owe the united states and im standing by what i said. he didn't throw anyone under the bus. he's pointing out a real lack of spending on defense by other countries. on their own defense that is. not to the united states. and that's not a trumpism, right? or is it this part you take exception with? is this not an issue?
to insinuate that's owed to the US is laughable. i see he's done it before, my only claim here was that he wasn't doing it here right now. sorry if that ruffles your feathers. like i've mentioned in this post and the last, i only had this to go off of because the linked tweet didn't add up to me, so i asked for a little help figuring i wasn't alone.
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On May 26 2017 02:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 00:48 Plansix wrote:
Ryan’s statements give me comfort. That he and the Republican House get exactly what they deserve around November of next year. My only hope is that they don’t pass any version of this nightmare bill. Don't leave work early, dress well, stay assertive and keep your job. That's honestly the perspective I've been taking with regards to all this. Whatever you do, do not lose your job. You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist. The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself.
30 years of wage stagnation and a rising cost of job training and living will do that. And an increasingly complex and mercurial financial system.
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United States43598 Posts
On May 26 2017 02:51 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 00:48 Plansix wrote:
Ryan’s statements give me comfort. That he and the Republican House get exactly what they deserve around November of next year. My only hope is that they don’t pass any version of this nightmare bill. Don't leave work early, dress well, stay assertive and keep your job. That's honestly the perspective I've been taking with regards to all this. Whatever you do, do not lose your job. You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist. The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself.
It's a cultural problem. Americans don't like to save unless they're forced to through things like Social Security. A lot of the Republican policies like HSAs, 401ks, IRAs, insurance and so forth that give the individual far more autonomy to control their own finances would be great in a country like Germany where people save. But the United States needs big government solutions because Americans want to spend their money today and then vote for the government to pay the bill when it's due. And if the government is going to pick up the tab (paying for retirees for example) then the government needs to force people to pay ahead of time (through systems like social security payroll deductions).
The problem isn't that the Republican ideas are dumb, it's that the American population is dumb and the Republicans refuse to put dumb people into their models when they're creating the solutions because they believe in perfectly informed, perfectly rational consumers.
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Id imagine if Americans saved we'd have down turn in the economy. Its actually in the best interest of the government in power if Americans dont save if you really think about it.
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United States43598 Posts
On May 26 2017 03:02 Sadist wrote:
Id imagine if Americans saved we'd have down turn in the economy. Its actually in the best interest of the government in power if Americans dont save if you really think about it.
Saving isn't the opposite of consumption. Savings still enter the economy. Money doesn't go under a mattress, it is exchanged for investments which create innovation and economic growth. Some industries would disappear (payday loans for example) but lower rates for borrowing due to a glut of invested cash would make it easier for people to start businesses and invest in themselves. People could fund their own education, engage in better long term planning and so forth.
It's a difference between destructive consumption and non destructive consumption.
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Thanks for the responses everyone - definitely makes sense. So would the currently drafted AHCA do anything to address COBRA costs, or are they entirely separate?
Theoretically, if AHCA were to do what it's advertised to do (reduce insurance premiums), that could help reduce the burden to people who need to use COBRA?
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On May 26 2017 02:59 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:51 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 00:52 Mohdoo wrote:
[quote]
Don't leave work early, dress well, stay assertive and keep your job. That's honestly the perspective I've been taking with regards to all this. Whatever you do, do not lose your job. You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist. The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself. It's a cultural problem. Americans don't like to save unless they're forced to through things like Social Security. A lot of the Republican policies like HSAs, 401ks, IRAs, insurance and so forth that give the individual far more autonomy to control their own finances would be great in a country like Germany where people save. But the United States needs big government solutions because Americans want to spend their money today and then vote for the government to pay the bill when it's due. And if the government is going to pick up the tab (paying for retirees for example) then the government needs to force people to pay ahead of time (through systems like social security payroll deductions). The problem isn't that the Republican ideas are dumb, it's that the American population is dumb and the Republicans refuse to put dumb people into their models when they're creating the solutions because they believe in perfectly informed, perfectly rational consumers.
i think you give republicans waaaay too much credit.
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On May 26 2017 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:59 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:51 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist. The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself. It's a cultural problem. Americans don't like to save unless they're forced to through things like Social Security. A lot of the Republican policies like HSAs, 401ks, IRAs, insurance and so forth that give the individual far more autonomy to control their own finances would be great in a country like Germany where people save. But the United States needs big government solutions because Americans want to spend their money today and then vote for the government to pay the bill when it's due. And if the government is going to pick up the tab (paying for retirees for example) then the government needs to force people to pay ahead of time (through systems like social security payroll deductions). The problem isn't that the Republican ideas are dumb, it's that the American population is dumb and the Republicans refuse to put dumb people into their models when they're creating the solutions because they believe in perfectly informed, perfectly rational consumers. i think you give republicans waaaay too much credit.
The savings problem really has nothing to do with republican or democrat policy. Like Kwark pointed out, it's a cultural issue. And it's one that you can't really appreciate until you familiarize yourself with how other cultures and peoples live. Americans have a fundamentally different mindset.
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United States43598 Posts
On May 26 2017 03:12 jcarlsoniv wrote:
Thanks for the responses everyone - definitely makes sense. So would the currently drafted AHCA do anything to address COBRA costs, or are they entirely separate?
Theoretically, if AHCA were to do what it's advertised to do (reduce insurance premiums), that could help reduce the burden to people who need to use COBRA?
It's a bit of a maybe.
The purpose is to essentially kick sick people out of public risk pools and into sick person risk pools while allowing healthy person risk pools to form.
Employer based health insurance uses employee filled risk pools. So to give an unrealistic example, if half the people at your work have preexisting conditions and get their insurance through your employer then he's going to be paying a lot for health insurance because the risk of the average worker is going to be significant. So if you don't have a preexisting condition and lose your job then the COBRA insurance you could continue would be insanely more expensive than you'd really need because COBRA just gives you the right to continue to participate in that employee pool.
However if you could then join a pool with just healthy people then the costs of self funding your own insurance would be considerably lower because they'd reflect your own actual costs. Or if they got rid of the individual mandate then you could just go without insurance and put those savings into a HSA and rely upon bankruptcy if you got a super unlucky $100k+ cost.
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On May 26 2017 02:12 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I love how the reports from polling places are that everyone knows about the choke slam but no one is changing their vote.
Like I said, they are just going through the motions because we have two privileged classes bumping into each other. The Democratic candidate for Montana looks like someone for whom the word privileged very much should not apply.
I am talking about the reporter and the Republican candidate that choke slammed him.
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United States43598 Posts
On May 26 2017 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:59 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:51 xDaunt wrote:On May 26 2017 02:41 Mohdoo wrote:On May 26 2017 02:33 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:27 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 02:20 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 02:07 jcarlsoniv wrote:On May 26 2017 01:14 Sadist wrote:On May 26 2017 01:03 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You can lose your job or change your job. Just make sure that you don't have any gaps in coverage by getting COBRA coverage between jobs. Ya its not like COBRA is expensive or anything As someone who hasn't ever had to deal with non-employer provided healthcare, isn't part of the idea (whether just in theory or actual practice) of AHCA to reduce the cost of things like COBRA? I'm pretty ignorant of how it all works since I've fortunately never had to go through any part of that process. COBRA as i know it allows you the option to stay on your previous employers insurance plan if you lose your job. The thing is in the USA your employer pays all or part of your premium pre tax. You do the same if you are responsible for part of the premium. The thing is the cost of healthcare insurance that your employer pays is pretty much invisible to most americans. Its also pretty expensive. For example. Your employer might pay a $500 premium for your insurance pre tax. You may pay $100 so the total cost is $600. With Cobra you can buy the same coverage for $600 + a fee but its out of pocket after taxes. So you get double fucked. You are responsible for the employers portion of the premium plus your portion but its after taxes instead of before. So you lost your job but pay way more premium in cost + get fucked by taxes. Unemployment is $362 /week if you cap out so about half of your unemployment goes to your premium. I think you can recoup some of the premium on your taxes but im not sure. You can get insurance on the exchanges instead if you want. It really becomes apparent why health insurance should not be related to employment at all when you look at this stuff If you're itemizing then the tax deductibility of the insurance premiums is unchanged. You were always allowed to deduct health insurance costs on the Schedule A as long as they were paid with post-tax money (because a deduction is essentially claiming back the tax you paid on an expense and if you pay with pre-tax money then you never paid any tax on that money in the first place so you can't get it back). It's one of those things where if you're one of the poorer Americans who doesn't itemize then you're fucked but if you're itemizing (middle class/homeowners with expensive houses etc) then you're fine. TLDR: You can claim back the taxes on your premiums if you already had $12,600 of deductible expenses to make itemizing worth it. It still means you have to eat the cost until tax season right? You eat the cost upfront but get it back later. Hopefully there is enough cash around to get a person through. This is a problem. The average American household savings do not allow for this. Sure, people should save more, but they aren't. When people get these medical bills, it creates secondary costs and issues. When people can't afford care, or end up in too much debt, society as a whole suffers more secondary costs. At the end of the day, a policy which assumes people can cover some up front cost is illogical. It is based on a situation that has been shown does not exist. The savings rate of the average American is a problem in and of itself. It's a cultural problem. Americans don't like to save unless they're forced to through things like Social Security. A lot of the Republican policies like HSAs, 401ks, IRAs, insurance and so forth that give the individual far more autonomy to control their own finances would be great in a country like Germany where people save. But the United States needs big government solutions because Americans want to spend their money today and then vote for the government to pay the bill when it's due. And if the government is going to pick up the tab (paying for retirees for example) then the government needs to force people to pay ahead of time (through systems like social security payroll deductions). The problem isn't that the Republican ideas are dumb, it's that the American population is dumb and the Republicans refuse to put dumb people into their models when they're creating the solutions because they believe in perfectly informed, perfectly rational consumers. i think you give republicans waaaay too much credit.
Speaking for myself I think I would do pretty well in the Republican dystopia with privatized Social Security, absolutely no healthcare for those who can't afford it (not even emergency care because that gets passed on to paying customers indirectly), pay to win education and so forth. Not only would I be able to thrive but I think my skills would be extremely in demand.
The problem is that the country is a little bit bigger than me and even though I'd live in a walled community surrounded by armed guards keeping the proles at bay I might still have to sometimes hear their piteous cries.
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On May 26 2017 02:54 brian wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 02:02 ZeromuS wrote:On May 26 2017 00:28 brian wrote:On May 26 2017 00:14 KwarK wrote:On May 26 2017 00:07 brian wrote:
can anyone explain why that would ever be construed as an unreasonable little speech? seems like the most sensible few words he's strung together. but i don't know any nuances that may be involved wrt NATO There isn't a 2% contribution rule, there certainly is no suggestion that anyone might owe another country money for it, there is no mechanism for Trump to collect on a debt nor any mechanism by which that debt would even exist, there is no reason to use total US defence spending as a comparison to NATO (NATO covers the North Atlantic, the US has other alliances like SEATO, for every dollar the US spends in any region on any project they seem to want to go to each alliance and say "that dollar benefited you somehow, match me" and that's fucking retarded). If US completely pulled out of the North Atlantic their military spending would still be high enough for them to insist that they're carrying too much of the burden. The subtext of this speech is "we spent all our money fucking up the Middle East and causing the refugee crisis and you didn't spend any money doing that so here's a bill so you can share the cost, you're welcome". Not only does he have no idea how NATO works, he's actually got together a group of leaders of American allies so he can collectively make a total idiot of himself in front of them because the desired audience of his speech isn't them, it's the American public, most of whom know even less than he does. Literally nothing will come of this speech other than some minor civil servant in each of the NATO governments drafting a letter to the Trump administration explaining how NATO works. i mean i have no doubt he's insinuated it before but nowhere in that speech did i hear him suggest any member owes the united states money. just because there's no 2% rules doesn't make it an unreasonable goal? and again, he didn't suggest member nations match the US by any metric? like i said, i'm working from this one video alone. so if this happened else wise i understand. but i'm definitely not seeing any of this here. He said they owe a debt... and he said they aren't living up to their obligations of 2% ... How is that not implying theres a goal/debt/issue and he compared their spending to the US spending Its like you've completely ignored the words he used and thought he said something like "everyone should contribute more to strengthen NATO" and not "we spend too much, so much, you all aren't pulling your weight like the US is. You owe us" -- which is in short what the speech was actually about. In public. Throwing his ALLIES under a bus. This amid reports that the US does not agree with the rest of NATO on Russia coming out of this meeting. And also amid reports that Trump has not actually recommitted to Article 5 of NATO and hasn't every actually supported it publicly. You know, the whole thing that implies that if one member of NATO is attacked, effectively all of them have been? You know, the thing that Russia is most vehemently against with regards to the way NATO is structured and why they don't want any of their border states to join NATO? so like i said earlier, i'm only working off this one video alone. i recognize it doesn't exist in a vacuum and said as much before. the bill kwark linked is embarrassing, and so now the opinion makes more sense to me. (thanks kwark) but to my point- it sounds like you're not listening to his words, or at least are making some up. he never said 'they owe the united states and im standing by what i said. he didn't throw anyone under the bus. he's pointing out a real lack of spending on defense by other countries. on their own defense that is. not to the united states. and that's not a trumpism, right? or is it this part you take exception with? is this not an issue? to insinuate that's owed to the US is laughable. i see he's done it before, my only claim here was that he wasn't doing it here right now. sorry if that ruffles your feathers. like i've mentioned in this post and the last, i only had this to go off of because the linked tweet didn't add up to me, so i asked for a little help figuring i wasn't alone.
Donald trump said "are still not pay what they should be paying, and what they are supposed to be paying for their defence. This is not fair to the taxpayers of ther United States, and many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years and not paying in those past years. " He didn't literally say 'they owe the united states, but he said it all the same. nevermind that he said a load of poppycock, seeing as that NATO memebers aren't obliged nor owe anything in particular. Then he goes on about some gobbleygook on how NATO members should be paying for the military spending of the US.
Whoever wrote the speech for him seemed to forget that he is addressing leaders of countries, not American electorate on a campaign trail. You aren't going to fool them. You can see how as time goes on, most leaders of the countries belonging in NATO are suppressing laughter, cringing or in the case of the guy on the right totally and utterly baffled. That guy with the bald head and glasses looking like a James Bond villian looks like he is about to die inside such is the effort of not laughing. At the back of their head they are probably recalling the briefing to keep speeches short to Donald Trump's attention span and mental aclarity.
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So there's a whole metagame on shaking Trumps hand now.
Trump showed that he likes to rip the other persons arm off like a wookie (that gorsuch one cracks me up):
+ Show Spoiler +
So the nations of the world of course saw this and didn't want to play his game.
Trudeau smooth as always came prepared by blocking the pull with his left, this is probably the best counter
+ Show Spoiler +
The Tajikistan president tried to brute force resist it
+ Show Spoiler +
The Danish PM used a sideways elbow technique to make pulling much harder
+ Show Spoiler +
Macron decided he wanted to up the ante and diss Trump before the handshake by walking towards Trump but just in the end greeting Merkel and Stoltenberg first. However in his inner joy he must've forgotten about the pull and a disappointed Trump nearly rips it from his socket
+ Show Spoiler +
However later on he pays him back by squeezing Trumps knuckles hard
+ Show Spoiler +
Montenegro never had a chance and gets America-Firsted by Trump wanting to be in front
+ Show Spoiler +
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Savings used to be more prevalent for the average person in the US. But it was during an era when government also promoted saving and was invested in provided citizens with clear paths to do so. We don’t see that much any more.
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On May 26 2017 03:31 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So there's a whole metagame on shaking Trumps hand now. Trump showed that he likes to rip the other persons arm off like a wookie (that gorsuch one cracks me up): + Show Spoiler +So the nations of the world of course saw this and didn't want to play his game. Trudeau smooth as always came prepared by blocking the pull with his left, this is probably the best counter + Show Spoiler +The Tajikistan president tried to brute force resist it + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude9gRcKb4U The Danish PM used a sideways elbow technique to make pulling much harder + Show Spoiler +Macron decided he wanted to up the ante and diss Trump before the handshake by walking towards Trump but just in the end greeting Merkel and Stoltenberg first. However in his inner joy he must've forgotten about the pull and a disappointed Trump nearly rips it from his socket + Show Spoiler +However later on he pays him back by squeezing Trumps knuckles hard + Show Spoiler +Montenegro never had a chance and gets America-Firsted by Trump wanting to be in front + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT27iZC-EE0
That last video wtf? Then he swaggers with his chin up in the air stares at everyone as if challenging them to a fight and pulls his jacket forward. That's rather disturbing to see.
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Canada13400 Posts
On May 26 2017 03:31 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:So there's a whole metagame on shaking Trumps hand now. Trump showed that he likes to rip the other persons arm off like a wookie (that gorsuch one cracks me up): + Show Spoiler +So the nations of the world of course saw this and didn't want to play his game. Trudeau smooth as always came prepared by blocking the pull with his left, this is probably the best counter + Show Spoiler +The Tajikistan president tried to brute force resist it + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude9gRcKb4U The Danish PM used a sideways elbow technique to make pulling much harder + Show Spoiler +Macron decided he wanted to up the ante and diss Trump before the handshake by walking towards Trump but just in the end greeting Merkel and Stoltenberg first. However in his inner joy he must've forgotten about the pull and a disappointed Trump nearly rips it from his socket + Show Spoiler +However later on he pays him back by squeezing Trumps knuckles hard + Show Spoiler +Montenegro never had a chance and gets America-Firsted by Trump wanting to be in front + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT27iZC-EE0
Greatest political post in this thread of the year.
Hands down.
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On May 26 2017 03:31 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:So there's a whole metagame on shaking Trumps hand now. Trump showed that he likes to rip the other persons arm off like a wookie (that gorsuch one cracks me up): + Show Spoiler +So the nations of the world of course saw this and didn't want to play his game. Trudeau smooth as always came prepared by blocking the pull with his left, this is probably the best counter + Show Spoiler +The Tajikistan president tried to brute force resist it + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude9gRcKb4U The Danish PM used a sideways elbow technique to make pulling much harder + Show Spoiler +Macron decided he wanted to up the ante and diss Trump before the handshake by walking towards Trump but just in the end greeting Merkel and Stoltenberg first. However in his inner joy he must've forgotten about the pull and a disappointed Trump nearly rips it from his socket + Show Spoiler +However later on he pays him back by squeezing Trumps knuckles hard + Show Spoiler +Montenegro never had a chance and gets America-Firsted by Trump wanting to be in front + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT27iZC-EE0
I was just going to post the Macron one but this is a high quality post. Thank you. Can't wait to see how the meta evolves.
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On May 26 2017 03:44 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2017 03:31 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:So there's a whole metagame on shaking Trumps hand now. Trump showed that he likes to rip the other persons arm off like a wookie (that gorsuch one cracks me up): + Show Spoiler +So the nations of the world of course saw this and didn't want to play his game. Trudeau smooth as always came prepared by blocking the pull with his left, this is probably the best counter + Show Spoiler +The Tajikistan president tried to brute force resist it + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude9gRcKb4U The Danish PM used a sideways elbow technique to make pulling much harder + Show Spoiler +Macron decided he wanted to up the ante and diss Trump before the handshake by walking towards Trump but just in the end greeting Merkel and Stoltenberg first. However in his inner joy he must've forgotten about the pull and a disappointed Trump nearly rips it from his socket + Show Spoiler +However later on he pays him back by squeezing Trumps knuckles hard + Show Spoiler +Montenegro never had a chance and gets America-Firsted by Trump wanting to be in front + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT27iZC-EE0 Greatest political post in this thread of the year. Hands down.
Agreed. This is the kind of high quality analysis I expect to see from TL. A description of a strategical problem and a variety of strategies to counter it. Zeromus, you're a strategy writer, how do you think this metagame is going to evolve?
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EPT![[image loading]](https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2017/02/lookatme.gif)
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