Family Health Insurance
Mar
19
What is your opinion of this article: how some people who can’t afford insurance, can afford things like?
March 19, 2010 | 11 Comments
Excerpts:
The following items were commonly seen on patients or carried by their dependent children, who were also covered by subsidized programs:
* Cell phones and "BlackBerry" PDAs, including just-released models with a price tag of $400, plus an ongoing monthly service fee of $65-$150
* iPods and portable DVD players
* GameBoys and handheld electronic games
* Artificial fingernails requiring maintenance every two weeks at a cost of $40-$60 per salon visit
* Elaborate braided hair weaves, $300 per session plus frequent maintenance
* Custom-designed body art, including tattoos covering the entire torso, neck and arms, as well as body jewelry piercing every skin surface imaginable-and a few unimaginable ones. Custom tattoo work, particularly the "portrait-type" and "half sleeve" art popular in this area, runs from $100-$300 per hour and can require up to 20 hours of work, depending on the complexity of the design.
And:
I encountered patients who gladly paid upwards of $1000 in cash for laser hair removal treatments. The paperwork filled out during their initial consultation asked them to indicate whether or not they had health insurance.
Several hair removal patients reported being covered by Medi-Cal, the government funded health coverage for California ’s low-income population.
A friend of mine sells private health insurance plans. He told me of the 39-year-old father of two whose family was quoted a monthly insurance premium of $250.
"Are you kidding?" he said, refusing the coverage. "That’s almost as much as my boat payment!"
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/subsidized_health_care_a_view_1.html
Does this come as a surprise to many of you?
While Obama was preaching "Personal REsponsibility" to the students because of a 30% drop out rate (mostly among inner city) he preaches and pushes for government responsibility because less than 15% "can’t" afford health insurance.
If those uninsured have 2 adults smokers in the house, each paying $80 a week for a carton of cigarettes, that’s $160 a week — or, $800 a month.
Chances are, they have their phone, cable and internet bundled at another $200 a month (includes a couple of movie channels).
And a cell phone for each of them plus the kids, at another $100 a month.
Probably driving a car less than 10 years old — most likely leased at $360 a month (x2 for an whopping $720 a month).
Probably eating out at least three times a week while at work — $8 a meal, x 2 = 16 x 3 = $48 a week x 5 = $600…
All totaled, we’re talking $2820 a month out the window. But they can’t afford health insurance…
It’s all a matter of what’s important to you and how you choose to spend your money. What good is choice without consequence?
Comments
11 Comments so far
The average American DOG lives better than the average person of a third world country!
SUFFER!?!
When you can show me American children scrounging around in city dumps, looking for scraps of food to eat, or looking for bits of recyclables to make a little money, when you can show me the bodies of dead children who starved to death here in America, when you can show me Americans crippled because they were was badly malnourished, when you can show me adults selling their organs just to have enough money to care for their families, THEN you can say "suffering" Americans!
What is good about living in America, is that we have the right to choose what to spend our money on.
If a person wants a ton of material goods, instead of insurance, I say fine.
BUT, in no way is it fair to take tax money that could go else where for better use to cover what they should take responsibility for.
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OMG, a few people abuse the system. Let’s punish everybody and assume they are all guilty.
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No it doesnt because it has been psychologically proven that people don’t buy into things unless the risk is deemed to be high. This is cave man psychology. It is known as a the rule of thumb. Cavemen statistics works like this: if i can recall a memory its highly likely it could happen again. So that would mean that people would eathquake insurance right after and earthquake and believe or not this is what they do. Even though we know that this is when the risk of an earthquake is at its lowest. And when we know its very high: we ignore because the memories have faded. This means that healthcare costs go up as only people with these memories buy into it raising premiums.
If we can make it work better and cost less for everybody why not. This is a win win situation for people where everyon pays less. This is what the basis of all economics is. Improving welfare. and if we can do that why even think about the moral scorn of a woman getting her hair done over a checkup. It doesnt matter everyone wins. Except the giant healthcare companies who win as everybody loses
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While Obama was preaching "Personal REsponsibility" to the students because of a 30% drop out rate (mostly among inner city) he preaches and pushes for government responsibility because less than 15% "can’t" afford health insurance.
If those uninsured have 2 adults smokers in the house, each paying $80 a week for a carton of cigarettes, that’s $160 a week — or, $800 a month.
Chances are, they have their phone, cable and internet bundled at another $200 a month (includes a couple of movie channels).
And a cell phone for each of them plus the kids, at another $100 a month.
Probably driving a car less than 10 years old — most likely leased at $360 a month (x2 for an whopping $720 a month).
Probably eating out at least three times a week while at work — $8 a meal, x 2 = 16 x 3 = $48 a week x 5 = $600…
All totaled, we’re talking $2820 a month out the window. But they can’t afford health insurance…
It’s all a matter of what’s important to you and how you choose to spend your money. What good is choice without consequence?
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You know, so often I see liberals asking conservatives what Jesus would think of them treating the poor the way they do because they don’t support liberal social programs that supposedly help the poor. What they don’t realize, is that what Jesus called poor and what they considered poor are two entirely different things. God bless.
PS: That’s a great avatar by they way. I’m not sure if that’s your dog or what kind of dog it is, but as a very young kid my family owned two all white German shepherds. They were very beautiful animals and great dogs.
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Distasteful to say the least, but not really surprised. We as a culture where what we have is used to Judge who we are,aka keeping up with the jones attitude, is somewhat to fault. People hold up that the more toys you have the better the person you must be, and then deride the person who works hard to scrape by. We as a culture need to hold up the people that for go the luxuries and niceties for their responsibilities as more of a role model. We reward bad behavior with hand out instead of hand ups. this goes for the rich and poor. a CEO runs a company into the ground he gets a golden parachute, welfare mother pops out another kid, a increase in "benefits" .
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there is too much a sence of entitlement in our country.
No. What Linda J and Doc said.
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How can people afford those thing and be on any form of welfare is beyond me. I do not want government health care and I think we are over burdened by moochers
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No. Especially for California where their Social Services departments are so out of date that they will push almost anyone through for assistance, most predominantly, illegal aliens. They are not checked for legal status when signing up either. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for immigration reform, but those that complain in those states that have out of date systems and do not validate legal status.
What gets me is when I see women AND men come into the local Crisis Assistance Ministry offices (non profit organization) for help to pay electric, gas, medicines, or food but will have all their gold jewelry on, hair done, nails done, and driving a better car than I have! That’s what pisses me off. I work hard, for free, to raise donations and food for that group every week and these people are saying "poor me" while I sweat to help them. I even work a 40 hr a wk job and have a husband and children to take care of. O_o It is easy to complain while you watch well dressed women going into the DSS buildings to renew their Medicaid/Medicare, Food Stamps, Housing assistance, or Child support enforcement and feel like you can’t do anything about it. I wish these law makers in every state would take time out to stand at these locations and actually see what is going on every day! The only thing I am truely thankful for is that our state was one of the first to implement the law to verify legal status for possible illegal immigrants abusing the system. Ours weren’t the Hispanic people, it was the Asians in our state. Those that snuck over or have visa expirations. These were the ones abusing the system more so than any other immigrant. So, I understand where you are coming from, on many sides of the issue. Until they can actually implement a more secure way of verifying income, legal status, criminal history, and budget checks such as reciepts or a monitorable bank account to show spending, there is no way we will be able to control it. Sadly we are stuck in the position we are in until we make these who are supported by our governments accountable for their milking of the system, period. Please contact your representatives of your state. Let them know how you feel and to make changes asap.
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Surprise? No, disappointment yes!
I am infinitely disappointed that so many are so greedy, have no sense of self worth, and are so willing to live off you and me.
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Did you see the photo op with Michelle Obama dishing out food at a soup kitchen? The people getting food from here had expensive BlackBerry cell phones with cameras and were snapping photos of her.
This was a telling photo. Firstly, people accepting food/aid can afford a more expensive electronic device that I can afford to own. I prioritize my expenses and things like that are way down the line after mortgage, food, and lots of other stuff. In face, about $200.00 a week comes out of my husband’s paycheck for health insurance and we are just fine with that as we are not fools.
The other telling thing in that photo was that Michelle went to that soup kitchen wearing $500.00 sneakers. Yup, she is spending money like crazy. I do not begrudge her the sneakers, but it points out that she can and will spend that kind of money on sneakers and when I saw she and her husband’s tax returns, their charitable giving as a percent of income (until the year of the election, interestingly enough) was minuscule in comparison with my own family. If she were all that charitable a person. Why not buy the New Balance sneakers I wear for $70.00 and give the rest?
Certain people place a higher priority on electronic devices and personal interests than others, but still want hand outs on top of that as they choose to spend their money unwisely.
I would rather see tax credits for medicals insurance costs. This way the fools might still spend their money unwisely if they choose and the rest of us who manage our money and are charitable can continue to behave sensibly.
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