keepthefaith

You might do better on the exchange because you are pooled differently than your wife's company and therefore rated better. Hate to rain on the Obamacare exchange parade but before Obamnacare became law and also in more recent years, you could buy all kinds of individual and family health plans online at places like ehealthinsurance.com through very good providers and for some people here, what they could get on their own was less expensive than what we could provide through the company for comparable coverage. We have a couple high risk folks here who make it more expensive for everyone else. Apples, oranges and bananas. Medicaid coverage is less coverage than most private plans and makes available far fewer doctors and specialists. Like many things in life, you get what you pay for. This is not hard for you to understand, right?

WTF planet are you on? Favorable tax treatment? Why should anyone be taxed on a health insurance policy? A better case could be made that individuals should be able to deduct their health insurance cost. The majority of people in the US get their health insurance through their employer and the employers more often than not pay for most of those premiums. The employers take the cost of providing that benefit as an expense. Better plans cost more. Many who have better plans are not high income earners. They simply work in organizations that have chosen or negotiated to provide more complete plans. Taxing better plans is going to be wildly unpopular and was simply put into place to raise money to fund subsidies and reduce what the government feels are inequities in coverage. It's redistribution 101 and won't save anyone a dime. It will however increases people's tax bill and/or cause some to buy less expensive plans with less coverage. Neither of those things are good.

Our district schools have fights, drugs and other issues. The officers don't shoot students or people in the schools who don't demonstrate the will to kill others. We're glad they're there to deter a threat or act if a threat enters the school. If a child acts to kill others, they should be shot just the same as an adult. The law does not differentiate. Oh, and young boys and girls in this country should all understand English. School is taught in English.

My comment has nothing to do with you calling someone a troll. Federal workers? No, there's no fat or low productivity in that workforce.

I don't believe the football industry attracts the most capable minds.

I think gatorman provides tremendous value to this board as he expresses very typical liberal views and lack of arguments. Most of the liberal agenda is very difficult to defend on its' merits.

So parenting would make a difference, wouldn't it. Rest assured, armed guards in schools is a BIG deterrent.

True story from this week... If you think Medicare will cover your recovery from an injury, think again. Close friend of mine has an older relative that fell while living at home. The person couldn't walk and was taken to a hospital by ambulance. Xrays showed broken pelvis and a broken vertebrae. No way to treat it except pain meds, bed rest and therapy. 2.5 days later the person was to be released from the hospital but only into an environment where the proper care was available. Rehab in a proper facility was recommended. The hospital would not release the person to simply go home. Medicare is denying the claim for rehab reimbursement as the patient's case failed to meet 2 requirements. (1) that the hospital stay was 3 days or longer and (2) that the patient did not receive "treatment" while hospitalized. So this elderly person who cannot walk and needs about 2 months to recover from the injury was told that you cannot go home unless you can demonstrate that you have the proper medical care in-home and that medicare will not pay for that or the stay in a rehab facility. So in other words, being injured and having a need for care for 2 months is not reason enough for Medicare to provide benefits. Also, the person was asked early in their stay at the hospital if they had the mean to pay for rehab. They do. Why would that matter? Shouldn't benefits be based on need? The rules have changed. Welcome to the new world of government controlled healthcare in the U.S.

We have had armed policeman in our suburban Chicago district schools since about 2002. You'll find that nearly 100% of parents support it.

McCown will be the hotter property in the off-season. He won't get big money but he'll have many suitors as a backup or for a team whose starter needs to be pushed or tutored. Cutler will end up being overpaid by someone and I doubt it will be the Bears.

Great article. Somewhere I have an autographed picture of Marlin.

That and it's the "we want to get the hell out of here for the Holidays so we better pass something quick deal".

This is the most basic failure of Obamacare. Government now knows best and the choices of health insurance are now more restrictive than ever.

What is the life expectancy in the US of the uninsured? If your only yardstick of the effectiveness of healthcare is life expectancy and if the uninsured live to be in their 70's, then why bother insuring them?

Hard to believe that somehow a study was able to capture accurately from all of those countries spending and life expectancies with comparable data quality. I don't put much weight on this. If I did then Cuba makes everyone look bad. That data really says that slashing spending on health care is our better option. That and there are these things called genetics and environment that the medical profession claims plays such large roles. If we move the US population to Japan do we all live several years longer? NO, not without other variables coming into play. The problem with Obamacare is that it doesn't reduce the cost for people to buy insurance. It raises it through mandates, taxes and regulations and in turn gives care away to many. It will raise our nation's total spend which if you believe your graph will make the U.S. results even worse. Prior to Obamacare health insurance cost was rising much faster than inflation. Since Obamacare the increases have accelerated. That and Obamacare adds to the already large deficit. In this country, most people don't want Obamacare and most people support the principles of freedom and personal responsibility. Obamacare is simply a lousy solution and infringes on those principles.

Sure I understand that. I also understand that a business with more than 10% of its' revenue in interest payments is in a lousy position. Sure I understand that the economy (hopefully) will grow and so will tax receipts. I don't see any bias in my question. I think it's quite probable that 20 years from now our debt expense could be over $1T and reaching 20% of tax receipts.

Lots of nice numbers I'm sure. Let's talk about the interest expense. Is it conceivable that in a couple decades the interest rate at which our debt (which could be $30T by then) will be financed is double or close to double what it is today? Shouldn't we expect that interest rates will have to rise over time? If so we could have an annual expense of roughly $1.25T - $1.5 T annually. Today it costs about $400B. If so, is it possible that taxpayers (I'm talking about people in the workforce then) could be really pissed off that such a large piece of the budget is committed simply to interest on debt? I really don't want to hear about debt/GDP or Interest/GDP or any other nice numbers. What I want to know is if taxpayers then and politicians then are gonna look at the debt expense and be really sorry that some spending discipline wasn't exerted previously. I want to know if an expense like that will be very problematic in the effort to fund the government then.

Interesting info but what I think is a big missing piece in your comments about wages is that the total cost to employ people during the period you cite has risen a lot. FICA costs for employers and employees have risen, workers comp insurance has been mandated and is very expensive in some industries, unemployment insurance rates have risen dramatically and health insurance becoming customary and now mandated is a huge expense compared to the '80's. There are other greater expenses as well but I'll leave it at that. All of these are part of compensation cost but don't put money in paychecks. I have often said to people that we ought to publish business inflation rates (an index that shows business cost inflation) by industry. People would likely see that the goods and services costs for businesses often rise faster than those of consumers.

I'm fine with all the debt. Expand the economy dammit. I'll be out of the workforce in about 10 years and will be entering the entitlement stage of life. Let the younger folks figure it out. Just give me my checks.

Submit that to the Huffington post. You might get published!

If we use bananas as currency does that make us a banana republic?

For every expert opinion, there is an equal and opposite expert opinion.

Wow, I'm gonna take a close look at this tonight to see if I can figure it out.

How much are you paid now to deliver Pizza's? Bring us up to date.

Take a subway restaurant for example which requires a roughly $200K investment to open and generates about a $75K profit per year. A payroll for one of these with manager and payroll taxes is probably about $110K per year. If the non-manager workers (roughly 2 people) get a raise to $15 per hour from $7.50 per hour (assuming the restaurant is open 70 hours per week), the payroll rises by about $65K per year including payroll taxes. Even if I'm a little high in the estimate, who is going to keep one of these open or pay $200K to open a franchise if the annual profit is now $10K? How much business would be lost if the restaurant had to raise prices by 20+% to cover the increased labor expenses? A lot.