Health "care" will not be affordable until people pay for it with their OWN money. We have nation of drug users that freak out with the mere suggestion that they might have to pay for the latest greatest Rx out of their own pocket.
Seems a TikTok post from a young woman said she needed an MRI. Submitted ins claim. Hospital provider said her part would be $5100. She went to another facility asked what same MRI would cost cash. $700. She went back to her hospital provider they said $5100. They would not take cash because she had previously filed a claim via insurance. Make this make sense.
Medical care is priced to insurance. Same with dental care. So, if they can get $5100 for an MRI, that's what they're going to charge. It's "what the market will bear."
Ya think? Pretty much every other country in the Western world has government-ran higher education universities and colleges and have had way, way, way more success than your commie-peddling, debt-debilitating, Ivy League-endowed messes.
The proof is in the pudding regardless of how much you've been MK-Ultra'ed by the CIA.
If you want to fuck something up even worse, crack the door for the banks, Wall Street, and "international finance." Then, its certain that the money will be stolen and everything will be cheapened and destroyed.
Just one adder. Hospitals have a real problem financing EMTALA, another fiasco from the government. Indigents have to be seen in the ER, and made stable and the hospital gets zip for this care. The hospital I worked for had an indigent rate of 30%. I could see county or state hospitals at 50% or more. Guess who gets to pay for this? You and me through our insurance costs. I cannot imagine what the Dem led medical coverage of 25 million illegals costs. We are paying for it all through taxes, or increasing debt!!!!
Medical care shouldn't be a "market." Any institution or company that wants to play in that sector should be required by law to adhere to the principle of limited profit for public service. We already to that with utilities.
What happened to CHARITY? The gov is NOT charity. There has to be set asides from these hospital systems. I understand compassion, but since I PAY MY WAY and I donate to various charitable causes, I shouldn't have to have standard physician care triaged. Fill me in the next available slot. And stop upping my premiums $230 per month every year when I am healthy. It should be like a safe driver insurance. No one should have to pay for people that get freebies with an excess of 100 lbs, smoke, etc, etc.
Adding: "... which, of course, is why every other Western country in the free-world* has socialized universal health care rather than Wall Street-ran health care."
Capitalism works great but not for essential services like building/maintaining roads/bridges, air traffic control, national defence and health care regardless of how much the CIA has MK-Ultra'ed you otherwise.
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*This includes even Israel where US tax-payer dollars fund their universal health care coverage (presumedly while laughing at you).
I have had a similar experience with colonoscopies. 15 years ago, a hospital and the attending surgeon charged almost $2K, much of which was covered by employer-provided insurance, A few years before, when I was an independent contractor and had no insurance coverage, I paid cash at a clinic and got it for $300.
Specialty clinics have no EMTALA. ER, or gross overheads like hospitals have. Like tuition subsidized by the government, the hospital outlay from the insurance industry is skyrocketing. Get it, it is another form of fiat creation? So the answer is to go to the clinics, not the hospitals.
Of course, but the big question (to which I think we already know the answer) is: Why are we routinely directed to these expensive options, when the insurers could save so much by using the much cheaper alternatives?
Neither hospitals nor insurance companies can create fiat "money," John.
The international bankers that command the U.S. Federal Reserve are the only men who can conjure world reserve currency out of thin air. "Abracadabra!"
You're corrupt insurance/hospitals (that gave us the still unexplained COVID death bonuses) are all downstream from the creation of yet more fiat.
Not sure, but I would be willing to guess that the $5100 quote after insurance was because of the deductible not being met... as opposed to a copay. Thus, the going rate for MRIs was $5100 at the first hospital. Whether or not she would have gotten a lower initial quote before mentioning insurance is impossible to determine.
YW. Of course that brings us back to my original comment. That first hospital charges $5100 for an MRI that has a marginal cost of, maybe, $50... and, to be kind, a fully allocated unit cost of $350 as indicated by the other hospital quoting $700 (100% markup).
Yet, the in network (negotiated) charge is $5100. This pricing structure allows the hospital to book immense profit and the unsurance company booking elevated costs that can be driven back into premiums... with a 10% profit to boot.
However, if the country continues to spiral into financial destruction this won't be because of the Marxists or President Trump and the MAGA agenda.
The blame for that should be placed squarely onto the shoulders of the Republican establishment RINOs and anti-Trump conservatives who claim to be Reagan fiscal conservatives and have been in Congress for 45 years.
They've had the reigns of power and representation within our government for nearly a half century.
They have sold this country out while adding 37 trillion dollars to the national debt all while claiming to be “fiscally conservative” and for limited government.
They haven't conserved anything other than the managed decline of this nation and they're doing everything possible to delay President Trump's agenda and to fight him at every turn.
We see this now with what the RINOs have done in Indiana with refusing to redraw the redistricting maps.
BR. Nice screed. But this warp speed run toward Marxism is not partisan. Both are guilty. And it is old as time. Men want control and will kill, steal and destroy to get it and keep it. Being partisan brings up an emotional orgasm that makes headlines but actually produces nothing healthy. The entire globe is mired in a debt-based economic culture. For a reason. Control. Technocratic control is here and the fences of slavery are closing upon us all. It will go kinetic. Always does seems. Arm up. It’s going to get ugly first slowly then suddenly.
If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care, and the general degree of health and life expectancy of Americans will plummet accordingly.
The reason is simple: there is no such thing as downward pressure on health care prices. Supply and demand doesn't work when you apply it to health care, simple as that. Think about it: what do people do when the price of something they want seems out of reach? They either look for a substitute, or they do without. So either someone sells a different product cheaper, or sellers reduce the price until they're able to sell their inventory. But has anyone ever hunted for a bargain when they're lying in an accident scene, screaming with a broken leg? When your bones are broken, you pay the going rate (or the ambulance takes you because the law says they have to, then you get the bill later). As for substitutes, the only substitute for treatment for a broken leg is... someone else treating your broken leg.
Supply and demand doesn't work when applied to medical care, because in practice there is no upper limit to what people will pay because they absolutely have to. The only limit is literally not having the means to pay. This is why socialized medicine exists. At minimum, what needs to happen is for the government to set prices and enforce them. Otherwise hospitals, providers, pharmaceutical companies, and above all insurers have carte blanche to gouge and screw all the live-long day.
I'm an expat living in Ecuador. The healthcare is excellent. Office visits are $40, housecalls $60. You call your doctor directly, no front office. Appointments are next day, certainly within the week. CAT scans, etc. are in the 2- 300 dollar range. WE ALL PAY CASH. If you do have (inexpensive) insurance, you pay the doc. cash and he gives you a receipt you take to the insurance company. They reimburse the CASH price. Naboacare!
Yes, most drugs are over the counter. Doc tells you what to buy and you go to one of the pharmacies on practically every corner and buy it. No office visit for refills.
My wife fell off a horse in Iceland and cracked a few ribs. We went to a local doctor (Dr. Iceland I call him) and he treated her. The receptionist apologetically let us know that there would be a $45 charge for services.
Yes, 911 works. 3500 cabs also. A friend passed out at restaurant. Doctor came, called ambulance with EMTs. Emergency room, IV, CAT scan, overnight stay. Total cost $700.
"Supply and demand doesn't work when applied to medical care" FALSE.
"If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care..." FALSE.
If people had to pay for GLP-1 agonists @ $1000/mo to lose weight - and keep paying that for the rest of their lives since the effects of that class of medicines are not enduring - they would get off their ass instead.
Medical care is a business that has capitalized on the decadent presumption that want = need.
honestly people would be better off without going to all this healthcare. There's a ton of unnecessary things being done. I think people would focus on their own health instead of being sold the idea that the doctors can fix a lifestyle. Back in the day, insurance was for Catastrophic things like that broken leg, heart attack or Cancer.
Feels like there are so many Ponzi schemes our current society is propped up and limping upon. Social security with no actual cash savings that only remains afloat based upon the input of the currently increasingly over burdened younger generations that can't afford a house and barely rent. The promise of 401k's for savings that if we really look closely at them, amount to owning nothing. You really own a piece of an investment firm, not the securities themselves. If that fund dies, so does your investment with it. Most of both are based on the value of Treasury bills created out of thin air to enable printing more money out of thin air. We could go even further into FDIC insured banks and what would happen if there was a run on cash if a few failed simultaneously. The medical industry is just one more unstable wall in the house of cards.
"The promise of 401k's for savings that if we really look closely at them, amount to owning nothing. You really own a piece of an investment firm, not the securities themselves. If that fund dies, so does your investment with it."
I've also read about this reality, which is concerning. It often feels like there's no place to run, no place to hide.
I've wondered about that too. Sure some government agency would make the investors whole (with invented money), but after how long?
As soon as I retired I took my employer-sponsored account out of the hands of TIAA-CREF, which I disliked, and transferred it to Fidelity. In the case of a massive blow-up not even Fidelity would be absolutely safe, but it's one of the largest brokerages and an economic powerhouse. It would probably be strong enough to stand up even to the federal government. So I tell myself.
Not sure I understand where you're getting "decreased demand"? There are four certainties in life: everyone gets sick, everyone gets hurt, everyone gets old, everyone dies. There will always and forevermore be adequate "demand" for medical care, no matter what.
The other part of demand, though, is what people are ready, willing and *able* to pay for that care. That's where the problem starts. Once you've set up a tollbooth between people and their medical needs, bob's your uncle because people will pay through the nose and be grateful for the opportunity. One man's life-threatening problem is another man's revenue stream. That's why health care in the USA is such a fucking mess: grifts on top of grifts on top of grifts, everyone at every level wetting their beak in every way they can.
Markets are supposed to be efficient because they produce price transparency. But there's no price transparency in health care, because no one is operating a rational pricing scheme. They're running scams, trying to chisel a few more dollars out of everyone's desperation. Transparent pricing will never appear spontaneously in health care, because the incentives don't work that way. Either transparent pricing needs to be imposed by government action, or there needs to be a different system such as single payer. Your tax bill might increase, but your (much larger) medical insurance bill will disappear and everyone will end up better off.
Our health care, at some point in our past, became a commodity to these people. When our health care because a commodity that is when the system went bust. Our health care should never have become a means of profit for anything or anyone. How do we get away from this? I do not know. My only suggestion is try to be as healthy as possible so you won't need the system as much and then hope for the best. Or, just accept your mortality and when you get sick you die.
You are wrong. I got into a motorcycle accident and broke my collar bone. I didn't have insurance, I went to the emergency ward and got taken care of. They billed me later, I negotiated it down from $3000 to $1200 by using some strong negotiating, and threatening to sue them.
I'm glad you were able to negotiate your bill downward. Not everyone is so lucky. Were you aware that two-thirds (66.5%) of all personal bankruptcies in the USA are due to medical debt, or work loss caused by medical problems?
By definition, those are people who *weren't* able to negotiate their prices down to something they could afford.
In Canada, where I live, the equivalent figure is 19%, and that's mostly due to loss of work/income rather than medical bills themselves. In most other developed nations, the number is smaller still.
With all due respect, I don't see anything positive in a system that piles a second harm on top of the original harm. As someone who knows exactly what it's like living under socialized medicine, everything that comes after "I went to the emergency ward and got taken care of" to me is a travesty. You and every other American deserve better.
"If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care, and the general degree of health and life expectancy of Americans will plummet accordingly."
Or it might get better*. Most 'healthcare' is just Rockefeller medicine, designed to make you sick. You have more 'medicine' than you've ever had and the US is the sickest society in the west (also the most heavily vaccinated, I believe).
I had a small breast cancer in 2019. I live in the UK, so the surgery and radiotherapy were free at the point of use (uninsured cost for radiotherapy to a non-citizen would have been 15x£1500 from the NHS, I found out, somewhere on the interwebz. That's without the surgery). Possibly, if I hadn't had the 'free' mammo that found the tiny cancer, I'd have been fine anyway. Over-treatment is a thing.
Anyway I'm entitled to 10 years of follow-up (newer regime is 5 years, but I'm still under the old regime). Follow-up being mammograms, which at population level statistically cause many cancers. So I had a couple then stopped. Not going to have any more, while I have no reason to, even if it's free.
I heard it was a Rockefeller who nudged the NHS into existence, and they do like us taking prescription drugs, radiotherapy and chemotherapy (nitrogen mustards, just like WWI poison gas was made from). I'm 73, so I'll take my chances and say my prayers.
*Dr Vernon Coleman claims that when UK doctors go on strike, the number of deaths decreases. That would match the claim (not his) that iatrogenic deaths (death by doctor) are the third cause of death in the US. Leaving aside the occasional botched surgery, that means prescription medicines. Probably higher than third cause since the covid hoax.
The NHS is a good deal for people in the UK. I hope it survives the drive to starve it of funding and drive people into privatized care. People should only need to look at the United States, with its grotesquely bloated system riddled at every level with waste, fraud and abuse, to see where that leads. Best wishes.
If you break a leg or an arm the NHS is great. If you go in with 'covid' or whatever the next fake plague will be, you're less likely to come out alive.
My mother-in-law had lymphoma cancer. She was 74 and underwent 5 radical sessions of injection of toxic poison into her body in hopes that she would outlast the cancer cells. Barbaric, horrific treatment. Anyway, she completed her 5th and final round and two days later, while climbing into bed, she collapsed and died.
Billions of dollars of research, thousands of brilliant researchers, and hundreds of cancer specialist research centers and this is all they can come up with? There is no other way to truly treat cancer that doesn't involve the injection of toxic sludge into a human body? Utterly barbaric. What the hell are they spending all those research dollars on anyway?
"Millions of dollars of research, thousands of brilliant researchers, and hundreds of cancer specialist research centers and this is all they can come up with?"
Read the Day Tapes, cankerpuss. Recollections by Dr Lawrence Dunegan of a talk given by Dr Richard Day (leading paediatrician and Planned Parenthood guy) in 1969. He asked his audience (of paediatricians) not to take notes, but Lawrence Dunegan made notes as soon as he got home and spilled the beans after Day was dead.
What are YOU doing to improve cancer care? It’s easy to whine online, harder to do the real work to make things better. We need more workers and fewer whiners.
You say that as if people with broken legs and no insurance are pulling a scam. "Ha ha, those fools paid all that money and all *I* had to do was get hit by a bus. Like, for real hit by a bus, with like actual broken bones and a month in traction and so forth."
I think we can all agree there's a difference between insurance scammers making bank, and people with real needs having those needs addressed. Jesus certainly would have thought so: read Matthew 25:35-40.
As a Yank I acknowledge that where emergency treatment and costs for it are concerned, the Canadian system is better. But what about serious, even if non-emergency, illnesses and conditions? In the States we keep hearing about Canadians who have to wait months for necessary medical procedures, and if they can afford it go to the US to be taken care of. (It's even worse in the UK's National Health System.)
I realize some of the horror stories may be biased, but I doubt all are.
It's not as if current "healthcare" practices are boosting life expectancy or even quality of life, both of which have declined for decades, and plunged since the Covid Scamdemic.
This is how people react to the suggestion that they pay for anything. Whatever conditioning people have been given to expect endless free stuff from the government…it’s working.
A corollary: What? You expect me to pay for groceries with my pay? Naw, man -- my pay is for buyin' new clothes so I can go clubbin' and hookin' up. You can't make me spend my money on groceries! It's not fair!
Or go to Disneyland and stand in line for 3 hours to ride "Peter Pan" or to buy a new RM motorhome, toy hauler and UTV side by sides. Spend income on their own personal healthcare? How dare they!
I forgot to mention. Prevention care is oversold. There's a huge downside to screening so much. They don't tell you that. IMO we need to get back to treating sick people. The amount of money to screen screen screen everyone the same is too much money. The Europeans have backed away from this.
"Prevention care is oversold." It's just as much about getting you into the system as preventing sickness. Prostate cancer is the obvious one. Most men with prostate cancer would die of something else entirely (or just old age) if they weren't screened for prostate cancer. I remember my husband (retired doctor) telling me decades ago that 70% of 70-year-old men have prostate cancer and 100% of 100-year-old men have it. Most never found out, in the past, and died of something else.
They tell people that they are making them better. I am not sure it's true. Example, the treatment cascade. They put a woman on HRT, a few years later she has pre uterine cancer, then they do a hysterectomy. I have seen this movie before. Life is hard and sometimes discomfort happens. Everything doesn't need a treatment. They are making the original discomfort worse. I am sure there are some people that are helped by screening but not as many as people say. They sometimes cut out a slow growing prostate cancer and then go; oh we saved him. Then someone dies of a similar thing despite and that's never talked about.
Not necessarily an endorsement, the Europeans, etc. Corollary perhaps that otherwise ordinary health care, e.g., setting a broken leg, has been known to be withheld due to the patient being a tobacco consumer. What???
I've never heard of that, but I have heard of people being refused a transplant (even children) if they won't take various death shots. We can expect this to increase. Depop ain't gonna do itself.
Health care will become affordable when government gets out of the way and the private market competes against itself. Competition means providers will become creative and find innovative ways to reduce costs in order to attract customers.
I recently had pain in my wrist. My doc did an X-ray and found nothing wrong and insisted that I go get a MRI. The cost of the MRI would have been $2,000 out of pocket with no guarantee that the MRI would reveal anything.
I went to another doctor who gave me two steroid shots. Two days later my wrist was feeling much better and pain free. Cost me $120.00.
Competition. Government needs to go back to its Constitutional mandates and let the creativity of the private market through competition resolve these problems. There are way too many people who believe government is the resolution when government is actually the problem.
And yes, too many people are on drugs. Drugs that create side effects so they have to go get more drugs to counteract the side effects of the first drug and so on and so on.
Trump and the republicans tried to bring the marketplace into healthcare shortly after his 2016 election win and they were savaged by the dems, the media, and of course the medical industry itself. Grandma almost got pushed over the cliff in her wheelchair they said. This effort led to a crushing defeat in the 2018 midterm election. I believe we've gotten to the point where everyone realizes that something must be done.
Well, that's really great -- when people have their own money. Most people don't. When healthcare providers and insurance companies are garnishing the Social Security of old age pensioners (without due process), to pay for their addictions to their money, that's when the problems arise. When people have no control over their money they begin to feel poor. Add to this the fact that money, the printed kind, has no value anymore, and you come to realize how poor you really are. From poverty to penury, these providers and insurers are the real drug addicts.
It's all going to go belly-up by 2035, that's in ten years, anyway. Social Security (originally set up as a trust fund), has been raided by these elected-for-life professional politicians. The only thing the healthcare system in the United States is (in)famous for is its callous disregard for human life.
NHS of other countries are notorious for disregarding human life in favor of making required cost targets. Giving responsibility to a government insures that individual or local needs will not be met, in favor of the whole. Hmmm, sounds like insurance, doesn’t it. I believe that globally, the NHS groups are in trouble also. I think that the single payer systems use the governments to make health care decisions for the people and that just makes me shudder.
Mr. John---be lucky enough to be Canadian and hurt your back to the point where you have horrible pain. Doctor will tell you that you are scheduled for an MRI in 6 or 9 months and after that maybe another 3 to 4 months you can see the doc. Of course you can sign up for MAID and off yourself if the pain is too bad. You are correct in that NHS countries are quite notorious for disregarding human life or human suffering.
The above example happened to one of my co-workers which was unlucky to reside in Canada.
Our system is not good but I think less gov't involvement would help more than more gov't involvement.
Trump has been promising, and failing, to deliver his big, beautiful alternative to the ACA for more than nine years now. When do his cult followers finally admit he’s full of shit!
Yes, or something like that... The core reason we spend more on healthcare is we are a nation of fat, out of shape pigs who treat themselves like shit. Europeans do not have a better system. They have healthier people.
I have proposed the following several times. It never gets any attention. I think it would put the cork in the bottle:
50% of Americans get tax-free healthcare from their employer. even considering their deductibles this is a powerful incentive to use the system. And some of us got a way better deal. I retired from Ed. My insurance was excellent, and my deductible was tiny.
So...
Tax the healthcare benefits according to use. Every policy has an inherent value that can be defined. My former employer laid out about $10,000 a year for each of us. Yes, I know they got a good deal. (My cost was about $250 / mo.)
So let's say the policy is worth $10,000. Let's say I use $1500 in a year. That $1500 should be taxed as income.
Tax right up to face value. After face, no more tax. If I use $15,000, I am taxed on $10,000.
You might include a waiver for truly catastrophic illness.
Divert that money into making the "system" solvent.
That will "bend the curve." Bet on it.
Too many people are cavalier about using the system. Maybe they would think harder if it was taxed?
Look further up the pyramid, Dave. Look at Big Pharma and "God damn the pusher-man."
It was recently announced that TrumpRx is now going to snarf US tax-payer dollars to give to Novo Nordisk (less TrumpRx's cut, natch) so that fat-ass Americans can be on Ozempic for free.
It’s stupidity and destruction by design. Some of these Democrat “leaders “ are so dumb, it’s hard to believe they could manage their own lives, let alone a successful campaign for office, not to mention doing any actual work while in office. They are selected, installed, and managed by unknown people, people who have been successfully stealing money and lives from the American people for a long time. THEY are not stupid, these unseen agents of destruction. At least not in the typical sense. They are possessed by evil; it’s a religion to them. They want the whole world bound into one world government, all of us enslaved. Anyone who resists will be destroyed unless they submit. Much like the Muslims, who have a similar goal and zealotry.
Then you deny what "uniparty" really means and is. Never forget those jackasses waving their effing Ukraine flags inside our congressional offices, while we all got overcharged for gas and were told to go buy an EV if we didn't like it. Never forget that.
The Uniparty is the product of the Deep State. The Deep State is the group who believes that the federal government is supreme, ie, they are protecting their own jobs, protecting themselves from the ramifications of the vote. IMHO, two new parties are going to form, one on the Ult-Left pushing us into Communism, and the Moderate Right, MAGA, trying to minimize the growth of DC. It is a mind-bending Cold War so far.
The Deep State is comprised of both sides of the Dem vs. GOP divide. If MAGA. Ex. The Tea Party cannot stop the Deep State, the Globalists will win.
Who is railing against the dems? I never mentioned them myself. I agree the corruption is in both parties. I’m just saying that we need to look beyond our own country and see the bigger picture. Our government, our country even, is being controlled (more than ‘influenced’ anyway) by people who are not American, by people who hate America. Until the sources of the money and power are tracked down, most of the stuff our “elected” officials do is just theatre.
Sorry! I forgot I said that! Still,I didn’t feel like was “railing against the dems”. You have to admit some of them are unbelievably dumb. Republicans are corrupt, but don’t expose themselves as much as the Democrats. I only hope and pray for SOME leaders to have wisdom and courage. Yet, I know that they are risking their lives, and their families, if they are.
Critically thinking, analytically minded people saw through COVID, which was put on by these same demons you refer to. The main problem now is that the schools have no interest in turning out students capable of thinking for themselves. It is all group think.
Okay, Covid. The weaponization of the DOJ, the legal system, is very similar to the weaponization of the CDC, FDA and NHS by the same Deep State group. Catch the similarity of the war against Trump and the war against the Covid scare. An interesting sidebar is the fact that what Bragg and James did in NYC was almost identical to what Andrew Cuomo did with the Covid fear factor.
The Deep State with the Biden Mob as its tool, did both.
Yes, but Covid also revealed the global one-world government conspiracy enough that the average person could see it was true, without having to do any research. How could you NOT see that the exact same playbook was being used in all the countries, with varying degrees of success? This happened too quickly, even with modern communications, to be some kind of peer pressure influence between countries. This was clearly coordinated. Also the trans thing and the influx of illegal immigrants, the promotion of criminals and the demotion of citizens has been happening or been attempted in all the “western”(Christian) countries. And before that, many other steps- controlling the schools and the media, for instance.
Yes and no. Overall, as I said, they are cunning. And yes, they act dumb sometimes to appeal to their army. They are incredible liars. But some individuals are undeniably stupid.
"You might not know it, considering the drift of recent years, but there are still a lot of capable people in this country ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work repairing what is broken."
YES.
As I've been shouting for years now, "Anything done by men can be UNDONE by BETTER MEN."
TYVM Jim for ending today's rant on an optimistic note. We need more of that.
I believe that those "better men" and women are actively working tirelessly to repair our broken country. I'm honored to live in this time and to see good prevail. I listened to Ed Martin today and he said the information surrounding J6 is building fast and and will lead back to the 2020 election steal.
"Then, pass some really juicy legislation starting with election reform entailing proof-of-citizenship to vote, paper ballots, end of mail-in ballots (except for traditional absentee voting), and do away with the janky vote-counting machines). That would be an excellent start. Proceed from there."
Start here. It will end the grift that is the Democrat party. Or, it will start CWll, and we can end them there. Communism doesn't work, and it NEVER will. It is NOT allowed by law in America. Why are we letting something illegal fester? These liars and thieves are ruining what is left of this country. If we don't figure this out, it will cease to exist.
There are a lot of relatively simple solutions to the problems that face America. Want to stop the debt problem? Stop spending money. Simple. Here's the catch. These simple solutions will result in some significant pain for those who are addicted to the easy money of government. So, they do nothing.
Historically, measures like this haven't been used to prevent non-citizens from voting. Instead, they've been used to prevent certain citizens (but not others) from exercising their franchise. Heaven forfend, they might vote the wrong way. Can't have that!
A few days ago Phil became indignant about Muslims not being allowed to run for office. He's surrendered without ever knowing he that he was surrendering.
Haven't been to a Dr. in 25 yrs, no insurance to boot. I eat no seed oils, no sugar, lotsa olive oil, organic onions, garlic, red meat, eggs, chicken and fish. Zero processed food. I do like vodka.
Do not believe in their system, but believe in the 3 trillion cells in my body which obey my voice and healthy thoughts. Discernment was granted me to see the brokenness ravaging our society by evil people and I refused to participate any longer. I have no health issues and I really don't care because I use my awareness/bandwidth for more important(to me) life issues. I let no one put anything in my body that will compromise this amazing temple I've been given. I will be 60 in 5 months and that picture of me is recent and I'm obviously healthy, even though I've snubbed their "experts" for a quarter of a century and saved myself a fortune. Laugh, mock and disbelieve all you want, but they've brainwashed the country and you're paying them big-time.
Read "Who Can Stand Against His Cold", one of the greatest sermons ever spoken in New England. A family was struggling through a blizzard in New Hampshire and asked a farmer for shelter. He said, No. They only made it a few hundred more yards, dying from the cold. The farmer was never the same again. And yes, it was just before Christmas.
Wormwood, as mentioned in the Bible, is a term that carries significant symbolism and importance. It is often associated with bitterness and sorrow, representing spiritual desolation and calamity. The term comes from the plant Artemisia absinthium, which has a very bitter taste. This bitterness serves as a potent metaphor in biblical texts, representing spiritual desolation and calamity. Wormwood is mentioned in several passages, illustrating its symbolic significance. For instance, Revelation 8:10-11 describes a great star falling from heaven, causing a third of the waters to become wormwood, leading to many deaths. This passage emphasizes the severity of the situation and the consequences of divine judgment. The cultural context of wormwood enhances its understanding as a representation of both physical and spiritual ailments. Understanding the biblical meaning of wormwood invites deeper reflection on personal and communal suffering.
Im 60 also and am the same. Healthy and fit. Never paid for healthcare insurance which is ridiculously overpriced. Don't need a doctor checking- up on every part of my body. I eat right and keep active which is a major part of taking of your body. It seems to me a lot of people have become almost fanatical on having every twitch of their body inspected & diagnosed. Its a fear based reaction to constantly being told all the things that could be wrong with them.
"The government will almost certainly attempt to counter that by giving them money created out of nothing." This is almost guaranteed to happen as UBI becomes a reality.
Listen to the recent Joe Rogan interview with Musk, where he describes the coming effects of AI on employment. It's not a pretty picture for most, but the pixel pushers are first in line.
All money is created out of nothing. It's important for people to understand that. When you go to your local bank for a mortgage, the bank doesn't allocate money to you out of an account it has on hand. Instead it increments the value of your account by the value of the mortgage, and you then get to spend that amount of money on a house. Poof: money from nowhere. The bank is allowed to do this under the law because the sovereign government, which holds the ultimate authority to create money, has delegated that authority to banks in order to encourage productive activity. If the government were to withdraw that authority, it would simply create the money itself and credit the amount to the banks, and then the banks would lend it out. But otherwise the system would be the same. What sustains the value of money is the activity it generates, combined with government's ability to impose taxes, which have to be paid in the same currency that the government issues, creating a closed loop.
There is endless mystification about money. Especially about gold, the magic metal. But what money actually is, is a consensus. Nothing more. The consensus works so long as (a) it successfully games people into doing productive things, or (b) people with money are able to enforce their will against those without it. When (a) and (b) both fail, the consensus dissolves and chaos may result.
If AI actually destroys employment, there will pretty much have to be a new consensus about why people still deserve enough money to, you know, feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. What will that be, if the sweat of our brows becomes obsolete? An interesting question.
It's already happening. I related this story last week, but my former employer terminated hundreds of American employees and filled their positions with 1,000 Indians in India. Just a couple weeks ago, they fired the Indians and now do all of their jobs with AI.
From what I can tell, ALL business writing is now done by AI. Free bad writing is better than a human. My guess is graphic design is done as well. As is most "coding."
I guess the new line will be "Learn to do manual labor."
That's enshittification for you. First your former employer screwed their US employees, then they screwed their Indian employees, and now they're screwing their customers. AI right now is still pretty crap and a scam, and almost certainly can't do the job of replacing all those workers, so your former employer is now selling a crap service to their customers and gets to pocket the difference.
Most of those jobs were office manager, support staff type jobs, so what they really did was further screw their remaining employees because now there is no one to talk to when there is a problem. I guess you just talk to the AI. Some of the jobs were inputting and operating cash flow software, making projections, etc. I was trained to do that 25 years ago and used to be paid well to do it. Then, they outsourced it to an Indian bullpen. It took three times as many Indians to do the work as it took Americans, but they were paid nothing, so the company still won by outsourcing the jobs.
That's where the Vax comes in. The useless eaters are using up their world. They're not needed as "consumers" or customers. And less and less as workers. They Elite create money out of nothing after all. Five hundred million tops according to the Georgia Guide Stones, now destroyed.
FILIBUSTER: I don’t see this anywhere in the U.S. constitution. I did read that acts of congress such as an annual budget require 51% approval. So the filibuster is a violation of our basic law and there is no reason for a government shutdown. You could say it is a self-imposed overthrow of the government.
DIRECT PAY HEALTHCARE: Christian Healthshare groups offer this and from our experience it works far simpler than Blue Cross…at 1/2 the price. We pay the hospital and doctors directly after asking and usually getting a discounted price in line with reality. The receipts are sent in and approved. Then other members start sending us checks.
filibuster is a Senate convention, not a law or Const requirement. that is why it can so easily be abolished. in some ways it functions as a third arm of legislative branch. if abolished, we can expect more whipsaws as the majority changes.
Per Grok - "The US Senate filibuster, which allows senators to delay or block votes through extended debate, was not deliberately created but emerged accidentally in 1806. The Senate removed the "previous question" motion, which had allowed a majority to end debate, following a suggestion by Vice President Aaron Burr to streamline rules. This left no mechanism to stop prolonged speeches. Early instances of obstruction occurred in 1789, with the tactic named "filibuster" by the 1850s. It gained prominence in 1837 and became a significant minority tool. In 1917, the Senate introduced Rule 22, allowing a two-thirds majority (later 60%) to invoke cloture and end debate, formalizing the filibuster's role in Senate procedure."
You are right, the Constitution does not say anything about the filibuster. However, the Constitution does permit the House and the Senate to create their own means and rules of operation. Thus the Senate can choose to continue the filibuster or end the filibuster as it so desires.
In my NW Ct town of 25,000 a new housing complex was just completed built by a Texas company lured here by generous state subsidies and tax abatements. More precious farmland was chewed up and how incongruous and out of place those towers look sitting in the middle of ancient (mid 17th century) farm fields. 10% of the units were set aside as 'Affordable housing', renting at $2990 per month. Top tier units -- 1450 sq. ft. -- are going for $5900 per month. I am told these places were not built for local people and a way to solve the "Housing Crisis", but for soulkiver populations from China and India. Indeed, Chinese recently bought the mansion across the street from me ... for a cool $999,900. They haven't picked their leaves up and they're blowing all over the neighborhood. My neighbor, a Prosecuting Attorney, thinks it's some kind of safe house for human smuggling or some other kind of nefarious activity. He was only half joking. We shall see.
Keep that 45-70 handy in case the Tong comes a'knockin. One of my tenants pays $775 for a 1400 sq ft. apartment. She's been there for years and I never raise rents. My most expensive place is $1050 for 1100 sq. ft.
Or 'Health is what you get when you eat good, unadulterated food, drink clean (not poisoned, fluoridated) water, and breathe clean air. And limit screen time!'
"Personal responsibility" has been the repeated mantra since the mid-1970s. That was about the same time that gains in productivity separated from gains in real wages.
Pretty much all economic gains since then have been absorbed by the minority with financial assets, or those fortunates who bought homes when homes were affordable. Now, nothing is affordable and people are drowning. Health care in particular is a scam used to pick the meat off people's bones. Going to single-payer health care wouldn't fix everything that needs fixing, but it would be a good start.
That's the neoliberal playbook at work. Socialized systems like that tend to be popular because they're free at the point of use. So there are two general strategies used to undermine that popularity, and if possible eventually destroy them.
1. Starve them of funding, and/or force mandates on them that no private system is required to meet. (E.g. Congress forced the US post office to prepay its pension obligations decades in advance, far in excess of what is required of private pension plans, which resulted in the post office *appearing* to operate in the red.) Then point the finger and say, "this is what happens when socialism". When in fact socialized programs work just fine if they're allowed to run sanely, which they generally are.
2. Allow the programs to be infested by parasitic profit-seeking. Things like so-called "Medicare Advantage", which isn't actually Medicare at all but a scam whereby the government pays profit-taking providers to provide inferior service. Try watching John Oliver's segment about it, he's always funny: https://youtube.com/shorts/sl9IRn33Fig?si=ggUfjjLmw158mn-r
These so called democrats seem to have forgotten that their first loyalty is to the citizens of your country. They are rapidly driving you down into the morass the my county (Canada) is mired in. It is treasonous for ANY government representative to put Any interests ahead of the citizens of their own country. If this movement is not crushed it will destroy you as surely as it is destroying us..
Like, wow. As a fellow Canadian, this guy does not speak for me.
Dude, Trump has declared trade war on us and openly declared that Canada is the 51st state, i.e. not a sovereign country. Are you actually saying you approve of the USA attacking our sovereignty? Cause your words sure read that way.
Yes, Whites have no essential relationship to Western Civilization. And since immigration is the essence of Americanism (you're all living in America!), the Somali is a priori more American or Canadian that we are - even before they come here.
Exactly: You might not know it, considering the drift of recent years, but there are still a lot of capable people in this country ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work repairing what is broken.
The conversion of the economy toward production, and the government away from graft and subsidies, is possible, in the sense that it could, conceivably, be done. That said, it doesn’t seem possible if one of the two major parties is absolutely dedicated to derailing any such actions, which is where we are at.
Despite the rogue's gallery of recent election wins by folks that outwardly show disdain for this country's foundations and soul, under the flag of the "Democrat" party, the establishment Republicans find themselves in an alley facing "win at any cost" street fighters and want to politely insist on the the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
It's going to require a united front of common sense to fight the corruption and lies fed daily to the gullible populace. The sheer volume of people that can't understand or appreciate what they have/had and are convinced that chasing rainbows and unicorns can fix everything, (including what's not broken), certainly doesn't instill an ton of optimism going forward.
This is a great column. Jim has often pointed out the problems with money in our country. But the simultaneous increased valuation of stocks and precious metals isn't really so surprising. Stocks are claims on real assets, viz. companies that are producing (or are trying to) goods and services that people need. Even banks serve an important purpose, as conduits between people with money to save and borrowers who need it for legitimate purposes such as starting a business. The bank's role, of course, is to evaluate borrowers' requests for plausibility and likelihood of success. Precious metals need no commentary after fiascos like the Weimar Republic. Real estate also tends to rise because as Will Rogers famously said, "They ain't making it any more." The real problem, as Jim points out, is the debasement of the currency, aka money printing to finance overspending by the government. Those who have assets see them increase with inflation. But as usual with Democratic schemes, the money printing hurts the very people that it ostensibly is intended to help, namely the poor and less well off. So the demand for more of it--the usual Democratic/leftist strategy of doubling down on failure--is not surprising. But if you're desperately trying to hang onto power, any strategy, however hurtful to the country and most of its people, becomes acceptable.
Morality is the ultimate currency - if it carries a big stick. The Nazis had no gold, all of it being stolen by the allies after WW1. But they had the brains and brawn of the Germany people - and a big stick to drive out the parasite bankers. So total collapse, right? No the economic renaissance where even manual laborers got paid holidays. The Allies had to attack before this system spread to other parasite ridden nations.
"Some people will have no money at all. The government will almost certainly attempt to counter that by giving them money created out of nothing. It will also give money to broke institutions like banks, and perhaps to businesses deemed 'critical' to society."
Bullseye! The government can, if it chooses, encourage wealth creation -- mostly by eliminating bad regulations and useless paperwork -- but cannot produce it. Fiddling with interest rates, subsidizing particular industries (mostly those with strong lobbyists or located in Congress members' states or districts), and creating fantasy dollars are at best temporary anesthesia for what ails the economy.
I'm no horn blower for corporate capitalism, and where sheer greed replaces honest profit from useful products and services it needs reining in by government regulation. But that's a far cry from the kind of financial engineering exemplified by creating money ex nihilo.
Health "care" will not be affordable until people pay for it with their OWN money. We have nation of drug users that freak out with the mere suggestion that they might have to pay for the latest greatest Rx out of their own pocket.
Seems a TikTok post from a young woman said she needed an MRI. Submitted ins claim. Hospital provider said her part would be $5100. She went to another facility asked what same MRI would cost cash. $700. She went back to her hospital provider they said $5100. They would not take cash because she had previously filed a claim via insurance. Make this make sense.
Medical care is priced to insurance. Same with dental care. So, if they can get $5100 for an MRI, that's what they're going to charge. It's "what the market will bear."
Same with college tuition. If you want to fuck something up, involve the government.
yes and to generalize even more, third party payers of any kind
Ya think? Pretty much every other country in the Western world has government-ran higher education universities and colleges and have had way, way, way more success than your commie-peddling, debt-debilitating, Ivy League-endowed messes.
The proof is in the pudding regardless of how much you've been MK-Ultra'ed by the CIA.
Yeah because private companies don't want to make as much as possible, human suffering be damned.
If you want to fuck something up even worse, crack the door for the banks, Wall Street, and "international finance." Then, its certain that the money will be stolen and everything will be cheapened and destroyed.
Kathy. Well in this woman’s case the provider won’t get either.
Just one adder. Hospitals have a real problem financing EMTALA, another fiasco from the government. Indigents have to be seen in the ER, and made stable and the hospital gets zip for this care. The hospital I worked for had an indigent rate of 30%. I could see county or state hospitals at 50% or more. Guess who gets to pay for this? You and me through our insurance costs. I cannot imagine what the Dem led medical coverage of 25 million illegals costs. We are paying for it all through taxes, or increasing debt!!!!
Medical care shouldn't be a "market." Any institution or company that wants to play in that sector should be required by law to adhere to the principle of limited profit for public service. We already to that with utilities.
What happened to CHARITY? The gov is NOT charity. There has to be set asides from these hospital systems. I understand compassion, but since I PAY MY WAY and I donate to various charitable causes, I shouldn't have to have standard physician care triaged. Fill me in the next available slot. And stop upping my premiums $230 per month every year when I am healthy. It should be like a safe driver insurance. No one should have to pay for people that get freebies with an excess of 100 lbs, smoke, etc, etc.
Let them all die! God will know his own! Capitalism 102.
Adding: "... which, of course, is why every other Western country in the free-world* has socialized universal health care rather than Wall Street-ran health care."
Capitalism works great but not for essential services like building/maintaining roads/bridges, air traffic control, national defence and health care regardless of how much the CIA has MK-Ultra'ed you otherwise.
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*This includes even Israel where US tax-payer dollars fund their universal health care coverage (presumedly while laughing at you).
There's no profit in things like street lights so we should get rid of them. Capitalism 101.
And it is priced by the federal government.
I have had a similar experience with colonoscopies. 15 years ago, a hospital and the attending surgeon charged almost $2K, much of which was covered by employer-provided insurance, A few years before, when I was an independent contractor and had no insurance coverage, I paid cash at a clinic and got it for $300.
Specialty clinics have no EMTALA. ER, or gross overheads like hospitals have. Like tuition subsidized by the government, the hospital outlay from the insurance industry is skyrocketing. Get it, it is another form of fiat creation? So the answer is to go to the clinics, not the hospitals.
Of course, but the big question (to which I think we already know the answer) is: Why are we routinely directed to these expensive options, when the insurers could save so much by using the much cheaper alternatives?
Neither hospitals nor insurance companies can create fiat "money," John.
The international bankers that command the U.S. Federal Reserve are the only men who can conjure world reserve currency out of thin air. "Abracadabra!"
You're corrupt insurance/hospitals (that gave us the still unexplained COVID death bonuses) are all downstream from the creation of yet more fiat.
Something I heard fifty years ago. "There's no reason. It's just policy." Society has lost its humanity.
Now amplify this by the power of technocracy, throw in some AI and remove any human that actually cares….that’s where this is headed.
Peter - you get the same answer today. When you get that response, always ask to see the policy, then get ready for that priceless dumbass look.
Yeah I know. That's why I avoid government agencies like the plague. They only serve to piss me off.
My favorite is how the copay on many meds is more than the price using CostPlusDrugs or GoodRX without insurance. What does my insurance pay for?
Wall Streeters' yachts, of course.
Not sure, but I would be willing to guess that the $5100 quote after insurance was because of the deductible not being met... as opposed to a copay. Thus, the going rate for MRIs was $5100 at the first hospital. Whether or not she would have gotten a lower initial quote before mentioning insurance is impossible to determine.
Thanks JC.
YW. Of course that brings us back to my original comment. That first hospital charges $5100 for an MRI that has a marginal cost of, maybe, $50... and, to be kind, a fully allocated unit cost of $350 as indicated by the other hospital quoting $700 (100% markup).
Yet, the in network (negotiated) charge is $5100. This pricing structure allows the hospital to book immense profit and the unsurance company booking elevated costs that can be driven back into premiums... with a 10% profit to boot.
Here's the sense: Wall Street loves snarfing money.
The Democratic Party is insanely Marxist.
However, if the country continues to spiral into financial destruction this won't be because of the Marxists or President Trump and the MAGA agenda.
The blame for that should be placed squarely onto the shoulders of the Republican establishment RINOs and anti-Trump conservatives who claim to be Reagan fiscal conservatives and have been in Congress for 45 years.
They've had the reigns of power and representation within our government for nearly a half century.
They have sold this country out while adding 37 trillion dollars to the national debt all while claiming to be “fiscally conservative” and for limited government.
They haven't conserved anything other than the managed decline of this nation and they're doing everything possible to delay President Trump's agenda and to fight him at every turn.
We see this now with what the RINOs have done in Indiana with refusing to redraw the redistricting maps.
BR. Nice screed. But this warp speed run toward Marxism is not partisan. Both are guilty. And it is old as time. Men want control and will kill, steal and destroy to get it and keep it. Being partisan brings up an emotional orgasm that makes headlines but actually produces nothing healthy. The entire globe is mired in a debt-based economic culture. For a reason. Control. Technocratic control is here and the fences of slavery are closing upon us all. It will go kinetic. Always does seems. Arm up. It’s going to get ugly first slowly then suddenly.
This is the big scam, the complicit relationship between hospitals and the health insurers.
YA. So I bet that the insurers drive that relationship like a rented mule.
If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care, and the general degree of health and life expectancy of Americans will plummet accordingly.
The reason is simple: there is no such thing as downward pressure on health care prices. Supply and demand doesn't work when you apply it to health care, simple as that. Think about it: what do people do when the price of something they want seems out of reach? They either look for a substitute, or they do without. So either someone sells a different product cheaper, or sellers reduce the price until they're able to sell their inventory. But has anyone ever hunted for a bargain when they're lying in an accident scene, screaming with a broken leg? When your bones are broken, you pay the going rate (or the ambulance takes you because the law says they have to, then you get the bill later). As for substitutes, the only substitute for treatment for a broken leg is... someone else treating your broken leg.
Supply and demand doesn't work when applied to medical care, because in practice there is no upper limit to what people will pay because they absolutely have to. The only limit is literally not having the means to pay. This is why socialized medicine exists. At minimum, what needs to happen is for the government to set prices and enforce them. Otherwise hospitals, providers, pharmaceutical companies, and above all insurers have carte blanche to gouge and screw all the live-long day.
I'm an expat living in Ecuador. The healthcare is excellent. Office visits are $40, housecalls $60. You call your doctor directly, no front office. Appointments are next day, certainly within the week. CAT scans, etc. are in the 2- 300 dollar range. WE ALL PAY CASH. If you do have (inexpensive) insurance, you pay the doc. cash and he gives you a receipt you take to the insurance company. They reimburse the CASH price. Naboacare!
We lived in Panama and it was the same deal, most of the doctors had trained in the U.S. and drugs were very affordable.
Yes, most drugs are over the counter. Doc tells you what to buy and you go to one of the pharmacies on practically every corner and buy it. No office visit for refills.
Huh... My doctor was born in Costa Rica, he emigrated to Canada and then here. He is US trained.
The "Big Pharma" explanation is that "the US is a first-world country, and we have to pay more because new drugs are being developed here."
Doesn't particularly make sense to me.
My wife fell off a horse in Iceland and cracked a few ribs. We went to a local doctor (Dr. Iceland I call him) and he treated her. The receptionist apologetically let us know that there would be a $45 charge for services.
Can you just call for an ambulance or is it a service you subscribe to?
Yes, 911 works. 3500 cabs also. A friend passed out at restaurant. Doctor came, called ambulance with EMTs. Emergency room, IV, CAT scan, overnight stay. Total cost $700.
"Supply and demand doesn't work when applied to medical care" FALSE.
"If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care..." FALSE.
If people had to pay for GLP-1 agonists @ $1000/mo to lose weight - and keep paying that for the rest of their lives since the effects of that class of medicines are not enduring - they would get off their ass instead.
Medical care is a business that has capitalized on the decadent presumption that want = need.
honestly people would be better off without going to all this healthcare. There's a ton of unnecessary things being done. I think people would focus on their own health instead of being sold the idea that the doctors can fix a lifestyle. Back in the day, insurance was for Catastrophic things like that broken leg, heart attack or Cancer.
Feels like there are so many Ponzi schemes our current society is propped up and limping upon. Social security with no actual cash savings that only remains afloat based upon the input of the currently increasingly over burdened younger generations that can't afford a house and barely rent. The promise of 401k's for savings that if we really look closely at them, amount to owning nothing. You really own a piece of an investment firm, not the securities themselves. If that fund dies, so does your investment with it. Most of both are based on the value of Treasury bills created out of thin air to enable printing more money out of thin air. We could go even further into FDIC insured banks and what would happen if there was a run on cash if a few failed simultaneously. The medical industry is just one more unstable wall in the house of cards.
"The promise of 401k's for savings that if we really look closely at them, amount to owning nothing. You really own a piece of an investment firm, not the securities themselves. If that fund dies, so does your investment with it."
I've also read about this reality, which is concerning. It often feels like there's no place to run, no place to hide.
I've wondered about that too. Sure some government agency would make the investors whole (with invented money), but after how long?
As soon as I retired I took my employer-sponsored account out of the hands of TIAA-CREF, which I disliked, and transferred it to Fidelity. In the case of a massive blow-up not even Fidelity would be absolutely safe, but it's one of the largest brokerages and an economic powerhouse. It would probably be strong enough to stand up even to the federal government. So I tell myself.
So you are saying that decreased demand will not affect health care costs, thus breaking the economic rules?
Not buying it.
Not sure I understand where you're getting "decreased demand"? There are four certainties in life: everyone gets sick, everyone gets hurt, everyone gets old, everyone dies. There will always and forevermore be adequate "demand" for medical care, no matter what.
The other part of demand, though, is what people are ready, willing and *able* to pay for that care. That's where the problem starts. Once you've set up a tollbooth between people and their medical needs, bob's your uncle because people will pay through the nose and be grateful for the opportunity. One man's life-threatening problem is another man's revenue stream. That's why health care in the USA is such a fucking mess: grifts on top of grifts on top of grifts, everyone at every level wetting their beak in every way they can.
Markets are supposed to be efficient because they produce price transparency. But there's no price transparency in health care, because no one is operating a rational pricing scheme. They're running scams, trying to chisel a few more dollars out of everyone's desperation. Transparent pricing will never appear spontaneously in health care, because the incentives don't work that way. Either transparent pricing needs to be imposed by government action, or there needs to be a different system such as single payer. Your tax bill might increase, but your (much larger) medical insurance bill will disappear and everyone will end up better off.
Our health care, at some point in our past, became a commodity to these people. When our health care because a commodity that is when the system went bust. Our health care should never have become a means of profit for anything or anyone. How do we get away from this? I do not know. My only suggestion is try to be as healthy as possible so you won't need the system as much and then hope for the best. Or, just accept your mortality and when you get sick you die.
"most people will go without health care"
Is that not explicitly predicting decreased demand for health care?
I can see a race to the bottom on pricing.
That "race to the bottom" seems to apply to a lot of life these days, especially health care and politics!
You are wrong. I got into a motorcycle accident and broke my collar bone. I didn't have insurance, I went to the emergency ward and got taken care of. They billed me later, I negotiated it down from $3000 to $1200 by using some strong negotiating, and threatening to sue them.
I'm glad you were able to negotiate your bill downward. Not everyone is so lucky. Were you aware that two-thirds (66.5%) of all personal bankruptcies in the USA are due to medical debt, or work loss caused by medical problems?
https://brilliantmaps.com/medical-bankruptcies/
By definition, those are people who *weren't* able to negotiate their prices down to something they could afford.
In Canada, where I live, the equivalent figure is 19%, and that's mostly due to loss of work/income rather than medical bills themselves. In most other developed nations, the number is smaller still.
With all due respect, I don't see anything positive in a system that piles a second harm on top of the original harm. As someone who knows exactly what it's like living under socialized medicine, everything that comes after "I went to the emergency ward and got taken care of" to me is a travesty. You and every other American deserve better.
"If people are forced to pay for health care out of pocket, then most people will go without health care, and the general degree of health and life expectancy of Americans will plummet accordingly."
Or it might get better*. Most 'healthcare' is just Rockefeller medicine, designed to make you sick. You have more 'medicine' than you've ever had and the US is the sickest society in the west (also the most heavily vaccinated, I believe).
I had a small breast cancer in 2019. I live in the UK, so the surgery and radiotherapy were free at the point of use (uninsured cost for radiotherapy to a non-citizen would have been 15x£1500 from the NHS, I found out, somewhere on the interwebz. That's without the surgery). Possibly, if I hadn't had the 'free' mammo that found the tiny cancer, I'd have been fine anyway. Over-treatment is a thing.
Anyway I'm entitled to 10 years of follow-up (newer regime is 5 years, but I'm still under the old regime). Follow-up being mammograms, which at population level statistically cause many cancers. So I had a couple then stopped. Not going to have any more, while I have no reason to, even if it's free.
I heard it was a Rockefeller who nudged the NHS into existence, and they do like us taking prescription drugs, radiotherapy and chemotherapy (nitrogen mustards, just like WWI poison gas was made from). I'm 73, so I'll take my chances and say my prayers.
*Dr Vernon Coleman claims that when UK doctors go on strike, the number of deaths decreases. That would match the claim (not his) that iatrogenic deaths (death by doctor) are the third cause of death in the US. Leaving aside the occasional botched surgery, that means prescription medicines. Probably higher than third cause since the covid hoax.
The NHS is a good deal for people in the UK. I hope it survives the drive to starve it of funding and drive people into privatized care. People should only need to look at the United States, with its grotesquely bloated system riddled at every level with waste, fraud and abuse, to see where that leads. Best wishes.
If you break a leg or an arm the NHS is great. If you go in with 'covid' or whatever the next fake plague will be, you're less likely to come out alive.
My mother-in-law had lymphoma cancer. She was 74 and underwent 5 radical sessions of injection of toxic poison into her body in hopes that she would outlast the cancer cells. Barbaric, horrific treatment. Anyway, she completed her 5th and final round and two days later, while climbing into bed, she collapsed and died.
Billions of dollars of research, thousands of brilliant researchers, and hundreds of cancer specialist research centers and this is all they can come up with? There is no other way to truly treat cancer that doesn't involve the injection of toxic sludge into a human body? Utterly barbaric. What the hell are they spending all those research dollars on anyway?
"Millions of dollars of research, thousands of brilliant researchers, and hundreds of cancer specialist research centers and this is all they can come up with?"
Read the Day Tapes, cankerpuss. Recollections by Dr Lawrence Dunegan of a talk given by Dr Richard Day (leading paediatrician and Planned Parenthood guy) in 1969. He asked his audience (of paediatricians) not to take notes, but Lawrence Dunegan made notes as soon as he got home and spilled the beans after Day was dead.
https://ia801507.us.archive.org/1/items/new_order_of_barbarians/new_order_of_barbarians.pdf
Page 30.
A person's cancer has become a means of profit for so many in the cancer treatment profession.
What are YOU doing to improve cancer care? It’s easy to whine online, harder to do the real work to make things better. We need more workers and fewer whiners.
Yeah, except when we are supposed to pay, we can choose not to. That is the power -- they must treat, we don't have to pay.
You say that as if people with broken legs and no insurance are pulling a scam. "Ha ha, those fools paid all that money and all *I* had to do was get hit by a bus. Like, for real hit by a bus, with like actual broken bones and a month in traction and so forth."
I think we can all agree there's a difference between insurance scammers making bank, and people with real needs having those needs addressed. Jesus certainly would have thought so: read Matthew 25:35-40.
There are rules that require treatment for emergencies such as a broken bone. The problem is the payment is inflated by the system.
If the consumer had the choice they simply wouldn't pay an inflated bill until it becomes more in line with the cost of the service provided.
So no, I'm not saying that people will not get treated when needed, I'm saying we need some defense against outrageous over billing.
As a Yank I acknowledge that where emergency treatment and costs for it are concerned, the Canadian system is better. But what about serious, even if non-emergency, illnesses and conditions? In the States we keep hearing about Canadians who have to wait months for necessary medical procedures, and if they can afford it go to the US to be taken care of. (It's even worse in the UK's National Health System.)
I realize some of the horror stories may be biased, but I doubt all are.
What needs to happen, and I've been saying for years, is that the MIDDLE MAN, the insurance company, NEEDS TO BE CUT OUT OF THE EQUATION.
It's not as if current "healthcare" practices are boosting life expectancy or even quality of life, both of which have declined for decades, and plunged since the Covid Scamdemic.
"Think about it: what do people do when the price of something they want seems out of reach? They either look for a substitute, or they do without."
In my grandma's day, yes. Now, they throw it on a card.
This is how people react to the suggestion that they pay for anything. Whatever conditioning people have been given to expect endless free stuff from the government…it’s working.
A corollary: What? You expect me to pay for groceries with my pay? Naw, man -- my pay is for buyin' new clothes so I can go clubbin' and hookin' up. You can't make me spend my money on groceries! It's not fair!
Or go to Disneyland and stand in line for 3 hours to ride "Peter Pan" or to buy a new RM motorhome, toy hauler and UTV side by sides. Spend income on their own personal healthcare? How dare they!
Ha, or use that RV to go park by the ocean, claim homelessness and get subsidies. What a racket!!!!
Karl, “from the government”, it all ultimately stems from the grift ridden government.
Thus the party that believes the government is supreme, the Dems. The people have sucked right in, Mamdani is the poster child.
I forgot to mention. Prevention care is oversold. There's a huge downside to screening so much. They don't tell you that. IMO we need to get back to treating sick people. The amount of money to screen screen screen everyone the same is too much money. The Europeans have backed away from this.
"Prevention care is oversold." It's just as much about getting you into the system as preventing sickness. Prostate cancer is the obvious one. Most men with prostate cancer would die of something else entirely (or just old age) if they weren't screened for prostate cancer. I remember my husband (retired doctor) telling me decades ago that 70% of 70-year-old men have prostate cancer and 100% of 100-year-old men have it. Most never found out, in the past, and died of something else.
They tell people that they are making them better. I am not sure it's true. Example, the treatment cascade. They put a woman on HRT, a few years later she has pre uterine cancer, then they do a hysterectomy. I have seen this movie before. Life is hard and sometimes discomfort happens. Everything doesn't need a treatment. They are making the original discomfort worse. I am sure there are some people that are helped by screening but not as many as people say. They sometimes cut out a slow growing prostate cancer and then go; oh we saved him. Then someone dies of a similar thing despite and that's never talked about.
Just remember...
Medical Admin Mantra: Dead and healthy don't pay the bills - only sick people.
MBA's translation: How do we get more sick people?
Not necessarily an endorsement, the Europeans, etc. Corollary perhaps that otherwise ordinary health care, e.g., setting a broken leg, has been known to be withheld due to the patient being a tobacco consumer. What???
I've never heard of that, but I have heard of people being refused a transplant (even children) if they won't take various death shots. We can expect this to increase. Depop ain't gonna do itself.
I recall the specific instance I mentioned as being a determination of Britain's NHS, from several years ago.
Health care will become affordable when government gets out of the way and the private market competes against itself. Competition means providers will become creative and find innovative ways to reduce costs in order to attract customers.
I recently had pain in my wrist. My doc did an X-ray and found nothing wrong and insisted that I go get a MRI. The cost of the MRI would have been $2,000 out of pocket with no guarantee that the MRI would reveal anything.
I went to another doctor who gave me two steroid shots. Two days later my wrist was feeling much better and pain free. Cost me $120.00.
Competition. Government needs to go back to its Constitutional mandates and let the creativity of the private market through competition resolve these problems. There are way too many people who believe government is the resolution when government is actually the problem.
And yes, too many people are on drugs. Drugs that create side effects so they have to go get more drugs to counteract the side effects of the first drug and so on and so on.
Trump and the republicans tried to bring the marketplace into healthcare shortly after his 2016 election win and they were savaged by the dems, the media, and of course the medical industry itself. Grandma almost got pushed over the cliff in her wheelchair they said. This effort led to a crushing defeat in the 2018 midterm election. I believe we've gotten to the point where everyone realizes that something must be done.
". . . pay for it with their OWN money."
Well, that's really great -- when people have their own money. Most people don't. When healthcare providers and insurance companies are garnishing the Social Security of old age pensioners (without due process), to pay for their addictions to their money, that's when the problems arise. When people have no control over their money they begin to feel poor. Add to this the fact that money, the printed kind, has no value anymore, and you come to realize how poor you really are. From poverty to penury, these providers and insurers are the real drug addicts.
It's all going to go belly-up by 2035, that's in ten years, anyway. Social Security (originally set up as a trust fund), has been raided by these elected-for-life professional politicians. The only thing the healthcare system in the United States is (in)famous for is its callous disregard for human life.
NHS of other countries are notorious for disregarding human life in favor of making required cost targets. Giving responsibility to a government insures that individual or local needs will not be met, in favor of the whole. Hmmm, sounds like insurance, doesn’t it. I believe that globally, the NHS groups are in trouble also. I think that the single payer systems use the governments to make health care decisions for the people and that just makes me shudder.
Mr. John---be lucky enough to be Canadian and hurt your back to the point where you have horrible pain. Doctor will tell you that you are scheduled for an MRI in 6 or 9 months and after that maybe another 3 to 4 months you can see the doc. Of course you can sign up for MAID and off yourself if the pain is too bad. You are correct in that NHS countries are quite notorious for disregarding human life or human suffering.
The above example happened to one of my co-workers which was unlucky to reside in Canada.
Our system is not good but I think less gov't involvement would help more than more gov't involvement.
Send this to Phil, the defender of “perfect” Canada,
Which is far from it.
Medically assisted dying in Canada is open to pretty much everyone. Here is one of their requirements:
"Be experiencing severe physical or psychological suffering that can’t be improved
in any way you find acceptable"
https://zerosuicidesnh.org/blog/how-medically-assisted-suicide-went-wrong-in-canada
Now THAT is a fact!
Trump has been promising, and failing, to deliver his big, beautiful alternative to the ACA for more than nine years now. When do his cult followers finally admit he’s full of shit!
Yes, or something like that... The core reason we spend more on healthcare is we are a nation of fat, out of shape pigs who treat themselves like shit. Europeans do not have a better system. They have healthier people.
I have proposed the following several times. It never gets any attention. I think it would put the cork in the bottle:
50% of Americans get tax-free healthcare from their employer. even considering their deductibles this is a powerful incentive to use the system. And some of us got a way better deal. I retired from Ed. My insurance was excellent, and my deductible was tiny.
So...
Tax the healthcare benefits according to use. Every policy has an inherent value that can be defined. My former employer laid out about $10,000 a year for each of us. Yes, I know they got a good deal. (My cost was about $250 / mo.)
So let's say the policy is worth $10,000. Let's say I use $1500 in a year. That $1500 should be taxed as income.
Tax right up to face value. After face, no more tax. If I use $15,000, I am taxed on $10,000.
You might include a waiver for truly catastrophic illness.
Divert that money into making the "system" solvent.
That will "bend the curve." Bet on it.
Too many people are cavalier about using the system. Maybe they would think harder if it was taxed?
Look further up the pyramid, Dave. Look at Big Pharma and "God damn the pusher-man."
It was recently announced that TrumpRx is now going to snarf US tax-payer dollars to give to Novo Nordisk (less TrumpRx's cut, natch) so that fat-ass Americans can be on Ozempic for free.
Make American Healthy Again my butt.
It’s stupidity and destruction by design. Some of these Democrat “leaders “ are so dumb, it’s hard to believe they could manage their own lives, let alone a successful campaign for office, not to mention doing any actual work while in office. They are selected, installed, and managed by unknown people, people who have been successfully stealing money and lives from the American people for a long time. THEY are not stupid, these unseen agents of destruction. At least not in the typical sense. They are possessed by evil; it’s a religion to them. They want the whole world bound into one world government, all of us enslaved. Anyone who resists will be destroyed unless they submit. Much like the Muslims, who have a similar goal and zealotry.
Look, I can rail against Dem all day too, problem is the Republicans in congress still do not support the populist positions.
Then you deny what "uniparty" really means and is. Never forget those jackasses waving their effing Ukraine flags inside our congressional offices, while we all got overcharged for gas and were told to go buy an EV if we didn't like it. Never forget that.
I'm saying exactly that, the Uniparty is the problem. Rail against both sides.
The Uniparty is the product of the Deep State. The Deep State is the group who believes that the federal government is supreme, ie, they are protecting their own jobs, protecting themselves from the ramifications of the vote. IMHO, two new parties are going to form, one on the Ult-Left pushing us into Communism, and the Moderate Right, MAGA, trying to minimize the growth of DC. It is a mind-bending Cold War so far.
The Deep State is comprised of both sides of the Dem vs. GOP divide. If MAGA. Ex. The Tea Party cannot stop the Deep State, the Globalists will win.
I won't.
Who is railing against the dems? I never mentioned them myself. I agree the corruption is in both parties. I’m just saying that we need to look beyond our own country and see the bigger picture. Our government, our country even, is being controlled (more than ‘influenced’ anyway) by people who are not American, by people who hate America. Until the sources of the money and power are tracked down, most of the stuff our “elected” officials do is just theatre.
Forgive me, I thought "Some of these Democrat “leaders “ are so dumb" that you wrote excluded Republicans. So there's that.
Sorry! I forgot I said that! Still,I didn’t feel like was “railing against the dems”. You have to admit some of them are unbelievably dumb. Republicans are corrupt, but don’t expose themselves as much as the Democrats. I only hope and pray for SOME leaders to have wisdom and courage. Yet, I know that they are risking their lives, and their families, if they are.
They are not dumb. They want you to think they are. They are actually working a plan to destroy the Republic.
Critically thinking, analytically minded people saw through COVID, which was put on by these same demons you refer to. The main problem now is that the schools have no interest in turning out students capable of thinking for themselves. It is all group think.
Okay, Covid. The weaponization of the DOJ, the legal system, is very similar to the weaponization of the CDC, FDA and NHS by the same Deep State group. Catch the similarity of the war against Trump and the war against the Covid scare. An interesting sidebar is the fact that what Bragg and James did in NYC was almost identical to what Andrew Cuomo did with the Covid fear factor.
The Deep State with the Biden Mob as its tool, did both.
Yes, but Covid also revealed the global one-world government conspiracy enough that the average person could see it was true, without having to do any research. How could you NOT see that the exact same playbook was being used in all the countries, with varying degrees of success? This happened too quickly, even with modern communications, to be some kind of peer pressure influence between countries. This was clearly coordinated. Also the trans thing and the influx of illegal immigrants, the promotion of criminals and the demotion of citizens has been happening or been attempted in all the “western”(Christian) countries. And before that, many other steps- controlling the schools and the media, for instance.
The schools are an arm of the destructive party.
Yes and no. Overall, as I said, they are cunning. And yes, they act dumb sometimes to appeal to their army. They are incredible liars. But some individuals are undeniably stupid.
"You might not know it, considering the drift of recent years, but there are still a lot of capable people in this country ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work repairing what is broken."
YES.
As I've been shouting for years now, "Anything done by men can be UNDONE by BETTER MEN."
TYVM Jim for ending today's rant on an optimistic note. We need more of that.
I believe that those "better men" and women are actively working tirelessly to repair our broken country. I'm honored to live in this time and to see good prevail. I listened to Ed Martin today and he said the information surrounding J6 is building fast and and will lead back to the 2020 election steal.
AGREED! One step at a time…
Amen
We Americans are greatest at shouting.
Reality bats last -- and cleanup.
"Then, pass some really juicy legislation starting with election reform entailing proof-of-citizenship to vote, paper ballots, end of mail-in ballots (except for traditional absentee voting), and do away with the janky vote-counting machines). That would be an excellent start. Proceed from there."
Start here. It will end the grift that is the Democrat party. Or, it will start CWll, and we can end them there. Communism doesn't work, and it NEVER will. It is NOT allowed by law in America. Why are we letting something illegal fester? These liars and thieves are ruining what is left of this country. If we don't figure this out, it will cease to exist.
Mandating voter ID and one day voting with regulated absentee ballots can save the Union. Will anyone do it?
There are a lot of relatively simple solutions to the problems that face America. Want to stop the debt problem? Stop spending money. Simple. Here's the catch. These simple solutions will result in some significant pain for those who are addicted to the easy money of government. So, they do nothing.
Do not forget that there are nefarious global forces at hand here that want to convert the people or punish them.
Historically, measures like this haven't been used to prevent non-citizens from voting. Instead, they've been used to prevent certain citizens (but not others) from exercising their franchise. Heaven forfend, they might vote the wrong way. Can't have that!
"Historically, measures like this haven't been used to prevent non-citizens from voting."
Historically, no sane person ever thought it would be a question. Of course non-citizens can't vote and shouldn't be here in the first place.
A few days ago Phil became indignant about Muslims not being allowed to run for office. He's surrendered without ever knowing he that he was surrendering.
You're so sane on health care and so utterly insane on immigration. The American right is the opposite.
I'm pretty sure my comment was about citizens being able to exercise their franchise, not about immigration.
I wasn't talking to you, little one. The AI system juggles the comments to disrupt conversation it doesn't like.
Haven't been to a Dr. in 25 yrs, no insurance to boot. I eat no seed oils, no sugar, lotsa olive oil, organic onions, garlic, red meat, eggs, chicken and fish. Zero processed food. I do like vodka.
Do not believe in their system, but believe in the 3 trillion cells in my body which obey my voice and healthy thoughts. Discernment was granted me to see the brokenness ravaging our society by evil people and I refused to participate any longer. I have no health issues and I really don't care because I use my awareness/bandwidth for more important(to me) life issues. I let no one put anything in my body that will compromise this amazing temple I've been given. I will be 60 in 5 months and that picture of me is recent and I'm obviously healthy, even though I've snubbed their "experts" for a quarter of a century and saved myself a fortune. Laugh, mock and disbelieve all you want, but they've brainwashed the country and you're paying them big-time.
So, what are you going to do when you get diagnosed with colon cancer next year?
Just die I suppose! LOL You are a joke, my friend!
Speak your dark, nightmarish curses elsewhere. Are we not all mortals, or did you transcend that state of being. And I'm not your friend.
I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "No" was all he said
Read "Who Can Stand Against His Cold", one of the greatest sermons ever spoken in New England. A family was struggling through a blizzard in New Hampshire and asked a farmer for shelter. He said, No. They only made it a few hundred more yards, dying from the cold. The farmer was never the same again. And yes, it was just before Christmas.
I have spent zero dollars on healthcare in forty years so pick on me.
I HAVE NO EDUCATION OTHERTHAN AN aLABAMA hIGH sCHOOL dIPLOMA.
That HS Diploma cost $30,000 today.
Each year.
Never needed another diploma because I did not want to be an Officer.
Thank you to OUR VETREANS!
LOL on 11/11
MODERNA
WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?
yOUR insurace SHOULD KEEP YOU AROUND LONGER THAN US poor UNINSURED BY CHOICE.
I HOPE YOU LIVE FOREVER...
JOKERS TO THE LEFT OF ME...
CLOWNS TO THE RIGHT AND DONALD IS A CLOWN.
hOW MUCH DID IT COST YOU TO TAKE IT UP THE ASS?
Wormwood, as mentioned in the Bible, is a term that carries significant symbolism and importance. It is often associated with bitterness and sorrow, representing spiritual desolation and calamity. The term comes from the plant Artemisia absinthium, which has a very bitter taste. This bitterness serves as a potent metaphor in biblical texts, representing spiritual desolation and calamity. Wormwood is mentioned in several passages, illustrating its symbolic significance. For instance, Revelation 8:10-11 describes a great star falling from heaven, causing a third of the waters to become wormwood, leading to many deaths. This passage emphasizes the severity of the situation and the consequences of divine judgment. The cultural context of wormwood enhances its understanding as a representation of both physical and spiritual ailments. Understanding the biblical meaning of wormwood invites deeper reflection on personal and communal suffering.
wermwood?
I question your faith in moderna
I have never taken it.
You have a bigger problem than i...
I gotcha beat. Rode a bicycle.
Way to go, Dude!
Im 60 also and am the same. Healthy and fit. Never paid for healthcare insurance which is ridiculously overpriced. Don't need a doctor checking- up on every part of my body. I eat right and keep active which is a major part of taking of your body. It seems to me a lot of people have become almost fanatical on having every twitch of their body inspected & diagnosed. Its a fear based reaction to constantly being told all the things that could be wrong with them.
The next step is raw meat. And the step beyond that? Living meat. Chase animals down and just tear into them. Their life force will be yours!
Don't eat meat mr Universal catholic small c.
I wasn't talking to you, Judaizer.
a COMPLIMENT?
"The government will almost certainly attempt to counter that by giving them money created out of nothing." This is almost guaranteed to happen as UBI becomes a reality.
Listen to the recent Joe Rogan interview with Musk, where he describes the coming effects of AI on employment. It's not a pretty picture for most, but the pixel pushers are first in line.
First in line for government subsidies and sinecures, too.
All money is created out of nothing. It's important for people to understand that. When you go to your local bank for a mortgage, the bank doesn't allocate money to you out of an account it has on hand. Instead it increments the value of your account by the value of the mortgage, and you then get to spend that amount of money on a house. Poof: money from nowhere. The bank is allowed to do this under the law because the sovereign government, which holds the ultimate authority to create money, has delegated that authority to banks in order to encourage productive activity. If the government were to withdraw that authority, it would simply create the money itself and credit the amount to the banks, and then the banks would lend it out. But otherwise the system would be the same. What sustains the value of money is the activity it generates, combined with government's ability to impose taxes, which have to be paid in the same currency that the government issues, creating a closed loop.
There is endless mystification about money. Especially about gold, the magic metal. But what money actually is, is a consensus. Nothing more. The consensus works so long as (a) it successfully games people into doing productive things, or (b) people with money are able to enforce their will against those without it. When (a) and (b) both fail, the consensus dissolves and chaos may result.
If AI actually destroys employment, there will pretty much have to be a new consensus about why people still deserve enough money to, you know, feed, clothe, and shelter themselves. What will that be, if the sweat of our brows becomes obsolete? An interesting question.
"If AI actually destroys employment"
It's already happening. I related this story last week, but my former employer terminated hundreds of American employees and filled their positions with 1,000 Indians in India. Just a couple weeks ago, they fired the Indians and now do all of their jobs with AI.
From what I can tell, ALL business writing is now done by AI. Free bad writing is better than a human. My guess is graphic design is done as well. As is most "coding."
I guess the new line will be "Learn to do manual labor."
That's enshittification for you. First your former employer screwed their US employees, then they screwed their Indian employees, and now they're screwing their customers. AI right now is still pretty crap and a scam, and almost certainly can't do the job of replacing all those workers, so your former employer is now selling a crap service to their customers and gets to pocket the difference.
Most of those jobs were office manager, support staff type jobs, so what they really did was further screw their remaining employees because now there is no one to talk to when there is a problem. I guess you just talk to the AI. Some of the jobs were inputting and operating cash flow software, making projections, etc. I was trained to do that 25 years ago and used to be paid well to do it. Then, they outsourced it to an Indian bullpen. It took three times as many Indians to do the work as it took Americans, but they were paid nothing, so the company still won by outsourcing the jobs.
But don't worry, "profits are up!"
That's where the Vax comes in. The useless eaters are using up their world. They're not needed as "consumers" or customers. And less and less as workers. They Elite create money out of nothing after all. Five hundred million tops according to the Georgia Guide Stones, now destroyed.
When AI destroys all the environment employment won't matter.
== JOBS & EDUCATION ==
Mike Rowe REVEALS where REAL job security still exists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_MezqrI3Bk
... $240k/year for electricians under 30 years old ...
FILIBUSTER: I don’t see this anywhere in the U.S. constitution. I did read that acts of congress such as an annual budget require 51% approval. So the filibuster is a violation of our basic law and there is no reason for a government shutdown. You could say it is a self-imposed overthrow of the government.
DIRECT PAY HEALTHCARE: Christian Healthshare groups offer this and from our experience it works far simpler than Blue Cross…at 1/2 the price. We pay the hospital and doctors directly after asking and usually getting a discounted price in line with reality. The receipts are sent in and approved. Then other members start sending us checks.
The days of $100 dollar Tylenol are insane and hopefully coming to an end.
filibuster is a Senate convention, not a law or Const requirement. that is why it can so easily be abolished. in some ways it functions as a third arm of legislative branch. if abolished, we can expect more whipsaws as the majority changes.
Per Grok - "The US Senate filibuster, which allows senators to delay or block votes through extended debate, was not deliberately created but emerged accidentally in 1806. The Senate removed the "previous question" motion, which had allowed a majority to end debate, following a suggestion by Vice President Aaron Burr to streamline rules. This left no mechanism to stop prolonged speeches. Early instances of obstruction occurred in 1789, with the tactic named "filibuster" by the 1850s. It gained prominence in 1837 and became a significant minority tool. In 1917, the Senate introduced Rule 22, allowing a two-thirds majority (later 60%) to invoke cloture and end debate, formalizing the filibuster's role in Senate procedure."
I looked up the healthshare online and is it www.christianhealthcareplan.com or www.medical-sharing.com?? Just wondering which site to go to.
We use Samaritanministries.org
You are right, the Constitution does not say anything about the filibuster. However, the Constitution does permit the House and the Senate to create their own means and rules of operation. Thus the Senate can choose to continue the filibuster or end the filibuster as it so desires.
In my NW Ct town of 25,000 a new housing complex was just completed built by a Texas company lured here by generous state subsidies and tax abatements. More precious farmland was chewed up and how incongruous and out of place those towers look sitting in the middle of ancient (mid 17th century) farm fields. 10% of the units were set aside as 'Affordable housing', renting at $2990 per month. Top tier units -- 1450 sq. ft. -- are going for $5900 per month. I am told these places were not built for local people and a way to solve the "Housing Crisis", but for soulkiver populations from China and India. Indeed, Chinese recently bought the mansion across the street from me ... for a cool $999,900. They haven't picked their leaves up and they're blowing all over the neighborhood. My neighbor, a Prosecuting Attorney, thinks it's some kind of safe house for human smuggling or some other kind of nefarious activity. He was only half joking. We shall see.
Keep that 45-70 handy in case the Tong comes a'knockin. One of my tenants pays $775 for a 1400 sq ft. apartment. She's been there for years and I never raise rents. My most expensive place is $1050 for 1100 sq. ft.
That's pretty cheap rent for Central Mass. That's pretty cheap rent for anywhere. I can't imagine too many of your tenants move out very often.
D. R. Horton??
Yes
They've recently made a big push into Omaha,Ne.
Perhaps we should re-orient away from the mantra, "Health care is a human right", and towards, "Health is a personal responsibility".
Or 'Health is what you get when you eat good, unadulterated food, drink clean (not poisoned, fluoridated) water, and breathe clean air. And limit screen time!'
Health is genetic. Health is arbitrary.
It's not all arbitrary. Good health is deliberately prevented by the system that provides the treatment.
Certainly not all health is arbitrary, but as a general rule, it is. Some people who eat Kale die young, and some 3 pack a day smokers live to 100.
And babies are still born with crooked backs.
"Personal responsibility" has been the repeated mantra since the mid-1970s. That was about the same time that gains in productivity separated from gains in real wages.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2023/03/when-comparing-wages-and-worker-productivity-the-price-measure-matters/
Pretty much all economic gains since then have been absorbed by the minority with financial assets, or those fortunates who bought homes when homes were affordable. Now, nothing is affordable and people are drowning. Health care in particular is a scam used to pick the meat off people's bones. Going to single-payer health care wouldn't fix everything that needs fixing, but it would be a good start.
Because…the VA and Medicaid are such paragons of efficiency and outcome? I’ll give a hard-pass on socialized medicine.
That's the neoliberal playbook at work. Socialized systems like that tend to be popular because they're free at the point of use. So there are two general strategies used to undermine that popularity, and if possible eventually destroy them.
1. Starve them of funding, and/or force mandates on them that no private system is required to meet. (E.g. Congress forced the US post office to prepay its pension obligations decades in advance, far in excess of what is required of private pension plans, which resulted in the post office *appearing* to operate in the red.) Then point the finger and say, "this is what happens when socialism". When in fact socialized programs work just fine if they're allowed to run sanely, which they generally are.
2. Allow the programs to be infested by parasitic profit-seeking. Things like so-called "Medicare Advantage", which isn't actually Medicare at all but a scam whereby the government pays profit-taking providers to provide inferior service. Try watching John Oliver's segment about it, he's always funny: https://youtube.com/shorts/sl9IRn33Fig?si=ggUfjjLmw158mn-r
"When in fact socialized programs work just fine if they're allowed to run sanely, which they generally are."
For example?
These so called democrats seem to have forgotten that their first loyalty is to the citizens of your country. They are rapidly driving you down into the morass the my county (Canada) is mired in. It is treasonous for ANY government representative to put Any interests ahead of the citizens of their own country. If this movement is not crushed it will destroy you as surely as it is destroying us..
Like, wow. As a fellow Canadian, this guy does not speak for me.
Dude, Trump has declared trade war on us and openly declared that Canada is the 51st state, i.e. not a sovereign country. Are you actually saying you approve of the USA attacking our sovereignty? Cause your words sure read that way.
Somalis in Somalia are just as Canadian as you - if not more!
If they're naturalized citizens, then yes, I unironically agree with this statement. "Canadian" is a nationality, not an ethnicity.
Yes, Whites have no essential relationship to Western Civilization. And since immigration is the essence of Americanism (you're all living in America!), the Somali is a priori more American or Canadian that we are - even before they come here.
Learn to read.
Exactly: You might not know it, considering the drift of recent years, but there are still a lot of capable people in this country ready to roll up their sleeves and go to work repairing what is broken.
But will they ever get a chance to repair what is broken?
It seems like "broken" profits people like Blackrock and our political class.
The conversion of the economy toward production, and the government away from graft and subsidies, is possible, in the sense that it could, conceivably, be done. That said, it doesn’t seem possible if one of the two major parties is absolutely dedicated to derailing any such actions, which is where we are at.
Despite the rogue's gallery of recent election wins by folks that outwardly show disdain for this country's foundations and soul, under the flag of the "Democrat" party, the establishment Republicans find themselves in an alley facing "win at any cost" street fighters and want to politely insist on the the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
It's going to require a united front of common sense to fight the corruption and lies fed daily to the gullible populace. The sheer volume of people that can't understand or appreciate what they have/had and are convinced that chasing rainbows and unicorns can fix everything, (including what's not broken), certainly doesn't instill an ton of optimism going forward.
This is a great column. Jim has often pointed out the problems with money in our country. But the simultaneous increased valuation of stocks and precious metals isn't really so surprising. Stocks are claims on real assets, viz. companies that are producing (or are trying to) goods and services that people need. Even banks serve an important purpose, as conduits between people with money to save and borrowers who need it for legitimate purposes such as starting a business. The bank's role, of course, is to evaluate borrowers' requests for plausibility and likelihood of success. Precious metals need no commentary after fiascos like the Weimar Republic. Real estate also tends to rise because as Will Rogers famously said, "They ain't making it any more." The real problem, as Jim points out, is the debasement of the currency, aka money printing to finance overspending by the government. Those who have assets see them increase with inflation. But as usual with Democratic schemes, the money printing hurts the very people that it ostensibly is intended to help, namely the poor and less well off. So the demand for more of it--the usual Democratic/leftist strategy of doubling down on failure--is not surprising. But if you're desperately trying to hang onto power, any strategy, however hurtful to the country and most of its people, becomes acceptable.
Morality is the ultimate currency - if it carries a big stick. The Nazis had no gold, all of it being stolen by the allies after WW1. But they had the brains and brawn of the Germany people - and a big stick to drive out the parasite bankers. So total collapse, right? No the economic renaissance where even manual laborers got paid holidays. The Allies had to attack before this system spread to other parasite ridden nations.
"Some people will have no money at all. The government will almost certainly attempt to counter that by giving them money created out of nothing. It will also give money to broke institutions like banks, and perhaps to businesses deemed 'critical' to society."
Bullseye! The government can, if it chooses, encourage wealth creation -- mostly by eliminating bad regulations and useless paperwork -- but cannot produce it. Fiddling with interest rates, subsidizing particular industries (mostly those with strong lobbyists or located in Congress members' states or districts), and creating fantasy dollars are at best temporary anesthesia for what ails the economy.
I'm no horn blower for corporate capitalism, and where sheer greed replaces honest profit from useful products and services it needs reining in by government regulation. But that's a far cry from the kind of financial engineering exemplified by creating money ex nihilo.
Be careful! The Rothschilds don't like that kind of talk.