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Is this true?


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2015 Jan 18, 5:07pm   24,574 views  57 comments

by indigenous   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

I'm a 54 year old consulting engineer and make between $60,000 and $125,000 per year, depending on how hard I work and whether or not there are work projects out there for me.

My girlfriend is 61 and makes about $18,000 per year, working as a part-time mail clerk.

For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, which also happens to impose a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 per month.

For my girlfriend, the same exact policy, same deductible, costs $1 per month. That's right, $1 per month. I'm not making this up.

Don't believe me? Just go to www.coveredca.gov , the ObamaCare website for California and enter the parameters I've mentioned above and see for yourself. By the way, my zip code is 93940. You'll need to enter that.

So OK, clearly ObamaCare is a scheme that involves putting the cost burden of healthcare onto the middle and upper-income wage earners. But there's a lot more to it. Stick with me.

And before I make my next points, I'd like you to think about something:

I live in Monterey County, in Central California. We have a large land mass but just 426,000 residents - about the population of Colorado Springs or the city of Omaha.

But we do have a large Hispanic population, including a large number of illegal aliens, and to serve this group we have Natividad Medical Center, a massive, Federally subsidized county medical complex that takes up an area about one-third the size of the Chrysler Corporation automobile assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois (see Google Earth View). Natividad has state-of-the-art operating rooms, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fully equipped, 24 hour emergency room, and much more. If you have no insurance, if you've been in a drive-by shooting or have overdosed on crack cocaine, this is where you go. And it's essentially free, because almost everyone who ends up in the ER is uninsured.

Last year, 2,735 babies were born at Natividad. 32% of these were born to out-of-wedlock teenage mothers, 93% of which were Hispanic. Less than 20% could demonstrate proof of citizenship, and 71% listed their native language as Spanish. Of these 876 births, only 40 were covered under [any kind of] private health insurance. The taxpayers paid for the other 836. And in case you were wondering about the entire population - all 2,735 births - less than 24% involved insured coverage or even partial payment on behalf of the patient to the hospital in exchange for services. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

Now consider this:

If I want to upgrade my policy to a low-deductible premium policy, such as what I had with my last employer, my cost is $886 per month. But my girlfriend can upgrade her policy to the very same level, for just $4 per month. That's right, $4 per month. $48 per year for a zero-deductible, premium healthcare policy - the kind of thing you get when you work at IBM (except of course, IBM employees pay an average of $170 per month out of pocket for their coverage).

I mean, it's bad enough that I will be forced to subsidize the ObamaCare scheme in the first place. But even if I agreed with the basic scheme, which of course I do not, I wouldnever agree to subsidize premium policies. If I have to pay $482 a month for a budget policy, I sure as hell do not want the guy I'm subsidizing to get a better policy, for less that 1% of what I have to fork out each month for a low-end policy.

Why must I pay $482 per month for something the other guy gets for a dollar? And why should the other guy get to buy an $886 policy for $4 a month? Think about this: I have to pay $10,632 a year for the same thing that the other guy can get for $48. $10,000 of net income is 60 days of full time work as an engineer . $48 is something I could could pay for collecting aluminum cans and plastic bottles, one day a month.
Are you with me on this? Are you starting to get an idea what ObamaCare is really about?

ObamaCare is not about dealing with inequities in the healthcare system. That's just the cover story. The real story is that it is a massive, political power grab. Do you think anyone who can insure himself with a premium policy for $4 a month will vote for anyone but the political party that provides him such a deal? ObamaCare is about enabling, subsizdizing, and expanding the Left's political power base, at taxpayer expense. Why would I vote for anyone but a Democrat if I can have babies for $4 a month? For that matter, why would I go to college or strive for a better job or income if it means I have to pay real money for healthcare coverage? Heck, why study engineering when I can be a schlub for $20K per year and buy a new F-150 with all the money I'm saving?

And think about those $4-a-month babies - think in terms of propagation models. Think of just how many babies will be born to irresponsible, under-educated mothers. Will we get a new crop of brain surgeons and particle physicists from the dollar baby club, or will we need more cops, criminal courts and prisons? One thing you can be certain of: At $4 a month, they'll multiply, and multiply, and multiply.

ObamaCare: It's all about political power.

#politics

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1   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 5:15pm  

Die, working poor!!! I need another jetski, and the wealth producers with 200 million in the Caymans are more important than vaccinating your horrid brat - let him die under the bridge!

Memememememememe.

2   tatupu70   2015 Jan 18, 5:26pm  

It seems to me that the author is free to quit his high paying consulting job and, instead, work at Walmart for minimum wage. Then his healthcare would be cheap too.

What's his beef?

3   tatupu70   2015 Jan 18, 5:31pm  

Call it Crazy says

It's called "redistribution of wealth"... That's been his platform from day one...

He hasn't gone nearly far enough.

Wealth has been redistributing from the bottom to the top for 40 years. If you don't like redistribution, you should be cheering his proposals.

4   tatupu70   2015 Jan 18, 5:50pm  

Call it Crazy says

He ADDED to it by including healthcare now with Obamacare...

Nope, that would subtract from the current redistribution going from the poor and middle classes to the rich.

5   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 5:50pm  

What we have here is a failure to discover the price.

What we have here is the tyranny of the democracy.

BTW this very thing will be the source of the biggest depression this country or the world has seen in 2030. Call it Crazy says

He ADDED to it by including healthcare now with Obamacare...

Can you splain please?

6   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 5:51pm  

indigenous says

What we have here is the tyranny of the democracy.

Uppity servants should eat their turnips in their sod houses and be happy about it, dammit!

7   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 5:52pm  

thunderlips11 says

Uppity servants should eat their turnips in their sod houses and be happy about it, dammit!

Once again economic illiteracy manifests in your post...

8   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 5:57pm  

indigenous says

Once again economic illiteracy manifests in your post...

Ah yes, economic illiteracy. Which is why Austrians are almost invisible in Academia and Business, almost all on wingnut welfare like the Mises Institute.

9   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 6:40pm  

thunderlips11 says

Ah yes, economic illiteracy. Which is why Austrians are almost invisible in Academia and Business

That is more of a comment on Academia than Austrians...

thunderlips11 says

almost all on wingnut welfare like the Mises Institute.

WTF is wingnut welfare?

10   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 6:42pm  

Call it Crazy says

Obamacare is just another "vehicle" to pull money from the middle class and funnel it to the lower class. Your OP is the perfect example where a middle class engineer has to "pay" (in higher healthcare premiums and income taxes) for his low income girlfriend.

I guess I don't get the diff between Obama care and healthcare?

11   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 6:58pm  

Got it, IOW the tyranny of the democracy.

12   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 8:15pm  

indigenous says

WTF is wingnut welfare?

Here's your boogeyman using it in a header for one of his columns:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/dont-forget-wingnut-welfare/?_r=0

13   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 8:26pm  

thunderlips11 says

Here's your boogeyman using it in a header for one of his columns:

Don't even tell me that is not a two way street, the reality is that politicians make their living in politics, ergo this type stuff, so what? Give me some examples of Austrians on "wingnut welfare"

14   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 8:28pm  

indigenous says

thunderlips11 says

Here's your boogeyman using it in a header for one of his columns:

Don't even tell me that is not a two way street, the reality is that politicians make their living in politics, ergo this type stuff, so what? Give me some examples of Austrians on "wingnut welfare"

Just posted this:
http://patrick.net/?p=1276098

You're welcome.

15   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 8:38pm  

My understanding is that Rothbard was never wealthy despite having written many economics books, and IMO on a very short list of the most important economists of the last century.

thunderlips11 says

You're welcome.

Fair enough, but he was not wealthy so I do not agree with your implication that he was motivated by money, on the contrary my understanding is he was a great guy who followed his purpose to the detriment of finance. Austrian economics is always dissed as some sort of whacked cult which is no doubt why he was unable to find work or get tenured.

And Mises even more so.

No I vehemently disagree with your conjecture, these are really good guys, really smart guys, who are really trying to make a better world.

You are very well read, well reader than me, but your critical thinking skills not so much...

16   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 8:45pm  

indigenous says

Fair enough, but he was not wealthy so I do not agree with your implication that he was motivated by money

Just to be clear - I do not mean to make that implication about Rothbard or Wingnut Welfare recipients generally. What I am flat-out saying is the reason he ever was normally employed at anything like a regular or better-than-regular salary was due to getting the job via wealthy donors and advocates.

17   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 8:51pm  

thunderlips11 says

Just to be clear - I do not mean to make that implication about Rothbard or Wingnut Welfare recipients generally. What I am flat-out saying is the reason he ever was normally employed at anything like a regular or better-than-regular salary was due to getting the job via wealthy donors and advocates.

Ok that was one example... But even then it was still about the purpose not the money.

Do you think Krugman does not do the same thing, or Al Gore, or Obama? Do they really adhere to the purpose they pretend or are they traitors to their own people?

18   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 8:56pm  

indigenous says

No I vehemently disagree with your conjecture, these are really good guys, really smart guys, who are really trying to make a better world.

That's because you have found your ideological salvation, for what it's worth. Adolf Hitler thought he was making a better world too. As no doubt did Napoleon and Josef Stalin and Oliver Cromwell.

indigenous says

You are very well read, well reader than me, but your critical thinking skills not so much...

That's half a compliment, and half an insult, so I'll take that as even-steven.

19   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 18, 9:01pm  

indigenous says

No I vehemently disagree with your conjecture, these are really good guys, really smart guys, who are really trying to make a better world.

You are very well read, well reader than me, but your critical thinking skills not so much...

Allow me to quote my own post on another thread:

thunderlips11 says

Here's an example, not only of Hoppe's nutjob ideas, but of Austrian dismissal of Actual Observed Evidence in the Real World:

According to Hoppe, four years before the publication of Democracy, Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr. criticized Hoppe's thesis that monarchy is preferable to democracy.[23] A Professor of Economics at the University of Buenos Aires,[24] Benegas Lynch provided empirical evidence demonstrating that modern monarchies tend to be far poorer than modern democracies. In reply, Hoppe stated that as a Misesian economist, he believes that economic theories cannot be "established or refuted by historical data." Hoppe also cited the work of racialist scientist J. Phillipe Rushton to argue that the data are misleading because many modern monarchies are composed of "Negroid" people.

http://patrick.net/?p=1276098

Critical Thinking is no good when you toss out inconvenient facts, using your ideology to not accept them:

Can you see what Hoppe is doing above when he talks about being a Misesian Economist? He's no different than a Communist apologist dismissing actual real life example of Communism in (attempted) Practice on the grounds it is "Contrary to my held philosophy of Dialetical Materialism and the inevitable outcome of the History of Class Struggle".

20   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 9:02pm  

thunderlips11 says

That's because you have found your ideological salvation, for what it's worth. Adolf Hitler thought he was making a better world too. As no doubt did Napoleon and Josef Stalin and Oliver Cromwell.

True enough, the same can be said about MLK, your favorite a priori master Newton, Socrates, Jefferson, Thomas Payne, James Madison, Voltaire, Queen Elizabeth, etc.

Again it ain't all about money.

thunderlips11 says

hat's half a compliment, and half an insult, so I'll take that as even-steven.

I would say a little less than even steven...

21   mell   2015 Jan 18, 9:07pm  

tatupu70 says

Call it Crazy says

It's called "redistribution of wealth"... That's been his platform from day one...

He hasn't gone nearly far enough.

Wealth has been redistributing from the bottom to the top for 40 years. If you don't like redistribution, you should be cheering his proposals.

Utter nonsense. The wealth is distributed from the have-a-littles to the have-nots, creating an even wider wealth gap, leaving no middle class, but only government dependents and ultra-wealthy. That's the reason the Republicans have been winning, not because they are grand, but because of bs like this.

thunderlips11 says

Die, working poor!!! I need another jetski, and the wealth producers with 200 million in the Caymans are more important than vaccinating your horrid brat - let him die under the bridge!

Memememememememe.

The problem is that the people with 200 million in the Caymans don't care either way, they are not the ones subsidizing, in fact they come out ahead under Obama. This guy making 60K certainly could hardly afford even visiting the Caymans, now with ObamaCare he surely can't.

22   mell   2015 Jan 18, 9:09pm  

Indy, could you please provide a link to this story? Thanks. Found it, nevermind.

23   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 9:40pm  

thunderlips11 says

Can you see what Hoppe is doing above when he talks about being a Misesian Economist? He's no different than a Communist apologist dismissing actual real life example of Communism in (attempted) Practice on the grounds it is "Contrary to my held philosophy of Dialetical Materialism and the inevitable outcome of the History of Class Struggle".

You don't get it, once again it comes back to a priori v a posteroi.

I would agree that a benign monarchy is the best form of government, which is why mention Queen Elizabeth.

I also agree about the economic "facts". It is impossible to say something is an isolated case of empiricism as there are always a blend of many factors in a given situation.

Racism, I don't know, when was this written, was it a part of the zeitgeist?
Nobody is 100% on everything. Get over the we should never discriminate horse shit will you...

thunderlips11 says

"Contrary to my held philosophy of Dialetical Materialism and the inevitable outcome of the History of Class Struggle".

This is where you take swan dive into the cess pool. I think the zeitgeist back then included Darwin, Pavlov, Freud. It would appear that Marx borrowed heavily from Darwin and the evolution thing. Anyway this idea of Dialetical Materialism is nothing more than postulate without any proof, which is the trouble with applying a posteriori to a soft science. If you are saying Marx uses a priori then where are his axioms?

24   indigenous   2015 Jan 18, 9:43pm  

mell says

Indy, could you please provide a link to this story?

Yea that is why I asked if it is true.

25   curious2   2015 Jan 18, 11:23pm  

Call it Crazy says

Obamacare is just another "vehicle" to pull money from the middle class and funnel it to the lower class.

That isn't what's happening. The math looks more like this:

1) hospital corporation charges $2 for an ibuprofen that costs $0.02;
2) middle class pays the $2, somebody with less income pays $0.10;
3) both are overpaying, while AHA collects >$1T/yr and executives make millions;
4) people who make millions are not "lower class" (at least financially).

The legislation diverts $ from the middle and upper income brackets to the executives and lobbyists who wrote it. In some instances, it can take even from the "lower class" what little they have, e.g. "out of network" charges and Medicaid recapture at full hospital sticker prices ($2 instead of $0.02).

The lower income brackets didn't write the legislation or finance the politicians who enacted it. The purported beneficiaries are merely pawns, used by lobbyists to divide and misrule the public while picking pockets, business as usual.

26   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 19, 5:50am  

indigenous says

I would agree that a benign monarchy is the best form of government, which is why mention Queen Elizabeth.

Did you read the quote? There is no debate - overall, monarchies are less prosperous than democracies.

As for Queen Elizabeth, British Monarchs are figureheads with little power.

indigenous says

It would appear that Marx borrowed heavily from Darwin and the evolution thing.

Highly unlikely. Marx's ideas came mostly from Hegel's idea of the dialectic and their formulation predates Darwin's Origin of the Species by at least a decade.

27   MisdemeanorRebel   2015 Jan 19, 5:52am  

curious2 says

The lower income brackets didn't write the legislation or finance the politicians who enacted it. The purported beneficiaries are merely pawns, used by lobbyists to divide and misrule the public while picking pockets, business as usual.

It's funny that those who insist there not be any class warfare engage in plenty of pre-emptive class warfare by getting the middle class to believe the system is engineered by the lower classes to screw them.

28   bob2356   2015 Jan 19, 6:10am  

indigenous says

I guess I don't get the diff between Obama care and healthcare?

That's because you can't grasp the difference between the cost of healthcare and the cost of health insurance or why it matters. This same widespread fundamental ignorance is what allowed the abortion of a legislation called the ACA to get passed in the first place.

29   lostand confused   2015 Jan 19, 6:18am  

Ok is this true-do people actually get Obozocare for 4 bucks a month??

30   Reality   2015 Jan 19, 6:35am  

tatupu70 says

Call it Crazy says

He ADDED to it by including healthcare now with Obamacare...

Nope, that would subtract from the current redistribution going from the poor and middle classes to the rich.

Nonsense. The $60k/yr engineer is far from rich. Obamacare is a scheme to tax the middle class to pay for mushrooming medical bills that primarily benefit banks that run up the cost of financing medical degrees and medical buildings / equipment via ridiculous debt financing.

31   Tenpoundbass   2015 Jan 19, 7:09am  

thunderlips11 says

Die, working poor!!! I need another jetski, and the wealth producers with 200 million in the Caymans are more important than vaccinating your horrid brat - let him die under the bridge!

tatupu70 says

It seems to me that the author is free to quit his high paying consulting job and, instead, work at Walmart for minimum wage. Then his healthcare would be cheap too.

If you think 60K is some high paying job, then you must collect stamps and live in your moms basement and is a professional student and have never worked a day in your life.

These are Idiots we're dealing with, I suggest all of the sensible people with a job in this country expatriate to any country other than here.
Wait about 6 months, that's about how long it will take the greedy takers and givers of others crap, to die of starvation. Because they damn sure wont lift a goddamn finger to feed their own sorry fucking asses.

I hear mummies make excellent firewood.

32   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2015 Jan 19, 7:31am  

The chasm is even worse than the author describes. I've posted before...my wife makes about $30k a year and was a single mine before I met her.

Health care for her(they kid is already covered) ran about $125-150/mo under covered CA. She already really couldn't afford that($1220 rent for a 2bd & $330 car payment).

Now factor in $5k deductible....

Not sure why the lefties in this thread are heroing for the "working poor" and not the working lower middle class.

Whole things a clusterfuck anyway as she was always able to get low income health care at various clinics prior to covered CA.

33   indigenous   2015 Jan 19, 7:39am  

bob2356 says

That's because you can't grasp the difference between the cost of healthcare and the cost of health insurance or why it matters. This same widespread fundamental ignorance is what allowed the abortion of a legislation called the ACA to get passed in the first place.

Please splain me.

34   indigenous   2015 Jan 19, 7:40am  

thunderlips11 says

As for Queen Elizabeth, British Monarchs are figureheads with little power.

They were seminal the US system, and that is not my understanding.

35   Shaman   2015 Jan 19, 9:26am  

Sorry, indigenous, but if you want people to work and provide for themselves, you'd better have jobs for them that offer a living wage. Overseas most of the low skill jobs, make rent super expensive by buying up all the property and raising the rent, and you've got people who MUST be on public assistance to live.
And now you have to take care of them, because allowing them to starve and be homeless won't work for long. Read some history. The French Revolution comes to mind.
The GOP knows this, and so do the wealthy. They won't ever leave the unwashed masses penniless, because they don't want Revolution. But they do like to pay for the welfare with taxes from the highly productive workers like yourself. Oh, and then they will tell you lies on Fox about how the Democrats are giving all your money to hoodlums, welfare queens, and illegals.
This tricks you into being on their side, when they created the very problems that are costing you money!
Wake up!

36   Dan8267   2015 Jan 19, 9:33am  

indigenous says

IBM

Christ, please tell me you're not a beamer. I expect more from IBM engineers, what few are left.

37   tatupu70   2015 Jan 19, 9:42am  

Reality says

Nonsense. The $60k/yr engineer is far from rich.

CaptainShuddup says

If you think 60K is some high paying job, then you must collect stamps and live in your moms basement and is a professional student and have never worked a day in your life.

If you read the OP, it states the engineer makes somewhere between 60K and 125K. I think 125K is pretty well off in most of the US. And I obviously agree that 60K/year isn't rich. But that wasn't my point, anyway.

The point is that the current Republican system already redistributes wealth. To imply otherwise is silly. Look at the wealth concentration trend over the last 40 years--that should say it all.

38   NDrLoR   2015 Jan 19, 9:46am  

indigenous says

My girlfriend is 61

Somehow I've never pictured a girlfriend being 61.

39   Bigsby   2015 Jan 19, 10:07am  

indigenous says

thunderlips11 says

As for Queen Elizabeth, British Monarchs are figureheads with little power.

They were seminal the US system, and that is not my understanding.

What is that even supposed to mean? What power do you think QEII actually has (that isn't just mere custom/show)? Get googling.

40   Tenpoundbass   2015 Jan 19, 10:09am  

dodgerfanjohn says

Whole things a clusterfuck anyway as she was always able to get low income health care at various clinics prior to covered CA.

Bingo!!!

This whole thing is a non starter. The only people who have been able to keep their Doctor and healthcare costs didn't go up is the indigent poor. Their Doctor still and always has been, the ER, and they'll still never see a bill as they never ever have.

I bet you guys thinks it's an accident or coincident that the IRS workforce has been decimated just months before the biggest Tax season in American history. At no other point in American history have we needed more IRS agents to sort out fraud and make sure the undeserving takers give back if they didn't qualify.

And I'll gauranfuckin Tee what few IRS that are left, will be going after the middle class who didn't get insured with a prejudice malice.

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