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The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

theguardian.com

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Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#111

Post by scarface74 »

malvosenior wrote: post #45
chimi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work. But the USA does not provide healthcare for people who work and keep machine turning. Hmm... I wonder if it's a political lobbying by healthcare industry to get more money for people who wouldn't provide it on their own by extracting it from the tax payers wh…

This is why the ACA (Obamacare) was extra bad (for me and others in my situation). Not only do I have to subsidize the poor through taxes but now I have to subsidize higher risk individuals through my own increased premiums. I also make enough money to get zero tax breaks on any of it and the "marketplace" has removed all competition and downward price pressure. EDIT: People seem to think I'm being flippant or cruel…

You were always subsidizing the poor. Hospitals must treat anyone who comes to the emergency room whether they could afford to pay or not. The costs were recouped by charging those with insurance more - raising your cost of private insurance or through some government sponsored hospital.

On top of that, if you are under group insurance through an employer, they have always been required to insure everyone at the same price except they could have a smoking surcharge. Your risk pool and the price you paid was determimed by the group you were a part of.

Unless you die suddenly, there is a good chance that at some point in your life, you will have a “pre-existing condition” that would have made you ineligible for health insurance.

But on another note: right before the ACA took affect, I was laid off from my job. That by itself was no big deal. I literally was laid off on Friday after the company was sold and started contracting for one of our customers the following Monday.

I went to get private insurance and no one would sell it to me because I had mild cerebral palsy. My CP is so mild that it only basically affects one hand, I was a part time fitness instructor, I had just run two half marathons in the previous year, and I hadn’t had any surgery besides foot surgery and that was 12 years prior.

I was getting paid more than enough as a contractor to pay higher premiums, I offered to do a fitness test - I knew I was in shape to pass any of the military fitness tests for my age - but they wouldn’t go for it.

As far as CORBA, yeah I ended up buying into the acquiring company's health plan. But guess what? They cancelled their health plan and there would have been nothing to buy into.

The ACA means that I could buy insurance.

My then fiancé/now wife said forget it. We moved our wedding date back six months, went to the courthouse, got married and I got on her insurance plan. She since chose another job with the school system partially to guarantee that after 10 years, we would have access to health insurance for the rest of our lives no matter what.

But why should someone have to go through these contortions to buy insurance at full price?

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#112

Post by johnminter »

This is an important distinction. CBS reports [1] that a $500 emergency expense would put most Americans in debt. Our consumer-focused economy with easy credit lures people into purchases that they cannot afford. Many spend without careful thought and purchase homes, electronic devices, automobiles, and college educations that they cannot afford to repay.

My wife and I had little savings when I got out of graduate school. Neither of our parents had taught us about budgeting. I found books that taught us how to make a monthly budget. The authors stressed the importance of working together to plan a budget and setting a goal of saving for an emergency fund that would eventually cover six months expenses. We drove our old car until it was too expensive to repair. Eating out was a rare treat. I carried a bag lunch to work. We bought a used tent and camping supplies for a vacation. We had a used B&W TV for years. We were able to purchase a modest house. We never upgraded to a bigger one. A careful lifestyle helped us get our kids though state universities with no debt.

In time we could add more "fun" items because we had a buffer. We were still careful. My employer had perennial layoffs. We knew I could be laid off at any time. Happily, I was ready to retire when my time came (My company went from 65,000 employees in our city to less than 1,700 when I was laid off).

I have a friend who ran his own computer business and counseled (free of charge)many families with money problems. His conclusion was that lack of money was not the biggest problem these families had. He concluded that poor management of what they had was a bigger problem.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-afford-a-50...

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#113

Post by rayiner »

Spooky23 wrote: post #108
malvosenior wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.

Not really, and it varies by state. When you show up with an emergent condition, you get treated and kicked out. We probably spend more money on Medicaid for babies addicted to opioids than it would cost to privately insure mothers.

Every state covers mothers under Medicaid.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#114

Post by repsilat »

whack wrote: post #48
chrisseaton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like normal usage to my British ears. ‘Too poor to go out this weekend’ for example. Poor means you don’t have enough money. Too poor to do something means not enough money to do that thing. Too poor to buy a super-yacht sounds normal usage to me even.

Language evolves. People often say things ironically. Other times, they exaggerate for emphasis. A good example is "literally", which has evolved so much that the dictionary has literally changed its definition to indicate that it could be used metaphorically https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally Trying to police popular slang is a losing endeavor, and I don't think it accomplishes all that much. Peopl…

> "literally", which has evolved so much that the dictionary has literally changed its definition to indicate that it could be used metaphorically

Just as surprising to me is people saying the word "silently" aloud. As though they don't know what it originally meant!

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#115

Post by scarface74 »

manfredo wrote: post #82
coldtea wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so well paid that you don't get tax breaks, and you are forced to help poor people through taxes and insurance premiums? Sounds like a good situation to be in...

Not exactly. The people who saw their premiums rise the most as a percentage of their income as a result of the ACA were mostly low income.

The ACA hasn’t been shown to be the cause of group insurance to go up. Not too many “low income” people could have afforded private insurance anyway.

All of the mandates for what qualified as a real plan were things that were being offered voluntarily by both of my parents health plans in the 90s. My mom is a retired teacher and my dad is a retired factory worker.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#116

Post by kaitai »

jackpirate wrote: post #99
chimi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work. But the USA does not provide healthcare for people who work and keep machine turning. Hmm... I wonder if it's a political lobbying by healthcare industry to get more money for people who wouldn't provide it on their own by extracting it from the tax payers wh…

The US provides acute treatment for the destitute (i.e. we'll fix your broken bone), but I don't think we'll provide chronic treatment for the destitute. I've never heard of a destitute person getting free chemo or hospice for example.

You're essentially right. My neighbor poster harryh mentions Medicaid, but there are many situations in which you can be destitute and not qualify, or not qualify for many months, during which time you can suffer from lack of chemo for instance. A schoolmate of mine died from cancer in her 20s because the cancer was discovered late due to lack of insurance/healthcare, and then treatment was delayed almost a year because she didn't qualify for X because she had a job with a certain hourly wage and needed to quit and spend down her meager assets to a certain level, then once poor enough it took 3 months to get processed into the state program for the poor, then she finally got coverage and started getting treatment then died quickly because it was so advanced.

Some homeless people get 'free' chemo, etc., but there are huge problems with the setup because with certain illnesses they're too well to qualify for hospice or housing or staying in the hospital full-time, but discharging to the street results in non-compliance with medication regimes because they don't have safe places or refrigerators to keep drugs, for instance. On the other end, hospice requires a lot of referrals and paperwork; if you can't get into the pipeline by getting all the referrals and evaluations and paperwork done, you don't get hospice, whether for money or for free.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#117

Post by kaitai »

rayiner wrote: post #113
Spooky23 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, and it varies by state. When you show up with an emergent condition, you get treated and kicked out. We probably spend more money on Medicaid for babies addicted to opioids than it would cost to privately insure mothers.

Every state covers mothers under Medicaid.

Every state covers mothers who are poor (133% or less of poverty line) or mothers who are "medically needy" under Medicaid. You need to prove you're poor or medically needy to get Medicaid coverage.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#118

Post by sametmax »

agumonkey wrote: post #88
sametmax wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that simple. Social connections require work, they also are slow and unreliable. Before the information age, to get to know something, talking was the main way. But now with books, panels, displays, packaging, signs, internet, GPS, etc., we have access to a huge quantity of information without having to talk to each others. And we choose to do so because on average it's faster, more accurate, and avoid to deal wi…

I think you're pushing it too far, even my parent's generation is confused how culture changed from a lot of social interactions to barely nothing. They had radio/phone/tv (a lot lot less of course) but the social quality was still present. I agree with your conclusion though.

Everything has an inertia, including social habits.

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#119

Post by rayiner »

mhluongo wrote: post #44
malvosenior wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.

Not really, or there wouldn't be so many medical bankruptcies

That doesn’t logically follow. People can make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not be able to afford their hospital bills.

Indeed, in many cases Medicaid requires you to become poor, by spending down personal assets first to pay for care, qualify for government support. (Arguably that’s the only fair way to do it. How is it fair for the government to use tax dollars to maintain the social status of a someone who was lucky enough to build up a nest egg, but unlucky enough to get cancer, where it won’t give money to someone who was unlucky enough to be born poor in the ghetto?)

Re: The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

#120

Post by WoodenChair »

loblollyboy wrote: post #110
xeromal wrote: post #2

Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.

Exactly - I’m from upper middle class and while this meant I was lucky enough to go back home when unemployed, all my peers were just career oriented and it’s very lonely to be ‘a loser’ - I recently moved in w some old coworkers/friends in a diff city who are from a diff socioeconomic background. At first they just let me stay in the apt, now I make more than them (though not a lot). We share like family and look af…

I’m surprised you would even think your experience is comparable enough to the person in the original article to post in this thread. She was sick, had a disabled child, and no safety net. It sounds like you were single, healthy, with no dependents and an upper middle class family as a safety net. Perhaps there are other hardships you didn’t explain? How is your anecdote relevant to a discussion surrounding the issues the woman in the original article faced? Yes, being alone sucks. Is that your point?
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