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Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

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Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#211

Post by piva00 »

self_awareness wrote: post #183
ambicapter wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? If they earn barely enough to sustain themselves, they're not middle class by any sane individual's definition. They're poor.

Well, you can use the "poverty line" definition to separate people who will get grants (below the line), and people who will pay for the grants (above the line). So being just barely above the line means that you pay, not that you get. This is the worst place to be in. Also, a lot of sane US citizens seem to use the "poor" word to describe someone who is not able to get the newest model of iphone. That's why it's gen…

> So being just barely above the line means that you pay, not that you get. This is the worst place to be in.

Why do you think that's how it would work? That's the most simplistic way of thinking about it, instead try to apply the same model of progressive taxation in reverse, you get less benefits the more you earn up to a threshold. Or just implement some form of UBI, there are many models for it as well.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#212

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

conductr wrote: post #122

Wage stagnation is the root problem. When costs of all expenses go up over time but paychecks do not, it causes major stress.

It's more Baumols cost disease

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#213

Post by ImHereToVote »

conductr wrote: post #122

Wage stagnation is the root problem. When costs of all expenses go up over time but paychecks do not, it causes major stress.

We just need to automate wealth accumulation with AI. We had decades of wage work outsourcing and automation. We just need to automate the wealth accumulation to balance the books.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#214

Post by username332211 »

Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

On the 8th of August 2018, the FTSE 350 closed at 4320. The current level is 4980 giving us a 7-year rate of return of around 15%.

I assume the United Kingdom of Great Britain must be a paradise for the workers, right?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#215

Post by Taikonerd »

jrmg wrote: post #182
toomuchtodo wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://penncapital-star.com/uncategorized/americans-suffer-... > In 2022, UnitedHealth Group made over $20 billion in profit. Cigna made $6.7 billion, Elevance Health made $6 billion and CVS Health made $4.2 billion. All told, America’s largest health insurers raked in more than $41 billion of profits in 2022. Universal healthcare is good. America's for profit system is bad. You have to get rid of for profit insurer…

I’m no lover of the US healthcare system - other countries get better outcomes for less than is spent by the US government - and basically all their costs are borne by the government, unlike in the US. But: you have to be careful with large numbers. There are 0.3 billion people in the USA. United Healthcare says they cover 51 million. That $20 billion is $392 per insured person - a lot, sure, but hardly a large fract…

> Compared with other countries, the inefficiency of for-profit healthcare is a far worse problem than the amount of profit they make.

Yes! That's a really pithy way of saying it.

The big insurers spent a lot of money internally on handling claims, administrative overhead, etc. That's because of the whole model of insurance, where each individual claim has to be reviewed.

Some health systems are experimenting with simpler models, like capitation: "the insurer will pay the hospital $X per covered patient, and the hospital will handle all of that patient's health needs." That model would get us out of claims hell.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#216

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

N_Lens wrote: post #25

The current financial system and various corporations see the majority of consumers like livestock - a kind of resource to be exploited. It's better to be free range organic though, in my humble opinion, but the majority seem to be trending towards battery/cage chickens.

you could argue most livestock have it better

they are fed, housed and cleaned by their owners

still hoping for the WEF to confirm my livestock status and begin the UBI payments

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#217

Post by kccqzy »

inerte wrote: post #200

A few months ago I had a persistent irritation on my right eye, as if some dust was stuck there. Worried about it, I went to Urgent care and got billed $3400 (dollars) for antibiotics, WHICH WERE WRONG, an actual ophthalmologist said I had it scratched and just had to apply some drops. $250 for the ophthalmologist and about $50 for the drops. This week I am in Brazil for vacation, and my mother-in-law had a lot of ba…

> And I have good health insurance

I think your example illustrates how low people's expectation can be when it comes to calling health insurance "good" in the U.S.

If I were asked to pay $3400 for urgent care or $250 for an ophthalmologist I would not consider the health insurance "good" for its intended purpose of insuring against medical expenses. (It might be good for other purposes like enabling you to invest without taxes.) My health plan simply asks me to pay $35 for urgent care and $25 for a specialist like an ophthalmologist. That I consider good. Your insurance isn't.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#218

Post by deadbabe »

I think quite a bit of this stress is self inflicted. People spend a lot of money eating too much (shitty) food. That results in health problems. And at the same time people are way too ambitious about where they want to live.

If people could just scale back and live appropriately, it’d be less stressful.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#219

Post by gruez »

cameldrv wrote: post #194
gruez wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And it really is as simple as that. It really isn't, because your "simple" comparison is bunk. For one, it's measuring stock vs flow. Stock prices measure stock, eg. the size of a piggy bank. Salaries measure flow, eg. your annual salary. Directly comparing the two results is meaningless. It's easy to demonstrate this with the piggy bank example. If your salary was 50k/year, you saved 5k/year, then your piggy bank w…

If you want a flow, here you go: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A053RC1Q027SBEA Corporate profits in the U.S. have almost doubled since 2019.

That has other issues. For instance change in ownership structures (eg. mom & pop shops selling up to private inequality) would change this figure without anything else changing.

The statistic for "Share of Labour Compensation in GDP", which avoids such issues shows that while it has dropped (ie. more money going to capital), the scale is grossly exaggerated.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#220

Post by ch4s3 »

jrmg wrote: post #182
toomuchtodo wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://penncapital-star.com/uncategorized/americans-suffer-... > In 2022, UnitedHealth Group made over $20 billion in profit. Cigna made $6.7 billion, Elevance Health made $6 billion and CVS Health made $4.2 billion. All told, America’s largest health insurers raked in more than $41 billion of profits in 2022. Universal healthcare is good. America's for profit system is bad. You have to get rid of for profit insurer…

I’m no lover of the US healthcare system - other countries get better outcomes for less than is spent by the US government - and basically all their costs are borne by the government, unlike in the US. But: you have to be careful with large numbers. There are 0.3 billion people in the USA. United Healthcare says they cover 51 million. That $20 billion is $392 per insured person - a lot, sure, but hardly a large fract…

> and basically all their costs are borne by the government

The costs are born by people paying 20-25% VAT. The government just collects and disperses those funds. This may be more efficient, but the cost is born by everyone in society.

> Compared with other countries, the inefficiency of for-profit healthcare

The US health system(s) are a patchwork of non for profit entities, for profits, government programs, and employer sponsored arrangements. It's definitively not a single system and not wholly for profit. No one would ever intentionally design a something this we, it's accidental, it evolved over time.

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