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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

#351

Post by BobaFloutist »

whateveracct wrote: post #332
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wouldn't consider any HDHP (High-Deductable Healthcare Plan) to be "good insurance".

It is when you take into account the tax advantages of an HSA. If you're like me and can shake off a few grand medical expense out of pocket, suddenly it's the best plan. I have a HDHP and paid less than $10k all year for my family's medical expenses and we had a freaking baby lol.

Right, but it's also nuts that a lot of people are on a health insurance plan that encourages avoiding medical care because it offers tax-advantaged investing. You get how that's nuts, right?

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

#352

Post by dimal »

siliconc0w wrote: post #34

Our health system is so amazingly bad. Even if you have insurance, you roll the dice getting even basic care. Very easy to end up with hundreds or thousands of dollars in bills if your provider codes something wrong or your insurance denies payment. Much less an actual medical issue that requires repeated trips to a specialist, an expensive medication (even generic), or hospitalizations.

We shouldn’t call it a health care system. That’s an aspirational term that doesn’t match reality. We have a medical industry.

Like all industries, the goal is to return value to shareholders. If healthcare is provided as a side effect of profit maximization, that’s nice to have, but that’s not the purpose of the system.

For example, UnitedHealth is the number three company in the US by revenue. Only Apple and Amazon make more. Their entire business model is to collect money from people, then not give it back when they need health care.

The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as intended.

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

#353

Post by darth_avocado »

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…

> 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

Instead of the stock market, just do housing costs. People say they are stressed about groceries. But what they are really stressed about are grocery prices AFTER they paid rent/mortgage/property taxes etc.

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

#354

Post by GoatInGrey »

pjc50 wrote: post #42
aeblyve wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to learn more about the unit economics of groceries. How is it that a small grocery store can sometimes provide things (much) more cheaply than a megacorporation? [0] If the latter was functioning well in a competitive market, I would expect their play to be on lower margins but higher volume. [0] Mostly I'm referring to offal TBF, which I think most firms are happy to make any money on at all.

The megacorp can provide cheap food, it just doesn't want to. In practice they adjust the margins in a data-driven way on individual goods. UK supermarkets actually provide pretty cheap fresh produce, because the market is pretty competitive. I think the most ridiculous I've seen was a 1kg bag of carrots for 20p. Many countries or locations do not have highly competitive supermarkets. Oh, and there's both volume and…

> The megacorp can provide cheap food, it just doesn't want to.

This fails to explain why Walmart, the world's largest retailer, runs a profit margin of less than 3%.

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

#355

Post by _DeadFred_ »

beezle wrote: post #311

Americans confuse need with 'nice to have' which leads to the "I don't have money for food/rent/hc" problem. You do not need cable tv or home internet. You do not need an iPhone or top end Samsung. There are many mid-range Android phones much cheaper that can add a MVNO phone plan for around $20/mo that has more than enough data for necessary internet. Key word: necessary. OTA HDTV is available to many millions at th…

Lazy Americans conflate anecdotes with reality. Make sure to hit the tropes though. The poor person with a Starbucks cup. The 'leased BMW bros are financial idiots'. The iPhone you have no idea where the person got (my son get's them as a christmas gift from his auntie). The cable bill (who under 50 has cable TV? What year is this post from?).

At best old boy discovered that human beings make inconsistent financial decisions when under stress because someone once held a latte cup, and thinks therefor people aren't struggling financially.

This is way too low effort/uninformative/nothing said to be the top comment. But it paints the correct narrative so those who don't want to see what's actually happening in this country probably love it.

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

#356

Post by diet_jerome »

Steve16384 wrote: post #73

Exactly the things that a well meaning society should provide to its citizens. What's the point of "progress" if we can't provide the basics to the majority?

If market forces were allowed to operate, these needs would be fulfilled. Instead, the usa and a lot of europe have an enormous amount of regulation and government involvement in housing, healthcare, and food. Those of us who want progress and the world to be a better place to live should politically push for deregulation in these three markets/industries.

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

#357

Post by BobaFloutist »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #333
SoftTalker wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Do you expect to not pay any part of your normal, expected annual heath care costs? Insurance is for unexpected expenses that (a) you cannot foresee and (b) would be catastrophic to your finances. Thinks like major storm or fire damage to your house. A car accident that results in a total loss or worse, liability for someone's injuries. Your annual physical, eye exam, and dental hygiene vists, and other rout…

Insurance is for unexpected expenses that (a) you cannot foresee and (b) would be catastrophic to your finances I do not agree with that view, and I'm not sure that is how it is used in the US at least. In the US, for many people, health insurance is the only realistic means to obtain any healthcare, not just catastrophic care. I get injured at least annually due to mostly-outdoor physical activities, and have a chro…

I guess the idea is that you put a deductible amount of money into the account annually, and the tax-advantaged investment makes up for any difference between the deductible and the savings you get on premiums for having a HDHP (I.E. HDHP premiums + deductible - tax savings ≈ normal premiums + deductible).

It's an insane way to run health insurance, and it just goes to show that expected value and mathematical benefit isn't the end-all be-all, but it's supposedly mathematically coherent.

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

#358

Post by diet_jerome »

I'd like to advertise deregulating housing construction as a very clear way to help solve desperate housing problems in many countries (such as in the USA and much of Europe). You can check out more about it here. https://www.econlib.org/build-baby-build-now-under-construct...

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

#359

Post by _DeadFred_ »

potato3732842 wrote: post #222
cameldrv wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All these "doubled since 2015/2019/20whatever" stats tie back to a dirty word that starts win In and ends with "flation" And, as everyone who wasn't lying for various reasons predicted and anyone can see by looking at prior comparable events in history can tell you, wages are one of the last things to go up.

Bro, the CEOs said on conference calls it wasn't about inflation and bragged about their profits.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-c...

https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/big-profits-in-smal...

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

#360

Post by BobaFloutist »

alexjplant wrote: post #300
marcusverus wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> persistent irritation > went to Urgent care You waited until it became a problem, then went to an expensive option instead of contacting your GP and getting a recommendation for an in-network care? And were surprised that it was expensive? This is healthcare 101 in the US. You could have gotten the same care for a reasonable price had you done 1 hour of due diligence. We do not need to remake the system--which will…

...in what world does it make sense to charge the cost of a motorcycle for a few minutes of a doctor/NP's time and $15 worth of drugs? Jumping through bureaucratic hoops to avoid this is a waste of everybody's time.

Urgent care is pretty widely known to be a scam that preys on those too impatient to "jump through buerocratic hoops (make an appointment in the future with a highly-paid professional instead of paying the premium for the surplus staffing it takes to always have someone available for walk-ins)"
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