@busdriver PA and some other states created a nightmare for the lower middle class. No Medicare expansion and too poor to qualify for subsidies. Many at the home care agency where I moonlight either bought the cheapest ACA insurance and can’t afford the OOP costs or pay the fine which is cheaper than insurance and hope they stay healthy…
Most of the church members contribute church offerings and thus pay for my insurance (lot of budget paid by endowment fund) can’t afford their own. Which makes me feel grateful and awful.
Yes, if you make too little for ACA subsidy and can’t afford the ACA premiums but have medical issues and can’t afford copays but can’t get Medicaid, you are in a terrible bind!
Stanford has very generous financial aid. If your child going to UW over Stanford means the difference between being able to retire before and 70 and not, I have to wonder about the financial situation. In order for Stanford’s cost to be more than even that of UW in-state, you would have to be pretty well off financially.
I started to pay attention to this aspect of ACA recently because I may need to rely on that before I am 65 yo. The state we consider to live in does not have Medicare (or is it Medicaid?) expansion.
A friend of mine told me that I had better not leave the more progressive state I am living in now. But I think it will cost too much to live here once I leave the workforce and lose my company’s healthcare insurance. I think it is dstark who once mentioned this (if I remember it correctly): the COL between Cedar Park, Texas and San Francisco (or Bay Area), California are drastically different in terms of housing cost. Heck…if I can get my wife to move to other lower COL (in both housing cost and healthcare cost) country together with me before I hit 65, I will choose to go there – at least until I get my medicare. (It would be cheaper even if I do not have a health insurance and pay cash for the healthcare service there.) But this is my pipe dream.
ACA could be my life saver, but it is so only only if I live in some states but not some others.
Re: financial illiteracy.
Have you ever tried to teach your S or D financial literacy when he/she grew up with you? I admit I did not when our son grew up with us. But he must have at least been influenced by our relatively frugal family life style. (Somehow this is the way he describes how his parents do related to family finances: My parents are very “practical”. Is it a compliment or not?! LOL.)
(Continued from my previous post because it was timeout for editing)
Just because we have always been practical, we would not run into the problem of being unable to come up with $400 when anyone in our family needs it. Actually, we needed to come up with $8000 just recently in a short notice from him. Hopefully, he could correlate these two: our “practicality” (means “cheap” sometimes) and our capability of coming up with a large amount of money to help him or any of our family members, within a short time. (except that we do not do much online banking so we are unable to transfer money overnight.)
Yep, for years, at the individual’s repeated requests. However, we were just in a loop where she asked for advice; I spent untold hours researching and then gave her the advice ;and she then spent a year or so telling me how she hadn’t yet followed the advice. It was a very unproductive loop and I quit it, since I have no control over the situation. When she runs through all her resources, I’ll have to be responsible. I am not worrying about it anymore till that happens. Maybe one or both of us won’t live that long. The possibility/probability of providing for several family members like that is part of our long term planning.
adding: when I saw the credit card balance, I freaked and said we had to pay it off immediately. There was plenty of money to do this. She argued they only allowed her to pay the minimum because she had set it up to pay automatically. I paid it off. I’m sure it is maxed out again. The money is there to pay it off. Impossible situation unless you can get a conservatorship or something.
Those questions are really mathg questions, aren’t they? If people are barely multiplying, it would be tough to get the concept of powering whether it’s in finacial context or otherwise.
Don’t credit card bills now tell you on the first page how much you will end up paying if you only pay the minimum each month? I thought there was a law about that.
Then again, if someone wants to be blind to reality, that is what they will be.
There are quite a few interesting posts in this thread. I am learning a lot. For example, I did not realize @alh was a real estate speculator.
There are financial professionals in this thread and on this board. Because of my career, I have been asked often for financial advice. There is a common theme to the questions. What the questioners really want from me is my approval for what they are going to do anyway.
I think this happens to parents too.
@musicamusica, you wrote something earlier that I have wondered about. You said something like people get on a tv series and then they buy an expensive house, as if they are going to be on a hit tv series forever.
Why do you think they do that?
@KKhama, you write posts and I see sometimes you are questioned about what you write. I just want you to know I appreciate your posts. Poor people are discriminated against in the United States. Medicaid wasn’t expanded in many states. The discrimination is right in front of our eyes.
[quote]
Those questions are really mathg questions, aren’t they? If people are barely multiplying, it would be tough to get the concept of powering whether it’s in finacial context or otherwise./quote
Not very difficult math. All you need to be able to do to answer the first is divide $1,000 by 20. In the second you simply need to be able to figure out that $30 is one percent of $3,000. It does take a little reasoning but nothing you wouldn’t find on a 4th grade math quiz. I think the bigger issues are people being intimidated by financial issues in general and not knowing what compound interest is.
(edited to correct typo)
@Pizzagirl - I wasn’t but discovered it as an adult. Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, once said “Some people get their kicks from drinking and smoking; I get mine from eating and spending.” That’s me to a T and they are the two areas in which in have to discipline myself the most.
@mcat2 - I took a look at our state’s ACA exchange a few months ago when my H’s employer announced that they would no longer cover spouses, only employees and children - something I think we’re going to see more of. The least expensive “bronze” plan was $600-something a month with a $6000-somthing deductible. At that time we were on my excellent state-employee insurance, which is about to get a lot less excellent due to draconian budget cuts. Anyway, we’ve since found out we’re eligible for Tricare since my H is retired military - no premiums, low cost-shares and free generic prescription drugs by mail. Spinning our sons off onto their own insurance has been a hassle, but I think it will be worth it in the end.
@bluebayou, I might be feeling a little better about you.
Do you remember Ferguson? The historian from Harvard who argued for fiscal austerity after the financial crisis of 2008-2009? He was wrong.
People like Ferguson are more dangerous to the middle class than people like Gabler.
I am also feeling better because business people like Carl Icahn are pushing for fiscal stimulus. Quite a few business people are pushing for fiscal stimulus. I think fiscal stimulus is going to happen.
That will help the middle class. Rebuilding our infrastructure will help the middle class. Maybe building new leadless pipes and installing them will create middle class jobs and improve the health of people.
