"“A housewife wants to make extra spending money”
Are you from the 60s??"
I thought they were all too busy campaigning for Kasich. 
@doschicos I say that because my friends mom does favors for extra money. Her husband is an engineer and makes a very good salary. She does it because she is bored and so that they have more extra money.
@Spaceship In western europe they pay 40-70% tax for a socialist government. It also does not work well in the health care sector. I had a foreign exchange student whose grandfather died from prostate cancer at 61 because he wasn’t worth saving.
Cost of food is also much higher in Europe. It is a very different world from ours.
@doschicos you make me giggle
SS, you just phrased it a bit off, initially.
There’s a lot of subtext in this thread. And different context from different posters. We aren’t speaking theory so much as a few decades of frustrations and observations. In theory, yeah, it sounds like someone could live on a posited $68/week for food, gas. In reality, there’s life.
@SeniorStruggling Western Europe isn’t socialist. Socialism implies the general population seizing the means of production and democratic control of the business sector (and no, I’m not a believer in Socialism). If they’re not forcibly seizing Tesco stores and Volkswagon factories, they haven’t established Socialism. What Western Europe has and Bernie Sanders calls Socialism is Social Democracy, a high level of collusion between government and business while business maintains ownership of its means of productions. Lets not forget that our 50s and 60s American golden age saw taxes on par with, and in some cases higher that, today’s Western Europe, and certainly wasn’t called Socialist.
As to healthcare, I’d like a lot more information than that. I’ve heard a lot of stories that sound like that at first, and then unfold into something a lot less sinister upon closer look.
“I had a foreign exchange student whose grandfather died from prostate cancer at 61 because he wasn’t worth saving.”
Worth saving? Last time I checked, there was no cure for cancer. Sometimes, the treatment is worse than the disease - at terminal stages. Prostate cancer can be very, very aggressive.
Wait a sec, don’t think we’re allowed to discuss differing tax rates and perceived pros and cons.
And hold me back, I don’t want a convo where we assume people are swatted like flies at a certain age because we heard…
BB, I really love a good protest. I think some are self-serving, sure, but i remember many a mass protest in DC.
@Spaceship His grandfather was 62 and was deemed not worth giving surgery. I do not know why any 62 year old would be denied a simply procedure for prostate cancer. He lived on morphine for 15 months before passing from a combination of high morphine doses which were needed to control pain, as well as the cancer having reached a late stage without any treatment.
Socialism is defined as a combination of government and peoples control. At it’s simplest definition anyways.
My foreign exchange student was also denied knee surgery as it was not vital. Now he has knee pains whenever he does certain movements. He was also part of a french national champion rugby team.
I do not have a solution for our economy, no one does. I just think we need to get spending in order and set a flat tax rate, make it easier for everyone.
No. You are assuming his anecdote is representative of policy. Medicine and medical decisions are far more than a simple equation.
You can’t compare current US Income tax rates to those in the 50s/60s. We made major changes to tax code in 80s to reduce rates but also to remove a ton of tax shelter provisions. Effective tax rates are more important than nominal tax rates. No one was paying the nominal tax rates from the 60s because of the very common tax shelters.
Lets also not forget that the US Golden age of the 50s and 60s was aided to a huge degree by fact that Europe and Japan were rebuilding from WWII and China had not yet developed. Neither is true today.
@SeniorStruggling What does “Deemed not worth surgery” mean here? Unlikely enough to save his life as to not be worth trying? Too old to be worth saving?
I would also like to point out that a declined knee surgery sounds exactly like something an American insurance company would do if they thought they could get away with it.
@Spaceship yes, american insurance companies try to get away with a lot of stuff. I know a lot about this. They don’t succeed in doing so as much as they wish they could though.
Unfortunately it is a lot easier to get away with it when it is the government deciding.
As far as the cancer, the facts I know was that it was early stage cancer. A simple surgery would have done the trick. Yet they denied him surgery because they didn’t think it was worth doing.
Basically the cost outweighed the benefit in the situation.
Edit: @lookingforward yes, I realize that it is anecdotal evidence. I know that anecdotal evidence doesn’t really do much anywhere. However, I know that at 62 with reasonable healthcare in the US that the surgery would be paid for and done. There would be no refusal of treatment in the US like that. That is the difference between market healthcare and free government healthcare.
Ah… sorry. I call BS. “It is a lot easier to get away with it when it is the government deciding”. No… there is actually usually a lot MORE transparency in government rules and decisions than those of private corporations.
@intparent Yes, but this is the same France who’s head of state had an affair and ended up with a supermodel. We impeached and acquitted Bill Clinton over far less.
Trust me, it is not easy for insurance companies to get away with stuff. I have a lot of knowledge from people working in the industry. It is very shady, yes. People do not get wronged often though, and the companies can get sued very easily for not doing something right.
“A housewife”???
Seriously?
I know no one married to a house-- no housewives or househusbands.
Sorry, you totally lose credibility when you speak of things you know nothing about.
@bjkmom Stay at home mom?
A parent who does not work, or chooses not to because they don’t have to.
I apologize for not using the “PC” term, but it really isn’t frowned upon where I live. It is still often used in conversation. When the need for the word comes up.
I hardly consider a synonymous word choice any reason to discredit a legit argument.
Edit: Here is the actual definition “a married woman whose main occupation is caring for her family, managing household affairs, and doing housework.”
There is no reason to be upset at a word being used, especially when it is not even a term used negatively.
What sounds to you, third hand, like “simple surgery,” may not be. You don’t know what this man’s co-morbidities were. A little research will show that, though the procedure can be simple, the risks are great depending on specific health status of the patient. As for knee surgery, unless the surgery can cure the specific cause of the issue, it’s just a waste. You can read up on the failure rates.
SS, beware anecdotes. Like Talia Jane’s media burst, they are often, by their nature, more about the arc of the story that the clear picture.
Can someone link us to what suggests TJ is an imposter or is it just smelling like a rat?
@lookingforward regardless of how complex the surgery may be, it would still be performed in the us.
The difference is we don’t look at the bottom dollar to treat people, we look at the way to make a life continue or continue better. That is the beauty of it.
" regardless of how complex the surgery may be, it would still be performed in the us"
I do not even know if you are serious. Wow. No ethical surgical team would perform a unnecessary surgery just because the patient had the money to pay for it.
“The difference is we don’t look at the bottom dollar to treat people, we look at the way to make a life continue or continue better. That is the beauty of it”
Tell that to insurance companies.
No. Google among the medical sites, incl NIH. It is not always indicated. This is medicine now, not emotions.
Of course “we” look at the bottom line. That’s really what a chunk (detour) on this thread is about.
Now let’s get back on topic, whether it’s TJ or the woes of big business, whatever.
And you missed what she meant about SAHM.