Shay wrote:
>> No, because the cost of health care is high enough that at minimum 
>> wage, you'd never actually earn enough to afford it.
> 
> Not true for a young person. Now, he's not going to have health 
> insurance + car + his own apartment + cigarettes + beer, but $300 a 
> month will get insurance + yearly deductible + copays.

I don't know how long it's been since you've worked for minimum wage, 
but a few quick numbers here might help.

Minimum wage: ~$8.50/hr
Work week: 40 hours (w/o overtime, which many employers actively forbid)
Weekly wages: $340
Taxes: $120
Rent: $100
Utilities: $30
Food: $50
Remainder: $40/wk, or $180 / month.

So if you sit in a concrete room, never go anywhere or do anything (and 
forget listening to music, reading books, or buying clothes even), then 
you STILL can't afford even a basic health plan.

Oh, and that's without factoring in retirement accounts.  Because, you 
know, people have to save for retirement rather than expect the 
government to take care of them.

Yeah, great system we have here.

Oh, and did I mention that many employers these days, aside from 
forbidding overtime, also purposefully limit the hours their employees 
work so that scheduling problems are easier to solve if they fire 
somebody?  Many minimum wage jobs are only 20 hours a week, so you can 
turn off the electricity and forget about eating.

I'm not saying that healthcare should be free to anyone; but I do think 
a certain amount of healthcare should be affordable to everyone.  What 
that amount is, and how much it ultimately will cost, is a separate subject.

As it is, though, our current system causes a great deal of unnecessary 
expense.  It works like this:

The poor cannot afford healthcare.
They never go to the doctor, missing out on preventive care and education.
They get sick, but attempt to treat themselves.
Many of them get better.
Some get sicker, until they are forced to admit themselves to an 
Emergency Room (the costliest form of healthcare available).
The ER treats them.
The patient cannot pay.
Insurance companies (and the government) are forced to pay for the 
treatments.

Now, we could eliminate a large number of those costs by providing 
preventive care and education to a greater number of people.  Every 
dollar spent that way would save more money later by avoiding emergency 
treatments.  Even if the government paid for the whole thing (which I 
don't think they should), it would save money in the long run, and so 
would be fiscally advisable.  Is that really such a bad thing?

...Chambers

Post a reply to this message