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Who Do You Think Should Be Our Next President?
- Thread starter Mark
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Might be the best thing that can happen. In order to save our country perhaps it has to be destroyed first.
Rick
The problem is we've been kicking the can down the road for too long. For decades we've been raiding SS and Medicare to pay for other stuff to make it look like we could afford it. Now not only are we in debt to others, we're in debt to ourselves. We're over leveraged. The problem is that we're still doing the same thing. States are neglecting roads and infrastructure to "balance budgets", but that's like not putting aside money every month for your annual insurance premium. There WILL come a time when we have deteriorating infrastructure and STILL no money.
Attractive? Yes. But if MOST of us went into Medicare it would derail the US healthcare system immediately. That's because Medicare's low reimbursement fee level is the #1 cause of cost-shifting to the private sector. Although the Medicare-style entitlement is attractive to beneficiaries, someone has to pay the bill, and if privately insured people aren't picking up the tab where Medicare and left off then payment has to come from higher taxes and/or lower benefits. My brother-in-law is the CFO of a hospital in the Los Angeles area, and Medicare low reimbursement causes far more losses for his hospital than treating illegal aliens or treating the uninsured.
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As an uninsurable person, I have very limited choices for health insurance. Fortunately, I have earned the right to purchase TRICARE (TRR), which costs me $416 per month in premium as a single person (not really cheap).
If I had to choose between the two, TRICARE > Medicare. If I had to move off of TRICARE and go to Medicare, I might be inclined towards an MAPD plan over original Medicare (yes, even an HMO) but would take original Medicare if that was my choice.
It would be a reduction in benefits over what TRICARE provides though.
Actually, no, at least not based on unemployment. First, anything above 6% and he is in trouble. To many people out of work, except he will push the fact he is better for the social safety net (which, I'll grant you, he is).
Second, the employment participation rate has dropped immensely, setting, I believe, 30 year record lows. This is the reason unemployment has gone down, much more than new jobs being created. People are no longer looking for work and have given up. I don't believe most of these people will vote, but if they do, I don't see how they could vote for more of the same.
I do believe there is a reasonably good chance Obama will be elected again, simply because he is the incumbant. He will spin his first term pretty heavily but he is pretty good at ignoring facts and spinning stuff (as most politicians are).
Now, the problem he has is if the unemployment rate drops, like it did, people might start looking for work again, which will raise the unemployment rate again. A bit of a catch 22.
Dan
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