I have 2 boys in college. Both boys are going into science fields of
one kind or another and both will get post-graduate degrees. However,
as a parent, when I have to pay for classes such as Beatles History,
sexual history of the human race, or a couple other really stupid
humanities classes such as these that have nothing whatsoever in
common with their degrees, I have no sympathy for colleges that need
more money. I estimate we personally wasted $3000 or more on these
classes that are nothing more than to keep some useless professor
employed. That is money I would rather have spent on lab resources,
additional classes, or something pertaining to their real education.
Want to make college more affordable, put these inane classes under
scrutiny to the taxpayers and see how fast the budgets start getting cut.
Rory
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Josh Reynolds
via Af
*Sent:* Thursday, October 09, 2014 2:50 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
Awesome. Then do what Germany recently did, which is making college
virtually free by removing tuition costs.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/get-a-free-college-degree-passport-required/
Now you have a population that isn't drowning in 1.2 TRILLION dollars
in student debt.
OTOH, having a college degree doesn't amount to a hill of beans when
the QUALITY of our educational institutions (especially public) is
horrible.
There's also a huge amount of skilled trades that really need workers
to fill them. Plumbers, electricians, etc need able educated hands to
build infrastructure for the next few generations.
I'll leave you with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpn0vh2Rj0Y
Josh Reynolds, Chief Information Officer
SPITwSPOTS, www.spitwspots.com <http://www.spitwspots.com>
On 10/09/2014 12:53 PM, Rory Conaway via Af wrote:
It can’t if it’s constantly chipped apart from the bottom up.
Between continued growth of the welfare state, unchecked
immigration and growth of an uneducated population, and
lawlessness from the President on down, Capitalism won’t survive.
Unfortunately, if it fails, then so does the country and as
evidenced by the unchecked growth of evil philosophies such as
radical Islam, dictatorships masquerading as Communism, and
Communist countries with no moral or ethical foundation, complete
anarchy worldwide. Capitalism funds and drives the United States
to continue to be a leader in the world.
Rory
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Chris
Wright via Af
*Sent:* Thursday, October 09, 2014 12:58 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
While capitalism may have *built* the greatest country in the
world, some think capitalism cannot *sustain* the greatest country
in the world.
Chris Wright
Velociter Wireless <http://www.velociter.net/>
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Rory
Conaway via Af
*Sent:* Thursday, October 09, 2014 9:47 AM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
Collin, socialized medicine or socialized anything doesn’t work.
What happened to the idea that Capitalism built the greatest
country and the greatest health care in the world. Why does
everybody forget that and keep wanting to go back to the failed
systems in Europe, Socialism, Communism.
Costs go up because of attorney’s and the technology behind our
health care. If you want cheap health care, get rid of MRI
machines, genome cancer treatments, laser surgeries, AiDs drugs,
Hepatitis drug research, etc… If all you want is an aspirin and a
hug, you keep holding to the idea that socialized medicine is a
great idea.
Rory
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Bill Prince
via Af
*Sent:* Thursday, October 09, 2014 9:41 AM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
Amen brother Conlin.
The way I see it, the biggest problem is that ObamaCare didn't go
far enough. We really, really need to have a system that gets a
handle on the costs. The cost to US citizens is more than double
the cost to other developed countries.
Just peruse this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/charts-health-care-costs-americans_n_2957266.html
bp
On 10/9/2014 5:12 AM, Paul Conlin via Af wrote:
What did people expect? Insurance companies are the house.
They always make money. By accepting pre-existing conditions
everyone else’s premiums go up. By definition. The only way
health insurance can work is if it is universal (code for
mandatory). Can’t have people who can do math, like Chuck,
opting out. Or healthy people saying no. Everyone in.
Everyone pays. Spreads out the costs.
ObamaCare was never about controlling costs. It was about
increasing coverage. More coverage costs more. Why are
people surprised at this? If you want to control costs you
have to redesign the way money flows. Our system of providers
and insurance companies is **designed** to maximize heath
costs. It is a positive feedback loop. What is needed is a
single payer system, like Canada, where one paying party can
have maximum leverage to minimize costs and who has limited
ability to raise taxes. It is a proper (negative) feedback
system that has inheritably more control. Canada, for the
record, is not privatized health care like the VHA. In fact
it is the opposite. The Government of Canada purchases all
its healthcare from private entities, like Medicare. A fact
yet to be discovered by the media in the USA.
It is hard to understand why the Republican’s hate ObamaCare
since it was mostly their idea. Well, other than ObamaCare
was championed by Obama and I guess that is enough reason.
The basic concept to use the free market and let industry to
its thing is normally what Republican’s want. Not to mention
its inherent ability to make more money for insurance
companies and private industry. Sure, they are upset that it
is being used as a wealth distribution system that makes
people with money pay more and people without pay less. Ok,
so that is two reasons they hate it.
The mistake made, was not implementing a single payer system
simultaneously with universal coverage. The CBO calculated
the saving from the former would pay for the later resulting
in no increase in out-of-pocket costs. Then the other benefits
of such a privatized system would start to kick in and the
open market competition for services will drive costs down.
With health care general health would improve and costs would
go down even more.
Unfortunately the Government is dysfunctional and has zero
chance of overcoming the trillions of dollars companies are
making off of the existing out of control health care system.
And if they could pass the laws, would anyone trust our
Government to run such a program? And there is the root problem.
Obviously an over simplification but now back to my real job.
PC
Blaze Broadband
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Rory
Conaway via Af
*Sent:* Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:33 AM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
People with pre-existing conditions are one of the few groups
benefitting from this.
Rory
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Jeremy
via Af
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:32 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
We pay about the same as we did but our deductible is lower,
our out of pocket max is lower, and they covered our
pregnancy. We switched during the first trimester because we
didn't have maternity coverage (no self-insured plans in our
state had it), and Obamacare made pregnancy not count as a
pre-existing condition. It saved us about $7,000-$8,000 this
year. The craziest part is that we actually stayed with the
same provider, Select Health (IHC). It was just the
difference between them providing maternity and not providing
maternity. We have been very happy with our Obamacare.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Glen Waldrop via Af
<af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>> wrote:
Further the subsidies have been deemed unconstitutional, so
they're forcing us to pay insurance with the promise of
subsidies that they are now going to take away.
Bait and switch.
The whole thing has been a screwup from day one.
It is actually cheaper for me to pay out of pocket than pay
for this insurance, but the fines will get you either way.
----- Original Message -----
*From:*Rory Conaway via Af <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*To:*af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Sent:*Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:03 PM
*Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
And so did the quality and options of your care. I know
that 2 of my doctors retired early and the other one
doesn’t take Obamacare. Fortunately I don’t have to use it.
Here is my question though, doesn’t the fact that the
federal government wasted a couple billion dollars of your
taxes on websites that don’t work, companies that are
paying workers to do nothing, and companies that are
friends with the First Lady with no bid process in place?
Rory
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com
<mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com>] *On Behalf Of *Sean Heskett
via Af
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 08, 2014 5:00 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare
Please don't forget that this whole "obamacare" thing was
"invented" by the American Heratage Foundation which is a
republican think tank. And the republicans tried to
squash "Hillarycare" with it in the 1990's.
Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.
Also, so far in the states that set up their own exchanges
medical costs and premiums have been going down...mine
sure did :)
2cents
Sean
On Wednesday, October 8, 2014, Travis Johnson via Af
<af@afmug.com <mailto:af@afmug.com>> wrote:
Hi...
I'm not sure exactly how this ObamaCare thing was supposed
to "save everyone money" and provider "better health
care". We just received our group health insurance premium
notice for the upcoming year, and our rates will go up by
10% starting 2015.
On top of that, everyone is now paying a 3% ObamaCare tax
on their personal income taxes. This doesn't really seem
like much of a savings to me... :(
Travis
