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NoRockwell
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Pretty much. Itâs an old Salvadorean staple, pretty much like a quesadilla.Youâve got the right idea.I had to look that one up
Sounds a bit like a *quesadilla *⌠maybe ⌠?
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epan
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Yes, exactly. I did not say anything which contradicts what you say. When we look at healthcare costs around the world, we see that the nations which provide a standard of care similar to ours are able to do so at a lower percentage of their GDP than we can. It turns out that the added cost in our system comes from supporting the insurance companies. And, you are correct in pointing out (indirectly) that the majority of medical care costs come in the last decade of life. In fact, a very disproportionate share (actuarially speaking) come in the last year or two (other than in cases of lifelong or long term chronic illnesses). You are also correct that a system which insures everyone must figure out how to spread the cost to everyone, as everyone does eventually benefit from having a good healthcare system in place when they need it.
My opinion is that the most important thing lacking in the Obamacare plan, if we hope to have a system which reduces cost, is that the insurance lobby managed to strike the provisions which would have opened up the marketplace to competition. If the insurers were forced to compete with each other, on a level playing field, with sufficient consumer protections, in a national market, then I believe that market forces might work for the consumer.
For example, look at elective procedures, like cosmetic surgery and some of the ophthalmic surgeries. While other medical costs continue to rise while procedures improve, these procedures continue to drop in price. The innovation comes from the fact that the consumers may freely choose their provider, and will make their choices not only on quality of care, but also on price. It is a free market which benefits the consumer.
If the insurance companies cannot operate in an environment which benefits the consumer, and if they cannot provide coverage in a system of healthcare which will cover everyone, and at a substantially lower cost than they are doing now, then there are alternatives which have been proven to work. There are not just one, but a number of excellent systems. Unfortunately for the private insurance companies, those systems have eliminated the problem of private insurance corrupting the system by replacing the goal of providing medical care with the goal of providing insurance company profits.
I did not mean to derail this thread, and I wonât respond on this topic further, in this thread. However, this is a problem for minimum wage earners. The cost of medical insurance in the US for a 50 year old ranges from about $350 (with high copays, deductibles, and max out of pocket) to about $700/mo (with lower copays, deductibles, and max). Either way, a year long illness with insurance will cost about $1,000-$1,500 per month to someone who has insurance, by the time the copays and maxes are factored in.
I believe that as long as a large corporation can still make a reasonable profit, then there is a moral obligation to provide a living wage, which will allow a person to have such things as decent education for kids, and medical care.
The red herring in this discussion is always: who is going to pay for it? The answer, of course, is that we can actually afford it. The problem is an income distribution problem. That is why the question of private insurance in healthcare is important to the living wage question. When we eliminate that objective : that the purpose of healthcare delivery is to profit an insurance company; and we replace that objective: that the purpose of healthcare delivery is to maximize the delivery of good medical care to everyone, then we come up with a very different system. Indeed, we come up with a system which one might find in Japan or in Germany, and the relevancy to this thread is that such a system would make it easier for a person to live on a low wage, and also save us money as a society by reducing the cost of our medical care without diminishing the quality of care.
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TheWarriorMonk
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Their care actually isnât the same as ours, notably when dealing with chronic diseases. They donât go to the same âheroicâ efforts that we do, which saves a ton of money. That coming right from the mouth of people from Europe Iâve met that are here in the U.S. for treatment. These people have serious chronic issues (cancer, etc.) and donât want to be dead before they get treated. They have the financial ability to pay for treatment out of pocket, so they come here and get it.
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Ridgerunner
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I would have to see reliable evidence that the insurance companies are the cause. Part of the difficulty in comparing health systems is that a lot of what other countries spend is âhiddenâ. For example, in Austria, France and (nearly so) in Germany, medical education is free. Doctors donât graduate with $300,000 debts that have to be paid off with earnings (after taxes). In France, the government pays malpractice insurance for doctors and has special courts to try those cases. Those are really big ticket additions to the cost of healthcare in the U.S., but none of that is considered in cost comparisons.
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epan
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We are talking about a difference ranging from 4-9 percent of GDP for the richest nations. Malpractice and educational costs are miniscule in comparison.
economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/us-health-spending-breaks-from-the-pack/?_r=0
commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2012/May/US-Spends-Far-More-for-Health-Care-Than-12-Industrialized-Nations-but-Quality-Varies.aspx
Medical malpractice costs account for somewhere around 3 percent of the healthcare costs in the US. I agree that there are some things that could be done to reduce these costs, without diminishing the quality of care. A more insidious cost is the increased number of tests and procedures in order for a physician to feel safe in case of potential litigation.
The cost of medical care is just one factor in the quality of life for a person earning the minimum wage in the US. It is less of an issue in many other âadvancedâ countries.
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Dawnia
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Do the Medmal costs include the costs for the insurance or just the litigation amounts?
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Geist
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McDonalds adds 7,000 touchscreen kiosks to replace cashiers in Europe
neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen-kiosks-to-replace-cashiers
Oh wait, unions are criminal enterprises, nevermind.
neowin.net/news/mcdonalds-orders-7000-touchscreen-kiosks-to-replace-cashiers
Hope the unions that put the workers up to striking will pay the laid off employees bills when this replaces them in the US.
Oh wait, unions are criminal enterprises, nevermind.
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gamewell45
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McDonalds was probably planning on doing this anyhow; I doubt that they kept cashiers working forever to be charitable. This is just an excuse for them to implement the kiosks. Personally I donât patronize fast food joints, but if I did, Iâd never go into a fast food place with kiosks or robots serving me. I want a human across the counter from me taking my order.
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Mickey_Finn
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Well thatâs a good post to be sure. But as weâve seen raising the minimum wage does not cause unemployment. The other popular argument that it causes prices to increase is shot down by the example of corporations having things made overseas. The labor was dirt cheap as were the transportation costs. Yet prices did not come down. Corporate profits simply increased. There is a lesson there for all of those who tout the free marketâs benefits to America.The concern would be that even if the good intentions are there, the results would be worse. Increasing the minimum wage would lead to so many of these people who need a job to go unemployed. This is why the unemployment rate for young people are at an all-time high.
By no means am I suggesting the current set up is good. Actually, itâs bad and should change, but doing it this way would be worse.
It even promotes cronyism. Major companies like Walmart and Target have lobbied for the minimum wage to go up. However, they arenât doing it to be altruistic. The reason why they do it is because the independent, smaller competitors canât compete with such a high business expense (ie, a high minimum wage), and end up going out of business. Big corporations like those donât stop there though â they themselves have a record of cutting hours to part-time. The only winners are those involved in cronyism while the little guy is left out in the cold.
Raising the pay of the lower earners will provide some relief to them. This is the only start worth making.
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Saira_Mokhtari
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I work at McDonaldâs. I was homeschooled for several years, an doing well in college, and am told very often that I am smart. My brother works in the same store and smarter than I am. Iâm good at languages, heâs good at math and we are both writers. Our dad, with 15+ years IT experience in the Marine Corps and was forced to work McDonaldâs for a few months. Many of my co-workers are pretty smart and deserve better than $7.25/hr. Some of the **** that cashiers go through deserves better than $7.25. They all deserve enough to pay their rent each month. And how can we keep the dollar menu when our CEO tripled his own salary?
The only problem with raising the minimum wage is that cost of living will go up and well be in the same position we are now.
The only problem with raising the minimum wage is that cost of living will go up and well be in the same position we are now.
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Sailor_Kenshin
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âEarningâ what you get? What a radical concept.
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TheWarriorMonk
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Where do you get that information from?
Ummm, no. Prices for a great many items are much cheaper because they are manufactured elsewhere. My job is such that I get to meet a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of different things. One such group of people is manufacturers in the U.S. They all have something in common: Theyâre manufacturing custom or higher quality items. Theyâre not producing the âcheapâ stuff for the simple reason that its far more expensive to produce here, and youâd have to pay far more money for it if it was produced here.
Thatâs provided they keep their job. Sorry, but a company with a fixed amount of capital designated for labor can just pay people more without letting people go.
Most people speaking about this subject are speaking in platitudes. Theyâve never run a successful business, nor understand what it entails.
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Cricket2
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I will say it again, and then probably not return to this post.
No one deserves to be paid less than a living wage in this country. For that matter in the world. No one should have to work 8-16 hour days and still remain poor because some arbitrary decision has been made that they have job that is âmenial, or they are unskilled or uneducated.â Anyone professing to be a Christian cannot in good conscience accept this.
This country went through the struggle of establishing fair labor laws, stopping discrimination on the work place and child labor. It seems we need to start again, lest we go backwards. Most of the posts on this subject are disgusting. There are a few exceptions and to those people I say thank you.
No one deserves to be paid less than a living wage in this country. For that matter in the world. No one should have to work 8-16 hour days and still remain poor because some arbitrary decision has been made that they have job that is âmenial, or they are unskilled or uneducated.â Anyone professing to be a Christian cannot in good conscience accept this.
This country went through the struggle of establishing fair labor laws, stopping discrimination on the work place and child labor. It seems we need to start again, lest we go backwards. Most of the posts on this subject are disgusting. There are a few exceptions and to those people I say thank you.
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Geist
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Iâm the exact opposite, Iâd prefer the screen.
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Geist
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Alas youâre back to square oneâŚwhat is a âliving wageâ? Who determines it? How do businesses cope? Do prices rise correspondingly erasing any gains? What does this do to self-improvement?
This is not the cut and dry issue you make it out to be.
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Mickey_Finn
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Where do you get that information from? Research.
Ummm, no. Prices for a great many items are much cheaper because they are manufactured elsewhere. My job is such that I get to meet a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of different things. One such group of people is manufacturers in the U.S. They all have something in common: Theyâre manufacturing custom or higher quality items. Theyâre not producing the âcheapâ stuff for the simple reason that its far more expensive to produce here, and youâd have to pay far more money for it if it was produced here. Well I suppose the quality of the workers has something to do with your example. New Balance has a similar program. Their higher quality shoes are made state side. While their less expensive shoes are made in China or elsewhere. This would give the casual observer the impression that labor cost are to blame. When in fact itâs a matter of quality of product. But I would like to see some evidence that products made over seas are adjusted down cost wise to pass the savings from cheap labor on to the customer.
Thatâs provided they keep their job. Sorry, but a company with a fixed amount of capital designated for labor can just pay people more without letting people go. There is not a lot of evidence to support this. It may seem like a logical argument. But itâs just a threat passed on when wages must go up.
Most people speaking about this subject are speaking in platitudes. Theyâve never run a successful business, nor understand what it entails. So you say.
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NoRockwell
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I would agree that blaming the minimum wage exclusively for the high unemployment rate would be flawed. There are a lot of reasons why unemployment is high. High inflation caused by excessive printing, lack of incentives, excess taxation â there are many reasons.
The majority of Americans anyway earn much higher than the minimum wage, so of course the minimum wage isnât the whole problem. However, the minimum wage does concern the employment of those who have less education, skills, and experience under their belts. Those are the people that weâre talking about in this thread. It may be immigrants, people trying to restart their lives, or teenagers who are just entering the workforce for the first time; these are the people the minimum wage is affecting most of all.
It may also affect certain business owners if they need the employees but canât afford them at $15 an hour. Within this economy, many of the independent businesses and Ma-And-Pa shops are running on very thin margins right now. Increasing the minimum wage is one of the best ways to really hurt the small businesses.
One model that should be re-reviewed was the restoration from the Forgotten Depression of 1920. Harding left the decisions to the market to decide what policies worked best for them and their employees. In about 1.5 years, the economy was restored, and even the national debt (not the deficit, the debt) was cut by 1/3. This was when most people were buying their first car, their first refrigerator, their first radio, etc.
Again, I think people who are advocating for a higher minimum wage arenât bad people for it. I actually think they are doing this because they care for those who are struggling. However, just because something sounds good doesnât mean it will be good and efficient in practice.
I think those struggling should be addressed and there should be policy changes in order to make sure they arenât left behindâŚbut Iâm not convinced this is the way to go.
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ComputerGeek25
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The problem that some people donât realize is the type of jobs that pay minimum wage (or low wages) will always be at the bottom of the totem pole. Simply raising their wages isnât enough. Itâs more complex than that.
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NoRockwell
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Precisely.
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Ridgerunner
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The CEO tripled his pay? The CEO of what, the McDonaldâs corporation? Your boss was actually the franchise owner, whoâs on his own to sink or swim, and I very much doubt you know what his/her salary is. Wages at any given McDonaldâs facility are determined by the franchisee, not by the McD corporation.
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