What is Obama Care and why is it so controversial?
Basically a scheme to profit insurance companies that Democrats pushed through the law and Obama spearheaded. Everyone in the US has to buy health insurance by 2014, or will receive legal fines. If their job doesn't provide it they need to pay for it themselves. If their household (not personal) income is over the poverty level, they need to buy it even if they have no job. It also makes any business with over 50 employees provide their full-time employees with health care, so basically it encourages businesses to cut employee hours and move operations overseas due to the extra expenses.
There is so much controversy about "Obamacare." What about it is poorly planned, poorly executed, poor in general? Conversely, what is done well?
What does it do well? MEDICAL HOMES. It creates financial incentives for large hospitals to re-arrange themselves into the Cleveland Clinic model, where an individual can get all of their health care under one integrated care system, and then extends that model to actually providing some in-house insurance coverages on their own. There is EXTENSIVE evidence that shows that when doctors and patients move to a medical home, costs are better controlled and the quality of care increases.There’s also some nice financial incentives for the provider to follow up on patients to make sure they’re following doctors orders.Poorly? Well, it’s unsound from an actuarial standpoint. It attempts to take a small pool of individuals (e.g., the people who are NOT covered by private insurance at work + Medicare + Medicaid + CHIPS + the VA + whateverthehellelse the government’s cooked up), divides them up by states and even counties (making the pools even smaller), cuts out the healthiest individuals (by extending family benefits to children up to 26 - pools get smaller again, and sicker), removes the ability of the insurer to control for risk (by removing their ability to limit enrollment, have lifetime maximums, pass on pre-existing conditions, etc) and CHARGE people who are chronically ill substantially more (the sickest people can only be charged 3X the healthiest, even though their heath care costs will be 7–10 times the healthiest), and then tosses what’s left into the ACA where they hope like hell the insurer can stay in business by at least breaking even.And, because of all THAT…..most of the best providers won’t screw with people insured under the ACA, or the ACA can’t access them due to something called narrow networks. (I don’t know about you, but if you lived in Houston TX, and you got cancer, and you’re on the ACA, how would it make you feel to know that the best cancer hospital in the world is in Houston, but …. you….can’t…..go…..there, because the ACA won’t pay?)Anyway, the wins and losses in the ACA will someday be the subject of a very very very long textbook in two chapters: What worked and what didn’t work.The latter will be 80% of the book.
Why does social work pay so bad?
Social workers make such low pay because they work for the public. Most jobs at the local and state levels are low paying considering one needs a college degree to work in that field. Frankly, I am soooooo sick of hearing that people who work for the public (police officers, firefighters, teachers, social workers, public works workers) do so for the LOVE of it, because they are "devoted," or because they need to "hang in there." Hanging in there and love do not put food on the table to feed the family or pay the rent or the other bills these people have. Teachers, police, firefighters, social workers, and public works workers are NOT there to subsidize schools and programs because the public is unwilling to pay them a decent wage. Just try living without these people and see how much they really are "worth."
Do people really believe that you can live comfortably off of welfare?
come on, thse minorities have to sling drugs in addition to their welfare to live the good life. if we stopped the 'war on drugs' they would be out of business, our streets wouldnt have drug lord wars and we'd save billions that we can hand over to defense contractors or other GOP members could embezzle. what could be better than that?
Luke Walton makes more money than President Obama...Are you serious?
Why pay the President more? Yeah, the US could increase his salary to 5 million a year, but that wouldn't really make a difference. Nobody running for President needs the money to feed their family. Nobody decides they can't afford to run for President because it doesn't pay well enough. Besides, look at the perks.. you get a free house to live in, a free airplane to fly around in.... lots of nice stuff! The problem isn't that Obama is underpaid, it's that Luke Walton (and pretty much everyone else in sports and entertainment) is overpaid. The Lakers pay him $4 million because they figure they'll make more then that off of him. And they reason they know that is because fans are lining up to spend $200 for tickets, or $60 for a jersey, or they'll watch any NBA game on TV and buy whatever products they see advertised. The fans are what make Walton worth that kind of money.
Why do so many people support NAFTA?
Back in 1992, Ross Perot accurately showed what would happen to American jobs if NAFTA was created. In short, American jobs would move to Mexico and the little guy who worked in the local factory in town would lose his job. NAFTA is also a big reason why there are so many illegal immigrants in the United States right now. Reagan granted them amnesty and NAFTA worsened the problem. What surprises me is that many so called "liberals" say they want jobs back in America and that they support the little guy, but it was a corporate liberal Democrat (Bill Clinton), who is ultimately responsible for NAFTA. A true liberal like me has never supported NAFTA. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would have never signed NAFTA and he stuck up for the little guy throughout his Presidency.