DescentBB

you cite a figure in the mid 600 per month range, TC. Is that before tax rebates? You HAVE to be eligible for those, right? You still don't get how the ACA has NOTHING to do with what you have available today. You seem to be under the misapprehension that NOTHING would have changed about your status quo without the ACA and that is a false assumption.

What tax rebates? I don't have a mortgage and I don't have kids, so even with those high health insurance premiums, I still don't have enough to itemize. I'm stuck using the fixed standard deduction.

tunnelcat wrote:What tax rebates? I don't have a mortgage and I don't have kids, so even with those high health insurance premiums, I still don't have enough to itemize. I'm stuck using the fixed standard deduction.

that doesn't matter. If you fill out a standard IRS form, there should be a separate section in which you itemize how much you got in tax credits before filing, and then a chart that shows how much you were due. You pay underpayments, get overpayments back. If your combined income is less than 85K, even without dependants, you should see something coming back. With the 3 grandkids, my threshold is at some crazy level like $110,000 per year to get some tax credit. Also, on that part of the form, you should have to declare your purchase of a policy, and will get a VERY much increased surprise in this coming April's tax filing if you failed to comply with Federal law. They didn't play around this year, like they did the first 3.

how do you deduct your grandkids? I thought you could only deduct your children and only then if they were dependent on you?

woodchip wrote:how do you deduct your grandkids? I thought you could only deduct your children and only then if they were dependent on you?

two separate matters. My grandkids are in my legal guardianship temporarily(ends in March), and for that two years, yes, I have been able to claim them. As such, the tax credit is based upon household size, and they count into that total. You are correct about the normal rules to some extent, but can actually claim anyone under your roof as head of household, if that person: 1)doesn't file for themselves and 2) received over 50% of their total living expenses from the head of household.

Slick, the bottom line is that I currently pay around $600 A YEAR for car insurance. I'm NOT going to pay $600 a MONTH for health insurance, period. It's highway robbery.

Well TC, for medicare and a medigap C policy I pay 260 a month so your health ins. will never be free

I don't expect free. I expect some sane costs and pricing and more choices to buy what I need or want. Don't gloat too much woody. What you're currently paying will quickly rise in cost down the road the way things are heading. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised if Trump and/or his GOP crew privatize Medicare and Medicaid, making it cost prohibitive to most seniors and future retirees in the next few years.

tunnelcat wrote:Slick, the bottom line is that I currently pay around $600 A YEAR for car insurance. I'm NOT going to pay $600 a MONTH for health insurance, period. It's highway robbery.

fer fecksakes this is your health we're discussing, and who pays for it when you are in some dire circumstance. There is ZERO correllation to the insurance for a luxury item and the privilege of driving on the highway with it.

Personally, I don't think our medical system is worth the money they charge for it, period. Currently, they've done nothing for me or my husband but perform wallet biopsies every time we go to the doctor. In fact, the ONLY thing they've ever fixed for me in all my years using the system was my broken wrist a few years back. I also didn't have health insurance at the time and I still paid less in total for the service since I didn't have to pay a monthly premium for the privilege of having a deductible that wouldn't have paid for it in full anyway. It would have even been less if these damn bastards didn't stick cash paying customers with a higher than normal charge either.

I couldn't have made it any plainer, yet you persist. This is your life. Your call.

kinda hard to come up with sensible, working legislation, when there is THIS sort of stupid:

A good fix is to mandate Senators and Congressmen are required to use the AHCA.

woodchip wrote:A good fix is to mandate Senators and Congressmen are required to use the AHCA.

That.

think you meant ACA, but I agree with your drift.

Knowing them, they'd find ways to hide their income and then take the subsidies.

Talk about a Republican Gordian Knot.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-republic ... 03797.html

http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/29/why-re ... obamacare/

I take it back slick. The Republican's plan is an ever bigger screw job than Obamacare, especially for older Americans like me. All I can say is that they'd better not force a mandate (which is what they loathe the most about Obamacare anyway) on everyone with their crap of a plan because I want no part of it, nor will I be able to afford. They're going to blow up the system far faster than Obamacare ever would have, so down the road, single-payer will start looking far more palatable to many Americans after a few years of this Republican ideal health care system we get heaped upon us under Trump.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... eal-charts

Oh, it gets even BETTER, TC:
turns out that in those years when I sell off trees and go over the threshold, I don't have to pay a cap gains premium any more to help cover health care costs of the less fortunate. For me, we're talking maybe 3 to 6 thousand dollars less in taxes every time I run a tree sale, but still, why? I didn't request the extra cash:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/re ... li=BBnbfcN

here's a nice evenhanded appraisal from the WSJ. The problem in a nutshell is that we want stuff that costs a lot of money and then get shocked when we are expected to pay for it:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthca ... li=BBnbfcN

The problem is, our stuff costs a lot more that the exact same stuff in say, Canada.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/ne ... osts-study

Getting single payer in the U.S. would mean monumental cuts in most health care professional's current pay too, along with getting rid of private insurance altogether. Our system right now is custom tailored to our high cost of living and our desire for choice in this country, even though we have poorer outcomes in our health care for that ability to have that choice and those accompanying higher prices.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... care-worse

most nations with mature healthcare programs in place have some sort of subsidized medical education system, so that doctors do not graduate with $250K in debt. That said, once they survive the early stages of residency, entry level in a major hospital system will pick up like 50K per year in loan debt paydown along with a $200K starting salary as a routine incentive package.

callmeslick wrote:most nations with mature healthcare programs in place have some sort of subsidized medical education system, so that doctors do not graduate with $250K in debt. That said, once they survive the early stages of residency, entry level in a major hospital system will pick up like 50K per year in loan debt paydown along with a $200K starting salary as a routine incentive package.

Links or just more wild supposition on your part.

links to what? The salary and bennies were in a Medical Trade journal I read waiting in the Doctor's office for the wife. I'll stand by those average figures for the residency ads I encountered through sheer curiousity. As to the other nations, do your own reading, I'm not going to link one by one to how France, Germany, Japan etc finance the training of doctors to enable a cap on salaries when they come out of school.

Yep. Same old, same old. They're now plugging HSA's, which are already available in the ACA, and by the way, only help the rich, AND that tired old conservative saw of being able to buy insurance across state lines as "solution" to our nation's expensive health care. No real fixes whatsoever. Morons.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... y,amp.html

Huh, how do HSA's only help the rich ? I got a HSA so I won't go bankrupt in case of a medical emergency...

Grendel wrote:Huh, how do HSA's only help the rich ? I got a HSA so I won't go bankrupt in case of a medical emergency...

hellfire!! That must be one impressive HSA to cover emergencies of that scale where bankruptcy is a risk.

Grendel wrote:Huh, how do HSA's only help the rich ? I got a HSA so I won't go bankrupt in case of a medical emergency...

Fixed. But in the meantime Grendel, an interesting read.

http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/200 ... -0507.html

Even WITH Obamacare, our system is just plain cruel.

http://theweek.com/articles/666799/how- ... lls-people

Trumpcare, or how to destroy Obamacare and come up with something worse and not get blamed for it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html