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My deepest sympathies to you and your entire family on your tragic loss. May Hashem give you all the strength to move forward.
“We as a community have an obligation to provide healthcare for all.”
This isn’t something I’m arguing on. However, as I’ve mentioned before, the money has to come from somewhere and I seem to disagree with others here as to where the money should be coming from.
I’ve also been stating for some time that the goverment should be teaching people at a younger age how to lead a healthy life style and set them up for success later on in life where they won’t have to rely on the goverment for food, housing, transportation, healthcare…
A Gutten Shabbos
“Of course some would argue that Having gotten a mortgage that leaves Them so vulnerable to a tax increase is irresponsible behavior what we would expect from Mr. B not A.”
There’s got to be a line drawn here as well. Would you say that someone who can’t afford a $100 annual tax increase without defaulting on their mortgage is irresponsible? Definitely.
How about $10,000 – Possibly.
How about $100,000 Definitely not.
Where do you draw the line?
“nonetheless even though some would call him irresponsible I still think he should have access to affordable health care”
I agree to this 100%, but the money needs to come from somewhere and we seem to disagree on where it should come from.
I had private insurance at the time (and still do) through my employer so while the premiums and deductibles skyrocketed they weren’t nearly as draconian as it was for those who didn’t have through their employer. (People who come in to work every day tend to be healthier and do less dangerous things than the general population so the part of the premium that insures them will be less while the part of the premium that insures the takers will be the same.)
“Are yo saying that ACA distorts the market to such a degree that it makes insurance impossible?”
I wrote that the design of the ACA doesn’t make mathematical sense and has a 0% chance of working as intended. Last I checked it was on life support and the government just keeps throwing more and more money into it. Do you recall when Former President Obama said that the average family will save $2,500 annually through the ACA? Have you seen that money yet?
“I believe large companies, like walmart, self-insure – does their method work?”
Some large companies to self-insure (they don’t need to be as large as Walmart to self-insure) but their rates went through the roof as well. There’s a checklist a health insurance plan needs to pass to be compliant and those plans need to pass them as well. (And like I said earlier- the premiums contain a huge chunk to cover the takers.)
“Is it possible to create an association of responsible daveners who also do not smoke and machmir in middos and pool an insurance coverage? maybe, self-insure?”
It’s highly unlikely. You probably don’t know much of what goes on in the background but such a pool woulnd’t be part of a network and would have to pay claims at the out of network rate. (Labs are notorious for charging hundres of Dollars for tests that get reduced to under $10 after the negotiated rate.) And as mentioned before- the pool wouldn’t be in comliance with the ACA.
“My mesroah says that there are at least 36 potential members in every generation – is this large enough for a pool?”
Uh, no- it’s not enough to spread the risk around for the medical conditions that don’t arise through negligence.
“I’m also sorry to hear about your hardship.”
So now that you see the devastating effects that the ACA had and continues to have on millions of hard working families, who were struggling beforehand to pay for their own healthcare, do you still think it was the right decision?
“We should not be discussing the ACA.”
Technically this discussion is about Dental care so you are correct but it would be foolish to not learn from the mistakes of the ACA.
“We are discussing basics of government’s responsibility to ensure that Americans do not need to travel to Hungary in order to get dental care because insurance is too expensive, does not cover everything and the premiums are through the roof.
.”The governments responsibility needs to stop somewhere already. The government should be in the business of building infrastructure for everyone, showing citizens at a young age how to be responsible for themselves later on and being there for those who physically or mentally can not take care of themselves as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck.
I explained earlier what the problem is with dental insurance. Insurance companies are a business that makes money by calculating risk and charging a premium to take the on the risk. The nature of dental claims is that large claims can sometimes be pushed off until the insured temporarily purchases a higher level of coverage. This behavior changes the “risk” into a “known” and the insurance company needs to raise the premiums through the roof and only cover part of the claim.
Let’s say drivers could look into a crystal ball to see if they’re going to be at fault for an accident for the upcoming year and only purchase insurance if they’re going to need it. Do you see why the insurer would need to dramatically raise the premiums and cut down on coverage in those cases?
As far as why the Hungarian dentists are so much cheaper- maybe the standard of living is less in Hungary so they could afford to charge less, maybe education is cheaper since they’re only paying for their education and not for all those people who took out loans for $400,000 to get a degree in gender studies and have no plans on paying it back or maybe they don’t have to spend enormous amounts on malpractice insurance as the population there isn’t so trigger happy to sue.
Ask your dentist next time you go.
Next question- could the government collect to the extent that a hard working family would lose their house?
“I cant say I love it, but if this would get you on board I’m in. Is that your suggestion?”
No, I think the government needs to step back and let people (again those who are capable) take care of themselves.
On a different thread I mentioned numerous items that are big issues now because people don’t take responsibility for themselves and rely on the government. This is bankrupting the country and can’t continue like this forever.
That post was far from the only post of his that I was referring to.
“first I’m sorry to hear about your hardship. ACA ws a while go, I hope things have improved .”
It was all for the best. Our lives are so much better now, the kids grew much more than had we stayed in NYC, I can get to Shachris in the morning (and make it through the entire day) without having to see the advertisements by the bus stops…
I also learned an important lesson- I was davening to Hashem for all the wrong things and was disappointed when my Tefillos weren’t answered. I asked Hashem if I could please finally get the promotion I was promised which would have enabled me to make my mortgage payments and not have to move. At the time I didn’t understand that I was davening for the wrong things but looking back now I’m so happy that my Tefillos weren’t answered for what I was asking for but for what Hashem knew we needed and what was best for us.
“What was the next question going to be?”
I would’ve taken cues from his response(s) but generally I would have changed the parameters one at a time until I got to the situation I was in due to the ACA.
I.e.
1. What if Mr. A is replaced with many Mr. A’s and each one is only charged $10,000?
2. What if Mr. B is replaced with many Mr. B’s, some of which are in their situation due to irresponsible choices while others are there from sheer bad luck?“ It is 2 pages long and ignores every word of Torah Shebiksav and Baal Peh.”
Why do you post opinions that you can’t back up when questioned?
The way to solve a problem is to think of something new- not try something that others have already tried and failed catastrophically at.
Unfortunately, the design of the ACA does not allow insurers to put the health of the policy holder first. (I doubt it was intentional but as Nancy Pelosi famously said, “ You need to pass it to see what’s in it”). There have been insurance companies set up to put the health of the insureds first and the outcome was devastating to everyone involved.
(I read a long white paper sent to the architects of the ACA, I think through CMS, outlining why the ACA couldn’t mathematically work out and their one line response was something to the sort of “we read your concerns and they aren’t true”, of course without providing any explanation.)
That’s exactly the point- I was trying to start on common ground with something that we hopefully both agree on and move on from there by making incremental changes to see where we start to disagree.
I purposely picked a scenario where even the looniest of the loony leftists liberals would hopefully agree with me. I agree that’s it’s unrealistic which is why I emphasized that it was hypothetical.
Eventually I was going to get to the ACA where my savings were wiped out and I couldn’t afford my mortgage after my health insurance expenses went up in the range of $10,000 per year.
@jackk doesn’t seem to have an issue with this so I wanted to see where along the road we diverge. Unfortunately he starts discussions and leaves as well as stating his opinions without backing them up.Decreasing taxes stimulates the economy as it turns takers into makers and it gives the rich makers more of an incentive to grow their businesses and hire more takers (who will begin paying taxes instread of taking them). Look at how the economy was soaring for the first three years under Former President Trump (I know in the past you’ve claimed that it was a disaster but haven’t provided a single reason) until President Bidens friends released the virus (probably on purpose to weaken the president).
Increasing taxes does the opposite.
“Ask your son a simple question. Remind him of any friends or acquaintances that have special needs.
Does he believe that society should just abandon these people since they are incapable of taking care of themselves or does he believe that he should contribute together with other people in order to enrich their lives?”As I mentioned before- if it was only people with special needs that the goverment was supporting (and those temporarily down on their luck) the entitlements disaster would be a non-issue.
“Then ask him if he feels that it is fair that he should contribute the same amount as bill gates and elon musk.”
You mentioned before that Elon Musk didn’t pay any income tax while according to CNN he paid $11 Billion. Would you care to explain the discrepancy or provide your sources?
“why discourage him?”
Because when well meaning people have tried that in the past the results were catastophic- the companies became insolvent and were liquidated while the providers were out hundreds of thousands of Dollars for services they rendered but didn’t get paid for and the policy holders had to start their massive deductibles all over again in the middle of the year (and then again in January).
“Dr. P; Not sure who or what your were responding to but you make some good points.”
I was responding to your post, your original post didn’t mention Medicare/Medicaid.
I understood what you were saying and yes if the goverment can spend $100 today to avoid spending several thousand dollars 5 or 10 years in the future (depending on your assumed discount rate), it should do so.
But…
I feel that the government should spend money on these people when they’re young to point them in the correct direction- this will enable them to take care of themselves when they get older and save the goverment much more than the initial investment.
I also feel that the goverment should spend $100 now to lock up petty thieves for the night and teach them a lesson before they potentially spend in the millions when the person becomes a murderer.
However there has to be a line drawn somewhere- as to what the goverment will cover for the takers at the expene of the makers.
“He has also described every day scenarios where nobody was willfully negligent but still was caught in the death trap of our capitalistic system of healthcare.”
That wasn’t what my question. Answer my simple question and we can move on to the scenarios @ubiquitin brought up.
“I do not understand how anyone can believe that government is NOT supposed to help the population.”
Again- the goverment IS supposed to help the population, what we disagree on is to what extent.
“I do not understand how anyone can believe that Selfish Capitalism is the Torah view.”
If you can show me where in the Torah it says to pay people not to work so that they should vote for a political party that promotes actions that the Torah calls abonimable and murder than we can discuss that.
“I did read the conversation but you are approaching the conversation exactly backwards.
THe starting point is a question of role of government.”
I guess there could have been different ways to start it depending on what you wanted the outcome to be. Given who the post was meant for I think I started in the correct place- gettting @Jackk to admit that there are times when the govermnent shouldn’t step in (i.e. when Mr. A and his family would suffer the loss of their house and savings due to the shear utter irresponsiblilty of Mr. B).
@Jackk did respond but his response was very vague and didn’t answer the simple “Yes” or “No” question. I asked for clarification but as of now he has yet to respond. Given the outcome I think I started in the correct place.Obesity is also a problem that can morph into major medical and social problems.
By the government forcing every working person to purchase a treadmill for five times the current going price (regardless of whether they already have one, have room for one or if they go to the gym on a daily basis), forcing the treadmill manufacturers to sell them at a loss, requiring the shipping companies to deliver them for less than the cost of shipping and a relatively small government “investment”- the weight loss (from those who use it for its intended purpose and not to walk their dogs while sitting on the couch all day drinking a beer and watching TV) would save many more dollars in “covered” medical expenses.
There are probably others here in the CR who can speak to the real world issues of obese folks who cannot afford the thousands of dollars needed for a treadmill and forego social interactions, have difficulty with good diet. etc.
At a certain point the government needs to take a step back and let work able people stand for themselves. I’m going to stress again that I’m not referring to people who for mental or physical reasons can not take care of themselves as well as those who are down on their luck.
To respond to your earlier post:
“Do you think that the Republicans and Democrats in congress can come together and figure out a plan with the Insurance companies that will make dental coverage affordable?”
No, I don’t think so. As you mentioned earlier it’ll probably cost in the tens of billions of Dollars to come up with something. The Democrats would want it to come as a new tax to the makers while the Republicans would want it to come from the entitlements given to the takers. (By takers I’m referring to people who are able to get a job but choose not to. I’m SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDING those who can not support themselves due a mental or physical handicap as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck.) Besides- the politicians on either side can’t seem to work with the politicians on the other side.
“Does it make sense that Americans should need to travel to Hungary when they need dental care since they are paying out of pocket even with good dental coverage?”
No, it doesn’t make sense. I think you should go ahead and become a dentist and charge the same amount that Hungarian dentists charge- then you’ll see why the dentists here need to charge so much more. Or better yet- why don’t you open an insurance company that has affordable rates for quality dental care and then you’ll see why it’s not feasible.
“Can congress do something to help Americans or is the Insurance lobby too strong ?”
The math just doesn’t work out. Insurance companies make their money by taking premiums from people and assuming their risk. If the risk is known in advance (or the bulk of the risk is known) the premiums are going to rise to the point that it almost equals the cost of the visits. Many expensive dental procedures don’t have to be done immediately (I.e. getting wisdom teeth pulled or getting braces) and the person can push it off until they get dental insurance and then cancel the policy after the services were provided.
Would you be able to simply answer “Yes” or “No” to the question I posed in the hypothetical scenario? You seem to be avoiding it.
I agree that the government is supposed to help the population but who to help, to what extent and at what expense to others is something I strongly disagree with you on.
@ ubiquitin
It’s not a problem- feel free to disagree with me and show your views from a different angle. If you have some good points and make me change my opinion and outlook I’ll go ahead and agree with you and retract my earlier statements.
My question to @Jackk was supposed to be extremely biased towards Mr. A and extremely biased against Mr. B. (That’s why I mentioned that it was hypothetical.) I’m not sure if you’ve read any of our conversations before but our opinions are diametrically opposed. I was hoping to start a conversation on common ground and then change the variables one at a time to see where we actually disagree.
Mr. B doesn’t own how house to have enough equity in there to pay the bills for Mr. A (that’s why I was asking if the government can put a lien on the house owned by Mr. A).
Aside from that- I’m not sure what you’re getting at- my question was if the government can take money from one person to pay the medical bills of another person. (And yes, if it goes one way it should go both ways- but should it go the first way to begin with?)
I’m Bli Nader going to respond within the next day or two- unfortunately I have less free time during vacation than when I’m working.
In the meantime I’m going to pose a question based on a hypothetical situation.
Family A and Family B are neighbors.
Mr. A is an ambitious person, got a higher education, worked hard to climb the corporate ladder, saved up money to purchase a house and sets aside money every month for his kid’s higher education and weddings. Mr. B on the other hand is more laid back, is still at an entry level position, rents the house he lives in, uses his extra money and credit card limits on vacations that he can’t afford and has no savings.
Mr. A takes his health seriously, eats and works out responsibly, has adequate health insurance coverage, doesn’t smoke and only drinks alcohol for religious purposes. Mr. B is extremely overweight, smokes like a chimney, gets overly drunk on a regular basis and has horrible health insurance coverage.
Unfortunately Mr. B has some serious health issues and needs a lung and liver transplant to survive but can’t afford the $300,000 for the surgery.
Does the government have the right to put a $200,000 lien on Mr. A’s house and seize the $100,000 he has in savings in order to save Mr. B?
Why or why not?
Unfortunately I haven’t been called since so I need to recycle old stories.
@Ctrl Alt Del
I’m not trying to be rude- just saying it the way that it is.
Insurance companies are in it for the money and they make money by charging premiums to assume the risk for their policy holders.
Given the nature of dental coverage- the premiums would pretty much be unaffordable for those that need expensive dental work if the coverage was more generous.
Did you see my happy birthday wishes in the other thread?
If not – have a happy belated birthday.
Avi
That picture is so heartbreaking.
He sometimes davened next to us at Rav Pollars Yeshiva on 55th St. He looks so frail compared to the vibrant person he used to be.
May he have an immediate רפואה שלמה.
Someone tried something similar when I was at jury duty. The judge called her up- told her she was dismissed and when she headed to leave with a smirk on her face the judge called her back and told the bailiff to send her to civil court for jury duty.
Mods-
Why isn’t this showing up on the front page?
@Reb Eliezer,
If you are who I think you are I believe it’s your birthday.
Have a happy birthday!
Doc
Have you been using the one in the encrypted message? That’s the one I contact him on for Coffee Room related correspondence.
Thanks for brining back some memories of the good old days. Squeak is on vacation and I’m not sure if he’s checking the Coffee Room before he returns.
Instead of considering it a forfeit send him an e-mail, he’s pretty responsive.
(He left his email address in this encrypted message. You’ll either need to remember which thread I left the cypher in or get your own team of Polish Cryptographers.)
“This is why we can’t have a discussion and I am not going to continue.”
Please don’t! Responding to you takes lots of my time but I feel that the Torah needs to be represented on a Frum website. As I mentioned in my previous post I’m not responding to you per se- I’m pointing out the lies, hypocrisy and fallacy in your posts to other who may otherwise believe you. You’ll thank me when you get to the next world for all the sins your followers may have otherwise committed.
“It is painful to me to have to discuss issues where we disagree on the basic facts.”
Now think of what I have to put up with between you intentionally missing the point, lying, ignoring strong points that I make, leaving out parts of my posts to make it seem like I’m a wicked person and the list goes on and on.
“I would like to introduce you to a few diseases that have absolutely zero to do with a person lifestyle. This is just a short list.
Cancer – in all its forms over the body
MS
Parkinson’s
Crohn’s
Alzhiemer’s
Ashma
Some forms of Diabetes
etc…etc…etc…I would also like to introduce you to the millions of people who are the victims of auto, fire, and flood accidents.”
Right- you’re mentioning the medical costs that are unavoidable but again ignoring the bulk of the medical costs which would be avoidable if people acted responsibly. When I briefly worked within the ACA I studied annual costs of the members with the highest medical claims before running them through actuarial reinsurance software. The highest claims (excuse me if I get the order wrong) were for:
1. A person doing motorcycle stunts whose bill was close to $1,000,000 (he didn’t survive)
2. A couple where the guy was trying to show off to his girlfriend and they got electrocuted when their hot air balloon went into power lines (they both survived- him in better condition than her)
3. A guy who got electrocuted and fell off his roof while installing Christmas lights (he survived).
And this is just accidents- not chronic illnesses due to horrible lifestyle choices.The next highest claims that I came across were for kidney dialysis and were considerably less. (Heart attacks, open heart surgery and the likes didn’t meet the threshold for the analysis I was doing.)
“Insurance plans and Higher Deductibles were already going up for decades before the ACA. I also pay for my family’s insurance and know that this is true. There was no guarantee from any insurance companies that the trend wasn’t going to continue. In fact , it was obvious that it was going to continue until someone reigned them in.”
I definitely agree with you on that. As medical care got better and more expensive devices came along peoples treatments got better and more expensive and they were living longer. Also, as the ratio of makers to takers started trending to zero (the makers having less kids than the takers) there were less people to pay premiums and more people free riding so the premiums got higher. Then some makers had to become takers- it’s a vicious cycle.
“If you want to blame the ACA , the Insurance companies love you.”
It was happening long before the ACA- the ACA just made it exponentially worse. If you read enough on the inner workings of the ACA (unfortunately the information is extremely complicated and hard to find online- you need to go to the CMS website and download documents that are hundreds of pages long) you’ll see that there was no mathematical chance for the ACA to work. It seriously hurt hard working families (like my own) where our medical expenses went up about $10,000 annually for lower quality care.
And by the way- insurance companies lost hundreds of millions if not many billions of Dollars in this debacle.
“Similar to Oil companies making record profits this year and everyone blames Biden.”
As I explained before (and you ignored it) in economics there’s a supply and demand curve, as supply goes down (or up) the demand will go up (or down) and prices will go up (or down). When President Biden signed that executive order on his first day in office the US stopped being energy independent, the supply went down, the demand went up and prices went up (and the US became weaker internationally). So oil companies are able to make record profits and yes the blame is squarely on President Biden (or whichever Democrat told him to sign it).
“2) I need to explain why people who have SSA are not responsible for their being SSA and can never be “cured” by going for psychological help?
In the real world, there are people with SSA and no amount of psychological treatment will make them non-SSA.”
Again- you’re purposely missing the point and misquoting me. I don’t believe I ever wrote that they can be cured- I don’t know too much about the topic to comment on it one way or another. (If I did please point it out to me and I’ll take back what I wrote.) These people need psychological help to feel comfortable using the restroom / locker room that corresponds to the gender they were born with. (I.e. only people born with one set of “X” Chromosomes and one set of “Y” Chromosomes use the restroom / locker room that says “Male” and only people born with two sets of “X” Chromosomes use the restroom / locker room that says “Female”.) They can also use some serious psychological help learning how to keep their private lives private and not having parades and the likes to show their perversion.
If you think about it- from all the grotesque relationships the Torah mentions there’s one that the Torah calls an abomination. Those that want to destroy the Torah (i.e. the Democratic party who want everyone to forget that Hashem exists so they will worship and vote for Democrats instead of Hashem) are purposely taking something so important to the Torah and shoving it in everyone’s face.
To reiterate what I’ve said before- if these people would keep their private lives private the whole SSA issue would be a non-issue.
“The Republican states are the biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Government money put in by Blue States.”
I’m not sure if that’s true or not (I don’t know one way of the other) but I don’t know why that has anything to do with anything. Some states produce more money than other states and some states produce more milk than other states.
The point is there are way too many able bodied people in this country (enabled by the Democrats) who could be contributing to society but aren’t.
“You will realize that the slogan that Republicans “just want people to take responsibility for their behavior” is simply a wicked slogan to allow themselves to not help other people.”
Again- you’re purposely misquoting me and purposely missing the point. Like I’ve said a number of times earlier but you refuse to acknowledge- if the only people getting entitlements are those who physically or mentally can’t take responsibility for themselves, as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck- the entire entitlement crisis would be a non-issue.
“I told you before that I am not here to have private discussions.
Especially when they don’t lead to anything fruitful.”So just ignore my posts like you do most of the time- my responses aren’t meant for you per se- they’re to point out your hypocrisy to everyone else. At this point I don’t think I can help you. I had you in mind on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur that you should see the truth and do Teshuva. I honestly thought when you were gone for a month afterwards that you were doing Teshuva- unfortunately I was wrong.
“After 4 tries, I couldn’t even convince you on the topic about the republican view that impeaching Clinton was 100% justified but impeaching Trump twice was 100% unjustified.”
That’s a lie! When you said that impeachment is for high crimes and misdemeanors, not lying under oath and I pointed out to you that lying under oath is a misdemeanor you ignored me. You sure had me convinced that the impeachment was justified. Similarly, when you said that President Trump perjured himself and I pointed out that it was actually President Biden who admitted on camera that he threatened to pull $1 billion in loan guarantees if the Ukraine didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating the company Hunter used to work for. When you ignored that as well you sure as anything had me convinced that the impeachment was 100% unjustified.
(In fairness to you- you didn’t totally ignore it, you responded that we should learn together the whole Shavuos night or something like that. Unfortunately that wouldn’t work as I would only take on a Charusa that I want my kids to look up to.)
“In the real world it does not work. We don’t live in a utopia where everyone given an opportunity can make it. In the real world, there will always be people that need to rely on the government for assistance.”
Are you purposely leaving out what I wrote later on? If entitlements would only be given to those who for mental or physical reasons can’t sustain themselves as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck, the entitlement crisis would be a non-issue. I agree that we don’t live in a utopia where everyone can make it. That doesn’t mean that the government should take money from hard working people who can barely support themselves to pay people not to work and vote Democrat.
“Ditto for the next paragraph of yours.”
Instead of just dismissing the entire paragraph, can you please explain why the items I mentioned would still be issues?
“1) Healthcare and Insurance has nothing to do with people taking care of themselves. Pregnancy is not due to illness. Most reasons that people go to the Doctor have nothing to do with a lifestyle.”
It sure does. If people took responsibility for themselves (I’m going to reiterate again that I’m not referring to people who for mental or physical reasons can’t as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck) they should have no problem finding employment that provides health benefits for them and their families. Furthermore- the bulk of medical claims costs could be avoided if people ate healthier, exercised responsibly, drove carefully, didn’t take stupid risks, avoided illegal drugs, stayed away from violence…
Pregnancies, ear infections and ingrown toenails are part of life and expected medical claims.
Gun shot wounds and drug overdoses are medical costs that could be avoided. (I know that there are many other types of claims in between but you get the point unless you’re purposely missing it.)“Americans deserve what every other country has and that is a healthcare system that takes care of them and doesn’t force them to choose between food and paying for insurance.”
If Americans would have the same culture as the countries you have in mind they’d be able to have the same kind of healthcare systems. (Not that I’m jealous of the health care that they have in Canada or the UK.)
“Why should we have Medical Debt or people declaring bankruptcy due to it even after they have paid their insurance premiums?”
Again, it’s the people that milk the system that ruin it for everyone. If all work able people would get jobs that provide health insurance and start living a healthier lifestyle there would be more premiums being paid and less medical claims. It would be a non-issue to pay the premiums and other medical costs for those people who legitimately can’t take care of themselves and medical debt would slowly go away.
Before the ACA came out I had a generous health insurance plan with a $250 annual deductible. I was paying about $200 per month in premiums and my employer was paying about $1,200 per month. After the ACA came out I had a less generous health insurance plan, was paying around $400 per month, my employer was paying about $1,400 per month and the deductible was $7,500 per year. I couldn’t afford the extra close to $10,000 and may have gone bankrupt if I didn’t move to a cheaper location and switch jobs. Was it fair to my family to have to move from the only home they ever knew and for me to have to switch from the only corporate job I had at the time so that I (and hard working, responsible people like me) could pay the health insurance costs of those who chose not to take care of themselves?
“2) “If people that are attracted to others of the same gender would get the psychological help that they need the toeva crisis would be a non-issue.”
I don’t think that is the Republican view. Even if it is their view, it is totally false.”Instead of just saying that it’s totally false can you please explain why?
Much of what I’m going to post was already posted but you ignored it- therefore I’m going to write it again. Instead of ignoring your post I took the time to respond to each of your points and I trust that you will reciprocate.
Republicans want to make it easy for people to take responsibility for themselves so the government can take a step back while the Democrats are creating a culture where people cannot take responsibility for themselves, thus relying on the government, voting Democrat and keeping those politicians in power.
Many of the pressing issues that you’ve brought up in the past would be non-issues if people took responsibility for themselves and didn’t get them into situations where they need the government to take care of them.
For example:
If people would only take out student loans for degrees where they can realistically pay back their loans (i.e. STEM instead of Gender Studies) the student loan crisis would be a non-issue.
If people would take care of their health, not overdose on drugs, not smoke and not do dangerous things the health insurance affordability crisis would be a non-issue.
If people would take the proper precautions to ensure that they don’t become pregnant- the abortion crisis would be a non-issue.
If people would follow the law and not commit crimes the cashless bail crisis would be a non-issue.
If people that are attracted to others of the same gender would get the psychological help that they need the toeva crisis would be a non-issue.With that being said I’m going to address what I think you were trying to write in your post.
You ask what Lo Taaseh’s the Republican Party follows?
The short answer is every Lo Taaseh that the Democratic party follows plus the Lo Taaseh of murder and immoral marriages. Abortion and gun control are two very different things and you know this. Guns have good uses and unfortunately bad uses. If you can somehow get guns out of the hands of bad people it’ll be a different equation- until then good people need guns to protect themselves against bad people that have the guns illegally. (Your problem with guns is that without guns good people need to rely on the government instead of being able to take care of themselves.)
Virtually all abortions could have been avoided if the mother would have taken appropriate steps earlier on. There are virtually no good abortions- it’s a selfish act by a person who has no problem denying a person the possibility of graduating so that they can graduate, denying a person the joy of socializing with friends so that they can socialize with their friends…
I have no idea what you’re talking about in your second paragraph but I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that you’re complaining that Republicans don’t like the generous entitlements that the Democrats are wasting by paying people not to take care of themselves. I may be wrong but I don’t think there’s a mitzvah to take money from someone who needs it and give it to someone who wouldn’t otherwise need it. I also think that there’s no mitzvah in giving entitlements to people to keep them in the cycle of poverty. (As I mentioned before in other threads, if entitlements would only be giving to those who for mental or physical reasons can’t sustain themselves as well as those who are temporarily down on their luck, the entitlement crisis would be a non-issue.)
You mention Avoda Zara, Aver min Hachay, White Collar Gezeila, Other forms of Giluy Arayos?
I don’t beleive either party is against Avoda Zara, Aver min Hachay or Giluy Arayos. White Collar Gezeila? Again- I’m not sure what you’re referring to there but the Republicans are against theft while the Democrats don’t seem to have an issue with that (releasing criminals multiple times per day on cashless bail…). You also have to keep in mind that just about all politicians are not role models in their personal lives- you’re voting for them for their policies, not the way they act.
(As a side point- you mention Giluy Arayos, while Former President Trump’s behavior around women is nothing to be proud of, it’s technically not Giluy Arayos, while it’s common knowledge that President Biden started living with Jill while she was married to someone else- a gross violation of Giluy Arayos- but I don’t recall you ever having an issue with that.)
I also noticed that you surreptitiously left out one of the Sheva Mitzvos Bnai Noach- the one regarding Dinim, establishing laws and a system of courts. I see the Republicans taking this seriously- President Trump nominated three amazing justices who follow the Constitution to the letter and even voted against the president who nominated them when they felt his claim wasn’t within the law. On the other hand- take a look at the Democrats- President Obama nominated a justice to the supreme court that had zero experience as a judge, President Biden nominated a justice that is either clueless regarding the Constitution or has no respect for the Constitution (based on the number of her earlier rulings that were overturned). Not only that- she was nominated solely for her gender and skin color even though she couldn’t even define what a woman is!
Why would I want to live in any of the countries you mentioned? There’s a difference between not wanting those grotesque parades or perverts in female locker rooms. Most Republicans would have no issue with consenting adults doing whatever they want behind closed doors as long as they don’t shove it in everyone’s face. As I mentioned before the issue is with the redefinition of what a marriage is. (You seem to think that it’s just a silly piece of paper so who cares. It more than that- for starters think about the orphans that will end up being placed in these dysfunctional marriages- would they have any chance of growing up normal?)
You’re seriously out of your mind if you think that Republicans are trying to restrict my ability to live as a Frum Yid. I don’t see the Republicans starting up with Yeshivas and telling them that they need to teach subjects that are totally against what we believe in.
Would you be able to give some examples of how they’re restricting our ability to live as Frum Yidden?
You wrote this before, “ republicans who have no positive commandments and only have 2 negative ones (Abortion and Immoral Lifestyles.)” but I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Would you mind explaining?
Thanks
I think my Tefillos are working.
@Mr. Eliezer
Why is it so hard for a Liberal to have a normal discussion? You claim to be an intelligent person and I have yet to hear a Liberal back up their beliefs with a valid claim.
I’ve tried having diplomatic discussions with you and other posters who share your political views but I either get no response, an attempt at a personal attack to try and discredit me, a lame excuse (e.g. I have a response but I’m not going to write it) or some sort of mussar that we’re all Yidden so we should try to get along.
Trust me, I love everyone here and would drop everything to help anyone in anyway that I can. I daven for all you Liberals that you should do Teshuva before it’s too late. I judge everyone לכף זכות but השם knows the truth.
When Social Security was created the Democratic Party could be looked up to. The Democratic leadership of those days would be considered Republicans if they were still around.
@Mr. Eliezer
There are plenty of entry level openings out there that require no skills (e.g. flipping burgers and stocking shelves). One can easily get a job without even graduating high school that will let them swim and grow from there. There are enough public schools out there that just about anyone can get a high school diploma for practically nothing. So, yes, he can make it on his own without skills or a springboard.
As I said earlier but you failed to address in your numerous posts-
“If the only ones getting handouts were those who are truly unable to swim on their own and those who are temporarily in a rough spot- the whole entitlement disaster would be a non-issue.”@Mr. Eliezer
Except possibly for those who are physically or mentally challenged the US provides many opportunities for everyone to swim on their own. If the only ones getting handouts were those who are truly unable to swim on their own and those who are temporarily in a rough spot- the whole entitlement disaster would be a non-issue.
I’m sure you realized by now that for some posters as long as their pushing their party’s agenda the truth is a mere inconvenience.
@coffee addict
If you think about it what it comes down to is that Republicans want people to take responsibility for themselves and the booming economy that former President Trump created made it easier for most people to do that.
Democratic politicians, on the other hand, do not care about anyone- they just care about their votes. They’re trying to create a society where it’s almost impossible to take responsibility for yourself and you become reliant on the government and continue to vote in those politicians.
If you say that you vote Republican because it’ll be better for you I’m going to guess that you take responsibility for yourself.
You’re correct that I was generalizing too much so I’m going to split it into a few more categories. Those that vote Democrat either:
1. Feel bad for the people who don’t take responsibility for themselves and mistakenly think that voting Democrat will help them and:
2. People who don’t take responsibility for themselves because:
A. The Democrats created a cycle of poverty that they are purposely keeping them in or
B. They legitimately can not take care of themselves due to a mental handicap or physical handicap.
Are there more people illegally killed by assault weapons every year or legally slaughtered before they’re even born?
You’re comment couldn’t be further from the truth. Our opinions are a complete opposite.
I hold that you can’t lie or purposely distort the facts even to promote a political party that doesn’t push agendas that are diametrically opposed to the Torah while you have no issue lying and purposely distorting facts to promote a political party that purposely promotes agendas that are diametrically opposed to the Torah. (Unless you know that it’s wrong but justify it because you want to make sure your opinion is heard.)
People who vote Republican vote that way because they take responsibility for themselves and want others to do the same. People who vote Democrat do so because it’s easier to vote Democrat than to get a job, raise a baby that you don’t want, stop committing crimes, get psychological help if you’re attracted to someone of the same gender or paying off student debts for degrees that won’t pay for themselves such as gender studies.
The people that I know that vote Republican at times voted Democrat until the party went too far to the left and fell off the cliff- hardly the kind of people you can accuse of voting Republican because they are brainless or brainwashed.
They didn’t win more seats because of the brainless people who are programmed to vote Democrat without thinking of the damage that it’ll cause and because it’s easier to vote Democrat than to get a job, raise a baby that you don’t want, stop committing crimes, get psychological help if you’re attracted to someone of the same gender or paying off student debts for degrees that won’t pay for themselves such as gender studies.
It may work in the short term for those who voted Democrat but it’ll hurt them in the long term.
I’m very confident that if there was an exam requirement to vote (that showed that the voter knows what each party represents) the outcome would be different.
Interesting choice of words- but again you purposely left out the critical points. I’ll rewrite your last sentence with the missing words.
The Republicans know <not> only how to point out issues <but to solve them as well> but <unfortunately> have absolutely zero ability to solve them <while the Democrats, who are intent on destroying the country and implementing their perverted ways, are in control of the White House, Senate and Congress>.
There, I fixed it for you.
@Reb Eliezer
Who cares about his attitude? I care about results. He’s a brilliant businessman who, without any prior political experience, was by far the best president ever. All this without taking advice from his advisors.
@Reb Eliezer-
She already proved that she’s our enemy and we can’t rely on her. Even if you don’t know if you can trust him you should vote for him since it can’t get much worse.
As far as his family is concerned- while him marrying a non-Jew is against Halacha it’s not immoral. Besides- we’re voting for him for his policies, not for the way he acts in his personal life.
If his marriage bothers you so much why did you vote for President Biden if he committed adultery with Jill while she was married to someone else. That’s both against Halacha and immoral.
Are you ח״ו insinuating that if not for the NYS DOE interference he would have said to vote Democrat? Do you plan to vote Republican since that’s what דעת תורה advised to do?
I was referring to the one that seems to have done a 180 within the past week.
(I did take an early retirement from the Coffee Room about 10 years ago- not sure if you remember what happened back then- and made an annual guest appearance on April 1st. Now that I’m back from retirement, albeit in a different capacity, I don’t make a grand appearance on April Fools.)
Please be דן לכף זכות that he realized his mistake and did תשובה.
The information should be readily available online but here’s an oversimplified explanation of how I believe the lottery works. The PowerBall (and MegaMillions) is a multi-state game so there are more people playing than a typical lottery.
Let’s say a ticket is $2, for each ticket sold the jackpot increases by $2 but only 65% of the ticket sale needs to go to the jackpot (since it’s annuitized over 20 payments or a lump sum of much less is paid out). 10% or so goes to the retailer, I’m not sure how much is set aside for smaller prizes (although the expected value could be easily calculated) and the rest goes to the gaming commission which distributes the bulk of it to stuff that taxes would otherwise pay for.
Let’s say someone just one the lottery and cleared out the jackpot. Actuaries will estimate that say 10,000,000 million tickets will be sold, therefore they’ll estimate the jackpot at $20,000,000. With roughly 300,000,000 possible outcomes and 10,000,000 tickets sold- the odds of a winner are 1/30.
If no one wins there’s already $20,000,000 in the jackpot. Actuaries will estimate that they can raise the estimated jackpot to $45,000,000 since at that size 12,500,000 tickets will be sold. With each subsequent drawing that no one wins the jackpot goes higher and even more tickets are sold.
The past drawing was for an estimated $1,000,000,000 and no one won. If the next estimated jackpot is $1,200,000,000 that means that 100,000,000 tickets are estimated to be sold and the chances of a winner are 1/3.
The previous drawing was on a Monday and the next one is on a Wednesday. Had the previous drawing been on a Wednesday with the next one on a Motzaei Shabbos the estimate jackpot would have been much higher. Actuaries took into account that the time between the two drawings is two business days and no weekends or legal holidays.
I wouldn’t add on to my house since I’m happy with what I have. I wouldn’t fly any class except coach since I think it’s a waste to spend so much money when I’m perfectly comfortable in coach. If I was forced to upgrade I’d try to trade with someone who doesn’t look comfortable in coach.
Given the choice I’d take the lump sum so I can give it to those people or organizations who need it more than I do sooner rather than later.