Saturday, July 14, 2007

That is, indeed, the point

Darling little Desert Cat finally acknowledges the Elephant in the Room:










Anonymous said...

".... but most particularly to those with an Ingrained Assumption that Jobs with Benefits are an Inalienable Right...")

First job I ever had with benefits was the U. S. Navy. After that, many jobs with no benefits.

When a job offers you no benefits, it must provide enougb pay so you can handle your own medical expenses, your savings for retirement, your nest egg for college and unexpected mishaps, etc., etc., etc.


So, if you - as an employer - are going to eliminate a benefit such as medical, better made certain your compensation is high enough to accomodate the medical costs your employees will most assuredly confront, the unexpected setbacks that will most certainly occur, or expect a work force that won't give a damn about you or your company.

Actually, we see a lot of that already, where business owners are hell-bent on stashing away enough to live in comfort, in the process bleeding their own work force dry.

It used to be a trade-off, until the medical community and the insurance companies raised the cost of having good health through the stratosphere. This - of course - allows insurance company owners and major stockholders, and doctors everywhere to retire with golden golf carts, yachts tied off down at the Marina, while those who made it all possible are shunted off into poverty.

Here's the real problem with medical coverage... neither the average employer nor the average employee can afford medical care - or medical insurance - anymore.

The average pay for the vast mob of Americans(not working in places like skewed New York) is around around $350 week, before all the deductions. Try to absorb a $600 + a month medical policy with that sort of wage. Try to put away a realistic amount for retirement with that sort of wage. Try to save for your kids college expenses with that sort of wage.



This system IS going to collapse.


Pretty Lady said...


Er, Bobert? To whom, exactly, are you speaking? Pretty Lady has not so much eliminated her Medical Benefits, so much as failed to attain them.

She has written elsewhere on her notions regarding 'health insurance'; it is her fixed opinion that the entire concept is meaningless and unworkable. In her view...well, in her view another extensive post on the topic should be forthcoming.

Anonymous said...

I read recently - can't remember where - that we are about to get hit with a massive wave of people with bad teeth who have not been able to afford proper dental care.

Estimates are that up to 150 million Americans are due for some heavy and serious tooth problems, because even the best dental coverage is not near enough to cover what the dentists are charging, so most people have not purchased dental insurance, pitiful as it is. It is an added expense that most just cannot afford.

That number may be unrealisticly high - I don't know - but I do know that everyone I talk to has dental issues, right now, today.

I recently went to a local dentist with a toothache. Turned out to be a major cavity under a capped tooth. The dipstick wanted over $4,000 to fix it(just that one tooth), and he had the balls to send me an estimate of $13,538 to fix all my teeth, after an examination that he charged $156 for, in which he did nothing but look around in my mouth.

I went to the Baylor Dental collage and had some students pull the tooth for $60.00. Even that was pricey for just the yanking out of a tooth by a couple of students, a tooth that offered no problems in removal and took only thirty seconds.

You have a solution? Tell us all.

Anonymous said...

For these inflated medical/dental/insurance costs, I blame the legal establishment. I'm sure those bottom dwellers come in for at least some responsibility. The Bard gave Dick the Butcher the most currently relevant line from any of his plays: "The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers." Yeah, baby!

Desert Cat said...

"Darling little Desert Cat.."


...finally acknowledges the Elephant in the Room.

Oh, I don't know if "finally" applies. I've been looking for alternatives to a J-O-B since before I graduated from college with the degree I needed to do this one (and years before that even). I keep coming back to the conclusion that, while it is certainly possible to earn one's keep without a job, it is everything else you said about it too.

Thanks for confirming all that.

Anonymous said...

Good teeth do not require professional care.

They just require proper brushing and diet.

I would rather not pay for the repairs to the teeth of those people who refuse such simple common sense things.

Those working for a paycheck have earned the somewhat reliable, fairly stress-free income by the fact of turning themselves into someones wage slave. It is a chosen trade off.