Oh, my credit is pretty bad (620 now, after years of trying to slowly piece it back together). After I moved out on my own, there were Problems. I know what it's like to live on almost nothing -- my family of five shared a room for a while in West Virginia. It was good times.
But at no point growing up did we depend on the system. We depended on ourselves, mostly, and we sometimes got some help from people at church or family. But mostly we just did for ourselves.
I've been without health insurance. I was also fairly lucky during those periods. So that's good. But the worry, I'm familiar with.
I've been laid off, although I had notice, and they gave severance. I've never lost a job suddenly, so I don't know what that is like. Janine has, though, and I've seen her go through that, but of course, we had money in the bank and I have a good job, so no problem.
And the year I spent in Iceland, I heard them bitch about their universal healthcare constantly. One of the guys I worked with, Maggi, he needed some surgery done to remove something or other, or fix something. But he was on a six month waiting list, because it wasn't "critical". I tell you, when you tell an Icelandic man that if he drinks alcohol or eats anything with wheat he will have to be hospitalized, until he has the surgery to fix the problem... yeah, he wasn't so happy.
Anyway, I'm really sort of rambling here. I know about a lot of the pressures that make it useful for people to have access to a support system. I don't think a support system is bad in and of itself, but I think that doing it at the level of government is vastly inefficient and is going to lead to situations that demotivate people to go out and work.
Obama's plan that lets you opt in? If you opt out (or don't opt in), do you not have to pay for it? No? I still have to pay? Yeah, so you can opt in to using it, but you can't opt out of paying. Doesn't sound particularly good to me.
no subject
But at no point growing up did we depend on the system. We depended on ourselves, mostly, and we sometimes got some help from people at church or family. But mostly we just did for ourselves.
I've been without health insurance. I was also fairly lucky during those periods. So that's good. But the worry, I'm familiar with.
I've been laid off, although I had notice, and they gave severance. I've never lost a job suddenly, so I don't know what that is like. Janine has, though, and I've seen her go through that, but of course, we had money in the bank and I have a good job, so no problem.
And the year I spent in Iceland, I heard them bitch about their universal healthcare constantly. One of the guys I worked with, Maggi, he needed some surgery done to remove something or other, or fix something. But he was on a six month waiting list, because it wasn't "critical". I tell you, when you tell an Icelandic man that if he drinks alcohol or eats anything with wheat he will have to be hospitalized, until he has the surgery to fix the problem... yeah, he wasn't so happy.
Anyway, I'm really sort of rambling here. I know about a lot of the pressures that make it useful for people to have access to a support system. I don't think a support system is bad in and of itself, but I think that doing it at the level of government is vastly inefficient and is going to lead to situations that demotivate people to go out and work.
Obama's plan that lets you opt in? If you opt out (or don't opt in), do you not have to pay for it? No? I still have to pay? Yeah, so you can opt in to using it, but you can't opt out of paying. Doesn't sound particularly good to me.