2018 U.S election

[cardgame]

Regardless, I am sticking to my guns on this issue. Perhaps even more so - they're already poor to qualify for medicaid and now their home, too, will disappear. It is not about deserving so much, but rather about the lack of universal healthcare. Basically, hiding the house is like a civil disobedience. It's more of a moral issue for me, to have the state come in and take your house afterwards. It's comparable to a loan shark...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Regardless, I am sticking to my guns on this issue. Perhaps even more so - they're already poor to qualify for medicaid and now their home, too, will disappear. It is not about deserving so much, but rather about the lack of universal healthcare. Basically, hiding the house is like a civil disobedience. It's more of a moral issue for me, to have the state come in and take your house afterwards. It's comparable to a loan shark...

If they live out their days with the state paying for their care, exactly who deserves to get their house that they no longer need more than the state?

 

[Estebonrober]

If they live out their days with the state paying for their care, exactly who deserves to get their house that they no longer need more than the state?

You realize this policy would just mean a heck of a lot of people would die earlier and suffer more?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You realize this policy would just mean a heck of a lot of people would die earlier and suffer more?

Why? I already said, if they need care they should get care. The only question I see is if they need care and only the state is willing to provide it why are we concerned about protecting the inheritance of their offspring?

 

[cardgame]

because that's a heavy price to pay for something that would probably not be paid in such fashion if we had a civilized healthcare system.

 

[Estebonrober]

Why? I already said, if they need care they should get care. The only question I see is if they need care and only the state is willing to provide it why are we concerned about protecting the inheritance of their offspring?

Because many will put their children's inheritance before their personal health, very many.

 

[metatron]

If they live out their days with the state paying for their care, exactly who deserves to get their house that they no longer need more than the state?

Sure, there's certainly something to be said about well to do children inheriting some house they actually don't care about - other than selling it.
But that's not the most common case. The common case is about a family home, a house well below average market value, often to be split between multiple decendents.

And that goes against nursing home bills, not rarely deep into the six figures.
Like, if you're talking about a working class person, and if that person manages to not kill themselves by way of drinking or smoking or eating exclusively nonsense (or all of that) and they live deep into old age, they'll be a net loss for the system.
Just generally.
Their old age care will more than swallow everything they ever paid in social security, into medicare or in income taxes. Heck you can probably add their whole lifetime of sales taxes and they're still a net loss for the system. Which is its point, actually.
Anyway, it's, like, a big, big, bigly big pile of red ink.

And now we're looking at that Murican cardboard house from 1954 that you want to take away from three working class decendents.
Because, supposedly, a family home is just any old asset.

I mean, i can't really dislodge your argument, but i emphatically have to go with:
Really?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because many will put their children's inheritance before their personal health, very many.

Why? More importantly, what makes you believe that? The only people I've ever seen put any priority on their children's inheritance are wealthy people.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And now we're looking at that Murican cardboard house from 1954 that you want to take away from three working class decendents.
Because, supposedly, a family home is just any old asset.

Where were these three working class descendants when the state was charged with warehousing their parents for them?

Because the truth is that it's the warehousing that created the giant cost in the first place. Taking care of them in their home would cost a tenth the amount, if that...but would require effort from the offspring. If they created 90% of the bill in the first place why reward them for it? If the "family home" was so much more than just an asset why wasn't someone in it taking care of their people?

 

[metatron]

Where were these three working class descendants when the state was charged with warehousing their parents for them?

Because the truth is that it's the warehousing that created the giant cost in the first place. Taking care of them in their home would cost a tenth the amount, if that...but would require effort from the offspring. If they created 90% of the bill in the first place why reward them for it? If the "family home" was so much more than just an asset why wasn't someone in it taking care of their people?

1. I doubt the cost argument. The bulk of the cost is going to be the medical care proper. Housing the person in some broom closet and feeding them the equivalent of the "food" in a Baltimore public school is not what's going to break the bank here.

2. To answer your question: Erm, well, they may be restrained from doing so by having all manner of other responsibilities and limited ability to do what you suggest.

 

[Arwon]

So, how do we distribute the limited resource of medicare when there are people who genuinely need it, people who paid in so think it is their due even if they have other resources, and people who may not have other resources but only do not because they gave them away or drove them away? Or should we just pretend that the resource is actually not limited, like caring for elderly people can be stretched over an infinite number of recipients without strain?

Healthcare should be available as needed to the entire population, really. The countries that have that do it cheaper than the US anyway.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The most significant costs of aging and dying at home are: in home care not administered by family members and medical expenses. usually, the hose is already paid for so there are no mortgages to worry about. In Baltimore my mother, recently died at home (at age 100) and for the past several years she required 24 hour care. That care cost cost $6k a month. My brother lives in Baltimore but was not capable of providing that 24 hour care. The other three siblings all live elsewhere. Providing home care for a parent once they cross a threshold is terribly difficult. Without some outside help it will make you crazy. My mother in law spent the last two years of her life (age 99) in a nursing home in Albuquerque. We seen both sides.

 

[Berzerker]

lol Broward Cy might have cost the Dems a senate seat. Their ballot design resulted in about a 26k vote difference between the Senate and Guv races and then they were 2 minutes late submitting votes from other sources like absentee.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Healthcare should be available as needed to the entire population, really. The countries that have that do it cheaper than the US anyway.

Agreed. There's a lot more to elder care than healthcare. Unfortunately the way things work is that when they are warehoused you end up with not just healthcare costs, but very ordinary stuff being done by highly paid professionals. The only way to contain those costs at all is with economies of scale, which lead to people being treated in a 'one size fits all' manner that reduces them, basically, to cordwood; stacked and stored.

 

[cardgame]

Nursing homes in my area pay as low as $8.50 per hour

 

[Bamspeedy]

Nursing homes in my area pay as low as $8.50 per hour

Where is that and are those wages recent?

In home healthcare where someone just stops by to check on you, do errands for you, etc paid that low a few years ago. Nursing homes are staffed by CNAs that were $10-13 an hour in rural SW WI a few years ago, now they are $13-15 (why break your back lifting fat people for $10 when you can be a cashier at Walmart for $11). One place did start hiring a few high school kids so maybe they are only paid minimum (and they are very restricted in what they can do, such as no helping patients out of bed, in the bathroom or the shower).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Nursing homes in my area pay as low as $8.50 per hour

Nursing homes in my area pay "attendants," who go from room to room tidying up, getting water and pouring it for the residents they have drugged so far into docility that they can't pour their own, changing TV channels...stuff like that...$14.00 an hour, which is minimum wage here. If you can't get medicaid or insurance to pay for it they bill between six and eight thousand a month. Most private insurance pays less so they bill the difference, medicaid pays somewhat more.

They have to pay for an on-call doctor 24/7, who if called may be paid for by resident's insurance but may have to be paid for by the facility. They have a well staffed insurance claims department full of people to process that and get them paid, and those people don't get paid minimum wage. They have a fair number of registered nurses and a larger number of LVNs on staff, but also are a favorite 'pick up an easy shift for extra money' opportunity for hospital nurses, and nurses aren't cheap. Kitchen staff certainly includes some minimum wage folks, but also includes people with advanced degrees in nutrition who do not come cheap, turning out crappy food is probably a more expensive proposition than opening a restaurant, and then there's more "attendants" required to deal with people who can't feed themselves.

Bathing, bedding changes, on and on and on, the demand for attendants grows, and even at minimum wage the payroll is only manageable because the billing is immense. And I repeat, probably more than half of what attendants are needed to do is a result of docility drugging, not unavoidable needs. And docility drugging is only needed because the residents are being warehoused against their will.

Which ties back nicely to the question. If the state is providing this service for the offspring at public expense, why should protecting the inheritance of the offspring be a priority? Or even considered a desired outcome? Aren't they getting enough?

 

[Estebonrober]

Bathing, bedding changes, on and on and on, the demand for attendants grows, and even at minimum wage the payroll is only manageable because the billing is immense. And I repeat, probably more than half of what attendants are needed to do is a result of docility drugging, not unavoidable needs. And docility drugging is only needed because the residents are being warehoused against their will.

Against their will and no other reasonable alternative is a murky lake where many terrible things lurk. I very much understand your inclination about this obvious area of welfare abuse. I’m just not surepillaging someone’s life work at the end of their lives is fair or just. We are overcharged for the services provided serially. We probably could do a lot more with leaving enfeebled in their homes and having daily visits by train providers.

There are ways to fix this but I’m against taking someone’s home generally.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Against their will and no other reasonable alternative is a murky lake where many terrible things lurk. I very much understand your inclination about this obvious area of welfare abuse. I’m just not surepillaging someone’s life work at the end of their lives is fair or just. We are overcharged for the services provided serially. We probably could do a lot more with leaving enfeebled in their homes and having daily visits by train providers.

There are ways to fix this but I’m against taking someone’s home generally.

Taking? Me too. Accepting as payment? Not really opposed.

And let's not kid ourselves, the service that needs to be paid for is being provided to the offspring, not the elders, and it seems appropriate that the service be paid for out of their inheritance. The offspring get to tell themselves "my people are well taken care of" and wash their hands clean. That shouldn't come free.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Taking? Me too. Accepting as payment? Not really opposed.

And let's not kid ourselves, the service that needs to be paid for is being provided to the offspring, not the elders, and it seems appropriate that the service be paid for out of their inheritance. The offspring get to tell themselves "my people are well taken care of" and wash their hands clean. That shouldn't come free.

The state could start treating "Elder support" like it does with child support...

"So who does this nice senile old lady belong to? Hmmm? You?... OK that's great, you owe us... let's call it $800 a month, starting six months ago when she went into the nursing home on state-funds... so that's $4,800. Will you be paying by cash, check or credit card? Also, we'll need a credit card or voided check to go ahead and get you set up on automatic payments for the future monthly bills... paperless billing and all that...

Wait, what? You don't have the $4,800? OK no problem we'll get you set up on a payment plan for the back elder-support, meanwhile you'll be on direct-bill pay for future payments, so go ahead with your credit card number or bank routing number...

Oh I see, you're unemployed and don't have a bank account. Then we have a problem... well, YOU have the problem actually... here's your Court date. You have 30 days. Show up in Court with $4,800, plus $800 for this month plus a method of payment for the direct-billing or you'll be placed under arrest. Also, if you don't show up, the Court will issue a warrant for your arrest.

What's that? How can you pay if you don't have a job? Well you've got 30 whole days to figure out the answer to that riddle. If you don't figure it out then you get another riddle to solve, which is how can you pay if you're in jail... the answer to which is use your jail-calls to beg significant others, friends and relatives to put up the money to get you out of jail... see you in thirty. NEXT!"