Health Insurance

[aegsm76]

We have debated this issue over and over.
And it all comes down to who you trust, big government or big business.
If single payer is such a good way to go, then it would seem that some progressive state would have tried it.
Some have come up to the edge of the cliff, but the price tag involved in jumping was just too steep.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

A - do some more research on your Iraq story. It is in their constitution, but is no where close to reality.
Sort of like the liberal story that Cuba is a medical paradise.

Oh, I'm aware that there are present logistical problems, etc.

But the idea was embraced. Unlike it is here.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by aegsm76

We have debated this issue over and over.
And it all comes down to who you trust, big government or big business.
If single payer is such a good way to go, then it would seem that some progressive state would have tried it.
Some have come up to the edge of the cliff, but the price tag involved in jumping was just too steep.

True. No nation has 100% single payer. In most countries, private insurers still provide coverage for elective procedures, dental, optical, etc. So the specter of a draconian 100% "single payer system" is a myth. However, Canada comes very close, as does France. At any rate, none of these nations are racing to embrace our system. They'd be paying almost a third more for far, far less... just like we do.

[Amanah]

This article is interesting, it runs contrary to my observation that people are falling out of the middle class:

The world is on the brink of a historic milestone: By 2020, more than half of the world’s population will be “middle class,” according to Brookings Institution scholar Homi Kharas.

Kharas defines the middle class as people who have enough money to cover basics needs, such as food, clothing and shelter, and still have enough left over for a few luxuries, such as fancy food, a television, a motorbike, home improvements or higher education.
It’s a critical juncture: After thousands of years of most people on the planet living as serfs, as slaves or in other destitute scenarios, half the population now has the financial means to be able to do more than just try to survive.

“There was almost no middle class before the Industrial Revolution began in the 1830s,” Kharas said. “It was just royalty and peasants. Now we are about to have a majority middle-class world.”

Today, the middle class totals about 3.7 billion people, Kharas says, or 48 percent of the world’s population. An additional 190 million (2.5 percent) comprise the mega-rich. Together, the two groups make up a majority of humanity in 2018, a shift with wide-reaching consequences for the global economy — and potential implications for the happiness of millions of people.
So how much money does it take to meet Kharas’s definition of middle-class? It depends on where you live and, more precisely, on how expensive things are where you live. Kharas’s definition takes into account the higher cost of meeting basic needs in places such as the United States, Western Europe and Japan than in much of the developing world.
In dollar terms, Kharas defines the global middle class as those who make $11 to $110 a day, or about $4,000 to $40,000 a year. Those are per-person numbers, so families with two parents and multiple children would need a lot more. It’s a wide range, but remember that he adjusts the amounts by country to take into account how much people can buy with the money they earn. For example, earning $12,000 for a family of four in Indonesia would qualify for the global middle class, but it would not in the United States.

What about in the U.S. middle class? The median household income in the United States is just over $59,000. That’s right in the middle for the United States, but it ranks in the 91st percentile globally for a family of three, according to Kharas’s research, putting that U.S. family on the high end of the global middle class. (If you want to see whether your income qualifies for the American middle class, check out this Washington Post calculator here).

"Americans have a hard time realizing the American middle class is, in a global perspective, pretty high up,” said Anna Rosling Rönnlund,
who founded the Dollar Street project to photograph families and their lifestyles around the world.

Where are these new residents of the middle class coming from? Kharas estimates 140 million to 170 million people a year are moving into the middle class every year. (More-exact estimates are difficult to come by; not all countries keep uniform records, and in some places the data is years out of date.)

India and China have been driving much of the middle-class boom in recent years.
Now, Kharas said, Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam are poised for a middle-class surge.

So what does it look and feel like, around the world, to be a part of the global middle class? Dollar Street, the project from Sweden’s nonprofit Gapminder foundation, has photographed the daily lives of more than 250 families around the world. Their subjects include a family of five in Burundi who lives on $324 a year and a family of five in China pulling in $121,176 a year. The photos show the people and their homes, eating utensils, toilets, toothbrushes and transportation, allowing people to compare lifestyles around the world.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...cid=spartandhp

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Amanah

This article is interesting, it runs contrary to my observation that people are falling out of the middle class:


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...cid=spartandhp

Statistics can be made to say almost anything.

Trust what you observe around you, and in the lives of others whom you know personally. And trust sources that are reputable. Here are the conclusions of the Brookings Institute:

Seven reasons to worry about the American middle class
Eleanor Krause and Isabel V. Sawhill·
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/socia...-middle-class/

[n david]

Originally Posted by Aquila

And trust sources that are reputable. Here are the conclusions of the Brookings Institute:

Are you suggesting Amanah's source isn't reputable, but the Brookings Institute link you posted is?

[n david]

The funny thing is Amanah's post is also referencing a study by .... wait for it ....

The Brookings Institute.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content...ddle-class.pdf

[Amanah]

Originally Posted by n david

The funny thing is Amanah's post is also referencing a study by .... wait for it ....

The Brookings Institute.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content...ddle-class.pdf

that is funny

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by n david

The funny thing is Amanah's post is also referencing a study by .... wait for it ....

The Brookings Institute.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content...ddle-class.pdf

Check the dates and the statistical data. As a result of the Future of the Middle Class initiative (May of 2018), the expansion of the middle class considered back in February of 2017 (referenced by Amanah's post) has some concerns noted as recently as June of 2018. These concerns are:

1. Middle-class incomes are stagnant
2. Employment and wages are declining
3. Middle class children’s prospects are declining
4. Destinies are diverging, especially by race
5. Place matters more than ever
6. A sense of well-being has eroded, at least for some
7. Middle-class families are more fragile and more dependent on two incomes

The post by Amanah referenced data that is over a year old, and includes numbers from developing economies. My article focuses on America's middle class.

Oh, and... wait for it...

[n david]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Check the dates and the statistical data. As a result of the Future of the Middle Class initiative (May of 2018), the expansion of the middle class considered back in February of 2017 (referenced by Amanah's post) has some concerns noted as recently as June of 2018. These concerns are:

1. Middle-class incomes are stagnant
2. Employment and wages are declining
3. Middle class children’s prospects are declining
4. Destinies are diverging, especially by race
5. Place matters more than ever
6. A sense of well-being has eroded, at least for some
7. Middle-class families are more fragile and more dependent on two incomes

The post by Amanah referenced data that is over a year old, and includes numbers from developing economies. My article focuses on America's middle class.

1) That one report was written in June 2018 and the other in 2017 doesn't make the report from 2017 obsolete.
2) The report posted by Amanah includes a focused part on the American middle class. It does speak to the global middle class, but there is a part of the report regarding America's middle class.

I just found it amusing you dismissed the report because you assumed it wasn't from a reputable source, while yours was, when actually they were from the same Brookings Institute.

Also, regarding Brookings Institute: "Disclaimer: The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars."