[SeaGypsy]

Yeah the most powerful nation on earth becomes a nation of bankrupts under a bankrupt government but still wins by default, NHS by bankrupts for bankrupts, extracting the necessary resources by force.

[cephalotus]

I do work 8h/day and around 220-225 days/year which translates to around 34h/week (including holidays). I do not make a single hour of overtime, because I can change this into free time (which in fact increases y holidays from 28 free working days to around 40 working days/year, which is nice for travelling)

I would sign a 7h/day contract tomorrow and I would of course accept a paycut by -12,5% for this. To me free time is luxury, I do have enough money for my needs.

In my opinion progress should be used to make lives better and people happier. If someone wants to work 50 hours/week and feels good to do so, let it be.

My ideal setup would be doing 20h/week of payed work (halftime job) and the rest available to whatever I want to do (can be another type of paid or unpayed work, but based on what makes fun).

I try to get there, that 1 or 2 half time jobs by me and/or my girlfriend would be enough to feed a small family with 1-2 children in a few years.

Imho that's doable.

My personal work-life balance does not have its optimum at 40h/week of payed work. I like my job, but working 20h/week should be enough in my opinion, IF I have the option to decide freely.

---

PS: An amazing amount of poeple works at least 1 day a week just for financing the car, they wouldn't need without working and the gas to get to work. I think this should be avoided, because it is stupid.

PPS: People living in cultures similar to the stone age work at around 10h / week.

[SeaGypsy]

My favorite roster is 30/ 12 hour days, 30 off.

[Newfie]

Maybe if you turn the problem on its head it would be easier to see.


What would you do with your spare time if you worked only 20 hours a week, or 40 hours but only 6 months a year?

I think the problem I'd not unemployment, but not knowing what to do with you time, and/ or not feeling like a contributor.

IMHO it is in our genes to feel as though we are doing something to help the tribe. That is what motivates the need to work.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', ' ')Eventually, this will create enough demand that a government paid health insurance plan gets good traction; the government then feeds in more $$ to the program, and it should eventually morph into an NHS with a parallel private market serving management, union bosses, high end skilled labor, etc. That is the desired result, and as far as I can tell, its going to go down like clockwork.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'M')aybe if you turn the problem on its head it would be easier to see.


What would you do with your spare time if you worked only 20 hours a week, or 40 hours but only 6 months a year?

I think the problem I'd not unemployment, but not knowing what to do with you time, and/ or not feeling like a contributor.

IMHO it is in our genes to feel as though we are doing something to help the tribe. That is what motivates the need to work.

[vision-master]

Sounds like taht southern rethug brainwashing to me........ I really wish Texas would leave the union.

Cheers.....

[Cog]

Don't worry VM, your disability payments will continue until they don't.

[vision-master]

lol, till death due as apart...... How many rounds you got left?



We never will go beyond 120......

And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:
yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
Genesis 6:3

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', ' ')when enough people are dumped from employer provided plans, and paying their fine, they will demand the government provide "real" insurance.

[AgentR11]

Yes, I am spectacularly cynical. Especially about this. I am very much for an openly debated, voted on, and enacted NHS. Doing it like this is just slime.

If they had voted for an NHS directly, the Dems would have lost the presidency and the senate, and it would be reversible before it becomes un-unwindable. However, they didn't, thus it can not be repealed, and by the time people realize where things have been taken, acceptance of the default NHS like system will happen smoothly because it is the only affordable option left.

Meanwhile for us, on the cadillac plans, our premiums will have risen significantly, but resistance to provided service will have disappeared; as a result of the 80% rule. If someone tells you that you can only increase shareholder value, by increasing total cash flow and total expense, and that all your remaining customers aren't particularly price sensitive; then you drive up expenditure per patient in order to show a higher return with the same percentages. I'm already getting crap advertisements FROM THE INSURANCE COMPANY about new cool things to have the medical profession do to me and mine. EH?!?!?!?!?!?

It is a VERY sick, VERY slick plan.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')It is a VERY sick, VERY slick plan.

[AgentR11]

ETA to NHS equivalent.. 12 years. Regardless of whether D or R's control the show. 2012 was the ONLY repeal opportunity that could avoid doing catastrophic damage to the health care services provided to the upper 20% (and even then it would have been much messier than people suspect). From here on out, its only a matter of tweaking controls and incentives at most.

The 80% rule is that 80% of premiums collected must go to paying for health care services. Sounds quite good on the surface and is very hard to argue against in any form, so it will not be going away, and might even be yoinked even tighter. But pause for a moment and think about it in terms of management and shareholders of a corporation selling health insurance. In the past, you had competing incentives to deliver shareholder value, you can find an efficiency to reduce overhead, and you can enforce policy restrictions and audit apps of people who suspiciously get really sick right after signing up, along with normal sales and price competition. The 80% rule turns this on its head; regardless of efficiency improvements, your after COGS income can be no more than 20%. Add to the mix that your client base will gradually decline over the coming short term (lt 10yr), and you end up with only one way to improve the shareholders return on investment. You increase COGS and premiums along with it. This makes the 20% peice of the pie bigger. Folks would then suggest, "but your competitors will out price you". But they won't. The people remaining on real private insurance are not particularly price sensitive; as the price sensitive ones are also the ones getting dropped to part time, and thus no longer customers of the insurance company.

So how do you drive up COGS and create some customer loyalty?

You, as the insurance provider, advertise, to your customers, for expensive, "nifty cool" stuff, that they can have done in the name of "health care".

It is completely backwards of what it should be if medical care was ever desired to be "affordable" and equitable. IE, we just bought the health care systems of Latin America, with the tech and resources of the first world. The gap between care provided to different classes of people is about to get MUCH larger.

As to tax increases for Obamacare subsidies... No way to know really, and we'll never know. Most of the tax will be buried by the Fed churning tbills. We'll get a small tap, maybe $2k-4k a yr, to make us think we're paying for it; but the bulk of it will just be piled right onto the deficit without a care in the world.

[Plantagenet]

I hadn't thought about it that way at all.

Thanks for all the great info, Agent.

[Plantagenet]

Companies only have to pay the Obamacare tax for folks working more than 30 hour a week-----creating a financial incentive for companies to only hire part-time workers.

Some people who already have full-time jobs are also getting cut back to part-time. The CEO of Papa John's Pizza just said they are cutting their employees back to part-time to try to avoid paying the new Obamacare taxes.

[Quinny]

NHS is very efficient and effective.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'N')HS is very efficient and effective.

[SeaGypsy]

Or Aussie.

[Newfie]

Trying to steer this back on topic.......

If we had a NHS that was efficient, that would put a few hundred thousand out of work.

What would they then do to earn a living? Not tha tsociety will suffer from their loss of efforts, they provide no VALUE now.

Presumably we need to figure their support into the cost of a NHS. So that is one off set that will not go away.

[Quinny]

If everyone worked half time there'd be twice as many jobs!