sjcougfan wrote:

Conosticator wrote:

I finally went down to Walmart and bought two 1000 count bottles of aspirin for $9.95 each. I then took them to the Hospital's CFO. She asked me what those were for and I told her I was using them to pay $12K on my bill. For some reason she didn't seem to think my aspirin were worth as much as hers.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I'm extremely bored with this topic and this thread as a whole, but that my friend is comedy!

I would laugh more if I didn't still have about $25K of the original $100K hospital bill left to pay. Already paid off the $30K in doctor's bills.

They never did diagnose the cause other than to determine that I had inherited the Factor V blood clotting disorder.

Personally I think it was caused by doing an intense weight workout with my trainer. I was lifting about 350 lb on the calf exercise machine which wasn't too bad for a 50 yr old has been (never was may be more accurate).

Oh well it has been said that the secret to a long life is to come down with an incurable disease and then take good care of it - so I'm headed in the right direction.

Meantime, I'm an AZ resident that has yet to vote for McCain. I'll probably hold my nose and do so in November if he is the Republican nominee. The need for conservative nominees to the Supreme Court is the reason I'll do whatever it takes to support whoever runs against Hillary or Obama.

Obama is the real dangerous one because so many (particularly the young voters) have been sucked into his "change" mantra and are clueless to how far left he really stands on things. In some areas he makes Hillary look conservative - if that's possible.

I worry about McCain because he has been drifting more to the left throughout his career and I don't trust him on immigration, free speech, taxes, or the economy. Of course I trust Hillary or Obama on nothing whatsoever.

http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/pdf/06republicans.pdf

http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/pdf/06democrats.pdf

Airwolf84 wrote:

OLB wrote:

Airwolf84 wrote:

OLB wrote:

Airwolf84 wrote:

People making minimum wage can't get by at all... their monthly income would be $960 (even less than that after taxes)... not even enough to make a rent payment in a lot of places. The minimum wage of $5.75 is an atrocity!!! The name of the game in today's society is shortchanging employees and cutting costs no matter the expense in order to improve the bottom line. It's no accident that today's CEO makes an obscene $575 to every $1 one of their employees makes. 50 years ago, this ratio was about 50 to 1 and the average family could survive on one income just fine, but not anymore.

Before you spout off your crap about minimum wage, why don't you check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004.htm

Do you even have a freaking clue who the minimum wage earners are in our society? More than half of all minimum wage earners are under the age of 25. A quarter of all minimum wage earners are teenagers. In other words, at least half of all minimum wage earners are either teenagers in high school or young adults who are probably working while they go to school or learn a trade. This is backed up by the fact that more than 50 percent of minimum wage earners work less than 35 hours a week. So these minimum wage earners are living at home or are sharing apartments with other people (kind of like what one does when they are young, single, and going to school).

You make it sound like people are trying to have families while working a minimum wage job. The fact is that 60 percent of all minimum wage earners have never been married. These are people that live with roommates so they can share living and utility costs.

While I am sympathetic about your rant on CEO salaries, the fact is that the average American has more material wealth today than 10, 20, or 50 years ago. I won't argue that the average American is better off today, because much of "better off" has to do with the way one lives his/her life. But nobody can dispute that American's live better.

Today most Americans have air conditioned homes, air conditioned cars, cable television, multiple TVs, computers, DVDs and DVD players, I-Pods, cell phones, digitial cameras, high speed internet, etc. How many people had these things even 15 years ago?

I'm well aware of the age group factor with minimum wage OLB, however, are you going to sit there and tell me that there isn't one adult with a family to support who isn't working minimum wage? As far as I am concerned, anyone who is an adult with a family to provide for who is earning less than $6 per hour is a victim of unethical compensation and greed, plain and simple! I know people who use to make $75,000 per year (computer programmers, I.T. Analysts, etc.) who were laid off after the dotcom bubble of the '90's burst in 2000 and had to settle for $8 per hour or less working at places like Home Depot! My point is that the minimum wage is beyond absurd and doesn't allow ANYONE to even pay for their roof over the head, let alone for food, a vehicle, insurance, utilities, etc.!!!

No, I didn't say that there wasn't one adult with a family working at minimum wage. But the number of people in that situation are so small that to even bring them up is simply disengenous. It is calling the anomoly the norm.

By and large, if you are an adult and you are working at a minimum wage job and you have a family, you have probably screwed up somewhere along the line. You didn't get enough education, you don't work hard, you aren't dependable, you have an addiction problem, or you spent time in the slammer. But you are not a victim of anything except yourself. I will grant that persons with a skill set are forced to take on minimum jobs, either for supplemental income or to help them get through a strech of unemployment. I talk about that in a few paragraphs. But skilled workers, and those with real experience, do not make minimum wage.

Lets suppose that a 25 year old guy with a wife and two kids is unemployed. He goes into the McDonalds and gets hired at minimum wage flipping burgers. If this guy even has an inkling of smarts inside his brain, and shows up 97% of the time, and works relatively hard, the guy will be a shift manager within 6 months. Easy. If the guy is like you and I, he'll probably be a shift manager in 3 months and managing his own store in 18-24 months.

I didn't want to go all Churchie on you, but you leave me no other choice: President Hinkely (God rest his soul) said it best: "Get a good eduction. The world will largely pay you what they think you're worth." If you are only getting paid minimum wage, its because the world only thinks you're worth that much. And if you believe that you have a skill set that demands more money, then you need to find another job.

I know of a few computer programmers that lost their nice paying jobs because of the tech bubble. One of them worked at the local Lowes for 18 months until the market recovered. He was working near minimum wage. He had a skill set, but it simply took many months to find a spot. But he eventually did find a new job, and it pays many times more than minimum wage. So your example about programmers getting the shaft is more an example of collateral damage when markets collapes and less of an example of day-to-day, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade examples of person that are perpetually stuck at or near minimum wage.

I agree with you that the minimum wage doesn't allow for someone to pay for their own place, buy food, make a car payment, pay insurance, utilities, etc. But the fact is if you are making minimum wage, you are probably single, living with family/roommates, depend on a parent for health insurance, and you probably take the bus.

...but the fact is if you are making minimum wage, you are probably single, living with family/roommates, depend on a parent for health insurance, and you probably take the bus.

I agree 100%, but I was simply trying to point out that not everyone falls into this category as many have fallen victim to circumstances beyond their control, such as being laid off.

I know of a few computer programmers that lost their nice paying jobs because of the tech bubble. One of them worked at the local Lowes for 18 months until the market recovered. He was working near minimum wage. He had a skill set, but it simply took many months to find a spot. But he eventually did find a new job, and it pays many times more than minimum wage. So your example about programmers getting the shaft is more an example of collateral damage when markets collapes and less of an example of day-to-day, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade examples of person that are perpetually stuck at or near minimum wage.

Very true, but at the same time, is it right for someone who spent, say four years in college obtaining that bachelor's degree in computer science to have to settle for an $8 per hour job for almost two years after earning $75,000 for who knows how long? IMO, there should be minimum wage laws also BASED ON EDUCATION/DEGREE(S) OBTAINED so that a man who suddenly finds himself earning $8 per hour after being laid off from a job where he was making $36 doesn't have to go into debt just to live, file for bankruptcy and who knows what else. The biggest problem is that capitalism always falls prey to greed and the love of money is what eventually always brings down a society, as we are seeing right now with the housing and mortgage mess, banking crises, foreclosures, bankrupcties, etc.

You cannot ask the government for a safety net. If you lose your 75k job you go find one for 60k not $8/hr. If you merited 75k and lose you job, there is a very good chance you can find one for less but still considerably more than $8/hr. If I lost my job I wouldn't be waisting time combing the local burger joints for a job. I would get on the web and apply with every company in the country listed on the job websites. There are a lot of professional jobs out there.
As for the banking crises, you can once again thank our wonderful and benevolent government. In 1989 (pretty sure it was 89) they passed a bill requiring banks to give loans to the poor regardless of their ability to pay. After all it wasn't fair that working people could get loans and these people could not. So banks gave them home loans (sub prime ARM loans), without them having to demonstrate the ability to pay should the prime go up. Well, it finally went way up and now these people cannot pay the loans. Others since then also bought homes with arm's that they couldn't afford on a traditional loan. Now the rates are high they can't afford them and have to sell or go bankrupt. But I guess to be Christian means to feel bad for them, have the government bail them and itself out, and then make further regulations to prevent this from happening. How about a law that states that the prime rate has to always be 3%? My suggestion is for the government to get out of the loan business and let the professionals manage it.
PS Who are the greedy people that you keep referring to?

Conosticator wrote:

Back in 2004 I was working out at a Bally Fitness center in Gilbert, AZ. While working on a calf exercise machine, I felt a numbness in my left foot. Two days later I went to a foot doctor because the numbness was still there. An hour later, at 11 AM, I was in ICU at Banner Baywood Heart Hospital in Mesa, AZ. By 9 PM that evening my bill was nearly $35K and they had yet to even give me a meal.

I finally called my brother inlaw and had him bring me up a pepperoni pizza. Yeah I know it was the ICU but what the heck - I was hungry and figured it might be my last good tasting meal.

When I finally got out of the hospital five days later my bill had topped $100K.

Some of the items they charged me for were incredible. $6.00 for a single aspirin when I was admitted (even though I refused it because I had taken a couple just before I left home). $80 per dose for twelve doses of an IV Prilosec substitute that I also refused.

My health insurance through work paid $15K of the entire bill. My employer had gutted the health insurance plan about two months earlier and I was still trying to obtain my own coverage when I was hospitalized.

I tried to negotiate with the hospital with no success. They even refused to removed the charges for medication that I had been charged for but had refused to take. I fought them for three years to no avail. The only option was to file suit but that wasn't really an option since my wife works at another of the Banner hospitals. I tried to meet with the hospital's CEO but he refused. I wrote him several letters and received no reply. He's my folks stake president. I'm just glad I'm not in his stake.

I finally went down to Walmart and bought two 1000 count bottles of aspirin for $9.95 each. I then took them to the Hospital's CFO. She asked me what those were for and I told her I was using them to pay $12K on my bill. For some reason she didn't seem to think my aspirin were worth as much as hers.

Meantime, though a software developer, I do computer repairs on the side at times. I'm looking for a chance to repair the computer of a doctor or a Banner big wig. When that happens, I'll be sure to come up with an incredible list of creative charges... (oh that little screw I used on your motherboard - it's a very expensive special screw that costs over $9000 and the installation costs are another 25% because of the high cost to educate and train the specialist that installed it...)

Sure wish I was an illegal. At least the medical care would have been free.

I had something like this happen to me but not to such a high monetary degree. I went for treatment (physical therepy) that I didn't want. I was told that it was all covered. I asked at least three times to make sure. They then sent me a bunch of bills for several thousand dollars, except they didn't really send them to me but to some other address. I got a call a year and a half later requesting payment. Of course I was floored. I asked for a copy of all charges. I gave them a two hundred up front and then went over all the charges. I then figured what should have been covered but wasn't and estimated what it would have been. I then gave them a proposal of a few hundred more. They were not excited but I gave my reasons for all of it and they accepted the payments and wrote off the rest. To this day, everytime we drive by the center my wife says out loud, "what a bunch of crooks. It was just a raquet to get money from us". I have to laugh becaue it was over 10 years ago and she won't let it go!

Airwolf84 wrote:

Very true, but at the same time, is it right for someone who spent, say four years in college obtaining that bachelor's degree in computer science to have to settle for an $8 per hour job for almost two years after earning $75,000 for who knows how long?

It isn't a question of right or wrong, fair or unjust. It is a question of what the market can substain. There are no gurantees in life. When I decided to get a graduate degree, there was no guarentee that I'd get a job starting at $50,000+. There was the hope/expectation, but no guarentee.

There are very few things that we can do in this life that comes with gurantee. One can't even count on the fact that their Temple marriage will last. You date people (hopefully of the opposite sex) in an effort to come to the best conclusion possible, but in the end it takes day-to-day effort to make the thing work.

The same thing applies with employment. You can scan to see where good jobs are, where a potential need for employment will be, and then try to go and get the degree/skill set that will get you there. But who knows if that particular market will even exist in 15 years. Sometimes we don't. Just ask pager manufacturers.


Airwolf84 wrote:

IMO, there should be minimum wage laws also BASED ON EDUCATION/DEGREE(S) OBTAINED so that a man who suddenly finds himself earning $8 per hour after being laid off from a job where he was making $36 doesn't have to go into debt just to live, file for bankruptcy and who knows what else. The biggest problem is that capitalism always falls prey to greed and the love of money is what eventually always brings down a society, as we are seeing right now with the housing and mortgage mess, banking crises, foreclosures, bankrupcties, etc.

We already have that ... it's called unemployment insurance. You can get 12 weeks (sometimes up to 24 depending on where you live and when you are laid off) with about 60% of your pre-lay off wage. Additionally, some (obviously not all) of the bigger companies offer severance packages, although those are generally not very large.

But what you're proposing is that someone can "lock in" their salary for life. So basically, if I get a law degree, I should be entitled to a certain salary (adjusted for inflation of course) for the rest of my life. It doesn't matter if I earn it through hard work, or if I just sit on my ar$e all day long posting on CougarBlue.

Can you imagine how difficult and crazy it would be for the government to pull off such a program. Can you imagine how many people would start up paper-mill universities that hand out alot of law and medical degrees.

I am absolutetly convinced that the majority of people in financial trouble over extended themselves in some manner. Yes, maybe it was a medical emergency that pushed them over the top, but this is the way I see it:

If you have cable, internet, Netflicks, multiple cell phones, a home equity line of credit, two car loans, are taking vacations, and you file for bankruptcy because of some type of financial disaster (medical or otherwise), then you weren't managing your finances very well from the get-go.

People go into bankruptcy because they get over extended (i.e. spending more than they take in for multiple consecutive months), not because of evil capitalists or greedy corportations.

Personally, as someone who holds a small amount of stock (less than $20,000) I want corportations to be greedy. I want them to make as much money as possible -- because I want a good rate of return.

dYrtbYkerYder wrote:

Let's see... One thing Obama has ever done??? Well, shall we start with he got an "A" in a college class or two

I'm assuming you're being a little sarcastic here.

But to say Obama would be a great president is the same as Britney Spears being a good mother... (Sorry... all fluff and no stuff).

I want someone that has a stand on issues rather than a lot of "feel-good" speak.

It's too bad that the founding fathers didn't put in the Constitution requiring a president to have some military experience... After all, that person will be my boss for the next 4 years...

Conosticator wrote:

Back in 2004 I was working out at a Bally Fitness center in Gilbert, AZ. While working on a calf exercise machine, I felt a numbness in my left foot. Two days later I went to a foot doctor because the numbness was still there. An hour later, at 11 AM, I was in ICU at Banner Baywood Heart Hospital in Mesa, AZ. By 9 PM that evening my bill was nearly $35K and they had yet to even give me a meal.

I finally called my brother inlaw and had him bring me up a pepperoni pizza. Yeah I know it was the ICU but what the heck - I was hungry and figured it might be my last good tasting meal.

When I finally got out of the hospital five days later my bill had topped $100K.

Some of the items they charged me for were incredible. $6.00 for a single aspirin when I was admitted (even though I refused it because I had taken a couple just before I left home). $80 per dose for twelve doses of an IV Prilosec substitute that I also refused.

My health insurance through work paid $15K of the entire bill. My employer had gutted the health insurance plan about two months earlier and I was still trying to obtain my own coverage when I was hospitalized.

I tried to negotiate with the hospital with no success. They even refused to removed the charges for medication that I had been charged for but had refused to take. I fought them for three years to no avail. The only option was to file suit but that wasn't really an option since my wife works at another of the Banner hospitals. I tried to meet with the hospital's CEO but he refused. I wrote him several letters and received no reply. He's my folks stake president. I'm just glad I'm not in his stake.

I finally went down to Walmart and bought two 1000 count bottles of aspirin for $9.95 each. I then took them to the Hospital's CFO. She asked me what those were for and I told her I was using them to pay $12K on my bill. For some reason she didn't seem to think my aspirin were worth as much as hers.

Meantime, though a software developer, I do computer repairs on the side at times. I'm looking for a chance to repair the computer of a doctor or a Banner big wig. When that happens, I'll be sure to come up with an incredible list of creative charges... (oh that little screw I used on your motherboard - it's a very expensive special screw that costs over $9000 and the installation costs are another 25% because of the high cost to educate and train the specialist that installed it...)

Sure wish I was an illegal. At least the medical care would have been free.

Our whole financial and monetary system (including government and taxes) is nothing but a corrupt cess pool of greed!!! I work in a hospital in the accounting department and one aspirin w/caffeine is $6.07. So... at that price, your typical 24 tablet bottle of Excedrin at Wal-Mart would cost you $145.68 instead of the $3.74 you actually pay. So, let's do the math... 145.68 / 3.74 = a 3,895% difference in price. That's our health care system for you. Each tablet at Wal-Mart is 16 cents, but in a hospital, $6.07. Knowing this, it isn't difficult to understand why health insurance, medical and malpractice costs are soaring and out of control.