What is a worse investment, universal healthcare or universal retirement?

originally posted by: PraetorianAZ
So many people here in the US would rather die than adopt a Universal Healthcare system for all citizens.

Especially doctors and healthcare workers. I don't see any of them taking a pay cut so poor people can afford to pay the bills. They don't seem to want to work for minimum wage so a doctor visit can be as inexpensive as a coffee.

As soon as you figure out how to eliminate all the parasites from the "healthcare" system (funny word for it when you realize that's an industry full of people who actually don't care about you at all and just want your money like everyone else), you'll realize you don't need to come up with some extravagant plan to figure out how to pay a 500 thousand dollar hospital bill by extorting the funds from other people in various ways.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ
Short answer: I think you should pay SSA Tax on all of your income, not just the "limit". These days I think you pay Medicare on all your income, and IMO you should, but things change...

You're in a financial class that can well afford many options for wealth management, unlike many of us who rely on the pittance (or much less) that you find a waste of your retirement investment dollars.

Regardless of any political leanings, there are some elements of society that require broad support from the society at large (heaven forbid "Socialism") to "ensure healthcare" for disabled and elderly - and veterans in the VA system. Children.

Think of your SSA and Medicare premiums as a tax - or rather as an investment in your community, posterity and humanity if that seems more comfortable.
Otherwise...
It's a Tax. Pay it and STFU. Eat some chocolate, you'll feel better. Really.

ganjoa

How about universal abortion? That's something I could definitely get behind. An individual mandate for mandatory abortion if someone gets pregnant and they obviously cannot afford to have kids. Then you don't even have the situation where those kids grow up and have no way to pay for the bills that wouldn't exist if they didn't.

Over and over, you see this situation where people create their own problems (literally in the case of poor people who have kids) and then demand a solution.

Right now, universal retirement would be the worse deal because government has so far meddled the least in it.

The thing is that in order to make it "universal," the plan already exists to seize 401(K) accounts because they aren't "fair" to the people who don't have them. Basically, the government knows that the real wealth in this country is spread out among the middle class retirement savings, and any universal retirement scheme would just be an excuse to grab those trillings being saved toward folks' individual retirements in the name of making it "fair" for everyone by making sure that no one has enough in retirement.

originally posted by: ganjoa
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

You're in a financial class that can well afford many options for wealth management, unlike many of us who rely on the pittance (or much less) that you find a waste of your retirement investment dollars.

Otherwise...
It's a Tax. Pay it and STFU. Eat some chocolate, you'll feel better. Really.

ganjoa

Believe me I am only in this class because I worked my butt off to get here. I am no slouch. Wanna join me? I can recommend some really great books.

Not a single dollar I make will go to waste after I die as my children's children will inherit it.

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

You absolutely deserve the fruits of your labor and passing on to your posterity without taxation.
Enjoy the fruits of your success, and by all means strive to stay healthy.

Way past being able to work (my butt off) anymore. Livin' on social security disability - paid in "the limit" for 35 years working. Spent the retirement surviving for the first decade of the new millennium with no income. Have no debt (except

a reply to: ManFromEurope

I would argue diet and exercise.