Re: Trump's latest lunacy

On 2025-04-14 19:27, Joerg wrote:

On 3/24/25 5:46 PM, Klaus Kragelund wrote:

On 24-03-2025 15:21, john larkin wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2025 01:21:24 +0100, Klaus Kragelund
<klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:
>

 [...]
 

I hope it gets better soon and this is just a temporary situation.

>
There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA now. Some
have found housing - competing with everyone else - and some have not.
>
Illegal drugs don't help. Controlling the border will help both
problems.
>

Most of the peope I saw that was sleeping on the street was black people, many with obvious mental problems
>
One family a collegaue of mine talked to, the husband had a tripple bypass.They had to sell everything they had to pay hospital bills. They were staying at a hotel, with no plan for what to do when the money runs out.

  I am living in the US for almost 30 years now. Most of the time self-employed so no cadillac-style corporate health plan. It has never been a problem to obtain health insurance. It just became more expensive when Obamacare started.
 A good friend of mine in a similar situation (engineer but not corporate) had a serious heart attack while we were on a cycling trip. Slim, trim and sporty, I couldn't believe it. I called, the ambulance arrived two minutes later, he was transported to a hospital and from there to another because the required procedure was a bit complicated. His share of the bill was miniscule.
 A person with a decent income (engineers et cetera) has enough money to pay for health insurance for their family. I personally know some who instead chose to buy a sports car or whatever and take a gamble on their health. Well, this is America, so you have that choice. Of course, like any gamble making a poor choice can backfire spectacularly (and has). I can tell a lot of stories about the latter, and none of them were due to a supposedly poor health system. It was all about choices.
 Someone with lower income receives huge subsidies and enjoys almost zero-cost health insurance. They can also file for charity care at the hospital which, given the income is truly low, is generally granted.
 Poor people are on Medicaid where everything is free.
 You won't read that in the usual sensationalist press but that's how health care in America really is. Personally I like it better here than in Germany where I lived before. Except for the dental insurance which is pretty much a joke in the US.

What you said, except that I've been here for 42 years.  I'm super grateful not to be under Canada's socialized medicine anymore.  My wife's favorite cousin in Vanouver had to wait SIX MONTHS for thyroid cancer surgery.  Fortunately she survived, little thanks to the Canadian health system.
For dental, you can get a very low cost plan from Aetna that doesn't pay for anything, but entitles you to the insurance rate from your dentist--about a 50% discount.  It's $60 per year iirc.
The reason is that the insurance companies demand a big discount from what the dentist's 'rates' are, so dentists don't dare charge you what they charge the companies.  Fortunately, the free market being what it is, there's an app for that. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com
in