$$ Taxes $$ What's right?

titan said:
"There are enough other examples of taxation levels to serve as comparison" #60
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I think we already do that with healthcare. Broadening the perspective may at least contextualize our own.
Further it may help expose any glaring mismatches, whether a needless inefficiency at our end, or a superior time / money saver on theirs.

When I was a kid, it was the U.S. that shone the way. I guess I got old too quick.
 
as we speak, i'm preparing to start the research needed to get health insurance for myself, not that i finally got all of the red tape and basic governmental CF out of the way and curtis is properly enrolled in medicare/medicaid.
NOT looking forward to this, since i can't see how the marketplace could have improved in the last 3 years. i had to give up our insurance back then because our insurer left the kansas market. sigh....wish me luck!
 
As I said in another thread I have insulin dependant diabetes, I am informed (on another board) that even with health insurance this would cost me about $1000 per month (plus the insurance premium obviously) I dont know how accurate this is but from other things I have read it doesnt seem to be too far off the mark
of course this presupposes that I am in employment - if for any reason I lost this employment getting insurance for my pre existing condition would not be a realistic possibility.

Here my monthly prescription is free as are the twice yearly HBA1C blood tests my annual retinopathy exams and my peripheral circulation exams.

Yes we pay more tax quite a lot more tax but if you add together the tax health insurance and student loan payments of the average American I suspect that we might actually pay less
 
mark mywords said:
As I said in another thread I have insulin dependant diabetes, I am informed (on another board) that even with health insurance this would cost me about $1000 per month (plus the insurance premium obviously) I dont know how accurate this is but from other things I have read it doesnt seem to be too far off the mark
of course this presupposes that I am in employment - if for any reason I lost this employment getting insurance for my pre existing condition would not be a realistic possibility.

Here my monthly prescription is free as are the twice yearly HBA1C blood tests my annual retinopathy exams and my peripheral circulation exams.

Yes we pay more tax quite a lot more tax but if you add together the tax health insurance and student loan payments of the average American I suspect that we might actually pay less
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the insulin situation is getting better, but yeah, our healthcare system sucks. and now that i AM unemployed and doubt i could ever work in my field again, i don't know what will happen. fortunately, i'm in fairly good health other than the issues that cause pain, so i don't think i'm gonna croak soon. but it would be nice to KNOW that.
 
the insulin situation is getting better, but yeah, our healthcare system sucks
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According to doctor google 1 of my insulin compounds ( i take two) costs $108 for a week supply for me, presumably on top of this there is a doctors fee and a dispensary fee. In addition to this I use 28 hypodermic needles 28 - 35 blood test strips per week and then there is my oral medication!
 
mark mywords said:
According to doctor google 1 of my insulin compounds ( i take two) costs $108 for a week supply for me, presumably on top of this there is a doctors fee and a dispensary fee. In addition to this I use 28 hypodermic needles 28 - 35 blood test strips per week and then there is my oral medication!
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i don't know the full deets yet, but our POTUS is trying to get at least medications down to what's affordable. i'll ask kate.
 
mark mywords said:
Yes we pay more tax quite a lot more tax but if you add together the tax health insurance and student loan payments of the average American I suspect that we might actually pay less
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Doesn't make sense to me to do the calculation any other way. Simply comparing tax rates is only half the equation.

Any news on a less barbaric treatment regime? Is there an "insulin pump" that figures out when, & how much, & spares you the formality of making like a junkie?

25 years ago I went to Newport, RI for a Woody Allen movie festival at a friend's house. We spent the weekend there. The first day I was breezing through the living room saw a guy with "equipment" resting on the coffee table. My first thought: - My lord! What kind of party have I gotten myself into ?!?! - Turns out he was diabetic, nice guy.
 
Is there an "insulin pump" that figures out when, & how much, & spares you the formality of making like a junkie?
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There is such a pump but currently the NHS only gives them to type 1 diabetics (usually to younger people who may not be able to control their diabetes).

I usually have no problem balancing how much to eat and how much insulin to take for my activity level. In my summer forays into work it can be quite difficult because I can be doing strenuous physical activity one minute and sitting down contemplating my navel the next and you never quite know which you will be doing or for how long you will be doing it.
but its just a case of doing more blood tests and eating more if required (having your blood sugar a bit high is not an issue in the short term but being low can be catastrophic even in the short term)
 
- yikes -
Diabetes is a malfunction / failure of the pancreas? Any insight into whether recent miracles like CRISPR can / will cure this? Might you be eligible to be in a therapy trial?

This comment of mine might easily be misinterpreted as dismissive. It's not intended to be. It's only my confession that I can barely relate to the style of living diabetes imposes.
I'm on a prescription med for cardiac arrhythmia. On the medication all is well. It's prescribed twice a day (ie at ~12 hour interval). Perhaps ironically in retrospect, around Christmas * a few years ago, while visiting, I was not able to take my PM dose, and all was well.
- cha CHING !! -
Didn't take me long to realize I could take the full daily (24 hr) dose once in the AM, and be done with it for the entire day. This is a titanic, gargantuan quality of life improvement for me. I hated, and was not good at watching the clock to remember my PM dose. Far far easier to simply get into the routine of swallowing the tab shortly after awakening.

So m #68 the way I relate to having to monitor blood glucose is my own meager meds burden, about a close a comparison as lightning, to the lightning bug. Worth mentioning? You seem just fine @CV.

* best Christmas present ever !

note:
I might not have figured out the 12 hr / 24 hr thing at all, except for this odd quirk.
My meds arrive from the VA in long slender 80mg tabs. The prescription is to snap each long slender tablet in two, and take only half (40mg) at each dose. This having the single tab 80mg in a single unit may have been the perceptual leap I needed to consider only once daily dose, despite doctor's orders to the contrary. All's well, for now.
 
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are totally different type 1 is an autoimmune disorder which usually occurs in childhood type 2 is largely (but not exclusively) a life style disease which occurs in middle age.
all of my maternal relatives had type 2 by the time that they died as did my paternal relatives except my father who died in his early 30s . My sister developed it in he late 20s, so although my lifestyle would almost certainly have lead to me getting it my genetics probably played a part (large part).

As you probably know it predisposes you to all sorts of goodies, blindness, gangrene, kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks.

Most of the research into a cure is focused on type 1 because you can get that as an infant rather than having to wait until you are in your 50s
 
Grim.
Not sure this'll help, but on the display screen you look just dandy. Shall we spruce up your avatar a little? What's the best thing ever? No, not that mm, they'll send me to prison. What's the next best thing ever? Will it fit in a circle the size of a large coin?
 
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