States can charge premiums - sliding scale - and most charge co-pays for drugs, at least, and some for other services. I'm not criticizing it, just clarifying.

http://www.medicaid.gov/Medicaid-CHIP-Program-Information/By-Topics/Cost-Sharing/Cost-Sharing.html

I don't pay for my premiums - if that's what you're talking about.

The part paid for the company is easily the lion's share, but we have payroll deduction for our piece.

Good for you though. Nice to have to pay no contribution to the premiums!

I have had jobs with and without bennies. The jobs without benefits usually pay more, because you are expected to get your own insurance and such.

My current pay rate is lower than at my last job, but the health coverage is much better. Adding up the dollars and cents of salary and benefits, the net compensation is almost exactly the same.

All benefits are part of your compensation package, it isn't "given" to anyone, the employee earned it.

Another way to think about it, healthcare is part of your compensation package, you are just not getting taxed on it. Trust me, your employer views it that way.

At least a portion. And of course the company can deduct the premiums as an expense.

Or, if it's not, you can deduct it.

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and I don't have to pretend the cough just started. To have to say that would probably block proper diagnosis because I wouldn't have been able to reveal the history of the cough to help the doctor see what might have happened. Thanks, Obamacare!

Kagan and Breyer, that provision got weakened in the same decision that upheld the individual mandate. Hence, Governors can refuse it without causing their states to lose other Medicaid funds, which was the intended "carrot and stick" combo.

I am not sure what you mean by "employer-sponsored insurance uses a tax deduction."

For all my adult life, apart from school years, I've been lucky enough to have employer-provided health insurance, at no cost to me. Sometimes, it's been a public employer and sometimes a private employer.

The private employers got a tax deduction for my fringe benefits as well as for my health insurance because those things are costs of operating their respective businesses, along with things like buying desks. But, I don't think that is what you mean. Please add a sentence or two. It doesn't have to be a lot of detail.

like you are other income that is what they are saying.

The supply room clerk and the highest paid executive in the company both got that same tax benefit. It didn't benefit the better paid more than the lower paid.

Are you sure that is what the OP is saying?

and the benefits tend to be more lavish as well.

the company would suffer adverse tax consequences. I am not sure how much real difference the marginal tax rate made. The premiums were not that high that the marginal tax rate would have made such a significant difference to the highest earners. Those people could easily have paid it out of pocket without noticing, especially if they had increased their own salaries with the money the company used to pay for insurance for all of us. Yet, they opted to cover everyone.

The significant difference was on the lower end of the pay scale, people who would have had to go without any health insurance at all, if the employer had not provide it. I find it hard to knock employer provided insurance on the ground of marginal tax rate. It seems like a makeweight point to me. Better, in my opinion, to focus on things like coverage at no extra cost for those with pre-existing conditions.

Monthly is $1200, the Medicare comes out of their check. Healthcare is important, I long for the day there is a single payer but apparently the GOP has to have this proven first.

to whine about. And, if Democrats do nothing at all, Republicans will whine that nothing is happening.

So, Democrats who modify their behavior based on what Republicans MIGHT say about it seem to me to be either very silly or dishonest. We KNOW they'll say something negative about everything.

It's worked for them for a long time and they don't seem to have much else to offer. Well, besides the crazy. Whining and crazy.

Rage and Blame. Which are quite attractive to many.

What Republicans offer America might be a thread to start, but I am not an OP type in general.

Then again, given Iraq, Afghanistan and others, it could get depressing fast, too.

I think Obama has closed the "doughnut hole," of Part D, though.

Before Obamacare, the cause of most personal bankruptcies was medical expenses. And, in a majority of families that filed those bankruptcies, both spouses had health insurance.

It just chaps their ass to no end thinking they might have to sit in the same waiting room at the doctor's office with people of, well, the lower classes, that's what really gets them. How dare the maid thinks she's entitled to OUR medical service!! And it's all because of THAT ONE, as McCain would say.

It helps the non-rich, whom they don't really consider to be people.

It does, after all, limit profits. In their minds, the biggest "right" of all is the right to make maximum profits with minimal concern for affects to others. We're the others, and if we get screwed, well, that's all right as long as some wealthy someone is making a profit.

When one worships Mammon, silly things like the golden rule and social justice don't count.

Keep the riff-raff out of the waiting rooms.

"But at least conservatives are now representing their true bedrock position on Obamacare. It is largely a transfer program benefitting people who either don’t have enough money, or pose too high a health risk, to bear the cost of their own medical care. Conservatives don’t like transfer programs because they require helping the less fortunate with other peoples’ money."

Many liberals oppose it for similar philosophical reasons, transferring money to insurance companies.

I'm just glad people are getting health care.

I have no words for the hypocrisy of claiming to have some kind of corner on God, yet preferring to see your fellow Americans without health care.

I don't believe in violence, but contemplating things like that can enrage me.

Obama care is and will continue to produce tens of thousands+ of high paying jobs...

because he is black...and he hates Obamacare and thinks going to the emergency room is good health care.

and he lives in the US North East

emergency room?

I once saw a TV program once about the cost to society of poor people. According to the program, it would be considerably cheaper to provide a homeless person a room than to allow them to go homeless.

One of the major reasons it was cheaper was that the health (including sanity) of homeless people deteriorates and they begin frequenting emergency rooms, which tends to be the most expensive kind of health care.

Hospitals pass those costs on to other patients, including Medicaid and Medicare patients and patients with private health insurance.

Not to mention that homeless adults, even those who are healthy and sane, have a harder time finding work. And don't get me started on homeless kids and their futures. Yeah, one or two will make headlines for graduating Harvard with honors after living under a bridge, but, for that one or two, hundreds of thousands won't.

The health and stability of a man featured in the program improved so greatly after they gave him a tiny room and he went from incoherent to smiling.

But, despite all the above, society just won't do it. We'd rather spend more for more human suffering and more damaged human beings, who will damage society as a whole. That's how much helping our fellow Americans sticks in our craw in this "exceptional" and "Christian nation." And, of course, we never count the total cost of war, only the cost of helping fellow humans in need--not a few of whom are veterans.

As far as your brother's racism, I don't know what to say, except I'm very sorry for your trouble. If anyone in my family is racist, they don't share those thoughts and feelings with me, for which I am grateful.