Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
However, the PATENT laws themselves really do need to be addressed to prevent Drug Manufacturer from "reformulating" existing drugs to ensure they lock down that market..

Yeah, that's pure garbage. I think the 7 year window of exclusive sales is fine, but the reformulations just piss all over the whole idea. It desperately needs to be re-addressed.

Additionally I'd love to see something to spur companies into producing the high-effort low-profit drugs such as flu shots. Those really are something that is hard to work in with a for-profit health system, but clearly low cost, highly accessible flu shots are in the public interest.

 Vulcan wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
You're right. The minimum wage should be raised. If Wal-Mart doesn't like it, then they don't have to retail in California.

I agree, minimum wage should be brough up to where you can reasonably live on it.

I'll get on board with this when you can explain to me why a burger flipper at Burger King is entitled to a "reasonable" life. Lets go one step forward, and figure out what that "reasonable" life will cost.

Let's lay a little game here. Monday, a miracle occurs and everyone has a college degree - bachelor's minimum. Tuesday, another miracle occurs - everyone has a job in the field of their degree, making good money ($50K at least) and starts Wednesday.

Lunchtime Wednesday. To celebrate the double miracle, you and all your new coworkers decide to go out to lunch at a nice restaurant. Hunh. They're all closed.

A not-so-nice restaurant? Nope, closed as well.

Fast food? Nope, no luck.

Okay, we'll go to the grocery store and get stuff for a picnic. Nope, they're closed too! In fact, ALL retail stores are closed! What happened?

Oh yeah. All the retail people now have degrees and work in offices. Two weeks later, society melts down because there's no one stocking fresh food at the grocery stores, there's no one ringing the sales out, there's no one flipping burgers, and 90% of the population is out of food.


So as you can see, those people making minimum wage in retail are a necessary part of a functioning economy. With that in mind, how do you justify paying them 25% LESS than the poverty level - assuming they are actually working 40 hours a week, which NONE of them are?

Short of 'they suck so they don't deserve it....'

 whembly wrote:

There are 3 huge factors...

 Vulcan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
And what makes you valuable enough to keep around as a burger flipper? There are plenty of others that will work your job for the same pay. An unskilled teenager can do it and we've got those coming out of our ears.

No, an unskilled teenager CANNOT do it. I've worked with unskilled teenagers, they either become SKILLED teenagers or they go out the door.

Cooking burgers, dressing buns, keeping orders straight, keeping your temper around donkey cave customers as well as keeping your work area clean and safe, ON TOP OF doing all in a minimum of time IS a skill... and it's nowhere NEAR as easy as you think.

Try working a grill sometime when it's 100 degrees plus and do all that sometime. It's a very enlightening experience as to just how much work it takes to be a lowly fast food worker.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
And what makes you valuable enough to keep around as a burger flipper? There are plenty of others that will work your job for the same pay. An unskilled teenager can do it and we've got those coming out of our ears.

No, an unskilled teenager CANNOT do it. I've worked with unskilled teenagers, they either become SKILLED teenagers or they go out the door.

Cooking burgers, dressing buns, keeping orders straight, keeping your temper around donkey cave customers as well as keeping your work area clean and safe, ON TOP OF doing all in a minimum of time IS a skill... and it's nowhere NEAR as easy as you think.

Try working a grill sometime when it's 100 degrees plus and do all that sometime. It's a very enlightening experience as to just how much work it takes to be a lowly fast food worker.

 Jihadin wrote:
Wait one....anyone else notice a "college degree" not so good anymore? Its more like they're after tech people. I've two degree's Associative in Surgical Tech and a Bachelor on Aircraft Maintenance Production Management....something freaking silly like that....oh and my Airframe and Power Plant License from those classes. Lets not forget the crash course on a "Movement Coordinator" which I think translate to the RL to something else...I can't remember at the moment but that a high five figure job with security clearences...mine are good for another 4 yrs...I retire next month....22 yrs in....asshats wanted to keep me longer so had to do a drug deal with them but right now I'm getting the feeling its not education they want....its the experience they want and how wide spread that experience...

I noticed, makes me kinda scared TBH, Im not tech savy( My mind isnt build for stuff like that) so im wondering if i can even get a job.
Ugh, Maybe the "Those who cant, Teach" is true

 IceRaptor wrote:

 whembly wrote:

There are 3 huge factors...

Other significant factors are:

1. Healthcare is generally inelastic - you will pay a significant portion of your income to stay alive, if possible. Medical groups are well aware of this, and price accordingly.

2. Society quixotically demands that people must be treated, even if they cannot pay, while not providing reimbursement to medical groups for said coverage. This indirectly raises the cost of care for all other patients, as the medical groups pass the costs onto people who can pay.

3. Cost efficiencies and medical care are often orthogonal; from a cost of treatment perspective it's better if a patient dies early than has to remain on insurance long-term. Obviously that does not go over well with patients.

I find people are that against subsidized healthcare, but are for requiring care regardless of ability to pay to have a very odd stance. It seems contradictory - no mater what, someone is going to pay the cost of treatment, and it's going to be the people with insurance. Why defer that to an secondary cost instead of making it primary cost to society, so it at least has a modicum of transparency?

 daedalus wrote:

Hell, I have no college degree and I'm doing well enough. Not five figures well, but when you take in the cost of living in STL, I can afford to drink, play 40k, and still put some aside.

 Jihadin wrote:

I noticed, makes me kinda scared TBH, Im not tech savy( My mind isnt build for stuff like that) so im wondering if i can even get a job.
Ugh, Maybe the "Those who cant, Teach" is true

Ugh Hotsauce...the NCO in me wants me to reach through and choke you. Since I can't do that the your "Uncle Sargie Wilkie from a distant bloodline" going to point something out to you. You owe me twenty pushups after this. How well do you know 40K army rules and capabilities? How well you know the General rules to play? Its how you perceive it. Look at it from a tech view.

 whembly wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

Hell, I have no college degree and I'm doing well enough. Not five figures well, but when you take in the cost of living in STL, I can afford to drink, play 40k, and still put some aside.

Hey! Score one for living in the ol' Mid-West!

I was shocked, but did you know that St. Louis is one of the fastest growing IT market?

WTF?
*shrugs*

Good for me.

 Jihadin wrote:


Ugh Hotsauce...the NCO in me wants me to reach through and choke you. Since I can't do that the your "Uncle Sargie Wilkie from a distant bloodline" going to point something out to you. You owe me twenty pushups after this. How well do you know 40K army rules and capabilities? How well you know the General rules to play? Its how you perceive it. Look at it from a tech view.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:


Ugh Hotsauce...the NCO in me wants me to reach through and choke you. Since I can't do that the your "Uncle Sargie Wilkie from a distant bloodline" going to point something out to you. You owe me twenty pushups after this. How well do you know 40K army rules and capabilities? How well you know the General rules to play? Its how you perceive it. Look at it from a tech view.

That actually reminds me, I forgot to do my pushups for today. I never thought of it that way, I mean If i really put my mind to it I may be able to get it.

 Vulcan wrote:
If you're going to turn a blind eye to the facts that a) retail is bloody hard work, and b) is utterly necessary to the economy, and c) cannot be left to the teenagers alone, because they spend a large amount of the workday in SCHOOL, I don't know what to tell you.

 whembly wrote:

That's true... because it's really like that with any business...right?

Medical Groups will often work with you if you make the effort. I couldn't afford the "left overs" charges after my first born... so, I call Patient Accounting about my predicament and they put me on a $25/mo payment plan.

 whembly wrote:

Yup... it's because of this reason why I'd advocate for us to implement a Canadian style single payor system, but also allow a secondary market to allow folks to pay for better service.

 whembly wrote:

I was shocked, but did you know that St. Louis is one of the fastest growing IT market?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Flipping burgers is a, pardon the turn of phrase, "crap" job. You are not entitled to a reasonable life, that is something you earn for yourself. Work at an absolutely rock bottom job like flipping burgers at McDs or Burger King = get paid rock bottom wages.

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Flipping burgers is a, pardon the turn of phrase, "crap" job. You are not entitled to a reasonable life, that is something you earn for yourself. Work at an absolutely rock bottom job like flipping burgers at McDs or Burger King = get paid rock bottom wages.

Just checking, you don't look down on fast food workers because of their jobs, do you?

 Vulcan wrote:
Let's run one more point by the lot of you then.

To find an income bracket that hasn't lost spending power in the past 40 years, you have to go all the way up to the 85th percentile. Everyone below that has LOST spending power. (To find an income bracket that gained spending power, you're looking at the 97th percentile - 85-96% ran hard to stand still. The rest of us run hard to loose ground.)

A big part of this is stagnation in wage increases. There simply is no upward pressure, because the spending power represented by minimum wage has decreased between 25 and 50%, depending on who does the calculations and what rate of interest they use. On the other hand, there is plenty of DOWNWARD pressure, from executives who want bigger bonuses, from the demise of unionized labor, and from the ever-increasing number of people in the workforce.

So the lack of increases to the minimum wage - and the loss of spending power over time that represents - translates into a lack of increases in ALL wages, with the corresponding loss of spending power. It hits YOU in the pockets just as much as it does the burger-flipper. YOUR wages should be higher as well.

And before you get on the whole 'it'll just increase costs across the board', I'll point out that in then 1960s we managed to pay the equivalent of between $12 and $16 an hour in minimum wage and STILL have a strong economy.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
You're right. The minimum wage should be raised. If Wal-Mart doesn't like it, then they don't have to retail in California.

I agree, minimum wage should be brough up to where you can reasonably live on it.

Except raising the minimum wage doesn't do that.

It increases costs for employers, including many wages that are not minimum wage but have automatic increases if the minimum is raised. These costs are then passed on to the customers, who are the same people that just had their wages raised, so in reality it changes the numbers and nothing else. The standard of living is not increased.

Standard of living can be raised one of two ways.

1) An individual person can have his wages increased. Something like a raise accompanying a promotion for example.

2) The price of consumer goods drops without a corresponding decrease in wages. This increases the purchasing power of those wages. Decreasing inflation can also do this.

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
However, the PATENT laws themselves really do need to be addressed to prevent Drug Manufacturer from "reformulating" existing drugs to ensure they lock down that market..

Yeah, that's pure garbage. I think the 7 year window of exclusive sales is fine, but the reformulations just piss all over the whole idea. It desperately needs to be re-addressed.

Additionally I'd love to see something to spur companies into producing the high-effort low-profit drugs such as flu shots. Those really are something that is hard to work in with a for-profit health system, but clearly low cost, highly accessible flu shots are in the public interest.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
If you're going to turn a blind eye to the facts that a) retail is bloody hard work, and b) is utterly necessary to the economy, and c) cannot be left to the teenagers alone, because they spend a large amount of the workday in SCHOOL, I don't know what to tell you.

Yes, its necessary. its still not worth anything other than minimum wage+a few bucks and maybe basic benefits and that only on a case by case basis.

 djones520 wrote:

Minimum wage when I worked as a grocery bagger 14 years ago was $5.15 in Michigan. Now it's $7.40. That's a 40% increase of minimum wage in that 14 year time frame. So your arguing we've seen a 40% (averaged your number out) decrease in purchasing power, yet in 1/3rd of that time we've seen a 40% increase in wage.

With those numbers, what would we need minimum wage to be?

 Ahtman wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Minimum wage when I worked as a grocery bagger 14 years ago was $5.15 in Michigan. Now it's $7.40. That's a 40% increase of minimum wage in that 14 year time frame. So your arguing we've seen a 40% (averaged your number out) decrease in purchasing power, yet in 1/3rd of that time we've seen a 40% increase in wage.

With those numbers, what would we need minimum wage to be?

14 years ago Cigarettes were $1 to $2 a pack. Now they are $5-6 a pack. That is between a 250-600% increase in cost for a bagger. This also ignores that most grocery stores don't have baggers anymore so the minimum wage for them is now $0.00.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I noticed, makes me kinda scared TBH, Im not tech savy( My mind isnt build for stuff like that) so im wondering if i can even get a job.
Ugh, Maybe the "Those who cant, Teach" is true

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.

If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.

The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.

Rep. John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat in leadership when the law passed, said he thinks the problem will be resolved.
“If not, I think we should begin an immediate amicus brief to say, ‘Listen this is simply not fair to these employees,’” Larson told POLITICO. “They are federal employees.”

Republicans, never a fan of Democratic health care reform, are more vocal about the potential adverse effects of the provision.

“It’s a reality,” said Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas). “This is the law. … It’s going to hinder our ability with retention of members, it’s going to hinder our ability for members to take care of their families.” He said his fellow lawmakers are having “quiet conversations” about the threat.

Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner said the threat is already real, especially for veteran lawmakers and staff. If they leave this year, they think they can continue to be covered under the current health care plan.

“I’ve lost one staffer who told me in confidence that he had been here for a number of years and the thought of losing the opportunity to keep his health insurance on Dec. 31 [forced him to leave]. He could keep what he had and on Jan. 1 he would go into that big black hole,” said Bonner, who had already planned his resignation from Congress. “And then I’ve got another staff member that I think it will be a factor as she’s contemplating her future.”

Lawmakers and aides on both sides of the aisle are acutely aware of the problems with the provision. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have discussed fixes to the provision. Boehner, according to House GOP sources, believes that Reid must take the lead on crafting a solution. Since Republicans opposed the bill, Boehner does not feel responsible to lead the effort to make changes.

The Affordable Care Act — signed into law in 2010 — contained a provision known as the Grassley Amendment, which said the government can only offer members of Congress and their staff plans that are “created” in the bill or “offered through an exchange” — unless the bill is amended.

Currently, aides and lawmakers receive their health care under the generous Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.
The government subsidizes upward of 75 percent of the premiums for the health insurance plans. In 2014, most Capitol Hill aides and lawmakers are expected to be put onto the exchanges, and there has been no guidance whether the government will subsidize those premiums. This is expected to cause a steep spike in health insurance costs.

There have been many options for fixing the problem discussed throughout the year, including administrative fixes and legislative tweaks. One scenario seen as likely on Capitol Hill would have OPM simply decide that the government could still subsidize insurance on the exchanges.

House Democratic leadership says the issue must be resolved.

“The leadership has assured members that fixing this issue is a top priority,” said one Democratic leadership aide. “This issue must be fixed by administrative action in order that the flawed Grassley Amendment’s spirit is honored and all staff and members are treated the same.”

It could be politically difficult to change this provision. The provision was put in the bill in the first place on the theory that if Congress was going to make the country live under the provisions of Obamacare, the members and staff should have to as well.

The uncertainty has created a growing furor on Capitol Hill with aides young and old worried about skyrocketing health care premiums cutting deeply into their already small paychecks. Some longtime aides and members of Congress, who previously had government subsidized health care for life, are concerned that their premiums will now come out of their pension.

If their fears are borne out, the results could be twofold. Some junior staff will head for the private sector early while more seasoned aides and lawmakers could leave before the end of the year so they can continue under the old plan.

Several lawmakers said departures could run the gamut from low-level staff to legislative aides, to senior aides and lawmakers. Capitol Hill is an attractive workplace for politically ambitious college graduates, but a core of Capitol Hill aides stick around for decades, serving as institutional knowledge, and earning prized retirement packages.

OPM, which administers benefits for federal employees, is expected to rule in the coming months on how congressional health care is to be administered.

OPM did not respond to a request for comment.

More than a dozen senior aides interviewed by POLITICO about the issue declined to be named out of fear for future job prospects. The problem is most acutely felt at the staff level, where aides make between $35,000 and roughly $170,000 and budgetary problems have all but stopped pay increases and bonuses. Lawmakers have questioned leadership aides about the future of their health care.

“Between the constant uncertainty surrounding sequestration, and the likelihood aides will soon be paying for the subsidy portion of their health care coverage, congressional office budgets are being squeezed once again, and it’s causing a lot of concern amongst chiefs of staff regarding how to best handle the situation,” said one chief of staff to a senior Democratic member of the House. “Do we give raises to junior level aides so they can afford to pay for their higher health care costs, and if so, where do we find the funds to do so? Additionally, leadership has been relatively silent in terms of providing guidance to offices, which is frustrating.”

There are other ways that aides can fully avoid this problem. If they’re married, they can join their spouse’s health care plan. If they are 65, they can go on Medicare.

But the focus right now is centered on lawmakers trying to figure out how to offset potential increases in premiums.

“I know other members are doing the same thing in terms of what we can do to offset [premiums],” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said. “You are particularly limited now because of course we’ve had the cuts in the [member office allowances] on top of this. You just don’t have a lot of options.”

Cole added, “A lot of the staff stays on largely because of the benefit levels and particularly if you’ve got people with families and it’s extraordinarily important to them … it’s just not right.”

 whembly wrote:
Oh the IRONY...
Federal employees should enjoy the same system that everyone will be on...