So you want people to wholly depend on the Government for housing and healthcare?

No thanks.

Anonymous wrote:Universal health care is a separate issue from employer-sponsored health care. We could all be on the ACA and have a choice of the same range of health insurance companies. Then people wouldn't stay in crappy jobs just for the health care. Having the ACA for all Americans would promote entrepreneurship and continue to prop up the health insurance industry.

I'm not a politician or an expert in health care, but I think that's the way to go in the US.

I agree. I understand that historically employers wanted to be able to entice good workers and one way to do that was to differentiate benefits. Over time, it became the norm to offer health care as a benefit. Why can't the employers ear mark the funds they would spend on healthcare per employee and allocate the money to the employee to spend on the ACA. Money would be payable directly to the exchange, the employee would not be able to take the money and use it for something else.

Employees would still receive employer subsidized healthcare but it would no longer be tied to your job.

Universal health care is a separate issue from employer-sponsored health care. We could all be on the ACA and have a choice of the same range of health insurance companies. Then people wouldn't stay in crappy jobs just for the health care. Having the ACA for all Americans would promote entrepreneurship and continue to prop up the health insurance industry.

I'm not a politician or an expert in health care, but I think that's the way to go in the US.

Anonymous wrote:Policy-wise those are very different questions.

30-year mortgages evolved as a way to help people afford housing. More recently, Trump proposed 50-year mortgages, which are common in some other countries.

Employer-provided health care is frequently debated as part of discussions about moving to single-payer. It’s a complicated subject. It does shackle people to jobs they don’t like and stifles entrepreneurship but it sustains the insurance industry and keeps government at bay on healthcare, which some like for some stupid reason.

+1. I’m all for universal health care in theory, but in practice (in other countries) it seems far from perfect. My grandparents are Canadian and when my elderly grandfather was having a breathing emergency, the wait for an ambulance (yes there are WAITS for ambulances in Canada) was over 2 hours. So my elderly, mobily challenged grandfather had to get to the hospital on his own without medical care (nearby relative met him at the hospital). He ended up having a heart attack at the emergency room and dying. The systems and waits to get into treatment in universal healthcare systems can be really terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of us didn’t need 30 years to pay off our homes. Same goes for car loans.

that's awesome. Us, too, but, actually, for the majority, they do need 30 year mortgages and car loans. Aren't we fortunate?

About a third of Americans don't own a home at all. They rent.

Anonymous wrote:Many of us didn’t need 30 years to pay off our homes. Same goes for car loans.

And some of us kept refinancing at lower rates and reinvesting that money. We also paid for cars in cash.

What’s your point?

Anonymous wrote:More recently, Trump proposed 50-year mortgages, which are common in some other countries.

In which countries are 50-year mortgages "common"? This seems like one of those situations where people seize on a dumb idea to try to sanewash it but once you actually dig into the example 'other countries', it doesn't hold up.

For the record, 30-year mortgages ARE uncommon in most other countries - the long, long mortgage term is a US thing. But sure, let's nearly double those unusually long mortgages.

The mortgages are fine as long as we aren't artificially lowering the interest rate with monetary policy. That just inflates the house prices even more.

It's insane we tie healthcare to employers. The quality of the care you are able to get depends on where you work and the type of insurance they choose to provide. That's nuts.

30 year mortgage I can understand. Employer based health plan as the only real option doesn't make any sense. No other developed country does this. We suck.

Anonymous wrote:Many of us didn’t need 30 years to pay off our homes. Same goes for car loans.

that's awesome. Us, too, but, actually, for the majority, they do need 30 year mortgages and car loans. Aren't we fortunate?

Many of us didn’t need 30 years to pay off our homes. Same goes for car loans.

For our family. we are sticking w jobs we don't love / limited growth due to healthcare. Counting down the days until retirement eligible (less than 180) so that we have the coverage we need to support our family.

ACA - if implemented as written - would have opened up a lot of options but since our government needed to weaponize accomplishments of people with darker skin colors, we are where we are.

Retirement models are built around the assumptions that your salary increases over time, that the economy will continue providing jobs etc.

We don't have an alternative and this is a well known fact. No policy maker wants to address the issue of what will happen if the US economic engine stops being as efficient as the past. If that were to occur things will be very ugly.

Unfortunately the biggest issue in the US is that the more you make the more ways there are for you to play less in taxes. Partisan organizations will push narratives that those at the top of the income bracket are overtaxed. I thought that was the case as well until I start making a lot of money. I was shocked by the legal ways my CPA was able to significantly reduce my tax obligation. It's crazy.

Policy-wise those are very different questions.

30-year mortgages evolved as a way to help people afford housing. More recently, Trump proposed 50-year mortgages, which are common in some other countries.

Employer-provided health care is frequently debated as part of discussions about moving to single-payer. It’s a complicated subject. It does shackle people to jobs they don’t like and stifles entrepreneurship but it sustains the insurance industry and keeps government at bay on healthcare, which some like for some stupid reason.

Why do we have a system that promotes 30 years mortgages and employer-based healthcare, when people who unfortunately involuntary lose their job by 50 are pretty much done?

The massive confidence that the future will always be a reflection of the past (ie market has always done well, so don't worry) pretty much means that you have to hope that between the ages of 22 and 49 this assumption of forever market return of 6%+ on average holds true. So you pretty much have 27 to make sure you meet all life goals and save for retirement in an inflationary environment.