Posted on 09/16/2016 2:18:21 PM PDT by Zakeet
Prices for medicine, doctor appointments and health insurance rose the most last month since 1984. The price increases come amid a broader debate about climbing health care costs and high premiums for Obamacare coverage.
[Snip]
Medical care costs altogether rose 1% just in August from July, according to the Consumer Price Index, a report on price inflation from the U.S. Labor Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
..a system racked with fraud,waste and built in failure
Everything from overseas has gone way down, most things from the US have gone up... what a great economic policy!
Cellphone service is anomalous because it was a new industry.
If you like your high premiums and high deductibles, you can keep your high premiums and high deductibles.
Obamacare is dead.
All aboard for the Single Payer Express!
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Our medical system will be like one big VA hospital. A complete, wasteful and corrupt mess.
Could the rise in health insurance costs attribute to the supposed middle class raise of 5% last year? It seems like a very big average jump in one year when there were no increases for nearly a decade.
In the summer of 2015 houses in our neighborhood like ours sold for $175,000. Last week a house identical to ours one block over sold for $225,000, slightly larger homes recently selling for $265,000 and up. Tax assessors and property insurance companies are smiling all the way to the bank.
Cost of some clothing may be slightly down but it’s just pure crap. We used to be able to wear clothes for several years because it was made of natural fiber and well made. Can’t even get one season out of most things now.
Noticed that basic grocery items are up $.03 to $.05 each. Add that increase to the fact that all cans and packages contain slightly less product than before and it adds up to a lot of money to feed a family.
People should not blame the cost/price of doctor appointments on the doctors. Our doctor clients have not had any increase in their contract rates - max we can charge a patient for a particular service or procedure - for years. Our Blue Cross contract rates have gone down every October for years. Last year’s decrease was $.29 cents. Will be interesting to see what happens to them this year.
I wondered at the time what it cost them in programming and system change costs to cut $.29 cents.
It’s vanished for my brother. He’s self employed and he says he can’t afford it anymore under Obamacare so right now he has no health insurance, and he works around 70 hours a week, 10 hours a day 7 days a week. So much for the “affordable” care act. It seems the only people who can afford it are illegals and those on welfare because they get it for free. I wish Trump would go into that with more detail, how this criminal administration has thrown the lives of people who make this country run into the gutter over people who sit on their arse and people who aren’t even suppose to be in the country. He needs to bring people on stage who are in massive debt from hospital bills because they can’t afford health insurance and point out Hillary will make it even worse. I think he may have done that already, but he’s got to do it a lot more and shove it in Hillarys face during the debates.
I haven’t seen a house in that range for years.
I don’t know how this real estate bubble here in the Boston area works,but housing is DREADFUL.
Median home in my town $900,000.00. (I’m in a condo.)
FYI-Lots of Chinese moving in.
You are right about clothing——pure crap,even at fairly pricey stores. I even found poor fabric quality in a coat from LL Bean——but they are terrific about returns.
I have no idea how people afford raising kids today.
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We live in Houston suburbs. 4 br/2.5 baths, 2400 sq ft. Two story ones on the golf course now sell for $260,000’ish. Don’t know if you keep up with football or not but J.J. Watts’ house in our area is for sale. Also 4 bedrooms but in newer area on a lake (actually a pond) for $455,000. People who move here from east coast or California say they can afford to buy two houses, both of which are nicer than the one they lived in in their old area.
Thought about selling house this spring but can’t afford prices in an area that I would consider living and don’t want to share walls with anyone. You have Chinese moving in, we have muslims who pay cash and get in extreme bidding wars.
Housing market has slowed considerably during the past month here and fortunately construction of new homes has stopped. Suspect that downturn in price of oil is driving this issue.
“Affordable” Health Care my arse! FUBO!
“don’t want to share walls with anyone.”
Neither did I,but I LOVE where I live.
I have 2BR,& 2 BA and no one above me,which was important to me.
It’s not a Senior complex but lots of seniors here.We even have had a book club going for 4 years in our community room...
I am alone and my large house was getting to be too much for me. I turned 84 on Thursday and this is perfect.
I visited friends in The Woodlands about 20 years ago,beautiful home,and they gave me a royal tour of Houston. A lovely city.
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I’m amazed how house prices in Texas cities are so low. And they’re really nice houses for the money too. But then our property taxes in Corpus were confiscatory, so that holds prices down because buyers can’t afford a mortgage and the taxes. But it’s nice how you can live urban AND afford a nice house there. That’s pretty unusual.
Happy Birthday!
I’m 54 and if anything happened to my husband, I’d end up selling this house and property - it’s a lot to take care of for me, with my weak arms (mowing, weedeating, etch)
Trump needs to really hammer on this. Let it be know Hillary was right there with Barry on this whole mess. Point out the cost rises in 2017. Bring some doctors or insurance people to talk on this subject. Let the young people know what is going to happen to their health care down the line.
Recd our weekly neighborhood newspaper today. Have made a point of watching what’s happening to our housing market in the suburbs south of Houston. Six months ago market data reflected most of the houses listed in our zip code were $150,000 to $200,000 and on the market for no more than 30 days. Suddenly the majority shifted to $200,000 to $400,000 and have been on the market for 70 days. Lots of people trying to get on the bandwagon and make lots of money on their real estate.
One of my neighbors has had three different contracts on his house but financing fell through on all of them. It’s been on the market since early March and is listed for $260,000.
Since we have homestead plus over 65 exemption on our property taxes, the rate cannot be raised so the tax people keep on jacking up the value. Tax assessment people love the high sales prices - tax payers like me do not. The other group that delights in the increased assessment are the few agencies that write wind insurance which you must have in our ZIP code.
Guess people from both coasts think our homes are real bargains and perhaps they are to them. Increased taxes and wind insurance are rapidly making them unaffordable for the rest of us though.
Those evil tax assessor always find a way, don’t they? Oh yeah I forgot about the wind insurance we paid. That was crazy expensive.
I don’t think it’s right - or economically healthy - for prices to shut out locals. That happened with the last boom that went bust.
We saw our house in CA (not all CA prices are high) go from $270k to $450k to $190k, all while we just lived our lives and did nothing different. It was insane and all manipulated!
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