Letters to the Editor
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Nothing wrong with "Daddy Loan"
Look, part of the shame of being in debt (and staying in debt) is suffering in silence. If you have the opportunity to ask a friend, family member or someone else for financial help, then by all means, do it!
Scolding the article writer for going to her dad shows me that some are as much part of the problem with the financial state of America as those they admonish.
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Going Bankrupt And Living With ZERO Savings Paying Off Debt is Stupid!
I love the way some people are obsessed with minimizing the tales of woe -- 5 people will explain how they got into debt because of medical bills or sudden job loss and the attack dogs simply dismiss it!
"Well, uh, sure there are a couple people out of a million that might honestly fall into debt....but everyone just knows the real reason for 99 percent of all debt is reckless spending by young kids! I mean, everyone knows that!"
Riiiight.
Everyone just "knows" that. I mean, true, Rush and Sean Hannity explain that's the real reason all the time! Surely they must know.
And whenever someone points out that "doing the right thing" and handing over every penny of your paycheck making minimum payments (at the expense of a savings account) is actually a BAD idea -- that is ignored entirely.
They don't want to disrupt their neat little script which reads: poverty is the result of personal sin. If you are "good" you will be magically protected and if you are "bad" you will be broke.
In the Republican/Conservative world no one ever becomes poor for any reason except laziness, greed or stupidy.
Medical bills? Sure it might happen to 1 out of ten million.
Job loss? Sure, one out of 20 million.
Divorce? Pfft. Sure, one out of 30 million might honestly fall into debt because of a unscrupulous spouse, but (say it with me now) everyone knows that the vast majority of the working poor are just plain old evil, lazy and, well, evil!
Ridiculous.
And stop lecturing people to make minimum payments at the expense of a stable household budget! Without any savings all it will take is just one small hiccup (a car break down, an illness, an unexpected rent increase) and these people will be wiped out all over again and sent back to square one.
Refusing to bankrupt oneself is actually a good idea.
Bankrupting oneself just to make Visa happy and increase your credit score from 520 to 521 over a 19 month period is ridiculous. Living paycheck to paycheck is just a disaster waiting to happen.
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ReganaD: Healthcare IS NOT a Commodity
It is a community resource. And we should, as members of the wealthiest country on earth, treat it as such. Doctors, who work long hours and are required to continue to keep their hard-won knowledge up to date SHOULD be able to make a better than decent income caring for us.
But many, many of them don't. Adjusted for inflation, the average primary care physician today makes about 48% LESS than the average primary care physician did in the Great Depression. And the specialists? Most of them are just keeping pace with that family doc from 1933.
What you, my dear Regana, do NOT know about insurance could fill a lot of books.
In the first place, policies that have co-pays are USUALLY HMO type policies.
Which means that the hospitals, and the doctors' offices do NOT set the payment, the insurance company does. It also means that the cost of your care most likely is absorbed BY that hospital and BY the doctors: they are capitated by the insurance company, meaning that they received a per capita payment for every patient who is on their books. They make more money if they NEVER see you than if they do.
In the second place, an 80/20 policy with a $300/month premium AND no cap for the out of pocket is unconscionable. ALL policies used to have first, a deductible ($100, $200 $500) per individual and a family deductible that was, usually, two times the individual. That amount of covered care was paid in full by the patient. In addition to that, there was a "Maximum Out of Pocket" amount, a combination of the deductible and the 20% on an 80/20 policy, after which covered expenses were paid in full by the insurer. Most policies had a $1000 or $2000 maximum out of pocket.
Really really cheap coverage had a max of $10,000. In fact, most really cheap individual policies still do. So the person owing $14K has one of the worst "insurance" policies that I've heard of in a long time.
But back to that community resource thing. The USA is the ONLY country in the world, barring some third world countries (not all) where healthcare is treated as a commodity. Like the glass in your windows, or the couch in your livingroom.
Similarly, the USA is one of a handful of countries where higher education is considered a commodity. Most countries understand that a healthy, educated populace is a RESOURCE, and offer both healthcare and education to all who need the first and are willing to work to complete the second.
Take away student debt, medical insurance and medical debt and this country would not NEED to borrow the money to give us a little spending spree. We could use what we are spending on those, and, yes, saving for the eventuality of those, and buy like the good little consumers we are expected to be.
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lame
so, what you're saying is...
you've never struggled to pay your rent and bills or any of that, you've just been a flippant idiot when it comes to money? and worse, you wasted all your money on mass-produced crap at target and h&m? and now you're a mere 10 grand in debt and your daddy's helping you out, thank heavens, so you still don't have to actually worry about anything on your own? did you even have to deal with your own college loans? so your article is about what, now? the fact that you are a disgusting failure who doesn't even have to deal with the consequences of your own failure? this is ridiculous.
i've read your idiotic articles in so many other publications and i still can't believe you get paid to write. you're giving writers a bad name. go wait tables somewhere and let someone with a brain, a heart, and some real life experience take your place in the godforsaken media.