3 Comments

  1. d. knapp on July 2, 2017 at 6:30 pm

    In fairness, it’s drug over doses caused by the depression of knowing one cant live a useful life providing for one’s family and self that did it. If the economy gets better, we may see this turn around. We made a lot of blue collar and middle class people (esp. men) feel wasted and useless when we shipped their jobs over seas and imported people from other nations to handle middle class tech sector jobs. Obama care led to a decrease in life expectancy indirectly through the loss of livelihoods. Getting rid of it wont lead to anything more or less than we had before.I STILL don’t get why healthy working age young people should be so desperate for insurance in their 20’s that they would seek to be tied to Mommy and Daddy for it. In my 20’s, I sent $$$ to my ill and aged parents for THEIR medical and other needs. What’s up w/ the 20 somethings today? I was an enlisted gal, when we made something like $0.35/ hr (a joke describing our pitiful pay divided by 24/7…the amt of time we were told we could be expected to be on call.)At first, I think I took home (after deductions including GI bill contributions) about $450/mo. I had few expenses but i sent home a lot of cash and saved over 8k in cash and paid for an Escort GT. I also paid for a wedding. Like i said, it was before the very good pay of today’s military. I didnt have to pay for insurance, but I paid the medical expenses of 2 very sick parents for a long time, saved for higher education and paid for a pretty nice car and a wedding…on an average of less than$900 a month over 5 yrs. All of that before I was 25.



    • quinersdiner on July 5, 2017 at 9:46 am

      Thanks for sharing this great story. A great lesson here.



      • d. knapp on July 7, 2017 at 1:56 am

        Maybe it’s b/c I grew up in poverty, but I didn’t even feel deprived for the $$$ I wasnt spending. Maybe the fact I was not in debt for a new car and buying the latest gadgets (there were a few in the 80’s and 90’s) made it easy to do. The lack of children in my teens and 20’s probably made a big difference. So many of the young today saddle themselves w/ so much unnecessary debt (for image sake) and babies w/o marriage that they cant just use the young, energetic years to get somewhere. Maybe if today’s adults talk to the young about the realities of life early, they wouldnt need so much help and be more helpful to the elders. I saw plenty of my cohorts completely blow through the paychecks. But we were not a generation obsessed w/ health insurance and health spending.