Entitlement society

[talisyn]

Originally Posted by BenRaines

Traveler, I have been self employed most of my life and could not agree with you more. I too carry high deductibles for emergency medical procedures. I do not go to hospital on weekend for an ear ache or a cough or fever.

Ben Raines

I don't go to the hospital OR the Dr. for anything, because I can't afford the $25 co-payment. Wish I had an entitlement mentality

[BenRaines]

I would say that most who have no money for any kind of medical care in the US have Medicaid, administered by the state that the live in. This is different than Medicare, which is for seniors.

My sister in law came to visit us many years ago. She is from Puerto Rico. For those who do not know Puerto Ricans are natural born Americans. No immigration or passport needed. US citizens.

While visiting us she had an appendicitis attack. Went to the hospital and had her appendix removed. Since she had no insurance, no ability to pay, etc. Bill was paid by State of California.

Ben Raines

[Hemidakota]

Yes! We or California taxpayers do also pay for medical attention for any illegal.

Any entitled citizen of this state or country is entitled for state health care.

[Traveler]

Darvin and DigitalShadow – and a few others: The point is that when the things we use come directly from our own pockets we very quickly develop a different attitude about them. I use to believe that because I worked hard and earned a lot for the companies I worked for that I was entitled and earned the benefits I received.

One year I received a $1000 bonus for working with a company that brought the company two million in profit. A VP (that got me my bonus took $200,000 for himself in bonus from that profit. I went direct to that VP and we had a little talk. Bottom line he felt that because he was a VP that he was entitled to his cut despite the fact that he never did a thing and never even met with the customer or anyone involved with doing any of the work. He just saw the money and took it because he was entitled. He did give me an additional $5000 for our little talk which was not the purpose of our talk.

There are two points I think are important in our discussion. The first point is that when you really get compensated for what you do then you have 100% control over that compensation and you begin to make decisions based on your values as to what you do with what you earn. I believe that the problem with the medical profession in the USA is that the entire system is designed to only treat someone that is not actually paying for the service. Talisyn has made a decision that health care is of so little value to them that they are not willing to “budget” anything they earn and spend on what they would rather have toward health care. Most people would spend much less on health care if they knew it was their nickel.

The second point is that entitlements cost you much more when someone else is paying for them than if you paid for that same benefit directly yourself. The truth is that everybody takes their entitlement cut out of your entitlement. I can prove this point with a ton of stories. The problem is that because we are willing to pay much more than the cost for a benefit when we think someone else is picking up the tab that the real results is that the cost escalates completely out of control – even when the best minded people are involved.

For example – several years ago the LDS church did a study and discovered that by consolidating purchases and repairs that they could save thousands of dollars that missionaries spend on bicycles and repairs. So in a pilot program through several missions the mission purchased all the bicycles and paid for all repairs. Much to the surprise of all, once the missionaries realized the entitlement; the amounts spent on bicycles more than quadrupled over a 4 month period.

I do have one more thought about entitlements – but before I go there I want to let the forum chew on things for a while. Hopefully, you will all begin to see what entitlements do to your freedom and your personal thought processes concerning yourself and others. One thing we should realize that no economy can pay for entitlements but every economy can pay for what its citizens are vested in achieving.

The Traveler

[boyando]

Friend Traveler;
I like what you are saying about entitlements, but I think that you are confusing risk taking with entitlements.

We all take risks with employment and find that we must choose, as have I, between safety/security and high income. I didn't know that I was taking a large risk by seeking a career in the building industry, but I was. I now work in the convenience store industry, and have not done a lot of risk taking, but have often thought about buying my own store. Risk = reward.

I think that someone who believes that any company is there to provide jobs rather than to make a profit, has an entitlement mentality.

Thank you for being a risk taker and proving it can be done.

[Mahone]

Originally Posted by ploomf

Well look at how successful schemes like the Nigerian scam is. This scheme works by cashing in on peoples greed and entitlement. Despite all the press this scam gets people still believe that somewhere there is someone that has a bank account full of millions of dollars that they will give them and they don’t have to do a single thing to earn it. I work in fraud prevention and the more successful scams to get information from people work by playing on their greed, the person that promises to get them a phone that the company is selling for $300 for only $1 if they send him their account information, the person that calls and offers them a credit on their account or a rebate if only they will “verify” their account information, all those scams play on peoples greed.

You mean there isn't really £1,000,000 waiting for me in a large overseas bank? Dr David Kabila actually sent me a picture of himself as well, which must be proof that he is well meaning! He is also the son of the president, and he chose to e-mail me! I guess I'd better go and retract my handing in of my notice to my employer and cancel the 4 month holiday to hawaii

[ploomf]

Nope sorry Mahone. No money for you. Although you should go talk to President Obama. I just got an email for him this morning, he wants to give me £1,000,000 sterling silver. Such a nice guy. Maybe if you'd ask him he'd give you some too. Oh and you should play the lottery, in the past week I've won the Irish lottery, the English lottery, and a few others. Who knew you could win without even entering. Nice of them.

[freckleface]

During the last election, I was standing in line to vote and some young, entitled man with a loud, smarty pants attitude, said "No one's done a thing for me! I'm voting for who's gonna take care of me!" Okay, so spoiled rich boy almost got a spitball shot in his eye from about ten people in line that day. This type of thinking is rampant among the rich as well as the poor.

My 21 year old niece sits on the couch all day and twitters, chats, blogs, etc. and doesn't work. "I can't work because of the bad economy" is her justification. She gets free meds, free health care and complains about everything. She has been diagnosed with depression, so I'm assuming she'll ride that gravy train as long as possible. She certainly isn't too depressed to go out and party with her friends. I believe the depression would subside if she would just get busy. Even if it was scrubbing her parents home, ironing clothes, sewing, walking the neighbors dog, yard work, whatever. Anything. Just don't sit on your fanny all day!!

I believe we have far to many entitled adolescents and adults. They're a drain on our society and want to be taken care of the same way they were coddled and spoiled by mom and dad. They need to grow some hair on their chest and see what it's like to get out and do some hard work.

I'm not in a very good mood these days as far as our economy goes. I'm seeing too many hard working people get the brunt of what happens when you take care of too many who don't want to work.


Sorry for the rant.

[DigitalShadow]

Originally Posted by ploomf

Nope sorry Mahone. No money for you. Although you should go talk to President Obama. I just got an email for him this morning, he wants to give me £1,000,000 sterling silver. Such a nice guy. Maybe if you'd ask him he'd give you some too. Oh and you should play the lottery, in the past week I've won the Irish lottery, the English lottery, and a few others. Who knew you could win without even entering. Nice of them.

This gives me a great idea for the next big email scam...

Dear <insert name here>,
President Obama's new stimulus plan has just been put in to place and our records indicate that you are qualified to receive $20,000. In order to get your share of this massive government handout, all you need to do is reply to this email with your bank account information and within 2-4 weeks the money should arrive in your account.

<some fake name>,
US Department of the Treasury

<add official looking seal>

[miztrniceguy]

I'm packing my bags and moving to Galt's Gulch.