The Steel Guitar Forum

Somebody posts, innocently enough, that he might be moving to Nashville and 10 pages later two brits are told to leave the country !

Who needs diplomats, we have the internet !!!

Roger,
The system here is good.
There is,however a very serious downside.
I will relate a hypothetical story but please believe Me this happens.
A man works hard all his life,eventually retiring with a "paid up"house some money in the bank and a pension.After retirement he falls ill and eventually needs to go into a nursing home,
These nursing homes are expensive,in order to pay the fees His house is sold his savings are taken and his pension is paid into the pot.
A man who has worked little throughout His life is on benefit,free hosing etc. He goes into the same nursing home and the Government pay the costs.
It happened to two spinster Sisters who lived near Me,one took ill and the house was sold to pay the costs whilst the other Sister was given a council house in a pretty bad area
Billy

Steve Norman = descended from 1840's Irish potato famine immigrants,

BTW in Europe, its my understanding that the citizens pay less than 30% tax for all this "socialism",


Edit: Rest deleted cause the IRS can )*&*^&%

Hi Steve. We're probably related then.

30% tax! I wish! The top rate of tax here is 42%. On top of this there are all sorts of "stealth taxes". The government taxes everything it can with all sorts of sneaky levies and duties. These welfare states are expensive things to run....

Anyway old steelies never die. They just.. <insert>...

Billy

That hypothetical case confuses me. There may be circumstances in which they'd have a claim on one's property, but I've never heard of it. The actual health care, though (day to day maintenance) is effectively available to all, rich or poor. The rich will sometimes opt for private health care (private rooms, etc, but the same doctors or surgeons, many of whom work under both systems) but that's welcomed as it lessens the load on the National Health network.

Paul:

Having been a working musician all my life I never found that the 'highest rate of tax' was ever an issue ( ). As a pro I had quite generous allowances (as I do here in the USA) or 'deductibles', so it's hard to evaluate my actual rate of taxation in the UK. Once I had a net figure, I believe I paid about 28% of my profits.

I'd happily pay a little extra tax each year in the US for unlimited healthcare!

Roger Rettig wrote:...I'd happily pay a little extra tax each year in the US for unlimited healthcare!

So would most people, but, in all reality, you wouldn't have to. All the programs currently being debated centre around the insurance companies, who intend to continue to make a lot of excess profit out of the people. Without insurance companies bleeding the system dry the cost of health care would actually drop.

That scenario of one losing one's savings to go into a retirement home may happen occasionally in Britain: it happens most of the time under the US system. My mother ended up in a convalescent home, and none of her savings were touched. But she was only transferred to a convalescent home after several years in a purpose-built high-rise apartment building, designed for the aged, with a full-time attendant who could be called on, and alarm pull-cords in every room, which activated an intercom to the attendant in the case of an emergency, and which also lit up emergency lights in the Social Services Department. All that was provided at a minimal rent, based on her income. Since all she had at that time was her widow's pension and her social security, her rent was minimal.

Closed because of extreme topic drift.