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US Government Shutdown Ends
An anonymous reader writes "After more than two weeks of bickering that made the schoolyard appear civilized, Congress has finally passed a bill to reopen the U.S. Federal Government. 'The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 81 - 18, followed by approval in the House by a vote of 285 - 144. The bill now goes to the President, who will make remarks on Thursday regarding the reopening of the federal government. ... Earlier in the day, Speaker Boehner conceded that the House would not vote to stop the Senate-negotiated agreement. In a statement, the Speaker said that, after a fight with President Obama over his signature health care law, " . . . blocking the bipartisan agreement reached today by the members of the Senate will not be a tactic for us." The agreement will raise the debt limit until February 2014, fund the government through January 2014 and establish a joint House-Senate committee to make spending cut decisions.' CNN adds, 'Obama, for one, didn't seem in the mood Wednesday night for more of the same -- saying politicians in Washington have to "get out of the habit of governing by crisis." "Hopefully, next time, it will not be in the 11th hour," Obama told reporters, calling for both parties to work together on a budget, immigration reform and other issues. When asked as he left the podium whether he believed America would be going through all this political turmoil again in a few months, the President didn't waste words. "No."'"
Part of does wonder, though, whether this makes the ACA a "done deal" even though it is nowhere near as desirable as a single payer system.
blog
I didn't think the Democrats were capable of not caving in.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They all need to go. Vote out the incumbents in 2014.
Proving once again that, once all other options are eliminated, the Americans will do the right thing
Take that! Better hurry.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Given pro is the opposite of con,
What is the opposite of progress?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Title for a book describing all of this:
Politics in America
Democracy Inaction
It might sound a bit silly, but their toying with the idea of paying bills or not is just slightly less crazy than early Manhattan Project scientists doing an experiment called "Tickling the Dragons Tail" which really was a nuclear weapon criticality test. One little mistake, and suddenly you and everyone within ten miles of you are all dead, and no one will be able to identify you later. And that only depends on how much other material is within proximity of your experiment. The hole could be 100 miles (or more) across. The path of no return for the economy is the adoption of another currency as the world benchmark instead of the US dollar. Suddenly the ability to print money to pay bills is gone, and the US is in a huge amount of trouble that talk and speeches won't fix.
Maybe a more accurate headline is "US Government Shutdown on temporary hiatus"? It's only a few months funding, and there's no guarantee we won't go through the entire thing again come January 15th...
The bill passed the House, but 144 votes were cast against it -- more than 1/3 of those voting! One can only guess at the careful thought that went into casting those votes. Do these people actually believe that funding "Obamacare" for a few months is worse than letting the federal government default on its loans? There is no acceptable answer to this question. If the answer is "yes," well -- yikes. If the answer is "no," and this is just shameless pandering to the extreme right faction of the GOP/"Tea Party", then -- yikes.
Cames out of the water, makes a mummery, and then goes to the bottom again...
They should just give up and shut it down. It's what the Republicans (or at least 144 of them) want.
They shouldn't go for this partial shutdown except essential services. Shut it all down.
People in seek order in chaos. Call it an era, and let it go. We'll rebuild something better in it's place. Rebuilding will let us get rid of waste and inefficiency that has existed for an awful long time.
Then again, the current politicians wouldn't have a place in a new system. They aren't really willing to give up power, and perks through questionable dealings.
Historically, every civilization has come and gone. What we see today are just the ones that happen to still exist. In time, they will fall, and new ones will rise. It's just the way things work.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The federal government is still spending far more than it's taking in, and seems to have little to show for it.
We're not even borrowing the money any more; the Federal Reserve just changes a number in a computer to create more money, then lends it to the U.S. government at near-zero interest.
This is a shell game of the highest magnitude, and all historical precedents point to this ending badly.
Federal spending has to be brought under control. It appears there's no will in our so-called leaders to do so. A shutdown and default, despite the chaos it would lead to, would have stopped the out-of-control spending. I would like to think there's another way to get federal spending under control, but I'm not that gullible.
This was a chance to stop the hemorrhaging. This chance is gone. The problem will only get worse.
And if you think there's something special about the United States that'll keep it from collapsing like so many other empires in history...I hope you're right. But I'm still constructing my compound on raw land in the middle of nowhere.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Why exactly is providing healthcare to all people so bad?
Is it because it bypasses the private actors? Does it increase costs to the employer?
I mean I find it hard to understand how such an issue can become so passionate as to take a whole nation to the edge of death.
When asked as he left the podium whether he believed America would be going through all this political turmoil again in a few months, the President didn't waste words. "No."'"
. . . still naive.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
postpone the inevitable... Come January it will all have to happen again. Nothing has been fixed, US still has a spending problem.
And nothing of value was lost. Or gained.
Nothing was lost? All the work that the government workers could have been doing during the shutdown was lost. All the revenue from the National Parks were lost. Two weeks food inspections, drug inspections, VA claims processing were lost . Worldwide confidence in the US and the US dollar was lost. US credit rating was compromised with the possibility of higher interest rates on new deficit. Scientific tests will have to be thrown out and restarted.
You might not be personally affected, but plenty of money and confidence has been lost during the past three weeks.
~~
But just watch as election time rolls around. Everyone will have forgotten about this mess, likely focusing on some new manufactured crisis. And even then it will still be a choice between Kang and Kodos.
You know, if you or I threatened to shut down the government we would instantly be thrown in Guantanamo or gunned down by capitol police. But somehow these terrorists that occupy the White House can get away with this nonsense and even expect us to praise them for coming to an "agreement" at the last minute?
Even more proof that the US needs to do away with the current party system.
The US originally was a non-partisan democracy and that may have always been the intention.
On the titanic. Good thing we can have a good old partisan shit slinging festival while we ignore the fact that economic fundamentals have been thrown out the window. Surely this will end well. It's a new paradigm! We can borrow and print forever. Merely questioning otherwise is treason.
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No, goverment spending is not out of control. The deficit was basically already taking care of itself since the economy has been getting better.
Government spending actually needs to be higher rather than lower right now. The government can borrow at negative real interest rates, and inflation is near zero. Under those conditions, we should buy nice things for our children (things like transportation improvements)
President Obama, 'It wasnt me'...
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back. Its a miracle we survived this long without them. That should at least end the little temper tantrum the administration threw when it allowed monuments to be blockaded off to try and make the shutdown visible and inconvenient for the citizenry. See you again in early 2014 when we hit the $18 trillion debt mark and do it all over again! Hopefully by then I'll have finished divesting all my dollar denominated assets into durable goods and commodities.
About time for some fiscal sanity, I say.
Why couldn't it have lasted longer?!!
Nothing was lost? All the work that the government workers could have been doing during the shutdown was lost.
You mean all that work that was so important that it was deemed non-essential?
All the revenue from the National Parks were lost.
Which amounts to what, maybe a grand total of a couple million, nationwide? Maybe? The federal government burns through that in seconds.
Two weeks food inspections, drug inspections, VA claims processing were lost.
And yet safe food and drugs were still being produced, shipped, and sold. The lost value-add was... umm...? And a few VA claims are paid out to drug companies and the like about two weeks late -- yawn.
Worldwide confidence in the US and the US dollar was lost. US credit rating was compromised with the possibility of higher interest rates on new deficit.
Wake me up when people stop loaning the U.S. federal government money, charge it higher rates, or stop keeping their wealth in dollars. If anything those first two effects can't come soon enough, to put the brakes on the spending spree that's selling out of every taxpayer, particularly the younger ones who will labor under the burden of paying that debt for most of their life. I say throw the retiring Baby Boomers to the wolves -- they spent their trust fund on federal baubles for decades, and now it's time to pay the piper. That fable about the ant and the grasshopper has more than a little merit.
Scientific tests will have to be thrown out and restarted.
So this was all a job creation program for scientists, you're saying? After all, they can look forward to redoing all that work. Sounds just about as effective as the previous economic stimuli to me!
Cyrano de Maniac
At the end of the day here's the bottom line: 144 congressmen all GOP voted to default the government. 14 senators, all Republican, including Ron Paul, voted No, and one abstained, effectively voting to default the government.
I'm so done with Ron Paul. I wish he would resign. I feel ill that I ever voted for the man.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Apparently, Standard & Poors has estimate it cost the economy $24B.
Continous surveillance of her citizens must continue
And nothing of value was lost. Or gained.
Approximately $24 billion was lost.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The problem is that "healthcare" in the USA is an insurance system with a tiny trickle down to the medical service providers. While it remains an entrenched insurance system instead of what the veterans have (nobody dares to call them socialist!) all that can be done is a removing some of the injustice in that insurance system.
There's far too much opportunity for bribery, sorry I meant "lobbying", to get rid of such an enormous industry of parasites and provide the sort of system based on medical instead of financial outcomes that returned soldiers get at far less expense to the state than if it had been funnelled through insurance providers like other employers have to.
"Conservatives" are always going on about how a minimum wage raises the cost of doing business - well why don't they start suggesting getting rid of the middleman and go after those insurance companies that are increasing the price of employment far more? Are their ideals far less important than that lobby money?
What the shutdown proved, is that the Federal government is redundant. The state governments are what matters.
This is a terrible response to the GP. The government funding doesn't come out of one big bank account. The "small" amount of money as you put it in all these non-essential divisions are going to cut a big impact in their operations.
Don't forget the 300B$ in extra credit charges that will now be piled on to the existing, unpayable, pile.
Pass legislation that caps healthcare supply costs at the lowest of these following lands: (Canada, Norway, Sweden, ... (choose non-insane healthcare cost structure)). I heard a crazy rumor that rubber gloves aren't made of magical faerie-dust and they actually cost less than a cheeseburger. They cost way less in Canada than in the U.S. Why is that? Hmm.
captcha: Dynasty
Once and for all!
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Maybe we should bill them.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If he were true to his mindset then why did he run crying to the UN to get them to take someone else's property off them and give it to him?
Remember: he pays more dollars into the government than you do, so he's only closing down something he doesn't use (except to pay him a huge compenation package) so he can save a buck.
In the UK you don't need an insurance plan. Even if you are unemployed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One positive development is the possibility of the Republicans developing a split between normal conservatives, and the unelectable raving loonies.
"shutdown ends" but "reboots".
If the US Government was shut down for longer than a month, it would revert, so the US law states, to the previous rulers... ie. the English. David Cameron was said to be both happy, that the US Government had gone to work, and sad, because he had desired the White House for himself. Supporters of the Prime Minster are relieved however because the PM would have to manage Second US Civil War. In other news, civil servants are shelving plans to rename the land that HM Queen governed, becuase of US Government going back to work. The last time America was governed by the British was when the title was "Great Britian and the Colonies". This apparently is not PC anymore, so the popular vote is "Greater Britain". :-)
Mr. Gideon Gono surely earnt his IgNobel prize.. But what I once heard from people was that an even larger problem than inflation and Mugabe was that of the "war vets": spent their best years fighting for their country, armed to the teeth, probably many with PTSD, and now for the rest of their lives living off their communities as little kings OR ELSE. Let's hope the USA can continue to finance the DoD budget for war vets' pensions the rest of their lives, OR ELSE?. Mugabe may be an evil dictator, but who knows the other Zanu-PF party people may be even worse.
Its like we used all our storage except for 1KB, so we plugged in a new usb drive at the last minute. Our government program needs to be more efficient and we need more capacity. Given a choice, I'd start with the tax code - its a big bowl of spaghetti.
Greed is the root of all evil.
"small humanoid creatures who inhabit large houses belonging to wealthy Wizarding families" ---well done.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It is interesting that a good amount of you here think Obamacare and ACA are two different ACTS. They are not folks, they are the same thing.
youtube.com/watch?v=sx2scvIFGjE
Well then besides blaming the Republicans you should also blame Obama, because most of what he ordered to stop would actually make money (but never the military). He is as much to blame as the ones that blocked the spending increase.
Ok, I know 24E9 USD isn't a lot to some people, but it's not nothing.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
And nothing of value was lost. Or gained.
In addition to the lost productivity, increased uncertainty, 3 points off GDP growth (estimate by Macroeconomic Advisers), there's also the plain old bill of $24 billion in shutdown and startup cost.
In Slashdot money, that would have built about 4 Large Hadron Colliders including fully funding the experiments; or about 1.5 ITERs.
If you are in one of these states you should really be raising hell to get these people out of office. They are bought and paid for 1% shills.
Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX),
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX),
Mike Lee (R-UT),
Rand Paul (R-KY),
Mike Enzi (R-WY),
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Marco Rubio (R-FL).
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
which is approximately 45 Solyndra scandals
Which is about half of what all the draconian cuts in the sequester have saved.
The Democrats haven't threatened to default on the Government debt and trash the US's credit and blow up the world economy in order to repeal a bill they don't have the votes to repeal--all while illegitametly holding a majority in the House due to the fact that they gerrymandered districts.
The Republicans got less votes in the last House elections but have the majority SOLELY because they abused their power in past years to re-draw districts lines (gerrymandering) to their benefit.
Essentially, the Republicans want to impose their will via any means at all, fair or foul.
Not that I approve of the Democrats, I think we need to turn over ALL of Congress, but I also recognize that there are levels of bad and the Republicans have demonstrated their complete unfitness to govern.
--PM
You seem to be under the misapprehension that "non-essential" means 'surplus' or 'extra' or 'not needed'
"essential employee' is defined by statute (i.e. a law passed by congress) and is typically used when closing offices for events like Hurricane Katrina. "non-essential" employees are sent home or told not to come in.
You are most likely considered a "non-essential" employee by your own employer.
"Essential employees" typically have jobs related to safety or security. Non-essential do not.
If government shutdowns weren't political theater, then ALL employees would gone. The borders would be open, the airports would be closed, etc.
If the US Government was shut down for longer than a month, it would revert, so the US law states, to the previous rulers... ie. the English.
There's the reference.... it says right here on the Internet!
Too bad the shutdown didn't continue. All hail king Obama . The constitution was no match for him and his socialist Marxist rabble .
You mean all that work that was so important that it was deemed non-essential?
Non-essential isn't the same as zero.
Even Breathing isn't essential for a couple minutes.
And yet safe food and drugs were still being produced, shipped, and sold.
Not all safe (salmonella),and that's just 1 example we found now,its too early to tell with the rest as they are still in the supply chain.
So this was all a job creation program for scientists, you're saying? After all, they can look forward to redoing all that work. Sounds just about as effective as the previous economic stimuli to me!
So now you want the government to spend/waste extra money? I thought you wanted to put the breaks on spending.
Awesome, I have to stop my paid vacation and go back into work. All of this so that we can go through this AGAIN at the beginning of next year AGAIN... So the problem is still there, we just kicked the can down the road 3 months.... ASININE!!! Well at least Obama tells me that this is the RIGHT thing to do.
I think the problem we are facing is a lack of good leadership.
My thoughts exactly, If only Boehner had shown some leadership in reigning in the teabagger faction of his party none of this would have happened.
I am surprised that anyone, including the Tea Party members themselves, believed that the Federal Government would negotiate with terrorists.
Don't feed the tea bagger trolls. There is no logic allowed on bullshit Mt.
We use taxes to fund our universal healthcare system. And the air ambulance that would come get him if required.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Finaly, the U.S. achieved what EVERY OTHER country is capable of doing. Passing a budget.
Debt... the cause-of and solution-to all our problems!
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Yeah. All that time those poor, overworked, immune from firing government workers could have been playing solitaire on our time was lost. I have pictures of this if you don't believe they do.
I, for one, am tired of their entitled sense of "I'm immune to layoffs, furloughs, forced vacations, unlike you poor private sector slobs". If you take a job, you accept the risks that come with that job. If you think the peons shouldn't be penalized for what those in charge do, you need to get your head unstuck from that dark place where it is because that's how things work in the real world.
I'm tired of them not returning calls, deliberately printing incorrect information on forms, and outright lying to us,their bosses (note: not customers. We're not the customers of these slobs, we're their boss. We write their paychecks with our taxes.)
By people who want to spend, but don't want to admit to spending? Something that would have otherwise required a tax increase?
when they come back, test em all.
would be a hoot.
Is more debt and spending. How can anyone not see this as truth?
Pepperidge Farm remembers. And Pepperidge Farm ain't just gonna keep it to Pepperidge Farm's self free of charge.
now i can visit the Smithsonian Museums, the National Zoo and Shenandoah National Park. I want to see the colorful leaves on the Blue Ridge mountains.
The speaker of the house is unable to find a bill he believes he can bring to a vote...but the Senate can draft one that passes 285-144. In what sense is he a leader?
rant.
Life expectancy vs. % of GDP spent on health care.
Life expectancy vs. Government share of total health spending.
Tell me again why government funded health care is a bad idea? We get less for our health care than every other developed nation and pay far, FAR more than anyone else does. We are clearly doing something wrong. Maybe we ought to take a look at what works for a change instead of getting our 'facts' from Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.
I lived under the US government Single Payer System back in the '70's and 80's. The care provided was bad and not due to the personnel, but due to the system. Appointment scheduling was a nightmare with lots of wait time. For the most part the doctors and nurses didn't have a good bedside manner and were so uncaring that it actually hurt more when they went to draw blood give shots or take a pulse (because they grabbed the wrist that was broken when doing so). Basically 'they didn't sign up to take care of a bunch of brats, they signed up to be in the military and deal with adults'. Or they signed up for ROTC to pay for college and didn't expect to be assigned to such drudgery in a medical profession. So with Single Payer, medical professionals get less choice and more "assignments". I do not want a doctor or nurse with hard feelings towards their job treating me in that situation.
Next, I suffered a major trauma as a kid that required emergency surgery. Due to the single payer system, the local hospital had been converted to a clinic a decade or so before. Cost savings were great! The closest hospital was then 20 minutes away. Luckily the ambulance driver realized I would die or be severely affected for the rest of my life if I had to wait that long, so he drove to the closest private hospital. I am sure he was disciplined for such a decision that was supposedly out of his hands. So with Single Payer we get some faceless middle man making spreadsheet decisions on necessary lifesaving planning and measures. While they are great for the aggregate, they are bad for the individual. But that "is logical. The needs of the many outweigh... ...the needs of the few......Or the one." I would much rather live in world where each person matters.
While the UK has NHS, they also have private hospitals. So that looks to me like NHS was setup to care for all the children left parent-less thanks to WW2. WW2 is more than over and those kids (now adults getting ready to retire) that were severely affected by the war or not able to adjust still need help. But since this is all an anecdotal story and not in line with 'what everyone else experiences', 'it doesn't matter'. Which gets back to my point that Single Payer doesn't care about the individual except as it relates to the individual as an expense cost to the many.
Thank you for reading this far! :)
I suspect it will be massaged over the years to work out little wrinkles, with the end result being a single payer system.
I disagree, and its one of the reasons that I was so opposed to the ACA at it's time of passage. By establishing the front-lines of the healthcare debate so far in favor of the continued existence of private insurance companies (only regulated), it has insured that the battles will only be fought over how much further right it can be pulled until it collapses, with the Democrats forced to defend their position rather than reform it into something more usable.
The fight over Obamacare will dominate at least the next 10-20 years of politics until it's either pulled down or grudgingly accepted. That's an entire generation that won't receive public healthcare because Democrats were too weak to get a public option put in. Had the public option made it in as an alternative to private companies, we would give the American people a good taste of how a public healthcare system would work, and we might have made it to a single-payer system eventually.
But that was a disaster scenario from the GOP's perspective, so it couldn't happen. Instead, Americans will be faced with exclusively a crappy, expensive hybrid system that's more likely to sour people on public healthcare than to make them embrace it.
I predict that Obamacare will kill any hopes of true public healthcare for at least 50 years. Either it will get pulled down, or it will become so entrenched that even liberals are afraid to attack it (as we see today) for fear of losing the scraps they have. We'll have to wait until the predicted demographic shift kills the Republican Party before there's any hope of real healthcare reform.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
A few trillion in outstanding, non-real-estate-related consumer debt demonstrates that the American government already operates like an American family.
American families typically rely on debt to secure basics like, oh, housing and the transportation required to get them to their job. Only an extremely rich person thinks that "average" people sit around the kitchen table making tough choices about spending so they can remain in the black on an ongoing basis.
I don't think it means what you think it means.
Considering you are arguing that Obamacare is less propaganda than the Affordable Care Act. I would bet a random poll would show that more people in the US know what Obamacare is as opposed to the ACA. Heck I have seen it used so many times on TV that I barely knew what the hell the ACA was the same thing... The quote rightly or wrongly attributed to Gobbles regarding propaganda was that one of the most essential rules being to repeat, repeat, repeat (and Goodwin already).
Pretty much any law in any county proposed by any political group is going to be carefully named.
Not sure what you are arguing, that the intention of the Act is not honest, or what you think the net effect will be of the law not being "Affordable"? It could be debated who the target is, Affordable to the people, or to the government, or to society as a whole I suppose.
Knowing you have such things in the recent past as the "Patriot Act", it is hard to fathom being too critical of the naming of the ACA,
But hell even Canada has had some fun ones in recent history. I forget at present the two I was thinking of, but one I think was the one proposed countless times (and I think eventually passed) to "reform" copyright and IP to conform to US law and US corporate interests. There was also the one about internet spying that as I recall was named something about protecting children. Hell if they could get away with it every party would call their proposed laws "Kitten and Puppies Protection and the Think of the Children Act".
Which is really the messed up thing about politics.
Liberals are thought of as big government and increased spending while Conservatives are thought of as small government and less spending.
However look at historical budgets, the reverse is true.
What is even weirder is that it is true in Canada as well. Though I attribute much of that to be a policy of "do whatever the US does"...
Hey, here's a thought. You want to fix the deficit? OK, first step, repeal the Bush era tax cuts, all of them. Remember how we used to have this thing called a surplus, back before the insanity of supply side economics? You know, back in the previous Democratic administration? It pisses me off no end that the same Republicans who cry about fiscal responsibility are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place by drastically reducing revenue. Oh yeah, I remember it well, even if nobody else does. Cut taxes and revenues will actually go up, they said! The economy will soar! Well guess what, we tried it and it didn't work. So lets repeal all of that, make the rich pay their share again, as they did in the days of our greatness, and then, once we have a surplus again, then... Well, then maybe we can start thinking about creating a health care system that actually gives results worthy of an industrialized superpower rather than a third-world kleptocracy. But no, all these staunch fiscal conservatives would rather eat shit and die than do anything that even remotely hints at a tax increase, even if the so-called increase is just letting the Bush era handouts to the rich expire. I'm sorry, but it's basic economics, without a return to a more historically normal levels of taxation we will never achieve the very goals the Republicans say they are aiming for. When you take one whole side of the economic equation off the table, it should come as no surprise that you can't ever balance the books. Sorry to rant like this, but these people make me sick. Repeal the Bush tax cuts, then use the money to do something useful. End of story.
In how many countries would this be cause for the people to rise up and oust their government?
I don't know about accidents.
However from personal experience I had to have a tooth extracted due to absorption/resorption (Basically your body for some reason decides it is a foreign object, attacks it, and it starts dissolving inside/outside).
Options:
A) Dentures before 30 (I was 28 believe) for 800$
B) Bridge that would wreak two perfectly good neighboring teeth 2300$
C) Dental Implant which was +5000$
The extraction was 600$ I think (and that was with a local, and were I ever to do it again, I would gladly pay the 300$ extra for a general, it was horrible).
I did option C, because it was the only one that makes any sense whatsoever. I have a dental plan through work that covered 1400$.
I was out about 4000$ out of pocket. That's not teeth a little straighter. (Yes I had braces to the tune of 10,000, for 7 years when I was young).
I play hockey (full cage, not cool I know, but see above), and I have tons of friends that lost teeth to sticks, pucks, etc... type accidents.
None covered, all out of pocket, with whatever insurance they had.
Even had I taken A) the cheapest, I would still have to pay. My insurance through work would have covered that entirely... but still.
And glasses, well I am pretty blind. -12 basically. That's 500$ lenses before you even talk about frames. Try finding frames for less than 200$. Online, etc... many won't give you prescription, etc...
Anyway looking at both industries in Canada, they are both basically closed cartels, supported by insurance. Which is basically the whole system is in the US, so I can see why it is so broken, and why they need to get away from that. Pardon the pun, but the insurance and the various interested medical groups and associations will bleed you dry.
There was an interesting legal case in Canada where one optometrist tried get around the BS to provide affordable glasses (online i believe), the association basically had him thrown in jail where I believe he is today.
I bet years or decades from now, we will learn this was part of national security plan to save our economy. Think.... besides going to war how else could our government save money. Employees will probrobly cash in paid personal,sick,holiday, or overtime hours they have banked.
(sarcasm on) The Liz Warren's suggestion to lower student loan interest rates was really just a way to give kick backs to her buddies in academia without making it too obvious (sarcasm off) Yeah, I'm pretty jaded about everything every politician does.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
And thousands and thousands of us in the D.C. area won't be getting back pay for the two weeks of lost wages. Maybe you say "boo hoo, suck it up," but I'm really angry that half my income for the month has been destroyed in the name of a goal that was laughable on its face. Life is going to be difficult for quite some time as I try to repay the losses incurred at no fault of my own.