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Lost my joy of life

3K views 40 replies 25 participants last post by  Merrilee 
#1 ·
When my husband lost his job 3 years ago he had a good job and made good money. He makes half what he used to. While I am thankful for him having a job and health insurance.He hates the job.I love my job but I work more than I want and we are paycheck to paycheck.I am Pworking to get us out of debt but I have to admit since he lost his job we both have lost our zest for life.I am grateful for the people in my life and I am not a materialistic person by nature but the stress has eaten me up and while I adore my husband and our marriage is very stable.I am just burned out on life and have been for the last 3 years.Anyone ever felt like this? What did you do ti make it better? Please don't tell me about small treats with $ cause that is no longer working.I am also not clinically depressed just bummed.Does that make sense?
 
#27 ·
I echo the others who recommended prayer; Bible reading & exercise music & turning off negative influences. Glad you have a stable marriage & family support. It's hard to go thru doldrums or worse without a good support. Live each day as a special gift given just to you! Enjoy life it's a blessing.
 
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#28 ·
This is a question about American insurance. I am in Australia and if you want insurance you pay for it (if you don't want to pay for it you have to depend on the public system that has a very long waiting list for elective surgery). You also have to pay for dentists and specialists unless you are on low income and qualify for the government system (or you have insurance). It doesn't have anything to do with your job. The cost varies, but one example is $80 per month that covers everything. Can't an American choose any job and then pay for their own insurance too?
Can Americans pay for their own insurance? Yes and no.

#1 - Only the premiums paid through a business or employer are tax deductible or paid for with pre-tax dollars. If I, as an individual, go out and try to buy a medical insurance policy, I can't deduct the premiums from my taxes.

#2 - Individual policies are extremely rare because most people either go without, get government assistance, or get insurance through their employer.

#3 - Individual policies are very, very expensive and don't cover much. Better policies are available to employers who have more than 10 employees - known as group plans. The larger the "group" the better deal the employer can negotiate for the insurance. Some government laws require group insurance have certain benefits but those requirements aren't on individual plans.

#4 - If you get insurance through your employer, they may pass on the cost of the premium to you or they might cover part of the cost of the premium as a part of your salary. So a monthly premium that would normally cost $500 a month, may only cost the employee $300 a month with the employer paying the $200. Or some employers pay for the entire premium! It is a job benefit.

Supposedly, with the new healthcare law, more individual policies will become available and people can go to a website to search for and compare policies. However, they didn't fix many of the problems in the system - namely the tax deductible status of individual policies, the cost and the coverage.

How much can individual policies cost? One policy for one person can be anywhere from $300 a month to over $1000 (yes, a month!) And that is one person. If you are a family, your health insurance premiums can be more than an expensive mortgage payment. Many people can't afford that.
 
#30 ·
I think we all get this way from time to time. I say and have said for the last 4 years now "everything lost it's sparkle". I am not sad or depressed. I just kinda feel like been there, done that. I think in my case it may be I rolled past 50.
I read a "happy thought" and "bible verse" app every morning and it put things in perspective most days.
 
#31 ·
This is unbeliebable to me. Inhere we have a basic coverage which is free to the gov. You need to assign to an agency, but all people who are not homeless/made a really incredible mess off their paper work have it. Cost is for one person 76 euro, for one year. This will keep you a deductible for about anything, but it is quite affordable. This system is paid with a percentage that they take out of wages: 13,07% of wages, weather it is low or high. The extras are paid with government money (aka taxes). And it is possible to get an individual policy for about 200 euro a year (and its the same for people closer to retirement age, but you have to sign in before you get 66). Why are medical costs that high in the USA? Is it just the doctors that charge that much?
 
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#32 ·
Because of free enterprise. The government does not set amounts to be paid for medical care except thru government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Some doctors refuse to take on Medicare or Medicaid patients so that is a double edged sword. Blame for the high cost of medical is placed on the insurance industry by some experts. I have no clue as to the real reasons for high costs, but I personally think the resons are multiple and not simple. For instance, build a fancy medical facility then raise fees to cover the cost. I really cannot understand why a simple office call should cost $100. Medicine is big business run by corporations -- that is probably the underlying reason for high costs.
 
#34 ·
Why are medical bills so high? Because of our tax system - and Obamacare did NOTHING to fix that.

It is quite simple, medical providers gets to deduct from their taxes the difference between what they charge and what the patient actually pays. NO OTHER BUSINESS GETS THIS DEDUCTION!

Let me give an example. Let's say you sell hot dogs. Each hot dog sells for $6 (they're really good hot dogs!) Someone comes along and says, "I want a discount. I'll pay you $4 a hot dog and buy 20 of them." You think, "Cool, I sell only 20 hot dogs a day. In one sale I can make my day and either go home early or continue to sell hot dogs and earn more money. Since each hot dog in a bun only costs me $1, I'm still making a profit." So you sell your 20 hot dogs at the discounted price of $4 each then you pay taxes on your profit (which is $4 minus $1 or $3 each hot dog.) You, as a hot dog sales person, can not DEDUCT $2 per hot dog because you gave the customer a discount ($6 minus $2 = $4 customer's price)! You can't tell the tax-man that you have a "loss" of $2 a hot dog just because you reduced your price. You can't lower the taxes you pay because you deducted the $2 discount from your profits.

Makes sense, right?

Well, your doctor and your hospital CAN take that tax deduction.

Your doctor charges you $100 for a 10-minute office visit. In reality, considering his/her time, the cost of staff, equipment, insurance, office space and repaying all those student loans (which, if he or she works it right will be erased through government programs), the office visit should really cost about $35. Considering that a doctor will see at least 5 patients an hour (often more), $35/hr is equivalent to about half a million a year in gross revenues (but then again, they DO have a lot of costs they have to pay out of that.)

So the office submits the $100 bill to your insurance. The insurance company reviews it and says, "No, doctor we agreed you'd only charge $35 for that office visit." Wink, wink (because the insurance companies are in on this deal, too.) "You have to write off $65 from your bill. We'll pay 80% of that and our customer will pay the rest." So the insurance company send the doctor a check for $28 and you get a bill for $7 which you get around to paying two or three months later.

Poor doctor, he is out $65! It isn't fair! (Or is it?)

The doctor goes to the tax accountant who gathers up all those "write offs" and deducts that $65 - plus all the other write offs that the insurance company told him/her to take - from the millions of dollars of gross revenue the doctor made that year (plus deducts the cost of staff, depreciation on equipment, operating costs and supplies, and a bunch of other stuff.) You have to admit, that is a pretty little write off. Actually, it is one of the biggest write-offs a doctor gets.

The hospitals do exactly the same thing. That's one of the reasons why one aspirin tablet costs $6. Oh and yes, pharmacies do it. And drug manufacturers do it. Lobbying is a beautiful thing.

What if you pay cash? Well, the doctor first says you have to pay your bill, in cash, before you leave the office. The doctor's office might even make you pay your bill before you see the doctor. Second, the doctor will give you approximately a 10% discount. And third, they'll make you feel like they are doing you a favor for seeing you even though you don't have insurance.

Why? Because no insurance means no negotiated "write off". They can't deduct the $10 discount they gave you from their taxes. Instead, they get to use $90 to go out to a restaurant you and I can't afford.

So the question that pops into everyone's mind is, "If they can charge $100 for a $35 appointment, what is stopping them from charging $200?!?!?!" Answer: Very little. They DO, however, have to justify the over-head expenses associated with the $100 fee but the justification is very loose. It does account for why every doctor's office happily pays a contractor to maintain the fish tank in their waiting room and why their offices are so beautifully decorated - more expenses associated with their "over head", the more they can justify charging more for their services.

It is a vicious circle. And very few doctors or hospitals will admit it because doing so could ruin a good thing.
 
#36 ·
Thank you all for the replies.They arehelping more than you know! CTG said it best "everything lost its sparkle".But I am slowly working on some things to feel better.I am changing the diet of my family to healthier food, exercising more, ect. I have also found out that in 8 years just by saving $50 a week we could be debt free including the mortgage! So that gives me some hope that even small things might make a difference. I am also working some spiritual changes too.I am trying to attend church most Sundays.Another issue I am going through right now is that my baby will be going to kindy in the fall and my husband doesn't want anymore.I have been so consumed with mommyhood for the last 7 years that I am trying to find what to do with myself now that the kids don't need me every minute.
 
#37 ·
I once read of a couple that went through a difficult period (I believe it lasted about a year) and cheered each other up by telling each other every evening one fun thing that happened or that they saw that day.

Good luck!
 
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#38 ·
The cost of malpractice insurance is staggering for anyone in the medical field. Back around 2000-2002 my wife worked in an office with 3 general surgeons. They made great money ($275k-350k) but their malpractice insurance was around $750,000 for the three of them...not much less than their salary. Then add on building, staff costs, etc...there is a reason why getting anything done costs so much.

And, yes, there is a lot of waste in the system. My wife did medical billing for a physical therapy group (i.e. did all of it) and she said that Medicare was a nightmare to work with; in general she had good luck, but if you did anything wrong or even had a number slightly out of a box the claim would be rejected.

Another funny rule...Medicare technically required 1 on 1 treatment between the PT and the patient. If anyone knows anything about PT is that for PT's to make any money they must be treating 3-10 patients simultaneously; that's why there are techs to oversee some of the exercises and PTAs to assist with some of the hands on. Technically speaking there could have only been one person at the clinic at a time under Medicare. Any PT that billed exactly to Medicare's rules wouldn't have been in business more than a week.
 
#39 ·
Your children won't need you less now that they are all in school, they will just need you in different ways. Each stage of childhood needs connection parenting and I personally think teenagers need their parents guidance/protection more than any time other than toddlers. Even adult children still need occasional guidance from their parents.
 
#40 ·
I agree with this so much. I am just as busy being a SAHM with a child in school as I was when she was a toddler. Thankfully, now I just get an occasional break. My biggest problem is that we moved to a completely different part of the state where we don't know people. We haven't developed any close friendships yet (people who have lived here 20 years are still considered "new comers") and with a tight budget there is only so much exploring I can do or classes / activities I can participate in.
 
#41 ·
My heart goes out to you, same thing going on here. Kids are grown & gone & we are in our mid 50's, but the economy really hurt our self-employed (electrician) business, plus my husband's health is not that great, though he keeps plugging away. We got into financial trouble, the bank spared us but now, with little income each month, we also have to pay a bank loan payment for our PAST purchases. And we can do absolutely nothing for fun, just no money to do it. Even our dog passed away, a reason to get up in the morning. We do have 2 cats still (one of my furbabies is Annie also) but dogs require so much more to-do and also t hey smile a lot more if you know what I mean....I knkow I'm depressed, every day it's just the same stuff over & over, & hoping to pay the bills one more month. In my case I don't think it will change as others have said "this will pass" I thought that in my 30's but not anymore-this is it & i say & try to be grateful that we still have our house, heat, food....but it' sreally hard, I know. So much has change, I just hate change. I feel like this is a different life & we never had that "other" life. I'm also ashamed all the money I wasted back in the day when business was booming.:shrug2:
 
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