Welcome to Gaia! ::

The funny thing is that we mostly just talk about life in here. We haven't talked about anime in a long time. So I guess that anything that we're thinking about or interested in is fair game for discussion. 3nodding

Yeah, there's a little debt since I just bought a car, but I still have enough left over to save since I'm still at home.

And yeah I can always go back. Mind you once you move out it's harder since you never have the time. And it's hard to go without being paid, especially if I move out. But I wouldn't bother with university anyway. I've never really been interested in any of the professions it offers; I can't just sit at a desk all day.
I like working in the trades because it's all hands on stuff and every day presents you with something different. And contrary to popular belief, you can make excellent money in the trades. You don't make anything as labor, but you have to be a moron to work your life as labor. Maybe some guys don't make much money, but it always depends on how their paid too. Peace-work you can stand to either make tons or nothing. If you're good and fast at what you do, you'll make lots. If you suck, you'll make nothing.
It's all hard work, but if you don't mind getting dirty (which I don't) it's great.

Edit: Granted I'll probably never make it to say 70k+ (who knows maybe) unless I get a ton of bee hives and really expand out or just find another job somewhere else. But $20/hr is 41k/year, and I don't know about most places in the States, but where I live that's not bad. The average two person income here is 60k. So 40k is enough to live comfortably on my own in a bachelor pad, and with any luck I won't stay single the rest of my life and I can add a spouse's income to the mix (I'll get a sugar momma xD). And like I say, things where I work are ever changing with plenty of variables. Since my boss's just started bee keeping about 5-6 years ago and they would like to expand quite a bit there's lots of stuff to do, and lots of stuff we can do. So that $20 in three years could change to $25 in five years or something. Who knows.

I get stung often enough. It depends on the hive and the weather conditions and if we're pulling honey...etc. I probably get stung about once a day. One time I got stung about 12 times (at least) on my ankles. Sometimes it hurts a lot, sometimes not at all. Depends on where and how good they get you.


And I'm pretty sure Shin's American too. I haven't really heard a whole lot about the new health care reform for you guys. From what I understand Obama's making it mandatory for all Americans to have health insurance? And he's offering tax credits for smaller businesses in order for them to afford to give their employees health insurance. I'm not sure what he's doing for individual citizens who still can't get health insurance (if that will even be the case).

I really don't know. You're probably right. I heard some talk about making it easier, and some talk about it being mandatory or somewhat mandatory or something, I don't know. I should take the time soon to listen to the whole speech and see what it's all about.

As far as that whole "socialist" bit goes though, it's just getting stupid. Well, it's not getting stupid, it's always been stupid. His whole campaign was run on a lot of the things he's still trying to put in place (health care being one of them), and guess what? He was voted into office. That means the majority of Americans wanted Obama to be president. Now is that because he's black or is that because of his policies? I really hope it's because of his policies, otherwise I fear for your country. Now if it was his policies that means people agree with them and they would like to see them implemented. So don't change your tune as soon as a bunch of blow hard republicans start shouting nonsense. When the election happened all you ever heard in the media was support for Obama. And the second he was voted in the media turned on him like a pack of rabid wolves. Treating it like all of the s**t Bush left him with was his fault.
The fact of the matter is that economically your country is ********. Obama's trying to put in place policies that will help regulate businesses and personal spending so that the banks don't steal your money again and so you don't get turned away from the hospital or forced to pay ludicrous amounts of money when you have no insurance.
The republicans are just pissed that they were voted out of office, and they seem to have a pretty good stranglehold on most of the media, so Obama gets to take a lot of s**t. What I don't understand is how after Bush, they even thought they had a chance in the last election.
The fact of the matter is that your country needs to change. And Obama wants to try new things to change the country. Does this mean governments going to be getting involved a little more? Yes. And for good reason. The government policies were so slack before, and that's part of the reason the recession started. Does this mean that the governments taking over everything? No. You're still going to have a capitalist society and everything will be business as usual. When it comes down to health care, just look at other countries with health care: Canada, Britain, France, Germany...etc. all democratic capitalist countries, and all of them have universal health care of some form.
Americans need to calm down and stop listening to the republicans. I'm sure the biggest reason republicans hate the universal health care plans is because most of them are probably being backed by health insurance companies. Why give up millions of dollars in your pocket and towards your campaign when you could just say it's a bad idea?

Like I said though, I've paid some attention, but not as much as I should have. So I could just be talking out of my a** right now.

That's the problem with American news. It's less about reporting facts and more about shouting the most popular opinion. It's all about ratings.
They have some kinds of scare tactics and whatnot here too, but I think there's really only like three stations with news teams. Global, CTV and CBC. There's probably a few more in the bigger cities like Ottawa and Toronto where stuff like that can compete. But where I live we have the three stations that report over the entire province, not just my city.

I remember as soon as Obama was voted in, he hadn't even had his inauguration yet, and the media was all over him for things he hadn't done and all the problems the country was facing and a whole bunch of other crap. Things that were never mentioned by the media, or if they were they were barely touched on, while Bush was in office, all of a sudden it became "Obama's voted in! All this stuff is his fault! He brought it with him!" And like you said, people are getting mad because he hasn't fixed problems that took eight years to create, overnight.

As far as health care goes, I absolutely love our system...to a degree. Unless I'm minutes away from dying I do not want to go to the hospital. Partly because I don't really like doctors and medicine and all that jazz. And partly because for anything shy of death, it's probably going to take a minimum of 4 hours to see anyone.
That said, if I am about to die (because even if I had health insurance in the States I still wouldn't go to the hospital short of death), I don't want to have to worry about being turned away because I don't have health insurance. Or worrying about whether or not my insurance covers this. And if I don't have health insurance are they going to turn me away if I can't afford the 25k surgery they need to perform so I can lead a normal life? Even if I can afford it, do I want to live in squalor for the next several years just so I can feel 100%? I'm sure even in America the average two person income is probably about 60k/year. And even if both you and your spouse make 40-60k each to get 80-120k/year, how do you afford insurance when you have kids, a mortgage, car payments, and other expenses to worry about?
Granted I end up paying for my health care through taxes and whatnot. And I have no doubt in my mind that my government spends millions of dollars and completely useless crap every year, and that the system could be overseen FAR more efficiently possibly by an outside contractor (kind of a union of government and health insurance like in European countries) or something else. But I would still much rather have the peace of mind when I go to the hospital that I'm not going to leave with a bill of $250 just for a walking through the door.

But as far as what Obama's doing I can't really say. Shin probably knows the most about it.

I see about the anime. I only watch two currently: FMA Brotherhood and Bakemonogatari (irregular) so if you happen to watch those, we can talk. I also started reading some random shojo manga (Kyou Koi wo Hajimemasu and Boku no Hatsukoi wo Kimi ni Sasagu) so if you happen to read those, we can discuss those.

As Skippy says, I am American. I've been following the healthcare debate since it will directly affect my profession and I have to say that this plan is far from the best but something had to be done.

Yes, by 2014, all citizens must enroll in some insurance plan or be fined 750 (or 650, depending if the additions are approved) USD a year or 2% of their gross income, whichever is lower. However, there will be plenty of exceptions and subsidies, not to mention small businesses will likely offer more plans.

The goal is to reduce costs. I am looking into specializing in Emergency medicine, where the core of the problems with the American healthcare system lie. It's an endless void of costs in that the ER must see everyone and anyone. In order to shunt people to primary care, insurance is mandated and costs can be better controlled there, which is how most countries that still have insurance do it (Germany, Japan, etc.).

I think we've got a long way to go, but it's a start.

EDIT - Yeah, about that ambulance bill: this is exactly the part of the problem. They need to recoup the losses from 'charity' cases that plague most urban ERs. So, when someone like you who could probably handle the cost, they'll charge as high as they can. Hopefully, this will change in the future. That's the plan anyhow...

EDIT 2 - Skippy, I never asked, but how's the progress on your old account? I see it still exists.

I guess I've been lucky so far. I hope that my account never gets hacked. I'm hoping that I will be safe just hanging out in the guilds.

@Shin - I haven't read or watched any of those, but I'll look up the shoujo mangas. I've kind of been on a shoujo kick for a few months now. Btw, since you said that the health care thing directly affects you, I was wondering what kind of job you have.