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Have you by chance had children and experienced the expense of childcare, education, and healthcare? It is incredibly expensive.

ryanSrich 10y ago
Public education in America is covered by taxes. If you're referring to college then that's on your kid. Parents have no obligation to pay for their child's college education. Healthcare costs in the US are always blown out of proportion. No one is paying $30k for surgery out of pocket unless they don't have insurance, which is now against the law anyway. At most, people are paying $1k per month for a large family, and that's only if your employer is cheap. If you're a middle class tech worker it's likely you pay very little for healthcare if anything at all.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  And you do realize people are choosing to pay the penalty instead of health insurance because they can't afford the premiums, correct? It isn't even against the law, you just get a flat tax for doing so. The problem isn't as much the surgeries, as some of them couldn't qualify without a way to pay. But can't afford prescriptions or to go to the doctor as they should.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  I find it interesting that you did not answer the question, but doubled down on speaking authoritatively about things you seem to not experience yourself. Childcare for pre-kindergarten aged children is incredibly expensive. If you have more than one child, it is even more so. Even with one, a parent is likely to spend several hundred dollars per month on childcare during work hours. Public education in a vast many school districts is not covered by taxes. There are school fees parents must pay at public schools. Then there are supply lists, where parents have to go out and buy supplies for their students and their classmates, all of which go to the teacher because the funding doesn't cover having adequate classroom supplies for instruction and activities. Then there are the actual supplies you fill a kid's backpack with. And even that doesn't cover all the needs, so every public school pushes fundraising activities onto the students (and their parents) throughout the year. Add on to that that work hours do not match up with school hours, so most parents add on additional daily childcare costs to have their children at school before school starts, and after it ends until they can leave work to pick up their child. As far as college is concerned, you're sounding definitively like a non-parent. Most kids aren't ready, no matter how much you try to prepare them, to wake up after high school graduation and tackle college funding on their own. And if you're looking out for your child's financial future, you're likely to encourage them to avoid student loans—because you're still paying on yours and are wanting to help them avoid being in their 30s with kids, paying for that college degree that maybe helped them find a job that pays enough to cover all the expenses of having a family. I know few parents who say, "Well, high school is over, and you're 18 now. Abracadabra, there's the door, good luck!" If you're lucky to have an employer providing health insurance, sure, you may luck out with a decent plan. But far too many working parents don't have this. Then there are fees to pay for each doctor visit, well-child checkups, and OTC or prescription medications for when the kids get sick—and, being weaponized factories of horrible nastiness who spend their entire days around other such buckets of grossness, they will get sick. If you actually have children, and don't experience what the vast majority of American parents experience, you're incredibly lucky. Many parents would love to have childcare, education, and healthcare fully covered by their taxes. If they woke up tomorrow and had all these things available to them, I'd be willing to place a large bet they'd never want to go back to anything less—even if it meant mildly lower wages that were at least able to go toward everything else in life. Parents still need to have enough money for food, clothes, birthdays, holidays, vacations, extracurricular activities, sports, and so on—whatever they determine to be part of the life they want to provide their children.

ryanSrich 10y ago

Public education in America is covered by taxes. If you're referring to college then that's on your kid. Parents have no obligation to pay for their child's college education. Healthcare costs in the US are always blown out of proportion. No one is paying $30k for surgery out of pocket unless they don't have insurance, which is now against the law anyway. At most, people are paying $1k per month for a large family, and that's only if your employer is cheap. If you're a middle class tech worker it's likely you pay very little for healthcare if anything at all.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago
And you do realize people are choosing to pay the penalty instead of health insurance because they can't afford the premiums, correct? It isn't even against the law, you just get a flat tax for doing so. The problem isn't as much the surgeries, as some of them couldn't qualify without a way to pay. But can't afford prescriptions or to go to the doctor as they should.
bobwaycott 10y ago
I find it interesting that you did not answer the question, but doubled down on speaking authoritatively about things you seem to not experience yourself. Childcare for pre-kindergarten aged children is incredibly expensive. If you have more than one child, it is even more so. Even with one, a parent is likely to spend several hundred dollars per month on childcare during work hours. Public education in a vast many school districts is not covered by taxes. There are school fees parents must pay at public schools. Then there are supply lists, where parents have to go out and buy supplies for their students and their classmates, all of which go to the teacher because the funding doesn't cover having adequate classroom supplies for instruction and activities. Then there are the actual supplies you fill a kid's backpack with. And even that doesn't cover all the needs, so every public school pushes fundraising activities onto the students (and their parents) throughout the year. Add on to that that work hours do not match up with school hours, so most parents add on additional daily childcare costs to have their children at school before school starts, and after it ends until they can leave work to pick up their child. As far as college is concerned, you're sounding definitively like a non-parent. Most kids aren't ready, no matter how much you try to prepare them, to wake up after high school graduation and tackle college funding on their own. And if you're looking out for your child's financial future, you're likely to encourage them to avoid student loans—because you're still paying on yours and are wanting to help them avoid being in their 30s with kids, paying for that college degree that maybe helped them find a job that pays enough to cover all the expenses of having a family. I know few parents who say, "Well, high school is over, and you're 18 now. Abracadabra, there's the door, good luck!" If you're lucky to have an employer providing health insurance, sure, you may luck out with a decent plan. But far too many working parents don't have this. Then there are fees to pay for each doctor visit, well-child checkups, and OTC or prescription medications for when the kids get sick—and, being weaponized factories of horrible nastiness who spend their entire days around other such buckets of grossness, they will get sick. If you actually have children, and don't experience what the vast majority of American parents experience, you're incredibly lucky. Many parents would love to have childcare, education, and healthcare fully covered by their taxes. If they woke up tomorrow and had all these things available to them, I'd be willing to place a large bet they'd never want to go back to anything less—even if it meant mildly lower wages that were at least able to go toward everything else in life. Parents still need to have enough money for food, clothes, birthdays, holidays, vacations, extracurricular activities, sports, and so on—whatever they determine to be part of the life they want to provide their children.