I’ve heard that too. But not about the ones who work for a university-run state hospital.
Edited to emphasize that ophthalmologists who work in such a setting chose to do so, and went into it with their eyes wide open, so they are in no way complaining about the disparity between their salary and that of their private-practice cousins. Further, just as they’re not complaining about their relative salary, neither are they complaining about how much they make, ie, their absolute salary. They make a wonderful upper-middle-class income, and feel blessed to do so.
It’s certainly true that commercial carriers share the same faults as Medicare. They all exclude services seemingly at random and place arbitrary limits on reimbursement. However, in my specialty at least, Medicare is exponentially worse. Of all the CPT codes, Medicare allows three for chiropractic. They don’t allow any of the physiological therapeutics that fall under our scope of practice, nor do they allow any E&M codes or imaging performed or ordered by a chiropractor. If my patient needs an x-ray (pretty common) they either pay out of pocket (requiring more paperwork - an ABN form) or go to their MD. Their reimbursement for the three codes that they do allow is the lowest of any carrier, hands down. This may sound like hyperbole, but if we woke up tomorrow and everyone had the equivalent of Medicare I would struggle to keep my doors open.
When I was training to sell investments and insurance the instructor warned us that some of the most financially illiterate clients we’d encounter were doctors and lawyers. Later I met a doctor with north of $125k in credit card debt. I didn’t know what to say other than “did you get cash back at least?”
Nor should you (except in emergency). But if we’re evaluating something like disposable income, especially in a house poor scenario where the deciding factor is the ability to pay for X if you should really NEED to, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be lumped in with disposable income.
Sorry, I saw this and meant to get back to it. I don’t know. Now, I have seen various reports describe the lawyers as such. But, who knows. Is it just a troll? Well, ff everyone gets to claim to be a woman (or man), then everyone gets to claim TG status, if you ask ask me.
Anyways, apparently he’s also received multiple requests for Sataniic themed cakes, too. Of course, he’s also turned down them down, too.
Oh, lol, I view being “house poor” more or less to mean you can’t afford the things you want, which is why I wouldn’t count retirement savings in disposable income because you’re not going to (hopefully) take a loan out to pay for a kitchen remodel, for example.
Yeah sorry about that. I take “house poor” to mean a person who bought too much house and can’t accomplish their goals/do the things they want to do. Namely people who regret buying too much house.It’s more of a feels thing than a measurement.
I’ve talked to gamefully employed Doctors with NO SAVINGS. As much as we mock it the keeping up with the Jones bullshit is real. Social pressure.
Under those terms, being ‘house poor’ is less reliant on your income → mortgage and completely on ‘what do you want out of life.’
It’s not that it doesn’t exist, it’s just that it’s statistically far less likely for a rich person to be living beyond their means of survival and/or flourishment than a normal person.
Here’s a free tip from a construction guy who makes a living fleecing people who buy houses that are too big for them.
Step 1. Rent a house/apartment of the size you want to buy. If you can afford a mortgage, you can afford an extra three months of rent.
Step 2. This is the weird part. Track the amount of time every family member spends in each room while they’re at home.
Step 3. Crunch the numbers. Chances are you’d end up with square footage worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands where you spend a few hours each month.
Step 4. Ask yourself whether you really need that big of a house and whether you’d be ok with a smaller mortgage.
Man, I dunno about your family, but every Italian family I’ve ever known, and it is many, have the upstairs living room and kitchen that You Do Not Enter Under Penalty of A Wooden Spoon Upside-ada-Head.
That’s what the downstairs kitchen and game room is for!
What does ‘difficulty’ amount to? Because if it’s just stomach’ing the early withdrawal fee, I call BS on the ‘difficulty’ scale.
When a middle of the road guy has to come up with $1000 and can’t, he’s forced to borrow or he’s sent to collections.
When a rich guy has to come up with $1000 and can’t, he has the option to pay for it with the above ways, OR any other avenue of value open to wealthier people, and proceeds to lose a total of 9 seconds of sleep over it.
