Let's start using iPhones as a money measurement

[ck4829]

It is too easy to ignore the plight of Dallas' working poor by convincing ourselves that they are to blame for their poverty, that it is simply their bad choices that keep them from moving into the middle class. But that's more an exercise in self-comfort than reality.

For an alarming number of Dallas residents, poverty isn't a choice; it's a state your born into and find impossible to escape. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, requiring people to choose between getting to work, putting food on the table and keeping a family together.

It is this context that makes comments Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a study in tone deafness. One day after the GOP rolled out a plan to replace Obamacare, Chaffetz was discussing access for low-income Americans in an interview on CNN. "You know what, Americans have choices. And they've got to make a choice," the House Oversight Committee chairman said. "And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to spend hundreds of dollars on, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

...

Chaffetz talked himself into a firestorm of criticism. (One example on Twitter: "My broken ankle cost $117,000 so that's around 234 iPhones.)

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2017/03/07/telling-poor-americans-choose-iphones-health-care-solution

This gives me an idea that I think we can stick it to Republicans. If this is the way they want to see healthcare and the poor, then let's give it to them.

If you take the iPhones on the market today and get an average of the prices, you get 809 dollars, so the example above of a broken ankle costing 234 iPhones is not too far off (215 iPhones).

My pneumonia I got a couple years back cost 92 iPhones.

Jason Chaffetz gets paid 215 iPhones a year, do you think he he gets paid enough iPhones?

[Initech]

1. I destroyed this theory in the Top 10 yesterday.

Read #3. Call me John Oliver!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028765123

[dchill]

2. Jason Chaffetz gets paid way too many iPhones.

He should be paid in Obamaphones!

[world wide wally]

3. How about sending in an old iPhone for one year's worth of premium health insurance?

[FSogol]

4. I would say, let's see how many iphones fit in Chaffetz's mouth, but unlike him, I'm not a crappy

excuse of a human being.

[safeinOhio]

5. your change sir, 3 flip phones and

two pagers.

[frazzled]

6. You forgot to dollar average the iPhone

If you're not a gotta-have-the-latest type, your $809 iPhone should last you a good three years or so. That's $269.66 per year (or $22.47 a month). I'd like to see someone get health insurance (without the ACA) for $22.47 a month. Refigure Chaffetz's annual salary on that $269/year iPhone basis, and you'll get a better iPhone to dollar picture.

By the way, my husband's cancer from a year and a half ago cost about 742 iPhones by your calculations—possibly a whole lot more; we stopped looking at the billings after a while, because our insurance paid for absolutely everything (multiple hospitalizations, surgeries, chemo treatments, $30K a pop PET scans, etc.), save the $40 office visit copays to specialists and parking fees. And knock on wood, he's good right now.