Yea, I didn’t even go into how much my wife’s nephrectomy cost.

For a real example, my 10 year old swallowed a button battery (yes she should know better). Of course we went to the pediatric ER immediately. She was seen by a doctor, got some X-rays, then puked the battery out. She’s totally fine. In the end I’m paying about $2000 out of pocket for that. That’s on top of the monthly premiums I and my employer pay.

My premiums are about $280 per month for health, dental and vision for me and my kids. Premiums are pre-tax so there’s a bit of savings there. My employer pays about $1100 per month on top of what I pay. My wife is on her employers plan because they would charge about triple that for all of us to be in the same plan. that’s about $100 per month for her.

On top of that I have a special pre-tax savings account for health expenses only called a Flexible Spending Account, which helps a bit but it’s kinda silly and not very flexible. I have to determine at the beginning of each year how much I might spend that year, then that amount will be taken automatically out of my checks. If I don’t spend it all, it’s gone.

I really recommend this video to understand (or not) the complexity of the US health care system https://youtu.be/-wpHszfnJns?si=Wi48w7TCkETdIUQQ

Is it bigger than the Luxor in Las Vegas?

Yea it’s just what I’m used to, not really a bad thing. I just wish the remapping worked universally really.

I have Libre Office on my Mac. Emulators are a problem though because I have the M1 processor. Virtual box doesn’t support the M1. There are free apps available, just Google for them like you probably do now for whatever OS you have. Use home brew package manager to make it easy to manage.

Things that drive me nuts on Macs:

• The close, maximize, minimize buttons are on the other side compared to any other OS I’ve used, and can’t be changed.
• No built in window snapping. I paid for an app that does.
• Minimizing windows takes them out of the rotation when “alt-tabbing”
• shortcut keys are a pain, apple+c apple+v is not what my fingers are trained for. I remapped the shortcuts but that’s hit it miss depending on the app I’m in. Home goes to the top of the page.

Better brush up on local customs too. Some gestures are more crude than others in different countries.

It’s happening now. Some states have implemented a system already and Nevada is voting on it next election.

A case would have to be presented to the court. They don’t pick and choose cases from nowhere. Cases go from local to state to supreme Court (in general). Assuming the court decides to hear it, their decision would be legally binding. But that only applies to that case. There couldn’t and wouldn’t be a case of “who won the election”, it’s decided by the states and is clearly indicated in the Constitution. That’s why Trump desperately wanted to “send it back to the states”. The state legislatures and governors would be able to muck with the results, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

The most important votes are for local officials and don’t forget it.

Technically taxes are due quarterly in the US, so they have plenty to do if they have business or self employed customers. My dad was a tax preparer and would file tons of extensions in April and finish them up until August. Then start on the next year.