blatzguzzler

I truly am waiting for Medicare (traditional only, no Advantage plans as those are a complete rip-off). I can tell you though, I've been continuously on the ACA since it started selling plans in 2012 and it's always been better than anything I could cobble together before. It's fantastic to be able to decide how and where I want to live my life without being locked into a shitty job or tied to a crap insurer because you can't pass underwriting to get on a different plan.

Also, I am on the highest ACA premium tier because of my age. Someone who's 35 could get the same policy I have for about $400/mo., unsubsidised.

Speaking as someone who has been mostly self-employed since about 2002, Obamacare is a godsend. Massively better than the old individual "underwriting" system that basically made it impossible to get coverage. Yes, health insurance is expensive, but you may be amazed that the ACA marketplace plans frequently cost less than employer plans with better market protections. The only way to do health insurance nowadays is to assume it's only for catastrophes; ie: an $8-15k deductible is nothing compared to a $250k hospital visit. Basically, you are buying a discount plan (your insurer's negotiated rates) plus a stop-loss cover. An example: I am an old fart at 63 and have an HSA plan with a $7,500 deductible. My premium is $900/mo, thus the MOST I will ever have to pay for health care in any 12 month period is $18,300. Way less than a $300k uncomplicated heart attack or a $1M cancer diagnosis. Work your tax returns right, and you can get subsidies that reduce the annual costs even more . . .

I have to laugh when $15M is considered enough wealth to "live a middle class lifestyle." I live in flyover country in a city of two million where the average household income is $60K. A 4% investment return on $15M would keep ten ordinary middle-class households afloat in my neighborhood forever without anyone ever having to work again (and without ever having to touch the investment principal). It's easy to lose track of what an immense amount of money $15M is.

Lawyer here. Land ownership has to be public because the only way to establish your right to property is the publicly recorded and government maintained "chain of title": who you are, who you got it from, who they got it from, etc., going back to the original survey of your state (or at least 50 years, where I am). Otherwise it would be chaos with everyone waiving around 100-year-old bogus deeds claiming the right to kick you out of your house. Tax records too, as someone else mentioned - everyone can verify whether or not the assessed tax is valid and the property valuation isn't made up to punish you for stepping on the toes of some county official. There are ways to obfuscate the individuals who actually own a particular piece of land (trusts, LLCs and such), but the chain of title needs to be available to anyone.