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They do? "Hey guys, don't run the basepaths anymore, Angel Hernandez is making shitty calls at second again."
In this thread, you must go 'round runnin' off at the mouth
That's rule number one in this OT:P establishment
You shoot your mouth off and it won't get closed by Dan or Jim
Exciting isn't it, a special kinda business
Many of you will read the same sorta OT:P silliness
No lounger for sure is going to admit it
When OT:P comes, damn-- skippy I'm with it
Chorus:
You down with OT:P? (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OT:P? (This whole party)
You down with OT:P? (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OT:P? (This whole party)
Or maybe it's been a discussion of the world's best rollercoasters for the last 900 posts. Who is brave enough to check?
They are stuck in a loop.
Except that there isn't anything interesting or controversial here. I assume that the writer is anti-Obamacare, but his little blog entry could come from a pro-Obamacare person just as well. His argument is that we have to accept that the Supreme Court decision actually happened and is final, and go from there. That doesn't strike me as something that should stir up much controversy, except from people with interesting ideas about causality and spacetime.
With a sieve? Or an unhealthy, excessive effort?
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
EDIT: But whatever the submission, and choice, the topic will change anyway.
The Sloth by Theodore Roethke
In moving-slow he has no Peer.
You ask him something in his Ear,
He thinks about it for a Year;
And, then, before he says a Word
There, upside down (unlike a Bird),
He will assume that you have Heard--
A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug.
But should you call his manner Smug,
He'll sigh and give his Branch a Hug;
Then off again to Sleep he goes,
Still swaying gently by his Toes,
And you just know he knows he knows.
See, Ray? There's always hope!
Edit: response to #12.
Then the keeper finished her work, left, and the sloths went right back to being their normal motionless selves. Kind of extraordinary, really.
You can view it by using your History tab, and you can then save the thread in your Favorites. You'll be glad to know that the question about funding the Iraq war voluntarily is still there for you to answer, but if that's too much work I'll be glad to post it here for you.
There can be only one.
I've heard the same about Molinas.
It means that we have a third major OT thread, in addition to the NBA and Soccer monsters. Try not to cry too hard. Is it time to make fun TAFKaR yet?
I had no idea that Ray is only 13.
My only trouble with answering it is that it kind of destroys the opportunity to see you continue to pose your easily answerable question over and over and over again. How many times has it been now, 10? 12?
But here:
I don't see why you think this question is a "gotcha." For you and many of your fellow high-fivers here, it wasn't merely a matter of "supporting" the ACA. We were told we were selfish and lacking in compassion to not want to be forced to pay for health insurance for the have-nots. And all the while, y'all had the opportunity to reach into your own wallets and volunteer to pay for it even though us heartless bastards did not want to. Instead of doing that, you went the route of forcing us to pay. Your people were ultimately successful in doing that (I reiterate that I don't think there's a snowball's chance in formerly dp's house that efforts to repeal the law will be successful), but you didn't win any "compassion" game because you didn't group together to pay for anything yourselves.
This sounds like the ACA, though. People are given a choice whether to (A) to invest a portion of one's money in a private account or (B) leave their tax dollars with Social Security, but one is not free to not save for retirement. It's not called a mandate, but it acts in exactly that manner, since it requires everyone to become actors in that particular market.
4 PM, July 2, 2012: TAFKaR declares the new thread constitutional. And his subjects exhale, relieved.
How is this any different from, like, any other tax-funded social policy or initiative in a democracy? Replace ACA with "Iraq war", "prison", "new highway", "tax credit for having children", ect, and you've got the same equation. Your gripe is more with being a member of a democratic society than it is specific to ACA. When you lose, you want to be able to take your ball and go home. Most people learn to suppress this response before they grow to adulthood.
If it makes you feel better, think of those tax dollars as all going toward paying for something you like (funding for AI research?), instead of something you don't. You'll sleep better, and maybe even complain less.
Well, to cut into the dog pile on TAFKaR, he's not being inconsistent here, he's just not answering your question outright for some reason. (What man can know the mind of TAFKaR on these things?) But he's been pretty clear in other conversations that he thinks all tax policy is theft - you know, the whole "at gunpoint" debacle? So I think the straight answer to your question of "if the ACA, why not voluntarily fund wars and roads and stuff" from Ray's POV is "yes, exactly. Why not?" Artists and other societal leeches don't get to use his privately funded roads, etc.
don't we all want to be able to do that, even if we may not all act on the urge?
When I was losing at air hockey in my youth, I had a move that would actually send the puck with pretty decent regularity into the guy's face. I actually drew blood once. So I wouldn't call that going home.
I understand that. It just seems like his beef with ACA is indistinguishable from his beef with the whole concept of government. But then we're right back to the free rider problem-- all I have to do is shove my head in the sand/up my ass and claim I derive no benefit from ACA (or prisons, or the Iraq war, or the tax credit for having children, or public education). So yeah, I get the complaint, it just seems kind of dumb to have to relitigate the case for democratic governance every time things don't come out your way.
That's what happens when you outsource your algorithm development to India.
eta: We're going to need a ruling on this:
Everyone is a tough guy when the statute of limitations is up!
Twenty-nine days.
DB
Do you recognize that there are functions where charity simply will not suffice to maintain a livable society?
"If I think A should have children, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill."
"If I think A should have a church, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill."
Sometimes, it just sucks to live in a democracy. You have to pay for things you don't want to, like health care for poor people.
1) Reality is against it (it is a really small penalty tax, well the mandate part anyway)
2) It is counter to the previous ACA branding (unconstitutional, death panels, etc...)
3) Romney is a terrible (comically bad) messenger for that particular message
4) Much of the US wants to move on (just saw a poll about that)
5) Talk of taxes (generically a GOP staple) allows the Dems to bring up the popular "Millionaire tax" more
6) Is not what the Romney campaign wants to talk about - Economy, Jobs, Obama bad!
But I don't think they can stop themselves. Am I underestimating the GOP message machine/efficacy of the message?
However, unlike with healthcare, there are obvious penalties for those who don't want to go along with the scheme and purchase those mandated insurances: if you don't insure your vehicle according to the law, you get tickets, your driver's license gets revoked, etc. If you don't maintain your insurance on your home, your lender will foreclose on you, or the state will intervene, etc. What is there to do for healthcare? We can't murder people who won't purchase health insurance.
Ultimately, making sure that everyone has access to affordable health care is not only the right thing to do, but it brings down costs for all. The question is how to get there.
Global warming
1: The earth is warming and humans are causing it (CO2)
2: The earth is warming, but humans are not causing it (the sun, random variation, volcanoes etc etc.)
3: The earth is not warming, it is all a hoax.
4: The earth is not warming, natural variations are being misconstrued, measuring errors, etc ( a fave argument is that there are more measuring stations -just coincidentally- in areas that have had temperature rises- and less where temperatures have been lower- skewing the overall results)
5: The earth is warming- but less than has been reported
6: The earth is warming, and some part may be human activity related...
It's be noted that a belief in 3 & 4 above seems to be strongly related to political inclinations
I'll go slightly further- a belief in 3 seems to be strongly related to a belief in creationism- so strongly that I daresay that if global temperatures rose by 5 degrees over the next 10 years, and sea levels rose 10 feet (which no, not even the most alarming of the alarmists are predicting that)- that group would undoubtedly assert- the earth was not warming, what happened was that since people have been so wicked the Lord has engineered a mini-flood as a warning- and there is nothing we can do to reverse it- except re-ban gay marriage and kick the gays out of the military.
I don't see why you think this question is a "gotcha." For you and many of your fellow high-fivers here, it wasn't merely a matter of "supporting" the ACA. We were told we were selfish and lacking in compassion to not want to be forced to pay for health insurance for the have-nots. And all the while, y'all had the opportunity to reach into your own wallets and volunteer to pay for it even though us heartless bastards did not want to. Instead of doing that, you went the route of forcing us to pay. Your people were ultimately successful in doing that (I reiterate that I don't think there's a snowball's chance in formerly dp's house that efforts to repeal the law will be successful), but you didn't win any "compassion" game because you didn't group together to pay for anything yourselves.
That was a lovely filibuster, but you still didn't answer the question as to what makes this different from war supporters being asked to support the war with their own money instead of forcing the opponents (at gunpoint) to chip in.
Guys, the issue is not taxes -- indeed, I don't think the mandate is actually a "tax" at all -- the issue is laws forcing others to do what self-professed "compassionate" people could have and should have done themselves. I (again, I will speak only for myself here, not for "libertarians") support laws that protect individual/property/contract rights. Free association. Etc. If I think A should have health insurance, I should pay for that myself, and not force B to foot the bill. This is a law that forces B to purchase a product in order to foot the bill, instead of the so-called compassionate people footing the bill themselves.
Again, we got your point the first 10,000 times you've made it, since you've been making variants of it every time you get steamed about some "welfare" program.
But what makes the ACA different from the Iraq war? You say about health insurance for those who can't afford it: "It's your concern, why don't you pay for it?"
Is that the answer you'd give to those who supported the invasion of Iraq?----"It's your war, you pay for it"?
yes...
much of the US always wants to just move on, whatever the topic is...
apparently recent polling is showing a small bounce for both Obama and Obamacare, I assume both will be transitory- but reporting on such polling has gotten some wingers worked up into a fine froth regarding polling- they must be frauds because WE ARE OUTRAGED DAMMIT, AND EVERYONE WE KNOW IS ENRAGED, AND EVERYONE KNOWS THAT 63%* OF AMERICANS WANT OBAMACARE REPEALLED AND NO POLL CAN SHOW ANYTHING DIFFERENT
*I've seen the 63% figure bandied about quite often, I'm not sure what poll/article it originates from. but at some point it must have hit the official wingnut talking point disseminator
I would agree, as the "power" of the government was never in question - they have the guns, after all - the question is whether they have the right to compel this. And any such right would have to come from the Constitution. Alas, it does not.
Do you notice that those who have automobile insurance have automobiles? That those with home insurance have homes? Those people already acted to purchase cars and homes. Someone sitting on his couch in his rented apartment with no car wasn't told to purchase home insurance or car insurance. Compare that with this situation, where someone sitting at home minding his own business is now compelled by law to purchase health insurance.
That's neat. We need to coordinate this with Carlin's early routine that includes the bit about holding hostages until the infield fly rule is repealed.
But unless you're willing to let that "someone" die on the street if he gets run over by a bus and gets his legs smashed, he's not going to be "minding his own business" once the hospital bill arrives and the rest of us are stuck with it.
He's going to be---what's the word?---a "freeloader", and if he can afford to buy insurance there's absolutely no philosophical justification for not requiring him to obtain it----unless again, your position is that we should simply refuse him treatment, or just keep him alive but let him remain a cripple rather than fixing his broken legs.
Milo Minderbinder lives! Take the respective governments out of war. Let free enterprise contract with the parties and take care of it.
And for medical care--use The Soldier in White principle. Just switch the input and output jars when it is time.
1) Regulation of insurance to provide affordable care to everyone who can pay
2) Subsidization of insurance and Medicaid expansion to provide affordable care to everyone who can't pay
3) Mandate to purchase insurance to stave off adverse selection effects and fully fund the private insurance system
Most countries with universal care fund a central government payor through the tax system. If you're going to have universal health insurance without a central government payor, some other form universal buy-in is necessary.
Not only that, it's unenforceable unless you have a refund coming back to you. There are no criminal or civil sanctions. You can't bring them to criminal court and you can't place a lien on property or garnish bank accounts or wages, etc. It's a pretty pathetic bill, but it's a start.
You need to take it back a step further. Why didn't these people with pre-existing conditions have insurance? Because they either didn't want it or couldn't afford it. What this bill does is say that you can't "not want it" anymore -- you are required to purchase it -- and if you "can't afford it" (as judged by income level), well, then, we won't force you to purchase it - we'll just force other people to pay for you instead.
Since people were already getting free emergency room care, and since this scheme is not really "insurance" at all (insurance is when a group of people VOLUNTARILY band together and AGREE to pool THEIR assets according to RISK), then at its core this is a wealth redistribution, although this time it's not being done through taxing but by requiring people by law to participate in the market.
Instead, this scheme is a group of people being FORCED BY LAW to band together WHETHER THEY AGREE OR NOT to pool their assets but NOT according to risk so that SOME people who have put NO assets in get to be in the group and reap the benefits. And that ain't insurance.
#54: Took me a second to get the Catch-22 reference. Long time since I read it.
Yes. I mean, there's the entire Social Security Act, including the tax for Medicare. At one time, not long ago, people who were not covered by Social Security did not pay a tax for Medicare and thus were not eligible or entitled to receive it. Then that changed. Those under retirement systems that excluded Social Security coverage could still pay that part of the Medicare tax so as to be covered. Guess what, those systems and those people jump on it like stink on broccoli.
This is incorrect, or at best incomplete, and what is worse you know it. Shame on you.
MCoA, I agree with the first part. Social Security and Medicare enjoyed broad public support when passed and ever since, whereas Obamacare has consistently polled under 50%. In any event, the lousy economy would be issue no. 1 for Romney even if he didn't have the baggage.
I wish people would stop using the word "affordable" in this context. The lie in using that word is that insurance was already affordable. The vast majority of people were able to "afford it," and so it was already "affordable," pretty much by definition. (Contrast that with the low percentage of the population who, say, own their own plane or mansion or have a chauffer.) Insurance was as "affordable" as a car or a home or anything like that, which people already could "afford."
If you couldn't afford it, the problem was not the cost of the insurance. The problem lied elsewhere. It is just misleading and deceptive to use that word to describe insurance.
Yes, not once they had the preexisting condition. But before they had it, they were. Which is of course the state in the state diagram that I'm speaking about.
You should be familiar with the concept of "social insurance", which is generally not voluntarily. Social insurance schemes make sense in situations where adverse selection would otherwise be prominent.
So in which OT thread does this belong?
Or they were born with heart arrythmia or something.
Would you call a $3000 suit "affordable"? Technically, most people could find the money for that suit somewhere, if they cut back on consumption in other areas. That's not how the word is ever used - "affordable" is used in contexts which presume a household budget typical for people at a certain income level.
And the presumption, which is as close to irrefutable as can be, is that people will avail themselves of medical care, so they should have medical insurance. Medical care costs, one way or the other, and to extent we can make them pay, they should pay. To extent government can systematize it, it can. Just like for Social Security and Medicare, there's no opting, except under strenuous circumstances where you have what is recognized as equivalent substitute. You're going to drive a car, you have to have insurance; you're going to use medical care, you have to have insurance or pay a penalty/fee/fine/bond. It's not abstruse.
Fourth rate team for a 3rd rate politician ...
Whatever its merits as a policy, this is not insurance. This is welfare. Or free riding off the backs of others. Because there is no way any premium from "insurance" will cover your condition at that point.
The idea that it's just so evil for the insurer not to offer you a policy once your house is burning down (or once you have a preexisting condition) is one of the most unfortunate pieces of propaganda put out by liberals. It would make no rational economic sense for anyone to offer you a policy at that point. It doesn't make them bad people.
Just like Social Security. Many people couldn't afford to save for retirement. They pay what they can, when they can, and others take up the slack. You'll be surprised what you can afford if comes off the top.
TAFKaR hath decreed: this is the only possible definition of insurance.
Keeping this as a conflict between machinic entities: The Socialist Knowledge Kollectiv Known as Wikipedia (TSKKKaW) disagrees.
If you couldn't afford it, the problem was not the cost of the insurance
So TAFKaR hath decreed unto his subjects.
For a guy who insists on evidence for every claim every made, your argument that insurance is affordable came down to "some people without health insurance have iPhones and flat screen TVs." It wasn't backed up by anything resembling math or serious thought; basically it was just a rehashing of '80s welfare queen stories.
My sister is jobless (post-college) right now and her COBRA's expiring. She's paraplegic, and hunting for a job with health insurance, but failing that, she's trying to buy some insurance. The last quote she got was roughly $1000 a month. COBRA's costing her around $500 right now. Even if you don't mind living out of a tent, that's not "affordable." It seems like you have no concept of what insurance actually costs, but have no problem telling us that people without it could easily afford it.
Yes, when I was eleven years old. And totally lazy about my finances.
No. That is how liberals use the word - as a marketing label when they want to pass their pet redistribution bills. Such as their "Affordable Housing Act" or whatever it was called.
The fact that some people can't afford a loaf of bread does not make bread "unaffordable."
---
And why couldn't people "find the money" for health insurance, if they had it but just needed to reallocate? We've been told that health insurance is SO IMPORTANT, that people can't go without it, that they might GO BANKRUPT if they didn't have it. Your argument that they had the money but prioritized other things over it proves too much.
I wouldn't call a $3,000 affordable to the vast majority of people. And I also wouldn't call a $3,000 suit important. If people thought it was so important to have a $3,000 suit -- like they think it important to have a $20,000 car -- they would reallocate. Why didn't they do that with health insurance? Because they decided health insurance wasn't that important to them. That in no way means that health insurance wasn't "affordable" for them.
But let's not consider that?
How about the paying of medicines? Medicines can run you thousands of dollars a month if you're not covered by insurance? Example: for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Gleevec is over $4K for a month's supply; the backup Sprycel is ovre $8K for a 30-day supply. Who will pay that if you don't have insurance and you can't pay otherwise?
I have never heard of anyone but you saying this as a straw man. People do say insurance companies are evil (mostly because they are), but no one expects a policy on a burning house. Because your pre-existing condition/burning house analogy is deeply flawed (as we have discussed pretty much every time you bring it up).
And what was it when the insurer was young and healthy and the insurance company was collecting a premium but paying out little or nothing in care--and getting to invest those premiums in those boom markets? Was that welfare for the insurance companies? Then when the market go bust, they raise the premiums? Sweeet.
The comparison actually would be if you could opt out of say, service by the local fire department and because of whatever reason you refuse to pay the annual, and then your house catches on fire. You're pleading with the fire department, who shows on your doorstep and *they* refuse to do anything to stop the fire, and are only really there because they want to make sure the fire doesn't spread out to other houses who did pay the annual fee. You might think this is ridicoulious and it doesn't happen, but read this story.
Now, that's evil and cold blooded.
Sprycel is ovre $8K for a 30-day supply. Who will pay that if you don't have insurance and you can't pay otherwise?
Do society a favor and die already, cancer boy.
Well since 60% of bankruptcy is caused by medical bills, then yeah it just might here in the real world.
EDIT: And many of them have insurance already, but with life time maximums, co-pay, insurance company weaseling and so on even insurance is no guarantee (but it helps, especially since ACA limits some of that).
VIRUS
Regardless, I think your idea that we should judge what is "affordable" by looking at those who can least afford it, rather than by what the vast majority of people can afford, is ridiculous.
So, you get the Medicaid expansion and subsidies for the latter two groups, and community rating for the former. In order to cover the costs of the subsidies and Medicaid expansion, you get the "excise tax" on insurance plans to force insurance companies and health care providers to cut costs. In order to cover the costs of community rating, you get the mandate.
You raise a good point. How does one define affordable? Or, what percent of uninsured is OK? My answer is much lower than yours I suspect, since I think 100% is just about right.
Exactly. That's what I've been saying forever. Health outcomes don't function properly on a profit/loss, "free market" mechanism. Congratulations. You've just stated simply why health insurance should be single-payer and universal.
And in 5-10 years, unless the law is repealed by President Romney, we'll have a much better idea of how the system works and what reforms it needs. (I like the Medicare public option, of course, but that was fought tooth-and-nail by insurance companies the first time around already. I don't know what will both be a good reform and be sale-able to entrenched business interests.)
Is it really that hard to grasp the concept that what may be affordable to some people----is not affordable to others? And is it that hard to understand that when people say that insurance is unaffordable----they're talking about people who can't afford it?
Of course the third concept is completely beyond your reach: The idea that people whose income is $25,000 a year can't afford to pay half of that for health insurance. All that says is that you find the whole idea of a social contract unacceptable and immoral, but then we've known that since 3:42 PM EST on March 13th, 2007.
And BTW since you keep ducking the Iraq war funding question, why should we pay for freeloaders who use the emergency rooms?
It's a nonsensical thing to object to.
EDIT: What Andy said in his first paragraph of #95.
And we're back to philosophy of language!
Because Ronald Reagan signed that law into being, not Obama. You're such a silly.
I mean, he didn't bother to say how a juvenile diabetic would manage to get insurance when he developed his pre-existing condition as a juvenile, but if you don't understand his answer is "tough, work", then at this point I'd say - debate-wise - the problem is yours, not his.
Ray has endorsed current US law under which emergency rooms must provide care regardless of ability to pay. His position does require some finessing if he's going to support that while opposing more direct forms of social insurance.
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