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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:39:23 -0700, Paul L. Madarasz <...@yahoo.com
On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:01:20 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock
"@sonnnic.invalid
Leroy.
--
Sorry I can't stop and talk now,
I'm in kind of a hurry anyhow,
but I'll send you a tape from California.
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Anonymous Wrote:
In article <...@sonnnic.invalidBill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
I see a "motivational poster" of a very happy airbrush artist surrounded
by naked women he has spray-painted. What picture was I supposed to see?
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:44:59 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
???
It still shows a m.p. slinging insults at the VA medical system
???
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:26:50 -0700, Xho Jingleheimerschmidt <...@gmail.com
So what made the difference? How to do we make sure we get the new VA
and not the old VA? Without something else to compare it to, would we
know the old VA wasn't just the best that could be done?
Xho
--
Problems that go away by themself often come back by themself.
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:35:04 -0400, jeffinputnam <...@gmail.com
We got Republicans to stop cutting VA funds.
J
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:50:38 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 25, 12:35 pm, jeffinputnam <...@gmail.com
While that undoubtedly had something to do it, a great deal more had
to do with standardization of medication, volume purchase and
negotiation where appropriate, benchmarking against best practices-
public or private, etc. This is why mixed systems work better outside
of MonkeyWorld.
That said, take a look at the degree of political pressure it took to
reform the VA and keep it honest, and ask yourself if that's gonna be
a vailable for a wider program.
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:59:05 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 25, 1:50 pm, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
Oh, yeah. Also worth noting that the efficiency touted is often that
to the VA itself, neglecting some of the tax burden on private systems
and other effects outside the VA. This creates a situation not that
unlike the "efficiency" the USPO gained by moving to suburban sorting
centers linked by interstates from urban centers linked by rail.
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On 25 Oct 2009 21:27:09 GMT, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Lee Ayrton <...@panix.com:
One of my oft-mentioned ex-boyfriends is an endocrinologist, and for a
long time he was in the Army and working at Walter Reed. (His theory,
back in the 80s, was that he could get stationed in Korea. He loves
Korea.) I would love to email him and ask him about the Walter Reed
scandal; he's now left the service and is in private practice. If I had
any real, solid questions for him, I'd use them as an excuse to email.
"Hi! How are you? I got married 17 years ago! Did you ever marry a
Korean girl? God, you were so hot for them. So, was Walter Reed really
a pit? Say hi to your mom!"
--
Dover
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:17:01 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 25, 2:02 pm, Lee Ayrton <...@panix.com
Wally Reid =/= VA.
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:14:02 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 25, 2:02 pm, Lee Ayrton <...@panix.com
Yeah, and you want government, which did such a wondrous job of
managing the health care of its veterans to take on the job of caring
for the general population?
Are you fucking insane?
"Gee, well the fixed the problem, eventually..."
A corporation that did that would quickly go out of business.
Government is still chugging along...
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:44:49 -0500, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
The problem I have with this line of argument is that the system that we
have sucks. I have an HMO that used to be great. Now it's occasionally
good. Most people I know with insurance complain about the crap you
have to go through to get the coverage you are supposed to have.
If the private care system worked well, we wouldn't need legislation to
fix it. I know you say, less government, but people have grown to
distrust private insurance companies. That isn't government's fault.
David
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:00:48 -0400, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
Too, we have very little direct competition for the health insurance
industry. Most people get what they get through their jobs, and that's
*it*. They don't like it, tough; it's not like they can shop around.
Not a lot of market pressure there toward honesty and good care.
Dana
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:14:07 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 26, 3:00 pm, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
Less if government takes over. It can get worse.
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:13:12 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 26, 1:44 pm, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
Compared to the VA? Does it actually 'suck', or are you just buying
into someone's propaganda?
Go to another company. Can't go to another government.
Don't like your company, switch. Do you think governmet is immune to
exactly that kind of bureaucracy? Ask people who try to get care from
the VA...
If government were in a position to 'fix' things, why was there a VA
situation at all? Government was RUNNING it. Call it what you will,
government control of heath care will be the VA writ large.
I mean, really, if the government can run things so well, I assume you
are/were fully in support of the *government* policies vis and vis US
foreign policy for the last ten years or so?
If not, what deludes you into thinking their health care policies will
be any better?
People have been PROPAGANDIZED to distrust private insurance and
believe US health care is 'broken'. It isn't true.
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Anonymous Wrote:
In article <...@y10g2000prg.googlegroups.comShawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
You get what your employer provides, if you're that lucky. That's IT.
And most of the better insurers don't *want* to sell individual
policies to anyone, at any price.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:07:03 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I gather even people who work for Manpower can get health insurance.
You might choose one job over another based on the health insurance.
In fact, there is individual health insurance available, if you're
willing to forego the employer subsidy, and even within plans, people
are given the option of choosing some tier of benefits.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:37:33 -0500, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
A woman who works for me got tired of dealing with the HMO. She
switched to a traditional insurance plan. Her daughter got sick and she
couldn't find a "network" physician who was taking new patients under
that plan. Fortunately she found that out during the open enrollment
period, so she's back with the HMO.
David
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:04:01 -0600, Erich <...@qwest.net
In article <...@news.tamu.edu "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
I signed up with an HMO one year. The first primary care physician I
picked was dropped from the HMO network before I needed any services.
Same thing happened with the second and third doctors I chose.
The next year, I switched back to traditional insurance.
--
Erich
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:11:03 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
Pick another employer. Still easier than switching governmenets.
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On 27 Oct 2009 01:17:11 GMT, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Shawn Wilson <...@y10g2000prg.googlegroups.com:
What do you use instead of the VA, Shawn?
--
Dover
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Anonymous Wrote:
Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Witches. It's the medical industry equivalent of Reaganomics.
--
Huey
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:25:18 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 26, 9:17 pm, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
He just doesn't get sick.
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:42:00 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 26, 9:25 pm, plausible prose man <...@aol.com
You left out "physically".
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:05:08 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 12:42 am, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
Part of the libertarian suite of ideas I've internalized so
completely is the work of Thomas Szasz, who holds the position that
most of what we know as psychology is a great big lie, and so-called
"mental illness" is really just personality, or at most misbehavior.
Thus, I was fairly nauseated to see the self-appointed cadre suggest
to Dr. Friedman here he has brain damage because he believes in the
existence of race and values discrete cultures, or even more
inexplicably, believes in those things and is willing to say so in
public.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:09:39 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 7:05 am, plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I find it very difficult to see how anyone whose had to take the black
dog on his walks could say this, except as a defense mechanism.
This, too, looks kinda like a defense mechanism, don't it?
All that aside, returning to our muttons for a moment, I think that it
might be better to quit internalizing so many ideas. Most models for
things are imperfect, and if we get wedded to them it makes us have to
say stupid things, and believe them. E.g., the Economonkey.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:23:21 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 11:09 am, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
Well, and there you have it...it's just about as reasonable to
pretend my chronic terrible moods are a black dog only I can see,
except having a black dog like that would be pretty fun, except when
it thunders or you want to sleep another hour or something, as it is
to pretend they're like having the flu or something. (and indeed, I
understand a certain amount of even real diseases are learned behavior
and personality and all of that)
That's rather, um...begging the question, I think, with a little
magic or religion thrown in.
Knowing me the way you do, you can imagine little more horrifying to
me than a re-education camp. I think that would be number two on the
list, right after "slowly eaten alive by a giant invertbrate."
I've little enough use for most ideas.
Right, well...you did see me disagree with him to the effect gay
marriage was a public bad, and thus efforts to legalize it, especially
through judicial "fiat" were "market" failure.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:17:32 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 11:23 am, plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I think I owe you half an apology here, at least; the idea that a lot
of psychology is wrong goes without saying. Freud himself had a
little too much trouble distinguishing what can be and what is, and
his followers took the bad parts and ran with them even further.
There is still some baby in that bathwater, though.
Nahh, it's more of a best guess, based on experience, tempered with
the realization that it could therefore be BS.
Hey, leave out the "alive' and that's the Sory of Man.
I think Economics, and especially SimioEcon, desrves the same level of
intelligent skepticism. It's a useful tool, with edges and limits,
like any other, and it can be pretty silly looking when it's used as a
substitute for God, as Mr. Wilson likes to.
Damn. I'm repeating myself, aren't I.
Well, people proverbially do things for "love or money," right? And
"love" is being used there as shorthand for "Love, and its opposite,
hate, and the rest of the Big 7, and all there opposites." Shawn
can't see that, for the same reason he can't understand things like
social class.
All that said, I can see why you'd come down closer to his viewpoint
in AFCA, since so many others are pretending the real economic and
political problems that nationalized medicine will cause here in the
US are illusions.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:25:54 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 1:17 pm, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
This his neologism potential. A sorry/story portmanteau, perhaps.
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:28:23 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 4:17 pm, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
I don't want to go totally Church of Scientology here, but I'm really
quite skeptical of anything you diagnose with a questionnaire, knowing
what I know about the Barnum effect and cold reading and all that. You
know, I was reading the diagnosis thingy for Asperger's, and some of
it had stuff like..."do you like to do things the same way all the
time, or do you value novelty?" Well, I like to drive the places I go
the same way all the time, but if I were reading Wodehouse novels or
watching Popeye cartoons, I start enjoying them less as I notice Plum
and the Fleischer brother leaning on their tropes and formulas. So,
what about that, huh?
There's no question Temple Grandin and Bob Goodman think about things
differently than most people, but that doesn't make them broken, or
damaged, and when you start pathologizing behavior, well, you wind up
with a way to deprive people of their freedom without due process.
well, anyway...
leave out the "giant," don't you mean? And yeah...that's the point.
It's only through libertarianism, which is essentially capitalism
derived from some moral, natural rights philosophy, that things have
sucked less for everyone, starting with the Enlightenment.
There's a part in a Neal Stephenson novel, I think Quicksilver, where
one of the characters is about to go on an ocean voyage, and he
reflects something like the story of mankind is like an ocean voyage
run backwards, echoing Billy Pilgrim watching a WWII movie in reverse.
In much the same way the story's a lot nicer if you think of it as
these machines fly over burning cities and battle fields, douse the
flame and bring the dead back to life, sucking all the death and
horror back up into their bodies where they are encased in small metal
cyclinders, and then they return to bases where the cannisters are
removed, taken away to factories and dismantled, and then everything
is placed deep beneath the earth where it can never hurt anyone
again.
Stephenson has this thing where he got one of his characters setting
out on a voyage, and he's thinking something like a sea voyage starts
off calm and orderly with a lot of knowledgable, competent people
checking off detailed lists and doing their best and yet much of the
time some storm is encountered, and you wind up dashed on the rocks
anyway, and that human history is like that, only in reverse, with
Newton (and I'll throw in Smith, Locke, Mill, etc...) unshivering the
timbers and putting back out to sea, away from the terrible storm and
so on, so that finally there's enough to eat and you're nearly always
as warm or as cool or as wet or as dry as you want to be, and you
don't have to inhale anyone's stink but your own if you don't want to,
and you're safe from brigands (especially the state sponsored kind)
and the church and all that...
I can't find it , but there's something much more succinct from Ayn
Rand, something like the history of civilization consists of freeing
man from his fellow man.
Interestingly, skepticism, especially of Shawn and what he says, was
my path in.
I don't totally want to go everyplace Shawn wants to go with
"rationality," but I often have little choice but to be on his side
when Nicky Manno are irrational, when they're pretty demonstrably
rational and price-takers at that.
Yeah, well...in point of fact, people rather more often are
proverbially not doing things for "love or money," but perhaps that's
the exception that proves the rule.
Right, with you so far.
I don't think that's an accurate characterization of Shawn, although
it might be a reasonable criticism of the most simplistic homo
economus models, the ones that predict you'd take a dollar or so in
the ultimatum game. Still, that people have preferences other than a
dollar or so doesn't mean they're irrational, it just means they have
preferences other than the most simplistic models would predict.
Yeah...I wonder if social class isn't a bit like the Loch Ness
Monster. You know, because there is a Loch Ness Monster. I mean, sure,
there's no unknown large animal living in the lake or anything, but
there is seeing what you want to see, and telling a good story, and
seiches, and a large sturgeon or two, and seeing a diving otter or a
swimming deer at an uncertain distance in bad lighting, and Marmaduke
Weatherall and his umbrella stand, and Christian Spurling and Col.
Wilson and a toy submarine, and Bob Rhines and Monster Hoax by Peter
S. and more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of, etc, and
all of that adds up to a "monster," maybe, in a way a real, flesh and
blood creature would be only that, once we've caught one.
Then again, social class, the way people go on about it, probably
doesn't have mystery and wonder and a supernatural "yes, Virginia" so
intrinsic to its nature. So that fact there are doctors and lawyers
and hereditarily rich people who say "ain't" and live in Akron, Ohio,
and billionaires with names like Don Fisher and Todd Wagner, and Dana
can have an adolescence befitting a minor character in an Updike
novel, attending the "Toniest Prep School in New Jersey," as we've
been reminded oh-so-many times, and grow up to be a made-for-TV humbug
on the order of D. D. Palmer and Aimee Semple MacPherson, minus the
ambition, and Ralph Lifschitz made himself very, very rich selling the
uniforms of "A Separate Peace" where the pudgiest of prole can get
himself up like the Duke of Windsor, and someone else who posts here
describes himself as enjoying a lot of "white privilege" and being
"upper middle class," despite flunking out of a large state college
and joining the Army and liking to sit in the garage and drink
American beer out of a can.
So, perhaps Shawn is righter about all that than you might think from
just considering the source.
Yes, there's an amazing book on the subject, "Myth of the Rational
Voter." Between that, and "Gaming the Vote," well, you can see where
we're all doomed.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:03:48 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 26, 6:17 pm, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
As I have no service related disabilities, what makes you think I
would be eligible to use the VA?
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On 27 Oct 2009 18:23:59 GMT, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Shawn Wilson <...@h14g2000pri.googlegroups.com:
I thought everyone who had served in the military was eligible to use
the VA. My mistake.
--
Dover
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:43:57 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 11:23 am, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
There is one other group who can use the VA after service- those who
retired from the service.
People like me get nothing.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:40:40 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 11:23 am, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Only as a last recourse, and there was a long time when most people
took that "last" part quite seriously, for good reasons.
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On 27 Oct 2009 18:48:31 GMT, Dover Beach <...@gmail.com
Mac <...@k13g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
My grandfather was career military. He graduated from West Point in the
same class as Eisenhower and Bradley. His career was, uh, considerably
less distinguished than theirs. But he and my grandmother used the VA
and even in the supposed Bad Old Days got pretty good care. Believe me,
my grandmother would have let everyone know that she was dissatisfied.
That was in the San Francisco Bay Area. Maybe location made a
difference.
--
Dover
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:57:33 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
Any former US military serviceman who was discharged with other
than "dishonorable" status is eligible.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:22:20 -0700, Bob Ward <...@email.com
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:57:33 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock
"@sonnnic.invalid
So they didn't count the paper cuts as combat-related? Bummer.
>than "dishonorable" status is eligible.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:27:35 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 7:57 pm, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalidwrote:
But not for all services, and not gratis (or with minimized copay,)
and not at a high priority. Like the old sailor, that's making about
3 nots.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:44:11 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
Yes, there is co-pay, but it is quite equitable. I've never met
nor heard of anyone whose care was shorted for 'priority'
reaasons. I've been using the VA for over 15 years (only
sporadically before that) and I've only ever had one year where I
had to pay _anything_. I have service-connected disability (no
co-pay), and I shudder to think what I might have had to pay for
my recent surgery on the outside.
Thank you for your support. srsly
Bill "actually the surgery was on the inside" Turlock, thank you
Groucho
I have an acquaintance who did one hitch in the Coast Guard in
peacetime. He's a victim of the economy now, and I got him signed
up. His co-pay: ~$10-15 Dr visits, $8.50 'scripts.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:12:51 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 27, 9:44 pm, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalidwrote:
The VA uses a tiered eligibility system, with everything from means-
testing to service connection taken into account. if you have income
and assets less that 80k, it's a lot easier to qualify.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:17:40 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 7:57 pm, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalidwrote:
For some things. Not for free health care for life...
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:38:01 -0700, Paul L. Madarasz <...@yahoo.com
On 27 Oct 2009 18:23:59 GMT, Dover Beach <...@gmail.comwrote, perhaps among other things:
sk people who try to get
Not so fast there, young lady. I have no service connected
disabilities, and I owe my psychiatriast and my apartment to the VA.
Someone here seems not to know what they're talking about.
--
Sorry I can't stop and talk now,
I'm in kind of a hurry anyhow,
but I'll send you a tape from California.
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:13:25 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
would that be some kind of sc**nt*gy Dr.?
> but I'll send you a tape from California.
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:32:08 -0700, Paul L. Madarasz <...@yahoo.com
On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:13:25 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock
"@sonnnic.invalid
Damn body thetans screwed up my spelling. Back to the E-meters, I
guess.
--
Sorry I can't stop and talk now,
I'm in kind of a hurry anyhow,
but I'll send you a tape from California.
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:07:46 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
well, and I didn't have enought asterisks
> but I'll send you a tape from California.
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:13:38 -0700, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:14:02 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson
<...@yahoo.com
So you're saying that the French, Canadians, Swedish, Norwegians,
Finns, Danes, Spanish, Germans, Belgians, Japanese, Iceland, Ireland
and Great Britain can provide nationalized health care and somehow the
United States can't?
You're saying the citizens of those countries can expect to live as
much as two years more on average than Americans and Americans are too
incompetant to narrow that gap?
Why do you hate your own country so much? Why do you think so little
of your fellow workers? Are you nothing more than some sort of
vitriol spewing communist?
Jon M
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:58:54 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 1:13 am, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
Well, kind of, yeah, since the majority of those nations are facing
double or so digit inflation and unemployment (and you know, if Keynes
was really as right about everything as the benevolent fascists would
have it, that would be like transparent metals or dry water)
I'm sure that's not true, when the appropriate statistical controls
are applied. One thing, pace Mark Steese, almost everyone in Sweden is
Swedish, while hardly anyone in America is, so it's not really fair to
compare.
America also has to support more aircraft carriers than the rest of
the world combined, or you've got the Chicoms in Taiwan and Kim Jong
Il's portrait hanging in Seoul, and the reinstitution of the
Caliphate, so...
Why do you hate your country so much you want to throw it into a
perpetual state of recession like the eurosocialists "enjoy?"
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:22:48 -0700, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:58:54 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man
<...@aol.com
So how did we get roped into being the cannon fodder of the free world
so everybody else get to live longer? How do we get out of being
everybody elses killer slaves?
Jon M
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:05:04 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 29, 12:22 am, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
When we tried minding our own business and saving our money, we wound
up having to wade into some foolish bloodbath among the people who now
a certain element look to as an example of how to run a successful
country.
But even without that, even if you scaled back US military spending
to a level comparable as a precent of GDP to our NATO allies, you'd
find the US economy in a perpetual state of recession, with double
digit inflation and unemployment, as I have mentioned.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:21:50 -0700 (PDT), K_S_ONeill <...@gmail.com
On Oct 27, 12:13 am, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
His fellow what?
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On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:42:58 -0500, Lee Ayrton <...@panix.com
Yeah, I caught that too and snorked.
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On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:53:48 -0800, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
On Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:42:58 -0500, Lee Ayrton <...@panix.comwrote:
Behold the power of the buried straight line.
He still hasn't answered, though.
Jon M
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:10:17 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 26, 10:13 pm, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
What do you mean 'can'?
The problem is that their systems do not provide care efficiently,
while the US system does.
We get better results than they do. The best care in the world is
here, not there. Canada, at least, is notorious for importing health
care from the US. That says a great deal about the relative quality
of care. They aren't coming here to save money.
Non sequiter. Life expectancy is a composite measure (genes,
behavior, health care). Strict life expectancy comparison alone won't
tell you who has superior care. It is an example of that propoganda I
was mentioning. Saying our health care is inferior because we have a
lower life expectancy is deceptive and misleading to the point of
being a deliberate lie.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:55:53 -0500 (EST), "Lesmond" <...@verizon.net
Then how do you measure it?
--
If there's a nuclear winter, at least it'll snow.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:15:49 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 5:55 pm, "Lesmond" <...@verizon.net
By means other than raw expectancy or infant mortality statistics.
The effect can be seperated.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:12:49 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:55:53 -0500 (EST), "Lesmond"
<...@verizon.net
Ha. I can see YOU'LL never amount to a decent economist.
--
QueBarbara
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:18:54 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 7:12 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
No, you can't. You have just joined the troop of monkeys throwing
shit at something you don't like.
"How do you measure it?" is an economist's FIRST question.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:38:43 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 12:18 pm, Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
"Fresh troops", thought Command Private Major E. ConoMonkey, as he
readied another fecal projectile.
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Anonymous Wrote:
Mac <...@alum.wpi.edu
"We're running out of shit! Get us some more assholes!"
--
Huey
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:18:56 GMT, Mary <...@aol.c0m
Not to worry, Huey. There are always more assholes.
Mary
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On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:21:50 -0700, Greg Goss <...@gossg.org
Mary <...@aol.c0m
This is Usenet. We're gradually approaching that Spafford quote about
performing elephants.
--
apart from one noisy guy up in Canada, no-one wants
a three-cylinder tissue box on bicycle tires.
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On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:49:42 -0800, Les Albert <...@aol.com
On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:21:50 -0700, Greg Goss <...@gossg.org
" .... performing elephants with diarrhea."
Les
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:51:33 -0500, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
Remind me again what it is you do for a living?
Some of us work in company towns with attachments that make it hard to
move in the hope that the next employer will have better benefits. What
makes it harder is that you can't tell on paper how good an insurance
plan is. The "real" coverage gets disclosed on the fly.
I'd be interested in hearing about anyone who thinks their company
health plan has improved in recent years. I keep hearing about fewer
benefits for higher costs. If you had asked me five years ago, I'd have
said that the health plans here were pretty good. Now they are more
expensive and not as good.
David
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:53:34 -0400, Hank Gillette <...@yahoo.com
In article <...@news.tamu.edu "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
That's my story. In my first professional job (other than the military),
I paid nothing for my health insurance, my co-pay was $5 to see a
doctor, and $1 for a prescription.
Today, I pay (depending on the plan) a couple of thousand for my
employer subsidized health insurance. My co-pay is $20 ($40 for a
specialist) for an office visit, and prescriptions run from $5-$40
depending on whether a generic is available, and whether the medicine is
on the insurers "approved list". If it's not on the list, the cost can
go much higher.
--
Hank Gillette
"Years ago, I asked my dad for a boob job and he said it would cheapen
my image" -- Paris Hilton
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:55:23 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 2:51 pm, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
I often eat in the restaurant that has smaller TVs and less
attractive waitresses because they have thick, delicious steaks.
::shrugs::
There's a recession on, which means they cut wages, and a
(relatively) painless way to do that is to cut the price-
discrimination wages first.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:17:10 -0700 (PDT), "art...@yahoo.com" <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 4:55 pm, plausible prose man <...@aol.com
In a place like that what matters is not how attractive the waitresses
are, but whether they know CPR.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:55:34 -0400, Hank Gillette <...@yahoo.com
In article
<...@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I assume, George, that if you ever have a heart attack or stroke, you
are going to shop around before deciding which hospital and doctor to
use?
--
Hank Gillette
"Years ago, I asked my dad for a boob job and he said it would cheapen
my image" -- Paris Hilton
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:47:48 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 29, 11:55 am, Hank Gillette <...@yahoo.com
Well, sort of, yeah, other than I doubt those things'll be survivable
in my case. I mean, I hope so.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:51:48 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 11:51 am, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
Yawn. You don't actually pay attention to what you read, do you?
Doesn't matter how hard it is. It is still easie than chaging the
government.
And yet still better than Medicaid...
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:18:10 -0500, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.edu
And yet, just last November we succeeded in doing just that.
David
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:51:20 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 8:18 am, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
Don't tell Mr. Wilson that. Tell Mr. Eighner first. He seems to
think that Bush is still President...
...and, while that's an exaggeration, there's a certain amount of
meaning to it. Governments have something like inertia, at least once
they get big enough, and professional enough. Barring clear and
present danger, big institutions don't change fast.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:54:15 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 11:18 am, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
Right, which is why we've withdrawn the troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan, closed Gitmo, ended raids on medical marijuana
dispensiaries in the states where people have legalized it, and...
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:19:14 -0700, David Friedman <...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com
In article
<...@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com plausible prose man <...@aol.com
More important, there is a big difference between how hard it is for me
to do something about a situation I don't like and how hard it is for a
hundred million voters to do something about a situation none of them
like. From the standpoint of the individual, democracy in a large
society gives virtually no ability to change the government. The
government might change, in ways you do or don't like--but not as a
result of what you do.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:22:18 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 8:18 am, "David J. Martin" <...@tamu.eduwrote:
No, you didn't. You only changed the figurehead. The bureaucracy is
still run exactly the same.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:20:42 -0700, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:51:48 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson
<...@yahoo.com
Do you have any evidence at all that that is true? Or is this just
one more thing that you're pulling out of your ass?
Jon M
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:20:18 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 27, 10:20 pm, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
Yes, we don't see people voluntarily giving up company health plans
for Medicaid.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:55:04 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:20:18 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson
<...@yahoo.com
It's not uncommon for older employees to drop our company health plan
and switch to Medicare once they become eligible. Off the top of my
head, I'd say about half have switched.
--
QueBarbara
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:19:40 -0400, Boron Elgar <...@hotmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:55:04 -0500, QueBarbara
<...@go-awaygmail.com
Again, Medicaid is a state administered medical plan for the indigent,
with specific qualifications and many limitations.
Medicare is very different. Very often folks retire from a job and
even though qualified for Medicare, have insurance provided to them by
the former employer/union/organization. Sometimes the previous job
insurance offers more generous coverage than Medicare, sometimes it
can be used as Medigap or supplementary insurance. Lot of variables.
Boron
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:43:52 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:19:40 -0400, Boron Elgar
<...@hotmail.com
I understand that there's a difference, but Shawn seems to be using
them interchangeably (otherwise his "Yes, we don't see people
voluntarily giving up company health plans for Medicaid" comment
doesn't parse) so I am, too.
--
QueBarbara
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:30:03 -0400, Boron Elgar <...@hotmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:43:52 -0500, QueBarbara
<...@go-awaygmail.com
Heck, I know that *you* understand, but the only time I see that
non-productive leech's posts is when he's quoted. It's just nice to
point out he still has his head up his ass.
Apologies for using you as a conduit.
And just so I can add something meaningful to the conversation, I
found out the other day that the sub-contractor my insurance company
uses to make decisions as to whether a procedure such as MRI, CT,
chemo and other therapies and treatments prescribed by doctors, and
with whom I had a run in last week (and another, even bigger one, this
week) says on it's website that it makes these decisions for over
30,000,000 people in the US.
http://www.carecorenational.com/history.asp
"CareCore National currently manages more than 30 million lives"
So, if single payer systems scare anyone, I think that CareCore, a
privately held company, should scare the shit out of everyone.
Boron
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:07:07 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 29, 6:30 am, Boron Elgar <...@hotmail.com
But only a tenth as much.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:30:59 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
It does, thank you.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:20:21 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 6:43 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Or, you know, not...
(otherwise his "Yes, we don't see people
Of course it parses.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:58:27 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:20:42 -0700, Jon M <...@omnicast.netwrote:
No kidding. I can pull data out of my ass, with respect to my MIL,
FIL, and father's recent medical adventures, that says Medicare works
fine, and I wouldn't hesitate to utilize it over my current
company-provided health insurance plan if I had the option.
--
QueBarbara
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:06:45 -0700 (PDT), "art...@yahoo.com" <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 10:58 am, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Yeah? how many kiloshytes?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:18:51 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 7:58 am, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Medicaid =/= Medicare.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:21:23 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 7:58 am, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Can you? Have you figured out what the free market premium for
Medicare would be?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:40:50 -0400, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
Neither of my parents had a single complaint about Medicare.
Dana
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:23:32 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 9:40 am, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
They aren't paying for it.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:54:36 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 9:40 am, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
But it still ain't Medicade.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:01:33 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 9:54 am, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
Or even lemonade. -aid. -aid. -aid. -aid. -aid.
(Who knew you could get aids online?)
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:27:51 -0400, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
Immaterial. It demonstrates that government-run health insurance can
work well.
Dana
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:51:47 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 1:27 pm, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
The hell it does, you simple minded bint.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:05:33 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 10:27 am, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
Nahh. Two ways.
First off, Shawn's bugbear is "efficiency", and even if you don't want
to make an issue of that with small programs, it can become a big one
with larger ones. Showing that some people are happy with a program
that everyone else pays for says nothing about how efficient it is.
It's real easy to like free stuff, and it's real easy to hide or
ignore expenses that are spread out thinly over the group as a whole.
Next, economists, real ones, don't doubt that government programs can
be efficient or user-friendly, they just note that they tend not to
be. It takes concentrated political will to keep 'em focused on the
customer, and even more to keep 'em honest. Are you saying that you
think that the rest of the populace is as capable of that as AARP is?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:55:08 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 11:05 am, Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
And, since I see that I left half of that last thought implied rather
than stated outright: do you think that AARP, just as an example, is
as concerned about system efficiency anywhere near so much as about
user benefit?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:26:42 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 10:27 am, Dana Carpender <...@kivanospam.net
No, it doesn't. It demonstrates that if you tax Peter and Paul to
give money to Mary, Mary will be quite happy.
You cannot tax Peter, Paul, and Mary to give back to Peter, Paul and
Mary and do for them what taxing all three in order to benefit only
Mary did.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:59:16 -0400, Boron Elgar <...@hotmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:40:50 -0400, Dana Carpender
<...@kivanospam.net
Of course, the Unemployable Zit on the Backside of Society DipSwitch
from Arizona mentioned Medicaid, not Medicare.
Medicaid is very much under the control of the individual states and
both eligibility and coverage vary greatly. So, I guess if a person is
poor and ill, he can just state-hop until he finds Medicaid coverage
that suits him. You know, kinda of like (and as easy as) switching
jobs if a person doesn't like the employer offered coverage.
Boron
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:24:11 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 9:59 am, Boron Elgar <...@hotmail.com
Are you utterly incapable of civilized discourse?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:17:15 -0700, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:24:11 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson
<...@yahoo.com
Have you ever asked yourself that question?
--
Jon M
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Anonymous Wrote:
Jon M <...@omnicast.net
SHUT UP, YOU NAZI! THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS!
--
Huey
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:24:42 -0700, Bob Ward <...@email.com
Or, in Shawn's case, his floor buffer.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:23:26 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 9:17 pm, Jon M <...@omnicast.net
You as well I see. Is the problem that you are too iognorant and
stupid to do anything but throw shit?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:51:13 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 10:58 am, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
My mom's medicare and supplement is really really swell and she gets
all her medicine free and pays, like, ten dollars to go to the doctor
and whenever I see someone who pays a lot of taxes to support this I
think "Hello Sucker!"
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:58:27 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:51:13 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man
<...@aol.com
Wait, are you trying to tell me that . . . TAXES pay for Medicare? Oh,
and I suppose everyone knew that but me! Boy, now I really do feel
like a sap.
--
Que "say hey to your mama" Barbara
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:50:57 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 3:58 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Right, so it's an example of one of those "if you get it and don't
pay for it, someone else pays for it and doesn't get it" things.
Also, there's the excess burden of taxation to consider, and I
promise that's not just something Wilson made up.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:39:18 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 12:58 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Well, yeah, you are a sap. You don't seem to get that a scheme that
taxes many to pay for few can't be extended to the many.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:13:37 -0500, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.com
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:39:18 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson
<...@yahoo.com
Even if you had some hard data to back up that claim, that's besides
the point. Some of us want to take care of George's mum, just because
it's the right thing to do.
--
QueBarbara
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:46:42 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 10:13 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
That's like BIll asking for transitionary forms, you know.
That's admirable, and everything, I suppose, but it appears you're
making a different claim here, FCVO "you," that since Medicare works
reasonably well, at least from the standpoint of the various "Pauls,"
it obviously can be expanded to include "Peter" as well. Well, who are
we going to rob, then, to pay Peter and Paul?
See? So it's like Bernie Madoff.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:21:36 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 28, 7:13 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
Then reach into YOUR pocket and do so. Don't pick mine.
That aside, you really don't get it, do you?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:59:46 -0700 (PDT), Veronique <...@gmail.com
On Oct 28, 12:58 pm, QueBarbara <...@go-awaygmail.comwrote:
My mom still works, so I guess she's paying for her own damn Medicare.
'Course, it's only because Medicare paid for eye surgery and knee
surgery that's she's able to work and pay her own damn taxes for her
own damn Medicare...otherwise she'd be on disability, I guess, and the
economists here would be bitching about paying for THAT.
V.
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:52:28 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 4:59 pm, Veronique <...@gmail.com
Yeah, without looking, I betcha her share of pay-in is less than her
share of pay-out.
What do you assholes think, we can get together and pass a law that
everything is now free? Why do you think such silly things?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:05:13 GMT, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
On 28 Oct 2009, plausible prose man wrote
Yup.
That's how insurance schemes work -- whether run by the government or
by a private insurance firm: those who claim take out more than they
pay in, and those who don't claim put in more than they take out.
A system that says you can only draw out what you've paid in is
called "saving".
What part of the principles of "how insurance works" are you having
trouble grasping?
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:46:42 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
I prefer "risk sharing pool".
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:43:09 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 10:46 pm, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalidwrote:
Never share a pool with the incontinent. Words to live by.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:15:26 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 7:05 pm, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
Well, now we understand it.
That's a good word for it, scheme.
So you need a lot of people paying in to support the people paying
out, and, um...so it's like a Ponzi scheme, is what you're saying.
I think there's a certain point where you insurance company can
effectively convert your plan to "savings," as well as vet enrollees
in a way I don't think most of you envision socialized medicine as
being able to do.
amirite?
IFYPFY.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:47:58 GMT, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
On 28 Oct 2009, plausible prose man wrote
post in a way that sticks two fingers up to accepted netiquette:
He sold house insurance? Didn't know that.
No, as usual, you're trying to dodge the question.
Do you think that someone who's only paid, say, $1000 in buildings'
insurance premiums should be allowed to make a claim for more than
that if their house burns down?
I'll remind you: the question isn't "should he then be cut off", or
"should the company have accepted him": it's "should he be allowed
to claim?"
A simple 'yes' or 'no' answer will suffice -- but I'm pretty sure
you're too much of a weasel-mouth to do that.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:40:28 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 7:47 pm, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
Wrong: I didn't invent "IFYPFY."
No, he had this program where he robbed Peter to pay Paul. I
understand it was popular with Paul, but...well, the problem with a
scheme like that is eventually you run out of other people's money.
You know, like with socialism?
Maybe you should do a little less of the magical thinking.
Liar.
No, but of course...there is a cap on liability, of course, and
someone from the insurance company is going to come around and look
for some reason to deny the claim, and they inspect the house before
they insure it, and home owner's insurance doesn't usually cover the
cost of, you know, repainting every few years or having a cleaning
lady in, so it's not at all analogous to socialized medicine.
Are you really that slow?
Sure.
You're the one being dishonest here.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:12:58 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 4:47 pm, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
I suspect his point was something like "although 'sold' to the voting
public as a pooled risk, along the insurance model, Medicare as she am
today has a current payout much greater than it will support once the
current payers become payees, and thus more closely resembles a Ponzi
scheme than an insurance pool." I dunno if that is entirely true
(although I strongly suspect there's a lot more truth to it than
people would be comfortable with,) but I have trouble seeing how
someone couldn't get his intent from what he wrote.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:23:07 GMT, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
On 29 Oct 2009, Mac wrote
Nah; it's just a diversionary tactic on his part to avoid having
to explain how "pooled risk is a jolly good idea if it's run by a
private company, but pooled risk is a jolly bad idea if it's run by
a public body".
A Ponzi scheme financially benefits the person at the top of the
pyramid, who is scamming those lower down.
People claiming on Medicare aren't at the top of *any* pyramid,
anywhere. Not. Even. Remotely. Similar.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:42:21 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 28, 8:23 pm, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
Liar.
Because pooled risk isn't a public good, and so there's no market
failure you might make a case government can create a
What are you talking about? Of course they are.
Please feel free to rejoin the conversation when you know what you're
talking about.
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:14:56 -0700 (PDT), Mac <...@ALUM.WPI.EDU
On Oct 28, 5:23 pm, HVS <...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk
But perhaps it is, if the public doesn't actually understand what it
is getting into.
No, that would be a Ponzi fizzle. To get the big Madoffian bang, to
have to pay out generously to the initial investors, who then tell all
their friends.
Where exactly are you from, again? Most USAnian retirees avail
themselves of Medicare, even when they are rather rich.
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:57:58 -0400, Hank Gillette <...@yahoo.com
In article
<...@a31g2000yqn.googlegroups.com plausible prose man <...@aol.com
You do understand the concept of insurance, don't you?
--
Hank Gillette
"Years ago, I asked my dad for a boob job and he said it would cheapen
my image" -- Paris Hilton
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On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:48:29 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 29, 11:57 am, Hank Gillette <...@yahoo.com
You do understand the concept of a Ponzi scheme, don't you?
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Anonymous Wrote:
David J. Martin <...@tamu.edu
My plan dropped recurring coverage for mental illness and drug
addiction. Luckily, the chance of either one of those being a recurring
problem is tiny. Right?
--
All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a
handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in
the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. -- Samuel Beckett
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On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:23:10 -0700 (PDT), Shawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
Uh, seems the treatment is ineffective if it recurs. Why throw money
away on something that doesn't work?
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On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:29:56 -0700 (PDT), hpjeannie <...@yahoo.com
On Oct 25, 11:01 am, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalidwrote:
Well, and people are still making jokes about Harleys "marking their
territory" and breaking down on the side of the road. It takes a
couple of decades (or more) to break a stereotype once it's solidly
entrenched, even after the perceived problem is fixed.
Jeannie
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:33:32 -0700 (PDT), K_S_ONeill <...@gmail.com
On Oct 26, 3:29 pm, hpjeannie <...@yahoo.com
Harleys are still expensive, heavy, and slow. Every year they say
that this year's bike will be very reliable! Really. Ok. Buy a
Japanese bike.
--
Kevin
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:26:27 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
On Oct 27, 1:33 pm, K_S_ONeill <...@gmail.com
I gather they're still unreliable, but then again if you're a certain
type of motorcycle enthusiast, you probably enjoy working on the bike
just about as much as riding it.
Despite what his "predictive modeling" says, the campaign failed
because it really was your father's oldsmobile after all.
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On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:49:41 -0800, Bill Turlock <"Bill Turlock "@sonnnic.invalid
Lemme just ask this of Kim:
Has Paul's Harley ever caught fire?
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On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:06:00 -0700, Greg Goss <...@gossg.org
hpjeannie <...@yahoo.com
Which is why I admired Ford at the start of the eighties for facing
the problem directly with their "Have you driven a Ford -- lately"
campaign. (I didn't yet know that the Escort would have a trash
engine well into the nineties.)
--
apart from one noisy guy up in Canada, no-one wants
a three-cylinder tissue box on bicycle tires.
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Anonymous Wrote:
In article <...@a39g2000pre.googlegroups.comShawn Wilson <...@yahoo.com
So, you stop treatment of all chronic conditions. I guess that would be
one way of bringing health care costs down...
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
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Anonymous Wrote:
Paul Ciszek <...@nospam.com
Tell me Shawn really wrote that. He really did? I mean, my word, if I
was on the hugely popular Japanese game show "Trolling for Shawn" I'd
have rejected that one right off the bat. "Too simple," I'd have said.
"He did get into college at one point, there's no way he'd go for it."
No, really?
--
SHE TOOK ON A WHOLE GANG! A howling hellcat humping a hot steel hog on a
roaring rampage of revenge!
-- Bury Me an Angel (1972)
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:04:09 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
Yeah, because there you're getting away from the concept of insurance
and over into the "candy for dinner and Christmas every day" end of
it. You'll notice life insurance doesn't cover the cost of meals, car
insurance doesn't cover the cost of oil changes and gasoline, etc.
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Anonymous Wrote:
In article <...@l2g2000yqd.googlegroups.complausible prose man <...@aol.com
On the other hand, if they can cancel or change the terms of the policy
once you get sick, what exactly was the point of buying insurance in the
first place?
If the insurance company is only going to pay for treatment so long as
they don't have to pay out more than I am paying in premiums, I could do
better with a medical savings account.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
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On Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:13:46 -0700 (PDT), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I don't think its so much cancel as just...the expectations most
consumers have of their health insurances mean its going to be
difficult to meet overhead (and remember, ordinary profits are just
overhead, a rent required to move investor's capital past
indifference) without saying "no, we won't pay for this" and "no, you
can't have that" and "no, we aren't accepting you" in the first place,
and charging everyone a lot of money.
There's sick, and then there's sick, you know? At some point, some
bean counter, on behalf of the people who are paying into the
insurance and not taking any out, and of course the shareholders and
bondholders and reinsurers and whatever is only doing their job if
they say "now we're just throwing good money after bad."
Plus, since I know you like to analogize to other forms of insurance,
should they cover the cost of repair, ie treatment, or should they
"total" you and pay you for your lost equity?
to spread out the risk from catastrophic loss over the time of
coverage.
Why don't you get one of those, then? Maybe you could even have a tax
credit for that, or perhaps a partial subsidy, along the lines of the
EIC. I think that's how they do it in Singapore.
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Anonymous Wrote:
plausible prose man <...@aol.com
So a relative, who worked and paid premiums for 45 years while in
perfect health all the time, should have been denied coverage for his
second incident of mental illness? I guess it was just greedy of him to
expect to return to the workforce and society.
It sounds, George, like you'd like to have someone determine when a
person is, how did you put it, "totalled." Now I don't mind that much
if State Farm does that for a 1978 Pinto but Aunt Edie is another
matter. If you're going to have death panels, don't you at least think
that we should put someone without a fiscal interest in charge of them?
Nancy Pelosi, maybe?
--
Never fight a LAN war in AJAX
-- Arthur, on one of the classic blunders of the digital age.
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On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 08:20:30 -0800 (PST), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
I don't know, maybe...how effective is the treatment? How long will
he be recieving it? How much will it cost?
I wish him good luck with that.
Yes, you know, like they do with other forms of insurance?
Allow me now to turn the "concept of insurance" rhetoric back upon
you.
Or at least claims adjusters, sure.
Well...no? I mean, not unless I'm, you know, up at the top of the
pyramid with the rest of the "undeserving poor."
Let's get this straight...I want to just lay this out there for
everyone. So, you want to design a system, that's basically insurance,
you know, you want a pooled risk, except the people paying into the
pool, you know, or the ones handling money on their behalf, they have
no ability to determine the level of risk and make decisions
appropriately, and their liability could be virtually endless, but
somehow this is all going to be done less expensively than its done
now, and without adverse selection and other problems of moral hazard?
Indeed, some of you are arguing that not having this huge hole of a
ponzi scheme to throw everyone else's money down is a terrible burden
on the economy?
If you could see the face I'm making now, you'd remark on how similar
it is to the face Morgan Freeman makes in the most recent Batman
movie, where he wishes the fellow "good luck" with his plan to
blackmail a wealthy and determined sadistic vigilante.
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Anonymous Wrote:
plausible prose man <...@aol.com
1) Fairly effective, but mental illness is something which can and does
recur. You are left with a choice between returning the individual to
society (and premium payments) with a chance of recurrence, or leaving
him uncured and transferring the burden to society. Which, actually,
means that Medicaid is going to have to pay for him. So do you think
that the taxpayers should have a say in this?
2) Treatment is two to six weeks.
3) Treatment costs less than the insurance company's profits for the
fiscal year.
What's the difference in this case? Don't you think that Howling Wolf
Insurance Co. should have dropped Lil' Baby Palin's coverage the minute
they saw that there was a lifetime of medical costs in their future? Oh
wait, it wasn't Howling Wolf, it was Alaska's taxpayers who covered the
Palins. Lucky break for them!
"Determine the level of risk and make decisions appropriately"? I had
no idea you were such a comedian there, George. Do you think that goes
on now? People who are most aware of their level of risk are the ones
who insurers are refusing to serve. And those who have no clue as to
the risks and costs involved are deciding they shouldn't be insured
after all - which means that when they do get sick, we the taxpayers
foot the bill for them.
Or maybe you twisted yourself
around in your folksy runon there and meant to say the insurers
(which in your apparent hypothetical there would be the taxpayers)
couldn't determine the level of risk? We have these people called
actuaries, here, who are good at that. The problem is when C student
CEOs think that somehow trading bad risks for more bad risks spreads
their risk out, and makes it possible to issue policies for more bad
risks. Insurance companies who didn't engage in that are actually doing
fairly well in this Great Recession they've got going on here. Profits
are down, sure, but in 2008 the top ten still pulled down $8.2 billion.
See, I'm neutral on the public option; on the one hand it seems as if
the Canadians and the Brits could make it work how hard could it be?
(And I know that Idiot Boy is somehow convinced that Canucks coming to
the U.S. mean that the Canadian system is failing, but if that's true,
what does that say about all the Americans flying down to Costa Rica?)
On the other hand, I look at the jacknapes and dimwits who somehow
think that getting elected for public office is a good thing, and
remember the O'Rourke quote that Republicans are the ones who believe
that government doesn't work, and then get elected to prove it, and I
think that anything that's this much of a political football is going
to be fucked with endlessly, with the people determined to make it fail
doing their best to screw it up, and I think to myself, we'll get the
healthcare we deserve.
But right now the situation is untenable. You're worried about adverse
selection? What do you think is happening right now, when people who
are young and healthy, or even entrepreneurial (because it's not hard
to figure out, sick people don't decide to drop insurance and strike
out on their own) are priced out of the market, leaving the old and
sick? The only health insurance systems that are working well right now
in the United States are the government-run ones, and that's because
the vets and bureaucrats so far can get those of us in the private
sector to carry them. Keep going down this path and the bottom 90% of
the population is going to be on Medicare or Medicaid, and if you think
we've got problems now...
You want to beg the question and ask me if this "huge hole of a ponzi
scheme to throw everyone else's money down" is a good idea? No thanks,
play with someone else. Come up with actual statistics, maybe an
original idea and I'll consider it.
I'll consider it a small blessing that this is a text-only medium.
--
Pound a tube into Blinky and harvest the nectar of springtime.
- gossg offers interpersonal advice in afca
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On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:13:47 +0000, Jack Campin - bogus address <...@purr.demon.co.uk
Schizophrenia is the most expensive single illness for the British NHS.
It usually requires continuous, lifelong treatment, like diabetes, and
the age of onset is typically before 20, making it even more expensive.
Most other mental illness isn't like that - some cases of bipolar
disorder are, but the drugs used for that are a lot cheaper and it
typically strikes much later.
==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.ukJack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob 07800 739 557
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts
****** I killfile Google posts - email me if you want to be whitelisted ******
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Anonymous Wrote:
In article <...@fernon.pffcu.orgS. Checker <...@gmail.com
A better example might be someone who pays their premiums for (x) years,
then gets MS or some similar incurable condition. With medical treatment
they can keep working for a while longer, but they're not going to get
better.
Or for that matter, Lou Gherig's disease. George and Shawn would have
"totaled" Stephen Hawking a long time ago.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
Autoreply is disabled |
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On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:59:55 -0800 (PST), plausible prose man <...@aol.com
Again, I'm told that we should look to the business models of other
forms of insurance, so...what would your second serious accident do to
your auto insurance premiums or coverage, and why?
Perhaps he should try not being crazy. I understand that works just
about as well as anything.
Let's say you have auto insurance, and you have a couple of serious
accidents...what would that do to your rates and coverage?
So you see, part of how this "pooled risk" business works is somone,
acting on behalf of the payers-in side, has a job saying "no."
Talk about a bullet with your name on it...
I might not have insured his parents in the first place, if genetic
testing was available. You know, because that's how insurance works?
So basically, you guys are admitting it's a ponzi scheme after all,
and don't we already have enough of those in government?
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