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Obamacare Software Glitch Will Limit Penalties Charged To Smokers
turbosaab writes "The Obama administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system glitch will limit penalties that companies may charge smokers under the new healthcare law. The underlying reason for the limitation is another provision in the health care law that says insurers can't charge older customers more than three times what they charge the youngest adults in the pool. The government's computer system has been unable to accommodate the two. So younger smokers and older smokers must be charged the same penalty, or the system will kick it out. A fix will take at least a year to put in place."
but this is just lack of effort.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I'm hoping that this is because there's too many other things in the pipeline that are more critical to get done first, and not because, say, the system is so badly written that this one relatively minor looking task will take a year.....
If it's the latter, then I'm in the wrong business.
Finding God in a Dog
hey, you live in daddy's house, you live by daddy's rules.
skateboarders have a higher risk of injury, you will see a penalty.
gun owners? penalty.
rock climbers? penalty.
over BMI? penalty.
socialism. ideas so good, they have to be mandatory.
As a Canada with Government Health Care and nothing from work I must say this isn't that terrible and I am glad that US is tip toeing into prevent its citizens going broke when their health fails them. Though I really like to know how many packs a day the programmer who wrote that bug into the system smoked and how he/she/it demo around it at review and demos.
Life is like untied shoe laces; it always tripping you up and getting in your way.
should of been more on the lines of other systems.
At least the 30 hour rule fixes B.S like having an 39.5 hour work week with no benefits.
also helps contractors and temps get real plans as well killing off the joke care mini med plans.
This is not socialism at all, that would be a lot better.
Go look at european healthcare systems, they do not charge extra for any of those things.
No, the sensible party doesn't stand a chance. We only elect Republicans and Democrats to the presidency these days.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
After the story about the Govt. department smashing mice and keyboards because of malware and now this story I really think independent audits of technology vendors should be required in government. Obviously the auditors could be just as crooked as the contractor who suggested smashing mice with a hammer but I would hope if we got some real oversight the quality of technology products in the government would increase.
As a software engineer, this bug seems like it should have been caught early. I also don't really believe it would take a year to fix (imagine how many man hours that is). If there was a competitive company reviewing the code (or if it was open source), hopefully someone competent would be able to call B.S. on the "It will take a year to fix" statement. Without that oversight it is just speculation.
You know, that doesn't sound like socialism at all. More like capitalism and egoism taken to the extreme.
Considering that two of these delays have an ETA of 2015, almost all of the rest of the law is expected to come online in 2014, and the next President isn't sworn in until January 2017, I'd say that's some tall wishing.
Finding God in a Dog
So Slashdotters object to government collecting their metadata, but sticking its nose into every health decision is A-OK?
ObamaCare has 100x the potential for abuse the NSA does.
Even apart from socialized medicine starving people to death.
Control of healthcare? You mean control of health insurance.
easier to jack up the pre pack tax then to bill each user on there tax forums.
With any luck the next President will be from the sensible party
Which party is the sensible party again?
The ones who always are and always will be. Has nothing to do with healthcare.
I invite you to travel the world, you will learn a lot.
With each new story on this or that problem with implementing some part of the Affordable Care Act, and given how the various parts of it interlocked to keep it from breaking down, I just get the impression that there's going to be chaos when it really gets going. Assuming that it's allowed to. At some point maybe everyone agrees that it's not implementable in its present form, like one of those gigantic software projects that crashes to the ground because it was ill-conceived to begin with and nobody can figure out how to make it work.
Obama, software glitches, and smoking.
It's like the holy trilogy of contentious Slashdot topics.
All we need now is to tie this into movie or music piracy somehow, and maybe sprinkle in some Scientology for good measure.
BRB, making popcorn.
Schnapple
Lose-lose, actually. Because the profits you are talking about simply do not exist. So much so, health-insurers close the shop and simply withdraw from certain (highly progressive) states.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Saying everyone in the Republican party believes you can't get pregnant from rape is like saying every Slashdot poster spams about hosts files and goatse.
Then I invite you to look at Australia with a similar system and an economy not in the toilet.
Which party is the sensible party again?
Justice.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
And what else is new? They're called "smoke-filled rooms" for a reason.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
better then the old system where you can pay in to plan for years and when you get real sick they drop you or say you hit the max pay out cap (easy to do when acetaminophen sold for $1.50 a tablet (you can buy 100 of those for the same price at Amazon); $77 for a box of sterile gauze pads (Amazon’s prices vary between $6 and $11); $18 for a single diabetes test strip (sold for 54 cents by Amazon); $108 for antibacterial Bacitracin ointment (Amazon’s prices vary between $2.50 and $6.50)
it's a feature
who is better a CEO who wants a new BMW or the GOV?
Don't forget the 1st, 2nd and of course the 4th.
In fact, the 3rd amendment is the only one that I'm aware of that they haven't tried to violently violate, yet.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Then I invite you to look at Australia with a similar system and an economy not in the toilet.
That's because it's a resource-based economy selling megatons of crap to the Chinese. Wait for the China bubble to burst and tell us how well it's doing.
Why would a Democrat postpone ObamaCare?
To implement a sensible single payer system?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
They sure as hell would like to. There's already talk of charging smokers and overweight people an additional premium. Not being a smoker and being just a tad overweight, I say HELL NO unless the people with an unhealthy lifestyle also get a larger cut on their state and private pension premiums. The BBC doc. "the cost of dying" ought to be mandatory viewing for anyone contemplating such penalties, as it has shown that the super healthy people are the most expensive overall, and only slightly below in health care costs as they will often suffer from similarly expensive ailments, just a bit later in life.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Yes, I too hope the next president will be from the Green party and postpone implementation of Obamacare in favor of implementing single payer. It's not going to happen, but it's nice to hope.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Democrats are not sensible either. Nor are the libertarians and greens. And most of the rest of the other parties are even more batshit insane than the republicans.
...in other words, you believe that handing off something to a large government beaurocracy is going to magically make that thing more efficient and cheaper.
Do you fall for telemarketers and Nigerian scams too?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hence the state of their economy with several members of the EU on the brink of bankruptcy.
That's primarily because they don't have their own currency, and can't operate on debt the way normal countries do.
I read someone's analysis which said that the eurozone came about due to the reunification of Germany, and the resulting need to create a sense of community so that Poland and France wouldn't be nervous about being invaded again. So there was a bandwagon attempt to get everyone on board. The problem is that the system requires participating countries to operate in the black, but the aforesaid bandwagon brought in countries that have *never* operated in the black. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.
And BTW, a number of eurozone countries have good healthcare and are *not* on the brink of bankruptcy. We need to set aside all the political scaremongering so that the USA can develop a sensible healthcare policy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hence the state of their economy with several members of the EU on the brink of bankruptcy.
Yet it's not the most socialist European countries that are going broke. The Nordic nations, for example, are doing just fine. It's Mediterranean Europe that is having trouble, and they've had fiscal problems for decades. Putting them in a single currency union with the likes of Germany was just asking for a disaster to happen.
they just want to wait til after the mid term elections before they continue to rape us
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
socialism. ideas so good, they have to be mandatory.
Great minds...(see my sig)
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I think you're confused. There is no 'new' systems, it's merely the old system with a white wash.
over BMI? penalty.
Somehow you think the penalty was not higher (i.e. NO insurance) before Obamacare? You must have had group insurance.
The government not comping with its own laws for technical reasons or otherwise is unacceptable.
I hope someone in a position to file a suit for not being able to setup the benefits as desired and legal way under the law will sue.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
What fiasco? Any insurance is a shared risk pool. That includes the careless jack*sses. It doesn't matter if this is a government imposed system or one from the allegedly free market. You still have to account for the people that make poor choices.
Piling on "consequences" completely defeats the entire point of government meddling to begin with.
We don't need to add yet another layer of inefficiency if the final result is going to be that some class of insured is told "tough luck". The free market can do that all by itself.
The fact that the system avoids punishing poor choices should be a surprise to NO ONE.
It's an obvious design requirement.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You could argue that forcing telcos and ISPs to incorporate wiretapping equipment into their systems constitutes a quartering of government agents on private property in violation of the 3rd Amendment.
You know, that doesn't sound like socialism at all.
In US political dialogue, "socialism" is just a vague term used to smear people or plans that you don't like. I suspect only a tiny minority of Americans could give a reasonably accurate definition.
Oddly, it has moved to fill the niches formerly occupied by both "communism" and "fascism".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
new as in can't be dropped or said no health care for you NEXT!
Yeah, if you look at total lifetime costs smokers are saving everyone money. They die of horrible diseases that are cheap to deal with until they cause death.
Maybe the US govt can start twampling the 6th through 10th amendments next year
21st Century Renaissance Man
...which would make sense, if collecting state-level stamp taxes had anything whatsoever to do with this problem.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
In fact, the 3rd amendment is the only one that I'm aware of that they haven't tried to violently violate, yet.
Nope, they're working on that one too: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/08/family-booted-from-home-for-police-detail-suing-with-rare-use-third-amendment/
The more socialist countries in Europe are in much better financial condition than the rest, and had much less of a downturn than the U.S.
Being a capitalist doesn't have to make you dumb.
Why would a Democrat postpone ObamaCare?
To implement a sensible single payer system?
There's the problem. The semi-sensible plan was eviscerated to get it past the Republicans and Blue Dogs in the relevant committees... who turned around and voted against it even after wringing all the concessions.
The problem, of course, is that a good system would handicap all the scalpers profiting off your misery right now. And when the scalpers trade shares on Wall Street, cutting them out of the loop isn't allowed.
In the USA there is a common view that personal and public health and wellbeing are a personal problem, but the financial wellbeing of rich people and corporations is something the government must protect.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You could argue that forcing telcos and ISPs to incorporate wiretapping equipment into their systems constitutes a quartering of government agents on private property in violation of the 3rd Amendment.
I wish I had mod points today. A beautiful comment if there ever was one.
More Twoson than Cupertino
What does that have to do with socialism? That is a property of insurance in general. In fact, when these practices are absent, it is usually because of big government policies that prohibiting them.
Being a non-fan of big government solutions, I think charging people for the actual risk of insuring them is a step in the right direction, when it comes to risks that are a result of choices, because it can influence behavior.
I would mod this insightful if I could. But I can't. This has been part 3 of the uCallHimDrJ0NES slashdot posting trilogy for 9 July 2013. It's been a wild, epic ride. Now please, no one use the word "prequel".
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
I can't remember the last time I heard health insurance companies promising to give people due process before they denied coverage for their claims. Plus I can vote for or against politicians. I suppose I could vote with my wallet against bad health insurance plans, but as that would realistically require changing jobs, I'm not too optimistic about that doing anything.
Here's a chart showing how the exchanges are supposed to work. Just a system in which the public looks at different health plans from different providers would be complex enough, but note the links to the IRS, Treasury, Social Security, HHS, Homeland Security, and state Medicaid systems. This thing must be giving nightmares to even top IT pros.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Medicare, which begin in 1965, is roughly the same in complexity, and we survived it. The difference may be that Congress was willing to make adjustments back then, whereas now we have a polarized crew in DC and heading businesses.
Table-ized A.I.
There are sensible people in both parties. Vote for them in the primaries and we'll have two sensible parties. Fail to vote in the primaries, and you may as well not bother voting in the general election either.
The fact that you refer to it as a "market" is abysmal.
This could all change as soon as someone discovers a cure for COPD and lung cancer that costs $2 million to administer.
I knew the health care system in the US was ridiculously expensive but that this is allowed... Even in the new healthcare system proposed by the neoliberal party in the Netherlands insurance companies have to offer the same price for the basic insurance for everybody. Taxing some more than others would cause uproar. Some are suggesting to let smokers pay more but the usual response that in that case it would also be fair to let them pay less for their retirement pension usually cuts that off.
Not exactly. It's not like people with heart and lung disease just keel over at age 55. They usually have a long, slow decline in health that is punctuated by expensive visits to some aspect of the healthcare system or other. And why pick on heart and lung disease? That's what MOST smokers die from. Lung cancer, although way more common in smokers than non smokers isn't what gets most puffers. And even lung cancer isn't a rapid roll off the carpet. Chemotherapy, surgery and supportive care still is pretty expensive.
So, no, sorry. Giving everyone a couple of packs of cigs per day isn't going to decrease health care expenses.
Please try again.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Obamacare is a socialist policy. The idea of a government itself is a socialist institution. However, charging higher risk people higher taxes to pay for their healthcare is actually a step closer to free markets. It would be more socialist if they charged everyone the same price.
Not to mention, a lot of unhealthy people are in that condition because the don't frequent the medical clinics.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Correction: "began in...".
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe the US govt can start twampling the 6th through 10th amendments next year
Oh, the FISA kangaroo courts take care of those pretty damn succinctly.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Italy and Greece are the two worst off. Anyone that picks either as an example is clearly biased and looking to point out weeknesses. England is closer to the middle. Not as strong as Germany, but with longer-term socialist leanings, so a nice long history of NIH and such. Does pretty well at it. France is doing on, though their immigration policies have led to some internal discord. And there are what, 20-something others? Social welfare is local and not mandated across. England is doing OK, even with the conservatives complaining about the EU forcing the UK to let in the Poles and such. NIH covers anyone in the EU, if properly registered and in the UK at the time. So people could travel from all over Europe for "free" care, but they don't. Given the free travel amongst all the states, are they really that bad when there isn't mass migration from the bad ones to the "good" ones? Germany *must* accept any Greeks that want in, so why aren't there lines of Greeks trying to get in?
Learn to love Alaska
... we should have what this guy's advocating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE
Who the hell was that guy? Why didn't we elect him?
Not health care expenses, but overall costs. Dead smokers will not draw a pension, for example. And keep in mind that dying in general has become more expensive; we're extending people's lifetimes with treatments and the older people get, the more ailments they will have, even having lived a healthy life. The difference in total health care costs between smokers and non smokers has declined.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
What do you think healthy people die of?
That takes even longer and costs more. Plus they collect SS for many years. Smokers are dead before that.
While I agree with you regarding primaries, even with earnest effort, many primaries are too corrupt for it to work. This isn't to discourage the effort, of course. It's just a reminder that if you want primaries to work, you've got to get a lot of people interested enough. Otherwise, the cronies and sock puppets still win.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Yeah, if you look at total lifetime costs smokers are saving everyone money. They die of horrible diseases that are cheap to deal with until they cause death.
Also, they pay a shit load of tax on their tobacco...
http://blog.nexusuk.org
When the China bubble bursts, let me know how the US is doing. I expect worse than Australia.
Learn to love Alaska
The Supreme Court has ruled that the 9th and 10th Amendments don't exist (they don't say anything specific enough to enforce, so they have no legal weight), so nobody challenges them anymore, you won't make it up to the Supreme Court.
Learn to love Alaska
Wouldn't you want to penalize the younger smokers more to try and discourage smoking in the first place. Your older smoker is possible to have gotten addicted before people were aware of the health risk. Otherwise charging them the same penalty is the correct choice, and isn't so much as a bug but what seemed logical to the person writing the code at the time.
The problem is not Obamacare. The problem is the disgusting, predatorial healthcare system in the US. The problem is that the US doesn't follow every other developed country in the world and treats healthcare as a privilege instead of a right. As such, the monopolies that run the healthcare system exploit the lack of competitive pressure since people in the hospital frequently can't "shop around" for better & cheaper service. This leads to the practice of charging patients literally 10x to 100x what things actually cost.
The fact that the US even has to deal with such an unethical, predatorial system to begin with--instead of just offering universal healthcare--is what failed, not Obamacare itself. In fact, even though Obamacare itself is flawed, I'm hoping that at least the constitutionally-validated mandate will eventually lead to the US offering universal healthcare, since the current system is unsustainable and people are now required to have coverage. No matter how bad Obamacare is, I think it's still a step forward. Consider if it hadn't been implemented... then in 5 more years we'd be right back to town hall meetings with constiuents (and Sarah Palin) screaming about death panels, etc. At least there's a chance to get to universal health care from Obamacare: the mandate is a good excuse to have a government option at least.
Obamacare is bound to go poorly because the US healthcare system is shit. There's nothing Obamacare could do to be "good". We just need to fix our system.
Go look at european healthcare systems, they do not charge extra for any of those things.
Or we could look at Japan.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When the party doesn't censor the bad ones, they agree with him.
Learn to love Alaska
Much as it causes me physical pain to agree with h4rr4r, this has been well studied. Everybody dies of something, and smoking-related deaths are average-cost deaths. Plus smokers die younger and thus tend to have lower total lifetime healthcare costs (and that's before considering the savings on pensions etc).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Which party is that?
The one who wants to limit peoples civil rights and thinks you can't get pregnant from rape? Is that the one you are talking about?
So... both of them, then.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Hate to say it, but thanks to this new little law, it will be to the point where health insurance == healthcare.
Even now, most hospital policies and prices are vastly inflated specifically because they know they can charge insurance plans a metric shit-ton of money for every little thing.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
In fact, the 3rd amendment is the only one that I'm aware of that they haven't tried to violently violate, yet.
I bet you don't live in the South. The 3rd was thoroughly trampled during the Civil War, where quartering of Union troops in (opposing-side) family houses was used to quash dissent during occupation, and sometimes as a way to allow looting. Of course, Confederate forces did much the same, but that's a different government.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
whatchu talking about? there's a lawsuit in nevada this week about third amendment violations. Google it, and lose all remaining faith! ):
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
With any luck the next President will be from the sensible party and officially postpone implementation of Obamacare indefinitely.
The sequestration act was intentionally lousy in the hopes that when faced with no choice but to allow it to go into effect, the politicians would take action and write a better bill. Similarly, the health insurance bailout act is total garbage that doesn't solve the terrible problems that exist in our terrible system. Hopefully now that it is coming close to being enacted people will actually sit down and write a law that fixes the system. For decades we have continued with doing nothing while the system has only fucked over more people. It is time that someone actually do something to fix this broken system. The rest of the industrialized world has a better system than ours, it is time we take into consideration that this is simply the wrong thing to do when dealing with life and death.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yes, the third has been violated in very recent history. If you count militarized police officers as soldiers: http://usahitman.com/hpafrohl/
the 9th and 10th are already thoroughly trampled or abused into meaninglessness
Hear hear! I really wish since they didn't have any R votes anyway, they had just passed the law they & we really wanted anyway.
There are more than two parties.
You are setting the bar mighty low.
Spoken like someone who has never been there. They would laugh at your libertarian ideals suggestion.
The problem is not Obamacare. The problem is the disgusting, predatorial healthcare system in the US. The problem is that the US doesn't follow every other developed country in the world and treats healthcare as a privilege instead of a right. As such, the monopolies that run the healthcare system exploit the lack of competitive pressure since people in the hospital frequently can't "shop around" for better & cheaper service. This leads to the practice of charging patients literally 10x to 100x what things actually cost.
I think you are slightly confused. You have it right when you are talking about the lack of competitive pressure increasing prices, but the solution is not to remove even more competitive pressure by switching to one plan to rule them all, which is essentially what Obamacare does. (You can have "competiting" plans, but they have to be the same, or you get hit for having a "cadillac plan".) The solution is to restore competitive pressure by implementing things like healthcare spending accounts (HSA) etc. which would place the consumer in the drivers seat for their own care. "... but doctor, is there a less expensive med that I can take?" (or test, or proceedure, etc.)
But this is where others start complaining that this leaves out the poor, etc. since they can't afford to contribute to a HSA. (I am afraid I don't have a good answer, except to say that Obamacare isn't shaping up to fix this issue either.)
Don't forget, there are people in Canada who come to the US to use our "shit" system, because they can't get care in a reasonable time-frame in their socialized healthcare system. It is well and good to have a "right" to healthcare, but if you have to wait in line for a year to treat something that is going to kill you in six months without treatment, it doesn't do you any good.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Does this include provisions to exempt electronic cigarette users?
Y'know, I've never heard of any "normal" (read: non-wealthy) Americans who think the government should be in the business of protecting the financial wellbeing of corporations and the rich.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This is just the way the rules are written. The ratios between prices for policies for younger people and older people are checked after the smoking penalty is added on. The ratio cannot exceed 3x. So it is not possible to charge a much smaller penalty to younger smokers than for older smokers without breaking that rule.
It may be more of a case of unintended consequences, or legislators and bill writers that can't do math. The article says a fix will take a year, but doesn't say why. I suspect it is because either a legislative fix will be required or HHS will just rewrite the rule on it's own and has to go through the regular proposed rule-making/comment period/final rule-making rig-amoral.
But why are we choosing to charge smokers more? I thought smoking was an addiction and we are supposed to offer health care regardless of pre-existing condition?
Are we going to charge single women or "slutty" women more for reproductive health care because, like, they shouldn't be "doing it"?
Are we going to charge fat persons more?
Are we going to charge people more if they admit to other drug dependencies?
Are we going to charge gay men more unless they can prove they are monogamous? Straight men more unless they can prove they are not "cheating"?
And how do we enforce this? If we catch you smoking and we cancel your health insurance? Put you in jail?
What about an occasional cigar smoker or someone who takes a drag when "a joint is passed around"?
Are the authorities going to stick a OBD-II dongle in your car to make sure you aren't driving too fast?
What about drinking and binge drinking? Are you going to get a rate break for abstaining, and does your rate go up if someone spots you taking a sip of champaign at a wedding?
Then I invite you to look at Australia with a similar system and an economy not in the toilet.
That's because it's a resource-based economy selling megatons of crap to the Chinese. Wait for the China bubble to burst and tell us how well it's doing.
However badly Australia does when the Chinese bubble bursts, it would be worse if they had US style healthcare (either pre or post Obamacare) as it costs at least 50% more, while being no better, and not covering everyone. Say what you want about Australians with their kangaroos and funny accents, they're not dumb enough to adopt American style healthcare.
The nordics are not socialist. They are social democrats with a mixed economy where the government assumes responsibility for some critical infrastructure while aggressively breaking up cartels and preventing (to some extent) collusion in an otherwise free market in order to keep the markets free.
Actually, the nordics are good examples of libertarian ideals.
Yes, of Left Libertarian ideals, but those are almost completely unknown, and probably anathema, to most American libertarians.
So, no, sorry. Giving everyone a couple of packs of cigs per day isn't going to decrease health care expenses. Please try again.
Please explain why I should accept an analysis pulled from your posterior over, you know, actual facts and statistics.
Please inform us of the Bush-driven legislation that mandated your HMO do this.
Dark Reflection
Being a non-fan of big government solutions, I think charging people for the actual risk of insuring them is a step in the right direction
Makes sense, as long as you also reduce Medicare and Social Security taxes for smokers. They're puffing hard to use fewer of those benefits, so your principle of "charging people for the actual risk of insuring them" requires that they pay less for them.
Were opposing-side families covered by the constitution? Different government and all...
...
hit the max pay out cap (easy to do when acetaminophen sold for $1.50 a tablet (you can buy 100 of those for the same price at Amazon))
I guess I'm just a lost cause. I continue to fail to understand how it is that first instinct of people when confronted with this problem isn't to ask why these prices are so ridiculously inflated, but instead demand some cap be eliminated so the ridiculously inflated prices can continue to be indulged.
Here is a question: what do you think is going to happen to the price of acetaminophen administered in a hospital when the hospital knows with metaphysical certitude that the payer of the bill can't drop the patient and can't impose a cap?
Are you even aware that you're supposed to care?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
The system can't charge a discounted penalty for younger smokers.
So its not that the system will limit, its actually that the system won't limit the penalties.
Instead of leveling the playing field by making insurance compulsory for everyone, how about we just do away with insurance altogether. Just add up the salaries and bonuses for all those insurance execs and you'll have a good rough estimate of the potential savings. Instead of companies paying increasing premiums each year, pay employees better wages (and I do me employees, not upper management). Maybe we could even concentrate on making health care more affordable. If the hospitals don't have insurance to milk, maybe they won't insist on an MRI for every-damn-thing. We won't need to charge smokers and the obese higher premiums; they'll just have to pay their own damn bills like everyone else. Will this mean some people can't afford the care they need? Absolutely. We should try to keep that to a minimum, but ultimately we could use a bit more Spartan in us. Some people are just born unhealthy. Those people will either be successful enough to pay for the care they need, or die. There's already enough piss in our gene pool. If you want society to take care of you, try being an asset to society.
The software did not implement what the law says. The could just fix the software to make it allow for what the law says. But the bureaucracy won't allow just fixing the software because ... apparently this was all contracted out, and they have to do an all new contract to have it fixed. So not only will it take a year or more, but it will cost at least 3.75 million dollars to do it because the old computers with the wrong software will have to be smashed and replaced with all new computers, including new mice, with the new software.
Your tax dollars at waste.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That's like the old joke:
Q: What do you call a bus filled with lawyers going off a cliff?
A: A good start.
If we killed off all the health insurance companies I guess we'd have to adopt something like the Canadian system and actually save some money (us pinkos are notorious tightwads).
Makes sense, as long as you also reduce Medicare and Social Security taxes for smokers. They're puffing hard to use fewer of those benefits, so your principle of "charging people for the actual risk of insuring them" requires that they pay less for them.
I wouldn't have a problem with this, but I think it would be more symbolic than anything. The economic cost of smoking is currently slightly negative, but the social cost is probably fairly high. Smoking causes a lot of suffering in the family and friends of the smokers who need to watch them suffer. You can't really put a price tag on this, but I don't think smoking should be encouraged as a way to save society money. If so we would also encourage people to commit suicide once they stop paying taxes.
That said, I think it is quite possible for new advances in medical treatments to transform smoking related illnesses from cheap death sentences to really expensive procedures (e.g. growing new lungs for transplant from stem cells, etc). I think smoking's status as a net savings is temporary.
There are more than two parties.
Yea, but you, me, and the rest of the world know which two I'm talking about.
They are setting the bar mighty low.
FTFY. I don't set the bar, I just calls it like I sees it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The US government was pretty darn insistent that the opposing side was still part of the nation it governed!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Even better if you get involved earlier than the primaries... pick a party -- either party -- and go to your local caucus meetings and help influence the selection of the representatives to state caucuses who have real influence on what candidates appear on the primary ballots.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
...which would make sense, if collecting state-level stamp taxes had anything whatsoever to do with this problem.
1. There are also federal taxes on cigarettes.
2. States cover lots of medical expenses, so if the real concern was defraying the (imaginary) additional healthcare costs of smokers, all state cigarette taxes could be dedicated to healthcare expenditures instead of the general fund.
And there in lays the problem with socialist governments.
Which explains why all those "socialist" countries that have true UHC (e.g. Canada) pay at least 1/3 less for healthcare and cover everyone.
BMI may well be the single biggest scam in health care. BMI is wrong, everyone knows it's wrong, but they just keep rationalizing why it is right anyway. All the while, health insurance companies get to charge healthy people extra, and politicians get to bemoan the 'obesity epidemic'.
Might force people to do something silly like cook meth and build a drug empire.
Why would that be silly? You don't pay higher health insurance premiums for using illegal drugs. Tobacco? Yes. Meth, heroin, etc.? No penalty.
The problem is that some risky behavior gets charged for, while other risky behavior gets subsidized. Once that happens, it isn't risky behavior that is getting the extra charge. It is unpopular behavior, or behavior that a powerful minority doesn't like.
/. call out that people who don't get immunized should have to pay higher premiums. No one calls out for higher premiums for people with kitchens. Yet, the risk of death due to a home cooked mean is more than 3 times that of skipping the chicken pox vaccine.
Case in point. Many here on
skateboarders have a higher risk of injury, you will see a penalty.
Higher risk than what? Sitting at home and not exercising? Playing sports to stay in shape?
Everything we do has risks.
The Germans themselves seem doubtful about the prospect of them being able to bail everyone else out.
Ability or willingness?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
the social cost is probably fairly high. ... You can't really put a price tag on this
So don't even try.
I don't think smoking should be encouraged as a way to save society money.
Do you think anyone is seriously suggesting that? But the point that it would save money is entirely valid, and pokes a hole in all this nonsense.
I think it is quite possible for new advances in medical treatments to transform smoking related illnesses from cheap death sentences to really expensive procedures
That's potentially true of all sorts of things. It's ridiculous to worry about every possible hypothetical. BTW, not much research goes into curing smoking related illnesses, because they're easily preventable. Don't smoke if you don't want lung cancer. Pancreatic cancer is another story.
Or it might be an inadequate spec.
So what does the law say? I looked up Section 2701(a)(1)(A) where the two ratios are specified. 1.5:1 for tobacco use vs. non-tabacco use, and a maximum 3:1 ratio for adults. This section doesn't say anything about whether the age rating limit should be applied after or before the tobacco rating limit is applied. Someone should have thought of this when drafting the law.
You might be able to make an argument that it should work either way. Did HHS ever issue guidance on how to apply this section of the law or was it intentionally or unintentionally left vague?
The murderer is EDS with dot-net in citrix. Am I getting warm?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The nordics are not socialist. They are social democrats with a mixed economy where the government assumes responsibility for some critical infrastructure while aggressively breaking up cartels and preventing (to some extent) collusion in an otherwise free market in order to keep the markets free.
Actually, the nordics are good examples of libertarian ideals.
Yes, of Left Libertarian ideals, but those are almost completely unknown, and probably anathema, to most American libertarians.
Mod parent up. I wish American libertarians could mentally grasp the fact that "liberty" is meaningless in the absence of economic security.
Careful what you wish for, the Paul family wants to rewrite it on punched cards.
Table-ized A.I.
Not health care expenses, but overall costs. Dead smokers will not draw a pension, for example.
And non-smokers will?
Seriously. Google it. It was outsourced. God Bless America, and the H1-B.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
In US political dialogue, "socialism" is just a vague term used to smear people or plans that you don't like.
No, it's used as short-hand for the general bundle of sensibilities that give rise to the urge for a Nanny State approach to things. Collectivist thinking, where people born with or raised to have a work ethic are, by definition, slaves to those who aren't, won't, etc. It doesn't matter where you draw the line between Communism and Socialism, because they come from the same ideological place: they call for an elite group of people to spell out how the efforts of some people will be confiscated in order to dole them out to other people. Structurally, permanently. The harder you're willing to work, the more of a slave you are.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
In the so called "socialist country" (sweden/germany/france) we do not have a penalty if you smoke. You do not pay more. Frankly it seems to be really a US habits of making stuff more complex and try to punish people on the side for bad habits in law. If you had made the law without such exception, the law would be 1) easier 2) you would not have to make the expansive (more than zero) change 3) software would have been cheaper to design. And what does it makes of a change to have a penalty ? Probably not much in the long run.
Really, you do not need to reinvent the wheel. If you wanted socialized medicine, you could have made it simpler and consulted specialist (european country) rather than make the complicated horror you got.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"In US political dialogue, "socialism" is just a vague term used to smear people or plans that you don't like." , oh man, they must really hate police and fire station, one of the socialized service in the US ;).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"... in time of peace ..."
I know you are going to say something next about GWOT and permanent warfare... but I think The American Civil War probably qualifies as a real war by most people's definition.
THL phish sticks
"socialism". You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Please educate yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
I wish American libertarians could mentally grasp the fact that "liberty" is meaningless in the absence of economic security.
Ben Franklin had a famous quote about that. You don't get liberty in the presence of so-called economic security - for example, any mechanism that shields society from economic risk is possible to game and suborn to undemocratic purposes. And we have plenty of examples of this in practice such as the global phenomenon of "too big to fail".
Your civil rights aren't worth very much, if you are too poor to enjoy them — and we are steadily getting poorer on the Nobel Prize Winner's watch. And there is no denying that — there are more Americans receiving government's food assistance today, than there are working the private sector.
Oh, and the civil rights — whatever they are worth — are deteriorating even faster on his watch too: TSA is ever more inquisitive, the people Bush used to merely detain are now simply killed. Hunting for a sole teenager with one pistol, the government locked down the entire town and the literal jackboots were throwing people out of their houses at gunpoint.
So, you chose "civil rights" over prosperity and are quickly losing both. I would've laughed at you, if your choice did not affect me as well...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. If it was an IRS computer glitch that prevented the IRS from collecting a few extra dollars from everybody, you can be damned sure it would be fixed in less than a year.
But, as usual, it's someone else's money.
2. I'm surprised someone doesn't sue -- the law says one thing, the software does another -- the government has no power whatsoever to force you to behave (and lose money) according to faulty software.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ben Franklin had a famous quote about that.
Then please share it with us.
Of course, if it's the one I'm thinking of that's so beloved of libertarians, it's bunk - Franklin never said it.
You don't get liberty in the presence of so-called economic security
So does that mean that the greater the economic insecurity the greater the freedom?
we have plenty of examples of this in practice such as the global phenomenon of "too big to fail"
It's hard to imagine a greater counter-example. TBTF means destroying the economic security of many individuals in order to prop up a few fat cats - the exact opposite of what's meant by economic security.
Interestingly, Sweden is the model for telling bankers to live with their mistakes, so that most people have greater economic security. Shame we didn't follow their example from the early 90's.
Hence the state of their economy with several members of the EU on the brink of bankruptcy.
Yet it's not the most socialist European countries that are going broke. The Nordic nations, for example, are doing just fine. It's Mediterranean Europe that is having trouble, and they've had fiscal problems for decades. Putting them in a single currency union with the likes of Germany was just asking for a disaster to happen.
This,
Ireland is very "business friendly" and they're in dire straits.
The EU is in trouble because the EU could not stymie the endemic corruption and tax evasion that occurs in Greece, Italy and Spain where it's illegal, let alone in Ireland where corporate tax evasion was institutionalised.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
There you go. He wrote it at some point prior to February 17, 1775.
It's hard to imagine a greater counter-example. TBTF means destroying the economic security of many individuals in order to prop up a few fat cats - the exact opposite of what's meant by economic security.
That's the fundamental problem with economic security. It's always at someone else's expense and the effort to avoid risk can be quite perverse in its consequences.
That's the fundamental problem with economic security. It's always at someone else's expense and the effort to avoid risk can be quite perverse in its consequences.
"The problem with enforcing property rights is that its always at someone else's expense. Why should I pay for police who only stop me from taking the nice stuff my neighbor has?"
*Everything* is at someone else's expense in some way or another, because contrary to what you believe, no man is an island. So put down Atlas Shrugged and go learn about life.
Ah yes, and when the American libertarians tell you that you are wrong about them, you just keep repeating this same shit.
You are wrong about American libertarians, and have been told so repeatedly. Hasn't stopped you from continuing to mis-characterize them, because you keep listening to the liberals who want so desperately for you to think that the libertarians arent actually the ones with the values that match yours.
"His name was James Damore."
he just wanted to safe money in later life ;)
I'm sorry if you misunderstood my meaning. It's not the workers I'm calling lazy. It's the government bureaucracy and their methods for dealing with problems that I'm calling lazy.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
You keep saying that word, but I don't think you know what it means.
Thank you for finally admitting, this was the goal from the onset. I mean, your leader had to lie through his fine teeth telling us the opposite, but we, greedy Capitalists, could see straight through it all along.
Been there, done that. USSR had the "Canadian" system — and it sucked royally. The only reason Canada's is better, is because Canada is generally richer, than the USSR was — because it is otherwise Capitalist. If you think, arguing with an insurance company is bad, wait 'till you have to talk to a government bureaucrat.
Wherever Socialism gets implemented in earnest, people lose both — the prosperity and the human rights. Oh, and there are also mass-murders usually... Not only will your healthcare be bad, everything else will too.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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You are assuming these things are connected. They are not.
The health providers and drug companies charge what they can regardless of what they are charged elsewhere. That's business.
What they can charge (in the US) is high because the ability of the customer to discriminate and choose based on price has been erased by a third party that does the direct paying. Nor is the government mandating prices for health provision universally, they are mandating prices for a minority of customers based on their status as a big customer.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
This was new to me as well.
http://lungcancer.about.com/od/Lung-Cancer-And-Smoking/a/Third-Hand-Smoke.htm
Keep reading that sentence: "nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law". There wasn't a legal backdrop for a lot that happened - there was a lot of payback looting going on.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"The problem with enforcing property rights is that its always at someone else's expense. Why should I pay for police who only stop me from taking the nice stuff my neighbor has?"
Theft inhibits my freedom more than it enables the thief. Take my car and I can no longer choose to drive somewhere - the thief could have always obtained a car by more legitimate methods and they too would have to worry about losing that car to another thief. Take my house and I lose choices that I had from owning a house. Many of these choices are fundamentally economic in nature, but the point is that ownership enables more choice and empowers the owner in a variety of ways, whether economic or otherwise.
Sure, it does apparently offer some economic security in whatever sense you mean, but that's not the primary reason for having private ownership to a libertarian.
And what else do you consider "economic security"? As I implied earlier, I consider one of the greater failures of modern civilization to be its efforts to minimize the risk of harm at the expense of everything else (including the risk of harm - policy makers are often remarkably ignorant about risk management or the implications of their policies). Attempts to create economic security for someone describe a lot of these actions.
The thing I note is that there are a number of things that can encourage economic security, but that comes as a secondary effect - such as private ownership and punishment for theft, or a decent system of accounting. Then there are actions which explicitly and primarily are intended to generate economic security such as government subsidized insurance, pensions, and corporate welfare. These tend to cause loss of freedom and structural economic problems (such as a tragedy of the commons or widespread moral hazard issues).
I'm a big proponent of the Nordic system, which constitutes primarily of emphasizing social freedom, well-regulated markets, and low income disparity. This is achieved not by adherence to political ideology, but rather by analyzing empirical evidence and employing the scientific method to determine the best ways in which to promote these goals. Take healthcare for instance -- Nordic countries have publicly funded universal health care not because a bunch of people voted in a bunch of freebies for themselves, but because it was cheaper and more effective than private health care. Likewise, they went with restrictive immigration policies because they can't maintain these benefits if they have an outside group willing to work for cheap. It's not about right or left (though it mostly leans left, since that's where the best benefit to cost ratio usually lies), it's about creating a high quality of life for the people of your country.
One of the nice things about private insurance in a competitive market without regulations is that they will charge a price very corresponding very close to what the actual risk is. The problem with private insurance is that they do a little TOO good of a job (i.e. refusing to cover people with per-existing conditions).
It turns out that most people don;t really want a totally privatized health insurance system (e.g. one that would charge $4million per year for a little girl with leukimia). This is because we actually want our healthcare system to also work like a charity in cases where people are sick through no (or little) fault of their own, especially children. We just want some of the properties of privatization when it comes to charging people more for poor decisions that are known to increase the cost of healthcare as a measure to both cover costs and incentivize good choices.
The reason we want people to get vaccines is not only for their own health, but because a vaccinated population is a good defense against epidemics. As soon as a significant number of people opt out, it becomes more dangerous for the whole society. This is like keeping a bunch of dry brush in your backyard. It will not only raise the risk of your house burning down, but also your neighbor's house. So if we were to charge someone higher prices for keeping dry brush, we must calculate the increased risk to everybody's house not just the person in question.
This is achieved not by adherence to political ideology, but rather by analyzing empirical evidence and employing the scientific method to determine the best ways in which to promote these goals.
That's a mighty fine quality of bullshit you're shoveling there. There's another name for this: ethnic homogeneity. Have a bunch of people who are fairly closely related and you end up with a bunch of common interest. So Nordic countries can pull off stuff like the Nordic system as a result.
You may have valid points there, but it's hard to ignore the parenthetical "imaginary" as your primary proclamation. Back that one up, and then the other two points become worth looking at.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
This is achieved not by adherence to political ideology, but rather by analyzing empirical evidence and employing the scientific method to determine the best ways in which to promote these goals.
That's a mighty fine quality of bullshit you're shoveling there. There's another name for this: ethnic homogeneity. Have a bunch of people who are fairly closely related and you end up with a bunch of common interest. So Nordic countries can pull off stuff like the Nordic system as a result.
My bet is it has more to do with social mobility and education than any racial element. A rich white person is much more likely to associate with a rich black person than a poor white person.
Law cannot be changed, nor policy arbitrarily created just by adding a software bug. If this isn't fought it will set a bad precedent.
The death rate of home cooked meals is more than three times that of chicken pox PRE-vaccine. That means that if no one got the vaccine, it would still be less dangerous than home cooked meals, and those home cooked meals can easily kill most people's neighbors. Particularly in apartments.
I really don't understand what point you are trying to make with this example... If the death rates for both are negligible, it doesn't matter if one is 3 times the other.
Second of all, why would you single out the chicken pox vaccine? Chicken pox in children is relatively low risk to begin with, so we wouldn't tolerate even a modest death rate. The alternative to home cooked meals is eating out everyday. Even if the death rate from home cooked meals is 3 times that of chicken pox vaccine, it is not economical or healthy to eat out everyday. If everyone ate out for every meal, we'd probably have way more people dying of diabetes.
For diseases with a much worse consequences, like polio, measles, smallpox, whooping cough, it makes sense to tolerate a higher death rate.
The point is that it is common here on Slashdot to include not getting the chicken pox vaccine as an example of a 'risky' behavior that should be enforced by law, or through higher taxes/fees. Conversely, no one would suggest that people should face the same kind of punishment for making home cooked meals. Thus, the issue isn't about risk. It is about whim.
It is absurd to say that eating out is less healthy than eating in. Whether you eat out, or in, you have a wide choice of both junk food and healthy food. So, no. Banning home cooking would most certainly not make people die of diabetes. That is the kind of rationalization that people do when they realize that their stance is hypocritical.
You are the first person I have ever heard mention the idea of forcing people to get the chicken pox vaccine. I don't doubt that others have said it, but I don't feel like this is "common".
I have heard a lot about the vaccine debate in the context of parents refusing to inoculate their kids because of fear of a link with autism, but this is not specific to chicken pox, and I believe there is an argument to be made that refusing certain vaccines is creating an unnecessary public safety risk for both the child in question and other children as well as adults.
I think it's absurd to consider "home cooking" high risk. Eating out isn't necessarily less healthy, but it is in practice. You say it's possible to eat out in a healthy manner. This is true. But it is also true that you can eat a home cooked meal in a much safer way as well. (e.g. handling of raw meat, observing expiriation dates, following fire safety rules, etc). The fact that home cooked meals are a bit more risky than they should be is also just incidental rather than necessary.
The FDA doesn't even come into play with these statistics. You are 3 times more likely to kill yourself and others with fire than die from chicken pox in a completely unimmunized community. We could ban the use of fire in home cooking, and only allow microwaves. That won't happen because it isn't popular to save lives that way.
I think it's absurd to consider "home cooking" high risk. Eating out isn't necessarily less healthy, but it is in practice. You say it's possible to eat out in a healthy manner. This is true. But it is also true that you can eat a home cooked meal in a much safer way as well. (e.g. handling of raw meat, observing expiration dates, following fire safety rules, etc). The fact that home cooked meals are a bit more risky than they should be is also just incidental rather than necessary.
You are rationalizing again. You say that home cooked meals CAN be safer, and in practice eating out is less healthy. You are not using the same criteria to judge both activities. Eating out CAN be done healthier AND home cooking CAN be done safer. In practice, they are both what they are. (Although, I challenge the claim that eating out is in practice less healthy than eating in. People that try to eat healthy will eat healthy either way. The same goes for those that eat unhealthy.) This doesn't even count the people that die due to non-fire related home cooking injuries. (I would suspect that these are less, although I have never looked into it.)
Either way, just from fire alone, home cooking is 3 times more dangerous than the entire population not getting the chicken pox vaccine. (Of course, if you actually look at the numbers, it isn't clear that getting the chicken pox vaccine doesn't increase your risk of death due to chicken pox.)
It is all over Slashdot. Every time the subject of immunization comes up. They don't specifically call out the chicken pox vaccine. The call for punishing people for not getting any of the recommended vaccines. That would include the chicken pox vaccine.
Yes, so why are you specifically calling out the chicken pox vaccine? That's like saying we shouldn't follow fire saftey regulations and pointing out one regulation that is not necessary. It doesn't prove that they are all unnecessary.
You are rationalizing again. You say that home cooked meals CAN be safer, and in practice eating out is less healthy. You are not using the same criteria to judge both activities.
Actually I am judging them by the same criteria. I am saying that they are both safe as their death rates are negligible. I pointed out that home cooked meals *can* be safer just like how outing out *can* be healthier. If we treat the best case scenario both are healthy. If we treat the worst case scenario they are both unhealthy. They are the same.
There is not a safer way to not get a vaccine in the same way that there is a safer way to cook meals at home or a healthier way to eat out.
Not getting vaccines in general (i.e. none of them, (not just chicken pox)) is a serious public safety issue. Vaccines are a big reason we no longer have high childhood mortality rates.
Should chicken pox be included as a necessary vaccine? I don't know. I am not an expert on the costs and benefits of this particular vaccine.
People cite the low prevalence of diseases as a good reason to stop using vaccines. They seem to fail to realize that the low prevalence of diseases is largely due to vaccines.
I haven't found an across-the-board sensible party yet. so far, the Libertarians come the closest, but have major malfunctions within their party. In particular, I find some of their goals as a party to fall dangerously far toward anarchist as opposed to simply libertarian. not a lot of them, but certainly a fair number. Just enough important ones.
The Greens have some nice ideas, but I generally find your analysis of their economic standpoint to be catastrophic.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!