Hospital and doctors sell their debts to third parties for collection at discounted rates. The 3rd party debt collectors never collect more than 30% on average and write off the rest. Hospital fees and doctors services are non-secured debt which means those owed can pound sand while those who do not pay take a hit on their credit rating.
A certain amount of that debt that is sold to debt collectors is bogus. If the hospital has screwed up its billing and won't fix it despite multiple attempts on the part of the patient to get the billing right, they go ahead and sell the debt, which the patient isn't about to pay the bill collector any more than they would pay the hospital.
My local hospital combines their X-ray intake with the emergency room intake. Someone I knew was sent to X-ray by the hospital's stable of family physicians. She waited around several hours, got X-rayed, and left. A month or two down the road insurance has rejected the payment for the X-ray service, because the hospital tacked on (incorrectly) a bill for "emergency services". The hospital/physicians staff plays hot potato with phone calls to straighten out the situation for months, then sells the debt to a debt collector. When i say "plays hot potato", I mean each and every phone call is passed around between multiple departments, finally determined to belong to an individual who is never available to answer the phone, and who never returns any voicemails that are left on her phone.
The US medical industries coding, billing, and insurance payment system is so broken its not funny.
Well, no, but it might be the death of the "internet" in the EU.
Well, there were many in Europe who don't like the Internet, I guess. Those TCP/IP protocols with no proper respect for the ISO OSI network reference model. Now they can build an OSI protocol-based that fully realizes and respects the OSI model.
They can build in all of the proper government controls and monitoring while they are at it. No more of this free-wheeling, practically anything goes communications. All hail the PTTs!
Entire island nations are sinking due to the rising water and you're STILL not convinced? The real question is how many more times must it be proven before you'll get off your ass and stop fighting for the faster and faster march off a hypothetical cliff.
I happen to believe the reports that global temperatures, on average, are rising, and I'm aware that there has been measurable rise in sea levels (not island nations sinking, though). I'm even inclined to believe (although it isn't my field of expertise) that a significant factor in this rise is human activity, including carbon outgassing. I do not believe that the hypothesis "global warming will lead to ever more violent/destructive hurricanes along the eastern seaboard of the US" has been proven (yet). I am interested in understanding both the positive as well as the negative aspects of global warming.
The computer scientist says that two is 2^0 or 10 in binary, and adding 10 to 10 is 100 in binary, which is equivalent to 4.
And your joke was going so well until you typed "two is 2^0" (which is the value 1 in both binary and decimal bases) instead of 2^1 (which is the value 2 in decimal and 10 in binary). Fifty lashes with the tape from a Turing Machine for you.
The NRA isn't anywhere near the top of the list either - not even in the top 20 - their influence just is outsized to the amount they actually spend.
Probably because the NRA isn't just a small number of people/corporate entities with a lot of money to throw around, it actually has several million members who vote in elections, and politicians know this.
Although this post on medical insurance versus health plans is way off topic from the discussion about Actuarial Science as the Most Valuable College Major, I appreciate and agree with the poster, and would like to throw in a few other thoughts.
The Affordable Care Act did not make care more affordable, it subsidized the payments for what is currently called "health insurance" for those without the means to pay for it on their own. Although this can be considered a social good, it was achieved by being disingenuous regarding the method, and was such a boon to the insurance companies that the possibility of profit-driven political forces can't be ignored. It would have been nice if the individuals behind the Affordable Care Act had actually examined what was driving the cost of health care in the United States, and introduced legislation that made careful, reasoned changes to the playing field so that market forces could be more of a factor in health care costs.
It would be a good start if the health care debate would recognize the difference between health insurance (insurance against the risk of high medical expenses) versus health care, and stop conflating the two. Perhaps we would discover that we need three separate things: basic health care (made/kept as affordable as possible through market forces or government mandate), health insurance (to cover high unexpected costs for unexpected but not extraordinary events such as serious acute illness, broken bones, and the like), and some kind of government-supported program to handle costs associated with extraordinary health losses (such as those associated with unusual conditions such as rare cancers, chronic illnesses, and the like). What I am suggesting is something parallel to the combination of home maintenance, home insurance, and (something in between government-backed flood insurance and disaster relief) that most homeowners in the US use to manage the "health" of their real estate.
Needs-based government assistance covering costs of the first two (health care and ordinary medical expense insurance) could still be provided, but market forces and the elimination of the long-term/extraordinary costs associated with unusual and chronic illnesses would help keep those costs in check both for people who paid for it directly and for the government when assisting those in need.
Sorry for further disrupting the engaging discussion about the value of Actuarial Science as a College Major... carry on...
The parent was down voted. Although it was rather short and blunt, I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment. The article talks about what Hurricane Florence *might* do, then jumps to what Hurricane Harvey did do, to bolster the pure speculation about what Hurricane Florence might do?
I'm interested in seeing if a pattern develops in hurricane activity along the eastern seaboard of the US, especially since a prediction of much worse hurricane seasons was made in relation to observed global warming/climate change. It seems a little early to act as if that hypothesis is already confirmed, though.
As stupid as it looks for someone to be taking a picture with a tablet (and yes, I saw someone doing it last week), imagine how much stupider it would look to be taking the picture with the camera on a laptop. So some people need tablets. (But the rest of us will use our laptops for our work, and our phones for taking pictures.)
The Trump-related quote is in the ABC News article. You are right, it appears to have nothing to do with the story. But ABC News put it in there for some reason.
I'm not sure why the parent post was marked down. The entire article from ABC news is cryptic, which could lead one to wonder about meaning, never mind motive:
The Justice Department is planning to announce charges Thursday against North Korean nationals who U.S. authorities have accused of being behind the massive hack of Sony in 2014 and the Wannacry ransomware attack lack year, sources told ABC News.
Earlier on Thursday, President Donald Trump praised North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un on Twitter.
"Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims 'unwavering faith in President Trump.' Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!" Trump tweeted.
What is ABC trying to say with the quote from Trump embedded in the article about the DOJ pursuing charges against the North Korean nationals? Is ABC News pointing out that Trump is working with Kim Jong Un to bring the criminals to justice? Is ABC News making the point that Trump is out of step with the DOJ?
It is good to encourage the development of some computational thinking (how to solve problems using a computing procedure). Doing so will not make everyone a programmer, any more than teaching basic math skills makes everyone a mathematician. Taking shop class doesn't make everyone an engineer, either. Having some knowledge of, and appreciation for, various skills is a good idea, though. Especially if it is done broadly, and helps snare those who are interested and capable into a promising career.
that an alliance of intelligence agencies that uses snooping through private material to gather intelligence attempts to set forth the narrative that "privacy is not an absolute"? Not very shocking at all...
I hope that the rule of law and the legislative bodies elected by representatives of the people weigh in on this rather one-sided pronouncement.
True enough, but it's also true that incoming students are not well-qualified to figure out whether their education will result in good value for their money. An 18-year-old is taking on loans to pay for school because "everyone" says it's important. Or an older student is taking on loans to enable a career change because their existing setup isn't working out for them. Meanwhile, the school is like "Oh, yes, you absolutely need this, and here are some people to help pay for it."
Well said. It can be hard to think through options and consequences without a lot of experience, especially when there seems to be a tide of propaganda pushing towards an expensive gamble.
Because you shouldn't have to spend half your working life paying half you money to a university and the other half to a bank for an overpriced education and excessively inflated interest loans... from an EU students perspective it looks like pure insanity over there.
And you don't have to do either of these things in many cases in the U.S. I attended my state's public university - due to my (and my family's) lack of affluence, I received financial aid (grants), borrowed a reasonable amount of money, and worked through the school year to afford college. I graduated, got a job, and paid my (reasonable) loans back in a couple of years by not spending too much money on anything else. That was almost 30 years ago. Now my daughter is going to be attending college (my son will follow in two years). Due to my and my wife's relative affluence (thanks to our college educations, fairly steady work, and dedication towards savings while living well within our means), she will not receive any financial aid. However, she is attending a public university that is regarded as one of the best value colleges in the US, we can fund the majority of her (relatively affordable) education expenses, and she is working summers to cover the rest.
It is possible to rack up huge student loan debt, especially attending an expensive educational institution in the U.S. But it isn't mandatory. I believe that every U.S. state has one or more public universities/colleges that offer degree programs to in-state students at rates that while (in my opinion) are higher than they should be, aren't impossible to afford through some combination of family savings, financial aid, student work, and (when necessary) reasonable student loans.
I moved to California in early 1991 from a state with no income tax (on earned income). I filed my federal taxes for tax year 1990 in April of 1991, using my California address as my current address. The California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) "made a determination" that I had been a California resident for the tax year 1990 on the basis of the address I used when I filed my federal taxes for tax year 1990. I protested that I had not been a California resident in 1990, and that they did not have evidence to the contrary. The FTB insisted that I prove I was not a California resident in 1990. I (foolishly perhaps) insisted that I didn't need to prove I wasn't a resident (I knew I didn't have a state tax return for another state for tax year 1990), they needed to prove I was a resident. They garnished my wages. After losing about $1,000 to them through wage garnishment, I did something (I forget what) to prove I wasn't a California resident. I never got my $1,000 back. The FTB claimed that they had passed it on to the federal government; the federal government claimed that they knew nothing about it.
I can't speak to the merits of the patent issues, but I offer this (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that the California Franchise Tax Board are not nice people.
Another anecdote - Although I could not find online evidence, I recall that back in the 1990s California was making a case for being able to tax 401(k) distributions to individuals who were not residents of California at the time of the distribution, but who had been residents at the time of the original income deferral. This line of thinking did not prevail - imagine the chaos if it had. Would you have to determine what percentage of a distribution came from what income? What about investment gains from the original deferral before you moved/after you moved?
Frankly, for me the iPhone with the best value proposition, which also has the best size for me is the iPhone SE.
I sure hope that the SE form factor continues to exist.
Darn it. You were not supposed to say that out loud. How long can it last after that? Someone will get their courage up and kill it off so that no one has to suffer from the 3.5mm audio receptacle. I need the SE model to stay around so that I have something to buy when my iPhone 5 stops working, which could be another two years or more.
I recognize your sarcasm, and appreciate it. I am inclined to also point out that these results predicting the demise of capitalism come from folks who I suspect were never all that fond of capitalism in the first place. So there may be a little confirmation bias in their work, regardless of their standing as scientists. I *think* capitalism works in a variety of environmental contexts, but it sometimes takes a while for long-term consequences (downstream costs) to get factored into current decisions. I'm not sure that "other than capitalist" economic theory will do any better at incorporating downstream costs; they may do it differently, but not necessarily better.
If a US citizen is crossing the border to re-enter the US, and the border guards demand social network credentials that they will use to rummage through that citizen's account, that would seem to me to be outside of any constitutional authority. No one is carrying their social network data with them as they cross the border.
If people who aren't citizens are crossing the border to enter the US for a visit, it seems like its a very unfriendly thing to demand. It's not like everyone has to bring a dossier with them detailing their personal life. I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't provide any of my credentials to the guards at a foreign border just to enter that country; I would choose to stay out.
I'm not sure how you determined that they were high quality if you just bought them; the "ratings" on the package aren't worth dog doo. The failure rate for me with LED bulbs has been fairly high (20%). Not to mention that most people don't want 5000K color temperatures for regular household lighting. Finding LED bulbs that have a warm color and and dim as well as incandescents is a chore... and then they fail early.
I like LEDs. I want to believe in them. But in my house, regular incandescent and halogen lights installed years before are still working. LEDs are running about a 20% failure rate in just a couple of years, and they cost a heck of a lot more, not to mention the hassles over dimmability and finding ones with the right color temperature.
I think we'll get there, but its been a painful and expensive process for me so far (switching from incandescents to LEDs).
Slashdot Mirror
Hospital and doctors sell their debts to third parties for collection at discounted rates. The 3rd party debt collectors never collect more than 30% on average and write off the rest. Hospital fees and doctors services are non-secured debt which means those owed can pound sand while those who do not pay take a hit on their credit rating.
A certain amount of that debt that is sold to debt collectors is bogus. If the hospital has screwed up its billing and won't fix it despite multiple attempts on the part of the patient to get the billing right, they go ahead and sell the debt, which the patient isn't about to pay the bill collector any more than they would pay the hospital.
My local hospital combines their X-ray intake with the emergency room intake. Someone I knew was sent to X-ray by the hospital's stable of family physicians. She waited around several hours, got X-rayed, and left. A month or two down the road insurance has rejected the payment for the X-ray service, because the hospital tacked on (incorrectly) a bill for "emergency services". The hospital/physicians staff plays hot potato with phone calls to straighten out the situation for months, then sells the debt to a debt collector. When i say "plays hot potato", I mean each and every phone call is passed around between multiple departments, finally determined to belong to an individual who is never available to answer the phone, and who never returns any voicemails that are left on her phone.
The US medical industries coding, billing, and insurance payment system is so broken its not funny.
But how does it compare with the battery drain for running a pair of traditional headphones through a 1/8" (3.5mm) jack?
Well, no, but it might be the death of the "internet" in the EU.
Well, there were many in Europe who don't like the Internet, I guess. Those TCP/IP protocols with no proper respect for the ISO OSI network reference model. Now they can build an OSI protocol-based that fully realizes and respects the OSI model.
They can build in all of the proper government controls and monitoring while they are at it. No more of this free-wheeling, practically anything goes communications. All hail the PTTs!
Entire island nations are sinking due to the rising water and you're STILL not convinced? The real question is how many more times must it be proven before you'll get off your ass and stop fighting for the faster and faster march off a hypothetical cliff.
I happen to believe the reports that global temperatures, on average, are rising, and I'm aware that there has been measurable rise in sea levels (not island nations sinking, though). I'm even inclined to believe (although it isn't my field of expertise) that a significant factor in this rise is human activity, including carbon outgassing. I do not believe that the hypothesis "global warming will lead to ever more violent/destructive hurricanes along the eastern seaboard of the US" has been proven (yet). I am interested in understanding both the positive as well as the negative aspects of global warming.
The computer scientist says that two is 2^0 or 10 in binary, and adding 10 to 10 is 100 in binary, which is equivalent to 4.
And your joke was going so well until you typed "two is 2^0" (which is the value 1 in both binary and decimal bases) instead of 2^1 (which is the value 2 in decimal and 10 in binary). Fifty lashes with the tape from a Turing Machine for you.
The NRA isn't anywhere near the top of the list either - not even in the top 20 - their influence just is outsized to the amount they actually spend.
Probably because the NRA isn't just a small number of people/corporate entities with a lot of money to throw around, it actually has several million members who vote in elections, and politicians know this.
Although this post on medical insurance versus health plans is way off topic from the discussion about Actuarial Science as the Most Valuable College Major, I appreciate and agree with the poster, and would like to throw in a few other thoughts.
The Affordable Care Act did not make care more affordable, it subsidized the payments for what is currently called "health insurance" for those without the means to pay for it on their own. Although this can be considered a social good, it was achieved by being disingenuous regarding the method, and was such a boon to the insurance companies that the possibility of profit-driven political forces can't be ignored. It would have been nice if the individuals behind the Affordable Care Act had actually examined what was driving the cost of health care in the United States, and introduced legislation that made careful, reasoned changes to the playing field so that market forces could be more of a factor in health care costs.
It would be a good start if the health care debate would recognize the difference between health insurance (insurance against the risk of high medical expenses) versus health care, and stop conflating the two. Perhaps we would discover that we need three separate things: basic health care (made/kept as affordable as possible through market forces or government mandate), health insurance (to cover high unexpected costs for unexpected but not extraordinary events such as serious acute illness, broken bones, and the like), and some kind of government-supported program to handle costs associated with extraordinary health losses (such as those associated with unusual conditions such as rare cancers, chronic illnesses, and the like). What I am suggesting is something parallel to the combination of home maintenance, home insurance, and (something in between government-backed flood insurance and disaster relief) that most homeowners in the US use to manage the "health" of their real estate.
Needs-based government assistance covering costs of the first two (health care and ordinary medical expense insurance) could still be provided, but market forces and the elimination of the long-term/extraordinary costs associated with unusual and chronic illnesses would help keep those costs in check both for people who paid for it directly and for the government when assisting those in need.
Sorry for further disrupting the engaging discussion about the value of Actuarial Science as a College Major... carry on...
This article is pure bullshit and conjecture.
The parent was down voted. Although it was rather short and blunt, I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment. The article talks about what Hurricane Florence *might* do, then jumps to what Hurricane Harvey did do, to bolster the pure speculation about what Hurricane Florence might do?
I'm interested in seeing if a pattern develops in hurricane activity along the eastern seaboard of the US, especially since a prediction of much worse hurricane seasons was made in relation to observed global warming/climate change. It seems a little early to act as if that hypothesis is already confirmed, though.
Christ, you fuckers are old
It's better than the alternative.
Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle's "Oath of Fealty" about an arcology outside of LA with an iceberg to provide drinking water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel)
As stupid as it looks for someone to be taking a picture with a tablet (and yes, I saw someone doing it last week), imagine how much stupider it would look to be taking the picture with the camera on a laptop. So some people need tablets. (But the rest of us will use our laptops for our work, and our phones for taking pictures.)
The Trump-related quote is in the ABC News article. You are right, it appears to have nothing to do with the story. But ABC News put it in there for some reason.
I'm not sure why the parent post was marked down. The entire article from ABC news is cryptic, which could lead one to wonder about meaning, never mind motive:
What is ABC trying to say with the quote from Trump embedded in the article about the DOJ pursuing charges against the North Korean nationals? Is ABC News pointing out that Trump is working with Kim Jong Un to bring the criminals to justice? Is ABC News making the point that Trump is out of step with the DOJ?
You do know that this has been going on for decades, pretty much since the death of the British home computer market in the early 90s.
Was the British home computer market a symptom or a cause?
Seems like we always are hearing about British brain drains. But yeah, lets blame this on brexit and google, and not mention the illuminati reptoids.
fjords all the way down
It is good to encourage the development of some computational thinking (how to solve problems using a computing procedure). Doing so will not make everyone a programmer, any more than teaching basic math skills makes everyone a mathematician. Taking shop class doesn't make everyone an engineer, either. Having some knowledge of, and appreciation for, various skills is a good idea, though. Especially if it is done broadly, and helps snare those who are interested and capable into a promising career.
that an alliance of intelligence agencies that uses snooping through private material to gather intelligence attempts to set forth the narrative that "privacy is not an absolute"? Not very shocking at all...
I hope that the rule of law and the legislative bodies elected by representatives of the people weigh in on this rather one-sided pronouncement.
True enough, but it's also true that incoming students are not well-qualified to figure out whether their education will result in good value for their money. An 18-year-old is taking on loans to pay for school because "everyone" says it's important. Or an older student is taking on loans to enable a career change because their existing setup isn't working out for them. Meanwhile, the school is like "Oh, yes, you absolutely need this, and here are some people to help pay for it."
Well said. It can be hard to think through options and consequences without a lot of experience, especially when there seems to be a tide of propaganda pushing towards an expensive gamble.
Because you shouldn't have to spend half your working life paying half you money to a university and the other half to a bank for an overpriced education and excessively inflated interest loans... from an EU students perspective it looks like pure insanity over there.
And you don't have to do either of these things in many cases in the U.S. I attended my state's public university - due to my (and my family's) lack of affluence, I received financial aid (grants), borrowed a reasonable amount of money, and worked through the school year to afford college. I graduated, got a job, and paid my (reasonable) loans back in a couple of years by not spending too much money on anything else. That was almost 30 years ago. Now my daughter is going to be attending college (my son will follow in two years). Due to my and my wife's relative affluence (thanks to our college educations, fairly steady work, and dedication towards savings while living well within our means), she will not receive any financial aid. However, she is attending a public university that is regarded as one of the best value colleges in the US, we can fund the majority of her (relatively affordable) education expenses, and she is working summers to cover the rest.
It is possible to rack up huge student loan debt, especially attending an expensive educational institution in the U.S. But it isn't mandatory. I believe that every U.S. state has one or more public universities/colleges that offer degree programs to in-state students at rates that while (in my opinion) are higher than they should be, aren't impossible to afford through some combination of family savings, financial aid, student work, and (when necessary) reasonable student loans.
Just geezing here...
I moved to California in early 1991 from a state with no income tax (on earned income). I filed my federal taxes for tax year 1990 in April of 1991, using my California address as my current address. The California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) "made a determination" that I had been a California resident for the tax year 1990 on the basis of the address I used when I filed my federal taxes for tax year 1990. I protested that I had not been a California resident in 1990, and that they did not have evidence to the contrary. The FTB insisted that I prove I was not a California resident in 1990. I (foolishly perhaps) insisted that I didn't need to prove I wasn't a resident (I knew I didn't have a state tax return for another state for tax year 1990), they needed to prove I was a resident. They garnished my wages. After losing about $1,000 to them through wage garnishment, I did something (I forget what) to prove I wasn't a California resident. I never got my $1,000 back. The FTB claimed that they had passed it on to the federal government; the federal government claimed that they knew nothing about it.
I can't speak to the merits of the patent issues, but I offer this (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that the California Franchise Tax Board are not nice people.
Another anecdote - Although I could not find online evidence, I recall that back in the 1990s California was making a case for being able to tax 401(k) distributions to individuals who were not residents of California at the time of the distribution, but who had been residents at the time of the original income deferral. This line of thinking did not prevail - imagine the chaos if it had. Would you have to determine what percentage of a distribution came from what income? What about investment gains from the original deferral before you moved/after you moved?
Frankly, for me the iPhone with the best value proposition, which also has the best size for me is the iPhone SE. I sure hope that the SE form factor continues to exist.
Darn it. You were not supposed to say that out loud. How long can it last after that? Someone will get their courage up and kill it off so that no one has to suffer from the 3.5mm audio receptacle. I need the SE model to stay around so that I have something to buy when my iPhone 5 stops working, which could be another two years or more.
I recognize your sarcasm, and appreciate it. I am inclined to also point out that these results predicting the demise of capitalism come from folks who I suspect were never all that fond of capitalism in the first place. So there may be a little confirmation bias in their work, regardless of their standing as scientists. I *think* capitalism works in a variety of environmental contexts, but it sometimes takes a while for long-term consequences (downstream costs) to get factored into current decisions. I'm not sure that "other than capitalist" economic theory will do any better at incorporating downstream costs; they may do it differently, but not necessarily better.
If a US citizen is crossing the border to re-enter the US, and the border guards demand social network credentials that they will use to rummage through that citizen's account, that would seem to me to be outside of any constitutional authority. No one is carrying their social network data with them as they cross the border.
If people who aren't citizens are crossing the border to enter the US for a visit, it seems like its a very unfriendly thing to demand. It's not like everyone has to bring a dossier with them detailing their personal life. I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't provide any of my credentials to the guards at a foreign border just to enter that country; I would choose to stay out.
I'm not sure how you determined that they were high quality if you just bought them; the "ratings" on the package aren't worth dog doo. The failure rate for me with LED bulbs has been fairly high (20%). Not to mention that most people don't want 5000K color temperatures for regular household lighting. Finding LED bulbs that have a warm color and and dim as well as incandescents is a chore... and then they fail early.
I like LEDs. I want to believe in them. But in my house, regular incandescent and halogen lights installed years before are still working. LEDs are running about a 20% failure rate in just a couple of years, and they cost a heck of a lot more, not to mention the hassles over dimmability and finding ones with the right color temperature.
I think we'll get there, but its been a painful and expensive process for me so far (switching from incandescents to LEDs).