No, they pay you for your labor as per the entirely voluntary contract of employment you have entered in with them, which is pretty much exactly the opposite.
I find this line of reasoning pretty abhorrent. Admittedly I live a long way from the coast, but its not like I make periodic inspections of Mansfield damn or check the undercarriage of the upper deck of the freeway for damage.
Then you either didn't read what I said or you didn't understand it. I said WATER WAS VISIBLY SEEPING THROUGH THE LEVEE. As in, when I went to visit my Great Grandmother TWENTY YEARS AGO, who's house was WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE of the levee, you could SEE WATER COMING THROUGH IT. And that was twenty years ago. And in those twenty years, the state of Louisiana as well as the City of New Orleans has done shit-all to address the levees.
The Army Corps. of Engineers has been begging literally for decades for the levees to be fixed, but no one wanted to spend the money on it. They've known at least since Betsy hit. And that's the funny thing: THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE! Go read about Hurricane Betsy. New Orleans went through the same crap in 1965 and they STILL didn't do anything about it!
I want the people in Gitmo to have a fair trial, that's all.
That's what military tribunals are for. The idea of putting them in civilian courts is insanity. These are not criminals, they're enemy soldiers. Treat them as such.
There are a lot of poor people out there, who simply can't afford the current system. I think it's very reasonable to expect the rich people benefiting from the system to pay a little more, so that the poor people can visit a doctor.
I think it's very unreasonable to expect me to accept a reduction of my own benefits so that people who won't get a job get free health care. Wanna help those who can't help themselves? Fine, I'll support that. But I can't believe the only way to accomplish that is for me to lose the benefits I have currently. I worked pretty hard to get where I am with the benefits I have, and I'm not going to quietly allow them to be stripped from me.
In his defense, FOX and the conservaties went *nuts* battling health care, but it's not that they actually have any legislative power.
Not everyone who "went nuts" over health care was conservative. Based on current poll numbers, it looks like a very large number of them were independents. You know, the people that won him the election? The people who actually support the current health care proposal (especially w/ a 'public option') are a small, ever dwindling minority. Most everyone understands they have a lot more to lose than they have to gain.
This has nothing to do with him being a democrat by the way, I just thought he was basically a good person.
Based on what, exactly? He's a Chicago politician--a group which have represented some of the worst in American politics for most of the last century. His voting record in the Senate has been pretty consistent with his record as a President, as well...
The levees in New Orleans were not ever designed to make a Category 3+ storm survivable, and they've always been in a TERRIBLE state of repair (anyone who's actually been the the area could tell you that water constantly seeped through them in several places). New Orleans floods during normal rainstorms. Anyone who thought they were safe there during a Hurricane doesn't deserve any pity.
Also, the money allocated to levee repair/upgrade was spent on things like off-ramps for casinos and such by the local levee boards. This judge declaring the Corps. to be responsible while ignoring the gross criminal negligence by state and local officials is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice I have ever seen.
Well, I work w/ the FAA right now, and they're becoming relatively platform agnostic actually. ERAM, for instance, was written by Lockheed Martin to run on top of some flavor of IBM UNIX or Linux (forget which). In the old days, everything ran on custom, purpose-built hardware and OSes, but that really turned out to be a maintenance nightmare. Using COTS Hardware/Software means upgrading systems or providing new capabilities can be pretty easy.
I think ASDE-X runs on top of some sort of POSIX type OS as well... I know its data stream is standard UDP over Ethernet type stuff.
The better analogy would be a 15 year old girl being forced by the government to drop out of high school to care for a relative she'd never even met and who didn't care at all whether he lived or died (and didn't even know what living and dying meant, for that matter) and who had never formed any relationships with anyone or even met anyone at all (or even known that anyone even existed) - all because some religious nutjobs wanted to "punish" the girl for having sex without being married.
Our actions have consequences. I wouldn't want the girl punished, but I would want the girl to take responsibility for her choice to have sex. At no point does religion enter into my thought process.
If you don't want to risk having kids, don't have sex. It's pretty simple, really.
and on the other side you have pro-life people who are against even the day after pill because a conception may have occurred.
Even as someone who's against abortion, I can't understand that opinion. The pill prevents implantation. A fertilized egg not properly implanting and therefore not becoming a viable embryo is, based on my understanding, a rather common occurrence in a woman's life. Hell, it seems nowadays we're damn lucky to even get successful pregnancies.
Define a time in a pregnancy when the fetus starts to develop a brain and possible self-awareness and just cut the line there.
I'm not sure that's something that can be scientifically determined... Psychologists and Cognitive Scientists have been studying what makes something sentient for longer than you or I have been around, and they don't seem to be any closer to having figured that out than when they started.
Though it would be significantly more ideal than the current determining factor: viability. 'Viability' changes as medical technology improves, with the date for a child surviving a pre-term birth slowly marching downwards. 24 weeks (6 months) is accepted as survivable, albeit with significant risk, with reports claiming successful deliveries at 21 weeks. We're on the threshold of second trimester deliveries being regularly survivable, and yet second trimester abortions are accepted as the baby is "not viable." I have no doubt that with the way medical technology is going, we'll eventually have the ability to produce entire artificial wombs for the gestation of children, where the mother does not even have to play a part other than the donation of an egg... What then? Does that modify our definition of viability? (Never mind the huge ethical can of worms opened by having artificial baby factories...)
I don't buy that a week or two old fetus is a "person" any more than a brain dead accident victim is, to whom it's legal to remove life support from and let die.
A friend of mine was a columnist in my Uni's newspaper and he actually used a similar example... "Should a family who's loved one is currently on life support and in a coma, upon being told by the attending physician that they expect the patient to be able to come off of life support and regain consciousness in three months, and then eventually go on to lead a normal fully functional life afterward, be allowed to have the patient removed from life support simply due to not wanting the financial burden? No? Then why is abortion legal?"
I knew they were doomed when I ran into to WotC employees at GDC'06.
It was after hours, and a few of us working at the conference were getting together for the yearly D&D game. We asked the two WotC people working the booth if they'd like to join us. "Oh... We don't play games, actually..."
Big difference from the old days of any random person at WotC (even accounting!) being pulled in to playtest the latest
Except for FAA approval, there isn't much stopping our police state to use them.
As someone who's actually part of one of the teams at the FAA working on the problem... Large-scale deployment of UASes in controlled airspace is a long long way off (5 years, minimum--10 more likely). The manufacturers just haven't quite grasped what all will be involved in making these things fit into the NAS...
AT&T's lock on Apple will be over, and I'll be able to go back to T-Mobile with my iPhone.
I'm afraid that's not entirely true, based on my understanding. AT&T and T-Mobile use different 3G Frequency bands. So you can bring your iPhone to T-Mobile and get EDGE connectivity, but you'll lose 3G functionality. This is why I haven't grabbed an Android phone yet, since I'm on AT&T and I couldn't get 3G service.
As the poster above me said it is all part of being a participating member of a community.
And that's just something we'll never agree on. Being a true member of society would mean taking personal responsibility for yourself.
I will never ever understand people from the US there really is something fundamentally broken inside of a lot of you
And I feel there's something fundamentally broken with someone who believes they have right to the fruits of someone else's labors, no matter how "noble" they think their use for it will be.
You can rave about how charitable you think you are but I reserve the right to call 'sheenanigans'.
There's no charity in handing over money at gunpoint. Charity is what you do voluntarily, above and beyond what is expected of you.
Based on the things I say on here, you probably have every right to refer to me as crazy. But you have no way of knowing how much of my personal time and/or money goes to charity, so you have no right to call me selfish.
Healthcare in the US is a tragedy,
And I'd probably agree with you there, based on seeing the industry from inside, but apparently we disagree on WHY it's a tragedy.
and your attitude is tantamount to sociopathy.
Sociopathy is a pretty vaguely defined term. If anything, I think it's sociopathic to think you have a right to help yourself to other people's money.
Part of being a member of a community is being willing to sacrifice a little for those farther to the left side of the income/opportunity bell curve - even those who get there willfully.
And that's what charity is for. There's nothing selfless about handing over money at gunpoint.
Socialized" healthcare and insurance just works. I live in Germany, and am privately insured. My wife isn't, she is covered by the "public option" - one of several dozen privately run group insurance "co-op's" that are strictly regulated by the government.
You know what's funny? I actually support a co-op option (I even mentioned it in one of my other comments). The problem is, the people pushing health care reform from the top right now are as VIOLENTLY opposed to a "co-op" program as the people fighting it from the bottom are opposed to a public option. I think it's a great compromise and it achieves what the supposed objectives are of this supposed reform quite nicely. The fact that the reformists are so dead set that it's government control or nothing is very telling about their motives to me.
If she wants to, she can switch to any of the other public option co-ops tomorrow. Or I could take her onto my private plan.
That's great. That's also not how the proposed US plan would work, in the end.
Tell me how exactly the system would take care of her in the States? Personally, I am thankful that I never had to find out. My last brush with the American health care system showed me that.
Well permanent disability coverage does exist. Usually in employer provided insurance plans (at least, that's how mine works). HIV, fortunately, is one of the few chronic illnesses I don't have any experience with the long-term treatment of. So I won't try to guess how she'd be handled in the system. I'm sure not as well as she's been treated in Germany. Examples such as that are one of the reasons I'm perfectly willing to admit that health care in the US needs fixing, I'm just not willing to accept that it means people like me and my parents have to be punished and the working parts of the system have to be destroyed.
The result was 24 hours in a Vegas hospital, a couple of really expensive aspirin, a couple of liters of saline and glucose, a clear bill of health and a bill for about $24000. This probably would have been a serious financial blow for anybody who was as surprised by it as we were. Fortunately, I'm not covered by a US insurance plan. I (not my wife, me) have a travel health plan (also private) from my credit card company. It's part of the 35 Euro annual fee I pay. I called them (1 call) and they took care of the rest. Worked a deal with the hospital, paid the bill and let me know everything was ok. They even dealt with the hospital when they contacted me directly and tried to squeeze me for the difference (about $8000) between the initial bill and the settled amount. The whole deal cost me about 20 Euros in long distance mobile charges for the initial call - which they also offered to reimburse. No hassle, no new restrictions, no new premiums.
I have a question, though: where do poor and middle-class Americans with no coverage go? Because they sure as hell can't go to Canada.
As much as I hate answering a question with a question... But where do poor and middle-class Canadians/Brits go? My friend with the broken back was a lower-middle-class Canadian miner. The other person I gave an example of was a webcomic artist (probably, by definition, someone who's below the poverty line). Both of them were stuck with only the public option, which failed to serve them.
In the US system currently, treatment for those with health problems who cannot (or will not) provide for themselves varies from state to state. And I'm all for taking care of those who legitimately CAN'T take care of themselves (the permanently disabled, those born with permanent health problems, etc.) That's why I give to charities. The problem is, the government is singularly BAD at determining the difference between those who CAN'T care for themselves and those who WON'T care for themselves.
From my perspective, it seems like the Canadian and European systems forces rich people with non-life-threatening conditions wait a bit longer,
Actually, it seems like it forces EVERYONE to wait longer, including those with life-threatening illnesses.
I know for a fact that for a non life-threatening illness, I could see a physician of my choice within the next 24 hours (more likely 1-6 hours, if it's early enough in the day.) For something serious, I could be in an emergency room within a matter of minutes. In either case, my access to care will not be affected by what insurance I have (the financial burden for making use of the care, of course, will vary depending on insurance). From what I've seen, this doesn't seem to be true in either the Canadian, British, or Australian systems; if for no other reason than people there don't seem to want to be doctors any more!
while the American system makes poor people either go drown in debt, wait until they're on death's doorstep, or actually die.
If someone legitimately needs medical treatment currently, it will be provided. Yes, it's a pretty raw deal if you're poor, and some people do have to end up declaring bankruptcy on medical debts and that does hurt the system on the whole. Yes, it obviously needs improvement. But that doesn't mean the people who are providing for themselves should be punished so that those who refuse to provide for themselves get a free ride. And it doesn't mean we need to dismantle the parts of the system that DO work to fix the parts that don't.
I think that's a pretty solid endorsement of socialized care, unless you're a well-to-do sociopath.
Yes, it's pretty easy to sell "PUNISH THE EVIL RICH!" to people who aren't.
The majority of the people in the system are healthy. Find me some sick people who are willing to say that.
Actually, I happen to have several chronic conditions. They're mostly minor, thankfully (though a few could have killed me a couple times in the past had I not been treated). I've also had about a dozen different friends/family treated for cancer, and (with one exception, which may of been her own fault) they've all been very pleased with the treatment they got. Yes, there are sick people who get screwed in the current system, and I can make a list of things I'd like to see improved, but all the evidence points to things getting WORSE under a public system.
It's funny, but all these anti-healthcare reformers never mention the record profits insurance companies have been making over the last two decades.
I fail to see how profits are a bad thing. I like having a house, a car, food, etc. All things which are enabled by my company's ability to generate a profit.
No, cutting the profits out of the equation will have nothing to do with reducing costs.
Finally, something we agree on.;) Cutting profits out of the equation has nothing to do with reducing costs and everything to do with control. Medicare does a pretty good job of cutting profits out of the equation (the profits of Doctors, that is), so let's keep emulating that, I suppose?
Remember, if you are an insurance company, there is only one way to make money - take money from healthy people, and NOT PAY IT OUT.
And I fail to see how this is somehow wrong. The only thing WRONG is if an insurance company is refusing to pay out on money they have previously agreed that they would pay out. If that's happening, then concentrate on fixing THAT. The answer isn't to eliminate private insurance because of it.
The tort reform in Texas has had no effect on costs. None.
There's a lot more going on in Texas to drive up costs than just malpractice suits. And I'm not sure the metric I've seen most people use to judge whether tort reform helps or not (the ordering of excessive/unnecessary tests) is the right one, since in my previous experience working in the medical industry, malpractice insurance premiums seemed to be the big cost related to that. But I'm willing to accept that tort reform may not lower costs significantly. It's still something that should be pursued, however.
Not at all.
Yes at all. A public option would require me to pay for it. End of story. EVEN IF I DON'T MAKE USE OF THE SERVICES! Even if I provide for my own health care, I'll STILL be paying for the public option. Very much like people without kids, or people who send theirs to private school pay for public schooling for others. That's frankly ridiculous. I'm happy with my coverage, let my opt completely out of the public system and don't charge me for it. But that will never happen, because it won't work.
We just want access to an insurance company that doesn't waste my money giving it to shareholders,
I fail to see how that's a waste. It encourages investment. Investment helps drive growth. But if you MUST have an insurance provider who isn't so evil as to turn a profit, I'd suggest looking at the coop model. Honestly, that's how my car insurance is handled and it's been a pretty nice experience.
will not drop my coverage when I actually get sick enough to use it,
Is this something you've actually experienced? As I said before, I've had literally a dozen people close to me come down with varying degrees of cancer, and none of them were dropped by their provider. I've had a couple brushes with death myself as well as some serious illnesses, and never once has it affected my coverage.
Could an American please explain to me why the majority of USA seems to oppose public healthcare?
Gladly. I think your next comment is a great starting point.
I don't mean to say that public healthcare is a perfect system --there is no such thing as a perfect system-- but it sure as hell beats private healthcare on just about every point.
That's just simply not the case. If it were, Canadian citizens wouldn't come to the US for treatment and British subjects wouldn't avail themselves to the private health services available in their country. I've got friends in several countries "benefiting" from the type of public health care certain people want us to "enjoy," and their experiences do not fill me with confidence. I'm not sure which story I look more forward to experiencing myself: Waiting over a month to see the first in a series of Doctors about blinding eye pain I'm suffering from, only to have him refer me to someone else or waiting nine months with only narcotics as treatment for my broken back, only to be told "Well, since it took so long, your vertebrate have fused and we'll have to re-break them." Those and more stories that are such stellar examples of how much better public health care is, and how I'm so misguided in my opposition to it.
The big sticking point for many of us opposing "public" health care is that the majority of people who are in the private health system in the US currently are at least satisfied with the care they're receiving (if not, like me, absolutely overjoyed with it) and all of the current proposals for a "public" option would take our current system away from us. This is, of course, par for the course for anything the US Government meddles in. The goal is never to bring the unfortunate up to a higher standard, but just to assure everyone has "the same" standard, which generally means bringing those at a higher standard down. And that's what all the current proposals being floated in Congress will do: Bring down the standard of care for all of us who currently enjoy private insurance, by setting up an alternative to private insurers that doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else or compete on the same playing field, by actively encouraging private employers to cancel their private insurance and put their employees on the public option, and by creating a new payment scheme that (like Medicare/Medicaid) "drives down costs in the health industry" by forcing Doctors to take a loss to treat patients covered under the plan, a loss they're forced to make up by passing along the cost to those of us paying under the private system. All this without any mention of tort reform (the only real way to bring down health care costs in this country right now) or any benefit being offered to those of us who did the right thing, went to school, worked hard, and are already providing for ourselves and our families.
And, at the end of the day, that's a big deal for me. I worked my way through school for eight years, going pretty deep into debt in the process, and worked my ass off to get a good job and keep it before having a family. Now my first kid is on the way, but luckily I've worked and prepared for this moment so we'll all be taken care of. But that's not good enough? Now you want me to pay for the people who WEREN'T willing to take care of themselves AND you want to take away the benefits I've worked so hard for? And you're confused WHY I'm so against it?
I am picking up Blackest Night... I'm willing to give DC a chance again. I mostly liked 52... Though at the end I felt ripped off. When they tried the same trick with Countdown, I took my money elsewhere... Still getting Hellblazer and picked up Madame Xanadu when it started (which was one of my wife's favorite books, until they changed writers recently...)
Yeah, I stopped reading Spider Man because of that. As I said in my second post, Marvel's not golden--but they do produce some quality stuff. Unfortunately Spider Man isn't on the list of "quality" stuff...
That's odd... DC Had a really good run from about the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2006... Identity Crisis is why I got back INTO comics after giving up during the awfulness of the '90s. That was followed by Infinite Crisis and its really great tie-ins (Day of Vengeance, Villains United, and Rann-Thanagar War really stand out to me). Unfortunately they couldn't follow through, and with the exception of some Vertigo books, I stopped reading DC a few months after Infinite Crisis ended.
On the other hand, in the same period Marvel had the House of M storyline (which is hit-or-miss for people), followed by Planet Hulk (which was incredible), World War Hulk (which, admittedly, was a let-down), and then Civil War (incredible), and Secret Invasion (which I really liked, but to each their own), which led into the current Dark Reign storyline. During these super-arcs playing out, we got treated to the best two Daredevil runs since Miller left it (the second of which was arguably better than what Miller did with the character), a complete reinvention of the Avengers under Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho, Ed Brubaker taking Captain America and Iron Fist (I mean, Iron Fist? Seriously?) and turning them into two of the best things being published at the time... And then to top it off, Marvel is letting a lot of these guys publish their own creations under the Icon imprint (books like Criminal, Kick Ass, Powers, etc.)--things you normally wouldn't see outside of the smaller indie publishers that are getting the full support of a major player in the industry. Really, there's some surprising stuff going on there.
That's not to say they're golden... As previously mentioned before, World War Hulk was a huge letdown... They do still give books that don't deserve it the axe (most light-hearted books, like The Thing, Next Wave, She Hulk, etc. either get axed after 12 issues or get their primary talent reassigned). They unfortunately still give Liefeld work...;)
There's plenty of good stuff coming out of Marvel... And I'm sure there's plenty of drek, as well... Whether Disney will ruin them... I doubt it. Warner Brothers has pretty effectively fucked DC for the foreseeable future... But Disney seems to be willing to take a more hands-off approach to managing their subsidiaries. The influx of Pixar people into leadership positions at Disney (as well as the ousting of Michael Eisner) is also very encouraging. But we'll have to wait and see.
I'm sorry, but no. Ed Brubaker? Brian Michael Bendis? Mark Millar? Warren Ellis? The Avengers books, Iron Fist (how'd that happen?), Captain America, Daredevil... They've all been great. Civil War was a lot of fun.
Even if you don't like their "mainstream" Marvel books, the Icon books are some of the best reading I've ever come across in comics.
I don't know what universe you're in, but Marvel's been doing anything BUT "going downhill" in recent years.
My initial reaction was that it was obviously absurd... But you're right... It's scary that I've seen equivalent comments often enough that I find myself doubting whether someone is serious or not.
I'm having trouble reconciling the fact that such a well-though-out and insightful comment is being made by someone with your signature... I'm hoping the signature is a joke that I'm just failing to get?
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Musashi would disagree with you.
No, they pay you for your labor as per the entirely voluntary contract of employment you have entered in with them, which is pretty much exactly the opposite.
Then you either didn't read what I said or you didn't understand it. I said WATER WAS VISIBLY SEEPING THROUGH THE LEVEE. As in, when I went to visit my Great Grandmother TWENTY YEARS AGO, who's house was WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE of the levee, you could SEE WATER COMING THROUGH IT. And that was twenty years ago. And in those twenty years, the state of Louisiana as well as the City of New Orleans has done shit-all to address the levees.
The Army Corps. of Engineers has been begging literally for decades for the levees to be fixed, but no one wanted to spend the money on it. They've known at least since Betsy hit. And that's the funny thing: THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE! Go read about Hurricane Betsy. New Orleans went through the same crap in 1965 and they STILL didn't do anything about it!
That's what military tribunals are for. The idea of putting them in civilian courts is insanity. These are not criminals, they're enemy soldiers. Treat them as such.
I think it's very unreasonable to expect me to accept a reduction of my own benefits so that people who won't get a job get free health care. Wanna help those who can't help themselves? Fine, I'll support that. But I can't believe the only way to accomplish that is for me to lose the benefits I have currently. I worked pretty hard to get where I am with the benefits I have, and I'm not going to quietly allow them to be stripped from me.
Not everyone who "went nuts" over health care was conservative. Based on current poll numbers, it looks like a very large number of them were independents. You know, the people that won him the election? The people who actually support the current health care proposal (especially w/ a 'public option') are a small, ever dwindling minority. Most everyone understands they have a lot more to lose than they have to gain.
Based on what, exactly? He's a Chicago politician--a group which have represented some of the worst in American politics for most of the last century. His voting record in the Senate has been pretty consistent with his record as a President, as well...
The levees in New Orleans were not ever designed to make a Category 3+ storm survivable, and they've always been in a TERRIBLE state of repair (anyone who's actually been the the area could tell you that water constantly seeped through them in several places). New Orleans floods during normal rainstorms. Anyone who thought they were safe there during a Hurricane doesn't deserve any pity.
Also, the money allocated to levee repair/upgrade was spent on things like off-ramps for casinos and such by the local levee boards. This judge declaring the Corps. to be responsible while ignoring the gross criminal negligence by state and local officials is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice I have ever seen.
Well, I work w/ the FAA right now, and they're becoming relatively platform agnostic actually. ERAM, for instance, was written by Lockheed Martin to run on top of some flavor of IBM UNIX or Linux (forget which). In the old days, everything ran on custom, purpose-built hardware and OSes, but that really turned out to be a maintenance nightmare. Using COTS Hardware/Software means upgrading systems or providing new capabilities can be pretty easy.
I think ASDE-X runs on top of some sort of POSIX type OS as well... I know its data stream is standard UDP over Ethernet type stuff.
Our actions have consequences. I wouldn't want the girl punished, but I would want the girl to take responsibility for her choice to have sex. At no point does religion enter into my thought process.
If you don't want to risk having kids, don't have sex. It's pretty simple, really.
Even as someone who's against abortion, I can't understand that opinion. The pill prevents implantation. A fertilized egg not properly implanting and therefore not becoming a viable embryo is, based on my understanding, a rather common occurrence in a woman's life. Hell, it seems nowadays we're damn lucky to even get successful pregnancies.
I'm not sure that's something that can be scientifically determined... Psychologists and Cognitive Scientists have been studying what makes something sentient for longer than you or I have been around, and they don't seem to be any closer to having figured that out than when they started.
Though it would be significantly more ideal than the current determining factor: viability. 'Viability' changes as medical technology improves, with the date for a child surviving a pre-term birth slowly marching downwards. 24 weeks (6 months) is accepted as survivable, albeit with significant risk, with reports claiming successful deliveries at 21 weeks. We're on the threshold of second trimester deliveries being regularly survivable, and yet second trimester abortions are accepted as the baby is "not viable." I have no doubt that with the way medical technology is going, we'll eventually have the ability to produce entire artificial wombs for the gestation of children, where the mother does not even have to play a part other than the donation of an egg... What then? Does that modify our definition of viability? (Never mind the huge ethical can of worms opened by having artificial baby factories...)
A friend of mine was a columnist in my Uni's newspaper and he actually used a similar example... "Should a family who's loved one is currently on life support and in a coma, upon being told by the attending physician that they expect the patient to be able to come off of life support and regain consciousness in three months, and then eventually go on to lead a normal fully functional life afterward, be allowed to have the patient removed from life support simply due to not wanting the financial burden? No? Then why is abortion legal?"
Well, in the US, the constitution explicitly spells out how capital crimes are to be handled...
I knew they were doomed when I ran into to WotC employees at GDC'06.
It was after hours, and a few of us working at the conference were getting together for the yearly D&D game. We asked the two WotC people working the booth if they'd like to join us. "Oh... We don't play games, actually..."
Big difference from the old days of any random person at WotC (even accounting!) being pulled in to playtest the latest
As someone who's actually part of one of the teams at the FAA working on the problem... Large-scale deployment of UASes in controlled airspace is a long long way off (5 years, minimum--10 more likely). The manufacturers just haven't quite grasped what all will be involved in making these things fit into the NAS...
Is that people seem to be buying into your implication that the previous administration's FCC was somehow AGAINST Network Neutrality...
Are you just trying to be funny or do you honestly believe this? Inquiring minds want to know...
I'm afraid that's not entirely true, based on my understanding. AT&T and T-Mobile use different 3G Frequency bands. So you can bring your iPhone to T-Mobile and get EDGE connectivity, but you'll lose 3G functionality. This is why I haven't grabbed an Android phone yet, since I'm on AT&T and I couldn't get 3G service.
And that's just something we'll never agree on. Being a true member of society would mean taking personal responsibility for yourself.
And I feel there's something fundamentally broken with someone who believes they have right to the fruits of someone else's labors, no matter how "noble" they think their use for it will be.
There's no charity in handing over money at gunpoint. Charity is what you do voluntarily, above and beyond what is expected of you.
Based on the things I say on here, you probably have every right to refer to me as crazy. But you have no way of knowing how much of my personal time and/or money goes to charity, so you have no right to call me selfish.
And I'd probably agree with you there, based on seeing the industry from inside, but apparently we disagree on WHY it's a tragedy.
Sociopathy is a pretty vaguely defined term. If anything, I think it's sociopathic to think you have a right to help yourself to other people's money.
And that's what charity is for. There's nothing selfless about handing over money at gunpoint.
You know what's funny? I actually support a co-op option (I even mentioned it in one of my other comments). The problem is, the people pushing health care reform from the top right now are as VIOLENTLY opposed to a "co-op" program as the people fighting it from the bottom are opposed to a public option. I think it's a great compromise and it achieves what the supposed objectives are of this supposed reform quite nicely. The fact that the reformists are so dead set that it's government control or nothing is very telling about their motives to me.
That's great. That's also not how the proposed US plan would work, in the end.
Well permanent disability coverage does exist. Usually in employer provided insurance plans (at least, that's how mine works). HIV, fortunately, is one of the few chronic illnesses I don't have any experience with the long-term treatment of. So I won't try to guess how she'd be handled in the system. I'm sure not as well as she's been treated in Germany. Examples such as that are one of the reasons I'm perfectly willing to admit that health care in the US needs fixing, I'm just not willing to accept that it means people like me and my parents have to be punished and the working parts of the system have to be destroyed.
Hospital
As much as I hate answering a question with a question... But where do poor and middle-class Canadians/Brits go? My friend with the broken back was a lower-middle-class Canadian miner. The other person I gave an example of was a webcomic artist (probably, by definition, someone who's below the poverty line). Both of them were stuck with only the public option, which failed to serve them.
In the US system currently, treatment for those with health problems who cannot (or will not) provide for themselves varies from state to state. And I'm all for taking care of those who legitimately CAN'T take care of themselves (the permanently disabled, those born with permanent health problems, etc.) That's why I give to charities. The problem is, the government is singularly BAD at determining the difference between those who CAN'T care for themselves and those who WON'T care for themselves.
Actually, it seems like it forces EVERYONE to wait longer, including those with life-threatening illnesses.
I know for a fact that for a non life-threatening illness, I could see a physician of my choice within the next 24 hours (more likely 1-6 hours, if it's early enough in the day.) For something serious, I could be in an emergency room within a matter of minutes. In either case, my access to care will not be affected by what insurance I have (the financial burden for making use of the care, of course, will vary depending on insurance). From what I've seen, this doesn't seem to be true in either the Canadian, British, or Australian systems; if for no other reason than people there don't seem to want to be doctors any more!
If someone legitimately needs medical treatment currently, it will be provided. Yes, it's a pretty raw deal if you're poor, and some people do have to end up declaring bankruptcy on medical debts and that does hurt the system on the whole. Yes, it obviously needs improvement. But that doesn't mean the people who are providing for themselves should be punished so that those who refuse to provide for themselves get a free ride. And it doesn't mean we need to dismantle the parts of the system that DO work to fix the parts that don't.
Yes, it's pretty easy to sell "PUNISH THE EVIL RICH!" to people who aren't.
Actually, I happen to have several chronic conditions. They're mostly minor, thankfully (though a few could have killed me a couple times in the past had I not been treated). I've also had about a dozen different friends/family treated for cancer, and (with one exception, which may of been her own fault) they've all been very pleased with the treatment they got. Yes, there are sick people who get screwed in the current system, and I can make a list of things I'd like to see improved, but all the evidence points to things getting WORSE under a public system.
I fail to see how profits are a bad thing. I like having a house, a car, food, etc. All things which are enabled by my company's ability to generate a profit.
Finally, something we agree on. ;) Cutting profits out of the equation has nothing to do with reducing costs and everything to do with control. Medicare does a pretty good job of cutting profits out of the equation (the profits of Doctors, that is), so let's keep emulating that, I suppose?
And I fail to see how this is somehow wrong. The only thing WRONG is if an insurance company is refusing to pay out on money they have previously agreed that they would pay out. If that's happening, then concentrate on fixing THAT. The answer isn't to eliminate private insurance because of it.
There's a lot more going on in Texas to drive up costs than just malpractice suits. And I'm not sure the metric I've seen most people use to judge whether tort reform helps or not (the ordering of excessive/unnecessary tests) is the right one, since in my previous experience working in the medical industry, malpractice insurance premiums seemed to be the big cost related to that. But I'm willing to accept that tort reform may not lower costs significantly. It's still something that should be pursued, however.
Yes at all. A public option would require me to pay for it. End of story. EVEN IF I DON'T MAKE USE OF THE SERVICES! Even if I provide for my own health care, I'll STILL be paying for the public option. Very much like people without kids, or people who send theirs to private school pay for public schooling for others. That's frankly ridiculous. I'm happy with my coverage, let my opt completely out of the public system and don't charge me for it. But that will never happen, because it won't work.
I fail to see how that's a waste. It encourages investment. Investment helps drive growth. But if you MUST have an insurance provider who isn't so evil as to turn a profit, I'd suggest looking at the coop model. Honestly, that's how my car insurance is handled and it's been a pretty nice experience.
Is this something you've actually experienced? As I said before, I've had literally a dozen people close to me come down with varying degrees of cancer, and none of them were dropped by their provider. I've had a couple brushes with death myself as well as some serious illnesses, and never once has it affected my coverage.
Gladly. I think your next comment is a great starting point.
That's just simply not the case. If it were, Canadian citizens wouldn't come to the US for treatment and British subjects wouldn't avail themselves to the private health services available in their country. I've got friends in several countries "benefiting" from the type of public health care certain people want us to "enjoy," and their experiences do not fill me with confidence. I'm not sure which story I look more forward to experiencing myself: Waiting over a month to see the first in a series of Doctors about blinding eye pain I'm suffering from, only to have him refer me to someone else or waiting nine months with only narcotics as treatment for my broken back, only to be told "Well, since it took so long, your vertebrate have fused and we'll have to re-break them." Those and more stories that are such stellar examples of how much better public health care is, and how I'm so misguided in my opposition to it.
The big sticking point for many of us opposing "public" health care is that the majority of people who are in the private health system in the US currently are at least satisfied with the care they're receiving (if not, like me, absolutely overjoyed with it) and all of the current proposals for a "public" option would take our current system away from us. This is, of course, par for the course for anything the US Government meddles in. The goal is never to bring the unfortunate up to a higher standard, but just to assure everyone has "the same" standard, which generally means bringing those at a higher standard down. And that's what all the current proposals being floated in Congress will do: Bring down the standard of care for all of us who currently enjoy private insurance, by setting up an alternative to private insurers that doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else or compete on the same playing field, by actively encouraging private employers to cancel their private insurance and put their employees on the public option, and by creating a new payment scheme that (like Medicare/Medicaid) "drives down costs in the health industry" by forcing Doctors to take a loss to treat patients covered under the plan, a loss they're forced to make up by passing along the cost to those of us paying under the private system. All this without any mention of tort reform (the only real way to bring down health care costs in this country right now) or any benefit being offered to those of us who did the right thing, went to school, worked hard, and are already providing for ourselves and our families.
And, at the end of the day, that's a big deal for me. I worked my way through school for eight years, going pretty deep into debt in the process, and worked my ass off to get a good job and keep it before having a family. Now my first kid is on the way, but luckily I've worked and prepared for this moment so we'll all be taken care of. But that's not good enough? Now you want me to pay for the people who WEREN'T willing to take care of themselves AND you want to take away the benefits I've worked so hard for? And you're confused WHY I'm so against it?
I am picking up Blackest Night... I'm willing to give DC a chance again. I mostly liked 52... Though at the end I felt ripped off. When they tried the same trick with Countdown, I took my money elsewhere... Still getting Hellblazer and picked up Madame Xanadu when it started (which was one of my wife's favorite books, until they changed writers recently...)
Yeah, I stopped reading Spider Man because of that. As I said in my second post, Marvel's not golden--but they do produce some quality stuff. Unfortunately Spider Man isn't on the list of "quality" stuff...
That's odd... DC Had a really good run from about the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2006... Identity Crisis is why I got back INTO comics after giving up during the awfulness of the '90s. That was followed by Infinite Crisis and its really great tie-ins (Day of Vengeance, Villains United, and Rann-Thanagar War really stand out to me). Unfortunately they couldn't follow through, and with the exception of some Vertigo books, I stopped reading DC a few months after Infinite Crisis ended.
On the other hand, in the same period Marvel had the House of M storyline (which is hit-or-miss for people), followed by Planet Hulk (which was incredible), World War Hulk (which, admittedly, was a let-down), and then Civil War (incredible), and Secret Invasion (which I really liked, but to each their own), which led into the current Dark Reign storyline. During these super-arcs playing out, we got treated to the best two Daredevil runs since Miller left it (the second of which was arguably better than what Miller did with the character), a complete reinvention of the Avengers under Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho, Ed Brubaker taking Captain America and Iron Fist (I mean, Iron Fist? Seriously?) and turning them into two of the best things being published at the time... And then to top it off, Marvel is letting a lot of these guys publish their own creations under the Icon imprint (books like Criminal, Kick Ass, Powers, etc.)--things you normally wouldn't see outside of the smaller indie publishers that are getting the full support of a major player in the industry. Really, there's some surprising stuff going on there.
That's not to say they're golden... As previously mentioned before, World War Hulk was a huge letdown... They do still give books that don't deserve it the axe (most light-hearted books, like The Thing, Next Wave, She Hulk, etc. either get axed after 12 issues or get their primary talent reassigned). They unfortunately still give Liefeld work... ;)
There's plenty of good stuff coming out of Marvel... And I'm sure there's plenty of drek, as well... Whether Disney will ruin them... I doubt it. Warner Brothers has pretty effectively fucked DC for the foreseeable future... But Disney seems to be willing to take a more hands-off approach to managing their subsidiaries. The influx of Pixar people into leadership positions at Disney (as well as the ousting of Michael Eisner) is also very encouraging. But we'll have to wait and see.
I'm sorry, but no. Ed Brubaker? Brian Michael Bendis? Mark Millar? Warren Ellis? The Avengers books, Iron Fist (how'd that happen?), Captain America, Daredevil... They've all been great. Civil War was a lot of fun.
Even if you don't like their "mainstream" Marvel books, the Icon books are some of the best reading I've ever come across in comics.
I don't know what universe you're in, but Marvel's been doing anything BUT "going downhill" in recent years.
No, I can honestly say plenty of my apps don't always work on my machine...
My initial reaction was that it was obviously absurd... But you're right... It's scary that I've seen equivalent comments often enough that I find myself doubting whether someone is serious or not.
Thanks for clearing that up. :)
I'm having trouble reconciling the fact that such a well-though-out and insightful comment is being made by someone with your signature... I'm hoping the signature is a joke that I'm just failing to get?