1. I see plenty of anecdotal stories that support many views. People hear what they listen for. Numbers from objective studies are what I'd pay attention to.
2. Added policies is the count that I've seen touted the most, not total number insured. The numbers are simply not clear. They could be higher than stated, but the fact is you'll see very different numbers from different organizations, so I'd guess the truth is in between. Regardless, there is still a complete failure to account for the care that was previously available and used by the 'uninsured".
3. Rural areas may contain a greater number of what classifies as 'poor', but if you break that group into various levels, you will see very high concentrated levels of the bottom tier in urban areas, that is, as a percent of the surrounding population. And, rural "poor" don't vote heavily conservative as might be implied or inferred, but the lower income, but not poor, population is much more conservative than their urban counterparts.
I've heard several economists say that what really skews our health system is the lack of direct payment. Since we don't pay for anything we don't know what it costs and it makes it easier to over consume health care because we're one or more steps removed from what things cost.
I totally agree with your criticisms of what really seems like fraudulent billing with in/out of network doctors and drive-by doctoring (I read those NY Times articles, too). It really seems like a deliberately dishonest way to screw patients, especially when it involves surgeries where you had no control over the "assisting" doctor or emergency rooms where, well, it's an emergency.
Maybe not direct payment, but not even seeing the actual costs and having some skin in the game certainly has been a large part of the problem. Some of this has been improved for those that are not on CDHO plans (as I am). I pay 100% of everything (up to a max), but have a little more control. I am not one who uses medical services unless I really know I need them, but I could see how this plan would deter those that take doctor visits on a whim.
I was hospitalized for a few weeks with some post-operative complications (I'll spare the gory details). My general physician, who was located nearby, stopped by daily to check on me before he went to work. I thought that was pretty nice until I saw the hospital bill that include $250 a day for his services. It was quite disappointing, particularly because this guy is a very good doctor. I don't hold it against him, he is doing it because of the system he works in. But I may have told him to skip a day or two, or just come in by request, had I had the information available to me in advance.
It is worth noting this article and effort was pushed forth by O-Care supporters. It fails to answer the most important questions.. has your healthcare improved or lowered in cost? Are you using it? There were a lot of free health services available to people before they were required to sign up for O-Care. The fact that many of the (very optimistically estimated) number of those who were added to O-Care rolls did not want or feel they needed it should be considered as well. In other cases, such as ones I am very familiar with, previously covered spouses were forced to move to their own plan if their work provider had coverage available. This means that although a new health care subscriber can now be counted, that person was already covered and that family is now paying more and having to deal with two health plans, which adds its own set of complications and reduces the value of deductibles on a per person basis.
It is interesting, but not surprising, that the liberal talking points are heavily embedded, a clear flag that the study has an inherent bias. The "poorest states" being conservative sounds counter to only the picture that liberals try to paint of conservatives, not to reality for anyone who pays any attention. Hard working rural America has always been conservative. More often than not, it is the large urban populations that shift state's support bias to liberal, and it is those same urban areas that hold the most desperate and dependent populations of the truly underprivileged.
Polls can give you the result you intend. This is simply a poll result, not a sophisticated statistical analysis as the title would have you believe. Its not that hard to play with numbers to make any point you want. Those that want to believe the results will, those that don't won't.
What most would prefer to see is legitimate competition. The unlikelihood of that happening in many places coupled with the business practices of the monopolies breeds resentment.
No, that is not really an alternative. Most people who hold season tickets to local sports teams also want to see sports on TV, in fact I'd guess they are probably more likely to have sports packages than the average person.
SInce Disney owns ESPN, they can hold us sports addicts hostage to their content packages. College Sports could move to more of their own networks, but right now those are basically ESPN affiliations. The NFL or NBA might lead the charge if they found they could get greater revenue via their own distributions, but they are making big $$ now and not likely to take any risks.
Maybe Netflix could branch to live content. That would become interesting.
You have more options than I do. No DSL, satellite blocked by trees............... only Time Warner Ca-bull. Best I can do is threaten to leave every once in a while and try to get a retention rate.
Sports is the primary thing that keeps a lot of people on cable. If there were ever an alternative for live sports, the whole package thing would come crashing down.
Who trusts what they read on the internet anyway? Particularly by reading just one page of content that has no real meaningful impact to anyone but the criminal.
Anyone who doesn't validate what they read on the internet deserves to be......misled.
I would probably have been better to say that intolerance of those that are religious is irrational for someone that takes a scientific view of the evolution of socital beliefs. That they are decreasing in practice is irrelevant to that point.
Scientific reasoning tells me there are reasons religious beliefs are common throughout human societal history. That same scientific reasoning tells me that, because of its place in our societal history, hatred of those based on their practice of religion is more irrational than the practice of religion itself.
I know this is petulant and pedantic, but Dunning-Kruger is statistical, and only reflects the naturalness of a lack of detailed introspection.
More over, some people are genuinely competent at things. I want to object to the notion that it's an inescapable human failing, because Dunning and Kruger's research didn't show that. Just a strong overall trend.
I think it stands to reason that those who don't know the details or have a depth of understanding on a subject can oversimplify things and believe the basis or solutions are simpler than they really are. I see this a lot in discussion of technical issues on/., where some can gloss over all the complications they are not aware of and propose solutions that seem quite logical when the underlying details are not considered . But, as you pointed out, one can understand the depths of a subject and have confidence in their answer as well. The better you know a topic, the better you know your limits within that topic as well.
That would require notification of the changes in some reasonable fashion, ahead of time. Evidently that did not happen, or the terms were simply not fulfilled to begin with.
I'm curious why an internet connection costs $80/mo. Is that the care facility upcharging, or is that what the ISP charges? Seems like someone is ripping off the elderly.
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Your refrigerator is vulnerable once I break into your house. You should consider hiding your beer somewhere safe.
1. I see plenty of anecdotal stories that support many views. People hear what they listen for. Numbers from objective studies are what I'd pay attention to.
2. Added policies is the count that I've seen touted the most, not total number insured. The numbers are simply not clear. They could be higher than stated, but the fact is you'll see very different numbers from different organizations, so I'd guess the truth is in between. Regardless, there is still a complete failure to account for the care that was previously available and used by the 'uninsured".
3. Rural areas may contain a greater number of what classifies as 'poor', but if you break that group into various levels, you will see very high concentrated levels of the bottom tier in urban areas, that is, as a percent of the surrounding population. And, rural "poor" don't vote heavily conservative as might be implied or inferred, but the lower income, but not poor, population is much more conservative than their urban counterparts.
systemd has not dated your momma.
I've heard several economists say that what really skews our health system is the lack of direct payment. Since we don't pay for anything we don't know what it costs and it makes it easier to over consume health care because we're one or more steps removed from what things cost.
I totally agree with your criticisms of what really seems like fraudulent billing with in/out of network doctors and drive-by doctoring (I read those NY Times articles, too). It really seems like a deliberately dishonest way to screw patients, especially when it involves surgeries where you had no control over the "assisting" doctor or emergency rooms where, well, it's an emergency.
Maybe not direct payment, but not even seeing the actual costs and having some skin in the game certainly has been a large part of the problem. Some of this has been improved for those that are not on CDHO plans (as I am). I pay 100% of everything (up to a max), but have a little more control. I am not one who uses medical services unless I really know I need them, but I could see how this plan would deter those that take doctor visits on a whim.
I was hospitalized for a few weeks with some post-operative complications (I'll spare the gory details). My general physician, who was located nearby, stopped by daily to check on me before he went to work. I thought that was pretty nice until I saw the hospital bill that include $250 a day for his services. It was quite disappointing, particularly because this guy is a very good doctor. I don't hold it against him, he is doing it because of the system he works in. But I may have told him to skip a day or two, or just come in by request, had I had the information available to me in advance.
Great post.
It is worth noting this article and effort was pushed forth by O-Care supporters. It fails to answer the most important questions.. has your healthcare improved or lowered in cost? Are you using it? There were a lot of free health services available to people before they were required to sign up for O-Care. The fact that many of the (very optimistically estimated) number of those who were added to O-Care rolls did not want or feel they needed it should be considered as well. In other cases, such as ones I am very familiar with, previously covered spouses were forced to move to their own plan if their work provider had coverage available. This means that although a new health care subscriber can now be counted, that person was already covered and that family is now paying more and having to deal with two health plans, which adds its own set of complications and reduces the value of deductibles on a per person basis.
It is interesting, but not surprising, that the liberal talking points are heavily embedded, a clear flag that the study has an inherent bias. The "poorest states" being conservative sounds counter to only the picture that liberals try to paint of conservatives, not to reality for anyone who pays any attention. Hard working rural America has always been conservative. More often than not, it is the large urban populations that shift state's support bias to liberal, and it is those same urban areas that hold the most desperate and dependent populations of the truly underprivileged.
Polls can give you the result you intend. This is simply a poll result, not a sophisticated statistical analysis as the title would have you believe. Its not that hard to play with numbers to make any point you want. Those that want to believe the results will, those that don't won't.
They call it a watch, but its not really a watch.
What most would prefer to see is legitimate competition. The unlikelihood of that happening in many places coupled with the business practices of the monopolies breeds resentment.
No, that is not really an alternative. Most people who hold season tickets to local sports teams also want to see sports on TV, in fact I'd guess they are probably more likely to have sports packages than the average person.
SInce Disney owns ESPN, they can hold us sports addicts hostage to their content packages. College Sports could move to more of their own networks, but right now those are basically ESPN affiliations. The NFL or NBA might lead the charge if they found they could get greater revenue via their own distributions, but they are making big $$ now and not likely to take any risks.
Maybe Netflix could branch to live content. That would become interesting.
You have more options than I do. No DSL, satellite blocked by trees............... only Time Warner Ca-bull. Best I can do is threaten to leave every once in a while and try to get a retention rate.
Sports is the primary thing that keeps a lot of people on cable. If there were ever an alternative for live sports, the whole package thing would come crashing down.
may harbor $65 billion of recoverable water....
Man, that asteroid water must be quite valuable. I guess they plan to bottle it.
Who trusts what they read on the internet anyway? Particularly by reading just one page of content that has no real meaningful impact to anyone but the criminal.
Anyone who doesn't validate what they read on the internet deserves to be......misled.
Is that your scientific analysis?
I wouldn't consider that a scientific analysis of religion and its place in societal development.
I would probably have been better to say that intolerance of those that are religious is irrational for someone that takes a scientific view of the evolution of socital beliefs. That they are decreasing in practice is irrelevant to that point.
Scientific reasoning tells me there are reasons religious beliefs are common throughout human societal history. That same scientific reasoning tells me that, because of its place in our societal history, hatred of those based on their practice of religion is more irrational than the practice of religion itself.
I know this is petulant and pedantic, but Dunning-Kruger is statistical, and only reflects the naturalness of a lack of detailed introspection.
More over, some people are genuinely competent at things. I want to object to the notion that it's an inescapable human failing, because Dunning and Kruger's research didn't show that. Just a strong overall trend.
I think it stands to reason that those who don't know the details or have a depth of understanding on a subject can oversimplify things and believe the basis or solutions are simpler than they really are. I see this a lot in discussion of technical issues on /., where some can gloss over all the complications they are not aware of and propose solutions that seem quite logical when the underlying details are not considered . But, as you pointed out, one can understand the depths of a subject and have confidence in their answer as well. The better you know a topic, the better you know your limits within that topic as well.
Just an example, not a recommendation.
A court could come up with a reasonable formula. Base it on percent of data throttled vs used, for example.
That would require notification of the changes in some reasonable fashion, ahead of time. Evidently that did not happen, or the terms were simply not fulfilled to begin with.
Seems like AT&T changed their definition of unlimited at some point.
But shouldn't AT&T also have to reimburse the customers for the value of the contract portion they did not deliver?
I'm curious why an internet connection costs $80/mo. Is that the care facility upcharging, or is that what the ISP charges? Seems like someone is ripping off the elderly.