Ah you poor naive guy. You thought Viagra, which primarily benefits men, was covered under Obamacare the same way female contraceptives are -- free access, no cost sharing, no co-insurance, no deductible? Nope!
It didn't need to be denied because it was never there.
Don't you love how equal protection before the law works?
Okay so I pay into a program on your behalf called housing insurance. It provides coverage for housing and means you get to pick a house to live in without paying anything.
You're saying I didn't pay for your housing? Huh?
I mean you are aware of the rule we're talking about right? It's not "coverage" like normal insurance, it's free access with no cost sharing. No co-insurance, no deductible. That's the new law for FDA-approved contraceptives.
You do that by extending the tax break to people who buy their own insurance. It would have no effect on most people (employer increases salary, which is the same tax deduction for them.. employee gets more salary but pays for more for insurance.. employee gets additional tax deduction to offset increased salary.. net effect 0). For the individual market it would be a new and well-deserved benefit.
That's a great analogy. Where do universal coverage supporters draw the line between personal activities and social health care? I mean you're absolutely about your tires and with the right research you could show that if we all spend money on your tires we'll save money by not having to pay for your emergency room visit.
Which does more for society? That women should have access to reproductive health care or that infertile couples should be given treatments for infertility? Which one is more expensive?
It's certainly kinder to give treatments to infertile couples since they are suffering. People who are having sex are not suffering and don't need our compassion. If you can't keep it in your pants and can't afford a condom, try anal or oral sex or just masturbate. Free and enjoyable solutions abound!
Asking which "does more" for society doesn't make sense at all since they have different goals. What "does more" -- spending money on free contraceptives or spending that same money on education?
No, I believe they should always be respected, as long as those beliefs are respectful.
Google says respect is "a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements."
What exactly do you mean by "as long as those beliefs are respectful?" Perhaps you mean insular and/or tolerant?
The US government distorts the health care market through tax breaks, strongly favoring employer-provided health care. Those tax breaks are an outrage and should have been abolished by any reasonable health insurance reform.
Or alternately extend the tax breaks to everyone.
Tax breaks are good. There are too many tax breaks that are in the purvey of businesses only. For instance, my company doesn't offer a 401k plan... and guess what, I can't open my own 401k account! That means I'm limited to using an IRA which only lets you contribute about 1/3 what you could in a 401k. It's ridiculous.
There's a SEP-IRA with a higher contribution limit and a solo 401k, but both require self-employment income. You can't contribute from your regular paycheck.
It's a lot of ridiculous bullshit is what it is.
There's nothing wrong with an individual mandate in principle
Well now it makes sense that you couch the employer insurance tax break as a bad thing that needs to go rather than extending it to everybody.
Now if I lose my employment I can still get health insurance coverage of reasonable quality for a reasonable price
I assume you mean with subsidies, because otherwise the ACA plans are not reasonably priced for most people. The Bronze plans have huge deductible for instance, which an unemployed person would find difficult to meet without subsidies.
I was just wondering how subsidies are calculated for people who are newly unemployed. Do you have details? The online subsidy calculators ask you for your estimated 2014 income. If you just became unemployed I guess you could put a very low estimate based on unemployment benefits. What happens if you get a job in a month? Is there some penalty for lying?
I've also heard you may have to submit proof of income, like last year's tax returns, which would show a much higher income than you stated.
Paying for contraception is a LOT cheaper than paying for prenatal or pediatric care. Having contraceptive coverage will save you and everyone else in the insurance pool money in the long run.
Nope. In the long run, most people choose to have kids at some point. Contraception allows them to choose WHEN to have kids. It's not going to affect the overall cost of children in this country.
Actually since younger women have fewer complications, it might save money to ban contraception. They'd get their 2-3 kids out of the way in their 20s with nice cheap pregnancies, rather than waiting until their 30s and having complications.
It's funny because if you had said in the short term you'd have been right for sure.
What you consider to be "cheap" contraceptives are still beyond the means of many people if they had to pay the full price themselves. Good luck affording contraceptives on Walmart wages when you have to pay for rent, transportation and food.
Eh, yeah, you're probably right, but if we're still talking about money... who cares about the tiny amount of money this person has? An extra $5/month saved on a generic birth control pill that they can spend on cigarettes or lottery tickets.. or put in a savings account at 0.05% interest (with a $2.95 monthly maintenance fee)? Wow that will change their life!!!
Come on, free contraception isn't going to make a difference in that person's life. And like I noted above, they WILL still have kids, even though they can't afford them.
That my naive young friend is economic insanity. You clearly do not understand the consequences of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy does NOT wipe your leger clear. You still owe most of the money.
I don't know why you're fear mongering here.. bankruptcy is the tried and true method to get rid of medical debt. You're conflating "wipe your leger clear" with what we're actually talking about... catastrophic illness that ends up costing $50k, $100k, $200k+ to treat. The guy who can't afford insurance and doesn't get it through work *probably* doesn't have lots of assets. His medical debt is going to be *wiped out* in bankruptcy. Gone. That's not the same as clearing your ledger.. you'll still owe on student loans, child support, etc. And of course that's not what we're talking about.
It's the same difference as giving a homeless guy $20 hoping that he'll buy a nice dinner, versus giving him $20 of vodka or meth or whatever. I mean... even if the homeless guy ends up buying drugs with your money, you do see that it's not the exact same thing morally right?
How is my being forced to pay for Lockheed to build an F22 any different from my having to pick an insurance company and buy insurance from them? The only difference is that I have personally more to show for the latter.
One difference is scale. Unless you're very wealthy and pay a huge amount of taxes, what you pay for healthcare far outweighs what you pay for the government programs you disagree with.
The problem with pre-existing conditions is that it is almost impossible to tell when a medical condition actually started.
That's a good point and I think the best thing to come out of Obamacare is the preexisting condition coverage. There are some things not fair about it though. One is that someone with preexisting conditions should pay more. Not 100% of the cost of the preexisting condition, but they should pay a bit more. They are sick, they are expensive, they need to pay more. Very simple. The other problem is with preexisting conditions that are due to a "moral fault" of the person, like obesity or alcoholism or drug addiction or smoking. Obamacare charges more for smokers, why not other stuff? You're more of an idiot if you drink too much than if you smoke, and if you get health problems from drinking you should pay more.
My main problem with Obamacare is it didn't do enough to bring down costs ("do enough".. well of course it actually raises costs). Make healthcare cheap and universal coverage is easy. But Obama put the cart before the horse. We need universal coverage and huge subsidies, and who cares how much it costs! Idiotic.
So your saying that despite the constitution, as long as i consider it 'morally wrong' then i can go out of my way to not pay for it.
No, the government discriminates in favor of only a few small groups. You can't make up your own religion with its own exemptions. It's bullshit of course, but the government discriminating against the majority is nothing new.
Is the next stop going to argue they dont need to pay employees because of what they can do with cash?
What's next, do you want Obama to outlaw volunteer work?
Healthcare is a payment,
Sure it is, but people are supposed to have the freedom to decide what they want to buy and what they don't. In theory. Land of the free and all. If health care is a payment, and the government is requiring that payment, and both the employer and the employee have no choice but to make/accept that payment, and they can't even choose the details of what they're buying.. I mean sorry but that's some real communist bullshit right there. Very anti-freedom. Why not make housing a payment too, and have the government choose your house? Your car? I mean it's all just money, it's all equivalent whether you get a paycheck or a monthly ration of government approved items right?
That's extreme of course. But I honestly never thought the individual mandate would make it through the supposedly conservative Supreme Court. Fuck this country is depressing these days.
Oh man, what a horrific blog post. I can't believe I waded through that to find something to support your assertion that Ayn Rand's theories on capitalism are inextricable from atheism.
She not only would have rejected Jesus and his gospels, she actually did—-repeatedly. Christ’s message that the poor are blessed and the meek will inherit the earth is antithetical to Rand’s belief that the poor and meek are no more than mulch where the dreams of the mighty take root.
What a bunch of crap. You and that blogger both missed the fact that capitalism has created more wealth for the poor and meek than any other economic system. While millions starved under Communism, the more capitalist grew rich and developed social safety nets for the poor.
Look at China: 1. Modern China, embracing capitalism and trade with capitalist countries and lifting millions of people out of poverty 2. Hard communist China, with programs like the Great Leap Forward... which led to the Great Chinese Famine! Read the first paragraph under Causes.. even China today admits that Communist mismanagement of the economy and agriculture was the principal cause of the disaster
So yeah.. What Would Jesus Do? Impose communist bullshit and make half the world starve... or embrace capitalism..
The dirty wars are certainly killing a lot of Al Qaeda affiliates. They are almost certainly killing a larger number of innocent civilians which will fuel new generations to hate America.
So? These people already hate America. Better to demonstrate force than to appear weak in front of your enemies. People need to know that if your friend is a terrorist or if your dad is a terrorist.. you are in danger.
Hmm, there's a huge argument about Islamic fundamentalism going on in the world. I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to when you say it's not controversial. What do you call US support of Islamic fundamentalists in Syria? We agree its barbaric, so we fund it?? Sorry your argument just doesn't make sense in light of what's happened since 2001 when Islamic fundamentalism was thrust into the limelight.
Another example is to look at US support of Pakistan.
Some things are banned because authorities are afraid people will want them. Drugs, prostitution, etc. And it turns out people DO want them and banning a specific instance of it brings lots of attention. I'm sure a lot of people found out about those relatively new (to me) synthetic marijuana drugs because of reports of the products being banned, or cops wanting to ban them and crying that they were still legal.
But things like boring books that schools force you to read anyway? Nah.
I'm not concerned with the problem itself, I'm merely pointing out that problem because I'm concerned with the claim that it is more "moral" for one group (the group who happens to live there right now) to nationalize and burn up natural resources than for anybody else. It's bullshit.
The alternative is that it's equally okay for ANYBODY to exploit natural resources. If Shell and Exxon go into the Middle East and pump out all the oil, and that benefits 300 million people in America in some way, that's as valid as if Iran nationalizes it and uses it to benefit 75 million Iranians. It's not better, it's not worse, it's equal. I'm just sick of the idiots who go around saying Iranians (or whatever group) have some moral right to the oil that happens to be in their sand.
Gandhi and his peace movement didn't accomplish anything in a vacuum. The reason the British empire collapsed around the world was its weakness after WWI and WWII -- weakness due to guns. I mean think about it.. it wasn't just India that was freed. Britain lost pretty much its entire empire. The Irish won their independence in 1919 through a war. Palestine and Israel were also born out of violence. Zionists were engaging in terrorist acts for years in a push for independence in Israel and Palestine, e.g. the attack on the King David Hotel. Read the part about reactions to the bombing at home. Keep in mind this was just a year before Indian independence.
If you are under the impression that Gandhi started giving speeches and going on hunger strikes and then the entire British empire collapsed because of him you are wrong. Even within India, you are apparently unaware of the widespread violence that had been going on for decades. Gandhi was the leader of the popular peaceful movement that history likes to remember, but he was not alone. There were many groups involved, most violent, and many scheming about what would happen after independence. There were groups that were encouraging domestic religious violence because they wanted to convince the British to go ahead and partition the country because they could never live together in peace. All of that had an affect on the British view of the situation. I mean look at stuff like Direct Action Day.
Yeahhhhh I don't think so, largely because this $10.5 billion loss isn't really the entire loss. It's the loss we took on New GM. The government isn't counting losses applied to the pre-bankruptcy "Old GM" (like the forgiven TARP loans worth $15 billion) or some of the "assets" of New GM that affect taxpayers, like the $45 billion in tax credits that it received. Because you know that's totally a different situation and has nothing to do with NEW GM, of course.
So we only lost $10 billion after not counting like $60 billion in losses to the old company. Awesome investment, America, woo!
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I don't understand... my workplace doesn't have water coolers on any day. Is that an OSHA violation?
Ah you poor naive guy. You thought Viagra, which primarily benefits men, was covered under Obamacare the same way female contraceptives are -- free access, no cost sharing, no co-insurance, no deductible? Nope!
It didn't need to be denied because it was never there.
Don't you love how equal protection before the law works?
Okay so I pay into a program on your behalf called housing insurance. It provides coverage for housing and means you get to pick a house to live in without paying anything.
You're saying I didn't pay for your housing? Huh?
I mean you are aware of the rule we're talking about right? It's not "coverage" like normal insurance, it's free access with no cost sharing. No co-insurance, no deductible. That's the new law for FDA-approved contraceptives.
You do that by extending the tax break to people who buy their own insurance. It would have no effect on most people (employer increases salary, which is the same tax deduction for them.. employee gets more salary but pays for more for insurance.. employee gets additional tax deduction to offset increased salary.. net effect 0). For the individual market it would be a new and well-deserved benefit.
Simplest solution is to pay people more for doing a high risk job, then they can afford the more expensive insurance needed for their job.
Don't people with high risk jobs get paid more anyway?
That's a great analogy. Where do universal coverage supporters draw the line between personal activities and social health care? I mean you're absolutely about your tires and with the right research you could show that if we all spend money on your tires we'll save money by not having to pay for your emergency room visit.
Which does more for society? That women should have access to reproductive health care or that infertile couples should be given treatments for infertility? Which one is more expensive?
It's certainly kinder to give treatments to infertile couples since they are suffering. People who are having sex are not suffering and don't need our compassion. If you can't keep it in your pants and can't afford a condom, try anal or oral sex or just masturbate. Free and enjoyable solutions abound!
Asking which "does more" for society doesn't make sense at all since they have different goals. What "does more" -- spending money on free contraceptives or spending that same money on education?
No, I believe they should always be respected, as long as those beliefs are respectful.
Google says respect is "a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements."
What exactly do you mean by "as long as those beliefs are respectful?" Perhaps you mean insular and/or tolerant?
The US government distorts the health care market through tax breaks, strongly favoring employer-provided health care. Those tax breaks are an outrage and should have been abolished by any reasonable health insurance reform.
Or alternately extend the tax breaks to everyone.
Tax breaks are good. There are too many tax breaks that are in the purvey of businesses only. For instance, my company doesn't offer a 401k plan... and guess what, I can't open my own 401k account! That means I'm limited to using an IRA which only lets you contribute about 1/3 what you could in a 401k. It's ridiculous.
There's a SEP-IRA with a higher contribution limit and a solo 401k, but both require self-employment income. You can't contribute from your regular paycheck.
It's a lot of ridiculous bullshit is what it is.
There's nothing wrong with an individual mandate in principle
Well now it makes sense that you couch the employer insurance tax break as a bad thing that needs to go rather than extending it to everybody.
Now if I lose my employment I can still get health insurance coverage of reasonable quality for a reasonable price
I assume you mean with subsidies, because otherwise the ACA plans are not reasonably priced for most people. The Bronze plans have huge deductible for instance, which an unemployed person would find difficult to meet without subsidies.
I was just wondering how subsidies are calculated for people who are newly unemployed. Do you have details? The online subsidy calculators ask you for your estimated 2014 income. If you just became unemployed I guess you could put a very low estimate based on unemployment benefits. What happens if you get a job in a month? Is there some penalty for lying?
I've also heard you may have to submit proof of income, like last year's tax returns, which would show a much higher income than you stated.
Paying for contraception is a LOT cheaper than paying for prenatal or pediatric care. Having contraceptive coverage will save you and everyone else in the insurance pool money in the long run.
Nope. In the long run, most people choose to have kids at some point. Contraception allows them to choose WHEN to have kids. It's not going to affect the overall cost of children in this country.
Actually since younger women have fewer complications, it might save money to ban contraception. They'd get their 2-3 kids out of the way in their 20s with nice cheap pregnancies, rather than waiting until their 30s and having complications.
It's funny because if you had said in the short term you'd have been right for sure.
What you consider to be "cheap" contraceptives are still beyond the means of many people if they had to pay the full price themselves. Good luck affording contraceptives on Walmart wages when you have to pay for rent, transportation and food.
Eh, yeah, you're probably right, but if we're still talking about money... who cares about the tiny amount of money this person has? An extra $5/month saved on a generic birth control pill that they can spend on cigarettes or lottery tickets.. or put in a savings account at 0.05% interest (with a $2.95 monthly maintenance fee)? Wow that will change their life!!!
Come on, free contraception isn't going to make a difference in that person's life. And like I noted above, they WILL still have kids, even though they can't afford them.
That my naive young friend is economic insanity. You clearly do not understand the consequences of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy does NOT wipe your leger clear. You still owe most of the money.
I don't know why you're fear mongering here.. bankruptcy is the tried and true method to get rid of medical debt. You're conflating "wipe your leger clear" with what we're actually talking about... catastrophic illness that ends up costing $50k, $100k, $200k+ to treat. The guy who can't afford insurance and doesn't get it through work *probably* doesn't have lots of assets. His medical debt is going to be *wiped out* in bankruptcy. Gone. That's not the same as clearing your ledger.. you'll still owe on student loans, child support, etc. And of course that's not what we're talking about.
It's the same difference as giving a homeless guy $20 hoping that he'll buy a nice dinner, versus giving him $20 of vodka or meth or whatever. I mean... even if the homeless guy ends up buying drugs with your money, you do see that it's not the exact same thing morally right?
When you pay your taxes, you don't get a line-item budget
No but you should. Every person should see where their money goes. I think the population would be more open to meaningful spending reform.
How is my being forced to pay for Lockheed to build an F22 any different from my having to pick an insurance company and buy insurance from them? The only difference is that I have personally more to show for the latter.
One difference is scale. Unless you're very wealthy and pay a huge amount of taxes, what you pay for healthcare far outweighs what you pay for the government programs you disagree with.
The problem with pre-existing conditions is that it is almost impossible to tell when a medical condition actually started.
That's a good point and I think the best thing to come out of Obamacare is the preexisting condition coverage. There are some things not fair about it though. One is that someone with preexisting conditions should pay more. Not 100% of the cost of the preexisting condition, but they should pay a bit more. They are sick, they are expensive, they need to pay more. Very simple. The other problem is with preexisting conditions that are due to a "moral fault" of the person, like obesity or alcoholism or drug addiction or smoking. Obamacare charges more for smokers, why not other stuff? You're more of an idiot if you drink too much than if you smoke, and if you get health problems from drinking you should pay more.
My main problem with Obamacare is it didn't do enough to bring down costs ("do enough".. well of course it actually raises costs). Make healthcare cheap and universal coverage is easy. But Obama put the cart before the horse. We need universal coverage and huge subsidies, and who cares how much it costs! Idiotic.
So your saying that despite the constitution, as long as i consider it 'morally wrong' then i can go out of my way to not pay for it.
No, the government discriminates in favor of only a few small groups. You can't make up your own religion with its own exemptions. It's bullshit of course, but the government discriminating against the majority is nothing new.
Is the next stop going to argue they dont need to pay employees because of what they can do with cash?
What's next, do you want Obama to outlaw volunteer work?
Healthcare is a payment,
Sure it is, but people are supposed to have the freedom to decide what they want to buy and what they don't. In theory. Land of the free and all. If health care is a payment, and the government is requiring that payment, and both the employer and the employee have no choice but to make/accept that payment, and they can't even choose the details of what they're buying.. I mean sorry but that's some real communist bullshit right there. Very anti-freedom. Why not make housing a payment too, and have the government choose your house? Your car? I mean it's all just money, it's all equivalent whether you get a paycheck or a monthly ration of government approved items right?
That's extreme of course. But I honestly never thought the individual mandate would make it through the supposedly conservative Supreme Court. Fuck this country is depressing these days.
If they proved it, then very quickly contraception would be banned. That's a much larger step than opting out of providing free contraceptives.
Yet you clicked on the link and read the article.
You must be new here.
ZorinLynx (31751)
You must have missed the last decade of Slashdot's evolution.
Oh man, what a horrific blog post. I can't believe I waded through that to find something to support your assertion that Ayn Rand's theories on capitalism are inextricable from atheism.
She not only would have rejected Jesus and his gospels, she actually did—-repeatedly. Christ’s message that the poor are blessed and the meek will inherit the earth is antithetical to Rand’s belief that the poor and meek are no more than mulch where the dreams of the mighty take root.
What a bunch of crap. You and that blogger both missed the fact that capitalism has created more wealth for the poor and meek than any other economic system. While millions starved under Communism, the more capitalist grew rich and developed social safety nets for the poor.
Look at China:
1. Modern China, embracing capitalism and trade with capitalist countries and lifting millions of people out of poverty
2. Hard communist China, with programs like the Great Leap Forward... which led to the Great Chinese Famine! Read the first paragraph under Causes.. even China today admits that Communist mismanagement of the economy and agriculture was the principal cause of the disaster
So yeah.. What Would Jesus Do? Impose communist bullshit and make half the world starve... or embrace capitalism..
Armchair communists are so stupid.
The dirty wars are certainly killing a lot of Al Qaeda affiliates. They are almost certainly killing a larger number of innocent civilians which will fuel new generations to hate America.
So? These people already hate America. Better to demonstrate force than to appear weak in front of your enemies. People need to know that if your friend is a terrorist or if your dad is a terrorist.. you are in danger.
Even if your enemy's enemy is also your enemy, it's worth treating one of them (usually the weaker one) as a friend in order to weaken both of them.
Hmm, there's a huge argument about Islamic fundamentalism going on in the world. I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to when you say it's not controversial. What do you call US support of Islamic fundamentalists in Syria? We agree its barbaric, so we fund it?? Sorry your argument just doesn't make sense in light of what's happened since 2001 when Islamic fundamentalism was thrust into the limelight.
Another example is to look at US support of Pakistan.
Some things are banned because authorities are afraid people will want them. Drugs, prostitution, etc. And it turns out people DO want them and banning a specific instance of it brings lots of attention. I'm sure a lot of people found out about those relatively new (to me) synthetic marijuana drugs because of reports of the products being banned, or cops wanting to ban them and crying that they were still legal.
But things like boring books that schools force you to read anyway? Nah.
No, it's not.
I'm not concerned with the problem itself, I'm merely pointing out that problem because I'm concerned with the claim that it is more "moral" for one group (the group who happens to live there right now) to nationalize and burn up natural resources than for anybody else. It's bullshit.
The alternative is that it's equally okay for ANYBODY to exploit natural resources. If Shell and Exxon go into the Middle East and pump out all the oil, and that benefits 300 million people in America in some way, that's as valid as if Iran nationalizes it and uses it to benefit 75 million Iranians. It's not better, it's not worse, it's equal. I'm just sick of the idiots who go around saying Iranians (or whatever group) have some moral right to the oil that happens to be in their sand.
Gandhi and his peace movement didn't accomplish anything in a vacuum. The reason the British empire collapsed around the world was its weakness after WWI and WWII -- weakness due to guns. I mean think about it.. it wasn't just India that was freed. Britain lost pretty much its entire empire. The Irish won their independence in 1919 through a war. Palestine and Israel were also born out of violence. Zionists were engaging in terrorist acts for years in a push for independence in Israel and Palestine, e.g. the attack on the King David Hotel. Read the part about reactions to the bombing at home. Keep in mind this was just a year before Indian independence.
If you are under the impression that Gandhi started giving speeches and going on hunger strikes and then the entire British empire collapsed because of him you are wrong. Even within India, you are apparently unaware of the widespread violence that had been going on for decades. Gandhi was the leader of the popular peaceful movement that history likes to remember, but he was not alone. There were many groups involved, most violent, and many scheming about what would happen after independence. There were groups that were encouraging domestic religious violence because they wanted to convince the British to go ahead and partition the country because they could never live together in peace. All of that had an affect on the British view of the situation. I mean look at stuff like Direct Action Day.
I knew you'd mention Gandhi but I'm shocked that you said Mandela, who CREATED and led the armed militant branch of the ANC. Peaceful guy huh?
We'll see about Aung San Suu Kyi.
Yeahhhhh I don't think so, largely because this $10.5 billion loss isn't really the entire loss. It's the loss we took on New GM. The government isn't counting losses applied to the pre-bankruptcy "Old GM" (like the forgiven TARP loans worth $15 billion) or some of the "assets" of New GM that affect taxpayers, like the $45 billion in tax credits that it received. Because you know that's totally a different situation and has nothing to do with NEW GM, of course.
So we only lost $10 billion after not counting like $60 billion in losses to the old company. Awesome investment, America, woo!