The UK is hardly a good example for anything related to TV when you've got state employees roaming around the countryside to make sure you've paid your BBC tax.....
They were expressly told they can put personal stuff on there.
My employer has no specific policy against personal internet usage but that doesn't mean that I'm going to use my company workstation to send sexually explicit "fuck me!" messages to my girlfriend.
The only real alternative is to allow hospitals to turn away anyone who cannot show ability to pay (upon admission) for all services they will be provided.
I have no problem with that.
In other words, don't preach about how the liberals are trying to rip money out of your knuckled hands, if you are scheming your own method of stealing money from those of us with the wisdom to make plans for our own illness.
Wanting a high deductible policy != stealing money. Wanting to keep my own money != stealing money. And here's a hint: You won't to "make plans". Uncle Sam will make them for you. Hope he understands the particulars of your situation as well as you do.
Yes, the media is just dying to know about the Slashdot posting history of the future Cybersecurity Czar. That also doesn't explain some of the other questions they ask -- like the gun ownership one.
Anyway, you missed my point, which was simply that these types of disclosure requirements can't help but have a chilling effect on recruitment. You've already got one strike against you in that you probably can't compete with the private sector in regards to salary. Add another strike for the crazy hours and possibility of having to fall on your sword to protect your political bosses. I'm sure having to tell your potential future employers about your jilted ex-lovers and/. username qualifies as a strike three.
Pennsylvania is a "minor" state? You realize it's the 6th most populous state, with the 6th most populous city and happened to be one of the key birthplaces of the American revolution, right?
I have to live as if the SS will come smashing down my door in search of contraband. All because I'm a wierdo that wants to have his own Video on demand system with a server full of my DVD's, HDDVD's and Blu Rays, ready to play in any room.
Do you have a single example of someone having law enforcement smash down their door over the type of fair use activities that you've described? Do you have a single example of someone being sued in civil court over the fair use that you've described?
I wonder if the draconian disclosure requirements imposed on people seeking to work for the administration have contributed to the difficulty in filling it? I looked at some of what they wanted to know on their job application during the transition. Among other things they want to know every single handle that you've ever used online, every single website that you've posted on, whether or not you own firearms, whether or not you've ever been involved in an automobile accident, what political advocacy organizations you belong to, etc, etc, etc.
Now I understand the desire to protect the President from embarrassment (wouldn't want to wind up with a treasury secretary that can't properly compute his own taxes....) but it seems to me that they've gone a bit overboard. I would never apply for a job that wanted to know that much about me. It's simply none of their business. I'm sure many others feel the same way. Why put up with that bullshit, particularly when you can make more money in the private sector and not have to worry (as much) about politics or being someone's scapegoat?
A for-profit company has a great deal more incentive to screw you out of treatment to keep the money than a government employee does.
On what are you basing this assumption? Government employees have incentives to screw you. They are just different incentives. Ever worked in the public sector during bad economic times? Ever seen managers rewarded for blanket cost cutting without regard to the facts just as they would be in the private sector? Ever seen a politically unpopular constituency screwed just to advance the career of some sleazeball politician? Ever seen a witch hunt where some poor mid level manager bastard takes all the fall for the incompetence of his better politically-connected bosses?
I'd prefer it. I don't trust the insurance company to have that data, I have at least some hope that "AmeriHealth" could be forced to follow privacy regulations by virtue of it being a government agency, rather than a private group that can do what it wants in the shadows with no accountability to anyone but it's shareholders.
Government always craves itself out a nice little exemption to the privacy laws. Go read the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Government regulated how, why and when third parties can look at your credit report -- but left itself a nice little exemption for law enforcement or national security. It doesn't need a warrant. All you need a government employee willing to make a "national security" claim and they can view your data at will.
Ever notice how the do not call list exempted political pollsters and campaigns? Ever notice how the "not for identification" social security number grew into a tax id number and identifier? I'm sorry, but you are naive if you think that Government is better at protecting your privacy than private corporations.
That one sounded interesting to me, and allowed for you to either handle it yourself, or use the universal plan. Would that be more acceptable to you?
It's unacceptable to me if it doesn't allow me to completely opt out with no strings attached. If the only way I can opt-out is by purchasing insurance pre-approved by Uncle Sam then it's not an opt-out.
There's no reason why the hospital down the road from me, or my private doctor's practice would suddenly decay and become something out of a William Gibson novel just because the checks they cash say "AmeriHealth" on them instead of "Blue Cross" or "Cigna" or "Horizon".
Yes there is. Have you not been paying attention to the ongoing issues with medicare? Many of the medicare reimbursement rates don't even cover what it costs the doctor to offer the procedure. Primary care doctors now make less than half of what they did 20 years ago. Medicare is squeezing doctors and hospitals dry. The end result of this will be that the best and the brightest decide to go into other fields besides medicine and the overall quality of our health care system will go down.
Even at that, the doctors would know up front what they were going to get paid, and not have to spend time and resources wrangling with the insurance companies over what the doctor charges vs. what the insurance company defines as customary rate.
How does knowing what you'll get paid matter when what you'll get paid will continually be shrunk by governmental pressure to rein in costs? Again, see medicare.
I'm sure they are hurting from such an event when they spend all that money.
Funny how you quote the constitution but ignore the plain language. Public use. Seizing someone's home to build a road is public use. Seizing it to build a Wal-Mart is not. Guess which side of SCOTUS it was that said that's just fine and dandy? Hint: It wasn't the conservatives.
Besides do you want shock jocks to be your only news source?
Not every AM news station is filled with right or left wing ideologues. Our local AM news station plays Rushie and Hannity in the afternoon but the morning coverage and hourly updates are all done by local guys that do a pretty good job of being unbiased.
And heck, I bet cavemen painted pictures of naked women too, and had way more sex and you do today.
Well yeah. It's easier if you can club the female and drag her away when she says "no" as opposed to bowing your head in shame and returning to the table with the rest of your equally unlucky friends;)
The reason I called you a douche is because you have a clearly America-centric view of the planet. And I think that is an arrogant thoughtless view.
No, I have an American-centric view during discussions about American political issues. Or did our health care reform legislation somehow morph into a global issue while I wasn't watching?
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product.
I wouldn't mind seeing it taxed in the same manner as my food and clothing purchases. A simple sales tax on that product is acceptable. Vice taxes are not.
Single-payer has the same problem as the current system. You are just replacing private sector bureaucrats for public sector ones. The consumer will still be disconnected from the actual cost of the services they are receiving and will have no incentive to look for better value or haggle on price. Ever pay a medical bill in cash? You can haggle on price.
On a more philosophical level, I would also object to single-payer because it represents yet another expansion of government into our private lives. I don't want the government knowing what kinds of medical procedures and problems I have. I don't want my taxes being raised to support the bad lifestyle (obesity/promiscuity/abuse of recreational substances/etc) choices of another, nor do I want the government in the business of "correcting" those bad lifestyle choices.
As the somewhat crony saying goes, freedom isn't free. I would rather have the freedom to make my own choices than the "freedom" to not have to worry about medical bills. In the former I am ultimately responsible for my own success or failure. In the latter that choice has been taken away from me and I'm at the mercy of a government run system which I can't even opt-out of. Consider what happened in the VA system a few years ago. Now ask yourself why any other government run health care system would be immune from the political and budgetary pressures that allowed and even encouraged such a pathetic outcome?
As for car insurance, the payouts for a healthcare insurer are inevitable
They are only inevitable because we've allowed a system to be created where insurance is the first resort, not the last resort. If people used their car insurance the way they used health insurance they would expect it to pay for oil changes and tire rotations. You do realize that part of the reason our medical expenses are so inflated is because of the bureaucracy of insurance claims, right?
I think the model that should be embraced is the high-deductible plan. It kicks in at a certain level of medical expenses, everything below that level is your responsibility. It's absurd and wasteful to use insurance to pay for routine expenses like office visits. Take the middle man (be it the for-profit insurance company or Uncle Sam) out of the equation and let the consumer be the determiner of value. I suspect you'll see prices come down.
Even if you live a healthy lifestyle, the likelyhood of needing care go up as you age, plain and simple.
So why should young people have to pay the same rates as older people?
If you really want nothing to do with that system, fine, but I suspect that as you get older, you'd be regretting having no healthcare option other than to pay for everything out of pocket.
If I could have every penny that will be paid into health insurance over my lifetime I would have no problem paying for everything out of pocket. If I could have half of those pennies and put the remaining half into a high-deductible plan I'd still come out ahead and wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt if I get a bad dice roll and wind up with a six or seven digit illness.
Thank goodness my freedom of choice will be constrained? Interesting thing to root for.
because it is a politically possible partial solution to a dire problem.
That remains to be seen. By all accounts they are grasping at straws in the Senate. The "medicare compromise" is particularly foolhardy. Let's add millions of people into the medicare system while cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of funding from it. That will fix it. Sure.......
I don't think it has anything to do with our "power", although that does make it easier. Most Americans do not want to see us surrender our sovereignty to trans-national institutions and treaties. I will personally always oppose attempts to do so, simply because most of the rest of the world views freedom differently than we do.
In Europe they view "free speech" differently. You may not have the right in many European countries to engage in so-called "hate speech". While I certainly don't subscribe to the views of the KKK I think it's extremely dangerous to muzzle them and would defend their right to free speech to my dying breath. In other countries (China) you may not even have free speech at all.
Few countries allow their citizens to keep and bear arms in the manner that the United States does. Even in those countries that allow and encourage private arms ownership do not allow their citizens to carry them on a routine basis. Many countries take the view that their citizens have no right to possess arms. If the US surrendered our sovereignty it would be only a matter of time before similar restrictions were sought here.
Many countries have no presumption of innocence or right to remain silent. Many of those that do have watered them down. In the UK now it's permissible for the legal system to draw a negative inference from the fact that you remained silent. Thus they effectively have no right to remain silent.
Those are just three examples of liberties that I would worry about losing/seeing restricted if the US surrenders more of her sovereignty. For those reasons and others I will never support treaties that require us to do so or attempts at forming a "world government".
I will grant you that our refusal to adopt the metric system is kind of silly. That's more from inertia than anything else though. People who weren't raised on it don't have the same initiative understanding of the measurements as those who were. Personally I can't comprehend Celsius without converting it in my head. I have an easier time understanding meters/kilometers/etc but the temperature measurements baffle me. Maybe my kids will have an easier time of it.
You raise very valid points. Let me make a simple rebuttal:
Why can't the people making those products from the rural areas charge more for them to cover their increased cost of living? Why does the Government need to step in as a middle man? It doesn't actually save any money. All it means is that you are paying for that farmers broadband out of your taxes instead of out of your apple purchases. In fact it probably costs more money, once you factor in the general inefficiency and corruption of government.
Which is perhaps the best argument for some form of universal health care - simple economics. The ER is about the MOST EXPENSIVE place to treat anything, generally because by the time you get there, things have gone from bad to worse, and become... an emergency.
Did you miss the part about charity hospitals and clinics or just choose to ignore it?
By the way, as for "indebted to them afterward", I would suspect that in many/most circumstances these are "bad debts" that will never get repaid. So it gets spread around to all of the people that can pay. You know, the free-market equivalent of a "tax".
That's generally how it works in any industry. My electric bill is higher because of people who can't pay. My clothes cost more because of shoplifters. Maybe the government should take over those industries too?
Slashdot Mirror
Had it been lifted many years ago, perhaps Cubans would have already overthrown their dictatorship and established a free way of life.
Yeah, just like the Chinese have.
The UK is hardly a good example for anything related to TV when you've got state employees roaming around the countryside to make sure you've paid your BBC tax.....
It's their property. That's what makes it ok for them to search it.
If I lend you my car are you going to deny me the right to search it and see what you are doing with it?
Florida would have been a historical footnote if someone hadn't run such a bad campaign that he lost his own friggen state......
They were expressly told they can put personal stuff on there.
My employer has no specific policy against personal internet usage but that doesn't mean that I'm going to use my company workstation to send sexually explicit "fuck me!" messages to my girlfriend.
Wow, how insightful. Did you have to think all day to come up with something that witty?
BTW, I would never jerk off to Sarah Palin. Too religious for me ;)
The only real alternative is to allow hospitals to turn away anyone who cannot show ability to pay (upon admission) for all services they will be provided.
I have no problem with that.
In other words, don't preach about how the liberals are trying to rip money out of your knuckled hands, if you are scheming your own method of stealing money from those of us with the wisdom to make plans for our own illness.
Wanting a high deductible policy != stealing money. Wanting to keep my own money != stealing money. And here's a hint: You won't to "make plans". Uncle Sam will make them for you. Hope he understands the particulars of your situation as well as you do.
<non smart ass answer>The console industry is hardly the only one that lost money this year. Hello, recession?</non smart ass answer>
<smart ass answer>Netcraft hasn't confirmed it yet, so it can't be dying.</smart ass answer>
Yes, the media is just dying to know about the Slashdot posting history of the future Cybersecurity Czar. That also doesn't explain some of the other questions they ask -- like the gun ownership one.
Anyway, you missed my point, which was simply that these types of disclosure requirements can't help but have a chilling effect on recruitment. You've already got one strike against you in that you probably can't compete with the private sector in regards to salary. Add another strike for the crazy hours and possibility of having to fall on your sword to protect your political bosses. I'm sure having to tell your potential future employers about your jilted ex-lovers and /. username qualifies as a strike three.
Pennsylvania is a "minor" state? You realize it's the 6th most populous state, with the 6th most populous city and happened to be one of the key birthplaces of the American revolution, right?
I have to live as if the SS will come smashing down my door in search of contraband. All because I'm a wierdo that wants to have his own Video on demand system with a server full of my DVD's, HDDVD's and Blu Rays, ready to play in any room.
Do you have a single example of someone having law enforcement smash down their door over the type of fair use activities that you've described? Do you have a single example of someone being sued in civil court over the fair use that you've described?
Slashdot has the the worst form of moderation system, except all the others that have been tried.
I love that sig. Congrats for combining Churchill with a snark towards /. :)
I wonder if the draconian disclosure requirements imposed on people seeking to work for the administration have contributed to the difficulty in filling it? I looked at some of what they wanted to know on their job application during the transition. Among other things they want to know every single handle that you've ever used online, every single website that you've posted on, whether or not you own firearms, whether or not you've ever been involved in an automobile accident, what political advocacy organizations you belong to, etc, etc, etc.
Now I understand the desire to protect the President from embarrassment (wouldn't want to wind up with a treasury secretary that can't properly compute his own taxes....) but it seems to me that they've gone a bit overboard. I would never apply for a job that wanted to know that much about me. It's simply none of their business. I'm sure many others feel the same way. Why put up with that bullshit, particularly when you can make more money in the private sector and not have to worry (as much) about politics or being someone's scapegoat?
A for-profit company has a great deal more incentive to screw you out of treatment to keep the money than a government employee does.
On what are you basing this assumption? Government employees have incentives to screw you. They are just different incentives. Ever worked in the public sector during bad economic times? Ever seen managers rewarded for blanket cost cutting without regard to the facts just as they would be in the private sector? Ever seen a politically unpopular constituency screwed just to advance the career of some sleazeball politician? Ever seen a witch hunt where some poor mid level manager bastard takes all the fall for the incompetence of his better politically-connected bosses?
I'd prefer it. I don't trust the insurance company to have that data, I have at least some hope that "AmeriHealth" could be forced to follow privacy regulations by virtue of it being a government agency, rather than a private group that can do what it wants in the shadows with no accountability to anyone but it's shareholders.
Government always craves itself out a nice little exemption to the privacy laws. Go read the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Government regulated how, why and when third parties can look at your credit report -- but left itself a nice little exemption for law enforcement or national security. It doesn't need a warrant. All you need a government employee willing to make a "national security" claim and they can view your data at will.
Ever notice how the do not call list exempted political pollsters and campaigns? Ever notice how the "not for identification" social security number grew into a tax id number and identifier? I'm sorry, but you are naive if you think that Government is better at protecting your privacy than private corporations.
That one sounded interesting to me, and allowed for you to either handle it yourself, or use the universal plan. Would that be more acceptable to you?
It's unacceptable to me if it doesn't allow me to completely opt out with no strings attached. If the only way I can opt-out is by purchasing insurance pre-approved by Uncle Sam then it's not an opt-out.
There's no reason why the hospital down the road from me, or my private doctor's practice would suddenly decay and become something out of a William Gibson novel just because the checks they cash say "AmeriHealth" on them instead of "Blue Cross" or "Cigna" or "Horizon".
Yes there is. Have you not been paying attention to the ongoing issues with medicare? Many of the medicare reimbursement rates don't even cover what it costs the doctor to offer the procedure. Primary care doctors now make less than half of what they did 20 years ago. Medicare is squeezing doctors and hospitals dry. The end result of this will be that the best and the brightest decide to go into other fields besides medicine and the overall quality of our health care system will go down.
Even at that, the doctors would know up front what they were going to get paid, and not have to spend time and resources wrangling with the insurance companies over what the doctor charges vs. what the insurance company defines as customary rate.
How does knowing what you'll get paid matter when what you'll get paid will continually be shrunk by governmental pressure to rein in costs? Again, see medicare.
I'm sure they are hurting from such an event when they spend all that money.
Funny how you quote the constitution but ignore the plain language. Public use. Seizing someone's home to build a road is public use. Seizing it to build a Wal-Mart is not. Guess which side of SCOTUS it was that said that's just fine and dandy? Hint: It wasn't the conservatives.
Besides do you want shock jocks to be your only news source?
Not every AM news station is filled with right or left wing ideologues. Our local AM news station plays Rushie and Hannity in the afternoon but the morning coverage and hourly updates are all done by local guys that do a pretty good job of being unbiased.
And heck, I bet cavemen painted pictures of naked women too, and had way more sex and you do today.
Well yeah. It's easier if you can club the female and drag her away when she says "no" as opposed to bowing your head in shame and returning to the table with the rest of your equally unlucky friends ;)
The reason I called you a douche is because you have a clearly America-centric view of the planet. And I think that is an arrogant thoughtless view.
No, I have an American-centric view during discussions about American political issues. Or did our health care reform legislation somehow morph into a global issue while I wasn't watching?
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product.
I wouldn't mind seeing it taxed in the same manner as my food and clothing purchases. A simple sales tax on that product is acceptable. Vice taxes are not.
Single-payer has the same problem as the current system. You are just replacing private sector bureaucrats for public sector ones. The consumer will still be disconnected from the actual cost of the services they are receiving and will have no incentive to look for better value or haggle on price. Ever pay a medical bill in cash? You can haggle on price.
On a more philosophical level, I would also object to single-payer because it represents yet another expansion of government into our private lives. I don't want the government knowing what kinds of medical procedures and problems I have. I don't want my taxes being raised to support the bad lifestyle (obesity/promiscuity/abuse of recreational substances/etc) choices of another, nor do I want the government in the business of "correcting" those bad lifestyle choices.
As the somewhat crony saying goes, freedom isn't free. I would rather have the freedom to make my own choices than the "freedom" to not have to worry about medical bills. In the former I am ultimately responsible for my own success or failure. In the latter that choice has been taken away from me and I'm at the mercy of a government run system which I can't even opt-out of. Consider what happened in the VA system a few years ago. Now ask yourself why any other government run health care system would be immune from the political and budgetary pressures that allowed and even encouraged such a pathetic outcome?
As for car insurance, the payouts for a healthcare insurer are inevitable
They are only inevitable because we've allowed a system to be created where insurance is the first resort, not the last resort. If people used their car insurance the way they used health insurance they would expect it to pay for oil changes and tire rotations. You do realize that part of the reason our medical expenses are so inflated is because of the bureaucracy of insurance claims, right?
I think the model that should be embraced is the high-deductible plan. It kicks in at a certain level of medical expenses, everything below that level is your responsibility. It's absurd and wasteful to use insurance to pay for routine expenses like office visits. Take the middle man (be it the for-profit insurance company or Uncle Sam) out of the equation and let the consumer be the determiner of value. I suspect you'll see prices come down.
Even if you live a healthy lifestyle, the likelyhood of needing care go up as you age, plain and simple.
So why should young people have to pay the same rates as older people?
If you really want nothing to do with that system, fine, but I suspect that as you get older, you'd be regretting having no healthcare option other than to pay for everything out of pocket.
If I could have every penny that will be paid into health insurance over my lifetime I would have no problem paying for everything out of pocket. If I could have half of those pennies and put the remaining half into a high-deductible plan I'd still come out ahead and wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt if I get a bad dice roll and wind up with a six or seven digit illness.
Thank goodness, yes!
Thank goodness my freedom of choice will be constrained? Interesting thing to root for.
because it is a politically possible partial solution to a dire problem.
That remains to be seen. By all accounts they are grasping at straws in the Senate. The "medicare compromise" is particularly foolhardy. Let's add millions of people into the medicare system while cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of funding from it. That will fix it. Sure.......
I don't think it has anything to do with our "power", although that does make it easier. Most Americans do not want to see us surrender our sovereignty to trans-national institutions and treaties. I will personally always oppose attempts to do so, simply because most of the rest of the world views freedom differently than we do.
In Europe they view "free speech" differently. You may not have the right in many European countries to engage in so-called "hate speech". While I certainly don't subscribe to the views of the KKK I think it's extremely dangerous to muzzle them and would defend their right to free speech to my dying breath. In other countries (China) you may not even have free speech at all.
Few countries allow their citizens to keep and bear arms in the manner that the United States does. Even in those countries that allow and encourage private arms ownership do not allow their citizens to carry them on a routine basis. Many countries take the view that their citizens have no right to possess arms. If the US surrendered our sovereignty it would be only a matter of time before similar restrictions were sought here.
Many countries have no presumption of innocence or right to remain silent. Many of those that do have watered them down. In the UK now it's permissible for the legal system to draw a negative inference from the fact that you remained silent. Thus they effectively have no right to remain silent.
Those are just three examples of liberties that I would worry about losing/seeing restricted if the US surrenders more of her sovereignty. For those reasons and others I will never support treaties that require us to do so or attempts at forming a "world government".
I will grant you that our refusal to adopt the metric system is kind of silly. That's more from inertia than anything else though. People who weren't raised on it don't have the same initiative understanding of the measurements as those who were. Personally I can't comprehend Celsius without converting it in my head. I have an easier time understanding meters/kilometers/etc but the temperature measurements baffle me. Maybe my kids will have an easier time of it.
You raise very valid points. Let me make a simple rebuttal:
Why can't the people making those products from the rural areas charge more for them to cover their increased cost of living? Why does the Government need to step in as a middle man? It doesn't actually save any money. All it means is that you are paying for that farmers broadband out of your taxes instead of out of your apple purchases. In fact it probably costs more money, once you factor in the general inefficiency and corruption of government.
Which is perhaps the best argument for some form of universal health care - simple economics. The ER is about the MOST EXPENSIVE place to treat anything, generally because by the time you get there, things have gone from bad to worse, and become... an emergency.
Did you miss the part about charity hospitals and clinics or just choose to ignore it?
By the way, as for "indebted to them afterward", I would suspect that in many/most circumstances these are "bad debts" that will never get repaid. So it gets spread around to all of the people that can pay. You know, the free-market equivalent of a "tax".
That's generally how it works in any industry. My electric bill is higher because of people who can't pay. My clothes cost more because of shoplifters. Maybe the government should take over those industries too?