If group plans make sense, companies will offer them.
of course, taxing them will help assure they don't make sense, and the people who actually NEED the insurance, and sacrificed many opportunities to find a good company group plan, will be completely screwed.
This "bipartisan effort" is merely a handout to the insurance lobby. By pushing people into individual plans, they allow insurance companies to kick anyone who actually needs the care (i'm a crohn's sufferer) out.
Obama understands this. He lost a relative due to an insurer screwing her by claiming her cancer was a "pre-existing condition".
Buying health care on your own may seem scary, but we have to switch to doing this if we're going to save health care in this country.
You mean in order to destroy health care in this country.
Individual plans allow insurance companies to "cherry pick" only healthy clients, rather than serve to spread risk like they're supposed to. Their prolonged ubiquitous presence has also insulated people from the real cost of care, meaning their services are now MANDATORY if one is to afford care. This means they should be obligated to provide their services to everyone in some way.
As someone with a chronic condition (which is NOT related to lifestyle choices, and no i'm not fat, didn't drink, and didn't smoke), I stand to be utterly, totally screwed by such a development.
The plight of sufferers of chronic conditions beyond their control has been labelled as one of the greatest civil rights problems of our time.
When healthy, I have razor sharp precision and am capable of incredible stamina and cognitive throughput. Untreated, as my condition currently is, I languish in horrible pain, barely able to relieve my family of the expense of my debts.
McCain will insure I am reduced to this state, and will never become self sufficient again once that happens.
(Democrats prefer higher taxes to increase revenue, but this makes for slower economy and less transactions to tax, while Republicans favor lower taxesfor the rich and either higher taxes (or cuts to social services worth MORE than higher taxes) for the poor to increase revenuefor the rich claiming it will speed up the economy by making more transactions to tax, but really slowing down the economy by squeezing labor to the point they have nothing to spend.
and why is it always "big" business, and "big" pahrma, wy are you people so afraid to debate without the pejorative scare words?
because small businesspeople know their employees by name, work with them every day, and are much less likely to screw them. I know of nobody employed or served by small business who feel ripped off or screwed.
Meanwhile, "big" business does screw people, from their employees, to other smaller businesses, to millions upon millions of other people who pay, one way or the other, for their shell games and ponzi schemes.
Big pharma really is disgustingly evil. As an uninsured person afflicted with a chrnoic disease, I can attest to this. I have suffered for 6 months now because the pills I need cost too much per bottle (We could lease a loaded BMW 7 series for the price), and my immediate family has more than double the median income. (i have never been even close to fat, smoked, drank, etc).
The wealthy can hire agents to purchase their items over nearby borders. They can also simply hoard their money, since it won't be taxed unless spent. it would be an understatement to say the wealthy consume considerably less relative to their income than others.
The very poor, of course, are the ones who consume the most relative to their incomes, often going into debt to provide for themselves and children.They will now be penalized whenever they have to obtain a loan to grind by.
The effect of the "fair tax" is an even more regressive tax rate which is even less fair than what is going on now.
Yeah I don't give a frak about the wealthy. The only thing is: It's the wealthy who give me my job. If we tax them too hard, especially the corporations, then they won't have any money left-over to give the rest of us jobs. (Or worse they might pack-up and move to a country with lower taxes, thereby depressing the U.S. economy even further.)
this is a cock-and-bull story perpetuated by the ultra-wealthy.
labor is calculated as an expense, this means any wages they pay reduce the profits to be taxed. Your wages save them taxes.
Also, the US is one of the world's largest consumer markets. If we grow a backbone and introduce real regulations with real penalties, they will be compelled to hire here and pay better wages. Otherwise, we can cut them off and they can go sit and spin without a place to sell their stuff.
On the other hand, with McCain, he's wanting to start taxing heath benefits on employees rather than let them pay those premiums pre-tax. That BLOWS.
as someone with a pre-existing chronic condition**, if mccain gets his way on this group plans go byebye, and I will never, ever be insured again.
Group plans are the only way people like me are not dragged to the cleaners by the abusive underbelly of both the medical and insurance industries. I didn't ask for this disease, and i'll be damned if I should be pushed into a downward spiral of:
"im unable to to afford this procedure"->"i'm now debilitated further"->"my capacity at work is affected, so I make less money"->"i'm unable to afford this procedure"....
**No it is not related to lifestyle choices. I have never been overweight, smoked, drank to excess, and have very little exposure to even such mild illicit substances as marijuana
Actually, the $X would be spent on food from the US, because government subsidies and trade barriers (yes they're still there) assure the vast bulk of sales go to the US.. that and the US is the bread basket of the world)
Venture capitalists are the place to go for that invention. The likelihood a single person will have the hundreds of millions necessary to roll that out on a commercial scale is very small.
Additionally, doubling the production per acre would also work under the current system in which the government limits production. You would spend less time and resources monitoring, cultivating, and irrigating half the land.
I'm saying that without unitary governments with vocal oppositions, you end up with only partially implemented policies.
Ever try to drive with a half assembled car? A tire here, an empty rim there, an accelarator but no steering wheel...
What's going on now is the same thing. Then people complain about how it won't work and never will, which is bullcrap. It can and will work if it's ever finished, it just may lack features people want, in which case you can modify it.
If the idea is that bad AFTER it's been fully implemented and tested, then the unitary government shifts.
Actually, the reason things are getting bad is because america is refusing to elect the alternating unified governments they did in the first half of the 20th century.
Back then, things got done, and got done better.
Republicans would get upwards of a decade, then democrats.
This allowed them to actually implement, in full, their policies. They and the public got to see how they played out and apply correction where necessary.
In a gridlock situation, or one in which unitary governments fluctuate every 2-6 years, you don't get that happening, and have interference with "the great experiment" by a bunch of people who "don't think it will work" and don't even want to try.
My teacher in school had a favorite story about how the French king in the 1800's replaced the silverware with aluminium cutlery. I don't know if it is a true story, but I do know that the history teachers of the 2100's will have silly and true stories to tell to the kids...
Back in the 1800's, aluminum was several hundred times more valuable than gold because of how primitive and expensive the extraction and purification techniques were.
Aluminum cutlery would be seen as an exceedingly opulent dining room appointment.
Refusing to legitimise the broken system by taking part *is* doing something. With enough weight behind it, non-participation can cause a lot of change.
Yes, in the direction opposite of reform, unless you are willing to take up arms.
I'm reminded of the first primes in SG1. They participate in an inherently evil system, but as they train their successors they teach them how to introduce moderation to the goa'uld's despotic tendencies.
They could choose not to participate, but the snake head would just find someone else to do it, and that soldier probably won't have those values.
By choosing to participate and do what little they can, they save thousands of lives.
In the case of democracy or representative republics, it's the same way. Choosing not to participate will not stop the injustice. Participating, however, will help mitigate it.
There are a lot of places where unholy cludges exist and are perpetuated because it's a lot easier to live with them than it is to try and change everything that depends on them
that, and the holy cludges tend to randomly smite you.
All presidents love to throw their weight around, pushing their 'visions'.
They'll cram their visions down the tubes, and block enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material!
We don't have to worry about it this time around though.
Obama is for "change", He'll likely change the tubes to bigger tubes so he can send his visions into the tubes.
McCain is simply doing the same old policy that's already there, so his own visions as president would be very unlikely to clog the tubes.
For nader, he's against tubes spoiling our american green space, he'll puncture the tubes, drowning our urban areas in streaming videos. This is not all bad though, the spam will fall out of the tubes before it reaches our inboxes.
The MAFIAA has yet to comment on this development, pundits speculate these organizations understand that no publicity is bad publicity, and feeding triblers with publicity only produces more triblers.
3d holographic crystals can be used. They will not lose the data, are not subject to EMP vulnerability, and provided they are of sufficient hardness, are unlikely to be damaged by severe natural disaster.
Additionally, The data can be stored in digitally readable formats, or as images of human readable documents (they would be recoverable by simply reading them like microfilm and trascribing them, meaning the loss of every single computer on earth would not affect the recovery of human knowledge)
I'm pretty sure they were abandoned because of efficiency or expense issues, but for the purposes of preservation, they do exceedingly well.
Slashdot Mirror
If group plans make sense, companies will offer them.
of course, taxing them will help assure they don't make sense, and the people who actually NEED the insurance, and sacrificed many opportunities to find a good company group plan, will be completely screwed.
This "bipartisan effort" is merely a handout to the insurance lobby. By pushing people into individual plans, they allow insurance companies to kick anyone who actually needs the care (i'm a crohn's sufferer) out.
Obama understands this. He lost a relative due to an insurer screwing her by claiming her cancer was a "pre-existing condition".
He WILL assure I get justice.
Buying health care on your own may seem scary, but we have to switch to doing this if we're going to save health care in this country.
You mean in order to destroy health care in this country.
Individual plans allow insurance companies to "cherry pick" only healthy clients, rather than serve to spread risk like they're supposed to. Their prolonged ubiquitous presence has also insulated people from the real cost of care, meaning their services are now MANDATORY if one is to afford care. This means they should be obligated to provide their services to everyone in some way.
As someone with a chronic condition (which is NOT related to lifestyle choices, and no i'm not fat, didn't drink, and didn't smoke), I stand to be utterly, totally screwed by such a development.
The plight of sufferers of chronic conditions beyond their control has been labelled as one of the greatest civil rights problems of our time.
When healthy, I have razor sharp precision and am capable of incredible stamina and cognitive throughput. Untreated, as my condition currently is, I languish in horrible pain, barely able to relieve my family of the expense of my debts.
McCain will insure I am reduced to this state, and will never become self sufficient again once that happens.
Ah, they get no cable TV?
If you don't give them basic first world infrastructure, they will remain uinformed.
An uninformed electorate is the means by which democratic governments fail.
(Democrats prefer higher taxes to increase revenue, but this makes for slower economy and less transactions to tax, while Republicans favor lower taxesfor the rich and either higher taxes (or cuts to social services worth MORE than higher taxes) for the poor to increase revenuefor the rich claiming it will speed up the economy by making more transactions to tax, but really slowing down the economy by squeezing labor to the point they have nothing to spend.
Fixed.
I live in a pretty cheap area, and i've seen other cheap areas..
40 hrs a week at 6.55 will result in 1040 a month.
The cheapest rent i've seen, even in outlying rural areas of georgia, is around 700.
Are you telling me air conditioning, utilities, gasoline, and car insurance will cost less than 340 bucks?
What about actually living like someone OUTSIDE a rural somolian village, maybe getting some internet and television?
minimum wage is a joke.
and why is it always "big" business, and "big" pahrma, wy are you people so afraid to debate without the pejorative scare words?
because small businesspeople know their employees by name, work with them every day, and are much less likely to screw them. I know of nobody employed or served by small business who feel ripped off or screwed.
Meanwhile, "big" business does screw people, from their employees, to other smaller businesses, to millions upon millions of other people who pay, one way or the other, for their shell games and ponzi schemes.
Big pharma really is disgustingly evil. As an uninsured person afflicted with a chrnoic disease, I can attest to this. I have suffered for 6 months now because the pills I need cost too much per bottle (We could lease a loaded BMW 7 series for the price), and my immediate family has more than double the median income. (i have never been even close to fat, smoked, drank, etc).
The fair tax has its own, massive loopholes.
The wealthy can hire agents to purchase their items over nearby borders. They can also simply hoard their money, since it won't be taxed unless spent. it would be an understatement to say the wealthy consume considerably less relative to their income than others.
The very poor, of course, are the ones who consume the most relative to their incomes, often going into debt to provide for themselves and children.They will now be penalized whenever they have to obtain a loan to grind by.
The effect of the "fair tax" is an even more regressive tax rate which is even less fair than what is going on now.
Yeah I don't give a frak about the wealthy. The only thing is: It's the wealthy who give me my job. If we tax them too hard, especially the corporations, then they won't have any money left-over to give the rest of us jobs. (Or worse they might pack-up and move to a country with lower taxes, thereby depressing the U.S. economy even further.)
this is a cock-and-bull story perpetuated by the ultra-wealthy.
labor is calculated as an expense, this means any wages they pay reduce the profits to be taxed. Your wages save them taxes.
Also, the US is one of the world's largest consumer markets.
If we grow a backbone and introduce real regulations with real penalties, they will be compelled to hire here and pay better wages. Otherwise, we can cut them off and they can go sit and spin without a place to sell their stuff.
On the other hand, with McCain, he's wanting to start taxing heath benefits on employees rather than let them pay those premiums pre-tax. That BLOWS.
as someone with a pre-existing chronic condition**, if mccain gets his way on this group plans go byebye, and I will never, ever be insured again.
Group plans are the only way people like me are not dragged to the cleaners by the abusive underbelly of both the medical and insurance industries. I didn't ask for this disease, and i'll be damned if I should be pushed into a downward spiral of:
"im unable to to afford this procedure"->"i'm now debilitated further"->"my capacity at work is affected, so I make less money"->"i'm unable to afford this procedure"....
**No it is not related to lifestyle choices. I have never been overweight, smoked, drank to excess, and have very little exposure to even such mild illicit substances as marijuana
Why not just offer a cheap kit which would allow you to nuke the lockdown mechanisms and open the hardware on your machine?
Actually, the $X would be spent on food from the US, because government subsidies and trade barriers (yes they're still there) assure the vast bulk of sales go to the US.. that and the US is the bread basket of the world)
Venture capitalists are the place to go for that invention. The likelihood a single person will have the hundreds of millions necessary to roll that out on a commercial scale is very small.
Additionally, doubling the production per acre would also work under the current system in which the government limits production. You would spend less time and resources monitoring, cultivating, and irrigating half the land.
that's not what i'm saying at all.
I'm saying that without unitary governments with vocal oppositions, you end up with only partially implemented policies.
Ever try to drive with a half assembled car? A tire here, an empty rim there, an accelarator but no steering wheel...
What's going on now is the same thing. Then people complain about how it won't work and never will, which is bullcrap. It can and will work if it's ever finished, it just may lack features people want, in which case you can modify it.
If the idea is that bad AFTER it's been fully implemented and tested, then the unitary government shifts.
If only they sent a few baby capsules up there to supply it with the 25,000 btu's of body heat and 120 volts of power per unit.
clearly the hunting party of ug and oog were the first democracy.
"ug want go that way, kill elk"
"oog agree"
"motion pass, now where spear"
Actually, the reason things are getting bad is because america is refusing to elect the alternating unified governments they did in the first half of the 20th century.
Back then, things got done, and got done better.
Republicans would get upwards of a decade, then democrats.
This allowed them to actually implement, in full, their policies. They and the public got to see how they played out and apply correction where necessary.
In a gridlock situation, or one in which unitary governments fluctuate every 2-6 years, you don't get that happening, and have interference with "the great experiment" by a bunch of people who "don't think it will work" and don't even want to try.
under such a strict definition then, wouldn't the first primitive tribes be considered the first democracy?
There were too few people for an absolute monarch to arise.
actually, athens is.
My teacher in school had a favorite story about how the French king in the 1800's replaced the silverware with aluminium cutlery. I don't know if it is a true story, but I do know that the history teachers of the 2100's will have silly and true stories to tell to the kids...
Back in the 1800's, aluminum was several hundred times more valuable than gold because of how primitive and expensive the extraction and purification techniques were.
Aluminum cutlery would be seen as an exceedingly opulent dining room appointment.
actually this is not true.
Systems like fascism and feudalism arise because a significant portion of the population actually support them.
hitler didn't seize power alone.
Refusing to legitimise the broken system by taking part *is* doing something. With enough weight behind it, non-participation can cause a lot of change.
Yes, in the direction opposite of reform, unless you are willing to take up arms.
I'm reminded of the first primes in SG1. They participate in an inherently evil system, but as they train their successors they teach them how to introduce moderation to the goa'uld's despotic tendencies.
They could choose not to participate, but the snake head would just find someone else to do it, and that soldier probably won't have those values.
By choosing to participate and do what little they can, they save thousands of lives.
In the case of democracy or representative republics, it's the same way. Choosing not to participate will not stop the injustice. Participating, however, will help mitigate it.
There are a lot of places where unholy cludges exist and are perpetuated because it's a lot easier to live with them than it is to try and change everything that depends on them
that, and the holy cludges tend to randomly smite you.
All presidents love to throw their weight around, pushing their 'visions'.
They'll cram their visions down the tubes, and block enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material!
We don't have to worry about it this time around though.
Obama is for "change", He'll likely change the tubes to bigger tubes so he can send his visions into the tubes.
McCain is simply doing the same old policy that's already there, so his own visions as president would be very unlikely to clog the tubes.
For nader, he's against tubes spoiling our american green space, he'll puncture the tubes, drowning our urban areas in streaming videos. This is not all bad though, the spam will fall out of the tubes before it reaches our inboxes.
The MAFIAA has yet to comment on this development, pundits speculate these organizations understand that no publicity is bad publicity, and feeding triblers with publicity only produces more triblers.
Does mars also have holes and juices?
And has not nasa now added probes to the holes and juices?
We have had the solution for some time.
3d holographic crystals can be used. They will not lose the data, are not subject to EMP vulnerability, and provided they are of sufficient hardness, are unlikely to be damaged by severe natural disaster.
Additionally, The data can be stored in digitally readable formats, or as images of human readable documents (they would be recoverable by simply reading them like microfilm and trascribing them, meaning the loss of every single computer on earth would not affect the recovery of human knowledge)
I'm pretty sure they were abandoned because of efficiency or expense issues, but for the purposes of preservation, they do exceedingly well.