Would the mapping of the human genome in 2000 count? At the time, it was like, "Yay! Now cancer's a snap to fix!" But all it really revealed was that there's a lot more we need to know to make that information useful. So it definitely wasn't a waste -- that is, after all, the nature of acquiring new knowledge, but is it a breakthrough?
I agree, and I should have said something about that, but that extra time was probably on the order of 4 hours for FFII and 8 hours for FFIII at most -- still far from estimates.
Well, as I remember, it was the exact opposite as now. For example, Final Fantasy II (US) was advertised as requiring 40 hours to beat, and I did it in ~22, with no cheats, and no, I'm not trying to brag about this. And then for FF III(US) it was hyped as OMG, you NEED like 70-80 hours to beat this. Actual: 43.
This is not a snipe at the Final Fantasy series, since at least those two were great. But it's defintely better to underestimate than overestimate.
Actually, smartass karma-whore, I'm not assuming any of those things. I'm supposing that (once specialization sets in) buying PS3's and stripping them for parts will get you the parts at lower cost than you could anywhere else after accounting for salvage costs. There could conceivably a) be unsalvagable parts, b) be significant salvage time, and c) be costs for the components lower than estimates, and salvaging could still be a money saver. So I don't need to assuming any of your karma whoring tidbits of wisdom to make my point. If you had just listed those as things that affect the calcuations, I agree with you. But you're not impressing anyone by pointing out some things that could throw off the profitability as if they were things I overlooked.
What would really have been the coup de grace is if you had said, "You're assuming the PS3 won't be delayed again." Now that would have been, like, mega-insightful.
Wow... you're hanging you're hat on "few demanders" = "few purchasers"? If the product is underpriced and useful, there could be only one person demand it, and he would still buy a huge number, if only to resell to others.
Yeah, the only problem is that I don't believe any of those things.
I can't read your mind, but it doesn't matter: you just naively support those that do believe those things, which is worse.
You spend entirely too much time trying to show how smug you can be, and not enough time listening to what people actually say so that you can engage them in actual conversation and possibly learn something (I know, it's a crazy idea!).
Okay -- explain to me exactly which insight I was supposed to get from your responses. That health insurance is "different" for a bunch of transparent reasons? That through a misunderstanding of nationalized health care, GM would benefit? That you really, truly need food, unlike health care, which you er, also really truly need?
I'm not kidding -- back up what you said. Explain what I was supposed to "learn" from you.
Don't flatter yourself -- you didn't tell me anything I hadn't heard a hundred times from people equally as reluctant to think.
And, FWIW, I've worked in international health care for the last decade of my life and have seen every variation on free to market based health care that exists. Both Ayn Rand and Karl Marx lose a little of their brilliance when translated to the real world.
Really? Where exactly did you work where doctors were not monopolized through licensure, which Ayn Rand makes quite explicit is a fundamental part of a free market in health care? In which of these places did insurers not have to give mandatory coverage to certain conditions, so that people could choose to only insure genuinely catastrophic events, which is much cheaper? Where was health insurance decoupled from the government and one's employer?
I really want to know where this free market example is, and you really want to prove you didn't just outright lie in service of your fantasy-driven ego.
Needless to say, ideologues are unlikely to solve this problem,
Ideologues are certainly likely to solve the problem, if their reasoning is sound. What will not solve the problem are solutions predicated on patent falsities that a moment of reflection would reveal as such.
I thought pre-orders were basically a scam, in that it really doesn't guarantee that they will reserve one with your name on it, all while selling to people who did not pre-order. Hasn't that been the experience of most people who pre-order?
Did you read allllllll the way to the second sentence of my post, in which I mentioned that the purpose of buying a PS3 but no games or Blu-Rays is not to "stick it to the man", but to scrap them for computer parts, which are underpriced, and use them in other areas such as supercomputing? No, I don't think you did.
I'm trying to make clear to you that if you really want to know the source of the health care dilemma, all you have to do is find your nearest mirror.
It's exactly your mentality that has caused the problem in the first place and prevents any reform. What mentality?
1) Employers, not individuals, should buy insurance for employees rather than give them the cash equivalent, and tax policy should penalize deviation from this. (Well, just health insurance. Life insurance, car insurance, home/renter insurance, and expatriation insurance are "different". Somehow.)
2) Employers who scrap a health care plan and give cash instead are "evil".
3) Employers who provide tokens only redeemable at the company store, oops, I mean health insurance, are "non-evil".
4) The idea that individuals should be responsible for buying their own food from their wage money is a outdated, right-wing nut idea. (Wait -- I think you say "health insurance" instead of "food" there. Same dif.)
Only when you accept that you are part of the problem, and all the ego-shattering that entails, will we ever get out of this mess.
What you're saying is reasonable, but look at it this way: Sony could make a loss on the entire line, even after game license revenues. Why? You have to build a brand name first when you crack into the console business. Next-gen, maybe they don't have to take as big a loss. Maybe after they've sold two console generations already, then they can have the credibility to get better prices for their systems and not have to sell at a loss.
Long story short, Sony is taking a loss because it's their first console. [/sarcasm]
Yes, and along the same lines, what if people bought them en masse for a non-gaming, non-blu-ray purpose? What if, say, university workers started buying them, and salvaged them for parts, esp. the processors for a supercomputing system. You'd also get hard drives and graphics cards. I'm sure these could be used in other fields, and they're priced under cost -- a better deal than anywhere else.
Then, they're just a charity for people who need computer parts. What would stop this?
Try to pay attention if you would. If you had spent half as much time making trite value comparisons as you did reading others' posts, you woule have seen that one of my points was that: even accepting that riskier health insurees (or people who got a medical problem before buying insurance) should received some subsidized care, it doesn't follow (despite the lazy thinkers on this thread) that it should be paid for purely by the sucker who happens to hire him, making him effectively unemployable. That is one of the problems with shoveling all of the costs onto employers.
But if you prefer to ignore all that to make your witty little remarks, rather than learn something, I guess that's fine too. I have another one for you to use in the future: "I thought one of the fundamental tenets* of democracy was that all people had an equal right to participate, which you can't do if you're dead." Nice, eh?
*Make sure to say "tenets" not "tenants" or people will point and laugh at you. Well, more than they already do.
No, because the employer has more bargaining power with the insurance companies than the individual does.
Right, just like my employer has more bargaining power in buying radios. Doesn't mean Wal-mart can't get me the same bulk discount on radios, nor that getting radios through one's employer is a more desirable system.
Plus, the laws are heavily rigged in favor of getting your health insurance through an employer. They get tax breaks on it, you don't.
Yes, and this is the root of the problem. The original poster on this topic, however, was talking about how that was somehow a sign of good compensation of employees, when really it's just a sign of how messed up the laws are.
You can't get dropped from a group health insurance plan on a whim, nor can they simply jack up your rates. With individual insurance, they can do both these things.
What are you talking about? Of course they can raise the employer's rates and drop your service. They do it all the time, and yes, they even pass it on to you. What do you think health insurers are, charities?
Plus, they can illegally drop you for simply getting sick, and you'll likely be too poor to fight back. Companies can throw a lot more weight.
If they really did do something illegal, you can sue just the same as an individual. Employers don't give much scrutiny to health insuranace providers, which is completely outsourced.
Of course, I'm starting to think you're being deliberately obtuse, so likely this information is wasted on you.
I'm obtuse? You're the one making all kinds of distinctions that don't hold up on closer examination. You don't think I'm aware of the "arguments" (and I use that term loosely) that you made above?
So they have enough "bargaining power" to get the employer to pay for some portion of their health insurance, but not enough bargaining power to get the employer to pay that same portion as cash?
ne common idea is that as health care becomes more and more of a burden on employers, eventually it will be Ford and GE and IBM who go to Congress and demand to be more competitive internationally by nationalizing health care.
Right: common and wrong. GM, Ford, and IBM would become no more competitive through a single payer system. GM and Ford (I'm not familiar with IBM's finances) are suffering because they long ago made unfunded promises -- cheered on by people like you -- that assumed they would never see competition. A national health care system wouldn't change that, because there would still be a contract for GM to provide a certain level of health care. The nationalized system would only make a difference if on starting it, it were to somehow void these past contracts. But that's not what people mean by a "national health care system".
So yes, the fundamental statement that you made, that for some reason people complaining about Wal Mart don't seem to be doing anything else in the health care debate, is meritless.
I didn't say they were "doing nothing", I said they were doing the wrong things. They prefer locking you into one employer for health insurance if they can't get a nationalized system. Watch the history of Congress -- politicians from both parties (but mainly Democrats) will shoot down any attempt to put individiuals shopping for health insurance on the same footing as employers by giving the same savings to them.
[Food and shelter] are provided by the government (and many private charities) if you can't afford them. If historically they had been provided by employers, it would doubtless have been a difficult public battle to have them provided by government. But neither situation has anything to do with what I was saying, that they are necessary for life and therefore many believe should be available outside of the market to those who cannot afford them.
Good, then you agree we shouldn't shovel that burden on employers if we want to be consistent. Thanks.
It is also worth noting that food and shelter for a family can be had for a few hundred dollars a month, while health insurance for a family generally costs at least $1,500 a month when bought as an individual on the open market.
Did you ever once think about why that might be? Of course not -- that would be giving you too much credit. Individuals make their own food decisions, and feel the cost of every food preference choice they make. They have the same tax advantages as employers when purchasing food. Individuals also aren't required to purchase food they don't think they need (while they are required to purchase all kinds of health insurance they don't want, or don't want to get through insurance). And surprise (to anyone unlike you), those markets are more efficient.
But it really is easier to stare in awe about how much more "expensive" health insurance is and tritely remind others of this, right?
Also, I wouldn't call such a health insurance market incredibly open, but then again, "I don't think like you". So, go fig.
That is correct, we already pay for very expensive health care (through taxes) at our emergency rooms.
Right -- not through employers.
If some businesses and health insurers want to move to such a plan, I'm sure they would have a great deal of support from many corners.
First of all, it's not "businesses moving to such a plan". It's businesses not having a plan because they just give employees the cash. Second, if you REALLY think it would have support, when precisely that idea -- the equalization of tax advantages for health care between employers and employees -- has been shot down whenever it's been proposed (by people you probably support), I don't know what to tell you.
Certainly, nobody is stopping a company or insurance company from doing it for all employees,
Yes, somebody is (people who think like you): the tax penalties for an individ
I was talking about Wendy's. I was saying that Wendy's uses microwaves, in response to the person who said Wendy's didn't. I don't know anything about In-n-Out.
There is a possible advantage to employer-provided health insurance that wouldn't apply to food or transportation, though--a large employer that provides health care to all of its workers can distribute the cost among all of them and avoid the problem of adverse selection [wikipedia.org].
Hey, thanks for the link to "adverse selection". I've obviously never heard of the concept before.
On the other hand, if workers seek employment with health benefits in mind, adverse selection is back: unskilled workers with poor health will find jobs at Wal-Mart (lower pay, better benefits), while unskilled workers in good health will wait tables (better pay, no benefits).
This isn't an advantage: you add a huge unnecessary constraint on who someone can work for, creating a mismatch of workers and demand for their labor, you shift onto employers the task of vetting employees for health conditions (which generates boneheaded "discrimination" lawsuits), and then you shift onto less risky people the cost of caring for more risky classes. Naturally, government-provided care also does the last, but at least it's straightforward about it and not mired in a complicated system with skewed incentives that mucks up the labor market.
I considered modding you up--your comment is somewhat insightful--but you aren't going to persuade many people when you come across as such a smug prick.
You're probably right. People who make such idiotic comments, patting themselves on the back for "caring", piss me off to no end, and I'm rather harsh for that reason.
I accept that people might be indignant about some issue. I accept that people might be clueless about some issue. I do not accept why people would be indignant on the very issues they're clueless about.
I'm pretty sure you spend so much time being sarcastic because you never actually research and think about the topics you get bent out of shape over. I think you'll find that those most critical of Wal-Mart and other employers who fail to provide health care are also those most supportive of national health care or other alternative methods of getting insurance that are less dependent on employers.
No, I'm aware that they agitate for schemes like national health insurance, but on the path to that, the oppose any attempt to make people dependent on one employer. That's stupid.
nfortunately, you keep making the same mistake over and over again in your replies, which is equating health care/insurance with any other commodity (even other forms of insurance).
It's not a mistake. Every "argument" (and I use that term loosely) you've given that attempts to differentiate them fails.
Health care is not something "nice to have", it is quite literally life and death.
So is food. So is shelter. Where's your argument supporting employer provision of those?
If you don't get care at a critical moment, you'll die or wind up unable to work for the rest of your life.
But you already get emergency care, regardless of whether your employer provides it. Not because of any generosity -- emergency care providers will always provide you with care at a critical moment because they can't afford the time to check.
And even if I accepted that it was "different" along this dimension, it wouldn't explain why e.g., employers couldn't just *give the employee that cash* at let him buy from any approved plan.
The same can not be said of buying milk or auto insurance or an mp3 player, where you have the ability to walk out the door and go to another salesman or forego the product completely.
No, you're (suprise!) making an apples-to-oranges comparison. You're comparing receiving emergency health care to a planned purchase. But since the question is about employer-provided insurance, not the actual care itself, you should be comparing the planned insurance purchase to the planned electronics purchase.
But then again, that would require thinking about the subject unemotionally. I can see now why you didn't do it.
I use sarcasm because you've obviously never given serious thought to this issue.
With our current economic system in the US, employers paying for health insurance is the encouraged societal route for health care.
Good point. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything, but you speak so well.
Employers can write off the cost of the benefit, not so to the same degree for an individual employee.
Well, I'm glad the people who are so indignant about employers that don't provide health insurance, are agitating to have this changed so that health insurance is more portable and less dependent on one's employer.
Oh wait: they aren't.
Employers have better clout to negotiate with armies of health insurer beauracrats and lawyers. Again, its not as balanced for an individual employee.
Yeah, good point again. That must be like how I can't negotiate with car insurers to get a fair price for car insurance, which unlike health insurance, is not an insurance market with bureaucrats, revealed in how there are no services that give you quotes on various insurers in minutes.
It's also like how I can't negotiate with all those farmers to get my milk at a fair price. Or how I can't negotate with large electronics distributors to get a cheap mp3 player.
I hope you understand sarcasm, because everything else seems a little murky to you.
Slashdot Mirror
Would the mapping of the human genome in 2000 count? At the time, it was like, "Yay! Now cancer's a snap to fix!" But all it really revealed was that there's a lot more we need to know to make that information useful. So it definitely wasn't a waste -- that is, after all, the nature of acquiring new knowledge, but is it a breakthrough?
I agree, and I should have said something about that, but that extra time was probably on the order of 4 hours for FFII and 8 hours for FFIII at most -- still far from estimates.
Well, as I remember, it was the exact opposite as now. For example, Final Fantasy II (US) was advertised as requiring 40 hours to beat, and I did it in ~22, with no cheats, and no, I'm not trying to brag about this. And then for FF III(US) it was hyped as OMG, you NEED like 70-80 hours to beat this. Actual: 43.
This is not a snipe at the Final Fantasy series, since at least those two were great. But it's defintely better to underestimate than overestimate.
Who would consider me an oracle if I predicted the above post will be modded up simply for ridiculing the PS3?
(Not that I like the PS3, of course. But it seems to be too easy to get mod points from PS3 bashing these days.)
Actually, smartass karma-whore, I'm not assuming any of those things. I'm supposing that (once specialization sets in) buying PS3's and stripping them for parts will get you the parts at lower cost than you could anywhere else after accounting for salvage costs. There could conceivably a) be unsalvagable parts, b) be significant salvage time, and c) be costs for the components lower than estimates, and salvaging could still be a money saver. So I don't need to assuming any of your karma whoring tidbits of wisdom to make my point. If you had just listed those as things that affect the calcuations, I agree with you. But you're not impressing anyone by pointing out some things that could throw off the profitability as if they were things I overlooked.
What would really have been the coup de grace is if you had said, "You're assuming the PS3 won't be delayed again." Now that would have been, like, mega-insightful.
Wow ... you're hanging you're hat on "few demanders" = "few purchasers"? If the product is underpriced and useful, there could be only one person demand it, and he would still buy a huge number, if only to resell to others.
Get a clue.
Yeah, good point, no one has a use for underpriced supercomputer components. Who needs computation these days?
Yeah, the only problem is that I don't believe any of those things.
I can't read your mind, but it doesn't matter: you just naively support those that do believe those things, which is worse.
You spend entirely too much time trying to show how smug you can be, and not enough time listening to what people actually say so that you can engage them in actual conversation and possibly learn something (I know, it's a crazy idea!).
Okay -- explain to me exactly which insight I was supposed to get from your responses. That health insurance is "different" for a bunch of transparent reasons? That through a misunderstanding of nationalized health care, GM would benefit? That you really, truly need food, unlike health care, which you er, also really truly need?
I'm not kidding -- back up what you said. Explain what I was supposed to "learn" from you.
Don't flatter yourself -- you didn't tell me anything I hadn't heard a hundred times from people equally as reluctant to think.
And, FWIW, I've worked in international health care for the last decade of my life and have seen every variation on free to market based health care that exists. Both Ayn Rand and Karl Marx lose a little of their brilliance when translated to the real world.
Really? Where exactly did you work where doctors were not monopolized through licensure, which Ayn Rand makes quite explicit is a fundamental part of a free market in health care? In which of these places did insurers not have to give mandatory coverage to certain conditions, so that people could choose to only insure genuinely catastrophic events, which is much cheaper? Where was health insurance decoupled from the government and one's employer?
I really want to know where this free market example is, and you really want to prove you didn't just outright lie in service of your fantasy-driven ego.
Needless to say, ideologues are unlikely to solve this problem,
Ideologues are certainly likely to solve the problem, if their reasoning is sound. What will not solve the problem are solutions predicated on patent falsities that a moment of reflection would reveal as such.
Know any like that?
I thought pre-orders were basically a scam, in that it really doesn't guarantee that they will reserve one with your name on it, all while selling to people who did not pre-order. Hasn't that been the experience of most people who pre-order?
Did you read allllllll the way to the second sentence of my post, in which I mentioned that the purpose of buying a PS3 but no games or Blu-Rays is not to "stick it to the man", but to scrap them for computer parts, which are underpriced, and use them in other areas such as supercomputing? No, I don't think you did.
I'm trying to make clear to you that if you really want to know the source of the health care dilemma, all you have to do is find your nearest mirror.
It's exactly your mentality that has caused the problem in the first place and prevents any reform. What mentality?
1) Employers, not individuals, should buy insurance for employees rather than give them the cash equivalent, and tax policy should penalize deviation from this. (Well, just health insurance. Life insurance, car insurance, home/renter insurance, and expatriation insurance are "different". Somehow.)
2) Employers who scrap a health care plan and give cash instead are "evil".
3) Employers who provide tokens only redeemable at the company store, oops, I mean health insurance, are "non-evil".
4) The idea that individuals should be responsible for buying their own food from their wage money is a outdated, right-wing nut idea. (Wait -- I think you say "health insurance" instead of "food" there. Same dif.)
Only when you accept that you are part of the problem, and all the ego-shattering that entails, will we ever get out of this mess.
This is getting tiresome. Do you want to debunk these distinctions yourself this time, or do you need me to do it?
What you're saying is reasonable, but look at it this way: Sony could make a loss on the entire line, even after game license revenues. Why? You have to build a brand name first when you crack into the console business. Next-gen, maybe they don't have to take as big a loss. Maybe after they've sold two console generations already, then they can have the credibility to get better prices for their systems and not have to sell at a loss.
Long story short, Sony is taking a loss because it's their first console. [/sarcasm]
Yes, and along the same lines, what if people bought them en masse for a non-gaming, non-blu-ray purpose? What if, say, university workers started buying them, and salvaged them for parts, esp. the processors for a supercomputing system. You'd also get hard drives and graphics cards. I'm sure these could be used in other fields, and they're priced under cost -- a better deal than anywhere else.
Then, they're just a charity for people who need computer parts. What would stop this?
Try to pay attention if you would. If you had spent half as much time making trite value comparisons as you did reading others' posts, you woule have seen that one of my points was that: even accepting that riskier health insurees (or people who got a medical problem before buying insurance) should received some subsidized care, it doesn't follow (despite the lazy thinkers on this thread) that it should be paid for purely by the sucker who happens to hire him, making him effectively unemployable. That is one of the problems with shoveling all of the costs onto employers.
But if you prefer to ignore all that to make your witty little remarks, rather than learn something, I guess that's fine too. I have another one for you to use in the future: "I thought one of the fundamental tenets* of democracy was that all people had an equal right to participate, which you can't do if you're dead." Nice, eh?
*Make sure to say "tenets" not "tenants" or people will point and laugh at you. Well, more than they already do.
No, because the employer has more bargaining power with the insurance companies than the individual does.
Right, just like my employer has more bargaining power in buying radios. Doesn't mean Wal-mart can't get me the same bulk discount on radios, nor that getting radios through one's employer is a more desirable system.
Plus, the laws are heavily rigged in favor of getting your health insurance through an employer. They get tax breaks on it, you don't.
Yes, and this is the root of the problem. The original poster on this topic, however, was talking about how that was somehow a sign of good compensation of employees, when really it's just a sign of how messed up the laws are.
You can't get dropped from a group health insurance plan on a whim, nor can they simply jack up your rates. With individual insurance, they can do both these things.
What are you talking about? Of course they can raise the employer's rates and drop your service. They do it all the time, and yes, they even pass it on to you. What do you think health insurers are, charities?
Plus, they can illegally drop you for simply getting sick, and you'll likely be too poor to fight back. Companies can throw a lot more weight.
If they really did do something illegal, you can sue just the same as an individual. Employers don't give much scrutiny to health insuranace providers, which is completely outsourced.
Of course, I'm starting to think you're being deliberately obtuse, so likely this information is wasted on you.
I'm obtuse? You're the one making all kinds of distinctions that don't hold up on closer examination. You don't think I'm aware of the "arguments" (and I use that term loosely) that you made above?
Bargaining power!
So they have enough "bargaining power" to get the employer to pay for some portion of their health insurance, but not enough bargaining power to get the employer to pay that same portion as cash?
ne common idea is that as health care becomes more and more of a burden on employers, eventually it will be Ford and GE and IBM who go to Congress and demand to be more competitive internationally by nationalizing health care.
Right: common and wrong. GM, Ford, and IBM would become no more competitive through a single payer system. GM and Ford (I'm not familiar with IBM's finances) are suffering because they long ago made unfunded promises -- cheered on by people like you -- that assumed they would never see competition. A national health care system wouldn't change that, because there would still be a contract for GM to provide a certain level of health care. The nationalized system would only make a difference if on starting it, it were to somehow void these past contracts. But that's not what people mean by a "national health care system".
So yes, the fundamental statement that you made, that for some reason people complaining about Wal Mart don't seem to be doing anything else in the health care debate, is meritless.
I didn't say they were "doing nothing", I said they were doing the wrong things. They prefer locking you into one employer for health insurance if they can't get a nationalized system. Watch the history of Congress -- politicians from both parties (but mainly Democrats) will shoot down any attempt to put individiuals shopping for health insurance on the same footing as employers by giving the same savings to them.
[Food and shelter] are provided by the government (and many private charities) if you can't afford them. If historically they had been provided by employers, it would doubtless have been a difficult public battle to have them provided by government. But neither situation has anything to do with what I was saying, that they are necessary for life and therefore many believe should be available outside of the market to those who cannot afford them.
Good, then you agree we shouldn't shovel that burden on employers if we want to be consistent. Thanks.
It is also worth noting that food and shelter for a family can be had for a few hundred dollars a month, while health insurance for a family generally costs at least $1,500 a month when bought as an individual on the open market.
Did you ever once think about why that might be? Of course not -- that would be giving you too much credit. Individuals make their own food decisions, and feel the cost of every food preference choice they make. They have the same tax advantages as employers when purchasing food. Individuals also aren't required to purchase food they don't think they need (while they are required to purchase all kinds of health insurance they don't want, or don't want to get through insurance). And surprise (to anyone unlike you), those markets are more efficient.
But it really is easier to stare in awe about how much more "expensive" health insurance is and tritely remind others of this, right?
Also, I wouldn't call such a health insurance market incredibly open, but then again, "I don't think like you". So, go fig.
That is correct, we already pay for very expensive health care (through taxes) at our emergency rooms.
Right -- not through employers.
If some businesses and health insurers want to move to such a plan, I'm sure they would have a great deal of support from many corners.
First of all, it's not "businesses moving to such a plan". It's businesses not having a plan because they just give employees the cash. Second, if you REALLY think it would have support, when precisely that idea -- the equalization of tax advantages for health care between employers and employees -- has been shot down whenever it's been proposed (by people you probably support), I don't know what to tell you.
Certainly, nobody is stopping a company or insurance company from doing it for all employees,
Yes, somebody is (people who think like you): the tax penalties for an individ
Well ... okay, I see your point. I think a better example of something only the Cell processor can allow is real-time weapon change.
I was talking about Wendy's. I was saying that Wendy's uses microwaves, in response to the person who said Wendy's didn't. I don't know anything about In-n-Out.
There is a possible advantage to employer-provided health insurance that wouldn't apply to food or transportation, though--a large employer that provides health care to all of its workers can distribute the cost among all of them and avoid the problem of adverse selection [wikipedia.org].
Hey, thanks for the link to "adverse selection". I've obviously never heard of the concept before.
On the other hand, if workers seek employment with health benefits in mind, adverse selection is back: unskilled workers with poor health will find jobs at Wal-Mart (lower pay, better benefits), while unskilled workers in good health will wait tables (better pay, no benefits).
This isn't an advantage: you add a huge unnecessary constraint on who someone can work for, creating a mismatch of workers and demand for their labor, you shift onto employers the task of vetting employees for health conditions (which generates boneheaded "discrimination" lawsuits), and then you shift onto less risky people the cost of caring for more risky classes. Naturally, government-provided care also does the last, but at least it's straightforward about it and not mired in a complicated system with skewed incentives that mucks up the labor market.
I considered modding you up--your comment is somewhat insightful--but you aren't going to persuade many people when you come across as such a smug prick.
You're probably right. People who make such idiotic comments, patting themselves on the back for "caring", piss me off to no end, and I'm rather harsh for that reason.
I accept that people might be indignant about some issue. I accept that people might be clueless about some issue. I do not accept why people would be indignant on the very issues they're clueless about.
I'm pretty sure you spend so much time being sarcastic because you never actually research and think about the topics you get bent out of shape over. I think you'll find that those most critical of Wal-Mart and other employers who fail to provide health care are also those most supportive of national health care or other alternative methods of getting insurance that are less dependent on employers.
No, I'm aware that they agitate for schemes like national health insurance, but on the path to that, the oppose any attempt to make people dependent on one employer. That's stupid.
nfortunately, you keep making the same mistake over and over again in your replies, which is equating health care/insurance with any other commodity (even other forms of insurance).
It's not a mistake. Every "argument" (and I use that term loosely) you've given that attempts to differentiate them fails.
Health care is not something "nice to have", it is quite literally life and death.
So is food. So is shelter. Where's your argument supporting employer provision of those?
If you don't get care at a critical moment, you'll die or wind up unable to work for the rest of your life.
But you already get emergency care, regardless of whether your employer provides it. Not because of any generosity -- emergency care providers will always provide you with care at a critical moment because they can't afford the time to check.
And even if I accepted that it was "different" along this dimension, it wouldn't explain why e.g., employers couldn't just *give the employee that cash* at let him buy from any approved plan.
The same can not be said of buying milk or auto insurance or an mp3 player, where you have the ability to walk out the door and go to another salesman or forego the product completely.
No, you're (suprise!) making an apples-to-oranges comparison. You're comparing receiving emergency health care to a planned purchase. But since the question is about employer-provided insurance, not the actual care itself, you should be comparing the planned insurance purchase to the planned electronics purchase.
But then again, that would require thinking about the subject unemotionally. I can see now why you didn't do it.
I use sarcasm because you've obviously never given serious thought to this issue.
It may be a loss, but they make it up in volume, goddamnit!
With our current economic system in the US, employers paying for health insurance is the encouraged societal route for health care.
Good point. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean anything, but you speak so well.
Employers can write off the cost of the benefit, not so to the same degree for an individual employee.
Well, I'm glad the people who are so indignant about employers that don't provide health insurance, are agitating to have this changed so that health insurance is more portable and less dependent on one's employer.
Oh wait: they aren't.
Employers have better clout to negotiate with armies of health insurer beauracrats and lawyers. Again, its not as balanced for an individual employee.
Yeah, good point again. That must be like how I can't negotiate with car insurers to get a fair price for car insurance, which unlike health insurance, is not an insurance market with bureaucrats, revealed in how there are no services that give you quotes on various insurers in minutes.
It's also like how I can't negotiate with all those farmers to get my milk at a fair price. Or how I can't negotate with large electronics distributors to get a cheap mp3 player.
I hope you understand sarcasm, because everything else seems a little murky to you.
Oh, okay, so your post *was* a waste of everyone's time. Just checking.