You may not be up on the latest way companies get around this. In the fine print you waive your legal right to sue in exchange for arbitration should a dispute arise. And given that most people don't read and understand this stuff before signing the dotted line, how many homeless people do you think will understand this pitfall?
DVD players are relatively cheap and as appliances they last for years on average.
Before claiming Netflix and/or the studios are conspiring to hold back streaming, maybe you'd better research their customer base.
What is a market penetration of streaming devices into the living rooms of households within the bottom 50% of incomes? Of DVD players?
How many are comfortable with their current DVD player setup and renting through Netflix or through a DVD kiosk at the grocery store?
How many can afford or are willing to spend money on high-speed Internet suitable for streaming purposes?
How many would replace a broken DVD player with a streaming appliance?
They make front-pocket wallets for men. I love mine. The only drawback is they aren't made to carry a lot of cards otherwise it defeats the thin profile that prevents your front pocket from bulging outward. I've found there are only a couple of cards I need to carry with me anyway.
It's also the underlying reason why the two conservative health care panaceas of tort reform and selling insurance across state lines won't do squat to bend the cost curve.
Tort reform doesn't address the underlying problem (and only results in a piddling amount of savings across the board while screwing a lot of people who are legitimately harmed).
Selling insurance across state lines makes the problem worse because it allows the insurers and the middle-men to set up shop in the states with the least consumer protections, enabling them to inflate their costs even more.
Free birth control is an incredibly cheap "luxury" that insurance companies are only too happy to provide because it offsets the higher cost to the them for paying for more pregnancies, which in turn helps lower premiums.
It's all part and parcel of why so much preventive care comes as a basic element under the ACA. The number-crunching analysis shows it helps lower the costs of covering more expensive services in the long run when they are caught early with cheap intervention.
Maybe I'm a bit naive about this being covered under insurance by my employer as I didn't get to choose from a menu on micro-coverage options when I signed on to the company health plan.
Perhaps this is different on the individual insurance market?
When you shop for coverage under the old system you got to choose: well I'll take cancer treatment; I don't want pregnancy coverage; yes to broken limbs; no to cosmetic surgery (even if I'm disfigured in an accident); definitely no on annual physical because I'm in great shape; etc. etc.
And then you present your list to the insurance companies and they give you a quote?
Your question about the employer mandate being delayed in answered in the article below. It also explains the impact. Specifically RAND Corporation conducted a study on the issue. Only about 1000 companies, or 0.02% of all companies that must comply with the ACA will take advantage of the delay in the employer mandate to 2015.
However you seem to be forgetting that DOMA was a REACTION to something. It didn't come out of the blue. I wonder what that was... Oh yeah... the over-reaching decisions of SCOTUS... Tell me that the SCOTUS isn't part of the fed with a straight face and that DOMA wasn't a reaction to this. You have an interesting "view" of history. Accuracy doesn't appear to play a role.
OK, for the sake of accuracy...
DOMA was passed by Congress in 1996 in reaction to the possibility that Hawaii would make same-sex marriages legal following a state supreme court ruling on the subject. Hawaii never did because the issue was rendered moot via a state constitutional amendment. Congress decided to guard against future attempts by other states to do the same thing Hawaii had come close to doing.
The SCOTUS? They had nothing to do with Congress reacting to this issue.
This is all history. You should read up on it before you post.
All code submissions become the property of the company sponsoring the contest.
Brilliance in your programming does not equate to a job offer. After all, we already got the work we needed done out of you.
Just because some Canadians come to the US for healthcare doesn't mean they are footing the exorbitant costs that come with the US medical system out of their own pockets. There are provisions to cover treatment if there are shortages or delays in being able to get the same care in Canada and a qualifying US provider can offer it. This is especially true of near-the-border communities that are closer to more comprehensive US health-care facilities.
So go back to your friends and get some specific data points. How many of them had non-elective procedures done in the US, and of those how many were covered by Canadian health insurance?
Stunning image. And yet, I can't help but think it looks at lot like parts of New Mexico. It's easy to do a mental subsitution of low-growing, evergreen-type shrubs for what are actually rocks in the picture.:D
For anyone old enough to remember. D&D was maligned in its glory days as an sinister force that warped its players into becoming suicidal/homicidal recluses unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. There were even "true crime" novels written about people who played the game, and it turned them into murderous psychopaths.
This was all total bullshit, of course.
Having played numerous RPGs with pen and paper and then later going on to study acting, the very thing these games were maligned for was a grossly simplified (and more rule-based) version of what any theater major would do on a daily basis in a university actor training program.
I can't recall an abundance of actors that went on mass killing sprees, even when performing in shows like "Annie Get Your Gun".
I think that's somewhat immaterial at this point. The screw-up was the patent getting approved in the first place. As the article states, many companies who have been hit with this legal scam have already been advised to settle because it's the least costly option for a small business that can't afford a protracted court battle.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Mafia was, in fact, behind this. Shaking down small businesses has been their game for some time.
If I want to marry a person of the same sex, how does that affect you?
If affects me because marraige is a social institution, by definition. If you & your partner were isolated on an island, the concept of 'marriage' would be mute. Other people (aka society) interacting with you forms part of the definition of 'marriage'. So, my answer is, of course you should be able to 'marry' any consenting adult, but you should not be able to force me to recognise your relationship as marriage.
Hypotheticals can make great arguemnts, but they also unfortunately tend to selective about reality. The fact is we ALL live under common legal systems that unite us by nation, state, etc. Your personal views may be private, but we all have to work within the common framework of law. Isolated islands where you can make up your own rules are simply not in fashion (yet).
The whole gay marriage thing is the direct and natural result of a confluence of social changes in our society. Marriage itself is a social construct that has numerous benefits. The human race is a virtual stew of competeing natural vs. social trade-offs, moreso than any other animal species on the planet. We struggle with these all the time -- what is good for the individual, the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, the nation, the planet, ???, etc. Marriage throughout history has mostly been an issue of what is good for the extended family (royalty added the dimension of nation) in terms of economics and survival (though survival even changed from species to "bloodline" which had many more ties to economics).
But so many things have changed within the past century or two. The world doesn't need more people, so survival of the species isn't a concern. Certainly in first-world countries marriages for economic reasons are considered a desperate move. The whole dynamic of marriage has shifted to one of personal choice via the love relationship between two people rather than arrangement by parents for societal and economic benefit.
But the real clincher that sealed the deal on gay marriage was the ascendency of women's rights. Or rather, the elevated status of woman from marriage-depedent to equal partner in the marriage contract. Prior to this, marriage was a very role-concious institution with the woman being property (at worst) or domestic slave (at best) with the husband holding all the real power. Equal partners in marriage changed all that. HETEROSEXUALS took it upon themselves to strip marriage of its previous role identities in parenting, finances, sex (yes even that), household duties, inheritance, divorce, etc., etc., etc. HETEROSEXUALS strove to make the practice of marriage gender-NEUTRAL despite it only being enjoyed by gender-DIFFERENT couples.
So it was only a matter of time before other couples who were already equal partners -- namely same-sex couples -- took a look at the new gender-NEUTRAL marriage practice of benefits and responsibilities and finally said, "Hey! We already do all that! We want/deserve that legal recognition as well!" Same-sex marriage prior to this development didn't make sense because it would have cast one member to be the legally powerless "woman" and the vast majority of gay men understandably would have never considered it an option. For lesbians the issues were similar but perhaps a bit more elastic.
But when the role framework lost is sex-dependecy, the doors were opened and the course was set. Gay marriage is now all but inevitable unless there is a mass change in societal views to undo the advance of women's rights and marriage partner equality between male and female. That's why you see gay marriage fragmented across the blue-red divide. It is resisted most strongly in the places where women still struggle against their "traditional" place in society, even though they might already have equality under the law. Conservative religion, of course, tends to reinforce those roles on women and thus is one of the greatest barriers to acceptance and change to this new view of marriage.
Slashdot Mirror
You may not be up on the latest way companies get around this. In the fine print you waive your legal right to sue in exchange for arbitration should a dispute arise. And given that most people don't read and understand this stuff before signing the dotted line, how many homeless people do you think will understand this pitfall?
Before claiming Netflix and/or the studios are conspiring to hold back streaming, maybe you'd better research their customer base.
What is a market penetration of streaming devices into the living rooms of households within the bottom 50% of incomes? Of DVD players?
How many are comfortable with their current DVD player setup and renting through Netflix or through a DVD kiosk at the grocery store?
How many can afford or are willing to spend money on high-speed Internet suitable for streaming purposes?
How many would replace a broken DVD player with a streaming appliance?
They make front-pocket wallets for men. I love mine. The only drawback is they aren't made to carry a lot of cards otherwise it defeats the thin profile that prevents your front pocket from bulging outward. I've found there are only a couple of cards I need to carry with me anyway.
It's also the underlying reason why the two conservative health care panaceas of tort reform and selling insurance across state lines won't do squat to bend the cost curve.
Tort reform doesn't address the underlying problem (and only results in a piddling amount of savings across the board while screwing a lot of people who are legitimately harmed).
Selling insurance across state lines makes the problem worse because it allows the insurers and the middle-men to set up shop in the states with the least consumer protections, enabling them to inflate their costs even more.
Free birth control is an incredibly cheap "luxury" that insurance companies are only too happy to provide because it offsets the higher cost to the them for paying for more pregnancies, which in turn helps lower premiums. It's all part and parcel of why so much preventive care comes as a basic element under the ACA. The number-crunching analysis shows it helps lower the costs of covering more expensive services in the long run when they are caught early with cheap intervention.
Maybe I'm a bit naive about this being covered under insurance by my employer as I didn't get to choose from a menu on micro-coverage options when I signed on to the company health plan. Perhaps this is different on the individual insurance market? When you shop for coverage under the old system you got to choose: well I'll take cancer treatment; I don't want pregnancy coverage; yes to broken limbs; no to cosmetic surgery (even if I'm disfigured in an accident); definitely no on annual physical because I'm in great shape; etc. etc. And then you present your list to the insurance companies and they give you a quote?
If every major country in the world in swimming in debt, who are they in debt to?
Your question about the employer mandate being delayed in answered in the article below. It also explains the impact. Specifically RAND Corporation conducted a study on the issue. Only about 1000 companies, or 0.02% of all companies that must comply with the ACA will take advantage of the delay in the employer mandate to 2015.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/10/obamacare_obama_mandate_delay.html
However you seem to be forgetting that DOMA was a REACTION to something. It didn't come out of the blue. I wonder what that was... Oh yeah... the over-reaching decisions of SCOTUS... Tell me that the SCOTUS isn't part of the fed with a straight face and that DOMA wasn't a reaction to this. You have an interesting "view" of history. Accuracy doesn't appear to play a role.
OK, for the sake of accuracy...
DOMA was passed by Congress in 1996 in reaction to the possibility that Hawaii would make same-sex marriages legal following a state supreme court ruling on the subject. Hawaii never did because the issue was rendered moot via a state constitutional amendment. Congress decided to guard against future attempts by other states to do the same thing Hawaii had come close to doing.
The SCOTUS? They had nothing to do with Congress reacting to this issue.
This is all history. You should read up on it before you post.
All code submissions become the property of the company sponsoring the contest.
Brilliance in your programming does not equate to a job offer. After all, we already got the work we needed done out of you.
Just because some Canadians come to the US for healthcare doesn't mean they are footing the exorbitant costs that come with the US medical system out of their own pockets. There are provisions to cover treatment if there are shortages or delays in being able to get the same care in Canada and a qualifying US provider can offer it. This is especially true of near-the-border communities that are closer to more comprehensive US health-care facilities.
So go back to your friends and get some specific data points. How many of them had non-elective procedures done in the US, and of those how many were covered by Canadian health insurance?
"It's just us Chinese hackers wanting to inspect your--"
"No."
Stunning image. And yet, I can't help but think it looks at lot like parts of New Mexico. It's easy to do a mental subsitution of low-growing, evergreen-type shrubs for what are actually rocks in the picture. :D
For anyone old enough to remember. D&D was maligned in its glory days as an sinister force that warped its players into becoming suicidal/homicidal recluses unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. There were even "true crime" novels written about people who played the game, and it turned them into murderous psychopaths. This was all total bullshit, of course. Having played numerous RPGs with pen and paper and then later going on to study acting, the very thing these games were maligned for was a grossly simplified (and more rule-based) version of what any theater major would do on a daily basis in a university actor training program. I can't recall an abundance of actors that went on mass killing sprees, even when performing in shows like "Annie Get Your Gun".
I think that's somewhat immaterial at this point. The screw-up was the patent getting approved in the first place. As the article states, many companies who have been hit with this legal scam have already been advised to settle because it's the least costly option for a small business that can't afford a protracted court battle. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Mafia was, in fact, behind this. Shaking down small businesses has been their game for some time.
"Welcome to Papa John's!" (the chorus of identical looking pizza place staffers, who conveniently can be worked like slaves with no health insurance)
Actually the new find only further confirms prior evidence that it was Dasani once flowed on the Red Planet. http://www.theonion.com/articles/cokesponsored-rover-finds-evidence-of-dasani-on-ma,1146/
If affects me because marraige is a social institution, by definition. If you & your partner were isolated on an island, the concept of 'marriage' would be mute. Other people (aka society) interacting with you forms part of the definition of 'marriage'. So, my answer is, of course you should be able to 'marry' any consenting adult, but you should not be able to force me to recognise your relationship as marriage.
Hypotheticals can make great arguemnts, but they also unfortunately tend to selective about reality. The fact is we ALL live under common legal systems that unite us by nation, state, etc. Your personal views may be private, but we all have to work within the common framework of law. Isolated islands where you can make up your own rules are simply not in fashion (yet).
The whole gay marriage thing is the direct and natural result of a confluence of social changes in our society. Marriage itself is a social construct that has numerous benefits. The human race is a virtual stew of competeing natural vs. social trade-offs, moreso than any other animal species on the planet. We struggle with these all the time -- what is good for the individual, the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, the nation, the planet, ???, etc. Marriage throughout history has mostly been an issue of what is good for the extended family (royalty added the dimension of nation) in terms of economics and survival (though survival even changed from species to "bloodline" which had many more ties to economics).
But so many things have changed within the past century or two. The world doesn't need more people, so survival of the species isn't a concern. Certainly in first-world countries marriages for economic reasons are considered a desperate move. The whole dynamic of marriage has shifted to one of personal choice via the love relationship between two people rather than arrangement by parents for societal and economic benefit.
But the real clincher that sealed the deal on gay marriage was the ascendency of women's rights. Or rather, the elevated status of woman from marriage-depedent to equal partner in the marriage contract. Prior to this, marriage was a very role-concious institution with the woman being property (at worst) or domestic slave (at best) with the husband holding all the real power. Equal partners in marriage changed all that. HETEROSEXUALS took it upon themselves to strip marriage of its previous role identities in parenting, finances, sex (yes even that), household duties, inheritance, divorce, etc., etc., etc. HETEROSEXUALS strove to make the practice of marriage gender-NEUTRAL despite it only being enjoyed by gender-DIFFERENT couples.
So it was only a matter of time before other couples who were already equal partners -- namely same-sex couples -- took a look at the new gender-NEUTRAL marriage practice of benefits and responsibilities and finally said, "Hey! We already do all that! We want/deserve that legal recognition as well!" Same-sex marriage prior to this development didn't make sense because it would have cast one member to be the legally powerless "woman" and the vast majority of gay men understandably would have never considered it an option. For lesbians the issues were similar but perhaps a bit more elastic.
But when the role framework lost is sex-dependecy, the doors were opened and the course was set. Gay marriage is now all but inevitable unless there is a mass change in societal views to undo the advance of women's rights and marriage partner equality between male and female. That's why you see gay marriage fragmented across the blue-red divide. It is resisted most strongly in the places where women still struggle against their "traditional" place in society, even though they might already have equality under the law. Conservative religion, of course, tends to reinforce those roles on women and thus is one of the greatest barriers to acceptance and change to this new view of marriage.