I *want* people who drink and get behind the wheel to be terrified of getting pulled over, terrified of getting a D/D charge, terrified of how badly it can fuck over their life. Clearly many people don't seem to think "putting other people at risk" is a good enough reason to not drive drunk, so maybe "not having your entire life ruined because of a completely avoidable thing" will be. I'm fine with meting out harsh punishments to those who are actually driving drunk.
The problem is, we have run roughshod over the Constitution in order to make sure that no guilty person goes free. The presumption of guilt and the presumption that the accused is intimately familiar with all 50 states' DUI/implied consent laws makes this whole FISA wiretapping thing look like a piddly-squat issue.
Again, I am not in favor of drunk driving. I just want enough due process in place that it would at least be a minimal challenge to punish motorists for DUI who are not actually impaired by alcohol.
How did that guy intend to get back to his hotel or whatever after that party? How could he be sure - among complete strangers - that he'd be able to find someone sober to drive or that he'd have a place to crash until he sobered up himself? Perhaps he planned to have a few drinks at the beginning of the party, stay for a few hours, and then leave after he's sobered up.
Also remember the legal limits are very low..08 BAC? That's like 2/3 of a beer. Is that really too drunk to drive?
Also remember that Brethalyzer-measured BAC lags behind actual inebriation levels. If you ever have access to a breathalzyer, try the following experiment: pound 5 shots of tequila (or whatever it takes to get you hammered) and wait until the moment you would no longer feel comfortable operating heavy machinery. At that point, take a brethalyzer test. I bet you blow under the legal limit. Wait another 45 minutes, and you'll be way over the legal limit.
The same thing happens on the way down. You could have sobered up, from the standpoint of hand-eye coordination, judgment, reaction time, etc., but you could still blow over the legal limit.
I'm not trying to excuse anyone's drunk driving, but the world is not black and white. It'd be nice if there existed a machine that could just say, "You're drunk" or "You're sober". But such a machine does not exist.
What about with 'pacing'? Does an officer have to be certified to do that Yes, an officer must be trained to "pace" a car properly, and the police cruiser's speedometer must be calibrated regularly.
Wikipedia talks about copays. It says copays are to prevent an economic problem known as a "moral hazard". Copays do, indeed, prevent moral hazard. This is true. But this is also not what I am talking about.
I never asked why I pay a copay to go see the doctor when I'm sick, which is the moral hazard problem. I asked why do I pay a copay for routine care if it saves the insurance company so much money?
My thinking comes from one of my occupations: landlording. Some landlords like to charge tenants a flat fee for repairs to discourage excessive, trivial maintenance calls. This is to address the moral hazard that they face: if they give a tenant free maintenance, tenants will call in trivial issues that they ought to fix themselves (plunge the toilet, change a lightbulb, etc).
Personally, I think those other landlords are crazy. Is a tenant going to call in that dripping toilet when they know it's going to cost them money? Uhhh, no. They're going to wait until the little drop becomes a slow trickle, and the slow trickle becomes a faster trickle, and the faster trickle pools up and before you know it the ceiling on the main floor is falling down and there's mold everywhere. It costs me way more to fix a big problem than a little problem, so I encourage my tenants to call in little issues like a drip. I'd much rather tighten a nut today than remediate a huge mold infestation a year from now.
They don't pay you because you're already asking them to take on your own financial risk. It doesn't shower them with money for you to go to the doctor. "Shower" is a great choice of words here.:) Anyhow, in my case, it does shower me in money to have my tenants help me practice some preventative maintenance. One turn of my wrench is free. One mold remediation is thousands of dollars.
You are arguing the same thing with insurance--that the insurance company saves money when members get preventative care. So where are my free physicals? Nowhere. Why? Because it doesn't save them money for me to get a physical.
Why is the damn emergency room so damn expensive, driving up my damn rates? It is illegal to deny emergency treatment to patients simply because they cannot afford treatment. That is part of it, but do these emergency treatments really cause the most drain on the system?
What about excess capacity? That's right. Emergency rooms need excess capacity for when a disaster hits. That 300 car pileup on the road, that earthquake, that flood, that bird flu outbreak, that tornado.
The biggest problem with emergency rooms is that they are used for non-emergencies. If I cut myself and need a stitch and it happens to be on a Sunday evening, please tell me why I have to go waste a bed in a trauma center. Because there's noplace else for me to go, that's why.
Emergency room space is expensive space. We need after-hours clinics to handle silly things like getting a small cut stitched. Emergency rooms are for car accident victims, not dish-washing boo-boos.
Nah, you'd just pay the same premiums to the government instead of the insurance company. It's a wash except more people will be covered and, as inefficiencies are reduced, costs will go down. Costs will go down? How? With a prescription drug program where the government can't even negotiate on cost? With more people receiving care and not paying into the system? And government reduces inefficiency now?
Government-run health care equals reduced treatment and long waiting lists. Look at Canada. Look at the UK. These are not systems that I would want to suffer under.
It can't be "free" because you run into the tragedy of the commons that way. I find that hard to believe. Who likes to go to the doctor to get shots, blood drown, and a finger shoved up their arse? I don't know anyone that perverse. If these people are so common, how come we don't hear about them going to the doctor 50 times per year now? I mean, what's stopping them? A $10 copay?
That level of preventative care is certainly cheaper than paying for emergency care for all of those individuals who developed advanced symptoms and went to the hospital. Actuaries will tell you this. You'll have a hard time convincing me of that without a citation. The whole health care system is structured around disease management, not disease prevention. Why do you think that is? Why don't they pay me to get a physical if it helps their bottom line so much?
Don't forget test pilots I'm fine with them.
Native Americans who smoke peyote Sounds like they belong in the smokers' category. Nobody's forcing them to smoke. Does smoking peyote cause cancer like cigarettes? I'm sure someone knows that.
women who want to bear children Normal part of life. I'm fine with them.
rugby and amateur football players Beats paying for a lifetime of diabetes of some fat slob. Broken bones are straightforward and relatively cheap to fix. I'd rather be pooled with a bunch of athletes than a bunch of sloths.
cyclists on Loop 360 I don't get the joke, but something tells me they should pay more for life and disability insurance.;)
people who commute more than 20 miles to work They already pay more in auto insurance.
I thought of another one. Bankruptcies. Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. The rate of bankruptcy affects our access to credit. I haven't had a problem getting credit. I bet I would under universal health care, however.
Think about how much money the US government would have to borrow in order to pay for such a program. When the government borrows money, that crowds out other borrowing. Say "hello" to high interest rates and high loan rejection rates.
You sort of mentioned the exact point I'm making: people have personal/arbitrary criteria as to who they want to be in the pool with. That's nice, but that doesn't mean it can happen. That's all I'm saying. If you can get an insurance company to segment populations based on self-reported political affiliations, more power to you.
In the case of group rates for companies, its very rare to have much choice about which pool you want to be in. In the case of companies, you have even greater control over your pool than you would an individual policy. For an individual policy, the insurance carrier places you into a pool based on your application. You have no say in the matter.
On the other hand, many large companies are their own pool. They company will fund claims and only pays the insurance company to administer the program, negotiate rates, adjust claims, etc. Want to work for Phillip Morris? Fine, but realize you're in a health insurance pool with a bunch of smokers.
Just for a little fun: Lots of fun. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote".
I think the reason they do it that way is because as the size of the pool shrinks (healthier and healthier people), the pool is exposed to more and more risk (think accidents, unforeseen health issues
That's why god invented actuaries.
Like I said before, I am perfectly willing to share risk of accident, unforeseen health problems, etc., with those who at least make some vague attempt to mitigate that risk. By that, I mean don't smoke, eat vaguely healthfully, perform some amount of physical activity, etc. We're talking minimum bodily maintenance here.
There is a business case for excluding people with preexisting conditions:
That's why congress invented HIPAA.
Actually, there is way more than just a "business case" for excluding people with preexisting conditions from insurance. It's at the very core of insurance theory. All insurance products suffer from what they call "adverse selection". Adverse selection means that those who feel that they will need the insurance's benefit are more likely to take out a policy. Ever see "suicide insurance"? Of course not. Only the suicidal would take out a policy, so the premium would be unaffordable.
There is an old saying, "You can't buy fire insurance after your house burns down." The charred remains of your house would represent the ultimate preexisting condition.;) In the same way, you can't get disability insurance if you're already disabled, and you can't get life insurance if you're dead, and you can't buy health insurance after you develop a serious preexisting condition.
That is a big part of what HIPAA does. It says that if you've maintained health insurance and happen to develop a medical condition, that medical condition is NOT considered to be preexisting because you've had coverage all along. On the other hand, if you are uninsured and suddenly get cancer and then decide, gee whiz these chemo bills are getting high. Maybe I should finally pick up some health insurance, HIPAA does not protect you. Your cancer is preexisting, and you will be denied a policy.
Lastly, it's in their best interest to have the healthy, young folks in the pool.
Young folks? Have you seen all the babies they have and drugs and extreme sports they do? They've even been known to have unprotected sex! Have you seen what HIV treatments cost these days?
As far as brute fairness, you benefit by making sure all the unhealthy people don't spread diseases around and by helping them get preventative care which is a zillion times cheaper than emergency care
Most communicable diseases that cause more damage than the common cold we have vaccines for now.
Also is preventative care cheaper than emergency care? Is preventative care for all those millions of people less costly than emergency care for the thousands who actually get sick? I doubt it. If it were true, how come insurance companies don't give out free preventative care to their members? I pay copays and deductibles for my routine preventative care. If preventative care for the masses was cheaper than care for the few who actually get sick, my insurance company would be paying ME to get preventative care. That's just Business 101 here.
I'm sure there are more indirect benefits but I can't think of any right now.
Well, let me know when you think of one.
Personally, I think that health insurance underwriting based on genetics or preexisting conditions (that would fall under HIPAA protection) should be illegal. Indeed, we already have HIPAA, and congress is kicking around a measure to outlaw discrimination based on DNA. These are risk factors that people have no control over, and that risk should be distributed. That is the whole point of insurance.
On the other hand, risk factors such as smoking are entirely within a person's control. Smokers should share risk with other smokers and pay the increased premium that goes along w
Well, I wouldn't want to be associated with such a person either, so I don't blame you.
On the other hand, there are two reasons why your statement is silly.
As a practical matter, separating those who voted for President Bush and took his words at face value when he said, "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, I guarantee it," from those who did not vote for him and/or did not believe the president, is impossible. In insurance underwriting, self-reported data cannot be relied upon because the applicant could be untruthful on the application.
Only verifiable data points are reliable in the decisioning process. The last I checked, we have no verified voting in the US, and it is impossible to know who did and did not believe the president.
I'm no actuary, but I can't see how trusting one's leader and voting for President Bush would be risk factors in health insurance. To gullible people and/or Republicans get sick or injured more often? I've not seen any evidence of that.
By all means, don't let real life get in the way of your ranting, however!
Why should I be in the same risk pool as a sedentary smoker who sits around and eats Doritos and McDonalds all day?
I'm willing to share risk with people who at least make an attempt to take care of themselves, but I am not willing to share risks with people who make no such attempt.
What you have just described are Risk Pools, and I think it's a very fair way to do health insurance.
Consider auto insurance. If you have a perfect driving record, you go into a pool with other drivers who also have perfect driving records. You each pay the same low premium and share risk.
On the other hand, if you choose to drive like a maniac and get tickets and at-fault collisions all the time, you'll be yanked out of the perfect record pool and placed into a pool of other dangerous drivers. You'll all pay the same high premium and share risk.
I think it's totally fair to do medical insurance that way. As someone who is healthy and makes healthy choices, why should I be placed in the same risk pool with a sedentary smoker who eats Doritos and McDonalds all day long? I'm willing to share risk with people who at least attempt to take care of their bodies. But why should I have to share risk with people who intentionally harm themselves?
Even those that are incompetent and get fired. Well, if you're fired, you're not in the room, so you can't possibly be qualified.
Sorry, dude, but white guys thought they were intellectually superior to everyone else long before affirmative action. Affirmative action is just the contemporary excuse. Nothing has changed. Of course something has changed. Now, there is an actual basis for this thinking.
Are non-white, non-males inherently stupider than white males? Of course not. Everybody knows that.
On the other hand, does affirmative action put women and minorities into positions for which they would otherwise not have qualified? Of course it does--that's the whole point of affirmative action.
It's important to keep an open mind in the real world, because not all women and minorities are unqualified for their positions. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who don't keep an open mind. That was the point of my original post.
All I was saying is that affirmative action creates the perception of lack of qualification. It diminishes the true accomplishments of those who "benefit" from affirmative action. It's a lot like Barry Bonds tying (and soon breaking) the baseball career homerun record. There will always be an asterisk next to his name in the record books and the footnote will read "aided by performance enhancing drugs". It's the same with affirmative action: it puts an invisible asterisk on women and minorities' foreheads.
Even through my degree I felt like 24/7 I had to prove I had a right to be there. Shouldn't that tell you something?
Actually, I'm only kidding about that. I'm sure you are/were very talented in your field, but you suffered from two things:
The affirmative action paradox: the effort to bring underrepresented classes of people into a field by lowering standards for them diminishes the true accomplishments of those same underrepresented classes. As a white male, it's clear I'm in the room because I've earned the right to be there. If you're not a white male, well, you have to show why you're in the room if you want people to believe in you.
The tyranny of diminished expectations. Men are constantly told that we are too hard on women and pushing them out of IT. Well, if you're not being pushed then you are not getting stretch roles, and you are not going to advance your career.
You can't have it both ways, you know.
Well, you probably do know. Again, I'm sure you were tops in your field, and yes, I can understand your frustrations. The way I see it, you have two choices:
Fight for equality. TRUE equality, not reverse-discrimination "equality", or
Realize that you are going to have to prove yourself every time you meet someone new and rationalize to yourself that it is a small price to pay for an attempt to get more women into the field
She wanted to use edit photos, so I use words like palette, crop, layers, scale, saturation, and she immediately stopped listening. As somebody who understood all of those terms, but would not have understood them 12 months ago, I have to say you are really expecting a lot.
How much color theory did you expect her to pick up in 30 seconds? Did you expect her to just magically grasp layers?
Photography has a pretty high learning curve if you want to get technical. Why not just give her a copy of Photoshop Elements or Picasa and teach her how to fix basic exposure and white balance issues? That's probably 99% of what she wanted to do, anyhow.
Well, he did his undergrad at Yale and has a Harvard MBA. He flew fighter jets (F-102s) in the national guard.
Can you fly a fighter jet? I can't.
You would have an easy time convincing me that several negative adjectives describe President Bush. However, you will have difficulty convincing me that the man is stupid.
While we're at it, I think sex offender registries should be unconstitutional. I think the "sex offenders can't live within 100 miles of a school, library or park" laws should be unconstitutional as well. Don't forget one more thing: protect employers and landlords from being responsible for the actions of ex-cons.
I am both a landlord and employer, and I will not hire, nor will I rent to, anyone with a felony on his or her record. Want to know why? Because if said ex-con goes and attacks someone in my office or building, the law says it's somehow my fault because I allowed a known dangerous individual to be amongst ordinary, law-abiding individuals.
So I don't employ ex-cons or rent to them. It's bad business.
At the same time, I think it's fairly obvious why the recidivism rate is so high. We harden 'em up in jail, then we release them into society with few rights, no way to get a decent job, and no way to get a decent place to live. And then, gee whiz, they turn back to crime. Didn't see that coming.
As a matter of course, I do set up TrueCrypt volumes at standard sizes that happen to be much bigger than I need --my usual is 680MB so I can burn the whole thing to a CD. I think all my financial files add up to about 100MB within the 680MB TrueCrypt volume. Don't you think that's a little risky?
"Them": Reveal the key to your encrypted filesystem. You: Ok, here it is. "Them": I see you are only using less than 20% of the filesystem. Give us the key to your hidden partition. You: There is no hidden partition. "Them": I'm going to apply forcefully a rubber hose to your feet over and over again until you reveal the key.
The "safety" concerns about sex aren't really safety concerns. It's moral, but they're stuck in a world where people roll their eyes and laugh if you moralize like that ol' time religion. I agree, wholeheartedly.
Long ago, I decided to be honest with my kids. It isn't that hard--having unprotected sex does happen to be risky (pregnancy, other STDs that spread easily such as HPV, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, etc.) I'm as confident as a parent can be (kids seem to have minds of their own...) that they will choose to use proper protection.
Sure you know. Well, at least you have to tell yourself that. It only makes sense that being married to a person for a while, if they have given you reason to trust them then until they give you reasons not to trust them you should. Exactly. I do trust my wife, and I really do believe that she has never cheated on me. But I am not watching her 24/7... how can I possibly know for sure? Like you say, I don't really worry about it because she hasn't given me a reason not to trust her.
I know women like this. None of them are HIV but they have had rounds with STDs. Again, exactly my point. Getting HIV through protected sex is hard since the virus really requires an open wound to get in. Getting other STDs, on the other hand, is not as difficult.
HPV is the easiest to contract while using a condom. Herpes is probably the second-easiest. Syphilis is pretty easy to contract, and if you miss or ignore the first stage, it can do some really nasty damage. In order for my wife and me to get married, we each had to get tested for syphilis. Not sure why they don't test for HIV as well, since that lies dormant for a long period of time as well, but I am not a public health official, so I am not smart enough to make these types of decisions.
I wasn't going to take the time to reply at all, but I just wanted to say one thing.
One night stands seem to imply more then one regular partner and going to bars to find them imply alcohol and slightly impaired judgment. Would you agree that your chances of getting HIV in a monogamous relationship though sex is pretty much locked after you haven't got it if both couple are faithful. Being faithful is, unfortunately, a pretty huge assumption. I've been faithful to my wife, and I trust that she has been faithful to me. But do I really know for sure?
A person can be HIV+ for 6 months before it will show up on a test. During that time, he/she can infect people (but it is much less likely given the lower viral concentration. I don't have numbers for how much less likely, so I'm going to wave my hands a bit on this one.).
In my experience, people don't tend to use condoms with their primary partners.
So what does all of this mean? You meet a fabulous girl. It's love at first sight, and you decide to be monogamous. Think to your past relationships. Did you wait 6 months to do an HIV test before having condom-free sex? Do you really know for SURE that your partner is being faithful? If she got infected (perhaps while performing 1st aid on someone who was bleeding? perhaps a fling?) a week before you two met and doesn't know it, and you have tons of condom-free sex with her, you're likely to pick it up.
On the other hand, you meet a chick in a bar. She's slept with half the bar. You go to her place and have sex with a condom. Your chances of picking up HIV are astronomically low. On the other hand, you will be at moderate risk for herpes and genital warts.
Assuming there are no lesions on your penis, your chance of contracting HIV from an HIV+ woman through unprotected vaginal sex is 1:1000. "Difficult", of course, is a relative term. However, I consider a 1:1000 shot to be difficult, especially when that risk can be almost completely eliminated through proper condom use.
I can't think of any virus I'd want less You aren't thinking hard enough. Ebola is the first one to come to mind. No cure, violent suffering for 7-14 days followed by death.
I don't think it's a very good idea to tell teens, who are reckless morons to begin with (we all were at that age - 10 feet tall and bulletproof), that there's really no chance they'll get AIDS. There IS a chance, and the more idiotic their behavior, the greater the chance. I do not lie to my kids.
Anyhow, there are plenty of other STDs to make it a bad idea to have unprotected sex.
Being female and black seems to be one of them This is attributed to lower socio-economic status. As long as you aren't picking up black women in the hood, you should be ok.
Going to the bars and having one night stands with people seem to be another set. Cite? Anyhow, the rate of new infections (not the rate of carriers) in black women is 10x the general population. I'm going to guess that the rate among party-goers is somewhere in between. Even if it were the full 10x, you still only gain one order of magnitude, and you are still more likely to be fatally injured by a car while walking home from the bar.
Now, also, getting hit by a car while walking happens more in the day when more cars are present. Cite? Why wouldn't more pedestrians be struck during the night when they are less visible? Also, walking home from the bar, the pedestrian's judgment is likely impaired by alcohol. There. I took an argument out of my arse to match yours.;)
You should be able to find a condom that fits. Even if it doesn't fit, condoms can be inflated like balloons, so your oversized penis while not helping matters, is probably not what is causing the breakage. I'd bet more likely the problem is an insufficiently-lubricated vagina or arsehole. These things are a little hard to diagnose over slashdot, however.
Take a lot off of that. A significant percentage of those who are HIV positive are gay men. Yeah, I thought about that, but then I decided I was done doing research and anyway my point was already made.;)
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is, we have run roughshod over the Constitution in order to make sure that no guilty person goes free. The presumption of guilt and the presumption that the accused is intimately familiar with all 50 states' DUI/implied consent laws makes this whole FISA wiretapping thing look like a piddly-squat issue.
Again, I am not in favor of drunk driving. I just want enough due process in place that it would at least be a minimal challenge to punish motorists for DUI who are not actually impaired by alcohol.
Also remember the legal limits are very low.
Also remember that Brethalyzer-measured BAC lags behind actual inebriation levels. If you ever have access to a breathalzyer, try the following experiment: pound 5 shots of tequila (or whatever it takes to get you hammered) and wait until the moment you would no longer feel comfortable operating heavy machinery. At that point, take a brethalyzer test. I bet you blow under the legal limit. Wait another 45 minutes, and you'll be way over the legal limit.
The same thing happens on the way down. You could have sobered up, from the standpoint of hand-eye coordination, judgment, reaction time, etc., but you could still blow over the legal limit.
I'm not trying to excuse anyone's drunk driving, but the world is not black and white. It'd be nice if there existed a machine that could just say, "You're drunk" or "You're sober". But such a machine does not exist.
I never asked why I pay a copay to go see the doctor when I'm sick, which is the moral hazard problem. I asked why do I pay a copay for routine care if it saves the insurance company so much money?
My thinking comes from one of my occupations: landlording. Some landlords like to charge tenants a flat fee for repairs to discourage excessive, trivial maintenance calls. This is to address the moral hazard that they face: if they give a tenant free maintenance, tenants will call in trivial issues that they ought to fix themselves (plunge the toilet, change a lightbulb, etc).
Personally, I think those other landlords are crazy. Is a tenant going to call in that dripping toilet when they know it's going to cost them money? Uhhh, no. They're going to wait until the little drop becomes a slow trickle, and the slow trickle becomes a faster trickle, and the faster trickle pools up and before you know it the ceiling on the main floor is falling down and there's mold everywhere. It costs me way more to fix a big problem than a little problem, so I encourage my tenants to call in little issues like a drip. I'd much rather tighten a nut today than remediate a huge mold infestation a year from now. They don't pay you because you're already asking them to take on your own financial risk. It doesn't shower them with money for you to go to the doctor. "Shower" is a great choice of words here.
You are arguing the same thing with insurance--that the insurance company saves money when members get preventative care. So where are my free physicals? Nowhere. Why? Because it doesn't save them money for me to get a physical. Why is the damn emergency room so damn expensive, driving up my damn rates? It is illegal to deny emergency treatment to patients simply because they cannot afford treatment. That is part of it, but do these emergency treatments really cause the most drain on the system?
What about excess capacity? That's right. Emergency rooms need excess capacity for when a disaster hits. That 300 car pileup on the road, that earthquake, that flood, that bird flu outbreak, that tornado.
The biggest problem with emergency rooms is that they are used for non-emergencies. If I cut myself and need a stitch and it happens to be on a Sunday evening, please tell me why I have to go waste a bed in a trauma center. Because there's noplace else for me to go, that's why.
Emergency room space is expensive space. We need after-hours clinics to handle silly things like getting a small cut stitched. Emergency rooms are for car accident victims, not dish-washing boo-boos. Nah, you'd just pay the same premiums to the government instead of the insurance company. It's a wash except more people will be covered and, as inefficiencies are reduced, costs will go down. Costs will go down? How? With a prescription drug program where the government can't even negotiate on cost? With more people receiving care and not paying into the system? And government reduces inefficiency now?
Government-run health care equals reduced treatment and long waiting lists. Look at Canada. Look at the UK. These are not systems that I would want to suffer under.
Think about how much money the US government would have to borrow in order to pay for such a program. When the government borrows money, that crowds out other borrowing. Say "hello" to high interest rates and high loan rejection rates.
On the other hand, many large companies are their own pool. They company will fund claims and only pays the insurance company to administer the program, negotiate rates, adjust claims, etc. Want to work for Phillip Morris? Fine, but realize you're in a health insurance pool with a bunch of smokers. Just for a little fun: Lots of fun. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, "data" is not the plural of "anecdote".
I think the reason they do it that way is because as the size of the pool shrinks (healthier and healthier people), the pool is exposed to more and more risk (think accidents, unforeseen health issues
That's why god invented actuaries.
Like I said before, I am perfectly willing to share risk of accident, unforeseen health problems, etc., with those who at least make some vague attempt to mitigate that risk. By that, I mean don't smoke, eat vaguely healthfully, perform some amount of physical activity, etc. We're talking minimum bodily maintenance here.
There is a business case for excluding people with preexisting conditions:
That's why congress invented HIPAA.
;) In the same way, you can't get disability insurance if you're already disabled, and you can't get life insurance if you're dead, and you can't buy health insurance after you develop a serious preexisting condition.
Actually, there is way more than just a "business case" for excluding people with preexisting conditions from insurance. It's at the very core of insurance theory. All insurance products suffer from what they call "adverse selection". Adverse selection means that those who feel that they will need the insurance's benefit are more likely to take out a policy. Ever see "suicide insurance"? Of course not. Only the suicidal would take out a policy, so the premium would be unaffordable.
There is an old saying, "You can't buy fire insurance after your house burns down." The charred remains of your house would represent the ultimate preexisting condition.
That is a big part of what HIPAA does. It says that if you've maintained health insurance and happen to develop a medical condition, that medical condition is NOT considered to be preexisting because you've had coverage all along. On the other hand, if you are uninsured and suddenly get cancer and then decide, gee whiz these chemo bills are getting high. Maybe I should finally pick up some health insurance, HIPAA does not protect you. Your cancer is preexisting, and you will be denied a policy.
Lastly, it's in their best interest to have the healthy, young folks in the pool.
Young folks? Have you seen all the babies they have and drugs and extreme sports they do? They've even been known to have unprotected sex! Have you seen what HIV treatments cost these days?
As far as brute fairness, you benefit by making sure all the unhealthy people don't spread diseases around and by helping them get preventative care which is a zillion times cheaper than emergency care
Most communicable diseases that cause more damage than the common cold we have vaccines for now.
Also is preventative care cheaper than emergency care? Is preventative care for all those millions of people less costly than emergency care for the thousands who actually get sick? I doubt it. If it were true, how come insurance companies don't give out free preventative care to their members? I pay copays and deductibles for my routine preventative care. If preventative care for the masses was cheaper than care for the few who actually get sick, my insurance company would be paying ME to get preventative care. That's just Business 101 here.
I'm sure there are more indirect benefits but I can't think of any right now.
Well, let me know when you think of one.
Personally, I think that health insurance underwriting based on genetics or preexisting conditions (that would fall under HIPAA protection) should be illegal. Indeed, we already have HIPAA, and congress is kicking around a measure to outlaw discrimination based on DNA. These are risk factors that people have no control over, and that risk should be distributed. That is the whole point of insurance.
On the other hand, risk factors such as smoking are entirely within a person's control. Smokers should share risk with other smokers and pay the increased premium that goes along w
On the other hand, there are two reasons why your statement is silly.
Only verifiable data points are reliable in the decisioning process. The last I checked, we have no verified voting in the US, and it is impossible to know who did and did not believe the president.
By all means, don't let real life get in the way of your ranting, however!
Why should I be in the same risk pool as a sedentary smoker who sits around and eats Doritos and McDonalds all day?
I'm willing to share risk with people who at least make an attempt to take care of themselves, but I am not willing to share risks with people who make no such attempt.
What you have just described are Risk Pools, and I think it's a very fair way to do health insurance.
Consider auto insurance. If you have a perfect driving record, you go into a pool with other drivers who also have perfect driving records. You each pay the same low premium and share risk.
On the other hand, if you choose to drive like a maniac and get tickets and at-fault collisions all the time, you'll be yanked out of the perfect record pool and placed into a pool of other dangerous drivers. You'll all pay the same high premium and share risk.
I think it's totally fair to do medical insurance that way. As someone who is healthy and makes healthy choices, why should I be placed in the same risk pool with a sedentary smoker who eats Doritos and McDonalds all day long? I'm willing to share risk with people who at least attempt to take care of their bodies. But why should I have to share risk with people who intentionally harm themselves?
Just realize that not all discrimination is teh evil.
It's one thing to discriminate against people for something that they can help (smoking, etc.)
It's not the same as racist or sexist discrimination (i.e. something that the person has no control over).
Are non-white, non-males inherently stupider than white males? Of course not. Everybody knows that.
On the other hand, does affirmative action put women and minorities into positions for which they would otherwise not have qualified? Of course it does--that's the whole point of affirmative action.
It's important to keep an open mind in the real world, because not all women and minorities are unqualified for their positions. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who don't keep an open mind. That was the point of my original post.
All I was saying is that affirmative action creates the perception of lack of qualification. It diminishes the true accomplishments of those who "benefit" from affirmative action. It's a lot like Barry Bonds tying (and soon breaking) the baseball career homerun record. There will always be an asterisk next to his name in the record books and the footnote will read "aided by performance enhancing drugs". It's the same with affirmative action: it puts an invisible asterisk on women and minorities' foreheads.
Actually, I'm only kidding about that. I'm sure you are/were very talented in your field, but you suffered from two things:
- The affirmative action paradox: the effort to bring underrepresented classes of people into a field by lowering standards for them diminishes the true accomplishments of those same underrepresented classes. As a white male, it's clear I'm in the room because I've earned the right to be there. If you're not a white male, well, you have to show why you're in the room if you want people to believe in you.
- The tyranny of diminished expectations. Men are constantly told that we are too hard on women and pushing them out of IT. Well, if you're not being pushed then you are not getting stretch roles, and you are not going to advance your career.
You can't have it both ways, you know.Well, you probably do know. Again, I'm sure you were tops in your field, and yes, I can understand your frustrations. The way I see it, you have two choices:
Nice tits, by the way.
How much color theory did you expect her to pick up in 30 seconds? Did you expect her to just magically grasp layers?
Photography has a pretty high learning curve if you want to get technical. Why not just give her a copy of Photoshop Elements or Picasa and teach her how to fix basic exposure and white balance issues? That's probably 99% of what she wanted to do, anyhow.
Well, he did his undergrad at Yale and has a Harvard MBA. He flew fighter jets (F-102s) in the national guard.
Can you fly a fighter jet? I can't.
You would have an easy time convincing me that several negative adjectives describe President Bush. However, you will have difficulty convincing me that the man is stupid.
I am both a landlord and employer, and I will not hire, nor will I rent to, anyone with a felony on his or her record. Want to know why? Because if said ex-con goes and attacks someone in my office or building, the law says it's somehow my fault because I allowed a known dangerous individual to be amongst ordinary, law-abiding individuals.
So I don't employ ex-cons or rent to them. It's bad business.
At the same time, I think it's fairly obvious why the recidivism rate is so high. We harden 'em up in jail, then we release them into society with few rights, no way to get a decent job, and no way to get a decent place to live. And then, gee whiz, they turn back to crime. Didn't see that coming.
"Them": Reveal the key to your encrypted filesystem.
You: Ok, here it is.
"Them": I see you are only using less than 20% of the filesystem. Give us the key to your hidden partition.
You: There is no hidden partition.
"Them": I'm going to apply forcefully a rubber hose to your feet over and over again until you reveal the key.
Long ago, I decided to be honest with my kids. It isn't that hard--having unprotected sex does happen to be risky (pregnancy, other STDs that spread easily such as HPV, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, etc.) I'm as confident as a parent can be (kids seem to have minds of their own...) that they will choose to use proper protection.
At least they know what "proper protection" is.
HPV is the easiest to contract while using a condom. Herpes is probably the second-easiest. Syphilis is pretty easy to contract, and if you miss or ignore the first stage, it can do some really nasty damage. In order for my wife and me to get married, we each had to get tested for syphilis. Not sure why they don't test for HIV as well, since that lies dormant for a long period of time as well, but I am not a public health official, so I am not smart enough to make these types of decisions.
A person can be HIV+ for 6 months before it will show up on a test. During that time, he/she can infect people (but it is much less likely given the lower viral concentration. I don't have numbers for how much less likely, so I'm going to wave my hands a bit on this one.).
In my experience, people don't tend to use condoms with their primary partners.
So what does all of this mean? You meet a fabulous girl. It's love at first sight, and you decide to be monogamous. Think to your past relationships. Did you wait 6 months to do an HIV test before having condom-free sex? Do you really know for SURE that your partner is being faithful? If she got infected (perhaps while performing 1st aid on someone who was bleeding? perhaps a fling?) a week before you two met and doesn't know it, and you have tons of condom-free sex with her, you're likely to pick it up.
On the other hand, you meet a chick in a bar. She's slept with half the bar. You go to her place and have sex with a condom. Your chances of picking up HIV are astronomically low. On the other hand, you will be at moderate risk for herpes and genital warts.
Anyhow, there are plenty of other STDs to make it a bad idea to have unprotected sex.