Driver to drive?

You don't understand insurance. You aren't buying health care, you are
buying *insurance*. This spreads the cost of health care among all the
members of the insurance pool. If you need it, it is there. If you
don't need it you are paying for those who did. But going in you did
not know if you would need it or not. The only thing you knew was that
*someone* in the pool would need it and that might have been you.

So you got what you paid for, the promise of health care *if* you needed
it.

Rick
I haven't hit anything with my car this year. Auto insurance is such a
waste. ;-)

See what it costs to get treatment without insurance versus with
insurance. The difference is staggering. Of course, without insurance,
you can try to skip out on paying.

Funny how the individual mandate was popular with the GOP until the
Democrats put it into law.
 
But Bluecross is in the business of charging for something that they
fight to not deliver. I hated battling with them. Kaiser, for a fixed
fee, contracts to do whatever is needed, no hassles. They have a
strong incentive to keep their members healthy and to minimize
overhead.
You hear the horror stories about Kaiser, but than again, they treat a
lot of people, so of course it is more likely that they will have the
occasional bad press. I know people that swear by Kaiser. Also, it is a
good union shop.
 
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:10:31 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:

See what it costs to get treatment without insurance versus with
insurance. The difference is staggering. Of course, without insurance,
you can try to skip out on paying.
It's about half of list price. Insurance and Medicare pay the doctors
and hospitals 25% to 35% of list price, so they do appreciate those
that pay cash.

I have no insurance. I've had 4 major medical horror stories in the
past 10 years. All were paid at a negotiated price in cash. The
logic for the hospital is simple. If an uninsured patient goes to
collections, then the best the hospital can do is get half the list
price. The collection agency gets the other half. So, the hospital
just cuts out the collections agency and charges the patient half.

I rather like the idea of Obamacare because I stand to be one of those
that will benefit from it. 10 years ago, I would have declared it
pure evil. My only question is who is going to pay for adding 16 to
33 million non-elderly recipients to the system that have never paid
anything into the system? The money has to come from somewhere, and
it's NOT going to come from "savings" or similar rhetorical rubbish.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On 9/15/2012 9:48 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:10:31 -0700, miso<miso@sushi.com> wrote:

See what it costs to get treatment without insurance versus with
insurance. The difference is staggering. Of course, without insurance,
you can try to skip out on paying.

It's about half of list price. Insurance and Medicare pay the doctors
and hospitals 25% to 35% of list price, so they do appreciate those
that pay cash.

I have no insurance. I've had 4 major medical horror stories in the
past 10 years. All were paid at a negotiated price in cash. The
logic for the hospital is simple. If an uninsured patient goes to
collections, then the best the hospital can do is get half the list
price. The collection agency gets the other half. So, the hospital
just cuts out the collections agency and charges the patient half.

I rather like the idea of Obamacare because I stand to be one of those
that will benefit from it. 10 years ago, I would have declared it
pure evil. My only question is who is going to pay for adding 16 to
33 million non-elderly recipients to the system that have never paid
anything into the system? The money has to come from somewhere, and
it's NOT going to come from "savings" or similar rhetorical rubbish.
Who pays for their care pre-Affordable Health Care Act?

Rick
 
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:13:13 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:

But Bluecross is in the business of charging for something that they
fight to not deliver. I hated battling with them. Kaiser, for a fixed
fee, contracts to do whatever is needed, no hassles. They have a
strong incentive to keep their members healthy and to minimize
overhead.

You hear the horror stories about Kaiser, but than again, they treat a
lot of people, so of course it is more likely that they will have the
occasional bad press. I know people that swear by Kaiser. Also, it is a
good union shop.
Kaiser tried to kill me twice with various mistakes. I couldn't dump
them because the insurance came with the job. When I switched jobs, I
ended up with BlueCurse. When I got hit on my bicycle by a dentist
and his Pontiac, BlueCurse simply decided that they didn't want to pay
my expenses. Several months, advocates, and ombudsmen later, and they
still refused to pay, without offering any reason beyond "not
covered". I dumped BlueCurse and haven't had medical insurance since
about 1984.

In the past 10 years, I've had 4 major medical horror stories.
Hospital treatment was acceptable, but the number of mistakes that I
caught was unacceptable. The one that I didn't catch (botched lab
interpretation of a biopsy) nearly killed me. Helping friends through
similar circumstances, such mistakes appear to be routine.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my first pair of eyeglasses were with
Kaiser. They couldn't copy my prescription from one piece of paper to
another, so the first pair of glasses were totally useless.

With Obamacare, we'll all have insurance, but not medical care.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:59:01 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/15/2012 9:48 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
I rather like the idea of Obamacare because I stand to be one of those
that will benefit from it. 10 years ago, I would have declared it
pure evil. My only question is who is going to pay for adding 16 to
33 million non-elderly recipients to the system that have never paid
anything into the system? The money has to come from somewhere, and
it's NOT going to come from "savings" or similar rhetorical rubbish.

Who pays for their care pre-Affordable Health Care Act?
Rick
Public assistance also known as your tax dollars.

During the 1990's, I maintained the ER (emergency room) Xenix computah
system that produced release forms, prescriptions, and kept
statistics. For the local hospital, that was about 60,000 admissions
per year. That's not 60,000 individuals as many of them visit the ER
multiple times. During a major remodeling, the ER was moved 3 times
in 2 years. During one of the moves, I manage to break the credit
card machine. Nobody noticed for about 5 years when I got a frantic
call from the ER that the machine was broken. What this means is that
most people either pay with insurance, or simply don't pay. So, I ran
some statistics. Only about 18% of the visits during a 12 month
period around 1995 were paid for by someone. 82% of the visits were
covered by "other sources". The list of "other sources" is rather
large and controversial. I don't want to get diverted down that road.
Ultimately, Joe Taxpayer ends up paying for most of the unpaid visits.

I'm not sure exactly what will change under Obamacare. Instead of
paying for uninsured hospital stays indirectly through a long chain of
intermediaries, Joe Taxpayer pays almost directly. That may not be so
horrible as it reduces the inefficiency of having too many agencies
handling the money.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:13:13 -0700, miso <miso@sushi.com> wrote:

But Bluecross is in the business of charging for something that they
fight to not deliver. I hated battling with them. Kaiser, for a fixed
fee, contracts to do whatever is needed, no hassles. They have a
strong incentive to keep their members healthy and to minimize
overhead.



You hear the horror stories about Kaiser, but than again, they treat a
lot of people, so of course it is more likely that they will have the
occasional bad press. I know people that swear by Kaiser. Also, it is a
good union shop.
My Kaiser care has been excellent. They are big on prevention,
vaccinations, checkups.

I hurt my foot hiking, noticed the pain on a Saturday night, called in
on Sunday morning, saw two doctors at 10:30. They gave me a plastic
cast sort of thing and decided to do some blood chemistry, which was
just across the floor. I was out of there by 11:15. I get regular
tetanus and shingles shots and TB tests and colonoscopies, whether I
want them or not.

All my records are online, so I don't fill out forms. I get lab
results by email. I'm encouraged to email my doctor, and she answers
me. Prescriptions are refilled online, mailed to me at work, and the
co-pay is billed to my credit card. Parking even isn't too bad.

I once had a rough spot on my face. I showed it to my doctor, and she
called in a dermatologist. It was a precancerous keratitus. Mentioned,
diagnosed, and cured, in about 10 minutes.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
 
On 9/15/2012 3:59 PM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

I was asking about _giving_, i.e. voluntarily parting with some
proportion of your income just because it's the right thing to do, to
This is the interpretation I was talking about.

The owner of a company can take what ever paycheck he wants to, I have
no problem with that.

But he still has a responsibility to pay the taxes and obey the laws
that are required.

If he wants to close his company so he does not have to pay X,Y, or Z
taxes, that is his prerogative.

However, cutting the pay and benefits of those who work for him is
another mater.

Mr. Barr is cutting the pay and benefits of those and not cutting his
own paycheck.

OK, fine.

Close the doors and walk away.

If the company does not survive is in not his fault ?

Mr Barr needs employees to make a company work.
Hes own paycheck is not guaranteed.

You build a company to survive to be profitable in the future, not to
milk it for all its worth until you can no longer get enough out of it.

What is business school teaching today.

No wonder Ponzi schemes are so rampant.

hamilton
 
hamilton wrote:
On 9/15/2012 3:59 PM, Phil Hobbs wrote:


I was asking about _giving_, i.e. voluntarily parting with some
proportion of your income just because it's the right thing to do, to

This is the interpretation I was talking about.

The owner of a company can take what ever paycheck he wants to, I have
no problem with that.

But he still has a responsibility to pay the taxes and obey the laws
that are required.

If he wants to close his company so he does not have to pay X,Y, or Z
taxes, that is his prerogative.

However, cutting the pay and benefits of those who work for him is
another mater.

Mr. Barr is cutting the pay and benefits of those and not cutting his
own paycheck.

OK, fine.

Close the doors and walk away.

If the company does not survive is in not his fault ?

Mr Barr needs employees to make a company work.
Hes own paycheck is not guaranteed.

You build a company to survive to be profitable in the future, not to
milk it for all its worth until you can no longer get enough out of it.

What is business school teaching today.

No wonder Ponzi schemes are so rampant.

hamilton

In other words, you don't want to follow the rules you make for others.
That's called "tyranny". Have a nice day, and I hope your side loses
big.

Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net
 
On Friday, September 14, 2012 9:02:48 PM UTC-4, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 09:14:58 -0700, Jim Thompson

To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:



The reality...



The International Franchise Association held a convention in

Washington this week where most of the Radio Shack, Dunkin Donuts,

Curves and other franchisers were grumbling about new federal

regulations, especially the impact of Obamacare.



Most, said Atlanta Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchiser

David Barr, presumed that the reports about how hard Obamacare will

hit them were overblown. "They had their head in the sand," he told

Secrets.



That is until he pulled out his powerpoint showing how funding

Obamacare will cut his--and likely their--profits in half overnight.

With simple math the small business folks understood, he spelled out

that their only choice is to slash employee hours so they aren't

eligible for company-paid health care or stop offering insurance and

pay the $2,000 per employee fine.



Barr has 23 stores with 421 employees, 109 of whom are full-time. Of

those, he provides 30 with health insurance. Barr said he pays 81

percent of their Blue Cross Blue Shield policy, or $4,073 of $5,028

for individuals, more for families, for a total bill of $129,000 a

year. Employees pay $995.



Under Obamacare, however, he will have to provide health insurance for

all 109 full-time workers, a cost of $444,000, or two and half times

more than his current costs. That $315,000 increase is equal to just

over half his annual profit, after expenses, or 1.5 percent of sales.

As a result, he said, "I'm not paying $444,000."



Providing no insurance would result in a federal fine of $158,000,

$29,000 more than he now spends but the lowest cost possible under the

Obamacare law. So he now views that as his cap and he'll either cut

worker hours or replace them with machines to get his costs down or

dump them on the public health exchange and pay the fine. "Every

business has a way to eliminate jobs," he said, "but that's not good

for them or me."



But that's not all. His experience tells him that most low-wage

workers he would have to cover under Obamacare won't take it because

their $995 share is too high, meaning those the program was set up for

won't see any benefit. And those who do will because they have major

health issues, likely resulting in higher premiums to him.



...Jim Thompson

--

| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |

| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |

| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |

| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |

| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |

| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |



I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
That's a joke rationale that's been around for a while now. I think some jackass who owns a nationwide pizza chain came out with it first. Here's the deal on these low life scoundrels: the public is picking up their employees' health care through the medicaid for which they qualify. The idea with Obamacare is to shift this burden away from the general tax payer and into the private sector. Which private sector is that you ask? It is the friggin customers of these cut-throat businesses screwing their employees and the American taxpayer by not providing health insurance just so they can make a price point for their customers. If their customers don't want to pay the nominal increase then let the market rule and put the business and its so-called services out to pasture. Obamacare was designed by people with long experience and extreme expertise in the health industry economics sector. They know quite a bit more than some shmo hawking junk food, dontcha think?
 
On Saturday, September 15, 2012 2:57:32 AM UTC-4, miso wrote:
"That $315,000 increase is equal to just over half his annual profit,

after expenses, or 1.5 percent of sales."



Ask me if I give a shit about someone making $630k a year. Ok, I don't.



Barr is an ignorant asshole. He doesn't deserve his franchises.



First of all, all his competitors are in the same boat. They have to

provide the same insurance. If he needs to raise prices to cover the

insurance, then they will too. If he is so fucking stupid that he

doesn't know this, then someone should buy his franchises and let him

retire. He can stand on the corner with a 3 corner hat and rant about

Ron Paul all day.



This shithead has 421 employees, but only provides 30 with insurance.

You know what that means? The rest are paid so poorly that they can't

afford insurance on the open market, so they just clog up the emergency

room when they are sick. The hospitals are required to treat everyone,

so the cost is then spread to those that do pay their bills. I PAY MY

HEALTHCARE INSURANCE. SO SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE!



Barr is a leach upon society. He can't go out of business fast enough in

my opinion. Let someone with a bit more business savvy take up the slack.
There's more to it than that. This junk food peddler is probably responsible for 10s if not 100s of billions of dollars of medical care for all the people with heart disease, hypertension, and strokes his product has caused! Knocking that trash out of the market would have a significant effect on reducing health insurance costs in the long run. As far as I'm concerned, his trash industry should be hammered into the ground with the same excess taxes with which they've hit the tobacco industry, the exact same reasoning applies.
 
On 9/15/2012 10:11 PM, Phil Hobbs wrote:

In other words, you don't want to follow the rules you make for others.
Hmm, I must have said something to get this kind of response.

I am not sure what tho.

I do not own a business that has employees.
I am a one man shop.

If I did have employees, I would follow the rules and take the hit
myself if I have too.

That's the cost of doing business in America.

Yes I will vote for the lesser of two evils.

The healthcare debate(?) if just todays way of the power that be to keep
the masses off their backs and after each other.


That's called "tyranny".
I have no idea how this comes in.

Have a nice day,

Thank You


and I hope your side loses big.

LOL, I hope we survive as a country, when will the shooting start ?

hamilton

Phil Hobbs
 
On Sep 15, 9:48 am, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
Envy may be tempting, but it's a remarkably bad basis for economic
decisions.  If you make it economically unattractive for business owners
to provide health care, they won't.   What percentage of your income do
you give away?
your comment "...make it economically unattractive..." highlights a
point that everyone seems to ignore

Corporations MUST maximize profits, else their managers are NOT
performing their fiducial responsibility and will be replaced.
Corporations are NOT greedy, they simply operate within a known system
of maximizing profits, duh!

If people want a corporation to do something pass laws to MAKE them do
something, or pass taxes that make it economicall attractive to do
something. But, stop the stupid bitching about how corps are greedy!

Thus, the people have can exercise control over corp in two ways -
laws and taxes. At least then if the corps don't comply they have
broken the laws or they have poor managers who will be replaced.
 
On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 06:55:33 -0700 (PDT), Robert Macy
<robert.a.macy@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sep 15, 9:48 am, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
Envy may be tempting, but it's a remarkably bad basis for economic
decisions.  If you make it economically unattractive for business owners
to provide health care, they won't.   What percentage of your income do
you give away?

your comment "...make it economically unattractive..." highlights a
point that everyone seems to ignore

Corporations MUST maximize profits, else their managers are NOT
performing their fiducial responsibility and will be replaced.
Corporations are NOT greedy, they simply operate within a known system
of maximizing profits, duh!
A corporation doesn't have to maximize profit, especially not maximize
short-term profit. Privately held corporations don't have quarterly
pressure from stockholders and can do whatever they like. We could
double our profits, but we give most of it away, mainly to employees,
but some to charities and schools. Some of what we do is longterm
investment in the business and the people, which a high-profile public
corporation might not get away with.

When a big technology company lays off 10, 20, even 40% of its
employees to increase quarterly profit it's, well, cruel and stupid.

If people want a corporation to do something pass laws to MAKE them do
something, or pass taxes that make it economicall attractive to do
something. But, stop the stupid bitching about how corps are greedy!
Agreed. Make it cheaper to create jobs, cheaper to invest longterm,
easier to import foreign earnings. It makes sense to eliminate all
corporate taxation and go to a national sales tax to raise government
revenues. That way, people would have jobs and be able to pay the
taxes. That will never happen.

And tax financial transactions, like stock transfers, to shift
investment horizons from milliseconds to years. That won't happen
either. Wall Street owns Washington.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
 
On 16/09/2012 18:34, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 06:55:33 -0700 (PDT), Robert Macy
robert.a.macy@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sep 15, 9:48 am, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
Envy may be tempting, but it's a remarkably bad basis for economic
decisions. If you make it economically unattractive for business owners
to provide health care, they won't. What percentage of your income do
you give away?

your comment "...make it economically unattractive..." highlights a
point that everyone seems to ignore

Corporations MUST maximize profits, else their managers are NOT
performing their fiducial responsibility and will be replaced.
Corporations are NOT greedy, they simply operate within a known system
of maximizing profits, duh!

A corporation doesn't have to maximize profit, especially not maximize
short-term profit. Privately held corporations don't have quarterly
pressure from stockholders and can do whatever they like. We could
But the ones with public shareholders are more or less obliged to do
everything to make sure the next quarters profits are up. There is no
patient money any more apart from a handful of smaller business angels.

UK was always much worse than the USA in this respect. Our bankers have
always been completely self serving bastards interested only in their
own personal bonus and prepared to screw any customer to maximise it.

(*) Actually to be fair I have known one or two decent ones but that was
back in the 1980's. Now everyone is just a number.

double our profits, but we give most of it away, mainly to employees,
but some to charities and schools. Some of what we do is longterm
investment in the business and the people, which a high-profile public
corporation might not get away with.

When a big technology company lays off 10, 20, even 40% of its
employees to increase quarterly profit it's, well, cruel and stupid.
It does happen with monotonous regularity though when some jumped up MBA
wants to massage the bottom line prior to selling it on or an IPO. I
have seen it happen to several companies over the years.

If people want a corporation to do something pass laws to MAKE them do
something, or pass taxes that make it economicall attractive to do
something. But, stop the stupid bitching about how corps are greedy!

Agreed. Make it cheaper to create jobs, cheaper to invest longterm,
easier to import foreign earnings. It makes sense to eliminate all
corporate taxation and go to a national sales tax to raise government
revenues. That way, people would have jobs and be able to pay the
taxes. That will never happen.

And tax financial transactions, like stock transfers, to shift
investment horizons from milliseconds to years. That won't happen
either. Wall Street owns Washington.
It may surprise you that I agree with your position almost entirely. The
challenge is how to make sure they *do* invest long term.

Taxing ultra fast ms or faster back to back transactions would seem like
a sensible way to go. I expect we will have to wait for a bad
transaction spike to totally annihilate a major corporation before
anyone takes the instability caused by high frequency trading seriously.
There will be a spectacular avalanche sooner or later.

It is even worse in the UK. Austerity all the way except for the hyper
rich who come here to play high stakes libel games in our high court.

Our present government cabinet consists mostly of multimillionaires who
have no idea about normal life or the price of milk in a supermarket.
The chancellor of the exchequer is demonstrably clueless. The thick rich
kids are in charge and do things that only benefit their mates.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
 

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