Balta1701

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 12:04 PM) I don't disagree but his stuff is amazing. Just sucks he can't just do it on a canvas rather than buildings. No one would ever have heard of him if he did this.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 01:36 PM) Isn't there a difference between viewers and people who sign up? Isn't it to be expected that people will view the site without buying right away? Yes to both. However, none of this changes the fact that the site design is a complete failure and should be a fireable offense for a lot of people.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:55 AM) I have a feeling that De Aza is good when the team around him is good, and is lazy/looks bad when the team around him is bad. It doesnt excuse it, but he just kind of looks like one of those players to me. In early 2012 he really looked good when they jumped out in front of the central. This season, it just got worse as the sox losing streaks got longer. He was terrible coming out of spring training this year and didn't start to hit until mid-May right? In other words, he was looking very bad before we were all certain the team around him was terrible. Either he knew in spring training he was on an awful team or that's why I pin it on coaching - just like everyone else, he didn't come into the season focused or ready to play at all.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:54 AM) Why should I have to pay more because you chose to do heroin? Well...it's a helluva lot cheaper than paying for the prison cell.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:50 AM) So women are payng for coverage for men illnesses? So it balances. I'll bet insurance companies are sophisticated enough to know that the only man needing OB/GYN services was Arnold Schwartzenager (too lazy to look up the correct spelling). Yes, women now have to pay for prostate cancer screenings in the same sense that men are paying to cover childbirth.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:48 AM) So the company subsidizes to a greater degree the cost for lower paid employees. That is an awesome benefit. Usually where I worked the employee was free, the employee paid for spouse, kids, or family coverage. Everyone paid the same based on the plan you picked. How much the company picked up varied from company to company. One, paid 100% no matter what coverage you needed. We had single employees request a raise because other employees were receiving better benefits. At the university I'm currently at, if you're covered, the costs of the plan are the same (although there is an option to get cheaper rates by keeping yourself in better health). I don't know if the janitorial staff is covered under that plan though. At my last university the situation was the same - the grad students and the faculty were on the same plan and paying the same rates, so the grad students were paying a much larger fraction of their possible earnings. Interestingly, this situation was an absolute boon to the faculty members because "having 1/2 of the insurance pool be people in their 20's" made the insurance pool on average a lot healthier and reduced the per-person cost of the plan significantly.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:43 AM) How? That's a requirement of Obamacare. You're right, Gender has been removed as something you can base costs on. My bad (although, I can't really disagree with that).

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:42 AM) I agree with that part of it, but the first part simply punishes the very people we're trying to help...and it won't stop them from eating fast food, since it would STILL be more affordable for them despite that added punishment tax. I think we're basically agreeing with the summation of that part of the problem, the only question would be how to make the price changes actually work correctly. Heck, I have no problem with forcing people to actually pay a larger share of their income on food if the end result is improved diets - the average person spent like 50% more on food in this country 30 years ago. People are spending less money on food because their diets are getting worse and because the government is picking up a large portion of the cost of that worse food.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:39 AM) The issue with this, is once again, you end up punishing the very people you're trying to help. Fast food, as sucky/bad as it is, is more affordable than healthy alternatives (by a lot)...so this tax you're charging, you're merely charing to the poor people you're trying to help in the first place. People with means often eat healthier than those without. If they want to truly change this trend, they have to bring the costs of healthy foods down. The average person eating at McDonalds cannot afford to shop at Whole Foods, and if they could, they most likely would. Read my 2nd statement there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:37 AM) It means he isn't really in favor of the idea. Isn't Ron Paul notorious for taking every deduction he could possibly find a way for himself to take while simultaneously arguing for getting rid of the same deductions?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:36 AM) Some of which they will never, ever use or need, like a male being covered for a pregnancy. Individual states do this differently but many states still allow different prices to be charged for males and females on account of this fact.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:31 AM) No, it's not totally. But my point was we should be designing a system whereby if you do choose to do those things (smoking, drinking excessively, eating horribly) and develop the known associated illnesses because of it, in general sense, I don't agree that the rest of society should just pick up the tab. We have excise taxes on those types of things, why can't we do the same when it comes to healthcare? In fact, don't we already? Especially with smoking? I'd absolutely be in favor of some sort of tax on high-fat fast food. I think Bloomberg's "size limit" on beverages is poorly done...but I would like to see a similar tax on products that include large amounts of sugar or hfcs. Hell, the taxpayer already pays a ridiculous fraction of the cost of producing corn syrup and hamburger meet anyway. If we're going to have farm subsidies, I think those subsidies should overwhelmingly go towards the healthiest foods, which is exactly the opposite of the system we have right now.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:32 AM) Coaching won't help. He has awful instincts. You can't fix that. Frankly, I completely disagree, I think we've seen plenty of people who improve with time, particularly when they're OF's. Maybe you can say that about 3b where the position needs the fastest reaction time on the diamond, but this is what we see when people improve on defense with experience - improvement in their instinctive reactions.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:28 AM) Okay, but what Y2HH is saying (and I'd be curious to see some background to support it) is that the reduced Medicare costs are just being shifted into increased costs for private insurance patients, so the net effect is a transfer from the young(er) to the older. This is 100% true - that's where those savings are being put. But the end result is 25 million people getting extra coverage thanks to those savings.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:25 AM) No. The same amount of money is flowing into it WITHOUT those added 25 million. They will increase the amount going into it, by a lot. Which is why insurance and health care companies stock prices have all skyrocketed, along with their revenues. If the opposite was actually true, their stocks would be tanking right now. But that isn't happening. Then where do you come up with the claim that the Medicare cost decreases aren't significant? Because that's where the money is coming from to pay for those extra people.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:26 AM) Didn't we just discuss how this claim is bulls***? And that some people who have an employer-sponsored plan are having options taken away, and price may go up? You're 100% right..."Some people" will see their plans change. However, it continues to be a small minority - and it is again offset by people who will spend less because they have also received improved coverage.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:23 AM) The CBO report isn't a lie, per-say, but it's cherry picked. Are you on Medicare? No. So that report means f*** all to you. Yes, less money is flowing into that Health and Services sector from Medicare, HOWEVER, the same amount of GDP is still flowing into that sector, it's just coming from other areas now...like you and I. Let's be 100% clear what you're saying though. Everyone in the country is covered by Medicare once they reach a certain age. If the amount being spent by Medicare is actually dropping...that means that Medicare is either refusing more procedures or is spending less per patient already. Although Medicare should be refusing more procedures (the IPAB, if it ever gets off the ground, should be doing exactly that based on science), that part of the bill has yet to take effect. The only ways for Medicare to be saving money already are either; the average person turning 65 is already healthier or the rate of cost growth has actually slowed. The results actually are in the 2nd...costs are actually growing at a rate less than predicted prior to passage of the PPACA.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:19 AM) And merely shifted elsewhere. These reports are smoke and mirrors. The same amount of money is going into that sector, whether less is coming from Medicare and more is coming from elsewhere, it doesn't matter. And again...if "The same amount of money is going into that sector" and 25 million additional people get basic health insurance...then the results are spectacular because we've taken the wasted money going in and turned it into productive health care outcomes....productive enough that the spending on the program which covers everyone in the country when they reach a certain age is already seeing big cost improvements.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:14 AM) I have no problem with the Sox trading De Aza, but this "LET'S GIT RID O' HIM, HE DUMB" attitude really gets old. I'm still going with the "God I wish some coach could get through to this guy" version of it.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:15 AM) My numbers included his time in AA. Professional, not MLB. He's at like .895 in the majors Ah, now I getcha.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:15 AM) We haven't seen a slowdown in cost growth. People keep claiming this, but it hasn't happened. -Congressional Budget office in August explaining why the 20-year Medicaid cost estimates were reduced by about a trillion dollars.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:13 AM) I think his basic point is, is that if they're being heavily subsidized to buy this insurance, we're still paying for their bills anyway. Perhaps this is a better method of doing so, but in the end, it's still being paid by the taxpayer. And my point to him is...if he wants to enforce "personal responsibility" in this case, he's going to have to come out and say that people should die to enforce it.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:10 AM) I don't think anyone here is arguing that it's a good thing to cover more people. The issue was, and IS, that nothing was done to curb costs at the source. All we did was shift the burden around more evenly...but the bills are the same (or higher), and will continue to be the same or higher. They needed to do both. They want to call this "comprehensive", but it's not. It's quite focused on insurance, and nothing more than insurance. It did nothing to curb the rising costs of care, and it did nothing to curb the rising costs of drugs. IF and only if all of that was done, it would be fair to call this comprehensive reform. Who cares if the reform isn't "Comprehensive" enough when we've already seen some slowdown in cost growth and tens of millions of people will get access to better/cheaper care? Ohhh darn, we have more work to do to make a better system...that was apparent from the start...in no small part a consequence of the rules of the Congress.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:10 AM) 100k is not reasonable, but either way this happens now, whether that person is covered or not. And again, how awful of me to expect that people will take care of themselves and be responsible for their own actions. So in other words...we can either keep the status quo where you pay the bills for those people, we can try to give them an option where they can actually have preventative care thus opening up both potential improvements in the health of the nation and cost savings, or we can stop covering them entirely and hope that their deaths are the appropriate lecture on personal responsibility.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 10:07 AM) You keep calling it affordable and for most people, it's not affordable. Because AGAIN, they did nothing to control the cost sourcing. Doctors/Hospitals/Clinics can STILL charge whatever they want, whenever they want, because there is no ability to shop around or refuse an in-hospital 20 second doctor "visit" that tacks on another 200-400$ to your bill. Prices will rise at the same rate they were rising BEFORE the law went into effect because nothing was done to control costs at the source. The Slowdown in Health Care Spending