Balta1701

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 12:56 PM) Yea, under the ObamaCare flag, you're sure right. The higher profits part, yea, these evil bastards make 50-60-70-80% profits... shut 'em down! Please. They do no better then most other companies out there, and in fact, many cases, worse. When Bill Clinton tried to reform the Health Care system, the "Medical Loss ratio", the amount of the money you send to an insurance company that they spend on actual medical care, was something like 95%. Today, a company's stock price will be savaged if it touches 80%.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 12:49 PM) So? Of course the current system does. YASNY. "Everyone's included, while we cut costs". It cannot be. They are going to make rationing of today's standards a pimple of an elephant's ass when they're through. Yes it can be. We just have to get the cost structure aimed in the right direction. Right now, it's aimed at: greater bureaucracy, no efficiency, higher expenditures, worse care, and higher profits.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 12:47 PM) Really? It THRIVES? Wow. They get care that is at worst equivalent in quality to ours and at best significantly better than ours and they save $3000 or $4000 a year per person while covering everyone. The Republicans would have the largest orgasm in history if you attempted to cut taxes by that amount.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:13 AM) What can I say? This game just gets me too excited. Xenophobia has the same effect on me.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 12:06 PM) *grabs some popcorn and awaits Kap's rationalization of the nazi and communist comparisons* 1. The Nazis installed government run health care in the late 1930's. Everything the Nazis did was evil, therefore government run health care is clearly a Nazi policy. 2. You're taking away the rights of people to choose to be uninsured, which admittedly does happen, although not nearly as often as some would like us to believe. 3. The whole Killing the infirm thing.

Spot on.

Something like 30 hours+ in the office if you count Monday.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:21 AM) But even the skeptical ones know that it is the end of the private sector. Except Obama... where in fairy tale land you will have insurance - no matter what - while cutting (RATIONING) costs. You cannot have both, and that is what people know. That's why they can't get traction on this. We ration. Let me say that again. We ration. We already ration. We just ration by your income level. We ration. You can't scare people by screaming rationing when those same people have been rationed out for years.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:23 AM) If Medicare pays a flat rate of $x for a procedure but the cost of that procedure costs $z (more than what Medicare pays), private insurance is paying $z for their procedures, $(z-x) to cover Medicare. Now, if it goes up $y, p.i. will have to cover their $y and medicare's $y. This hypothetical may or may not match reality. In that case though, Medicare's costs should be totally under control. They're not.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:12 AM) Because Medicare under-pays, forcing doctors and hospitals to charge private insurance more. At least that's the idea. I don't buy that, but let's hypothetically say for a second that it is correct as an explanation for that behavior. That is just a shifting of a cost from one group to another group, unless you can successfully argue that the existence of Medicare is not only driving up the costs for the private sector (it's not), but that it is also driving the enormous rate of cost increases for the private sector. The 10% increase in costs per year (give or take) overall is a different issue.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:10 AM) Sure it does. It finally puts some relief into the system to where costs aren't so high. But I guess if the government can't cut costs (LMAO - they have SUCH a good record on that) no one can. If the private sector and the current insurance market is so good at cutting costs then why are its costs growing so much faster than those of either Medicare or of the rest of the worlds?

MLB Fines Papelbon for taking too much time on the mound. Missing from this story is the part where they sent the money to Buehrle.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 09:06 AM) Oh so what I proposed is "aka doing nothing"? Right. See, there's our problem, right there. You propose government or we aren't fixing it, and that's just absolute nonsense. Period. There's no point of anyone ever saying another word to you because you are so fixated on one solution - government fixes your life. Just hand your life over to the state. You might as well. Basically what I'm arguing is that the stuff you've proposed does essentially nothing to fix the problem of costs growing towards infinity.

Very difficult that could be Yoda and I would say.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 07:25 AM) I'd like to see a copy of the speech. I bet its just the typical "work hard and get good grades" type speech. People act like he is going to be quoting Lenin and Marx. (Checks to see that he's in the Dem thread)... He'll actually be reading this.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 07:44 PM) Sure - all this does is push out the cost structure into the future. When it starts, it will either destroy the next president because the debt is dramatically higher then forecasted (that is to say, expenses of this are being underestimated) or Obama (God forbid) will have his second term, and he won't give a s***. On the other hand, if we do nothing, or attempt any of the "Fixes" you've proposed (aka doing nothing), the fact that health care costs are rising so much faster than inflation will do the exact same thing in 10 years anyway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 06:46 AM) I still would not be surprised to see a CF brought in as a lead off hitter, or to see Pods back in CF next year. I think the IF is set, as are the starting rotation 1-4, with the 5th starter coming from guys we have on the roster now. The pen will be very different next year. Please for God's sake don't make Rios in to a corner OF by default. He belongs in CF until he proves he can't take it.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Sep 4, 2009 -> 08:30 AM) Many people are saying that some are too quick to judge and next year hs should get back to his norm. The truth is his career numbers are not at all that good. He has 82 homers in 6 seasons. He has hit more than 17 homers once. He has never walked more than 55 times. People perceive him as a 30 homer guy because thats what scouts or baseball people tell us. But hes not even close to that. His numbers with us, without the face, look like Brian Anderson but he will always get a much larger opportunity than BA because of the "potential". I think his upside is a .285 20 hr guy. Hes not a superstar, hes not an all star, and there are plenty of CF better than him. He is certainly not a $60M player. I think he may have a decent year or two for us, but he won't earn that salary. I predict he will end up being one of the most disliked Sox players of our generation. There is also more context to those numbers though. For example, he hasn't exactly been playing in a hitter's park up there in Toronto. If you look at the ballpark adjusted OPS+ numbers, he's been a very solid player up through last season and was a top of the league CF and deserving all star for the 2 previous years.

Or...y'all could just re-learn the Alphabet.

That, and because it's fiscally conservative to impose arbitrary cost limits on bills these days regardless of what exactly they do.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 07:01 PM) Don't want to take at bats away from Wise. Ah, makes sense now.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 06:57 PM) Not with Ozzie Guillen as manager. Why's that?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 06:22 PM) That's not how it works. The "battle" is between the insurance and the doctor's billing offices, and most of the time just require a resubmission. Most of these denials are clerical errors or CPT (medical codes) that are not consistent with treatments. The patient never even knows about it until EOBs go out WAY after the fact, but they aren't denied because they're trying to throw people under the bus as you're suggesting. By then, they're paid for and it doesn't matter. But...that takes time and money.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 04:05 PM) Well, the Mets do need pitching, are said to be trading Reyes and Reyes would look good playing SS for the Sox next year... The Mets aren't giving you Reyes without either Danks or Floyd.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 06:16 PM) We should sign Abreu as our DH and put him in the 5th spot. That would be a great deal... Abreu put up a 1000+ OPS in July and a .655 OPS in August. He could be wearing down a bit too.