StrangeSox

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 04:22 PM) Because now they're stuck insuring unhealthy customers that they're going to take a loss on. They have to offset that somehow. But they can only do that because they have the leverage of the mandate, right? Otherwise, why wouldn't they be selling you the more-expensive plan before? Taking on more losses might be a motivator to really try to maximize your profitability, but BCBS wasn't sitting around not investigating how to maximize their market share and profits prior to community rating/guaranteed issue. They just didn't have the leverage/excuse to drop these less-profitable plans and only offer the more-profitable plans without all of the substantial changes in the market going on over the next couple of months.

They're going to try to maximize profits at all times--that's their job. Whether or not that have to offset new costs (community rating, guaranteed issue) or not, I don't see why they wouldn't go with the business model that pushes more people into higher-profit products. This shift could easily be a result of the incentives from Obamacare (individual mandate, new coverage minimums), but they're always going to try to have the highest possible prices with the lowest possible expenditures. Every business trying to turn a profit does that. Adding in the (mostly healthy) mid-20's crowd isn't an additional cost, it's the big windfall that's supposed to allow these companies to remain profitable (or in the case of 'non-profits,' still make enough money to pay their staff as if they were for-profit). If you want to expand coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and go with community ratings so that it's reasonably affordable for them while still working within the existing US health insurance market, I don't see a good way around what the ACA is basically trying to do.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 03:43 PM) Probably so they can afford to pay the costs of people with pre-existing stuff. I'm sure it has to do with their bottom line. If those plans were profitable before, then the only reason to cancel them would be to push people into even-more-profitable plans using the mandate as leverage.

So, if those low-premium, useful plans met the minimum requirements (or were very close, only requiring minor changes), why are the insurance companies no long offering them? It's a legitimate question.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 01:43 PM) It makes no sense to me that a health young person who doesn't use health care as often needs to pay MORE for coverage. If anything, they should pay the least amount out of anyone. Community rating. Individual underwriting is eliminated. eta: to expand on that and what illini said above, people within the same geographical area and age group are given a "community rating" and must be offered the same price for an insurance plan regardless of any pre-existing conditions (with notable exceptions, like using tobacco). So a young person is going to pay less than an older person for the same plan, but a 24yo person with chronic asthma and a couple of other previous health issues will pay the same price as some 24yo who's never been sick in their life. That healthy 24yo is going to pay more so that the sick can pay less. But the idea is that there are many, many more healthy people than there are sick people who will be added to the insurance risk pools, so the cost of one sick person is spread out over many healthy people. Again, this is the explicit design of the program from day 1, not any sort of surprise. I'll turn it over to the healthcare/economics blog, The Incidental Economist: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpres...al-mandate-too/ http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpres...-obama-edition/

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 01:34 PM) Right, now the "catastrophic" plans have high premiums too. f*** you, healthy young people. Now the "catastrophic" plans don't exist because of the mandatory minimum coverage regulations. Again, this is deliberately and explicitly how the bill was structured and written. Low-premium, questionably-useful catastrophic plans go away and everyone is mandated to be covered by a plan that meets the mandatory minimum. For an overwhelming majority of people, this will be essentially unchanged as their employer-provided plans or their Medicare/Medicaid/VA plans already meet the mandatory minimums or will need minor changes. Premiums change for plans every year, so more analysis would need to be done to show that, on aggregate, Obamacare is driving up premiums for already-conforming plans. The goal was to get coverage expanded using 1) Medicaid expansion, which was seriously gutted by the SC decision and then the decisions by many state governors to reject the expansion and 2) creating community rating plans with no pre-existing condition exclusions with premium supports while expanding the insurance policy buyer pool with the mandate such that many currently healthy people who would otherwise go without will now be buying plans (or paying the penalty). Obama's rhetoric in speeches may have been dishonest, misleading or understating the potential impact ("if you like your plan, you can keep it" really would need several caveats to be accurate), but the elimination of catastrophic plans and the expansion of the insurance pool to include more young, healthy people was the central premise of how non-Medicaid coverage was going to be expanded. They wanted to work with market-based solutions in the current insurance market with a few significant changes (pre-existing, lifetime caps, community ratings) and this is about the only way to go about it. There were other, more-progressive and likely much better choices out there, but this is the path that was chosen and it is an improvement over the pre-ACA system, though that's a pretty low hurdle.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 10:22 AM) There is no "fix" to this problem. It's insurance companies being forced to comply with the mandatory minimums of the law. This has nothing to do with the website issues. And have you seen the last two weeks of news headlines? I don't think negative statements about the WH have been taken with a grain of salt. He's being raked over the coals (well, as much as Obamajesus can be) for the messy implementation of the website. And this week we've got the added "news" that millions of Americans will be paying more and/or are being forced into new plans because of the law and that this information was known by the WH from the beginning. Why are you making this a partisan issue? Anybody who is surprised that the high-deductible, low premium "catastrophic" plans were not going to be available in the future is a dummy. This is has been clear law since the start of the thing. A major part of the reform was the mandatory minimums to ensure that health insurance plans are actually decent plans and not largely useless, and Obama and the Democrats specifically rejected McCain's campaign policy of expansion of those types of catastrophic plans. The WH knew that these minimal coverage plans were going away because that was a major point of the "Protection" part of the law. The WH knew it, Congress knew it, anybody who paid minimal attention to what PPACA actually was should have clearly known it.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 30, 2013 -> 12:50 AM) Yeah, and maps have existed pretty much since the dawn of civilization, so the fact that we have them in our phones is no major feat at all I guess. How do you not understand that having something exist, and having something exist inside of a cell phone are different things? I think it's stupid that this somehow is bothering a few of you, as if I had been proclaiming I invented this myself. Old Man syndrome

http://news.yahoo.com/the-forbes-400--the-...-181158012.html

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 29, 2013 -> 03:54 PM) Instead of the "greatest good for the greatest number" (libertarianism),

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 28, 2013 -> 11:06 AM) Climbed through Aasgard Pass in The Enchantments over the weekend with friends. Amazing trip. Incredible. We're still trying to figure out our trip for next August and may be heading out your way.

QUOTE (Benchwarmerjim @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 06:48 AM) because his foot first slide into third left him on the inside part of the base I have no rooting interest in this series (but still watch it because I like baseball) but the right call was made here. Its a no doubter. that's the way I see it too

e.g. Christopher Langan, reportedly the "smartest man in America" with an IQ of around 200, worked all sorts of blue-collar physical labor jobs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan

Yeah the assumption that your wage reflects your intelligence or even your education level is pretty ridiculous.

"Mens Rights Activists" are a bunch of horrible s***ty people http://prospect.org/article/good-men%E2%80...ement-hard-find

to bad the girl didn't have a strong union behind her to fight against bulls*** like this.

About ten years ago, my father-in-law had a loud ringing in his left ear for a day, then he woke up completely deaf in that ear. Never regained hearing in it and the doctors have no idea why.

so does anyone here know a decent amount about virtual machines/HyperV? I could use some basic help.

This appears to be the story you're referencing: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-576...e-off-the-mark/ More s***ty website problems. edit: it seems like this "estimate without providing any details" is just sort of a dumb, s***ty band-aid they tried to implement because people couldn't actually create accounts and provide details.

meh, it's been working just fine

welp http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/p..._n_4152147.html

Gravity was intense and terrifying.

Note to self: before panicking about why the server isn't showing up on the network, make sure it is turned on.

I don't think I've changed a single setting in my home router (cisco valet 2nd gen) since I set it up about two years ago now. It does get reset now and then since both it and the cable modem are on a switched outlet and the modem acts up sometimes.