Jenksismyhero

Ha, my employer has no written policies on anything. Literally nothing.

I've never worked for a large organization, so perhaps they cover that kind of stuff. To me it's clear someone in the admn made a call to get rid of the person that was talking bad about the program.

From the highlights it looks like Ekey is our best player. Could be a LONG year...

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 11:24 PM) Why are we pretending that healthcare reform has anything to do with "helping people get back to work"? These are not mutually exclusive and, again, it is disingenuous for conservatives to talk about legislating for jobs. That just means tax cuts, which we know doesn't create jobs. If conservatives were willing to invest in infrastructure, research, and education, things that create jobs and public goods, we'd have no sequester and the legislation would be flying through. And quit pretending that the people getting covered under the ACA somehow had it good before. They weren't getting "healthcare for free," they were getting emergency care that you were paying for. The ACA is not only trying to do one of the most basic things a government should do, it is helping those same people that are out of the workforce that you are so worried about. It was a waste of time/resources that could have been spent focusing on job creation and fixing the economy. Healthcare wasn't at a tipping point. It wasn't an absolute necessity. And you get more than emergency care on the variety of federal/state programs. People in those programs are included in the "30 million uninsured" category. It's not an awesome system to be a part of but it was/isn't some dire situation that needed to be remedied ASAP either. And you're right, I am paying for it. And I wish those people had gotten jobs so that I wouldn't have to pay for it. But i'm glad in 2013 most are still unemployed AND still receiving healthcare that i'm paying for!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2013 -> 09:06 AM) Every company I have ever worked for had a media policy that stated pretty clearly only people specifically allowed to talk to the media, are allowed to talk to the media. Everyone else is to tell them to contact those people. It is always a fireable offense. She had been on the job for a matter of weeks, she was paid like $26k so it's not like she's the brightest person in the department , and she claims that she was never told anything about talking with the media (a claim I believe given she's a call center employee).

OK, so it's Hannity and I get the "ick" factor, but just pretend its some liberal talking to Rachel Maddow and the "what the f***?" response should be the exact same: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/201...ars_salary.html

how much is a scout membership? With the number of times I check that site in my routine of surfing at work it'd probably be worth the cost.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Oct 24, 2013 -> 11:57 AM) So I moved my bed and my tv around last night, so now I'm laying on my left ear when I lay down to watch TV and what I realized is that I'm deaf in my right ear. I literally have no clue how long I've been like this, I'm thinking it was from last rugby season when I got a knee to ear area that knocked me out. I've been fine just hearing out of my left ear but I was curious if there was anything other than a hearing aid that will fix it? Some sort of operation? Could there just be something that is detached or some s***? Or when it's gone it's just gone and only a hearing aid will do the trick? I'm 26 and I really don't wanna have to rock a hearing aid. How did you not realize that you couldn't hear out of your right ear in regular day to day situations?

Ugh. Bill Simmons picks the Bulls to win the title. His reasoning (in 15 seconds of a radio interview): Rose will be a top 3 player in the league as he was 2 seasons ago, and everyone is sleeping on them. Jinxed. Over before the season even starts. Sigh.

illinoisloyalty.com cracks me up. Some guy posts a stupid picture of the chief logo with some comment like "everyone be happy" and the whole board thinks a commitment is coming. These are probably grown ass men acting like little school girls over a vague post. Sports fans are weird.

That sucks not being at full strength. I'd like a statement win against the Heat opening night.

SB's argument is akin to saying that not having gay marriage is fair because a gay man can still marry a woman. He likes men? Tough s***, life's not fair. Something tells me you wouldn't agree with that position.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:36 PM) Interesting. 16 and above. See what you think about the numbers I posted above. I counted 18 to 65, subtracted out disabled and stay at home (by choice) parents. Lots of people work from 16-18. Not working at home by choice is, obviously a choice. But yes, that number shouldn't include the disabled and/or I shouldn't have used the phrase able-bodied. The vast majority of that figure are though, obviously.

Here's the trend since 1990 (older graph, obviously still trending upwards): Not good. But man i'm glad poor people can now pay just a little instead of nothing to get their free healthcare.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:39 PM) I also don't know why BLS numbers are supposedly intentionally scary? I was playing the role of Balta, where any big number has no meaning other than to scare people out of context.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:25 PM) Where are you getting that 90 million number from? From the Bureau of Big Numbers That Are Intended to Scare People But Are Actually Not Scary (aka Labor Statistics) http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/22/more-...orce-new-record

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:21 PM) But literally every other part of the civilized world doesn't have our clusterf*** of a system and typically gets just-as-good-if-not-better healthcare for substantially cheaper and with comparable or better wait times (even if you exclude the infinite wait times for people without health care access). Even if the current Medicare system is less than ideal, there is no reason to assume that a Medicare-for-all expansion could not include improvements to the billing process. You can't look at it as a clean slate. We have an existing medicare system that is heavily flawed. We're not going to simply scrap entire departments and processes to create something new like other countries have, we're going to just expand the current system. Name me an efficiently operated government branch/department. One that actually works within budget and to a decent level of satisfaction. It's incredibly rare, if not non-existent (I can't think of one, maybe the National Park Service?). I'm not sure why you would think a medicare-for-all type system would be any different.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:11 PM) Would billing be more or less of a nightmare going to a single source versus having to go to multiple different providers with dozens of different plans and options? When it's the government dealing with 300 million people, absolutely. Medicare is a nightmare to deal with, and I only do it from the legal side. I've heard horror stories from doctors bout the fights they have to have just to get paid for services they rendered 6 months ago. The biggest driving force in our economy is a company wanting your business/wanting to not lose your business. The government does not have that concern.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 03:08 PM) But in this country today, millions of people could be without any healthcare at all, millions more would not have any without Medicare and Medicaid (and other programs like SCHIP), and most of the rest of us could be in a pretty s***ty healthcare situation today if our bosses decided to fire us on a whim. The non-governmental alternative, abandonment of the employer-based health insurance system, would leave millions more uninsured than we have now because unsubsidized individual plans are pretty ridiculously expensive. edit: and even for those of us with health insurance, private insurance companies motivated by profit and not social welfare get to decide whether your treatment or doctor or facility is covered and how hard they're going to fight to deny your claims. Every objection along these lines to a socialized health care system already exists in the private system. At least with the private insurance model you have options - you can buy into a higher plan if you know that you're eventually going to have heart disease issues or obesity or whatever because of your family. You can plan for that. I did that with my kid. My wife and I paid for a better insurance plan because we knew we would be starting a family, so guess what, we paid a little more and got better coverage. I don't get that option when the only person paying my bills is the government.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 02:42 PM) Confiscate their capital and turn it over to workers' collectives!!! Their incentive will be to avoid the gallows. Seriously, though, isn't that a pretty big flaw of our modern economic system? We've got untold amounts of idle capital and idle labor, but the people that control the capital won't let labor back to work unless they get to widen the wealth gap even more. What a waste of human potential and an enormous amount of additional human suffering through prolonged employment and impoverishment. I agree generally with the sentiment here. Not sure small/medium size businesses are hoarding capital for themselves like the big companies are, but i'm sure some do. I'm just thinking if I run a small or medium business that really could use an extra employee or two, but I don't think I can afford it, having a big tax break waiting for me might be enough to push me over the edge to hire that person.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 02:36 PM) Medicare, by the way, is not funded through the normal appropriations process, so this setup actually doesn't really apply. Medicare has its own dedicated funding stream and does not need to be reauthorized every year. The point remains that one party could hold the other party hostage during a negotation, and/or both parties could simply agree, to lower funding which would end up resulting in you not getting X treatment you may need. This is already happening although not with life/death care. Also, the billing system is truly awful with Medicare. Doctors/clinics get paid MONTHS after the treatment was rendered. That's why a lot of places don't take medicare patients. That'd be another huge problem. Accurate billing and corruption would be a nightmare.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 02:25 PM) Why should a jobs program to get people back to work be tied to "huge tax breaks" for businesses? To push businesses to hire more people. We all know the companies are sitting on profits. They COULD hire more people, but they're not. So give them an incentive to do so.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 02:24 PM) I agree, instantaneous Medicare-for-all would have been substantially less complicated and better for society as a whole than this ham-handed market-based solution. But, again, you can't have the pre-existing condition part without something like an individual mandate. And I really am struggling to see how Republicans would be less opposed to the substantial Medicaid expansion than they are to the individual insurance mandate. Given the CURRENT issues with Medicare I just don't see how any intelligent person could say this and not laugh at how ridiculous it sounds. 300 million+ receiving care paid for by the government would be the biggest clusterf*** in the history of the civilized world. Not to mention it would kill off the insurance industry and the millions of people employed in or related to it. We had to spend billions to save one stupid auto company because it was going to destroy the country, but now you want to get rid of every employee of insurance companies and people the insurance companies work with? Oh, and the realistic chance that one day the government would be deciding your health care decisions because of cost concerns. Like the UK article Alpha posted. Would you really want moronic Republican tea partiers holding up a funding bill that would determine if you get that life saving operation or not? You want that option to be in the hands of a politician?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 01:54 PM) The exchanges are one portion that is not working very well (at the federal level, I think most of the states that designed their own are doing okay). Many other parts have been implemented for a while (pre-existing conditions, coverage until 26, abolition of lifetime caps, Medicaid expansion) and are working fine. By very well you mean "at all." It's a disaster right now, just admit it like Obama has. And yes, those other parts are great, and i'm confident that had just those portions been passed the Repubs would have fought - as they do - but not near as much as they have because of the individual mandate. Which, btw, didn't help anyone for the first 4 years, and still hasn't. We're still at square one with regards to the tens of millions who are dying in the streets from not receiving healthcare via cheap insurance premiums and low annual caps to which the rest of society is stuck footing the bill.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 01:53 PM) The ARRA was passed a full year before the PPACA. Obama has since proposed additional jobs plans, but they have gone nowhere in the House. I suppose you could argue that the 2010 Republican wave would never have happened if the Democrats hadn't achieved the signature policy piece they've been perusing for decades and therefore they could have held Congress and passed additional jobs plans, but I'm skeptical given how much the ARRA had to be cut down and loaded with tax cuts to pass even when Democrats held both houses and the Presidency in the worst period of the recession. Most of Obama's claimed jobs programs were just more government spending without cuts. That was never going to fly. And then Obamacare didn't help. Had he supported a bill of increased short-term federal "investment" and huge tax breaks/cuts for small/medium sized business, businesses that kept (or increased) jobs in America, and/or businesses that simply hired full time employees, I would have fully supported it.