Texsox

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 04:04 PM) The right wing cannot do any such thing. The democrats have the majority in congress and have the leadership in the committees. The reason ACORN is going away is because the democrats allowed it to. ACORN's funding came from more than the government. They lost out all around.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 14, 2010 -> 06:15 PM) I would love for somebody to explain to me why the NIT and other loser tournaments exist. Well, I guess that's a dumb question since the answer is they must make money. But other than that, talk about pointless. This isn't like football where going to the crap.com bowl at least gets you more practice, which is of the essence in that sport. What a shame the NIT dropped this far. For all you youngins' starting in 1938, teams dreamed of Madison Square Garden in the spring. From then on into the 1970s The NATIONAL INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT (for emphasis) was THE Tourny. However, the NCAA decided they wanted to make some money and managed TV much better. So in answer to your question, the NIT (loser tourny) exists because they are too stuburn to give up. They probably dream of the day when teams passed up the NCAA to play in the bigger tourny, the NIT.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 03:46 PM) And yet we still pay Blackwater Xe millions. fixed

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 02:53 PM) Well, that's the way it works in most industries. In my industry, under HIPAA rules, disclosures of confidential data leads to massive fines. For example, a careless employee in a branch office in the middle of a southern small town cost my company over 75million in fines. One person at one TINY location caused this out of carelessness or whatever other reason. We fixed the situation and turned ourselves in knowing the multi-multi million dollar fine that was going to come with doing so. Why? Because we do business the RIGHT WAY. Now imagine if we had 500 such employees. Or 1,000. Or, instead of doing business the right way, we just swept things like this under the rug hoping nobody would ever find out. The point is, the fines could add up fast. This is where company/employee responsibility comes in. Other employees are supposed to make sure this doesn't happen, so one person can't sink a ship, or two, or twenty. Oversight. Properly handling business. Even at remote locations which must be checked and audited for such breeches. We take it pretty seriously in my line of work. If Acorn had done the same, they wouldn't be where they are. Ignorance is not an excuse for poor business practices or ignoring laws, rules and regulations. And believe me, we are under far stricter laws and regulations than Acorn, as is everyone in the health insurance industry, yet we seem to avoid frequent occurrences of these SPI breeches. Actually I think it is very rare to have the actions of one or two employees take down an organization of that size. I tried to find a news story about the fine. How long ago was it? How would you have felt if instead of a careless employee, a competing company planted someone and enticed the employee into reveiling the information? And instead of a $75 million dollar fine, it was large enough to close down the company?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 01:48 PM) The saddest part is you are all smarter than this, but apparently it's not hard to pull the wool over your eyes. Keep believing that ACORN is shutting down because of a vast right wing conspiracy. BEYOND ridiculous. Not a vast conspiracy, but it was a right wing group that mounted the effort to stop ACORN. And let's not fool ourselves, they targeted ACORN based on ideology. They also used entrapment, a technique that is often criticized.

I think it is sad when a couple employees' actions cause an entire organization to fold. That is bad news for a lot of people. Imagine if today you lost your job because someone in a remote office ripped off a customer. No fault of your own, but you are as much out of work as the guilty person(s).

$25 via Paypal. I will make another donation in a couple months.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Mar 20, 2010 -> 09:59 PM) For years on this board and others, I have bashed Dye's defense in RF and I have been met with a fair share of protest. Some more dellusional than others, but for the most part it seemed that more people than not think JD was/is a solid option in RF. And clearly, a strong majority, if not all MLB GMs seem to believe that Jermaine cannot play as an everday outfielder; and JD doesn't want to be paid as a 4th OF or DH, hence the current extra time to spend with the fam. So what rock did all of you crawl under this offseason? And is Hawk or Rongey under there with you? QUOTE (GREEDY @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 03:26 PM) Who did I insult? What the f***! Most people would believe it is insulting to be called delusional and being asked what rock you crawled under. The opurpose of the trhead was not to discuss or even debate a player and his abilities, the thread was basically you calling out posters who disagreed with you. But I can see where you are confused over who was insulted because the list of people that disagreed with you about Dye's defense is basically zero from any threads I could find in a search.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Mar 23, 2010 -> 08:41 AM) If anyone said insurance companies don't profit, they're misinformed or lying. They do profit...they just don't profit that much. You know who has higher profits? Doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and the like...which will continue to have the same (or higher) profits than they have right now. And I see people spouting these percentages of administrative overhead when it comes to insurance companies, with no evidence to back these claims. From what company? I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I assure you our administrative overhead is nowhere near 30%. That reeks of cherry picking inflated statistics from what is probably the worst run health insurer in the country and using it as a blanket fact applied to all. The bill does a hell of a job curtailing the huge 3% profits from health insurance companies... But does nothing to curtail the even higher profit margins from drug companies, hospitals, etc. In essence, nothing truly changed...we're just going to have raise your premiums even more now. Whether you pay for it or the government/taxpayers help, we're still getting paid. Doesn't sound like much was accomplished in terms of cost savings, which was the key point of this entire thing... Since I own quite a few drug companies (stocks), I just did a quick check of some of the money they make -- oh, and thanks to this bill, I'm banking on those drug companies now. Merck Revenue: 23,850,000,000 Cost of Revenue: 5,582,000,000 Minus R&D, Admin, and other -- 5,053,000,000 CLEAR profit. And yes, those are billions, with a B. Bristol-Myers Squibb Revenue: 18,808,000,000 Cost of Revenue: 5,140,000,000 Minus R&D, Admin and other -- 5,052,000,000 CLEAR profit. I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield. It would take us 7.5+ YEARS to clear that kind of profit. It's actually considerably longer than that, but I don't have exact numbers so I'm giving an ultra liberal estimation there. In reality, it'd probably take us longer than a decade to turn that. The best part is, part of this reform was made via back room deals with those drug companies -- so those profits you see above, they're about to get a whole lot bigger. Not that I'm complaining, it'll put my kids through college. But the point is, you watched the left hand, when the trick was being done with the right. One TINY area of health care was "fixed", while the larger parts of it were left alone, or actually HELPED. Good job. I do not get too worked up over profit. Their are too many factors that determine profits. Perhaps the drug companies could be less efficient and pay their employees more to match profit percentages. What we should have is a level playing field and then allow companies to profit as they can.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) I am posting the link to my facebook page. This should be fun..... I did the same thing. About 75% of my friends are GOPerheads.

The "baby killer" congressman came forward. I hope the story ends quickly.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 02:57 PM) It's not perfect (nothing in this bill is) but there's actually an effort in the bill to change that. One of the medicare changes that kicks in after 2014 is to start changing how medicare pays out. Currently, as you note, most health providers get paid based on numbers; you do more treatments, you earn more. This, of course, encourages doctors to over-prescribe and over-treat, rather than focusing on the outcome, because that's where the profit is. There is a task in the Medicare change part that will, at least at some level, put incentives into Medicare payments for positive overall health care outcomes, rather than number of procedures. No one knows at this point if it'll work and it's somewhat complex, but that's exactly how you want the pay structure to work. I like the path this takes. Overall, as more and more concrete examples of the plan being implemented come out, I think we will be pleasantly surprised.

That's good enough for me. I hope the story ends quickly.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 22, 2010 -> 09:20 AM) While I am disgusted by the absurdist over the top messages being spewed by the right on this, I actually agree that mandating people have health insurance is a bad idea. I brought up car insurance as an anaology, just for discussion - but driving is a privilege, not a right. Can anyone else think of a situation where the federal government required the purchase of a product or service from everyone in this way? Paying for the government itself. Taxes. We are paying for all sorts of goods and services in that way.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 10:04 PM) Well, I now have health insurance until 26. No need to get a job then...i'll just collect unemployment and live like a king. Welcome to my utopia You need a job for a while before getting unemployment.

Some GOP lawmaker called Stupak a "baby killer". Nice.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 09:54 PM) Clearly, I've been doing that. GOVERNMENT SAVES!

216 Done. Let's hope this works as well as many believe it will.

No video of lawmakers announcing yea or nay. Electronic voting.

Over 200 GOP amendments are included in the bill. At least according to the Majority Leader.

Could we have just a little bit more partisanship?

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 08:59 PM) Didn't stop Mike Pence and Eric Cantor from claiming that this bill still pays for abortions... I'm confused. And for the record Paul Ryan sounded like Cicero compared to Pence and Cantor. yep, to save a mother's life.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 08:45 PM) Today, over 200,000 protesters gathered on the Capitol steps to protest the Health Care bill. As per usual, the media ignored them completely. Damn liberal media. Oh wait, they were immigration reform advocates. They're ok to ignore. Look, 200 tea-baggers! Gotta love the tea party folks. They know how to get on TV

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Mar 21, 2010 -> 08:12 PM) No, it really isn't but keep pushing those talking points. x2

The GOP has to make this out to be the worse thing ever in the history of humanity. Something that will destroy America unless they are elected to undo it all. The Dems have to make this out to be the greatest moment in the history of mankind. The truth is somewhere in the middle. We're a great nation and will do health care better than any other nation on earth. For everyone.