You don't want a vaccine? Lovely. We will be canceling your health insurance. Since you've chosen to be a complete cunt, we've chosen not to pay for your utter cuntiness.

I work in health insurance. The three biggest contributors to the price of insurance are:
1: fraud (doctors are notorious for this)
2: general waste (upbilling; unnecessary tests that are only performed to keep the fucking ambulance-chasing lawyers from filing malpractice suits because someone got the shits from an antibiotic)
3: PREVENTABLE HEALTH ISSUES. This includes obesity, smoking, not exercising, not getting annual checkups and atrocious dietary habits as first-order issues. If not corrected, these lead to more expensive and longer term second-order issues: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, vascular disease. These issues start a feedback loop with the second-order effects cause immobility which contributes to increasing first-order effects which amplifies second-order effects -- lather, rinse, repeat.

Now add a good case of Covid to that mix. If you end up on a ventilator for two week, there's a mil-plus in hospital bills: someone has to either pay that (welcome higher insurance rates!) or the hospital has to eat it (welcome even HIGHER insurance rates!) You can bitch all you want about the cost of healthcare in America, but you're paying for every dumb, entitled asshole who spouts shit like MUH FREEDUMS!! when asked to do basic things to protect themselves and others.

tl;dr: your idiot views of what the actual fuck "freedom" is ends at my wallet. Fuck you and get your goddamn vaccine. And put down the Cheetos while you're at it.

When I first saw all those people without health insurance crashing into the dock I was horrified. But then as the concrete ripped through the hull of thousands of people working for an unlivable minimum wage, I felt a little bit of satisfaction. Anyway, you can be sure that monument to forced overtime without compensation is insured and if there are any remaining costs, they can be covered by suspending pay raises and bonuses for another year.

So many houses are going to be total losses. With any luck insurance will cover most, but my guess is there are going to be a TON of individuals left holding the bag.

totally agree. right now the only way to get them irritated is their insurance premiums become too high, hence defund the police, however ideally it comes directly from the cop or the pension.

Arson plain and simple. They should be charged with murder 1 for any deaths, and all 8 million in damages....not just the one guy who fired the shot but everyone involved in setting up the firebomb.

They went to a bone dry field of brush to create an explosion in the middle of waist high dead grass without clearing the fuel from the site and without bringing any fire suppression equipment, not even a wet towel, that makes it intentional arson....or a case of being too dumb to be allowed to live.

No reasonable person could NOT foresee that a huge tannerite explosion in a <2% humidity field of fuel would start a fire, and running away without even trying to put it out makes it again 100% intentional.
This moron and his family should just be harvested for organs, it's the closest they could get to actual restitution. This $500 a month nonsense is outrageous. 100% of the family's assets should be forfeited, including houses, cars, pensions, anything of value...and left with < $1500 a month from his salary....a fourth year agent makes an average of $125000 a year plus 64 days of paid time off, family health and life insurance, retirement starting at 50 with full benefits, employer matched savings, pension, etc. $500 a month ($6000 a year) is insulting and not even noticeable to his finances considering his salary, $5000 a month isn't enough, and would still leave him with $65000per year + all those benefits....not to mention whatever his wife brings in. That's absolutely outrageous. I feel like restitution of $100000 a year until it's fully paid off is being generous considering the damage he caused.
Side note, this is the level of intelligence the border control agency accepts. We need an IQ minimum for public servants, I'm pissed one penny of my tax dollars go to pay brain dead slugs like him, and that total morons like him are armed and given authority is asinine.

15) LOL yes and many also lost health insurance - this does not mean they are better fed, or better off, or alive even.

So you have to ask the person kidnapping you nicely to use one zip tie of questionable quality insuring to position it correctly with your hands in front. If they use zipcuffs or multiple heavy duty ties or put your hands behind your back do you tell them they're doing it wrong?

Oh yes it is.

His whining does not make a legal case for fraud. There's no evidence of fraud besides the numerous failed Republican attempts at defrauding the election.
Just like the last election when he falsely claimed 3 million fraudulent votes cast for Clinton, wasted millions investigating, and found NOTHING. Courts don't deal with whining little bitch's nonsense, and he has zero evidence of fraud. That's why his court cases are being tossed all over, they're nothing burgers.

The only doubt is in the weak minds of cultists who think Little Donny tells the truth. 4.25 million more legitimate votes for Biden even after the massive vote suppression campaign, even with 300000 missing mail in votes for Biden, even after Barr and others joined the foreign born smear campaign against Biden (that the Republican senate denounced as utter bullshit), even with Trump's armed suppression gangs threatening violence at the polls, Biden crushed him. Imagine if the Democrats had put up someone like Butigieg, might have been a >10 million difference.

Biden is on track to top 270 today. Trump has no path to 270. Disputed ballots aren't a thing. Sorry sunshine. Once the ballots are out of their envelopes and counted, it's over....and they are. Stop the count....Biden wins. Count all votes...Biden wins bigger.

The ONLY chance left is complete subversion by Republican governors, replacing electors with pro Trump electors and ignoring the vote....which will not work but will get them killed.

Duh....who do you think Pelosi is going to choose if it came to that, which it won't?

🤦‍♂️

Bye Felecia...i hope you got that suicide insurance

Every trump chump rally has been a super spreader event.

According to public health officials in five different cities in three different States, Donald Trump's rallies have in fact been super spreader events for COVID-19 and the health officials looked at the hospitalization rates in their areas, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19, the number of new COVID-19 cases and through contact tracing, were able to determine that these were people who attended Trump's rally or have been in close contact with people who attended Trump's rallies.
These were two in Pennsylvania, two in Minnesota, and one in Wisconsin. These took place several weeks ago, kind of before the really big rally blitz that he has been on the past 10 days.

He may singlehandedly be responsible for the second wave that's starting, Friday was the worst day for infections and hospitalization, Saturday was the second worst. You morons are killing yourselves off for Trump, and those that can get into a hospital and survive the ICU have an average $80000 bill, not including those that require lifelong care from brain damage or lung failures.

I hope Biden makes owning a maga hat the one pre existing condition that invalidates covid coverage, and insurance companies deny you all.

Sounds to me like a commercial for single payer.

Not only does everyone save the 20% off the top insurance takes but that adds nothing but red tape and hoops to try to deny coverage, but we cut the red tape and split the hoops too. Prices would be fairly fixed (with some leeway between say San Francisco and Redding, seriously affluent vs lower middle class, high rent vs low rent) which would drastically lower costs with one group of 350 million to negotiate most favored nation pricing for everything like Trump promised by it didn't deliver, and insurance still available for preferential treatment or private practices like most single payer nations have.

I will agree, what ever the cause, quality of care and access to care are both on a downward spiral, and something needs to change. Fighting over covering everyone or making it a pay to play (read as pay to live) system where many go to drastic lengths to get care, be that crime, 4 jobs, or just a willingness to not pay is not solving the problem, it's creating it.

Then they plopped covid on all of it like epoxy in the lifters. Thanks Trump. ;-)

That is on top of insurance. We pay roughly 275 dollars per paycheck for both of our insurance. Before the ACA, that insurance was sufficient to cover our doctor, etc.

After the ACA, more and more independent doctors are going to the concierge or direct pay method. Most of the reason given is the extra red tape. They apparently would rather charge for the office visits and minor tests via fee/concierge payment instead of trying to wade through the post-ACA insurance hoops.

Here in Texas, it is rapidly splitting into 3 groups. Lower quality doctors that remain independent, good doctors like my old one who are going direct pay/concierge, and doctors that are part of a multi doctor clinic.

You're kidding. You can get good care (I assume anything non surgical?) For $1800 a year and you don't?!? I pay that three times over for insurance that pays almost nothing until I'm $4500 out of pocket, and compared to today's market here that's a bargain.

Here I'm lucky to have a doctor at all. We have a huge shortage, always have since I've lived here.

Do you really see it getting better without the aca? Can you tell me why, since normally any improvements wouldn't go to patients or level of care but instead to higher profits?

I sure don't recall when advancements of any kind led to lower health care costs on average...my thought was the aca just spread the pain of paying for the indigent, and gave them preventative care to lower their need for expensive treatments we pay for either way, with higher insurance rates covering care for the poor and lowering overall costs or with higher care cost, leading to higher insurance and more unhealthy poor skipping out on higher bills.

I absolutely think single payer is best. Costs can be negotiated by the entire country, leading to lower costs. Everyone gets basic care, no one skips on their bill, leading to lower costs. 20% that the insurance industry takes from every medical dollar goes away, leading to lower costs. Like other nations with universal healthcare, anyone who chooses can buy supplemental insurance that covers better, more comfortable care like private rooms or choice of top doctors, so nothing's lost for patients. The only issues I see are ideological.

Yeah, I can only say for certain what has happened here. Most doctors that run private practices and are rated well slowly started transitioning to either a service that charges a large amount of money per patient per year, in addition to insurance, or they simply posted on their website they no longer accept insurance. They call it direct primary care, like you pay a fee per month.

https://reason.com/video/doctors-direct-primary-care/

My doctor joined a concierge service called MDVIP. I just checked and he lowered his rates to 1,800 per year per patient. Whether you go or not. He was a great doctor, but I refuse to pay 3600 per year for my wife and me to see a doctor. Not when they will bill our insurance as well for any actual visits/treatments.

Instead we had to switch to Austin Regional Clinic, who has an amazing lab and bloodwork team, but the doctor situation is as I mentioned before. There is no feeling that I have a personal doctor. Usually they schedule me with whichever one is available or a PA. Every time I have to re-list what meds I am on and what existing conditions I have because they don't remember. You would think they could look at a chart, but they are so busy every time. It's like sex in high school, in, out, and thanks for coming.

We've tried some others, even a few private practices, but none have been up to par. All of them seem to be super busy and have trimmed their staff to the bone.

If the ACA isn't changed or doesn't go away, I don't see it getting any better.

Oh please. It wasn't from a lack of effort, it was 100% due to republicans wanting nothing to do with fixing health care and refusing to discuss it at all beyond screaming about how bad it would be...because Obama suggested it. They spent years trying to offer compromise solutions, all ignored. The only way to move forward was to ignore the group that wouldn't accept ANYTHING suggested and wouldn't make any suggestions themselves. Eventually they came to their senses, tailored it for the senators that might vote for something, and went forward. You call it ramming it through, I call it circumventing the roadblock of republicans who would never under any circumstance vote for any Obama plan. This was essentially the Republican plan from decades earlier that they said was hyper liberal.

Fixing it properly would be moving to single payer, which no republican would vote for and red state democrats would be committing political suicide. They fixed (broke) it just enough to get those red state dems to vote for it.

It's pretty disingenuous to claim they just slapped it together quickly as a slap at republicans. They took years and had to move forward with imperfect compromised progress instead of disastrous status quo.

Now, rather than trying to fix it, Republicans have spent 10 years trying to just kill it, leaving the higher insurance and higher bills but removing all assistance and pre existing conditions safeguards.

Remember, the ACA was barely passed and had to be watered down so red state democrats would vote for it, then the states had the option to opt in or out of federal assistance. Those that opted out all had terrible experiences with higher insurance costs, states that opted in had relatively stable costs and millions insured, lowering medical costs across the board (because they didn't have to eat 30% of bills and pass the cost to the rest of their patients). Should have been universal single payer. (Side note, my insurance went up 5-10% before Trump, and more than doubled under Trump. I've had the same policy since 08.)

Funny, the people I recall claiming Daesh was a nothing burger were all Republicans, Democrats were pushing to take them on immediately when they emerged in northern Iraq. You do remember who took us into Iraq with no plan to leave, right? Not Obama.
Wasn't it Bush who decided the rules for war in Iraq, like everyone's a combatant? Obama failed to fix them and that's why he lost my second vote, not doing enough...granted he had a pure obstructionist Senate so was stimied, but I expected more.

I feel like people's political memories only go back through Obama now, and that's just dumb. Our history is much longer, our memories should be too.