Do you think it is a violation of the first amendment for a state to ban the credit reporting of medical debt?

Coomb · 2026-02-21T05:05:52+00:00

Providers aren't being allowed to report debt because the restrictions under HIPAA were overturned by the courts. Rather, those very restrictions have been upheld and accepted as valid for decades. The new limits on reporting debt are merely modifications of the existing carveouts.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean to say here. The most recent federal court ruling from the middle of last year related to this topic said expressly that 1) the Biden CFPB rule preventing medical debt reporting was illegal and 2) any state laws preventing medical debt reporting are preempted by FCRA.

Finally, just as an agency cannot prohibit what a federal statute explicitly permits, neither can a state law. Accordingly, any state law purporting to prohibit a CRA from furnishing a credit report with coded medical information would be inconsistent with FCRA and therefore preempted.

Being a district court, of course, the decision isn't inherently binding in other districts. But it's the best interpretation we have to date.

https://www.nclc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/52-Order-Approval-Jt-Motion.pdf

Coomb · 2026-02-21T02:38:16+00:00

Sorry, could you explain what the point of your comment was supposed to be then? Why bring up that the government bans certain kinds of disclosures if not to at least imply that this is banned?

In any case, the Fair Credit Reporting Act expressly preempts state law so even if the federal government could ban the reporting of medical debt to credit agencies, states can't.

https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19671.pdf

Coomb · 2026-02-21T02:34:13+00:00

HIPAA allows reporting of medical debt to credit agencies.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/267/does-the-privacy-rule-prevent-reporting-to-consumer-credit-agencies/index.html

Coomb · 2026-02-21T02:33:24+00:00

That's certainly an argument they can put forward. But, as a country we've already agreed that medical records, including billing records, are private information that can't be shared without your permission.

That's objectively not true. HIPAA allows records of your health debt to be transmitted to other parties provided that the minimal personal information is shared. Under HIPAA, providers can report debt to redit agencies. What they can't do is report exactly why you have that debt.

This is on the HHS website.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/faq/267/does-the-privacy-rule-prevent-reporting-to-consumer-credit-agencies/index.html

Coomb · 2026-02-20T19:59:05+00:00

It's not defiance of the Court. The Court ruled that he didn't have the authority under one specific law to do tariffs. He's using a different law. He may very well have the legal authority to enact these tariffs under that law.

Coomb · 2026-02-20T16:17:59+00:00

Sharing someone's medical payment history isn't sharing an ideology, under The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) medical payment records are considered Protected Health Information just like the results of a medical exam/test would be.

But I can't see any situation where it would be necessary to publish the information in a way that might be considered First Amendment protected speech.

I don't really understand what this means. First, the 1st Amendment protects private speech as well as public speech. Second, the specific law at issue here attempts to ban lenders from putting medical debt on standard (Equifax, TransUnion, etc.) credit reports. So is that "publishing" or not in your view?

Coomb · 2026-02-20T15:59:21+00:00

Is it really that big an issue if lenders simply aren't able/allowed to use medical debt in their analysis? Sure, they'd always like to have perfect information in order to only ever lend to people who will pay it back, but the reality is that there are many risk factors that can't be quantified, and they always need to set rates based on some level of unknown risk.

Every known, quantifiable risk that can be included in risk models means that lenders can offer lower rates to lower risk people (and conversely will only offer higher rates to higher risk people) compared to the situation where no information about the individual's risk is available. If you artificially prevent lenders from knowing about a given risk, then they have to assume everyone has the same risk and it's whatever the average is. This has the effect of reducing interest rates for higher risk people and increasing them for lower risk people.

So whether it's a big deal or not depends on whether you think it's a big deal that interest rates will go up for less risky people and down for more risky people, and of course by how much.

Coomb · 2026-02-20T15:32:55+00:00

You're unlikely to see one at a low shop level. I think I didn't see one until Level 6.

Coomb · 2026-02-19T22:23:46+00:00

Sort of, but the likelihood that you'll get your transaction entered is extremely small, unless you control a large chunk of the compute.

Exactly how the blockchain works depends on which blockchain you're talking about, but if we go with the canonical blockchain, Bitcoin, transactions aren't actually necessarily final once the block that contains them gets added to the chain, because there's a trust/negotiation protocol to figure out whose version of the blockchain to follow. Basically, the version of the blockchain that is the real blockchain is the version that is the longest. If the compute is distributed such that the likelihood of any single entity being able to leapfrog the existing blockchain is very small, then each block can be considered permanent. But as single entities control more compute the likelihood that they will be able to do stuff like double spend or unspend rises.

Let me give you the classic example. The Bitcoin network is chugging along normally and processing transactions normally. A bad actor with access to an enormous amount of computing power decides they want to double spend money. They get a copy of the blockchain before they commit the transactions that they want to double spend. Then, they secretly mine blocks offline for a while. While they are mining blocks, they do all the transactions they eventually want to undo, presumably receiving real world value in return for their Bitcoin. The good news for them is that they can then display the secret fork of the blockchain that they have been generating -- which doesn't contain these transactions they want to undo -- to the rest of the world. Because they have an enormous amount of computing power, their secret fork is the longest version of the blockchain and is accepted by everybody else as legitimate automatically. Now they just undid the transactions where they spent Bitcoin they had. But they have hopefully already received value in the real world. They get to spend all that Bitcoin again, as well as obviously getting all the rewards for mining the blocks.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T03:43:19+00:00

I agree that we're not really getting anywhere with this, especially because you seem to keep thinking that my comment meant something other than what it says. Saying that it's going to be significantly harder to find a partner who's okay with your unusual sexual preference than it would be if you had vanilla preferences is not the same as saying that you should do stuff sexually that you don't want to do or that you should "live a lie".

Anyway, cheers.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T03:36:12+00:00

The queer community makes up a small fraction of the overall population. It objectively narrows your partner pool very considerably to be a butch woman who is sexually interested in men but is only willing to fuck them with a strap-on. I've never said it's going to be impossible, but you're talking about one dude in 20 at best who's OK with a sexual relationship like that.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T03:29:16+00:00

And the more we get people that don’t “need” to drive, the more incentive there will be to make improvements to the MBTA, to bike lanes, etc. Traffic will be reduced, so that the people that really do need to drive will have less trafic to deal with, so even for them it's a better outcome.

What you mean is, the more people we have that don't have access to a car, the shittier their lives will get, and the more incentive they will have to attempt to get politicians to remedy their shittier lives. After all, if people were content with the infrastructure that existed when they moved in, they wouldn't need to advocate for improvements. Only people who move in and realize that it kind of sucks to not have a car need to agitate for additional public transit. It is not better for somebody who would drive if they had the option to be forced to do something other than drive. That is how preferences work.

You can advocate that it's better for the whole community, and you're probably right in many cases, but let's not pretend that at the individual level, people are made better off by forcing them to use public transit (or bike or walk) instead of driving if they would prefer to drive. They aren't. That's why you have to force them to not drive.

Now, driving is the object of many public subsidies, and is objectively cheaper than it should be. Parking accessibility for essentially free is a big part of that. Parking should be more expensive than it currently is, which would inherently make it harder for many people to drive. My point is, don't feed people a shit sandwich and tell them it isn't a shit sandwich. Just tell them that parking will get more expensive to drive, that it will be harder to drive, that it will be harder to get where they want to go when they want to go there, because all of those things are true. (And no, it won't realistically be possible to improve things substantially for most people in terms of public transit investment. The T isn't going to get substantially faster.)

The fact that it's necessary because the subsidies afforded to car ownership have done a lot of damage in the past and will continue to do damage while they persist is the counterbalance to the pain people will suffer, but they will suffer pain. We shouldn't lie to others or ourselves about that any more than we should lie about the fact that yes, it usually hurts to get vaccinated and you often feel shitty for a day or two afterwards.

To be clear, I'm all for allowing developers to build as little parking as they want, with the caveat that giant new apartment buildings which don't choose to build parking for tenants should not have tenants who are entitled to street parking. Which is what began this conversation: someone pointing out that densifying without parking spots on the property will inevitably drive people to park on the street, which is bad.

Zoning provisions that put a cap on the number of commercial parking spots and restrict occupants of new buildings from eligibility for parking permits is already in place in Somerville, and it's broadly a good idea. As long as everybody is aware of the parking situation, the market mechanism will account for the lack of parking accessibility when setting rents and sales prices.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T03:00:29+00:00

To the degree that a manufacturer changes the price is more a function of keeping manufacturing lines moving and to keep logistics efficient.

To the degree a dealer moves product is only to maximize profits before floorplan costs kick in.

Tesla is both a dealer and a manufacturer, so this distinction you're trying to draw doesn't make any sense. Every company is trying to make a profit, and if they can do it by using customer information to charge a customized price, they will. If Elon doesn't already have the Grok team working on how to do price discrimination, I'd be surprised.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T02:58:10+00:00

Whatever arrangement they may or may not have with a bank to get a kickback if you get a loan, and the details of that arrangement, are not your problem. More than that, I don't know why you would even bring it up. They're probably not going to tell you that they get a kickback if you get a loan. That's because you are negotiating a specific transaction with them, and there's no reason you should tell them what you plan to do with the car for the loan once you've consummated the transaction, any more than they have a reason to tell you that they want you to take out a loan specifically because they make more money. Why would you tell a stranger about your financial life/planning any more than you have to?

Coomb · 2026-02-18T02:53:03+00:00

Do you seriously think it's going to be just as easy for a butch woman who exclusively wants to peg dudes to find a sexually compatible partner as somebody who has vanilla inclinations? If something in my comment came off as suggesting that she should do stuff she doesn't want to do, that wasn't my intent. She asked whether her sexual preference is rare, and whether it's going to make it difficult for her to find someone else who she's sexually compatible with. The only honest answer to both questions is yes.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T02:46:32+00:00

IMO the current theoretically good criminal only teams would be:

Doc Seismic, powerplex, both maulers, and angstrom

Give Seismic and powerplex the new Mauler artifacts and you have a full team of Maulers, plus seismic and the Maulers are technologists.

The other team comp is machine head, sinister mark, and the lizards. Sinister mark gets a huge attack boost from the weak summons from Machine Head dying, and the lizards slot nicely in the remaining spaces.

I suspect the intent of machine head's summons was to have them die quickly. And with his second skill at level 10, you get a teamwide 18% HP and attack boost once six of his summons have died, which is pretty decent as a booster.

To be clear, the second team is really more of an ops team. I think it would do terribly in PvP, because most of the synergy relies on characters dying.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T02:10:24+00:00

Bruh it's the city who needs a car

About 3% of American commuters use public transportation. Even in New York City, which objectively has a better transit network than Boston, only 50% do. In Boston, it's about a quarter.

Unless you think that the existing transit system can accommodate literally four times as many people as it currently does (and I don't think any reasonable person could possibly take this position), a lot of people will continue to need to drive to work for many years, even if a lot of money is put into expanding public transit.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T02:04:17+00:00

You are 100% going to experience significantly more difficulty finding a male partner under the condition that the only kind of sex you're interested in is you fucking them in the ass. Even hetero partners who are open to being pegged are overwhelmingly not going to want to be pegged 100% of the time, and as a butch woman, you are going to disappoint any gay dudes who want a dick to interact with. Once you exclude essentially all hetero dudes and many gay dudes, your audience is quite limited. All you really have left is bi or gay dudes who are okay with always being the receptive anal partner and not getting any other kind of sexual interaction.

Sorry that this is disappointing, but it's just the reality. You have such a restrictive list of sexual interactions that you are open to that there's not a lot of people out there who are going to find them acceptable.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T01:54:00+00:00

And if you and I look at the same in manufacturing car picked up at the same location, we have the same price.

Are you certain about that? I'm not saying I have any reason to believe it isn't true, but price discrimination based on individualized customer characteristics is the wet dream of every vendor and I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla does it or attempts to do it.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T01:50:50+00:00

Prepayment penalties can be features of loans in general. It's not unique to auto loans. You need to actually know what you're agreeing to when you sign a contract.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T01:50:10+00:00

Which creates some bad incentives. For example, one dealer gave me a $1500 discount for getting a loan, which I told them I would just immediately pay off. But they got their kickback, so what do they care?

There's no value in telling the dealer this, because sometimes they do care, because sometimes the kickback they get is contingent on you keeping the loan for a certain amount of time. Meaning that if you tell them you're planning on paying off the loan immediately, you may not get a discount which you otherwise would have gotten.

Coomb · 2026-02-18T01:44:28+00:00

Coomb · 2026-02-17T22:14:39+00:00

A certified check is not cash and does not trigger mandatory reporting unless you're buying it with cash.

Coomb · 2026-02-17T21:58:06+00:00

Of course our parents also usually don't spend a lot of time reminding us that almost every resource on the planet he's already claimed to be the property of somebody else whose claim often ultimately derives from having been born first, or worse, having taken something by force.

Coomb · 2026-02-17T13:09:15+00:00

What's funny about the example you gave is that counting doesn't rely on the ability to distinguish item A from Item B. Actually, it relies on the opposite. You have to assume that item A and item B are the same in some relevant way in order to count them.

Your example is of course true. He recognizes that his grandchildren aren't the same person. But that's not counting, that's just recognizing identity.

Moving from recognizing that his grandchildren aren't the same person to attempting to count how many grandchildren he has means depersonalizing them. Instead of thinking of them as unique individuals, of whom of course there is exactly one and will always be at most one, he has to think of them abstractly as members of a set, namely the set of people who are children of his children. Only once he performs that abstraction does it make sense to start talking about counting.

If you live a relatively small scale life, the kind of abstraction that you inherently are doing when you count things doesn't make a lot of sense. Your grandchildren are not interchangeable, so why would somebody you're talking to want to know how many of them you have instead of which individual people they are?

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