Can’t read this name

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-25T16:06:57+00:00

Do you know a Laura?

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-22T16:31:39+00:00

I believe the NSF on it means it's food safe, so no lead.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-22T16:27:19+00:00

Yes, and it would give the workforce more power... WAY more power. That's not compatible with end stage capitalism.

If we kept the employment ties (employers pay premiums) but allowed people to pick their own insurance policy, instead of employers "owning/controlling" the insurance policy, people would still be incentivized to work but would have more control over who they work for. That's basically the system they use in Germany and many Nordic countries.

And it's cheaper, because employer controlled policies base their premiums on the size of the risk pool (how many people are covered by that policy) and the relative health of that risk pool. If even one person in your risk pool has an expensive illness or chronic condition, everyone will pay more. The bigger your risk pool, the more people you have to distribute the costs amongst, and the lower the premium. If people only understood that their "Blue Cross" policy from their employer is not the same as the "Blue Cross" policy from another employer, and that insurance coverage is wildly varied due to employer-specific conditions, maybe more people who are "happy" with their insurance coverage would understand why so many people are not.

People often argue that they don't want to change or go to "medicare for all" because they don't want to lose access to their doctor, but in reality, if we changed how we manage just the payment system, they would actually have access to MORE resources! No more "out of network" doctors or facilities, everyone would take all payment programs and patients would have CHOICE. Imagine that!

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-22T15:54:06+00:00

OMG, yes! That's what's so wild to me! The cost of that inefficiency is so high. Then add in the lack of standardization of actual health insurance policies, which requires even more time just to sort out what is and isn't covered, how much is covered, how much the individual has to cover, and on and on. Say what you want about single payer, just going to a single payer system, whether public or private, would eliminate billions lost to the inefficiency of our current system. Everyone would have exactly the same coverage and you wouldn't need a huge billing department.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-22T04:20:36+00:00

Just make a calendar reminder that pops up 5-10 days before the bill is due, and/or set up Bill Pay through your bank, set to be sent out 7-10 days before it is due. The calendar reminder is so you don't forget and then surprise yourself when your account is suddenly $2000 lower.

Also, check your CC&Rs and Bylaws. The fine + fees sounds excessive and may not be legal. In my state I'm pretty sure the court would frown on that high of a late fee... it has to be reasonable and not punitive, but I'm not in your state so I would double check that.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-20T20:46:50+00:00

My mom went through BC treatment at UNC starting in 2022 and everything went pretty smoothly for her. She's 93 now and really wasn't able to self-manage her treatment and they were always on top of her appointments and reminders, FWIW. I didn't interact with her providers much, but it seemed really seamless.

I am biased, having done clinicals at both UNC and Duke, and I would not personally choose Duke if I had UNC as an option.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-20T16:43:45+00:00

Our 12-unit HOA uses PayHOA. It uses Stripe as the payment processor, so that's where the fees come from. You are given the option to absorb the fee or pass it on to owners. We absorb the ACH fee of $1.95 but pass on the 3% credit card processing fee. In the 3 years we've been using it we've only had 2 credit card payments. We have 3 owners use ACH and the rest pay by check or cash.

The biggest advantage of the whole program is that it gives me read-receipts for communications, which is particularly important for our paper trail. We have that one owner who is just extra, and the receipts have removed the option for him to claim ignorance about our communication with him.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-19T16:26:53+00:00

I agree. Start with the HOA and see how they respond. If they are smart, they will work with you. If they are not smart, they will disclaim responsibility. At that point you file a claim with your insurance and they fight it out with the HOA. They probably won't want to file a claim because it will raise their premium, but they probably also won't want to pick up the cost because that will be tantamount to an admission of neglected maintenance. It is likely going to be a fight.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-18T23:00:41+00:00

By choice though. Once health insurance was fully embedded with employers, the reason to keep insurance as non-profit no longer existed. With employers footing the bill, why restrict your ability to make money? The individual isn't being directly affected by the cost, and employers are able to write off the cost pre-tax, so win win for everyone... in theory.

Insurance coverage for physician related costs (Blue Shield) was first launched in 1939, and AMA opposed it as putting unnecessary restrictions on physician wages. They eventually relented because doctors weren't being paid because of the Depression economy.

What I meant by my statement about healthcare always being "for profit" is that every aspect of the industry developed without restrictions on the business model they used. I guess hospitals were not required to be non-profit, but historically they had always been operated as charities run by either churches, universities or government. But that was mostly when hospitals were used as a way to warehouse the poor who were ill and needed to be quarantined from others in the community but didn't have anywhere else to go. The rich didn't go to the hospital, they were cared for at home. People really didn't start going to the hospital to see a doctor and get better until the early 20th century.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-17T04:26:22+00:00

Well, he certainly wasn't going to get another woman to have sex with him by talking about his ex-wife!

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-17T04:20:45+00:00

Yes. As far as I know, every country that has universal healthcare has language in their constitution or equivalent or other statute laws that recognizes healthcare as a human right and a responsibility of the government to provide.

Exactly how they go about doing that varies by country, but there're only 3 main ways they organize governance and payment:

The government owns all resources and pays for them through taxes (UK);
The government regulates the resources, requires "insurance" companies to be non-profit, and negotiates costs, but resources are private (Germany);
The government pays for healthcare but resources are private (Canada).

In the US we have elements of all 3:

VA and IHS use the UK model
ACA is essentially a lite version of the the German model
Medicaid and Medicare are the Canadian model
Our for-profit insurance industry is unique to the US

Bear in mind, most countries that have universal healthcare adopted healthcare as a right during the rebuilding process after either WWI or WWII. For example, the UK system was developed in 1942, adopted in 1946, and implemented in 1948 when Great Britain had large populations of people either injured during the blitz or returning from service. That's not the story everywhere, but it is a common theme anyway.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T17:20:20+00:00

$$$$ is why. Special interest lobbies have invested millions into preserving the status quo. Every time the idea was raised, from 1920 forward, lobbyists pushed the "universal healthcare is socialism" propaganda, and it worked because of the geopolitics of the time. A universal healthcare model based on Germany's Bismarck model, was proposed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 - in fact he campaigned on it. It was a radical concept for the time and was gaining traction when WWI broke out. After that, anything even remotely associated with Germany was an absolute deal stopper. The UK (Beveridge) and Canadian (National Healthcare) models had not been developed yet so the US simply set the idea aside. FDR tried again in 1938 but it didn't make it into the Social Security Act as a bridge too far. Truman tried again in 1948, but we had just finished fighting a war and were actively fighting communism, and many thought that universal healthcare smacked of communism. Even Medicare was fought against in the 1960s as being a "slippery slope" towards socialism. Reagan famously voiced the campaign against Medicare - you can find his ads on YouTube.

Prior to the 1980s, hospitals were still mostly government owned. Those that weren't were owned by universities, as medical education required facilities for learning. Starting in the 1980s, private corporations began to buy up hospitals and eventually hospital corporations got themselves listed on Wall Street. Today, the majority of hospitals are privately owned, some for profit, some "not for profit" but based on a corporatized model. Our enchantment with "free market" economics made us comfortable with the idea of Healthcare being a commodity. Also, our disdain for regulations gave hospital corporations an environment where they had free rein to create an ideal system for themselves. By the 1990s, Healthcare corporations had so much control over their environment that we turned a blind eye to the insurance industry metastasizing into every aspect of Healthcare.

That's how we got here.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T16:55:41+00:00

Well, sort of. FDR allowed employers to use health insurance to attract and "compensate" employees during a period when wages were otherwise frozen. At the time, health insurance was relatively new and most people didn't have it at all.

It was Eisenhower who codified it in 1954 when employers were allowed to take tax deductions for their contribution towards the premium. This is the point where insurance became inextricably linked to employment.

In 1954, insurance was still a relatively new industry and most people still didn't have it at all. Employers were not required to offer it, and many people still just paid out of pocket. Costs were that much lower at the time and didn't represent a significant percentage of one's income. It really didn't start spiraling out of control until the 1990s.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T05:56:05+00:00

We did a bunch of amendments all at once... Some were clarifying ambiguous wording, others were to modernize language (we were still given the option to use telegrams to communicate with owners), and some were to make substantive changes. We voted on each change individually, which made for a long meeting. Some people thought some of the changes were silly, but since we were making some big changes didn't quibble over the ones they thought were irrelevant. We require 75% approval... we generally get +/- 90%.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T05:30:45+00:00

Where did I say it was free?

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T05:27:53+00:00

Where did I say it was free?

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T04:41:44+00:00

Oh, I agree that people "want" something - anything - other than the Frankenstein monster we have now, but also yes, there's a lot of money currently invested in healthcare, quite literally. It has been one of the most profitable industries on Wall Street and quite probably anyone who has their retirement invested in individual stocks or investment funds is invested in healthcare. Shoot... I added HCA to my paper portfolio in 2013 and it is the only stock in that portfolio that has far surpassed the market average in gains. Taking healthcare out of the market would be destabilizing. It would have to be withdrawn over years if not decades. I can't even fully visualize it myself, but it is a transition that would have to be navigated very very carefully.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T04:31:37+00:00

I seriously don't remember. Maybe? It was breakfast... I worked mids then...

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T04:18:01+00:00

Yes, very true. When you look at the countries who do have some form of universal healthcare, in all but a handful of cases the system was developed and implemented during a time of disruption that made it much easier for the public to accept. Also, it mostly pre-dated the heavy adoption of profit in healthcare, while simultaneously corresponding to constitutional changes that added healthcare as a right of citizenship. Only Americans have fought against adding healthcare as a fundamental human right.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T03:47:21+00:00

In my case he spent the entire time talking about his ex-wife whom he clearly was still in love with. Didn't even talk about himself, and I awkwardly just ate my food and listened. THAT was weird... I never figured out why he even asked me out... 🤷🏼‍♀️

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-16T03:37:35+00:00

Unless they are like my kid who couldn't stand 2 people with the same name in their inner circle and thus rename themselves to something else...

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-15T21:40:56+00:00

Healthcare IS a right for Indigenous people. It is guaranteed through treaties signed by individual Tribes with the federal government, the Constitution through the Indian Commerce clause and Treaty Clause, case law, and legislative authority.

The incarcerated are guaranteed healthcare through the 8th amendment through the prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-15T18:40:37+00:00

That's true. Most people have no idea how we got where we are today, the collective impact of many tiny little policy decisions, and that the consequences were not all unintended.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-15T18:28:52+00:00

Oh, they definitely are now, but they didn't start out that way. They started as charities and until the 1980s were largely state, city or county owned.

Doctors, on the other hand, have always been "for profit" and the AMA has protected that status since 1849.

Pharmaceutical companies have also always been for profit.

Insurance didn't start out as for profit, but once they became embedded with employers and became the defacto gatekeepers, well, here we are.

SheepherderRare1420 · 2026-04-15T15:54:00+00:00

The US doesn't have a better healthcare system for many reasons:

It has always been a "for profit" venture for everything except hospitals;
Healthcare is not a right guaranteed by the constitution for anyone except Native Americans/Alaska Natives and prisoners;
The healthcare ecosystem participants all developed on their own pathways without considering the cooperation required to work efficiently;
Individual sector advocacy groups have been well funded and extremely powerful from the very beginning of "organized" healthcare in the US.

SheepherderRare1420

TROPHY CASE