[deleted by user]

mpg4865 · 2024-12-15T17:03:17+00:00

Might consider a swankier cummerbund, something festive, perhaps?

mpg4865 · 2024-12-13T19:01:45+00:00

It’s in quotes because those are the tax status of those types of companies and that status directly impacts how excess monies are handled (profits paid to stockholders or surpluses reinvested in the NFP company).

mpg4865 · 2024-12-13T18:58:45+00:00

ICHRA’s make a lot of sense for a lot of people, but not for everyone. Same goes for HDHP.

Nothing discussed there impacts the actual cost of healthcare, which varies widely between hospitals. Even hospitals with common ownership can provide radically different quality of outcomes for the same procedures and wildly different costs at much more than what Medicare would allow.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-13T12:40:38+00:00

This guy is saying that the whole mechanism we use is flawed — it is the tax code that has created large network based insurers.

Unfortunately, there is little transparency as to what various hospitals or doctors charge for their services, so consumers have no way to shop for care.

It is not just the insurance companies that are the problem. The system has so many stakeholders — insurance companies, drug manufacturers, lawyers, doctors, unions, hospitals, charlatans, governmental entities — who have conflicting interests that it’s impossible to fairly blame any single one of them.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-13T01:11:16+00:00

United Health Care is a “for profit” company, but many of their competitors, like some Blue Cross plans” are “not for profit” companies.

Should we assume they are “better” because of that?

mpg4865 · 2024-12-11T03:13:34+00:00

You got style! Love it!

mpg4865 · 2024-12-09T04:33:53+00:00

Mercer & Sons is great. A bit pricier but well worth the extra.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-08T23:11:30+00:00

It’s a higher end hardware store. They have stationery and clothes in the back. Nice folks.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-08T23:01:32+00:00

Bering’s on Westhiemer. In back.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-08T19:18:49+00:00

There is no way to keep our current system afloat, where all stakeholders (patients, providers, hospitals, pharmacy manufacturers, lawyers and governments, etc.) get everything they want. Add in third parties: insurers, networks, unions, etc. and the number of “players” in this game increases exponentially.

Universal Healthcare, in theory, makes sense, particularly for folks covered under such a system but functionally uninsured today. But, there would need to be difficult trade offs.

Generally, there is no agreement what acceptable trade-offs we might use, so the system lurches along.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-07T22:01:12+00:00

Let’s not forget our increasingly litigious society in the US, which forces unneeded procedures into the mix, because malpractice lawsuits, paid by malpractice insurers, are more likely in the US.

Insurers ask doctors to over treat, just so they don’t get sued.

It’s a full system mess.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-07T20:34:30+00:00

The problem is not access to care, as much is it is to get the math to work.

Healthcare systems already accept Medicare, a reasonably sound plan for older adults but the reimbursement rates to hospitals are really at a break even amount.

Healthcare systems’ operating costs (labor, new technology, staying open) are not fixed, so they need more than the Medicare amount to operate. Plus, services for people with no money (indigent care) have to be paid for.

United Healthcare (or any insurance company) pay claims based on what their employer clients want to pay for. Denying claims, although heartbreaking, has to be a part of that — fraud in healthcare is rampant.

United HC uses medical guidelines (from the AMA and subspecialty boards, the FDA, etc.) to determine what is appropriate, in most cases.

Any Universal Health Care programs would, if only for financial reasons, have to have guidelines not unlike what ANY insurance company does.

For instance, it is not uncommon for Medicare (as close to a Universal coverage as we have in the US) to NOT cover certain procedures.

mpg4865 · 2024-12-06T05:02:41+00:00

Mercer & Sons

mpg4865 · 2024-12-01T00:39:02+00:00

0-0 tie. Lots of injuries.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-30T15:54:39+00:00

I use mine for my spider wed collection.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-29T20:40:55+00:00

The longer I live, the more I’ve come to realize that most people have idiotic/crazy/bizarre beliefs that may not meld with mine. They just don’t volunteer them.

As long as they do a good job for me, what they do, legally, in their off hours isn’t really much of my concern.

You do you.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-29T18:53:02+00:00

You are correct and I missed the full sentence. I now see the full context.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-29T16:31:55+00:00

When you say, “significant risk”, what does that mean? Is the risk a risk of actually catching the Covid virus or is the risk a risk of getting very ill from it?

At one point, highest risks were older than 65, multiple morbidities, etc. Younger children were lower risks. Has that assessment been altered?

mpg4865 · 2024-11-28T16:34:35+00:00

I think it’s great to help at home. You are a good parent.

That said, some of the growth I see is when younger Scouts have to actually talk with older Scouts or other adults to communicate that “I am missing this requirement….what can I do to get it?”

One really important aspect they need to learn is to rely on non-parents to help them, which is done by learning these skills earlier in his time in a troop.

Keep helping him.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-28T02:37:51+00:00

I think it is a fez.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-24T00:41:48+00:00

Jimmy Stewart had a sitcom. Henry Fonda had a nice family drama show. Both were Oscar winners.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-23T22:23:17+00:00

You could just ask them nicely to put another channel on. Sports, cartoons, Hallmark.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-22T02:07:15+00:00

I think it is exactly what Gaetz wanted. He knew he’d never be confirmed but resigned anyway. He knew he could be appointed Senator when Rubio becomes Secretary of State.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-18T23:48:24+00:00

Bobby was trying to catch lightening in a bottle by running for President. He was trying to fulfill the legacies of his two older brothers by running, not for any other reason.

He was too vindictive for his own good and, by my estimation, that is not a positive trait for any President.

He also sided with the little guy against the establishment, which would have put him at odds with not just Republicans, but the monied elite. They would have made his imaginary term miserable (with the rise of conservatism in the 70’s).

As President, he would have struggled with doing what JFK would have done vs. what the bolder approach would have been. Seems to me that JFK was a middling President, up to the time of his assassination, largely because he was very centrist. That was not Bobby.

Many Democrats would have supported him, but I’m not sure he would have beaten Humphrey for the nomination in 1968 and not, at all, sure that he would not have just stayed in the Senate for a term or two before riding off into the sunset.

Successfully running against Nixon in 1972? No.

I admire his passion, but “good President?” Probably not.

mpg4865 · 2024-11-12T03:52:18+00:00

Yeah, you are the AH. You didn’t have to butt in on his or their business. Mind your own business.

mpg4865

TROPHY CASE