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July 08, 2009 03:43 PM UTC

Wednesday Open Thread

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when sentence was about to be pronounced pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”

–Abraham Lincoln

Comments

28 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread

      1. Yep sportsfans, your Federal Government has a hard-on for Google.  With $21 billion in competitive revenues this company is a walking investigation waiting to happen … just think of the settlement possibilities.

        Their O/S is not the driver for the government investigation, more likely the ad business, webhits, competitive spirit and commercial contracts.  But the investigation, the financial settlement, operational settlements and future regulatory morass will seriously hamper future Google products.  And after the EU sees we eat our young they’ll have a green light most trial lawyers only dream of….

        Too Big to Fail, nah Too Big to Be Free.

            1. could use a little Indigo Swing “Red Light” therapy.

              Or should we just take the fellow hepsters, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, approach with him?

              “show them no mercy

              No mercy for swine”

    1. Not that they won’t anyway.  Mac OS, BeOS, Linux, all just gnats to the 10,000 pound gorilla.

      My experience with Chrome has been very unsatisfactory.  Constantly freezes up, no real customization possibilities.  Maybe it won’t freeze on a different computer.

      Opera rocks!

  1. A Daily Kos diary posted last night details some of the ways in which our current health insurance is broken, and does so in stark terms…  It’s titled How I lost my health insurance at the hairstylist’s.

    You really should read the whole diary, but the short summary is…  Diarist is insured through husband’s work.  Diarist gets diagnosed with leukemia.  Diarist survives chemo.  Diarist’s husband’s workplace is tagged with a $1 million “surcharge” by the health insurance company, which will remain on the bill unless the diarist is removed from the insurance policy.  Husband’s workplace gets the hint and fires husband.  Husband gets CORBA, cannot find other insurance.  Husband divorces diarist.  Diarist cannot get insurance – not even Medicaid – unless she’s out of work.  Diarist has other health problems she cannot address without going broke.

    There’s so much more, and all of it is just as tragic and wrong.

    It raised a lot of questions for me:

    1) Is it really “insurance” if the company bills you (or in this case your husband’s employer) for your procedure through some kind of add-on fee?

    2) Is it really “insurance” if the company can discontinue its policy or make it completely unafordable – for something it was paid to cover?

    3) Is it any wonder that the Medicaid expenses are growing faster than general medical expenses when the “insurance” companies force their former clients into public health?

    How do we address the problems of people like this diarist and her (now-ex) husband?

      1. and tell Rahm Emmanuel to put away that “trigger” bullshit.  As someone here on pols said last week IIRC, having health insurers at the table for health care reform is like giving a drug dealer a seat at the table at an intervention.  

        Health insurers have hired 350 lobbyists just for this issue and they are spending $ 1.5 million a day on average.  Our senators and members who tell them to take a fucking hike have my eternal gratitude.

    1. That post lays out the glaring national shame of allowing wallet padding health insurance companies to dictate that only healthy people can get affordable coverage.  

    2. This is exactly why we need a public option.  There needs to be a fall back for people who lose or can’t get insurance.  The father of a friend of mine had a similar experience – he had cancer and eventually hit the cap of his health insurance (they have lifetime caps on how much they cover).  The insurance kicked him off.  His employer said they couldn’t have an employee without insurance and fired him.  No job, no insurance, and cancer.  Right then was when I decided to support government backed health care.

      1. We don’t need a public option as a fall-back.  We need a public option as an alternative.  What these crooks are doing is already perilously close to using Medicaid as an excuse already.

        IMHO, if we can’t tell the insurers:

        1) No pre-conditions.

        2) No rescission (kicking someone off that they don’t like).

        3) One risk pool per insurance company.

        4) No denial of coverage except based on payment.

        and 5) Published standard rates

        … then we don’t get anything useful, public option or no.

        To compensate, I think the government should consider re-insuring insurers for catastrophic cases (at a very high threshold).  And I think the mandatory health insurance or fine for large employers is a Good Idea…  Finally, if we’re not doing universal coverage, then we need to allow insurers some leeway on an eligibility period and possible rate hikes for pre-existing conditions not previously covered by any insurance.

    3. If that happened to my company what would we do? We could not afford the higher premium. So our choice would be insurance for no one or we have to fire someone. It’s an awful situation.

      As Fidel said – major major kudos to our legislators who are telling the leadership that no public option, no vote from them.

      1. The insurance companies rarely get the blame, because you as an employer can’t deny employment due to a medical issue.  So it’s up to you as a company to come up with some trumped-up excuse to fire a loyal employee who had an unforseen problem against which you thought you were providing insurance.

        I don’t ever want to be put in that position…

  2. Not related to politics–but please if you raft-know what you are doing.

    Colorado rivers are the best in the world.However, they are the most deadly. Don’t go if you don’t know what you are doing. The rapids are fun but they kill.

    Enjoy but please be safe.

    Save the water for fishing, rafting and FUN!!!

      1. can be their own worst enimies sometimes.  It’s like those whale defenders on the Animal Planet channel.  If they’d save the money they use for the ship, stink bombs and dye and use it to get a provision in the whaling treaties which stipulates that a neutral whaling inspector be aboard all whaling ships, then they might make progress toward their end.  Seems to me, their stink bombs, thrown at a ship where whales are gutted, is like throwing daisies in the outhouse.  

    1. ought to familiarize himself with the definition of “desecrate.” Considering the sanctity which the Lakota believe the Black Hills possess, calling this “desecration” is particularly ironic.

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