Did anyone ever notice that the underlying metaphysics of the Force–Buddhism with a dualist pantheism–never actually has any impact on the actual plot at all, which is just a straightforward Judeo-Christian morality? If the Jedi were to be consistent in their philosophy, they would never lift a lightsaber, much less align with the Rebel Alliance to oppose the Empire. In reality, their working moral framework was closer to a mixture of Kantianism and Stoicism.
Coming late in the day as it did yesterday, this got a bit burried, so I’m reposting it as I’d like to get your opinions: Ok, a friend of mine just suggested this health plan as an alternative to the president’s legislative-equivalent-of-the-Vietnam war, and I’d like to run it by you fine people to see whether you think it’d fly or not.
In short:
1) Private insurance companies continue to provide health insurance for people like they always have.
2) Any person incapable of affording health insurance, and not having it paid for by their employer, will have it paid for by the government, but the individual selects the health insurance provider they, themselves, want from the normal rogues’ gallery of companies.
3) Small companies (Not large ones) that can not afford to provide insurance for their employees will, likewise, have it paid for by the government, but, again, the companies themselves select who they want to cover them.
4) Anyone going through med school at government expence would become a government employee for, say, five years once they’re fully certified. During that period, their rates for services would be set far, far below the going rate as an attempt to bring ludicrously high costs down. The doctors would be salaried during this period, so making a living isn’t a concern. My friend’s idea is that once quality care was available for cheap, medical costs would have to come down owing to basic capitalist competition. In exchange for this, the Government would forgive the doctor’s student loans and whatnot.
ANd that’s basically it. ON the one hand, I do agree with him that the insurance companies actually *know* how to insure people, and generally do a pretty good job of it, despite rhetoric to the contrary, and I agree with him that trying to develop a national healthcare system is essentially re-inventing the wheel, which is pointless when we can simply pay people to keep the wheel rolling for us. He assumes this would be far cheaper and more comprehensive than the President’s plan. Also, this plan cranks a lot of money in to the Insurance Companies, which is, in general, good for the economy. (Trickle down and all)
On the other hand, it seems to me like it penalize people who *can* afford their own insurance. (”Why should I pay $1000 a month when Meth-head over there gets it for free?”) and it ignores what I consider to be the *real* problem here: Frivolous lawsuits driving up malpractice insurance costs to the point where a lot of doctors can’t make a living.
Frankly, even if the President’s system would work (Which I doubt), if it doesn’t address the lawsuit/malpractice situation, it’ll all end in tears.
So that’s his idea and my thoughts. What are yours?
Indeed we are. I’ve been working on about 3 articles to try and lay the groundwork that I’m hoping to be able to drop this weekend. Unfortunately this time of year it is difficult to find extra time since I work for an insurance carrier and it is enrollment season so I’m pulling 12 and 16 hour days until the beginning of the year. Good times.
You guys have checked out Andrew Price’s suggestions, right? It’s mostly a plan to eliminate barriers to competition and restore some free market pressures on prices.
I didn’t bother to reply, intentionally. But, since you asked again I’ll explain.
First, your friend’s idea isn’t horrendous. It’s also not great, but I’m not going to give reasons because:
THIS IS A FOOL’S ERRAND!! Imagine a big, fire breathing robot shows up in your town and claims he’s going to eat all the townsfolk that afternoon. In my analogy the role of the fire breathing robot is played by Harry Reid. One group of townspeople huddle in an armory and begin plotting an attack to defeat the robot. A second group of robots huddles in a courtroom and begins hammering out a different plan of digesting the townsfolk that has the robot only eating one person a day. They quibble over whether the townsfolk will be eaten in alphabetical order, or by age, or height. They argue among themselves, losing precious time, until the robot rips the roof off the court room, roasts them and swallows their charred bodies whole. I’m with the first group.
This is precisely what the Congress and President want us to do. When we start haggling over the details we become accomplices to the notion that Congress should be messing with the private, health care insurance industry. There is no question the Bill that passed the House and the one in front of the Senate are fraught with idiocy and yes, we can pick them apart and propose less idiotic Bills, but that doesn’t take away the fact that trying to legislate Health Care is idiotic.
Second, we don’t need any more plans, or Bills, or Laws, or Politicians, or Rights or Regulations… “Oh, if only the fire breathing robot were made of blue titanium rather than silver chromium… Then everything would be better!” Leave us the f*** alone! Our founders voted on, and passed, a Constitution that gave us individual rights and responsibilities. We are, each and everyone of us, free to get health care anyway we choose, and we are free to enter into services and contracts to provide health care anyway we choose, and we are also free to avoid health care if we choose. If I have a sore gastrocnemius and I want to give someone $100 to stick needles in it, or I want to spend $50 on scented candles to ease the pain… what business is that of the Government? And if I want to enter into a pool with thousands of other people to mitigate the cost when one of us suffers a catastrophic illness what business is that of the government? It’s a private contract between me and the accupuncturist, aromatherapist and/or health insurance company.
It’s not our job to solve this. It cannot be solved. There are 300 million people in this country and any system we have will result in someone getting screwed. WE DON’T NEED PLANS! Whenever there is a need in this country some smart individual or individuals put their shoulder to the grindstone and they meet that need, and they get rich. Who would have ever thought we need as many hamburger joints as we have? Who would have ever thought we need people serving hamburgers to people, in their cars, in 5 minutes or less? Who would have ever thought we needed Snuggis?! It’s not your friends job to make a plan that I’m forced to follow. It’s not Nancy Pelosi’s job to make a plan I’m forced to follow and it’s not Harry Reid’s job to make a plan that I’m forced to follow. I’m a freakin’ individual! I’m reasonably intelligent. Since I lied about my age at 15 to get my first job I’ve taken care of myself and since Mrs. Firefly was gracious enough to grant me her hand in marriage we’ve been taking care of ourselves and since the good Lord was miraculous enough to bless us with children we’ve been taking care of them. I’m now paying for my second set of braces and it looks like there is another set in my future (my kids, not me). My family doesn’t always get the designer frames they want, but those who need glasses have them. I just renewed our Health Insurance. It was a long process, with a lot of conversation between the wife and me. We had to decide how much to buy based on what we thought might happen this year. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t easy. But, we’ve been doing it for almost 20 years now and we’re willing to do it for 100 more. We take personal responsibility and live our lives the way we choose. I have good friends and family who have no insurance. They are rolling the dice that they will not suffer a catastrophic injury or illness and using their money for other things. I am fine with that and hold no ill will towards them. I have done that myself, in the past, and when I did get injured I did not ask anyone to take care of me. I dealt with the consequences of my actions.
We don’t need plans. Do you have any idea how many different ways you can buy health insurance now? You can buy it by the month! You can make weekly payments. Most of what sucks about health insurance now is due to government regulation. We certainly don’t need more.
We don’t need plans. President Obama. Harry Reid. Nancy Pelosi… They all have plans for you and me. If there is one thing this nation does not lack it is people who wish to inflect their ideas and ideals on us unwashed masses. If your friend wants to do that with his spare time, more power to him. He’s got a lot less influence than Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and a thousand others I could name. If your friend wants to be in the plan business the first thing he has to do is get enough power to be able to make others follow his plans. That’s the real trick. Or, he can roll up his sleeves and start a private enterprise doing what he suggests. If he’s right, others will see that and they’ll buy his services. If he’s not, he’ll lose a lot of his own money. But nobody ever wants to take that risk. It’s so much easier to have a great plan when you get to use other people’s money to implement it.
Out-f*****g-standing Rufus. All examples are improved dramatically with killer robots.
The fact is we don’t need more government planning we need to responsibly scale back the mechanisms they have already put in place which have caused the pricing crisis. See we don’t have a “healthcare crisis” or a “health insurance crisis” we have a “pricing crisis” caused by heavy handed government intervention. Everything I work on or write is about pulling the government out of the private / free market and that’s exactly what I’m taking on my campaign. See I’m not running for office promising to buy everyone a pony, what I’m promising is to do everything in my power to make sure you have the right to keep your earnings and buy your own pony, or motorcycle, or flat screen…hell buy whatever you want this is America afterall.
On a related topic in a meeting this morning with a handful of insurance executives one of the ladies made an excellent point as to what the endgame here really is. They do not plan on getting the public option (mandate) through right now what they want to do is choke the industry with more heavy handed regulations, Medicare physician payment cuts, and other laws that will do as government intervention always does and that is drive the price of healthcare higher. Now why would the government want to do this? Simple, when the cost get unsustainably high we will beg them to step in and give us a public option (mandate). They’re doing the equivalent of “smoking us out”.
@ David Marcoe: Magic in movies is always either a MacGuffin (As with “The Prize” at the end of Highlander, or, as you pointed out, in Star Wars), or a Deus ex Machina.
The theology of The Force is notoriously wonky and inconsistent, basically the product of a pot-smoking ex-Episcopalian film student in the early 70s going through his “Eastern society is better than Western society becuase they’ve got sitars and opium and a respect for the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, man, yeah!” rebellious phase, rather than it is any kind of attempt to portray an actual system. In fact, it’s pretty much what stupid pretentious people of that era *think* Buddhism is, rather than an actual depiction of Buddhism. (As, say, Westerns are a pop culture representation of the Wild West, and not an actual history lesson)
But then people out west have always liked their theology pre-digested.
I know I’m about to step in it, but I’m obviously in a confrontational mood, so what the heck:
Look, even the biggest Star Wars fans I know (and I am not one) readily admit at least 2/3 of the movies suck. And, I contend the first one sucks too, but nobody can see that because they all saw that one when they were young and it holds a special place in their hearts. I’ve never seen “Return of the Jedi,” but most people claim that one was good. If I’m right, and the first one was also bad, Lucas is batting 1 for 6. If the rest of the world is right, and I’m wrong, he’s batting 1 for 3. Either way, this means he’s a pretty sh*tty story teller.
So if those are the statistics, why, oh why, do people spend hours, and days, and weeks and months going over, and over, and over the flaws in his films; the faulty reasoning, the illogic, the incorrect science, the childish politics, the sophomoric romance? What’s more likely, the guy is a genius who failed to see 2/3 of his output sucked, or he’s a hack who got lucky 1/3 (actually 1/6, if you could forget your immature fondness and watch the first movie objectively) of the time?
What I don’t get about Buddhism is, if it’s all about letting go of desires, how come Buddha is obese? He doesn’t want to eat so it’s okay that he crams himself full of food at every opportunity?
All I know about the subject I read from Hesse’s “Siddhartha,” so I’m almost definitely wrong, but Buddha was an aesthetic as a young boy, then gave up spirituality and spent years devoted to the pursuit of wealth and the pleasures of the flesh, then became enlightened and became the Buddha. So, I think the weight comes from the years of being the plaything of a wealthy widow prior to sitting under some tree and getting zapped by a lightning bolt.
Mike… I have a colleague who lived 18 years in Thailand as a child of missionaries. She paints a very dark picture of Buddhism. Her parents started the first (or one of the first) adoption agencies in Thailand. Karma is a bitch on the helpless, disabled, etc. No one wants to get involved because of it. And she scoffs at the westernized Buddhism of Richard Gere et al. as mostly warmed over new ageism and not authentic Buddhism.
The Good Samaritan is most decidedly a Judeo-Christian model (mostly).
I’ve thought about that, too. The problem of pain is a difficult issue for Christians, but it’s better that it be a problem than the attitude that’s encouraged by most of the eastern religions: “You brought it on yourself!”
Hinduism’s caste system is another example of that.
But I think even we Christians — to varying degrees think we brought all this on ourselves. We’re just taught that the resolution to our son problem is outside of ourselves. Most Christian expressions of faith including worship, confession, communion, and charity are outward expression of Christ’s love. Even when we are “working out our own salvation” (as Paul wrote) it’s an outward expression of faith.
Buddha asked many of the right questions — he just got the answers wrong.
We do think that to some degree—and sometimes we’re right. But I’m talking about things that are completely outside of our control, and remembering that that’s one of the explanations offered by Job’s friends that doesn’t pan out.
I’ve really struggled over the years with a way to say “God ordains events and pain for our own good” that won’t get me in trouble. It often gets translated into “Then you are saying if I were good enough, bad things wouldn’t happen, because there wouldn’t be anything for me to improve on or learn”. I forget that that’s what people hear because in my world, you CAN’T be good enough to not need refining, what with sin nature and all that.
People want to link behavior to outcome, but it doesn’t work that way all the time in God’s economy. I don’t believe we earn the blessing in our life (there’s no way I could earn my husband and children) and other than consequences, I don’t believe we earn punishment in this life either, only in the after life.
Mike, this is my observation only and should not be construed as an official explanation. I noticed that Buddha is depicted as thin to svelte in Indian cultures/subcultures. Perhaps the difference is cultural? I’ve noticed Chinese Buddha statues are the ones that are heavy.
I think the idea of a fat buddha is that “fat” signifies satisfaction, success. That’s why Mao is always shown as fat in his portraits while the rest of the chinese were being starved.
As I get it, the idea of Buddhism is to suck so far up into your mind that nothing matter, not even yourself. When you have completely “freed” yourself from desire, then you float off the wheel of life/death and into Nirvana. Kind of like killing the patient to save him.
I am pro-Empire. I wasn’t until Lucas made movies 4-6 and thanks to his desire to express a cosmic sort of moral equivalence that to me at least meant that the Republic and Empire didn’t really differ, at least to the average Ewok in the street.
Speaking of Ewoks, let’s look at the events of movie three, Return of the Jedi. Here we had the Empire constructing a new Death Star in the orbit of the forest moon of Endor. This was a major construction project, employing thousands of workers and providing needed jobs. Meanwhile, down on the moon, the Empire was content to leave the native Ewoks alone. However, the rebels came and brought chaos and violence to everyone involved. First, they manipulated the natives into insurgency, which got many of them killed. Next, they destroyed the Death Star, killing thousands of innocent people. Third, although this was not shown in the movie, the destruction of the Death Star would have caused a rain of debris onto the surface of Endor, causing massive damage and perhaps even destructive climate change similar to what would happen if a large meteor struck the Earth. Lastly, I asked myself at the end of the movie, now what? The whole galaxy was now in the grips of anarchy now that the government had been effectively destroyed. History tells us that in cases of a sudden breakdown of authority, the result is chaos, civil war, and death.
I suppose this viewpoint might make me a sort of galactic Thomas Friedman, but blame it on Lucas. His poor writing and left-wing slant made it all but impossible for me to take the side of the rebels and the Republic.
Oh goody! Health insurance plans and Star Wars. Did you all get together in the comments last night and decide to declare today, “Push Rufus’ buttons Day?” What’s next? A post on the greatness of the Chicago Cubs? A series of photos and quotes celebrating the women of the “View?” It’s days like this I regret my personal promise to not drink the hard stuff prior to noon.
Gawd,I actually agree with Rufus…folks,they’re a bunch of movies,and not very good ones at that.”Kantianism and Stoicism”? Hell,I prefer Vodkaism and Three Stoogism
When Star Wars was released, the special effects were mind-blowing and I think Lucas rode that wave. The dialogue in SW was incredibly awful – still makes me cringe – and the characters were wooden. I mean, when the most memorable characters are a faux ape/terrier and a robot – neither of whom speak an actual language – you should know you’ve got a problem.
@Bot: Loved the Clerks take on the death star too.
Interesting note from our company’s insurance enrollment period this year that proves my point that in general the individual policy cost within a group policy will be significantly higher than they are in an individual policy. Here are the actual figures on me as an example:
Company Policy
My cost $89.92 per month
Company pays 84% of premium so the company cost is $472.08
Total Policy cost for me: $562.00
Individual Policy
I called three companies and found an identical policy to what I get through my company. The total cost if I was self insured: $128.00
It’s a simple matter of risk and the risk on an individual is significantly more predictable than the risk on a large group of people. When an insurance carrier views me as an individual I’m a 33 year old non-smoker, non-drinker who works out religiously and has no history of illness. It is easy to assess the medical risk for someone in my situation.
Conversely when insuring a 300 people yes you may have a healthy 33 year old in the group but you may have 10 people who are 70 year old alcoholics and 15 people who are 45 and morbidly obese. Assessing the risk on this group is near impossible because of all of the variables. So the way insurance carriers generally assess risk on large groups is to figure an average of 30% will be in great health and require little medical care, an additional 30% will in average health and require moderate amounts of healthcare, 30% will be in poor health or have high risk factors and will require large amounts of care, and the final 10% will see their health dramatically change in the coming year and are x-factors. You then average out pricing across the risk classes and price accordingly.
In this system the 60% who require minimal to moderate care are dramatically penalized financially to prop up the risk of the 30% who will require large amounts of care. Thus the very high pricing on healthy individuals in a group. Does that make sense?
No unfortunately it’s take the policy or get nothing. I talked with our CFO today and told him a far wiser plan would be to give employees the option of taking the plan or taking a $3,000 FSA that they could use to purchase their own coverage. It would save the company a bundle. In my case alone it would save the company $2,664.96, multiply that by 100 to 150 employees and that is a pretty significant savings.
If the government doesn’t screw this up soon I think we’ll start seeing a lot of that. And a lot more folks going for high deductible, cheap policies. Which means lower prices and more attention to doctor/patient care. But, in all likelihood the government is going to screw this up BIG TIME.
Star Wars is a science fiction remake of Akira Kurisawa’s “Hidden Fortress,” basically the same exact story set in space instead of feudal Japan. Anything good in the movie can be attributed to its roots (And there’s some damn good stuff in there, particularly the structure of the story), anything bad can be attributed to Lucas. But it was basically just inteded as an hommage to B-movies. According to Lucas, he woke up one day in 1966 and said to his roomate, “Let’s go see a Buck Rogers movie!” and when it turned out no one was making them anymore, he said, “Well let’s make one then.” Ten years later, right place, right time, and there you have it.
Even though I’m sick to death of Star Wars, and never want to see any of ‘em again, I will insist that “Empire Strikes Back” is a freakin’ fantastic film, bordering on avant garde at moments, (Again, primarily in structure), but also because the characters are better, it takes a *lot* of chances with the story and there’s a lot of subtle nuance in there. “Jedi” just sucks out loud, and most of the people who like it tend to drool a bit when they talk, and their eyes generally aren’t pointing in the same direction. Roger Ebert: Perfect example. The Prequels can be summed up best by Ewan McGregor, who said “I think the third one I did wasn’t terrible.” If you want to rank ‘em, I’d say (using the current episode numbers) 5,4,3,2,6,1.
The religious adoration for the films is a bit mystifying, but I do think it is largely religious adoration: People have no sense of the sacred in their lives, the movie offers a glimpse of it without all the religious hoo-hah that most of society has rejected, so there you have it. When I interviewed Clive Young for my site, it came out that a lot of the hyperfans tend to come from broken homes, so there might be something psychological as well.
@ Mike: I think Buddha’s problem is glandular. No other explanation for a guy surviving on six grains of rice a day to be that big. That’s intended as a joke,
@ Rufus (Again): in fact his depiction is cultural. If you see Christian art from China, Jesus and/or the Apostles are generally depicted the same way. I used to have a Chinese Nativity set that was pretty neat, with a little fat Buddha-baby Jesus, and three extremely oriental wise men and so on.
@ JS Lawalin: Yup. There’s an extended debate in “Clerks” about whether or not the rebels killed civilian contractors on Death Star II: Electric Boogaloo, and whether or not civilian contractors are politically aware and knew the risks, or if their employment was a tacit endorsement of the empire, or if it was just a gig, or what. My own problem with the movie (Beyond it being a crappy movie) is that dictatorships generally don’t fall when you assasinate the dictator. When Lenin dies, there’s always Stalin; when Hitler dies, there’s always Donitz.
Does it REALLY count as surrender if your capitol consists of rubble currently being crushed under the treads of T-34’s and you have no longer have any organized military forces to speak of? Granted, if Uncle Adolf hadn’t eaten a bullet, he wouldn’t have surrendered – I’m just sayin…
@ Mike: In my world, Lucas died in a car accident in 1982. But that’s not a problem for me because there are lots of fragmentary works of art that are still plenty popular and worthy of reading: “The Cantebury Tales,” “Kublai Khan” and “That Third Example I Can’t Think Of Right Now, But Certainly Exists.” Or maybe “Pet Sounds,” if you don’t like the Third one.
In defence of George Lucas, before he was killed and eaten by the hack that wears his face and spends his money today, I will point out that he did do some good stuff: THX 1138 isn’t a masterpiece, for it’s still plenty good for what it is, American Grafiti, Star Wars, and his fingerprints are all over Raiders and Empire, though he didn’t actually direct ‘em.
Now that I think on him, it was probably Empire that did him in. He began to believe his hype, and at the same time not bother trying too terribly hard.
@ Rufus: (Regarding your response to my friend’s plan) So you’re a Warren G. Harding kinda’ Republican, eh?
I totally agree that the president’s insistence on fixing this system right now is bizarre and misplaced. I think I disagree with the “We don’t need a plan” aspect of it, though. My friend is (obviously) in insurance, and has pointed out to me official stats from his company (Which is one of the three largest insurers in the country): More than 50% of the country has no health insurance. 10 to 20% more has basically health coverage so inadequate as to be useless, but expensive (I fall in to that category). He went on to point out that the cause of the spiraling health costs is, obviously, frivolous lawsuits, which drive up malpractice, causing a vicious cycle. Even so, his company an the others (He claims) were basically able to handle it, because they took a long-term financial view on these things a’la life insurance (The death rate in America is 100%, but they still manage to turn a profit on that stuff thanks to long term financial planning), and they were able to stay solvent, slightly. Unfortunatley, federal and state governments mucking about with them, mainly so they can say “Congressman Harold G. “Spunky” Taint is hard on the insurance companies!” in their re-election commercials, has destroyed the industry, to the point where even the insurers can’t make money on it anymore.
My friend’s company has gotten out of Health Insurance entirely in the last six or seven years, and now subcontract it to another company, whcih charges ludicrous rates.
So there’s definitely a problem, but it was at least workable when it was private industry, and the Government killed it.
So, my friend, we *DO* need a plan, just not the President’s plan.
@ Kit: Yeah, Donitz surrendered, but if the Nazis had *won* world war 2, Donitz would have still been the number two man, and even if Frank Sinatra himself assasinated Der Fuhrer in 1946, Donitz would have been Der Neu Fuhrer, and life would have gone on just as terribly as ever. Presumably he wouldn’t have surrendered or dismembered the Reich if he didn’t have to. That’s my point: There’s always someone holding the coat of the big bad guy.
You are not explaining why we need a plan, you are reiterating, for the ten-millionth time someone in this country has said it, “Health Care is screwed up and needs fixing.” I agree. No offense at all to you, or your friend (sincerely) but if I google “health care plan” right now I’ll get over a million hits. Every blogger, pundit, congressman, congresswoman, scout leader and facebook page owner has written one. To paraphrase an old saw, “Health care plans are like *ssh*l*s, everybody’s got one.”
Look, a lot of the plans are good, maybe your friend’s plan is great. Maybe it’s awesome! Well, you need to let your friend know that Harry Reid has a plan too, and unless your freind expects to be the majority leader of the Senate before Harry Reid brings Harry Reid’s plan to a vote, your friend’s plan doesn’t matter. I have a plan to get the Bears to the SuperBowl this year. Guess what? Lovie Smith ain’t takin’ my calls.
From what I see from opinion polls and historical writings this country has never had a Congress folks thought much of. Why do we keep thinking we’ll somehow get a Congress to wake up and do right by us? It’s exactly like my robot analogy. Your friends wants to huddle in the court room and figure out how to get the robot to eat us more slowly. In my mind, if we don’t take the robot out of the picture we’re all screwed, it’s just a question of when.
Look how much Education in this country has tanked since Carter instituted the Department of Education. But now it’s there and we all spend our days debaring what the Department of Education should do to fix Education. That’s kind of like asking a cancerous tumor what we should do to save the patient. By your own admission your friend admits government intervention has negatively impacted health care. So what’s his solution? More government meddling. We don’t need another plan. Get the government out of it and some enterprising folks will try some of the plans already out there, and some of them will be good, and folks will pay money for them, and then they’ll get improved; rinse, repeat…
I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I remember your friend’s plan had something about the government paying for medical school tuition and the graduates working on the cheap after graduation. Don’t you think that would let Harry Reid into the medical schools to make sure they are a diverse number of applicants accepted, and don’t you think Harry Reid would start to care about what percent are being trained in what specialty? Your friends is arguing over whether the robot eats us in alphabetical, or height order. Once you agree the robot gets to eat us, the rest is just symantecs.
And look, here’s a dirty little secret, Health Care is expensive and good Health Care is really expensive. Wealthy people are going to get better Health Care than poor people. With Harry Reid’s plan politically connected people will get better care than non-politically connected people, just as in Cuba Fidel’s nephew doesn’t have to wait in line for his H1N1 vaccination. But any plan will have winners and losers. There will never be enough doctors, nurses and catscan machines to go around. So, do you want to live in a country where you have some control over your own destiny based on how much care you pay for, or do you want to be a sheep?
Look, I know if me and one of Ted Kennedy’s sons gets the same disease tomorrow I likely might not survive until my next birthday and he will. Oh well, everything else in his life has been paved by his grandfather’s ill-gotten wealth. I’m used to it by now. But maybe I’ll figure out a way to make money and my grandkids will have great healthcare. Regardless, I know my family has better health care right now than the vast majority of people who have ever set foot on this globe.
If none of us give a crap about the healthcare plan, then why are we talking so damn much about it on this site? Furthermore, why are we continually saying that the president should be drawn and quartered for his halfassed scheme. I’ll grant that it’s halfassed, no argument from me there, but if it’s not a subject of interest, why does someone post a thread on it every two or three days?
I’m not predisposed to complain. It’s not my nature. I’ll do it if it’s really funny, or in the “Oh my, I seem to have caught myself in a bear trap, could someone please help me out?” kind of situation where I legitimately need help, but other than that, I just kind of find it as a violation of The Guy Code, you know?
So if a subject comes up repeatedly and people are complaining about it repeatedly, my nature is to try to come up with a sollution. Doesn’t matter if it’s my problem or not, doesn’t matter that I have no voice, or that my friend Jerry the Insurance Guy has no voice, doesn’t matter – I do it because I’m at root a problem solver, and I enjoy doing it. My bias has always been “Try to fix the problem, or shut up.”
So have all the healthcare discussions on here been a “We just want to complain like little old ladies from New Jersey” kind of thing, or have they been a legitimate attempt to accomplish something? ‘Cuz if it’s the former, I’m deeply, deeply disappointed.
You’re not too far off the target. A lot of it is little old day from New Jersey stuff, and I’m as guilty as the next guy, ‘er gal. But, at the end of the day this all starts to raise my dander because I do think we continually miss the crux of the issue and the media and our politicians all feed on this never ending cycle of focusing on the wrong things.
I’m furious that our Senators are, right now, debating how best to provide government health care and how best the government can “fix” health care. It’s going to be as successful as the government deciding how best to build a car, or sell a home. And, even more importantly, they have no RIGHT! They work for us. You, me, your friend in insurance. These people all work for us. We pay their salaries and they are very limited in what they can, and cannot do. Yet they keep violating that relationship. You, me and your buddy in insurance do not have a big enough soapbox to stop them, but our State legislators and Governors do. The only chance we have is to get those people, who also work for us, to do their jobs and stop the other people who work for us from fleecing us.
The good citizens of Massachusetts wanted to have government health care. More power to ‘em. From what I hear it’s not working out too well, but that’s all fine and good as long as we get to keep our state tax dollars here in good ol’ Freedonia. But once the Federal government get their paws in it we’re sunk. Unless someone has a plan for how to get our Congresspeople to read and understand the U.S. Constitution I see all the rest as simply whistling in the graveyard*.
*but I reserve the right to occassionally whine like a little old lady from New Jersey when I feel like it.
It’s a cliche, but many of us men (and some women) do tend to be “problem solvers.” We don’t like to sit around and kvetch, we listen and we try to fix. I get that, and I share the same trait.
This is also why I get so exasperated by this. I look at everything like a system and if I’m told there are problems I try to devise a solution to fix the system. It is my nature. I cannot help it. I solve puzzles.
With the explosion of 24/7 news we are confronted with problems all day, everyday and I found myself being consumed by politics. The truth be known, I actually don’t care much about politics, but in our lives we are continuously bombarded with messages telling us politics are important and the world is on fire.
So, I dove into politics and really started paying attention. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trying to fix the system. I was trying to create a better “plan.” After about two years, and literally wondering if I wasn’t about to go insane I finally snapped out of it and realized what my brain was doing. It was like the computer in “War Games.” It’s an unsolvable situation but I could not stop trying to solve it. It has so many variables, and every day there are five new, important news stories with information to research and digest… I was completely sucked into political news and almost consumed by it.
When I realized what was going on, and what my puzzle solving brain was trying to do I took a very deep breath, turned off the TV, stepped away from the computer and completely unplugged. After a few days of decompressing I realized I’m not the only one dragged into the spiral. This is why I occassionally go bonkers on this topic. A few months ago I unfairly ripped into David for similar reasons. I overstepped, but it hits close to home. I’d love to have those two years of my life back and I get nervous when I see others being sucked into the same wormhole.
Perspective is the answer. Who are we, really, and what impact can we have? My best hope is to get involved locally, very locally. That’s where I can have the most influence. And, I can also try to get those who represent my city, county and state to do their jobs and protect me from federal employees not doing theirs. But, really, even if I came up with the unique, single best solution for health care what would become of it? Have you ever heard of Philo Farnsworth? He died lonely and insane. Having a brilliant idea isn’t what the world needs. The world is over-flowing with brilliant ideas.
Implementation is the trick. General Petraeus can implement. Bill Gates can implement.
I apologize if I over-reacted, but this is a really touchy subject for me. Not health care, this whole, trying to solve politics-thingy. It truly is the sausage machinery Mark Twain defined and I’m not sure anyone can go into it without coming out a fool on the other side. That’s a blackhole I don’t want to get sucked into again.
Implementation is the trick. General Petraeus can implement. Bill Gates can implement.
And that what’s separates a plan from an idea. That’s what I also think you missed about much of what I’m doing. Most of my work has to do with implementation. You’ve declared a destination, a destination we all want, without a route. I want to find the route. I’m not trying to soup up the car or break the land speed record.
So, when I head you say “we need to get back too…” my question is “how?” I’m a cartographer drawing a map, not an engineer digging a tunnel through a mountain.
Undoubtedly there is an ‘arguing with the wind’ quality to it.
In my own mind, the practical aplication is this: I come up with a solution that makes sense to me. If a politician comes along who offers a solution that is the same as mine, or even terribly close, I vote for ‘em. If their idea seems better than mine, I vote for ‘em. If their idea doesn’t make as much sense as mine, I don’t vote for ‘em. So the payoff is that it’s a kind of very elaborite bullsh!t detector, and I vote accordingly, and if we lived in a country where my vote mattered, we’d be sitting pretty. Alas, it’s still just America…
But trust me, I’m not going down a whole. I have a firm grasp on my utter political impotence.
Never mind the mental gymnastics with the philosophical and religious influences on the creation of the Jedi … more profound questions arise. Such as: What do you get a Wookie for Christmas when he already he already owns a comb?
Did anyone ever notice that the underlying metaphysics of the Force–Buddhism with a dualist pantheism–never actually has any impact on the actual plot at all, which is just a straightforward Judeo-Christian morality? If the Jedi were to be consistent in their philosophy, they would never lift a lightsaber, much less align with the Rebel Alliance to oppose the Empire. In reality, their working moral framework was closer to a mixture of Kantianism and Stoicism.
Do you purposely try to suck the fun out of things, David? The girls in the stacks that impressed?
Super. Villain.
Force= Prana, so it’s a mixture of a couple eastern philosophies.
Yeah, and then it turns out there’s nothing mystical or religious about it at all- it’s just midichlorians. Thanks for spoiling the fun, Lucas.
Coming late in the day as it did yesterday, this got a bit burried, so I’m reposting it as I’d like to get your opinions: Ok, a friend of mine just suggested this health plan as an alternative to the president’s legislative-equivalent-of-the-Vietnam war, and I’d like to run it by you fine people to see whether you think it’d fly or not.
In short:
1) Private insurance companies continue to provide health insurance for people like they always have.
2) Any person incapable of affording health insurance, and not having it paid for by their employer, will have it paid for by the government, but the individual selects the health insurance provider they, themselves, want from the normal rogues’ gallery of companies.
3) Small companies (Not large ones) that can not afford to provide insurance for their employees will, likewise, have it paid for by the government, but, again, the companies themselves select who they want to cover them.
4) Anyone going through med school at government expence would become a government employee for, say, five years once they’re fully certified. During that period, their rates for services would be set far, far below the going rate as an attempt to bring ludicrously high costs down. The doctors would be salaried during this period, so making a living isn’t a concern. My friend’s idea is that once quality care was available for cheap, medical costs would have to come down owing to basic capitalist competition. In exchange for this, the Government would forgive the doctor’s student loans and whatnot.
ANd that’s basically it. ON the one hand, I do agree with him that the insurance companies actually *know* how to insure people, and generally do a pretty good job of it, despite rhetoric to the contrary, and I agree with him that trying to develop a national healthcare system is essentially re-inventing the wheel, which is pointless when we can simply pay people to keep the wheel rolling for us. He assumes this would be far cheaper and more comprehensive than the President’s plan. Also, this plan cranks a lot of money in to the Insurance Companies, which is, in general, good for the economy. (Trickle down and all)
On the other hand, it seems to me like it penalize people who *can* afford their own insurance. (”Why should I pay $1000 a month when Meth-head over there gets it for free?”) and it ignores what I consider to be the *real* problem here: Frivolous lawsuits driving up malpractice insurance costs to the point where a lot of doctors can’t make a living.
Frankly, even if the President’s system would work (Which I doubt), if it doesn’t address the lawsuit/malpractice situation, it’ll all end in tears.
So that’s his idea and my thoughts. What are yours?
Veruckt and I are working on a healthcare plan.
Indeed we are. I’ve been working on about 3 articles to try and lay the groundwork that I’m hoping to be able to drop this weekend. Unfortunately this time of year it is difficult to find extra time since I work for an insurance carrier and it is enrollment season so I’m pulling 12 and 16 hour days until the beginning of the year. Good times.
You guys have checked out Andrew Price’s suggestions, right? It’s mostly a plan to eliminate barriers to competition and restore some free market pressures on prices.
Republibot 3.0,
I didn’t bother to reply, intentionally. But, since you asked again I’ll explain.
First, your friend’s idea isn’t horrendous. It’s also not great, but I’m not going to give reasons because:
THIS IS A FOOL’S ERRAND!! Imagine a big, fire breathing robot shows up in your town and claims he’s going to eat all the townsfolk that afternoon. In my analogy the role of the fire breathing robot is played by Harry Reid. One group of townspeople huddle in an armory and begin plotting an attack to defeat the robot. A second group of robots huddles in a courtroom and begins hammering out a different plan of digesting the townsfolk that has the robot only eating one person a day. They quibble over whether the townsfolk will be eaten in alphabetical order, or by age, or height. They argue among themselves, losing precious time, until the robot rips the roof off the court room, roasts them and swallows their charred bodies whole. I’m with the first group.
This is precisely what the Congress and President want us to do. When we start haggling over the details we become accomplices to the notion that Congress should be messing with the private, health care insurance industry. There is no question the Bill that passed the House and the one in front of the Senate are fraught with idiocy and yes, we can pick them apart and propose less idiotic Bills, but that doesn’t take away the fact that trying to legislate Health Care is idiotic.
Second, we don’t need any more plans, or Bills, or Laws, or Politicians, or Rights or Regulations… “Oh, if only the fire breathing robot were made of blue titanium rather than silver chromium… Then everything would be better!” Leave us the f*** alone! Our founders voted on, and passed, a Constitution that gave us individual rights and responsibilities. We are, each and everyone of us, free to get health care anyway we choose, and we are free to enter into services and contracts to provide health care anyway we choose, and we are also free to avoid health care if we choose. If I have a sore gastrocnemius and I want to give someone $100 to stick needles in it, or I want to spend $50 on scented candles to ease the pain… what business is that of the Government? And if I want to enter into a pool with thousands of other people to mitigate the cost when one of us suffers a catastrophic illness what business is that of the government? It’s a private contract between me and the accupuncturist, aromatherapist and/or health insurance company.
It’s not our job to solve this. It cannot be solved. There are 300 million people in this country and any system we have will result in someone getting screwed. WE DON’T NEED PLANS! Whenever there is a need in this country some smart individual or individuals put their shoulder to the grindstone and they meet that need, and they get rich. Who would have ever thought we need as many hamburger joints as we have? Who would have ever thought we need people serving hamburgers to people, in their cars, in 5 minutes or less? Who would have ever thought we needed Snuggis?! It’s not your friends job to make a plan that I’m forced to follow. It’s not Nancy Pelosi’s job to make a plan I’m forced to follow and it’s not Harry Reid’s job to make a plan that I’m forced to follow. I’m a freakin’ individual! I’m reasonably intelligent. Since I lied about my age at 15 to get my first job I’ve taken care of myself and since Mrs. Firefly was gracious enough to grant me her hand in marriage we’ve been taking care of ourselves and since the good Lord was miraculous enough to bless us with children we’ve been taking care of them. I’m now paying for my second set of braces and it looks like there is another set in my future (my kids, not me). My family doesn’t always get the designer frames they want, but those who need glasses have them. I just renewed our Health Insurance. It was a long process, with a lot of conversation between the wife and me. We had to decide how much to buy based on what we thought might happen this year. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t easy. But, we’ve been doing it for almost 20 years now and we’re willing to do it for 100 more. We take personal responsibility and live our lives the way we choose. I have good friends and family who have no insurance. They are rolling the dice that they will not suffer a catastrophic injury or illness and using their money for other things. I am fine with that and hold no ill will towards them. I have done that myself, in the past, and when I did get injured I did not ask anyone to take care of me. I dealt with the consequences of my actions.
We don’t need plans. Do you have any idea how many different ways you can buy health insurance now? You can buy it by the month! You can make weekly payments. Most of what sucks about health insurance now is due to government regulation. We certainly don’t need more.
We don’t need plans. President Obama. Harry Reid. Nancy Pelosi… They all have plans for you and me. If there is one thing this nation does not lack it is people who wish to inflect their ideas and ideals on us unwashed masses. If your friend wants to do that with his spare time, more power to him. He’s got a lot less influence than Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and a thousand others I could name. If your friend wants to be in the plan business the first thing he has to do is get enough power to be able to make others follow his plans. That’s the real trick. Or, he can roll up his sleeves and start a private enterprise doing what he suggests. If he’s right, others will see that and they’ll buy his services. If he’s not, he’ll lose a lot of his own money. But nobody ever wants to take that risk. It’s so much easier to have a great plan when you get to use other people’s money to implement it.
Out-f*****g-standing Rufus. All examples are improved dramatically with killer robots.
The fact is we don’t need more government planning we need to responsibly scale back the mechanisms they have already put in place which have caused the pricing crisis. See we don’t have a “healthcare crisis” or a “health insurance crisis” we have a “pricing crisis” caused by heavy handed government intervention. Everything I work on or write is about pulling the government out of the private / free market and that’s exactly what I’m taking on my campaign. See I’m not running for office promising to buy everyone a pony, what I’m promising is to do everything in my power to make sure you have the right to keep your earnings and buy your own pony, or motorcycle, or flat screen…hell buy whatever you want this is America afterall.
On a related topic in a meeting this morning with a handful of insurance executives one of the ladies made an excellent point as to what the endgame here really is. They do not plan on getting the public option (mandate) through right now what they want to do is choke the industry with more heavy handed regulations, Medicare physician payment cuts, and other laws that will do as government intervention always does and that is drive the price of healthcare higher. Now why would the government want to do this? Simple, when the cost get unsustainably high we will beg them to step in and give us a public option (mandate). They’re doing the equivalent of “smoking us out”.
Can my pony be dapple colored? I’ll name him, “Chestnut,” and he’ll be my bestest friend!
Sure Rufus and he can ride in your Fiat and sing Hall and Oates with you.
Well played Tracy. Well-played.
@ David Marcoe: Magic in movies is always either a MacGuffin (As with “The Prize” at the end of Highlander, or, as you pointed out, in Star Wars), or a Deus ex Machina.
The theology of The Force is notoriously wonky and inconsistent, basically the product of a pot-smoking ex-Episcopalian film student in the early 70s going through his “Eastern society is better than Western society becuase they’ve got sitars and opium and a respect for the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, man, yeah!” rebellious phase, rather than it is any kind of attempt to portray an actual system. In fact, it’s pretty much what stupid pretentious people of that era *think* Buddhism is, rather than an actual depiction of Buddhism. (As, say, Westerns are a pop culture representation of the Wild West, and not an actual history lesson)
But then people out west have always liked their theology pre-digested.
I know I’m about to step in it, but I’m obviously in a confrontational mood, so what the heck:
Look, even the biggest Star Wars fans I know (and I am not one) readily admit at least 2/3 of the movies suck. And, I contend the first one sucks too, but nobody can see that because they all saw that one when they were young and it holds a special place in their hearts. I’ve never seen “Return of the Jedi,” but most people claim that one was good. If I’m right, and the first one was also bad, Lucas is batting 1 for 6. If the rest of the world is right, and I’m wrong, he’s batting 1 for 3. Either way, this means he’s a pretty sh*tty story teller.
So if those are the statistics, why, oh why, do people spend hours, and days, and weeks and months going over, and over, and over the flaws in his films; the faulty reasoning, the illogic, the incorrect science, the childish politics, the sophomoric romance? What’s more likely, the guy is a genius who failed to see 2/3 of his output sucked, or he’s a hack who got lucky 1/3 (actually 1/6, if you could forget your immature fondness and watch the first movie objectively) of the time?
What I don’t get about Buddhism is, if it’s all about letting go of desires, how come Buddha is obese? He doesn’t want to eat so it’s okay that he crams himself full of food at every opportunity?
Answer me that, you hippie Buddhists!
Mike,
All I know about the subject I read from Hesse’s “Siddhartha,” so I’m almost definitely wrong, but Buddha was an aesthetic as a young boy, then gave up spirituality and spent years devoted to the pursuit of wealth and the pleasures of the flesh, then became enlightened and became the Buddha. So, I think the weight comes from the years of being the plaything of a wealthy widow prior to sitting under some tree and getting zapped by a lightning bolt.
Mike… I have a colleague who lived 18 years in Thailand as a child of missionaries. She paints a very dark picture of Buddhism. Her parents started the first (or one of the first) adoption agencies in Thailand. Karma is a bitch on the helpless, disabled, etc. No one wants to get involved because of it. And she scoffs at the westernized Buddhism of Richard Gere et al. as mostly warmed over new ageism and not authentic Buddhism.
The Good Samaritan is most decidedly a Judeo-Christian model (mostly).
I’ve thought about that, too. The problem of pain is a difficult issue for Christians, but it’s better that it be a problem than the attitude that’s encouraged by most of the eastern religions: “You brought it on yourself!”
Hinduism’s caste system is another example of that.
But I think even we Christians — to varying degrees think we brought all this on ourselves. We’re just taught that the resolution to our son problem is outside of ourselves. Most Christian expressions of faith including worship, confession, communion, and charity are outward expression of Christ’s love. Even when we are “working out our own salvation” (as Paul wrote) it’s an outward expression of faith.
Buddha asked many of the right questions — he just got the answers wrong.
We do think that to some degree—and sometimes we’re right. But I’m talking about things that are completely outside of our control, and remembering that that’s one of the explanations offered by Job’s friends that doesn’t pan out.
True that Mike. I didn’t mean so much as direct cause and effect as I did the “fallenness” of the world makes us all subject to bad things.
Now I getcha, Floyd. Not the efficient cause, but the final cause.
Unless I mean, “not the formal cause, but the material cause.”
Heresies are easier to keep straight than causes, ’cause even the Catholic Encyclopedia can’t help me here.
Yes, but I don’t think many of us believe our ancestors did, or our souls, in some prior incarnation did.
I’ve really struggled over the years with a way to say “God ordains events and pain for our own good” that won’t get me in trouble. It often gets translated into “Then you are saying if I were good enough, bad things wouldn’t happen, because there wouldn’t be anything for me to improve on or learn”. I forget that that’s what people hear because in my world, you CAN’T be good enough to not need refining, what with sin nature and all that.
People want to link behavior to outcome, but it doesn’t work that way all the time in God’s economy. I don’t believe we earn the blessing in our life (there’s no way I could earn my husband and children) and other than consequences, I don’t believe we earn punishment in this life either, only in the after life.
Mike, this is my observation only and should not be construed as an official explanation. I noticed that Buddha is depicted as thin to svelte in Indian cultures/subcultures. Perhaps the difference is cultural? I’ve noticed Chinese Buddha statues are the ones that are heavy.
I like the tubby Buddha. He’s so cheerful!
I think the idea of a fat buddha is that “fat” signifies satisfaction, success. That’s why Mao is always shown as fat in his portraits while the rest of the chinese were being starved.
As I get it, the idea of Buddhism is to suck so far up into your mind that nothing matter, not even yourself. When you have completely “freed” yourself from desire, then you float off the wheel of life/death and into Nirvana. Kind of like killing the patient to save him.
I am pro-Empire. I wasn’t until Lucas made movies 4-6 and thanks to his desire to express a cosmic sort of moral equivalence that to me at least meant that the Republic and Empire didn’t really differ, at least to the average Ewok in the street.
Speaking of Ewoks, let’s look at the events of movie three, Return of the Jedi. Here we had the Empire constructing a new Death Star in the orbit of the forest moon of Endor. This was a major construction project, employing thousands of workers and providing needed jobs. Meanwhile, down on the moon, the Empire was content to leave the native Ewoks alone. However, the rebels came and brought chaos and violence to everyone involved. First, they manipulated the natives into insurgency, which got many of them killed. Next, they destroyed the Death Star, killing thousands of innocent people. Third, although this was not shown in the movie, the destruction of the Death Star would have caused a rain of debris onto the surface of Endor, causing massive damage and perhaps even destructive climate change similar to what would happen if a large meteor struck the Earth. Lastly, I asked myself at the end of the movie, now what? The whole galaxy was now in the grips of anarchy now that the government had been effectively destroyed. History tells us that in cases of a sudden breakdown of authority, the result is chaos, civil war, and death.
I suppose this viewpoint might make me a sort of galactic Thomas Friedman, but blame it on Lucas. His poor writing and left-wing slant made it all but impossible for me to take the side of the rebels and the Republic.
The galaxy is flat JS.
I tend to agree… how can I not support a regime that would kill Ewoks and Jar-Jar Binks?
Oh goody! Health insurance plans and Star Wars. Did you all get together in the comments last night and decide to declare today, “Push Rufus’ buttons Day?” What’s next? A post on the greatness of the Chicago Cubs? A series of photos and quotes celebrating the women of the “View?” It’s days like this I regret my personal promise to not drink the hard stuff prior to noon.
As long as they’re photos like these, I’m cool:
Good lawd! I’m assuming that was while she was pregnant?
Ding ding ding!
@ JS Lawalin: Uhm….you’re aware that you just largely reiterated the argument from “Clerks,” right? I mean, about the civilian contractors, anyway.
R3 – Really? I’ve never seen “Clerks”. I did read an interesting essay years ago about the impact of the Death Star’s destruction on Endor.
Star Wars? Never heard of it…
Gawd,I actually agree with Rufus…folks,they’re a bunch of movies,and not very good ones at that.”Kantianism and Stoicism”? Hell,I prefer Vodkaism and Three Stoogism
Rufus and Scott, DITTO!
Apparently somebody spiked Rufus’ Viagra…
When Star Wars was released, the special effects were mind-blowing and I think Lucas rode that wave. The dialogue in SW was incredibly awful – still makes me cringe – and the characters were wooden. I mean, when the most memorable characters are a faux ape/terrier and a robot – neither of whom speak an actual language – you should know you’ve got a problem.
@Bot: Loved the Clerks take on the death star too.
Great photo gallery: movie stars revisit their iconic roles in pictures. Hey Steph, it’s even got some Gerald Butler awesomeness:
http://www.empireonline.com/gallery/gallery.asp?GID=2353
Thanks JC. Awesome photos. Gotta say it though, Mel Gibson looked like a complete jackass..oh wait he is. HEH!
Interesting note from our company’s insurance enrollment period this year that proves my point that in general the individual policy cost within a group policy will be significantly higher than they are in an individual policy. Here are the actual figures on me as an example:
Company Policy
My cost $89.92 per month
Company pays 84% of premium so the company cost is $472.08
Total Policy cost for me: $562.00
Individual Policy
I called three companies and found an identical policy to what I get through my company. The total cost if I was self insured: $128.00
Wow! What’s going on?!
It’s a simple matter of risk and the risk on an individual is significantly more predictable than the risk on a large group of people. When an insurance carrier views me as an individual I’m a 33 year old non-smoker, non-drinker who works out religiously and has no history of illness. It is easy to assess the medical risk for someone in my situation.
Conversely when insuring a 300 people yes you may have a healthy 33 year old in the group but you may have 10 people who are 70 year old alcoholics and 15 people who are 45 and morbidly obese. Assessing the risk on this group is near impossible because of all of the variables. So the way insurance carriers generally assess risk on large groups is to figure an average of 30% will be in great health and require little medical care, an additional 30% will in average health and require moderate amounts of healthcare, 30% will be in poor health or have high risk factors and will require large amounts of care, and the final 10% will see their health dramatically change in the coming year and are x-factors. You then average out pricing across the risk classes and price accordingly.
In this system the 60% who require minimal to moderate care are dramatically penalized financially to prop up the risk of the 30% who will require large amounts of care. Thus the very high pricing on healthy individuals in a group. Does that make sense?
Yes, of course. So, does your employer give you their portion of the cash if you don’t go with their group? Will you?
No unfortunately it’s take the policy or get nothing. I talked with our CFO today and told him a far wiser plan would be to give employees the option of taking the plan or taking a $3,000 FSA that they could use to purchase their own coverage. It would save the company a bundle. In my case alone it would save the company $2,664.96, multiply that by 100 to 150 employees and that is a pretty significant savings.
If the government doesn’t screw this up soon I think we’ll start seeing a lot of that. And a lot more folks going for high deductible, cheap policies. Which means lower prices and more attention to doctor/patient care. But, in all likelihood the government is going to screw this up BIG TIME.
@ Rufus:
Star Wars is a science fiction remake of Akira Kurisawa’s “Hidden Fortress,” basically the same exact story set in space instead of feudal Japan. Anything good in the movie can be attributed to its roots (And there’s some damn good stuff in there, particularly the structure of the story), anything bad can be attributed to Lucas. But it was basically just inteded as an hommage to B-movies. According to Lucas, he woke up one day in 1966 and said to his roomate, “Let’s go see a Buck Rogers movie!” and when it turned out no one was making them anymore, he said, “Well let’s make one then.” Ten years later, right place, right time, and there you have it.
Even though I’m sick to death of Star Wars, and never want to see any of ‘em again, I will insist that “Empire Strikes Back” is a freakin’ fantastic film, bordering on avant garde at moments, (Again, primarily in structure), but also because the characters are better, it takes a *lot* of chances with the story and there’s a lot of subtle nuance in there. “Jedi” just sucks out loud, and most of the people who like it tend to drool a bit when they talk, and their eyes generally aren’t pointing in the same direction. Roger Ebert: Perfect example. The Prequels can be summed up best by Ewan McGregor, who said “I think the third one I did wasn’t terrible.” If you want to rank ‘em, I’d say (using the current episode numbers) 5,4,3,2,6,1.
The religious adoration for the films is a bit mystifying, but I do think it is largely religious adoration: People have no sense of the sacred in their lives, the movie offers a glimpse of it without all the religious hoo-hah that most of society has rejected, so there you have it. When I interviewed Clive Young for my site, it came out that a lot of the hyperfans tend to come from broken homes, so there might be something psychological as well.
I agree that Empire is a much better film than Jedi, but if Jedi didn’t exist, Empire’d be a movie without a conclusion.
So Star Wars was the best of the lot, because you don’t have to watch Jedi afterwards.
@ Mike: I think Buddha’s problem is glandular. No other explanation for a guy surviving on six grains of rice a day to be that big. That’s intended as a joke,
@ Rufus (Again): in fact his depiction is cultural. If you see Christian art from China, Jesus and/or the Apostles are generally depicted the same way. I used to have a Chinese Nativity set that was pretty neat, with a little fat Buddha-baby Jesus, and three extremely oriental wise men and so on.
@ JS Lawalin: Yup. There’s an extended debate in “Clerks” about whether or not the rebels killed civilian contractors on Death Star II: Electric Boogaloo, and whether or not civilian contractors are politically aware and knew the risks, or if their employment was a tacit endorsement of the empire, or if it was just a gig, or what. My own problem with the movie (Beyond it being a crappy movie) is that dictatorships generally don’t fall when you assasinate the dictator. When Lenin dies, there’s always Stalin; when Hitler dies, there’s always Donitz.
Mmmmm, donitz.
Well, Donitz had enough sense to surrender.
Does it REALLY count as surrender if your capitol consists of rubble currently being crushed under the treads of T-34’s and you have no longer have any organized military forces to speak of? Granted, if Uncle Adolf hadn’t eaten a bullet, he wouldn’t have surrendered – I’m just sayin…
tzrupr,
Good point.
@ Mike: In my world, Lucas died in a car accident in 1982. But that’s not a problem for me because there are lots of fragmentary works of art that are still plenty popular and worthy of reading: “The Cantebury Tales,” “Kublai Khan” and “That Third Example I Can’t Think Of Right Now, But Certainly Exists.” Or maybe “Pet Sounds,” if you don’t like the Third one.
In defence of George Lucas, before he was killed and eaten by the hack that wears his face and spends his money today, I will point out that he did do some good stuff: THX 1138 isn’t a masterpiece, for it’s still plenty good for what it is, American Grafiti, Star Wars, and his fingerprints are all over Raiders and Empire, though he didn’t actually direct ‘em.
Now that I think on him, it was probably Empire that did him in. He began to believe his hype, and at the same time not bother trying too terribly hard.
Lucas’s self-satisfaction over Empire would be especially ironic, given that he did’t direct it and had a lot of help with the screenplay.
On the topic of Star Wars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQa31siu9KI
Obi-wan: “I’m surprised your uncle never thought to change your last name . . . oh well, I guess none of your friends ever knew what your dad became!”
Yoda: “I really like to hear the sweet sound of my own voooooiiiice!”
@ Rufus: (Regarding your response to my friend’s plan) So you’re a Warren G. Harding kinda’ Republican, eh?
I totally agree that the president’s insistence on fixing this system right now is bizarre and misplaced. I think I disagree with the “We don’t need a plan” aspect of it, though. My friend is (obviously) in insurance, and has pointed out to me official stats from his company (Which is one of the three largest insurers in the country): More than 50% of the country has no health insurance. 10 to 20% more has basically health coverage so inadequate as to be useless, but expensive (I fall in to that category). He went on to point out that the cause of the spiraling health costs is, obviously, frivolous lawsuits, which drive up malpractice, causing a vicious cycle. Even so, his company an the others (He claims) were basically able to handle it, because they took a long-term financial view on these things a’la life insurance (The death rate in America is 100%, but they still manage to turn a profit on that stuff thanks to long term financial planning), and they were able to stay solvent, slightly. Unfortunatley, federal and state governments mucking about with them, mainly so they can say “Congressman Harold G. “Spunky” Taint is hard on the insurance companies!” in their re-election commercials, has destroyed the industry, to the point where even the insurers can’t make money on it anymore.
My friend’s company has gotten out of Health Insurance entirely in the last six or seven years, and now subcontract it to another company, whcih charges ludicrous rates.
So there’s definitely a problem, but it was at least workable when it was private industry, and the Government killed it.
So, my friend, we *DO* need a plan, just not the President’s plan.
@ Kit: Yeah, Donitz surrendered, but if the Nazis had *won* world war 2, Donitz would have still been the number two man, and even if Frank Sinatra himself assasinated Der Fuhrer in 1946, Donitz would have been Der Neu Fuhrer, and life would have gone on just as terribly as ever. Presumably he wouldn’t have surrendered or dismembered the Reich if he didn’t have to. That’s my point: There’s always someone holding the coat of the big bad guy.
Republibot 3.0,
You are not explaining why we need a plan, you are reiterating, for the ten-millionth time someone in this country has said it, “Health Care is screwed up and needs fixing.” I agree. No offense at all to you, or your friend (sincerely) but if I google “health care plan” right now I’ll get over a million hits. Every blogger, pundit, congressman, congresswoman, scout leader and facebook page owner has written one. To paraphrase an old saw, “Health care plans are like *ssh*l*s, everybody’s got one.”
Look, a lot of the plans are good, maybe your friend’s plan is great. Maybe it’s awesome! Well, you need to let your friend know that Harry Reid has a plan too, and unless your freind expects to be the majority leader of the Senate before Harry Reid brings Harry Reid’s plan to a vote, your friend’s plan doesn’t matter. I have a plan to get the Bears to the SuperBowl this year. Guess what? Lovie Smith ain’t takin’ my calls.
From what I see from opinion polls and historical writings this country has never had a Congress folks thought much of. Why do we keep thinking we’ll somehow get a Congress to wake up and do right by us? It’s exactly like my robot analogy. Your friends wants to huddle in the court room and figure out how to get the robot to eat us more slowly. In my mind, if we don’t take the robot out of the picture we’re all screwed, it’s just a question of when.
Look how much Education in this country has tanked since Carter instituted the Department of Education. But now it’s there and we all spend our days debaring what the Department of Education should do to fix Education. That’s kind of like asking a cancerous tumor what we should do to save the patient. By your own admission your friend admits government intervention has negatively impacted health care. So what’s his solution? More government meddling. We don’t need another plan. Get the government out of it and some enterprising folks will try some of the plans already out there, and some of them will be good, and folks will pay money for them, and then they’ll get improved; rinse, repeat…
I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I remember your friend’s plan had something about the government paying for medical school tuition and the graduates working on the cheap after graduation. Don’t you think that would let Harry Reid into the medical schools to make sure they are a diverse number of applicants accepted, and don’t you think Harry Reid would start to care about what percent are being trained in what specialty? Your friends is arguing over whether the robot eats us in alphabetical, or height order. Once you agree the robot gets to eat us, the rest is just symantecs.
And look, here’s a dirty little secret, Health Care is expensive and good Health Care is really expensive. Wealthy people are going to get better Health Care than poor people. With Harry Reid’s plan politically connected people will get better care than non-politically connected people, just as in Cuba Fidel’s nephew doesn’t have to wait in line for his H1N1 vaccination. But any plan will have winners and losers. There will never be enough doctors, nurses and catscan machines to go around. So, do you want to live in a country where you have some control over your own destiny based on how much care you pay for, or do you want to be a sheep?
Look, I know if me and one of Ted Kennedy’s sons gets the same disease tomorrow I likely might not survive until my next birthday and he will. Oh well, everything else in his life has been paved by his grandfather’s ill-gotten wealth. I’m used to it by now. But maybe I’ll figure out a way to make money and my grandkids will have great healthcare. Regardless, I know my family has better health care right now than the vast majority of people who have ever set foot on this globe.
Ok, here’s the part I’m not getting, Rufus:
If none of us give a crap about the healthcare plan, then why are we talking so damn much about it on this site? Furthermore, why are we continually saying that the president should be drawn and quartered for his halfassed scheme. I’ll grant that it’s halfassed, no argument from me there, but if it’s not a subject of interest, why does someone post a thread on it every two or three days?
I’m not predisposed to complain. It’s not my nature. I’ll do it if it’s really funny, or in the “Oh my, I seem to have caught myself in a bear trap, could someone please help me out?” kind of situation where I legitimately need help, but other than that, I just kind of find it as a violation of The Guy Code, you know?
So if a subject comes up repeatedly and people are complaining about it repeatedly, my nature is to try to come up with a sollution. Doesn’t matter if it’s my problem or not, doesn’t matter that I have no voice, or that my friend Jerry the Insurance Guy has no voice, doesn’t matter – I do it because I’m at root a problem solver, and I enjoy doing it. My bias has always been “Try to fix the problem, or shut up.”
So have all the healthcare discussions on here been a “We just want to complain like little old ladies from New Jersey” kind of thing, or have they been a legitimate attempt to accomplish something? ‘Cuz if it’s the former, I’m deeply, deeply disappointed.
Republibot 3.0,
You’re not too far off the target. A lot of it is little old day from New Jersey stuff, and I’m as guilty as the next guy, ‘er gal. But, at the end of the day this all starts to raise my dander because I do think we continually miss the crux of the issue and the media and our politicians all feed on this never ending cycle of focusing on the wrong things.
I’m furious that our Senators are, right now, debating how best to provide government health care and how best the government can “fix” health care. It’s going to be as successful as the government deciding how best to build a car, or sell a home. And, even more importantly, they have no RIGHT! They work for us. You, me, your friend in insurance. These people all work for us. We pay their salaries and they are very limited in what they can, and cannot do. Yet they keep violating that relationship. You, me and your buddy in insurance do not have a big enough soapbox to stop them, but our State legislators and Governors do. The only chance we have is to get those people, who also work for us, to do their jobs and stop the other people who work for us from fleecing us.
The good citizens of Massachusetts wanted to have government health care. More power to ‘em. From what I hear it’s not working out too well, but that’s all fine and good as long as we get to keep our state tax dollars here in good ol’ Freedonia. But once the Federal government get their paws in it we’re sunk. Unless someone has a plan for how to get our Congresspeople to read and understand the U.S. Constitution I see all the rest as simply whistling in the graveyard*.
*but I reserve the right to occassionally whine like a little old lady from New Jersey when I feel like it.
Republibot 3.0,
It’s a cliche, but many of us men (and some women) do tend to be “problem solvers.” We don’t like to sit around and kvetch, we listen and we try to fix. I get that, and I share the same trait.
This is also why I get so exasperated by this. I look at everything like a system and if I’m told there are problems I try to devise a solution to fix the system. It is my nature. I cannot help it. I solve puzzles.
With the explosion of 24/7 news we are confronted with problems all day, everyday and I found myself being consumed by politics. The truth be known, I actually don’t care much about politics, but in our lives we are continuously bombarded with messages telling us politics are important and the world is on fire.
So, I dove into politics and really started paying attention. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trying to fix the system. I was trying to create a better “plan.” After about two years, and literally wondering if I wasn’t about to go insane I finally snapped out of it and realized what my brain was doing. It was like the computer in “War Games.” It’s an unsolvable situation but I could not stop trying to solve it. It has so many variables, and every day there are five new, important news stories with information to research and digest… I was completely sucked into political news and almost consumed by it.
When I realized what was going on, and what my puzzle solving brain was trying to do I took a very deep breath, turned off the TV, stepped away from the computer and completely unplugged. After a few days of decompressing I realized I’m not the only one dragged into the spiral. This is why I occassionally go bonkers on this topic. A few months ago I unfairly ripped into David for similar reasons. I overstepped, but it hits close to home. I’d love to have those two years of my life back and I get nervous when I see others being sucked into the same wormhole.
Perspective is the answer. Who are we, really, and what impact can we have? My best hope is to get involved locally, very locally. That’s where I can have the most influence. And, I can also try to get those who represent my city, county and state to do their jobs and protect me from federal employees not doing theirs. But, really, even if I came up with the unique, single best solution for health care what would become of it? Have you ever heard of Philo Farnsworth? He died lonely and insane. Having a brilliant idea isn’t what the world needs. The world is over-flowing with brilliant ideas.
Implementation is the trick. General Petraeus can implement. Bill Gates can implement.
I apologize if I over-reacted, but this is a really touchy subject for me. Not health care, this whole, trying to solve politics-thingy. It truly is the sausage machinery Mark Twain defined and I’m not sure anyone can go into it without coming out a fool on the other side. That’s a blackhole I don’t want to get sucked into again.
Implementation is the trick. General Petraeus can implement. Bill Gates can implement.
And that what’s separates a plan from an idea. That’s what I also think you missed about much of what I’m doing. Most of my work has to do with implementation. You’ve declared a destination, a destination we all want, without a route. I want to find the route. I’m not trying to soup up the car or break the land speed record.
So, when I head you say “we need to get back too…” my question is “how?” I’m a cartographer drawing a map, not an engineer digging a tunnel through a mountain.
Undoubtedly there is an ‘arguing with the wind’ quality to it.
In my own mind, the practical aplication is this: I come up with a solution that makes sense to me. If a politician comes along who offers a solution that is the same as mine, or even terribly close, I vote for ‘em. If their idea seems better than mine, I vote for ‘em. If their idea doesn’t make as much sense as mine, I don’t vote for ‘em. So the payoff is that it’s a kind of very elaborite bullsh!t detector, and I vote accordingly, and if we lived in a country where my vote mattered, we’d be sitting pretty. Alas, it’s still just America…
But trust me, I’m not going down a whole. I have a firm grasp on my utter political impotence.
Never mind the mental gymnastics with the philosophical and religious influences on the creation of the Jedi … more profound questions arise. Such as: What do you get a Wookie for Christmas when he already he already owns a comb?
Christ. What do you get Jimmy Two Times for Christmas while we’re at it?
A subscription to the papers.
Same answer for both: More ammo.
‘bot 3.0, I would have thought you’d have picked up on my “Wookie for Christmas” reference.