• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Florida Blue cutting 300K policies

Boo Radley said:
I don't disagree, but remember it will likely lead to fewer going.
Click to expand...

That would not be bad thing, not everyone needs to go. I have no degree and make as much as engineers with our company
 
Rocketman said:
That would not be bad thing, not everyone needs to go. I have no degree and make as much as engineers with our company
Click to expand...

Yes, some wIll rise, as there is always more than one way to do anything, but the gap between haves and have nots will grow. That may be worse than what we have now.
 
Rocketman said:
One way is to make them pay as they go to school instead of borrowing all that damn money. They learn responsibility as they go.
Click to expand...

If the government stopped subsidizing colleges and students very few people would go to school. It would cost a fortune. That way the people who truly deserve a college education will get one instead of making it a right that everyone is entitled. That leads to occupy wall street.

vasuderatorrent
 
apdst said:
Of course it's not easy! Who ever said it's supposed to be easy?
Click to expand...

Lots of people claim that people would rather collect welfare rather than work a job. Offer the people on welfare two choices: A job making $100,000 per year or a welfare check for $10,000 and see what happens. I bet they won't be so lazy any more.

Offer them these three choices: A job making $15,080, no job at all or a welfare check for $10,000, see which one they chose.

I think people collecting government goodies are smart rather than lazy but I guess smart and lazy do go hand and hand.

vasuderatorrent
 
Boo Radley said:
But they spend less. Much, much less.
Click to expand...

Jesus Joe, a percentage point or two is not "much less".... Our costs are going up with this turd, and we have many more people. So, you're just plain wrong here.
 
Helix said:
not really. i would actually pay for single payer, unlike what this and previous administrations have done with everything. you can scroll upthread to find my post and read some ideas i've presented.
Click to expand...

You? All by yourself? :) Just kidding. Do you also plan on paying for ss, and Medicare all by yourself too? Look these programs are wealth redistribution, you will never cover all your own costs.
 
j-mac said:
You? All by yourself? :) Just kidding. Do you also plan on paying for ss, and Medicare all by yourself too? Look these programs are wealth redistribution, you will never cover all your own costs.
Click to expand...

it's possible to pay for all of it. however, as i've stated in previous posts, it will require a rethink of our national priorities, as well as new revenue streams.
 
finebead said:
Let's see, you had a policy that was cheap, well, because it was a cheap policy. If you got really sick, like cancer, you could be kicked off that cheap policy. If they didn't kick you off when you got cancer, then the lifetime max would kick in and you wouldn't have health ins. although you desperately needed it.
Click to expand...

That's amazing! You have ESP, and can read everyone else's insurance policies!

....Or you are making unfounded assumptions, in a vain attempt to claim that the insurance people are being kicked off of - which the vast majority of them liked - isn't that big of a loss in order to cover the cognitive dissonance spawned by the damages of Obamacare.

But Hey! Good luck selling that line in 2014!

Clearly, you had a cheap policy that did a reasonable job taking care of normal healthcare needs and it failed to take care of major needs.
Click to expand...

Or he had a cheap policy that did a good job of taking care of major needs by letting him take care of normal needs. You know, sort of how insurance is supposed to work.

Clearly that cheap old policy cannot provide the standard of benefits required by Obamacare (which people need whether their short sighted minds realize it now or not), so the policy must be changed to specify new terms that meet the standard, and at a new rate.
Click to expand...

The People Are Too Stupid To Make Decisions For Themselves And Require Benevolent Overlords To Make Those Decisions For Them. Big Brother Knows What Insurance Is Best For You.
 
finebead said:
A national health policy that allows 45,000 people per year to die because the insurance company death panels deny them coverage is immoral.
Click to expand...

....if only there was some kind of public health insurance available for those who couldn't afford their own. We could call it "Medical-Aid" or "Medic-Help" or "Medic-Aid", or something....
 
Boo Radley said:
Yes, some wIll rise, as there is always more than one way to do anything, but the gap between haves and have nots will grow. That may be worse than what we have now.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that either. Many without degrees end up being your local business owners that keep a community growing
 
winston53660 said:
Can you do what engineers do?
Click to expand...

Some things but that is not my description. I can probably run most projects better as my world extends out past the plant giving me more experience with other projects within our internal network.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
If the government stopped subsidizing colleges and students very few people would go to school. It would cost a fortune. That way the people who truly deserve a college education will get one instead of making it a right that everyone is entitled. That leads to occupy wall street.

vasuderatorrent
Click to expand...

Why would it? I was making around 65k per year when my kids went and all of them graduated without any debt. All of them worked and covered their books and living expenses. Why are parents afraid to ask their kids to invest in themselves? Borrowing ridiculous amounts of money for the "college experience" is stupid and people that do it deserve that high interest they are seeing now.
 
Rocketman said:
I don't believe that either. Many without degrees end up being your local business owners that keep a community growing
Click to expand...

I would love to see the number of those without degrees who have been that successful today. Can you show me those?
 
Boo Radley said:
I would love to see the number of those without degrees who have been that successful today. Can you show me those?
Click to expand...

I would love to see the number of those with college degrees that graduated after 2008 that have had success at anything other than earning minimum wage. Can you show me those?

vasuderatorrent
 
Boo Radley said:
I would love to see the number of those without degrees who have been that successful today. Can you show me those?
Click to expand...

List of college-dropout billionaires

Steve Jobs would be on this list if still living

1.Bill Gates[4] – US
2.Mark Zuckerberg[5] – US
3.Lawrence Ellison[6] – US
4.Eike Batista[7] – Brazil
5.Michael Dell[8] – US
6.Marc Rich[9] – US
7.Ty Warner[10] – US
8.Gautam Adani[11] – India
9.Micky Jagtiani[12] – India
10.Shahid Balwa[13] – India
11.Subhash Chandra[14] – India
12.Vinod Goenka[15] – India
13.PNC Menon[16][17] – India
14.Roman Abramovich[18] – Russia
15.Sheldon Adelson[19] – US
16.Amancio Ortega[20] – Spain
17.Kirk Kerkorian[21][note 1] – US
18.Donald Newhouse[22] – US
19.François Pinault[23] – France
20.Jack Taylor[24] – US
21.Joaquín Guzmán Loera[25] (Mexican drug lord) – Mexico
22.David Geffen[26] – US
23.David Murdock[27][note 2] – US
24.Ted Turner[28] – US
25.Henry Fok[29] (d. 2006) – Hong Kong
26.Ralph Lauren[30] – US
27.Mohammed Al Amoudi[31] – Saudi Arabia
28.Stanley Ho[32] – Hong Kong
29.Gabe Newell[33] - US
30.Dustin Moskovitz[34] – US
31.Richard Li[35] – Hong Kong
32.Sheldon Solow[36] - US
33.Stef Wertheimer[37][38] - Israel
34.Ted Waitt[39] - US

List of college dropout billionaires - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
vasuderatorrent said:
I would love to see the number of those with college degrees that graduated after 2008 that have had success at anything other than earning minimum wage. Can you show me those?

vasuderatorrent
Click to expand...

I bet I can.
 
cpwill said:
That's amazing! You have ESP, and can read everyone else's insurance policies!

....Or you are making unfounded assumptions, in a vain attempt to claim that the insurance people are being kicked off of - which the vast majority of them liked - isn't that big of a loss in order to cover the cognitive dissonance spawned by the damages of Obamacare.
Click to expand...
Hey cpwill, good to see you!

However, to prove that my point is false, you must show that the health ins. company death panels did NOT rescind any insurance policies when people got serious illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. GO.

I will show that the health ins. death panels did JUST THAT, drop their insured when they got serious illnesses and cost them too much. Watch.

June 24, 2009

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon. My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick — all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.

I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand — or even to obtain — information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world. I hope you get a real sense of what life would be like for most of us if the kind of so-called reform the insurers are lobbying for is enacted.

<snip>

A few months after I joined the health insurer CIGNA Corp. in 1993, just as the last national health care reform debate was underway, the president of CIGNA's health care division was one of three industry executives who came here to assure members of Congress that they would help lawmakers pass meaningful reform.

Those goals included covering all Americans; eliminating underwriting practices like pre-existing condition exclusions and cherry-picking; the use of community rating; and the creation of a standard benefit plan. Had the industry followed through on its commitment to those goals, I wouldn't be here today.

<snip>

The average family doesn't understand how Wall Street's dictates determine whether they will be offered coverage, whether they can keep it, and how much they'll be charged for it. But, in fact, Wall Street plays a powerful role. The top priority of for-profit companies is to drive up the value of their stock.

<snip>

To help meet Wall Street's relentless profit expectations, insurers routinely dump policyholders who are less profitable or who get sick. Insurers have several ways to cull the sick from their rolls. One is policy rescission. They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment. Asked directly about this practice just last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, executives of three of the nation's largest health insurers refused to end the practice of cancelling policies for sick enrollees. Why? Because dumping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line. Ten percent of the population accounts for two-thirds of all health care spending. The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation into three insurers found that they canceled the coverage of roughly 20,000 people in a five-year period, allowing the companies to avoid paying $300 million in claims.

They also dump small businesses whose employees' medical claims exceed what insurance underwriters expected. All it takes is one illness or accident among employees at a small business to prompt an insurance company to hike the next year's premiums so high that the employer has to cut benefits, shop for another carrier, or stop offering coverage altogether — leaving workers uninsured. The practice is known in the industry as "purging." The purging of less profitable accounts through intentionally unrealistic rate increases helps explain why the number of small businesses offering coverage to their employees has fallen from 61 percent to 38 percent since 1993, according to the National Small Business Association. Once an insurer purges a business, there are often no other viable choices in the health insurance market because of rampant industry consolidation.

An account purge so eye-popping that it caught the attention of reporters occurred in October 2006 when CIGNA notified the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust that many of the Trust's members in California and New Jersey would have to pay more than some of them earned in a year if they wanted to continue their coverage. The rate increase CIGNA planned to implement, according to USA Today, would have meant that some family-plan premiums would exceed $44,000 a year. CIGNA gave the enrollees less than three months to pay the new premiums or go elsewhere.

Purging through pricing games is not limited to letting go of an isolated number of unprofitable accounts. It is endemic in the industry. For instance, between 1996 and 1999, Aetna initiated a series of company acquisitions and became the nation's largest health insurer with 21 million members. The company spent more than $20 million that it received in fees and premiums from customers to revamp its computer systems, enabling the company to "identify and dump unprofitable corporate accounts," as The Wall Street Journal reported in 2004. Armed with a stockpile of new information on policyholders, new management and a shift in strategy, in 2000, Aetna sharply raised premiums on less profitable accounts. Within a few years, Aetna lost 8 million covered lives due to strategic and other factors.

While strategically initiating these cost hikes, insurers have professed to be the victims of rising health costs while taking no responsibility for their share of America's health care affordability crisis. Yet, all the while, health-plan operating margins have increased as sick people are forced to scramble for insurance.

Unless required by state law, insurers often refuse to tell customers how much of their premiums are actually being paid out in claims. A Houston employer could not get that information until the Texas legislature passed a law a few years ago requiring insurers to disclose it. That Houston employer discovered that its insurer was demanding a 22 percent rate increase in 2006 even though it had paid out only 9 percent of the employer's premium dollars for care the year before.
Click to expand...
Bill Moyers Journal . Testimony of Wendell Potter | PBS

I don't have to read everyone's policy to KNOW that the sick are being kicked off their policy, it is a matter of congressional record via the sworn testimony of Mr. Potter, a former executive inside the industry. These are NOT UNFOUNDED STATEMENTS, and it is NOT A VAIN ATTEMPT TO SHOW PEOPLE ARE BEING KICKED OFF THEIR POLICY, it is the sworn testimony of a former industry insider.

If you disagree with me, the onus is now on you to show proof that the health insurance industry does NOT KICK PEOPLE OFF their insurance policy when they get very sick and start costing the ins. company too much. GO.
 
Rocketman said:
List of college-dropout billionaires

Steve Jobs would be on this list if still living

1.Bill Gates[4] – US
2.Mark Zuckerberg[5] – US
3.Lawrence Ellison[6] – US
4.Eike Batista[7] – Brazil
5.Michael Dell[8] – US
6.Marc Rich[9] – US
7.Ty Warner[10] – US
8.Gautam Adani[11] – India
9.Micky Jagtiani[12] – India
10.Shahid Balwa[13] – India
11.Subhash Chandra[14] – India
12.Vinod Goenka[15] – India
13.PNC Menon[16][17] – India
14.Roman Abramovich[18] – Russia
15.Sheldon Adelson[19] – US
16.Amancio Ortega[20] – Spain
17.Kirk Kerkorian[21][note 1] – US
18.Donald Newhouse[22] – US
19.François Pinault[23] – France
20.Jack Taylor[24] – US
21.Joaquín Guzmán Loera[25] (Mexican drug lord) – Mexico
22.David Geffen[26] – US
23.David Murdock[27][note 2] – US
24.Ted Turner[28] – US
25.Henry Fok[29] (d. 2006) – Hong Kong
26.Ralph Lauren[30] – US
27.Mohammed Al Amoudi[31] – Saudi Arabia
28.Stanley Ho[32] – Hong Kong
29.Gabe Newell[33] - US
30.Dustin Moskovitz[34] – US
31.Richard Li[35] – Hong Kong
32.Sheldon Solow[36] - US
33.Stef Wertheimer[37][38] - Israel
34.Ted Waitt[39] - US

List of college dropout billionaires - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...

Harvard is first in a 'rich list' that revealed the colleges where students are most likely to become multi-millionaires.
The Boston college comes top after producing 2,964 alumni worth $200million or more, and University of Pennsylvania is in second place with 1,502 super-wealthy graduates.


Read more: Harvard's billionaires: Ivy League college leads the world with richest alumni | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Not sure 34 is all that large.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
I would love to see the number of those with college degrees that graduated after 2008 that have had success at anything other than earning minimum wage. Can you show me those?

vasuderatorrent
Click to expand...

Did you know that 84% of the Forbes 400 have a college degree or higher? Although billionaires like Steve Jobs (obviously no longer on the list) and Bill Gates are often noted for having dropped out of school early, the overwhelming majority of the filthy rich have a very high level of education. Just 15% dropped out of college or stopped after high school.

Read more at WANT TO BE A BILLIONAIRE? STAY IN SCHOOL… | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM
 
Boo Radley said:
Harvard is first in a 'rich list' that revealed the colleges where students are most likely to become multi-millionaires.
The Boston college comes top after producing 2,964 alumni worth $200million or more, and University of Pennsylvania is in second place with 1,502 super-wealthy graduates.


Read more: Harvard's billionaires: Ivy League college leads the world with richest alumni | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Not sure 34 is all that large.
Click to expand...

Not everyone deserves or should go to Harvard. My list proves that degrees are not required to be successful. In my business kids straight out of college are mostly charity cases that become expenses for the first 3 years they are employed. We had a re-org last year and all the college grads with less that 5 years were cut except for one. Now we pretty much only look at experienced workers and degrees have little impact on the people we hire.
 
Rocketman said:
Why would it?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you are asking. Are you asking, Why would college cost a fortune if the government stopped subsidizing it and subsidizing students?

If that is your question I do have an answer. The in-state tuition rate is not the cost of college. The out-of-state tuition rate is what it really cost to go to college. The state government pays the gap. The cost of college is deflated further because a good portion of the college funding comes from federal, state and local governments. There is also a pretty good bit of money coming in from donors that further deflates the cost of higher education.

Very few people could afford a college education if it weren't heavily subsidized. With less people going to college the value of a college degree would drastically increase as well.

When 80% of high school graduates go to college a college degree really doesn't impress anybody. We need to reverse the trend and start discouraging people from going to college. I don't see that happening any time soon and that's very unfair to young people. An 18 year old has no grasp on the realities of the job market. An 18 year old will always believe the optimistic message. It's very sad to see them get f****ed over by these scum bags at the heads of these universities.

It's not like they are getting conned into buy a fancy pair of shoes. It's not like they are getting conned into buying a new car. They are sometimes getting swindled out of $70,000+ in tuition dues. The worst part is that the government(s) at all levels are co-conspirators in this racketeering operation.

The national debt shows another example at how past generations never cared about the younger generation. They just want to rape them constantly because it's easy money and young folks have plenty of life left to make more money. Young people are the perfect victim. Young folks are gullible and they have longevity on their side.

vasuderatorrent
 
Last edited:
Rocketman said:
Not everyone deserves or should go to Harvard. My list proves that degrees are not required to be successful. In my business kids straight out of college are mostly charity cases that become expenses for the first 3 years they are employed. We had a re-org last year and all the college grads with less that 5 years were cut except for one. Now we pretty much only look at experienced workers and degrees have little impact on the people we hire.
Click to expand...

I don't suggest everyone does. I do suggest in the competitive market place having education is better than not. And while your personal story may well reflect how you see it, it's not a large enough sample to make a larger case.

image.jpg

Published: January 9, 2013

Young adults have long faced a rough job market, but in the last recession and its aftermath, college graduates did not lose nearly as much ground as their less-educated peers, according to a new study.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/e...rees-value-during-economic-downturn.html?_r=0
 
finebead said:
show proof that the health insurance industry does NOT KICK PEOPLE OFF their insurance policy when they get very sick and start costing the ins. company too much[/B]. GO.
Click to expand...

Yes, they do kick people off their insurance policy when they get very sick and start costing the insurance company too much. Why wouldn't they?

Why are you having such a hard time understanding that $4,200 in dues over 1,190 years only yields $4,998,000. 1,190 years is too long to wait for a return on investment. Most people don't pay premiums for 1,190 years. How could an insurance continue to exist if they made completely mathematically absurd decisions?

I can't comprehend this kind of thinking.

Businesses should go broke because it's nice. Businesses shouldn't make a profit because it is mean.

Do people really believe this stupidity? Surely not.

vasuderatorrent
 
vasuderatorrent said:
Yes, they do kick people off their insurance policy when they get very sick and start costing the insurance company too much. Why wouldn't they?

Why are you having such a hard time understanding that $4,200 in dues over 1,190 years only yields $4,998,000. 1,190 years is too long to wait for a return on investment. Most people don't pay premiums for 1,190 years. How could an insurance continue to exist if they made completely mathematically absurd decisions?

I can't comprehend this kind of thinking.

Businesses should go broke because it's nice. Businesses shouldn't make a profit because it is mean.

Do people really believe this stupidity? Surely not.

vasuderatorrent
Click to expand...

In order for you to assert that the profit of the private health ins. industry is more important to our national health system than the lives of the people that it is supposed to serve, you would have to prove that a private health ins. industry is even NECESSARY. England and Canada have shown that it is not even necessary to have a private health ins. industry.

Does a health insurance company provide any actual CARE to sick people? No. Why do we need them if they are harmful to the poor and the very sick when it comes to accessing the healthcare that they need, if other countries do the job WITHOUT private health ins. at all, and they do it at 11% of GDP while the US pays 17% of GDP? Answer, we don't need them as part of our national health system. Therefore, their profit motive cannot be deemed superior to saving the lives of the sick that really need healthcare and are only being rescinded because they cost a lot. It is immoral to allow corporate america to let people die like that, and it is a prime example of the inappropriateness of putting private industry in charge of setting the rules via their death panels, on who gets to live and who has to die, based on their profit requirement to Wall St. The military is not for profit, nor should healthcare be for profit. Life and death is a moral issue, not a profit issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom