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I haven’t either spoken to Rav Miller Zt”l recently but if he was so against Democrats before Obama pushed them so far to the left I’m confident that he would continue advocating for voting against them. (How much more so after Biden led them off the deep end.)
Hopefully you’ll do תשובה before you reach 120 but if you ח״ו don’t how are you going to explain to השם how you ferociously defended a political party that encourages a relationship that the Torah calls an abomination? Are you going to say “Because of Jan 6th”?
How are you going to explain how you ferociously defended a political party that encourages the slaughter of innocent unborn children so that the mother can go get drunk with her friends and not have to find a babysitter? “Uh, השם- it was because of Jan 6th”?
You may fool some other Loony Libs but השם knows the real reason why you’re throwing Him and the Torah under the bus.
Please think carefully and do תשובה before it’s too late. Keep in mind that the more people here you corrupt the longer it’ll take to fix the damage you created.
When President Trump was in office this never happened. Putin was afraid of him and didn’t try to test his limits.
The despot from North Korea tested President Trump and I was terrified when he didn’t back down, luckily President Trump knew what he was doing and didn’t back down until ultimately Kim Jon Un did.
Ask anyone who ר״ל lost a relative since October 7th if they’d rather have the money, support and “much, much more” from Biden or their loved ones and I guarantee you that you won’t find a single person who would rather have what Biden have them.
Our enemies can sense a weak president from thousands of miles away. Look what happened under Carter (the worst president for decades until Obama), Iran became a worldwide threat that hasn’t subsided. For over a year the Iranians refused to release the hostages taken from the US Embassy. How long did it take President Reagan to get them released after taking office?
Now that Biden is in office (and Carter got pushed down to third place in rank of worst presidents) the Iranians sensed again that the US has a weak president and started testing their limits. They see that Biden didn’t cut off their money flow and isn’t punishing them for what they did- do you honestly think that they learned their lesson?
Don’t think for a second that Biden cares at all about Jews- he only cares about getting re-elected. If he felt that he had a better chance of getting re-elected by not doing anything- he wouldn’t have done anything.
Now imagine if Israel would have gone on a full offensive and blew up some oil refineries in Iran- the cost of gas would have gone up even higher than it already went up under his term and the chances of him losing to President Trump would have gone up even higher than they already are.
Thanks- now I need to figure out how to apply it.
Yes, absolutely tirelessly.
President Trump is a workaholic and absolute genius whose IQ is light years ahead of mine. I can’t answer for everything thing that he does but his success proves it.
He knows what he’s doing and what it takes to get it done. Why does it bother you if he golfs, tweets or watches TV between successes?
I explained this to you in a post back in late March.
The best way to manage a company is to line up future income with future expenses and not keep too much cash on hand. The better this can be done, the less cash needed to be kept on hand. Given the genius level IQ of President Trump (and the brilliant people he surrounds himself with) the in and out cash flows were probably very well aligned.
If President Trump had all the future assets and liabilities lined up and then was forced to sell a huge piece of real estate (really fast and at a huge loss) he’d lose out on the future income to pay the future liabilities.
If the AG and judge weren’t so blatantly biased against him they may have just allowed him to post the title to one of his buildings (worth considerably more than the bond) but they were trying to do irreversible damage to him and his company and insisted on cash.
Do you know when else his enormous wealth dropped significantly?
The four years that he worked tirelessly for every single citizen to make the world a better place.
By contrast- how much did Bidens wealth grow by while in the White House (while many millions of people are struggling to keep a roof over their head and put food on their table)?
Where did that money come from?
To claim that the price of gas was low due to the pandemic without mentioning that it had already dropped significantly before the pandemic and only dropped slightly once the pandemic started is simply a lie. Similarly, to not mention that the price of gas shot up significantly after Biden signed the executive order, is a lie as well.
I try not to waste my time with posters who lie, dodge questions, give vague responses or don’t respond at all (although I do make an exception for one poster since he cracks me up).
If you want to discuss aid to Israel and Ukraine as well as IVF you can go ahead and fix the post about gas prices and post the details you purposely left out from the other topics.
You crack me up 😂!
You’re the one who asked for evidence in order to believe that someone currently sitting in jail for shoplifting can’t continue shoplifting while in jail and you accuse me of being in a cult.
Well, I guess that’s one way to end a discussion where you helplessly blocked yourself into a corner.
I’m not sure where you copied and pasted that list from but can you point to a single one that helps out the millions of hard working families (that don’t own a business) that make too much to be eligible for handouts but not enough to be unaffected by the skyrocketing prices of just about everything?
Inflation Reduction Act? You’ve gotta be kidding me! How much was a gallon of gas when President Trump was in office? How much more is the typical weekly grocery shopping for a family now than when President Trump was in office? And then you mention that not a single Republican voted for it? Why should they have- did prices for anything go back down to the Pre-biden days? How much has the deficit gone down since then?
Support for Ukraine and Israel??? It would be laughable if there weren’t thousands of innocent people that lost their lives. None of this went on when President Trump was in office. You’re going to give him credit for sending arms to fight a war that he shouldn’t have allowed to start in the first place (and leave out that he’s still allowing huge amounts of money to flow to Iran)?
What have Republicans done in the last year?
For starters they showed the world (at least the ones not tuned in the Fake News all day long) that despite the Democrats complaining about hard working people not paying their “fair share”- the president’s son doesn’t have to and they’re not going to do anything about it. They showed the world that Biden sold out the country while he and his family raked in tens of millions of Dollars in multiple accounts without any legitimate business source (and they probably didn’t pay their “fair share” for that either). They showed the world that they can scream gun control all day long but when the president’s crack head son lies on his gun application and the gun ends up in the garbage- they’re not going to do anything about it.
But why only the last year when they barely had enough power to do anything- go back to the first three years of President Trump’s presidency (before bidens friends released the virus). Record low gas prices, DJIA hitting new milestones on a daily basis, record low unemployment, 401(k) accounts making unimaginable gains…
Oh- and thanks for telling me that he was trying to say “possibilities”, in a million years I never would have guessed it.
You can say that the slurring of an old and senile pervert is entertaining- that’s fine with me. What you neglected to address is that his actions (unlike President Trumps actions) are detrimental to those who want to work and live a peaceful life.
Can you name a single thing Biden did that benefited hard working Americans?
It seems like the first part of your post got cut off. It also seems like you copied and pasted the information from PolitiFact. Can you direct me to a place that has the entire video? I’ve been wondering for years what he was trying to say.
Search on YouTube for “America is a nation that can be defined in a single word….” and then tell me honestly if you feel safe with that guy having the nuclear codes.
I don’t take President Trumps rants and raves seriously- but I do find them entertaining. What I do take seriously are his actions which made the world a better place for every single person who wanted peace and was willing to work for a living.
Is the world a better place under Biden for those that want peace and work hard for a living? If so, please explain how.
I’m not surprised that he can’t come up with the money and here’s why.
According to Hillary Clinton in a debate with Donald Trump back in 2016 she claimed that he started his business with a $14,000,000 loan from his late father. He didn’t become a multi-billionaire (at a time when there were very few billionaires on the planet) by putting the money into as savings account and earning interest- he used his genius level IQ and real estate brilliance to hire the best people, build the best buildings and re-invest the profits into new ventures.
A healthy company looking to grow will have teams that predict future income, project future expenses and another team that lines up investments so that the future income and future expenses line up while coming up with methods to mitigate unfavorable outcomes. The closer these companies can come to aligning the cash flows, the less cash they need to keep on hand. Selling off those investments much earlier than anticipated usually results in massive losses.
Given the efficiency at how his company runs I’d be very shocked if he had that much cash just sitting around. In a typical environment, if a huge company run by a well known and proven leader needed that much cash other companies would be running to lend money for a bond but here, they’re afraid of the attorney general going after them as well.
I don’t plan on donating to his legal fees though, for two reasons:
1. This may sound selfish on my part but I think that if his buildings do get seized, he’d have a better chance and getting reelected, undoing some of the damage that Biden and Obama have done to the country and bringing peace back to the world while saving countless lives. (Hopefully some of the loony Libs will realize that Democrats are the threat to democracy and vote them out.)
2. When I bought my previous house in NY, I paid between $30,000 and $50,000 more than it was worth- I don’t want to do anything that will make her come after me next.
Please join me and all other Frum Yidden who love Hashem, the Torah and basic human morals more than the few Dollars the Democrats give you not to work and vote for President Donald Trump in November.
There were four posters who contacted me through the decrypted message, two I was able to validate (Squeak being one of them) and two refused to validate themselves (by posting a message I asked them to post in the screen name they claimed to be). I assumed that one (or possibly both) of the supposed screen names is (are) yours.
Squeak is pretty confident that you didn’t decrypt the messages. Letting me know the product of those three numbers would have proven me correct.
Contacting me at an email address you’ve contacted me at in the past proves nothing as I know that you have it already. I don’t plan to challenge you to a game of chess and I’m going to assume that Squeak doesn’t either. If it makes you happy I can ask him directly.
As far as the mess I created- don’t fret, I’m going to climb back under my rock. I may swing by a couple of times over the next few days to respond to any follow up questions but that’ll probably be it.
I can’t answer that. I just gave him a heads up that you’re going to be waiting for him and he said that he’s not going to be here. (And resigning from what- the Coffee Room or the game of chess?)
He’s also suspicious about you having the email address from the coded post. To prove that you cracked the code would you be able to provide the product of the first digit of the public key used to encrypt the message, the first digit of the private key used to decrypt the message and the number corresponding to the first letter of the email address in the message.
Given that I’ve retired from the Coffee Room again I will not be taking his place.
(I came back to let @ujm know not to waste his night waiting around for Squeak but I have no intention of hanging around.)
I gave Squeak a heads up that you’re going to be looking forward to continuing your game of chess but he said that he wasn’t planning on participating.
Sorry
55 years ago, the Democrats were a totally different party. The worked to get man on the moon, nowadays they worked to get man into the ladies locker-room (not sure whose line that is but it sums up how far off the deep end they fell). President Kennedy famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”. If he was president nowadays, he’d be considered a Republican.
To me it’s no surprise that you want to abolish the Electoral College. When I first learned of it, I also thought it was unfair- until I learned why it was established. There have been a handful of times that the Republicans won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. I don’t believe it ever happened in the other direction.
The Founding Fathers were brilliant in how they set up the Constitution. Without the Electoral College, candidates would only have to campaign in the largest cities and can ignore entire states like Wyoming. (Take the three largest cities in the US- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago- is the cumulative population larger than the amount that President Biden won the popular vote by?)
By having a vote in Wyoming carry a disproportionate amount of weight- candidates are forced to campaign in small states as well and not neglect them.
I’m still waiting for you to name a single, positive accomplishment from President Biden- one that helped a good number of hard working US Citizens, not one that benefited less than half of one percent of the country.
@CTLAWYER-
I’m not sure why you still don’t believe that after the ACA was enacted we were paying 400% of what we were previously paying. Seriously- where did you think the huge amounts of money would come from, if not the hard-working middle class?
I agree though, there have been many threads about the ACA and I did take this thread off topic- I was leading you up to this so that I can point out the following (about self-employment vs. working for a corporation) and ask a question that I’ve asked before (not necessarily to you) but haven’t gotten a response.
It’s your choice to be self-employed- you seem like a smart person with skills that many corporations could use. You chose to be self-employed because you probably make more money that way. Many corporations (even pre-ACA) had generous health insurance plans with no lifetime limits or preexisting conditions exclusions. Health insurance for those who paid for it themselves was very expensive and didn’t cover as much as corporate plans did (except possibly paying for the most expensive of plans).
So, here’s (a slightly different version of) my hypothetical question again. Let’s say you have two families, let’s call them A and B. The A family lives in a small size house and has a small amount of savings. Mr. A works in an entry level position for a corporation and has a generous health insurance coverage. The B family lives in a large house and has a respectable amount of savings. Mr. B is self-employed, brings in a nice income and has health insurance but it has a limit of $1,000,000.
Unfortunately, the B family has unexpected health expenses and it exceeds the cap. Should the government:
a. Expect Mr. B to get a job with a large corporation that has no preexisting conditions exclusions and no lifetime cap,
b. Expect the B Family to use their savings towards their expenses,
c. Expect the B Family to sell their house for a smaller one and put that money towards their expenses or
d. Raise the premiums and deductibles for the A Family which will wipe out their savings, make them unable to pay their mortgage and force Mr. A to sell the house, move the family out of the only neighborhood they ever lived in and find a new job?
I still fail to see where you explained why you thought the Democratic nominee will win but whatever.
Just because you saved lots of money under the ACA (or whatever you want to call it) doesn’t mean that no one paid for it and that it didn’t have catastrophic consequences for millions of hard working US Citizens, my family included.
We went from paying about $200 a month in premiums and a negligible $250 deductible to paying $400+ per month for a $7,500 deductible. Our annual health insurance expenses went from $200 x 12 + $250 = $2,650 to $400 x 12 + $7,500 = $12,300.
Do you still not agree that health insurance expenses jumped by 400% for some hard working families?
@Sam Klein
This is a very important issue that needs to be discussed.
May I respectfully ask that you start a new thread as to not hijack the OP’s thread (unless the OP feels that it ran its course).
OP’s post specifically asks “Who is going to win and why?”.
The “why” IS in the OP’s post and you left that out- that’s exactly what was mentioning in the first sentence of my last paragraph.
The rest of the last paragraph is a separate issue that I’ve noticed with Libs- they refer to President Trump’s time as president as a disaster but don’t bother to explain why and mention President Biden as the best person for the position given his 50 years in politics but fail to mention a single accomplishment.
I’m not familiar with the insulin cap that you mentioned and who’s ultimately going to pay for it (is it by any chance hard working citizens whose health insurance costs already jumped by more than 400% under President Obama?) but it helps less than 1% of the US population. While it may mean the world to those people it’s far from something to rave about given the damage that he’s done to the planet.
I barely ever agree with CTLAWYER but this is one of those rare times.
The OP asked who’s going to win and why. The intent was to laugh about how wrong everyone was so CTLAWYER replied with something that’ll hopefully be wrong so everyone can laugh at him.
The OP also asked why. Given that Libs can never list a single positive thing (for law abiding and tax paying citizens) President Biden has done as President (or in the 50 or so years he’s been in politics), CTLAWYER left out that part in his response.
@huju-
In short someone is in pain that she’s being judged harshly for something that she didn’t cause or ask for. While she feels that it made her into a better potential spouse she’s not being given the chance to prove it.
@ 4980112t
The shidduch process is really a filtering process if you think about it- you date someone to see if they’re for you or if you need to filter them out. While rejection (especially for something that you had no control over and made the best out of) is painful and frustrating- it does help you filter out those who you wouldn’t want to be related to anyway.
You seem to have taken a challenging situation and made yourself a better person (and potential wife) out of it. May הקב”ה help you find a husband (and mother-in-law) who appreciates your fine qualities.
הצלחה רבה and גמר חתימה טובה.
@FollowMesorah
I agree with CTLAWYER about 1% of the time (possibly even less) but this is one of those times.
If you can’t crack $250,000 then don’t live as if you are. It’s definitely possible for the average couple to make savvy financial decisions and live with much less.
When you purchase an insurance policy you’re paying the insurance company to expose themselves to the risk being insured instead of being exposed yourself.
If your policy requires you to add children regardless of whether they’re home most of the time or not and you decide not to then it’s stealing since you’re exposing them to a risk that you’re not paying for.
(If the kid NEVER drives then it still may be violating your agreement with them but a Rov might say that it’s not stealing. Similarly- if you’re willing to take the risk and cover all damages on your own, without filing a claim, then a Rov might say that it’s not stealing.)
You’re best off call them and being upfront with the living arrangements.
The company we use allows us to have children specifically excluded from the policy while they are away from home.
If the company expects them to be added and you don’t then they won’t cover an accident. If you somehow hide who the driver was and file a claim then you’re stealing.
Why are you so sure that we’re not in the same old age home? Maybe I almost missed the last food cart so I decided to make a joke about the wagon?
(Continuing the trip down memory lane- in the riddle about the monkeys (December of ‘08) he wrote that it was in a magazine in the ‘50’s, he didn’t write that he read it then (he also didn’t write that he didn’t).)
I deal with insurance but not on the casualty side. (I can share my experience with you but from a consumers’ point of view and not the insurers’.)
There are things that insurers check in your personal life / background that may not appear to have anything to do with your driving but show if you’re a responsible person or not. (For example they may give better rates to a teen that’s a good student and raise the rates if he/she doesn’t keep up the good grades.)
With that being said it may be worth giving them a call to see if they can shed some light. They may also be able to give you a more competitive rate or offer you a discount if you take a defensive driving course.
Our premiums started creeping up as well- I attributed it to the price of used vehicles shooting upwards. (They also look heavily at your ZIP code, is there an area in your ZIP code with a high rate of accidents?)
When we added a teen driver the premiums more than doubled. We called an agent and got a quote that (with our new teen driver) was less than we were paying with GEICO before we added the teen driver so we switched.
Hope this helps.
I’m not sure how many of you will appreciate this but recently I was shmoozing with squeak and I looked at my watch and said that I needed to catch the next wagon. (Referencing the post from October of 2010.) He did get a kick out of it.
I can only imagine remembering these posts in another 50 years.
I think his name was Avraham Grosser A”H and he was niftar in 1964. If I remember correctly he was about 17 at the time.
If there’s one standard used by all textbooks then I’d agree with you but from the different answers I see listed above it seems as if different textbooks teach the order of operations differently. (I can not recall seeing a textbook that gave an order of operation that would yield a number other than 1 but from Google searches it seems like there are.)
Well, I think everyone would agree that if it says 2+3=6 that it shouldn’t be followed but there are other situations that are more complicated. A college professor of mine told our class of a story where a builder followed the engineer’s directions while building an oil rig and it collapsed. After the investigation was completed it turned out that one (or more) of the formulas required an integral that couldn’t be solved in closed rectangular format and the software used a numerical approach which the builders used without changing the internal default tolerance. Anyway- there was a massive lawsuit with everyone blaming everyone else and the lawyers and expert witnesses making tons of money.
That’s hilarious. (Your post to all MAGA supporters.)
What’s not hilarious is that in the future (hopefully very distant future) you and all other lefty loony libs are going to stand before the Judge of all Judges, a Judge that will have no mercy on Democrats, a Judge that can’t be bribed by Soros and a Judge that will know the truth no matter how good of a liar you think you are.
There will be no DA to grant you cashless bail or a woke jury that will send you to Gan Eden if you claim you woke up feeling like a female. You’re not going to be able to ignore Hashem like you ignore the posts that call out your lies and you’re going to have to answer on your own behalf as there will be no lawyer to defend you. You’re also not going to get parole.
You’re going to have to explain to Hashem why so many Yidden in the generations above us had so little and were willing to give up the little that they had for the sake of perpetuating Yiddishkeit while we BH have so much yet you’re willing to vehemently defend the political party that is doing all in its power to destroy the Torah. Those who vote Democrat for entitlements that the government gives out in this world (for those who don’t want to take responsibility for themselves) will RL realize when it’s too late that it’s miniscule compared to what is in store for them in the next world.
And those who use these threads as a platform to RL spread their anti-Torah views will have to take responsibility not only for themselves but for all those who sin based on what they posted.
I keep davening that you and the other libs see the light before it’s too late and do Teshuva.
The Democrats may have some victories here and there and the Republicans may lose some battles here and there but ultimately Hashem is in control.
I agree that we all need to be on the same convention but who has the authority to make this convention and what happens if someone doesn’t follow it? (I.e. what are the consequences going to be? Can an architect be sued if the builder uses a different convention and the building collapses?)
(When documenting a process, I personally put in parentheses very generously to avoid any ambiguity.)
I’m currently auditing the calculation of a financial product and part of a formula in the documentation is given as a/b/c. Is it (a/b)/c or a/(b/c)?
20/10/5 = ?
(20/10)/5 = .4
20/(10/5) = 10@ubiquitin and @ Always_Ask_Questions
Do you remember the one about FLT from August of 2010?
It’s hard to follow since the conversation was taking place in two different threads so it’s not continuous.
It’s hard having a normal conversation with someone who’s either a blatant liar or is totally clueless. By stating that you don’t know if the charges are politically motivated, you’re putting yourself into one of those categories.
But you did ask me two quick questions and I’ll give you two quick answers.
“No” and “No” (At least not that I know of)
And here’s why-
Former President Trump called for Ms. Clinton to be locked up for storing classified material unlawfully on an insecure server (which is punishable by jail time regardless of whether she knew what she was doing was illegal). Look up the case of Kristian Saucier, he went to jail because his last name isn’t Clinton. Former President Trump wasn’t afraid to call for her to be locked up because he knew that the chant couldn’t be turned around at him.
Former President Trump is a brilliant businessman who used his genius to make himself into a multi-billionaire when there were literally only a handful of them on the planet. The last thing President Biden needs is for people to question where his money came from so he, or the puppeteers who control his life (e.g. The Easter Bunny), wouldn’t dare call for Former President Trump to be locked up based on his business practices.
Similarly, Former President Trump’s moral behavior is nothing to look up to, yet it would be pretty dumb for President Biden (who started living with Jill while she was married to someone else and has dozens upon dozens of videos on YouTube of him forcibly touching females in an unwanted manner) to publicly comment about that.
Quick question- all I’m asking for in the answer is either “yes” or “no”.
Would Bragg have acted the same way if it was President Biden?
What just happened?
@Avram in MD
Reb Avram-
Yes, I really would support that idea. I currently get health insurance through my employer and my employer is selfiinsured. Being able to get up every morning and report to work makes people a cheaper risk to insure. I don’t know the exact percentage for my employer but I’d say the vast majority of the employees here have a college education (or are working on it) which shows some amount of responsibility and again- a cheaper pool to insure. Additionally- given the background and criminal checks that financial institutions have to perform on prospective employees the irresponsible behavior gets filtered down even more. I can’t think of a way to get a less risky pool of insureds than to hypothetically remove every single irresponsible individual as @ubiquitin hypothesized. Obviously in a situation like that there would be no smokers for the pharmaceutical industry to medicate and by default everyone would be doing, at minimum, the amount of exercise necessary to stay healthy. It would also be unrealistic to ensure everyone does the correct amount of exercise…
Having a single payer system would have the government collect a premium from every person and pay the provider for the claims incurred. This would put me in a much more expensive risk pool and my expenses would shoot up- probably in the same range as by the ACA.
I agreed with the idea (as hypothetical as it may be) to show @ubiquitin that I’m not against the government being the single payer per se- I just don’t think they would know what they’re doing or that it’s possible for them to take over without my expenses going up significantly again.
@Avram in MD
Reb Avram-
Thanks for taking the time to read and comprehend my rant- If I would have known that I had an audience I would have posted it earlier.
It doesn’t favor large companies at the expense of smaller companies per se- it encourages the greedy companies to continue their behavior at the expense of the companies that are trying to do what’s morally correct.
Another issue I saw in the ACA that I haven’t seen mentioned too much is the CSR debacle.
CSR (Cost Share Reduction) would pay part of the premium for people who earned a living but not enough to pay their full premium (it was a function based on their income and the poverty level). So, what people would do is sign up for coverage, have the ACA pay for a percentage of their premiums (say 50% or so) and never pay a premium on their own. So, CMS would pay for 50% of their premiums which would get them through half the year, they’d cram in as many appointments and fill as many prescriptions as they could (and trust me, it’s not cheap for people who haven’t taken care of their health in years). When those premiums ran out the policies lapsed and then CMS would claim that those policies never should have been active as the insured never made a single payment and demanded back the premiums that they fronted. So, these companies had to return millions of Dollars in premiums to CMS, paid out millions of Dollars in claims to providers for people who were never even members (technically they could have demanded the funds back from the providers as they shouldn’t have been made in the first place- but good luck with that) and had to absorb the loss themselves. (Keep in mind that with 80% to 85% of premiums taken in being paid out to legitimate claims or the policy holder is issued a rebate, 20+% is going to Risk Adjustment payments- that’s already over 100% of all the premiums collected for the year- and that doesn’t include payments for real estate, employee compensation, millions in claims paid for people who aren’t members plus all the regulatory filings…)
(To be fully transparent though- some larger companies may have anticipated this and built a feature into the process that ensured the insured was making the required premium payments before paying claims.)
I respectfully disagree with you on your staircase example, humans are humans and humans have human nature which tries to get away with as much as possible- until stopped. So, until people are gently reminded not to stop and schmooze on the staircase it’s going to continue. Would you say that highways should have speed bumps every 100 feet to make sure no one speeds? Or would you say that there should be speed traps to gently remind people not to speed?
From your screen name (and the public-school incomes you provided for your state) it seems like you’re in Maryland. There was a story in the news a year or two ago where a Baltimore mother was shocked to hear that her son wasn’t going to graduate as his GPA was less than .15 or something (yet he still ranked around the 50th percentile in the grade). So while $58,000 may not sound like a high salary- they should only be paid the rate of a babysitter (if they insured that the kids were there and stayed out of trouble under their watch- which I don’t recall was the case).
In short- if they get paid $58,000 and have nothing to show for it- it’s a huge salary.
““THIS MAY NOT SOUND LIKE A BIG DEAL TO YOU”
Actually, it does.”I actually didn’t realize the future implications it could have until later on- when I switched doctors, I didn’t have my record transferred.
@Avram in MD
Reb Avram-
“We’re over a decade into the ACA, are we still on a trajectory to fail? What does the failure look like?”
Depends what you call failure. Based on what it was supposed to do and what it’s doing now I consider that a failure.
“Try us. I want to know what you saw, and can handle some complexity and ask follow-up questions if I don’t understand. I don’t find the appeal to authority argument to be convincing.”
I don’t have the time or capacity to discuss it in too much detail and for the back-and-forth questions that you and others will have but I’ll describe an additional disaster at the end of this post.
Risk Corridor was supposed to exist for three years I think (possibly 2014 – 2016 but don’t quote me on this). The fact that despite CMS promising to cover the payments at 100% and only funded the first year at 12.6% was catastrophic in that it put many smaller companies out of business and the larger ones have less competition. It may have been close to 10 years ago but the industry hasn’t recovered yet (and since then even more companies went under which means even less competition).
“Do you see Medicare as a big pile of waste?” I have nothing to do with Medicare but I’d be surprised if there weren’t billions of Dollars of waste going on. (E.g. doctors ordering unnecessary test, prescribing unnecessary medication, patients not following doctors directions…)
“What’s the going rate for a teacher?”
Depends on many factors (e.g. years of experience, training, certifications, location…). But if you take a public school teacher from a class where not a single student can pass a proficiency test – yet that teacher is making $100,000 and you take a teacher from a nearby Yeshiva with the same years of experience, training and certification who’s pulling in $50,000 a year- I’d say that the public school teacher is making a huge salary while the Yeshiva teacher is making a meager salary.
25% of all claims being preventable amounts to hundreds of billions of Dollars. That’s huge. I see that number sky rocketing if all health care becomes free- people will take more risks knowing that it won’t financially cost them anything. A study I saw somewhere claimed that the invention of airbags didn’t reduce the number of car accident related deaths as people figured they could take more risks while driving and assuming the airbag will save them.
Finally- as promised- here’s another feature of the ACA that helped cause its catastrophic failure.
Risk Adjustment
Risk Adjustment takes money from companies that have a healthier population and gives it to companies with a less healthy population.
The point of Risk Adjustment was to discourage companies from not providing coverage to those with chronic illnesses and encourage those companies to issue policies to them.
So, what went wrong?
First Issue – The formula for calculating payments was seriously flawed. At first CMS vehemently denied this but then admitted it and said that they would fix it but it would take some time (possibly a few years- I have nothing to do with it now so I have no idea what ended up happening and I have no interest in looking it up.)
Second of all- Take a small startup company that’s trying to build up its network of providers but still has a small network. Patients that have a chronic illness are not going to get insurance through that company and will go to a more established company with a larger network of providers.
At the end of the year the small company will have a healthier population, lower claims and will not be permitted to raise their rates too much for the next year while still having to make a large Risk Adjustment payment to the larger, more established company. (This may sound petty but it was rather significant. There were instances where after paying out the 80% to 85% percent of premiums towards claims as required by the MLR the company still had to pay an additional 20+% to a much larger company and put the smaller company out of business while the payment to the larger company was less than .1% of their total premium collected.)Third Issue – Take two identical patients with Stage 2 Diabetes for example. Patient A gets insurance from Company A while Patient B gets insurance from Company B.
Company A encourages Patient A to see his doctor on a regular basis by dropping all copayments associated with his illness and having a nurse on staff call him and ensure that he goes to his appointments and takes his medications. At the end of the year, after spending thousands and thousands of Dollars on Patient A he’s somewhat healthier and moved up to Stage 1. Company B refuses to waive the copayments, doesn’t do anything to ensure he goes to his appointments and at the end of the year, aside from medication (which isn’t part of the Risk Adjustment formula) spent nothing on the patient who is now suffering from Stage 3 Diabetes. After all that Company A spent to make Patient A healthier- they’re still going to have to make a substantial payment to Company B for having a healthier population.
Fourth Issue – This whole Risk Adjustment is in reality just a numbers game where companies are trying to game the flawed formula – companies spent millions of Dollars hiring claims specialists to review hundreds of thousands of claims to see if they could get a doctor to issue a more severe diagnosis than what was originally on the claim. These millions of Dollars could have been better spent trying to make their patients healthier.
Fifth Issue – (possibly part of the fourth) It encouraged doctors to put inaccurate diagnoses on patients claims. In my situation I went for my annual physical and before doing any bloodwork the doctor diagnosed me with an illness I never had and put it on my medical record, after he got the results of the bloodwork which showed that there was no sign that I had the illness (or that the illness was ever present) he wrote that there is no sign of the illness but didn’t remove it from my record. I asked him to remove it from my record but he refused. The same exact thing happened at my next two annual physicals and I switched doctors after that. This may not sound like a big deal to you but think about a situation where a patient is found unconscious and rushed to the hospital where the ER doctors see the false diagnosis on the patients charts. Also, it’s on my record and will probably affect my life insurance premium rates if I try getting another policy.
“We disagree on the last part, namely as to whether something can be done.”
I’m still not convinced that something can be done (which will work fairly for those that were already seriously burned by the ACA).
You’re correct when you say that I’m talking from my experience and it seems like the people that you’re talking on behalf of is a fraction of those that are still paying thousand more in health care costs than before the ACA.
I believe that my reasons were compelling enough but if you disagree – we’ll have to just disagree on that.
(Just curious though- I don’t know one way or another- does Medicare have a process by which they approve procedures and deny claims or is everything by default approved?)
Oh- and to your last point- I would love it if they would do that. There are many “if”s that need to be worked out but if there’s a way to work out all those kinks, I’m confident that it would lower the health care costs and encourage those who aren’t eligible to become eligible. Sounds like it may have some growing pains in the beginning but would be a win – win in the long term. I actually like that idea!
@ujm
I’m not sure if my previous post went through as I got an error message- so here it is again. Apologies if it’s a duplicate.I’m not either an expert but based on discussions I had with a former supervisor who lived in the outskirts or Queens or on Long Island I believe that it’s true.
He said that the district raised property taxes sky high (with the blessings of the residents) to keep the riff raff from moving in and used the extra money to create public schools that are on par with the most prestigious private schools.
Reb Avram-
1. So the US Government doesn’t run the ACA but they created a system that was mathematically guaranteed to fail and the states need to follow it. I got to see lots of this stuff first hand during the year that I worked in the ACA and it was pathetic to think that someone actually thought it would work. Most of the stuff is too complicated to discuss here and isn’t readily available online (you need to dig pretty deep in some of the endless files on the CMS website) but take a look at the Risk Corridor 2014 payments catastrophe to begin getting an idea. (In short, despite promising that it’ll be paid out at 100% it was paid out at only 12.6% and many companies were shut down because of that.) I’m not even judging them by the rollout disaster.
2. Public Schools (the ones that I’m referring to) are a huge disaster as they waste hundreds of billions of Dollars and have little to nothing to show for it. I believe that the same will be true if the healthcare system turns into a single payer system. In short- I was referring to the hundreds of billions of Dollars that will be wasted- regardless of who pays for it or how it’s paid.
3. I consider a huge salary to include those who work for unions and are getting paid much more than they would be getting if they were paid the going rate- especially the public-school teachers that have nothing to show for it. Many places publish the salaries of public employees online so you can take a look. I consider a meager salary to be the salary of those who get pretty low compensation when they have lots to show for their work (i.e. many Rabbeim…).
4. Regardless of who is at blame, who caused it, weather you believe it or not or the amount spent on each age group- the point is that hundreds of billions of Dollars is wasted every year on preventable claims. That number needs to come down before a single payer system can work.
Ok, you got me there. I wasn’t reading your posts carefully and I apologize. I believe I misunderstood a comment of yours that health insurance companies shouldn’t be run by high paid CEOs, I took that to mean that you felt that they should be run by low paid CEOs and not that you felt that they should be shut down altogether. I was fixated on that point and my posts reflect that.
I’d still like to continue our discussion if you don’t mind. And again, I apologize for any frustration I may have caused you.
א גוטין חודש
Avi
ATTN: MODS
“Can you break up the super long posts into shorter ones? Or send more coffee over to Mods HQ?”
I don’t use any foul language, Lashon Hora or viscous attacks in my post so you don’t need to moderate them before approving them.
“Medicare works”
Ok, here’s another important point of mine that you ignored. I mentioned earlier that Medicare is generally for people aged 65 and older. People that age grew up in a different era where they took more responsibility for their health. Once you start including the younger generations the costs will spiral out of control.
“here other countries manage. I see no reason why the US can’t manage soemthing similar.”
Again, it’s the culture ingrained nowadays in the US that life and health are practically worthless.
“The fact that something else was tried has nothing to do with this .”
To me it does- it proves that the US Government has no clue how to manage healthcare for those under 65.
“Sure
No premiums. taxes go up. Government pays for health costs.
Easy peasy
Same as medicare just for everybody”That’s easier said than done. It’s like saying you can fit five elephants in a Volkswagen by putting two in the front and three in the back.
“I am nto sure what there is to address. But I’ll repeat it again so encourage people to care about their health.”
That’s not my problem and I have no idea how to go about doing it- it’s a horrible culture that they’ve been brought up in- if you’re trying to get a single payer system to work you need to first figure out how get people to take responsibility for their own health. That’s the first step.
“for the 21st? Time they shouldn’t survive. that is my plan.
How on earth are you still not getting this?”You made it clear that you don’t like health insurance companies, you’ve made it clear that you don’t like it that CEOs make so much, you’ve made it clear that you don’t think companies need high paid CEOs to survive and you’ve made it clear that health insurance companies should be not-for profits with low paid CEOs- I don’t believe you’ve said that they should all be closed down.
“Take one day’s worth of the Ceo’s salary use it to pay my neighbor’s cancer treatment for 2 years (10,000 a month), the ceo will barely notice the missing money its not even a rounding wrror. And neighbor gets to live a few more years . I know I know “no sane person” would expect insurance company to shell out money just to gain few years (The rep practically told him that too) . and leshitascha I can’t blame them they have to make profit.”
The massive salaries that the CEOs make can not pay for all the claims that are denied (it’s not only your neighbor whose claims are getting denied). This is a problem with a for profit company (the health of the insureds should come first but the wallets of the shareholders have a higher priority) and I’d be all for a single payer system if there’s a chance that it’ll work.
“This is incorrect Medicare is very popular.
and by far the easiest company to deal with.”Of course it’s easy to get them to give out other people’s money- those weren’t the issues I was having with them. One issue I was having with them was when I needed a response from a certain person regarding a report I needed to submit that was already overdue. She (and her supervisors) ignored my repeated calls, voicemails and emails for over a month. When I learned that she was hosting a webinar I joined and during the Q & A at the end I asked my question. She gave me the wrong answer and when I pointed it out based on guidance published by CMS she said she would look into it and get back to me. Despite numerous attempts to contact her (and her supervisors) I never heard back from them.
“what ? Seriously, What?”
What part don’t you understand- that a CEOs salary is based on his / her performance determined by the board or my idea what you could do if it bothers you?
“Again?
Sure. so encourage people to take more responsibility. You got me. I’m in.”Yes, Again- until this issue is resolved a single payer system will not work.
“Sure.
firstly Medicare works so no reason to compare to ecucation which is less similar.”As mentioned previously, Medicare works because it’s for a more responsible part of the population. Education is less similar but similar enough in that it’s failing because the people that it serves don’t take responsibility for themselves or their kids.
When I used to take my kids to the doctor for an ear infection I would make sure to follow the doctors directions and pick up the medication right away- aside from not wanting my kids to be in pain I didn’t want to have to pay the copayments for follow up visits. For people who don’t care about their kids (i.e. the ones who send them to public school, have no idea that their kid is failing every single subject and barely ever shows up to class) and aren’t concerned with a copayment- what incentive is there to follow the doctors recommendations? This attitude is one of the things that is going to break the system.
“Second all the government will be doing is paying the bills.”
If they keep paying all the bills (with no cost to the patient) what’s going to discourage someone with a paper cut from going to the emergency room, taking up a bed, wasting precious resources and having the government pay hundreds or thousands of Dollars- instead of them just going to Duane Reade and spending a few Dollars to get a box of Band-Aids? Eventually they’re going to have to do some denial of claims and then it’s going to be the government that decides who’s going to live and who’s going to die? Does it make you happier that it’s the government deciding and not some rich, greedy CEO?
“And I’m not sure how you think private medical insurance makes sure their clients are listening to doctors any more than Medicare does.”
That’s what copayments and deductibles are for- to discourage unnecessary follow-ups and encouraging the patient to follow the doctors directions. Besides- when people pay for things with their own money (i.e. health insurance premiums and private education) they tend to value it more.
“I dont understand this.
I support one idea, why do I “have to” defend a different idea ?”As I’ve said before but you never adequately answered (a strong point that you ignored)- you’re advocating for the US Government, who failed miserably at the ACA, to be in charge of a single payer system. You need to explain why you think the same US Government could successfully run something of a much larger magnitude.
“I am advocating paying less for a higher quality system.”
That was former President Obama’s claim with the ACA- the typical family will save $2,500 per year in healthcare- and we all saw that it wasn’t the case. I understand that you’re advocating for that (and I wish it were possible) but you haven’t explained how we’re going to end up paying less (where the money is going to come from) or how the quality is going to go up.
Would you mind explaining how you think it’s going to work?
“By any Benchmark the US pays MORE for healthcare. By most benchmarks we have worse outcomes.”
I’ve said this point before and you haven’t addressed is so I’m going to repeat again- this is mostly due to the irresponsible culture here of people not caring about their health or taking responsibility for their wellbeing.
“Same for healthcare. “Hey it works for me who cares about those it doesnt work for, that is just a necessary evil” (almost a verbatim quote)”
Where’s this coming from? You can’t ask people who are struggling to make their own health care payments (already so overpriced due to the people who refuse to responsibly of their health) to care more about someone else’s health than they care about their own. (Again- I’m referring to those who are fully capable of taking care of themselves but refuse to, not people sick with illnesses that they didn’t bring upon themselves.)
“As I said (20 times?) I don’t think health insurance should be a for profit industry. So while you keep repeating this point over and over. It has absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand .”
You’ve said that health insurance companies don’t need to be run by high paid CEOs- did you mean to say that for health insurance companies to work they need high paid CEOs but health insurance companies shouldn’t exist at all? You still haven’t explained how a company will survive with a low paid CEO.
“Ok so CEO wont be filthy rich. I’m fine with using that extra $$$ to approve more cancer treatments.”
Then the CEO will resign and become a high paid CEO elsewhere. I agree that they’re greedy but we need them to run our corporations which provide employment to millions of people making a modest salary and provide goods and services to hundreds of millions of people. Go ahead and replace them with well-meaning but low paid CEOs and watch how fast everything will fall apart and make things worse for everyone.
“You say there is no CEO of a healthcare company that gets a reasonable salary. Yes I know, THAT is the problem The problem IS that health insurance IS a for profit venture. Yes Its hard to find a reasonably paid CEO, that is EXACTLY the problem. Have I really not said this ????”
I didn’t write that there isn’t one (I’m not saying that there is, I have no idea one way or the other). I just asked if you could explain how it could work without one. Until a not-for profit system can be designed we need for profit companies which come along with high paid CEOs. I mentioned how practically every single COOP (not for profits that received Billions of Dollars and had low paid CEOs) failed.
“But if you insist as far as I can tell Chiquita Brooks-Lasure the head of CMS (center for medicare and medicaid services) makes $249,723.”
CMS isn’t a private company- it’s a government agency. From the ridiculous dealings I had with them (while working in the ACA) and the sheer incompetence of the people working there all I can say is that a typical company that acted like that would be out of business within a year. The president of the US also makes a mere fraction of what these CEOs make- but again- no company could survive with him at the helm.
“In contrast Cigna CEO David Cordani took home more than $91 million in 2021 thats more than 364 times as much!!! put another way, he made her salary every single day of the year minus his birthday.”
Obviously the shareholders and board which determines his compensation felt that that’s what he’s worth. If you feel that he’s overpaid start a mutual, not-for-profit company that’s owned by the policy holders, become the low paid CEO, pay all claims, charge lower premiums and if you can stay in business you can put them out of business- that’ll show them.
“As I said over a month ago (February 2, 2023 5:35 pm) that is a technicality. If you want to increase taxes on smoking /sugary drinks etc to encourage good behavior. sure I can get on board. You want some sort of mandatory exercise program, I’m a bit squeamish but ok if thats what it takes I’m in”
You may have said that over a month ago but it still doesn’t respond to my strong point that a single payer system CAN NOT work until people start taking more responsibility for their health. Can you please respond to that directly?
“My apologies I missed all of your “strong points”
Do you mind repeating them”Sure- here’s one of them.
I mentioned a few times that a single payer system will turn into a calamity the size of the public school disaster. Some school systems pay in the $30,000 range per student yet don’t have a single student that is proficient in math ot English. All this while the teachers (some of them who have no business being around children but are protected by the powerful unions) are bringing in huge salaries. After paying for all this in taxes, families that want their kids to get an education are forced to send their kids to private schools at an additional expense.
With a single payer free health care for all, you’re going to have people who don’t take care of their (or their kids’) health, don’t follow doctors directions and end up costing the system billions of Dollars in unnecessary expenses while clogging up doctors’ offices, hospitals and emergency rooms. What’s going to end up happening is that those of us who care about our health and currently have insurance are going to have to pay more in taxes for a single payer system while having to take out private insurance all over again if we want quality health care.
“There were no points in this last post that were strong nor that I didn’t previously reply to”
Uh- there was- the comparison to the public school that I just repeated again. Please explain why it’ll be different
Can you break up the super long posts into shorter ones? Or send more coffee over to Mods HQ?