@waxeagle I thought Medicaid was supposed to provide for medical/health coverage.

I think young voters are attracted to the Democratic party, partly because of the healthcare plan that they could stay on their parents' health insurance longer... until they reach 25 years of age.

@Anonymous medicaid only provides health coverage for the poor

@Anonymous 26, but yeah, that's attractive..then again I'll be 28 this week and I've been paying for my own health coverage since I was 22ish (and I was uninsured for about 2 years before that)

@waxeagle The 18-25 time period is usually when young adults study abroad or in-state. Back in the olden days, I have heard that young adults would leave their parents' home completely independent. Nowadays, the adolescent age has been extended toward college students, and some parents pay for their children's college education. If children go to the same school that their parents teach in or do research in, then there may be a discount for those children's tuition fees.

@waxeagle Americans are known to be very independent and self-sufficient. I know one Indian Hindu classmate who still lives with his mother, father, and younger brother. He helps take care of his family as well as study in school.

@waxeagle So, did you qualify for Medicaid in your early '20s?

@Anonymous no, I don't think I would have. I might have, but my wife probably made too much money. Under the current system I would have been able to have stayed on my parents' insurance until I got a full time job, even after I got married

@waxeagle It seems to be tough to be middle class.

@Anonymous sometimes, but really as a 20-22 yr old I had basically no medical needs thankfully.

@Anonymous Islam also believe Jesus never died in the first place, he was saved from crucifiction, google can tell you a lot of self contradictory things too.

@waxeagle Do you thank God for blessing you with good health? Do you also pray for those unfortunate people with bad health?

@Anonymous and thanks for reporting that google message box , I will file a complaint right away

@AskElisha thanks @AskElisha for posting thos

What I came to know from my research is that , Jesus escaped crucifiction and this is the reason he appeared back to his disciples and shortly after he ascended to heaven

He made an appearence to his disciples to give them the good news that he is unharmed,

People at that time were shocked to see Jesus alive, to which Jesus asked the disciple to touch him and he was indeed flesh and blood , in his fantastic escape his body too did not bear any marks of abuse

Hence its abundantly clear that Jesus never died in the first place

He was intelligent enough to devise tactics to escape crucifiction as he was equally bold to go unhurt when he disrupted the temple

More over the similitude of Jonah who was always alive even in the belly of whale makes it very clear that it is the Islamic view of Jesus which best fits the Gospel accounts then any other view

Moreover he personally did not like to get killed (does any human like getting killed) this is the reason he prayed to God to pass the Cup. His strong prayer and prostration to pass the cup is a strong indication that how much Jesus wanted to escape. And yes he did not just pray to get saved , he also actively pursued steps to escape crucifiction which is why he went into hiding.

@Islam I don't think AskElisha is a real person

@waxeagle personally, I may not agree on their reason for wanting it to fail, but fundamentally, based on what I was reading about the level of subsidies, we really can't afford it right now without fixing many many underlying problems. Right now, it's effectively just writing a check to health insurance companies that the country can't afford any more with obamacare than it can without

there isn't anything affordable about it

the rates are honestly not that great for the levels of coverage provided, rates for good coverage are actually going up and the cost of subsidies for useless coverage will prop up a broken industry and drive the country further towards bancruptcy

but whatever, lets throw money away to think of the children, err, I mean those without health care, even though they still won't have health care

6k deductible and 40% copay isn't health insurance, it's a racket

you still go bankrupt if you have major costs

and pointing to other countries where socialized medicine "works" doesn't actually prove anything either, since those countries are the cause of half our problems

when you have drug companies a through z all working towards the same drug or procedure in the same way and only the first to get there can use it, they all end up wasting a huge amount on research that they can't cash in on. Then they have to jack up costs to cover their inflated research costs. When country 1 decides to only let someone charge $5 for the drug, but it only costs $4 to make, you still sell there because it's $1 towards the research you wouldn't have otherwise

but you still need to fund your research somewhere

so what do you do, you jack the cost up elsewhere

sure you get record profits, but look you need them to survive to the next breakthrough that you manage to be first to

otherwise you'll just go out of business

the failure rate of companies in the bio-medical research field is astounding

it's a huge gamble and they need huge payouts to stay in business

you fix it by addressing the risk

granted, that's only one portion of the problem, but fundamentally, costs are high because everything in the health industry is high risk

research is high risk, malpractice is high risk, making the wrong diagnosis is high risk, not having the newest equipment is high risk

all of that has to be offset by high prices, control the risks, control the costs

but that involves taking away advantages that people who currently have power in the industry have, so they don't want it and will fight it tooth and nail

because they took high risks and want their payout

(justifiably really)

but the risks still need to come down to bring costs back in line

@AJHenderson how do you actually reduce risk though? I know capping litigation payouts is one way, but that's kind of harmful to consumers because it incentivizes the wrong kind of risk.

anything else is just a shell game that props the problem up and attaches it to the even bigger problem of our spending problems

subsidizing research is another way, but from the sounds of it, you need centrally controlled research which is at the very least anti-competitive

a lot of it would be socializing things like research, education and malpractice, while also setting up a better system for judging it

but if you're going to do that, don't you need to, in general, socialize medical care?

I don't necessarily oppose socializing medical care as long as costs and risks are well controlled.

I just oppose socializing the coverage of uncontrolled costs

but I don't think it would be neccessary to socialize medical care if risks were controlled

what I'd love to see is government funded scholarships for doctors that would cover the risk for them going to med school, but require them to work at a capped amount for a certain time after

@AJHenderson I assume that socializing it would be a direct attempt to control those costs. I think in a lot of ways, introducing real competition for insurance companies will induce cost control

@AJHenderson intriguing

I'd love to see public funds available for research, but a requirement of participation is that the companies that take part have to share the results and compete on production costs rather than research

aren't big chunks of stafford loans forgiven for med professionals who work in low income areas following graduation?

I'd love to see public funding of private hospitals on the condition that they not waste money on overlapping capability and instead have to cooperate if they take the funds

I know my sister is a teacher and most of her loans are forgiven because she teaches in a high demand subject area

and maybe some cost limiting measures for accepting the funds

I was thinking when I read the fine print on my loan med pro was one of the categories

and I'd love to see malpractice addressed by doctors rather than lawyers

but I'm not 100% sure how we address that one

but basically now we are apply government funds at the end after the risks are taken. We need to apply government funds at the beginning to socialize the risk

and let them compete without the risk

so you get the best of both worlds (in theory)

but practically speaking, doing all of that is far more difficult than it sounds because of the vested interests of those currently in the game

and probably a bit more expensive up front, but much cheaper in the long run

@waxeagle I think they might be

but I'd want to ramp it up a bunch more, to be more like what the military does

@waxeagle insurance companies can't control costs because they are just payers

the costs come before they enter the game

@AJHenderson they are a lot more than payers

they set prices

specially the big guys.

they don't set prices, they negotiate the same way that other countries socialized programs negotiate

the hospitals and drug companies can keep taking risks because they can offset their losses there to others

take away those others and things start crumbling

unless you take away the need for those others

it's basic business. If I can produce what you want for less than you will pay me for it, it's a good sale, but I still have to pay to be able to make it

I need to get that out of someone

now, yes, more people being covered will take out a little bit of that risk (uncovered individuals for life critical services), but that's only one little piece

@AJHenderson I agree, we have to address risk in other places. But it's a good step.

and is drastically inflated due to all the other cost shifting that is going on

@waxeagle no, it's a horrible step because it masks the problem

people stop caring if they can't see the impact

so the problem will get worse rather than better

people as a whole are pretty stupid, if the government gives them a $6000 a year subsidy for their health insurance, they aren't going to realize they can't actually afford it

because the government has somehow become the magical money fairy

without the subsidies, having a marketplace is good

having a mandate for buying healthcare is bad though

but I wouldn't be opposed to saying that if you are capable of buying health insurance and choose not to, you give up your right to life critical care that you can't afford

the main problem then is the people who truly can't afford insurance right now

@AJHenderson that's not actually OK with me. I'd rather make people buy insurance

people should be allowed to choose the risks they want to take

if it only impacts them

we let people smoke

we let people drink

there are plenty of areas where we let people take gambles with their life that are FAR more risky

I don't need a nanny state to run my life

(that said, I have health care and wouldn't dream of not having it)

but I don't need a government to tell me what is or isn't an acceptable personal risk, I just don't think that society should be responsible for my bad decisions either

I do suppose that limiting the behavior of insurance companies to be able to negotiate like they do wouldn't be a bad thing though, since it does effectively shift costs making those who are insured have to cover less of their share

so I wouldn't be opposed to requiring that hospitals charge the same to all parties and making the negotiated rates illegal

it would make costs go up for insured people, but that would more emphasize the actual costs

but it would also be political suicide for anyone that tried it

we do certainly need transparency in costs for health care

@AJHenderson definitely. NPR had a number of stories last year and the year before where they had a reporter call various hospitals and ask for a quote on a specific surgery and the costs varied widely or the hospital straight up wouldn't quote one.

like 2 hospitals in the same city, same neighborhood differed by an order of magnitude

I also have a bit of an insider look on this because growing up my dad was the CFO for the Health Care Association of New York State and after he left that job to work as the accountant for a missions organization for a few years, he went to work as the controller for a medical research company

so he's seen the financial picture for both hospitals and research

and my early career was in insurance

particularly the data processing systems that drive them, and while I wasn't specifically in medical, I know people who are

so between the two of us, we've had visibility into pretty much all the businesses involved

@waxeagle It seems difficult to even define how much a surgery "costs", even before deciding how much of the cost should be borne by the patient. I could certainly see coming up with very different numbers if we are talking about the marginal cost of this operation only, vs. accounting for various other costs and externalities.

Just like student tuition, etc.

@JamesT This was specifically asking "what would a person without insurance, walking in off the street be billed"

this would be the number that every single college posts on their website. The "total cost to attend"

@waxeagle oh! so the hospitals can't even quote that in advance??

@JamesT exactly. And when they do it's widely disparate

IIRC this was for a hip surgery. And the quotes ranged from several thousand to several tens of thousands

npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/11/171713240/…

11k-125k when they could get a quote

@waxeagle Wow. Even the low number is enormous.

@JamesT it's a brand new hip. That's worth a few bucks.

but yeah, half a car or a new hip, you choose?

@waxeagle yeah, but you are paying for the medical device and a whole team of surgeons and support staff. It's probably a full day operation too I'd think. That's gonna be pricy

11k is actually pretty affordable I'd say, though with risk mitigation, it could probably be brought down to $6k or so

@AJHenderson oh I agree, I don't think 11k really is all that outlandish. 100k probably is.

yeah, 100k is

you can pay someone to wheel you around for 5 years with 100k

but you figure that just the base pay for the staff is going to be $3k to $4k for the day

based on the amount of support staff

when you factor in reasonable salary, benefits and taxes

but the way you get the 100k is when they are doing the nickle and dime stuff charging by the individual service, such as $500 to insert an IV

@AJHenderson yeah, fun story, our first kid, we had a bit of an emergency when he was born and he had to be sent to the NICU right away, there were 17 people in the room right after he was born. (that does include observing 3 nursing students and the three of us, but most of the people were working)

I was pretty blown away by the ER cost sheet when my wife's shoulder got dislocated

10 nurses

might have been 9 nurses and 1 NP

but it was crazy the number of people that you need involved in that.

and that's not counting the people outside of the room

there were probably at least one or two lab techs working it

@AJHenderson exactly

and labtechs make the very reasonable amount of around $24 an hour to $30 an hour, but the general rule is double the cost for taxes and benefits

@AJHenderson yeah

my wife's a lab tech

but yeah, when you have a hospital that has to work in a lot of cost recovery on their uninsureds, costs get super high super fast

with her shoulder, before insurance, it was 13k for her ER visit with a dislocated shoulder

I don't have the figure on what the doctor cost because it was a different insurance plan at the time. based on our other births hiss bill is a few thousand alone. But the hospital billed our insurance company almost 20k for the birth and 5 days in the NICU

after it was only $3500

which tbh isn't bad

figure the real cost they need to charge was $5000 or so

@AJHenderson yeah our insurance paid abotu 6k of that 20k bill

(we also had a 2k bill from a NICU doc and a few other miscellaneous bills related to that).

we got a nicely discounted doctor bill since our ER doc was a friend of the family

even without the insurance negotiations

nice

actually, a friend from church

now that I think about it

we actually choose to go to that ER specifically because we thought he might be on

my wife doesn't know him, but I do and it was nice to have the extra attention (and he's a very good doctor)

@waxeagle My granddad had his third (!) hip replacement in France, because it worked out better for him than staying in the UK. He was fairly well off, though, so I'm guessing this was something to do with private insurance.

makes sense.

My brother and I happened to be on holiday in France at the time, so we popped in to visit him as he was recovering.

Our first InterRail trip.

cool

Paris is the one part of Europe I've ever had the opportunity to visit

@AJHenderson Paris is great! So much to see and do.

@JamesT it was particularly great considering it was a vendor hosted business trip

Paris with $50 a plate lunches and $80 to $100 a plate dinners for 4 days in a row is quite a nice time

though I still think I enjoyed watching my co-workers get confused trying to use the subway was the most fun (ok, maybe not, but it was memorable)

@AJHenderson c'est la belle vie

I've always preferred traveling for business though. It's nice to be a tourist without being a tourist

but we went and did a dry run with the subway the day before the conference started and then when we did it the next day with rush hour traffic, I was the only one to actually make it on to the subway car and I had to walk them through using the subway by text message

I am glad that verizon still had an unlimited global data option at the time though

because having my internet on my phone work was nice

@AJHenderson I know what you mean. There's something quite enjoyable too about having semi-work conversations while doing touristy things at the same time.

@JamesT I think it may also be the fact that there isn't really anything particularly special about most areas. Paris was nice to visit, but I don't know that I would say it is worth traveling across an ocean just to see it

but being there and getting to experience actual Paris life rather than just see sites is nice

having an actual work day in the city

and then relaxing at night

though ironically, the most french I heard the entire time I was there was actually French Canadian

since most of the activities were with the conference and they paired all the western hemosphere people together, which included a group of 6 from french canada

and most of the conference was in English

since it was an international conference

although there is also something nice about accomplishing work from nice places too

cause I distinctly enjoyed when I got a call while in line at Disney World and was able to help a co-worker over the phone

@AJHenderson maybe not for the ambiance of the city (though it depends where you're coming from / what you're used to). But I would say there are some specific places that are worth it. For me some combination of the Musée des arts et métiers, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Institut du monde arabe, Saint Denis, the Orsay, the Cluny = unbeatable.

@JamesT I guess, I suppose I'm not huge on having to see things in person. Photos and videos work well for me

though I did enjoy shooting a bunch of photos at the louve

@AJHenderson It is nice that we live in an age where that is easy.

but again, probably wouldn't have spent thousands of dollars to do it

but I guess maybe if you take two weeks and visit a bunch of places, but then you are rushed and not really relaxed

maybe when I retire and can spend months over there

My wife and I like to take little city breaks because then there's no obligation or hope of doing everything, which paradoxically makes it more relaxing.

@JamesT that it is

I've certainly been on work trips to places where I wouldn't necessarily take a holiday, but that I'm glad to have been to.

I also don't like feeling out of place, so I like feeling like I belong somewhere

so I want to know a lot about it and fit in

smartphones help with this though

as constant access to information is helpful

I was in Beijing about a year before the Olympics (back when there were only two subway lines - one that went round and round, and the other that went back and forth). Never felt more alone in a crowd.

I'm actually hoping to get to go to China with my current job

we have three dev teams outside of Beijing

@JamesT though it's worth pointing out it's only that easy for a relatively small portion of the world

scary thought, only 34% of the world even have regular internet access

over 50% of the worlds population couldn't afford a plane ticket across the ocean for 1 person if they saved for a year

@AJHenderson I remember reading something about how Youtube (I think?) tried to improve latency by reducing the size/complexity of their pages, but then found that their performance actually dropped - what happened was that big chunks of the world went from "can't use it, don't even try" to "can barely use it", so the average suffered

kind of puts things in perspective when I realize I could get one per week

though on a slightly more up note, apparently the average is about $10,000 per person

including children, so $40k a year would be the average income for a family of 4

which also kind of throws in to perspective just how rich the super rich are when only the top 2% of the population or so make above the average

@AJHenderson College-educated skilled professionals usually earn above-average salaries.

Does anybody know how many Christians are not creationists in any way?

@Anonymous That depends on how you define "average"--whether you're talking about the median or the arithmetic mean.

@Anonymous I'm not sure of the exact figures for non-Creationist Christians, but the rough numbers I've seen for the U.S. are: about 75% of the population claim to be Christians, and about 50% claim to be creationists. So roughly 2/3 of all U.S. Christians are creationists. For other countries, I don't know, but I'd guess there are fewer creationists per capita.

@JamesT I really should visit Paris more often. Was there earlier this year, but just crossed the city. Arrived and left again very briefly. Twice. This happens when you travel around France by train.

@Anonymous yeah, that's why I was saying it isn't actually that off base what we make, I just didn't realize that the super rich are so far out of the league that they put most of the world that far down in terms of global resource distribution

since literally the entire world could live fairly close to median US level

at our current production global production levels

based on those estimates of total global income

that's just crazy if accurate

Ahahahahahaha! AHHH ahahahahaha!

@fredsbend Did you read the original version of the question? "So there are people that believe X, and some of the people that call themselves Y also believe X, so who is right"? That's troll bait and I applaud Eugene for calling a spade a spade.

@Caleb Yes, I did. It was certainly an apt comment. And stupendously funny. I laughed very hard.

@fredsbend I agree, and I got a pretty good laugh out of it too.

@Caleb Just wondering is @El'endia still around? I haven't seen him on the site in a while.

Though his profile says he was here 7 minutes ago.

@fredsbend He's around. I think he's a little busy with the school year having just started and maybe moved or something. In any case he was kind of scarce for a while but I think he's around now.

@fredsbend I am. Just very busy with homework.

And a girlfriend. ;)

@El'endiaStarman Yeah, I know what you mean.

@El'endiaStarman You broke yet, too?

@fredsbend Ha, nope. And I intend to keep it that way.

@El'endiaStarman That was the "or something" above, left for you to say if it got said ;)

@El'endiaStarman Good work. You finish up that thing in Seattle nicely?

@fredsbend Yes, quite nicely. That was about 5.5 weeks ago, which oughta give you an idea of just how busy I've been.

@El'endiaStarman Cool. I started school too. The content has been easy, just a little high in volume. Also, this is busy season at work. And in late November I will have a newborn. So you probably wont see me around much until after the 1st.

I'm seriously considering a major change to something in the natural sciences. Perhaps Biology of some kind.

@fredsbend What's your major now?

@El'endiaStarman It was business admin. Interesting, but not quite right for me.

I really only went into it because I started working for my dad and there was an impression that I would take over and manage the company eventually. That's is not really looking like a possibility unless he dies.

@fredsbend I recommend against biology if you feel like getting a job, unless you really like more school

my brother and wife both got bachelors in Biology and promptly couldn't get a job for over a year and a half of looking

brother went back for his biology doctorate and wife went on to get a medical tech certification (another year and a half of school)

@fredsbend so the biology will help with that right?

@AJHenderson Yeah, that seems to be a common theme in all the natural sciences. You really need to compound it with something specific.

@AJHenderson Toxicology, more specifically. jk.

@fredsbend that would be where I was going

anyway, time for me to head out

bye

@AJHenderson I've been watching a program that talks a lot about ancient bones and I've really been digging that.

Called oddities

@fredsbend Pun intended?

@TRiG It is now ...

@TRiG Can I ask you a question about homosexuality? I promise I will try really hard not to offend you.

Hmm.

Carry on.

What do you think about the so called "gaydar?"

@fredsbend It exists. But I don't have it.

@TRiG In what way does it exist? Are people claiming to have it more intuitive or do some gays just exhibit behaviors associated with it that people pick up on?

@fredsbend As the Wikipedia article says, it's possible to judge people's sexual orientation at rates far better than chance, which shows that something real is going on. However, that's for results in aggregate. I wouldn't rely very strongly on any individual judgement of someone's sexuality.

(And I wouldn't rely on my own judgement at all. Whatever gaydar is, I don't have it.)

As for precisely what people are looking at, I don't know. And I think that, by and large, they don't know themselves. It's an intuitive judgement.

@TRiG Well, it's not like I really care to find this out about everyone. If your around someone long enough and become friends you will know soon enough anyway.

@TRiG I think I actually have it really good. I have "supposed" correctly based only on a single picture before.

With me, I'm actually pretty oblivious to that stuff. Just not a details oriented guy. I can't really explain it, but sometimes it is the way a person moves, or says just a single phrase, etc. I'm not really looking for it, it just happens sometimes.

@fredsbend It's actually amazing how many people have no idea what the rainbow stuff means.

@TRiG I guess that answers my next question: "Does it bother you if people can tell with yourself?"

With that in mind, You profile pic on SO cued something on my Gaydar months ago before I really started participating on CSE.

@fredsbend I have no idea how obvious I am, actually. And I've decided I don't care. It's simpler when people know: means I don't need to watch what I say. Of course, sometimes there are people who don't know I'm gay, but I think they know. And that can sometimes be amusing.

@fredsbend Heh. And that was taken well before I was out.

@TRiG See what I mean. I'm still not even sure what it is about the picture. It just is. Yeah, you do look quite young in it.

@TRiG That's funny. Been friends for a few years and then "what? you didn't know I'm gay? I hope this doesn't change our friendship."

@TRiG Was coming out difficult for you?

@fredsbend It was taken at home, before I went out for a 60s/70s party. (They're all Witnesses: that was before I left.)

I hear very sad stories sometimes. Family disowning them and such.

@fredsbend Long story. Very long story. Which I'm not going to get into now, because I have stuff to prepare for tomorrow night's Toastmasters competition. (I'm not competing; I'm organising.)

@TRiG They don't have some rule against that?

@TRiG That's cool. Just curious.

@fredsbend Nah. 'Twas fun.

(By the way, are the pictures in that blog post working for you? My Internet connection is playing up, so I can't tell whether it's the blog that's broken or something wrong on my end.)

@TRiG All good. No problems.

@fredsbend good.

@TRiG I've never seen JW's dressed so casually. Nor looking like they were having so much fun. Was this a reformed branch? JK.

@fredsbend Well, it's Ireland.

A bit more relaxed, perhaps.

lol

@TRiG I know you blog. You have a post about it?

@fredsbend Er, kinda. Yes.

One moment.

@fredsbend Here y'are. It's not, itself, a post about coming out. It's a post about posts about coming out.

@TRiG double meta. nice.

good luck at your toast masters thing. I gotta get beach to work.

> I gotta get beach to work.

You all can see where my heart is right now. I wonder if there is any treasure there too?

@fredsbend Bye.

Hey. Google finds nothing from Stack Exchange on fstdt.com. Get working, people!

Does anybody know what it must be like to live like a baby boomer?