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Why YC went to DC

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Re: Why YC went to DC

#321

Post by keyserj »

candiddevmike wrote: post #168
nurple wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bad pattern for the employee, but a good pattern for employers and the healthcare industrial complex. The possibility that you could be bankrupt if you let your insurance lapse is an enormous concern for employees that may want to leave but can't; much more powerful, and cheaper, than golden handcuffs. COBRA is a joke, as if most could afford multi-thousand dollar a month bill when unemployed. What that commun…

IME, COBRA is almost always a better deal than the marketplace offerings typically, unless you qualify for marketplace-only subsidies. COBRA premiums for whatever reason are hundreds of dollars (or more) cheaper than marketplace plans.

I've also had the opposite experience. My workplace plan through COBRA was around $500/mo, while only the highest-end marketplace plans were around that range. I took a middle-end plan at ~$300/mo.

To be fair I hadn't looked closely at what all my workplace plan covered, but I was doing physical therapy when I switched that wasn't covered (had to reach high deductible) on my workplace plan and was covered on my marketplace plan!

(I'm in Illinois)

Re: Why YC went to DC

#322

Post by nradov »

stetrain wrote: post #320
nradov wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a frustrating situation for employees (and their dependents) but the ability for self-funded employers to shop around and switch health plans is one of the only things that is preventing healthcare prices from rising even faster than they already are. Most of those "insurers" no longer really do insurance, they largely construct provider networks and administer claims on behalf of self-insured group buyers. Some…

Sure, the employer is doing what is best for them in the current system. Everyone is. But the results can be rough for real people to actually live with. One of the big scary talking points when politicians start talking about changing our insurance system is that people like their current plans and doctors and are scared to change things. I just think this is silly since my plan has changed roughly annually since I'…

That is essentially how ICHRA plans work.

https://thatch.ai/resources/ichra-for-startups

Re: Why YC went to DC

#324

Post by stetrain »

nradov wrote: post #322
stetrain wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the employer is doing what is best for them in the current system. Everyone is. But the results can be rough for real people to actually live with. One of the big scary talking points when politicians start talking about changing our insurance system is that people like their current plans and doctors and are scared to change things. I just think this is silly since my plan has changed roughly annually since I'…

That is essentially how ICHRA plans work. https://thatch.ai/resources/ichra-for-startups

Nice, I hadn't heard of that but yeah I think that's a much better system than employer group plans. If more of the market went that way, insurers would have to actually compete at a consumer level and not just offer "go away" pricing when you try to get insurance outside of a group plan.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#325

Post by Matticus_Rex »

ethbr1 wrote: post #133
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Non-human entities aren't entitled to 1st amendment protections. The vast majority of speech that needs to remain protected for speech to remain meaningfully free happens through non-human entities. Removing that protection is an absolutely insane step.

Happens via, but starts with individuals (or should!). What we have now is the worst of both worlds: - Individual speech is censored at whim by non-government platforms that are unavoidable. - While giant companies are empowered to speak anything they want (speaking as the company). That doesn't seem ass-backwards? We should be prioritizing individual speech / power, and disempowering corporate speech.

Non-government platforms that are "unavoidable," except that most people successfully avoid them?

Re: Why YC went to DC

#326

Post by anon291 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #68
doron wrote: post #37

It's well and good to advocate for change within the industry (large and small) but realistically, all of this is missing the forest for trees, or equating symptom with the cause. The only way out of this long term, is to take money out of politics, repeal citizens united, revolving doors and other methods of lining politicians' pockets.

It is frankly challenging to reconcile 1st amendment protections and a CU repeal. I'm not sure what the solution is, but think recent events should show that govt can abuse campaign finance law to pick winners and losers in the town square.

After some research I realized that since 2010 at least (probably true if you go back a bit, but I didn't) EVERY SINGLE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN has been fined for major violations of campaign finance laws (usually related to in-kind contributions, or expenses FEC decides to make election expenses later on).

In other words, it seems impossible to run for president without breaking the law.

This is not okay. One of the issues here is that by making candidates break a law, you basically now have some kind of weird leverage over them. You can make threats to prosecute or fine further and thus have them by the proverbial balls. You also naturally push away people who would be wanting to follow the law, which I argue is sorely needed in Washington DC.

This opens the door to a lot of bad bad bad blackmail opportunities.

If no party and no candidate is able to stage a presidential campaign without being fined, ranging from Trump's chaotic, high energy campaigns to Clinton's 'proper' campaign with lots of decorum to Biden's bring-back-normal campaign, then I think something is seriously the matter with campaign finance laws.

Ideally, fines are a rare occurrence.

Sources:

1. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-d...

2. https://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obama-2008-campaign-f...

3. https://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/17/biden.campaign.fine/... (Biden's 2010 campaign... 2020 campaigns seem to be under investigation)

3. Of course, everyone knows about Trump

Re: Why YC went to DC

#327

Post by Justsignedup »

siliconc0w wrote: post #9

If you need more things to fix: * Software R&D Amortization - taxes on make-believe profits * Patent law - protect small businesses from patent trolls * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. * Healthcare insurance - employees of SMBs automatically get access to medicar…

How about health insurance not being tied to profits. Startups pay the full brunt of health insurance since they don't have real profits they have nothing to write off. Meanwhile large orgs get to write off a ton of profits as Healthcare costs for employees.

So startups tend to have real garbage insurance. As someone older with kids startups are getting more and more prohibitive because I need that Healthcare. Maybe startups should be a young man's game. Maybe not.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#328

Post by coldpie »

biztos wrote: post #288
nradov wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply misinformation. The US government funds some of the basic research that produces candidate molecules. But the vast majority of the cost in drug development comes in phase 3 human clinical trials. Almost all of that is paid for by pharmaceutical companies, and many trials fail.

At least according to ChatGPT, over 40% fail. If true that’s surprising, since you don’t start a Phase 3 unless a lot of very smart people are convinced it’s going to work, and lab results (including human) back that up.

ChatGPT is not a source.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#329

Post by badestrand »

yqx wrote: post #131
simonw wrote: post #13

This new essay by Jack Clark, who was at OpenAI when they made the decision not to release GPT-2 for safety reasons five years ago, feels relevant: https://importai.substack.com/p/import-ai-375-gpt-2-five-yea... > [...] history shows that once we assign power to governments, they're loathe to subsequently give that power back to the people. Policy is a ratchet and things tend to accrete over time. That means whatever…

I'm curious what history Jack Clark is referring to here. If I think of the last thirty years of policy in most of Europe and the US I'm thinking of a strong trend of deregulation and giving more powers to markets, removing international trade barriers and so on. That seems to be a dynamic opposite to the one the quoted article is suggesting.

At least for Europe this is wrong. I mean yes, there are new trade treaties but internally EU regulations and at least for Germany its regulations increase by the day. Just this year the personal tax declaration form got 10 or so additional pages. And the new supply chain law needs medium to large companies to prove that all their purchases are morally correct (sorry not sure how to phrase this properly). And I don't even follow new laws closely.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#330

Post by hollerith »

rayiner wrote: post #244
luma wrote: post #101

Why should healthcare be tied to employment? "Quit fucking around" and institute a national, single-payer plan that covers everyone, like every other modern industrialized country.

Most developed countries don’t have single payer healthcare. Obamacare is actually modeled on the system used in the Netherlands. And why is “national” a criteria? California doesn’t get single payer unless Montana also gets it? Neither Californians nor Montanans want that. It’s just political games.

Before Obamacare, if California's taxpayers became the single payer behind medical care in California, then millions of poor chronically ill people would have moved to California from the other 49 states for the free medical care

--unless I am wrong in my belief that there is nothing California voters can do to prevent US citizens from moving to California.

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