Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#291

Post by eternalny1 » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #133

aluminussoma wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will the employees, in the US at least, do for health insurance? A pandemic is when you need it. These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA. I fear that we will see revolutions in countries where this is not contained, from either a health or economic perspective. An old saying is that you should buy stocks when there is blood in the streets. I hope that doesn't become literal.

"These employees will be strained to pay for COBRA." That is a huge understatement. Especially for anyone that needs family coverage. The rates I paid when self-employed were more money per month than my entire paycheck until I was in my late 20's.

Same, self-employed and the rates were so extreme I went without health insurance.

We need Medicare for all, desperately. Health insurance should not be tied to employment.

I even had to skip COBRA during one period because that was out of reach.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#292

Post by AsyncAwait » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #234

Chathamization wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

55% in the latest Morning Consult poll[1]. And this is after a heavy push from the healthcare industry against it, as well as strong opposition from all of the Republican leadership and most of the Democratic leadership. Before the recent blitz against it, polling was 70%[2]. [1] https://morningconsult.com/2020/04/01/medicare-for-all-coron... [2] https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-pe...

80% like their healthcare. I think a significant part of that 55% doesn’t realize that Medicare for all takes away their health insurance. It seems when people get educated on Medicare for all, it declines in popularity. https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcar...

> I think a significant part of that 55% doesn’t realize that Medicare for all takes away their health insurance.

Do you 'like' Walmart, the company? Or do you just want your groceries and don't really care what the store is called?

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#293

Post by kube-system » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #270

kube-system wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't true. Large chunks of that money are going directly to public services and healthcare initiatives. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-anatomy-of-the-2-trilli...

I see nothing that pays the hospital bills for those infected. I do see $100B paid to hospitals.

If expanding Medicare benefits and giving cash directly to people doesn't count in your book, I'm not sure what does.

Even the small business loans have a provision that they are forgiven only if they keep employees on payroll. That is the difference between keeping insurance and losing it for a lot of people.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#294

Post by swimfar » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

_curious_ wrote: post #282

swimfar wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was unemployed after my first job out of college, I was making a little over $420/week on unemployment. I ended up taking a manufacturing job where I made $10/hour for a 40hr/week job. So I made less money by working than if I had stayed on unemployment. And that hourly wage was quite a bit higher than minimum wage.

So you worked 100% more/harder and still made less...what a perverse system.

Most people just wouldn't have taken that job. You could argue that would be better because it leaves it open for someone who needs it more.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#295

Post by bluedino » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #286

tbyehl wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $600/week from the federal government and a similar amount from state unemployment insurance benefits can pay up to an equivalent of $50-60K/year right now LOL. My state maxes at $330/wk and that's taxable income. IDK if the Fed is taxing their payout, pulling other shenanigans (remember Bush II's stimulus checks were a "tax prebate"), or how long they'll pay. $3,720/m is about 60% of my net income, after taxes and…

> It'll pay my mortgage, utilities, and keep me out of jail for driving without car insurance. That's about it. That's the point. It's not intended to replace your job. It's there to keep you afloat until you find your next job.

His state pays $330/week, which is $1320/month

The other figure was $600/week, which is $2400/month. Neither of which would meet his needs.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#296

Post by MiroF » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

fock wrote: post #289

MiroF wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cruise ship skews older and most people from Diamond Princess should be out of it by now.

with emphasis on "should". Most people started to argue with the low number of deaths, when there were 5. Now there are at least 10 and about 100 people unaccounted in statistics...

Hm - 10 as of a few weeks or so ago, I doubt we will see any more and certainly not 2-3x more. That 10/800 = 1.2% and the cruise ship skewed older. 100 people entirely unaccounted for would only impact spread rates, not CFR, unless the unaccounted people are more likely to have died than those from the ship writ large.

I don't see where people are getting 5% from. 1% is already 10x worse or so than the flu, I don't see the need to exaggerate the facts.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#297

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #295

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It'll pay my mortgage, utilities, and keep me out of jail for driving without car insurance. That's about it. That's the point. It's not intended to replace your job. It's there to keep you afloat until you find your next job.

His state pays $330/week, which is $1320/month The other figure was $600/week, which is $2400/month. Neither of which would meet his needs.

> His state pays $330/week, which is $1320/month

> The other figure was $600/week, which is $2400/month.

The values are cumulative, not mutually exclusive.

You don't have to choose one or the other. You get both.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#298

Post by adrr » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

hirsin wrote: post #266

adrr wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% like their healthcare. I think a significant part of that 55% doesn’t realize that Medicare for all takes away their health insurance. It seems when people get educated on Medicare for all, it declines in popularity. https://news.gallup.com/poll/245195/americans-rate-healthcar...

They like the quality of their healthcare - the "seeing a doctor and getting healthy" aspect. If the question was "do you like working with your health insurance" the answers would be different. I've never met a single person who feels their health insurance is good or useful. R=close to zero if the hypothesis is the super majority like theirs.

Ask anyone who has Kaiser. It’s one most well liked insurance/healthcare providers in the nation.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#299

Post by _-___________-_ » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #112

_-___________-_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment you're replying to referred to "1% of the people who get it", which has basically nothing to do with CFR. Getting the virus is necessary but far from sufficient to become a case.

Not quite. 1% of people who get it don't survive when healthcare resources are not strained. But when ICUs fill up, that number starts to skyrocket, because people who need intensive care cannot get it.

You're really missing my point. CFR is not the percentage of "people who get it" that don't survive. It's the percentage of "people who get it, get tested, test positive and are thus confirmed as a case" that don't survive. The actual mortality rate, whether ICUs are working or not (they mostly are), isn't known.

Re: Additional 6.6M File for Initial Unemployment Benefits [pdf]

#300

Post by Majromax » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #136

Majromax wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Treating any modeling we have of the impact of Covid 19 as reliable is an exercise in insanity. In detail, yes. In general, you can still make some good back-of-an-envelope calculations. Conservative estimates are that the coronavirus has a CFR of about 1% given adequate medical care (South Korea's statistics, where testing has been comprehensive enough that we should have identified any wide pool of asymptomatic c…

CFR is always wildly overestimated initially. Various models and data sets put asymptomatic cases at between 20% and 50%. Those are fully asymptomatic - i.e. total end-to-end progression with either very mild symptoms indistinguishable from a minor cold, or no symptoms at all. It's almost impossible to estimate expected population mortality with limited and noisy data, but I've seen estimates from 1.5% to 0.05%. The…

> Various models and data sets put asymptomatic cases at between 20% and 50%. Those are fully asymptomatic - i.e. total end-to-end progression with either very mild symptoms indistinguishable from a minor cold, or no symptoms at all.

That's why I use South Korea as a model. They've tested enough that they should have found the majority of asymptomatic cases, and they still have CFR above 1% (1.7% as of this writing).

That also puts a bound on reasonable levels of occult spread. We can support maybe 50% of cases being totally asymptomatic and undetected, but if that is significantly greater then we'd see contact-tracing (again, SK-style) entirely fail as a control measure.

So it seems like an absolute best-case CFR is 0.5%, if it would be 1% among symptomatic cases and there again that many that never notice / are diagnosed with the disease. For the UK, that would give an optimistic projection of (66e6 * 50% * 0.5% =) 165k deaths in a "herd immunity" outcome with a "flat curve", so this is consistent with the range of your "hand-wavy estimate."