381–390 of 399 posts
Comparing the whole of the United States to England isn't as informative as one would think, given the wide variety of racial and cultural groups in the United States. Comparing health outcomes of white Americans of Anglo descent to health outcomes in England would be much more informative. Even more informative would be data that look at white people (and other groups such as Chinese, Indians, etc.) in the US on a c…
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> Almost everyone with insurance has a maximum out of pocket limit now. "maximum out of pocket" does not mean what any normal person would interpret it to mean. More than one year I have had to pay way more than the "maximum out of pocket". The insurance company gets to decide unilaterally how much of what you pay out of pocket is credited toward their tally of what you supposedly paid out of pocket. In several years…
Why? Can you give me an example here, particularly as it relates to a medically necessary surgery or procedure? Or does it come down to difference in interpretation of what is medically necessary?
How it works is that blue shield (with employers I've typically always had blue shield in California) sends a statement saying your doctor visit cost $XXXX, blue shield will pay $YYY and this will credit $ZZZ towards your annual out of pocket total.
But $XXXX - $YYY > $ZZZ, so what I actually had to pay to the doctor was more than blue shield credits me for having paid. So at the end of the year what I've actually had to pay has been well above the so-called "out of pocket maximum".
It doesn't happen most years (to me), but has happened on multiple years.
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The Constitution is not set in stone - it can be amended. If the Constitution is amended in a legal way then how is it disrespectful?
So long as it’s respected until/unless amended, I’m entirely in agreement.
The original article points out that the primary difference between the US and the UK (as well as other peer countries) is that you're much more likely to die young in the US. A 5-year-old in the United States has a 4% chance of dying before age 40, whereas a 5-year-old in Australia, Austria, Canada, England and Wales, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, or Switzerland has ~1% chance of dying before age 40 (val…
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The Constitution is not set in stone - it can be amended. If the Constitution is amended in a legal way then how is it disrespectful?
So long as it’s respected until/unless amended, I’m entirely in agreement.
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Repealing am amendment isn't ignoring it. It's the opposite. You could clarify that you mean the rights stated in the amendments of course.
The while we're at it, let's get rid of the rest of the Bill of Rights, is terrifying.
Sorry, but the first amendment, as currently formulated, really needs to go. It should be replaced with a formulation of freedom expression that better balances individual freedom with the public interest according to modern political standards.
In fact, given the problems with corruption in the American system and first-past-the-post voting leading to money-driven, rather than truly democratic, politics, the entire constitution probably needs to be rethought. No less of an American political thinker than Justice Ginsburg has opined that the US constitution is no longer, in the current era, a model for good governance. This should happen in a civilized fashion with a convention and ratification much like the current constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, but it nonetheless needs to happen.
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Tall structures everywhere are suicide magnets because they are fairly accessible and the means of death is easy and (seems) fairly certain. It’s why you can’t build a large bridge with a pedestrian walkway without some kind of safety netting, and that’s globally.
Countries by suicides per 100,000 population: US: 14.5 UK: 6.9 Germany: 8.3 The problem IS NOT tall structures. The problem is something about US society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/countries
The data shows that the USA has way more tall buildings than most of Europe, by more than an order of magnitude.
Disclaimer: I don’t agree they’re a leading cause, rather an accessory to a suicide premeditated by various health/societal factors.
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Why? Can you give me an example here, particularly as it relates to a medically necessary surgery or procedure? Or does it come down to difference in interpretation of what is medically necessary?
I don't have a specific example handy, it's been a few years. How it works is that blue shield (with employers I've typically always had blue shield in California) sends a statement saying your doctor visit cost $XXXX, blue shield will pay $YYY and this will credit $ZZZ towards your annual out of pocket total. But $XXXX - $YYY > $ZZZ, so what I actually had to pay to the doctor was more than blue shield credits me fo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have a specific example handy, it's been a few years. How it works is that blue shield (with employers I've typically always had blue shield in California) sends a statement saying your doctor visit cost $XXXX, blue shield will pay $YYY and this will credit $ZZZ towards your annual out of pocket total. But $XXXX - $YYY > $ZZZ, so what I actually had to pay to the doctor was more than blue shield credits me fo…
Based on the providers contract with Blue Shield, you should not be liable for anything beyond what they consider to be your out of pocket cost. If they requested more, you could have just refused to pay it, and get your insurance involved if they pushed back.
Labs that don't have a clear medical justification are probably easy to end up paying for out of pocket without getting the amount counted against the out of pocket insurance limit.
Would expect that to be clearly delineated on the bills though.