@kentwillard i really support your getting a colonoscopy! it can be life saving, to catch it early if there’s something untoward! hopefully, wherever you are and whatever insurance you are on is better than Florida and my insurance. colonoscopies for screening are supposed to be free under ACA!
i’ll fuss (have begun fussing, to little avail), will hopefully get our paid-for colonoscopies at least (for me and my wife). if not, we’ll probably end up medical tourists somewhere.
“The core ideas of neoliberalism were obviously simplifications, but they were powerful simplifications, apparently explaining a lot with a little. They told politicians and business leaders what they ought focus on, and what they could reasonably ignore. It turned out that a lot of those things ought not to have been ignored!” @henryfarrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/seeing-like-a-matt
@John @phillmv when we lived in CA, we spent some time on Kaiser. my wife didn’t vibe with the physician she would see, so ultimately we switched out. it was fine from my perspective. but i almost never touch the health care system, i hate it with a deep fiery passion. i did visit Kaiser maybe twice in our several years with them, and had no complaints. there is nothing like Kaiser in FL.
@phillmv @John my very crappy insurance, for a family of three, is $1184 US per month. some unpredictable fraction of that gets covered by a subsidy, depending on what my income proves to be and the phases of the moon. that’s with a very narrow network of providers, a $7500 deductible (payable before insurance begins to reimburse), and up to $9400 payable out-of-pocket in a calendar year. 3/
i've decided to move to the counterfactual. i'd love to find you there.
@mister914 it’s in remission, i think. it’ll be back, i hope. i’ll probably be dead then, but maybe for my kid, if he chooses to suffer life in the United States rather than move elsewhere.
@John it’s supposed to be covered, and so free to the end-patient, under any plan, by law. they are hinting at “hospital fees” as an uncovered portion, i think. i’ll go through the “conversation”, argue with them. maybe i’ll even win. going through it feels like a fate worse than death.
@louis @realcaseyrollins Yeah. Actually my remaining deductible is only $7347 / out-of-pocket max $9247, so it can’t actually be correct that I’d be responsible for $10K+. But they compute their “good faith estimates” procedure by procedure, so they don’t see that.
It’s only actually a third-party payer if it’s fully covered — as it should be — as preventative care. Obviously that’s not what they are doing.
One thing I find difficult about US politics is I am expected to say things like “ACA is not perfect, but it’s better than what came before!” when I hate ACA so much. 1/
I’m almost 54 years old. I’ve never had a colonoscopy. Preventative care is supposed to be covered by my ACA marketplace insurance. I go to an in-network gastroenterologist. He proposes a colonoscopy and an EGD. All diagnostic, preventative. I am not sick. 2/
Two days later I get “good faith estimate” letters saying my responsibility beyond what insurance would cover would be $10,044. Of which the very standard colonoscopy, which my insurer frequently chirpily reminds me I should have, is $2600. 3/
I’ve started the inevitable “dialogue” with the insurer. But I think I’d rather just die. /fin
if Helene was caused by a Chinese hoax, how should we respond?
@buermann @darwinwoodka That was the idea. But is it working out very well? The New York Times is (absurdly) healthy. Some substackers do very well. A cost is many people are excluded from important information, and the mediasphere is less open and conversational. Overall, is this a direction we should make the best of, try to stick with, or should we consider this not great, the problem at-best unsolved?
I’m unhappily surprised there is no provision for declaring an outcome invalid and reversing trades if a candidate fails to become President by virtue of untimely death or debilitation.
ForecastEx is the prediction market whose contracts will trade on Interactive Brokers.
https://data.forecastex.com/regulatory/PRESTermsandConditions.pdf
@BenRossTransit i think that’s about right.
@BenRossTransit do you think it’s usually read as an act of generosity, a way of softening the blow? is it effective at that?
i agree it’s offered because what’s coming next is going to be harsh. but i read it more as a kind of perfunctory attempt to immunize the speaker for that harshness, rather than any kind of generosity for the hearer.
you can’t be too clever about what you think you learn from people who are trying to lie to you.
are there institutional differences between US and e.g. European unions that render automation resistance (and featherbedding generally) much more prominent in the US than in other, more unionized, economies?
does sectoral bargaining somehow diminish these aspects?
Is the ubiquitously paywalled media ecosystem of today more or less healthy than the media ecosystem of the early 2000s “information wants to be free” era? are the larger worlds they subsist in just too different to render a comparison meaningful?
Usually people who begin a claim with “I’m sorry, but…” aren’t actually sorry.
A key tactic of right-wing politics is identifying and then sabotaging the parts of government whose smooth functioning would prevent the crisis you want to demagogue.
"Congress needs to repeal the Federal Arbitration Act." @40Years https://40yrs.blogspot.com/2024/10/yeah-still-evil.html
// If you've ever clicked anything on the internet (or someone else clicked stuff on your phone) + you get injured in an Uber, you'll be going to arbitration rather than have your day in court
