tburkhol @ tburkhol @lemmy.world

Posts

2

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769

Joined

2 yr. ago

In the US, the ACA limits insurance company expenses and profits to a fraction of their actual, delivered care. They get paid more for providing more care, and it doesn't matter whether that "care" actually reaches or benefits a patient. They're fine with fraud, as long as it doesn't grow so fast that they outspend their revenues. Gotta ride the wave of costs rising fast enough to justify next year's raise, but slow enough to hold on to this year's bonus.

These guys claim that as much as 20% of private insurance payments are fraudulent.

My experience is that a lot of people are completely closed to factual argument. It's like their brains shut down as soon as you introduce a number. They're not necessarily stupid people, just intimidated or untrained in information, and I find it very difficult to communicate with someone who puts equal weight in some pundit saying, "US healthcare is the best in the world" and an OECD chart that shows US life expectancy is 5 years shorter than "peer" nations.

Yeah, I feel like their "close friends" in 1990 were probably just the guys at the Lodge or the bowling league. I'm not sure those relationships are any deeper than the parasocial relationships we form online. Just a bunch of guys with nothing else to do on Wednesday nights, so they just go down to some social club and roleplay.

If they're going to profit off insider knowledge, especially off a 15 minute head start on futures trading, they're going to realize those gains in very short term. In this case, probably within 20 minutes, certainly within an hour. They won't even get the discounted CGQD tax rate on them.

I was looking at the URL, misread traumabooks.itch.io, and thought, 'what a perfect source for that book, I want to see their whole catalog.' Supremely disappointed.

The last time I remember hearing about FEMA camps, it was back when Obama's Jade Helm operation was going to take over Texas. Or maybe it was part of a Deus Ex plot.

15% of the population are under 12 and almost 5% are over 80.

ed: actually, it seems like "85%" is just bullshit. Probably closer to 95% Wondering if this might not be a decade+ old chart.

The real goal of fake news: there is no reality, only this moment's convenient story.

I honestly can't tell whether her intent is to block any counter-climate change projects or if this is just a dumb chemtrails thing.

I mean, I assume it's chemtrails, given the source, but it could easily be a "I like the smell of forest fires, and you'll reduce hurricane intensity over my dead body." Given the source.

Need new rules in House and Senate, too. The majority party gets majority in all the committees, gets to pick all the committee chairs, etc. All of the current non-D/non-R members 'caucus' with one of the major parties, making them de facto members of that party. A third party with enough representation to block the other two from gaining majority would almost certainly end up in an alliance with one, leaving us back with functional two-party politics.

The law only gets you compensation after the abuse and destruction ends. If anything.

Even 50W, 24/7, is 36 kWh/month. $3 where I live; $12 in CA.

All she had to do was say 'no,' and she could have protected her constituents and 330,000,000 other Americans.

A 'point' is 1 person in 100. When they say that people sympathized with Israel 'by 13 points', they mean that 44% of people favored Palestine and 56% favored Israel. Why not just say "13 percent" then? Because 56/44 = 127%. 27% more people sympathize with Israel when their net support is 13 points.

When the margin is 43 points, it means 29-71 (minus undecideds). 71/29 = 245%, and I guarantee you will break people's brains if you tell them that 145% more people sympathize with Palestine than Israel.

My impression is that 50501 aren't actually organizing anything, but just providing a one-stop forum for actual, local groups to advertise their events. And maybe a little bit of, "hey, let's all do something on [this] day." If you're not already in a local activist community, it can be hard to find them.

Point being: if you can step up, do step up, but please don't organize a Fyre Festival.

What I expect is that those people will either a) receive a form letter saying that their Medicaid has not been renewed, b) simply not receive new Medicaid card after applying and being silently rejected, or c) have a hospital administrator explain that they owe $10,000 because Medicaid will not cover their charges. Obviously, the hospital is greedy and mean.

Unless those communications include the explicit phrase "because of Donald Trump's Medicaid cuts," few people will draw any connection between the mysterious, bureaucratic determination of Medicaid coverage and their 'tells is like it is' hero, bankrupt casino owner, Donald J Trump.

I love the story that Napolean went to the unimaginable luxury of having a whole set of aluminum tableware made up to awe his visitors.

My Pi spends all of its time around 55°C in a 20-25°C room. Main server idles at 47°C. Those aren't worrying temps.

Believe the "Don't really care" jacket was for a tour of a disaster zone, or maybe one of the kids-in-cages camps.

I've watched enough Lock Picking Lawyer never to want a consumer 'smart lock.' Half of them can be opened with a magnet. Maybe commercial grade is better, but I've been locked out of my job after every power failure for the last 10 years, until someone comes along with a physical key.

Re homeassistant on a Pi: homeassistant does a lot of database transactions, so you may want to have db storage on something other than an SD card.