For the sake of their re-election bids, Democrats in the Senate and House need to agree to coverage options such as those proposed by Ted Cruz. In that regard, Chris Murphy is wrong… it is an EASY thing for Dems in the minority to agree to what The People said they want on 11/8/16.
More important than the re-election bids of Dems is the need of US citizens for affordable health care / insurance, and that will only come with more options in the market place; i.e. more freedom … of coverage choice…. and more supply of health care providers. What Dems did in 2010 with ACA was completely contrary to freedom, affordability, and choice.
Of course insurers CEOs like Mark Bertollinni of Aetna will refute the payments are ‘bailouts’ of insurers. They go to pay the providers. But the fact of the matter is that the policies insurers can write with bailout money will go away when the bailout payments end. So, insurers will have fewer policies in force, and most likely lower revenue. Thus, they support(ed) bailouts from the start, and are about to learn a hard lesson about the long-run viability of social(ist) insurance.
Thus far, I’ve received no down votes on my posts above. The George Soros funded crowd must still be in their pajamas, eating cereal for breakfast, or at that national coffee chain, working on their 2nd cup of a beverage made of coffee beans and misc. spices and dairy products.
Did you appreciate the CHOICE of coffee beans products your local national coffee beans products chain offers? Would you go to a vendor which only offered ONE specific coffee beans product that costs $10 per small cup and only whole milk and plain sugar is offered as supplements (i.e. parallels with an all perils, high deductibles, hyuuuuge co-pays HI policy) ?
Streams of consciousness cannot be predicted, nor should they be blocked. I could’ve gone on for a few more minutes, but I had an urge for a fish danish that couldn’t be delayed.
Maybe the Ted Cruz ideas will work. But wouldn’t it be better to implement Trump’s plan where everyone is covered with lower rates and lower deductibles. Tell us again what the specifics are on this plan.
There are too many plans floating to tell you which will be brought up for a vote next. The key criteria is CHOICE, and after that, HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS. Finally, many cost savings means must be used, not just higher deductibes and co-pays.
You mention lower rates ad lower deductibles. That’s possible, but not with an ACA-lite approach. The variety of policies offered under Cruz’s approach follows economic rules known to all, some of which are in HEALTH CARE SPPECIFICCS. FREEDOM OF CHOICE is the key, and not just varied coverages of various policies. Health care options are also critical to market stability and lowered costs.
For those 3 persons / BOTs which down voted without bothering to reply, would you like JUST a cup of coffee the next time you visit a coffee house, or do you prefer a CHOICE of different coffee bean beverages?
PS my post about downvoting was specifically intended to make down voters self conscious about their action to vote but not contribute to the discussion.
Who wonders why people just fade away from this board? What ever happened to the exchange of ideas to make our lives easier / better / more productive?
Now, its just one insult after another. Just like to politicians.
I forget who, but someone on this site not to long ago said we should make this a non political comment section. I was on board then. I still am, but I was then too :)
Rosenblatt, how about you write to Andrew and tell him to stop publishing articles with political over tones? By the way IJ has been favoring Obamacare for over 7 years and several articles actually said it was working. What a joke.
Sorry Agent, I’m not on a first name basis with Andrew and don’t have his email address memorized. Seeing as we know he listens to you (and/or Yogi, et al), I think we’d have a better chance if you sent him a message.
Rosenblatt, as you can see from Andrew’s post below, you don’t need his email address since he reads the posts. Sorry, we aren’t going to do your work for you.
August 4, 2017 at 4:11 pm
Agent says:
Like or Dislike:
2
8
FFA, you are entirely correct. I can’t tell you how many times Polar, Bob and others have brought forward ideas to solve this gigantic mess in Healthcare Democrats made and only got nasty insults and down votes for their efforts from the Progressive side. After a while, it gets very old indeed and the sarcastic insults go back at them. With a Progressive, it is their way or the highway and ideology rules. Just look at the down votes on anything Polar says and you can see the game plan. 11-8-16 was a good turning point, but the nasty only got nastier.
The exchange of ideas to better serve US citizens went out the door when The Body Reid had the Capital maintenance crew change the locks on the doors of the Senate meeting room before the DEMS ONLY discussed ACA right before they voted for it.
Really interesting accusation. And yet, when everyone wanted in on what McConnell was developing behind closed doors with only a dozen senators (all male Republican Conservatives), they got stonewalled and told to vote on something that was released with only a few days to look at was was being voted on.
Before you talk about exchange of ideas to better serve US citizens, please note that the current senate was far more secretive about what they were working on.
So I see the name calling is still going on. Hell of a way to try and win arguments. Call people names and insult them until they give up in disgust, then claim “victory” and say that it proves your point.
The editors of Insurance Journal appreciate your interest in our website and that you have chosen to participate in our comment section.
We are trying to clean up the forum and would welcome your cooperation along with that of all other regular posters. Please help us by setting an example.
First, please stay on topic. If someone else strays from the topic of an article, there is no need for you to follow that person down that path. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
Not every article, news item or argument is political. This comment section is not a place for you to repeatedly flex your partisan political muscles or engage in tit-for-tat exchanges with a handful of others.
We seek commentary from an insurance perspective from insurance professionals wanting to educate, clarify, contextualize or counter a story or other opinion.
We respectfully request that all commenters refrain from insults towards one another, avoid profanities and show respect for others at all times. If you or anyone else can’t make your point without insulting another person’s intelligence, morals, ethnicity, character or other trait, then please don’t post it. Those who engage in such behaviors ruin the forum experience for the majority who follow the rules of civil discourse. Comments that disrespect others will be deleted.
Some of you complain that your comment was deleted while so-and-so’s comment was not. We don’t have the staff or the desire to monitor this comment section 24/7. It is meant to be self-regulating.
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Chief Content Officer
Wells Media Group
A moratorium on political discussion in climate change topics would be nice, since over 99% of climatologists around the world agree that climate change is real, and man-made waste is the biggest contributing factor.
It would be nice to discuss the ramifications that a changing climate has on our industry without having to entertain unscientific claims that the problem even exists in the first place.
Also, all the various insult words that make the board a chore to read and comment on: “libitterals” being just one small one.
Hey Good, perhaps you haven’t seen the monthly Climate Change/Global Warming articles published often on IJ.
Breaking News! Global Warming is starting to reverse and much cooler weather is predicted for the fall, particularly in the N/E and Al Gores new film is not doing so well at the box office.
I don’t want to get off-topic, of course, but one year of weather =/= climate. Climate is a period of time, usually taken as a group of 15 years together.
Nobody could ever determine that “global warming is starting to reverse” off of part of a year’s worth of data, especially since 14, 15, and 16 were all the hottest months on record, and 17 has seen many, many areas break all time records in multiple months, as well.
So, if we happen to be having a cool last couple of weeks (and I have loved it, trust you me.)that is not representative of anything, other than cool weather. You have to understand the science to look at this with objective eyes.
Nothing in what I wrote above was inflammatory or opinion-based. All scientific fact and backed up by hard data. If you are genuinely interested, please let me know and I will post the sources.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Thank you, Andrew. Hoping for less name-calling, insults, and politicization of every freakin’ article on this site.
It has already had a HUGE effect in other topics. Seriously. No matter which side of the aisle you fall on in all of the various topics (even the non-political ones), we are always welcoming of more voices around here. I hope you keep posting! :)
No more political talk in climate change topics, please! Unless the topic is inherently political “President Comments on Climate Change”, it has no use in a topic. Climate Change is agreed upon by 99% of climatologists and the root cause being manmade pollution and changing the ecology around us.
It does no good to have to weed through arguments by people without Science backgrounds, professions, and degrees who disagree about the data when the topic at hand deals directly with our industry and how it affects us.
“Libitterals” could go, too and I wouldn’t be sad. It smacks of “I know you are, but what am I?” type of playground childishness not fit for a discussion on an insurance website.
Before the conspiracy theorists start churning. I made the original post with the “Good things moving forward” name to designate that we can move forward and free this place from the muck it finds itself in right now.
There is no Soros conspiracy (yet!), just ol’ Dough trying to be positive. Andrew could verify that our email addresses are the same. :)
I still contend that is not happening. I would love for Andrew to weigh in just to settle this non-issue once and for all.
Nobody has enough time in the day to down-vote posts they don’t like on an insurance website with extremely low exposure across multiple monikers. You are talking about posts with typically between 20 and 40 comments if they are super busy. Most have far, far less than that. Who would waste their day meticulously logging into multiple usernames to log multiple votes? The notion is ridiculous to me. That goes for Conservatives down-voting my posts, as well. It just doesn’t happen.
It could be, just a possibility, that the content of Yogi’s posts are so inflammatory, closed-minded and negative to warrant those down-votes. He resorts to name-calling, and trolling in all sorts of manner. Many people don’t want to see yet another topic devolve into partisan politics when the topic at hand has nothing to do with politics, so they downvote his comments. No offense, but there is a reason that your posts get the same treatment.
Other conservatives like Jax Agent and integrity manners post in a fervent style, but don’t get 1/3rd of Yogi’s downvotes. I would be willing to bet they have never had a post deleted, too.
This is not a conspiracy. This is an open forum and people are voicing their disapproval with his content.
So it is clear you don’t like Sarcasm or Humor. Why am I not surprised. Polar is one of the clearest thinkers on this site and too bad, so sad for you.
August 8, 2017 at 7:49 pm
Doug Fisher says:
Like or Dislike:
4
0
It would appear that almost nobody feels that way. Too bad for all of us, I guess.
August 10, 2017 at 1:23 pm
Godot says:
Like or Dislike:
1
0
“Too bad, so sad”? Really, Agent? I haven’t heard that since I was a teenaged girl in the 70’s.
Sorry – I know this goes against the intent of the ‘new forum’, but once I stopped laughing, I felt compelled to post. Delete as you see fit, Andrew! :)
August 8, 2017 at 10:45 am
Interested says:
Like or Dislike:
2
0
I think it goes without saying that for an issue as large and complicated as health-care this should not be a one-party issue. Our political leaders need to be just that, “Political Leaders”. They have the facts and the numbers. They know how changes will effect the American people. So sit down and create a 20-year, 50-year, or 100-yr plan on what is best to do for the country as a whole “TOGETHER!” keeping the basis of what the majority of American’s would prefer. Or create a vote and let the people choose their own fate. The entire country suffers with this indecisiveness on issues effecting people on a daily basis.
Interested, do you really want to know why our political leaders don’t come up with a plan? Both sides are in bed with lobbyists who pay them to vote their way so they can get re-elected. That, and a determined group of the “Resistance” movement trying to undermine anything our POTUS wants to do.
Definition: Liberal
A person whose rigid ideology dictates what other people are allowed to think.
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Thank you for finally admitting the true reason for your ridiculous posts.
Troll.
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Yogi makes 3 posts in 10 minutes then whines ‘Why isn’t anyone downvoting me yet? Am I not trolling sufficiently? Here, let me try harder.’
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k
Love the humor…salmon or tuna Danish?
Any fish is good fish to me.
Maybe the Ted Cruz ideas will work. But wouldn’t it be better to implement Trump’s plan where everyone is covered with lower rates and lower deductibles. Tell us again what the specifics are on this plan.
There are too many plans floating to tell you which will be brought up for a vote next. The key criteria is CHOICE, and after that, HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS. Finally, many cost savings means must be used, not just higher deductibes and co-pays.
You mention lower rates ad lower deductibles. That’s possible, but not with an ACA-lite approach. The variety of policies offered under Cruz’s approach follows economic rules known to all, some of which are in HEALTH CARE SPPECIFICCS. FREEDOM OF CHOICE is the key, and not just varied coverages of various policies. Health care options are also critical to market stability and lowered costs.
For those 3 persons / BOTs which down voted without bothering to reply, would you like JUST a cup of coffee the next time you visit a coffee house, or do you prefer a CHOICE of different coffee bean beverages?
I can only imagine George Costanza. Someone with an anger problem who looks for something and someone to vilify and also play the victim card about.
You are a sad individual, Yogi.
I am glad a Libitteral thinks so. That validates my efforts to edify people.
PS my post about downvoting was specifically intended to make down voters self conscious about their action to vote but not contribute to the discussion.
Serenity now, Doug. Serenity now.
Who wonders why people just fade away from this board? What ever happened to the exchange of ideas to make our lives easier / better / more productive?
Now, its just one insult after another. Just like to politicians.
I forget who, but someone on this site not to long ago said we should make this a non political comment section. I was on board then. I still am, but I was then too :)
Rosenblatt, how about you write to Andrew and tell him to stop publishing articles with political over tones? By the way IJ has been favoring Obamacare for over 7 years and several articles actually said it was working. What a joke.
Sorry Agent, I’m not on a first name basis with Andrew and don’t have his email address memorized. Seeing as we know he listens to you (and/or Yogi, et al), I think we’d have a better chance if you sent him a message.
Rosenblatt, as you can see from Andrew’s post below, you don’t need his email address since he reads the posts. Sorry, we aren’t going to do your work for you.
FFA, you are entirely correct. I can’t tell you how many times Polar, Bob and others have brought forward ideas to solve this gigantic mess in Healthcare Democrats made and only got nasty insults and down votes for their efforts from the Progressive side. After a while, it gets very old indeed and the sarcastic insults go back at them. With a Progressive, it is their way or the highway and ideology rules. Just look at the down votes on anything Polar says and you can see the game plan. 11-8-16 was a good turning point, but the nasty only got nastier.
Agent,
Please enlighten everyone on how my ideas were received by the “Conservatives”?
Speaking for me, not Agent, your ideas are allowed, but no one has to agree with them, or refrain from discrediting them.
The exchange of ideas to better serve US citizens went out the door when The Body Reid had the Capital maintenance crew change the locks on the doors of the Senate meeting room before the DEMS ONLY discussed ACA right before they voted for it.
Really interesting accusation. And yet, when everyone wanted in on what McConnell was developing behind closed doors with only a dozen senators (all male Republican Conservatives), they got stonewalled and told to vote on something that was released with only a few days to look at was was being voted on.
Before you talk about exchange of ideas to better serve US citizens, please note that the current senate was far more secretive about what they were working on.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/10/us/republican-health-care-process.html
How many pages was McConnell’s proposal?
What is a typical high school student’s reading speed?
How do you get to be a US Senator without the ability to read CRITICAL legislation within a few days?
So I see the name calling is still going on. Hell of a way to try and win arguments. Call people names and insult them until they give up in disgust, then claim “victory” and say that it proves your point.
This is very complicated subject so name calling is an easier solution right now.
Yes, we ‘deplorables’ and ‘irredeemables’ sure are abrasive folks, eh?
The editors of Insurance Journal appreciate your interest in our website and that you have chosen to participate in our comment section.
We are trying to clean up the forum and would welcome your cooperation along with that of all other regular posters. Please help us by setting an example.
First, please stay on topic. If someone else strays from the topic of an article, there is no need for you to follow that person down that path. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
Not every article, news item or argument is political. This comment section is not a place for you to repeatedly flex your partisan political muscles or engage in tit-for-tat exchanges with a handful of others.
We seek commentary from an insurance perspective from insurance professionals wanting to educate, clarify, contextualize or counter a story or other opinion.
We respectfully request that all commenters refrain from insults towards one another, avoid profanities and show respect for others at all times. If you or anyone else can’t make your point without insulting another person’s intelligence, morals, ethnicity, character or other trait, then please don’t post it. Those who engage in such behaviors ruin the forum experience for the majority who follow the rules of civil discourse. Comments that disrespect others will be deleted.
Some of you complain that your comment was deleted while so-and-so’s comment was not. We don’t have the staff or the desire to monitor this comment section 24/7. It is meant to be self-regulating.
Andrew Simpson
Chief Content Officer
Wells Media Group
A moratorium on political discussion in climate change topics would be nice, since over 99% of climatologists around the world agree that climate change is real, and man-made waste is the biggest contributing factor.
It would be nice to discuss the ramifications that a changing climate has on our industry without having to entertain unscientific claims that the problem even exists in the first place.
Also, all the various insult words that make the board a chore to read and comment on: “libitterals” being just one small one.
Hey Good, perhaps you haven’t seen the monthly Climate Change/Global Warming articles published often on IJ.
Breaking News! Global Warming is starting to reverse and much cooler weather is predicted for the fall, particularly in the N/E and Al Gores new film is not doing so well at the box office.
I don’t want to get off-topic, of course, but one year of weather =/= climate. Climate is a period of time, usually taken as a group of 15 years together.
Nobody could ever determine that “global warming is starting to reverse” off of part of a year’s worth of data, especially since 14, 15, and 16 were all the hottest months on record, and 17 has seen many, many areas break all time records in multiple months, as well.
So, if we happen to be having a cool last couple of weeks (and I have loved it, trust you me.)that is not representative of anything, other than cool weather. You have to understand the science to look at this with objective eyes.
Nothing in what I wrote above was inflammatory or opinion-based. All scientific fact and backed up by hard data. If you are genuinely interested, please let me know and I will post the sources.
EDIT: 14, 15, and 16 were the hottest YEARS on record, not months. Several MONTHS in 17 have already broken those records WORLDWIDE.
My bad. :)
Well Andrew, you tried. Thanks Anyways.
Obviously, some people read and ignore that which is requested to promote civility.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Thank you, Andrew. Hoping for less name-calling, insults, and politicization of every freakin’ article on this site.
It has already had a HUGE effect in other topics. Seriously. No matter which side of the aisle you fall on in all of the various topics (even the non-political ones), we are always welcoming of more voices around here. I hope you keep posting! :)
hear, hear!
No more political talk in climate change topics, please! Unless the topic is inherently political “President Comments on Climate Change”, it has no use in a topic. Climate Change is agreed upon by 99% of climatologists and the root cause being manmade pollution and changing the ecology around us.
It does no good to have to weed through arguments by people without Science backgrounds, professions, and degrees who disagree about the data when the topic at hand deals directly with our industry and how it affects us.
“Libitterals” could go, too and I wouldn’t be sad. It smacks of “I know you are, but what am I?” type of playground childishness not fit for a discussion on an insurance website.
Before the conspiracy theorists start churning. I made the original post with the “Good things moving forward” name to designate that we can move forward and free this place from the muck it finds itself in right now.
There is no Soros conspiracy (yet!), just ol’ Dough trying to be positive. Andrew could verify that our email addresses are the same. :)
So you are one of the multi moniker dudes who keep down voting Polar on every comment. Why am I not surprised? Who is Dough?
I still contend that is not happening. I would love for Andrew to weigh in just to settle this non-issue once and for all.
Nobody has enough time in the day to down-vote posts they don’t like on an insurance website with extremely low exposure across multiple monikers. You are talking about posts with typically between 20 and 40 comments if they are super busy. Most have far, far less than that. Who would waste their day meticulously logging into multiple usernames to log multiple votes? The notion is ridiculous to me. That goes for Conservatives down-voting my posts, as well. It just doesn’t happen.
It could be, just a possibility, that the content of Yogi’s posts are so inflammatory, closed-minded and negative to warrant those down-votes. He resorts to name-calling, and trolling in all sorts of manner. Many people don’t want to see yet another topic devolve into partisan politics when the topic at hand has nothing to do with politics, so they downvote his comments. No offense, but there is a reason that your posts get the same treatment.
Other conservatives like Jax Agent and integrity manners post in a fervent style, but don’t get 1/3rd of Yogi’s downvotes. I would be willing to bet they have never had a post deleted, too.
This is not a conspiracy. This is an open forum and people are voicing their disapproval with his content.
So it is clear you don’t like Sarcasm or Humor. Why am I not surprised. Polar is one of the clearest thinkers on this site and too bad, so sad for you.
It would appear that almost nobody feels that way. Too bad for all of us, I guess.
“Too bad, so sad”? Really, Agent? I haven’t heard that since I was a teenaged girl in the 70’s.
Sorry – I know this goes against the intent of the ‘new forum’, but once I stopped laughing, I felt compelled to post. Delete as you see fit, Andrew! :)
I think it goes without saying that for an issue as large and complicated as health-care this should not be a one-party issue. Our political leaders need to be just that, “Political Leaders”. They have the facts and the numbers. They know how changes will effect the American people. So sit down and create a 20-year, 50-year, or 100-yr plan on what is best to do for the country as a whole “TOGETHER!” keeping the basis of what the majority of American’s would prefer. Or create a vote and let the people choose their own fate. The entire country suffers with this indecisiveness on issues effecting people on a daily basis.
Interested, do you really want to know why our political leaders don’t come up with a plan? Both sides are in bed with lobbyists who pay them to vote their way so they can get re-elected. That, and a determined group of the “Resistance” movement trying to undermine anything our POTUS wants to do.
Definition: Liberal
A person whose rigid ideology dictates what other people are allowed to think.
lib·er·al.
[ˈlib(ə)rəl]
ADJECTIVE
1.open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values:
“they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people”
2.(of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
synonyms: wide-ranging · broad-based · general
3.(especially of an interpretation of a law) broadly construed or understood; not strictly literal or exact:
“they could have given the 1968 Act a more liberal interpretation”
synonyms: flexible · broad · loose · rough · free · general · nonliteral · nonspecific ·
[more]
4.given, used, or occurring in generous amounts:
“liberal amounts of wine had been consumed”
synonyms: abundant · copious · ample · plentiful · generous · lavish · luxuriant ·
[more]
con·serv·a·tive.
[kənˈsərvədive
ADJECTIVE
1.holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.
synonyms: traditionalist · traditional · conventional · orthodox · old-fashioned ·
[more]
NOUN
1.a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.
synonyms: right-winger · reactionary · rightist · diehard · Republican · Tory
truth.
NOUN
1.What Captain Planet posted.
synonyms: honesty
The top of this page is absolutely hilarious.