Random Politics & Religion #00

It gave people a new standard by which to judge the atmosphere and environment in gaming, and more depth by which to judge FPS beyond "get new gun/power, kill in new and interesting ways".

It took many elements that had existed before, but never with the same amount of polish or poise, and never all in one place.

I can't overstate my love of the game.

As much as I enjoyed the Bioshock games, (yes even 2, bite me) the combat system was pretty subpar by shooter standards, the weapons weren't particularly unique and the plasmids has fairly limited use other than the lightning one. What I think was influential is that they managed to make the game NOT feel like a shooter. It was the first game that put all those elements into a package that actually worked. I have to admit, though, that the Unreal engine held the game together too much, visuals offset a lot of it's shortcomings.

Why do all you ACA supporters thinnk its okay for taxpayers to pay for these things.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/25/obamacare-now-pays-for-gender-reassignment.html

About 3/4 way into the article this pops up. "Late last year, Payne’s wife, who had battled alcoholism for years, died of liver disease." sigh...

Why do all you ACA supporters thinnk its okay for taxpayers to pay for these things.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/25/obamacare-now-pays-for-gender-reassignment.html

About 3/4 way into the article this pops up. "Late last year, Payne’s wife, who had battled alcoholism for years, died of liver disease." sigh...

Taxpayers aren't really paying for the surgery just because the person's insurance is partially subsidized. You'd have a better case if this was medicaid or something. It's also classified as a medical treatment, if the insurance company hasn't specifically stated that they won't cover this kind of surgery, they should be the target of your ire.

Why do all you ACA supporters thinnk its okay for taxpayers to pay for these things.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/25/obamacare-now-pays-for-gender-reassignment.html

About 3/4 way into the article this pops up. "Late last year, Payne’s wife, who had battled alcoholism for years, died of liver disease." sigh...

or you know, quit worrying about what other people do with their bodies, that works too.

So if the patient, insurance company, nor the doctors or hospitals are paying for it, who is?

So if the patient, insurance company, nor the doctors or hospitals are paying for it, who is?

If it's their money, there is no discussion. But it's not their money otherwise it wouldn't be an issue for low income individuals. Someone has to pick up the tab. It's certainly not the insurance company, as medicine is a business which maximizes profits.

So if the patient, insurance company, nor the doctors or hospitals are paying for it, who is?

The government is, but this isn't the money paid via taxes they swear.

The government subsidizes a portion of the premiums, it's completely ignorant to say that. The insurance company pays out claims based on medical need and the coverage that the patient has purchased. If the insurance company approves the procedure, it's them who are paying for it. The government isn't on the hook for their procedure.

Devin Payne had gone years without health insurance—having little need and not much money to pay for it.

Then Payne, who had a wife and four children, realized she could no longer live as a man.

In her early 40s, she changed her name, began wearing long skirts and grew out her sandy blond hair. And she started taking female hormones, which caused her breasts to develop and the muscle mass on her 6-foot one-inch frame to shrink.

The next step was gender reassignment surgery. For that, Payne, who is now 44, said she needed health coverage. “It is not a simple, easy, magical surgery,” said Payne, a photographer who lives in Palm Springs. “Trying to do this without insurance is a big risk. Things can go wrong … not having the money to pay for it would be awful.”

Payne learned in the fall that she might qualify for subsidies through the state’s new insurance marketplace, Covered California, because her income fell under the limit of $46,000 a year. She eagerly signed up in March for a Blue Shield plan for about $230 a month, and began making preparations for the surgery that would change her life.

You seriously don't understand how insurance works. The purpose of the marketplaces is to create a shared risk pool. The insurance company now has a cap on profit margin, so they can't symbolically raise premiums. This procedure is something that they agreed to pay for when they sold the policy. A heart transplant costs in excess of $200,000 dollars, and insurance companies have been paying for them and making a profit for decades, and organ transplants are far more common than gender reassignment. This is seriously the pinnacle of fake outrage. The potential cost of this procedure is part of the calculation of risk that insurance is designed around.

What it boils down to is that you don't understand the procedure or the condition it treats and want to selectively argue against phantom socialism piecemeal. Guess what, Medicaid dollars go to religious "pray away the gay" programs, that's actual government funding. It's also proven to do a lot of harm and have no medical merit, but I don't hear any of the "conservative" crowd crying out against that. If you want to be taken seriously, found your outrage in reality and be consistent.

Based on figures released so far by 24 states and the District of Columbia, the average premium increase for next year would be around 7.5%, according to an analysis by PwC's Health Research Institute, an arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC. The analysis, which didn't include the new California rates, found the moves would range from a proposed cut of 23% for one plan to a hike of 36%.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, which have been the biggest players in many state marketplaces, were requesting boosts "typically above 9%," the institute found.

Covered California will have 10 insurers next year, including major insurers such as Blue Shield of California and WellPoint Inc., but missing some national names such as UnitedHealth Group Inc.

The rates for next year's California plans, which still need to be reviewed by regulators, will vary for individual consumers. Also, about 90% of Covered California consumers received federal subsidies that will defray the cost of premiums. Covered California said that in most of the state, the subsidies next year will increase or "remain very close" to the 2014 amounts.

The exchange said that, leaving out the effects of the subsidies, 16% of enrollees will see premiums stay flat or go down, 35% will see a boost of less than 5%, 36% will have increases of 5% to 8%, and 13% will have hikes of more than 8%.

Sorry Nik, but refurbished doomsday devices are not required by law.

Insurance companies are legalized Ponzi schemes. If they ever lost money, they would never exist to begin with.

Healthcare, home owners, car, etc.

Taxpayers aren't really paying for the surgery just because the person's insurance is partially subsidized. You'd have a better case if this was medicaid or something. It's also classified as a medical treatment, if the insurance company hasn't specifically stated that they won't cover this kind of surgery, they should be the target of your ire.

Did you really just say that with a straight face..

Yes, partial subsidy of premiums would be paid to the insurance company at the same rate if that person never made a claim. You're woefully misinformed.

Not getting into the argument of gender reassignment surgery being medically unnecessary and shouldn't be covered by insurance (like plastic surgery that isn't to fix corrections of other needed surgery, or accident, etc).

But why shouldn't the taxpayers be paying for needed medical costs?

edit: you want to fix insurance? get rid of for-profit insurance and other forms of healthcare. Stockholder's bottom line shouldn't be involved in medical care.

Can the non-profit insurance company pay its employee's, and would I be required by law to be in it?

You wanna define what a government subsidy is for jassik?

Yes, and yes, and no, he knows what they are.

I'll remind you that the insurance mandate is a Republican idea, 100%.