I'll say.
The bland, public lie that everyone knows is a lie is a trademark of the fascist in public life. I was reminded of Goering's refusal to recognize von Papen in the Reichstag on Sept. 12, 1932.
The bland pretense that the lie is truth is the trademark of the fascist spear-carrier.
So where does "You can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor" fit on the fascism spectrum?
ReplyDeleteNowhere.
ReplyDelete[OT:] The bland, public lie that everyone knows is a lie is a trademark of the fascist in public life.
ReplyDeleteSo, "You can keep your plan ..." isn't a trademark of the fascist in public life because progressives were stupid enough to believe it.
Because that's the only option you've left yourself.
"The Affordable Care Act tried to allow existing health plans to continue under a complicated process called "grandfathering," which basically said insurance companies could keep selling plans if they followed certain rules.
ReplyDeleteThe problem for insurers was that the Obamacare rules were strict. If the plans deviated even a little, they would lose their grandfathered status. In practice, that meant insurers canceled plans that didn’t meet new standards."
In other words, if your plan was crap, it was probably cancelled.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/
M:
ReplyDeleteTwo problems with that. First is this:
>In other words, if your plan was crap, it was probably cancelled.
Who made the decision on that, individuals, or the government? Well, the latter, of course. Regardless of whether a plan was "crap" or not, or by what standard, by Obamacare's very definition, it didn't matter if you liked your plan or not, for good reasons or not, if Obamacare decided you weren't going to keep your plan, then you weren't going to keep your plan.
Making Obama's repeated invocations as bald faced a lie as one can find.
And the second problem is a little matter of eliding Obamacare rules. Just what were they? Aside from imposing upon people coverage they couldn't possibly need (there is a moral argument for that, but the Obama administration never bothered making it), there is the not so small matter of eliminating catastrophic coverage plans.
The cheapest, and most efficient, form of insurance is self-insurance. For no small number of people, that was part of their plan they couldn't keep.
Self-insurance is a form of insurance the way being dead is a form of being alive.
ReplyDeleteHarry, if I remember correctly, your journalism career was primarily on the business beat. Do I have that right?
ReplyDeleteReally doesn't matter, though. I would have thought it self-evident that self insurance is, by the very nature of the inherent wager, far cheaper and more efficient than purchased insurance.
I guess not. Anyone who could type a sentence as baldly nonsensical as Self-insurance is a form of insurance the way being dead is a form of being alive. is not likely to grasp basic insurance concepts.
O/T: The Indonesians have released the Lion Air mishap report. You have read the conclusions already — here, courtesy of me.
It's not about "basic insurance concepts." Of course "self-insurance" is the simplest and most efficient form of insurance, in some sort of Socratic ideal world. In that world there must only be rich people, though, because in the real world, self-insurance means either bankruptcy or death (or conceivably both) pretty much as soon as a serious medical problem or accident comes along. Your statement is nonsensical to the vast majority of Americans.
DeleteM: Of course "self-insurance" is the simplest and most efficient form of insurance, in some sort of Socratic ideal world. In that world there must only be rich people, though, because in the real world, self-insurance means either bankruptcy or death (or conceivably both) pretty much as soon as a serious medical problem or accident comes along.
DeleteThat is wrong on steroids.
Obamacare completely eliminated the concept of self-insurance, which itself is not an either-or thing.
I presume you have a deductible on your car insurance. Is it the lowest possible, or something higher?
Any deductible on any type of insurance is, by definition, self insurance. A great many people were happy self-insuring through higher deductibles.
A plan of theirs which they were not allowed to keep.
Let's restate the obvious: your idea of the cheapest, most efficient 'insurance' is a perfect example of the Fireproof Hotel strategy.
ReplyDeleteHarry, I remember the last time you invoked the Fireproof Hotel strategy, insisting it was an example of Batesian mimicry. Without realizing you had just shot yourself in the conceptual foot.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, invoking the Fireproof Hotel Strategy in this context again demonstrates you do not understand basic insurance concepts.
Whenever you are offered some form of product repair insurance (warrantee extension, for example), do you buy it?
Try to focus.nobody ever went bankrupt or died because a $79.95 coffee maker that was out of warranty went on the fritz.
ReplyDeleteHarry: try to focus. Insurance concepts are not product specific.
ReplyDeleteYou show no sign of taking those concepts on board, just as you didn't twig how your invoking Batesian mimicry shot yourself in your own foot.
You do not understand Batesian mimicry.
ReplyDeleteHarry, you have that completely wrong.
ReplyDeleteBy parasitizing the honest warning signal of the model, the Batesian mimic gains an advantage, without having to go to the expense of arming itself. The model, on the other hand, is disadvantaged, along with the dupe. If impostors appear in high numbers, positive experiences with the mimic may result in the model being treated as harmless. At higher frequency there is also a stronger selective advantage for the predator to distinguish mimic from model. For this reason, mimics are usually less numerous than models, an instance of frequency dependent selection.
Fireproof Hotels must be the vast majority of hotels, or Batesian mimicry fails, because there are no, or few honest instances to mimic.
As I said, you shot yourself in the foot.
Fireproof hotels that advertised themselves were in the majority.
ReplyDeleteHarry, you still don't get it.
ReplyDeleteThe overwhelming majority of hotels advertising themselves as fire proof had to not catch on fire for Batesian mimicry to work.
Which is why your invoking it shoots you in the foot.
That's because most of them were fireproof.
ReplyDeleteNot according to you.
ReplyDeleteIn a market economy, you will almost always win if you can fake it.
I have called this the Fireproof Hotel phenomenon, but it operates everywhere.
...
Here's how it works. The honest businessman (assuming you can find one) wants to market his hotel rooms as safer, so maybe he can charge more because the rooms are better, so he spends a lot of money to build a Fireproof Hotel.
His competitor just paints "Fireproof Hotel" on the side of a cheap firetrap, charges the same as the honest businessman and pockets the difference. Over time, the fake "Fireproof Hotel" is preferred by investors because it earns a higher rate of return (its management is "more efficient") and the real Fireproof Hotel has to pay an additional penalty (on top of its honest construction costs) to borrow capital, if indeed it can access capital at all.
So all hotels are firetraps, except that for virtually all of them that aren't.
Well, no. Some of the firetraps burn which takes them out of the hotel stock.
ReplyDeleteYou don't understand what you wrote. By your reasoning, the "Fireproof Hotel" isn't just about hotels, it is a metaphor for capitalism, which will always seek the highest return, which, by your definition, means the fakes will predominate.
ReplyDeleteAlways.
Yet not only does your metaphor fail with respect to hotels, it fails everywhere else, too.
Fail from start to stop, top to bottom, end to end.
I'm astonished that hasn't become obvious.
Sigh. First, fakes are very common. Second, not every kind of fakery is as cheap, relative to conducting business honestly, as painting 'FIREPROOF' on a hotel.
ReplyDeleteThird, many businesses are regulated to some extent.
You might want to look up the studies of ingredients in unregulated health supplements before you give your opinion about what's obvious.
First, fakes are very common. Second, not every kind of fakery is as cheap, relative to conducting business honestly, as painting 'FIREPROOF' on a hotel.
ReplyDeleteFollows closely on the heels of
Over time, the fake "Fireproof Hotel" is preferred by investors because it earns a higher rate of return (its management is "more efficient") and the real Fireproof Hotel has to pay an additional penalty (on top of its honest construction costs) to borrow capital, if indeed it can access capital at all.
It is blindingly obvious you not only do not understand capitalism, Batesian mimicry, or what you spew out of your own keyboard.