1912: Whip It

[Scumhook]

Originally Posted by Enunciated Piffle

Sparrow, (who I respect as like a KATG elder

@sparrow - piffo just said you are old



Piffo - how about you ask birdie if she's put on weight? Then follow up with a discussion of her biological clock.

[Sparrow]

hey, man, i am still in peak fertility. *wink*

[Keith]

Originally Posted by critical_temp

Keith, video games have pretty much always been that way..I'm remembering every racing game I played back to the Sega Genesis days. Chemda is right..you use a cheat code if you want the fast shit out of the gate.

And now the cheat code is another $10.

[littlp]

I've always been covered under either my parents, my employer, or my spouse's employer. My husband has awful insurance where he pays $400 from his paycheck and has to meet a $2500 deductible and after that shit is still expensive with co-pays. I was on it last year and we are still paying bills off. I am a type 1 diabetic, I have to have blood work done 4 times a year plus throat ultrasound every year due to having thyroid cancer in 2010. My insulin was $160 a month, strips $40 for three months, 40 for my depression meds every month and 20 for my thyroid pills. I switched to my employer's insurance which is so much better so far (Insulin was free!!!!!!).

[thelastknowngod]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

if the government is supposed to be reflective of and responsive to us

HA! Not in this fuckin universe.

I started a new job a few weeks ago. I'm waiting for the insurance to kick in now after not having any for the last few months.

My primary mode of transportation is my motorcycle so I've been a bit more nervous riding without insurance.. especially with Philly/Jersey/NYC traffic. The snow recently has definitely raised the risk level of riding the bike too.

Granted, no one rides motorcycles with the assumption that they are safe to begin with. As of right now I don't even have a safety net if I did happen to get hurt though.

[WittyReference]

Unfortunately Forza 5 is not that different from a lot of games coming out. It's a part of the trend of not giving you the full game and then trying to get you to micro transact your way to the rest of the product and an extra $40 leaving your wallet. It didn't take me that long to earn enough money to buy a fun car (but not the best ones) to race but the fact that everything has a "get it now for real cash" option grinds my gears. Grid 2 did the same thing but was even worse. The online mode was separate to offline so you had to unlock all the cars twice, or just pay your way to a good car.

Even Assassin Creed 4 has a "pay to speed progression up" option. "We've made our game a little grindy and if you want to skip that bit give us more cash"

Oh and a lot of games don't have couch co-op anymore. Try giving xbox live another shot. I found less people have their headsets on these days so there is less shit talking and unpleasantness. You can always mute everyone else. I've been playing with the same group of guys for 5 to 8 years. It's like a chat party with games.

[PsychoLoco]

Yeah, Ben Nelson slashes a tire with the possibility of getting away and he’s a badass. Yet, Keith tells an on-duty NYPD officer to fuck off to his face in the middle of an intersection right before a business meeting and he’s not the biggest badass Chemda knows. I think Chemda should be forced to “accidentally” tweet a compliment to Duck Dynasty.

On insurance, Keith is right about the $4,000 deductible plus premiums. I’m a U.S. citizen and not covered because I’m not residing in the U.S. I get an exclusion from the requirement. Everyone who wanted this “universal coverage” really didn’t stop to think about the economics of it. In the history of insurance, your insurance premiums + deductibles cost you what the insurance company scientifically determined would make them a profit over the course of your life. Now you are requiring the insurance to also cover people with 2 distinct attributes: 1) They can’t afford coverage that would ensure a profit to the insurance business; and 2) Their medical conditions are guaranteed to reduce profits if they paid the same as a healthy person. Insurance companies must therefore raise the cost of coverage for healthy people to offset losses on the unhealthy that the Government requires them to cover. Otherwise, it’s unprofitable to stay in business. The end result is either only that you continue to get more free care or you pay more in premiums or a deductible. I can also understand the “fake name” scenario, but those losses also get factored in to the bottom line. Either costs go up for all that pay or tax payments go down because the hospital recognizes a larger loss. That’s when Uncle Sam starts looking to tax other businesses because hospitals are tapped out. Paying the fine for no coverage is only marginally less destructive to people who can actually pay than using a fake name. Welcome to the realm of understanding fiscal conservatism. If we could just have gotten Uncle Sam to redirect money from defense to medical care without messing with the tax rate... This "universal coverage" is only legal because a Republican majority Supreme Court deemed it to be a tax, not medical insurance.

On the gaming side, it’s a mixture of psychology and business. I can’t stand the business model of “you must pay to be the strongest.” That to me goes against the whole concept of gaming. Even in pro sports a team has limits and can’t just buy the best player at every position every year. Believe me, the Yankees have tried and failed more times than they’ve succeeded, although they have succeeded more than any other team so the model is somewhat valid. I can’t stand the opposite either, which is progression in a game only through playing. I didn’t get into MMOs until I was in my mid-20s (because they didn’t really exist). I can’t stand constantly having my ass handed to me by some 12-year-old simply because his gear is better, and the only reason he has better gear is because he can devote 9 hours a day to playing a game I’m lucky to get a few hours a week to play. The best model is to have a game that allows you to attain the best gear by either paying for it with real cash or putting some time in and earning it in the game, but the gear is the same and available to both styles of player.

I end up saying the same thing to everyone who talks shit to me about losing in a video game: Congrats! Put that on your resume and let me know when you get hired.

Don't bother replying to this post, I'm already hovering over the delete button.

[jpj1421]

My salary and benefits come from the federal government, so I get my health insurance through work for free. I had to pay into it a little bit last year when Obamacare first started taking affect, but now....nope. My girlfriend has to pay out of pocket, which sucks. Personally, I think the government should offer the plan I've got to everyone, and tax who ever they need to to make it up.

[starscream]

They just took the woman off life support. Way to kill a baby, guys.

[fluxquanta]

Here's a rant nobody will give a fuck about:

My work provides health insurance. They pay my premium plus they give me $250/month in a "health savings account", so I get $250/month as part of my pay that I can spend on medical related things only. The actual insurance has a $5400 deductible, so I have to use that $250/month and hope my expenses don't cost me any more than that, otherwise I'm paying out of pocket.

Last year I had some medical issues and I hit that deductible. Despite being a health "savings" account I didn't have that much saved up (maybe a grand or so) because I used that balance for things like dentist visits and routine doctor visits.

So half a dozen blood tests and two sleep studies later (costing between $2500 and $3000 each, hitting the deductible) I get diagnosed with sleep apnea and a sort of low-level narcolepsy. They make me sleep with a breathing machine and give me a prescription for a medication, both of which are "free" because insurance is now covering it, but I owe the hospital $5400 for the deductible which I don't have, so I setup a payment plan from the HSA. $250 comes in each month, then the hospital takes out $200 (and charges me interest, of course).

The meds they put me on work wonders. But here's the catch: Now it's a new year. My deductible is reset. Last week I went to get my first refill of the new year and they want me to pay, out of pocket, $1394 for one month. So my options are

1.) stop taking the meds and go back to a shitty life (which is what I've done so far)
2.) spend the amount they want for the pills until the deductible is paid and insurance kicks in again
3.) try to get them through some illegal online pharmacy
4.) switch to different meds which may not work or have side effects, and might not be much cheaper

To top it all off, I did some research into why those pills cost so much. Turns out back in 2007 the company that created them knew their patent was going to run out soon, so a prescription that at the time cost ~$200 (still not cheap, but I would actually be comfortable paying this) was slowly increased to around $1500/prescription to dissuade people from using it. Then the company at the same time introduced an alternative "precurser" medication at a much more affordable rate, and tried to convince everyone to switch to that one, so they could keep making profit. Then they also "bribed" generic drug manufacturers with $200 million to NOT produce a generic version of the stuff I take when the patent expired, thus removing competition, allowing the original company to keep the price artificially inflated. Generics DO exist now, but only one company makes them, so their price is still high, and there's no competition. Either you or our insurance company forks over the $1394, or you don't get the pills.

TL;DR fuck healthcare in the US.