georgerussia

As I said, it depends on how much is the fine in final version. Being a 2.5% or $750, I'd have no problem with it. A healthy 20yo can get insurance for $750/year, so if he pays those money to the government instead, it is okay too. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sure, once you're dead there is no need to maintain health insurance anymore. However while you're alive and living in the USA, you might need medical services (and some of them are very expensive here) at any given moment of your life. To ensure you can pay for them when you need them, you need to maintain health insurance (a bond option would be fine too, but I doubt anyone would use it). Yes, but at some moment a 20 year old guy in good health becomes a middle-aged guy with health problems. If he only gets coverage when his health issues require costly treatment, then the question is who is going to pay for them (as his premiums obviously do not cover the cost of treatment), and why should others pay for him if he didn't want to pay for others? At this moment it is addressed through "pre-existing condition" clause - so if this "invincible" guy gets cancer, he'll not get insurance, and will be paying for treatment by his own. Obviously he doesn't have money to pay, and files for bankruptcy - basically stealing from the doctors, hospitals and drug companies who were forced to provide service for free. This, of course, is not a solution, hence the fine (which, as I said, should be high - House version got it pretty right). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Why would anyone beat their current rate if the market can pay the requested rate? When I actually tried to shop for new auto insurer, I found that the cost of the plans which provide the same coverage differs no more than 5%. May they charge less for the same plans (and have smaller profit)? Probably - but somehow they do not. Again, the Georgia situation confirmed this. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It depends - for example, if one hooked in, or got into car accident, and being airlifted to the nearest hospital for surgery, their chance to apply and get the insurance in time are quite low. I wouldn't be surprised if it would take a month to get the insurance after applying, just to prevent this kind of things. Interesting. Do you also consider car, home, life, disability and basically any other insurance as a waste of money unless you filed a claim that year? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, my heart cannot say anything as it cannot speak. And it was actually a question to you - how can you be sure that what you're touching is the power of the god? But you cannot be sure that you achieved this state through Jesus - you can only guess. My issue here is that nobody can prove they actually found anything at all, and what I see is that people who claim they "found Jesus" mostly behave the same way as those who do not. No, this is bad analogy. You can see and measure the light, and how it affects flowers. You can put a flower in a dark room, and it will typically die. This study can be done by anyone. You cannot do anything like that with your God, and so far all relevant studies (for example the effect of prayer) showed that prayer basically has no effect on their targets. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

No, they do not - and the reason is that it is THE BANK which optimized their expenses without affecting the customers. If insurance company optimized their expenses (for example by NOT paying 4M salaries to their CEOs), I would have no problems with them getting larger profits. However the tort reform is different. Here's the government would be doing something, not the insurance company. And the government action would strip down important right from the consumers, with the rationale that this should benefit the consumers through lower healthcare costs, not that it should benefit the insurance companies by increasing their profits. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Right. So now they're working to bring the differences together, and the difference should be addressed somehow. I think everyone understand that $95 a year is not a fine at all, and the insurance companies would lobby hard to increase it (because they'd have to cover preexisting). $750 per individual, however, is a different story - there were some crappy plans for $62/mo. But you need to also consider that when one pays premium, one gets insurance which may save their asses from bankruptcy. When one pays fine for not getting insurance, one gets nothing in return, so even paying less than premium makes little sense if you can actually get something instead for a little more. This is pretty much the same "savings" as donating $100 to pay $20 less in tax (which some amusingly call "savings of $80", but I personally see it as "spending extra $80"). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

AFAIR it is $750 or 2% of your income, whatever is higher, capped on the cost of the cheapest insurance plan. So if one is making 100K, the fine could be $2000. And the fine can go up if non-compliance is high. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

There is a fine for not maintaining the insurance, which has to be set to the same amount as the average cost of the insurance (they're still discussing the exact amount, and hopefully it will stay). So it would makes much less sense to NOT maintain insurance policy - you're not saving money anymore. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

For example, the fact that there is no more business to attract. It is not like the number of doctors would suddenly increase when they lower the price, or that a doctor would get two or three insurance policies instead of just one - and those who are there will pay you anyway. No reasons to lower the price, and as GeorgiaDon pointed out, that's what already happened in Georgia, so we even have a real world example. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

We give gifts on New Year day. Christmas was never celebrated where I grew up. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Yes. If your God is invisible, and Jesus is God, how come the people claimed to see him? So either your God did not want anyone to ever see him (then the whole Jesus story is bogus), or your Gos was ok with people seeing him (and then it's not clear why it is not the case anymore - even a Pope can be seen by anyone around the world). How do you know you see and touch the power of the God? I see no realistic way to confirm it unless you just believe in it (and then you do not know). It more and more looks to me like you're describing a mental state, not a higher being. And such a mental state can be achieved through various means (for example, using drugs or sleep abstinence), so it does not require any higher being. So basically what you're saying that you have your own definition of God, which is unique to you, and may not be experienced by anyone else, is that right? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Unfortunately the poll misses the "none" option. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Wow, if true, that sounds really promising. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Download a boot CD with an anti-virus. I would recommend either BitDefender or Kaspersky. Both are available for free and have a pretty good score in independent tests. Burn it, boot from the CD, and run a scan on your hard drive. Just in case, be ready to repair/reinstall your Windows, sometime it happens after repair that Windows doesn't boot anymore. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Which one? I might like some vibes from Zeus, Ra or Athene, but I would not like Odin or Nemesis loving me, too much liability here. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Remember that was you who said tort reform would lead to lower healthcare costs. I just pointed out that to ensure lower healthcare costs, you would have to limit the insurer profit. Otherwise a tort reform which restricts malpractice cases would just lead to less expense to insurer, who may as well decide to use it to increase their profit (and charge the same premium as before) instead of passing those savings to you. As a result, such a "tort reform" would only mean insurers getting larger profits, consumers losing important rights, and healthcare costs staying the same. As GeorgiaDon said, it has happened in Georgia already. Easy. Let's assume I'm a monopoly, and charge doctors $1000/day for malpractice insurance, and my expenses are $900/day. Then if a tort reform passes, my expenses are now $400/day, a saving of $500/day. What can I do is to either pass those $500 to consumers (leading to lower healthcare costs), or just increase my profit from $100/day to $600/day per doctor, pay larger salary to management and larger dividends to shareholders. I'm a monopoly so I can do that. What do you think a company would choose, and how would you ensure those savings from tort reform benefit the customers, and not the company? Because if they only benefit the insurance company, there is no need for tort reform. I bet nobody wants to lose a right to sue for malpractice just to let the insurance companies to pack larger profits with no reduction to healthcare costs. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Then why did you reply to him? It is an open forum, and if you reply to someone, you should be ready to receive a reply. Your comment sound kinda ridiculous. Fortunately, most skydivers do better than that, and understand that while we can disagree hard here in politics, religion and guns, we're still one large skydiving family, and there are usually better topics to discuss at bonfire than politicians, guns or Jesus. Well, bad for you then. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Fixed. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So it's basically like aliens - you do not believe in them until the facts confirm they exist, but of course it is possible there are some. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I have answered this question already, but apparently some gun owners do not agree with my answer. Expecting me to "do a little digging" myself to find facts which would support their position is kinda naive. Declining comparing to what? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

And what "underlying social economic political" (what's that?) drives that in USA? It's not like all shootings happen in Detroit. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

That's what I've said - there is, or was no gun control in those regions you mentioned. I don't even know if guns were, or are, banned at all in former Yugoslavia. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

If it makes you feel better - your pleasure. The point you just made is as ridiculous as Christians saying that you cannot discuss the Bible if you're not following Jesus. There tend to be more crimes in large cities, so no wonder. If you, however, look for example here (scroll down for "murders"), you'd see that Philadelphia is surrounded by Oklahoma City and Oakland. And the worst one is New Orleans. Aren't guns allowed there too? :) In the counties of south western PA guns out number people by 3 to 1 and the crime rate is the lowest in the state. Guns are just a tool. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Sure, as long as the period is not fine-tuned to include or exclude something. I don't exactly know the situation in some of those places, but in Chechnya (and some surrounding regions) the guns were, and are de-facto legal. This means you can go around with armed AK, and if the local police knows you, they will just ignore you. In Georgia they had pretty much a civil war, and the government actually mobilized the people, and gave them guns, and obviously nobody enforced any laws against guns. Nor I believe those laws were enforced in Serbia or Kosovo when they had a civil war. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *