I have 2 boys in college. Both boys are going into science fields of one kind or another and both will get post-graduate degrees. However, as a parent, when I have to pay for classes such as Beatles History, sexual history of the human race, or a couple other really stupid humanities classes such as these that have nothing whatsoever in common with their degrees, I have no sympathy for colleges that need more money. I estimate we personally wasted $3000 or more on these classes that are nothing more than to keep some useless professor employed. That is money I would rather have spent on lab resources, additional classes, or something pertaining to their real education. Want to make college more affordable, put these inane classes under scrutiny to the taxpayers and see how fast the budgets start getting cut.
Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Josh Reynolds via Af Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 2:50 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Awesome. Then do what Germany recently did, which is making college virtually free by removing tuition costs. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/get-a-free-college-degree-passport-required/ Now you have a population that isn't drowning in 1.2 TRILLION dollars in student debt. OTOH, having a college degree doesn't amount to a hill of beans when the QUALITY of our educational institutions (especially public) is horrible. There's also a huge amount of skilled trades that really need workers to fill them. Plumbers, electricians, etc need able educated hands to build infrastructure for the next few generations. I'll leave you with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpn0vh2Rj0Y Josh Reynolds, Chief Information Officer SPITwSPOTS, www.spitwspots.com On 10/09/2014 12:53 PM, Rory Conaway via Af wrote: It can’t if it’s constantly chipped apart from the bottom up. Between continued growth of the welfare state, unchecked immigration and growth of an uneducated population, and lawlessness from the President on down, Capitalism won’t survive. Unfortunately, if it fails, then so does the country and as evidenced by the unchecked growth of evil philosophies such as radical Islam, dictatorships masquerading as Communism, and Communist countries with no moral or ethical foundation, complete anarchy worldwide. Capitalism funds and drives the United States to continue to be a leader in the world. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Wright via Af Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 12:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare While capitalism may have built the greatest country in the world, some think capitalism cannot sustain the greatest country in the world. Chris Wright Velociter Wireless <http://www.velociter.net/> From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 9:47 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Collin, socialized medicine or socialized anything doesn’t work. What happened to the idea that Capitalism built the greatest country and the greatest health care in the world. Why does everybody forget that and keep wanting to go back to the failed systems in Europe, Socialism, Communism. Costs go up because of attorney’s and the technology behind our health care. If you want cheap health care, get rid of MRI machines, genome cancer treatments, laser surgeries, AiDs drugs, Hepatitis drug research, etc… If all you want is an aspirin and a hug, you keep holding to the idea that socialized medicine is a great idea. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Prince via Af Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2014 9:41 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Amen brother Conlin. The way I see it, the biggest problem is that ObamaCare didn't go far enough. We really, really need to have a system that gets a handle on the costs. The cost to US citizens is more than double the cost to other developed countries. Just peruse this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/26/charts-health-care-costs-americans_n_2957266.html bp On 10/9/2014 5:12 AM, Paul Conlin via Af wrote: What did people expect? Insurance companies are the house. They always make money. By accepting pre-existing conditions everyone else’s premiums go up. By definition. The only way health insurance can work is if it is universal (code for mandatory). Can’t have people who can do math, like Chuck, opting out. Or healthy people saying no. Everyone in. Everyone pays. Spreads out the costs. ObamaCare was never about controlling costs. It was about increasing coverage. More coverage costs more. Why are people surprised at this? If you want to control costs you have to redesign the way money flows. Our system of providers and insurance companies is *designed* to maximize heath costs. It is a positive feedback loop. What is needed is a single payer system, like Canada, where one paying party can have maximum leverage to minimize costs and who has limited ability to raise taxes. It is a proper (negative) feedback system that has inheritably more control. Canada, for the record, is not privatized health care like the VHA. In fact it is the opposite. The Government of Canada purchases all its healthcare from private entities, like Medicare. A fact yet to be discovered by the media in the USA. It is hard to understand why the Republican’s hate ObamaCare since it was mostly their idea. Well, other than ObamaCare was championed by Obama and I guess that is enough reason. The basic concept to use the free market and let industry to its thing is normally what Republican’s want. Not to mention its inherent ability to make more money for insurance companies and private industry. Sure, they are upset that it is being used as a wealth distribution system that makes people with money pay more and people without pay less. Ok, so that is two reasons they hate it. The mistake made, was not implementing a single payer system simultaneously with universal coverage. The CBO calculated the saving from the former would pay for the later resulting in no increase in out-of-pocket costs. Then the other benefits of such a privatized system would start to kick in and the open market competition for services will drive costs down. With health care general health would improve and costs would go down even more. Unfortunately the Government is dysfunctional and has zero chance of overcoming the trillions of dollars companies are making off of the existing out of control health care system. And if they could pass the laws, would anyone trust our Government to run such a program? And there is the root problem. Obviously an over simplification but now back to my real job. PC Blaze Broadband From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare People with pre-existing conditions are one of the few groups benefitting from this. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremy via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:32 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare We pay about the same as we did but our deductible is lower, our out of pocket max is lower, and they covered our pregnancy. We switched during the first trimester because we didn't have maternity coverage (no self-insured plans in our state had it), and Obamacare made pregnancy not count as a pre-existing condition. It saved us about $7,000-$8,000 this year. The craziest part is that we actually stayed with the same provider, Select Health (IHC). It was just the difference between them providing maternity and not providing maternity. We have been very happy with our Obamacare. On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 6:50 PM, Glen Waldrop via Af <[email protected]> wrote: Further the subsidies have been deemed unconstitutional, so they're forcing us to pay insurance with the promise of subsidies that they are now going to take away. Bait and switch. The whole thing has been a screwup from day one. It is actually cheaper for me to pay out of pocket than pay for this insurance, but the fines will get you either way. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rory Conaway via Af <mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 7:03 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare And so did the quality and options of your care. I know that 2 of my doctors retired early and the other one doesn’t take Obamacare. Fortunately I don’t have to use it. Here is my question though, doesn’t the fact that the federal government wasted a couple billion dollars of your taxes on websites that don’t work, companies that are paying workers to do nothing, and companies that are friends with the First Lady with no bid process in place? Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sean Heskett via Af Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 5:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] ObamaCare Please don't forget that this whole "obamacare" thing was "invented" by the American Heratage Foundation which is a republican think tank. And the republicans tried to squash "Hillarycare" with it in the 1990's. Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. Also, so far in the states that set up their own exchanges medical costs and premiums have been going down...mine sure did :) 2cents Sean On Wednesday, October 8, 2014, Travis Johnson via Af <[email protected]> wrote: Hi... I'm not sure exactly how this ObamaCare thing was supposed to "save everyone money" and provider "better health care". We just received our group health insurance premium notice for the upcoming year, and our rates will go up by 10% starting 2015. On top of that, everyone is now paying a 3% ObamaCare tax on their personal income taxes. This doesn't really seem like much of a savings to me... :( Travis
