Re: The N95 shortage America can't seem to fix

What do you put in its place?

I've been fortunate to have good company paid health insurance for all but about a year of my working life. When I left one job I was offered COBRA and had to pay for coverage.

when people leave a job they often can, at their expense, continue coverage. Problem is, many cannot afford it since they no longer have a job. If they had their own insurance and lost the job they could not pay that either. Money is the big problem.

So, what do you suggest as a solution?

The difference between educated, logical people like Fauci and you is that they continue to have open minds, continue to look at the new data, the new science and adapt. When Fauci made those comments, the chance of you or I going out in public and encountering someone with Covid or having Covid ourselves and spreading it, was extremely low. Within a few months, that changed and it's no longer true. Anything else I can help you out with?

Since there aren't enough Trump supporters wearing masks to protect the public, they are appealing to their obviously displayed selfish nature to get them to think that they are protecing "themselves" by wearing masks.

It could work, they'll believe anything.

This is Trump Country and the only ones I see defiant about not wearing masks are Latino men and young college students. They are supposed to be Biden people.

Try again.

No, you were just blowing smoke about all that 'source control' stuff. The Comintern has changed reality; adapt.

Okay, but I wish that the laws of physics wouldn't change so much over so short a time.

I picture you driving around your neighborhood on your golf cart or possibly wandering the halls of your nursing home. Either way, "the ones I see" doesn't sound like a scientific sample.

Try again.

Unless we're discussing network planning and design, I'm a big picture guy. So for this, I see two things: the end state and how we get there.

I'd like the end state to be where employers have absolutely nothing to do with the healthcare of their employees, with the exception that employees should be able to have (pretax?) money withheld to pay HC premiums, but that's no different than being able to have money withheld for any of dozens of other things. The object is that leaving an employer should have no impact on HC coverage, except of course you might have trouble continuing to pay your premiums. Way more often than I'd like, I've heard friends and family lament that they hate their job but they can't quit because they'd lose HC coverage. I've never been in that situation, but I just think it's awful and should be easy to fix.

How do we divorce HC benefits from employment? It could be messy during the transition, but communication is key and the end result is so worth it. Employers have to share information on what they're currently spending on employee HC coverage, then tell people that that amount of money will be added to their paychecks at a certain future date. After that date, it's up to the individual to obtain their own HC coverage, hopefully using that new chunk of change that's suddenly in their paycheck. People can take individual responsibility, with most hopefully doing the right thing. I'm not eager to outlaw private health insurance, but I firmly believe there should be a single payer option that's much less expensive than private insurance. That should be extremely easy to achieve simply by leveraging the vast number of people in the pool. Multiple things would have to happen, of course.

Someone else already suggested that we simply copy what other first world nations have done. That sounds excellent to me. There's no new ground to break here.

I don't disagree that some employers offer good HC coverage to their employees. What happens when you leave that employer, though? COBRA isn't the answer. I've been fortunate in that my health care has never been tied to my employer. Sort of. It's through the Federal Government, first available to me as a military member, but now it's available to me no matter where I work. That is such a nice feeling. I can quit any job I like and it has absolutely no impact on my HC coverage, of all things.

The problem is far from insurmountable. We just have to want to do it, and the current pandemic with over 30 million people losing their jobs should be the kick that we need.

As long as we're doing easy stuff, here are a few more.

1. Legalize cannabis at the Federal level. The current situation, where it's a Felony at the Federal level and legal at the State level, is unworkable.
2. Fully normalize relations with Cuba.
3. Fix immigration. Reunite the caged kids with their families.
4. Fix DACA.
5. Fix everything broke with his executive orders.
6. Stop all work on a border wall.

The original inception of employer provided healthcare insurance AFAIK it was just a nice benefit. Great where a good plan is offered but this is not the 1950s any more where Dad made enough to support his family.

In principle, I agree it should be divorced but that won't be easy unless the new plan is equal or better and wage increase covers it.

As you point out, other countries are able to do it and coverage is by taxes. Last visit to Italy I asked the guy we rented the villa from and he said they pay about 15% of income for healthcare. So, the 10 buck guy pays $240 a month and the big executive at 200k will pay $2500 a month. That could be a tough sell.

For many, the Affordable Care Act is not affordable either and has a high deductible.

Theoretically I agree. Problem may be replacing the company policy at about the same cost. If easily done you will get good cooperation. If another two or three hundred has to be put out, not so much.

People can take

Not so sure. Would you consider Medicare a single payer? I had a really good policy at work. When we went on Medicare the cost of a supplement and prescription plan was pretty close to what my company paid.

May be best but will be a tough sell

Seems to be a reasonable list.

It's the effect of their intellect, or lack thereof, on the country that worries me. This whole sad period is very troubling. Denial of science, starting with global warming, now extending to Covid, even with 240K dead and the spread escalating. Denial of an election loss, making our elections look like one from a third world country run by a despot. Believing totally bizarre, crazy conspiracies, like Qanon puts forth. IDK how long we can endure this. Putin must be very happy.

I see a bunch of these crazies is going to DC to protest for Trump today. We'll see how that goes.

1. End birthright citizenship

That will help with some of the immigration issues. Not all of them, of course, but it's an imperfect world.

Cindy Hamilton

I suspect a large fraction of them are single-issue voters, who'll vote for the devil if he would ban abortion.

Racist! Obviously anyone born on magic soil is an American.

Heh. If I didn't know better, I'd think you disagreed with me on this point.

It would also be nice if we got back to turning out citizens instead of morons. I'm sorry to say that feminism is about 50% responsible for ruining primary and secondary education. Still, I wouldn't want to go back to the days of "Secretary, teacher, nurse, or wife--which one do you want to be?"

Cindy Hamilton

The booboisie is winning... (Sorry, I'm reading Mencken's diary). Feminism is one of those things where the theory is better than the execution. My ex was a librarian although that rather understates her career. She retired from Columbia University as a curator. That turned out to have the disadvantage of she's now cooped up in her condo close to Columbia losing her marbles.

One problem was she had her career, I had mine. A couple is very fortunate if they can pursue their careers without one or the other being limited by the opportunities in a geographical area.

Oddly, she became more religious after our divorce and has said it might have been better had she looked toward me as the head of the family as the NT recommended. Truthfully, I don't think I ever wanted that job.

While the internet etc has the potential for independent research and evaluation of many things it seems to have mostly refined herd instincts. That was always the case where people would select books, newspapers, organizations and so forth to support their confirmation bias but it's now in overdrive.

I don't have a problem with the kids questioning authority or defying authority but I see too much parroting of the party line with little actual questioning.

We've finally had our local anti-police demonstration, which was peaceful. The trigger was similar to the national news. The cops were called to a domestic disturbance, got the family members to safety, and attempted to take the person into custody. He attacked with a knife. Tasing had no effect, so the cop shot him. The guy was white so that dynamic was lacking.

The mayor and the city as a whole is very liberal, a blue island in a red state. Unlike some cities, they did open up a meaningful conversation immediately. Because of the nature of the call, assault, the crisis intervention team was not immediately notified. However the point was made that had they been on the scene, they would not have been allowed in until the situation was stabilized.

All in all the incident was handled much better than the national events.

Birthright citizenship has never been one of my top issues, but when it does come up I've always wondered why a baby doesn't inherit the citizenship of either or both of his/her parents, rather than the citizenship of the soil where they were born.

IIRC most countries work exactly that way.

Cindy Hamilton

One of the features of birthright citizenship in the USA is that children born in foreign countries to US parents are US citizens.

So, at least for US parents, it works exactly the way you think it should.

I looked online for how many children are born in the USA to foreigners and found out the US doesn't keep statistics for that. So, I don't think anyone knows if its a significant issue.

This aberration in our laws started at the end of the Civil War to grant full citizenship to all of the slaves who were born here. It was simply expediency without having to say exactly what the motive was and ease passage of the 14th amendment. Since then presidents have bent the meaning of the other 14th amendment language to justify all sorts of otherwise unconstitutional actions by the federal government like the "right" to go to a federal prison for a drug offense that should be regulated under state law. This might turn around and bite the left on their ass if Trump makes the case that a presidential pardon also conveys that "immunity" to violations of state laws.