The Goat Pen

Saint wrote:If you're making $325,000 a year, you're rich. If you choose to make bad investments or overextend yourself, that doesn't change the fact that you have substantially more income than most.

I guess the difference between $5m and $325K a year is you have to keep making $325K a year to stay rich

Dr. Strangelove wrote:Here's a question for the board...if you make $325,000 in annual take-home pay, are you rich? If not, what would you have to be making to feel 'rich'?

Clearly you are rich. You are in the top 1 to 3% in the country. You have all the necessities in life plus a lot of extras. How you spend it is a function of discipline. But rich, definitely. Wealthy?? Depends on whether you are making money based on your own efforts or the efforts of others, or the work of your money. If it's your own efforts, then you are limited by your ability to perform. If you are living off of the efforts of others (i.e., employees) or off of investments (your money working for you), then you are wealthy.

Why do they just accept what people tell them??? DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... z2s1BKbQUO
Another bogus Obamacare story: The GOP's 'Bette'

" Depends on whether you are making money based on your own efforts or the efforts of others"

Certainly in the former case, you're always kinda looking over your shoulder, wondering if they're going to figure out that your "efforts" indeed aren't worth what you've somehow managed to suck out of the system, indeed, that the very system itself is bogus. But of course, usually when that happens, society is on the cusp of revolution, and I don't think we're anywhere near that point now. So I guess I can relax (although the inspiration for this post was thinking of people in the medical profession)...

Owlman wrote:Why do they just accept what people tell them??? DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... z2s1BKbQUO
Another bogus Obamacare story: The GOP's 'Bette'

Code: Select all

By Michael Hiltzik
January 30, 2014, 5:20 p.m.

The centerpiece of the Republican party's attack on the Affordable Care Act following President Obama's State of the Union address this week was the story of "Bette."
Bette was an otherwise unidentified Washington state resident featured in the official GOP response to the Obama speech delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). According to Rodgers, Bette had written her a letter stating that she had "hoped the president’s healthcare law would save her money – but found out instead that her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month." The lesson, according to Rodgers: "This law is not working."
 
Bette has now been tracked down by her hometown Spokane Spokesman-Review. She's Bette Grenier, who owns a small business with her husband. Unsurprisingly, her story is much different from the sketchy description provided by Rodgers. That description perplexed experts, including Washington State  Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who couldn't understand how a state resident "would have no choice but to pay $700 per month more for a policy that meets the Affordable Care Act’s coverage requirements," the newspaper reported.
Grenier told the newspaper that she wrote Rodgers after her insurance company informed her that her $552-a-month catastrophic health plan would not be offered in 2014. It offered her an alternative plan complying with the ACA at $1,052 a month.
But that sounds like her insurer trying to steer her to an overpriced option. A compliant plan meeting the Affordable Care Act's coverage mandates actually is available from Washington's insurance exchange for much less -- and with a deductible far lower than the $10,000 she was paying under the old plan and broader coverage, though lacking a provision for four free doctor visits a year provided by her old plan.
Grenier said she had flatly refused to even investigate her options on the exchange. "I wouldn’t go on that Obama website at all,” she said. “We liked our old plan. It worked for us, but they can’t offer it anymore.”
 
Instead, she and her husband "have decided to go without coverage," the newspaper reported.
 
Does this make sense? Grenier deliberately decided to forgo the options available to her and her family from the Affordable Care Act, despite the knowledge that they might be more suitable for her than her old insurance or the plan being hawked by her insurer -- she says a friend of hers found a plan for a mere $129 a month.
 
But her plight has nothing to do with Obamacare. It's a product of her own apparently flawed decision to refuse even to look into the benefits the healthcare law might provide. And it's another sign of how threadbare the GOP criticism of the Affordable Care Act has become. If this is the best they can conjure up for what might be one of the best-watched TV appearances a back-bench Republican congresswoman gets to deliver, shouldn't they give up already?

Did Obama say that if you liked your plan, you could keep your plan?

Did Bette like her plan?

Was Bette able to keep her plan?

Review and bonus season is upon me (or wrapping up, I should say) and I have a team of 11 that I have to give their assessment to...it's a motherfucker.

I need to add a managerial layer below me with a couple of slots just so I don't have to deal with this madness directly.

Sardis: That's not the point, though. The facts of Rodgers statement in the SOTU response were not facts, at all. If it always just comes down to Obama's line of "like your plan, keep your plan" (which was truly idiotic to say or believe because the marketplace has NEVER been like that and would not have been like that if the ACA was not enacted) then no one is getting to any real issues.

Bklyn wrote:Review and bonus season is upon me (or wrapping up, I should say) and I have a team of 11 that I have to give their assessment to...it's a motherfucker.

I need to add a managerial layer below me with a couple of slots just so I don't have to deal with this madness directly.

we are doing that too. I also just got approved 8 "morale and attrition" improvement regional meetings for next year - translation - company sanctioned drunk fest 2014

We had to sign up and attend a mandatory "what to do in an active shooting" meeting. It's required, so I was mentally blowing it off (the first 20 minutes during the I am a veteran, support the troops, etc) part of the program (I very much support the troops, but in a mandatory 2 hour meeting, I don't need that commercial). But the what to do when their is an active shooter part was educational, from the fact that the guard with the gun is usually the first one to go in a surprise shooting to how easy it is for 2 people against the wall to take down a loan shooter coming into a room.

Ok, so Bette's insurance company says they no longer can offer her current $550 a month catastrophic plan because it is not ACA compliant. The closest plan to her old that is compliant would cost over $1,200. The cheapest plan the insurance can offer her is $1,053. The Washington state exchange chief says the cheapest plan Bette can get on the exchange is $100 less than that. That means the absolute cheapest Bette can buy on the exchange is $953 a month. So, instead of the claimed $700 a month increase, Bette's increase would be only $ 400 a month as long as she chooses the exchange plan over the private one.

Is this the looseness of facts that has you absolutely appalled?

sardis wrote:Ok, so Bette's insurance company says they no longer can offer her current $550 a month catastrophic plan because it is not ACA compliant. The closest plan to her old that is compliant would cost over $1,200. The cheapest plan the insurance can offer her is $1,053. The Washington state exchange chief says the cheapest plan Bette can get on the exchange is $100 less than that. That means the absolute cheapest Bette can buy on the exchange is $953 a month. So, instead of the claimed $700 a month increase, Bette's increase would be only $ 400 a month as long as she chooses the exchange plan over the private one.

Is this the looseness of facts that has you absolutely appalled?

Uh No. You are doing the same thing that Rodgers did and that is the problem. The Quote from the article is right above. "According to Rodgers, Bette had written her a letter stating that she had "hoped the president’s healthcare law would save her money – but found out instead that her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month."

First it's not $700 a month. It goes from $552 to $1052. I know that there's this thing called the new math, but unless you got some other way of calculating out there, that's $500. So my point in the beginning, is do your homework, she's exaggerating in the first place. Where did you get the information from the article that Kriedler (Washington State Insurance Commissioner) said that the plan was $100 dollars less? It says that a friend found a plan for $129 dollars per month. It doesn't say what her plan would be. But the impression is that it would be less and with less deductible.

That impression would be grossly misleading. The original article where the liberal media ran with with their slant is here:

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/j ... rs-speech/

This article gives more information about Bette. I misread about the commissioner telling her that her premiums would be $100 lower than her insurance company's plan. It was her acknowledging the fact that the exchange would be $100 lower, probably after the reporter or her friend ran her demographics on the exchange website which is linked here.

http://www.wahbexchange.org/news-resour ... our-costs/

The article says she is 58, I assume her husband is about the same age. Subsidies for Washington state start below $65,000 for household income. The article says that her and her husband own a roofing company. My guess is that they are at or above the subsidy threshold. If you want to assume they are below you can run her numbers to see what income they would have to be to match her premium from her old plan. Her friend was probably lower in income to get the lower premium. My guess is Bette's premium is closer to $400 over than below previous premium.

I feel bad for Bette, not because she has to pay more for healthcare, but she is being labeled an idiot by certain media to defend their guy at all costs. She mailed the complaint to her congresswoman last year before the exchange was even up and running. She saw her premiums skyrocket and did what good Americans do.

She is an idiot. She's an idiot because she had options and because of her biases, she didn't even explore her options. Then the Republican speaker accepted (incorrectly) her claim without examining it themselves, which was the point I was making in the first place.

so does she have a cheaper option than what she was paying before or no?

Did the Republican spokesperson do their due diligence or not?

What, the Republicans aren't allowed to lie? Where is the fairness in that?

Owlman wrote:Did the Republican spokesperson do their due diligence or not?

not answering my question, answers my question

10 biggest navies in the world

http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/ric ... e-world/10

Snowdens interview on German TV - Youtube won't allow it as of now



This is worth watching.

He appears credible and the takeaway is the NSA answers to no one

I now believe this man deserves amnesty and should be welcomed back to the United States. I wavered on that for awhile but not anymore.

20 years from now he will be considered an American patriot in the mainstream

"who did I betray? I only gave information to the American people" - strong statement

Didn't he release information about our intelligence operation with regard to foreign governments?