February, 2021 archive
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
At the Inky, Harold Brubaker takes a look at hospital fees for various services that have been recently made available under a new federal regulation strongly opposed by hospitals and insurers. He concludes that they make no sense when exposed to the light. A snippet; follow the link for more.
Those are the prices consumers with high-deductible plans would have to pay to scan their knee and find out how serious the source of their pain is.
And replacing that knee would cost from $12,300 to more than $44,000 under insurance plans that IBC sells to employers and individuals.
The notion, often promoted by persons who call themselves “conservative,” that someone who is sick will comparison-shop for health care has always been fanciful. The reality is that, if there is a choice, a patient will go where his or her doctor says, and, in rural areas, there is often little or no choice from the git-go. Add in a landscape of wildly variable and irrational pricing schemes, comparison shopping for health care becomes an impossible dream all-too-possible nightmare.
Know Them by the Company They Keep 0
E. J. Montini suggests that Arizona’s Congressman Paul Gosar’s actions belie his words.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Treat your neighbors to a little politeness.
(snip)
Stone (the shooter–ed,) indicated to police that he believed the handgun was not loaded at the time that he was manipulating it.
Geeking Out 0
Listening to the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, Clouds of Witness, from the Old Time Radio Theater, with the QMMP media player using the Winamp Catubi_3000 skin, on Ubuntu MATE with the Fluxbox window manager. The wallpaper is from my collection. (One of the things I like about QMMP is that I can use my collection of Winamp skins with it.)
The Rule of Lawless, Nuremberg Dept. 0
The Trumpettes’ “I was just following orders” defense doesn’t look like it’s going to fly.
Afterthought:
We are a society of stupid.
A Day’s Work for an Hour’s Pay 0
Sam and his crew dismantle the Republican double-talk on the minimum wage.
Drinking the KQQl-Aid 0
Jason Blazakis warns that Q believers are behaving like cultists, and, like cultists, when a prophecy does not come true, their faith is unshaken. Rather than question their idol, they double-down on it. A snippet:
Like the Heaven’s Gate cult, the QAnon community brandishes religious imagery and repurposes theories to fit new truths. Q’s theory about an impending storm where global elites are vanquished is a recurring end-times scenario in many religions, including Christianity. The predicted storm is still coming, they now say, when Trump retakes power March 4.
