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Dystopian future here we come.
The Senate just voted to undo landmark rules covering your Internet privacy
Senate lawmakers voted Thursday to repeal a historic set of rules aimed at protecting consumers' online data from their own Internet providers, in a move that could make it easier for broadband companies to sell and share their customers' usage information for advertising purposes.
The rules, which prohibit providers from abusing the data they gather on their customers as they browse the Web on cellphones and computers, were approved last year over objections from Republicans who argued the regulations went too far.
U.S. senators voted 50 to 48 to approve a joint resolution from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules from going into effect. The resolution also would bar the FCC from ever enacting similar consumer protections. It now heads to the House.
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Aside from disturbing CIA & NSA activities on the internet, the corporate abuse for marketing & financial gain is also getting completely out of bounds. Why do so many people care so little about this kind of thing, or even condone it? I don't get it.
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Because they are paid to vote that way. Apathy is sky high in this country just look at Healthcare.
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On March 24 2017 18:28 a_flayer wrote:Dystopian future here we come. Show nested quote +The Senate just voted to undo landmark rules covering your Internet privacy
Senate lawmakers voted Thursday to repeal a historic set of rules aimed at protecting consumers' online data from their own Internet providers, in a move that could make it easier for broadband companies to sell and share their customers' usage information for advertising purposes.
The rules, which prohibit providers from abusing the data they gather on their customers as they browse the Web on cellphones and computers, were approved last year over objections from Republicans who argued the regulations went too far.
U.S. senators voted 50 to 48 to approve a joint resolution from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would prevent the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules from going into effect. The resolution also would bar the FCC from ever enacting similar consumer protections. It now heads to the House. SourceAside from disturbing CIA & NSA activities on the internet, the corporate abuse for marketing & financial gain is also getting completely out of bounds. Why do so many people care so little about this kind of thing, or even condone it? I don't get it.
Because no one thinks about this come voting time. It's pretty obvious which side screws people over and cares not one iota for them in any aspect. But when it comes time to pull the lever instead of thinking of the billion times they've let that side bend them over the barrel all they think about is "Abortions!" or whatever the single wedge issue du jour does it for them. They dangle that wedge issue carrot to get the vote and just keep screwing them again and again, but the beauty is people are too dumb, they'll never hold stuff like this against them.
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On March 24 2017 11:20 Nevuk wrote:
I'm wondering here... if Trump is serious, and this health care bill gets voted down, would he be likely to just veto all future health care bills purely out of spite? It seems like something he might do
Doesn't matter because I don't see anything ever actually being send up to him. The Republicans will never agree to something as a whole because their different views are to opposed.
Besides, I take his "take it or leave it" statement to be more in the way that the White House will no longer busy itself with the topic. Not that Congress will be forbidden from discussing healthcare.
Trumps wants to move the story to something easy like cutting taxes for the rich.
As for why he is giving up? Because the news is to negative on him with this story. He needs to change the narrative to another topic before his ego is deflated to much and implodes.
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Republicans seem to have an evil genius for tone-deafness when it comes to women.
On Thursday, a photograph that was widely circulated on Twitter showed a room packed with white men cutting a deal to eliminate maternity care and mammograms from the package of essential benefits that insurers are required to provide in the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. There were some women out of camera range, including Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor.
Earlier in the day, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, made an ill-judged quip that he quickly had to apologize for: “I wouldn’t want to lose my mammograms,” he said to a reporter from Talking Points Memo.
And Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, noted during his daily briefing Thursday, “Well, I think if you’re an older man, you can generally say you’re not going to need maternity care.”
Indeed. What’s essential is in the eye of the beholder, and the deciders here are overwhelmingly men. They’re not at risk if these benefits are dropped from required coverage (with the rare exception of male breast cancer).
The White House and Republican leadership agreed to cut the benefits as part of a last-ditch attempt to woo enough conservatives to support the bill. Even before today’s debate, women’s health care had emerged as one of the most polarizing — and politically incendiary – touchstones of the Trump presidency.
Women across the country, mobilized by Planned Parenthood and other groups, flooded town halls to berate members of Congress about plans to repeal Obamacare. The Women’s March on Washington has made health care a rallying cry. The Democratic determination to filibuster Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination is motivated in part by its base’s concerns about his potential stance on abortion.
The bill would also cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which says it provides preventive care services and screenings to 1 in 5 American women. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that cutting off federal funding for Planned Parenthood would reduce access to birth control for many women and result in thousands of additional Medicaid births.
In a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday, the majority of American voters opposed this provision, though the majority of Republicans approved. American women are not unanimous on this score — conservative women opposed to abortion have denounced Planned Parenthood. But when a question in the Quinnipiac poll explained that federal funding to the group is used only for non-abortion services, 80 percent of voters overall, and 60 percent of Republicans, opposed cutting off funds to the group.
The political perils of men proclaiming their thoughts on what women ought to say or how they ought to receive medical care should be clear enough to the Republicans. There is the now-infamous scene in the Senate of Elizabeth Warren being silenced, when male colleagues were later allowed to read the same letter from Coretta Scott King criticizing Jeff Sessions during the debate over his confirmation as attorney general. Earlier, Republicans reeled from the “war on women” label in the 2012 election, when Representative Todd Akin, Republican of Missouri, talked about victims of “legitimate rape” not becoming pregnant.
There’s no doubt that continuing instances of powerful men demeaning or undermining women have helped to galvanize liberal women. So far, the Republican attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare has been stymied by a combination of conservative Republicans who feel the bill does not go far enough and Republicans who fear it goes too far.
And yet. Despite widespread social media outrage and activism, the political damage from such moments can be fleeting. Many people believed the “Access Hollywood” tape would doom Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The obliviousness on display Thursday caused a tweet-storm; we don’t know yet whether that storm will do lasting damage.
Source
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This is a bit of an ignorant question but are all members of congress in the US rich or are there also regular Joes? Do they all directly benefit from the tax cuts with Trumps healthcare bill?
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According to wiki, the median net worth for a member of the US Congress was 456k in 2014. So yep, most of them would benefit.
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What the hell? Why cut maternity care? Isn't the GOP the pro-life party?
We won't fund your abortions! But if you get pregnant, we won't cover any essential care you need either.
Not to mention cutting mammograms is herpaderp stupid. Regular preventive mammograms SAVE money (and of course, a lot of misery).
E: If I were slightly more callous, I would wish for this to pass and the GOP to implode over the angry people who suddenly lost their oh-so-hated Obamacare coverage.
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Wonder if they're still covering prostate cancer screening even though it may on balance be a net harm to the people tested?
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On March 24 2017 21:17 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Wonder if they're still covering prostate cancer screening even though it may on balance be a net harm to the people tested?
How is is a net harm?
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On March 24 2017 21:00 Acrofales wrote:
What the hell? Why cut maternity care? Isn't the GOP the pro-life party?
We won't fund your abortions! But if you get pregnant, we won't cover any essential care you need either.
Not to mention cutting mammograms is herpaderp stupid. Regular preventive mammograms SAVE money (and of course, a lot of misery).
E: If I were slightly more callous, I would wish for this to pass and the GOP to implode over the angry people who suddenly lost their oh-so-hated Obamacare coverage.
So men and women who don't plan on becoming pregnant aren't forced to buy it. They're some of the things driving up costs and aren't insurance, so shouldn't be forced to be part of insurance (which is all about managing risk, and it absolutely should be legal to buy high deductible policies for catostrophic coverage).
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So you rather have abortions and women that "accidentally" get pregnant facing potentially hasardous costs if there are issues during the pregancy.
How christian of you.
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On March 24 2017 21:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 21:00 Acrofales wrote:
What the hell? Why cut maternity care? Isn't the GOP the pro-life party?
We won't fund your abortions! But if you get pregnant, we won't cover any essential care you need either.
Not to mention cutting mammograms is herpaderp stupid. Regular preventive mammograms SAVE money (and of course, a lot of misery).
E: If I were slightly more callous, I would wish for this to pass and the GOP to implode over the angry people who suddenly lost their oh-so-hated Obamacare coverage. So men and women who don't plan on becoming pregnant aren't forced to buy it. They're some of the things driving up costs and aren't insurance, so shouldn't be forced to be part of insurance (which is all about managing risk, and it absolutely should be legal to buy high deductible policies for catostrophic coverage).
Danglars, do you think women should have to pay higher premiums, i.e. do you think it's ethical for men to not pay for coverage for pregnancies and mammograms so that the societal cost is shifted to women? Would it be ethical to make a white peoples' insurance group that doesn't cover sickle-cell disease?
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On March 24 2017 06:38 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2017 21:28 LightSpectra wrote:On March 23 2017 13:39 OuchyDathurts wrote:
Christians aren't refusing to make homosexual couples cakes because of the content of the cakes. They're just cakes, they presumably aren't cakes of dicks and depictions of gay sex, they're just plain boring wedding cakes. They're refusing to make cakes because of their dislike of the person ordering it. You're demonstrably false because the baker that's been in the news knew the homosexual couple and made them cakes before. Where the line was drawn was a cake that celebrated gay marriage, since that was against their religious beliefs. Or would you force a Jewish baker to make a swastika cake too? Since when were Nazis a protected class? Nobody is advocating that we end all discrimination against the third Reich.
If a black person asked for a swastika cake, would the Jewish baker be forced to make it because race is a protected class?
I guess your response would be, "No, because being black has nothing to do with the swastika cake."
And I would reply, "Sweet Cakes by Melissa did not refuse service to the gay people, they only refused to bake a cake that contradicted their own religious beliefs."
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Let's not forget the the mentally disabled! Fuck em too!
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but only if they're poor!
ah fuck if they were poor they were already in the GOP's sights this post sucks. fml.
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Well... I think this discussion isn't entirely honest by both sides, with very different interpretations of what health care insurance should do.
And I often feel both sides exactly know those differences, but to score political points (or "win" forum discussions) they pretend they would not know about it and interpret everything the other side says in their own interpretation which makes it obviously bullocks.
In the end, insurances are always about risk balancing. In the event of harm, you won't bankrupt over medical bills. But which risks should be balanced?
Interpretation A:
All the risks to society should be rebalanced to everyone. Pretty much what is used in most of Europe. Mens won't get pregnant, still their premium includes the rebalance cost for it. I don't go skiing, but still pay for all those idiots breaking their legs every winter and needing a rescue chopper, then surgery and 4 weeks in hospital etc.
This system also is often combined with a must-have insurance, as with the payment measured by societal averages the correct "play" would often be to only join the insurance when you are in a phase where your personal risks are above those averages. (e.g. before trying to get pregnant or going on a 3 week skiing vacation)
So there will always be participants in the system for which the insurance is, on a personal level, +EV, and some for which it is -EV.
The issue with preexisting conditions only touches changes of plans (which still exist in some, although less impactful forms) but as you are forced into insurance at all times, most minimum needs should generally be covered.
Interpretation B:
Everyones insurance rebalances only his own personal risks. Now you only manage your own risks. This is not to share risks amongst the society but just make sure you don't bankrupt over medical bills and smoothen your health expenses over time. It is up to you if you want to be insured against sport accidents, pregnancy related issues, various forms of cancer etc.
With this model there is absolutely no need to force participation in the model. As the premium is (or should be, if the insurer is doing his job) calculated on your personal risk levels it is up to you what you want to be covered and if you want any insurance at all. In any case, for every participant the insurance always should be +- 0 EV (ignoring the profit margin for the insurer)
Also the issue with preexisting conditions is a much larger one in this model, as you may simply be without any cover at all, if you gambled wrong here.
Now living under A and knowing it's benefit I admittedly prefer A. But I can actually accept that people may consider the goal of health insurance to be different and favor the solution of B.
But what is dishonest is to take someones argument for B, then measure it against the goals of A and then declare victory over this person and its points. Or vice versa.
So before you go at each others throats of whether you consider it fair that this or that should be covered... Maybe you should argue first about the goal of health insurance,and at what level risks should be redistributed. At a societal level or only on a personal one.
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I've yet to hear any explanation from libertarians/laissez-fairists for how very poor people are supposed to have ANY kind of health care under a free-market system.
Do you really, honestly, truly believe that once all of the taxes and regulations in the health industry are obliterated, that people living under the poverty line will be able to afford insurance and preventative care? Or do you think that private charities will sufficiently be able to pick up the tab? Or will America turn into a magical Randian utopia where poverty no longer exists? Seriously, just let me know. I have nothing to respond to, not even the faintest clue of what you really believe.
Every time I bring this up Danglars throws a fit because I'm allegedly just moralizing about how evil Republicans are. But that's really not the case. I legitimately don't know what Rand Paul and Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist expect to happen if Medicaid/care are totally phased out.
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On March 24 2017 21:21 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2017 21:17 TheTenthDoc wrote:
Wonder if they're still covering prostate cancer screening even though it may on balance be a net harm to the people tested? How is is a net harm?
It often identifies cases that would never have resulted in any symptoms or sequelae, especially in the old, so any damage done by the surgery or treatment done in that case has no benefit. In addition, some of the "easy" tests require confirmatory tests that have their own potential harms. Some screening types are much worse than others in this respect (PSA testing is the major one with questionable results I think, since it has a low positive predictive value and requires a biopsy).
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EPT
