Top 10 list from Cohen’s testimony

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There is no "open compentition" in the insurance market because the insurance companies have staked out exclusive or near-exclusive territories for themselves, in much the same way as the old colonial empires staked out territories in Africa, Asia, and the New World for their own economic exploitation.

if I could freely switch health-care providers as I do automobile-insurance carriers, then THAT would bring down health-care costs in a hurry. But no, you must either choose the insurance offered by your employer, pay exorbitant rates to the dominant provider in your area, or try to go it alone.

Well that suck! So basically, no one has any control over it other than insurance companies themselves and you can't tell them where to compete/offer there insurance, they basically agreed upon a system within themselves to insure they maximize profits. We need for them to start competing strong on the internet, I do believe that is on the rise, that allows anyone to pick any company from any location.

Where I live, everyone is covered by our Provincial MSP (Medical Services Plan) & then prescriptions are further subsidized based on income. Dental is not covered at all, but there was a a recent headline about our current gov't considering adding basic dental coverage. I only have dental coverage because of a BlueCross extended benefits plan through work - only the 2nd time in my life I've worked for an employer that had any dental coverage, and it's decent.. 90% on basic so a checkup, cleaning, and x-ray costs me $29. We're not supposed to have a 2 tier medical system here, but it exists - there are private clinics/hospitals where if you can afford to pay you can skip the queue and get an MRI or surgery done. Extended insurance benefits plans can be purchased by anyone, but for the most part if people have them it's via a group policy through their employer. Self employed people Might opt for one, too, but I think it's rare - most just go without as our basic BC MSP covers almost all the true necessities (besides dental and vision/glasses). Oh, and the very poorest do get emergency dental issues covered - like tooth extractions. Up until a few months ago we all paid a monthly fee for MSP (Something like $70/person-ish, I forget since I've never made a direct payment - they just take it from my tax return/I've earned too little at service jobs to have to pay it/I've worked for an employer that paid it) but that's been cancelled now as we're the only Province that charges a fee for it vs. funding it completely from other tax revenues.

But auto insurance.. we get screwed. There's no shopping around for basic plans, everyone must purchase from the government monopoly in BC. You can buy optional coverages from other insurers, but you only save money if you have a very lengthly claims free driving history, basically. I have maximum discount on basic (43%) but by the time you add a couple optional coverages my insurance is $2045/year (full price $3700) And ICBC is a financial dumpster fire more than $1B in debt with MASSIVE claims costs that keep rising with all the $200k+ supercars getting in accidents and being repaired + injury claims are treated like winning the lottery.. lawyers are the true winners. They're only in such debt, though, because our previous gov't raided the piggy bank for $1.3B to cook/balance the books, knowing that they'd be kicking the can down the road for the next gov't to have to deal with... and our current gov't (NDP) is the party that created the insurer back in the ~1970's, so they won't opt to kill it. My grandmother told me when they put it to a vote to create a gov't auto insurance agency, they never told the people that it would be the Only option as a monopoly and people assumed there would be competition. Instead it's become just another tax collection centre as funds are stolen to put into a general revenue slush fund and then they say they can't afford claims costs. Rates are rising, again, and hard caps are being put on claims costs (infuriating lawyers) which makes sense in Some cases, but is completely stupid in others where there are legitimate medical costs that must be paid for life as the result of a car accident. Total s**t show, but all we can do is open our wallets and grumble as we pay, and pay, and pay. Another thing they do is charge a premium for short term (less than a year) insurance, and also an admin fee ($16) + 2.5% interest per month if you're paying monthly.

Sooooo, IMO, we have WAY better health insurance than MOST Americans.. but probably more expensive car insurance. All things considered, I like the better coverage on the stay alive stuff.

Why do people here blame Obama that ACA wasn't single payer when, afaik, that's only because Republicans blocked it?

I blame him because until he implemented policy change, my life wasn't severely affected, forcing me to pay for worthless insurance or pay a fine, insurance which didn't benefit me in any way yet was a huge negative impact on how much money I have in a year to survive on.

And so during the process did you petition your local state representative to vote for single payer on your behalf so you could catch up to Canadians in this regard? Or did you do nothing, allow them to vote for BS because they didn't want to let "that black man," make any real progress for low income Americans, and then just complain about it and blame Obama?

The fact the he is a black man has absolutely nothing to do with it, the race card gets really old. People not agreeing with someone's opinion doesn't require them to be racist. And no, I haven't ever been politically involved, I can easily tell when policy has a negative impact on my life. If he had trouble getting it done as he wished, I don't understand how that justifies pushing it in a manner that is destructive. The ultimate policy that got pushed through had a very negative impact on most people.

Now we're going to pretend that the fact that he is a black man had no bearing on Republicans blocking common sense legislation? Mmhmm, and the USA completely rid itself of racism after the civil war, too. I guarantee there would have been less opposition if it were Biden Obama vs. Obama Biden.

There's a saying that those who do not vote (you) don't have the right to complain about government.. so, since you're not politically active At All, and don't exercise your right to vote, or petition your state representatives to act in your best interest, why do you think you have the right to complain about how their decisions affect you?

Sneaky I am, lol.

You are correct, I do not like her, it seems to obvious that she is a straight up crook. I watched the congressional hearings, nothing got nailed down but you could easily see just how corrupt things are. We can all agree that Trump is a crook can't we? Where is the evidence to prove it? Both of them are crooks, it should be obvious to most people, it's actually the nature of the beast and I've heard mentioned time and time again, within the political world if you are not willing to bend the rules and scratch others backs you will never get anything accomplished.

I tried to nail down at least one claim as it is difficult to nail down a crook that can afford to pay lawyers and was a lawyer herself. I even found on snopes fact-check that yes, she did lie to congress but the corrupt nature to get around the claim is she did so without knowing. She did destroy evidence while under an investigation by FBI, and even a corrupt nature was used to get around that, she didn't do it, people working for her did it and went to prison for it. Being rich must be nice, pay people to do your dirty deeds so you get off free and clear.

I honestly don't see how anyone could claim Trump is a crook and not acknowledge that Hillary is a crook. I'm not sure you are doing that, I wonder if we can agree on that. I crook that is slick and doesn't get caught is still a crook. Watching the hearings and taking notes would be an excellent approach but I'm not going to go to such great lengths to prove a crook is a crook. I watched them once already, I never imagined I would be debating about Hillary being a crook, that should be obvious, just as obvious as Trump being a crook. I don't want to spend all day on it but here is what I found....

New BOMBSHELL proof Hillary lied under oath (lock her up!)

Did Hillary Clinton Smash Her Phone with a Hammer?

Clinton Paid ‘Hard Drive Destruction’ Company

I understand one couldn't necessarily trust the first article, another obstacle in trying to prove things...

Last edited by Crimadella on 02 Mar 2019, 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And are we going to pretend that because racism exists that ideas are turned down solely due to racism? Makes no sense to me, the democratic party founded the KKK(so I've heard by many) To me it is quite a stretch to insist a whole political party is racist, especially when the opposite party started the KKK.

If a law were passed to allow sex with 10 year olds, though I may not have voted on it, I can most certainly complain about it(I do live in this country). One of the reasons I have not voted in a long time is because I didn't think things were done fairly therefore the anxiety I put myself in by being in a crowd of people wasn't worth me casting a vote I figured would not count anyway(I do have serious phobias involving being around people, nervous to the point my whole body shakes). Trump actually winning has restored my faith in the voting system, I figured hell would freeze over before he won simply because both democrats and republicans hated him.

Not solely, but most certainly in part.

hell, that could be said about almost anything.

Another thing on the voting. Everyone doesn't have the time to fully research and study to the point of fully understanding what it is they are voting on. If someone lacks the understanding, would you suggest they cast a blind vote? Meaning voting for or against something you don't even understand just to claim you voted. Another reason I don't like voting would be they are all crooks, I honestly don't like any of them and am unsure what needs to be done, though I can clearly see the results really suck. Most people voting are pretty clueless as to what they are even voting on, everyone isn't a lawyer and to fully understand this stuff you almost have to be. I see it wrong to vote for something you don't even understand, that alone allows for horrible results.

Every citizen has an equal opportunity to become an informed voter. Not voting means you forfeit your right to influence the outcome to what you'd prefer it be. Pretty simple.

Not necessarily. Every voter does not have the skill set to decipher law. Millions of people do just that with only the recommendation of their party or they just blindly vote for the side they pick without even understanding exactly what they stand for, then to add even within a party the can have opinions that differ, and all people among political parties do have opinions that differ. Most people are struggling to survive, they do not have the time do dive into law they do not even understand in order to cast a vote that will actually help them. Sometimes it can be simple, most of the time it is not simple at all.

Answer the question, do you think it's wise for someone to vote on something they are incapable of understanding?

Plus, I'm not even sure how you vote on particular laws. It's not as if they give a public notice, "We are voting on this law today, here is the breakdown in layman's terms, come and cast your vote". Hell, a lot of bills get passed in sneaky ways so that they are over looked completely by the majority. Over 50% of the country is uneducated and incapable of deciphering complex law, do you recommend they vote anyway, having no clue as to what they are even voting on?

I stick by that strongly, if you don't know what you are voting on you shouldn't be voting for the sake of saying you made your vote. Being the majority of the country can not decipher complex law I would imagine millions of people vote on stuff they are completely clueless about.

If I ever run into a situation where I can vote for someone or something in which I know where I stand and know they aren't a crook, I will vote if I understand how to even do that. I'm poor, I had to educate myself, so there is a lot I don't understand about the political world, I don't want to be just another idiot voting on things I don't understand. Hopefully their are some people who would be proud of me for making that decision....where is Fnord when you need him, lol.

Here in Washington state, we get a voters guide in the mail prior to each election which spells out the opposite sides of each matter to be voted on, as well as biographies of candidates. Does Georgia not have this?

Not that I'm aware of. Not to get down on myself, but I am one of those autistic's that is very intelligent in some ways and very stupid in other ways. I know how to write programs, taught myself just by reading code and trying but I can't fill out a form at the doctors office(mostly because I forget everything that's isn't very interesting to me.) I have a hard time learning things, I need to be able to ask questions and get answers. When I understand though, I can generally excel easier than someone who has a lot of experience. Like say, building swimming pools, it took me a little longer to learn how but once I had it down I was able to easily come up with ways to improve the over-all construction results and in less time. Plus I came up with a way to build above-grounds by myself so I wouldn't have to work with people. Usually you have a crew of 3-4 people, so people were amazed when they learned I could do it by myself in about the same amount of time.

I just asked my mom, no, apparently we don't have that in Georgia.