OlDawg

Voluntary Medicare buy-in has been looked at for decades. Allowing people in the 50-64 age range to voluntarily buy in has generally shown to have the opposite effect of what researchers thought. Basically, people in that age range are being overcharged for the services they use, and when they leave the individual marketplace, those who remain insurance costs rise dramatically, while Medicare premiums and costs rise only minimally—if at all. The younger, sicker people are the ones left on private markets. [Hidden Content]

In other news, the 3 judge appellate panel ruled Trump is within his rights to deploy the NG in DC for crime prevention.

More than money. Freedom. The freedom of true choice. That's not what the Dem's & Obama gave us. They gave us the illusion of choice with a hefty price tag. Make no mistake. I'm not an ACA fan. I am a pre-existing coverage fan. Other than that requirement, I think the market should be open with cafeteria style plans available to whomever. Let the insurers offer us their options. Let us choose. Or, choose not to be covered. No government intervention telling them what they have to offer as a minimum covered item. Stipulate with Medicare/Medicaid/Chip. Those are true government run systems. Don't tell private insurers what they have to cover as far as specific items.

I’m making an assumption here, but I imagine your ESI insurance (employer sponsored) went up because of the ACA mandate of minimum coverage for a company with more than 50 employees. The minimum coverage had to be equivalent to what the government stipulated in ACA as required minimum coverage. That may have been more than what y’all were being offered through your employer. Of course, much of the requirements (birth control, etc.) were things the government shouldn’t have been stipulating IMHO. They added costs for us all, but almost pure profit for the insurers.

Nope. I think everyone’s in agreement that healthcare costs are out of control. Mine went up as well. I was still working. Now, I pay an exorbitant amount with no other options. The only thing I ever agreed with about ACA was preexisting coverage. That could have been done another way. Didn’t need the monstrosity we have now.

People that are on Obamacare are paying taxes as well. Many, many independent contractors, doctors, small business owners, etc. are also on Obamacare. So are seniors in the gap that are still paying taxes on their Social Security while trying to hold a part-time job to make ends meet. Obamacare covers more than just the 'poor.' The law made it--basically--the only game in town if your employer doesn't offer healthcare. I think people still forget this fact. Around 8% of the U.S. population is on ACA. Over 20 million people. We're almost all getting screwed by the costs. 91% of Healthcare Is Government Subsidized. [Hidden Content] Who is willing to do away with the employer tax benefit for insurance that allows them to pay you more? It's no different than the Obamacare subsidy. Could be easily argued it's worse. Not sure many realized that--unless they're on private insurance--they're probably receiving a subsidy of some sort for health insurance.

Makes sense to me if the opt ups happen.

What schools are Ball & Friendswood passing up? They’re on the east side. Ball is an outlier somewhat similar to Lufkin. District 12, I just went with the last 2 years, and adjusted for enrollments. As others have mentioned, if HISD opts up their schools, there could be 4 districts in R3 without the current 12-5A. The news article I posted didn’t make it sound like they were opting up. But, I don’t know. Stepp doesn’t have Galena Park opting up, and he still has Crosby in 5AD1. He also doesn’t have Iowa Colony in 5AD1. So, his is a little off as well. We’re all just tinkering at this point. Something to do in between SC games.

I would actually call that traitorous.

I’m not drinking a beer with them. I do expect them to have some principles. In my opinion, THEY owe that to ME, and those who have—or are—serving. Two things can be true at the same time. I can like many policies, while also disliking the lack of principles.

I’m fairly sure you forgot an ‘I.’ You meant to say “I judge politicians on results, nothing else.” As for me, I judge a POTUS based on whatever criteria I choose. I’ve earned that right.

Some pretty massive rationalizations going on in this thread. One behavior doesn't excuse another. Sorry.

Jasmine Crockett says she was just a ‘random dead person.’ [Hidden Content] [Hidden Content]

Don't know. These are just guesses on my part based on news articles, enrollment numbers, cut-offs, and geography. Will be interesting to see if I'm even 50% correct when it all shakes out. To me, it's as reasonable as anything else I've seen so far.

5A D1 Region 3 Mock (Rev. 3) 9-5A D1: East BWB La Porte Sterling GCM PAM Galveston Ball Friendswood BU Kingwood Park 10-5A D1: Central/South Pasadena Angleton Fort Bend Dulles Katy Freeman South Houston Richmond Randle Iowa Colony Richmond Tomas 11-5A D1: Houston/North Spring Westfield Houston Northbrook Houston Milby Houston Math & Science Tech New Caney Lufkin New Caney Porter Houston Spring Woods Houston Sam Houston 12-5A D1: Austin/CS/Pflugerville Austin Anderson A&M Consol College Station Pflugerville Weiss Pflugerville Hendrickson Bastrop Cedar Creek Kyle Lehman Lockhart Pflugerville Connally [Hidden Content] @Matthew328 Thoughts?