46 thoughts on “3 geeks for health care”

    1. I think they’re actually wonks, a fine distinction.

      Uh, I mean distinction from geek, not nerd. Oh, the taxonomy!

  3. Obama did the Vulcan hand gesture at the Radio & TV etc dinner once.

    If that doesn’t qualify him as a geek* I don’t know what would. *Or a nerd, I am not wholly in tune with the nuances of these terms.

  4. This is pretty damned disingenuous.

    Obama is a federal employee, and is covered by federal programs. Tyson works for a large non-profit, and surely had insurance prior to the ACA being enacted. And Nye, as a member of SAG/AFTRA, could be covered under a union health care plan.

    1. Oh, it’s not that bad. I don’t think anyone thinks they took advantage of the new program. They’re just endorsing it, and I, for one, and glad to see some public science boosters endorsing that program.

    2. I think that this is symptomatic as to why the US is one of the few “first world” nations without universal health care.

      That nagging suspicion that someone, somewhere might be getting more out of the system than I am and it’s better to tear the entire edifice down than to realize that like any other human construct it has it’s flaws as well as it’s good points.

      Speaking as a neighbour to the north where single pay health care has been in effect for several generations and having a fair number of friends and acquaintance in the land of the free, I marvel that you accept the current (but hopefully changing for the better with the new affordable health care act) situation as normal where no matter what sort of coverage you have your entire life can be shattered by a single medical mishap.

      1. There is little that is more effective in American politics than exploitation of that “nagging suspicion that someone, somewhere might be getting more out of the system than I am” – except, perhaps, an appeal to “the free market”. The wildly expensive health insurance racket is the result of these two idiocies.

        My wife and I, in an effort to insulate ourselves from the oscillations of the stock market, have three houses that we rent out. Doing credit checks on prospective tenants is an education in just the point you’ve made. Two of our three tenants are families that have been laid low by medical expenses – one in the which the mother had expensive obstetric complications and the other in which the mother has multiple sclerosis.

        Why people continue to put up with a grossly expensive medical/industrial complex wrapped inside a parasitic insurance system, I’ll never know. What function does insurance have if you have universal care?

        1. It covers stuff like massage therapy for myself and in Ontario, I don’t have eye doctor coverage (used to but that changed thankfully after I was finished university since my eyesight worsened by 1/4 diopter per year, enough that it would affect driving to my summer job to make $$ for school and being able to see in lecture halls to take notes). Also, dental coverage is not included and neither are medications.

          1. OK, Vision and dental. But if I want that, I still have to pay extra, just like you. (My eyes were respectively 12 and 14 diopters before Lasik surgery – which wasn’t covered by insurance, BTW. And of course, that doesn’t fix any of the associated problems of severe myopia – also not covered.)

            My employer and I pay $1000 per month for coverage that still requires a 30% co-pay for most things and co-pays for most pharmaceuticals are a way of life here.

            My point was that there is no reason, even if you buy into the “freeloader” paranoia Steve Oberski was referring to, to think that very many people will “take advantage” public health care. The undesirable nature of sickness or accidents provides all the incentive most people need to avoid unnecessarily using the health care system.

          2. I wasn’t arguing with you, just answering your question about why you would need insurance if you have universal health care.

          3. Of course, and I understood that. But I see the fact that you need insurance for vision and dental care as just a manifestation of the Canadian system not being completely universal. When the system is universal, insurance companies are pure middlemen who add nothing to the value of the service. What does a wealthy Aetna manager actually do to add to the quality or affordability of health care?

      2. Well, each system has its advantages. But Canada has it’s issues, too, especially if you’re seriously ill. Canadian talk radio host Bill Carroll moved to Los Angeles a few years ago, and part of the reason why has to do with his daughter, who was born with spina bifida. When she was born, there was a hole in her lower back, suggestive of SB, and he had a genetic history of it. He wanted her to have an MRI as soon as possible. However the MRIs in Toronto were booked, with a waiting list of about 18 months.

        They drove her to the US for care, where the waiting list is in days, if not hours. He paid out of pocket.

        When he tells this story he points out that around the same time his dog was in an accident of some sort. The dog got an MRI that evening.

        1. Those stories are usually BS. I had a cousin with the same disease. He was treated in priority and even got a lung transplant which sadly didn’t take and he died.

          My dad had serious cancer last year. He was diagnosed and in surgery within weeks. Even I had an MRI for non life threatening stuff (migraines) within 3 weeks.

          The things you wait for in Canada are elective ones. So that means the guy having a heart attack gets priority in an ER over a guy with a cold. It isn’t a perfect system but every time I’ve had a real emergency with my parents treatment was immediate, including MRIs for my mom’a seizures.

    3. I would actually go so far as to suggest that employer-provided healthcare insurance is profoundly evil and should be made illegal.

      Remember the company towns, where, if your boss fired you you not only were out of a job but had no home nor food?

      Lots of people in really abusive work situations are terrified of the thought of losing their current job, because that means their loved ones will die of some horrible disease. When your boss can tell you to do the unconscionable else your child will have to do without chemotherapy, what you are is not an employee but a slave.

      …and that’s long before we get to the whole matter of the Federal government requiring citizens to do business with one of the most corrupt and wasteful industries (health “insurance”) in the history of the country.

      Most people would think it insane to have to purchase police or military or food and drug safety insurance. How we got to the position that medical insurance — by the grace of your boss, no less — is the expected norm absolutely blows my mind.

      b&

      1. ” . . . what you are is not an employee but a slave.”

        If I correctly recall, U.S. employment law is described in terms of “master and servant,” or at least comes from a long legal tradition bearing that name. But that doesn’t sound good, even to the “broad, flapping American ears” (Thoreau) of the Masters of Mankind, so they use the word “employee.”

        The fact is, if one works for another, one is a servant. The Masters can’t deny it. It’s reflected in, e.g., the restaurant industry; what were once waitresses and waiters are now “servers,” a short step or two from “servants” and “serfs” and, to my mind, “slaves.” In the Masters’ view we’re human “resources” or “capital” (as opposed to flesh-and-blood human beings). The phrase “wage slave” has contemporary resonance. The restaurant industry protests raising servers’ minimum wage above $2.13, tips or not. One sees the term “working class” used in the media, but never the “non-working class.” Rather, the latter are referred to as the “investor class,” those with hefty sums reflected in the “UNEARNED” section of their federal tax forms.

        More and more, public employees are referred to as public “servants” by those in the private sector who surely view them as just that. Is a military service member going in harm’s way on behalf of the “interests” of the U.S. (including those of the Masters of Mankind), to possibly be killed or maimed for life – as thousands so far have been so killed or maimed in the last decade or so – merely a public “servant”?

        I once heard someone in the music industry (some singer) say that he had never worked for anyone. He had always worked for himself, and others had worked for him. (I would question whether entertaining fellow primates is as essential a job as the jobs of those who protect us from disease, ignorance, natural disaster and other evildoer primates. And I myself am besotted with the visceral impact of great music and performances.) That may be an enviable-and desirable-enough position to be in. On the other hand, there is something to be said for the self-discipline and fortitude and perseverance required to subordinate oneself to circumstances imposed by other primates and life in general, and to keep hubris and narcissism at bay. That experience could and would serve one well in future, less personally-favorable times.

        (Sorry for the length. I rarely do that.)

        1. I like your reasoning and I’ve thought about these things a lot myself. Careful though, Marxist talk like that will get you on watch lists 😉

          1. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle . . . .”

            They can put THAT on the watch list too, eh?

        2. There is — or, at least should be — a certain nobility in civil servants serving civil society as an whole. That doesn’t mean that individual citizens should have any right to boss them around; rather, that they work to serve us all for the collective betterment. The President is not my servant; nor is he yours; nor any other’s. Yet he most certainly is our servant, to govern us with our consent, to execute the will of We the People.

          …at least, of course, that’s the theory. The reality is that he and the rest of the upper ranks of government is all too often the bitch of the wealthiest corporate campaign contributors. There are many notable exceptions, of course; the scientific offices like the NGS and NIST and NOAA and the rest are generally superb exemplars of the ideal of civil service, and there are many others, generally in the lower echelons, who also “get it.” The staff of the City of Tempe, for example, is mostly made of people who “get it” and who are passionate about making the City a better place for everybody.

          In stark contrast, private employees are servants of one single person — their direct supervisor. And that supervisor is, in turn, the personal servant of some middle manager, and so on up the chain to a single executive, who in turn is the personal servant of at most a dozen or so plutocrats who contribute fuck-all and demand nothing but ever-increasing tribute. It’s about as messed up as it gets, really.

          b&

          1. When I worked in government in IT, boy did I hide where I worked. To this day, if I bring it up, people assume I was probably a slacker. My performance record indicates otherwise.

      2. Didn’t the guy who blew the whistle on big tobacco stay towing the line for longer than he wanted yo because he was afraid of losing his health insurance and he had a sick child?

        I am even worse in my views. Even though I’m fortunate enough to enjoy universal healthcare, I need relatively expensive migraine medication. Without working, that’s super expensive. i figure I could be self insured for that and those insurance plans aren’t expensive but then there are other things like dentists, psychiatrists and eye doctors (if you’re between the ages of 18 and 65 in Ontario anyway) that aren’t covered either. I actually argued this in a biomedical ethics course when some doofus tried to say that in Canada no one slips through the cracks for care. I think in the US, you all could have all the things I mentioned at a pretty low cost because you have a large population to supply the tax base!

          1. We get health coverage but that doesn’t cover dentists, psychiatry (unless referred by your doctor in which case you have to be very sick) or eye doctors (for the most part). Also we have to pay for our medication. Seniors have most meds covered for cheap.

  5. Everyone in my family except my one cousin because she is back in school signed up & they are so excited because it is saving them a bundle of money. Oddly, my aunt still pays $800 per month. I have no idea why she pays so much other than she’s self insured as she has her own business & she’s not quite old enough for medicare so the insurance company drains her. Or maybe that’s what she pays for the company….I find it confusing.

    1. I started my (1 person, private, U.S.) health insurance plan at just under 40 yrs. of age, and my mo. premiums were $57 for a $3K deductible. Now, about 16 yrs. later, the exact same policy is $1440 a month (and that is with a $4K deductible, as I upped it about ten yrs ago)

      I’m offering these facts so that people can see it’s all across the board what people pay. Even with this high price, I am limited to choosing doctors and facilities that the insurance company has a contract with (i.e., those doctors and facilities that will accept less money than the “list price” of the service, which is what they bill to a person who is not insured).

      I mentioned my high health insurance costs to a customer who called me from NYC and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Oh, don’t you just *hate* Obamacare?” She didn’t want to hear that Obamacare was not the cause and that it might actually bring my costs down.

      The U.S. health insurance industry is so messed up.

    2. Maybe it is youth or perspective or change in empathy. When I was young I really detested paying for health insurance since I never used it. After twenty five years on health insurance my views have changed. I still have not seen a doctor, save a couple of excised basal cells, but I would be willing to pay many times what I pay now for full coverage if it meant others could get some psychological relief from the burden they live under if even a minor medical catastrophy awaited them.

      1. Your attitude is very commendable. I would say, based on my personal experience, you are one of the rare few to have this attitude.

  6. I think the Obama geek factor may have been a reference to the John Hodgman Roast at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner.

  8. ‘I’m not sure whether Obama qualifies as a “geek,” though.’

    What is the noun name of someone who is not a “geek,” (other than “non-geek”)?

    1. The typical dichotomy is between geeks and jocks. There are other classifications…but that would require remembering even more of my high school days, and I’m already over my quota.

      Cheers,

      b&

      1. Stoners and surfers, though there seemed to be a good bit of overlap there. At one time or another I was mistaken, by others, for just about every subgroup there was during my high school years.

  9. I would like to eventually see the word “geek” disappear altogether. It’s commendable that the word is being used more positively nowadays, but it’s still a relic of our country’s long history of anti-intellectualism. Striving for knowledge and aptitude in areas of personal interest should be the default expectation for human beings, not a sign of freakishness.

  10. “The ACA is the “Affordable Care Act,” Obama’s plan to get all Americans covered with health insurance.

    To be fair, it was the Heritage Foundation’s plan before it was Obama’s. Conservatives (like Obama and HF) are understandably in favor of the idea of forcing people to purchase products from private corporations.

  11. Woah Woah woah, hold the phone. Does geek have some kind of Elite status now? I consider myself a geek, interested in science from a lay perspective, knowledgeable enough to hold my own in a high level conversation about most topics, but certainly nowhere near the level of knowledge of many of the people here in specific areas.

    Then again, I do love baseball, so that may be a strike against me. At least I’m in good company with Stephen Jay Gould. Then again, that may not be helping me here either; I’ll stop talking now…

  12. Baseball does rock, and there’s nothing like welcoming opening day with a surprise fresh 3 inch snow fall outside. Mother Nature was a day early with April Fools’ Day.

    1. Arrgh. But baseball wouldn’t be baseball without all the little anomalies.

      I’ve still got snow in my backyard (SW MI)but opening day at Comerica Park was sunny and in the 50’s. More importantly, the Tigers won!

      1. I live on New York, was born in Georgia and lived the majority of my childhood in Florida, but still root for the Braves. This is clearly an irrational thought process as 1) I live nowhere near ATL anymore; and, 2) The demographic and fan base in that region of the country hardly offers anything of redeeming value. I do enjoy the Mets’ broadcasters though so maybe I’ll eventually drop my delusions with regard to sports. (Of course, some people tell me following baseball at all is a delusion, but they clearly have sensory input issues. 😉 )

        1. Ha, ha, the broadcasters can be almost as big a part of the enjoyment as the team itself! Detroit has great radio announcers–I feel like I’ve lost family at the end of the season.

          Good thing you’re not a Yankees fan this year…so far, anyway.

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