Fun fact about US military spending

[nate]

Just like all Spurs fans could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.

[gotbeer]

 

fact

fakt/

noun

 

1. a thing that is indisputably the case.

 

 

But what if it's that other case?  Especially at the airport.  All cases look alike.

[gotbeer]

you won't find a lot of conservatives at Brokeback Mountain.

================================================

 

Have you ever been to Texas?  Only steers and queers come from Texas

 

 

Was that a generalization?

 

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tallywackers-all-male-hooters_n_7486112.html

 

 

Do I win for making the case?

Edited June 2, 2015 by gotbeer

[juansavage1]

 

http://www.huffingto..._n_7486112.html

 

 

Do I win for making the case?

 

I just stop by for the wings and to watch the game. 

[Tank]

Trying to figure out how the insurance industry makes money from generalizations...

 

because ho chi minh's family owns stock in blue shield.

 

try to keep up, buddy.

[nate]

My bad.

 

My company is pretty progressive.  We use Che Guevera for our inspiration.

[juansavage1]

Juan has a weird attraction to Chomsky. I'm fairly liberal and I've never met one person who cares about Chomsky or even cites him as some sort of influence. Hurrah for anecdotal evidence.

He's very popular among very ideological leftists (Marxists. You may not know that almost all of the power/priviledge talk and the ______studies courses are based on Marxist theory), mostly on college campuses. His books were found with Bin Laden and he was/is read by the international left like former president of Venezuela Chavez. I use him and Zinn because he's well-known. People on the left usually bring up Rush Limbaugh or the anchor on Fox as examples of conservatives. 

 

Most people who vote for liberals aren't ideologues- they're public employees (I'm a public employee, twice over), people who vote based on ethnic/racial loyalty, single moms (married women tend to vote GOP), people on assistance.  Left ideologues would be college professors and their students (mostly humanities and social studies), environmentalists, Hollywood and the social liberal (Silicon Valley) and the irreligious. 

[juansavage1]

because ho chi minh's family owns stock in blue shield.

 

try to keep up, buddy.

I just meant that they use statistics to generalize about people. Not every teen boy is an unsafe driver. Not every smoker dies early. Right now, we have laws that prevent insurance companies from using certain statistics, but if they could, they'd screen for many more categories. It just so happens that right now smoking is very un-PC. 

[juansavage1]

So the correct way to generalize is to be very specific? Those who identify as liberal or conservative are nearly lockstep in their views anymore. Advertisers spend a ton of cash on research to target ads.

Some generalizations are more true, based on facts. Here's one fact: 

 

 

Now, can we generalize from this graphic that people who attend Church often are more likely to vote a certain way? 

Edited June 2, 2015 by Juan Savage

[nate]

I just meant that they use statistics to generalize about people. Not every teen boy is an unsafe driver. Not every smoker dies early. Right now, we have laws that prevent insurance companies from using certain statistics, but if they could, they'd screen for many more categories. It just so happens that right now smoking is very un-PC. 

 

Actually they use analytics to predict their costs.

 

Also, most smokers die early and have very expensive healthcare costs before they die.  It isn't a generalization, it is a fact.

[juansavage1]

Actually they use analytics to predict their costs.

 

Also, most smokers die early and have very expensive healthcare costs before they die.  It isn't a generalization, it is a fact.

 

First, almost all people have very expensive health care costs before they die, unless they die suddenly or in an accident. 

 

It's a fact that GENERALLY, smokers die earlier. What about my other example, the one without a physical component? Are all teens bad drivers or just generally bad drivers? 

[nate]

Teens are more likely to be in a car accident.

 

And you are wrong.  People definitely have health care costs associated with their dead but smokers and overweight people have more than 15X the healthcare costs of their counterparts.

[Tank]

I just meant that they use statistics to generalize about people. Not every teen boy is an unsafe driver. Not every smoker dies early. Right now, we have laws that prevent insurance companies from using certain statistics, but if they could, they'd screen for many more categories. It just so happens that right now smoking is very un-PC. 

 

since you're new here, you may not realize that the vast majority of my posts are not meant to be taken very seriously, with few exceptions.

 

fwiw, i'm a conservative republican who's not very happy with my party and their lack of viable candidates and pathetic lack of vision. i like that you've been messing with the libs on the board. they haven't had their shorts in a knot like this in quite a while.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

I am a registered independent, have been for years. Neither party has offered anything approaching dynamic leadership for decades, and toeing the party line seems to outweigh all else. Each side seems equally convinced that they are 100 percent right and that the other side has nothing to offer to the discussion. As usual, the best path is somewhere in the middle, but no one seems to care to explore it.

[juansavage1]

Teens are more likely to be in a car accident.

 

And you are wrong.  People definitely have health care costs associated with their dead but smokers and overweight people have more than 15X the healthcare costs of their counterparts.

I'm not motivated to disagree with this and I'd gladly change my mind, but can you provide a source? Everybody dies and nearly everybody tries to delay death, and that usually costs money. 

 

Sorry for being skeptical, but i never trust these kinds of statistics and I'm almost always right to do so. 

Edited June 3, 2015 by Juan Savage

[juansavage1]

I am a registered independent, have been for years. Neither party has offered anything approaching dynamic leadership for decades, and toeing the party line seems to outweigh all else. Each side seems equally convinced that they are 100 percent right and that the other side has nothing to offer to the discussion. As usual, the best path is somewhere in the middle, but no one seems to care to explore it.

I don't see it as being right or wrong. I see it as competing values. If your value is that people make more or less the same amount of money, then your policies will reflect this and others who prefer more economic freedom would be "wrong." 

 

And, democracies get the leadership they deserve. 

[juansavage1]

I'm not motivated to disagree with this and I'd gladly change my mind, but can you provide a source? Everybody dies and nearly everybody tries to delay death, and that usually costs money. 

 

Sorry for being skeptical, but i never trust these kinds of statistics and I'm almost always right to do so. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/22/alcohol-obesity-and-smoking-do-not-cost-health-care-systems-money/

 

 

It’s a common enough argument around the world at the moment, that various unhealthy behaviours increase the costs to health care systems. Thus those unhealthy behaviours should be taxed more heavily so as to pay for the costs to those health care systems. The only problem with the argument is that it is entirely gibbering nonsense, unhealthy behaviours reduce costs to health care systems: if we are to accept the initial logic then we should subsidise them, not tax them.

We see it in my native UK over smoking, alcohol and obesity. Rarely does a week go past without there being another report about how much this or that activity costs the NHS and thus taxes must be raised. You’ve got it in the US with the various people calling for taxes on HFCS, sugar, empty calories, soda pops and junk food.

 

[nate]

I'm not motivated to disagree with this and I'd gladly change my mind, but can you provide a source? Everybody dies and nearly everybody tries to delay death, and that usually costs money. 

 

Sorry for being skeptical, but i never trust these kinds of statistics and I'm almost always right to do so. 

 

I work for a major health insurance company that lives and dies by the amount of money they spend on claims.  I will not provide our internal data.

 

I can also tell you that my company, along with all the rest of the major insurers spend millions of dollars a year helping their members quit smoking.  It isn't out of the goodness of our hearts, it is because the millions we spend are returned tenfold by having healthier members.

 

You cannot honestly think that people who smoke are just as healthy as those that don't?  Go to your local emergency room and sit near the admissions desk and listen to the people being admitted for chest pains and shortness of breath.  The first question they will ask is if they smoke.  The answer most of the time?  "Yes"

[juansavage1]

I work for a major health insurance company that lives and dies by the amount of money they spend on claims.  I will not provide our internal data.

 

I can also tell you that my company, along with all the rest of the major insurers spend millions of dollars a year helping their members quit smoking.  It isn't out of the goodness of our hearts, it is because the millions we spend are returned tenfold by having healthier members.

 

You cannot honestly think that people who smoke are just as healthy as those that don't?  Go to your local emergency room and sit near the admissions desk and listen to the people being admitted for chest pains and shortness of breath.  The first question they will ask is if they smoke.  The answer most of the time?  "Y

 

It doesn't really matter to the point I was making and maybe we're talking about different things. I'm sure you're right in what you're saying. Smoking might cost your company more because you're insuring them during their working life and not their medicare years? 

 

 

A White House statement supporting the bill, which awaits action in the Senate, echoed the argument by contending that tobacco use "accounts for over a $100 billion annually in financial costs to the economy."

 

However, smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs.

Vanderbilt University economist Kip Viscusi studied the net costs of smoking-related spending and savings and found that for every pack of cigarettes smoked, the country reaps a net cost savings of 32 cents.

"It looks unpleasant or ghoulish to look at the cost savings as well as the cost increases and it's not a good thing that smoking kills people," Viscusi said in an interview. "But if you're going to follow this health-cost train all the way, you have to take into account all the effects, not just the ones you like in terms of getting your bill passed."

Viscusi worked as a litigation expert for the tobacco industry in lawsuits by states but said that his research, which has been published in peer-reviewed journals, has never been funded by industry.

Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.

A Dutch study published last year in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal said that health care costs for smokers were about $326,000 from age 20 on, compared to about $417,000 for thin and healthy people.

The reason: The thin, healthy people lived much longer.

 

[Crampknees]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tallywackers-all-male-hooters_n_7486112.html

 

 

Do I win for making the case?

Oh YA, I am going to squeeze into my flame resistant Dickies jeans and two step it straight there.  The crab lollipops and pulled pork are to die for.  

[nate]

It doesn't really matter to the point I was making and maybe we're talking about different things. I'm sure you're right in what you're saying. Smoking might cost your company more because you're insuring them during their working life and not their medicare years? 

 

The cost of care for COPD, hypertension, etc.  It might cost less for social security but the people who smoke don't just die early, they also have much more healthcare needs than someone who doesn't.

 

I have to say, in 2015 it is weird to be arguing whether or not smoking is bad for your health.

[Glen]

I think that Juan Savage is Nixon's head after going through intensive anger-reduction therapy.

[Spirit]

I work for a major health insurance company ...

 

 

Maybe the oldest line in the history of AngelsWin ... "I'm in the business."

 

 

 

Well, that and "Your an idiot." 

 

 

 

Well, that and "IWHI" ... at least for Glen.

[TobiasFunke]

I'm not motivated to disagree with this and I'd gladly change my mind, but can you provide a source?

Now the guy wants a source. LOLOLOL

[Jay]

LOLOLOL

 

Juan's work is done.