Conservapedia: The funniest site in the world
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I just ran into an amazing site called Conservapedia. Really, it's just best to browse the top posts, but some quotes I found particularly interesting:
ObamaCare, formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," (ACA) will impose massive penalties on young workers, small businesses and others who choose not to buy expensive health insurance, beginning in 2014.
EDIT: No, I'm not pro-ObamaCare as everyone assumes here, it's merely the blatant mixing of fact with opinion that makes this terrible for me. Note that this is the very first sentence of the article.Creation science asserts that the biblical account, that dinosaurs were created on day six of creation[5] approximately 6,000 years ago, along with other land animals, and therefore co-existed with humans, thus debunking the Theory of Evolution and the beliefs of evolutionary scientists about the age and creation of the earth.
Or, the entire part on the extinction of dinosaurs:
Creation science rejects the great impact theory, and find a number of faults in that theory.[13] Despite these critiques, the great impact theory is widely considered by the scientific community to be fact. However, those scientists cannot prove the great impact theory definitively. Creation scientists point out that evolutionists are frequently coming out with new theories to explain the supposed extinction of the dinosaurs, and that those theories are laden with false assumptions. [14].
(Notice the lack of any given explanation)But seriously, this site is loaded with reasoning and opinionated articles. It looks like a parody on conservatists, but it actually seems to be real...
So: read and enjoy!
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I find your post title hyperbolic. It's a little too earnest to be THAT funny.
BTW if you disagree with that first quote, you should consider what the unemployment rates for young people is in the US for the last few years.
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ObamaCare, formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," (ACA) will impose massive penalties on young workers, small businesses and others who choose not to buy expensive health insurance, beginning in 2014.
It is a pretty sucky law.
The problem with this site is that it's impossible to tell who's serious and who's a troll.
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Everybody got sick of making fun of Conservapedia like 3 years ago.
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I just ran into an amazing site called Conservapedia.
What, did you live under a rock for the past hundred of years?
There's also http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia - depending on your outlook, another site to ridicule or a comprehensive guide to the madness.
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The problem with this site is that it's impossible to tell who's serious and who's a troll.
Don't you take care of that problem by assuming EVERYONE on this site is a troll?
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Don't you take care of that problem by assuming EVERYONE on this site is a troll?
Heh, yes. Of course, I was referring to the topic site.
Filed Under: lots of whoosing behind me right now, what could that be?
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ObamaCare, formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," (ACA) will impose massive penalties on young workers, small businesses and others who choose not to buy expensive health insurance, beginning in 2014.
Anyone who doesn't believe this law is awful is willfully ignorant IMO.
As a young worker, I've already lost my health insurance TWICE due to ObamaCare and all indicators are that I will lose it again at the end of the year. And I strongly suspect that my layoff last year was influenced by ObamaCare since my department was new and only marginally-profitable as a result, and laying off my department put the company size back down into the small-business category where ObamaCare supposedly has less of an impact.
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Filed Under: lots of whoosing behind me right now, what could that be?
Too many spouts at lunchtime.
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Filed Under: lots of whoosing behind me right now, what could that be?
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What, did you live under a rock for the past hundred of years?
There's also http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservapedia - depending on your outlook, another site to ridicule or a comprehensive guide to the madness.
Actually, TheDailyWTF has only a single topic every mentioning the site. And No, I didn't know it...
About ObamaCare: I'm not talking about whether it's good or bad (mandating health-care is definitely a good thing, its implementation I don't know). The writing isn't any less bad: it's not about "imposing penalties on [those] who choose not to buy expensive health insurance", it's about mandating health insurance. Come on, even those opposing ObamaCare can't condone this style of writing, right?
Again, I'm not pro-ObamaCare, as I don't know enough about it. My country (the Netherlands) mandates health care as does nearly every other western country, and while it's not perfect, it works great in most cases.
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I'm not talking about whether it's good or bad (mandating health-care is definitely a good thing, its implementation I don't know). The writing isn't any less bad: it's not about "imposing penalties on [those] who choose not to buy expensive health insurance", it's about mandating health insurance. Come on, even those opposing ObamaCare can't condone this style of writing, right?
I don't know what you're talking about. The quote doesn't say what it's "about," but what it does. And penalties are one of the things it does.
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The writing isn't any less bad: it's not about "imposing penalties on [those] who choose not to buy expensive health insurance", it's about mandating health insurance.
Except it is about imposing penalties on those who don't buy health insurance. If you don't buy insurance, you have a non-trivial tax penalty that increases each year and will eventually end up at thousands of dollars per year. And if you buy the health insurance, your deductible is so high that it doesn't pay for anything until you've already been bankrupted (at least this is how things work for my age group). Coupled with all the increases in premiums, it's a health insurance package that costs a bunch of money but doesn't really pay for anything.
Unless you can get subsidies.
Since you're from the Netherlands, here's ObamaCare's actual effect here in the U.S. Poll after poll after poll seem to indicate that Republicans are disproportionally worse off under the ACA while Democrats are better off (largely due to the way the two parties are split economically and the absurd way "poor" vs "rich" is decided by those in power). It has little to do with health insurance and in practice it punishes those who voted against Obama while rewarding those who voted for him.
Economically, under the current regime I'd be much better off quitting my job and moving in with my mother. I'd get welfare/food stamps, I'd get health insurance subsidies, my student loans could be forgiven, I'd have no taxes, and I'd have much more budget for discretionary spending. Fun fact: I met a woman a couple years ago who was making more money off unemployment than I was making as a software engineer.
Filed Under: Looking for my flamesuit now
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You're right, but it doesn't matter. You're arguing with a progressive, and progressives don't care about results, only intentions.
From the Antiquarian Lexicon, which I haven't written yet:
progressive: (n) Someone who would rather be right than happy.
progressivism: (n) A secular religion devoted to Equality and Justice, which have only the most tenuous relation to equality and justice.
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progressive: (n) Someone who would rather be right than happy. And doesn't manage either.
From my observations.
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it's not about "imposing penalties on [those] who choose not to buy expensive health insurance", it's about mandating health insurance
Well, it "mandates" health insurance by imposing penalties if you don't purchase expensive, qualifying coverage. For some people, the penalties are actually cheaper than getting the coverage, so it doesn't always work.
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@antiquarian: Who's he arguing with? As I stated before, I'm no advocate of ObamaCare as I don't know it's details.
Again, it's NOT about whether you oppose or reject it. The quote:
ObamaCare, formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," (ACA) will impose massive penalties on young workers, small businesses and others who choose not to buy expensive health insurance, beginning in 2014.
Is the description of ObamaCare. Let me translate that to the creation of speed limits:
Speed limits impose massive penalties on those young drivers who choose to drive 150 mph.
Sure it's true, and you can write it down as a consequence, but it's not a proper way to define "speed limits". The speed limits obligates the drivers to adhere to these limits, and the fines are only a means to an end.
Perhaps I should have mentioned that the quote is the first sentence of the article, which I consider relevant.
Would the article have said something along the lines of:ObamaCare, formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," (ACA) will mandate Americans to buy health insurance. [...] It achieves this by imposing penalties on those refusing to comply to these rules. [...] However, health insurance is currently expensive. [...] Blah massive penalties blah
Then I wouldn't have had complained, except perhaps about the lack of argumentation. A sanely written article should simply never mix fact with opinion: first define what you're talking about, then fire away with your opinion and reasoning.
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I feel like that post was a big pedantic dickweed fail.
Let me translate that to the creation of speed limits:
Speed limits impose massive penalties on those young drivers who choose to drive 150 mph.
Sure it's true, and you can write it down as a consequence, but it's not a proper way to define "speed limits".
seems to be a matter of opinion. That looks like a totally valid method of defining speed limit to me.
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Maybe he's going for a badge.
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Let me translate that to the creation of speed limits:
You failed. You're wrong.
Sure it's true, and you can write it down as a consequence, but it's not a proper way to define "speed limits".
AND THERE IS NO LAW CALLED "SPEED LIMITS."
A sanely written article should simply never mix fact with opinion: first define what you're talking about, then fire away with your opinion and reasoning.
WTF. I haven't gone to the site, but you're just being stupid.
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A sanely written article should simply never mix fact with opinion: first define what you're talking about, then fire away with your opinion and reasoning.
Except that the part you pulled out is full of facts:
- Health insurance is expensive. I'm paying about $800/month for a high-deductible plan. If anything were to actually happen to me, I'd probably go bankrupt before my insurance did anything.
- Those who choose not to buy health insurance will be subject to massive penalties. This is part of the law. The specific penalty starts relatively small and gets bigger the longer the law is in effect. Ok, so the Supreme Court ruled that these are "taxes" not "penalties", but that's a matter of semantics. I will admit that "massive" is a subjective term that probably should have been left out here in favor of more concrete values later on.
- Penalties begin in 2014. At this time, this is partially true. It's hard to keep track, with all the delays and postponements that Obama has enacted. But it was true at one point, so I'd just chalk this up to "outdated".
Put that all together to get the sentence which you quoted. In summary, the sentence is true, with one outdated piece of information, and one subjective term. Pretty good, if you ask me.
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Penalties begin in 2014. At this time, this is partially true. It's hard to keep track, with all the delays and postponements that Obama has enacted. But it was true at one point, so I'd just chalk this up to "outdated".
Of course, Obama ignoring the law doesn't actually remove anything from the law. But effectively, yeah...
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Health insurance is expensive. I'm paying about $800/month for a high-deductible plan. If anything were to actually happen to me, I'd probably go bankrupt before my insurance did anything.
That is horrible. I would literally be unable to afford a monthly premium that high without moving into a cardboard box first.
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The RealWTF is US-American Healthcare in general. On a visit to the States, my father (due to having arrived at night and being a foreigner) had to visit the ER for a very minor procedure - earwax pressing on the eardrum. Painful but not really critical.
He spent two hours in the ER. One 2 minutes visit by a doctor, a 2 minutes procedure by a nurse and that was it.
Total cost: $800. They even charged "rent" for the two hours he spent waiting for the doctor.
My own trip to the ER here in Germany due to an allergic reaction? 250€. And, yes, that is an unsubsidized price.
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Total cost: $800. They even charged "rent" for the two hours he spent waiting for the doctor.
My own trip to the ER here in Germany due to an allergic reaction? 250€. And, yes, that is an usubsidized price.
Yeah. There are a lot of stupid things that end up getting subsidized. Or sometimes no one has any clue what the actual cost is, so they overuse certain things when others would be more efficient or even effective.
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@SpoofedEx said:
A sanely written article should simply never mix fact with opinion: first define what you're talking about, then fire away with your opinion and reasoning.
WTF. I haven't gone to the site, but you're just being stupid.
I LOL'ed.Anyways guys, I'm sorry I picked a quote that may not have been as bad as I considered it first go. I did not (and, honestly, still don't) grasp how bad the rule can be, and how it can be as terrible as you guys say, but I'll trust your words over it. Maybe I was being pedantic there (I often am). That doesn't excuse the rest of the site.
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Little fun fact: Due to the type of my insurance, doctors over here actually tend to do unneccessary procedures for me.
(unless I know they're unneccessary and can stop them).
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I did not (and, honestly, still don't) grasp how bad the rule can be, and how it can be as terrible as you guys say, but I'll trust your words over it.
The bill itself was enormous. Like 2,000 pages big. And that was just the start. Since its passage, the Dept of Health and Human Services (and others, but mostly them) has put out tens of thousands of pages of regulations. Because really the law was a vehicle to give the executive branch power to define lots and lots of stuff.
Truly monsterous and stupid and contradictory law.
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You get a pass since you aren't American.
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My favorite part:
We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.
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Yeah, you know it's a real winner when the authors don't even know what's in the bill...
Imagine a programming language and class library designed by a committee that doesn't really communicate amongst itself nor does it review members' work nor even peek at their written documentation.
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Yeah, you know it's a real winner when the authors don't even know what's in the bill...
The authors by definition know what's in the bill. That no one in Congress did should tell you something about the authors.
Filed under: pedantic dickweed badge, please
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I'm paying about $800/month for a high-deductible plan.
Yikes! I'm paying about $200/month for a high-deductible plan for myself and two kids, plus another ~$150 into an HSA. I know the insurance would be quite a bit more for a family (spouse/partner + kids), but only (ass-pull) maybe $300 or so. $800, I can't even.
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For future reference, you would probably want to go to an urgent care facility instead. They generally have lower, fixed rates for non-emergency things.
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Years ago I did programming for an insurance company. At that time, their rating system generally produced quotes where "employee+dependent" or "employee+spouse" was approximately twice the single-person cost, and "employee+family (that is, children AND spouse, as opposed to the previous two types, which were children XOR spouse)" was about 3x. From what I've seen of various quotes since, that's still a good rule of thumb.
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To be pendantic, there's a number of things we could have done in the US rather than the PPACA monstrosity, of which 3 letters of 5 in the acronym were lies. First off, push HSAs combined with high-deductible health plans, with routine coverage paid by the person, not the insurance. Second, allow plans to be sold across state lines.
People who want to pedant even more on this, note I said HSAs combined with HDHPs. That's important because an HSA supplies you with a large pool of before-tax dollars dedicated to health care, both catastrophic and minor/regular. Another lovely thing that Obamacare did was increase costs for everyone who has an FSA, which is a similar but inferior product to HSAs. Obamacare reduced the cap for FSAs from $5000/year to $2500/year. I used to put about $3500-4000 annually into mine. FSAs and HSAs are pre-tax contributions, so the direct effect of cutting the cap is that I now pay taxes as if I made an extra thousand dollars a year, without any kind of benefit to me.
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Yeah, I thought $300 vs $200 was a pretty reasonable ass-pull, but an ass-pull nevertheless, because CBA to go dig up real numbers from our last open enrollment.
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Anyways guys, I'm sorry I picked a quote that may not have been as bad as I considered it first go. I did not (and, honestly, still don't) grasp how bad the rule can be, and how it can be as terrible as you guys say, but I'll trust your words over it.
My healthcare steadily increased in cost every year since I started working, including a lot of years before Obama had even considered running for president. So it is hard to pinpoint a rise in price being caused by anything Obama did.
The reason your health insurance costs are ridiculous? Because Health Insurance Companies are in the business of making money, not making healthy.
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The bill itself was enormous. Like 2,000 pages big. And that was just the start. Since its passage, the Dept of Health and Human Services (and others, but mostly them) has put out tens of thousands of pages of regulations. Because really the law was a vehicle to give the executive branch power to define lots and lots of stuff.
Truly monsterous and stupid and contradictory law.
I still have nightmares of Pelosi saying "We have to pass it so we can know what's in it."
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First off, push HSAs combined with high-deductible health plans
This is what I currently have and it seems to be a good system. Pre-tax, also employer-matched up to a certain annual amount, and it's not a use-it-or-lose-it thing so if I can make it the next few years without any serious medical problems I'll have quite the pile of cash should a medical situation arise.
That's assuming the government doesn't do something even stupider and limit/castrate/ban HSA's somehow.
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So it is hard to pinpoint a rise in price being caused by anything Obama did.
Ironically, Obama himself didn't have much to do with the law--he just agitated endlessly for it, and then let Pelosi do all the work.
However, all the numbers show that prices are going up drastically. Oh, not for everyone, definitely, especially those who had subsidies. But the costs are going up faster. And that's before we even get into horrible stuff like the medical devices tax, which, for example, Senator spit Al Franken was all for until he realized how many companies in his state would be negatively affected by it. Companies like Stryker, who make replacement joints, are being hurt. "Stryker Corp., which manufactures medical devices, confirmed this week that the company will lay off about 1,000 employees as a result of a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices starting in 2013 under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare." for the TL;DR types.
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That's assuming the government doesn't do something even stupider and limit/castrate/ban HSA's somehow.
I would not be a bit surprised to see that. [HF]SAs allow the consumer to spend his own money, which has a remarkable tendency to cause him to focus on bang-for-the-buck. Remember, FSAs were already castrated.
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Pelosi
As someone who was a California resident when she was elected, well, I won't say what I think should be done because it could be taken as a threat against a Federal official, but I don't think she's ever said a single word that I agree with.
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[HF]SAs allow the consumer to spend his own money, which has a remarkable tendency to cause him to focus on bang-for-the-buck.
In my case, my HSA allows my ex-wife to spend my money for the kids. So far, I haven't seen any evidence that she pays attention to bang-for-the-buck.
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Ironically, Obama himself didn't have much to do with the law--he just agitated endlessly for it, and then let Pelosi do all the work.
The whole thing was a debacle. They took the worst of both worlds and combined them without trying to fix any of the clearly broken aspects of the existing system, so that now we're somehow actually worse off than we were.
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Well, I didn't exactly say it enforces it, but as a general principle, people are more careful spending their own money than others'.
Plus, from what I've seen of my friends whose parents were divorced when I was growing up, ex-wives seem to make a sport of blowing their ex-husbands' money. (pedantry alert: this doesn't mean ex-husbands can't be assholes too.)
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The whole thing was a debacle. They took the worst of both worlds and combined them without trying to fix any of the clearly broken aspects of the existing system, so that now we're somehow actually worse off than we were.
Exactly. Too many liberals in blue states can't admit that, though, which is necessary for a fix.
Of course, the cynical/paranoid rejoinder is that this is all a plot to break the back of the insurance companies so the government can "save the day" with single payer.
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The reason your health insurance costs are ridiculous? Because Health Insurance Companies are in the business of making money, not making healthy.
Sort of. But we have a terrible system where no one knows what anything costs because other people pay for it. There is really very little discipline to spend wisely. This is perhaps the silver lining on the fact that everyone now has high deductibles.
It's also kind of a fallacy to say that spending a lot of money on health care is a bad thing a priori. A lot of stuff, like cancer treatment or heart surgery (to pick some high profile examples) is really expensive but also really effective. There aren't just a few simple reasons why health care costs more.
But our ridiculous health care financing system that grew out of motherfucking FDR's wage controls in WWII is surely TRWTF.
