Bunny Trails

[Judas Maccabeus]

Why is yours far less expensive? Is is subsidized by employer? Or is it governmental, because you are a certain age? To restate ours in more detail, we individually pay $105 per adult, then the church lifts an offering once a month. The $145 was a hip shot from me. I know the $105 was intended to cover about 80% of the cost, and the once a month offerings are supposed to cover the other 20% of the cost.

Very heavily subsidized. My wife is as well. Long tenure with employers who offer this benefit for retirement. For both of us, it was 20+ years.

Ask me, would YOU turn down this benefit you have earned?

JM.

I have, yes. When Obamacare came into effect, the company I worked for was forced to switch to insurance instead of medical reimbursement. I lost $10,000 per year in medical reimbursement. And went without insurance.

Mostly I was curious why your monthly costs were lower than our sharing plan.

It is one of the few benefits of working in a teaching hospital for many, many years. They typically provide lousy pay, but really good benefits. Wifes job was similar.

I think that is one of the differences between moderate and intermediate conservatives. Nothing in our covenant bars one from health insurance. I wonder, in our state you cannot refuse insurance if it is offered. I wonder how people get around that.

J.M.

[Josh]

Just talked to my pastor. Our conference is not exempt.

JM.

Neither is mine, but I still believe that both your conference and mine should be capable of demonstrating that we have a "history of providing care for [our aged]".

The second part would be having an objection to receiving such benefits as a matter of religious principle. We have no such objection.

Do you have an objection to filing lawsuits?

[Judas Maccabeus]

Neither is mine, but I still believe that both your conference and mine should be capable of demonstrating that we have a "history of providing care for [our aged]".

The second part would be having an objection to receiving such benefits as a matter of religious principle. We have no such objection.

Do you have an objection to filing lawsuits?

Yes. You should know this. I smell a "Whatabout" coming.

J.M.

[ken_sylvania]

Very heavily subsidized. My wife is as well. Long tenure with employers who offer this benefit for retirement. For both of us, it was 20+ years.

Ask me, would YOU turn down this benefit you have earned?

JM.

I have, yes. When Obamacare came into effect, the company I worked for was forced to switch to insurance instead of medical reimbursement. I lost $10,000 per year in medical reimbursement. And went without insurance.

Mostly I was curious why your monthly costs were lower than our sharing plan.

It is one of the few benefits of working in a teaching hospital for many, many years. They typically provide lousy pay, but really good benefits. Wifes job was similar.

I think that is one of the differences between moderate and intermediate conservatives. Nothing in our covenant bars one from health insurance. I wonder, in our state you cannot refuse insurance if it is offered. I wonder how people get around that.

J.M.

That surprises me. Are you sure about that?

[Judas Maccabeus]

I have, yes. When Obamacare came into effect, the company I worked for was forced to switch to insurance instead of medical reimbursement. I lost $10,000 per year in medical reimbursement. And went without insurance.

Mostly I was curious why your monthly costs were lower than our sharing plan.

It is one of the few benefits of working in a teaching hospital for many, many years. They typically provide lousy pay, but really good benefits. Wifes job was similar.

I think that is one of the differences between moderate and intermediate conservatives. Nothing in our covenant bars one from health insurance. I wonder, in our state you cannot refuse insurance if it is offered. I wonder how people get around that.

J.M.

That surprises me. Are you sure about that?

Yes. For someone like me, that is the case. There are a few limited exceptions, but they don’t apply to anyone with a full time job at a large company. We had a fairly intensive go round with HR at my last job. My last employer tried to actually pay people to switch off of the company plan. Got cited by the state government. Had to withdraw the offer, and send around a notice detailing what our options actually were, and it ran to a full page. Maryland has some at rather complex rules even down to which member of the family carries the insurance. But no is not an option unless you can show coverage elsewhere. If you make less than a certain amount, or are less than full time, or are working for a small employer, yes. But in general most of us working regular full time jobs, if you say no, HR will require evidence of coverage before you can do this. You cannot switch from one spouse to another without a “qualifying event.”

Never tried it with a “mutual aid” plan though. Never tried objecting due to religious reasons, as we have no such reasons. There may be some way of doing it, but that option was never on the table.

So, yes, I was likely over generalized.

J.M.

[Josh]

The second part would be having an objection to receiving such benefits as a matter of religious principle. We have no such objection.

Do you have an objection to filing lawsuits?

Yes. You should know this. I smell a "Whatabout" coming.

J.M.

That's the biggest dilemma to holding insurance; if your insurance requires an indemnity clause, then you have to submit to being a party to a lawsuit if your insurer feels like they need to do that.

Some forms of insurance are tolerable without this (indemnity being one of them).

The objects to health and life insurance also extend to seeing it as better to rely on our brethren - and to support our brethren's needs - than to "outsource" this to a giant financial institution that may or may not share our values. If you relied on mutual aid, you could be assured that your money would be supporting your values of how you feel medical care should be provided, instead of going to a for-profit insurer's bottom line.

[Josh]

Yes. For someone like me, that is the case. There are a few limited exceptions, but they don’t apply to anyone with a full time job at a large company. We had a fairly intensive go round with HR at my last job. My last employer tried to actually pay people to switch off of the company plan. Got cited by the state government. Had to withdraw the offer, and send around a notice detailing what our options actually were, and it ran to a full page. Maryland has some at rather complex rules even down to which member of the family carries the insurance. But no is not an option unless you can show coverage elsewhere. If you make less than a certain amount, or are less than full time, or are working for a small employer, yes. But in general most of us working regular full time jobs, if you say no, HR will require evidence of coverage before you can do this. You cannot switch from one spouse to another without a “qualifying event.”

File a religious objection with your employer and insurer. Your employer might still end up paying into the plan, but they can always let you opt out of being covered. I did this with my current employer for their "free" life insurance. (They ended up keeping the policy but simply named my employer as the sole beneficiary.)

Never tried it with a “mutual aid” plan though. Never tried objecting due to religious reasons, as we have no such reasons. There may be some way of doing it, but that option was never on the table.

So, yes, I was likely over generalized.

J.M.

A "mutual aid" plan typically counts as other coverage. Again, I did this with my current employer, who meets regulations in California, which is a very regulated state for insurance. The mutual aid plan has a certificate describing that they do cover your medical needs.

The Affordable Care Act recognises mutual aid plans as well, as I was quite eager to tell my fellow plain brethren who liked to complain about how "Obamacare is forcing us to pay a penalty for not having insurance". At plainer churches such as in Pilgrim Conference or Hope, there would be stack of exemption forms in the narthex. At the less-plain churches, conversation instead drifted to talk of politics and repeating Fox News talking points about the evils of Obamacare.

[Bootstrap]

A few comments about things people say. In general, I think people should feel free to decide what they want to respond to. They should, however, be prepared to respond to questions or statements about what they themselves have posted.

"I posted this thing about something else and you didn't respond to it. That proves you are closed-minded." Well, it might just be that the other person is still considering this, feels like they have responded to the same point. Or it might feel like a different topic that would take time and effort to understand, and it may not be worth it.

"I ignored what you posted and posted something else. That needs to be the basis of the conversation now." Well, maybe for you. Feel free. But the other person may have posted what they thought was relevant and useful, and may want to focus on that. And really, the other person may be waiting for SOMEONE to give a serious response to what they posted.

[Bootstrap]

An example of what I'm talking about:

Well, I showed scientific data that shows we are warming from an ice age and it is cyclical, yet it seems to be ignored because it does not fit into certain people's paradigm.

Robert, if you fail to respond to one of my posts, is that a sign that you are ignoring it because it does not fit into your paradigm? Does that imply something negative about you?

I don't think so. People should feel free to respond to posts that speak to them. If one person doesn't, someone else may. If nobody responds, maybe that means something, maybe it doesn't.

And this becomes especially silly for posts that have been there for only a few hours. Here's a useful ratio: How many posts respond specifically to what someone said, showing an understanding of that post? Let's call that signal. How many posts try to bury what was said with talking points and predefined narratives, imply negative things about the other person, etc? Let's call that noise.

I prefer discussions with a lot more signal than noise. We learn more from them. We build better relationships in that kind of discussion.

[Robert]

Robert, if you fail to respond to one of my posts, is that a sign that you are ignoring it because it does not fit into your paradigm? Does that imply something negative about you?

I ignore you when you just keep chanting the same lines and show no growth.

I also have noticed through the years that you never respond when there are hard facts the that contradict your positions on things. You just go silent and wait for a while then come back with your same original lines.

Remember that we have spent over 10 years discussing things. I do not make these statements on a whim. They are based on years of observation.

Feel free to keep this trait. I am not saying I need you to change. I have learned how to state things and move on, or just not respond because it does little good. This is one reason I seldom engage with you anymore.