turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalA $20,243 bike crash: Zuckerberg hospital's aggressive tactics leave patients with big bills
I spent a year writing about ER bills. Zuckerberg San Francisco General has the most surprising billing practices I’ve seen.
By Sarah Kliffsarah@vox.com Jan 7, 2019, 6:00am EST
On April 3, Nina Dang, 24, found herself in a position like so many San Francisco bike riders — on the pavement with a broken arm.
A bystander saw her fall and called an ambulance. She was semi-lucid for that ride, awake but unable to answer basic questions about where she lived. Paramedics took her to the emergency room at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where doctors X-rayed her arm and took a CT scan of her brain and spine. She left with her arm in a splint, on pain medication, and with a recommendation to follow up with an orthopedist.
A few months later, Dang got a bill for $24,074.50. Premera Blue Cross, her health insurer, would only cover $3,830.79 of that — an amount that it thought was fair for the services provided. That left Dang with $20,243.71 to pay, which the hospital threatened to send to collections in mid-December.
“Eight months after my bike accident, I’m still thinking about [the bill], which is crazy to me,” Dang says.
Dang’s experience with Zuckerberg San Francisco General is not unique. Vox reviewed five patient bills from the hospital’s emergency room, in consultation with medical billing experts, and found that the hospital’s billing can cost privately insured patients tens of thousands of dollars for care that would likely cost them significantly less at other hospitals.
The bills were all submitted by patients to Vox’s Emergency Room Billing Database, which served as the basis for a year-long investigation into ER billing practices.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/7/18137967/er-bills-zuckerberg-san-francisco-general-hospital
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The judge ruled against the patients, finding that the hospital’s behavior was legal under California insurance regulations.
“The way for patients to solve this is to bring the hospital to court on a small claims action, but at the end of the day, that is just not a sustainable solution,” says Nicholas Carlin, the attorney who brought the suit.
Alexa Sulvetta is still contesting a $31,250 bill she received last spring for treatment of a broken ankle after she fell from a rock climbing wall. As with other patients, the hospital was not in Sulvetta’s insurance network. (I covered Sulvetta’s case previously in a separate story about emergency room trauma fees.)
She received a $113,336 bill for her one-day stay, and her insurance only agreed to pay a portion of that which it deemed reasonable — leaving Sulvetta with the $31,250 bill.
Sulvetta retained a lawyer last December to fight the bill. She has so far gotten the bill reduced by $8,000 — but also paid more than $3,000 in legal fees.
“I’m hoping to get it down to under $5,000 or $10,000,” she says. “It’s frustrating that I have to hire a lawyer, but so far it’s been worth it.”
Gavin Newson.....................is proposing a single payer system in the state
Why can companies still silence us with mandatory arbitration?
Moira Donegan
More than 55% of the American workforce is now subject to mandatory arbitration. This system of private courts must be abolished
When it was revealed in October that Andy Rubin received a $90m exit package after being forced to resign over a credible sexual harassment claim, Google employees around the world walked out in protest. They were disgusted at what appeared to be a reward for bad behavior, and they wanted more accountability for members of management. But they were also angry at the strategy that the company used to keep harassment claims a secret: forced arbitration.
Google employees, like their counterparts at a ballooning number of American companies, were subject to forced arbitration – meaning that if they had a conflict with their employer, such as wage theft, race discrimination, or in this case, sexual harassment, they were not entitled to take that claim to court. Instead, they would be forced into an alternative justice system called arbitration.
Arbitration is a system of private courts. They operate using different rules than civil courts – there is no judge or jury, for instance, but an “arbitrator” who is chosen by the parties, and paid by the employer, to decide the case. It is strictly confidential. Since the 1920s, arbitration has been legally binding: once parties agree to settle a dispute in arbitration, they give up their right to go to court.
The practice has been around for centuries, functioning as a quicker, cheaper alternative to the formal justice system, and it was originally developed to settle disputes between businesses. But starting in the mid-1980s, the US supreme court issued a series of rulings saying that arbitration could be used for other kinds of conflicts – including conflicts between employees and employers over things such as discrimination.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/forced-arbitration-sexual-harassment-metoo
Well apparently the Federalist on the United States Supreme court think that the First and Tenth and Eleventh amendments , basically don't mean anything, if especially the First Amendment ..........
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right. A 70% tax on the rich makes sense
Nathan Robinson
If we are serious about tackling climate change, this is precisely the kind of policy we need to see
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has continued to show her power to steer the national political conversation. In an interview, Ocasio-Cortez suggested offhandedly that income above $10m may need to be taxed up to 70%, especially if we are going to get serious about halting climate change. Her idea instantly sparked indignant replies from the right. Grover Norquist compared it to slavery. National Review’s Brian Riedl called it “completely destructive.” Steve Scalise said she wanted to “Take away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy programs.”
Many critics attempt to confuse people over what Ocasio-Cortez said. Just to be clear: she said that when people earn $10m, the 10 millionth dollar and above should be taxed at a high rate. So unless you earn 10 million dollars, she’s not talking about “your” income. These are marginal tax rates, though the Republican party loves to trick people by conflating taxes that apply solely to the unfathomably rich with taxes that apply to ordinary workers.
In fact, Ocasio-Cortez didn’t even specifically say what she wanted the US tax rate to be: she said that “sometimes you see” a 70% tax on multi-multi-millionaires. And that’s true: Sweden has a 70% top tax rate and consistently remains near the top of the Global Innovation Index. She pointed to the fact that across the world, in many successful social democratic countries, high earners pay more than they do in the United States. That’s a fact, and it should make people wary of talking points about how destructive any attempt to fund critical programs would be.
Many of the arguments against taxes on the wealthy are “moralistic” rather than empirical. The argument that taxes on high earners are “slavery” is incoherent. Nobody forces you to earn $10m. When you are enslaved, someone makes you do work. Being wealthy is a choice – you could avoid the tax whenever you like by shedding your wealth and joining the working class. If we want to talk about “freedom,” the concentration of wealth at the very top has made the super-rich more free do as they please than anyone else, while it’s poor people who are faced with the choice to either work or suffer. If we want to talk about morality, having tremendous wealth when there is terrible deprivation cannot be justified.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-70-percent-tax-rich
'Voice of the forest': George the snail, last of his kind, dies at age 14
Climate change and invasive predators have taken a heavy toll on native animals and insects in the Hawaiian Islands
As New Year’s Day broke in the Hawaiian Islands, one rare creature was not there to emerge from his shell and greet it: George, the last snail of his kind and a local celebrity, was dead at age 14.
The passing of George, a member of the Achatinella apexfulva species and a tree snail who fed on tree fungus, algae and bacteria, epitomizes the decline of biodiversity on the Hawaiian islands, where climate change and invasive predators have taken a heavy toll on native animals and insects. Snails like George also played a part in the songs and stories of native Hawaiian culture, which holds that snails made sounds and are “the voice of the forest”.
George, who never lived in an actual forest, was still a mascot for endangered Hawaiian snails. After a pathogen outbreak in the lab where he lived, he became the only surviving member of his species and was visited by hundreds, if not thousands, of schoolchildren. Despite his celebrity status, George wasn’t the prettiest snail to look at. David Sischo, the snail extinction prevention program coordinator for the Hawaii Invertebrate Program, described him as “old and grizzled” and said that George was also “bit of a hermit”, who would stay in his shell at times when most other nocturnal snails emerge. Although scientists had hoped that George, a hermaphrodite, would have offspring, his solitary life ruled out that possibility.
Snails like George used to be ubiquitous throughout the Hawaiian islands. In fact, the Achatinella apexfulva was the very first snail species to be written about by non-native scientists, said Sischo. In the 1780s, when British captain George Dickson arrived in Hawaii, he was given a lei made with the shells of George’s ancestors. Back then, the snails hung from trees in giant clusters, easy pickings for scientists and collectors. “In a few minutes I collected several hundred specimens, picking them from trees and low bushes as rapidly as one would gather huckleberries from a prolific field,” a collector named DD Baldwin wrote in 1887.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/08/george-the-snail-tree-snail-hawaiian-islands-biodiversity
Conservatives lose it after Christian Bale thanks Satan for 'inspiring' him to play Dick Cheney
SARAH K. BURRIS
06 JAN 2019 AT 21:22 ET
Actor Christian Bale accepted the Golden Globe award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his role in the film “Vice.”
Bale plays former Vice President Dick Cheney in a story that details the unique role he had in George W. Bush’s White House.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “Bale’s transformation is a sight to behold.” He donned prosthetics to achieve some of the key characteristics of Cheney, but capturing the so-called “evil” of Cheney was all Bale.
“Thank you Satan for the inspiration,” Bale said about the biographical drama-comedy role.
He then offered a challenge to other actors, saying it was a kind of “competition.”
“I will be cornering the market on charisma-free assh*les,” he said. “What do you think, Mitch McConnell next? That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/conservatives-lose-christian-bale-thank-satan-inspiring-play-dick-cheney/
After More Failed Negotiations, Pelosi To Push Individual Bills To Reopen Agencies
Source: Talking Points Memo
By CATHERINE LUCEY and Lisa Mascaro
January 7, 2019 7:16 am
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With no weekend breakthrough to end a prolonged partial government shutdown, President Donald Trump is standing firm in his border wall funding demands and newly empowered House Democrats are planning to step up pressure on Trump and Republican lawmakers to reopen the government.
Trump showed no signs of budging on his demand for more than $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, though on Sunday he did offer to build it with steel rather than concrete, a concession Democrats panned.
With the shutdown lurching into a third week, many Republicans watched nervously from the sidelines as hundreds of thousands of federal workers went without pay and government disruptions hit the lives of ordinary Americans.
White House officials affirmed Trump's funding request in a letter to Capitol Hill after a meeting Sunday with senior congressional aides led by Vice President Mike Pence at the White House complex yielded little progress. The letter from Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought sought funding for a "steel barrier on the Southwest border."
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pelosi-to-reopen-individual-agencies
And to add this quote from the asshole narcissistic megalomaniac psychopath .................
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Trump also asserted that he could relate to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who aren't getting paid, though he acknowledged they will have to "make adjustments" to deal with the shutdown shortfall.
Then I think that he should have had to walk to Camp David, forfeit his check, and turn the lights off in the white house......................to "make adjustments"...................
November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough..........................
Nucor to set up plate mill in U.S. Midwest for $1.35 billion
BUSINESS NEWS JANUARY 7, 2019 / 6:47 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
(Reuters) - Steel producer Nucor Corp (NUE.N) said on Monday it would spend about $1.35 billion to build a plate mill in the U.S. Midwest, taking advantage of federal tax cuts that has resulted in windfall gains for several companies.
Nucor is also benefiting from higher steel prices for domestic producers due to tariffs imposed on imports by the Trump administration last year.
The new mill, which is expected to be fully operational in 2022, would produce 1.2 million tons a year of steel plate products and create about 400 full-time jobs, the company said.
“Tax reform, continued improvements to our regulatory approach and strong trade enforcement are giving businesses like ours the confidence to make long-term capital investments here in the United States,” Chief Executive Officer John Ferriola said in a statement.
Nucor currently operates plate mills in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nucor-mill/nucor-to-set-up-plate-mill-in-u-s-midwest-for-1-35-billion-idUSKCN1P10ZC
Biggest anti-union firms in the country and they also like to do this....................and also the most deadliest
https://nwlaborpress.org/1997/nucor.html
The college football national championship game busts one of amateurism's greatest myths
Haven't we been here before?
LINDSAY GIBBS
JAN 7, 2019, 8:00 AM
On Monday night, the Alabama Crimson Tide will face off against the Clemson Tigers in the 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. Alabama and Clemson have faced off in two of the last three national championship games, with Alabama winning in 2016 and Clemson winning in 2017. In 2018, the two programs faced each other again, just one round earlier, in the semifinals. Since the College Football Playoff system began in 2014, it has been the Alabama and Clemson show.
As former Clemson Student Information Director Tim Bouret pointed out on Twitter, after Monday night, either Clemson or Alabama will have won 11 of the last 12 College Football Playoff games that have been played.
This lack of parity is nothing new. Since 1998, as many as 42 schools could have conceivably sent a team to a national championship game. Instead, just 17 have made an appearance.
https://thinkprogress.org/college-football-parity-myth/
And as I was reading this article, I kept thinking that the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case of the college athletes forming a union or being paid
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/us/politics/supreme-court-declconsider-ncaa-rules-on-paying-athletes.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/18/sports/ncaafootball/nlrb-says-northwestern-football-players-cannot-unionize.html
The death of Venice? City's battles with tourism and flooding reach crisis level
A tax on daytrippers has hit the headlines, but La Serenissima’s mounting problems also include rising waters, angry locals and a potential black mark from Unesco
Why Italy regrets its Faustian pact with tourist cash
Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station is packed as visitors scuttle across the concourse towards the water-bus stops. Taking a selfie against the backdrop of the Grand Canal, Ciro Esposito and his girlfriend have just arrived and are unimpressed with what may greet them in future if the Venetian authorities get their way: a minimum city entry fee of €2.50 throughout the year, rising to between €5 and €10 during peak periods.
It is the price of a cappuccino, but for them “it’s going too far”. “They are using people like a bank machine,” says Esposito. “We are in Europe and can travel freely across borders, yet we have to pay to enter one of our own cities.”
In earlier times it was the wheeled suitcases that tourists rattled over the cobbles that drew the ire of Venetians – so much so that the authorities pledged to fine anyone caught using one up to €500. That never happened, but now another – more plausible – penalty is being concocted. To manage the impact of the 30 million people who visit the lagoon city every year, the daytrippers – those who come, take pictures, and leave – are to be forced to pay, although it is unclear when the tax will be introduced or how it could be enforced.
Venice may have a centuries-long history of cultivating tourism, devising crowd-drawing events such as the annual carnival, the Biennale international art exhibition and a star-studded film festival, but the advent of mass tourism has left it struggling with how to deal with the near-constant hordes who trudge around its precious sites, through its 11th century basilica, over its famous Rialto bridge, and along its maze of winding calle. The influx is a blessing for the local council’s coffers but a scourge on the city’s fragile monuments and environment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/06/venice-losing-fight-with-tourism-and-flooding
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In a move to allay environmental concerns, Brugnaro tried to indicate to Unesco in late 2017 that he was getting tough on the cruise ships that, weighing more than 96,000 tonnes, disembark thousands of passengers in the heart of the city. They would no longer be able to sail past St Mark’s Square, he announced, and would instead take a less glamorous route via the industrial area of Marghera.
Environmentalists have claimed that waves caused by the cruise ships have eroded the underwater supports of historic buildings and polluted the waters. But the plan is yet to be approved by the national government. If and when that approval comes, work on the new route, which requires the dredging of canals and construction of a new port, would take an estimated four years. And while diverting the ships would better preserve the historic centre, the move will do little to address concerns about pollution.
It goes without saying, however, that Venice’s troubles are not limited to tourism. The city is also endangered by recurring acque alte, or high waters. On 29 October last year, three-quarters of the city was hit by the worst flooding in a decade. Rain poured for almost 24 hours, with strong winds raising the water to 156cm above the normal sea level – a record reached only five times in the history of the city. As tourists persevered with their holidays – wading through knee-deep water in wellies and venturing to deluged shops and restaurants – locals counted the cost of the damage.
Super-rich sabbatical: the boom in luxury long breaks for the 1%
From shark swims to snow leopard treks, a tailored trip of up to a year is now a must-have
The super-rich are going on sabbatical. It turns out having bucket-loads of money can be stressful, leading some of the world’s richest people to take a break for a month or so, or even a year, to escape the pressure of managing their businesses or personal fortunes.
Tom Barber, the founder of the London-based travel agency Original Travel, said so many super-rich customers had asked his firm to arrange bespoke trips ranging in duration from one to 12 months that his firm was launching a special division dedicated to sabbaticals for the 1%.
“It’s a huge trend,” Barber said. “The wealthy are looking for an escape. Often they want to get some sense of a back-to-basics lifestyle and learn the skills of our ancestors, like how to hunt and cook their own food.
“For others, it’s ‘braggability’. They want to use their money to open doors that normal people can’t and to tell their friends all about it,” he said. “If you’re in the 0.01%, you are going to be a competitive type of person.”
These are no ordinary holidays. Recent trips Barber’s firm has arranged include snow leopard spotting in India, living with the Sān people in Botswana and diving with sharks in the “sardine run” off the coast of South Africa.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/06/super-rich-sabbatical-the-boom-in-luxury-long-breaks-for-the-wealthy
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A US executive living in Mexico, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian he was setting off on a seven-month sabbatical with his wife and two children next month. The family are planning on driving from Punta Arenas, at the very southerly tip of Chile, back to their home in Mexico.
“We’ve shipped our vehicle down to the very south of Chile, and fitted it out for an extreme adventure, with a tent on the roof and full suspension,” he said. First the family will head to Antarctica, before driving up the Andes, stopping off to trek to Machu Picchu in Peru and to dive the Galápagos Islands.
“My wife and I decided that we had to do this now, to spend some intensive time with our kids before it was too late,” he said. “My eldest is about to turn 13 and the youngest is nearly 10.”
BOO FUCKING HOO........................
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