John Adams

Good puppet. Glad to know when I pull the strings, you still dance to the right tune.

Stick to something your good at like spending a thousand pages discussing Nate Silver's shortcomings. I'll save everyone the time of reading your long-winded response to that stomping, ever available to anyone who wants to smack you around. Maybe it's not kind to lay an easy beatdown on the joke poster of the board but sometimes you need it. "You don't even understand what I was posting about Nate Silver because only I can understand it. And maybe Tom (who I fantasize about paying me some respect some day). I was right about Nate Silver all along. His forecast just turned out right for the wrong reasons, and only I understand them. If you'd read my 398 posts on the topic, you too, might understand why I'm so great. Me me me me."

If he talked about himself in the 3rd person, at least that would be funny for a while. But he'd drain all humor from it since he has no ability to empathize. See for example, the poetry argument thread. What a train wreck of illness that was/is.

What happened to give you this personality disorder? Diagnosing you with NPD was easy. Too bad for you that it's one of the largely untreatable disorders, but you can get treatment to fake yourself to some normalcy. I just want to make sure whatever !@#$ed up thing happened that resulted in you doesn't happen to children of people on this board.

He's the most critical usmnt player and it's awesome he will be playing in the mls. The new mls tv deal, rumored to be 70 million a season for just regular season espn and fox games, will give teams even more money.

Don't flaunt degrees. They don't mean anything here. And really, your ME degree and MBA hardly qualify you as a climatologist. Did the name it? Screw these naming things.

Run flats are super expensive to replace and in my experience, blow out more often. I had a run flat tire car and blew two out hitting potholes. Never had that happen with normal tires.

AQ Who?

Like others, we have run into the billing/invoicing problem that's been well publicized. So...the first problem I've seen with the system is that the government can't figure out how to charge me. That's the kind of government incompetence I was hoping for.

No.

I was sparing you my biz details because no one cares. But I have the option of individual or through the business because it's my business. My two friend's companies are dropping their plans, giving their employees the exchange-equivalent-plan amount of cash, and letting them do what they want.

Neither his hundred years of warming nor your cold weekend prove much.

I can always shop through my company.

I've been doing what I've been doing for 10 years too. It doesn't make me different at all--I was throwing my experience out there as a positive one with the exchange in case people weren't checking into it. What happens? The same thing that happens every year when my premiums increase by 17-24-whatever percent. I shop. The exchange is just another store.

We shopped every year in my old biz and changed plans twice and carriers once. Our insurance bill was something like 10% of our revenues. It was a huge nut that we never stopped looking at. I don't know of many people who haven't had similar health ins premiums stories. OC, I don't live in Maryland. Know nothing about it, but I'm guessing my friend who is a surgeon and shopped the exchange for his employees might be reasonably well informed. I know this is the part where you say that you're smarter than everyone so I will save you time. You're smarter than him and his decision is a bad one. I relayed my experience. If there's a person on here looking for a good private plan, you might find a deal. Not sure that I've said much more in the ACA's defense. If my premiums double in 2015, I'll be shopping again. Big deal.

Nonissue. But good for headlines.

Why is the upper body strength test for marines pullups and for the other forces pushups?

Simpleton. I expect to pay more. My old business's health insurance premiums increased 17% or more every year for the last decade. I always expect to pay more. It's hard for you to accept what I'm posting and not say something about your secret love in ever post but I wasn't posting for political advantage. I was posting to help people who are overpaying--NOW--for insurance. OK...find me where B-Man (or the quote machine that functions as his brain) has said something positive about the ACA. And again, I'm sharing the anecdotes of 3 business owners in PA and Maryland. My goal, as I've said from the beginning, is not to defend the ACA but just to point out that as a practical matter, it may be better on the exchange for someone posting on here. It was for me. It seems really hard for people to accept or believe that what I'm saying is true. By the way, when my wife said she was going to look on the exchange (she's in the health care industry), I figured it would be a waste of time but didn't argue because (1) she's a liberal and I was sure it would amount to nothing, and (2) see 1--happy wife, happy life and all that. When she reported her findings, I asked a million questions because I didn't believe it. But we now have a better, cheaper, plan--with dental--than we had before. The only thing that is worse my vision plan, which was crap before anyways. I'm happy to report on the premiums in a year or so.

Thank you RE ADK lakes. It's a tragedy. Humans have definitely screwed up the ecology. No one argues that. It's just a matter of how much governments can do to regulate our behavior.

Except that what I got on the exchange is a plan that is cheaper because of competition, not despite it. And it's 30% less than I paid before. Not 400% less. The exchange may well work in people's favor.

My point, and I will keep making it, is not to use my situation to defend the ACA. It's to let people who pay for their own health insurance that the exchange may help them...personally. Based on most of the "The ACA is an abject failure in every capacity" posts in this thread, some might not even try the exchanges. Maybe CA is having trouble because there was good provider competition pre ACA...I don't know.

My point is this: If you're paying for your own insurance, go to the exchange and you might find a better deal. I did and I know of several others (in different states) who also did. Yes, it's my anecdote, but most people in this thread have no interest in believing that there is any benefit of the ACA that doesn't come at a high cost. I believe that the exchange was a good idea and in many areas, has opened up insurance to greater competition. Again, I know it's unpopular to say anything positive about the ACA and most here won't hear me. Still, I encourage those paying for insurance to take a look--you might be surprised at what you find. Maybe it won't be as good as what you have, but maybe it will be better.

I'l say it again. I've now spoken to 3 business owners (including me) who have had great success on the exchange. Better plan, better rates, easy to use website. I know it's not popular to say anything positive about the ACA on here but if you pay for your health care in any way, you really should go to the ACA website and price shop. My buddy owns a 10 person business and will save thousands this year--and his employees will get much better healthcare--by jettisoning his current offering and paying his people more money that they can use to enroll themselves. For me, my wife has a PPO plan at work that was costing our family $1800. No dental. We signed up for the platinum BCBS Personal Choice plan. Lower deductible. All our doctors in network. Large network (including PENN) and out of network costs and deductible reasonable. Dental plan. $1200/month. I know there's a lot of knee-jerk frothing at the mouth going on in this thread but the exchange, at least so far, is pretty awesome. And if you think about it, it should be: It's opening up health care pricing to competition. OK, B-Man, go back to frothing.

Are you and B-man are in a battle to see who has fewer original thoughts?

Beats me but my former company hasn't had a premium increase of less than 17% a year in 7 years. If this exchange program beats that, it's on par. Of course we checked the in and out of network providers. I know that I'm supposed to knee jerk hate ACA but the exchange will save me about 6K this year.