Posts made by cteavin

@aadam101:

@cteavin:

When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her.

This is pretty standard and it has nothing to do with ObamaCare.  They likely would have still seen her even if she didn't have insurance or if the insurance wasn't active.  Providers spend a great deal of time and effort (and money) trying to get their money from insurance companies.

So then, what's your fix for healthcare? (And say it in a Boston accent    )

Theater! But if you mean musical theater like Hamilton, then Opera.

Dancing in the club or sitting at the bar?

I wonder if the situation in the UK is common or an exception that made it to the top of Google. I don't know. I do know that such a problem doesn't happen over here.

My US friend has cerebral palsy, not extreme, yet. She's since moved back to the US. In Japan she hurt her knee, she had surgery, yada, yada, yada. When she went back to the states she had another issue and went to the doctor under Obamacare. She said the first thing that the doctor's office did was make sure her insurance was all in order and that all the forms were signed before they would consider looking at her. She contrasted that to her experience in Japan saying that their first concern was my health they looked at the best options for her without regard to cost and insurance.

I've never been sick in my adult life but when I crashed my mountain bike I went to the doctor for stitches. Xrays, bandages, painkillers and the total for the bill that my Japanse health care paid for was about 100USD.

Something is foul in the US system and possibly the UK.

Have you ever needed your healthcare?

@twtw9993:

thank you

Then how about this guy?

I like this guy much more.

Korean men have the best skin, like porcelain skin. That combined with the hypermasculine way they conduct themselves makes them very attractive to me.

@aadam101:

There is very little opposition to gay marriage. MA was the first state to legalize it.  I'm a big guy.  I don't worry much about my safety but I'm also not flamboyant and I don't hold hands or kiss or anything in public either  (I wouldn't if I was straight either).

I do have a Boston accent.

OH, DUDE, you have to do a members porn video for us all here! You have to talk through it, too. I LOVE the Boston accent.  :cheers:

Go on, talk to me.  :hug2:

@spam17:

@Frederick:

@cteavin:

@Frederick:

@cteavin:

++1

You young whippersnappers and your fancy abbreviations. What does ++1 mean? It sounds like you're inviting Frederick and I to be your plus one at a party. (Which might be fun.)

@Frederick:

@cteavin:

Guns are out of control in the USA.  Especially in the hands of cops who are morons.  Cops are not supposed to use their gun unless someone's life is in immediate danger.  But that concept is totally ignored.

I don't think people's guns should be allowed to leave their house.   People are not responsible enough to weild that much power.   There should be a yearly tax on gun ownership, just like people have to have a license to drive and pay for car insurance and yearly registration fee.  The same should apply to guns.

The 2nd amendment does not give people the right to bear arms EXCEPT in a WELL ORDERED MILITIA.

Oh, here's something you and I actually disagree on.

I used to be anti-gun until the Omar Matis shooting in that FL latino gay bar. Around the same time, two black men took to the street to shoot cops. To kill the two shooters the police set out a robot to snipe them: the police used military-grade equipment to quell a non-military confrontation. That changed my opinion (forever?).

This is hypothetical but I think I would feel better were I able to carry a handgun with me.

Also, our country was founded from a rebellion against the government. Should the need ever arise again and local arm enforcement were manned like the military, then The People should be able to resist. I know what I just wrote is a hugely controversial today and largely a what if – or is it? Catalin wants to break apart from Spain. They've democratically elected to leave. If the government won't allow them to shouldn't The People have the ability to fight against their government?

@aadam101:

It won't create competition.  It will be a total nightmare for consumers.  The reason it won't work is because of provider networks.  It takes a lot of time and effort to build these networks.

I live in MA.  If I buy a plan in Idaho then none of my doctors will be contracted with my plan.  I can ask them to contract but that process can take months or even years.  My doctor will need to do that for every patient that comes in with an out of state insurance and I will need to go through this process for all of my doctors.  The amount of administrative overhead  to manage all of this would be enormous (and it's already enormous today).

The doctor will now have to follow the rules of hundreds of insurers and will need to bill them all separately and fight to get paid.  In the end it will be the patient who loses because the insurers won't pay for these non-contracted providers and the patient will get stuck with the bill.  The doctors will never see a dime and will only see patients with certain types of insurance.

That's an interesting point I've never considered or read elsewhere. Is this something you came up with yourself or did you read it someplace?

Ann Coulter reminded me in her article this week that another way to cut healthcare costs is to reform medical malpractice lawsuits/payouts. That would go a long way in simplifying the rules and regulations already in place which might help smooth things out for insurance to be sold across state lines.

@Frederick:

Here's an idea for solving the healthcare problem.   Make healthcare completely run by the government.. sort of like the police and fire rescue and sort of like the postal service.  Make it like the veterans hospitals.   
The healthcare industry is a total disaster.  I'm afraid the only way to reign it in is to have it completely regulated.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

Healthcare could be run as a utility. Were it either run by the government or as a utility the major argument comes from the big-pharma: Without the possibility of high profits, we won't innovate. That kind of blackmail is one of the reasons healthcare sucks in the US.

BTW, that pesky ol' TPP that Trump shot down had a clause in it that would have eliminated the Japanese from fixing the prices of pharmaceuticals and was the principle reason the Japanese people were against it (although the Abe government was for it).

@aadam101:

I live in Boston.  It's Irish Catholics all the way!

Does that mean there's more opposition to, say, gay marriage? Is there more concern for your safty being out with your date/partner than in another city? And do you have a Boston accent?

@spam17:

**Although your sexual history doesn’t define you, it definitely contributes to the person you are today..

**

And who might you be?  ;D

@spam17:

@cteavin:

Apparently, there are 63 genders and you can change them at will. Along with that we're supposed to be supportive of another person's, ahem, tastes (to that end the US has the Folsom Street Parade).

Since these forums have the potential to reach 'round the planet I'm curious what taboos you or the place you live has? Or, what's not taboo or okay?

For example, there's a style of manga/anime here in Japan called Yayoi and a sub-genre called Shota. One is sex with adolescence and the other is sex with children. What blows my mind is that almost all of those titles are written by women. It's nothing people really talk about but it's clearly something you see mirrored in fashion and sex play, from mother/son porn to gothic lolita cosplay.

Is that your first time hearing about that Spam17?

I should do a separate topic on this but when the Christians in the US said that gay marriage would rip apart our culture and THAT happens right after, it's no surprise that we're getting a backlash against marriage or that other countries are coming down hard on gay people. We didn't assimilate. We divided further.

@Hookum:

@aadam101:

I really liked Iron Fist.  I don't understand all the hate for it.

I've been reading comics since '75, and as a result, I had high expectations that were only met by DD 1 & 2.  Those are masterpieces!  Sure, I wish they'd hired a few parkour masters and stuck them in the suit and spent more time showing Daredevil flipping around the rooftops.  But except for minor gripes, I can't complain.  The others, however, I could complain about for days.

I'm a DC comic book reader. Nice to meet you.  ;D

Since you're (probably) a Marvel fan I wanted to ask you what you would have thought had they not done the Danny Rand Ironfist instead going for either a brand new Ironfist or pulling up one of the older or lesser known Ironfists?

TBH I really hate the SJW let's be inclusive trend going on in comic books. However, this Ironfist sucked warty green balls. He had nothing to do. His conflict, I mean, the cliche is that his parents were killed and he has to find justice yada, yada, yada. I would have prefered they cast an Asian or Asian/American to play the role. This person's central conflict would have been which world does he truly belong to or how does he square the two cultural circles he comes from. I think that conflict would have been interesting to watch and would resonate more with the times more than poor little rich boy. Those discussions between he and Madam Gao would have been a hell of a lot better.

Speaking of Madam M., that whole sequence when he walks into her trap, meets the two fighters, the spider, etc. that had the potential to be really good but it was yet another example of the actor not being suitable for the role: He does not move like a fighter. The fights were edited badly and the writers disregarded the first rule Rand stated in episode one, that when he's cornered the Ironfist protects him (or some such like when he was tied up and put in that room with nutjobs).

For Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, I think the writers should have developed some side plots in order to extend the series rather than, as you correctly said, drag it out longer than it needed to be. I would have loved to have seen more of Misty's backstory, or perhaps how Harlem changed after The Avengers. LC's father was a preacher. No character has ever mentioned the revelation about life existing off our planet and the writers had a perfect reason for crime to take off in a new nhilistic direction, i.e. god must not exist therefore anything I do is okay.

The Sound of Silence.

We're a global community.

What religion dominates the country, region, or town you're in and how does it affect the gay community or your place as a gay/bi person?

I'm from Los Angeles but I live in Japan which is effectively atheist/agnostic. When the US wrote the constitution they included a clause narrowly defining marriage as between a man and a woman, so unlike many other places, gay marriage is a constitutional issue. Otherwise, gay people, drag queens, transgender (called new-half here) are fairly common on TV. I have never once felt threated or insulted and people are open with me about me and my "partner".

You?

If you're going to bump…

Apparently, there are 63 genders and you can change them at will. Along with that we're supposed to be supportive of another person's, ahem, tastes (to that end the US has the Folsom Street Parade).

Since these forums have the potential to reach 'round the planet I'm curious what taboos you or the place you live has? Or, what's not taboo or okay?

For example, there's a style of manga/anime here in Japan called Yayoi and a sub-genre called Shota. One is sex with adolescence and the other is sex with children. What blows my mind is that almost all of those titles are written by women. It's nothing people really talk about but it's clearly something you see mirrored in fashion and sex play, from mother/son porn to gothic lolita cosplay.

Remember way, way, way back in high school sex ed class when your teacher warned that when you have sex with someone, you’re having sex with everyone they’ve ever had sex with? As disgusting as it sounded back then, the truth is, they were right. “You need to know a person’s sexual history upfront – diseases, genders of partners, and testing history,” so one line of thinking goes.

Do you agree?

When do you tell people about your sexual history?

Do you tell the guy you invited over from Grinder? Do you tell the guy you're dating on the first date, tenth date, never?

Since these forums reach people all over the planet, I'm curious as to how people approach this.

Me? I don't say anything unless I'm asked.  ;D
(Except about HIV. I do ask about HIV and am very clear that I'm not HIV positive.)

Here's a meme of the rebuttal:

There's not much activity going on in the forums here, so I'm posting a few topics to see if I can't goad you all into some conversation.

m(_ _)m

I can't decide if this should go in general news or under movies.

Anyway, short of making a poll, what do you think? Who was the best Batman?

Here's the article.
https://moviepilot.com/p/director-zack-snyder-declares-ben-affleck-the-best-batman-ever/4377383