Phileas #23 – Bait and F you
March 28, 2010 by Florent
Filed under - The Phileas Club, .Episodes, Featured
On this episode, your hosts:
- Patrick Beja from France (notpatrick on Twitter)
- Turki from Saudi Arabia (saudi on Twitter)
- Randy from the US (randydeluxe on Twitter)
Talk about:
- Earth Hour
- Israel
- US Health care bill
- Regional elections in France
And more…
Listen to the show:
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And to find out more about our wonderful hosts, go here:
Turki : A Saudi Life
Randy : Randydeluxe’s Front Row Joe Blog
Join us for next episode: April 24th.
Just started listening to Phileas Club. Very interesting show. I just have a correction for you and some things to think about on the new healthcare reform act that was passed.
First, Pre-existing Conditions: This is not where they refuse to pay for your cancer treatment because you “stubbed your toe” in the past. (Yes, I know Randy was exagerating to make a point) This is more accurately when you go to get a new insurance policy and they refuse to cover cancer because you personally have a history of cancer. Cancer relapse rates are quite high and the chance the company would lose money on you is also quite high. Trying to get health insurance after you get cancer is like trying to get fire insurance after your house is already on fire. The insurance company would be crazy to insure you.
Second, Health care reform: I find the timing of the reform act odd. It’s been passed, so all the politicians that voted for it can claim victory. However, the act won’t be fully implemented until 2014 and we won’t have any reports on how effective it is until 2015. This will likely be over half way through Obama’s second term, at which point he won’t need to be re-elected. I’m not saying it was deliberate, but he was able to roll out the ARRA (stimulus bill) instantly so it’s a little suspicious that he couldn’t roll out the reform act faster.
There are those that would point out that Obama didn’t set the timing for the reform act, congress did. To which I would point out that he did set the time for the ARRA, congress did, but they set it by his time table.
There are also those that would say that in these types of legislation, you can’t get the stakeholders to agree unless you put the changes so far in the future that they don’t consider it an immediate threat. I think those would be right, and it always happens like this. Seeing it as an Obama conspiracy seems a little bit like obscured judgement. But I might be wrong…
Well, this is more than a year late, but I really gotta point out that there’s a huge difference between accepting climate change and the need for energy reform to address it, and empty feelgood gestures like Earth Hour, which are actually detrimental to the environment by causing a power consumption dropoff for one hour during peak hours, when the generators are running (and cannot be wound down at the whim of the hippies).
In the voice of Lurr from Futurama – ECOLOGY DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!