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Iran says it's 'completely ready for war' after US official confirms it shot down American drone
In a major provocation, Iran shot down an unarmed and unmanned U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton drone while it was flying in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz Thursday, a U.S. official told ABC News.
The incident is sure to trigger serious discussions within the Trump administration about how to respond to a direct attack on a U.S. military asset that goes beyond recent attacks in the Middle East that the U.S. has blamed on Iran.
Gulf crisis: US confirms drone was shot down by Iranian missile
A US military surveillance drone has been shot down by Iranian forces while flying over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the drone had violated Iranian airspace. But US military said it had been over international waters. IRGC commander-in-chief Maj-Gen Hossein Salami said the downing of the drone sent a "clear message to America" that Iran's borders were its "red line".
It comes at a time of escalating tension between the US and Iran. On Monday, the US defence department said it was deploying 1,000 extra troops to the region in response to "hostile behaviour" by Iranian forces. The US has also accused Iran of attacking two oil tankers with mines last Thursday just outside the Strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman. Iran rejects the allegation.
Previously: Two Oil Tankers Attacked, US Blames Iran
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:19PM (36 children)
I thought it was Hillary that was going to start WWIII and that's why we should vote for the Donald.
Given that Trump has continued *every* Bush II/Obama foreign military adventure and doubled down on some of them, I wonder how it's any different, except for Trump honking off our *allies* as much or more than our adversaries, that is.
Funny that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:24PM (34 children)
No, you were supposed to vote for him because he would end obamacare. He at least ended the part where we are forced to pay scammers (insurance companies) money. I didn't vote for him btw.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:37PM (33 children)
Thanks to Obamacare, I pay less now (with no subsidies) for as good or better coverage than I did before Obamacare.
That said, I would very much like to see single-payer here in the US.
"but...but...but..muh taxes!" is a misnomer, as you already pay for it with payroll deductions for health insurance premiums and lower wages because your employer (and you, in all likelihood) is paying out the ass for your insurance already.
And since single-payer (which does *not* mean free for everyone) has built-in cost savings (not death panels, but removing the tens of *billions* in profit and overhead, etc., etc., etc.), we'll all pay less in the long run.
As for the idea that "I don't want to pay for a bunch of freeloaders!" goes, that's what Medicaid and emergency room visits for minor shit already does. Unless of course you think we should just let people die in the street if they can't put cash on the barrel head. Do you?
What's the real scam is the lack of price transparency and kickbacks/double-dealing/collusion and consolidation in the insurance and healthcare industries.
Oh, and I didn't vote for jackass either. It's times like these that makes me wish I owned a car. Then I put a bumper sticker on it that says, "Don't blame me. I voted for the other guy."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:43PM (29 children)
If you pay any money at all to insurance companies you are being scammed.
Try it, don't wait for a corporate or government agent to tell you the reality. Go a few places where they don't already know you have insurance and tell them you don't have it. Then ask the price. It is at least half off and often up to 90%+ off.
https://selfpaypatient.com/ [selfpaypatient.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:46PM (8 children)
Lol. You need a more reality-based notion of healthcare reimbursement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:59PM (2 children)
My reality is my own experience.
1) I don't pay thousands of dollars to insurance companies every year, so have far larger savings/investments than I would otherwise
2) I don't waste more countless hours and stress arguing with them as they try to not pay what they promised
3) I go to whatever healthcare provided I choose
4) I pay prices that are far below the prices used to determine deductibles and co-pays.
All you have to do is check for yourself and do a little math, but you won't because you are a drone who does nothing until an authority figure tells you its ok.
Now, the only thing I would like from insurance is some really catastrophic insurance with deductible of like $100k for a couple hundred dollars a year. But that product doesn't seem to exist.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:15PM (1 child)
Yep. Keep believing that.
(All of this is about the US only). A provider who accepts insurance *must* take more from a self-pay than what the insurance companies pay them. Not what they -charge- but what they are -paid- by the insurance companies, because if their rates for self-pay drop below the contracted rates and the insurance company finds out the insurance company will demand repayment for the difference between the self-pay and contract rate. And they'll win it, because the point of insurance is that a provider accepts less than what they would accept from an uninsured patient in exchange for increased volume. The contracts are written that way. Can the provider get away with behavior that would break their contract if the insurer knew about it? Maybe. But not for many and not for long. The insurance system depends on that, the provider community as a whole can no longer survive without insurance, and the exceptions are few and far between (and some of them government subsidized).
The vast majority of providers do indeed have self-pay rates below their stated charge rates, but it is not cheaper than commercial insurance. You are right that if you know that and ask you'll pay less if you are self-pay than just taking the stated charge rate and paying it.
You certainly don't go to whatever provider you choose, because you'd be denied care at most providers if you're not willing to pay the provider's self-pay rates. Or, rather, if you're not willing to pay what the physician demands of you then you won't be accepted as a patient.
I work in the industry, so my math and knowledge are a little better than yours. I am not a drone, but I do understand how healthcare reimbursement in the United States works. I have seen plenty of people who believe just like you end up filing bankruptcy and losing most of their income because they thought they were special.
And we'll just wait to see what happens when you have that catastrophic event and you must have a surgery done or you die, or you need multiple complicated imaging studies done. Yes, there will still be discounts. But you'll still go broke. Catastrophic plans exist [healthcare.gov], and they exist outside of the Obamacare mandate. They aren't cheap as cheap as you want, though, because of a very simple part of economics: The insurance company cannot pay out more than they take in, or put another way their liabilities can never exceed their risks.
Anyway, like I said, enjoy your fantasy that you pay less than an insured does. Even if you do so today that doesn't guarantee what you'll pay tomorrow. Your physicians will keep laughing all the way to the bank, either way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:48PM
You assume I would go to them for the same type of stuff you would...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:23PM (4 children)
Last year I needed an MRI. The lab charges $2,800 for the MRI, and I only have 50% coverage for this service through my insurance. But, since I had not yet met my $5,000 annual deductible I would be paying the entire $2,800.
I asked if there was a self pay option and was told that for those who did not have insurance the charge for the exact same MRI at the same facility was $700, but if paying in advance there was a 40% discount. I took back my paperwork and filled out a new form without my insurance information. I paid $420 in advance and had the MRI that morning.
I've had a similar experience with my ENT. They charge self pay clients less than those with insurance, and have a 45% discount for those paying cash at the time of service. Even with insurance it is cheaper for me to pay cash at almost every medical services provider that I visit.
I only have insurance because of the legal mandate. But at $650 p/m premium I am better off taking my chances without it and saving the $12,800 I spend on premiums and deductibles and using it for a legal defense fund if I ever get caught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:50PM
Trump got rid of this. You don't need to pay any penalty any more for not giving thousands of dollars to scammers every year. This is the only undeniably positive thing Trump has done.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 20 2019, @09:34PM
Good lord, that is awful.
What a stupid way to run a country.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:15PM (1 child)
Maybe. What you haven't said is what the contractual discount from your insurer for the MRI would be. NO insurance, anywhere, pays $2,800 for any class of MRI even though an imaging center might well send a charge for that (or $5,000 come to that....). If the imaging facility was contracted to your insurance it is very likely that the insurance would have replied back to the facility that their $2,800 MRI charge would be reduced down to $400 and that's what you would have owed. (Up until your deductible is filled, and then you owe about $80 instead). That's about the common reimbursement for MRI's now, in the $350-$1,200 range depending on location and contrast administration.
One thing to understand: All providers have a singular base charge rate (a "chargemaster.") This amount is the amount they send to any insurance and any individual who doesn't ask for a discount. It has very little to do with how much the provider will actually be paid by any entity unless an uninsured person is stupid enough to just pay the bill. So no, they "charge" everybody the SAME amount for a given CPT code. Providers do not have multiple "charge amounts." What they DO have is multiple discount arrangements and will accept as a discount for that charge changes from insurer to insurer and to self-pay patients who ask for it.
But let's say what you say is true - I'm sure you are reporting the parts of the story you know correctly. Let's say that insurance discount would be $1,000 and the self-pay walk in pays only $420. All it will take is one person who is pissed off who finds out that someone else got that rate and one phone call to their insurer. Then the insurance company will be on the phone to the imaging center asking exactly how much their self-pay patients pay and requiring that provider to refund all money paid to them in excess of that amount plus the insurer will be paying only that much to them from then on. And the imaging center would do what all smart providers do: Set the self-pay discount to be 10% (or even $1) over what the highest insurance contract they have will pay.
And no, you're not in trouble and can't be in trouble for this. Unless you're a provider you won't "get caught" because you've done nothing wrong. Can there be stupid providers who don't understand how insurance works and offer sub-insurance rates to uninsured individuals? Yep! They can also get caught and be forced to repay the differential amount between what the insurance paid and what they charged a self-pay patient, or be booted out of the insurance network and then the provider won't make enough to survive. (Because the insurer absolutely relies on paying a provider less than what a self-pay patient would because that's the only way they survive).
Does it make sense for you to just save your money for a serious injury instead of pay for insurance? For many people, yes. However, consider that a back surgery can run over $50,000 just for the surgical procedure. An open heart surgery can run north of $100,000. Chemotherapy, don't even ask. Remain perfectly healthy and you might make it to that point. But there are enough folks that don't make it that this makes no sense at all. Wait long enough and your medical expenses *will* exceed your capabilities to pay them over the long run. And society has to not just look at the healthy person who can go 20 years without a sniffle, they have to look at the thousands of people needing surgeries and chemo and imaging and you name it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @12:02AM
Just the lengths of your posts about insurance make me glad I don't have it...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:59PM (19 children)
Which is why we need single-payer. Thanks for reinforcing my point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:07PM (18 children)
I dunno if single payer would be better... but obamacare and the slightly better health insurance situation that existed before obamacare are both far worse than no health insurance at all.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:14PM (12 children)
Granted it's anecdotal, but I pay ~$250/month *less* for health insurance with a lower deductible than before the ACA went into effect.
What's more, I did the math and I come out *ahead* every year in terms of health care expenditures with the insurance I buy.
Then again, I'm over 50 and have colon cancer in my family, so I need regular colonoscopies. I've also needed spine surgery, physical therapy and other medical services.
If you're under 40 and pretty healthy (I almost never went to the doctor before I was 45), self-pay might be a good idea. However, if you're in a car accident and need multiple surgeries, long-term care, lots of rehab and ongoing medical services and drugs, being self-pay will likely put you into bankruptcy pretty quick.
Single-payer would do away with all those issues. I hope you don't get severely injured in an accident, friend.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:43PM (9 children)
This isn't the right comparison at all. You need to compare to self-pay. Think about saving hundreds and then thousands of dollars per year every year for 45 years and putting it in the stock market instead. How much would you have to pay medical expenses? You did the wrong math.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:47PM (1 child)
Same AC. In 1975 the S&P 500 was at about 100. Today it is at ~3,000. A 300x increase.
I'm sure insurance premiums have been rising too at the same time so lets just say you paid $100 in 1975 for health insurance when you didn't need it. Just that first year you paid the insurance company would have instead given you $30k for medical expenses when you needed it today.
People refuse to accept the scale of this scam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:49PM
Sorry, 30x increase -> $3k.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:20PM (6 children)
Think about being in the second year of your wonderful savings plan and then you're diagnosed with brain cancer. Such things happen. Now who did the wrong math?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:43PM (5 children)
Whoever didn't do the proper risk-benefit did the wrong math. I assure you that is not the insurance company.
I fell and got a concussion a few years ago with obviously an associated skull fracture because I got a black eye a few days later. Guess what, I happened to have studied brain injury at a graduate level, I did a little more research, and verified that nothing had changed. There was nothing they could do beyond let me heal.
If I went to the doctor I'm sure they would have charged $100k for all the useless scans and crap they would do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @05:46PM
And also, in case you are worrying this brain injury has caused some sort of life problems for me... it is the opposite. I am much better off now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:22PM (3 children)
The plural of anecdote is not data. I didn't ask what if you got an uncomplicated concussion that didn't require treatment. One MRI should have revealed that. Better question: How about instead of a concussion you got a full on subdural bleed from your fall that didn't stop. Again I ask: Where's your magnificent calculations in such a situation? How much do you think you would have owed a neurosurgeon to evacuate the bleed and repair the artery, and again what if that happened in year two of your savings plan?
Now let's go back to my first question: What happens if you get brain cancer and you only have one year of your premiums saved up as your health reserve? Hope you like dying!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @12:05AM (2 children)
Well, then shit happens. Thats life. Btw, I don't really have much faith in the healthcare system to begin with, so don't trust them to do much more than make me poor for the most part anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @02:43PM (1 child)
Yes, shit happens. But no, you won't necessarily just be sent away or denied care. Instead your physician will eat some of the cost of your care. The hospital will write off part of your expenses. The public will pay for some of the cost of your care. All of us who pay for our insurance will eat the cost of your care in the way of increased premiums and taxes. Life would be easier if we didn't give a damn about you and just say, "well, tough shit now go away and die." But since we're not going to do that because we're people and not animal, and since when that day comes you will not just keep to yourself but instead beg for any help available to keep you breathing, then we're perfectly within our rights to not give a shit if you don't want insurance and penalize you for not taking the steps that the rest of us do so that we won't be a burden on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 21 2019, @07:23PM
You ignore the part I don't want most of this "care" they have to offer. And second, I've looked at the data. The expenses you complain about are rounding errors. All the money is spent on old people with chronic conditions on like a dozen medications they probably would be better off without.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @08:47PM (1 child)
$250 a month on health care? That's insane!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @10:08PM
No. that's $250/month *less* than I was paying.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:56PM (4 children)
Slightly better before, huh? Dude, do you just not care about the tens of millions of people who had no health insurance before the ACA and couldn't afford healthcare at all? Does that simply not matter, or is it all good because some people had health insurance?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:25PM
The tens of millions of people not being scammed, who then got scammed? I can tell you are very concerned about that "problem".
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @05:37AM (2 children)
Under Trumpcare, EVERY AMERICAN will have access to Medical Care!!!!
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday June 21 2019, @05:50AM (1 child)
When, exactly?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 21 2019, @06:12AM
When 117th. Congress meets. That one starts in January, 2021. HUGE Republican majorities in the House & Senate. Trust me, they're going to pass a beautiful new HealthCare bill. Get ready!!!!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 20 2019, @04:54PM (2 children)
"Don't blame me. I voted for the other guy."
Johnson?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:06PM (1 child)
Nope. Clinton.
But hadn't you heard? If you're past menopause you're no longer a woman. [soylentnews.org] At least that's what Runaway1956 says.
As such, she's a guy.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 20 2019, @06:24PM
Nope. Clinton.
Then we can blame you. A vote for Clinton is a vote for war just as much as the other guy, the only possible difference being in whose pockets the profits end up.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by Sulla on Thursday June 20 2019, @11:45PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-jUAFSPFM [youtube.com]
Please actually listen to this, its like two minutes long. In it Trump suggests that although we have had issues with Iran up until now he thinks that this was most likely a mistake. That although it was over international waters it was most likely a rogue general and not Iranian policy, and in addition it was an unmanned drone so who cares.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam