Valerie has insurance which covers the three of us, but it's her insurance. If she lost her job or if other things happened that I decline to contemplate, we would not have been able to obtain that sort of insurance or indeed anything that wasn't a fraud or a rip-off.
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
The lady who famously confronted Obama on this issue had a plan that limited its payout to a few hundred dollars.
There were two sorts of plans available: There was a company that sold a "trash plan" and sent a sales person to my home. This plan was not written to provide useful medical coverage for a catastrophic condition such as an auto accident with severe injury. Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster. I am very glad that such things are being prohibited now because I know there are lots of people who are not as careful readers of terms as I am.
The second was priced so prohibitively high that it seemed to be intended to deter the customer from purchase.
California's exchange is well capable of providing a mere 7 Million registrations and was not ever having problems while the Federal site was the subject of so much news controversy.
I am celebrating this event because This is the first time that Bruce Perens can get insurance coverage! I operate my own company and have previously only had access to insurance through my wife's employer. All of my family, my wife, my son, and I, have each individually been rejected by private insurers for what was esentially medical trivia. In my son's case, it was because he took a test they didn't like even though he passed it.
Not everyone understands the B.S. that private insurers were permitted to put people through.
GoGo is provided by a company called Aircell, out of Itasca, IL. They rely on a network of ~400 AT&T cell tower locations to provide connectivity (its all interconnected over MPLS). Row 44 is a competitor, and they use satellite connectivity, and hence can provide coverage over the ocean or international countries.
Not all relevant info, but thought I'd throw it out there.
It's up to the editor when they run the replies. But I promise to answer mine.
Yes, I will answer the interview questions as soon as the editor gets them together.
If you have a specific question, you can always reach me via email to bruce at perens dot com or phone 510-4PERENS. Email usually works better.
Telematics (like OnStar), over the air software updates, etc.
OnStar from GM is something like $300/year. To get that same level of control, plus all service included, for $600? Sign me up.
You are not the target market.
$600? For you to come pickup the car and give me a loaner? And do over the air software updates? And provide telematics like OnStar?
Shut Up And Take My Money. (I make ~$150K/year, $600 is only a couple hours of time)
Next you are going to tell me that the Republicans want to push grandma off the cliff, take food from starving children, and ruin the environment.
Yes... What's your point?
Not paying for the damage you do to the water and the air is a subsidy.
Yes, I can come up with a thousand free market answers. And yes, that pretty much answers your question.
Would you buy a vehicle from any company whatsoever if you knew that parts were difficult to acquire? A manufacturer can play a game with parts availability only if they don't plan to stay in business.
Maybe we should go back to renting our phones from ATT as well.
Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed.
