There are a lot of really stupid guys in this venue and they alternate for the lead. But today is YOUR day. Enjoy it. Today you ARE the most stupid person in the group. I give you my congratulations and obeisances.
Considering the source, that is like winning the noble prize for intellectual achievement.
As usual, nice rebuttal, firmly grounded in logic ...?
Al's zeitgeist - Don't agree with me; no need to debate or explain my position, simply marginalize / demonize your opponent with the ever ready crutch of neo con human trash heap or call him / her stupid.
Considering the source, that is like winning the noble prize for intellectual achievement.
As usual, nice rebuttal, firmly grounded in logic.
Al's zeitgeist - Don't agree with me; no need to debate or explain my position, simply marginalize / demonize your opponent with the every ready crutch of neo con human trash heap or call him / her stupid.
Sorry Dave, but with me you get what you give. I know guys like you, especially from the military, are not used to that, but that's how it is in the real world. You can't dump on someone and not expect them to dump back because out here you don't out-rank anyone (although you are somewhat rank.)
You be nice to me, I'll be nice to you. You f--k with me, I'll f--k with you right back. Son, it's all up to you... I just follow your lead.
Sorry Dave, but with me you get what you give. I know guys like you, especially from the military, are not used to that, but that's how it is in the real world. You can't dump on someone and not expect them to dump back because out here you don't out-rank anyone (although you are somewhat rank.)
You be nice to me, I'll be nice to you. You f--k with me, I'll f--k with you right back. Son, it's all up to you... I just follow your lead.
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That's the best you've got?
Chalk ins.dave up as the winner of that debate.
Wonder what the next topic will be.
I don't need any more. You're not really big game here. One does not need a 12-gauge to swat a horse-fly.
Chalk ins.dave up as the winner of that debate.
I'm sure... in fact I'm positive... that everyone in this venue knows that you are a winner. If you have achieved nothing else, you at least have shown that you are an intellectual force to be reckoned with.
Wonder what the next topic will be.
Whatever it is, you will surely beat the crap out of whomever you disagree with.
I don't need any more. You're not really big game here. One does not need a 12-gauge to swat a horse-fly.
I'm sure... in fact I'm positive... that everyone in this venue knows that you are a winner. If you have achieved nothing else, you at least have shown that you are an intellectual force to be reckoned with.
Whatever it is, you will surely beat the crap out of whomever you disagree with.
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Well of course, its last word time.
Can you not simply state one time, "ya know, I never really thought of it like that before ..." No, to false pride ridden.
It's not your positions that annoy everyone here, but your childish, emotional ramblings of victimization when presented with common sense or reality. What is learned by anyone ever when they are operating from this vantage point?
Your points on the virtues (or lack thereof ) of hunting were baseless, hypocritical and illogical.
Instead of stating the truth that you prefer to have someone else kill your animals before you eat them and leave it at that, you've got to go off on a holier than thou rant about what is wrong with the
psyche of anyone who enjoys getting outdoors and and yes kills their own food.
Its not the hunting issue for me in this but rather the hypocrisy displayed that is, in my opinion, a huge part of the problems that we all face and why they don't get resolved.
Try focusing and staying on point for a while until a topic is resolved? With a little patience you may find you become more successful that way. You could still be around long enough to do so even at 61.
In answer to briko3, Rick (GreenSky) said it better than I could. I echo his sentiments 100%.
Own a whole armory if you want. Shoot targets all day long. But leave the wild defenseless animals to nature. I think you can justify killing a coyote to protect a flock or a fox a chicken coup or a bear... well because if you see one either he is your lunch or you his. But hunting deer, raccoon, ducks, squirrels, pheasants, quail, doves, and so on simply has no purpose than for the pleasure of the kill.
Judging from the way this economy is going and how the present administration is handling it, hunting might very well be the only way some of us will be able to afford to eat. Might as well start practicing now!
Its not the hunting issue for me in this but rather the hypocrisy displayed
Your point is well-made and well-positioned. I fully realize what looks like hypocrisy of being anti-hunting and eating meat. I'm not anti-killing for food, but I am anti-hunting wild animals when [choose deity of your choice] provided us with plenty of domesticated animals to eat. It is my belief that [choose deity of your choice] put the rest of the animals in our trust and that we are to care for them. If you want to make the argument that hunting of some species is a means of " conservation management" I'll listen. I'm not sure I won't disagree, but I will listen. There IS a story to be told about hunters being good conversationalists. But PLEASE don't confuse hunting with the NRA's stand for handguns, etc. I'm not gun expert but there is damn little serious hunting you can do with a .38 police special.
But talking about hypocrisy last night I saw a new army recruiting commercial and I immediately thought of you. I looked for it on YouTube but can't find it. At the end it says "A leader leads by example."
You are obviously an intelligent man and you say you were a leader in the military. Yet I read your posts here and what I come away with is this huge disconnect between the two.
I think you have a lot to offer people here... but I don't see how you will do it by intimidation. I thought the military would have taught you differently... at least if one believes the commercial.
Try picking up the phone and calling your sale rep or broker services to confirm.
Its one thing to argue a political debate but its entirely another thing to post something about plan design that is wrong.
There are a lot of new agents and consumers that might view and think you know what your talking about.
There is a lot more to this that was left out of the original posts.
1. Generic medications contain the same "active" ingredients as the brand name. The difference between the two CAN be in the "carrier" ingredients (sub ingredients). Sometimes they are the same, sometimes not. When it comes to generics, if different carrier ingredients are used in conjunction with the active ingredient(s), this can in some cases cause the medication to be less effective. It's not that generic Zoloft is not Zoloft, it may be that the carrier ingredients don't provide the same level of bloodstream absorbtion or other internal chemical interaction as the carrier ingredients in the brand version. It happens sometimes.
2. In cases where generics are not effective, the provider can submit a request to the carrier for authorization to use the brand citing the medical evidence that the generic is not effective for that patient. This request will be reviewed at carrier level by their MDs and permisson may be granted to have that brand paid at the standard brand benefit under the drug plan.
3. State Medicaid programs normally require the use of generic medications regardless of what the doctor writes on the the prescription pad if a generic equivalent is available. I know, I have worked in a pharmacy before and we always substituted generics for the written brand on the Rx as was required by state law. The doctor could write anything he/she wanted, the state required generic substitution.
4. If such a prohibition were not in place, most everyone would elect brand drugs in lieu of generics since they only have a co-pay anyway. I bet if they had an HSA plan and had to pay the drug cost at NFR out of pocket, 99% of the time they would elect the generic equivalent (except in actual situations where the generic did not work at the same level as the name brand--which is not the majority of cases). Heck they can get them for $4 at Costco or Walmart.
5. I have GERD. Protonix is great for that. It also costs $200 a month retail. I have found that Pepcid works just as well (not a generic, an OTC!) as Protonix and I can get a 60-day supply of that for $18 at Longs (now CVS). And I don't have to tell my health insurance company about it! If Protonix had a generic I would be over at Costco getting it for $4. Unfortunately, none yet exists.
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One more thing. People need to spend time talking to their pharmacists more. Many people simply go into the drug store with their doctor's Rx and drop it off without talking to the one person in there who knows more about the medications than the doctor who wrote the prescription.
Pharmacists are great! They will take time to review interactions, make recommendations, go over generic vs brand, show you stuff OTC that might be effective for your conditions/symptoms and so on.
Since I write mostly HIPAA, I have a lot of clients who take multiple monthly meds. Most of my clients 45+ use generics whenever available. The one thing they all have in common, they have a good relationship with their pharmacist.
Well, from your post above, no one will make that mistake with you.
WTF are you talking about? And why? What expertise do YOU bring to the table... or should I say hide under a cloak?
And please, learn the difference between "your" and "you're." Maybe try finishing junior college (or perhaps in your case... high school?)
I bring 11 years to the table and I know the products that I sell inside and out. 2007 I was in the top 5 for production for small group sales in my city with a large carrier.
Actually I take a lot business form agents like you.
So far I have 3 AORs on group plans and I am waiting on 1 more for the quarter.
When it comes to my grammar how about you're/your an asshole. Does it really make a difference?
As far as not posting my website or name that is because I have lost a client because of my political views and i will never allow that to happen again. I have a lot of liberal clients and I never want political views deciding if I get or keep a case.
I guess Al you are some sorry ass that can't really sell so you sit around all day on net trying to piss people off. Which I really don't care but when you are posting wrong information about product or plan design then that is real problem for me.
I don't want you to leave because its important for normal agents to know that loons like you do exist in our industry and that your clients should be very easy to take.
and I know the products that I sell inside and out.
See above.
2007 I was in the top 5 for production for small group sales in my city with a large carrier.
See above.
Actually I take a lot business form agents like you.
As the Beatles said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
So far I have 3 AORs on group plans and I am waiting on 1 more for the quarter.
See above.
When it comes to my grammar how about you're/your an asshole. Does it really make a difference?
It does to anyone with more than a junior college education. Since you don't have that... I guess not.
As far as not posting my website or name that is because I have lost a client because of my political views
Yeah, I guess being a member of the KKK might do that to you. Hey, you can say anything on the internet... I can too. It is the "rule of the cloak" which states that those who are not cloaked can say anything they wish about those who are... it levels the playing field for all of us.
I have a lot of liberal clients
Oh sure you do. Yeah, we all believe that!
and I never want political views deciding if I get or keep a case.
So you just lie to your many liberal clients when they ask you about health reform. Yeah, that's honest.
I guess Al you are some sorry ass that can't really sell so you sit around all day on net trying to piss people off.
Wrong twice. I'm can sell sand to the Arabs. And I don't TRY to piss people like you off, I succeed each and every time.
Which I really don't care
Again, we're all sure you are telling the truth as you mumble under your cloak.
but when you are posting wrong information about product or plan design then that is real problem for me.
My guess is that everyone that dares disagree with you is a problem to you. You're another neo-con agent who wants everyone to love him.
I don't want you to leave because its important for normal agents to know that loons like you do exist in our industry and that your clients should be very easy to take.
Young guns like you come into the biz every day and think your s--t doesn't stink. I've seen it all my life in sales. If you were so confident in your abilities you would not post under a cloak and we would be able to verify all the claims you make. But you won't do that... because you are just another empty suit, another sleaze-ball insurance agent who gives those of us who are out in the open and who stand behind what we post... a bad name.
Like I say, you can say what you want about me because you post under a cloak. But I get to do the same thing. You don't like it do you? Well... grow a pair.
You say I am in the KKK. I really don't know how you can post such ****. They don't take my kind.
If you knew your product then you would know with Anthem if you Doc request that you take the brand name drug then its covered under the co pay.
Your nothing more that a weak person and I don't think you really have any clients that are not suffering from Alzheimer's.
I have lots of clients and I know better than to mix political views when it comes to business. As far as health care reform I do not shy away from that topic. As most clients want to hear my views on the reform. Yes I have read the house bill.
I will tell you something else I don't lose clients. One thing if I lose them to a natural business cycle but I have only lost 2 in 11 years to other agents.
Al if I see you posting lies about products or carriers that I know I am going to call your sorry ass out every time.
You say I am in the KKK. I really don't know how you can post such ****.
By the "rule of the cloak," in this venue we who are not cloaked get the same privileges as those who are cloaked to post anything we want about them... just as you do with us. You don't like that? Well, as I said above... grow a pair.
If you knew your product then you would know with Anthem if you Doc request that you take the brand name drug then its covered under the co pay.
If you knew your product you would know that is not always true.
Your nothing more that a weak person and I don't think you really have any clients that are not suffering from Alzheimer's.
I think YOU have Alzheimer's.
I have lots of clients and I know better than to mix political views when it comes to business. As far as health care reform I do not shy away from that topic. As most clients want to hear my views on the reform. Yes I have read the house bill.
I'm sure you can read... but you can't write . "As most clients want to hear my views on the reform" is not a sentence
I will tell you something else I don't lose clients.
You can't lose what you don't have. (While not mandatory, you should use a comma after "else.")
Al if I see you posting lies about products or carriers that I know I am going to call your sorry ass out every time.
It's a shame that this thread degenerated so fast into snide remarks, name-calling, and then venom. That's our legacy from the "culture wars" that began in the early '80's when people like Karl Rove were first learning the fine points of neo-con polarization. When politics gets marinated in religion, minds close and toxic rhetoric spews forth. Too bad we can't have a rational discussion about health care without getting personal. Just an observation and still a hope.
It's a shame that this thread degenerated so fast into snide remarks, name-calling, and then venom. That's our legacy from the "culture wars" that began in the early '80's when people like Karl Rove were first learning the fine points of neo-con polarization. When politics gets marinated in religion, minds close and toxic rhetoric spews forth. Too bad we can't have a rational discussion about health care without getting personal. Just an observation and still a hope.
Atlantainsguy
I'm not sure I would paint all conservatives with such a broad brush as I know many, many, MANY conservatives cut from the William Buckley, David Brooks, and Mark Lowry "mold" who know that starting with the phrase "I see your point but I disagree" as opposed to the Bush-Rove-Palin "You're an a$$hole if that's what you believe" is far more productive in the attempt to be persuasive.
HOWEVER, there are NONE of those people in this venue. I don't know of one conservative here who would dare say "I see your point, but you might want to look at it from a different perspective." The neo-cons here are "true believers" mostly from the born-again Christian right... and all they know is that God is on their side and that there can only be ONE right side.
Now it is a given that the majority of those who work in the financial sector are very conservative, but they tend to limit their conservatism to fiscal matters always, and international relations sometimes.
However, the "young guns" of the neo-con movement that are in this venue in strong force and loud voice take their conservatism out into the social realm and seek to "enforce" their views of white-supremacy (which is mostly what their virulent Obama hatred is all about in my opinion,) as well as their fervent anti-abortion, school-textbook, creationism, and, of course, religious intolerance and fear of gays.
The neo-cons born out of the Bush-Rove-Huckaby and now Palin era, which is easily the majority of the 1000 or so "frequent posters" in this venue are a part of the 20 to 30 million people in this country who live in a world of xenophobia and homophobia, a world that to them is out of control and one that they can't seem to "cope" in.
Have you noticed how so many of the guys here who rant and rave against minorities, against immigrants (legal or not,) who invoke the Bible as a justification for everything they do, who justify violence as a means of change ( who yell"Arm yourself! The Revolution is near!") and who are threatened by those who dare to disagree with them... are from the rural South or border states... or just rural areas?
I think that maybe these 30 million or so people simply feel that they no longer "matter" in a country with so many different cultures all vying for acceptance. They live in a world of fear coupled by isolation and ignorance. Few here are well-educated, and most of the neo-cons who post here do not have an eclectic or intellectual inclination. (One of the shortest books in the world is "Hunters who have an advanced college degree.")
When people like me and maybe you and a few others "move in" here, the neo-cons are stricken by fear... not unlike the kind of fear we saw when black's started leaving the inner cities and moving to the suburbs (anyone know what "blockbusting" was?)
When I see guys here suggest (or say) that the death of someone they disagree with would be a good thing, I'm not sure that is their rational side that is speaking, but only their irrational fear.
True conservatives are secure in their own beliefs such that they are OK with those who don't share them. It's the same with people of great faith. Christians I know who are secure in their beliefs, are happy to allow non-Christians to co-exist. How many of these folks are on this board? Any? Surely not many.
While the three or four of us on the left in this board (similar to the first few Jewish or Hindu families who moves into South Boston or rural North Carolina) get a lot of crap thrown at us, I know that in my case I try to remember that I'm dealing with scared people, people who simply reiterate what their leaders have told them is the truth (thinking Rush and Sarah here.)
I still draw a line in the sand that I don't let them cross, similar to the Jews in Israel dealing with Hamas, but I really try to keep it in perspective, that those who post here are not the best and brightest in the industry and that the course of human progress, be it in science, technology, civil rights, legal rights, human rights, and now in healthcare reform have always triumphed in the end over the virulent (and often violent) objections of the social/religious conservative zealots.
To a whole generation "We shall overcome" was more than a song, or a platitude that the neo-cons make fun of. I can only hope that the younger generation (those who voted for the first black president over the fear-mongering of the Sarah Palins and Rush Lumbaughs and the neo-cons on this board) will pick up the torch from my generation and take us further away from that kind of "nirvana" that neo-cons seek to bring us back to... Alabama of 1958.
Very intelligent observations, and well said! Your last post would make a nice op-ed in any newspaper in the country.
When this thread first started, I was, frankly, shocked at level of personal attack toward you. You obviously suffer fools better than I.
And, yes, I agree that much of this has a firm grounding in "ethnocentrism". Racism has no place in today's United States. As we mature as a people, these divisive attitudes will, hopefully, wither and die as the venom carriers themselves die off one by one (or at least become so marginalized that they become irrelevent in a modern, multi-cultural society).
Some of these folks seem in the sad mold of Jefferson -- "all men are created equal" -- so eloquently said by someone who could not free his slaves even on his deathbead.
Of course, he also said that we have certain inalienable rights, among these "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". What is "life", without proper healthcare for all our citizens? To maintain a healthy "life" requires access to affordable healthcare. The two are inseperable.
Mindlessly supporting the health insurance industry, hospital industry, and pharmacy industry could easily be construed by many as extremely unamerican. Personally, I see little difference between the neo-con mindset at current town hall meetings -- and the mindset of the Brown Shirts who helped subvert a democratic Weimar Germany in the late '20s and early '30s. Their goal was disruption of opposition meetings through intimidation and, if necessary, violence. Except for lacking the fancy uniforms, the far right hasn't really evolved much at all in the last 100 years, has it?
Re: Anthem is Now Your Doctor
Linear Mode
