"Unfortunately, it's far more difficult to control the data that is transmitted by your smart phone than it is to control the data transmitted by your computer. Smart phones are in constant communication with cell towers, with nearby Wi-Fi points, and the apps may be receiving updates,"
you get tracked from your smartphone more often than you realize.
The light touch approach on privacy that the U.S. government has engaged in has enabled American innovators to develop some of the best services we see online today and internationally
Fair point, the tracking allows for companies to understand consumer desires better.
"Right now, companies -- some legitimate, some sleazy -- can collect your location data from a smart phone and sell it to ad companies or who knows who else," said Franken. "Some companies have actually rolled out "stalking apps" specifically designed to help abusers stalk their victims."
This shows that you have to be careful with how you use technology and beware of what is legitimate.
"Americans understand that we need to give due weight to both privacy and national security. But right now, Americans aren't getting even the most basic information about what's going on with the NSA's surveillance programs, and whether or not their privacy is being violated," Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, told State of the Union.
I find it shameful that our government monitors us to such a degree and then refuses to share with us what they have collected.
New technologies and a heightened level of sharing on multiple outlets have led to moral and practical dilemmas that confront consumers, the tech industry, retailers, even the government.
We can see this phenomenon by looking at the comment section of Donald Trumps twitter.
Companies are collecting information about consumers in order to sell ads more effectively.
I get ads for things that I have spoken of but never typed. Creepy.
Many of the people being targeted [for deportation] have for decades lived lawful, safe, and productive lives here.
We should make naturalization an easier process so that the law abiding undocumented immigrants can get better work and contribute more to our society, while at the same time we allow for their, family both present and future to flourish.
“And America does nothing to stop the weapons coming here!” Valeria exclaimed to me.
Even if we did, the presence of illegally imported guns will never cease. This will only make it harder for law abiding citizens to allow themselves a form of self defense.
Another thing to consider is that a barrier in the form of a wall is increasingly irrelevant to the drug trade as it is now practiced because most of the drugs smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico no longer arrive on the backs of those who cross illegally.
if this is the general trend of behavior, then it makes little sense to put a wall up, and more sense to strengthen boarder control via the use of technology and making the surveillance wide spread and impervious along the southern boarder.
224 tunnels have been unearthed at the U.S.–Mexico border.
With this many tunnels that have been found (think of how many have not), it quickly exposes the elephant the room; building this wall will not make too much of a difference.
Drug smugglers have been using tunnels to get drugs into the United States ever since Mexico’s most famous drug trafficker, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel, pioneered the method in 1989. And the sophistication of these tunnels has only grown over time.
These tunnels have been used to steal semi trucks as well. In my industry of work, it is not uncommon for trucks to occasionally disappear.
Trump claimed that the wall would cost only $12 billion, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) internal report in February put the cost at $21.6 billion, but that may be a major underestimate.
It does appear that the situation has been massively misjudged in terms of total cost of labor and materials.
To be successful, Medicare for all and related proposals will likelyneed the support of the physician and hospital communities, whichhave yet to broadly back these proposals in part due to the uncer-tainty around prices.
Doctors need financial security just as much as the construction workers do. It seems obvious that they would not want voters to choose cutting their pay.
If prices were set at 200% ofMedicare levels, prices for some services would decline but otherswould increase.
This seems only natural. There has to be a balance somewhere.
While guaranteeing access to necessary care for all pa-tients is an important and laudable outcome, the increased potentialfor overutilization,
It is only logical that if you let somebody have a free service, they will use it as much as they can,
Reducing commercial prices to the level of Medicare priceswould, at first glance and without any adjustment, sub-stantially reduce the total cost of health care in the UnitedStates through lower total revenues for physicians andhospitals.
I can see why it is such a struggle to bring down. If i worked in a hospital, i would not appreciate a pay cut like that.
Hospital prices demonstrate a qualitatively similar pat-tern, with commercial prices for hospital inpatient care av-eraging about 200% of Medicare levels and those for hos-pital outpatient services nearly 300% of Medicare.
What makes hospitals so expensive? It seems this would be hard to pay for.
Commer-cial prices in network ranged from roughly 100% to morethan 300% of Medicare levels,
Commercial insurance looks pricey!
Would Taxes Go Up Under Single-Payer? The tax burden would be enormous, roughly doubling the current tax obligations for today’s taxpayers. One funding option Sanders proposes is a 7.5 percent payroll tax, plus a 4 percent income tax on all Americans, as well as a wide variety of specialized taxes on investments and taxes targeted to higher-income Americans. (He outlines these tax proposals as options, but they are not included in the latest version of his bill.)
I agree with the proposal of having specialized taxes on higher income individuals, although with the increase in taxes we would experience anyways, it seems that this would be hard to support.
Medicare fails to effectively control waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. This failure of administration results in the staggering loss of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each and every year. Private-sector health plans, policing their billing, have no comparable record in accumulating such enormous losses.
This would be a good reason to lean toward private health care. People who abuse the system contribute a massive debt to our nation.
Mercatus Center’s Charles Blahous estimates a 10-year $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending. Even “doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.”
If doubling the current federal tax is not sufficient to compensate for the increased federal spending, then it cannot be sustained by taxpayers. Debt will rise.
The cost of a single-payer system would depend upon its design, benefit levels, and scope of coverage. In the case of Sanders’ proposal, estimates consistently show that the plan would impose dramatic obligations on the federal taxpayer, and that the proposal would incur substantial annual deficits.
This makes sense, as one can only be taxed so much before it becomes an incredible burden.
His planwould finance the national insurance program through a combination of payroll and income taxes, and it would replace private and employer-sponsored health insurance and existing government health programs—including Medicare itself.
Unless the tax was heavier on wall street than it is on lower and middle class citizens, the tax rates would cripple the average american, leaving little money to take home, and leaving consumers with no options.
A “single-payer” health system is a government-controlled health care system. Government is the “single-payer.” In most versions of single-payer, most private health insurance is either outlawed or restricted, and most public health programs are absorbed into the single, national health insurance program.
This would completely monopolize healthcare.
Medicare: Created in 1965, this federal program provides health insurance for roughly 60 million elderly and disabled Americans. It covers hospitalization, rehabilitation and doctors' visits, but not vision, hearing, dental and long-term care
This seems like a waste of a perfectly good policy, as vision, hearing, dental, and long term care is essential for longevity with a good quality of living
Since 2008, average family premiums have increased 55%, twice as fast as workers' earnings and three times as fast as inflation, according to Kaiser
This increase will not be sustainable for the average consumer in the near future.
. Annual premiums for a family plan cost almost $20,000, on average, last year,with workers contributing about $5,550 and employers paying the rest, according to another Kaiser survey
That is a LOT of money!
Three-quarters of the public have favorable views of work-based coverage, according to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of those with such plans, 86% rate their coverage as either "excellent" or "good."
This can be good if you are certain you will remain employed at the same workplace for many years. Through experience however, job changes have left us without insurance and unable to pay to go to the doctor.
Nursing home and other institutional services would be covered under Medicaid.
This portion would help elderly, who are let down by Social Security because it does not account for inflation.
CNN)Health care has emerged as a key fault line for Democrats. All of them want to make changes, but their plans vary widely
This struggle between the two parties makes progress slower.