SW03ES

Someone wants to make me wear long sleeve shirts? Heresy! Huh?!!? WTF are you talking about? Newsflash lenore, its not 1787 anymore. Nothing affluent about Mitt Romney just an ordinary joe. If only you were there! They'd all be alive. Sure you did, making the statement that cars kill more people than guns so why don't we just ban cars is tantamount to saying that since other things kill people guns are okay.

No, its because you can't have a rational discussion with you because your viewpoint is irrational when you throw out meaningless statements like that. For one, Obama has never said he wants to redistribute wealth. He wants people with high incomes to pay the same percentage of their income in taxes as lower income Americans, which they aren't doing now. I make a good living, shouldn't I want LESS taxes? You're very naive. How is someone supposed to "hit the pavement" and better themselves when they can't get healthcare, can't go to school, can't go to college, and have no access to any technology? Even people who have masters degrees can't "hit the pavement" and find jobs...it doesn't work that way anymore. Someone can't become CEO of a company without a college degree anymore. In your day you could compensate for lack of education, my Dad was an executive and made $400,000 a year before he retired and had a GED. It just doesn't work that way anymore. You have to go to college to have any opportunities in this world. LOL! Who is giving ALL the government's money to others? These programs are a small percentage of the total federal budget. We're talking about grants and subsidies to give people opportunities to better themselves, who can't get access to those opportunities on their own. We're not talking about giving people money to sit on their asses...nobody wants that.

The difference is if they are insured the overall cost to the consumer from a cost of service standpoint will go down. As I said, plenty of places to get the money. I'd take the money from defense and foreign aid. You complain about welfare, but how do you think we break the welfare cycle? You don't want to pay for welfare, but you don't want your tax dollars educating people who aren't your kids...or can't afford to educate their own kids? Should we just gas these people? Maybe make them all live in North Dakota and just fence it off? Giving people a hand up isn't creating a "freeloader society". If we're going to have public schools...they have to be paid for. Want to send your kids to private schools? Fine...still have to pay your property taxes. MOST people can't afford to send their kids to private schools...but its still in your interest as an American to see that our children go to school. If everybody didn't pay for public schools, they wouldn't exist or they would be far less effective. Its to your benefit as an American to see people who don't come from means go to college. College is expensive, I'm happy to have some of my tax dollars provide a grant for a bright, low income kid to go to college. Godspeed. We need welfare reform...but some people need welfare. Hard to get out of welfare and get a job when you don't have a phone. Can't be so shortsighted. Its in your interest as an American to have people employed and housed, and OFF welfare. But what this recession has shown us is that some people need help so that they can help themselves. People don't *want* to live off society, they do because they don't have any clear idea how to not live off society. How do you design a system that helps people but also provides incentives for them to get off of the program? Thats a conversation we need to have. Anyways...how much do you think people get for welfare checks? Steamed crabs? Get real. BUT WE ALREADY PAY FOR IT! ITS BUILT INTO THE COST OF SERVICE BECAUSE HOSPITALS AND DOCTORS EAT THE COST OF THE UNINSURED NOW! Do you seriously not get that? You're in the insurance business, who pays for uninsured motorists? We all do in our premiums. If everyone was insured, cost of service would go down, and the cost of our healthcare could go down. Where would the money come from to provide subsidies for those who cannot afford coverage now? Pick a place. Tax loopholes for the rich, defense, foreign aid... You and I have the best because we're upper middle class people. Ask my dead friend's family if it was the best, I'm sure they think it sucks. If you are turned down. He wasn't turned down, his healthcare just would have been extremely expensive. He didn't have access to a group. Anyways who do you think covers much of the cost of the MD MHIP program? YOU AND ME BUDDY! We pay for it. The program provides coverage for those who cannot be covered in a traditional plan, includes subsidies for people below a certain income level...sound familiar? You like the MHIP program, but hate the Affordable Care act?!?! You don't make any sense. I'm not even going to bother responding...

This is just the thing...most people aren't. In any event, like I said you don't know how you would react, and you are older than you were "many years ago" with slower reflexes, poorer eyesight, slower decision making process... I think if you're going to be allowed to own and carry something you can use to kill people, you need more than 8 hours training LOL.

The murder rate has absolutely gone down in NYC. Whether it has to do with gun control is another question. This is why I said its not practical to ban guns in th US the way they have in the UK. you can't stop people from having guns in NYC when you can go to NJ or into NYS and get them easily. We have so many guns already in this country, even if we completely stopped the sale and import of them, we'd have a problem. LOL, are you seriously saying cities in AZ are safer than NYC because people are allowed to carry guns? Yeah...nothing underlyingly different about a huge city like NYC with a large homeless population and a lot of street crime and someplace like Scottsdale. Can't remember the last time I felt safe in Scottsdale You're not the only person who has a inflated sense of their own bravery and capabilities in a situation like this. You have no idea how ou would have reacted, you're not trained to deal with a situation like that, and certainly not trained to deal with a direct threat to your children with deadly force. There is NO evidence that having citizens around with guns helps deter or protect them from violent crime. In fact, having a gun yourself increases your odds of being shot in a robbery, for instance. Having the idea that you would have the presence of mind, and tactical capability to aim for someone's knees or head in a tear gas filled dark theatre full of screaming, running people and 5 rounds a second of ammo being poured into the crowd is a PREPOSTEROUS leap of arrogance. If only you were there! You'd have been just as likely to shoot scene else by mistake. Get real.

And in any event...healthcare IS ALREADY a right in this country. Show up at a hospital...you get treated...for free if you can't pay. Bills to high? File for medical bankruptcy and the cost gets absorbed by the system and charged off. The issue is that having people stay away until they are on death's door and THEN show up at the hospital when their situation is dire and they need even MORE expensive medical care that they will never get paid for...then the patient dies...is not the way it should happen. If everybody had access to basic healthcare, less people would get to that point and then require doctors and hospitals to absorb the cost of their care. If young, healthy people would buy into an overall healthcare system it would bring cost down. How do we make them do it? We have to provide incentives for them to do so...and penalties for them not to. This is the problem. Lenore thinks healthcare should be a right for him and people like him...but not for everybody. Just like the right to have guns, or the right to move about the country free from illegal search and seizure. You're so right, if its a privilege then its a privilege for all. Privileges can be revoked at any time. Bring on the death panels if thats the case, if all that matters is "cost". I think conservatives vastly over-emphasize the cost of actually providing coverage for everybody...because they can't stomach the thought of their money going to the benefit of someone else who they deem as "less worthy". Well, thats how a society works. The government provides services, and those services are paid for by everyone who pays taxes. If you don't have kids you still pay for schools. If you don't read...you still pay for libraries. If you aren't in need, you still pay for welfare and medicaid. If you don't drive, you still pay for roads. I didn't want to kill Saddam Hussein but I still paid an !Removed! load of money to kill him. I'd have rather my friend remained alive and Saddam remained alive quite frankly, and that could have been accomplished and STILL saved the taxpayers money over what has been spent in Iraq! We are ALREADY paying for healthcare for everybody, the way we're doing it is just the least efficient way possible.

The argument that people use other things than guns to kill people so why don't we just bean fertilizer, etc is a ridiculous argument. Nearly 10,000 people die every year in gun related murders. Thats MURDERS, not even including accidents. Thats 70% of all murders in the United States are done with guns. Just because there are other dangerous things in America doesn't mean we shouldn't take steps to address gun control. He was wearing body armor. Source please. Look at Great Britain, 600 murders...42 gun related. Smaller country than ours but much lower murder rate, much lower percentage gun related. Now, banning guns in the US isn't practical, but I want to see your source to back up the statement that "cities EVERYWHERE have experienced worse crime when guns were banned". Thats coming totally out of your rump and you know it. This guy bought an AUTOMATIC RIFLE from Gander Mtn or Bass Pro Shops, thats absurd!

See, this is the problem. Those that don't work HAVE healthcare! Medicaid, or they just show up at the ER and get helped for free, and the rest of us shoulder the cost for that. Plenty of people like my friend out there, they work, but they have no healthcare through their employers, they can't afford decent healthcare on their own because of the cost, and it wouldn't cover any of their pre-existing conditions anyways. If we had some way of MANDATING younger, healthier people to buy insurance when they don't get sick, it would spread out the risk and reduce costs. If you open up competition between insurance providers an an EXCHANGE where consumers can cross shop for policies, it provides competition and reduces cost. Thats the whole crux of how it works. Anyways, I think access to quality healthcare should be a right in 21st century America, as it is in every other industrialized nation. Start a few less wars, there's the cost. Poor people get healthcare, its the middle class that doesn't. Okay, so what would be real reform? Huh?

Remember...guns are people too A med school student shouldn't be able to get their hands on an AR15. He probably bought it at Walmart. This is a quote from a thread on another Lexus forum, I won't link to it or call anyone by name: I mean...of course the first thing I do when I buy a new car is find a place for my gun...you know some place where I can get at it quick...because I need it often. I don't want to use the smaller gun, because I can only fire 5 rounds instead of 15, you know because I need as many rounds as possible when driving down the highway. I mean...you never know when you might have to empty your whole !Removed! clip into somebody! Can't protect yourself with only 5 rounds! Does nobody see how !Removed! insane this is? Literally worrying about how big the clip is on the gun you can fit in your car?!?!?! Scares the *BLEEP* out of me.

This was not someone who drove around in flashy cars with iPhones, etc. He was a 50+ year old man, you know how expensive it is for someone who is that age to get decent health insurance on his own with no group. We're talking $700 a month. He was a struggling real estate agent...he couldn't afford that. The goal of that story was not to say he shouldn't have had health insurance, or even to say that the Affordable Care Act would help people like him at all, its to highlight the problem, and why having to wait 18 months for a non life saving surgery might be worth it if we could have covered people like this guy. Of course he chose not to go to the doctor, he chose not to because he couldn't afford to. This is the only industrialized nation on earth where someone even has to think about the cost of healthcare when they get sick. Here's another problem. In my industry everybody is an independent contractor. Well, I work for a big firm, we have like 14,000 agents. Hey...would be an okay group huh? Well...our company is PROHIBITED from providing access to a group healthcare policy. Its ILLEGAL! Its expressly prohibited by the IRS' rules on independent contractors. Talk about a common sense reform opportunity.

They actually do have a build your own, just no pricing yet, you can play with the colors though: http://www.lexus.com/BuildYourES/ Not real wild about the colors, but Lexus colors have never really wowed me. I love my truffle pearl, and I loved my Black Garnet before it. I suppose this time it would be Fire Agate Pearl, but thats pretty similar to the Black Garnet I've already had. The new silver is really neat if its the same silver thats on the new GS. Has a real liquid metal look.

http://pressroom.lexus.com/releases/lexus+pricing+2013+es350+es300h.htm?view_id=32573 Check it out, down 1.7% from the previous model

The VA is not something you can use as proof that the Affordable Care Act won't work. The two have zero similarities. Nobody is talking about the Government taking over control or administration of hospitals or doctors. Completely different things. Thats his assessment as someone who has the means to pay out of pocket for an expensive medical procedure. I doubt if you asked someone Canadian who did not what they would prefer to do you'd get a different answer. I think you'd likely get a different answer from an American with no healthcare who drags his leg with a torn ACL around day to day with no hope of ever getting it repaired too. I have a coworker, self employed, no healthcare. He was really sick, throwing up, not eating, didn't go to the doctor because he was afraid of the cost. Waited past when he started vomiting blood...passing out. He finally went when it came to the point where he couldn't stand up, his wife and son carried him and put him into the car, he didn't have much say at that point. I went to his funeral was 4 days later. He was 51. Had he been in Canada...he'd be alive. He couldn't afford health insurance. Couldn't afford it. This is a middle class guy. So, nothings perfect. There are plusses and minuses to everything. Waiting 18 months for a non life-saving surgery sucks. Dying because you have the flu when you're a middle class American and can't afford to go to the Doctor sucks worse IMHO.

This is what you fail to understand or refuse to understand. When they say "$250,000" they're talking about your AGI. A small business has significant tax writeoffs for their operating costs and expenses. Even for a sole proprietorship you've got vehicle, portion of home for home office, etc. In order for you to have to pay this tax you are talking about you must, as a married person: 1. Have an AGI of OVER $250,000. 2. Have a capital gain on the sale of your house of OVER $500,000. I can tell you as a real estate broker, it is VERY rare to find a home seller that has a gain over $500,000, even in Washington where we have high home values and had high appreciation. Even then we're talking about 3.8% if the amount OVER the $500k gain exemption. So if its another $100k, its $3,800. They would have to pay capital gains taxes of 15%, plus this 3.8%. So thats $18,500 in taxes on $600,000 of investment income. Thats a 3% tax rate. Bear in mind that until not that long ago, capital gains were taxed at your tax bracket. So people are still paying FAR less taxes than they used to. The owner of a small business having to maybe pay $3,800 in additional tax on a $600,000 gain on the sale of his primary residence isn't going to keep him from hiring people. So...STOP spreading misinformation, you don't know what you are talking about. No other country that I am aware of provides tax exemptions like that for the sale of a primary residence. As for taxes, I am all for people with high incomes paying the same percentages as middle class people. They don't. People who have high incomes need to pay the same percentage in taxes as everybody else. There needs to be some separation between how a small business is taxed and how an individual is taxed. Too many loopholes, too many ways for people with means to be able to get out of paying taxes in this country. Its not about "socialism" or "spreading the wealth" its about everybody paying their fair share. Just look at Mitt Romney. All that income and his effective tax rate is 15%. Thats the same tax bracket as someone with an AGI of $9,000. Do you think thats fair?

THIS is not true, I hear it all the time Its a 3.8% tax on INVESTMENT INCOME for HIGH EARNERS. $200k indiv. $250k joint. Theres also the same exemption for a primary residence for $250k of gain individually or $500k jointly they have for capital gains taxes. So if your married, downsizing couple has made half a million dollars on their home...they may pay 3.8% in additional tax only on the amount OVER $500k IN GAIN. I'm okay with that. I have several family members that are nurses in the VA system, and we just had a lot of experience with the VA system because of my uncle who passed away in December. It really depends on the VA. Some are better than others, but I do agree on the whole they are pretty depressing. A lot of that is funding problems though, as well as a general apathy for specifically veterans in this country. I don't think you can make the assertion that the VA is the best example of what hospitals in the US would look like with a single payer healthcare system. Look at hospitals in other countries with state run healthcare, they aren't that way. Try 3.4%!

Maybe theres hope for VW yet! I drove an Audi A6 about two weeks ago, hadn't driven an Audi in a long time. REALLY liked it! Very surprised. I would say its perhaps my favorite car in that $50-60k segment, GS, E, 5 etc.

Don't have one yet, but there will be one shortly...

Won't be long now!

I really like the Bluetooth streaming. The quality is pretty bad in the Jeep, so I plug the iPhone in (MUCH better integration than the Lexus), but the streaming quality in the Lexus is great.

Congrats! Welcome to the LOC! Yeah that ticking noise is pretty common on these direct injected cars...

Obviously I'm not looking for me, but I have a lot of family members who are of the age where they're starting to look at these plans.

2011 also has the same key in the remote. You can remove that key, pop the cover off next to the handle and unlock the door the old fashioned way...

I don't have a lot of reason to try other plans when I know one thats great...

Its also entirely possible it was mistakenly billed... The AARP plan is a UnitedHealthcare plan. My Dad had it and we were 100% satisfied, he had no bills when he was sick...its cheap. My mother just went on the same plan. I couldn't care less what company "stands for", I care if its good insurance...

If he is a member of the network, he HAS TO submit the claim to the insurance company. If he doesn't then it doesn't count against the patients deductible or out of pocket maximums for the year either. If a provider sees a patient that is in network, and doesn't report it he can loose his membership in the network. Nothing to stop a patient from just not using their insurance, but that may ultimately cost them money because those expenses don't go towards their deductibles or out of pocket maximums for the year, so should something more major happen, they're going to have to meet deductibles and maximums they would have already met. I don't care how many articles you find, I'm telling you this is how it works. Yeah the billing is VERY complex, with a lot of complicated codes and if one code is off, the claim gets denied. The insurance companies bury the providers in paperwork, duplicate and redundant to try and create descrepencies where they can deny claims. Providers are cheap, and they don't want to pay trained and experienced billing services to do their billing so it gets done right, they have some receptionist do it and its a total nightmare. When I was selling my mom's services way back when that was the objection I always had to overcome Doc or Admin: "Well, Chantelle does it here in the office" Me: "What percentage of your claims come back denied due to billing errors?" Doc: "35%" Me: Ours is 0, sign here. It varies a lot from provider to provider, but I would say 80% of claims that are filed properly get paid properly. The other 20% get hung up because of some beurocratic reason that involves getting on the phone, sending documents you've send a dozen times, etc to get paid. Thats PROPERLY FILED claims. You can see how if you had someone filing the claims who was messing up it would create a HUGE problem for the provider. Sure' date=' if they have no supplemental. Check into an AARP supplemental plan. Was it fraudulent or just wrong? The issue is the sheer number of services a doctor can provide, and what codes are necessary to bill for those services. Trying to figure out what Medicare plan you need to be on is a complete nightmare lol