Any probe against a monopoly is a good thing
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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Great, do health insurance companies now, with their "vertical integration" (we own all the things you need, so fuck you).
Let’s unbundle health insurance from your employer. You shouldn’t be tied to a shitty job just so you can go to a doctor.
But then how can the owner class trap workers into abusive jobs while also ensuring no one has the audacity to start their own company and become financially independent? Won't someone think of the shareholders?
Yes, also that.
Leave your job and lose your insurance. Everything is 100x cheaper that way. Doctors charge very little for cash paying customers. Emergency rooms and urgent cares just write off most of it to charity and charge you a bit if anything at all. The most I’ve paid for is lab work, but that’s a few and far between and still only like 500 bucks for a full panel.
YMMV. I’ve been doing this for three years and have paid less in TOTAL than private insurance wants for ONE MONTH.
The problem with this is if you have any actual significant health condition.
Yeah for sure. I think the right play is to have accident, hospital, and critical illness insurance from someplace like Aflac to cover those.
And how pray tell, are you paying for that without a job?
I still work. I just don’t play the health insurance coverage game.
Personally I own my own business, an LLC taxed as an S-Corp, and do software dev work through that paying myself a minimal W-2 wage.
But my point is that you can leave a job without worrying about losing health insurance coverage.
That's a pretty privileged take. If someone leaves or gets fired they still need to pay for health insurance either on the public market or using COBRA. All of this is due to the fact that health insurance is directly tied to employment as it isn't funded by taxes.
https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/savings-account-average-balance/
I’m pretty sure you’re missing my point. Healthcare is cheap af when you are uninsured.
No one NEEDS to pay for health insurance. It’s just a middle class thing that most do.
Healthcare is only for the wealthy. Understood.
Are you purposefully ignoring my info? I was homeless living in a shelter for a year. I still have a ton of friends with little to no money/income. The medical system takes care of all of them for free. With no insurance.
Having no insurance causes healthcare costs to be very reasonable and affordable. Paying for health insurance is NOT affordable.
Is there a reason you’re fighting back against this fact?
Microsoft? Anti-Trust bundling violations? What year is this?? 1996‽
Oooh, nice interrobang.
Didn't know that character existed. Definitely going in the rotation.
Really‽
I WISH it were 1996!!!
......please take me back to the 90s.....I don't like being old.
It’s been fun w Lina Khan @ the helm. gonna miss seeing the FTC make moves on corpos. (^_^*)
Alright I've been staring at it too long - what's that emoji?
Two eyes, mouth, and the asterisk is a flower or sparkle or something.
Also that's kaomoji.
to me it looks like a penguins face, viewed from the side.
Is it possible they didn’t escape something from markdown like an asterisk or something else?
I feel like it has to be a wink of some sort
Maybe it's the drugs kicking in
Looks more like a one-eyes side-eye.
I support most of what Lena Khan has done, but this is stupid. Cybersecurity features should be built into the base package of all cloud products. The fact that so many charge extra for them is and always has been bullshit. It's like trying to sell a car but charging extra to include seat belts and air bags.
The complaint should be that they're selling a product that is unsafe in its base offering.
I agree that cybersecurity features should be included. In fact I think they should be included for free. The problem is that Microsoft wanted to charge the Department of Defense and it sounds like they used politics to make sure they could, and if true then they (and maybe also the DoD?) may have violated some federal laws around government procurement and "gifts" from contractors to the government.
What about having to switch from a $32/user/month license to a $52/user/month license for just one or two features out of the dozens you end up paying for?
Can you source whatever you are countering here?
No, because it comes from personal experience working in cybersecurity.
Loads of SaaS/PaaS include things like saml, oidc etc only in the higher (or the "contact us") tiers
- The year of the Linux laptop
Jake from State Farm told me bundling was a good thing.
Guess you can never be 30 years too late
Second time's the charm, maybe?
I commend the optimism, but I doubt it
Bill Gates about to get extremely friendly with the Trump Administration.
The dickhead you're looking for is now called Satya Nadella.
does he still have much to do with Microsoft?
No.
He owns 1% of all Microsoft shares which are worth tens of billions.
They lost it last time, and they will lose it again
Timely.
Just in time for nothing to happen when trumps picks defang the FTC (who has already been defanged plenty in the past)
The way my Surface Pro was packaged I can completely understand this, all the cardboard was pulled open at one side.