

Health Insurers Pay Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill - Hunchr
http://www.businessinsider.com/health-insures-caught-paying-facebook-users-virtual-currency-to-send-letters-to-congress-opposing-reform-bill-2009-12

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julio_the_squid
In related news, Health Insurers Pay Congress Members Actual Currency To
Oppose Reform Bill.

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anigbrowl
there's something particularly barf-worthy about not only renting a mob to
advance your political agenda, but paying them with play money into the
bargain.

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gfodor
Wow, and so the circle of evil is now complete.

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jcromartie
When the article says:

> Zynga has since removed all offers from its games

Does that mean that _other_ games are still participating?

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Vindexus
Yes. They probably don't know it though as the ads are run through a third
party, such as Gambit, OfferPal or SuperRewards.

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amalcon
How do they know that the players are actually writing letters? How do they
know they don't just click "Yeah, sure, I wrote it. Now, where's my [virtual
currency]?"

I suspect the number of people doing this would rather dwarf the number of
people who actually bother to write letters.

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Deestan
From the article:

> Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get
> Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon
> completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional
> Rep:

> "I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer
> coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more
> problems, not solve the ones we have."

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orangecat
Ugh. I don't support the proposed plan, but protecting "employer coverage" is
just about the worst possible reason to oppose it. Why should my employer have
anything to do with my health insurance, any more than they do with my housing
or auto expenses? In fact, much of my opposition to Obama's plan is that it
strengthens that foolish and harmful dependency.

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walkon
If health benefits didn't have tax breaks, employers would probably stop
giving them and would be able to pay a bit more in salary (benefit cost -
increased taxes). I personally would prefer to be paid more and use that to
select my own health plan, that way it would be portable.

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potatolicious
Except non-employer health plans rarely cover pre-existing conditions, which
ultimately is what ails most people and contributes most to prolonged
suffering in quality of life.

I'm of the opposite opinion, having grown up in Canada (now in the US). I'd
much rather have a public plan, even if it means worse care for a moderately
well-to-do individual like myself.

The whole American health care debate appears to me as a matter of the haves
vs. the have-nots, with the added complexity that a lot of have-nots seem to
incorrectly identify themselves as haves.

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walkon
The game would be significantly changed if employers stopped offering it as
part of a benefit package. I'm sure the housing hazard insurance industry
would look much different if it was a standard employment benefit.

Ultimately, insurance of any kind is a financial risk mitigation pool. The
financial risks are spread over those in the pool instead of just one.
Everyone in the pool shares the cost of everyone else. I don't want the
government creating a super large public pool that I am required to pay for,
even if I'm allowed to choose not to be a member of it.

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potatolicious
> I don't want the government creating a super large public pool that I am
> required to pay for, even if I'm allowed to choose not to be a member of it.

This may seem innocuous to Americans, but for us Canadians this sentence
epitomizes why American health care is in the mess it is today. The lack of
concern for your fellow man is disconcerting at best - and based on people
I've talked to here in the US people generally don't feel that _other_ people
being sick and dying will negatively affect them.

IMHO this is the big difference: in socialized medicine countries we
acknowledge that when a large swathe of the population goes without basic
medical care, we all lose - lost productivity, general misery, etc. There's at
least the general notion of paying up "for the greater good".

In America I get the feeling it's more treated as "meh, maybe you should work
harder". The level of apathy demonstrated for people less fortunate is frankly
the one thing that has shocked me ever since moving here, and nowadays is part
of my "definition" of the American consciousness. It's always someone else's
problem, not _our_ collective problem.

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walkon
I would like to add a comment about your, "meh, maybe you should work harder,"
observation.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but we have a serious problem with a lack of
frugality here. In regards to the lower working class your comment is
referring to, all too often, they'll have no problem spending $2,000 for a
awesome TV. Dropping $110 a month for 200 cable channels? Well, that's a
necessity. Oh, gotta get a new cell phone every 10 months because it's the
latest trend. Get a new (or newer) car for virtually no reason but to look
cool? No problem. Eat out every day? You bet! Pay for a dental checkup? HELL
NO!

That is where I take issue. Many of these people have no problem buying the
fun stuff, but when it comes to the "grown up" things, they balk, and simply
don't put up with it. So, I ask, why should I pay for their "necessities,"
enabling them to go buy fun stuff, while I have to forgo fun stuff for myself
to pay for their said "necessities"?

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potatolicious
It's fun to assume other people are irresponsible, that their ignorance and
stupidity is the only (or primary) reason they suffer.

In my experience that assumption is generally incorrect - and IMHO is really a
very simplified, polarized view of the world, where people are dumb or smart,
good or evil.

This seems to be especially popular on the internet, maybe nerds _are_ a
little bit disconnected from reality, or maybe we just lack empathy.

For what it's worth, I used to have the same opinion of poor people - and then
I (accidentally) spent 4 months living on the wrong side of the tracks.
Suffice it to say, I now refuse to subscribe to such arrogant notions about
the poor. Perhaps you should do the same - spend Christmas with someone living
in a bad neighbourhood, befriend some of them, treat them like nuanced human
beings instead of caricatured archetypes. You will learn a lot - I know I did.

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teeja
Indeed. It's easy to criticize from a distance, easy to be disgusted by
egregious fraud by a rare few when it's trumpeted left and right by the media,
deliberately harming the interests of the great majority. I too have been on
'both sides of the track' at times, and noticed that people who've never known
real misfortune are most likely to criticize situations beyond their
experience. Many people live with situations that the fortunate can hardly
imagine.

What many people can't afford is preventive medicine. As a result, they arrive
at the clinic or hospital with advanced disease that costs far more to treat.
Anyone can understand this, and it makes perfect humane and fiduciary sense to
make preventive visits as affordable as possible. That's the meaning of basic
health care - and to deny it to anyone is illogical and mean-spirited.

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patrickgzill
Fake money for fake outrage ... has a certain insane consistency.

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DanielBMarkham
Paying for outrage is not new. I used to work in D.C. and almost every week
there were ads in the paper for protesters. As I remember, it was relatively
good pay if you were of college age.

But virtual money for emails? I have to say I like it. Now everybody can be
fake outraged.

Or maybe I should say I'm outraged?

