Hacker News: CalChris

New comment by CalChris in ""Not Medically Necessary": Helping America's Health Insurers Deny Coverage"

CalChris — Thu, 14 May 2026 02:02:37 +0000

In fact, MA costs the government more per person than does TM. MA may have been lobbied for as a cost saving measure. It is, in fact, a profit center for insurance companies.

https://www.kff.org/medicare/higher-and-faster-growing-spend...

New comment by CalChris in ""Not Medically Necessary": Helping America's Health Insurers Deny Coverage"

CalChris — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:39:35 +0000

Medicare has a similar issue. When you sign up at 65, you have to make a first big decision, Traditional Medicare (yay!) or private Medicare Advantage (boo!).

Traditional Medicare consists of Part A (hospitals), Part B (doctors) and Part D (drugs). Part A+B don't cover everything so you have a Medigap plan. I have Plan G which has very little paperwork. All up, I spend about $400/mo and I'm very happy with A+B+G+D.

With Medicare Advantage you sign over your Medicare rights+benefits to a private insurer. This may save you some money, especially early on. In fairness, not really a lot and the $0/mo plans are a scam. With Medicare Advantage, you will then have to argue with an insurance company for the rest of your life. You'll have to deal with preauthorizations and a restricted network.

With Traditional Medicare, what's covered is spelled out pretty clearly ahead of time. Docs know it. You know it. There's literally an app for that. With Medicare Advantage, medically necessary is at the discretion of the private insurance company.

Here is the scenario from a relative: he had a heart event which ended up needing a stent. He had to argue with Kaiser while this was going on. Kaiser is 240,000 people. He is one.

Medicare Advantage is very profitable.

It is possible to switch back from MA to TM which really revolves around your Medigap plan. You are guaranteed issue for Medigap plans for about 3 months before/after you turn 65. After that, you will have to undergo medical underwriting.

New comment by CalChris in "Getting arrested in Japan"

CalChris — Sun, 10 May 2026 03:06:14 +0000

The description of the detention center reminds me of Room 101 in 1984.

New comment by CalChris in "Rise of the Forward Deployed Engineer"

CalChris — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:52:05 +0000

Buzzword compliant.

New comment by CalChris in "The Joy of Folding Bikes"

CalChris — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 23:04:20 +0000

I have a Tern Eclipse P18 24" folding bike which I like a lot. Tern and Dahon are related. Wasn't cheap and is hard to find. I literally drove to Vegas and met an IT sysadmin in a casino parking lot at 2am. He was coming off shift. It was legit (found it on EBay and he had the manuals) but it looked+felt like a drug deal.

I have upgraded the Tern. The original FSA crank would come loose and so I replaced it with a Shimano 105 part which required a Wheels Mfg 386 EVO Adaptor. I've never had a problem with it since. I also replaced the front derailleur with an SRAM Yaw which is just perfection.

It's great out to about 20 miles and you can't go up anything really steep because the shorter wheelbase just pops a wheelie. Tires and tubes are hard to find. But it's an awesome bike to have around.

New comment by CalChris in "Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen"

CalChris — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:57:40 +0000

For migraines, I take two CVS Migraine about every week to ten days. It's a cocktail of acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine which tallies to 500 mg of acetaminophen, well under then 4g limit. It's good for four hours but you can only take two per day.

I didn't know about this acetaminophen risk. So I'll be looking for alternatives. Ibuprofen is for inflammation and not headaches. Naproxen is a candidate.

New comment by CalChris in "College instructor turns to typewriters to curb AI-written work"

CalChris — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 20:31:36 +0000

Next up: allow slide rules on exams.

Two Magicians Warn the Supreme Court About Junk Science

CalChris — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 04:25:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/us/politics/the-docket-supreme-court-penn-teller.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47813126

Points: 16

# Comments: 3

New comment by CalChris in "Most people can't juggle one ball"

CalChris — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:18:22 +0000

You can also pass clubs. In fact, at my local juggling meetup (Castro Valley BART), it really breaks into two groups: passers and numbers. Passers get together and pass. It's quite social. Someone explains a group pattern and they work through it. OTOH, numbers jugglers can juggle 5 or more clubs+balls. They segregate themselves off and really only talk to each other. We're in the same place but numbers only talk to other numbers.

New comment by CalChris in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

CalChris — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:38:18 +0000

Well, $50,000 is just not that much money. Sarah Wynn-Williams could open a Patreon account; scrape together $50,000; do an interview and cut Zuck a check.

New comment by CalChris in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

CalChris — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:24:51 +0000

Article I, Section 10: “No State shall … pass any … Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.

This doesn’t limit the Feds. Also, a state can prohibit non-compete. Etc. Basically, the freedom to enter into a contract is not one of the four corndogs of freedom.

New comment by CalChris in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

CalChris — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:26:21 +0000

Andreesen donated $5M to the Trump campaigns. So attaching Trump's name to Andreesen seems fair.

New comment by CalChris in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

CalChris — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:16:55 +0000

Poker players with a blog. No one ever has a difficult problem and thinks, damn, maybe I should ask a VC.

New comment by CalChris in "SpaceX files to go public"

CalChris — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:23:31 +0000

This is structured so that Musk becomes the first trillionaire.

New comment by CalChris in "Bored of eating your own dogfood? Try smelling your own farts"

CalChris — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 16:36:01 +0000

It’s a problem of motivation. Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!

New comment by CalChris in "Chuck Norris has died"

CalChris — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:12:40 +0000

So Chuck Norris is an Anna Kournikova, famous for having been moderately famous and monetized ad infinitum?

New comment by CalChris in "US national debt surges past $39 Trillion"

CalChris — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:40:56 +0000

Carter reduced the deficit as well until the recession hit in 1979 and tax revenues decreased.

New comment by CalChris in "US national debt surges past $39 Trillion"

CalChris — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:07:46 +0000

Defense spending is social spending just unequally distributed.

New comment by CalChris in "US national debt surges past $39 Trillion"

CalChris — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:03:06 +0000

Reagan campaigned against Carter’s profligate spending.

New comment by CalChris in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)"

CalChris — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 03:48:28 +0000

Canadian c3 citizenship application.