My employer is offering different health insurance options to choose from.

I'm in my late 20s; reasonably healthy. Don't smoke or drink. Have no family; this health insurance covers me only.



Plan A, which costs me $400 more per year in premiums than Plan B:

Copay for pretty much all medical services of any sort: 80% after deductible, if in-network, 60% after deductible, if out-of-network
Annual out-of-pocket maximum: $3,000 in-network, unlimited out-of-network
Annual deductible: $1,500 in-network, $1,500 out-of-network
Non-network liability (don't even know what this means): Unlimited



****************************************************



Plan B, which costs me $400 less per year in premiums than Plan A:


Copay for pretty much all medical services of any sort: 70% after deductible, if in-network, 60% after deductible, if out-of-network
Annual out-of-pocket maximum: $5,000 in-network, unlimited out-of-network
Annual deductible: $2,000 in-network, $4,000 out-of-network
Non-network liability: Unlimited



Which do you think I should go for? And are these "good" health insurance plans, in terms of benefits, in your opinion? Mediocre? Lousy?


Also, why is the out-of-pocket maximum a set, fixed amount (i.e., $5,000,) but the non-network liability is "unlimited?" Is that a contradiction, or am I totally misunderstanding the meaning of "non-network liability?"

Since things have settled down, I wanted to revisit an old issue:


I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me the Trayvon Martin case - which I find a very confusing case - was essentially, "Blame the law, don't blame the jury," am I right? That is to say, under the parameters of the law, the jury didn't really have much choice but to acquit Zimmerman?


If so, then why did many people get angry at the jury instead of the law? Would convicting Zimmerman have actually been the right choice, under the parameters of the situation? Seems to me the jury had little choice but to acquit.


It's immensely confusing.

I moved from Virginia to Texas. I registered to vote in Texas, but I haven't yet notified the Virginia board of elections that I no longer reside in Virginia.

Obviously, I'm not going to vote in both states, and I plan to contact the Virginia board of elections very soon, but in the meantime, would there be legal trouble since I'd be a registered voter in two states?

Hospitals should be banned from charging paying patients more to cover the cost of patients who don't pay.

If a restaurant charged a patron double price for a burger because the previous customer didn't pay his burger, he would throw a fit, and rightfully so. Yes, I know, fast food isn't the best analogy, but you get my point.


It is a ludicrous injustice.

I read an Internet comment by a boss who decided to lay off employees based off of whether they had Obama bumper stickers or not (he was laying off employees that did support Obama - again, this was an Internet comment, so take it with several grains of salt), and it got me wondering:


Should employers be allowed to hire, fire, promote, not promote, or otherwise discriminate on the basis of political views or political affiliation?



I understand there may be valid need to do so - why should a liberal political party be required to hire a conservative who doesn't share their views? - but for the most part, should such discrimination be banned?

Is it really as scary as people say it is?

Would skydiving still proceed if the weather is cloudy?

Will it be very cold?

Also, is there any noticeable difference between jumping from 10,000 feet and jumping from 14,000?

I'm reading history, and in our current era of narrow, tightly-contested elections, I can't even imagine what a 49-state defeat would have felt like. Were there a lot of Chicken Littles who proclaimed that the Democratic Party would be going extinct? How did the political party bounce back?

Sorry if the answer is really obvious and I missed it, but I have a layman question about higher education:

How do women's-only colleges qualify for federal financial aid if such funding prohibits gender-based admissions? Is there an exception in the rules?

Yes, there were taxes, British governmental meddling, and many colonists felt denied rights they felt they should have...........but was secession really justified? Were circumstances really bad enough to justify secession?



If you were back then in the 1770s, would you have backed secession or remaining part of Britain?



(This a serious question; not sarcastic.)

Note: This is purely hypothetical; it's unrelated to any political scandal in real life.


Say someone in your administration embezzles millions of dollars from the governmental budget, accepts huge bribes or kickbacks, or commits some flagrant abuse of power, or causes some other scandal.


As governor or president, you did not know about this, there's nothing you could have done about it, and you 100% oppose it. But it's too late.

What do you do?


If you proclaim, "I had nothing to do with this and knew nothing of this' - well, you look guilty. The public and media would say, "That;'s what every politician in a scandal says!"


If you fire the culprit and crack down hard, then you look like someone who is trying very hard to cast blame and distance yourself - which makes you look guilty.

If you take responsibility for what happened, even though it wasn't your fault, then the media and public will think you were part of the scandal.


What would you do?