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Todd Park Appointed Second U.S. CTO
redletterdave writes "On Friday, President Barack Obama appointed Todd Park, a 39-year-old former entrepreneur and data scientist, to be the new Chief Technology Officer of the United States. Park takes over for Aneesh Chopra, the first U.S. CTO, who resigned earlier this year. Park was formerly the CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since 2009, where he helped bring 'big data' to healthcare by helping create an open health care data platform similar to the National Weather Service, which could feed data to commercial websites and applications. Before joining the Obama administration, Park helped co-found AthenaHealth and Castlight Health, and also served as a senior adviser to Ashoka, a global incubator for social entrepreneurs. One of his ventures, Healthpoint Services, won the 2011 Sankalp Award for the 'most innovative and promising health-oriented social enterprise in India.'"
Is it bad of me that I didn't know the country HAD a CTO? Do we have a CEO, COO, and chairman of the board too?
I think we should work on a hostile take-over of Iraq... no wait, maybe we already did that.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
He has my condolences.
Only if you define the Heritage Foundation as "socialist."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/01/barack-obama/obama-says-heritage-foundation-source-health-excha/
Or if you define "socialist" to mean "any government program that I don't like."
It sounds like the British have moved from mere conservatism to killing off the weak and powerless.
There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision. -- The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich von Hayek
What is the deal with the health care guys? I mean honestly it is the worst industry for technology ever, well except for like actual medical procedures and stuff - but that's not what these guys did.
I mean really? We couldn't find someone from IBM or Oracle or Apple or Microsoft .. hell, I'll take a guy from Netscape at this point .. who at least has a sense of how things *should* work? Next time you wonder why it takes your doctor 3 months to bill you remember that the CTO of the United States of F'ing America is a guy who was considered a genius in that industry.
flame away on my company names, they were just examples of the hundreds of companies that actually use real technology to actually, you know, DO THINGS.
What a contemptible title to give someone in government. It assumes we're all in favor of having a government that's as inefficient, tyrannical and fascist as the average corporation.
While I don't want a government that is as efficient, tyrannical, or fascist as the average corporation, I do have a question about the job title. What would you call this guy? CTO does say who he is and what he does.
I define it as stealing..... taking money from somebody else. Whether you do it yourself or ask a Congressman to do it for you makes no difference. --- And if we are going to provide for the poor, then let's do that (welfare, food stamps, lowcost housing). Not a universal program that includes the well off. Wouldn't it be silly if I, an engineer, was being given free food stamps by the government?
Of course. It's ridiculous. Government programs should be a last-resort safety net for those who need the help. I should not be eligible for food stamps. Or free hospitalization. I should buy those things directly with my own cash.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Stealing is using your taxes to pay for a bridge to nowhere (or several). Stealing is using your taxes to pay for body scanners that nobody wants to go through, is harmful, and doesn't actually do any good. Stealing is taking away from the public domain.
Stealing is not using taxes to maintain social order, provide social services, and promote individual well-being. A national healthcare system is as much stealing as a national interstate system. As long as everybody gets the same level of treatment irrespective of wealth, race, or sex, it's not stealing. It's only stealing when certain specific individuals get special treatment, e.g. when a celebrity gets a private room in a hospital on government money while everyone else gets a shared room.
A good healthcare system is as beneficial as a good police force. Their purpose is the same: to maintain social order. Death by murder is not that different from death by disease. Being robbed of all your money at gunpoint is not that different from going bankrupt from medical bills. The unease of living in a high-crime neighborhood is not so different from the unease of having to foot a large medical bill.
Yes, there should be a line drawn somewhere between the treatments that a healthcare system should provide, and the treatments that the individual should provide. This line should be tied to what comes about as a result of a personal choice, and what comes about as a result of random acts of the Creator.
But as things stand, we can't even have that debate yet, because there is no such system to talk about. As it is now, everybody has to provide for themselves. Sure, the very poor have insurance (that we subsudize doubly, because providers both charge more to make up for the pittance they get from Medicaid/Medicare, despite us already funding it through taxes), but what's defined as the "very poor" does not allow for upwards mobility. Eligibility isn't tied to income, but instead to net worth (which includes savings), which means the choice is either to stay at the bottom or to tough it out and try to move up and lose all government protection.
It's like the wild west all over again, but worse. Those who can afford a bodyguard pay for one. Those who cannot are on their own. And only those who are permanently crippled can access the sheriff.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."