the US government being involved in health care is a very new thing. it can be argued that the TSA was perhaps the largest new program that the US government created before the health care thing. that links the two in a very powerful and factual way.
the US government has been using the military for hundreds of years, and the politics of military use go back thousands.
Medicare was instituted in '66. It can be from 40% to 60% of hospital inpatient volume. Tell me again how the government is new to healthcare. It has the big stick and has for quite some time.
Except that you don't really know the author at all. He spends a lot of time making fun of "social scientists," economists, and most of all, Harvard Professors. Go pick up his book, "Anti-Fragile"
The US has better health outcomes than most other countries related to its healthcare system. In the international report on average age of mortality, the US ranks 33rd or 35th. Everyone looks at that to show that we are way behind. But if you look at the data you find two things:
1. There is little statistical difference between 35th and 5th. 2. The US actually ranks 2nd if you remove deaths related to auto accidents and suicides. Since it would be hard to attribute those deaths to the healthcare system.
The US spends about 15% of its GDP on healthcare. Way more than any other country out there. So the answer to any question isn't necessarily spending more money. The difference between our system and the socialized medicine systems that seem to have universal coverage is how they do their rationing. The citizens of the US have a hard time dealing with healthcare rationing.
That is why most of the latest and greatest scientific marvels in healthcare come out of the US. Because if the new treatment provides just a 1% better chance of success, we take it.
Take, for example, proton beam therapy. The advantages of this technology are high for a very small subset of cancers. The cost of installing just one device is about $350 million dollars. That small subset could be serviced by just one proton beam therapy machine in the entire US. What is happening is a medical arms race with many institutions building out these things so that they can say that they have one. Then, because it is there, the doctors are using it on other cancers than the small subset where better clinical outcomes haven't been proven. But, because of the expense of the technology, insurers and CMS (Medicare) pay a lot more for this type of therapy than more traditional, less costly methods (gamma knife, stereocastic, etc).
Another example of over spending is for drugs. The US pays the most of any country for drugs. I'm not saying this is good or bad. Because the drug companies basically pay cost in Europe and practically give them away for free in Africa. That they can do this is because people in the US pay enough to subsidize the cost in Africa and profit required in Europe (drug companies will cease to invest the $2 billion per drug if there is no profit). Its just a fact of life for now.
In order to provide care to more people at a lower cost, the only thing you can do is lower costs. Increasing insurance really doesn't get you there. Lowering costs can only be done by:
1. Seeing more patients with the same number of doctors and nurses 2. Paying doctors and nurses less 3. Building less buildings 4. Investing less in equipment 5. Investing less in information technology (HUGE over the last 5 years) 5. Providing less care
What the ACA is trying to rely on is that if more people had access to basic healthcare, then they wouldn't get chronic diseases that are more expensive to treat. This is a tenuous argument since there is no evidence that this will happen from any kind of experiment. In the mean time, we need to hire more doctors and nurses causing higher costs.
Very nice post. I wish more people would go through the math before spouting off.
However, as one who lives in the US, I have never used a furlong. You can use feet for us as well. Or better yet, call 300 feet a football field, unless you are a Baltimore Ravens fan, then you would wish it was 294 feet.
Your comment "Traditionally, the human cost has put a check on war-waging. " is belayed by the last 2000 years of history. Democracies have generally put a check on expansionist war waging by dictators and monarchs who don't usually care about the human toll. Can you imagine having the equivalent of the 100 years war today?
You must not use Facebook. The whole thing behind Facebook is that the only people who can see your profile is users you have tagged as "Friends" The whole world can't see what you have written, just your friends.
Now if Facebook is going to take that close knit aspect and destroy it, they've just given up the one thing that made them stand out, the ability to limit which other people can see your personal information.
There is a team in my county that is competing in this challenge. They have put out fliers before, looking for sponsors and manpower.
Here is their website: http://aimagic.org/html/agv_wendy_darling.html
The picture of the car in TFA is kind of wimpy compared with this team. Instead of trying to drive a car around a simulated city, they have outfitted a huge military truck. Here are some specs:
# M-215 Cargo Truck 2.5 ton
# GVW=18,560 lbs. Empty weight 14,460 lbs.
# GMC 2-1/2 ton
# AIM AutoPilot for driverless operation
# Six Wheel Drive
# Engine model GMC 302
# Displacement 302 cu. in. 130 hp at 3,200 rpm
# Four cycle, six cylinder
The poster of this article is writing like this is new, when in fact it has already been done.
Back in 1995 when Maxis released Sim City 2k It took me until around 1970 to build the Microwave solar power plant. Because I was an ignorant youth, I figured we had already built one. Of course, I couldn't reconcile that with the nuclear fusion plant, until I read about ITER.
Anyway, the real problem with this means of getting energy is that you only have so much land, and no matter how far away you build this plant, eventually your city will encroach on it. Then one day when you forget to turn off your disasters, WHAM! The laser in the sky will miss and take out a nice high density neighborhood. Or sometimes worse, your small area of high density industrial. Or maybe by then even worse yet, your super high density archology.
You'd think they would have learned all that by now, I had it down 10 years before the Pentagon made that announcement.
This article actually makes a lot of sense and might explain a few things in my life. My wife has Type 1 diabetes and she has 2 cousins with it. Her Grandmother currently is suffering from Alzheimer's.
From reading the article, it appears that the problem with teh Alzheimer's patients is more related to type to diabetes, in that the tissue is having problems absorbing the insulin. On the other hand, the article doesn't go into possibilities of not having enough insulin the first place.
If my wife, for instance, were to not take enough insulin, would she have the same Alzheimer's effect has a person with type 2 diabetes?
Another study they should look in to is people with both of these traits in their family tree. While my mother-in-law is does not have diabetes, she maybe a good specimen for study since she is at risk for Alzheimer's and is carrying some receive genes for diabetes.
(Plus if they took her away to be studied, she won't be hanging around our house when her grandchild is born)
The question isn't why wouldn't this person want to post anonymously, its why would he?
If he posts anonymously and the Officer of Inspector General (OIG) investigates, the anonymous poster gets nothing.
However, under the False Claims Act (FCA) a whistle blower is entitled to receive a bounty, known as "Qui Tam." Qui Tam can be given to the whistle blower up to 30% of any recovery. If there is no corporate compliance plan, damages can be assessed at triple (3x actual damages). The whistle blower can get 30% of those 3x damages.
This is a great incentive for the whistle blower to report straight to the OIG. When I mentioned that having a corporate compliance plan isn't mandated, I meant just that. That while there is no government mandate, everyone has one. Having a working corporate compliance plan can get you out of the 3x damage assessment by showing that you are trying to be good and that the incident isn't systemic, just an isolated incident.
If I had the option to post anonymously, or get possibly millions in bounty, I know what I'd be doing.
There are other ways to handle possible hospital problems than posting to an anonymous blog.
Since the late 1990s, almost all hospitals have implemented corporate compliance plans.
Corporate compliance plans usually name one high level employee as the corporate compliance officer who has the power to report directly to the board. Part of this person's duties are to set up an anonymous whistle blower hotline. It is their job to investigate any complaints that come in to the hotline.
Other duties of the corporate compliance officer are to set up a corporate compliance team and perform random and targeted internal inspection. Inspection includes, reviewing medical records and comparing them to doctor transcripts to ensure proper medical record recording and reviewing patient bills to see if charges that were billed (usually to an insurance company) are the correct codes compared to the medical record for what actually took place.
Hospitals are not mandated to have corporate compliance plans, but if they are investigated by the OIG (Office of Inspector General) then they can mitigate their fines by showing that they have a corporate compliance plan and that they actively engage in carrying out the plan.
The odds are that this hospital has such a plan, such an officer, and such a whistle blower hotline. If the blogger was actauly and employee, then he would know this.
(My knowledge of this subject is a working one because I am a hospital auditor.)
P.S. - This is my first Slashdot post. I've been lurking for the last 5 or so years.
Slashdot Mirror
no...i don't believe so.
the US government being involved in health care is a very new thing. it can be argued that the TSA was perhaps the largest new program that the US government created before the health care thing. that links the two in a very powerful and factual way.
the US government has been using the military for hundreds of years, and the politics of military use go back thousands.
Medicare was instituted in '66. It can be from 40% to 60% of hospital inpatient volume. Tell me again how the government is new to healthcare. It has the big stick and has for quite some time.
Except that you don't really know the author at all. He spends a lot of time making fun of "social scientists," economists, and most of all, Harvard Professors. Go pick up his book, "Anti-Fragile"
If you remove deaths from traffic accidents and suicides from the numbers of all countries, US jumps to number 2.
Not to mince words. Ok, maybe I'm mincing.
But an increase from 3% to 5% is a 66% increase. Not a 2% increase.
The US has better health outcomes than most other countries related to its healthcare system. In the international report on average age of mortality, the US ranks 33rd or 35th. Everyone looks at that to show that we are way behind. But if you look at the data you find two things:
1. There is little statistical difference between 35th and 5th.
2. The US actually ranks 2nd if you remove deaths related to auto accidents and suicides. Since it would be hard to attribute those deaths to the healthcare system.
The US spends about 15% of its GDP on healthcare. Way more than any other country out there. So the answer to any question isn't necessarily spending more money. The difference between our system and the socialized medicine systems that seem to have universal coverage is how they do their rationing. The citizens of the US have a hard time dealing with healthcare rationing.
That is why most of the latest and greatest scientific marvels in healthcare come out of the US. Because if the new treatment provides just a 1% better chance of success, we take it.
Take, for example, proton beam therapy. The advantages of this technology are high for a very small subset of cancers. The cost of installing just one device is about $350 million dollars. That small subset could be serviced by just one proton beam therapy machine in the entire US. What is happening is a medical arms race with many institutions building out these things so that they can say that they have one. Then, because it is there, the doctors are using it on other cancers than the small subset where better clinical outcomes haven't been proven. But, because of the expense of the technology, insurers and CMS (Medicare) pay a lot more for this type of therapy than more traditional, less costly methods (gamma knife, stereocastic, etc).
Another example of over spending is for drugs. The US pays the most of any country for drugs. I'm not saying this is good or bad. Because the drug companies basically pay cost in Europe and practically give them away for free in Africa. That they can do this is because people in the US pay enough to subsidize the cost in Africa and profit required in Europe (drug companies will cease to invest the $2 billion per drug if there is no profit). Its just a fact of life for now.
In order to provide care to more people at a lower cost, the only thing you can do is lower costs. Increasing insurance really doesn't get you there. Lowering costs can only be done by:
1. Seeing more patients with the same number of doctors and nurses
2. Paying doctors and nurses less
3. Building less buildings
4. Investing less in equipment
5. Investing less in information technology (HUGE over the last 5 years)
5. Providing less care
What the ACA is trying to rely on is that if more people had access to basic healthcare, then they wouldn't get chronic diseases that are more expensive to treat. This is a tenuous argument since there is no evidence that this will happen from any kind of experiment. In the mean time, we need to hire more doctors and nurses causing higher costs.
Very nice post. I wish more people would go through the math before spouting off.
However, as one who lives in the US, I have never used a furlong. You can use feet for us as well. Or better yet, call 300 feet a football field, unless you are a Baltimore Ravens fan, then you would wish it was 294 feet.
Your comment "Traditionally, the human cost has put a check on war-waging. " is belayed by the last 2000 years of history. Democracies have generally put a check on expansionist war waging by dictators and monarchs who don't usually care about the human toll. Can you imagine having the equivalent of the 100 years war today?
Hello?
That post really looked tung-in-cheek to me. I think you totally didn't get it.
You must not use Facebook. The whole thing behind Facebook is that the only people who can see your profile is users you have tagged as "Friends" The whole world can't see what you have written, just your friends.
Now if Facebook is going to take that close knit aspect and destroy it, they've just given up the one thing that made them stand out, the ability to limit which other people can see your personal information.
There is a team in my county that is competing in this challenge. They have put out fliers before, looking for sponsors and manpower.
Here is their website: http://aimagic.org/html/agv_wendy_darling.html
The picture of the car in TFA is kind of wimpy compared with this team. Instead of trying to drive a car around a simulated city, they have outfitted a huge military truck. Here are some specs:
# M-215 Cargo Truck 2.5 ton
# GVW=18,560 lbs. Empty weight 14,460 lbs.
# GMC 2-1/2 ton
# AIM AutoPilot for driverless operation
# Six Wheel Drive
# Engine model GMC 302
# Displacement 302 cu. in. 130 hp at 3,200 rpm
# Four cycle, six cylinder
The poster of this article is writing like this is new, when in fact it has already been done.
Back in 1995 when Maxis released Sim City 2k It took me until around 1970 to build the Microwave solar power plant. Because I was an ignorant youth, I figured we had already built one. Of course, I couldn't reconcile that with the nuclear fusion plant, until I read about ITER.
Anyway, the real problem with this means of getting energy is that you only have so much land, and no matter how far away you build this plant, eventually your city will encroach on it. Then one day when you forget to turn off your disasters, WHAM! The laser in the sky will miss and take out a nice high density neighborhood. Or sometimes worse, your small area of high density industrial. Or maybe by then even worse yet, your super high density archology.
You'd think they would have learned all that by now, I had it down 10 years before the Pentagon made that announcement.
This article actually makes a lot of sense and might explain a few things in my life. My wife has Type 1 diabetes and she has 2 cousins with it. Her Grandmother currently is suffering from Alzheimer's.
From reading the article, it appears that the problem with teh Alzheimer's patients is more related to type to diabetes, in that the tissue is having problems absorbing the insulin. On the other hand, the article doesn't go into possibilities of not having enough insulin the first place.
If my wife, for instance, were to not take enough insulin, would she have the same Alzheimer's effect has a person with type 2 diabetes?
Another study they should look in to is people with both of these traits in their family tree. While my mother-in-law is does not have diabetes, she maybe a good specimen for study since she is at risk for Alzheimer's and is carrying some receive genes for diabetes.
(Plus if they took her away to be studied, she won't be hanging around our house when her grandchild is born)
The question isn't why wouldn't this person want to post anonymously, its why would he?
If he posts anonymously and the Officer of Inspector General (OIG) investigates, the anonymous poster gets nothing.
However, under the False Claims Act (FCA) a whistle blower is entitled to receive a bounty, known as "Qui Tam." Qui Tam can be given to the whistle blower up to 30% of any recovery. If there is no corporate compliance plan, damages can be assessed at triple (3x actual damages). The whistle blower can get 30% of those 3x damages.
This is a great incentive for the whistle blower to report straight to the OIG. When I mentioned that having a corporate compliance plan isn't mandated, I meant just that. That while there is no government mandate, everyone has one. Having a working corporate compliance plan can get you out of the 3x damage assessment by showing that you are trying to be good and that the incident isn't systemic, just an isolated incident.
If I had the option to post anonymously, or get possibly millions in bounty, I know what I'd be doing.
There are other ways to handle possible hospital problems than posting to an anonymous blog. Since the late 1990s, almost all hospitals have implemented corporate compliance plans. Corporate compliance plans usually name one high level employee as the corporate compliance officer who has the power to report directly to the board. Part of this person's duties are to set up an anonymous whistle blower hotline. It is their job to investigate any complaints that come in to the hotline. Other duties of the corporate compliance officer are to set up a corporate compliance team and perform random and targeted internal inspection. Inspection includes, reviewing medical records and comparing them to doctor transcripts to ensure proper medical record recording and reviewing patient bills to see if charges that were billed (usually to an insurance company) are the correct codes compared to the medical record for what actually took place. Hospitals are not mandated to have corporate compliance plans, but if they are investigated by the OIG (Office of Inspector General) then they can mitigate their fines by showing that they have a corporate compliance plan and that they actively engage in carrying out the plan. The odds are that this hospital has such a plan, such an officer, and such a whistle blower hotline. If the blogger was actauly and employee, then he would know this. (My knowledge of this subject is a working one because I am a hospital auditor.) P.S. - This is my first Slashdot post. I've been lurking for the last 5 or so years.