"Girls of Electronica" Dot. Com. Watch the ladies as they solder and desolder iPhones and other high-tech gadgets, while also being topless. See voltmeters probing things they were never meant to probe! Or vibrating air guns used in creative new fashion! Only $5 a month.
>>>I guess they still make profit so this means that they mark their prices up by >1000% to someone who walks in w/o insurance.
You're guessing wrong. A lot of doctors are quitting the profession specifically because they are *losing* money due to underpaying insurance and/or government insurance administrators. Those that manage to survive are doing so off the backs of their richer patients. The profit from the rich helps subsidize those $50 bloodwork tests that actually cost $100 to do. .
>>>where there is real competition?
I don't know where you live but where I'm at there are ~10 different hospitals choose from. 30 if I expand my search to the next closest cities. There's as much competition in health as there is for grocery stores. I think the system works just fine. ----- In fact on my last visit I told the doctor that I didn't think it was necessary to come to his office a second time in two weeks, since all he did was look at me. He agreed that he didn't really do anything so I paid nothing. He knew that if he said "no" he'd probably lose a customer. .
>>>Is there a complicity between health care providers and the insurance sector?
I agree. "yes". So stop buying insurance and just pay cash. Or switch to catastrophic insurance for emergencies (like cancer), and pay cash for everything else. You don't have to participate in the collusion. ----- Well... that is until Congress started fining us $950 for not having insurance. Now there's collusion between our Congress and the Insurance sector. Wonderful. I'll be glad when we get rid of Bush and his Corporate Sellouts called the Republicans.
Don't you think they are evil? Why? Simply because they are bad? No. Because you (an american citizen) doesn't have any other choice. Lack of choice is what makes that situation evil.
Also if the US private/insurance-based health system is nor perfect, but neither is Germany's public system, why do we want to import an system that is still imperfect? That's simply trading a pile of crap for a pile of manure.
You also failed to factor-in the UK citizens pay about 70% tax burden, while the US tax burden 40%. I recently spoke to a UK transplant, and she told me that's the principal reason she and her husband moved to the US - to keep more of the money they sweated to earn.
>>>we have tons to regulation in the US on healthcare, implying that this regulation is cauting the inefficiencies.
I don't have a problem with regulation - so long as it's useful and doesn't create a Housing Boom (followed by a crash) as happened with the 1997 "you must loan to poor people" regulation. That was the root cause of the financial collapse from 2007 to 2009.
I have a problem with my neighbor smoking most of his life, developing cancer around age 60, buying a new pair of lungs, and then sucking money out of my wallet to pay the ~$100,000 bill. That makes essentially a slave - working for somebody else's enrichment, rather than my own. I'm sorry my neighbor got sick but he created the problem himself, and he should fix it himself with his own money.
I also have a problem when the US ignores our 9th and 10th amendment rights. If the power to create a government-run health system exists, it is reserved to the Member States, just like over in the EU. I have no objections that Massachusetts created such a system. That's perfectly legitimate.
>>>these people seem to have no problem with the vast amounts of money the US Government spends on a socialised military.
Yes we do. I was just watching Congressman Paul say, "Having 500 bases around the world is ridiculous. We should close them all except the ones located on our own soil, for self-defense." I agree with him, as do most Tea Partiers, if you had bothered to REALLY listen instead of making unfounded assumptions.
Oh and another thing: We don't have a problem with legitimate constitutional functions, like having a Navy to defend the coastlines. But I can lay my hand on no portion of the US Constitution that authorizes a government-run health system. Per the 9th and 10th amendment Rights, such a power is reserved to the Member States, just like over in the EU.
If you want to create a US-run health system, then follow the proper procedure and amend the USC to give Congress that power.
Because the public service is a building to is slowly crumbling to the ground, or ridden with drugs, and yet I still am expected to pay for that POS.
It's akin to deciding to "cut the cord" and just watch television for free (by antenna or ATT cellphone), and yet I'm still forced to pay $60/month to the local POS Comcast monopoly. If you don't use a service, you should not have to pay for it.
>>>Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
This report has already been found to be filled with serious flaws. It has been roundly rejected by scientists, and just recently the OECD has admitted they flat out lied about the states ("errors" they called them). They also made invalid assumptions: Like only looking at government costs and not private costs (example: me paying $200 directly to my doctor) which would drive down the national average.
This is akin to those reports that keep proclaiming the "US is almost dead last in internet speeds!" when the reality is we are in second place behind the Russian Federation, and ahead of the European Union, Canada, Australia, China, et cetera. Such reports are lying with statistics. Don't cite reports where the conclusion was reached BEFORE the data was compiled.
I agree with you that US Healthcare is more expensive but as I said, it isn't that much more (1.1x) and it's preferable to having a monopoly. I'd rather have multiple choices than being forced to drive a GM Monopoly, just because it might be slightly cheaper. .
>>>Please stop peddling this bullshit
Censorship? You wish me to be silent or else? No. You'll have to put a gun to my head if you wish to silence me, and even then I'll keep exercising my right to speak until you pull the trigger. I will not be intimidated by you, Congressmen putting me in neckholds*, men with guns standing outside my voting booth with guns**, or anybody else.
And I get modded down because someone disagrees with my *opinion* about DC's Metro. I really wish Slashdot would fix its moderation system, because moderation is not meant to be used to say "I disagree". That's what posting is for.
Yes actually it does. You have one train driver texting in DC, he wrecks, and then the whole northwestern quarter of Greater Washington Metro stops moving with millions of workers not able to get home. - I'll stick with the flexibility of my car, thank you. At least I can drive around the accident - can't do that with railed systems.
Oh and by the way my car if a hybrid that gets 80 miles per gallon (160 if I carry a friend). The typical bus or train averages only 25mpg each passenger.
>>>You have to store the blanks somewhere. That is cost.
Eliminate the worthless paper/advertising they bundle with PCs ("get 10 free songs from itunes! Sign now!") and then use that space to store the Restore DVDs in the warehouse. As for all that other nonsense you mentioned, like verifying the disc, packaging, et cetera, the DVD duplicator does it all for you.
If I want to sell my books to amazon for $5 while charging $6 to everyone else, why does it matter? Why is the Government's General Attorney interfering with these transaction that only involves two people (me and the amazon rep)? This looks to me like some guy who has too much time on his hands, or is possible looking for an issue to hang his reelection campaign upon.
Note that this is different from the price-fixing that CD companies were doing - forcing stores like Kmart and Walmart to raise prices from $9 to $12 minimum. That could be argued to be Damaging the consumer, and was found to be an illegal cartel (record companies acting as one unit).
>>>a replacement device that they take another 3-4 hours to get working?
Then just go buy a Windows PC or Apple Macintosh that works out of the box, rather than wasting time with Linux headaches, like incompatible drivers or software that only works on PC/Mac. .
>>>spend 5 hours minimum getting the crud off of it
My new PC had very little crud on it. It took me just a few minutes to highlight and press the delete key for the "Sign up for AOL" and similar junkcons. I suppose the actual software is still taking-up space on the drive, but so what? With 500 gigabytes it's not even noticeable.
>>>From their point of view it's always cheaper to push the cost off on to the consumer.
It's also probably "cheaper" for them if my computer develops a hard sector error within three years, and being like the typical consumer I didn't create a restore DVD, so I have to go-out and buy a whole new machine in 2013.
So the PC manufacturer is saving more than just 10 cents by not printing a restore disc... they are gaining a future sale of at least $300.00
>>>only a recovery partition which was tied to your boot sector so installing Linux or any other OS or boot manager meant your recovery sector was useless.
Really? I just learned something new. This pretty much proves the new 2000s Microsoft is better than the old 90s Microsoft (which was sued by the US and EU for various nefarious practices). I really don't understand Microsoft apologists that defend this company. It's ridiculous that you can't even install a dual-boot Windows/Linux or Windows/Other setup without destroying the "restore windows" sector.
It's only ~10 cents for the company to mass-produce a DVD and include it with your new computer. You're saving very little. And you're lucky that you've "never" needed to use the restore disc, because in the 8 years I've owned this PC, I've had to do a Restore thrice. Once when the power supply died (and messed-up the boot block), and again when Windows XP refused to go past the loading screen for some unknown reason, and a third time when my networking card inexplicably "disappeared" causing major system slowdowns.
And on my brother's Vista machine I've used the restore disc twice in three years.
Having a restore disc is really not "optional". It's just as important as having a backup of your files - going without it would be foolish unless you enjoy having a perfectly good PC turn into a brick that you can't restore to like-new condition.
- My ISP web accelerator software doesn't work on Linux (although I could substitute Opera Turbo for almost-as-fast performance). - My Atari and NES emulators only play half as many games as the Windows versions of these emulators - I can't make Flash work on Ubuntu, even though I've tried numerous times. It keeps saying something about, "Not enough permission." - iTunes doesn't work - MS Office doesn't work - Windows Media Encoder doesn't work - 2xAV (double speed) Player doesn't work - And on and on and on.
Using Linux is liking taking a step back to the days of running my Commodore Amiga. I loved that machine but it was hard to find any software to support what I wanted to do (and therefore I moved to Windows 98).
Or they recognize that it's silly to waste 3-4 hours trying to make a device work, when it only takes an hour of overtime to earn the cash and BUY the fix (like a new device). That's called common sense.
I can. It's cheaper for them to run-off a million or so DVD Restore Discs, with discounted pricing, then for me to run to the store, buy a DVD blank, and record a restore disc. (That's what my new HP Compaq computer expects me to do.) I'd rather pay an extra 10 cents on the purchase price and get the disc.
>>>The funny thing is that when [Netscape] had a similar market share to what IE6 has now, lots of sites said "screw it, this site only works in Internet Explorer".
Fixed that for you. "It never hurts to kiss-up to the boss." Microsoft was viewed as the safe choice to support for 90s-era sysops desiring to keep their jobs, where Netscape was viewed as a small company and not worth sticking your neck out for.
BTW I hear a lot of hate directed at IE6. Is IE7 any better? What about IE5? Anybody still using it?
>>>Why is it that a bewildering number of smart people has been indoctrinated into believing that the "free market" is the only solution to everything?
Why is that a bewildering number of people paint the world as black-and-white? I consider myself a "smart people" and I support the free market, but I don't think it's the solution to "everything". For example if you have a natural monopoly where it would be impossible to provide Choice, such as water and sewer pipes, then the free market is not your best option.
Please be more careful with how you paint other people with your strawman arguments. We're not all black. And we're not all white. Most of us are shades of gray with varying viewpoints all along the political spectrum. .
>>>at about 2 times the cost.
First: You exaggerate. US healthcare is more costly, but only by 1.1x not 2x. Foreign healthcare like Canada is also costly, but most of the cost is hidden behind bureaucracy and taxes. ----- Second: Sometimes it's worth the extra cost, just so you can have freedom. That's why we have ~30 different car companies, and not just a GM (government motors) Monopoly. It probably would be cheaper to have a single Car Monopoly run by Government, but who wants to live in such a world???
I prefer a Pro-Choice solution wherever possible so that as much power as possible is placed in the hands of the People. Choice == Freedom. Monopoly == Slavery.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I just thought of a great new website:
"Girls of Electronica" Dot. Com. Watch the ladies as they solder and desolder iPhones and other high-tech gadgets, while also being topless. See voltmeters probing things they were never meant to probe! Or vibrating air guns used in creative new fashion! Only $5 a month.
"Boring film... losing... consciousness." ----- (That's a tick reference for our younger viewers.)
>>>I guess they still make profit so this means that they mark their prices up by >1000% to someone who walks in w/o insurance.
You're guessing wrong. A lot of doctors are quitting the profession specifically because they are *losing* money due to underpaying insurance and/or government insurance administrators. Those that manage to survive are doing so off the backs of their richer patients. The profit from the rich helps subsidize those $50 bloodwork tests that actually cost $100 to do.
.
>>>where there is real competition?
I don't know where you live but where I'm at there are ~10 different hospitals choose from. 30 if I expand my search to the next closest cities. There's as much competition in health as there is for grocery stores. I think the system works just fine. ----- In fact on my last visit I told the doctor that I didn't think it was necessary to come to his office a second time in two weeks, since all he did was look at me. He agreed that he didn't really do anything so I paid nothing. He knew that if he said "no" he'd probably lose a customer.
.
>>>Is there a complicity between health care providers and the insurance sector?
I agree. "yes". So stop buying insurance and just pay cash. Or switch to catastrophic insurance for emergencies (like cancer), and pay cash for everything else. You don't have to participate in the collusion. ----- Well... that is until Congress started fining us $950 for not having insurance. Now there's collusion between our Congress and the Insurance sector. Wonderful. I'll be glad when we get rid of Bush and his Corporate Sellouts called the Republicans.
Comcast has a monopoly.
Don't you think they are evil? Why? Simply because they are bad? No. Because you (an american citizen) doesn't have any other choice. Lack of choice is what makes that situation evil.
Also if the US private/insurance-based health system is nor perfect, but neither is Germany's public system, why do we want to import an system that is still imperfect? That's simply trading a pile of crap for a pile of manure.
You also failed to factor-in the UK citizens pay about 70% tax burden, while the US tax burden 40%. I recently spoke to a UK transplant, and she told me that's the principal reason she and her husband moved to the US - to keep more of the money they sweated to earn.
>>>we have tons to regulation in the US on healthcare, implying that this regulation is cauting the inefficiencies.
I don't have a problem with regulation - so long as it's useful and doesn't create a Housing Boom (followed by a crash) as happened with the 1997 "you must loan to poor people" regulation. That was the root cause of the financial collapse from 2007 to 2009.
I have a problem with my neighbor smoking most of his life, developing cancer around age 60, buying a new pair of lungs, and then sucking money out of my wallet to pay the ~$100,000 bill. That makes essentially a slave - working for somebody else's enrichment, rather than my own. I'm sorry my neighbor got sick but he created the problem himself, and he should fix it himself with his own money.
I also have a problem when the US ignores our 9th and 10th amendment rights. If the power to create a government-run health system exists, it is reserved to the Member States, just like over in the EU. I have no objections that Massachusetts created such a system. That's perfectly legitimate.
>>>these people seem to have no problem with the vast amounts of money the US Government spends on a socialised military.
Yes we do. I was just watching Congressman Paul say, "Having 500 bases around the world is ridiculous. We should close them all except the ones located on our own soil, for self-defense." I agree with him, as do most Tea Partiers, if you had bothered to REALLY listen instead of making unfounded assumptions.
Oh and another thing: We don't have a problem with legitimate constitutional functions, like having a Navy to defend the coastlines. But I can lay my hand on no portion of the US Constitution that authorizes a government-run health system. Per the 9th and 10th amendment Rights, such a power is reserved to the Member States, just like over in the EU.
If you want to create a US-run health system, then follow the proper procedure and amend the USC to give Congress that power.
Because the public service is a building to is slowly crumbling to the ground, or ridden with drugs, and yet I still am expected to pay for that POS.
It's akin to deciding to "cut the cord" and just watch television for free (by antenna or ATT cellphone), and yet I'm still forced to pay $60/month to the local POS Comcast monopoly. If you don't use a service, you should not have to pay for it.
Why Obama's DOJ didn't prosecute these people is a mystery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX4dcvIYk9A
>>>Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
This report has already been found to be filled with serious flaws. It has been roundly rejected by scientists, and just recently the OECD has admitted they flat out lied about the states ("errors" they called them). They also made invalid assumptions: Like only looking at government costs and not private costs (example: me paying $200 directly to my doctor) which would drive down the national average.
This is akin to those reports that keep proclaiming the "US is almost dead last in internet speeds!" when the reality is we are in second place behind the Russian Federation, and ahead of the European Union, Canada, Australia, China, et cetera. Such reports are lying with statistics. Don't cite reports where the conclusion was reached BEFORE the data was compiled.
I agree with you that US Healthcare is more expensive but as I said, it isn't that much more (1.1x) and it's preferable to having a monopoly. I'd rather have multiple choices than being forced to drive a GM Monopoly, just because it might be slightly cheaper.
.
>>>Please stop peddling this bullshit
Censorship? You wish me to be silent or else? No. You'll have to put a gun to my head if you wish to silence me, and even then I'll keep exercising my right to speak until you pull the trigger. I will not be intimidated by you, Congressmen putting me in neckholds*, men with guns standing outside my voting booth with guns**, or anybody else.
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v60oNUoHBYM
** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU
** "You got my back?" - clearly this guy was scared
>>> (-1 Overrated)
And I get modded down because someone disagrees with my *opinion* about DC's Metro. I really wish Slashdot would fix its moderation system, because moderation is not meant to be used to say "I disagree". That's what posting is for.
Most of that stuff was invented independently in Europe, so even if China never existed, we'd still have those items.
Plus you gave credit for some things that were actually invented by the Arabs or the Romans/Greeks. Like the compass.
>>>Never seems to slow them down much.
Yes actually it does. You have one train driver texting in DC, he wrecks, and then the whole northwestern quarter of Greater Washington Metro stops moving with millions of workers not able to get home. - I'll stick with the flexibility of my car, thank you. At least I can drive around the accident - can't do that with railed systems.
Oh and by the way my car if a hybrid that gets 80 miles per gallon (160 if I carry a friend). The typical bus or train averages only 25mpg each passenger.
>>>You have to store the blanks somewhere. That is cost.
Eliminate the worthless paper/advertising they bundle with PCs ("get 10 free songs from itunes! Sign now!") and then use that space to store the Restore DVDs in the warehouse. As for all that other nonsense you mentioned, like verifying the disc, packaging, et cetera, the DVD duplicator does it all for you.
COST - 5 cents per disc
This makes no sense to me.
If I want to sell my books to amazon for $5 while charging $6 to everyone else, why does it matter? Why is the Government's General Attorney interfering with these transaction that only involves two people (me and the amazon rep)? This looks to me like some guy who has too much time on his hands, or is possible looking for an issue to hang his reelection campaign upon.
Note that this is different from the price-fixing that CD companies were doing - forcing stores like Kmart and Walmart to raise prices from $9 to $12 minimum. That could be argued to be Damaging the consumer, and was found to be an illegal cartel (record companies acting as one unit).
>>>a replacement device that they take another 3-4 hours to get working?
Then just go buy a Windows PC or Apple Macintosh that works out of the box, rather than wasting time with Linux headaches, like incompatible drivers or software that only works on PC/Mac.
.
>>>spend 5 hours minimum getting the crud off of it
My new PC had very little crud on it. It took me just a few minutes to highlight and press the delete key for the "Sign up for AOL" and similar junkcons. I suppose the actual software is still taking-up space on the drive, but so what? With 500 gigabytes it's not even noticeable.
>>>From their point of view it's always cheaper to push the cost off on to the consumer.
It's also probably "cheaper" for them if my computer develops a hard sector error within three years, and being like the typical consumer I didn't create a restore DVD, so I have to go-out and buy a whole new machine in 2013.
So the PC manufacturer is saving more than just 10 cents by not printing a restore disc... they are gaining a future sale of at least $300.00
>>>only a recovery partition which was tied to your boot sector so installing Linux or any other OS or boot manager meant your recovery sector was useless.
Really? I just learned something new. This pretty much proves the new 2000s Microsoft is better than the old 90s Microsoft (which was sued by the US and EU for various nefarious practices). I really don't understand Microsoft apologists that defend this company. It's ridiculous that you can't even install a dual-boot Windows/Linux or Windows/Other setup without destroying the "restore windows" sector.
>>>I'd prefer to pay a little less
It's only ~10 cents for the company to mass-produce a DVD and include it with your new computer. You're saving very little. And you're lucky that you've "never" needed to use the restore disc, because in the 8 years I've owned this PC, I've had to do a Restore thrice. Once when the power supply died (and messed-up the boot block), and again when Windows XP refused to go past the loading screen for some unknown reason, and a third time when my networking card inexplicably "disappeared" causing major system slowdowns.
And on my brother's Vista machine I've used the restore disc twice in three years.
Having a restore disc is really not "optional". It's just as important as having a backup of your files - going without it would be foolish unless you enjoy having a perfectly good PC turn into a brick that you can't restore to like-new condition.
That's but there are a few flaws with your idea:
- My ISP web accelerator software doesn't work on Linux (although I could substitute Opera Turbo for almost-as-fast performance).
- My Atari and NES emulators only play half as many games as the Windows versions of these emulators
- I can't make Flash work on Ubuntu, even though I've tried numerous times. It keeps saying something about, "Not enough permission."
- iTunes doesn't work
- MS Office doesn't work
- Windows Media Encoder doesn't work
- 2xAV (double speed) Player doesn't work
- And on and on and on.
Using Linux is liking taking a step back to the days of running my Commodore Amiga. I loved that machine but it was hard to find any software to support what I wanted to do (and therefore I moved to Windows 98).
>>>Most people have more money than sense
Or they recognize that it's silly to waste 3-4 hours trying to make a device work, when it only takes an hour of overtime to earn the cash and BUY the fix (like a new device). That's called common sense.
>>>I can't say I blame them.
I can. It's cheaper for them to run-off a million or so DVD Restore Discs, with discounted pricing, then for me to run to the store, buy a DVD blank, and record a restore disc. (That's what my new HP Compaq computer expects me to do.) I'd rather pay an extra 10 cents on the purchase price and get the disc.
I thought NAMCO was an American company.
>>>It's OUR property. It belongs to everyone. MAMCO merely has a limited time monopoly on its distribution.
Excellent point. Also hasn't Pac-Man (the code/maze not the character) fallen into the public domain by now?
>>>The funny thing is that when [Netscape] had a similar market share to what IE6 has now, lots of sites said "screw it, this site only works in Internet Explorer".
Fixed that for you. "It never hurts to kiss-up to the boss." Microsoft was viewed as the safe choice to support for 90s-era sysops desiring to keep their jobs, where Netscape was viewed as a small company and not worth sticking your neck out for.
BTW I hear a lot of hate directed at IE6.
Is IE7 any better?
What about IE5? Anybody still using it?
>>>Why is it that a bewildering number of smart people has been indoctrinated into believing that the "free market" is the only solution to everything?
Why is that a bewildering number of people paint the world as black-and-white? I consider myself a "smart people" and I support the free market, but I don't think it's the solution to "everything". For example if you have a natural monopoly where it would be impossible to provide Choice, such as water and sewer pipes, then the free market is not your best option.
Please be more careful with how you paint other people with your strawman arguments. We're not all black. And we're not all white. Most of us are shades of gray with varying viewpoints all along the political spectrum.
.
>>>at about 2 times the cost.
First: You exaggerate. US healthcare is more costly, but only by 1.1x not 2x. Foreign healthcare like Canada is also costly, but most of the cost is hidden behind bureaucracy and taxes. ----- Second: Sometimes it's worth the extra cost, just so you can have freedom. That's why we have ~30 different car companies, and not just a GM (government motors) Monopoly. It probably would be cheaper to have a single Car Monopoly run by Government, but who wants to live in such a world???
I prefer a Pro-Choice solution wherever possible so that as much power as possible is placed in the hands of the People. Choice == Freedom. Monopoly == Slavery.