That's the gist of what they taught in security class when I was a programmer for a bank, way back when. We called it "Bank Robbery 101" because it mostly just talked about ways in which banks had been robbed and how they fixed their procedures so that they wouldn't be robbed the same way again.
IANAL but at least in Ohio, you can't sell them as "hearing aids" without being a licensed audiologist. You can call them "sound amplifiers" or "hunter's aids" or all sorts of other names. And yeah, they suck.
If you do a Google search on "hearing aids and law" you'll get quite an education on what licensing boards and legal requirements are in place for those class 1 medical devices. Yes, the custom fitting and programming and so forth is an expensive service, but the legal barriers to entry into the audiology market are real as well.
As "medical devices" hearing aids must by law be sold by licensed audiologists, and those same audiologists' trade organization lobbies governments at every level to keep up a very tight monopoly control of the marketplace.
You realize, I hope, that the CBO only reports what the Congress tells them to. And the Urban Institute is anything but an unbiased source of information on the cost of government.
Doctors in the US don't actually deal with the paperwork, they hire claims specialists (fancy name for clerks) to do that. I suppose in the UK and France those are just government employees from the start. The days of single-doctor practices are long over in this country - it's just too expensive for one doctor to manage. Group practices and Healthcare Corporations are the rule now, since they can pool their resources to hire the paperwork specialists needed to stay in business. That's what I mean about having to be rich to afford the bureaucracy.
Lobbying is an especially profitable activity. A few hundred thousand in the right pockets (campaign contributions, ya know) in Washington can yield billions in government contracts or legislative goodies. That's true of Reps and Dems, corporations and unions too, by the way, and the porkers fight tooth and nail to preserve their handout privileges.
Medicare's overhead is so low because of typical government accounting, where the costs of complying with Medicare's paperwork requirements are not charged off against Medicare at all. Unlike the accounting for private insurance. So don't tell me about Fox News Coolaid when you actually believe what the government tells you about how it operates.
You mean those heavily government regulated corporations that sell insurance, or the other heavily government-regulated corporations that make drugs? Or maybe you mean the heavily government-regulated corporations that run hospitals?
Yeah, right, tell that to my doctor, whose partnership practice joined up with Prima because of all the overhead of dealing with Medicare, Medicaid and all the other government paperwork that he had to file in order to get paid.
There isn't a system in the world that lowers prices and makes healthcare free. The EU is going broke in a hurry under the strain of paying for all those lovely "free" goodies they hand out.
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Deciding how to invest one's money is productive work. If you think the government can do better I have a word for you: Solyndra.
They're not hoarding it. They're investing it.
That's the gist of what they taught in security class when I was a programmer for a bank, way back when. We called it "Bank Robbery 101" because it mostly just talked about ways in which banks had been robbed and how they fixed their procedures so that they wouldn't be robbed the same way again.
Investment itself is a thing of value, by making capital available for productive uses.
IANAL but at least in Ohio, you can't sell them as "hearing aids" without being a licensed audiologist. You can call them "sound amplifiers" or "hunter's aids" or all sorts of other names. And yeah, they suck.
If you do a Google search on "hearing aids and law" you'll get quite an education on what licensing boards and legal requirements are in place for those class 1 medical devices. Yes, the custom fitting and programming and so forth is an expensive service, but the legal barriers to entry into the audiology market are real as well.
As "medical devices" hearing aids must by law be sold by licensed audiologists, and those same audiologists' trade organization lobbies governments at every level to keep up a very tight monopoly control of the marketplace.
You realize, I hope, that the CBO only reports what the Congress tells them to. And the Urban Institute is anything but an unbiased source of information on the cost of government.
Doctors in the US don't actually deal with the paperwork, they hire claims specialists (fancy name for clerks) to do that. I suppose in the UK and France those are just government employees from the start. The days of single-doctor practices are long over in this country - it's just too expensive for one doctor to manage. Group practices and Healthcare Corporations are the rule now, since they can pool their resources to hire the paperwork specialists needed to stay in business. That's what I mean about having to be rich to afford the bureaucracy.
Lobbying is an especially profitable activity. A few hundred thousand in the right pockets (campaign contributions, ya know) in Washington can yield billions in government contracts or legislative goodies. That's true of Reps and Dems, corporations and unions too, by the way, and the porkers fight tooth and nail to preserve their handout privileges.
in the knowledge that none of the anime fansubs I download will ever be "the most pirated show of the season".
And we eat the research costs for those prescription drugs. You're welcome, I guess.
I am open to suggestions. I am not open to people who want to take away my freedom.
Thanks but no thanks.
Medicare's overhead is so low because of typical government accounting, where the costs of complying with Medicare's paperwork requirements are not charged off against Medicare at all. Unlike the accounting for private insurance. So don't tell me about Fox News Coolaid when you actually believe what the government tells you about how it operates.
As if socialists are above things like abusing the system for their own advantage. BULLSHIT.
Better not to go broke at all, but I guess that's not an option in a "progressive" world.
Most of which resulted from the bad economics of mandated handouts to consumers.
For example, cheap mortgages to unqualified borrowers in the US.
As the US has been trying to "catch up to the EU" in terms of handouts? Yeah.
You mean those heavily government regulated corporations that sell insurance, or the other heavily government-regulated corporations that make drugs? Or maybe you mean the heavily government-regulated corporations that run hospitals?
That's why I said "populist or outright socialist".
And they've both been populist or outright socialist states since before WWII.
Yeah, I get real narrow-minded when people want to take away my freedom because they think I don't know what's good for me.
Those were not always poor nations. They got poor because their governments went for major populist handouts like "free" health care.
Yeah, right, tell that to my doctor, whose partnership practice joined up with Prima because of all the overhead of dealing with Medicare, Medicaid and all the other government paperwork that he had to file in order to get paid.
There isn't a system in the world that lowers prices and makes healthcare free. The EU is going broke in a hurry under the strain of paying for all those lovely "free" goodies they hand out.
Nice strawman you got there. Where did I propose not having a government?