The reason a company would develop new ideas is to gain an advantage over the competition. However developing new ideas takes time and effort to develop and put the ideas into practice (resources). There is also a risk the idea might fail, having a negative impact. If your new ideas are instantly copied by others you have spent resources and taken risk but have not gained a competitive advantage there is no point in developing that idea. You actually end up worse off having used the resources and taken risk while your competitors get the idea without all that bother.
The only way to recover the invested resources is by being able to practice the new idea without your competitors being able to do the same. That requires keeping the idea secret (trade secret) or some legal mechanism that constrains your competitors from practicing the idea (patent).
Now here is the fundamental problem with abolishing patents - without patents all that would be available is trade secrets. Ideas would not be made public as they are now in exchange for the legal monopoly. The ideas would be kept secret as much as possible, and tied by contracts, non-disclosure agreement and various forms of physical security. We are already seeing this in the realm of copyrights where enforcements of copyrights is ineffective pushing publishers develop other mechanisms like DRM to reduce copying.
So be careful when you advocate abolishing patents. The alternatives are likely to be worse. We have a history of what innovation was like before the introduction of patents. There is also the odd coincidence of the introduction of patent laws with the start of the industrial revolution.
That is silly. All works of man, not just music are derivative. The question is what is the value of your contribution, which of course is an extension of the work of others.
The first long term settlements in America were by extreme religious groups like the Pilgrims and Puritans. The idea that America didn't used to be particularly religious is not historically accurate.
Who is to say there was any state of existence before the Big Bang? Einstein has taught us that space and time are part and parcel of the same thing, that is the universe. Without the Big Bang there is no universe and therefore no time, and T-1 is a null pointer error. Hawking and Hartle have actually shown how time can emerge into existence during a Big Bang. cf. quantum cosmology.
From a philosophical point of view it can be argued that asking what happened before the Big Bang is the same thing as asking who created God. It is the same problem in a somewhat different context.
Einstein and Hawking have dealt with the question in a naturalistic setting, in this century Augustine of Hippo dealt with the question from a religious point of view some 1500 years earlier.
the federal government can not force anyone or everyone to buy anything, not a TV, a particular brand of automobile or heath insurance, i hope this falls on its face before it gets implemented.
However they sure as hell can pass tax incentives to encourage you to buy things. I got a $1500 tax credit this year for making energy improvements to my home.
I am sure that in the near future you will be looking at tax incentives that will make it very attractive to buy health insurance.
So maybe you can point out where in the commerce clause it says the government can force you to enter into a contract.
Here is a discussion by a series of law professors that basically presents the prevailing opinion that current Constitutional Law allows Congress to do anything it damn well pleases under the Commerce clause, and the Supreme Court would uphold this legislation.
You haven't presented any legal precedent, authoritative argument or existing law that gives an example where regulation of this sort has been found to be unconstitutional, while I've given examples of EXISTING laws that make the same requirements that this bill would.
I really don't understand how "survival rate will be better even if you do no treatment what-so-ever."
It's very simple. Let's say a disease takes exaclty 8 years to kill someone. There is no effective treatment for the disease. If you screen everyone once every 4 years, some of those people will be found to have had the disease for more then 3 years, and will not survive 5 more years. However if you screen everyone once a year, nobody found to have the disease will be dead within 5 years of detection of the disease and you have a 100% survival rate.
What good does the one year testing regime do? Well, it generates nicer looking survival rates, but no improvement in mortality rate (always 100% in this example) or actual survival of the disease.
This is why 5 year survival rate is not a good statistic absent further information - it is heavily aliased with testing rates, and other measures like mortality rate are just as if not more important.
We're like, #1 by a huge margin!
Now you are just making up BS. Some of the countries listed are within a few percentage points of the US. That is not a huge margin, especially given the vast differences in spending between the two.
This is ridiculous. I've said it again and again, coverage does not mean care.
I know you have said that, but it doesn't dispel the fact that a very prestigious organization like WHO thinks we aren't doing that well in terms of health care. You asked for an example, you got it.
The nice thing about our system vs. a government run system (single payer) is if you don't like your insurer you can go to another one, and another one,
That is a straw man argument. We aren't getting single payer, and many of the other socialized programs that are doing well are not single payer either.
You think, based on the WHO report I guess, that health care in "any developed nation" as you it, is better than health care in this nation, but that is demonstrably false, as in the example of breast cancer you brought up earlier.
Breast cancer is a cherry picked statistic that you are flogging. I could bring up some very powerful counter examples such as the rates of low birth weight infants in the US. The WHO report is far better because it reviews the entire system.
Did you even read it? It says Americans traveled abroad to get cheaper treatment, not better treatment.
You are seriously missing the point here. In the US many of these people would get NO treatment because they are not insured or could not afford it. Treatment in other countries may not be the same quality as cost-no-limit care but it is FAR FAR BETTER care than NO care.
You have not addressed the issue of large numbers of Americans traveling abroad to get care because the current system in the US leaves them unable to afford the US system. Giving the example of foreign billionaires coming to the US is ridiculous. We need a system that treats Americans, not rich foreigners.
You think, based on the WHO report I guess, that health care in "any developed nation" as you it, is better than health care in this nation, but that is demonstrably false, as in the example of breast cancer you brought up earlier.
This is a ridiculous argument, and I have already countered it. There are many other nations that hav
The car insurance analogy is like comparing apples and oranges.
No, it is not. The assertion was that it unconstitutional for the government to require anyone to enter into a contract as a reason why this bill is ill-conceived. I gave a clear and accurate counter-example. All you did was throw up a bunch of red herrings to try to confuse the issue. In the case of health coverage I am sure the end game will be to adopt something like a tax credit which you will only get if you have health coverage.
Massachusetts has had this exact system in place for years and has had NO constitutionality issues.
If you are diagnosed with a disease like cancer, time is your #1 enemy, and oftentimes it is how long it takes to get a CT scan or see an oncologist that makes the difference between life and death.
This survival rate thing is total baloney. The US runs more screens so it detects the disease earlier. So obviously if you detect the disease before it progresses much the n-year survival rate will be better even if you do no treatment what-so-ever.
This article discusses the issue and why it is mortality rates, not survival rates that count:
I'm going to have to call you on that one. Maybe you can point out another country that has a better medical system, since they are so numerous and all. Be nice if you provided a link.
And people in the U.S. are overweight, eat fast food all day long, sit on their asses and smoke like chimneys. But like the aforementioned google link, people's medical care is better here.
Actually US smoking rates are about average compared to the rest of the world.
The real question is, if the U.S. is so far behind in medical care/technology why aren't any rich American's traveling to foreign countries for treatment?
How about people living in America today who have to travel abroad for treatment because they cannot get coverage or pay for the treatment here? It does no good to have great care if it is unavailable to you. According to this article 750,000 Americans traveled abroad to get care last year.
I bet that's a MUCH higher number than rich people who came to the US to get care. Who is our health care system supposed to be serving anyway? Rich foreigners or the typical American?
The idea that rich foreigners travel to the US to get care when we have 30 millions that are uninsured is morally repugnant to me, and should be to you as well. It is one of the best arguments that the current system is BROKEN.
If there is quite a bit of evidence, I'm sure it wouldn't trouble you too much to find a single example, much less a list of examples so egregious that we should sack everyone in charge and put the government in charge. I challenge you to find an entity in the U.S. more inefficient than the government.
The US government's level of efficiency is a common whipping boy when it comes to the question of whether or not government run health care is a good idea. But the fact is that most EVERY OTHER developed nation on Earth manages to run a government controlled health care system for a far lower percentage of GDP and 30+ of them with better results (at least according to the WHO study I provided a link to). You assertion is now reduced to the idea the US government is the least efficient of any developed nation. That is patently ridiculous. In fact we have one of the lowest national tax rates despite having a military bu
You will notice that the laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are STATE and LOCAL laws, not FEDERAL laws. That is the difference.
Since when do state and local laws override the Constitution of The United States?????
Hint: They DON'T.
Because we end up subsidizing those countries. Those countries say to the drug companies "You can only charge X." and the drug companies say "No problem, we will just charge more in the US". This is why the drug companies fight anything that could lower the amount they charge in the US.
Yes, and this is an argument against reform HOW? It is clear statement of how the current system is BROKEN.
Your post is full of misconceptions and misrepresentation. Try doing some research next time.
You have given NO evidence of that assertion.
Re:This bill is so wrong.
on
Health Care Reform
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract.
So then all laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are unconstitutional? That would be interesting.
The kings of inefficiency.
We spend 17% of our GDP on health care right now. Other nations get the same or better overall results spending less than half of this. Yes you might have to wait for some services but there is clearly huge inefficiencies in the current system, so much so that it is easy to argue that even a government run program would be better.
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the US has a huge and expensive overcapacity in exotic medical devices brought about by our current insurance system. We also clearly pay far more for the same drugs than people in other countries.
We supposedly pay 17% now, and we live longer lives
People in Canada, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy all have longer life expectancies than Americans and pay far less than 17% of their GDP for that life span.
Your article is full of factual errors. Try doing some research next time.
Oh no! The EU only has two nuclear powers in it, how we will survive!
Not very well I would say, given that the EU stockpile of actual weapons is in about 1/30th that of the US, and none of them are capable of striking US soil from Europe.
It is not necessary to wonder. This study was already done. In the places where thimerosal was replaced, autism rates did not decrease. In fact they continued to INCREASE.
vaccines are by far the most cost effective tool we have for preventing the spread of communicable diseases.
Well actually that honor belongs to the chlorination of drinking water, which has been credited by the CDC for doing more to increase the average lifespan than all the other technical advances in medicine combined.
There really isn't any consistent measure of poverty. The EU uses a measure of 60% of the median income within a country - so if we apply that to EU countries and the US as a whole we find that the larger diversity within the US as a whole leads to a higher measure of poverty for the US. However if you use an absolute income level as an indicator for poverty the US has a lower level of peverty than the EU because of its overall higher income levels.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason a company would develop new ideas is to gain an advantage over the competition. However developing new ideas takes time and effort to develop and put the ideas into practice (resources). There is also a risk the idea might fail, having a negative impact. If your new ideas are instantly copied by others you have spent resources and taken risk but have not gained a competitive advantage there is no point in developing that idea. You actually end up worse off having used the resources and taken risk while your competitors get the idea without all that bother.
The only way to recover the invested resources is by being able to practice the new idea without your competitors being able to do the same. That requires keeping the idea secret (trade secret) or some legal mechanism that constrains your competitors from practicing the idea (patent).
Now here is the fundamental problem with abolishing patents - without patents all that would be available is trade secrets. Ideas would not be made public as they are now in exchange for the legal monopoly. The ideas would be kept secret as much as possible, and tied by contracts, non-disclosure agreement and various forms of physical security. We are already seeing this in the realm of copyrights where enforcements of copyrights is ineffective pushing publishers develop other mechanisms like DRM to reduce copying.
So be careful when you advocate abolishing patents. The alternatives are likely to be worse. We have a history of what innovation was like before the introduction of patents. There is also the odd coincidence of the introduction of patent laws with the start of the industrial revolution.
That is silly. All works of man, not just music are derivative. The question is what is the value of your contribution, which of course is an extension of the work of others.
The first long term settlements in America were by extreme religious groups like the Pilgrims and Puritans. The idea that America didn't used to be particularly religious is not historically accurate.
Who is to say there was any state of existence before the Big Bang? Einstein has taught us that space and time are part and parcel of the same thing, that is the universe. Without the Big Bang there is no universe and therefore no time, and T-1 is a null pointer error. Hawking and Hartle have actually shown how time can emerge into existence during a Big Bang. cf. quantum cosmology.
From a philosophical point of view it can be argued that asking what happened before the Big Bang is the same thing as asking who created God. It is the same problem in a somewhat different context.
Einstein and Hawking have dealt with the question in a naturalistic setting, in this century Augustine of Hippo dealt with the question from a religious point of view some 1500 years earlier.
Crikey, everyone knows that Haiti is the source of Zombie evolution. THe earthquake is the start of the Voodoo Zombie Apocalypse!
Stories about EMR like this make me sick.
There is *ALWAYS* a bottleneck somewhere.
I believe that's a theorem somewhere.
Modern civilization allows idiots to reproduce.
the federal government can not force anyone or everyone to buy anything, not a TV, a particular brand of automobile or heath insurance, i hope this falls on its face before it gets implemented.
However they sure as hell can pass tax incentives to encourage you to buy things. I got a $1500 tax credit this year for making energy improvements to my home.
I am sure that in the near future you will be looking at tax incentives that will make it very attractive to buy health insurance.
So maybe you can point out where in the commerce clause it says the government can force you to enter into a contract.
Here is a discussion by a series of law professors that basically presents the prevailing opinion that current Constitutional Law allows Congress to do anything it damn well pleases under the Commerce clause, and the Supreme Court would uphold this legislation.
You haven't presented any legal precedent, authoritative argument or existing law that gives an example where regulation of this sort has been found to be unconstitutional, while I've given examples of EXISTING laws that make the same requirements that this bill would.
I really don't understand how "survival rate will be better even if you do no treatment what-so-ever."
It's very simple. Let's say a disease takes exaclty 8 years to kill someone. There is no effective treatment for the disease. If you screen everyone once every 4 years, some of those people will be found to have had the disease for more then 3 years, and will not survive 5 more years. However if you screen everyone once a year, nobody found to have the disease will be dead within 5 years of detection of the disease and you have a 100% survival rate.
What good does the one year testing regime do? Well, it generates nicer looking survival rates, but no improvement in mortality rate (always 100% in this example) or actual survival of the disease.
This is why 5 year survival rate is not a good statistic absent further information - it is heavily aliased with testing rates, and other measures like mortality rate are just as if not more important.
We're like, #1 by a huge margin!
Now you are just making up BS. Some of the countries listed are within a few percentage points of the US. That is not a huge margin, especially given the vast differences in spending between the two.
This is ridiculous. I've said it again and again, coverage does not mean care.
I know you have said that, but it doesn't dispel the fact that a very prestigious organization like WHO thinks we aren't doing that well in terms of health care. You asked for an example, you got it.
The nice thing about our system vs. a government run system (single payer) is if you don't like your insurer you can go to another one, and another one,
That is a straw man argument. We aren't getting single payer, and many of the other socialized programs that are doing well are not single payer either.
You think, based on the WHO report I guess, that health care in "any developed nation" as you it, is better than health care in this nation, but that is demonstrably false, as in the example of breast cancer you brought up earlier.
Breast cancer is a cherry picked statistic that you are flogging. I could bring up some very powerful counter examples such as the rates of low birth weight infants in the US. The WHO report is far better because it reviews the entire system.
Did you even read it? It says Americans traveled abroad to get cheaper treatment, not better treatment.
You are seriously missing the point here. In the US many of these people would get NO treatment because they are not insured or could not afford it. Treatment in other countries may not be the same quality as cost-no-limit care but it is FAR FAR BETTER care than NO care.
You have not addressed the issue of large numbers of Americans traveling abroad to get care because the current system in the US leaves them unable to afford the US system. Giving the example of foreign billionaires coming to the US is ridiculous. We need a system that treats Americans, not rich foreigners.
You think, based on the WHO report I guess, that health care in "any developed nation" as you it, is better than health care in this nation, but that is demonstrably false, as in the example of breast cancer you brought up earlier.
This is a ridiculous argument, and I have already countered it. There are many other nations that hav
Why should you ever, with all this parallel hardware, ever be waiting for your computer?' he asked.
Because it might be waiting for I/O.
The car insurance analogy is like comparing apples and oranges.
No, it is not. The assertion was that it unconstitutional for the government to require anyone to enter into a contract as a reason why this bill is ill-conceived. I gave a clear and accurate counter-example. All you did was throw up a bunch of red herrings to try to confuse the issue. In the case of health coverage I am sure the end game will be to adopt something like a tax credit which you will only get if you have health coverage.
Massachusetts has had this exact system in place for years and has had NO constitutionality issues.
If you are diagnosed with a disease like cancer, time is your #1 enemy, and oftentimes it is how long it takes to get a CT scan or see an oncologist that makes the difference between life and death.
This survival rate thing is total baloney. The US runs more screens so it detects the disease earlier. So obviously if you detect the disease before it progresses much the n-year survival rate will be better even if you do no treatment what-so-ever.
This article discusses the issue and why it is mortality rates, not survival rates that count:
http://mdcarroll.com/2009/09/23/survival-rates-versus-mortality-rates/
I'm going to have to call you on that one. Maybe you can point out another country that has a better medical system, since they are so numerous and all. Be nice if you provided a link.
That is a cream puff. Here are over 30 examples.
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
And people in the U.S. are overweight, eat fast food all day long, sit on their asses and smoke like chimneys. But like the aforementioned google link, people's medical care is better here.
Actually US smoking rates are about average compared to the rest of the world.
The real question is, if the U.S. is so far behind in medical care/technology why aren't any rich American's traveling to foreign countries for treatment?
How about people living in America today who have to travel abroad for treatment because they cannot get coverage or pay for the treatment here? It does no good to have great care if it is unavailable to you. According to this article 750,000 Americans traveled abroad to get care last year.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/02/business/fi-cover2
I bet that's a MUCH higher number than rich people who came to the US to get care. Who is our health care system supposed to be serving anyway? Rich foreigners or the typical American?
The idea that rich foreigners travel to the US to get care when we have 30 millions that are uninsured is morally repugnant to me, and should be to you as well. It is one of the best arguments that the current system is BROKEN.
If there is quite a bit of evidence, I'm sure it wouldn't trouble you too much to find a single example, much less a list of examples so egregious that we should sack everyone in charge and put the government in charge. I challenge you to find an entity in the U.S. more inefficient than the government.
The US government's level of efficiency is a common whipping boy when it comes to the question of whether or not government run health care is a good idea. But the fact is that most EVERY OTHER developed nation on Earth manages to run a government controlled health care system for a far lower percentage of GDP and 30+ of them with better results (at least according to the WHO study I provided a link to). You assertion is now reduced to the idea the US government is the least efficient of any developed nation. That is patently ridiculous. In fact we have one of the lowest national tax rates despite having a military bu
You will notice that the laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are STATE and LOCAL laws, not FEDERAL laws. That is the difference.
Since when do state and local laws override the Constitution of The United States?????
Hint: They DON'T.
Because we end up subsidizing those countries. Those countries say to the drug companies "You can only charge X." and the drug companies say "No problem, we will just charge more in the US". This is why the drug companies fight anything that could lower the amount they charge in the US.
Yes, and this is an argument against reform HOW? It is clear statement of how the current system is BROKEN.
Your post is full of misconceptions and misrepresentation. Try doing some research next time.
You have given NO evidence of that assertion.
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract.
So then all laws requiring motor vehicle insurance are unconstitutional? That would be interesting.
The kings of inefficiency.
We spend 17% of our GDP on health care right now. Other nations get the same or better overall results spending less than half of this. Yes you might have to wait for some services but there is clearly huge inefficiencies in the current system, so much so that it is easy to argue that even a government run program would be better.
Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days.
There is quite a bit of evidence that the US has a huge and expensive overcapacity in exotic medical devices brought about by our current insurance system. We also clearly pay far more for the same drugs than people in other countries.
We supposedly pay 17% now, and we live longer lives
People in Canada, France, Germany, UK, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy all have longer life expectancies than Americans and pay far less than 17% of their GDP for that life span.
Your article is full of factual errors. Try doing some research next time.
Oh no! The EU only has two nuclear powers in it, how we will survive!
Not very well I would say, given that the EU stockpile of actual weapons is in about 1/30th that of the US, and none of them are capable of striking US soil from Europe.
Are you saying none of the non-law enforcement users of Facebook are supplying false information?
Seems rather fanciful.
It is not necessary to wonder. This study was already done. In the places where thimerosal was replaced, autism rates did not decrease. In fact they continued to INCREASE.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107181551.htm
vaccines are by far the most cost effective tool we have for preventing the spread of communicable diseases.
Well actually that honor belongs to the chlorination of drinking water, which has been credited by the CDC for doing more to increase the average lifespan than all the other technical advances in medicine combined.
The problem with your theory is that there are numerous studies showing that widespread vaccination doesn't increase autism rates.
Not until the EU represents some actual form of unity, like having common armed forces.
There is more chance that your kid will be crippled by the time he is 30 than on the cover of Fortune mag.
I am sure that is true in Europe too.
Sweden is not an ex-Soviet block country, but their per capita GDP is only about 75% of the US number.
The point is that in Socialistic economies individuals send a lot more of their income to the government.
MS bashing isn't really appropriate here.
You must either be new here or have a very short memory.
The same bug in a module that ran on Linux would result in a remote root exploit.
Apache does not normally run as root on Linux. Only on Windows.
There really isn't any consistent measure of poverty. The EU uses a measure of 60% of the median income within a country - so if we apply that to EU countries and the US as a whole we find that the larger diversity within the US as a whole leads to a higher measure of poverty for the US. However if you use an absolute income level as an indicator for poverty the US has a lower level of peverty than the EU because of its overall higher income levels.