no. just no. that is no where near the reason, and whomever modded you up isnt familiar with the industry or its cost drivers AT ALL. healthcare resources are no where near scarce in this country. the high costs are in no way shape or form being caused by a limited supply unable to keep up with demand.
I think you're laboring under a misconception of what demand is in an economic sense.
Demand isn't simply want or desire or need. Demand is also the ability to pay for some good or service.
With this definition, supply IS able to keep up with demand through the price mechanism. Prices increase to suppress demand so that supply and demand match.
Now there are plenty of costs that the supply side is burdened with which makes satisfying demand at lower prices difficult. Maybe that's what you meant.
Which limited services are you referring to? What's the limit?
How about the time available to doctors and nurses to treat people? They can only treat so many people.
And there are psychological limits, too. Doctors and nurses may have time but not the will to devote 80 hours a week to watching people die.
There are also equipment limits. An MRI requires scarce materials and scarce skills to assemble.
There are countless things that limit the total amount of healthcare available.
Don't think like a mere consumer, where the perceived limit on what's available depends only on the money in your bank account. That's putting all the focus on the demand side of the equation. Try to see the big picture. To do that, you have to look at the supply side, too. The supply of most things is limited (ultimately by physics).
you're confused. the whole reason we pay three times or more what more advanced countries do (yes kiddies, U.S. is not #1 for healthcare) is because of the big insurance and big healthcare full of fat cats lining their pockets.
Saying that they line their pockets with money may be a fact, but it's not a reason.
The reason we collectively spend so much is because we have government spending competing with private spending for a finite amount of healthcare services.
It's this competition for limited services that bids prices up for everything. And as prices rise, some people are priced out of the market, justifying more government spending to help them, which further increases prices.
But dead is dead, and the UK's life expectancy is better than America's, while spending less per capita on health care. No amount of spin can change that.
And if the USA had the NHS it would still have a lower life expectancy.
The lower life expectancy in the US is driven by primarily by three factors: low birth weight leading to death, road traffic accidents and homicide among the young.
There's very little the health care system can do about the last two.
Even the first is somewhat difficult since it is to some extent a function of the genetics of women of African ancestry.
You can't negotiate a price when you need an ambulance or emergency care. The mystical, magical, almighty free market that you worship won't work there.
The government doesn't grow food. It gives people money to buy food but relies on the market to respond to the increased demand and provide it.
The government doesn't provide housing. It give people subsidies to buy housing and relies on the market to provide housing.
The government doesn't provide medical care (except at the VA). It gives people subsides and relies on the market to provide medical care.
There seems to be few problems for the government that can't be solved by giving away more money and having faith that the magic of the market will provide.
So let me get this straight. The House of Representatives has not voted to pass a budget or even CR for this year. And it's Obama's fault? I, for one, am amazed by your blinding logic! (or when did Obama become Speaker of the House?)
The House has passed many budgets but they've all been rejected by the Democrats in the Senate because they didn't include money for the ACA.
I'm genuinely curious: what do you think was behind your mistaken belief that that House had passed no spending bills? I ask because I come across the same mistaken belief all the time and still have no idea why people generally are in the dark about this. Are these passed bills simply not mentioned by the press?
That doesn't mean the adjustments by scientists are improper. But it is interesting that the adjustment process tends to diminish rural stations while increasing the significance of stations in more populated areas.
That's why the gov't made the comm network, the railroads, the (car) roads, and just about everything going back to the fsckin' Aquaducts.
The government paid for a lot of of those things, but that's not the same thing as making a lot of those things. And in that respect the government is simply acting as the agent for the collective purchase of something that (hopefully) provides a collective benefit.
That's sort of the point of democratic-republican (little 'd' and little 'r') government -- to do the collective will of the people. Sometimes that means buying stuff (and that's not socialism -- that's just normal government).
Many municipalities have a franchise arrangement that gives the local cable company a monopoly so long as the cable company pays a franchise fee.
Where I live, that fee is 5% of GROSS revenue -- quite a lot of money. Many businesses would be happy with profits that are 5% of the gross.
Of course the cable company doesn't mind paying because they can inflate rates without worrying about competition. And the local government doesn't mind because higher rates mean more money for them!
It's really a hidden tax on an artificially higher bill. And the fact that it's hidden means the typical voter doesn't know they might have the power to change it -- and that's precisely the goal.
It is only when more complex & accurate simulations can be run on supercomputers that we can have any reasonable expectancy of modeling the future behavior of the earth's climate with any accuracy.
The deviation from reality, though, seems systematic. Nearly all the models predicted warming greatly exceeding what we've witnessed over the past 15 years or so.
What we need are not more complex and accurate simulations. What we need are more accurate physics that we can then simulate.
Perhaps change to not requiring a job to live. In todayâ(TM)s society, you must have income to survive. If I own enough land to sustain myself, I must still generate an income to pay property taxes or my property will be confiscated by the government.
In other words the government lets you use the land as long as they get a cut.
Events are disputed. Trayvon certainly fought back - gave Zimmerman some nasty head wounds - but it isn't clear who actually started the fight. No witnesses, no good forensics, so it's just Zimmerman's rather biased word.
And none of that matters since Trayvon had a chance to stop the fight once he obtained a dominant position over Zimmerman. He'd won the conflict but decided he would go further and beat Zimmerman while Zimmerman was screaming.
Seriously, many people left the family farm during industrialization to work in manufacturing plants just to avoid working having to be in the sun for 16/hours a day.
Still, technology that improves working conditions is generally a good thing all around.
Inevitable discovery is a defense, a way of overturning a patent. But people often overestimate what's inevitable. Many good ideas aren't discovered for generations even though all the pieces were in place.
I've got nothing against patenting good ideas, but the techniques described in the patents involved seem inevitable to me.
But then again juries don't usually include computer engineers so everything computer seems like magic to them.
So business should just be able to use someone else's research as they see fit?
Perhaps business does its own research.
There are many problems that have obvious solutions no matter who does the research. Some solutions are inevitable. They aren't supposed to be patented.
Ever think that maybe that prosperity was a result of theft and maybe it needs to be spread around instead of kept among white people? What's the racial makeup of those "scientists and engineers" anyway? How's the diversity quotient?
Prosperity is mostly a result of applied cleverness and knowledge and not theft. Iron and carbon don't become steel without cleverness and knowledge. Niagra falls doesn't create power for factories without cleverness and knowledge. Fast computer chips don't exist without cleverness and knowledge.
We've tried spreading cleverness and knowledge through public education.
Some people just don't seem to want what the government gives away for free.
It's irrelevant; because the hypothetical proposes a fairly stiff standard of evidence to meet (and would only kick in when both that standard is met and a text-reading driver does something unpleasant enough to get the courts involved);
Very logical and therefore probably invalid in a civil case.
This rule was created so that lawyers can go after more people in the the hope they'll find someone with deep pockets. Juries aren't going to let a sympathetic victim go without payment if there is someone that is able to pay.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're laboring under a misconception of what demand is in an economic sense.
Demand isn't simply want or desire or need. Demand is also the ability to pay for some good or service.
With this definition, supply IS able to keep up with demand through the price mechanism. Prices increase to suppress demand so that supply and demand match.
Now there are plenty of costs that the supply side is burdened with which makes satisfying demand at lower prices difficult. Maybe that's what you meant.
I'd like to hear your theory, though.
How about the time available to doctors and nurses to treat people? They can only treat so many people.
And there are psychological limits, too. Doctors and nurses may have time but not the will to devote 80 hours a week to watching people die.
There are also equipment limits. An MRI requires scarce materials and scarce skills to assemble.
There are countless things that limit the total amount of healthcare available.
Don't think like a mere consumer, where the perceived limit on what's available depends only on the money in your bank account. That's putting all the focus on the demand side of the equation. Try to see the big picture. To do that, you have to look at the supply side, too. The supply of most things is limited (ultimately by physics).
Saying that they line their pockets with money may be a fact, but it's not a reason.
The reason we collectively spend so much is because we have government spending competing with private spending for a finite amount of healthcare services.
It's this competition for limited services that bids prices up for everything. And as prices rise, some people are priced out of the market, justifying more government spending to help them, which further increases prices.
Even worse is the expectation that the firmware can magically tweaked to make a poor design suddenly work as intended.
And if the USA had the NHS it would still have a lower life expectancy.
The lower life expectancy in the US is driven by primarily by three factors: low birth weight leading to death, road traffic accidents and homicide among the young.
There's very little the health care system can do about the last two.
Even the first is somewhat difficult since it is to some extent a function of the genetics of women of African ancestry.
The government doesn't grow food. It gives people money to buy food but relies on the market to respond to the increased demand and provide it.
The government doesn't provide housing. It give people subsidies to buy housing and relies on the market to provide housing.
The government doesn't provide medical care (except at the VA). It gives people subsides and relies on the market to provide medical care.
There seems to be few problems for the government that can't be solved by giving away more money and having faith that the magic of the market will provide.
Oh, and the hospitals are a mess, too.
The House has passed many budgets but they've all been rejected by the Democrats in the Senate because they didn't include money for the ACA.
I'm genuinely curious: what do you think was behind your mistaken belief that that House had passed no spending bills? I ask because I come across the same mistaken belief all the time and still have no idea why people generally are in the dark about this. Are these passed bills simply not mentioned by the press?
The point is that OLEDs are beautiful. Images are vivid. Black looks black instead of dark gray.
There's a huge difference between selectively filtering one light source and selectively activating arbitrary light sources.
Ok, let's posit that very few of us are climate scientists or in positions to evaluate the raw data.
Except that we do have raw data. And when we compare it to the adjusted data, we discover that the adjustment introduces an apparent increase in temperatures.
That doesn't mean the adjustments by scientists are improper. But it is interesting that the adjustment process tends to diminish rural stations while increasing the significance of stations in more populated areas.
The safety net is fine but the trapeze and high wire have been in storage for years now.
We tried things with a new clown in office, but it's still the same circus.
That's why the gov't made the comm network, the railroads, the (car) roads, and just about everything going back to the fsckin' Aquaducts.
The government paid for a lot of of those things, but that's not the same thing as making a lot of those things. And in that respect the government is simply acting as the agent for the collective purchase of something that (hopefully) provides a collective benefit.
That's sort of the point of democratic-republican (little 'd' and little 'r') government -- to do the collective will of the people. Sometimes that means buying stuff (and that's not socialism -- that's just normal government).
Many municipalities have a franchise arrangement that gives the local cable company a monopoly so long as the cable company pays a franchise fee.
Where I live, that fee is 5% of GROSS revenue -- quite a lot of money. Many businesses would be happy with profits that are 5% of the gross.
Of course the cable company doesn't mind paying because they can inflate rates without worrying about competition. And the local government doesn't mind because higher rates mean more money for them!
It's really a hidden tax on an artificially higher bill. And the fact that it's hidden means the typical voter doesn't know they might have the power to change it -- and that's precisely the goal.
The deviation from reality, though, seems systematic. Nearly all the models predicted warming greatly exceeding what we've witnessed over the past 15 years or so.
What we need are not more complex and accurate simulations. What we need are more accurate physics that we can then simulate.
In other words the government lets you use the land as long as they get a cut.
You're not a land owner. You're a share cropper.
And none of that matters since Trayvon had a chance to stop the fight once he obtained a dominant position over Zimmerman. He'd won the conflict but decided he would go further and beat Zimmerman while Zimmerman was screaming.
At that point Trayvon becomes the aggressor.
Seriously, many people left the family farm during industrialization to work in manufacturing plants just to avoid working having to be in the sun for 16/hours a day.
Still, technology that improves working conditions is generally a good thing all around.
Seems Napster was setting up peer to peer connections around 1998 or 1999.
I'm not sure how this invention isn't obvious after Napster.
I've got nothing against patenting good ideas, but the techniques described in the patents involved seem inevitable to me.
But then again juries don't usually include computer engineers so everything computer seems like magic to them.
So business should just be able to use someone else's research as they see fit?
Perhaps business does its own research.
There are many problems that have obvious solutions no matter who does the research. Some solutions are inevitable. They aren't supposed to be patented.
Hardly. As far as I can tell, VirnetX is basically a combination of academics and lawyers that won against a real business like Apple.
Prosperity is mostly a result of applied cleverness and knowledge and not theft. Iron and carbon don't become steel without cleverness and knowledge. Niagra falls doesn't create power for factories without cleverness and knowledge. Fast computer chips don't exist without cleverness and knowledge.
We've tried spreading cleverness and knowledge through public education.
Some people just don't seem to want what the government gives away for free.
And obviously there are a lot of homeless people who need psychiatric help, but after Regan, they're never going to get it.
This is one of those myths that just won't die.
Defunding of psychiatric hospitals generally occurred AFTER those hospitals lost patients that were allowed to leave after the Psychiatric_survivors_movementsuccessfully fought for deinstitutionalization.
Mental hospitals lost about 80% of their residents when those patients were given the choice to discharge themselves.
Revenue is not profit. It's entirely possible to increase revenue while losing increasing amounts of money.
While I'm at it:
Wealth is not income.
"Literally" isn't for emphasis.
Feel free to add to the list.
Very logical and therefore probably invalid in a civil case.
This rule was created so that lawyers can go after more people in the the hope they'll find someone with deep pockets. Juries aren't going to let a sympathetic victim go without payment if there is someone that is able to pay.