that why its so interesting. if the past 30 years have been just completely wrong about the nature of Dark Matter, or even its very existence, then its very very interesting. It is true, I believe, that because we're right so often that we continue to expect to be right (witness the higgs boson finally being confirmed), yet ultimately a thing doesnt have to exist just because we say so. And if we are wrong, eventually we will come to an even better udnerstanding as the re-evaluations reverberate through everything that came before, and corrected/updated theories become even more accurate.
Im not disagreeing with dark matter or being a crank (the entire topic is way above my level), i just kind of secretly hope it is proven wrong because...well, interesting times if it is.
and then when they dont have insurance, and go to the doctor, the fed gets the bill and they pass the buck onto taxpayers anyway. when you "choose to not have insurance" youre just choosing have fellow taxpayers pay for you.
combine with the fact Obamacare = Romneycare = bill proposal from Heritage Foundation (a conservative group) = Republicans own bill put before Congress in the 90s, and it becomes even more obvious that the oppositions true source is contrarianism because the other side is the one doing it.
what do you mean what if? if the actual cost is 100$, then the actual cost is 100$. your question misses the guy's point: that its not a free market choice. you're not going to walk away like you would from a car salesman; not when walking away means dying.
other question: in the 60+ years of England's NHS, no one has had to be coerced to be a doctor. Same for Canada, or any other country with a centralized health system. Why? Well...look at other sectors with government run/control. They made all air traffic controllers work for FAA...did anyone have to force them? No. And they never will. Why? Because they pay good money. Socialized medicine is the same way. No one needs forced because the doctors recieve a salary commensurate with the job. Essentially the question itself is specious, and assumes/implies many false things that simply aren't true, while ignoring the reality.
not what its built around, and no it doesnt always work.
no, Capitalism is built around self interested rationality between two trading individuals with Capital to exchange and invest. you are conflating free market and capitalism. the two work well together, but ultimately pull in seperate directions (not needfully 180 opposed, more like just 90.. maybe 100..point is, tension exists). but we'll assume that actual defintions are beside the point for now...we're really talking generic capitalism / freemarket conditions as the lay person understands them, not actual technical economic terms.......then still, that condition does not exist in all situations. in particular, that condition does not exist in a health care transaction.
you want to sell me a car, it's too expensive...i can walk away from the deal. no harm no foul.
you want to sell me a pill to save my life.....I can't walk away from that deal. my choice is buy, or die.
No matter whether you're charging 5cents a pill or 500$ a pill, I NEED that pill or else I will die, and therefore I will do whatever I have to. The choice is an illusion in this situation. It's a non-choice.
Generic brands may exist for pills, sure, but that's not the point. Switch it to life saving surgery (lets say...open heart) instead of pills. The problem still exists. the patient may be the customer, but he's not in a position to really argue the costs of a pill or a surgery.
It's not a normal transaction, and never will be. the normal rules dont apply.
1) Invalid comparison. your comparing percentage points, not real numbers. 10-15% (of what precisely??) could be smaller in actual than a Kaiser Permanente 3% profit margin. 2) Medicare is the single most effective/efficient sector of the health care industry, where the costs/outcomes ratio actually more closely align to the international trendlines (the line that shows that we overpay,as a whole, by ~50% for the same outcomes as everyone else; ignoring Medicare, which drags that average down, the number is closer to 100% overpayment)
Bullcrap. This myth needs to die. Copying is theft and always will be, regardless of the virtual state of the goods, or the lack of increase of scarcity, if that good is intended for sale (for obvious reasons this doesnt apply to freeware or whathaveyou).
You obtained a non-free product, good, or service that you didn't pay for. Period. That is theft. Period.
I dont see why they make "infotainment" systems at all.
Just make it a dumb terminal, IE, screen and speakers, that you just plug your phone into, and your phone does all the actual processing and work, etc. Sensors can report over the connection to the app on the phone, but also keep one basic builtin display function that can report all the sensor information (for those that care about that nonsense) incase no phone is present.
Use an open standard for communication and data flow, so anyone can right their own app if they so wish. And if someone writes some really super cool app that's even better than the official one....buy it and make it the new official one.
OR....
Alternatively, instead of everyone making their own proprietary UIs and car softwares....just install bloody android. and (again) keep the communication and sensor flow stuff open and standardized so anyone can right an app that can display it.
midread number 5. somehow. youre right, the rates arent real. because of number 6.
if you havent read the time article (from march?) about high costs, you should. that, along with several analysis and papers linked on incidentaleconomist.com all point to the same thing: its costs so much simply because they can. things like charging $20 a pill for generic tylenol, literally out of the same bottle you can buy at the store that costs only 4 bucks (~5cents a pill). or charging for room and board...and then seperately charging for use of the sheets, laundry of the sheets, etc..things that wuold logically be already under "room and board".
1: Nope. 2: Nope. 3: Contributes, but nearly as much as people think. 4: Nope. In fact the opposite. Hospitals can get away with charging more because the insurers act a a shock absorber, insulator, between your wallet and the true cost of care. they dispute some, but not all excessive costs, because they act more as a match maker between patients and hospitals than a representative of the patient. in fact, it can be argued that hte true commodity is the patients, and the customers are the hospitals. 5: Nope. Red herring. It contributes, but negligibly so. 6: Finally got one right. Lack of competition and economic pressure. This single factor is responsible for the majority of high cost of healthcare in this country. Quite simply, healthcare costs so much because it can. Because they can get away with it. Because there is a middleman between our wallets and the caregivers, that sheilds us from direct costs. Because healthcare isnt like a car sale...you're not going to walk away from life saving surgery because it's too expensive.
It's as a simple as that. Number 6 is the single most important factor, all others are either false or negligible.
We should have access to fairly priced health care that we can work out the details of paying for it. And choose whether or not it's worth the money to us as individuals.
Again: no one actually does that. No one is ever going to do that. If I tell you you need to take these pills, that cost 100$ per pill, or you will die, you're not going to walk away and just accept death. People just dont do that. and since you care to mention government...the single most cost efficient sector of our healthcare system IS the government run single payer segments: Medicaire/Medicaide.
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.
sitting a battlegruond afk, witht eh bot tentatively running around and hitting someone once in a while, and generally sucking at playing, while everyone else wins or loses the match isnt exactly the intended gameplay, so you cant say the gameplay is boring for that reason (being bottable).
and because you get free honor either way...more for a win, but even losing you get something, so botting while at work becomes attractive then, and thus the botting services are born.
Slashdot Mirror
that why its so interesting. if the past 30 years have been just completely wrong about the nature of Dark Matter, or even its very existence, then its very very interesting. It is true, I believe, that because we're right so often that we continue to expect to be right (witness the higgs boson finally being confirmed), yet ultimately a thing doesnt have to exist just because we say so. And if we are wrong, eventually we will come to an even better udnerstanding as the re-evaluations reverberate through everything that came before, and corrected/updated theories become even more accurate.
Im not disagreeing with dark matter or being a crank (the entire topic is way above my level), i just kind of secretly hope it is proven wrong because...well, interesting times if it is.
and then when they dont have insurance, and go to the doctor, the fed gets the bill and they pass the buck onto taxpayers anyway.
when you "choose to not have insurance" youre just choosing have fellow taxpayers pay for you.
"its there but you cant afford it" just means its pointless and meaningless and essentially doesnt exist
combine with the fact Obamacare = Romneycare = bill proposal from Heritage Foundation (a conservative group) = Republicans own bill put before Congress in the 90s, and it becomes even more obvious that the oppositions true source is contrarianism because the other side is the one doing it.
what do you mean what if?
if the actual cost is 100$, then the actual cost is 100$.
your question misses the guy's point: that its not a free market choice.
you're not going to walk away like you would from a car salesman; not when walking away means dying.
other question: in the 60+ years of England's NHS, no one has had to be coerced to be a doctor. Same for Canada, or any other country with a centralized health system. Why? Well...look at other sectors with government run/control. They made all air traffic controllers work for FAA...did anyone have to force them? No. And they never will. Why? Because they pay good money. Socialized medicine is the same way. No one needs forced because the doctors recieve a salary commensurate with the job. Essentially the question itself is specious, and assumes/implies many false things that simply aren't true, while ignoring the reality.
Bull.
Crap.
Are you even cognizant of the real world around you?
nice straw man.
not what its built around, and no it doesnt always work.
no, Capitalism is built around self interested rationality between two trading individuals with Capital to exchange and invest. you are conflating free market and capitalism. the two work well together, but ultimately pull in seperate directions (not needfully 180 opposed, more like just 90.. maybe 100..point is, tension exists). but we'll assume that actual defintions are beside the point for now...we're really talking generic capitalism / freemarket conditions as the lay person understands them, not actual technical economic terms.... ...then still, that condition does not exist in all situations.
in particular, that condition does not exist in a health care transaction.
you want to sell me a car, it's too expensive...i can walk away from the deal. no harm no foul.
you want to sell me a pill to save my life.....I can't walk away from that deal. my choice is buy, or die.
No matter whether you're charging 5cents a pill or 500$ a pill, I NEED that pill or else I will die, and therefore I will do whatever I have to.
The choice is an illusion in this situation. It's a non-choice.
Generic brands may exist for pills, sure, but that's not the point. Switch it to life saving surgery (lets say...open heart) instead of pills. The problem still exists. the patient may be the customer, but he's not in a position to really argue the costs of a pill or a surgery.
It's not a normal transaction, and never will be.
the normal rules dont apply.
1) Invalid comparison. your comparing percentage points, not real numbers. 10-15% (of what precisely??) could be smaller in actual than a Kaiser Permanente 3% profit margin.
2) Medicare is the single most effective/efficient sector of the health care industry, where the costs/outcomes ratio actually more closely align to the international trendlines (the line that shows that we overpay,as a whole, by ~50% for the same outcomes as everyone else; ignoring Medicare, which drags that average down, the number is closer to 100% overpayment)
Bullcrap. This myth needs to die.
Copying is theft and always will be, regardless of the virtual state of the goods, or the lack of increase of scarcity, if that good is intended for sale (for obvious reasons this doesnt apply to freeware or whathaveyou).
You obtained a non-free product, good, or service that you didn't pay for.
Period.
That is theft.
Period.
thats why the simplest regulation of all is the most effective.
"thou shalt compete over the existing wires"
food banks
food stamps
soup kitchens
there are literally dozens of food programs in every city. if people are starving, its not through lack of food.
....
try since the 1840's and the war with mexico.
I dont see why they make "infotainment" systems at all.
Just make it a dumb terminal, IE, screen and speakers, that you just plug your phone into, and your phone does all the actual processing and work, etc. Sensors can report over the connection to the app on the phone, but also keep one basic builtin display function that can report all the sensor information (for those that care about that nonsense) incase no phone is present.
Use an open standard for communication and data flow, so anyone can right their own app if they so wish.
And if someone writes some really super cool app that's even better than the official one....buy it and make it the new official one.
OR....
Alternatively, instead of everyone making their own proprietary UIs and car softwares....just install bloody android. and (again) keep the communication and sensor flow stuff open and standardized so anyone can right an app that can display it.
And this is hard?
Mod up.
Judgemental internet tough guy.
Arrogant ass.
Pick two.
midread number 5. somehow.
youre right, the rates arent real. because of number 6.
if you havent read the time article (from march?) about high costs, you should.
that, along with several analysis and papers linked on incidentaleconomist.com all point to the same thing: its costs so much simply because they can. things like charging $20 a pill for generic tylenol, literally out of the same bottle you can buy at the store that costs only 4 bucks (~5cents a pill). or charging for room and board...and then seperately charging for use of the sheets, laundry of the sheets, etc..things that wuold logically be already under "room and board".
1: Nope.
2: Nope.
3: Contributes, but nearly as much as people think.
4: Nope. In fact the opposite. Hospitals can get away with charging more because the insurers act a a shock absorber, insulator, between your wallet and the true cost of care. they dispute some, but not all excessive costs, because they act more as a match maker between patients and hospitals than a representative of the patient. in fact, it can be argued that hte true commodity is the patients, and the customers are the hospitals.
5: Nope. Red herring. It contributes, but negligibly so.
6: Finally got one right. Lack of competition and economic pressure. This single factor is responsible for the majority of high cost of healthcare in this country. Quite simply, healthcare costs so much because it can. Because they can get away with it. Because there is a middleman between our wallets and the caregivers, that sheilds us from direct costs. Because healthcare isnt like a car sale...you're not going to walk away from life saving surgery because it's too expensive.
It's as a simple as that. Number 6 is the single most important factor, all others are either false or negligible.
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-us-health-care-system-so-expensive-introduction/
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-us-health-care-system-so-expensive-red-herrings/
We should have access to fairly priced health care that we can work out the details of paying for it. And choose whether or not it's worth the money to us as individuals.
Again: no one actually does that. No one is ever going to do that. If I tell you you need to take these pills, that cost 100$ per pill, or you will die, you're not going to walk away and just accept death. People just dont do that. and since you care to mention government...the single most cost efficient sector of our healthcare system IS the government run single payer segments: Medicaire/Medicaide.
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.
youre an idiot.
and we overpay by about 40%, not 300%.
sitting a battlegruond afk, witht eh bot tentatively running around and hitting someone once in a while, and generally sucking at playing, while everyone else wins or loses the match isnt exactly the intended gameplay, so you cant say the gameplay is boring for that reason (being bottable).
and because you get free honor either way...more for a win, but even losing you get something, so botting while at work becomes attractive then, and thus the botting services are born.
and thus you lose all credibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)
i'd vote switzerland.
That was Voyager 6.