If you have a problem with proprietary formats you go to Microsoft to solve it for you... The word "DOH" springs to mind.
Oh yeah, their solution? Virtualised Windows 3.1. And obviously in 15 years you'll have to virtualise Vista in order to run the Win3.1 virtual machine to run Word. And Microsoft will be paid a license for each application and level of virtualisation.
When the "customer" is under duress then it is not really "free trade" is it? Where's the duress in choosing an insurance company?
But hey, it's your money not mine! Exactly. It's someone else's money.
Health care providers are in the same enviable position as the oil industry: demand for their product is very inelastic, so they can charge a premium. Only until the supply increases.
But people aren't rational, and your plan is hopelessly naive because it assumes people will be. Individuals are notoriously bad at estimating the value of mitigating future risk. No. I make no assumption about the rationality of people. Sorry, but your measure of value is irrelevant. What you think something is worth has no bearing on what someone else thinks something is worth. All such value measurements are personal. Therefore if they think it's worth 2000 X, it is by definition, worth 2000 X to them. There is no such thing as overpaying.
Lastly, your glib advice about "mitigating risk" ignores the fact that health insurance providers cherry-pick the lowest-risk customers. If you get cancer, your insurer is going to look high and low for any excuse to deny you coverage And this is perhaps an area that needs to be made more transparent. The quality of health insurance companies isn't obvious.
In a less dramatic fashion your own illogical* ideology is being pandered to, ironically in order to "rip you off". A right. The free trade of services for money is "ripping me off". Perhaps we simply value the provision of healthcare differently.
Private healthcare insurance is too exhorbitant to be compared to trifling luxuries like cable television or private transportation, Right. Someone else should pay for your health coverage. But not for your car or travel costs? What about food? Should you pay for that or someone else, after all it's essential to survive.
There's no difference between healthcare insurance and anything else. The only difference is that you want someone else to pay for the results of your lifestyle.
We have Oracle 8, Sybase 12 and postgresql 8 (I think).
The whole factory is run off of postgresql. The financial system is run off of Oracle. The timesheet system is run off of Sybase.
Guess the systems which gave the most and least problems.
The winner is PostgreSQL. Untouched for months, perhaps even years. Next we have Oracle which is a pain in the arse to manage but never failed. and last place came sybase which had to be touched, managed and/or restarted regularly[1].
In terms of transactions, the factory systems took an absolute pounding, the financial system was used extensively daily and the timesheet system got maybe thousand updates per day.
PostgreSQL's largest benefit is reliability.
[1] Clearly these attributes are what made Sybase the product of choice for Microsoft to build their enterprise database management system upon.
Gah. Other than that your post is correct.
Unless inflation is higher than the official interest rates. Then, even invested in bonds which return the base rate you could still be losing value.
"The only way you could 'loose' money is by untying it, or making it less tight. "
Loose the hounds. To let them free. The spelling, meaning and pronunciation are very similar and in particular if english isn't your first language (and for more than 95% of the world population it isn't) they are easily confused.
Of course, then you also have stupid people where english is their first language but they still don't know the difference and never bother looking it up.
Both lose and loose come from the same germanic root to slacken, to go or to be rid of; "los".
Hence a loser is someone to be or having been rid of or who must go.
if insurance companies will just deny all the claims due to conditions obscured in legalese? Well... This is the corollary. If you have compulsory insurance, you need compulsory pay outs. Otherwise all you have is compulsory profit. The cost reduction then points in the other direction, towards the healthcare providers themselves.
The major problem with socialized medicine is that it takes control/responsibility of my medical life out of MY hands and puts it in control of the government. Good point.
Motorcycle helmet, seatbelt laws are just the start. (reduces costs)
When talking about the cost of healthcare, it doesn't help much to know that if you can't quantify it. Of course you can quantify it.
Quantifying the value is always an individual, personal decision, no matter what you're buying. In the examples you provide the quantity is probably very high, perhaps even everything you own and more, the value of that healthcare to you may be worth the rest of your life in debt. In which case I recommend mitigating the risk.
The UK has been throwing tens of billions of pounds at the system in order to try to reduce the waiting but you know that's temporary while the lists are in the news. At some point reality will kick in (again) and they'll rediscover they really can't afford £105 billion (even more next year) every year. The people of course blame immigration for the spiralling costs and waiting lists, because it's simple to do so, but in reality it's just the wrong model.
In the majority of EU countries some form of compulsory health insurance is in use. There's no particular need for the state to own and operate hospitals.
Free market economies work best when prices are elastic; that is, where changes in price affect the demand for the product. This allows price to signal the level of available supply and prevent shortages of goods. The problem with healthcare is that it is not elastic. Hmm, perhaps, but we're not talking about the price of healthcare.
We're talking about the cost of healthcare insurance which is an entirely different thing. Where it's too expensive people simply don't get it, as is evidenced by the fact that millions of Americans don't have insurance. What drives up healthcare insurance costs is the legal requirement to treat people without insurance. Who bears that cost? The people paying for insurance. This is the wrong model as well.
For those that don't know, the United Kingdom spends eighty billion pounds a year on healthcare, funded directly through taxes. Almost quarter of a trillion dollars. Per year.
It's kind of funny when your ranking in the world's richest raises and falls with small market fluctuations. These fluctuations, trends aren't small, they're real (huge) flows of wealth. Americans really have become 30% poorer over the last few years.
They haven't realised it yet almost exclusively because China has the Renminbi clamped at a fraction of a dollar. China recent allowed that to begin to change somewhat and Americans will start to see how poor they have become.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s=USDCNY%3DX&l= on&z=m&q=l
That and he's made his mark on history... will we remember Kamprad or Slim? Highly unlikely. But Gates has touched entire generations with software we been forced to and have chosen to use for better or for worse. Yes. He might be remembered for 50 years instead of 10.
Then there will be a corresponding increase in salaries to attract good employees... Which strangely hasn't happened, so it can't be much of a shortage.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have a problem with proprietary formats you go to Microsoft to solve it for you... The word "DOH" springs to mind.
Oh yeah, their solution? Virtualised Windows 3.1. And obviously in 15 years you'll have to virtualise Vista in order to run the Win3.1 virtual machine to run Word. And Microsoft will be paid a license for each application and level of virtualisation.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
You noticed he's walking it?
There's no difference between healthcare insurance and anything else. The only difference is that you want someone else to pay for the results of your lifestyle.
To miss. Much like all the rest of the cack out just now.
We have Oracle 8, Sybase 12 and postgresql 8 (I think).
The whole factory is run off of postgresql.
The financial system is run off of Oracle.
The timesheet system is run off of Sybase.
Guess the systems which gave the most and least problems.
The winner is PostgreSQL. Untouched for months, perhaps even years. Next we have Oracle which is a pain in the arse to manage but never failed. and last place came sybase which had to be touched, managed and/or restarted regularly[1].
In terms of transactions, the factory systems took an absolute pounding, the financial system was used extensively daily and the timesheet system got maybe thousand updates per day.
PostgreSQL's largest benefit is reliability.
[1] Clearly these attributes are what made Sybase the product of choice for Microsoft to build their enterprise database management system upon.
"The only way you could 'loose' money is by untying it, or making it less tight. "
Loose the hounds. To let them free. The spelling, meaning and pronunciation are very similar and in particular if english isn't your first language (and for more than 95% of the world population it isn't) they are easily confused.
Of course, then you also have stupid people where english is their first language but they still don't know the difference and never bother looking it up.
Both lose and loose come from the same germanic root to slacken, to go or to be rid of; "los".
Hence a loser is someone to be or having been rid of or who must go.
Oh come on. It had to be said.
Motorcycle helmet, seatbelt laws are just the start. (reduces costs)
Then of course you add private health insurance on top to bypass the waiting lists.
Quantifying the value is always an individual, personal decision, no matter what you're buying. In the examples you provide the quantity is probably very high, perhaps even everything you own and more, the value of that healthcare to you may be worth the rest of your life in debt. In which case I recommend mitigating the risk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6700685.stm
http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/stor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6266124.stm
etc etc etc etc etc ad nauseam.
The UK has been throwing tens of billions of pounds at the system in order to try to reduce the waiting but you know that's temporary while the lists are in the news. At some point reality will kick in (again) and they'll rediscover they really can't afford £105 billion (even more next year) every year. The people of course blame immigration for the spiralling costs and waiting lists, because it's simple to do so, but in reality it's just the wrong model.
In the majority of EU countries some form of compulsory health insurance is in use. There's no particular need for the state to own and operate hospitals. Free market economies work best when prices are elastic; that is, where changes in price affect the demand for the product. This allows price to signal the level of available supply and prevent shortages of goods. The problem with healthcare is that it is not elastic. Hmm, perhaps, but we're not talking about the price of healthcare.
We're talking about the cost of healthcare insurance which is an entirely different thing. Where it's too expensive people simply don't get it, as is evidenced by the fact that millions of Americans don't have insurance. What drives up healthcare insurance costs is the legal requirement to treat people without insurance. Who bears that cost? The people paying for insurance. This is the wrong model as well.
And yet everything has a value.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=USDEUR=X&t=5y&l=o
They haven't realised it yet almost exclusively because China has the Renminbi clamped at a fraction of a dollar. China recent allowed that to begin to change somewhat and Americans will start to see how poor they have become.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s=USDCNY%3DX&l
Is paid for in cash.
Then there will be a corresponding increase in salaries to attract good employees... Which strangely hasn't happened, so it can't be much of a shortage.
Or the opportunity to buy a pint for someone who actually did something heroic.
http://johnsmeaton.com/
Yes, beer really does cost £3($6) a pint here, and no I have no idea who's running the site.
So you've military bases in 40% of the countries, plans for missile sites and it's all because you're the policeman.
Nothing to do with the political power and influence it gives you. Oh come on.
Politicians and bureaucrats.
Look. When someone says "The government should" or "The state should". What they're talking about is politicians and bureaucrats.
And Microsoft have tens of billions of dollars.