Bongs may only be sold for purposes other than smoking marijuana; namely smoking tobacco.
And crack?
Anyway, the "purpose" clause isn't to exempt tobacco smokers, it's an excuse for them to harass retailers for selling bongs, period, because purpose is always subjective.
Fact is, the article claimed nothing that indicated his actions were illegal, only that he modified consoles and charged a fee for his work. Unless you have some information you haven't shared with the rest of us, both you and the author of the article -- who quoted idiotic statements that console modifications "pose significant health and safety risks to consumers" -- are seriously deficient in the skill of rational thought.
Ah yes, because as everyone knows, Phoenix wasn't settled until well after the advent of air conditioning. Before that, it was just filled with the Ashes of Dead Birds, which I believe was the indian name, and people only traveled there in something not unlike a dive suit, with air pumped in from Alaska. Of course the suits were made of bronze, and quite heavy as a result, so only the strongest of men could venture there. Only with the arrival of air conditioning did the birds come back to life, quite literally rising from the ashes, whereupon they promptly founded a city and named it Phoenix.
When they started selling phones? Really? Not when they started hawking generic electronics and speakers at premium prices under the Optimus brand? Or when they tried to sell you a Tandy every time you stepped through the door?
To be fair, electronic component sales really aren't a viable market anymore. With the price of production shrinking just as fast as the size of transistors, we've long since entered the world of disposable electronics, where it's cheaper to design and manufacture products to be replaced in their entirety than to be repairable. Surface mount technology was pretty much the death knell for that. Sure, there are exceptions, and I probably do more electronic repairs than most people, but it's still a rare event. I recognize that our hobby/habit is becoming more and more of a rarity, and on modern electronics, the only *technician* serviceable parts are basically connectors and buttons/switches. It's not like you can even get schematics for most electronics these days, so unless you know for a fact that you just broke off a SMC, and what its value was, you're probably never going to find the fault. I've even seen boards straight from the manufacturer with components broken off or leads clipped to correct design flaws, so you can't rely on sight alone.
When it comes down to it, people would rather just get a new device than pay someone half the replacement price, and in most cases more than the market value of the old one. Desktop computers are about the only exception, but even then you're usually swapping out boards rather than performing component-level repairs. When I bent the pins on my LGA 775 socket, for example, the entire motherboard was a wash. It would have cost $25 just for the part from my wholesaler after discount, and hours of tedium to manually resolder 775 pins, IF I could even pull it off without creating a short or melting a trace. And I certainly didn't want to risk a $100 used CPU in a home-soldered socket, let alone the brand new $500 CPU I was replacing it with. Better to just run out and get a new motherboard for $100, and the peace of mind that comes with it.
We're all accepting the results of this survey because it meshes with our intuition that people ignore security warnings. But the article says nothing of the method of the experiment. Were people told specifically to evaluate the warnings, or were they told to visit site X or Y to answer some questions? How much was the idea of security influenced by the authority of the person who gave them the URL? How important did they feel that encryption was to the security of the connection? I.e., did a portion of them decide that the encrypted connection was unimportant for the task they were performing? All of these things can factor into the results.
But assuming the results are valid, I concur with another poster who lays the blame squarely on the widespread misuse of certificates. Many sites use a single certificate for multiple URLs other than the URL(s) listed on the certificate. (https://m.gmail.com/ anyone?) Others fail to promptly renew their certificates before they expire. The attention people pay to warnings is inversely proportional to the frequency with which they appear, and proportional to the severity of consequences for failing to heed it. Relatively high frequency warnings with no visible consequences for ignoring it = 0 attention.
Haha.. I actually sat down and watched all three in sequence recently, and they're not bad when taken as a whole. True, the latter two lack the mindbending experience of taking the red pill, but so does the first once you've already seen it. The biggest stumbling block in the suspension of disbelief is the idea of using humans as an energy source, which is the premise that covers all three films. Once you get past that, the movies make an entertaining narrative.. although I still had to fast forward past the singing/dancing segments, much like I have to fast forward through the Ewok celebration and tavern "music" in the original Star Wars trilogy.
It's also amusing that the cell phones in the film look as dated as the landlines and payphones.
OT, it's not so much a "new audience", as Nietzsche was observing and speculating on the same social tendency toward comedy (in the sense of happy endings or just deserts) in The Birth of Tragedy, well before 1984 was penned or filmed.
the better solution would be for Amazon to arrange the correct rights from the copyright holder and arrange some form of deal to make sure that those who have a copy of the book on their Kindle can continue to use it
That's an excellent idea, and probably what they should have done.
Nonetheless, it's understandable what they did in light of the actual circumstances. While it was originally reported that the publisher "changed their minds" about offering an ebook, the fact is that these were unauthorized copies from the start, published by a company other than the rights holder.
I'm not saying that excuses the approach that Amazon took, but it's certainly not the case that they simply decided to retroactively revoke the license, rather that the license wasn't legitimate in the first place and they were doing damage control.
The tendons don't really matter.. it's more a function of skin tightness, both in quantity and elasticity. Since most people generally experience fluctuations in weight throughout their lives, skin size will tend to increase with weight gains, and we know that skin elasticity decreases with age. Both of these contribute to sagging, and are what brassieres were invented to counteract in the first place.
As for the tendons holding the underlying breast muscle in place, a minimal amount of exercise can compensate for any tendency toward atrophy. But again, that's the muscle, or "starting point" of the breast.. the fatty tissue above can still sag regardless.
It doesn't really say anything at all, because people can develop allergies at any point in life. Not that I give any credence to these claims whatsoever, but that guy's logic is just as flawed as the complainant's.
Clearly allergy is not the right word here, since allergies are defined as immune system responses, and the DJ doesn't claim any of the symptoms of an allergic reaction.
Still, there are reports of people hearing AM radio through their dental work, and the concept isn't really that absurd: If the radio signal causes resonance of the filling, the audio component of the signal, the modulation, *could* be transferred from the filling, through the jawbone, to the ear canal. Something similar could be happening to this individual, where any amplitude modulated portion of the signal could be affecting his inner ear, which might explain the dizziness and headaches.
Nonetheless, if he's really sensitive to EMR, aside from visible light, then he needs more evidence than just his claims before he can expect anyone to take him seriously.
I realize your semi-joking, but AOL (and other online services) did offer ease of use to the novice, and a lot of features not available elsewhere. There were no massively multiplayer graphical games outside of such proprietary networks at the time, and you needed to a) know about, b) install, and c) configure a separate client for things like reading newsgroups, chatting in IRC, or sending e-mail. AOL provided a centralized GUI for all of those until websites finally started providing that functionality.
And AOL's influence was evident in website design at the time, especially with the advent of portal sites. Say what you will, but AOL was a behemoth, and the software did provide perceived value to a lot of people, much more so than rudimentary browsers of the day, which were considered an add-on to other network services for several years after they appeared, not the primary vehicle of network activity.
The main difference, I think, is that when it comes to technology, people are more willing to ask their friend, neighbor, or even consult available reference material. But when it comes to finance, they want a "professional" to advise them, ignoring the fact that professional is not a synonym for competent, let alone benevolent. They're rightly afraid to trust information from people around them, particularly people who seem to be no better off than they are, and with so much conflicting information available, they don't know what to believe or where to start. Large brokers promise to introduce them to the world of finance, but more often than not, they just manage mediocre mutual funds and collect their fees. Meanwhile the customers continue to give them more money every month without really questioning the performance or wisdom of their investment. Until their investments disappear anyway.
You don't even need a lot of money if you find the right broker. Hint: If they can afford to advertise on TV, it's because they're making a killing, and they'd be happy to take your money too. I equate it to when AOL was charging $30/mo PLUS "premium" fees for dialup back in the day. Meanwhile a Mom & Pop ISP would charge $5 or $10 for unlimited access. Sure, you didn't get the shiny extras and the hand holding, but you had more money in your pocket at the end of the day, and it didn't take long for the value of the internet to exceed the value of AOL's services.
That's not to say that hand-holding isn't helpful when getting started, but you have to realize two things: The broker "representative" you talk to on the phone is about as knowledgeable as AOL tech support, and everything he has on the script in front of him, or from the two-week training he got, is available elsewhere for free, along with much more in-depth information.
I often do wonder how we ended up here. Most of the wealth of the world is held not by its citizens, but by corporations.
That's nothing new.. wealth has traditionally rested with nobility and aristocrats, and corporations are simply the new word for aristocracy. Instead of referring to the wealthy directly, we refer to the entities they control.
At any rate, the answer is simple: We spend everything we earn, ensuring that we are cash poor, and putting our paychecks squarely back into the pockets of the people who sign them. Instead of thinking of how to save our disposable income, we immediately think of what to buy with it. We're bad at saying no, especially to ourselves. Even the term "disposable income" is insane when you think about it. Do we really want to *dispose* of our money? Unfortunately, that's what many people have done and are doing, and I count myself among them.
Someone want to calculate the minimum safe stopping distance of a wide-load truck laden with a 50-meter section of tower traveling at, let's say 45MPH without jackknifing or breaking the load restraints?
IMO, the problem isn't the truck drivers, it's either failure to properly plan the route by the companies, or else improper height measurements. Those signs on the overpasses are for surveying the route, and not really effective as a last-minute warning.
Right on.. It would help if popular culture could just call it all EM Radiation, and call "visible light" EM Radiation in the visible spectrum, but the term radiation scares people. Maybe as an acronym, EMR and EMR-V would be less frightening. Nonetheless, it would be more technically accurate, and remove the ambiguity of the term "light".
Actually, despite the protests of both you and the parent poster, the Camaro is currently the best selling GM vehicle, and they've had to increase production to meet demand.
And with the Chevy Volt, despite any reservations I personally have about the vehicle, it's clear that they're not putting all their eggs in the retro-muscle car basket. If I had extra money to play with these days, I'd be betting long on GM stock. Yes, the government isn't likely to let them fail, but at the same time it's in their best interest to thrive, not merely survive. I think the criticisms of GM have been valid for the past decade or so, but they've already made some major changes, and going forward I expect to see them become more competitive, not less.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
on
F-22 Raptor Cancelled
·
· Score: 1
Hypothetically how many people would die if we didn't have a strong standing military?
Exactly, and how many people would be banging down the doors of Congress to demand a strong military if we were getting bombed by Mexico every other week? We should be doing the same with healthcare.
I am against completely the idea that the Government should be in control of who, how, and when I receive healthcare.
And therein lies the problem. If you had a private army, you probably wouldn't want to pay taxes for a national military either, especially if the government took away your army, and started dictating when, where, and how you could deploy it. Unfortunately, the privilege of your choice in healthcare comes at the cost of many others having no healthcare at all. Additionally, neither of the healthcare systems in either Canada or the UK restrict *who* your doctor is -- you're free to choose your GP. Canadians bitch about wait times for doctors, but we have ridiculous wait times here, AND millions of uninsured. When's the last time you went to an ER, or had to make an appointment to see a specialist. Odds are you waited *hours* in the ER, and got an appointment for sometime the following month.
Despite the fear mongering regarding nationalized healthcare in single-payer systems like Canada and England, the fact remains that they have *better* care by every metric, including cost. And right now, your insurance company is the one standing between you and your doctor. You may trust them more than the government, but there's plenty of examples of people being denied coverage for lifesaving procedures from their insurance company, and meanwhile active duty military never pay a dime for any healthcare services, *including voluntary surgery* like breast reductions or Lasik. Good luck getting your insurance to cover those.
Anecdotally, I've never had better healthcare than when I was either a government employee directly, or a contractor whose employer was subject to government requirements for minimum standards of coverage. Yeah, we could pass legislation to mandate that *all* insurance companies meet minimum standards, but they're still going to be motivated by profit, and experience has shown them that denying coverage drives profit more than enticing new customers (who normally don't have a direct choice in the first place, since their employer chooses) by *expanding* coverage. The medical insurance system we have in place today for is a far cry from car or homeowners insurance, where companies compete vigorously to earn customers. It's exactly the opposite, because they know the only thing the purchaser (employer) typically cares about is the bottom line, and most people can't or won't just switch jobs to find better coverage. Do you really think McDonalds is trying to lure better burger flippers by finding the best healthcare available? Of course not.
And finally, it's not like private healthcare will simply disappear. There are plenty of private providers in the UK despite the existence of the NHS. So if you're wealthy, you'll still be able to use your capital to obtain better care than the little people. But if you're not wealthy, and if we mirror the systems of the UK or Canada, then *most people* will get better care, yourself included, the 50 Million people who have no insurance will *definitely* get better care, and the very few people who receive worse care as a result can at least know that their minor sacrifice of not getting a premium suite, or having to use generic drugs when available, has improved the overall state of affairs.
Slashdot Mirror
Bongs may only be sold for purposes other than smoking marijuana; namely smoking tobacco.
And crack?
Anyway, the "purpose" clause isn't to exempt tobacco smokers, it's an excuse for them to harass retailers for selling bongs, period, because purpose is always subjective.
Fact is, the article claimed nothing that indicated his actions were illegal, only that he modified consoles and charged a fee for his work. Unless you have some information you haven't shared with the rest of us, both you and the author of the article -- who quoted idiotic statements that console modifications "pose significant health and safety risks to consumers" -- are seriously deficient in the skill of rational thought.
Turn off the AC? Only if you want to die.
Ah yes, because as everyone knows, Phoenix wasn't settled until well after the advent of air conditioning. Before that, it was just filled with the Ashes of Dead Birds, which I believe was the indian name, and people only traveled there in something not unlike a dive suit, with air pumped in from Alaska. Of course the suits were made of bronze, and quite heavy as a result, so only the strongest of men could venture there. Only with the arrival of air conditioning did the birds come back to life, quite literally rising from the ashes, whereupon they promptly founded a city and named it Phoenix.
Should be pretty easy..
video game: Convert those heathens!
Bart: Yes! Gott'im!
Todd: Nah you just winged him and made him a Unitarian.
free spirits => free beer => free love.
=> free chlamydia
..and when that failed, they were silenced by small but potent explosive devices planted by Apple in each of their pockets.
When they started selling phones? Really? Not when they started hawking generic electronics and speakers at premium prices under the Optimus brand? Or when they tried to sell you a Tandy every time you stepped through the door?
To be fair, electronic component sales really aren't a viable market anymore. With the price of production shrinking just as fast as the size of transistors, we've long since entered the world of disposable electronics, where it's cheaper to design and manufacture products to be replaced in their entirety than to be repairable. Surface mount technology was pretty much the death knell for that. Sure, there are exceptions, and I probably do more electronic repairs than most people, but it's still a rare event. I recognize that our hobby/habit is becoming more and more of a rarity, and on modern electronics, the only *technician* serviceable parts are basically connectors and buttons/switches. It's not like you can even get schematics for most electronics these days, so unless you know for a fact that you just broke off a SMC, and what its value was, you're probably never going to find the fault. I've even seen boards straight from the manufacturer with components broken off or leads clipped to correct design flaws, so you can't rely on sight alone.
When it comes down to it, people would rather just get a new device than pay someone half the replacement price, and in most cases more than the market value of the old one. Desktop computers are about the only exception, but even then you're usually swapping out boards rather than performing component-level repairs. When I bent the pins on my LGA 775 socket, for example, the entire motherboard was a wash. It would have cost $25 just for the part from my wholesaler after discount, and hours of tedium to manually resolder 775 pins, IF I could even pull it off without creating a short or melting a trace. And I certainly didn't want to risk a $100 used CPU in a home-soldered socket, let alone the brand new $500 CPU I was replacing it with. Better to just run out and get a new motherboard for $100, and the peace of mind that comes with it.
We're all accepting the results of this survey because it meshes with our intuition that people ignore security warnings. But the article says nothing of the method of the experiment. Were people told specifically to evaluate the warnings, or were they told to visit site X or Y to answer some questions? How much was the idea of security influenced by the authority of the person who gave them the URL? How important did they feel that encryption was to the security of the connection? I.e., did a portion of them decide that the encrypted connection was unimportant for the task they were performing? All of these things can factor into the results.
But assuming the results are valid, I concur with another poster who lays the blame squarely on the widespread misuse of certificates. Many sites use a single certificate for multiple URLs other than the URL(s) listed on the certificate. (https://m.gmail.com/ anyone?) Others fail to promptly renew their certificates before they expire. The attention people pay to warnings is inversely proportional to the frequency with which they appear, and proportional to the severity of consequences for failing to heed it. Relatively high frequency warnings with no visible consequences for ignoring it = 0 attention.
Haha.. I actually sat down and watched all three in sequence recently, and they're not bad when taken as a whole. True, the latter two lack the mindbending experience of taking the red pill, but so does the first once you've already seen it. The biggest stumbling block in the suspension of disbelief is the idea of using humans as an energy source, which is the premise that covers all three films. Once you get past that, the movies make an entertaining narrative.. although I still had to fast forward past the singing/dancing segments, much like I have to fast forward through the Ewok celebration and tavern "music" in the original Star Wars trilogy.
It's also amusing that the cell phones in the film look as dated as the landlines and payphones.
OT, it's not so much a "new audience", as Nietzsche was observing and speculating on the same social tendency toward comedy (in the sense of happy endings or just deserts) in The Birth of Tragedy, well before 1984 was penned or filmed.
the better solution would be for Amazon to arrange the correct rights from the copyright holder and arrange some form of deal to make sure that those who have a copy of the book on their Kindle can continue to use it
That's an excellent idea, and probably what they should have done.
Nonetheless, it's understandable what they did in light of the actual circumstances. While it was originally reported that the publisher "changed their minds" about offering an ebook, the fact is that these were unauthorized copies from the start, published by a company other than the rights holder.
I'm not saying that excuses the approach that Amazon took, but it's certainly not the case that they simply decided to retroactively revoke the license, rather that the license wasn't legitimate in the first place and they were doing damage control.
The tendons don't really matter.. it's more a function of skin tightness, both in quantity and elasticity. Since most people generally experience fluctuations in weight throughout their lives, skin size will tend to increase with weight gains, and we know that skin elasticity decreases with age. Both of these contribute to sagging, and are what brassieres were invented to counteract in the first place.
As for the tendons holding the underlying breast muscle in place, a minimal amount of exercise can compensate for any tendency toward atrophy. But again, that's the muscle, or "starting point" of the breast.. the fatty tissue above can still sag regardless.
It doesn't really say anything at all, because people can develop allergies at any point in life. Not that I give any credence to these claims whatsoever, but that guy's logic is just as flawed as the complainant's.
Clearly allergy is not the right word here, since allergies are defined as immune system responses, and the DJ doesn't claim any of the symptoms of an allergic reaction.
Still, there are reports of people hearing AM radio through their dental work, and the concept isn't really that absurd: If the radio signal causes resonance of the filling, the audio component of the signal, the modulation, *could* be transferred from the filling, through the jawbone, to the ear canal. Something similar could be happening to this individual, where any amplitude modulated portion of the signal could be affecting his inner ear, which might explain the dizziness and headaches.
Nonetheless, if he's really sensitive to EMR, aside from visible light, then he needs more evidence than just his claims before he can expect anyone to take him seriously.
Good call... I haven't been following it, so I just assumed they were temporarily delisted.
Armageddon!
I realize your semi-joking, but AOL (and other online services) did offer ease of use to the novice, and a lot of features not available elsewhere. There were no massively multiplayer graphical games outside of such proprietary networks at the time, and you needed to a) know about, b) install, and c) configure a separate client for things like reading newsgroups, chatting in IRC, or sending e-mail. AOL provided a centralized GUI for all of those until websites finally started providing that functionality.
And AOL's influence was evident in website design at the time, especially with the advent of portal sites. Say what you will, but AOL was a behemoth, and the software did provide perceived value to a lot of people, much more so than rudimentary browsers of the day, which were considered an add-on to other network services for several years after they appeared, not the primary vehicle of network activity.
The main difference, I think, is that when it comes to technology, people are more willing to ask their friend, neighbor, or even consult available reference material. But when it comes to finance, they want a "professional" to advise them, ignoring the fact that professional is not a synonym for competent, let alone benevolent. They're rightly afraid to trust information from people around them, particularly people who seem to be no better off than they are, and with so much conflicting information available, they don't know what to believe or where to start. Large brokers promise to introduce them to the world of finance, but more often than not, they just manage mediocre mutual funds and collect their fees. Meanwhile the customers continue to give them more money every month without really questioning the performance or wisdom of their investment. Until their investments disappear anyway.
I thought our food chain was Sun -> Corn -> Cows/Pigs/Chickens -> Cows/Pigs/Chickens -> Dinner.
You don't even need a lot of money if you find the right broker. Hint: If they can afford to advertise on TV, it's because they're making a killing, and they'd be happy to take your money too. I equate it to when AOL was charging $30/mo PLUS "premium" fees for dialup back in the day. Meanwhile a Mom & Pop ISP would charge $5 or $10 for unlimited access. Sure, you didn't get the shiny extras and the hand holding, but you had more money in your pocket at the end of the day, and it didn't take long for the value of the internet to exceed the value of AOL's services.
That's not to say that hand-holding isn't helpful when getting started, but you have to realize two things: The broker "representative" you talk to on the phone is about as knowledgeable as AOL tech support, and everything he has on the script in front of him, or from the two-week training he got, is available elsewhere for free, along with much more in-depth information.
I often do wonder how we ended up here. Most of the wealth of the world is held not by its citizens, but by corporations.
That's nothing new.. wealth has traditionally rested with nobility and aristocrats, and corporations are simply the new word for aristocracy. Instead of referring to the wealthy directly, we refer to the entities they control.
At any rate, the answer is simple: We spend everything we earn, ensuring that we are cash poor, and putting our paychecks squarely back into the pockets of the people who sign them. Instead of thinking of how to save our disposable income, we immediately think of what to buy with it. We're bad at saying no, especially to ourselves. Even the term "disposable income" is insane when you think about it. Do we really want to *dispose* of our money? Unfortunately, that's what many people have done and are doing, and I count myself among them.
Sure there is. It's still a publicly traded company, it's just not listed on the NYSE during bankruptcy.
Someone want to calculate the minimum safe stopping distance of a wide-load truck laden with a 50-meter section of tower traveling at, let's say 45MPH without jackknifing or breaking the load restraints?
IMO, the problem isn't the truck drivers, it's either failure to properly plan the route by the companies, or else improper height measurements. Those signs on the overpasses are for surveying the route, and not really effective as a last-minute warning.
The armadillo can jump 3-4 feet (91-120 cm) straight in the air if sufficiently frightened, making it a particular danger on roads.
I'd say that's definitely a sub-orbital flight.
Right on.. It would help if popular culture could just call it all EM Radiation, and call "visible light" EM Radiation in the visible spectrum, but the term radiation scares people. Maybe as an acronym, EMR and EMR-V would be less frightening. Nonetheless, it would be more technically accurate, and remove the ambiguity of the term "light".
Actually, despite the protests of both you and the parent poster, the Camaro is currently the best selling GM vehicle, and they've had to increase production to meet demand.
And with the Chevy Volt, despite any reservations I personally have about the vehicle, it's clear that they're not putting all their eggs in the retro-muscle car basket. If I had extra money to play with these days, I'd be betting long on GM stock. Yes, the government isn't likely to let them fail, but at the same time it's in their best interest to thrive, not merely survive. I think the criticisms of GM have been valid for the past decade or so, but they've already made some major changes, and going forward I expect to see them become more competitive, not less.
Hypothetically how many people would die if we didn't have a strong standing military?
Exactly, and how many people would be banging down the doors of Congress to demand a strong military if we were getting bombed by Mexico every other week? We should be doing the same with healthcare.
I am against completely the idea that the Government should be in control of who, how, and when I receive healthcare.
And therein lies the problem. If you had a private army, you probably wouldn't want to pay taxes for a national military either, especially if the government took away your army, and started dictating when, where, and how you could deploy it. Unfortunately, the privilege of your choice in healthcare comes at the cost of many others having no healthcare at all. Additionally, neither of the healthcare systems in either Canada or the UK restrict *who* your doctor is -- you're free to choose your GP. Canadians bitch about wait times for doctors, but we have ridiculous wait times here, AND millions of uninsured. When's the last time you went to an ER, or had to make an appointment to see a specialist. Odds are you waited *hours* in the ER, and got an appointment for sometime the following month.
Despite the fear mongering regarding nationalized healthcare in single-payer systems like Canada and England, the fact remains that they have *better* care by every metric, including cost. And right now, your insurance company is the one standing between you and your doctor. You may trust them more than the government, but there's plenty of examples of people being denied coverage for lifesaving procedures from their insurance company, and meanwhile active duty military never pay a dime for any healthcare services, *including voluntary surgery* like breast reductions or Lasik. Good luck getting your insurance to cover those.
Anecdotally, I've never had better healthcare than when I was either a government employee directly, or a contractor whose employer was subject to government requirements for minimum standards of coverage. Yeah, we could pass legislation to mandate that *all* insurance companies meet minimum standards, but they're still going to be motivated by profit, and experience has shown them that denying coverage drives profit more than enticing new customers (who normally don't have a direct choice in the first place, since their employer chooses) by *expanding* coverage. The medical insurance system we have in place today for is a far cry from car or homeowners insurance, where companies compete vigorously to earn customers. It's exactly the opposite, because they know the only thing the purchaser (employer) typically cares about is the bottom line, and most people can't or won't just switch jobs to find better coverage. Do you really think McDonalds is trying to lure better burger flippers by finding the best healthcare available? Of course not.
And finally, it's not like private healthcare will simply disappear. There are plenty of private providers in the UK despite the existence of the NHS. So if you're wealthy, you'll still be able to use your capital to obtain better care than the little people. But if you're not wealthy, and if we mirror the systems of the UK or Canada, then *most people* will get better care, yourself included, the 50 Million people who have no insurance will *definitely* get better care, and the very few people who receive worse care as a result can at least know that their minor sacrifice of not getting a premium suite, or having to use generic drugs when available, has improved the overall state of affairs.