Yes, but do the EU countries have multiple sales tax regimes within each postal code, or a national VAT? There is a big difference between the two.
Remember, too, that Amazon already pays corporate income tax (the US has one of the highest rates in the world) and its shareholders have to pay taxes on any dividends. They do pay taxes. They just don't collect sales and use taxes except where they can't avoid it. Regulatory arbitrage is not something to be ashamed of.
The one thing that is very, very different between Europe and the US is the total area covered by each company. Densities, as have been pointed out, are quite low in parts of Scandinavia that nonetheless have service (cue all the posts about remote mountains in Norway having 4 bars), and major-city coverage is apparently much better in Europe than in the US. But there is no Europe-wide operator that will sell you an unlimited voice, data, and text plan that works from Moscow to Lisbon with no roaming charges, while T-Mobile will sell you that plan for $80/mo, Sprint will do it for $100/mo, and AT&T and Verizon will do it for $150/mo.
It's worth noting that smaller operators like US Cellular, Cricket, MetroPCS, Cellular South, Cincinnati Bell, and the like provide lower prices and fewer restrictions than the majors, but also have smaller coverage areas.
I wonder how those teams competing for X-prizes pitch their idea to venture capitalists (spend 10 million to make 1 million ain't gonna work).
I imagine it goes something like, "We'll be years ahead of everyone else when it goes commercial. Also, wouldn't you think it was cool if your grandfather had bankrolled Lindbergh?"
Well, there are things you can do that are fairly inexpensive. Example: while watching NASA TV on numerous occasions, you are treated to the View of The Earth From Space. Except that with cloud cover and a low angle, it's really hard to figure out what you're looking at. How hard would it be to put a graphic showing current ground position up in the corner?
The worst was when I went to college in the fall of '93. I got used to connecting to local boards at 14.4k... but the college's access consisted of a bank of eight 2400 bps modems wired to a 56k leased line uplink. No PPP/SLIP, either, so any files that were downloaded had to be to the university's machine. There were two ways to get files: small ones were retrieved by zmodem, large ones by going down to the computer lab and sticking floppies in the NeXTs. Then, two years later, we had ethernet in the dorms... it was a bit of a change, you might say.
And to contradict it, I have my hospital, which has minimal AT&T coverage, no T-Mo, and crystal-clear Verizon. Verizon's got one hell of a good network, but if it doesn't cover you where you work, who cares?
People asked me if I thought the Droid was an iPhone killer. And my honest answer was: the iPhone gets no service where I work, while the Droid gets 4 bars. I'd probably choose the Droid anyway, but that sort of thing makes it a no-brainer.
Again, mods on crack. You can disagree with me; I often throw out bombs here on/. But troll? Please, if anything I said in this thread is a troll, it's the one before this one.
If you're careful - and I mean, really careful - you can go get some 2,4-dinitrophenol (I forget why, but we used this stuff pretty frequently in chemistry classes) and use it to uncouple the Krebs cycle from ATP production. You'll lose weight... quickly... extreme caution is advised. On the plus side, you can turn the heat down.
That one document was the whole story. And it was transparently, obviously, blatantly forged. Nobody who lived through the 1970s could possibly think it was real.
a forged copy of a genuine document
Wow. Just... wow. Too bad they never found an original, eh?
(especially at a government job, where it's typically much more difficult to get fired/laid off)
This is what I was responding to. I don't have a problem with states investing in FLOSS solutions; indeed, I think that's a good idea. But as/. is fond of pointing out, giving people money after they've done the work doesn't necessarily make them produce more works. (Cf. any copyright discussion.) And I think the attitude of "you can get away with something that you were ordered not to do, and that is possibly slightly illegal, because it's hard to fire you" is wrong.
It's a government job. That means he's spending other people's money - the taxpayers'. I like open source, too; I donate to projects that are doing really great work. But that doesn't mean my tax dollars should go to them.
The permitted activities of everyone other than physicians vary considerably from state to state. My state does not credential PAs, so I've never encountered them. Also, I'm an anesthesiologist, not a clinic doc, so most of my work with nonphysician practitioners is with nurse anesthetists.
Have you considered bargaining beforehand? If you're paying cash up front, you need not pay full price to get a face-to-face with an MD.
As for what we spend, well, yes, the US system is expensive, and no, we don't live as long as some do. Of course, there is very little that doctors can do to affect the overall life expectancy. There are a large number of conditions that do not lead to shorter lifespans, but do restrict what you can do with that time - Alzheimer disease is perhaps the most obvious, but it is not alone. Saving people from cancer does relatively little. I'm an anesthesiologist, and at most 5% of the surgeries that I perform anesthesia for have the potential to increase lifespan. The rest do nothing for it - but they allow people to avoid going blind, to stop having chronic tonsil infections, to walk without pain, to play the sport they got a college scholarship in, to stop having chronic back pain. These are valuable things, no?
A friend of mine is a pharmacist. While she was in pharmacy school, she rotated through a few retail pharmacies, basically to get a feel for how that kind of job was. One place had a bulletin board with their best fake prescriptions posted. The winner was the guy who had written a script for - I kid you not - "one pound mophine"[sic]. They apparently told the guy they would be happy to get his pound of mophine[sic]. Then they called the cops.
One dose of IV dopamine would be enough to make you never do it again, that's for sure... and to nitpick, chlorpheniramine, brompheniramine, doxylamine, and other antihistamines were on the OTC market with Benadryl.
The limitation is the quality of the camera. Some diagnoses require in-person examination, but some don't. And there are a lot of people who want to go to the doctor "just to be sure". They never have anything other than a cold, but it makes them feel a lot better.
This would be really beneficial for chronic patients - people who are on maintenance therapy for high blood pressure, asthma, and the like. The visit for these people usually consists of "have your symptoms changed any?" and writing a refill for meds. It would be faster for doctor and patient to do these remotely.
I believe that OP may be confused about what went on. A nurse practitioner may be credentialed to do biopsies, depending on the state, but not an RN. And in this particular case, I imagine that the physician directed the medical student to do a biopsy. Now, an experienced RN might observe the med student, assist them, and suggest that they might need a larger or smaller biopsy... but as a legal matter, the medical student was doing it under the physician's direction. The closest analogy is to the military; RNs function in health care much as NCOs do in the army, i.e. they actually do the work of taking care of people while MDs make the strategy for treating them. Med students, depending on their level, function like green lieutenants: while technically in charge of the RNs, they tend to tread lightly and not upset things unless they have a very good reason to do so.
If you call around asking doctors' offices if they'll see you for $45 cash at the time of service for an uncomplicated visit, you will not have to make many calls before you have a taker. This is already an option, "whether or not they are insured".
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but do the EU countries have multiple sales tax regimes within each postal code, or a national VAT? There is a big difference between the two.
Remember, too, that Amazon already pays corporate income tax (the US has one of the highest rates in the world) and its shareholders have to pay taxes on any dividends. They do pay taxes. They just don't collect sales and use taxes except where they can't avoid it. Regulatory arbitrage is not something to be ashamed of.
The one thing that is very, very different between Europe and the US is the total area covered by each company. Densities, as have been pointed out, are quite low in parts of Scandinavia that nonetheless have service (cue all the posts about remote mountains in Norway having 4 bars), and major-city coverage is apparently much better in Europe than in the US. But there is no Europe-wide operator that will sell you an unlimited voice, data, and text plan that works from Moscow to Lisbon with no roaming charges, while T-Mobile will sell you that plan for $80/mo, Sprint will do it for $100/mo, and AT&T and Verizon will do it for $150/mo.
It's worth noting that smaller operators like US Cellular, Cricket, MetroPCS, Cellular South, Cincinnati Bell, and the like provide lower prices and fewer restrictions than the majors, but also have smaller coverage areas.
I wonder how those teams competing for X-prizes pitch their idea to venture capitalists (spend 10 million to make 1 million ain't gonna work).
I imagine it goes something like, "We'll be years ahead of everyone else when it goes commercial. Also, wouldn't you think it was cool if your grandfather had bankrolled Lindbergh?"
Well, there are things you can do that are fairly inexpensive. Example: while watching NASA TV on numerous occasions, you are treated to the View of The Earth From Space. Except that with cloud cover and a low angle, it's really hard to figure out what you're looking at. How hard would it be to put a graphic showing current ground position up in the corner?
The worst was when I went to college in the fall of '93. I got used to connecting to local boards at 14.4k... but the college's access consisted of a bank of eight 2400 bps modems wired to a 56k leased line uplink. No PPP/SLIP, either, so any files that were downloaded had to be to the university's machine. There were two ways to get files: small ones were retrieved by zmodem, large ones by going down to the computer lab and sticking floppies in the NeXTs. Then, two years later, we had ethernet in the dorms... it was a bit of a change, you might say.
Have you some credentials that make your opinion stand out among the rest of the /. crowd?
No, I was just bored.
And to contradict it, I have my hospital, which has minimal AT&T coverage, no T-Mo, and crystal-clear Verizon. Verizon's got one hell of a good network, but if it doesn't cover you where you work, who cares?
People asked me if I thought the Droid was an iPhone killer. And my honest answer was: the iPhone gets no service where I work, while the Droid gets 4 bars. I'd probably choose the Droid anyway, but that sort of thing makes it a no-brainer.
Again, mods on crack. You can disagree with me; I often throw out bombs here on /. But troll? Please, if anything I said in this thread is a troll, it's the one before this one.
And, of course, it gets the -1, Disagree (as Overrated) mod. You should be proud of yourself, Anonymous Modder. The Soviet Union needs you!
If you're careful - and I mean, really careful - you can go get some 2,4-dinitrophenol (I forget why, but we used this stuff pretty frequently in chemistry classes) and use it to uncouple the Krebs cycle from ATP production. You'll lose weight... quickly... extreme caution is advised. On the plus side, you can turn the heat down.
That one document was the whole story. And it was transparently, obviously, blatantly forged. Nobody who lived through the 1970s could possibly think it was real.
a forged copy of a genuine document
Wow. Just... wow. Too bad they never found an original, eh?
(especially at a government job, where it's typically much more difficult to get fired/laid off)
This is what I was responding to. I don't have a problem with states investing in FLOSS solutions; indeed, I think that's a good idea. But as /. is fond of pointing out, giving people money after they've done the work doesn't necessarily make them produce more works. (Cf. any copyright discussion.) And I think the attitude of "you can get away with something that you were ordered not to do, and that is possibly slightly illegal, because it's hard to fire you" is wrong.
Oh, I understand conservatism pretty well; it's why I'm not one.
It is sometimes difficult to imagine that this many bad ideas can live in one person's head.
It's a government job. That means he's spending other people's money - the taxpayers'. I like open source, too; I donate to projects that are doing really great work. But that doesn't mean my tax dollars should go to them.
GM makes sense if you think of it as a race between management and labor to see who could kill the company first.
The permitted activities of everyone other than physicians vary considerably from state to state. My state does not credential PAs, so I've never encountered them. Also, I'm an anesthesiologist, not a clinic doc, so most of my work with nonphysician practitioners is with nurse anesthetists.
Remember that a 10-minute visit with an MD generates at least 10 minutes of paperwork. It's $135/hr. What does your plumber charge?
Why not get her primary MD to prescribe a box of B12 injections and just do it yourself when you need to?
Have you considered bargaining beforehand? If you're paying cash up front, you need not pay full price to get a face-to-face with an MD.
As for what we spend, well, yes, the US system is expensive, and no, we don't live as long as some do. Of course, there is very little that doctors can do to affect the overall life expectancy. There are a large number of conditions that do not lead to shorter lifespans, but do restrict what you can do with that time - Alzheimer disease is perhaps the most obvious, but it is not alone. Saving people from cancer does relatively little. I'm an anesthesiologist, and at most 5% of the surgeries that I perform anesthesia for have the potential to increase lifespan. The rest do nothing for it - but they allow people to avoid going blind, to stop having chronic tonsil infections, to walk without pain, to play the sport they got a college scholarship in, to stop having chronic back pain. These are valuable things, no?
A friend of mine is a pharmacist. While she was in pharmacy school, she rotated through a few retail pharmacies, basically to get a feel for how that kind of job was. One place had a bulletin board with their best fake prescriptions posted. The winner was the guy who had written a script for - I kid you not - "one pound mophine"[sic]. They apparently told the guy they would be happy to get his pound of mophine[sic]. Then they called the cops.
One dose of IV dopamine would be enough to make you never do it again, that's for sure... and to nitpick, chlorpheniramine, brompheniramine, doxylamine, and other antihistamines were on the OTC market with Benadryl.
The limitation is the quality of the camera. Some diagnoses require in-person examination, but some don't. And there are a lot of people who want to go to the doctor "just to be sure". They never have anything other than a cold, but it makes them feel a lot better.
This would be really beneficial for chronic patients - people who are on maintenance therapy for high blood pressure, asthma, and the like. The visit for these people usually consists of "have your symptoms changed any?" and writing a refill for meds. It would be faster for doctor and patient to do these remotely.
I believe that OP may be confused about what went on. A nurse practitioner may be credentialed to do biopsies, depending on the state, but not an RN. And in this particular case, I imagine that the physician directed the medical student to do a biopsy. Now, an experienced RN might observe the med student, assist them, and suggest that they might need a larger or smaller biopsy... but as a legal matter, the medical student was doing it under the physician's direction. The closest analogy is to the military; RNs function in health care much as NCOs do in the army, i.e. they actually do the work of taking care of people while MDs make the strategy for treating them. Med students, depending on their level, function like green lieutenants: while technically in charge of the RNs, they tend to tread lightly and not upset things unless they have a very good reason to do so.
If you call around asking doctors' offices if they'll see you for $45 cash at the time of service for an uncomplicated visit, you will not have to make many calls before you have a taker. This is already an option, "whether or not they are insured".