1. Buy insurance across state lines. This gives people the opportunity to search for cheap insurance. Right now you can only get insurance in your state... Imagine if you couldn't buy anything over the internet across state lines.
This is actually a very bad idea. All insurance companies will move to the state that allows them to screw their customers the most. That's what happened when credit card companies were deregulated in the late 70s. Why do you think every credit card company is headquartered in South Dakota and Delaware? Because charging 30% interest is illegal in other states.
2. Limit lawsuit payouts. The lawyers (sharks with lasers) are making a KILLING on lawsuits. Reduce the payouts and the sharks will have less to feed on, there will be fewer ambulance chasers because the $$$ will become reasonable.
According to CBO lawsuits account for 1% to 2% of health care costs - so even you eliminate ALL malpractice lawsuits (including legitimate ones), you are not saving enough to make a difference.
3. Reduce the FDA requirements. Wow, meds sure are expensive. Oh, they aren't in canada? Oh, and canada sells the same meds for much less and they don't have such a stringent approval process? Hmmm
Why can't we just re-import drugs from Canada instead?
4. Promote Savings Health Accounts (see 1. first) - If you put in $xxx dollars tax free into an account that's YOUR money. Once you cap it at a certain level you just pay the maintenance (the insurance part in case something catastrophic happens) Now, it's your task to shop around for an affordable healthcare provider. You'll think twice before paying $300 for a checkup.
HSAs are a great idea. The problem is that many people would rather spend their money, even if it's taxed. For instance, everyone can save for retirement tax free using IRA accounts; but how many actually do it?
5. This topic wasn't designed to discuss immigration, but guess what, that's a major cost in health care. The country will fail if the people paying into healthcare are expected to support every ILLEGAL immigrant that wants healthcare. Especially if the hospitals are charging those goverment rates for it ($30 for an aspirin anyone?) I'm just going to say, if you can't reasonably prove your an american, you don't get american health care, unless you can pay cash.
So if unconscious car accident victim does not have a proof of citizenship and doesn't have $10k on him you would throw him out of the emergency room?
Exercise: Call 3 local providers and tell them that you have some common malady and tell them that you have Blue Cross insurance, ask them what it will cost you, and what they will bill BC. The next day, call them all back, same malady and tell them you're paying out of pocket. If day 2 isn't a third of day 1 I will eat my shoe.
Would you like some condiments with your shoe? Blue Cross negotiates reimbursement rates with hospitals, and therefore will pay LESS, (as much as 60% less) than you would pay in cash. Check your statement next time: it plainly states what the hospital billed Blue Cross and what hospital accepted as payment.
And their wages are rising rapidly. This article quotes an avarage IT salary growth rate of 12-14% in India last year.
A couple more years of that, and the benefits of offshoring are going to diminish to the point that we wouldn't have to worry about India anymore. Already many offshoring companies reporting savings of 20-30% instead of 50% couple of years ago.
This is one of the things that really concerns me about offshoring. As US corporations keep outsourcing software development to another countries, the confidential data will inevitably move there too.
How long before private information like credit histories, medical records etc. is leaked out from some company in Bangalore?
Imagine being blackmailed by someone in a third world country. Given the state of law enforcement over there, you would have no legal recourse.
I am not the author of the original post, but I'd like to respond to a couple of your points.
At their heyday, the Islamic cultures were the most advanced and progressive in the world at the time.
At their heyday, the horse drawn carriages were the most advanced transportation device. Any organized religion in general, and especially a rigid one like Islam, is known to slow down progress. I would go as far as to say that the Islam is the main cause of the cultural stagnation you describe.
Its not propaganda. Read the Quran. Muslim women got the right to vote more than a thousand years before the 19th amendment was passed.
Last time I checked, all countries where Islam is a predominant religion were dictatorships, kingdoms, or ruled by islamic clerics. (Iran? Is ruled by clerics. Afghanistan just doesn't count.) The right to vote is not much use under those systems of government, no?
Kinda like how Christianity seperates the world into people who can go to heaven (Christians), and those who can't? At least Islam extends that to any Abramic religion.
Saying that someone will not go to heaven and being at war with someone are two very different things in my book.
You know, every time you hear about software company X outsourcing something everyone starts whining: "I will lose my job to Indians!", "Should I change my major?". Relax. You got nothing to worry about. Here is a true story to cheer you up:
I've done about two years at, ah, let's just say Wall-Mart's #1 competitor. 1997-1999.
They have outsourced a collections system for their credit card to India. That happened about a year before I came in. They got the code back and it was a disaster. So I had the pleasure of cleaning the mess up. Here are some examples of Indian software development for ya:
C arrays starting at 1. Yep. That's right.
int foo[12]; for(i = 1; i <= 12; i++){ // do stuff with foo[i] }
Another "quality software engineer with years of experience" needed to create a custom message box. Nothing special: three buttons and a message. He made 13 different classes - because there were 13 different messages. We called it an "Indian Code Reuse".
By now you probably think that I am a bitter troll. Not in the least. I swear, this is honest to God truth.
The best one came when I was there for about 6 month. The Personal Hygiene memo. I guess some big wigs walked around the bullpens and they didn't like the smell...
Sorry, couldn't resist. I grew up in the USSR where everything was classified - so here is a map story for you.
Map information was classified and map publishers were required to add deliberately inaccurate information to their maps. You would have whole cities that were not on the map or shown a couple of hundred km away from their real location. This was done in the name of national security, so the enemy (US) would not be able to use maps to plan a nuclear strike or sabotage military installations.
The enemy of course just used satellite imaging to create their own maps and ended up with better maps of Russia than the Russians had. In the 80s folks who needed maps (geologists, archeologists, hikers,...) would try really hard to get their hands on foreign made maps, because they were so much more accurate.
Well, here is a "computer scientist" coming out of the woodwork! My, what big words he knows! "Paradigm"... "Structured Programming"... Ok, I'll bite:
1. Infinite loop wouldn't do much good if you couldn't break out of it. Your other two choices would be to kill the process or restart the system.
2. Using "break" inside a for() loop transfers the control to a well defined location at the end of the loop. In no way this violates the principals of structured programming.
3. What does the goto statement has to do with anything I said? Have you actually read the paper you linked to?
4. Did you actually use the word "paradigm"? Is that the regular kind or has it shifted?;)
You are being a smart ass. Both statements are perfectly acceptible.
If you really want to neatpick than you should know that there used to be a perfectly good reason for using for(;;) instead of while(1) in C. Earlier compilers would see for(;;) as a separate construct and optimize it so when the program executes it would jump back to the beginning of the loop without doing any checks. while() loops were all treated the same and the condition would always be checked.
Modern compilers would create the same code in both cases but for(;;) construct is still more popular among C coders.
Here is a quick serch through Linux kernel *.c files:
for(;;) occurs 64 times
while(1) occurs 48 times
while(TRUE) occurs 2 times
To borrow a phrase from Perl: There Is More Than One Way To Do It.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with breaking out of for() loop. As a matter of fact the following is a fairly standard way of implementing an infinite loop in C:
for(;;){ /* do something and use break to terminate the loop */ }
In order to participate in the settlement you have to provide last 4 digits of your social security number. In the US those four digits are used by most companies as a de facto password. The info on the signup page is a great first step in attempting to impersonate someone.
Can't wait until someone breaks into THAT database...
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1. Buy insurance across state lines. This gives people the opportunity to search for cheap insurance. Right now you can only get insurance in your state... Imagine if you couldn't buy anything over the internet across state lines.
This is actually a very bad idea. All insurance companies will move to the state that allows them to screw their customers the most. That's what happened when credit card companies were deregulated in the late 70s. Why do you think every credit card company is headquartered in South Dakota and Delaware? Because charging 30% interest is illegal in other states.
2. Limit lawsuit payouts. The lawyers (sharks with lasers) are making a KILLING on lawsuits. Reduce the payouts and the sharks will have less to feed on, there will be fewer ambulance chasers because the $$$ will become reasonable.
According to CBO lawsuits account for 1% to 2% of health care costs - so even you eliminate ALL malpractice lawsuits (including legitimate ones), you are not saving enough to make a difference.
3. Reduce the FDA requirements. Wow, meds sure are expensive. Oh, they aren't in canada? Oh, and canada sells the same meds for much less and they don't have such a stringent approval process? Hmmm
Why can't we just re-import drugs from Canada instead?
4. Promote Savings Health Accounts (see 1. first) - If you put in $xxx dollars tax free into an account that's YOUR money. Once you cap it at a certain level you just pay the maintenance (the insurance part in case something catastrophic happens) Now, it's your task to shop around for an affordable healthcare provider. You'll think twice before paying $300 for a checkup.
HSAs are a great idea. The problem is that many people would rather spend their money, even if it's taxed. For instance, everyone can save for retirement tax free using IRA accounts; but how many actually do it?
5. This topic wasn't designed to discuss immigration, but guess what, that's a major cost in health care. The country will fail if the people paying into healthcare are expected to support every ILLEGAL immigrant that wants healthcare. Especially if the hospitals are charging those goverment rates for it ($30 for an aspirin anyone?) I'm just going to say, if you can't reasonably prove your an american, you don't get american health care, unless you can pay cash.
So if unconscious car accident victim does not have a proof of citizenship and doesn't have $10k on him you would throw him out of the emergency room?
Exercise: Call 3 local providers and tell them that you have some common malady and tell them that you have Blue Cross insurance, ask them what it will cost you, and what they will bill BC. The next day, call them all back, same malady and tell them you're paying out of pocket. If day 2 isn't a third of day 1 I will eat my shoe.
Would you like some condiments with your shoe? Blue Cross negotiates reimbursement rates with hospitals, and therefore will pay LESS, (as much as 60% less) than you would pay in cash. Check your statement next time: it plainly states what the hospital billed Blue Cross and what hospital accepted as payment.
Health care is a very complex problem.
Antivirus software vendor has reached the conclusion that you still NEED antivirus software.
Actually, most current commercial airliners use inertial navigation systems - no GPS. Jammer would be ineffective.
Also one could probably modify the data on the PC before sending it to progressive. Thus no need to temper with hardware.
And their wages are rising rapidly. This article quotes an avarage IT salary growth rate of 12-14% in India last year.
A couple more years of that, and the benefits of offshoring are going to diminish to the point that we wouldn't have to worry about India anymore. Already many offshoring companies reporting savings of 20-30% instead of 50% couple of years ago.
So we'll finally get to see NTFS driver that can write to the partition... SAMBA will be fully compatible with Active directory...
This is one of the things that really concerns me about offshoring. As US corporations keep outsourcing software development to another countries, the confidential data will inevitably move there too.
How long before private information like credit histories, medical records etc. is leaked out from some company in Bangalore?
Imagine being blackmailed by someone in a third world country. Given the state of law enforcement over there, you would have no legal recourse.
[/paranoia]I am not the author of the original post, but I'd like to respond to a couple of your points.
At their heyday, the Islamic cultures were the most advanced and progressive in the world at the time.
At their heyday, the horse drawn carriages were the most advanced transportation device. Any organized religion in general, and especially a rigid one like Islam, is known to slow down progress. I would go as far as to say that the Islam is the main cause of the cultural stagnation you describe.
Its not propaganda. Read the Quran. Muslim women got the right to vote more than a thousand years before the 19th amendment was passed.
Last time I checked, all countries where Islam is a predominant religion were dictatorships, kingdoms, or ruled by islamic clerics. (Iran? Is ruled by clerics. Afghanistan just doesn't count.) The right to vote is not much use under those systems of government, no?
Kinda like how Christianity seperates the world into people who can go to heaven (Christians), and those who can't? At least Islam extends that to any Abramic religion.
Saying that someone will not go to heaven and being at war with someone are two very different things in my book.
I've done about two years at, ah, let's just say Wall-Mart's #1 competitor. 1997-1999.
They have outsourced a collections system for their credit card to India. That happened about a year before I came in. They got the code back and it was a disaster. So I had the pleasure of cleaning the mess up. Here are some examples of Indian software development for ya:
C arrays starting at 1. Yep. That's right.
Another "quality software engineer with years of experience" needed to create a custom message box. Nothing special: three buttons and a message. He made 13 different classes - because there were 13 different messages. We called it an "Indian Code Reuse".
By now you probably think that I am a bitter troll. Not in the least. I swear, this is honest to God truth.
The best one came when I was there for about 6 month. The Personal Hygiene memo. I guess some big wigs walked around the bullpens and they didn't like the smell...
No, I am not worried. I am not worried at all...
Sorry, couldn't resist. I grew up in the USSR where everything was classified - so here is a map story for you.
Map information was classified and map publishers were required to add deliberately inaccurate information to their maps. You would have whole cities that were not on the map or shown a couple of hundred km away from their real location. This was done in the name of national security, so the enemy (US) would not be able to use maps to plan a nuclear strike or sabotage military installations.
The enemy of course just used satellite imaging to create their own maps and ended up with better maps of Russia than the Russians had. In the 80s folks who needed maps (geologists, archeologists, hikers, ...) would try really hard to get their hands on foreign made maps, because they were so much more accurate.
Security by obscurity is counterproductive...
Well, here is a "computer scientist" coming out of the woodwork! My, what big words he knows! "Paradigm"... "Structured Programming"... Ok, I'll bite:
1. Infinite loop wouldn't do much good if you couldn't break out of it. Your other two choices would be to kill the process or restart the system.
2. Using "break" inside a for() loop transfers the control to a well defined location at the end of the loop. In no way this violates the principals of structured programming.
3. What does the goto statement has to do with anything I said? Have you actually read the paper you linked to?
4. Did you actually use the word "paradigm"? Is that the regular kind or has it shifted? ;)
You are being a smart ass. Both statements are perfectly acceptible.
If you really want to neatpick than you should know that there used to be a perfectly good reason for using for(;;) instead of while(1) in C. Earlier compilers would see for(;;) as a separate construct and optimize it so when the program executes it would jump back to the beginning of the loop without doing any checks. while() loops were all treated the same and the condition would always be checked.
Modern compilers would create the same code in both cases but for(;;) construct is still more popular among C coders.
Here is a quick serch through Linux kernel *.c files:
for(;;) occurs 64 times
while(1) occurs 48 times
while(TRUE) occurs 2 times
To borrow a phrase from Perl: There Is More Than One Way To Do It.
In order to participate in the settlement you have to provide last 4 digits of your social security number. In the US those four digits are used by most companies as a de facto password. The info on the signup page is a great first step in attempting to impersonate someone. Can't wait until someone breaks into THAT database...