But since you pay more in monthly charges in the first year, than you paid for the game, why bother charging $50 for the game? Why not make the game FREE for download and charge only the monthly fee? Or at least charge less for the game (cost of materials).
In that case, the US is fine. As the birthrate number of children is between 2.0 and 2.1 per woman. It's those other contries that are having 6 and more that are the "cause" of it.
As a side note, a birthrate of 2.1 is supposed to be "required" to maintain population. The USA is bellow this currently and has only managed to maintain population due to imigration. Any below 2.1 and it shrinks (due to accidental deaths killing of people before they can have kids).
Thats about what I posted, the only thing I'm not completely shure about is how I worder "Choice Quote" originally. I forget what I originally put the title down as, I think it was along the lines of "Climate Change Scientist Disenters" or something like that.
As for what michael did to it, I'm pissed. As for what these guys say, since all I've ever heard anyone talk about is "We're all going to die and it's ?ALL YOUR FAULT (imaginie someone poking you in chest with their pointer finger as you read that last part)" (or seems that way) I'd like to at least here what these guys say. Seems like anytime anyone says something against global warming the get killed in the press. Always makes me interested when someone says that and makes me want to listen more.
As for the definition of Global Warming, I have heard it is something like this:
Global Warming is the Theory that humans are the cause of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and that said increase will cause the average temperature of the planet to increase.
If anyone else can elaborate, please do. As for the poles and all the glaciers melting and what not, that has yet to be proved. If they get a lot warmer, they will. But GW also predicts some areas will get warmer (such as the poles), and some will get colder. Last I checked, the majority of the antartic was getting colder, I'd like to hear if any of the several thousand glaciers in other parts of the world are expanding as well.
Lets see, to cover anything else that may come up, I drive a honda acord (2004). I was looking at the civic hybrid, but it felt to "plasticy" to me to be a good car. That and the fact that the dash was mesmerizing (and would have caused me to get into an accident) led me to get the accord instead. If I had known about the 2005 accord hybrid I would have waited to look at that (still need to take a peek at it). Mainly for the extra fuel economy is why I considered it. I do know several people who drive SUVs. They use them as intended. Just last week a lot of them went to West Virginia for skiing and it snowed. The 4WD helped them a lot more than the 2WD did for us. Also on the camping we do monthly it helps out a lot as well. I realize that a lot of idiots use the SUVs only in cities where they could get by with a smaller car, but I don't know any (yet) that do.
Well, that's what I have to say, it's a bit of a ramble, but that's how I think.
The BBC writes: A conference to question whether global warming will have a catastrophic effect is being held in London on 27 January. Choice Quote: "Most climate scientists, inside the IPCC and outside it, are ready to acknowledge that they still do not know nearly enough about some key aspects of climate change."
So much for/. editors not modifying what people submit. As for what michael says, I would like some proof of what he says about the conference. As for Jon Stewart's media criticism applies: You're hurting [the world]. I'd personally say he's done more to further that by posting such a completely biased summary without letting the readers decide.
From what I remember they have said the reverse compatibility will be maintained. They did this the same way the maintained the PS1 compatability in the PS2. There is a PS1 & PS2 chip inside the PS3. There is a PS1 chip inside the PS2. No emulation. And by refering to emulation, have you heard news the MS is going to try to keep the compatability using it? I haven't heard much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the only book that has not been bastardized by hollywood was "Jurasic Park". Even if the book was changed somewhat (say, the raptors) IMO it was generally for the better.
For any other book, I don't know of a good port that was done. And "Star Ship Troopers" still gives me nightmares about the terible bastardization they did with it. (If I ever get my hands on whoever did the screen play...)
I got lucky in that the friday after christmass I got there about an hour after the delivery man dropped off some PSTwos at an EB (around 2pm). If I had gotten there that morning, they would have said SOL. The day before I had tried a different area and pretty much everyone laughed at me for trying to find one. Sony is still trying to "recover" from the Christmass season sale drain.
Sony has the Final Fantasy Series, DDR and a shitload of RPGs and fighting games.
GameCube has Mario, Smash Brothers, Zelda, Mario Cart and a whole lotta kids games (some adult ones too).
X-Box has Halo, Max Payne and DOA.
Anything I missed in the series? I'll admit I don't know much about the X-Box games, but based on the low number (that I know of) of series and leading titles, I would say that the X-BOX is going to lose ground. Especially since they can not maintain reverse compatability as easily (if at all) as the PS3 will and the next Nintendo console might.
And thus begins the 12 month wankfest over which system is superior, based from debates online from people who have only seen press photos of the system in question and have never played it
The debate continues among gamers even after the consoles have come out and they have been played. People still debate which is better among GameCube vs. PS2 vs. X-Box.
Hardware generally is the driving cost as it takes a lot of processing to do decent real tiem encoding. TV stations pay a lot for equipment (though a chunk of it is for reliability). HD content would require more processing power to accomplish. As is, this camcorder falls into the "decent" level for recording quality. Recording 1 hour @ 1 Gig translates to about 2.25 Megabits/second. That is way below broadcast quality and what DVDs can achieve. (NOTE: I know DVDs can go below 2 Mbits, but software encoders do a better job than realtime hardware encoders.)
In short, Recording at Full D1 resolution is a great accomplishment. However, it's going to look like shit unless they can up the bitrate to at least 4 Mbps, even if they are using MPEG-4.
Awarding more than has been lost is nothing new. It used in cases for willfull commision of a crime and to discourage others from commiting the offence.
Nice analogy, and probably about as close as we can get to the lawsuit. However, in you example I wouldn't mind the guy getting shot/electrocuted/hanged/the needle for the drugs. Mainly cause I had a friend die from ODing.
According to the Copyright Act Section 54, subsection two, anyone acting in contribution of other persons' copyright infringement like illegal publication, could be liable for punishment. The criminal offence Bruvik has contributed to would be the public performance of the files uploaded by others. In the view of the Court, the actus reus of uploading files was terminated when the music itself was made accessible. The criminal offence, as such, was thereby terminated the moment the music was published on the Internet. The actus reus is not formulated as a static delict. The Court of Appeal cannot see that the uploader, after publication of the music on the Internet, is committing a new criminal offence. The Court finds it hard to say that the music is performed publicly anew each time a transfer is conducted by persons who knew the address or clicked on a link on another site and they initiate the transfer of the files from the site of the uploader and download to their own computers.
When the main action is terminated before Bruvik published his links to the music files, one lacks the necessary causal link between his actions and the main action. The actions of Bruvik cannot be regarded as contribution to such acts.
Bruvik did, however, contribute, by publishing his links, to playing or copying the music files from the uploader's web page to his own computer. But this must be regarded as contribution to the action of the downloader. Such downloads for private use is not illegal, and cannot justify a claim for damages according to the requirements in the Copyright Act Section 55.
Does the say that Downloading of Copyrighted Material is perfectly legal but Uploading is not? Continuing on the case, wouldn't this also make Google liable for linking to sites that host illegal MP3s?
Insurance companies have incentive to make it more efficient. Lower Costs = Higher Margins and that they can charge less so more people can buy health care from them so they get more money.
Medicare/Medicaid has similar fraud problems. You can look those up yourself. Try "Medicare and Fraud" or "Medicade and Fraud"
Given the money spent on welfare I could employ over 1.6 Million people at $30K/year and cut the unemployment rate significantly. As is, we are paying them to not work and stay unemployed.
As for including the Entire H&HS budget? It's cause Medicare/Medicaid is in there (and makes up most of it) and it is what we have been talking about here. And I notice that the amount spent on Medicare/caid is still greater than the DoD budget.
Direct money wouldn't make sense as you do not know which hospitals will be doing which services and how much they will be doing.
Also, direct service would effectively require the government to "own" all the hospitals which would probably drive up costs even more. My reasoning for that last part is as follows: Most forms of government have little reason to make things more efficient and much incentive to maintain the status quo. I have a friend who works in the civil service and gives testimony to us that there are people sitting on their buts doing 8 ours a week work and collecting a paycheck for 40. (He's a starting GS4 and was told to slow down since he was doing as much work as a GS-12, 22k vs 60k)
Bottom line, I don't trust (and don't like) the feds getting into the health care business. Take a look at all the problems with the wellfare department (now Health and Human Services) and you will see why. H&HS now takes up about %25 of the US annual budget and recieves more in funding than the DoD. Source: http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/04budget/content/app endix/hist.pdf Document page 75/PDF Page 79
Makes sense. Reminds me in a way of how some people treat credit cards (free money, don't have to pay back and such). Although I have seen all my medical bills even when the hospital deal directly with the insurance carrier. I may not have seen them imediately, but I have by the time the claim was done processing.
t is interesting that these IT companies have only recently entered the health IT field as more than hardware or generic software vendors; likely,
I mean the following in all seriousness. Is it possible that they have not entered the field as they do not want their company associated with people dying? Example:
Computer system connections go down and/or patients file gets corrupted. As a result, patient dies or gets seriously injured. Family/patient sues company that created information system in addition to the hospital claiming that "if the system had not gone down this would not have happened" and that is was their fault for not making the system robust enough or something like that.
This is regardless of the fact that if the system had not existed in the first place the medical records might not have been available anyway (Assume someone that is in a hospital they have never been to before due to an emergency)
Juries are already giving out $100 Million awards. A judgement like that can ruin many a company.
Side note, this one of the claims that the rising cost of health insurance is the rising cost of malpractice insurance due to these awards. (One reason why Bush is pushing for caps). And I have read that malpractice premiums are upwards of 50% of a physicians gross pre-tax income.
Given that, I think it is why they have been reluctant to go into a field where the services are limited and the penalties for any mistake are exceedingly high. (How many of those companies even made $100 Million [as reported to investors, not the IRS] in post-tax profit?
Unless you specifically release your medical records, no one can legally get a hold of them with personally identifiable information. Trans: Unless you sign something giving your insurance company permision to look at your records, they aren't going to know that a particular set of records is yours.
There are already stiff penalties for unauthorized disclosure of medical information. Privacy issues have been addressed long ago with existing laws. The only way that this could be misused is if the insurance companies get legislation pased that gives them unlimited acces to the info with personally identifiable info. And that is unlikely ever to happen. And, just in case anyone says that the "big money insurance would lobby for it", the public outcry from all sides, not just left or right, would kill it. Especially the outcry from the senior citizens who are the primary voters.
Medicare/Medicaid may be funding hospitals, but they fund hospitals by paying for "services performed" on the patients who visit them. the same way a Health Insurance Provider "funds" a hospital. The way I interpreted the OP was that the Tax funds the hospitals directly, such as a state run college recieves funding directly from the state in the yearly budget.
Unless you mean that Medicare/Medicaid actually fund hospitals directly without taking into account services rendered. (Which as far as I know they do not do).
If I understand what you are implying here, you are talking about how HMOs will "deny" the hospital permision to perform services such as surgery.
If so, please note that this is HMOs only and not the other types as I understand it. This is also the meaning of HMO - Health Management Organization. If you have a different type of health care such as a PPO (Preffered Provider Org) you do not have to worry about the HMO having a say. (One reason why I have an PPO instead of an HMO, costs a bit more but is worth it).
One thing though, especially if I missinterpreted you. Please clarrify "The third-party payment system is a joke, and it has turned on-demand healthcare into an entitlement for which the proverbial "they" always pay.". As for your other part "Does this mean that you're on the hook for services you consume at the hospital until such time as you receive reimbursement from the insurer?" You can do this in the US today. It is another option and is frequently used in many cases.
Here in the USA it is usually (but not always) the doctors that submit the insurance information. They submit what was performed, but do not submit the details such as charts, exactly what meds (they will say "pain killers" but not which ones). It is akin to what you see on a car maintainence bill or credit card statement.
Hospitals here are not financed by taxes and in part by private insurance, they are primarly financed by the patients and the insurance bills. Very few tax dollars go to hospitals for general funding (one exception I know of is the emergency room).
As for "Anything other order is unthinkable", this is the system we have been using. We can either handle everything through ourselves such as you prefer or we can let the hospitals/doctors handle part of it. Most people in the US prefer that latter as it saves a lot of hassle.
If you wonder why healthcare costs are so much in the US, you have to at least consider things like this a contributing factor.
Personally I think the main reason is the malpractice insurance that docs have to pay. For most it is upwards of 50% of their Gross pre-Tax Income. This may be some, but if so it is miniscule.
Slashdot Mirror
But since you pay more in monthly charges in the first year, than you paid for the game, why bother charging $50 for the game? Why not make the game FREE for download and charge only the monthly fee? Or at least charge less for the game (cost of materials).
First hit is free?
Introductory crack?
In that case, the US is fine. As the birthrate number of children is between 2.0 and 2.1 per woman. It's those other contries that are having 6 and more that are the "cause" of it.
As a side note, a birthrate of 2.1 is supposed to be "required" to maintain population. The USA is bellow this currently and has only managed to maintain population due to imigration. Any below 2.1 and it shrinks (due to accidental deaths killing of people before they can have kids).
Well, I posted it down below, here's the link so people can find it quicker. http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137608 &cid=11508081
Thats about what I posted, the only thing I'm not completely shure about is how I worder "Choice Quote" originally. I forget what I originally put the title down as, I think it was along the lines of "Climate Change Scientist Disenters" or something like that.
As for what michael did to it, I'm pissed. As for what these guys say, since all I've ever heard anyone talk about is "We're all going to die and it's ?ALL YOUR FAULT (imaginie someone poking you in chest with their pointer finger as you read that last part)" (or seems that way) I'd like to at least here what these guys say. Seems like anytime anyone says something against global warming the get killed in the press. Always makes me interested when someone says that and makes me want to listen more.
As for the definition of Global Warming, I have heard it is something like this:
Global Warming is the Theory that humans are the cause of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and that said increase will cause the average temperature of the planet to increase.
If anyone else can elaborate, please do. As for the poles and all the glaciers melting and what not, that has yet to be proved. If they get a lot warmer, they will. But GW also predicts some areas will get warmer (such as the poles), and some will get colder. Last I checked, the majority of the antartic was getting colder, I'd like to hear if any of the several thousand glaciers in other parts of the world are expanding as well.
Lets see, to cover anything else that may come up, I drive a honda acord (2004). I was looking at the civic hybrid, but it felt to "plasticy" to me to be a good car. That and the fact that the dash was mesmerizing (and would have caused me to get into an accident) led me to get the accord instead. If I had known about the 2005 accord hybrid I would have waited to look at that (still need to take a peek at it). Mainly for the extra fuel economy is why I considered it. I do know several people who drive SUVs. They use them as intended. Just last week a lot of them went to West Virginia for skiing and it snowed. The 4WD helped them a lot more than the 2WD did for us. Also on the camping we do monthly it helps out a lot as well. I realize that a lot of idiots use the SUVs only in cities where they could get by with a smaller car, but I don't know any (yet) that do.
Well, that's what I have to say, it's a bit of a ramble, but that's how I think.
The BBC writes: A conference to question whether global warming will have a catastrophic effect is being held in London on 27 January. Choice Quote: "Most climate scientists, inside the IPCC and outside it, are ready to acknowledge that they still do not know nearly enough about some key aspects of climate change."
/. editors not modifying what people submit. As for what michael says, I would like some proof of what he says about the conference. As for Jon Stewart's media criticism applies: You're hurting [the world]. I'd personally say he's done more to further that by posting such a completely biased summary without letting the readers decide.
So much for
From what I remember they have said the reverse compatibility will be maintained. They did this the same way the maintained the PS1 compatability in the PS2. There is a PS1 & PS2 chip inside the PS3. There is a PS1 chip inside the PS2. No emulation. And by refering to emulation, have you heard news the MS is going to try to keep the compatability using it? I haven't heard much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the only book that has not been bastardized by hollywood was "Jurasic Park". Even if the book was changed somewhat (say, the raptors) IMO it was generally for the better.
For any other book, I don't know of a good port that was done. And "Star Ship Troopers" still gives me nightmares about the terible bastardization they did with it. (If I ever get my hands on whoever did the screen play...)
I got lucky in that the friday after christmass I got there about an hour after the delivery man dropped off some PSTwos at an EB (around 2pm). If I had gotten there that morning, they would have said SOL. The day before I had tried a different area and pretty much everyone laughed at me for trying to find one. Sony is still trying to "recover" from the Christmass season sale drain.
In short, everyone sold out over the holidays.
Sony has the Final Fantasy Series, DDR and a shitload of RPGs and fighting games.
GameCube has Mario, Smash Brothers, Zelda, Mario Cart and a whole lotta kids games (some adult ones too).
X-Box has Halo, Max Payne and DOA.
Anything I missed in the series? I'll admit I don't know much about the X-Box games, but based on the low number (that I know of) of series and leading titles, I would say that the X-BOX is going to lose ground. Especially since they can not maintain reverse compatability as easily (if at all) as the PS3 will and the next Nintendo console might.
And thus begins the 12 month wankfest over which system is superior, based from debates online from people who have only seen press photos of the system in question and have never played it
The debate continues among gamers even after the consoles have come out and they have been played. People still debate which is better among GameCube vs. PS2 vs. X-Box.
Hardware generally is the driving cost as it takes a lot of processing to do decent real tiem encoding. TV stations pay a lot for equipment (though a chunk of it is for reliability). HD content would require more processing power to accomplish. As is, this camcorder falls into the "decent" level for recording quality. Recording 1 hour @ 1 Gig translates to about 2.25 Megabits/second. That is way below broadcast quality and what DVDs can achieve. (NOTE: I know DVDs can go below 2 Mbits, but software encoders do a better job than realtime hardware encoders.)
In short, Recording at Full D1 resolution is a great accomplishment. However, it's going to look like shit unless they can up the bitrate to at least 4 Mbps, even if they are using MPEG-4.
You mean like this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1490663.stm ?
Google: Treble Damages
Awarding more than has been lost is nothing new. It used in cases for willfull commision of a crime and to discourage others from commiting the offence.
Nice analogy, and probably about as close as we can get to the lawsuit. However, in you example I wouldn't mind the guy getting shot/electrocuted/hanged/the needle for the drugs. Mainly cause I had a friend die from ODing.
From the judgment:
According to the Copyright Act Section 54, subsection two, anyone acting in contribution of other persons' copyright infringement like illegal publication, could be liable for punishment. The criminal offence Bruvik has contributed to would be the public performance of the files uploaded by others. In the view of the Court, the actus reus of uploading files was terminated when the music itself was made accessible. The criminal offence, as such, was thereby terminated the moment the music was published on the Internet. The actus reus is not formulated as a static delict. The Court of Appeal cannot see that the uploader, after publication of the music on the Internet, is committing a new criminal offence. The Court finds it hard to say that the music is performed publicly anew each time a transfer is conducted by persons who knew the address or clicked on a link on another site and they initiate the transfer of the files from the site of the uploader and download to their own computers.
When the main action is terminated before Bruvik published his links to the music files, one lacks the necessary causal link between his actions and the main action. The actions of Bruvik cannot be regarded as contribution to such acts.
Bruvik did, however, contribute, by publishing his links, to playing or copying the music files from the uploader's web page to his own computer. But this must be regarded as contribution to the action of the downloader. Such downloads for private use is not illegal, and cannot justify a claim for damages according to the requirements in the Copyright Act Section 55.
Does the say that Downloading of Copyrighted Material is perfectly legal but Uploading is not? Continuing on the case, wouldn't this also make Google liable for linking to sites that host illegal MP3s?
Insurance companies have incentive to make it more efficient. Lower Costs = Higher Margins and that they can charge less so more people can buy health care from them so they get more money.
m l 0 /indoor-gym-0006.html
As for the welfare department problems?
http://da.co.la.ca.us/wf/conv.htm
http://www.caltax.org/Fraud.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/WRAP/WelfareFraud.ht
http://www.svcn.com/archives/saratoganews/02.09.0
http://da.co.la.ca.us/mr/120904a.htm
Medicare/Medicaid has similar fraud problems. You can look those up yourself. Try "Medicare and Fraud" or "Medicade and Fraud"
Given the money spent on welfare I could employ over 1.6 Million people at $30K/year and cut the unemployment rate significantly. As is, we are paying them to not work and stay unemployed.
As for including the Entire H&HS budget? It's cause Medicare/Medicaid is in there (and makes up most of it) and it is what we have been talking about here. And I notice that the amount spent on Medicare/caid is still greater than the DoD budget.
Direct money wouldn't make sense as you do not know which hospitals will be doing which services and how much they will be doing.
p endix/hist.pdf
Also, direct service would effectively require the government to "own" all the hospitals which would probably drive up costs even more. My reasoning for that last part is as follows: Most forms of government have little reason to make things more efficient and much incentive to maintain the status quo. I have a friend who works in the civil service and gives testimony to us that there are people sitting on their buts doing 8 ours a week work and collecting a paycheck for 40. (He's a starting GS4 and was told to slow down since he was doing as much work as a GS-12, 22k vs 60k)
Bottom line, I don't trust (and don't like) the feds getting into the health care business. Take a look at all the problems with the wellfare department (now Health and Human Services) and you will see why. H&HS now takes up about %25 of the US annual budget and recieves more in funding than the DoD. Source: http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/04budget/content/ap
Document page 75/PDF Page 79
Makes sense. Reminds me in a way of how some people treat credit cards (free money, don't have to pay back and such). Although I have seen all my medical bills even when the hospital deal directly with the insurance carrier. I may not have seen them imediately, but I have by the time the claim was done processing.
t is interesting that these IT companies have only recently entered the health IT field as more than hardware or generic software vendors; likely,
I mean the following in all seriousness. Is it possible that they have not entered the field as they do not want their company associated with people dying? Example:
Computer system connections go down and/or patients file gets corrupted. As a result, patient dies or gets seriously injured. Family/patient sues company that created information system in addition to the hospital claiming that "if the system had not gone down this would not have happened" and that is was their fault for not making the system robust enough or something like that.
This is regardless of the fact that if the system had not existed in the first place the medical records might not have been available anyway (Assume someone that is in a hospital they have never been to before due to an emergency)
Juries are already giving out $100 Million awards. A judgement like that can ruin many a company.
Side note, this one of the claims that the rising cost of health insurance is the rising cost of malpractice insurance due to these awards. (One reason why Bush is pushing for caps). And I have read that malpractice premiums are upwards of 50% of a physicians gross pre-tax income.
Given that, I think it is why they have been reluctant to go into a field where the services are limited and the penalties for any mistake are exceedingly high. (How many of those companies even made $100 Million [as reported to investors, not the IRS] in post-tax profit?
read thiso ethics/medrecords_4/
http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/bi
Unless you specifically release your medical records, no one can legally get a hold of them with personally identifiable information. Trans: Unless you sign something giving your insurance company permision to look at your records, they aren't going to know that a particular set of records is yours.
There are already stiff penalties for unauthorized disclosure of medical information. Privacy issues have been addressed long ago with existing laws. The only way that this could be misused is if the insurance companies get legislation pased that gives them unlimited acces to the info with personally identifiable info. And that is unlikely ever to happen. And, just in case anyone says that the "big money insurance would lobby for it", the public outcry from all sides, not just left or right, would kill it. Especially the outcry from the senior citizens who are the primary voters.
follow thread As I understand what the guy is saying, they are using the VISTA system as the basis for this.
Medicare/Medicaid may be funding hospitals, but they fund hospitals by paying for "services performed" on the patients who visit them. the same way a Health Insurance Provider "funds" a hospital. The way I interpreted the OP was that the Tax funds the hospitals directly, such as a state run college recieves funding directly from the state in the yearly budget.
Unless you mean that Medicare/Medicaid actually fund hospitals directly without taking into account services rendered. (Which as far as I know they do not do).
If I understand what you are implying here, you are talking about how HMOs will "deny" the hospital permision to perform services such as surgery.
If so, please note that this is HMOs only and not the other types as I understand it. This is also the meaning of HMO - Health Management Organization. If you have a different type of health care such as a PPO (Preffered Provider Org) you do not have to worry about the HMO having a say. (One reason why I have an PPO instead of an HMO, costs a bit more but is worth it).
One thing though, especially if I missinterpreted you. Please clarrify "The third-party payment system is a joke, and it has turned on-demand healthcare into an entitlement for which the proverbial "they" always pay.". As for your other part "Does this mean that you're on the hook for services you consume at the hospital until such time as you receive reimbursement from the insurer?" You can do this in the US today. It is another option and is frequently used in many cases.
Here in the USA it is usually (but not always) the doctors that submit the insurance information. They submit what was performed, but do not submit the details such as charts, exactly what meds (they will say "pain killers" but not which ones). It is akin to what you see on a car maintainence bill or credit card statement.
Hospitals here are not financed by taxes and in part by private insurance, they are primarly financed by the patients and the insurance bills. Very few tax dollars go to hospitals for general funding (one exception I know of is the emergency room).
As for "Anything other order is unthinkable", this is the system we have been using. We can either handle everything through ourselves such as you prefer or we can let the hospitals/doctors handle part of it. Most people in the US prefer that latter as it saves a lot of hassle.
If you wonder why healthcare costs are so much in the US, you have to at least consider things like this a contributing factor.
Personally I think the main reason is the malpractice insurance that docs have to pay. For most it is upwards of 50% of their Gross pre-Tax Income. This may be some, but if so it is miniscule.