if people WANTED underpowered crackerboxes they would buy them
People want what marketing tells them to want. At least when marketing is halfway competent, and for at least the 95% of the population who are good little consumers. And right now, marketing tells the people that they want high-powered, high-weight vehicles, because that's what the factories are tooled to make and hence will bring the most profit.
The government can simply take on more debt without raising taxes.
If the government taxes me, I'll grumble. If the government taxes my kids (some of which may not even be born yet), which is essentially what "taking on more debt" means, that makes me g""!"$ f!$!% mad.
Some serious questions would need to be directed towards the SETI program.. as it seems highly unlikely that a modern society could exist without emanating some signals that SETI should have picked up.
Right now, SETI isn't really looking for "random" signals. It's looking for signals deliberately sent our way, with plenty of power. So it wouldn't really be surprising if they're not picking up TV signals from Alpha Centauri.
No matter how you try, you'll never come up with a way to give everybody all the health care they need without bankrupting your country, because the more you give the more they decide they need.
You're making it sound as if receiving health care was something pleasant. I've yet to see anyone ask for chemotherapy, radiation treatment and prostatectomy who wasn't diagnosed with prostate cancer (and should anyone come up, they need to be sent to the psychiatric ward asap). People don't suddenly decide out of the blue that they want that hip joint replaced with a ridiculously poor artificial substitute, get a pacemaker implanted, their vertebrae fused or have bits of metal inserted into their arteries.
Also, usually doctors have a word in what procedures you _need_. If you want all of your non-vital body parts removed just because you feel like it, you can pay for that out of pocket. If you want certain appendages enlarged, that's not health care (unless they're so tiny that they cannot be reasonably expected to fullfill their purpose), but cosmetics.
So, how many blood stains does it take to prove without reasonable doubt, that somebody has been killed?
I'd say if you find about a gallon of blood, you can be pretty sure that whoever lost that much is dead. It still wouldn't explain how they came to lose that much blood.
No. But the people most likely to rape you are people you know or are even related with.
No murders?
No. But some of the more spectacular murders lately involved dropping heavy objects off highway overpasses onto cars. Hardly something you can defend against with a gun. Otherwise, the people most likely to murder you are your relatives and "friends".
No muggings, no robberies?
Not as many, thieves prefer pickpocketing instead.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. There's about 10 million registered ones, and police estimates that there are about 20 million unregistered, illegal ones (not necessarily owned by people who would use them to commit other crimes, there's enough crazed "collectors" out there).
Dogs are more evil than guns. I'd rather dig a moat around the house and put sharp spikes down in there than have a dog defending the home.
The point of the dog isn't to defend the home, it's to wake you up when there's someone outside in the middle of the night. So a little yap dog will do. The yappier, the better.
Criminals will ALWAYS have guns. It is also about deterrance. If they think you may have guns, they sure as hell won't break in to your house will they?
Why should a criminal with a gun and the initiative on his side _not_ break into your house ? They just need to shoot you first.
But if they pull out a knife and order you to go to that side alley or whatever, then what are you going to do without a gun?
Run (and hope that they're neither master knife-throwers nor have any Olympic medals in 100m dash). I'd do the same if I was carrying a gun. Do you think you could draw faster than they need to stick that knife in your chest ?
It's a separate deduction from your paycheck that goes to the public health insurance carrier of your choice. (There are several, and it's up to you if you want to pick the "lean", less expensive one that may not have a lot of offices, or one of the "big" ones that have offices all over the place, but are slightly more expensive. They also have different bonus programs rewarding healthy lifestyles, showing up for regular check-ups, etc.). It's only mandatory as long as you're employed and make less than a certain amount - you can chose to opt-out if you make more than the threshold amount, and you can also chose to opt-in if you're self-employed (for example if no private carrier would take you, or if you have a lot of kids).
That "public health insurance system" is taxpayer funded isn't it? ie if you don't make 50k Euros your employer deducts the money to pay for "public health insurance" whether you want it or not?
The latter is correct. I don't really consider that taxpayer-funded, because people with a high tax burden will have met the criteria for opting out long ago (since they make a lot and/or are self-employed). I wish I could opt out of some of my other "taxes" that easily, or control whether they go towards building lean organizations... or feature-laden ones.
And that 50k Euros is more than $75,000, anyone in the US making that should be able to afford health insurance.
Well, that's the exchange rate right now. When I was studying in the States eight years ago, the exchange rate was almost reversed (0.80 US$ per Euro, compared to almost 1.60 US$ per Euro today). In terms of buying power, I think a rate of 1.05 US$ per Euro would be realistic.
My problem isn't that I couldn't afford private health insurance, it's that no private carrier will take me due to being an incalculable risk . Same goes for occupational disability insurance.
Maybe you didn't understand my point which was that most babies don't need to be born in a hospital.
Maybe you don't understand that with no plans to become a widower before I'm 80 and the at most 3 kids I'm planning to have, I, like many others, don't want to take any chances ?
Even in Africa many babies are born outside a hospital and are healthy.
"Many" is a relative term. 90% would be many, and entirely sufficient for the survival of the species. That's still a 10% chance of something catastrophic happening. Do you think that a 10%
chance of someone dying during delivery is an acceptable risk ?
(Oh, have you looked up infant mortality rates in Africa lately ? They're pretty close to 10%)
For many of those who aren't prenatal care will help more than the hospital will.
Yes, prenatal care can spot high-risk pregancies and send them off to proper treatment. That's why homebirths in industrialized countries usually aren't more risky than hospital births when it's been determined that it's a low-risk pregnancy. Still, both of my kids were low-risk pregnanices, and my wife still required medical care to survive after birth (the actual deliveries were, in each case, "natural", and we only saw the gyn/ob very briefly during labor, with midwives taking over most of the work).
And who says homebirths is playing Russian roulette with two bullets in the revolver whereas hospital births only have one bullet?
That is fairly easy to show, as soon as you're in a situation where high-risk pregnanices cannot be spotted well in advance.
OK. So you're not living in the US where those who cause harm can be held accountable
They can be held accountable here, too. Are you implying that I said otherwise ? I merely said there's a bit more sanity involved as far as lawsuits go.
whereas socialized medicine they may not be as the government, and therefore taxpayers, pays.
Well, sorry, that's just guessed wrong. We do have public health insurance around here, but it's not paid for by taxes. As soon as you make enough money (~50k Euros per year) _or_ are self-employed, you can opt out of the public health insurance system completely. Doctors aren't government employees, they get paid by the patients or their insurance (public or private).
Sorry, your assumptions about how public health services _have_ to be are just wrong.
My medical bills were more than $120,000 and eventually the employer of the driver who hit me was made to pay those bills whereas under socialized medicine taxpayers would be made to pay.
If you have an accident, then whoever is responsible will have to pay for the damages first (or their liability insurance). There are other cases where other insurances will have to pay instead of the patients health insurance (work-related accidents, for example).
Unfortunately US taxpayers still pay as I am now on disability, Supplemental Security Income, which taxpayer pay for. And because of my injury from the accident I have been refusee health insurance. Under a fair system the employer would have had to pay all of it, including insurance.
Even though we're in a heated discussion here, thank you for sharing your story. It makes a lot of things clearer. I agree with the latter - in case of someone causing pretty much permanent disability, they (or their insurance) should have to pay really big time (that's one of the cases when I'm all for big payouts).
My story is somewhat different. I'm uninsurable (and probably racked up quite a bit of medical bills, though I never saw any of them) because I have a tumor in my spinal cord (probably from birth, or it developed in the first two years of my life). I can't really hold anyone responsible for that or blame it on my own wrong decisions. It took my parents years and over a dozen doctors to actually get a vague idea of what was actually wrong with me. Back then, insurance didn't cover MRIs yet,
Then you're only bringing down the cost of the average hospital bill, not the maximum cost. Sure, some people may be able
to save some money, but that doesn't do a thing for the people who still have to face a 5+ figure bill, or death.
Do you think every village in Africa, I'm using Africa because it has the highest population growth in the world, has a hospital?
No, I don't think so. And no, I don't think that industrialized countries should use worlds poorhouse as a reference
for the availability of medical services. If you want to live in a place where having 8+ kids is the norm just to
make up for people of all ages dying of becoming crippled from all kinds of easily preventable shit, go ahead and
move there. As far as I'm concerned, I like it that death or disability isn't a common effect of childbirth or
catching the wrong germ while growing up, etc., etc.. We've just been in a more fortunate situation for, say,
less than two centuries, and personally I'm not looking back at this as the "good ol' times".
And "small mistakes" never happen in hospitals?
No, but if you're going to play Russian roulette, do you pick the revolver that's loaded with two bullets, or the one
loaded with one ?
What all this hubbub about medical malpractice, and tort reform, then?
Well, I'm fortunate enough to live in country where there's slightly more sanity in this area than in the US. No
ambulance chasers over here.
Living in the US without insurance, not only did I not have to be put on a waiting list but I was also medivaced in a helicopter to the hospital.
I would guess you were an emergency and they were afraid of getting sued to hell and back if they didn't.
Whereas childbirth in a hospital, where the doc may perform a C section, could cost thousands of dollars homebirths with a midwife can deliver the baby for less than a $1000 saving thousands of dollars.
Great. If we had tried that the last two times, my wife would have bled to death twice. But I could have saved thousands of dollars. Yay. (Oh, and around here, midwives take care of the delivery at the hospital. The gyn/ob is only called if anything is out of the ordinary).
And do you have any idea how much a "small mistake" during delivery can cost ? One severely handicapped kid will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As a college I was unemployed and without insurance, therefore unable to pay, when I was hospitalized. My medical bills totaled more than $120,000 yet I wasn't kicked out of the hospital.
(emphasis mine)
That's because you could reasonably be expected to pay a significant amount of your medical bills
(plus interest) after you finished college.
If there were a free market in health insurance people would be able to afford it.
... or not be offered insurance at all due to being to much of a risk, or be offered insurance
at a premium that clearly says "we don't want to do business with you".
I do wonder what would keep insurance companies from simply playing population odds instead of individual odds. Base the rates on geographic and demographic statistics on a large scale, play the odds that way. Everyone's premiums would prolly go up, but the insurance companies wouldnt be out of business...
You just answered your own question.
Assume that a few insurance companies would follow you suggestion. They'd have to raise their premiums across the board. People who can get insurance from companies that do play individual odds would get lower premiums there, and switch. The companies that don't play individual odds would lose their customer base _and_ be stuck with more risky (yep, "subprime" if you want to call it that way) insurance contracts. Then they will have to raise their premiums even more (until they run out of customers and go out of business), lose money due to their risky insurance contracts (until they go out of business, or their shareholders start screaming bloody murder), or start playing individual odds like their competitors.
On the other hand, if the insurance companies just got together and decided that none of them would play individual odds... that would be collusion and call up the antitrust authorities.
Insurance companies will adjust rates, and level out coverage so that even if people try to "game" their particular pre-disposition, the risk is still spread onto those without that pre-disposition.
You're forgetting that insurance companies don't have to insure anyone. They'll simply deny to do business with anyone they perceive to be too much of a risk, or to incalculable. Happens today even without genetic testing, so the tests will just add another reason for them to say "Sorry, we cannot offer any coverage to you.".
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People want what marketing tells them to want. At least when marketing is halfway competent, and for at least the 95% of the population who are good little consumers. And right now, marketing tells the people that they want high-powered, high-weight vehicles, because that's what the factories are tooled to make and hence will bring the most profit.
If the government taxes me, I'll grumble. If the government taxes my kids (some of which may not even be born yet), which is essentially what "taking on more debt" means, that makes me g""!"$ f!$!% mad.
Some have caught on to this, though. VW, for example, with their 1.4 l TSI engine, available with up to 170 hp.
Because cars are getting heavier and heavier (just like people) ?
Of course, much of this increase in weight comes from additional safety measures, to survive impacts of heavier and heavier vehicles.
Right now, SETI isn't really looking for "random" signals. It's looking for signals deliberately sent our way, with plenty of power. So it wouldn't really be surprising if they're not picking up TV signals from Alpha Centauri.
You're making it sound as if receiving health care was something pleasant. I've yet to see anyone ask for chemotherapy, radiation treatment and prostatectomy who wasn't diagnosed with prostate cancer (and should anyone come up, they need to be sent to the psychiatric ward asap). People don't suddenly decide out of the blue that they want that hip joint replaced with a ridiculously poor artificial substitute, get a pacemaker implanted, their vertebrae fused or have bits of metal inserted into their arteries.
Also, usually doctors have a word in what procedures you _need_. If you want all of your non-vital body parts removed just because you feel like it, you can pay for that out of pocket. If you want certain appendages enlarged, that's not health care (unless they're so tiny that they cannot be reasonably expected to fullfill their purpose), but cosmetics.
Yeah, if he didn't have any dependents.
Let a guilty man go free, and you could be responsible for the deaths of many.
Locking up an innocent man usually implies that you let a guilty one go free (because the crime is considered solved).
I'd say if you find about a gallon of blood, you can be pretty sure that whoever lost that much is dead. It still wouldn't explain how they came to lose that much blood.
Then they can crack one-time pads, too ? Those are also readily available to the general public. Just not as convenient as PGP.
You mean, like we've done the last couple of thousand years ? Thanks, but no thanks.
No. But the people most likely to rape you are people you know or are even related with.
No murders?
No. But some of the more spectacular murders lately involved dropping heavy objects off highway overpasses onto cars. Hardly something you can defend against with a gun. Otherwise, the people most likely to murder you are your relatives and "friends".
No muggings, no robberies?
Not as many, thieves prefer pickpocketing instead.
I'd like to see you shoot back when you've been shot first a couple of times. Otherwise, just get in line for your Darwin award.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. There's about 10 million registered ones, and police estimates that there are about 20 million unregistered, illegal ones (not necessarily owned by people who would use them to commit other crimes, there's enough crazed "collectors" out there).
The point of the dog isn't to defend the home, it's to wake you up when there's someone outside in the middle of the night. So a little yap dog will do. The yappier, the better.
Why should a criminal with a gun and the initiative on his side _not_ break into your house ? They just need to shoot you first.
Run (and hope that they're neither master knife-throwers nor have any Olympic medals in 100m dash). I'd do the same if I was carrying a gun. Do you think you could draw faster than they need to stick that knife in your chest ?
It's a separate deduction from your paycheck that goes to the public health insurance carrier of your choice. (There are several, and it's up to you if you want to pick the "lean", less expensive one that may not have a lot of offices, or one of the "big" ones that have offices all over the place, but are slightly more expensive. They also have different bonus programs rewarding healthy lifestyles, showing up for regular check-ups, etc.). It's only mandatory as long as you're employed and make less than a certain amount - you can chose to opt-out if you make more than the threshold amount, and you can also chose to opt-in if you're self-employed (for example if no private carrier would take you, or if you have a lot of kids).
That "public health insurance system" is taxpayer funded isn't it? ie if you don't make 50k Euros your employer deducts the money to pay for "public health insurance" whether you want it or not?
The latter is correct. I don't really consider that taxpayer-funded, because people with a high tax burden will have met the criteria for opting out long ago (since they make a lot and/or are self-employed). I wish I could opt out of some of my other "taxes" that easily, or control whether they go towards building lean organizations
And that 50k Euros is more than $75,000, anyone in the US making that should be able to afford health insurance.
Well, that's the exchange rate right now. When I was studying in the States eight years ago, the exchange rate was almost reversed (0.80 US$ per Euro, compared to almost 1.60 US$ per Euro today). In terms of buying power, I think a rate of 1.05 US$ per Euro would be realistic.
My problem isn't that I couldn't afford private health insurance, it's that no private carrier will take me due to being an incalculable risk . Same goes for occupational disability insurance.
The only other available places require machine guns or anti-tank weaponry
Maybe you don't understand that with no plans to become a widower before I'm 80 and the at most 3 kids I'm planning to have, I, like many others, don't want to take any chances ?
Even in Africa many babies are born outside a hospital and are healthy.
"Many" is a relative term. 90% would be many, and entirely sufficient for the survival of the species. That's still a 10% chance of something catastrophic happening. Do you think that a 10% chance of someone dying during delivery is an acceptable risk ?
(Oh, have you looked up infant mortality rates in Africa lately ? They're pretty close to 10%)
For many of those who aren't prenatal care will help more than the hospital will.
Yes, prenatal care can spot high-risk pregancies and send them off to proper treatment. That's why homebirths in industrialized countries usually aren't more risky than hospital births when it's been determined that it's a low-risk pregnancy. Still, both of my kids were low-risk pregnanices, and my wife still required medical care to survive after birth (the actual deliveries were, in each case, "natural", and we only saw the gyn/ob very briefly during labor, with midwives taking over most of the work).
And who says homebirths is playing Russian roulette with two bullets in the revolver whereas hospital births only have one bullet?
That is fairly easy to show, as soon as you're in a situation where high-risk pregnanices cannot be spotted well in advance.
OK. So you're not living in the US where those who cause harm can be held accountable
They can be held accountable here, too. Are you implying that I said otherwise ? I merely said there's a bit more sanity involved as far as lawsuits go.
whereas socialized medicine they may not be as the government, and therefore taxpayers, pays.
Well, sorry, that's just guessed wrong. We do have public health insurance around here, but it's not paid for by taxes. As soon as you make enough money (~50k Euros per year) _or_ are self-employed, you can opt out of the public health insurance system completely. Doctors aren't government employees, they get paid by the patients or their insurance (public or private).
Sorry, your assumptions about how public health services _have_ to be are just wrong.
My medical bills were more than $120,000 and eventually the employer of the driver who hit me was made to pay those bills whereas under socialized medicine taxpayers would be made to pay.
If you have an accident, then whoever is responsible will have to pay for the damages first (or their liability insurance). There are other cases where other insurances will have to pay instead of the patients health insurance (work-related accidents, for example).
Unfortunately US taxpayers still pay as I am now on disability, Supplemental Security Income, which taxpayer pay for. And because of my injury from the accident I have been refusee health insurance. Under a fair system the employer would have had to pay all of it, including insurance.
Even though we're in a heated discussion here, thank you for sharing your story. It makes a lot of things clearer. I agree with the latter - in case of someone causing pretty much permanent disability, they (or their insurance) should have to pay really big time (that's one of the cases when I'm all for big payouts).
My story is somewhat different. I'm uninsurable (and probably racked up quite a bit of medical bills, though I never saw any of them) because I have a tumor in my spinal cord (probably from birth, or it developed in the first two years of my life). I can't really hold anyone responsible for that or blame it on my own wrong decisions. It took my parents years and over a dozen doctors to actually get a vague idea of what was actually wrong with me. Back then, insurance didn't cover MRIs yet,
Then you're only bringing down the cost of the average hospital bill, not the maximum cost. Sure, some people may be able to save some money, but that doesn't do a thing for the people who still have to face a 5+ figure bill, or death.
Do you think every village in Africa, I'm using Africa because it has the highest population growth in the world, has a hospital?
No, I don't think so. And no, I don't think that industrialized countries should use worlds poorhouse as a reference for the availability of medical services. If you want to live in a place where having 8+ kids is the norm just to make up for people of all ages dying of becoming crippled from all kinds of easily preventable shit, go ahead and move there. As far as I'm concerned, I like it that death or disability isn't a common effect of childbirth or catching the wrong germ while growing up, etc., etc.. We've just been in a more fortunate situation for, say, less than two centuries, and personally I'm not looking back at this as the "good ol' times".
And "small mistakes" never happen in hospitals?
No, but if you're going to play Russian roulette, do you pick the revolver that's loaded with two bullets, or the one loaded with one ?
What all this hubbub about medical malpractice, and tort reform, then?
Well, I'm fortunate enough to live in country where there's slightly more sanity in this area than in the US. No ambulance chasers over here.
I would guess you were an emergency and they were afraid of getting sued to hell and back if they didn't.
Whereas childbirth in a hospital, where the doc may perform a C section, could cost thousands of dollars homebirths with a midwife can deliver the baby for less than a $1000 saving thousands of dollars.
Great. If we had tried that the last two times, my wife would have bled to death twice. But I could have saved thousands of dollars. Yay. (Oh, and around here, midwives take care of the delivery at the hospital. The gyn/ob is only called if anything is out of the ordinary).
And do you have any idea how much a "small mistake" during delivery can cost ? One severely handicapped kid will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(emphasis mine)
That's because you could reasonably be expected to pay a significant amount of your medical bills (plus interest) after you finished college.
You just answered your own question.
Assume that a few insurance companies would follow you suggestion. They'd have to raise
their premiums across the board. People who can get insurance from companies that do
play individual odds would get lower premiums there, and switch. The companies that
don't play individual odds would lose their customer base _and_ be stuck with more risky
(yep, "subprime" if you want to call it that way) insurance contracts. Then they will
have to raise their premiums even more (until they run out of customers and go out of
business), lose money due to their risky insurance contracts (until they go out of
business, or their shareholders start screaming bloody murder), or start playing
individual odds like their competitors.
On the other hand, if the insurance companies just got together and decided that
none of them would play individual odds
the antitrust authorities.
You're forgetting that insurance companies don't have to insure anyone. They'll simply deny
to do business with anyone they perceive to be too much of a risk, or to incalculable.
Happens today even without genetic testing, so the tests will just add another reason for
them to say "Sorry, we cannot offer any coverage to you.".