vandy125

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 2, 2009 -> 03:03 PM) And its sort of funny, because its really only one part of the health care industry they are actually lobbying for - insurance companies. All the actual health professionals favor reform, and a public option. Insurance companies favor reform as well, just not the type that will end their business. What would you spend for the survival of your industry or on something that heavily involves you? Would you just sit on the sidelines and watch?

Wow, what??

Traveled in Europe a bit including Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. Took a tour of a chocolate factory in Cologne, Germany right off of the Rhine River. Didn't understand a lick of what they said on the tour (speak no German). However, the sample at the end of it was the best I've ever had. I also have no idea what the place was called, but could probably find it if I went out there again. I'm actually a big fan of the Cadbury that is made in the U.K., not the Cadbury stuff made in the U.S.

Voted for the Twins. Mainly because when I wanted a team to lose throughout this year, it has always been the Tigers (since they were ahead of us). I'm having trouble just switching that off right now. So, I wouldn't mind seeing the Twinkies overtake them.

Here is a pretty cool link that I ran into that shows all of the current Health Care Reform proposals that are out there. There are 12 of them out there right now, and this site allows you to compare them side by side on 17 different topics. Health Reform Proposal Link

Here is an LA Times story about some common ground that is happening between the parties: Healthcare Common Ground

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 02:37 PM) My thoughts as well. These scenarios people cook up in their heads where someone takes down the financial sector or some such nonsense are pure fantasy. Its just not possible - the systems are so disparate and so differently secured by each organization and agency that you simply could not do it. The more likely attack would be on a single, high value target. Here is an example from just 2005 of something that could have brought down the internet: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazi...currentPage=all If you find a way to get at a core piece of technology on the internet, you can do some damage. I have no idea how likely it is though.

QUOTE (Tex @ Aug 27, 2009 -> 02:48 PM) Sure, but at the heart of the reform usually is limiting access and awards to victims. And the reasoning is jury's awards too high of and it is too costly. Additionally innocent Doctors (actually their insurance companies) settle rather than fight. I'd rather see reforms that force innocent parties to defend themselves than decide in advance who has a legit case and how much is fair. Name a reform that would not limit someone's access to the courts or limit their award and I'm probably for it. I just ran across this today and wonder what people think about it. Defensive medicine and how much money it is costing has been talked about for a long time. Here is a study that recently talks about it in Massachusetts: MA Study $1.4 Billion in costs for defensive medicine USA Today published an article about it back in 2005. They also talk about a concept that I had not heard before called health courts or specialized courts to deal with these lawsuits similar to other courts that we already have: What do you all think of it? Has anyone seen that proposal before? USA Today Health Courts

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 26, 2009 -> 09:16 AM) Who's Paying to Kill Heathcare Reform? Since when is healthcare reform synonomous with a public plan? You can be a big advocate of reform but not want the public plan included as part of that.

Not scared at all. Tired of watching them play crappy against crappy teams. I'm looking forward to watching them play well (still hover around that .500 level though) against some good teams. I am not really looking forward to the Twinkiedome though...

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 22, 2009 -> 12:11 PM) I guess this would be the place for this. Does anyone in here play Mafia Wars and have a bunch of Politicos Corruptos to send my way? I'll get you back for sure with pretty much anything else you may need. I just have one more job to do at the highest level, and I really want to get it over with. I've got about 500 of em right now, but I'm not sure what I need off the top of my head and don't have a way to check right now. Send me a PM and we can figure something out.

QUOTE (Tex @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 11:30 AM) It seems that insurance companies are ok with them getting steep discounts and others picking up the rest of the cost. In other words if the hospitals "broke even" on the insured, and made their profit on everyone else, the insurance company would not mind. Or stated another way, the insurance companies are not interested in an equitable pricing structure, they are looking for the cheapest and least used for themselves. They already are picking up the extra costs of Medicare/Medicaid that get shifted over to them just so that the hospitals can break even. I may just be seeing one side of this, but here is an article that talks about the underpayments by those government programs that insured people are actually paying for. Summary Article Full Document of Research on $88.8 Billion cost-shift It would be much better if there was some equitable pricing structure or standards for even what gets charged for different procedures.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 11:29 AM) And IMO, a big, big, big part of the reason why is the fact that the insurers, and hell, much of the medical apparatus in this country, has no legitimate cost-control type competition. If an insurer wants to increase its profitability, it can do so by raising rates and it doesn't have to fear losing its high revenue customers because they're all either locked in through their employers or there's no other insurer that they can go to. So they can spend huge amounts of money on administrative things that only slightly increase profitability and just raise rates to pay for it, and you wind up with a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy in the system because of it. The same sort of thing happens in pharmaceuticals. Because people often actually need those drugs but are shielded from much of the cost, if the company wants to increase profitability, it tries to sell more pills, so it spends a fortune on advertising, and raises the price per pill to pay for all those ads. As I have said before, a pretty large chunk of insurance companies are non-profit and are actually trying to lower their administrative costs as much as possible to benefit their members and give them the best they can offer. I can't speak to the other industries though. I would love to see what would happen if they allowed health plans across state lines. That would be some good competition and would not need to get the government involved in running an insurance company.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 11:10 AM) In other words, the insurance companies think that everyone other than them ought to be paying more. Not sure where you are getting that line from either. Everyone wants the costs to go down. They are skyrocketing at way more than the current rate of inflation. It needs to go down across the board somehow. Isn't that the whole point of this? We are all paying more each and every year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 10:59 AM) Totally disagree. The longer each side keeps fighting, the stronger the insurance companies get, because they keep buying off more and more congresspeople. And the one side who is most vehemently opposed to doing anything that will make the situation better is the insurance company side. Completely disagree with this. Where do you get this from? Working in the insurance industry, I know that there is a huge move to want changes made because of the unsustainable rise in costs. You are buying into the Obama/Pelosi line of Insurance Companies being evil. Absolute Bull. The only thing they have been vehemently opposed to is the public options being thrown around there. I don't blame them if you look at how Medicaid and Medicare undercut prices that hospitals and doctors need. Because they undercut them the cost of those programs get shifted over to insurance companies.

Another IT guy working as a computer programmer.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 19, 2009 -> 10:23 AM) I stop reading your posts after I read something ridiculous, so rarely do I get past the first sentence. The problem is the only place real pressure is going to come from for change from the insurance industry is the government. So it's either status quo or the evil government is going to have to act on the free market system. So I suggest you call your representatives to put together a plan instead of just playing obstruction. Here's a plan that was put together by 6 sectors of the Healthcare Industry of how they want to achieve reform. Anybody read through it at all? Healthcare Stakeholder Letter to Obama

This thread is making me reconsider that I should wear one over at 3rd base... Not worth the risk with the weird hops over there.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Aug 17, 2009 -> 09:38 PM) well, dont tell the anti-reformers this story. They would have to find a way to explain how they are more worthy of that care than someone else (the base argument that universal care will create "lines" to get care). That's not a comfortable argument to make... saying I am more important than someone else. I think that this story may show a clear case of a young person taking a big risk (without realizing it). Having a gap in coverage is something that a lot of young people do, and this is a pretty big risk as this guy found out. If his family is able to afford a $1000 monthly rent apartment by the hospital in addition to what they had before, they could have found a way to afford health insurance for the year that he was not covered. This is also why I think everyone should be required to have some sort of health insurance. It will remove these types of situations and will help drive down costs because those healthy, invincible young people will also need coverage. He and plenty his age are taking a big gamble and some are losing.

Saw this NY Times article this morning. One of the big problems that I have not yet seen addressed is that physicians are able to charge whatever they want right now for anyone but Medicare and the insurers end up footing the bill most of the time. High Healthcare Costs

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 10, 2009 -> 01:57 PM) It is actually fairly easy to produce a gain of information in biology, and I'll give you a specific demonstration of how using 2 mutation mechanisms. A standard mutation mechanism is a duplication of a gene or chromosome. So, start off with a duplication (this is especially common in plants). Now I have twice the amount of genetic material, but it is identical, thus you could conceivably argue that no information has been created. Then, allow for a random mutation on one of the parts that is not precisely duplicated in another part. Now, I have increased the genetic material and increased the variation in that material. By any definition of information available, the information content has increased. Have we seen this happen? Yes. For example, in experiments, Yeast, which typically thrives on sugar, can be placed in low-glucose environments, where there are other potential sources of nutrition. After about 450 generations, the Yeast had adapted to its new food source. Genetic analysis of the yeast found that it had done exactly that process; the yeast had duplication of some of its genetic material, combined with a set of mutations on different sections of the new material, and the Yeast had adapted to move its nutrition around in other ways. This is a very simple example of this process; there are hundreds more in the literature. This is an example of how a "Unique trait" can be developed and adopted within a population within a very short time, especially if the survival advantage to that trait is large. This has happened repeatedly in evolution of just about every species, and in fact can be traced quite well in a number of them. Another argument against statements you give is that "unique traits" come about because the designer created things perfectly to fit in to those niches. This is obviously incorrect, as anyone who has ever suffered a knee injury can attest to. A wide variety of traits are very, very poorly developed, even on people. Knees, hips, digestive system, etc., I could design a better set of systems in my sleep. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, it makes no sense to both breathe and swallow food through the same pipe because then you can choke on your food and die. You can't digest cellulose. Knees are just godawful. Why do you think people still have wisdom teeth? Evolution by natural selection tends to cause development towards things that provide the largest selective advantage. For people, this has driven us towards walking upright, having large brains, etc. But then you get the byproducts; your brain gets bigger, but it starts pushing in to the back of your mouth, and suddenly you're stuck with 4 teeth that just don't fit. Childbirth is a real bear because human hips weren't set up to send out a large brained baby and at the same time walk upright. Thanks for the cool info Balta. I never did state that I don't think it happens, but was attempting to get at the thought process that your points go against. I was waiting for you to post on it there.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 10, 2009 -> 01:29 PM) *awaits a thorough Balta debunking* Yep, me too

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 10, 2009 -> 09:49 AM) Don't consider this an attack, but how can you really think that? I'm curious the reason(s) you believe that. We see evolution occurring in some areas every year (see the flu virus). Also, do you just believe that all of these unique traits that certain animals seem to have is all coincidental? I mean some animals have such absurd characteristics that perfectly help to adapt them to their environments that it is clearly (to me) because they evolved to be that way. Furthermore, it can actually be proven. Studying the bones, genetic makeup, DNA, behavioral patterns of current and extinct species helps to prove the theory. I just really don't understand people who have that belief, especially those who reject the creationist view at the same time. I'll try to help you understand those beliefs a bit here (without fulling knowing the thoughts of the poster). Now, I'll just say that I have my own weird thoughts that I am hashing my way through still that leave room for evolution, but don't completely follow the mold that we see in the scientific stuff. I know, weird, but it's my own thoughts I'm working through while trying to take in as much information as possible. You can probably even find a discussion I had about it on here a while ago. Anyhow, the flu seems to be a bad example because evolution implies a gain of information of abilities, right? Did the flu gain any new information to become more than a flu? Not really, it is still a flu and still acts like a flu. It always had the ability to transfer between species. So, just because it uses that ability doesn't mean anything new was added and evolution occurred. Also, with the unique traits and absurd characteristics. Again, the thought would be that these creatures had a lot of abilities before, then settled into a certain spot where they gradually lost their abilities and became much more specific to the environment they are in. So, instead of a gain of information for those weird things, it is viewed as them going down a specific branch that they always had the capabilities to do. Another take on that same thing would be the Intelligent Designer philosophy that would say that the creatures were pushed along to develop perfectly into that weird spot and that you are showing an excellent example of why we can believe in an Intelligent Designer. The other stuff, well you'd have to go into specifics, but I may or may not be able to give you some thoughts on those. Hopefully, that gives you some insight. If you want to hear more since I have really looked a lot into this subject from several angles, go ahead and send me a PM since I don't want to see this turn into another discussion on evolution and derail this thread.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2009 -> 11:09 AM) The caption implies that it's probably neither of those, it's probably "More civilian travel, less military travel". So, a 25% increase in spending is accounted for by an increase in the amount of civilian travel? That seems like an awful big percentage increase to only be accounted by the type of travel they choose or by inflation. If you are going to say that, you need to point to a reason for that rather large change. It seems pretty obvious that there is more travel spending going on.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jul 31, 2009 -> 03:14 PM) Actually, the point doesn't stand. In fact, in the original legislation, the plan was scheduled for four billion dollars in funding, with the first billion to fund the program only through September. The additional two billion in funding isn't additional funds being tacked onto the program, its funds being allocated to the program early. I know that's how I do my budgeting. I'll budget $12,000 for the year for xyz. $1,000 for the first month. Oops, I went over by $5,000 in the first half of the month. Good thing I have the remaining $6,000 to put in for the rest of the month. I'll just use it early... Oh wait, that's supposed to last the whole year? I suppose we have no idea how long the program was supposed to last, but running out of funds in 4 days that should be good through 65 or so is horrible.