lostfan

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:34 PM) You're capable of rational thought, obviously. I'm just spoon-fed. I'm unable to interpret on my own whether or not the U.S. government saying it actively supports Iran would be a good thing or a bad thing. What does Rachel Maddow have to say about it?

I actually cited a "conservative" (Dick Lugar, who is probably the smartest foreign affairs guy in the entire government IMO) agreeing with me that taking sides would be a bad idea.

When is he due for re-election? He might be able to live it down.

I chose that I don't care, but I do enjoy laughing at their ineptitude so I really don't want them to win a World Series. I hate the same Cubs fans you guys do, but in all honesty, Sox fans perpetuate it by taking the bait a lot of times. I shrug it off. You can't get to me with that s***. Last year my brother (a Blue Line operator) was getting taunted by Cubs fans at work after the Sox got swept, the next weekend as we all know the Sox swept and he was like "oh, you guys are awfully quiet now? What happened? You were talking mad s*** last week, are you ok? Something wrong?" Growing up, I liked both the Cubs and the Sox. When I got old enough, which was the early 90s, I chose the Sox.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 04:20 PM) D'Oh. Did Sammy say anything similar to Palmeiro at the Senate hearings? A firm denial that he had ever tested positive? If he'd been informed of that test's results then that would be perjury. "To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs," Mr. Sosa said in a sworn statement. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/sports/b...18steroids.html

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 01:51 PM) It's probably because McAllen docs found dx codes they could charge more for using the same services. Hence, my arguement made in the first post of this thread: diagnosis codes need to be consistent, not cherry picked for higher reimbursement - although I made my living off of it for a while, it's not right. The conclusion that was drawn from the article was that it's a cultural thing among doctors in certain areas. Where the doctors are more collaborative, costs tend to be lower, and care is better overall. Where they are less collaborative, they tend to driven by profit margins, and as a rule, costs tend to be higher. McAllen is cited as an extreme example of the latter.

Eh, if you really want to be a rebel, you'd just be pissing in the wind. Do what you want to do.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 15, 2009 -> 08:47 PM) Obama knows Doctors will have to take a pay cut for universal health care to work. At least he's being realistic. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/con...+temp_top+story And honestly I think he is right. I know this is going to piss off some people, but I think some doctors are extremely overpaid. I honestly don't think most work doctors do should command a $400,000 a year salary. It's not so much about the dollar amount of the salaries, but about the current system that pays doctors for each service they do. I agree, that needs to change.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 12:00 PM) and some women-beating problems... I read somewhere that the cops are over at his house once a month to resolve random domestic disputes.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 12:13 PM) It was my understanding he says they were equal -- no better/no worse -- yet I still know nothing about the people performing this care. To say everything, from doctors, to nurses, to technology is absolutely equal is impossible as far as I'm concerned, at least, unless you're writing a paper and want to send a message. If everything is absolutely equal -- of even slightly worse in some cases -- yet they're charging 2x more, it should be pretty easy to bring them up on charges on allegedly attempting to defraud the medicare/medicaid system, right? So why aren't they? Again from this article (I'm reading the rest of it), it doesn't seem to disagree with what you're trying to ask here:

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 12:04 PM) While I agree -- I've lost just about all trust I've ever had for the media over the past few years, as nobody is reporting facts anymore, not even journalists, but spin and opinion that sway things in their own agendas favor. It's sad that it's come to this...but it has. I'm skeptical on everything I read these days, no matter who writes it, because this isn't just commonplace now, but accepted. I'd love to believe articles like this, but with missing data -- and very important data -- it's impossible to agree. Like I said, I'd like to see the types of patients they treat, did he compare data to only similar patients, or did he say -- take a terminal cancer patient (because they happen to only be treated at hospital a) and compare it to a different sort of patient (because they don't even treat terminal cancer patients in El Paso), for example? It leaves important details like that out -- therefore I'm skeptical of the 2x the cost number he's throwing around while saying everything is the exact same, from technology to 'treatment' without ever saying what sort of treatment. I admit I didn't read all 8 pages of that article since I'm at work, but the way it was written was pretty comprehensive, I'd even say scientific, factoring out variables and such. Obviously this writer had at least some agenda, but that doesn't disqualify the validity of anything that was said in and of itself. Also - he makes another example about another location having much lower costs, but high technology and new equipment so that shoots down the suggestion that this is what makes McAllen's high.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 12:04 PM) I know what ya mean, but you can always hope he'd have at least 1 or 2 sane advisors wouldn't you? Like, say, Dick Lugar.

Dick Lugar agrees with me. *Pats self on back*

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) Frankly, I'm hoping that Senator McCain is just in "Oppose the President on everything he says, does, or touches" mode right now and wouldn't actually be stupid enough to have actually done that had he been in office. But yeah...just in case...there's one bullet dodged. No, watching him campaign and considering his political career, I think McCain almost certainly would've said that. It fits right in with his strategic view of the world, with America on top, everyone else following our lead, and scoffing at anybody who thinks that reactions to statements matter with any kind of depth to them.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:53 AM) So because the author says it, it must be 1000000% true? What's his agenda, does he have one on either side? Is there something we aren't being told about that specific treatment center -- for example, does that more expensive hospital tend to treat higher risk patients or patients with sicknesses that cannot be treated elsewhere, there is just a lot being left out...and like I said, it's all being left up to our assumptions. You see, I question things, even if I read them on the internet, it's easy to make opinions look like fact by tossing around official titles or themes when writing these papers. Sure, some of it could be from over testing and abuse of the system -- isn't that part of the reform to put a stop to this? But I'm sure there will be many more things that can be done aside from just that. How do I know that when I step outside leaving my job today I won't be struck by lightning? I'm not accepting what the article Rex posted says as gospel (in fact, believe it or not, I'm more on your side than you think), it's that it's kind of hard to actually talk about what's in the article if you keep citing things from/about it that are incontrovertibly false. Source evaluation for academic purposes is one thing, but at some point you have to take a professional journalist's opinion at some level of face value, enough to be used as a reliable source. Otherwise WTF is the point of talking about anything at all? It's not like he cited a Huffington Post blogger or one of Nate Silver's 538 blog opinions. Edit: for the record the person who wrote that article is a Harvard-educated surgeon

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:43 AM) Note he says "no evidence" on treatments, but the fact that the updated tech, building, tools, etc, costs more is the answer why, even if the writer doesn't want to admit it. And it's possible because they're running a bunch of unnecessary tests -- or a plethora of other reasons, none of which the article actually uncovers...it just leaves it up to assumption. Really? You're killing me man. edit for your edit: The author also says treatments AND technologies and says they're no different than the rest of the country. How are you coming to these conclusions?

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:01 AM) They are the strawmen Obama uses in every argument he makes for doing something. There are those.......There are many......There are some.....It is getting old, quick. What?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 09:55 AM) I don't think we need to look at cutting Doctor salaries - I think we need to look closer at having doctors do less of the medical work. This is already a trend underway, of course. But I think a lot of things we currently go to "the doctor" for - regular checkups, immunizations, many basic treatments - can be handled well by medical professionals who are not doctors and whose time is cheaper. I think a lot of nurses would agree with this.

File this under "things that would have been different for the worse if John McCain won": He is saying that Obama's not criticizing the Iranian elections loud enough, he wants Obama to publicly call them a sham run by a corrupt regime etc. This is about the worst possible course of action he could take. Right now he is being subdued on it and letting the whole thing play out on its own, without us. Support for the Islamic government has never been this low and there's at least an appearance that the rug was yanked out from under the clerics, and the government may well be slowly collapsing before our eyes (the 1979 revolution didn't happen overnight either). There is a de facto current for cooler relations with the West... now, if you have the US president making public comments on internal Iranian affairs - again - now you have the Iranian government able to say the US is meddling with their right to govern themselves - again - and what happens to that support, and anti-regime sentiment? It evaporates and you go back to waiting.

Yea, verily, this has been denoted in the Holy Book of Partisan Grievances and therefore belongs in the Filibuster.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 15, 2009 -> 11:05 PM) Just for the hell of it I'll post the search in a link to make it easy : http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&cli...mp;oq=&aqi= As you can see, there are just as many stories/data that show the problem exists. As they say, where there is smoke there is fire, if this wasn't a problem, people probably wouldn't complain about it, and there wouldn't be 50,000,000 Google links to both sides of the argument. I'm sure the lawyers defend that it's a myth, while doctors defend that it's a fact, and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. The Google search link you provided: 24,700 results Google search for "fraudulent malpractice cases" (a little better): 644,000 results Google search for "ufo sightings" 1,050,000 results Just saying

Because you guys keep talking about it, I don't know why. It's gotten out of control. What a dumb thing to argue about for so long and I feel even dumber for acknowledging it as valid.

I know this does absolutely nothing for you, but I have one here in my house. lol. You shouldn't need a transformer because the laptop's power cable has one built in btw. Anything else needs a transformer.

Fukudome hit a slump in the last week, but until then he was batting over .300 and his OBP was comfortably in the .400s, and his OPS was somewhere about .900. Sure he is overpaid simply because of when he got his contract, but that's not exactly terrible.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 15, 2009 -> 09:25 PM) They is all of them -- all of them in charge, from the party holding office to the individuals in congress and the senate...that's they. I'm not a party guy, at all, and THEY all need to do things together, I'm so sick and tired of this split system of pokes and prods trying to slyly get at each other without looking like the bad guys...it's insane we have to put up with this type of thing. Furthermore, it's the judges accepting the cases, the lawyers involved in carrying out the cases and the type of people it takes to knowingly sue someone for nothing. All of the above are they "they" I speak of. If a reform bill passes, this will be included. It's a bipartisan thing now. Book it.