Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Isn't this internally inconsistent, especially with your prior protestation about evidence v absolute proof?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Surely the effects of the labor market will mean that wages instantly increase to keep total compensation the same. Or, alternatively, lower compensation costs will be massive new additions of jobs.

I'm kidding, of course, but the existence of subsidies and the partial decoupling of insurance from employment (which I think is a good thing), makes it hard for me to conclude what the net effect is.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Why?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Should have quoted more:

"...50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch."

Assuming that "switch" means "drop EE'r plan and have EEs rely on exchanges" (which also isn't clear), then "some" implies "less than 50-60%", also assuming that "makes more sense" means "increases profits".

Basically, I've now convinced myself that it's just poorly written, and anything in the article that isn't a direct paraphrase of the McK report is worthless and meaningless.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

It only makes more sense for some, not all, of the switchers, to switch. Thus the implication is that some are going to switch even though it doesn't make more sense. Thus they aren't making profit maximizing decisions.

But as Cletus said, it's probably just bad writing.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

do you understand that the phrase "cannot be" has a different meaning than "absolute proof?"

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

No.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

smh.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Have you ran a company making HC purchase decisions for 10 years?

No? Then take my positive statement as absolute proof.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

But surely you can educate us poor ignorant bastards who are just asking for your help and wisdom?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Which is it? Evidence or absolute proof? I'm a little confused by how you use the terms.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Water

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

You think I was asking a serious question? Seriously?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

"whiff" original meaning, means you stepped on someone's joke.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'm reporting you to the newber promotion and acceptance committee.

Not that Sebby comes here anymore
 

But I thought this was an interesting thing for Bernanke to say:

I'm not sure I buy it, but it's interesting.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Good, good, motherfucking jesus in a leather pantsuit good, and yet so fucking obviously wrong.

We spend 1/6th of our GNP on that coverage -most of it pissed after dead or dying people - and yet we are 36th in the world in average life span - tied with Cuba.

Ergo, our coverage is too good in sense of ineffectually covering (throwing good money away) things we should not, and not good enough in that we waste the money we do spend on stupid "coverage."

Any change from the current death spiral is welcome, even Cuba's system.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

or maybe the fact that we have a huge pool of uncovered poor people that basically die when they shouldn't means that "averages" mean nothing to people who are covered?

I'm not smart like you, can you explain. to a dumb guy like me, why the average numbers aren't meaningless when we are the only country w/o coverage for everyone?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I apparently misunderstood. By your shorthand "the coverage won't be as good as most people's current coverage. it cannot be," you were not supporting the current system. You were either: (1) agreeing with me that we spend too much money on too much "coverage" for "most" people; (2) agreeing with me that we need to have a system that kills more people at a lower cost; or (3) both.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I agree that really fucked up people should be allowed to just die (note this is where you and I sign onto Palin worst nightmare, but ok) instead of costing a half million before they die.

I also happen to support covering the uncovered, which will raise our overall costs, but is the right thing to do.

I'm just saying that to look at how "effective" our health care is "on average" based on life span when 20% of us don't have any coverage is silly, like Ty-think, beneath you.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Then you did misunderstand. We are not effectively spending our money because it is spent disproportionately on those with coverage. Spending some more money on those without coverage, and less on those with coverage, would raise average life spans.

(p.s. This is another way of saying that a little money spent on the uninsured will save much more down the road, but a lot of money spent on the insured saves nothing, and in fact costs. Which is another way of saying the current system is not effectively spending its money from a cost-benefit point of view.)

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

oh, so you support fucking those who are covered. weird coming from a guy who likes to travel all over, and won't be able should we "equal the playing field".

But your point is that we should all boil it down to the average. You are cool with drinking, like Mohawk vodka, right?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

So what you're saying is that we could save money thinning the herd by covering viagra but not heart attacks?

Think twice about that, dude. You're getting older every day.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Um, no. Want to try again?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Um, no. Want to try again?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

no. but maybe you should read your ramble and re-write it to express what you meant?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I'd rather not.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I can think of examples that might be what Less is talking about.

A while ago there was an article in the local paper about a controversial new treatment (can't remember what it was for) that cost about $160,000 and with the data they had so far (it was still in clinical trial phases) extended life an average of 4 months. If that made it to FDA approval, I'm not sure it would be the best use of insurance resources to pay that much money for an average of 4 months.

And there was a guy who was pretty much dying (if not already brain dead) whose wife wanted the hospital to do all kinds of treatment on so he could "recover."

It's all well and good to talk about costly medical intervention that has low probability of significant life extension and what a drain they are on the system. But at my selfish little heart, if I or one of my loved ones was the patient, I'd be all "heck yes, I want the $160,000 treatment for another 4 months."

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

how long did the first 5 heart transplants extend life?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

But I bet insurance didn't pay for them until they were a proven commodity.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

A lot of times those cutting edge, highly expensive treatments are the laboratory for more broadly based, less expensive treatments that follow. Innovation ain't cheap.

If you look at dollar for dollar where the most lives are saved, the dirty little secret of the American health care industry is that it is in drug discovery more than medical care. Yet vastly more in the way of government resources goes toward improving care delivery.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

my firm's does. also, every employee has signed a waiver offering any internal organs that I may need to me and at my option, even after termination of employment.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

So, you feel that patent laws are not a "government resource"?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

An interesting point in many ways. Did you really mean to post it here?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Yes?

Does that reflect poorly on me?

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Been busy. I've re-read it and it makes sense to me, but you are a hard science guy, meaning english is a second language to you:

You can disagree with me, but I have no doubt that my thoughts were effectively conveyed, you understood it, but chose to be disingenous about it.

Good Read
 

This is a great middle of road analysis of where the economy and unemployment are headed. Nothing hugely revelatory, but a great compilation of all the factors in one place, with an excellent assessment of their interplay: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...articleid=2795

Re: Not that Sebby comes here anymore
 

He's not wrong, but he's not right either. It's a push-pull relationship. Equal causality on both sides, with equivalent resulting spikes/drops in commodities and currency value mirroring one another.

Why he's attempting to draw start and finish lines in the cyclical process leads to an interesting question. Is he simply finger-wagging at OPEC? Or is he burned out, and blathering just because, well, he's expected to say something, and he might as well use the opportunity to deflect blame?

Re: Good Read
 

So that's what you've been doing.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

1. If you're over 75 and have terminal disease, Medicare should deny all treatments that extend life at drug cost in excess of $5000. Pay for it yourself. Tough shit if your family doesn't like it. And that's not "fucked up" in the least. That's just sensible. You don't have a right to be kept alive on the govt dime when there's no hope.*

2. I don't. Call me cruel, but I'm with Ron Paul - you do not have a "right" to health insurance. We've pissed away far too much of this country's vitality giving people rights no country could ever hope to fund. However (big caveat here), if we can provide coverage to all and it costs less than the current system, I'm for it. My inner beancounter trumps my inner ideologue. Alas, such a structure is impossible.

*My grandmother went through this at 90. Surgery for a virulent Stage 4 cancer. Fucking outrageous. The waste of tax dollars was galling. And for what? Give some shithead young surgeon on the job training? Pump some cash into the hospital's coffers? My other grandmother died at home, of a similarly lethal cancer. She eschewed treatment and exited without the torture, and without costing taxpayers a pile of money. And her survival time from date of diagnosis was almost identical.

Who's to blame here? I say the selfish families who insist on keeping loved ones alive via endless medical interventions for no good reason (in my first anecdotal example, a clueless uncle). These people usually know nothing about medicine, have no interest in researching the disease, and like every other incurious bag of plasma making up 70% of our population, don't want to think... "Just keep grandma alive. Just do what you have to do!" And why not? It's fucking free.

That's what you get with third party payor entitlements. Along with the subsidization of the industry delivering the service, or the good, and the buyer, you get this, which seems to be our greatest national resource: Subsidized Stupidity. "I can be dumb as I like. Somebody else will take care of the complexities for me!"

Call me callous, but hastening the demise of that sector of our society is a good start. That which can't take care of itself can be carried in flush times, but has no business holding back the herd when shit gets tough. And that's where we are. Cut The Dead Weight.