My God, you are an idiot.

[Adder]

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

Slow growth in the United States and a persistent trade deficit are additional, more fundamental sources of recent declines in the dollar’s value; in particular, as the United States is a major oil importer, any geopolitical or other shock that increases the global price of oil will worsen our trade balance and economic outlook, which tends to depress the dollar. In this case, the direction of causality runs from commodity prices to the dollar rather than the other way around.

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

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the coverage won't be as good as most people's current coverage. it cannot be.

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

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.

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?

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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?

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

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.

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.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

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.)

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?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

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.)

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.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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.

Um, no. Want to try again?

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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?

Um, no. Want to try again?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Um, no. Want to try again?

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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Um, no. Want to try again?

I'd rather not.

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Um, no. Want to try again?

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."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Fugee

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."

how long did the first 5 heart transplants extend life?

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

how long did the first 5 heart transplants extend life?

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