My God, you are an idiot.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

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."

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Fugee

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

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.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Yet vastly more in the way of government resources goes toward improving care delivery.

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

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller

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

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

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

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

Yes?

Does that reflect poorly on me?

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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

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:

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.)

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

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

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

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



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

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?

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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

So that's what you've been doing.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

no country could ever hope to fund

By "no country" you must mean "every developed (and some developing) country but ours."

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

By "no country" you must mean "every developed (and some developing) country but ours."

No country of our size seeking to retain our level of economic vitality. (Or what *was* our level of economic vitality.)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

*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.

Big tits?

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Adder

By "no country" you must mean "every developed (and some developing) country but ours."

All the developed counties pay for extraordinary measures to extend the lives of their terminally ill elderly as a matter of course? All the developed countries pay to keep people in permanent vegetative states alive for *decades*?

Really?

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Big tits?

Codicil.