patrick.net

I'm not even sure as to the point of your post. Who here on this board would accuse you of pessimism porn? I agree that things are not as good as they appear and there is still downside risk to all sorts of things. I assume that's a common belief amongst many here. Are you saying we don't believe these things? This board was one of the earliest in the calls against the housing bubble. If you are trying to argue that the US is "finished" then I must ask, In relation to whom? Every other industrialized country is also running the printing press as fast as they can. There is one good thing about fiat currency and that is it's value is all relative to the values of other fiat currencies. If all the fiat currencies have the sane problems (which they do) then it's the same as them having no problems at all. Sure there will be some arbitrage with regards to the time frames during which this all happens but I believe the rest of the world is doomed as much as we are.

Bwahah! Constitutional purity & your high-school civics dead long before you were born. Little late to that party! Federal Reserve Act 1913, The "interstate commerce" rationale, CIA & NSA acting inside US, the War on Some Drugs, Patriot Act, a chain of events way predate Obama. Thanks for the shotgun blast rant that was a hoot. Ranting about CEO firing *now* strikes me funny like a person complaining whole family murdered but ENRAGED cat was injured too.

d3, You asked if anyone had looked into the cost impact of malpractice claims. Indeed, your fellow poster Kevin already has, and this is what he found: >>You’re still wrong. Try digesting this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16136632 (in 2001 the figure was 0.46% for the combined cost of defending, insuring, and settling malpractice claims; less than a quarter of that was awarded to victims. At best, completely banning lawsuits is going to reduce medical care costs by less than 1%. Awesome. In short, the notion that malpractice claims are a big burden on the health care system is wrong. At best, it is just misguided to claim otherwise, and at worst it is a decoy issue intended to distract from the real problems, and/or give doctors immunity against lawsuits which they should not have.

justme says

d3, You asked if anyone had looked into the cost impact of malpractice claims. Indeed, your fellow poster Kevin already has, and this is what he found: >>You’re still wrong. Try digesting this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16136632 (in 2001 the figure was 0.46% for the combined cost of defending, insuring, and settling malpractice claims; less than a quarter of that was awarded to victims. At best, completely banning lawsuits is going to reduce medical care costs by less than 1%. Awesome. In short, the notion that malpractice claims are a big burden on the health care system is wrong. At best, it is just misguided to claim otherwise, and at worst it is a decoy issue intended to distract from the real problems, and/or give doctors immunity against lawsuits which they should not have.

1% of an annual 2.4 trillion spend on healthcare would be 24 billion dollars annually. 1% of heathcare is a good chunk. Even it if was only half were talking 12 billion a year. Guess by today's standards that just isn't that much. Edited - bad math ...

TPB, I just noticed you posted a certificate from a ESRI GIS User's Conference to start this thread. What the hey ?? I fail to see how this relates to your point in any way (I must say, and not to offend, but I often fail to make heads or tails out of your posts). I do enjoy seeing that my industry (I work in this area) is 'on the map' (tee hee). I thought it would be a cold day in ... anyway, the award you post has nothing to do with Health care - it was for an ATLAS OF ICELAND. But I suppose a 'huzzah' to you for creating a busy thread with 400+ comments. Oh ... and I repeat, I thought this was a housing forum.

Vicente says

This doucebag thinks you are preaching to the choir here and this is not news. [..]The citizens do not object to being referred to as “consumers” in 99% of discourse and even use the word themselves. They are being herded into permanent debt slavery and do nothing about it.

I do! I object! I object! Just stated so on another thread. I AM NOT A CONSUMER, I am a CITIZEN. You know what I was saying in 2004? It's '1984', 20 years late.

Cigna PPO new slogan: "We insure healthy people only, so our ROI goes to top and hence our stockholders make money."..... Send me more ...We are having a competition where we judge slogans of health insurance companies in America.

classic struggle between have's and have not's....but for the first time i am with the have's or else we all will become have not's. I never understood why health care is limited resource. i thought a limited resource is something which can be traced to something which cannot be produced and is contant (water, some minerals, land..etc. how come health care became limited resource ? why is free market broken here. its just a f**ing service like another specialized service except that supply has been artificially contrained. there are only two inputs : doctors and equipment ..which one is a limited resource ? and why

>>were talking 12 billion a year. Right, and about 25% of that goes to victims of malpractice, as determined by a jury in a court of law. So what is the problem? You can argue that lawyers and insurance companies take too much of the cake, and I would agree, but that does not mean that we should give doctors immunity. We could cover a 0.46% higher fraction of the population if there was no malpractice, and no malpractice suits. But would you want to be treated by a doctor that has no financial motivation in preventing errors, and you having no recourse to get compensated for your loss due to errors? I certainly would not. In summary: Ragging on malpractise lawsuits as being the reason for unaffordable healthcare is factually wrong, dishonest, and is used by right-wingers as a distraction from the real issues.

renter for ever_san jose says

classic struggle between have’s and have not’s….but for the first time i am with the have’s or else we all will become have not’s. I never understood why health care is limited resource. i thought a limited resource is something which can be traced to something which cannot be produced and is contant (water, some minerals, land..etc. how come health care became limited resource ? why is free market broken here. its just a f**ing service like another specialized service except that supply has been artificially contrained. there are only two inputs : doctors and equipment ..which one is a limited resource ? and why

Typical fear mongering that if Govt takes over health care, we will all become have nots....But I bet you don't mind police and other jobs being done by governments including such critical things as responding to a fire alarm. Even when critical jobs like airport security were transferred to TSA, a federal agency, after 9/11 people like you were keeping their tails inside their asses....now when times comes to health care suddenly it becomes a struggle between haves and have nots....Shame on you...Come out of your little frigging shell and think of other people too...

everybody is concentrating on thier own agenda and benefit. Democrats want to ration health care and get votes from the have not's. Republicans want to ensure that the rich keep thier power to buy health care with money ( which will dissappear soon). Nobody is trying to find the right solution to fix health care because right solution doesn't motivate either party. Right solution : find out why health care SERVICE has become so expensive and market forces are not working to bring down the cost. Once the bottlenecks are identified , try to remove them. Current bottlenecks : 1) insurance keeps buys insulated from prices 2) Doctors lobby keeps supply of doctors limited 3) drug and insurance lobby influence govt and keep thier monopoly. eg: you cannot buy drugs from outside the country..etc

final word : You cannot solve a real famine by rationing but by trying to find a way to produce more food.

renter for ever_san jose says

Doctors lobby keeps supply of doctors limited

Why cannot we have H1B for doctors ? I agree that having more hospitals and doctors will definitely bring down the prices...but that assumes everyone pays from their pocket....Here we are talking about insurance based health care...Even if you sneeze you need to go through your insurance ....And "for profit" insurance has no motive to really look after poor sick people...

Bap33 : your point makes sense but we are talking about services here, which are provided by humans biengs to human biengs and thus makes it independent of breeding unless the rate of breeding is too fast compared to the time it takes to train for the services.

in a free market, a human service can never become a bottleneck..example : prostitution will never be a limited resource in a free market unless govt intervenes.

Why cannot we have H1B for doctors ? They do! part of exchange programs. Not to mention some doctors who intern here, move back home, along with their patients.. I read how India and Thailand health care is growing with Medical Tourism. So keeping a limited supply of doctors doesnt work. Its much cheaper and easier to go overseas. Do a search on india thailand medical tourism Its extremely difficult to get in to medical profession isn US ..period. For engineer's , the end customer ( companies who hire) determine what qualifications they need. In Medicine, the end customer (hospital or patient) DON'T decide what qualifies a doctor, its the freaking AMA. AMA keeps the barrier of entry very high by putting too much red tape and licencing requirements. Its similar to a communist govt trying to control everything. AMA (doctors lobby) is very powerful which contraints the supply of medical schools and entry into them. It also has one of the most cubersome and lengthy licensing requirements in the world. thier main goal is to keep the supply of doctors low to boost the salaries of existing doctors..similar to unions. I wish there was some lobby like that for software engineers so that i could get 300k for my work.

renter for ever_san jose says

Why cannot we have H1B for doctors ? They do! part of exchange programs. Not to mention some doctors who intern here, move back home, along with their patients.. I read how India and Thailand health care is growing with Medical Tourism. So keeping a limited supply of doctors doesnt work. Its much cheaper and easier to go overseas. Do a search on india thailand medical tourism Its extremely difficult to get in to medical profession isn US ..period. For engineer’s , the end customer ( companies who hire) determine what qualifications they need. In Medicine, the end customer (hospital or patient) DON’T decide what qualifies a doctor, its the freaking AMA. AMA keeps the barrier of entry very high by putting too much red tape and licencing requirements. Its similar to a communist govt trying to control everything. AMA (doctors lobby) is very powerful which contraints the supply of medical schools and entry into them. It also has one of the most cubersome and lengthy licensing requirements in the world. thier main goal is to keep the supply of doctors low to boost the salaries of existing doctors..similar to unions. I wish there was some lobby like that for software engineers so that i could get 300k for my work.

Very well said renter...I knew AMA was making sure that H1Bs do not start taking their jobs...But you summarized the situation succinctly.

renter for ever_san jose says

in a free market, a human service can never become a bottleneck..example : prostitution will never be a limited resource in a free market unless govt intervenes.

I have seen this in Europe...I have no idea how America became such a Nanny state. But america had to struggle and to come to terms with their violent (towards native americans) racist (towards blacks) past... I guess while trying to do that they became excessively religious and excessively money minded...My friend who visited me from overseas was joking that only time he sees americans smiling is when they are receiving money...I tried to counteract his point but had to agree to some extent...

renter for ever_san jose says

2) Doctors lobby keeps supply of doctors limited

Heh, Where did you get that from? 1. From my understanding doctors have little lobbying power. It is the insurance companies who have the power and can determine how much a doctor will get paid for someone. 2. one of the main reason for the shortage of primary doctors is because a lot of them are leaving the feild to make more money doing something else. Fewer and fewer people want to waste 8+ years of there life to only get paid the scraps left for them from the insurance companies. I know of atleast 3 doctors who have left there practes within the last few years because health insurance companies squized out any hopes of them becoming profitable again.

The landlord has a right to collect from you untill the bank formerly starts foreclosure proceedings. If you stop paying him before that he can sue you BUT BE CAREFULL! He probably won't tell you if they've foreclosed on the property, and may still try to collect from you. In that instance, he's taking money that belongs to the bank, and they can still expect you to pay them for the money you gave to the landlord! I'd call the bank to find out what's up.

This is just another of the wonderful benefits of renting: the owner gets foreclosed on and your lease and agreement with him become null and void (here in California). You have to continue paying or risk your credit rating and if the bank forecloses you might be sent packing and be forced to look for another place. Not much of a problem if you barely have two nickels to rub together and don't own much furniture etc. But a real problem if you are renting a large house and you have books and art~work along with your furniture.

Some people need to check their facts more carefully before speaking out. No one gets to be a doc in 8 years, the minimum is 11 years for a family practice doc. 4 years to a ba, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency. At least during residency you get paid more or less minimum wage. Most family practice docs make in the very, very low 100's. Not bad for racking up a debt of 200-400,000 dollars in tuition and giving up 11 years of your life. Many of our family practice friends joke they will make their last student loan payment with their first social security check. Since the top of the food chain docs make maybe 400k in today's market if they work lots of hours I would be very interested in finding out how someone becomes a serious multimillionaire in less than 10 years practicing medicine. The numbers just don't add. Total malpractice PAYOUTS are less than 1% of medical costs. NOT total malpractice costs. Premiums and defensive medicine (a very real expense but impossible to quantify) add a considerable amount. That being said it is probably no more than 2-4% of total healthcare costs. So malpractice isn't the PRIMARY driving factor in health care costs, but represents a real expense nevertheless. The real cost of malpractice is in the rapidly approaching crises in the specialties that most affected by malpractice rates. Ob's for one are rapidly becoming an extinct species. My wife is an Ob. We are overseas and she will never practice in the states again. We know many Ob's who are going out of the country or leaving medicine altogether. Want your baby delivered, call your lawyer to do it. The AMA has nothing at all to do with the supply of doc's. Medical schools, residencies, USMLE testing, state medical boards all have their own independent accrediting boards and have no association with the AMA at all. To the people who hold this idea the training of docs is being limited by some type of grand unspecified conspiracy, you really need to look into the cost and effort involved in expanding a medical school or a residency program. It's not like a law school where you can throw a couple extra chairs in the back of the room. Despite the extremely high cost, 4 new medical schools have opened in the last 4 years, bringing the total to 131. The first students of these new schools will become practicing docs in 2019. H1B docs? Sure why not. It won't change the cost of medical care one cent. Insurance companies set the reimbursement rates. The only effect will be each Doc will see less patients. The number of patients seen will still be the same, no one will be less sick if there are more docs around. The rates paid by the insurance companies will be the same. Net effect on costs - Zero. Anyone who feels the training level of american docs is excessive to their needs or who desires to save money on their health care is free to go anywhere in the world they would like to get their health care.

"Las Vegas and parts of Florida and California will see 90 percent or more of their loans underwater by 2011". Last night I was watching "R.E. Virgins" and the woman buying the house was concerned b/c the house was only 90% of what she REALLY wanted. The Realtard reorted (to the camera) that as far as the housing market goes, 90% is as good as it gets. Well guess what folks, 90% underwater is as good as it gets.

"Anyone who feels the training level of american docs is excessive to their needs or who desires to save money on their health care is free to go anywhere in the world they would like to get their health care" Why should we go elsewhere in the world ? why not here in US ? why i am not free to get prescription from a less trained doc in US. why am i not able to get a doc who has only highschool + 5 years medical school in US.I know many countries do that and accredit them so that patients make the decicion wheather to use them or go to someone with more training.WHY CAN"T A CONSUMER HAVE THAT FREEDOM ? I thought freedom is so important in this country. what happened to "freedom to choose" We make life and death decisions everyday. do you think people are not smart enough to choose the doctor with the right training based on what they want the treatment for? I want to go to a 10+ years trained surgeon for my heart surgery but not for my common cold.

H1B docs? Sure why not. It won’t change the cost of medical care one cent. Insurance companies set the reimbursement rates. The only effect will be each Doc will see less patients. The number of patients seen will still be the same, no one will be less sick if there are more docs around. The rates paid by the insurance companies will be the same. Net effect on costs - Zero. This is hilarious ...its like saying " H1b's won't affect cost of software development because its the software companies which set the salaries and cost of software products" Economics 101 : more labor supply reduces labor cost.

renter for ever_san jose says

in a free market, a human service can never become a bottleneck..example : prostitution will never be a limited resource in a free market unless govt intervenes.

No, prostitution will not become legal in US. Sarcasm Things that will be legal are those that add greatest contribution to GDP and economy. Economists at Wall street firms have identified that prostitution is not that beneficial to economy as perversion is. If people can get their sexual needs fulfilled, think of millions of jobs lost in perversion industry also known as porn. Goldman Sucks has estimated that the total size of porn industry is around 10 billion dollars, this includes porn on internet and porn video industry in Calipornia near north of LA. Also, even though ban on prostitution will be enforced rigidly, govt will let nudie bars flourish. Cops will be posted in nudie bars to enforce the law that the patrons cannot touch the dancers. All these actions will make sure that perversion industry flourishes and Goldman sucks and JPM make billions. Abby Joseph Cohen, the evil incarnate of Goldman sucks, has again predicted a bull market in porn industry. end of Sarcasm

renter for ever_san jose says

“Anyone who feels the training level of american docs is excessive to their needs or who desires to save money on their health care is free to go anywhere in the world they would like to get their health care” Why should we go elsewhere in the world ? why not here in US ? why i am not free to get prescription from a less trained doc in US. why am i not able to get a doc who has only highschool + 5 years medical school in US.I know many countries do that and accredit them so that patients make the decicion wheather to use them or go to someone with more training.WHY CAN”T A CONSUMER HAVE THAT FREEDOM ? I thought freedom is so important in this country. what happened to “freedom to choose” We make life and death decisions everyday. do you think people are not smart enough to choose the doctor with the right training based on what they want the treatment for? I want to go to a 10+ years trained surgeon for my heart surgery but not for my common cold.

You can. They are called nurse practitioners. Granted they have to be working under the supervision of an MD, but they can prescribe drugs and treat basic illnesses.

Then there is the issue of incentive. what incentive does a patient have in going to a nurse when the copay is the same whether he goes to a nurse or to a M.D ..nothing. the co-pay is the same. looks like health care is broken from both supply and demand side.

Wanker, no where but up from here, jetblue, where are you guys?

A buddy had the same thing happen and ended up losing his deposit. The management sent in the deposit to the home owner then gave him a 14 day notice to vacate. Told him he was SOL on the deposit.

Maybe tenants should start asking for credit reports from their landlords, seems fair. When I recently moved I did check out my potential landlords on Property Shark to see what the mortgage situation was on the property I was considering renting. I was surprised to find most were in pretty good shape, on paper.

Lending was frozen for several months so it had to go up because it was at a complete standstill. Price rises are very small and probably indicate a better grade of house is now being dumped on the market. The biggest price rise was in San Francisco where it's always ridiculously overpriced and that was only 5800 dollars even with all the tax incentives. If average prices went up by more than 8000 dollars that might indicate something, but below that the buyer is simply paying less because of the tax rebate.

1/2 the people in this country don't have a mortgage. My mortgage is through a local credit union. The venom on this board is getting to the stupid phase. Money will be valueless before homes. Everyone in cash has lost 10% this year playing it safe.

So Nomo, considering you are still posting, where do you fall in your list? -trolls, wing nuts, conspiracy theorists, and the tin foil hat crowd. Or do you happen to be the exception...

And by the way, you missed a fact: "Prime conforming loans make up two-thirds of mortgages..." But yes, they do make projections without fully stating what they are basing their projections on.

knewbetter says

Money will be valueless before homes. Everyone in cash has lost 10% this year playing it safe.

I presume you mean that for most people, paying down the mortgage is the best "investment." If so I wholeheartedly agree. After credit cards and other high interest loans are taken care of, of course. I had saved up enough money during my 15 year AF career that when I retired (they allowed 15 year retirements then because of the drawdown) to be able to pay $138k cash for a house, plus $12k cash for a Nissan Sentra for the wife. I chose to live in an area (Hampton VA) where $138k buys a new 2400 sq ft 4 bed 2.5 bath 2 car. Paying cash also knocks down the price, along with avoiding loan points, etc. Wages aren't low here either, I currently make over $100k not including retirement pay. Since I owned my home outright since retiring in 1995, I have been able to put away the cash. I do not agree that cash has lost 10%. At least, I don't want to think that because I have over $500k in CDs in various local credit unions. Some of these CDs are long term and paying 6%. Unfortunately, all those come due by next year and I will be lucky to get 2% after that. Also, I bought a new loaded Honda Odyssey in April to replace my wife's 14 year old Sentra. I was able to buy it for less than what used 2008 Odysseys were going for. In fact, we checked out Toyota, Nissan, and Hyundai vehicles as we were shopping. All the dealers were knocking $5,000 or so off the sticker within minutes of us showing interest in the car. For now at least, it seems cash is becoming more valuable. Since I plan to buy another house in two years, it seems that as prices fall my cash is yet becoming more valuable. I have been hearing the "cash is stupid" and "paying off your mortgage is dumb" for quite some time. Yet those people who had the same pay as me (other AF Officers), who took out big mortgages to "invest" in a "leveraged" asset, had "brokers" and "financial advisors" have not managed to build assets like I have. So far, I have done quite well by paying off debt first and putting cash in long term insured CDs. Living within ones means makes this possible. You may recall from my other posts that I did own rental property, and sold all but one during 2003-2005. But I did use savings to pay cash for one of these properties, and selling them only contributed about $100k to my $500k savings, along with allowing me to pay off the mortgage on the one rental property I kept. Nothing wrong with paying off the mortgage on the residence, and packing the rest into rate shopped insured CDs.

Today's continuing unemployment claims show that another 240,000 people have been added to the "extended" benefits program and therefore are no longer being counted in the official number of 6.3 million who have lost there jobs in the current "recession". This brings the total actual number of unemployment recipients to 9.5 million but all we will hear on the news today is the 6.3 million number. There is no mention of the 150,000 new jobs we need monthly that were not created in July. We also had a drop of 5 percent in average wages which when spread over the entire workforce equates to several million job losses in terms of lost buying power.

nowhere but up from here says

camping says

So Nomo, considering you are still posting, where do you fall in your list? -trolls, wing nuts, conspiracy theorists, and the tin foil hat crowd. Or do you happen to be the exception…

You and your cohorts are the only “tin foil hat’s” I see….probably never landed on the moon because it was statistically improbable huh cheesy…I mean campy…

As usual, I don't understand what you are talking about. I didn't come up with the set of labels, I just asked which applied to him. I'm not sure if he included your label in his list.

Interesting article about universal care in France: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124958049241511735.html France Fights Universal Care's High Cost When Laure Cuccarolo went into early labor on a recent Sunday night in a village in southern France, her only choice was to ask the local fire brigade to whisk her to a hospital 30 miles away. A closer one had been shuttered by cost cuts in France's universal health system. Doctors, trade unions and others have called national protests against French health-care cutbacks this year. One petition signed by prominent physicians said they feared the intent of the reform was to turn health care into a 'lucrative business' rather than a public service. France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics. In recent months, France imposed American-style "co-pays" on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. "A hospital doesn't need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment," President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors. And service cuts -- such as the closure of a maternity ward near Ms. Cuccarolo's home -- are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing. The French system's fragile solvency shows how tough it is to provide universal coverage while controlling costs, the professed twin goals of President Barack Obama's proposed overhaul. [France Fights Universal Care's High Cost] French taxpayers fund a state health insurer, Assurance Maladie, proportionally to their income, and patients get treatment even if they can't pay for it. France spends 11% of national output on health services, compared with 17% in the U.S., and routinely outranks the U.S. in infant mortality and some other health measures. The problem is that Assurance Maladie has been in the red since 1989. This year the annual shortfall is expected to reach €9.4 billion ($13.5 billion), and €15 billion in 2010, or roughly 10% of its budget ... Please let me know if you can read this (I have WSJ access).

renter for ever_san jose says

Then there is the issue of incentive. what incentive does a patient have in going to a nurse when the copay is the same whether he goes to a nurse or to a M.D ..nothing. the co-pay is the same. looks like health care is broken from both supply and demand side.

Absolutely a problem. This highlights the issue of why our current insurance system causes costs to spiral, because patients don't use health insurance as insurance (which by definition should cover catastrophic things not day to day charges). Unfortunately IMO, universal care tends to make this a larger problem as now everything is paid for by the government and patients aren't responsible for any of their spend on healthcare. This is why I feel that things like HSAs are the right answer, whereby a patient (or government subsidy) pays for the first X dollars of healthcare. Patients then are inclined to shop around and get the best value for their money. Then at a point once costs go over X dollars, all costs are paid for by insurance. This requires a serious amount of clarity in costs that currently do not exist in our system today.