patrick.net

I hope that was good therapy for the snowflake that made it. I'm sure Donald got a good chuckle out of it, I know I did.

YesYNot says

People have paid into the system and are owed huge benefits

A big theoretical difference is the actual benefits don't need to cost nearly so much. With already more than a third going to waste, fraud, and abuse (I still say more than 50%), a more efficient system should deliver better results at lower cost.

The problem in the medical sector is not the people who have paid in and are owed benefits. The problem is the pigs at the trough who maximize the cost, including unnecessary and injurious "benefits," and lobby for more of the same. To the extent the two problems are related, it's because patients have become like hostages with Stockholm Syndrome, taking on the perspective of their captors. Patients demand more subsidies rather than lower costs, because that's what their captors/providers tell them is best.

I love that new wife smell.

curious2 says

Patients demand more subsidies rather than lower costs, because that's what their captors/providers tell them is best.

This.

This is not a violent meme.

I am going to miss mean old O'Reilly beating liberals to a pulp with his Jesus statue.

It's going to be hard to find somebody with the same aura of grandiose, prickish self righteousness. Many are called, but few can pull it off.

It's a revolt of the fading beauty leg-crossers!

jazz music says

Straw Man says

With what army?

Heheh the army of people that have their eyes opened to looking at no access to health care they can afford because the system is all about maximizing speculator passive gains for doing nothing, ohhh yeaaaaahhhhh.

You don't have said army at your disposal judging from the results of the last election. So there is nothing to "push" with. Try again after winning. Want me to remind you when the next election is? Hint: it's not "now". Your timing is waaay off.

curious2 says

According to YOUR LINK, he "used total medical expenditures for each country using OECD data."

Go lower for the comment by the author of the study itself that says it only captures government spending. You are still claiming the study covers all health care spending? How is that? You don't believe the person who wrote the study?

Leaving out private insurance in the US is absurd when comparing to other countries that have only government health care spending. It makes the chart meaningless.

curious2 says

American per capita spending remains the highest in the world,

That's not what the chart is meant to show. It shows American per capiita spending equal to other countries then exploding at 60-65. Put private insurance into the under 65 numbers and pull the bogus numbers out of over 65 it will be a very different chart with very different conclusions.

US health care spending is far higher than other countries at every age. It doesn't just explode at 60 and it doesn't go anywhere near $45,000 a year per capita for 70 year olds. You and Ironbrain screaming the chart shows it's all medicare's fault is absurd. Medicare is a problem but there are plenty of other equally big problems driving up health care spending.

Ironman says

Yes, you normally do... Now how do you explain this chart??

This is great, this chart actually shows how stupid the other chart is. Thanks for posting it.

I'd like to see Jesse Watters--I always enjoy his interviews with people on the street.

Is scraping a lob out of your shorts and eating it live on national television an impeachable offense?

bob2356 says

curious2 says

According to YOUR LINK, he "used total medical expenditures for each country using OECD data."

Go lower for the comment by the author of the study itself that says it only captures government spending.

"From a quick perusal of the comments on this and other sites, I find that there is no agreement as to what is wrong with the graph, aside from the comment that it only captures government spending (which implies that it should be a lower bound). I have tracked several of the links that have been proposed to provide results and have found it difficult to extract a single common truth.

The medical expenditure panel survey has 2010 total expenses as being $1.26 trillion."

You seem to have omitted "the comment that", and the conclusion "difficult to extract a single common truth" from your selective quotation. Paul Fischbeck and Dan Munro defended the chart while offering to improve it if others could provide better data. I have likewise invited you to produce a better chart. So far, you presented only partial data, which is what you accuse Fischbeck of doing, and he does not appear to concede that point. Even if, as you contend, his chart shows only government data, then that would not explain the huge disparity between the US and other countries in that age cohort.

This is much ado about very little, as you attack (as usual) without posting a more accurate total. You attack one graph while ignoring the many text links that support the same overall conclusion regarding entrepreneurial over-utilization driving higher costs. The McAllen vs El Paso article reported on a 2:1 disparity attributed to doctors' entrepreneurial over-utilization of Medicare. You seem to react defensively perhaps because your own income depends on your wife's medical practice, and you keep saying the cost problem doesn't result from doctors' salaries. You seem to ignore capital gains from shares in diagnostic lab corporations, in addition to illegal kickbacks from diagnostic labs, for example, in order to say it's all someone else's fault. Maybe you feel guilty because billing is your job and maybe you haven't figured out how to cash in the way many others do. I have tried to be as even-handed as possible, faulting primarily the hospital corporations (the biggest and most lethal revenue recipients, taking 40% of total medical spending for the whole population, and much of that from Medicare), the insurance companies, the drug companies, and doctors. You seem unable to handle the fact that doctors have a role in entrepreneurial over-utilization of Medicare, and so you keep fighting a chart while ignoring the tsunami of information on this point. The bottom line, from your linked source, is that nobody produced a better chart clearly contradicting the first; they debated some few trees, as you do, but not the overall forest.

At they very top of the list:

curious2 says

It's mainly the hospital executives and other institutional pressures that drive the big ticket over-utilization,

Thanks for your post.

Another one: The revolving door of Nursing Home to C Diff Hospitalization. Contract C Diff, kept in Hospital only a few days, back in Nursing Home. C Diff comes back again, back to Hospital. And then back to the nursing home before the C DIff is wiped out... ready to get it again and spread it to others.

Blurtman says

It's a revolt of the fading beauty leg-crossers!

Bitches finally decided they needed to cash in their sexual harassment chits while somebody would still believe they were worth harassing.

The Fox News beaver criss crossings have gone into lockdown!

"Just because I flash beaver for career advancement doesn't mean I am a bad person!"

theoakman says

I'll buy 5 oz the day it goes under $1000.

You'll likely have your chance... Not so sure you will have to wait 2 yrs. or more but perhaps.

You do have to give Kim credit, he does not limit his options.

A sprout of common sense, let's see if it blooms into something

Maher is right. Free speech is a really big deal and the left is taking very strong steps to put further limitations on it. Its sad and I'm glad Maher spoke out so strongly in favor of it.

Kim Jong Un is overdue a killing.

United should have Reaccommodated Dr Dao on a flight to North Korea and sacrificed the dope slinging deviant upon the alter of the almighty Kimfuck!

He's only paraded Ameirca's Liberal elites on his program yelled at them and called them pussies and demanded they do more for the last 20 years.
What more did he expect his pleas for facism to do?

You make no sense TPB. ASking liberal to truly be liberals (rather than moving to the void in the middle left by republicans that are now far right), is far different then asking them to be authoritarian.

Those whackos are an extreme minority of the left.

marcus says

You make no sense TPB. ASking liberal to truly be liberals (rather than moving to the void in the middle left by republicans that are now far right), is far different then asking them to be authoritarian.

Those whackos are an extreme minority of the left.

Thats really quirky coming from a guy who accepts the extreme minority of instances of police/whites/anyone but blacks shooting other blacks simply because it makes the news for a few months while politically expedient.

marcus says

Those whackos are an extreme minority of the left.

No they are not, they are the voice of the party these days (Democratic party that is). And it's huge part of why Democrats lost, because party was taken over by loud wackos. BLM started out somewhat reasonably, turned into a movement for anarchists and delinquents who hate white people. Same with Democratic party, it's nothing now but a group of crazies screaming hatred for whites, feminist crap hatred for men, and random race baiting shit. That's all your party is these days. Reasonable people have left, Maher is just pointing it out.

This is why tasers were invented: to stun the children and moms and stuff them into their seats.

Problem with Maher is he talks out both sides of mouth

Guy gave million dollars to obama super PAC

I DON'T like Maher but I like this.

Right. If they shoot a few babys in the face, they won't have to worry about this behavior any more.

Maher really impresses me. I didn't think liberals had a nausea reflex.

APOCALYPSEFUCK_is_ADORABLE says

Ceffer says

Right. If they shoot a few babys in the face, they won't have to worry about this behavior any more.

Exactly and a lot of them, let's be realistic, will be terrorists.

Every parent of a 2yo can tell you, they're all terrorists. To annihilate them as part of the Global War on Terror, airlines offer them free passage as lap children.

Hater says

Does anyone know what the ideal temp and co2 percentage is for human life.

This is an extremely vague question. That is one reason no one has engaged.
Ideal for who?
Are you talking only physiologically or through secondary effects?
Would a huge plague that reduced human population by 90% ultimately be good for human life?

Science is settled by theory and experiment. It is not settled by debate. Debate is just what you have before science is settled, before people become aware of the speed science, and to a lesser extent when some new evidence comes along that seems to contradict known theories. Occasionally it does contradict and change things, but usually it just needs an explanation.

Science, by definition, is never 'settled'...
It remains forever in a state of flux, offering up experiment and result, but never the Final Word...

YesYNot says

Science is settled by theory and experiment. It is not settled by debate.

Fucking White Male says

Thats really quirky coming from a guy who accepts the extreme minority of instances of police/whites/anyone but blacks shooting other blacks simply because it makes the news for a few months while politically expedient.

Literate much ? I have no idea what you're saying, but I could guess. You think I'm not critical enough of black dirt bags that shoot other blacks and that I'm overly critical of incompetent cops and pussy cops that are afraid of their own shadows. It's totally wrong of me to think that we should demand cops be competant especially with respect to discharging their firearms in to citizens.

Ironman says

So explain this:

Why don't you play devils advocate and predict what I'll say. I'll help out if you get it wrong.

www.youtube.com/embed/Y_AV_V3utWM

www.youtube.com/embed/zQ7q5qH-tWU

Fuck airlines.

Ironman, your trolling is found wanting.

Hater, your question is vague. What is best for humanity is not a scientific question. What science can tell us what is likely to happen to our climate. That's it. How we assess risk, pay for the costs, etc is political. How we value damages and benefits to different people's is subjective.