patrick.net

*yawn*

I see we've completely rolled through the arguments and have wrapped back around to the beginning. I an't wait for death panels again!

Kevin says

*yawn*
I see we’ve completely rolled through the arguments and have wrapped back around to the beginning. I an’t wait for death panels again!

Honey, let's let the kids learn on their own. Sometimes it takes multiple failures before they figure it out.

Kevin says

*yawn*
I see we’ve completely rolled through the arguments and have wrapped back around to the beginning. I an’t wait for death panels again!

Translation: The truth is to painful. Prophesy more lies about how great it would be to have GubmintCare.

Nomograph says

Go pedophiles!

I like their team mascot.

Congrats NOMO and ELLIE MAY on reaching a new low. I didn't know you had it in you. Sorry to underestimate your capacity for finding a way to creep lower than the bottom of the gutter.

If you want to talk about corruption consider the "services" you render to society. Are you compensated above, below or at par with the contribution you make? And why?

Nomograph and Elliemae - take a hike and go away
remarks like your's are pretty sick - it makes one think, what makes you tick?
between you both, you have no brain - its clear to see, you're both insane
(or probably just liberals).

Honest Abe, 2010.

http://www.edinahigh70.org/woking/

I worked on the NHS Systems a number of years ago and for the most part the healthcare was pretty good. See above link.

The latest snafu from NIH:

Patients' medical records go online without consent
Patients’ confidential medical records are being placed on a controversial NHS database without their knowledge, doctors’ leaders have warned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7408379/Patients-medical-records-go-online-without-consent.html

Nomograph says

AdHominem says

Congrats NOMO and ELLIE MAY on reaching a new low.

Thank you. It was worth it if it helps you understand how corrupted your logic can be.

Nah - I think that we could always sink lower. But thanks for the praise.

AdHominem says

The latest snafu from NIH:
Patients’ medical records go online without consent

Patients’ confidential medical records are being placed on a controversial NHS database without their knowledge, doctors’ leaders have warned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7408379/Patients-medical-records-go-online-without-consent.html

I think they are referring to the Summery Database that all the systems tie into. It is a very secure system.

An interesting story about our efforts with the NHS upgrade. We were developing and installing the Carecast HIS software that ran on an HP Nonstop Server. Based on the software and hardware, had the NHS gone with us nationwide, we would have had a fantastic very scalable, very secure, cost effective system. The summary database would not have been needed.

One problem the NHS made was bringing in a bunch of H1-B's who knew nothing about electronic medical records. Yes, they were cheap, but they had no technical knowledge.

The smell from the break room with these guys cooking curry. Ugh!

Fish and Chips at my favorite pub.

Mrs. Vicente is from Italy, the horrible "socialized" medicine there saved her sister's life. Italian servizio sanitario nazionale is ranked #2 in the world by the WHO. She like many is baffled why we tolerate the broken US system, and in fact cling to it like a toddler to a broken doll. The UK is #18 on that list, I can see poster's motive if they have to go down 17 ranks and cherry-pick a story about it. USA is #37 despite the fact it's spending as %GDP is 2nd highest in the world.

Nomograph says

AdHominem says

I was simply interested to know if NOMO believes he is worth more, less or equal to what he has “earned.”

OK, I’ll bite. I believe I am worth exactly what I have earned. I say this with confidence because I had no inheritance or entitlement to speak of. What wealth I have amassed comes entirely from my labor, savings, and investments. Nobody has given me wealth nor has anyone stolen my wealth. My net worth is exactly what I’ve earned.
Now you can tell us all how I’m wrong. I’ll be waiting with baited breath.

I was wrong! I'm sitting here with egg on my whiskers. It's giving me paws for thought.

We measure wealth in dollars but wealth isn't money. Wealth isn't even goods that we buy with money -- Wealth at its basics is the state of being well.

On topic, this thread about the NHS is interesting in that medical providers are in the front-lines of wealth creation and preservation. Medicine is labor and skill intensive. There is an immense amount of rentierism going on in this sector in the US because we all naturally value our health highly, barriers to entry wrt the health services market, and the asymmetry of information between provider and consumer is so great.

In Japan they've decided to purge the bulk of this rentierism out of the system and consumer prices are much closer to the actual COGS. Canada is similar in that service providers must choose either the public insurance system with its cost controls or the private system and can't double-dip into both consumer pools. The UK decided to rationalize this by just running medicine en toto as a unified social service like the police or national defense.

In the ideal economy, people are worth a portion of the wealth they've contributed to the community through their labor; though through savings, people can also acquire wealth through interest return on lending and not just the wages on their labor. This is the core of the capitalist system -- capital risk & reward -- and historically has worked reasonably well.

Capitalism only runs off the rails when it devolves into rent-seeking, and given the fixed supply of land, real estate is a primary attractor of this rentierism.

The entire structure of modern economics was intentionally created at its foundation to blur this basic reality.

http://blog.lvrg.org.au/2009/03/pure-poison-on-land-tax.html

is something I found this week that I liked.

Nomograph says

I believe I am worth exactly what I have earned.

Congratulations. Here we have a medical doctor who asserts his labor, and investments are exactly equal to the worth he has provided to the community.

Let us examine some pertinent facts regarding this assertion. First, this man's education was apparently subsidized by the taxpayer as a GI bill (funded from deficit spending by the DOD) recipient and perhaps even an attender of a “state” university. But it is good to invest in education right?, so there is no real drawback for us as community members to subsidize the education of talented young men as NOMO certainly once was. And there are limited number of students and medical programs so this is a big deal.

Why are there such a limited supply of seats in medical schools? Well we can only assume it is in the patient's best interests because we all know that the AMA is looking out for patients first and would never put their own salaries ahead of the health and well being of the American people.

So he gets his education, earns a degree and passes the licensee requirements. Oh, yes there are license requirements that restrict the supply of physicians further. But this is in our best interests too. It makes sense that we pay a man $200 an hour when he steps into our room for 5 minutes (if we are lucky) because after all there is a limited supply of doctors. And it takes a lot of expertise to interpret a blood pressure reading and prescribe an ACE Inhibitor. It makes it more acceptable to charge these rates when he has a license to practice extortion (er I mean medicine).

And since most people pay cash upfront for the majority of their care, these are the free market prices that develop naturally when no one is coerced to pay for something they don't need nor take advantage of a “benefit” they wouldn't willingly pay for.

So yeah, NOMO like most doctors and wall street executives earns exactly what he is worth. And the great part for him is that he can use his above average earning potential to further his economic gains over those poorer than him by investing his honestly earned income in real estate and other instruments like hedge funds that benefit society.

Let us be happy for NOMO. Too bad we don't have more people like him, the world would be such a better place.

Seriously though, I don't begrudge you your standing (in fact mine is quite similar to yours). Just find it hard for you to consider it righteous. Your industry is a corrupt monopoly, and the AMA does not have the public's best interests at heart. If it did the PtB/AMA would be pushing to train many more students in medical school right now and they would be working to lower tuition costs rather than raise them. Furthermore the PtB/AMA would be looking to delegate more tasks like prescribing and diagnosing yeast and ear infections to lower level practitioners to help reign in costs and increase access.

AdHominem says

Let us be happy for NOMO. Too bad we don’t have more people like him, the world would be such a better place.

Nomo:
Ad hom wishes that everyone could be like you! You should go out & celebrate. He says that you can certainly afford to do so, and use your blessed life to squash the dreams of those around you. You know, leave meager tips and negotiate charges down because you're too good to pay full price. Drive big gas-hogs and leave them running in your driveway just because you can. And throw your candy wrappers on the ground, let someone else pick them up...

He doesn't begrudge your "standing," but will stoop to demeaning you at every turn. He states that his "standing" is quite similar to yours, so he obviously doesn't understand that your day-job isn't always a true reflection of who you are as a human being. I dare say that he pales in comparison to you when it comes to personal and professional accomplishments. How much you make doesn't make you a good person. In other words, I think you could wipe your ass with him, figuratively speaking.

Adhom doesn't realize that when he resorts to personal attacks, his messsage is lost. If he had one to begin with (beyond "I'm a victim," "Liberals bad," and "I can be pertinent")

However, since he brought it up, since I clearly subsidized your career which was "apparently subsidized by the GI bill funded by DOD deficit spending," I'd appreciate your "perhaps state-college educated" once awesome ass thanking me.

I like flowers.

I shouldn't believe every thing Adhom shouts? Wow, now you tell me.
Damn, Nomo. I didn't buy your education? Well, then, I should thank you for partially subsidizing my education with those Pell Grants & Work Study dollars. Do you like flowers?
BTW, reread your post and caught the beav comment. Once again, nomo made me sneeze liquid out my nose!

Nomograph says

AdHominem says

Why are there such a limited supply of seats in medical schools? Well we can only assume it is in the patient’s best interests because we all know that the AMA is looking out for patients first and would never put their own salaries ahead of the health and well being of the American people.

I understand now; someone didn’t get in to medical school. It’s much easier to blame “the system” for one’s shortcomings rather than face the fact of having been out competed by one’s peers. Medical school admissions are highly competitive for a reason; we want the best, brightest, and most motivated people possible in these positions. Unfortunately, these traits often come with large egos . . .

Are you gonna try & tell me that doctors are people too? From what I can gather, you don't hang out with the docs that Ad hom runs into in his VERY important, highly paid, top secret job in the medical field. I'm wondering if it's possible that the docs that he encounters are offended by his attitude?

Unfortunately, I'm not a highly paid medical worker and therefore am not part of the secret club of asshole doctors. Just about every doc I know is a kind, caring (but overworked) person with a family and a life outside of medicine (even though that's hard to do sometimes). Occasionally, during the course of my employment, I'm reminded who is the physician and who is not - but goes with the territory.

More power to you Nomo.

Like I said, I just find it hard to believe you consider yourself righteous, let alone the AMA.

BTW you are silly if you think this was a personal attack. Nothing personal about it. Must you be a victim? Why are you afraid of bringing light to the situation?

Have I said anything that is not true regarding your situation?

AdHominem says

BTW you are silly if you think this was a personal attack. Nothing personal about it. Must you be a victim? Why are you afraid of bringing light to the situation?

Who said anything about a personal attack? Did I miss something?

AdHominem says

Like I said, I just find it hard to believe you consider yourself righteous, let alone the AMA.

Personal attack.

tatupu70 says

AdHominem says

BTW you are silly if you think this was a personal attack. Nothing personal about it. Must you be a victim? Why are you afraid of bringing light to the situation?

Who said anything about a personal attack? Did I miss something?

Apparently yes you did. See Ellie's posts along the thread.