patrick.net

what's going on is simple:

you are asking why your rent increased but the average went down...

the sample size of your observation: n=1

even if you polled all your friends your observation has inadequate power to evaluate the rents in the area...

rent is throwing money down the toilet

buy now before too late

just kidding about last 2 statements...are you paying attention!

Rents are rising, or so they say...
Average asking rates for apartments in the nine-county Bay Area reached $1,562 during the fourth quarter, up 9.4 percent from a year ago, according to a report released today by Novato research firm RealFacts. Prices are up 16.3 percent from four years ago.

or so they say…

Buy now or forever be a jealous bitter renter! :twisted:

Just another observation for people saying their rents didn't go down with the average in their area. The average includes new rental leases, I would not just sit back and expect an nice letter saying your rent is going down, on average means you should be able to open the paper and find a comparable house for less. Then you can try to negotiate it with your landlord if you have a lease coming due.

Ha it was about 1.5 years between laptops for me! And now Apple's biting the bullet because I'm just going to use this one until it's dead then use some thrift store special computer..... no more new lappys for me!

And as for 2nd life, I'm enjoying that right now. In this Life 2.0 I have time to learn the trumpet, and I just got a cool little cornet, made somewhere in the 1940s, today. Hopefully fairly soon I'll be playing Real Life (tm) I'll be the avatar playing trumpet or cornet downtown around Whiskey Row and hangin' at Cuppers.

Did you watch SICKO. There is a scene like this news item. GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Paraplegic man dumped in LA gutter sues hospital
Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:52pm EST
By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A mentally ill paraplegic man filed a lawsuit on Thursday against a hospital that dumped him in a gutter on Los Angeles' "Skid Row" -- a case that highlighted the plight of the city's vast homeless population.

Gabino Olvera, 42, sued the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for negligence after it discharged him in February 2007, took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city's homeless area.

Witnesses who came to Olvera's aid said they saw him dragging himself on the ground with hospital papers and documents clenched in his teeth while the driver sat in her van and applied makeup before driving off.

The incident was captured by security cameras at a nearby homeless shelter.

Hernan Vera, a lawyer with Public Counsel, which helped bring the lawsuit on behalf on Olvera, called it "the most obscene and callous example of this practice that we have seen."

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and seeks unspecified damages.

Hollywood Presbyterian said in a statement it had thoroughly reviewed its patient discharge policies to ensure nothing of the sort ever happened again.

The hospital added it had held extensive talks with Olvera's lawyers and remained optimistic about reaching a satisfactory out-of-court settlement.

The Olvera case was one of about 50 reported incidents in the past 12 months of sick, confused and homeless patients being left by ambulances in the 50-block area of downtown Los Angeles thought to have the highest concentration of homeless people in the United States.

Estimates of the number of homeless in the United States ranges from 500,000 to more than a million.

In Los Angeles, an estimated 12,000 people, many of them mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol, live and sleep on the streets of the area known as Skid Row.

Vera called Los Angeles "ground zero in the fight against unlawful dumping of homeless patients by hospitals."

Lawyers for Olvera said one of the goals of the lawsuit was to force local hospitals to change their practices.

In May, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the country's largest nonprofit health-care provider, settled a lawsuit involving the dumping of another patient by agreeing to find shelter places for all patients it discharges in Los Angeles.

Kaiser also agreed to improve discharge procedures and to contribute $500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row.

PAR said:
We have also been trying to fill about six open headcount spots since August and four of them remain open.

Do you work at a startup? Because I have heard from several people who are specifically looking for a NON startup employer.

PermaRenter, I feel a violent rage building when I read stories like that.

>> Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the country’s largest nonprofit health-care provider

If Kaiser is non profit, why it behaves like this. Is this because executives can take home fat pay by keeping cost low. I would like to understand Kaiser in more detail -- can any insider help?

I bought a refurbished, vintage 1911 concert tuba a couple years ago at my favorite instrument store in Oakland. It only works in life v1.0 though, and the 4th key is a bit sticky.

If Kaiser is non profit, why it behaves like this. Is this because executives can take home fat pay by keeping cost low. I would like to understand Kaiser in more detail — can any insider help?

In short, yes. Kaiser has always done things on the cheap. Their managers and MDs are incentivised to keep costs low. It's okay for some issues, IMO, like using generic drugs that are not only cheaper but have longer proven track records. But this system fails for other issues, like the homeless patient dumps in Skid Row. This story has been playing out for a couple of years now, BTW.

Kaiser's premiums are usually around 3-5x cheaper than other plans, but you get what you pay for.

My rent went up over the past couple years, but SFH rents here in Marin have definitely softened recently. 6 months ago all you'd see in CL was an occasional 3+BR house for between $3K-$4K/mo., and then a whole bunch for $7.5K-$8.5K/mo., right about mortgage-coverage level for recent buyers.

Now most all the homes are in the $3K range, and the "cover my mortgage please" people don't even bother. There are even occasional 5BR or nice 4BR homes under $4K, which I haven't seen the entire time since living here until now.

Hey, the more rents come down the cheaper houses have to get before I buy one. Or, they can just keep paying me to rent...

I am a nurse practitioner and have worked at Kaiser in various departments on and off for the last 30 years . I have worked at Kaiser in Oakland, Pleasanton and Walnut Creek. In my personal experience, it is a very ethical organization.

He cited the tech sector’s strength as a key factor contributing to the Bay Area’s 1.9 percent payroll employment growth

I am suspicious of the "tech" part - a lot of the crap that passes for tech these days is just some fancy-pants consumer-discretionary item with a chip.

Fortunes of companies in this sector ("Yes, I am looking at _you_, AAPL") will behave more like consumer product companies than like tech companies, so evaluating them as techs is somewhat misleading.

StuckInBA Says:
What ???? No comment on the DQ report ?

There was, on the _previous_ thread. Recycled here...

skibum Says:
I like their headline: “Bay Area home sales drag along bottom”

At least another quarter of dragging along the bottom, then a couple of quarters of sliding down the back of the thigh, a quarter dragging along the back of the knee, maybe a quick run down the shin, then circle the ankles for another quarter.

Let me know when it is tickling the sole, I may start looking at a house to buy.

The "tech sector" as a financial analyst target has always been a broad category comprising everything from hardware, software, overlap with chips, overlap with telecom, and overlap with "techy" appliances like gaming consoles. SAP and Oracle have as much in common with EA and Vivendi as Apple has in common with Google. They're called "techs" because they aren't car companies, oil drillers, drug producers, or the makers of the Swiffer.

So we were merrily watching our mid century Ventura stucco masterpiece drop every so nicely, about 5-10K a month and then WHAMO our house is "zestimated" at 50K more than we bought it for. Shit, I need this technology because I have a whole lot of history i would like to revise.

danville woman, Kaiser rocks!

Even at $3K plus, rents in the fortress are between 2 and 2.5% of asset value which is something like 200-250 bps below the historical average. Translation: rents can rise a long way before it makes much economic sense to buy.

Granted, in absolute terms it's hard to stomach paying that kind of rent - enough to comfortably cover the mortgage, property tax impound and maintenance on a pretty nice house in many, many parts of the country. Nonetheless, if you're here you've already made that choice...

The problem, of course, is that people don't make the buy decision dispassionately on the numbers - if they did, prices should plummet around here where people pay a massive premium to "own" that can't be justified (rationally) in an environment where appreciation is anything less than constant double digits.

Was it my schizophrenia or did Warren Buffett actually say the housing troubles won't affect the broader economy......just wondering.....

The bottom line is, if you can afford it, go with PPO.

In fact, the best doctors of the Bay Area do not even accept any insurance. They only take cash. That's my experience anyway, since we hooked up with a very good doctor whom we used to refer to all other practices (yeah, we are using him as the human search engine). Out of say, 10 recommendations he made, 6 of them accept cash only and accept no new patients, 4 of them on Blue Shield or Blue Cross PPO, and hesitate to take on new patients without strong referral from doctors they know well. We have to drop names to get on the patient list.

That's why I am a huge believer in MSAs with a catastrophic policy. I don't understand why people pay a bunch of money in insurance, go through paperwork hassles just so that they can have a cheap office visit. Just save the money, pay the office visit in cash and keep the insurance for something big, this mentality of not wanting to pay for something is really irritating.

Just save the money, pay the office visit in cash and keep the insurance for something big, this mentality of not wanting to pay for something is really irritating.

I totally agree.

Unless we allow Free Market to bring down health care costs we will all pay dearly in the future.

I laud Bush's veto of the children's insurance bill. If we allow special interest groups (Medicare is another example) separate access to health care, we will never have a reasonable and efficient system.

Randy H Says:

> My rent went up over the past couple years, but SFH
> rents here in Marin have definitely softened recently.
> 6 months ago all you’d see in CL was an occasional
> 3+BR house for between $3K-$4K/mo., and then a
> whole bunch for $7.5K-$8.5K/mo., right about
> mortgage-coverage level for recent buyers.

I don’t know if Randy has noticed it in Marin, but many of the apartment and rental home owners I know (even my parents the cheapest people in the world) have realized that spending $10K on a unit (granite counter tops and new stainless steel appliances) in an apartment will often bring in an extra $200 a month and spending $20K on a rental home will often bring in an extra $500 a month (a much better return than we are getting from money markets and CDs that are mostly below 5% these days). The owners of Parkmerced (the biggest apartment in SF) have invested over $60 million (more than $15K a unit) over the past couple years to improve the property.

Unless we allow Free Market to bring down health care costs we will all pay dearly in the future.

That is only true to a certain extent. To believe that free market forces will bring down health care costs, you have to argue for changing at least two fundamental paradigms in the current US healthcare system: financial incentives for hospitals and physicians, and CYA-based medical practice, which is a direct result of our over-litigious society.

Seeing how patient care is carried out by private practice clinics and hospitals, it's no wonder healthcare costs are huge. I see firsthand private MDs who will perform procedures, order tests, refer to subspecialists for completely unwarranted reasons. Unfortunately, the vast majority of patients don't realize that essentially they've been had by these "doctors." Why does this happen? Because hospital, clinic and physician compensation in most cases is based entirely on how many procedures, tests, consults they can bill. I hate to say this at risk the of sounding xenophobic, but there's a clear trend I've noticed of FMG's (foreign medical grads) being guilty of this bad behavior more so than US trained MDs as a whole. This is in contrast to one cost-containment strategy that does work at Kaiser - their physicians are salaried. Kaiser just goes too much in the opposite direction on occassion.

From a hospital's perspective, they make their money by billing insurance companies (including Medicaire) per procedure/test/consult as well. They recoup their costs handily for buying expensive equipment (the latest surgical tool, the latest MR scanner, etc.) by shoving as many patients through the system as possible. Also, because hospitals are compensated by diagnostic entity, meaning if someone comes in for say, a stroke, they are paid for what insurance thinks that diagnosis should be paid only, no matter how many days the patient is in the hospital. That's a less-publicized but important reason why hospitals are always trying to shove people out the door (see Skid Row reference above).

I won't even get started on the CYA style of practicing medicine we all do now because of fear of litigation. That's a whole other topic.

BTW, for a look at how private hospitals operate, check this out:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xskFo75Wdhs

Patrick,
I dunno why, but I have a comment in moderation. Thanks.

Malcolm Says:

> That’s why I am a huge believer in MSAs with a
> catastrophic policy.

So am I…

> I don’t understand why people pay a bunch of
> money in insurance, go through paperwork hassles
> just so that they can have a cheap office visit.

For the same reason that most Americans pay a bunch of money for new care with warrantees, and go through paperwork hassles just so they can save a few hundred in maintenance and repair costs every year (while the vehicles depreciate by thousands of dollars each years)

care = cars

The cash flow might look good but what about when the stainless is all scratched up? The conventional wisdom is that the first wave of renters will pay a little more for the luxury fixtures but then they ruin them and then you basically are back to square one. I don't mean to put anyone down, but without the ties owning something has, people tend to not take care of stuff. I used to replace broken appliances with brand new ones but only because the price difference between new and used was negligable, but it is heat breaking to put in a brand new oven, and then go back in a year or two later and basically not even be able to read the words and symbols because a tenant used the wrong cleaner on it. Then they argue that it is normal wear and tear. Yikes.

I never pay extra for extended warranties. Anyone who understands expected value or statistics will shy away from them.

I actually had a smart guy ask me once, well what about when you buy a lot of appliances? I said, it is like slot machines, the more trials, the more the valid the statistic becomes and it makes even less sense.

I was surprised by the question, he was an engineer.

The other classic example of stupid insurance, of course targeted to the largest demographic who will pay more to avoid paying for something, they shall remain nameless.

Funeral insurance. The average funeral cost...... So you buy insurance for the $6,000 cost and of course it is statistically set up to cost a lot more than $6,000. Why not just buy the plot and make the arrangements ahead of time?

The only insurance worth having is when the event would be traumatic and unaffordable, like a house buring down. Other than that, I don't believe in it.

Well, the current medical cost is so outrageous that even a small event can wipe out an average middle class family.

My wife had a small surgery last year, the hospital screwed up the billing code so that the insurance company declined the claim, causing the hospital to bill us directly, at a whopping $7,800, excluding doctor charges, which are actually very reasonable compared to this. Then we straightened out the billing code and insurance company processed it, bringing down the total cost to their negotiated rate of $1,700.

What the F@#%$! How come the hospital can charge so much more if the patient has NO insurance? Trust me, it was really a *small* surgery that is non life-threatening, non-traumatic at all. I believe that an average American family will find it hard to swallow a $8K medical bill if there is no insurance "gatekeeper" to bring down the cost, particularly for such a small procedure.

I have absolutely no idea how hospitals are run in this country. It just seems to me that they can charge whatever they want.

I say let's import doctors from the third world. I am sure we can get 80% of the result at 20% of the cost.

If we want to fix the medical system, we should lobby to eliminate Medicare. We need one pricing system. We want EITHER universal health care OR no state-sponsored health care at all.

Also, we need to disallow or limit punitive damages for malpractice.

The only insurance worth having is when the event would be traumatic and unaffordable, like a house buring down.

Or getting sued.

It really does not make sense for medical deductibles to go below $1000 per incident.

(Silly me, I used to have health insurance for my cats.)

Peter P,

My moderated comment addresses the issues you raise. I will add that importing more doctors from the "third world" will not improve the situation. Many of the sleazy MDs I deal with are FMGs (foreign medical grads). Of course, many are good docs as well, but there are disproportionately more sleazeballs, IMO.

Moreover, the problem is not overall not enough doctors. The problem is that (a) there are not enough good doctors, and (b) a mis-allocation of doctors - places like the Bay Area, LA, NY, Boston (ie, "desirable" places to live) have a glut of doctors, while rural areas generally have not enough.

Peter P,

I don't think doctor is the problem. I have enquired about the cost of these doctors who demand cash while operating at full capacity, the consultation is only around $200-250 per visit, which I am fine with. Surgery wise, they only charge $2-6K for most procedures, and I am ok with paying for this out of my pocket for the best doctors in the world, which I believe they are.

I have a problem with the freaking hospital! How can the hospital justify its $8K charge when the doctor's surgery fee is only less than $1K? It is not like my wife occupied a very fancy operation theater for an hour, not at all. Our first bill had a big miscellaneous item that cost $2K, what the f*ck is that for? If we were not mistakenly charged directly by the hospital, I would have never spent time trying to understand the hospital bill. It is the most difficult thing to comprehend in the world!

I think the cancer of the medical system lies in
1) drug company - I have never been to a doctor visit without seeing at least ONE drug saleswoman doing the house call.
2) hospital - it seems to me that most of costs are amortization of these super expensive equipment and newly erected buildings.

Mayor McCheese here... longtime lurker, first time poster.

I think this blog finally found a solution to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Apparently, Kaiser is required to find a place to stay for anyone visiting their hospitals who does not have a home.

A homeless person who goes into any other business (bar, hotel, retaurant) is just kicked out on the street. Thanks to Michael Moore and the LA Times, now Kaiser not only has to provide thousands of dollars of uncompensated medical care, paid for by the rest of us, they also have to find you a place to stay for the night afterwards.

Sooo, never fear, subprime loanowner! Any FB who loses their house to foreclosure can just go check in at the nearest Kaiser and the nice doctors and nurses there will be sure to find you a comfortable place to live. You'll even get a free taxi ride in the back of an ambulance! ANd you wonder why helath care is so expensive...