a sense of perspective
 

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:54:33 -0600, wrote:

(snipped)

Um, I was referring to the _care_ available, not the accounting or
payment involved in that care. IOW, if someone needs treatment, and
accounting isn't factored in, the available care in the US is as about
as good as it gets. You'll get no argument from me about likelihood of
the absolute, total, and completely ****ed up state of the payment
scheme for that care.


That's almost exactly the opinions Medscape garnered in it's poll on
U.S. health care. Since they were polling medical professionals, I
paid attention.

Most decide that if you're white, well educated, and have good
insurance, it's quite excellent. After that there was general
agreement that a lot of change is needed.

That was before this Medicare prescription plan came up. Geeze. The
trial plan was bad. This seems to be more expensive to the end user
and to about as much effect. In the trial plan, I'd have had to pay
$50 per year to save $30 per year, leaving me with a net loss of $20.
In this one I'd have to pay something like $60 per month for a net
loss of $30 per month. I've decided that if I get something that
expensive I'm better off financially by just dying. Or going broke
and living in a tent in a State Forest in the summer and snowbirding
down to the Slab in winter.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli
email: lid (strip the .invalid to email)

a sense of perspective
 

"Peter Charles" wrote in message
...

You've forgotten more about your system than I'll ever know but when I
read your stuff here on this subject, you come off as a man who can't
see the wood for the trees.

That's what I get for trying to hit all the bases in a response. And I try
to avoid personal assaults and attacks, I don;t always succeed but I try.
Even LaCourse and Church on rare instances have valid points. Guess I will
just have to get more black and white. That and I had a three hour meeting
with health care lawyers today.

But in the end, outcome studies only measure those who are treated.

Actually the outcomes studies don't tell you much in the end. So as you say,
I'll see your study and raise you one.

No they are not, but I ask you, if you had a choice between waiting a
year for a hip replacement or waiting the rest of your life in vain,
what would you choose? Our non-care cases pale into total
insignificance when compared to yours.

In my wording you want to dissect, I stand by my statement which most folks
want to attack based on the same media you metion in canada. The care is
available in the US for all regardless of income. Paying for it is a problem
and it's getting worse. Not saying it is easy to get at those resources, but
it is there.

Much of the discussion around the cost of the US system centers around
hospitals and hospital care. Pharmacy costs, nursing homes, physicians, home
health, other providers all contribute to the costs. Hospitals in the US are
the providers of last resort for the indigent, uninsured, and the lazy. A
modified Canadian system probably wouldn't work in the US the scale would be
so much bigger. I wish I had the magic pill but I don't.

system, comes from two sources, the Canadian media who have vested
interests in making out that it is worse than it really is and
American medical industry giants who stand to make billions here if it
were torn down.

When GM and Ford move all their plants across the St. Lawrence maybe
somebody will wake up

Well don't get too cozy with them as many of them are willing to take
a substantial pay cut to come home -- that speaks volumes.

Never confuse being homesick with anything else. Of my personal involvement
with canadian docs that went back up north (5), four went north as afar as
NY state, VT, and MI. Close enough to visit the family and friends but not
too close g. Only one went back to Canada and he was a pyschiatrist. Never
did understand why one would leave the comforts of Montreal or Halifax for
Enid OK.

Wayne, when I read that piece, I wanted to dissassemble it in the
worst way. It was the one of the worst examples, one of the greatest
indictments of your system that I had ever read. In the final
analysis, I let it ride. It stood on its own merits. It's a shame
you can't see that.

What can't I see seriously? Hospitals are the provider of last resort in the
US by law. I don't like it. Can't do much about it. And it adds mightily to
the cost of the US system. I could have punctuated the sentence a little
better. As to everyone being honest, humans are humans everywhere, you can;t
tell me noone in Canada tries to cheat the system any.

I've got no beef with you other than maybe all them damn streamers and two
handed forerner rods . I know you like philosophical discussions and we can
take it to email if you'd like. Maybe you can even teach me the Queen's
English.

I've managed to stay out of all the other recent wierd threads and this one
until now. Back to lurk mode.

Wayne

a sense of perspective
 

In article ,
says...

Canada exports that too?

Yup, Tim Hortons


Now, are you guys actually exporting Tim Hortons, or did you
just run out of places to put them up there?

Kevin,
who once went into the men's room in the Tim Hortons on
South Pembina in Winnipeg, and found another Tim Hortons.


--
reply to:
kevin dot vang at minotstateu dot edu

a sense of perspective
 

"Wayne Knight" wrote in message
. ..
//snip//
I've managed to stay out of all the other recent wierd threads and this
one until now. Back to lurk mode.

Wayne

Speaking of lurk mode . . .

I went to T*******o yesterday. Rainy, cold, miserable weather. And big,
bright, hook-jawed rainbows. It's been too long since I'd been there and now
I need to get back quickly. Incredible.

Bob

a sense of perspective
 

Some of it (e.g., the Yellow Pages) served a useful purpose; most
of it served no socially-useful purpose at all. It merely enabled
the advertisers to reap monopoly profits.

Gosh, a full reply to your reply would take many pages, Wolfgang, but
here's a quickie:

I think that depends on who you mean by "the advertisers". If it's the
folks paying for the advertising, it's debatable at best.

Nicholas Samstag, lifelong ad man and ad director of Life mag, wrote a
book circa 1970 called _Bamboozled: How Business is Bamboozled by the
Ad Boys_. Theme: business firms are bamboozled by ad agencies into
spending far too much money on ads, because the ad agencies get 15% of
all they spend; the real winners are the agencies. (And the media,
which get 85 % of the money.)

(Aside: But NOT consumers, who think they're getting "free" TV but
they're not; they pay for it every time they buy an advertised
product. "Free" TV costs consumer families hundreds of dollars per
year )

However, even if they overspend, the FTC data showed that those big
spenders enjoyed profits 50% higher than those of firms that spent
little or nothing on advertising. So they weren't "losers."

(Samstag also presents an interesting argument that ad boys get so
accustomed to telling "half truths" they become unable to tell truth
from falsehood.)

While there have certainly been cases of monopolies (or near monopolies) reaping profits
attributable at least in part to successful advertising campaigns....

A list of the top 100 national (not retail) advertisers shows that
nearly all of them are "near monopolists" -- i.e., oligopolists, in
industries in which the four largest firms have more than 50% of the
market. Economists believe that is tantamount to monopoly.

In most cases, those firms sell "parity products," aka "homogeneous
packaged goods," so it is difficult to think of any other reason for
their monopoly profits than the advertising (and other forms of
promotion.)

it is more often the case that vast ad budgets benefit
the producers and distributors at least as much.....if not much more
than.....those paying for it.

As Paul Newman once said, "I think what we have here is a breakdown of
communication."

The firm paying for the ads IS the producer-- the manufacturer. If
you mean the producer *of the ads*, then that is the "agency." In the
lingo of the ad biz, the "advertiser" is the manufacturer of the
product, the guy who pays. The firm that makes the ads and buys the
space and time from the "media" is the "ad agency." (AKA "the ad
boys." )

The agency gets a "commission" (rebate) of 15% percent of whatever the
agency spend to buy space or time for the advertiser, aka "the
client." There are also other arrangements, but let's skip them.

A primary purpose of national advertiser is to "compel" the
distributors (wholesalers, retailers) to handle the advertiser's brand
on his--the manufacturer's-- terms. That is in fact how and why
national advertising (i.e., advertising by manufacturers, not
retailers), began back around 1880.) In the trade it's called
"forcing distribution."

Can you imagine opening a supermarket and NOT handling Bayer aspirin,
Campell's soup, Heinz ketchup, French's mustard, etc. etc.?

You may *think* all those ads on tv are there to persuade YOU to buy.
Often, they are not. They are there to impress the retailer into
stocking the product, and giving it prominent display. If he does
that, you will buy it, "because it's there." (I know that sounds
stupid, that's how consumer behave.)

To say that another way, a primary function of national advertising is
to avoid price competition-- to sell the brand to distributors without
having to meet the lower price offered by less well-known brands.

This has been testified to by quite a few manufacturers.

Retail markups on advertised brands are skimpy compared with the
markups retailers enjoy on private label and generic good, which is
why they handle them. A retailer would rather sell you his private
label or a generic at one dollar, than an advertised brand at two
dollars, because he gets to keep more of the one dollar than he gets
to keep of the two dollars.

Moreover, those huge budgets are typically
the provenance of companies locked in deadly competition with equally (or
near enough) large and prosperous (and all too often indistinguishable)
opponents........Coke-Pepsi.......Ford-GM.....Miller-Anheuser Busch.....the
various tobacco companies, etc.

All that is correct except for the word "competition." Any economist
will tell you that there is NO competition among those firms. There
is "rivalry." Quite different.

The problem is that laymen think of all that advertising hoopla and
noise as "competition." To an economist, it is not. The measure of
competition is the INability of a seller to set his price. The Kansas
wheat farmer is the oft-cited "ideal type' of a true competitor. He
has no influence at all over price. He is a "price taker," not a
"price maker."

In a truly competitive market, consumers are able to buy the products
at minimal prices. Prices that just cover the cost of production,
including a normal profit for the seller(s).

I'll bet you know you are not able to buy Coke, Pepsi, Fords, Bud,
etc, at prices that just cover the cost of production.

vince

a sense of perspective
 

"daytripper" wrote in message
...

To Dicklet: Your fortune cookie: "You are remarkably dishonest"

No **** Tripper. This is the same Dicklet who was playing like such an
expert on Arabia and oil and the Mid -east and how Bush and the Cheneys of
this world knew what was best. Ditto with some others here, but most at
least have enough honor to cool it when all the Chickenhawk war fever
bull**** starts to stink.

But some here are menches; they are disappointed that what they thought was
a better group to lead the Nation, turned out to be incompetent, immoral and
corrupt. And they know its time to cut off the lying ****ants. You do not
ask American soldiers to play target in some Neocon wet dream of "Nation
building." Only a Chickenhawk, or some mindless ticket-puncher would think
that a Marine's death in some open-ended **** hole tribal war was in the
USAs national interest. Its time to bring our troops home and say **** it:
let the Iraqis sort out their own ****.

Think about this: When Dick Cheney was a private sector scumbag he opposed
and under-cut US sanctions against Iran and Iraq. In Libya he used a
subsidiary to do business prohibited of US companies. Now he gets to
supervise the torture of POWs and lecture Americans on what is patriotic?
These people have no loyalty to this country or its people.

Like Dicklet said once, he has "interests", thats all.

Dave
Ideology sucks bigtime

a sense of perspective
 

"Bob Patton" wrote in message
...
"Wayne Knight" wrote in message
. ..

and now I need to get back quickly. Incredible.

Weekend of the 3rd maybe? Tommy has his annual xmas thing and I might be in
town.

a sense of perspective
 

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 00:07:31 GMT, "Thomas Littleton"
wrote:

thanks for beating me to a link for that data. Hey, Dave doesn't have to
risk his life supporting this farce of a "War on Terror"; that will fall to
his grandchildren.

If we don't win, it *will* fall to my grandkids. That's one reason
why I want us to stay the course and beat them over *there*, not here.


I have called no one cowardly. But, I do know some reservists who
have said it isn't fair for them to go to Iraq. It seems they didn't
join the reserves to actually fight. iI repeat again: one shouldn't
be in the reserves if he isn't ready to place his life on the line for
his country.

a sense of perspective
 

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 00:49:09 GMT, rw
wrote:

No, not Dave's grandchildren. It will fall to poor people's
grandchildren, the ones without a trust fund.

My grandkids have no trust fund. One has already tried to enlist in
the Air Force but was rejected because of an alergy.

They are both registered and I doubt would flee to Canada or claim a
*student status* (like some) to avoid the draft.

a sense of perspective
 

daytripper wrote:

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:38:39 GMT, Jeff wrote:
btw, did you see the news of the recent report on charitable giving? it
states (albeit, on shaky statistical grounds) that Southerners are the
most charitable, with Northeasterners (NH is 1st, and Mass. is 2d) the
most miserly. g


Not shaky at all. Questionable, yeah.

The "Catalogue of Philanthropy" issued the report you're likely referring to.
It bases their rankings using just two factors: wealth vs giving. They refer
to it as "how much you can afford to give vs how much you gave. Whatever, it's
giving as % of income, without regard to cost of living variations, by
geography.

ie: Someone pulling in $150K who gives $15K to charity would rank below
someone making $25K who gives $2.5K. Figure out where each lives and you have
your "study".

There was another such study published recently that used differing
methodology (factoring cost-of-living, etc) with significantly different
results. In that study, MA and most of New England were in the top dozen
states.

/daytripper

i was just pulling dave's leg a bit over the charity thing... as far as
the rankings, imo, there is no way to accurately gauge such things
because much of the genuine and best form of "giving" goes unreported
and unknown...private kindness with no expectation of reward, praise, or
tax deduction.

most rankings seem subject to question, no? hell, east carolina
university here in "gruhnville" was 1st in rankings of colleges' ugliest
football uniforms. i gotta admit purple ain't as cute as powder blue or
orange, but ugliest in the country? ...shaky *and* questionable.

jeff