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SiddGames

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Posts posted by SiddGames

  2. Posted

    My gang all thoroughly enjoyed it. Very well done, especially for $30MM. I felt tense for much of the movie as I couldn't really tell what direction they were going to go with it. Maybe the studios are feeling dumb now for not letting Blomkamp and Jackson make the Halo movie, heh.

  3. Posted

    We already ration. Here is an excellent article on the NY Times regarding it.

    "The choice isn’t between rationing and not rationing. It’s between rationing well and rationing badly. Given that the United States devotes far more of its economy to health care than other rich countries, and gets worse results by many measures, it’s hard to argue that we are now rationing very rationally."

    Also, something that many who point the finger at the big bad rationing English fail to mention is that DESPITE rationing, or perhaps (as you allude to) because of it, they have better health care than us and greater longevity.

    The New Yorker article goes in-depth into cost vs. quality. The big culprit is (surprise) profit-seeking physicians, not patients seeking additional care or tests because their insurance is footing the bill.

    "Americans like to believe that, with most things, more is better. But research suggests that where medicine is concerned it may actually be worse. For example, Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic dominates the scene, has fantastically high levels of technological capability and quality, but its Medicare spending is in the lowest fifteen per cent of the country—$6,688 per enrollee in 2006, which is eight thousand dollars less than the figure for McAllen. Two economists working at Dartmouth, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra, found that the more money Medicare spent per person in a given state the lower that state’s quality ranking tended to be. In fact, the four states with the highest levels of spending—Louisiana, Texas, California, and Florida—were near the bottom of the national rankings on the quality of patient care."

    And unless the trend in profit-seeking physicians is reversed, this is what we can look forward to if everywhere becomes like McAllen:

    "In a few cases, the hospital executive told me, he’d seen the behavior cross over into what seemed like outright fraud. “I’ve had doctors here come up to me and say, ‘You want me to admit patients to your hospital, you’re going to have to pay me.’ ”

    “How much?” I asked.

    “The amounts—all of them were over a hundred thousand dollars per year,” he said. The doctors were specific. The most he was asked for was five hundred thousand dollars per year.

    He didn’t pay any of them, he said: “I mean, I gotta sleep at night.” And he emphasized that these were just a handful of doctors. But he had never been asked for a kickback before coming to McAllen."

     

  5. Posted

    CaseyVa said:

     

    At the end of the day, however, I am confident that we can make the nation healthier with little extra cost as most costs stem from prolonging life beyond what a normal person would consider reasonable and by treating chronic problems before they have need to be rushed to an ER.

     

     

    Coincidentally, I was just referred today to an EXCELLENT article on health care costs vs. health care quality. I think this is a MUST READ article for everyone remotely interested in the topic. It takes an apolitical (IMO) look at the health care in the costliest county in the costliest country in the world, and tries to figure out why. It is both unsurprising and shocking. (It's also lengthy, but well worth the time.)

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

    edit: clickified the URL.

  6. Posted

    Here's another tangent. I came across this while reading up on the general topic in the last few weeks.

    http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1547

    The author basically claims the AMA, acting as a labor union, is the primary driver for the scarcity of physicians in the United States. I'm all for people with highly specialized and extensive education making good money, but if this article is true, it seems pretty shady that the "supply" of physicians is artificially restricted despite the overwhelming demand.

  8. Posted

    FPL is open for teams again, as the season starts Aug 15th. I have renewed the Tulsa Premier League. The join code is: 574186-126585

    Also, if anyone is interested, they now allow player head-to-head leagues. I've created one of those for my BGG group; the join code is: 574186-126885

  9. Posted

    Talk about straw man. USSR, PRC, Cuba, Romania, Yugoslavia - whatever - those were/are all dictatorships and oligarchies, not socialist states despite the name. Let's not confuse true socialism with totalitarianism and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.

    Artaban said:

    And the fact that the numbers for the "political class" were so out of line with those from the rest of America just strengthens my argument that the government is the New Aristocracy.

    And it strengthens my view that many people are idiots and will ***** about taxes without provocation. And no, there shouldn't be a ~ on this line.

    Artaban said:

    Just as important as defining socialism is knowing where the “tipping point” is...when is the momentum such, the rapidity of changes so great, that there is no stopping the course of things, no matter how much we may want to reverse course. When is it too late to undo the changes and the subsequent damage? I think we’re getting there, if we aren’t there already.

    The funny thing is, three or four years ago I would have said the same thing about our great country's slide into fascism. I was getting pretty bitter about how frakked up America had become under Bush. That we had state-endorsed torture was bad, but that there was even a discussion about whether it was morally wrong? That's awful.

  10. Posted

    bloodycelt said:

    I don't mind socialism, but I think we also need to step back from the giving our rights away to feel safe. Sure there are terrorists out there but one should consider the cost of freedom, I'd rather have more privacy and less police state and get blown up, then be safe but without privacy. This isn't dismissive of those who have been victims of 9/11 or Oklahoma, etc. But think about the people who died for our independence, died taking down facist govermnents, people who have died for other people's freedom. Don't you think one should be willing to take a risk for your own freedom?

    +1

    "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

    - Benjamin Franklin

  11. Posted

    I actually signed back up on the forums because a friend and I have started playing some AGOT again after, geez, a 4 or 5 year hiatus, I think. We're just playing some of our old Winter Edition-era decks. I like what I see in the LCG rules - I think we're going to end up buying the base game just to get the title cards, etc.

    Anyhoo, while I'm here, though, I wanted to shill for a contest I'm in. Stride Gum took suggestions for a new name for one of their flavors, Nonstop Mint. One of mine made the final ten and voting is now open. If you are so inclined, please go by and vote for my entry, PERMAMINT.

    www.stridegum.com/#/nonstopmint/

    Unfortunately, you have to register to vote, so I know that's a big turn-off to a lot of people, heh.

    So what's new in AGOT land? Does everyone here play the LCG now or is it just the same crew that likes to chit chat about the world?

  12. Posted

    I'm just a simple cave man. Your modern ways frighten and confuse me. But, what do banks and investment institutions have to do with "government control of the means of production?" Banks don't actually produce anything... yeah, sure, capital, but I'd prefer a tighter definition of socialism for the purposes of the discussion, then.

    Hi all, long time no see. I don't know why I'm spouting off in here again, I can't check on these forums nearly as often as I used to sad.gif Any way, good to see the usual reasonable debates are alive and well in the ol' Off Topic area...

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