Y2HH

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 01:57 PM) anybody hear about mlb at bat 2009 for iphone tomorrow getting live streaming video? says for OS 3.0 only, so i guess that means we're getting os 3.0 tomorrow 3.0 came out hours ago.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 10:55 AM) This is complete B.S. actually. The ER is full of people with sniffles or headaches because when you're uninsured, most doctors won't treat you...the only place that is legally required to treat you is an E.R. It's a stupid system since having sick people go to the E.R. is ridiculously expensive and it's a key part of the fact that something like 60% of bankruptcies in this country happen because of medical bills, but that's the system we've built up as the only way of dealing with the 45-50 million continuously uninsured/80 million+ who go uninsured for at least part of a year. These people shouldn't even be at a doctors office, is my point. Either way, whether they do this in an ER or a doctors office (with a universal free plan that won't be free) they're abusing the resources available that I'll undoubtedly have to help them pay for. People need not go to a doctor for the flu, or a cold, or a minor sore throat -- STAY HOME. You go to doctors if symptoms persist or worsen over a span of days, not when you sniffle once or twice. People receiving "free" care are the ones that abuse this, the fact that most people with insurance have "co-pays" keeps them from going to the doctors office, or ER, or wherever else for things like a headache.

I've viewed TCQ as lost for the season the day he went down with this.

QUOTE (Moneyman @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:19 PM) What's up? I'm new to Sox-Talk. I help run The Batters Eye (New advertising deal here) and I love talking baseball no matter who the team is. I look foreward to sharing my thoughts on the White Sox and the rest of baseball on here. My main team is the Brewers. We have gone through several rough patches 3-4 years ago, but are finally playing great baseball which is great for the city of Milwaukee. If you have any questions please ask, otherwise, I'll see you guys around. And Hi.

QUOTE (qwerty @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 01:05 AM) Alright. I deleted my previous post. It was far from nice. I have been drinking spirytus rektyfikowany, gin, and tequila, since 5:35 p.m. Spirytus should not be legal. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Now I wanna see it.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 08:20 AM) Oops, I forgot I don't have a PPO (I have POS since I don't need referrals very often and because HMO f***ing blows, I figure if there is a situation where someone needs referrals more than once a year I'll pay the extra money). I stand corrected on that point. My larger point was about the long waits to see doctors though. When I was in the military (coincidentally, government-run, but that's not my point and I don't want a government-run system) my wait times were dramatically lower than they are now. I just find the quality-of-service argument to be not true, in my experience. Although that is probably where I live and who my doctor is. Don't forget, military doctors are only for military personal -- so seeing them would obviously be faster than if they had to treat every American that walked in the door. If you want to see free healthcare in action, go to just about any emergency room, Mercy hospital is a great example of this. The ER waiting room will be 100% full of people with a sniffle or headache, and I'm not kidding. Why do they care?! They aren't paying for it anyway...so what we get is hospital waiting rooms full of people with minor ailments that chicken soup and rest would cure. Last year I took my father to the ER (Mercy), because he was bleeding from his nose -- his BP was 290/180 (that's not a typo) -- he was simply lucky that his nose gave out before his brain due to the immense pressure. We get there, and he's bleeding nonstop, with rags of blood on his nose in an ER full people with colds or minor flu like symptoms. Again, NOT kidding -- they had f***ing colds and they're sitting in an ER for some free theraflu and checkups. The ER is for emergencies, like say, bleeding profusely for hours on end due to extreme blood pressure, NOT colds. People tend to abuse things that are free, therefore the system they will undoubtedly have to put in place in any universal system is -- we get to decide who needs treatment and who doesn't...the question is, who is that we who will be deciding, and do the people actually WANT them deciding such things? I sure as hell do not.

QUOTE (LosMediasBlancas @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:50 PM) Creatine is the only supplement that has ever given me any real results.... even more than protein. The only results it's given you is water weight gain in your muscles, so they make you look bigger, but they add nothing unless you are a vegetarian. I say this because creatine is an abundant byproduct found in meat/fish, so if you are a meat eater, you're already maxed on your usable creatine intake -- whereas vegetarians will often have less of this byproduct available to them. For meat eaters, the only thing the extra creatine load does is fill your muscles with water. And even then -- I think it's in people heads.

They will make up this lost game in Sept.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 08:03 AM) ??? How is this true? If I went into my doctor's office and said "I want an MRI" he would look at me like I was crazy. I have a f***ed up shoulder ATM that will eventually need physical therapy and he did refer me for X-rays (which I have not gone to do yet for some reason), but I didn't just request it, I had to explain it and he examined my shoulder. Furthermore, the time between me calling to set that appointment and actually get seen was about 2 months. Part of this is just me probably having a doctor with too many patients and I need to switch, the other part of it is some mythical version of the American healthcare system I keep hearing about that simply doesn't exist. Granted, you are right, there is not nor has there ever been a problem with the QUALITY of healthcare in this system, no doubt it's the best. That's a paradox though. Quality costs money and at some point, the cost becomes prohibitive. I would love to drive a Lexus right now, and I could probably afford the payments, but it would be pretty dumb of me to go sell my Impala for a Lexus in my current financial situation. That's basic budgeting, and as NSS was saying, that choice has been thoroughly taken away from the consumer in the current situation so it can't even be called a free market. How is it true? It's true because it's true. There is no reason for you to see a general practitioner for a recommendation/referral if you have a PPO or the money to request said services -- you can do that freely, anywhere you want, anytime you want. I never go to a general practitioner for referrals -- I go right into the experts office and say I'd like X service please -- but I also work for Blue Cross so I kinda get whatever I want. :> That said, anyone with a PPO based plan can do this, it's only with HMO's that you need referrals to be covered. And there are offices/specialists that only do these types of services, and as I've said before, if you have the means/insurance, they'll perform these tests on you upon request. The issue for some people is they have HMO's, which require referrals for coverage. For example, earlier this year I needed to see a mouth/throat specialist and just called and made an appt with a random one I researched/was board certified, etc...one day later I was in his office being checked as there was no need for me to see my general practitioner for referral. PPOs are more expensive, though.

I'd take Webb -- but Harden is too fragile, so no thanks.

From what I gather, a lot of people seem to think "Universal healthcare" is the same exact healthcare they get now, only they won't have to pay as much -- at least, in theory -- as higher taxes would obviously have to subsidize this. Whatever the case, the point is, they think they will get the same exact care they get now but for far less money, rich or poor, sickness or health. The problem is, that's incorrect. The care will not be the same, nor will the system of getting that care be the same. I keep hearing people repeat how 3rd world our healthcare system is compared to Canada, Mexico, [insert Country Name here], etc...but they leave out a lot of information on these "universal" plans. My advice is to stop watching Michael Moore movies where 90% of the information is left on the cutting room floor to help him make his biased point(s). First and foremost, we have the *best* healthcare there is -- for those who can afford insurance or have jobs that supply insurance...bar none -- nobody with universal care comes close. This is why the highest paid most skilled doctors/surgeons work here, because they get well compensated for said expertise. Now, there isn't a universal plan in existence where you can go to a hospital and say, "You know what, my knee hurts so I'd like an MRI", and have them actually give you that MRI. In the system we have here, you CAN do that, if you have the insurance or other means. People seem to be convinced nothing will change, when in fact they will ask a series of questions -- and if it's determined that you don't have a pressing need to have your knee checked, it won't be -- they'll send you into a waiting list where you'll get to wait 3-4 months (or however long their backlog is) before they even begin to treat you. I'm not sure about some of you, but I like having the choices and power I have to go into any doctors office or hospital I want and REQUEST care because I know somethings bothering me -- if for nothing else other than piece of mind. I don't want or need someone determining if I need a procedure based on my livelihood, or if I can "live with it for now". And I know some of you will deny what I've said -- say how wrong I am and how it doesn't work this way...but it does work that way, regardless of what people in favor of this "free" healthcare say, and that includes Michael Moore.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 12:40 PM) I read the book Blackwater, which is definitely worth the time. Its got some bias in it that you have to look past, but the factual material (not the analysis) is really fascinating stuff. I have a hard time looking past biased writing, regardless of what side it's on -- it really irks me and merely casts doubt over everything the person says.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:52 AM) Creatine from my experience just made me hold a ton of water. I will say it helped a bit with recovery, but mostly I was just swollen. I've had better luck with a good lean protein shake. In what I call my 'workout prime' I tried both powder creatine and liquid creatine -- the powder form had what I called a water weight side effect, where my muscles would fill with water, and other than that I had no effects in recovery or otherwise that I could notice (without convincing myself), the liquid form did nothing at all. Creatine, as far as I am concerned, was and is a gimmick supplement.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:15 AM) We can also throw out this specific case study and look at a larger data pool. Dartmouth college has for years published studies using a calculated index for the performance of health care between states and compared that data to the amount spent on health care by specific states. Here is what the data look like for basically every year: Basically, there really is no current correlation in this country between the quality of care given and the amount spent on it, in either the private or public health care markets. Here are some detailed responses, including several links to full studies, regarding the "Utillization" argument that HH is trying to make that somehow there's a demographic difference that is important. I will have to read this.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:07 AM) McAllen ranks below El Paso in quality of service across the board. Yet charges twice as much to Medicare. It was my understanding he says they were equal -- no better/no worse -- yet I still know nothing about the people performing this care. To say everything, from doctors, to nurses, to technology is absolutely equal is impossible as far as I'm concerned, at least, unless you're writing a paper and want to send a message. If everything is absolutely equal -- of even slightly worse in some cases -- yet they're charging 2x more, it should be pretty easy to bring them up on charges on allegedly attempting to defraud the medicare/medicaid system, right? So why aren't they?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 11:06 AM) That's why he analyzed the data in the way that he did; he went to 2 towns in similar areas with very similar demographic makeups in terms of race, age, economic state, etc. Similar people, demographics, races, ages and economic states have nothing to do with treatment types. It's cheaper to treat a person with a headache than a brain tumor. My question is/was, does the El Paso hospital treat the EXACT same types of patients? It's very rare that every hospital treats every type of patient in the same manner with the same expertise. See Mercy vs Northwestern, etc...this is no different as far as I'm concerned. I'm skeptical, at best, that both of those hospitals have the EXACT same doctors performing the exact same treatments -- which is the only valid comparison I would know of. But if hospital A is paying their more experienced surgeons 5x more than hospital B, to say their treatments are absolutely equal without giving any data on the types of people performing them is a shady way of reporting it, IMO, and it comes across as an opinion, rather than fact based on comparison.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:58 AM) How do I know that when I step outside leaving my job today I won't be struck by lightning? I'm not accepting what the article Rex posted says as gospel (in fact, believe it or not, I'm more on your side than you think), it's that it's kind of hard to actually talk about what's in the article if you keep citing things from/about it that are incontrovertibly false. Source evaluation for academic purposes is one thing, but at some point you have to take a professional journalist's opinion at some level of face value, enough to be used as a reliable source. Otherwise WTF is the point of talking about anything at all? It's not like he cited a Huffington Post blogger or one of Nate Silver's 538 blog opinions. While I agree -- I've lost just about all trust I've ever had for the media over the past few years, as nobody is reporting facts anymore, not even journalists, but spin and opinion that sway things in their own agendas favor. It's sad that it's come to this...but it has. I'm skeptical on everything I read these days, no matter who writes it, because this isn't just commonplace now, but accepted. I'd love to believe articles like this, but with missing data -- and very important data -- it's impossible to agree. Like I said, I'd like to see the types of patients they treat, did he compare data to only similar patients, or did he say -- take a terminal cancer patient (because they happen to only be treated at hospital a) and compare it to a different sort of patient (because they don't even treat terminal cancer patients in El Paso), for example? It leaves important details like that out -- therefore I'm skeptical of the 2x the cost number he's throwing around while saying everything is the exact same, from technology to 'treatment' without ever saying what sort of treatment.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:46 AM) Really? You're killing me man. edit for your edit: The author also says treatments AND technologies and says they're no different than the rest of the country. How are you coming to these conclusions? So because the author says it, it must be 1000000% true? What's his agenda, does he have one on either side? Is there something we aren't being told about that specific treatment center -- for example, does that more expensive hospital tend to treat higher risk patients or patients with sicknesses that cannot be treated elsewhere, there is just a lot being left out...and like I said, it's all being left up to our assumptions. You see, I question things, even if I read them on the internet, it's easy to make opinions look like fact by tossing around official titles or themes when writing these papers. Sure, some of it could be from over testing and abuse of the system -- isn't that part of the reform to put a stop to this? But I'm sure there will be many more things that can be done aside from just that.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:40 AM) Until you get to the next page: Note he says "no evidence" on treatments, but the fact that the updated tech, building, tools, etc, costs more is the answer why, even if the writer doesn't want to admit it. It's easy to read between the lines here, the updated technologies obviously offer more and cost more, the say otherwise is insane. And it's possible because they're running a bunch of unnecessary tests -- or a plethora of other reasons, none of which the article actually uncovers...it just leaves it up to assumption.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 10:35 AM) Then why does El Paso have half the cost per patient? http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06...fa_fact_gawande A paragraph later than the one you quoted explains why.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 08:55 AM) I don't think we need to look at cutting Doctor salaries - I think we need to look closer at having doctors do less of the medical work. This is already a trend underway, of course. But I think a lot of things we currently go to "the doctor" for - regular checkups, immunizations, many basic treatments - can be handled well by medical professionals who are not doctors and whose time is cheaper. Agreed.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 08:39 AM) That's sorta my point. It's the one thing that we consistently hear from politicians who are opposed to a public option as the lynch pin of lowering health care costs... even though it affects costs much less than people think. I think the bottom line is that everyone is in agreement something needs to be done -- I just think it needs to be an option where the Government isn't in control of this new "insurance company", it would become a monopoly (regardless of what they say, it would), that I have no interest in dealing with. Cutting costs is one thing, via the proper measures, but handing control of this to an entity that can dictate pricing across the board, which essentially would cause a mass exodus of talented/trained people from that industry isn't the way to go about it. Some of you don't seem to care, probably because you've never been seriously ill, but I'd prefer an experienced/educated physician working on me/my family in times such as this who is properly compensated instead of someone that can care less because they would have made more money doing something easier that required far less education and dedication. In short, yes, money talks. I wouldn't be doing what I do right now if I wasn't paid what I'm paid, neither will doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc, to think they will is again -- dreaming.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 16, 2009 -> 08:18 AM) The Google search link you provided: 24,700 results Google search for "fraudulent malpractice cases" (a little better): 644,000 results Google search for "ufo sightings" 1,050,000 results Just saying Oh I know, which is why I'd prefer to keep Google searches out of this, because if you really want to find something that agrees with your side of an argument on Google, you probably will. I agree, and I was only using it as an example that the problem exists, I wasn't trying to say that 99% of ALL cases brought to the insurance companies are fraud, everyone knows that's a damn lie. The fact that insurance companies have to bother hiring PI's (at the rate they do) says it all as far as I'm concerned. We shouldn't have to worry about this as much as we do, and of course someones going to pay for these PI's and fraudulent insurance collections and it's not the insurance companies, no, they simply transfer that fee onto you and I. All I'm trying to say is the problem exists and that it should be looked into -- as part of an overall reform bill. As someone above said, no, it's not the ONLY problem with the healthcare system, but it IS one of them, and all of it needs to be looked into, rather than the government cherry picking only certain things. Look, I'm of the mindset that if you are going to overhaul something and fix it, fix everything rather than applying bandaid after bandaid, and I'm skeptical that the government can successfully fix an already expensive system and make it cheaper -- I find this to be an absolute pipedream since nothing our government does becomes cheaper.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 15, 2009 -> 10:13 PM) You gave nothing but anecdotes in response to presented data saying that 66% of lawsuits were judged to be meritorious and the others almost always failed. You say that separating the real from the fake is necessary, and yet the data that I posted suggests that very few frivolous cases are paid and even some of the meritorious cases are beaten in the courts. When there are tens of thousands of cases and examples of actual mistakes in this country, finding the anecdotes for the fraudulent ones are going to be absolutely simple if there is a motivated industry or interest group interested in publicisizing them. I performed the same Google search you did. It's all anecdotes. The only data I'm seeing out there is the Harvard Study, a summary of which I linked. And then you threw out the McDonalds scalding a person with their ridiculously hot coffee as an example. I think my point is made. So let me get this right, all of your Google information is correct, but mine is nothing more than anecdotal? And the "study" you pointed too has no spin, at all? And this can be proven? Harvard is loaded with people all over with their own personal agendas, and this may be just another case of spin...regardless, one study on the matter doesn't make it 100% correct. Don't tell me, you believe everything PETA writes, too, because they do the research and post papers so they must be true! Give me a break. Also, you conveniently ignore, if that study is 100% correct in every way, that 33% of the lawsuits ARE frivolous, and you find that acceptable. I find that funny. You see, even if the other 33% of the suits fail -- they're still tying these doctors/lawyers/courts up in the system, and none of that time spent/lost comes for free, so please, stop acting like it does. Just because the patients are found, in that study, to lose these cases more often than they win them that the entire proceeding never happens, and all the time of all the people involved isn't wasted -- not to mention the money! Your point is negated.