Petition against car tracking

Post by **Xest** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:30 pm

Are those tears I see Gandelf?

Post by **Lieva** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:35 pm

stick to the topics at hand and stop making it into person fights please.

Sharkith · Post by **Sharkith** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:53 pm

Lieva wrote:stick to the topics at hand and stop making it into person fights please.

I love it when you go all dominatrixy on us!

Gandelf · Post by **Gandelf** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:32 pm

Xest wrote:Are those tears I see Gandelf?

Do you mean "tears" as in those that one cries, or "tears" as in rips; as in "Gandelf tears open Xest's throat with a chainsaw" ?

Post by **Lieva** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:17 pm

ok that was ott gandelf.

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:27 pm

Lieva wrote:ok that was ott gandelf.

...was a quite lame attempt too...

/Ankh

Post by **Xest** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:28 pm

Yes Gandelf, stop it.

Satyn · Post by **Satyn** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:35 pm

haha this is funny ... that chainsaw comment was well euhm ... just terrible

Post by **Lairiodd** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:57 pm

Sharkith wrote:Nice analysis and it might be why the governement is now considering a flat tax rate.

The only thing I disagree with is private medical insurance - the social inequalities and the high tech medicine it generates leads to much higher costs in the long run.

.... so it is better not to allow anyone take advantage of high tech medicine because everyone cannot afford it.

The means that some rich people die (which is a bad thing) but also that the tech is never developed.

Also, every medical company wants as many customers as possible. They will want to get it to the mass market as fast as possible.

The real problem is lack of customer choice. This means that the link between producing effective treatments and getting extra profit is weakened. It becomes more about convincing government departments that your treatment is effective.

It has resulted in over 68% of Americans having no dental cover for example. So I do not think that medical insurance is the answer by a long shot. All of these systems have severe drawbacks you just have to learn to live with them.

The real problem here is that people won't settle for less than top, and if they can't get it, they buy nothing. Also, there are presumably laws which prevent companies from putting limits on what they will cover.

Sharkith · Post by **Sharkith** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 7:16 pm

Lairiodd wrote:.... so it is better not to allow anyone take advantage of high tech medicine because everyone cannot afford it.

The means that some rich people die (which is a bad thing) but also that the tech is never developed.

Also, every medical company wants as many customers as possible. They will want to get it to the mass market as fast as possible.

The real problem is lack of customer choice. This means that the link between producing effective treatments and getting extra profit is weakened. It becomes more about convincing government departments that your treatment is effective.

Well to be honest your using a consumer model for health which doesn't work. In health people do things to you its your body that is at stake and a lot of the time you have to defer to experts who it has been demonstrated time and time again do not even have evidence to support their treatments. This is why we have an evidence based movement. Its why for example we have NICE and why the EBD movement is so crucial (despite its obvious flaws).

We have to have the ability to decide what is a health treatment and what is clearly cosmetic or supplier induced (breast implants for example).

Simply implementing choice is asking for trouble. See below.

Lairiodd wrote:The real problem here is that people won't settle for less than top, and if they can't get it, they buy nothing. Also, there are presumably laws which prevent companies from putting limits on what they will cover.

Nope the evidence is that if you allow highly trained people to induce demand they will tend to do the best treatment they can. Patients are dependant on professionals to advise them on what oiptions are available and are not able to evaluate all of the options. In other words your rational choice model fails at the first hurdle. Its why pure economics is a failed model and its why most Americans cannot get dental cover.

Of course its the companies that are inducing demand in the professionals

In the UK Dental Professionals are rejecting the current contract on the basis of the same ideals you espouse. The consequence of this will be reduced access even though the public paid for their training....