Comments for Derek's Rantings and Ravings 2.0

Comment on I Declare A Fatwa On Dunkin’ Donuts by The Gods of Vice

The Gods of Vice — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 20:05:35 +0000

This entry made me laugh. I wish I had the power to put places with crappy customer service out of business! People suffer through it too much, they should always voice their dissatisfaction.

Comment on How To Destroy An Entire Industry – The Healthcare Edition by Ask Bjoern Hansen

Ask Bjoern Hansen — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:07:56 +0000

I agree with Josh.

Comment on The Kindle by Ask Bjoern Hansen

Ask Bjoern Hansen — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:03:17 +0000

I like reading the new yorker and the atlantic monthly on our kindle. (Annoyingly the iPhone app doesn’t let you read the magazines).

Comment on How To Destroy An Entire Industry – The Healthcare Edition by Josh

Josh — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:00:49 +0000

I agree with DanB — the problem is that congress didn’t do this right. Health care should not be a for profit industry the way it is. It should be a fundamental service like law enforcement or fire fighting. Either a Canada system (single payer) or a Britain system (doctors are government workers) is preferable to the mess we have now. Lack of health care is a bigger threat to more people in this country than terrorists, but for some reason that gets glossed over… I wish the left would do a better job of picking its talking points.
Worth noting that this half-ass solution is the result of intense lobbying by the health insurance industry, so they made their own bed, however, to answer your questions:
a) Congress has the power to tax. Congress can legally levy a tax, and then exempt people who have health insurance, which is actually what they’ve done as I understand it. This is the same sort of thing as exempting mortgage interest from taxable income to encourage home ownership.
b) maybe if the health “insurance” industry crumbles, congress won’t have the lobby pressure from them against doing it right and providing health care as a fundamental service. Besides, since doctors already can’t refuse care, we all pay for the uninsured now in our premiums as it is. Bob who has no job or insurance and gets shot in the “hood” doesn’t magically come up with $500k to pay for 3 operations, and a 2 month hospital stay. Joe who has cancer but no coverage because it’s a pre-existing condition doesn’t magically pay for his ER visit before he dies of the disease… it gets eaten by the hospital, which gets passed on in higher costs to those who pay, which is usually the insurance industry. And last, see the answer to (a) above… the individual mandate will pass the courts if presented as a tax, so if it gets briefly tossed it’ll make it’s way back in a form that will survive judicial review.
I’ll grant you that doing this right is going to be expensive (initially) and painful, but fundamentally, everyone should have access to health care when they are sick. And if they actually did it right, it wouldn’t be more expensive… if you carve out lawyers (tort reform) and the insurance industry, then yes, they don’t like that, but it makes health care costs go down on the whole rather than up.

Comment on How To Destroy An Entire Industry – The Healthcare Edition by DanB

DanB — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:08:30 +0000

The problem is that congress screwed up. There should be national health care, available to all at little or no cost depending on ability to pay. That program should allow pre-existing conditions. That system should be something like a typical HMO – a lot of restrictions on where you can get treatment, but adequate coverage. The existing health plans should be able to continue providing additional coverage, at more facilities and charge you for it.
In short: There ought to be national health care that is better than nothing, but not as good as what you pay extra for

Comment on Obama Doesn’t Understand “Zero-Sum Game” by Josh

Josh — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:13:12 +0000

While in concept what you say above is true, but reforming health care is more complicated than that. For one thing, we have a tiered tax system, so 10,000,000 people pay an average of $50 each, but it divides out differently than that. For another, private health insurance carries as much if not more overhead as government insurance does… and if they don’t private health insurance is looking to turn a profit where the government would be looking to break even… but actually I do think it will cost the country MORE to socialize health care than the status quo. Not because of bloat, but because of the 1,000,000 people who NEED the $500 operation, right now (making numbers up, but the point is valid) only 250,000 have coverage or the means to pay for the operation, so 750,000 make due WITHOUT the operation. Or they have it because the hospital can’t refuse care, and then default on the payments, and we the taxpayer end up paying for it anyway.
The issue comes down to, in real life terms, whether you think 10 year old Tommy should die of an untreated infection because he was born to a poor family who can’t afford proper health care, so that XYZ corp can post $0.01/share more in profit for Q1, and whether 12 year old Jane should have rotted out teeth because her parents companies don’t provide quality dental coverage, so that Joe Wealthy can bring home $10500 every two weeks instead of $10000 every two weeks. Republicans don’t like to talk about it in those terms, but that really is what it comes down to.
Nationalizing health care may be a zero or negative sum game, but it’s downright shameful that a nation as advanced as the United States has large segments of the population who can’t get proper health care because they can’t afford it.
Oh and by the way, one last point, in some cases you can “drive down costs” by being bigger. Not that I think our government is that skilled, but ask Wal-Mart suppliers what Wal-Mart can do to them in terms of driving down costs. I’m sure private health care and drug companies are scared to death of this sort of outcome, but it is there.

Comment on 0U PDUs, Part Deux by cbl

cbl — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:33:10 +0000

I am a fan of them..but ONLY if the rack is the extra-wide edition. This means the PDU outlets are facing towards rear and not inside. I learned to not use the cable management brackets provided with the 0U PDUs and rather stick with short 1 to 2 foot power cables.

Comment on This Has All Happened Before, It Will All Happen Again by Funkknight

Funkknight — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:38:35 +0000

The Daniel thing had a lot of potential and the way it was introduced just fit. It’s surprising that it actually didn’t go anywhere.
Everything boiling down to be “God’s plan”, was a mixed thing for me. After all that happen there was this angle where only the guilty seemed to want to have faith in God(s) but everyone else had totally given up. And to swing it around like this, was a way of restoring the viewers and some of the characters faith.
On the other hand it did start to border Deus Ex Machina, on the way it came in. Yeah they always talked about it, but it kind of came forward like I dunno, saying that Star Wars 4, 5 and 6 was a story only about Vader, years after it’s been said and done.
The capstone didn’t sit well with me. Major reason being that it pulled you out of the BSG universe and put you back at home. I wasn’t ready to be pulled out of that universe yet. Along those lines, suspension of disbelief was harder to maintain and all of the inconsistencies started to flood in while watching Head Six and Gauis which was a total escapism buzz kill.
Every scene with the Cylons was awesome. The red stripes moving in formation, colonials and cylons boarding the ship together, the little jokes where a red stripe head shots an old-school cylon. I never saw the original, but I got a kick out of seeing the old-school cylons, and based on how much I loved those scenes, anyone who has seen the original must of been in heaven….. no pun intended.

Comment on Presidential Nit-Picking by blog.unitedheroes.net

blog.unitedheroes.net — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:14:25 +0000

well, there was David Rice Atchison…

Comment on What Happened To “Snow”? by Josh

Josh — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:38:17 +0000

It may cost a small fortune to live in the valley, but sometimes I look at the weather map for the country, and then stroll outside in short sleeves smiling
(it’s actually unseasonably warm here; highs have been in the mid 70s all week)