3 minutes ago, austinfan said:

 

Obama made the right move with the Affordable Care Act, by expanding coverage, including preexisting conditions, it made more Americans aware of the lousy health care they could afford (though the Democrats aren't willing to take on tax subsidies for corporate and government health care - since it's income, it should be taxed, people who don't get that kind of health care have to pay their premiums with after tax dollars). It'll take decades to move to some sort of universal health care (the top 5% will always get better care, those Canadians who come to America for special treatment are the wealthy), but it's inevitable now that the cat's out of the bag.

Once Trump goes, the Republican party will implode, since there is no other individual who can keep his coalition of working class whites, oligarchs and evangelicals together, since they are not a stable mix. As the base ages (core of support is white males over 40, COVID may speed up its erosion since they don't believe in masks and many are obese), the Republicans are destined to become a minority party, and it won't surprise me if a new party emerges out of moderate Republicans if the Democrats skew hard left.

Obama was 2-faced with the affordable care act.  On one hand, he panders to the public about affordability and costs, on the other he caters to his blood sucking lobby of lawyers (no offense) shooting down tort reform, which is an absolutely necessary step to curb costs in any "healthcare for all system."

You can't pinch the healthcare system from both ends, yet that's exactly what he wanted to do.

People have been afraid of the base of the republican party dying off for years.  As people progress through life and want to protect what they've earned, they start leaning right.  

11 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

I am for healthcare for all.  That’s a given.  The ACA was not a bad attempt.  If we have healthcare for all, then everybody has to participate in the cost, be it a tax or an individual mandate. It doesn’t work otherwise. 

The problem with most folk is they really don’t understand the healthcare industry at all or just little pieces of it.  It is almost a fifth of our GDP.   When I talk with a lot of Progressives, they walk away from me when I start talking details of the proposed Medicare for All.  The most common answer is to just make Medicare available for everybody. Ask about Plan C and D and they usually have no idea what you are talking about. Medicare Plan D is optional by the way.  It is way more complicated than that.

BTW, if you travel out of the country and are on Medicare, you should either purchase travel insurance with medical or a Medicare Advantage policy or Medigap policy that cover out of country risk.

With Medicare going to ICD 10 codes, that required billing go to those codes  it also required all insurers to use those codes  The injury and treatment codes are a nightmare but they won’t go away with Medicare for All.  

It Is a myth that 31 of 32 industrialized countries have universal healthcare for all, that it is unlimited or that it rivals what is available in the US.  Let’s use Canada as an example  Close to three fourths of Canadiens have supplemental health insurance, usually paid for by their employers mostly like many In the US.  In contrast only about 8% of UK residents use private healthcare and purchase supplemental insurance  There is a limit to what provincial insurers pay in Canada and some things are not covered.  Because of limits, there is out of pocket expenses, which can be covered by the supplemental plan  

Could we be more efficient? Absolutely.  There are solutions to consider.  I am not sure a plan that fixes health prices universally fits the powers allotted the Federal government in the Constitution.  I remember when some were talking about controlling prices during Ford’s WIN but since nothing was ever legislated, I don’t think the Courts ever considered the issue. NCIggles may know more of this as my Constitutional law is a bit rusty. Pretty sure the laissez faire court said no but some of their decisions have been overruled since then. 

I can only speak to my experience with healthcare for all.

I lived in England for 4 years and was the only American on our street. My neighbor was a longshoreman and one time showed me what he was paying for the national health service. I don't remember the exact amount, after all it was 40 years ago, but I was amazed. he also said his employer had to pay an equal amount to what was taken from his pay.

One time he broke his finger on the job. They didn't have a doctor on ER duty who spoke English. Later his wife needed a hysterectomy. She had to wait for 7 months in pain.

I've personally lived under a form of Medicare for all since 1976. Emergency service has been good and primary care has been good some places and terrible in others as one would expect.

If you want to know what Medicare for all would be like you just have to look at the VA. Anytime you make something "free" people are going to flock to it which creates shortages.

I'm not against the concept of socialized medicine but I have ZERO faith the government can run it efficiently. They sure don't do anything else efficiently.

4 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Obama was 2-faced with the affordable care act.  On one hand, he panders to the public about affordability and costs, on the other he caters to his blood sucking lobby of lawyers (no offense) shooting down tort reform, which is an absolutely necessary step to curb costs in any "healthcare for all system."

You can't pinch the healthcare system from both ends, yet that's exactly what he wanted to do.

People have been afraid of the base of the republican party dying off for years.  As people progress through life and want to protect what they've earned, they start leaning right.  

Tort reform is an urban myth. There are lots of empirical studies to show the impact of tort liability is grossly exaggerated, and it is primarily a substitute for a lack of regulation - you can either regulate through government, through the legal system, or allow fraud, incompetence and gross negligence to go unchecked. All those horror stories of huge jury judgements tend to ignore that courts generally throw out those judgements on appeal, the few that stand are punitive punishments when a corporation is guilty of gross negligence or outright culpability.

8 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Obama was 2-faced with the affordable care act.  On one hand, he panders to the public about affordability and costs, on the other he caters to his blood sucking lobby of lawyers (no offense) shooting down tort reform, which is an absolutely necessary step to curb costs in any "healthcare for all system."

You can't pinch the healthcare system from both ends, yet that's exactly what he wanted to do.

People have been afraid of the base of the republican party dying off for years.  As people progress through life and want to protect what they've earned, they start leaning right.  

Under the ACA my in laws health insurance coverage tripled. They're no where near the 1%

1 minute ago, austinfan said:

Tort reform is an urban myth. There are lots of empirical studies to show the impact of tort liability is grossly exaggerated, and it is primarily a substitute for a lack of regulation - you can either regulate through government, through the legal system, or allow fraud, incompetence and gross negligence to go unchecked. All those horror stories of huge jury judgements tend to ignore that courts generally throw out those judgements on appeal, the few that stand are punitive punishments when a corporation is guilty of gross negligence or outright culpability.

😆😆A myth.  I guess I should expect that position from a lawyer.  

8 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Obama was 2-faced with the affordable care act.  On one hand, he panders to the public about affordability and costs, on the other he caters to his blood sucking lobby of lawyers (no offense) shooting down tort reform, which is an absolutely necessary step to curb costs in any "healthcare for all system."

You can't pinch the healthcare system from both ends, yet that's exactly what he wanted to do.

People have been afraid of the base of the republican party dying off for years.  As people progress through life and want to protect what they've earned, they start leaning right.  

People's political positions for life are generally set by the time they're 30, they may moderate to some extent from youthful exuberance, but the huge gap in under 40 support for Democrats v Republicans will not change as that cohort ages. The shift in the 1970s was due primarily to the Southern strategy, based on racism, and secondarily on cultural war which shifted white working support toward the Republican party - it was more the Democrats moving away from that group on cultural issues than that group changing its attitudes. Problem is, the "60s" are over and the "hippies" won - the under 40 and college educated generally accept the change in mores (toleration of homosexuality, "me too", opposition to racism, etc). Which is why the Republican party is doomed - instead of moving to the center, the move by Gingrich et al to go hard right paid off in the short run but has the party up a dead end alley as a combination of demographics (a multi-racial society) and the growth of the under 40 cohort (the younger part is more left than the older group, so over time the country will become more liberal).

One preview into the future of "idealized" healthcare from the left is gynecological care.  Again, I'm not defending the right here, but there is some perception that the left, Obama, and the ACA figured this out.

GYN care is universal.  You could be an undocumented immigrant with no insurance, a wealthy 23 year old who chose not to buy insurance, medicaid, or someone with insurance...you have access to GYN care in one way or another.  Most OB/GYN departments in urban hospitals are primarily compensated with medicaid payments from the government.  The same progressive politicians in these regions won't entertain any tort reform.  So these departments are relying on government medicaid payments for their revenue and are paying malpractice rates of over $500,000 annually per doc.  OB/GYN departments lose 10's of millions per year, every year, and hospitals need to allocate from other departments remain whole.  University medical centers and schools actively discourage grads and resources from going in this direction.

So when you go to meet with the doc for the birth of your child/grandchild, keep in mind that you are seeing one of the least intelligent grads from their class, who barely got through their 4 years, and who now has been furnished with the least amount of resources possible to do his or her job.  The politicians and the blog lawyer say it's fine though....but at least he'll be the first one to call you when your kid is diagnosed with autism at 3 years of age so you can sue the OB/GYN.  

1 hour ago, PrinceKelby said:

1000 1000 is pretty tough to do.

Westy could have done it a few times if not for injury and only a couple before him we're able to do so.

Are we talking this year or sometime in his career?

Career I would out at maybe 40% or a little lower chance while this year's would be more around 20% or a little lower.

I was thinking this year. I love sports betting, and the more I've thought about it, the more I think there might be opportunity for a high upside value bet.

Last year he had 800 rushing and 500 receiving yards on 179 rushing attempts and 63 passing targets. That was sharing time early with Howard as well, and I think with the lack of depth at RB this year he's going to get a lot more reps.

From a team analysis view, he has little competition at the position AND I think the offense is set up perfectly to inflate his receiving numbers. With all of the speed we now have at WR plus Ertz and Goedert, plus Sanders'offseason emphasis on pass catching, I think Miles is set up perfectly to have a massive breakout year.

You put it at 15-20%, I'd put it at about a 10% probability.  But I wonder if the bookmakers might have it even lower at about a 5% chance, in which case with that kind of payout I'd be very interested in making the bet.  I think 1000 and 800 might be close to 50%, and I could also see the bookies putting that at 30% or so.

2 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

One preview into the future of "idealized" healthcare from the left is gynecological care.  Again, I'm not defending the right here, but there is some perception that the left, Obama, and the ACA figured this out.

GYN care is universal.  You could be an undocumented immigrant with no insurance, a wealthy 23 year old who chose not to buy insurance, medicaid, or someone with insurance...you have access to GYN care in one way or another.  Most OB/GYN departments in urban hospitals are primarily compensated with medicaid payments from the government.  The same progressive politicians in these regions won't entertain any tort reform.  So these departments are relying on government medicaid payments for their revenue and are paying malpractice rates of over $500,000 annually per doc.  OB/GYN departments lose 10's of millions per year, every year, and hospitals need to allocate from other departments remain whole.  University medical centers and schools actively discourage grads and resources from going in this direction.

So when you go to meet with the doc for the birth of your child/grandchild, keep in mind that you are seeing one of the least intelligent grads from their class, who barely got through their 4 years, and who now has been furnished with the least amount of resources possible to do his or her job.  The politicians and the blog lawyer say it's fine though....but at least he'll be the first one to call you when your kid is diagnosed with autism at 3 years of age so you can sue the OB/GYN.  

How many doctors a year have their licenses suspended or removed for incompetence or worse?

How many hospitals have implemented state of the art methods to reduce mistakes? (variance between successful outcomes between hospitals is substantial after accounting for numerous factors that impact outcomes).

Now I'm for subsidizing medical education, especially for those who commit to public service for a decade (too many specialists, not enough GPs for underserved areas), and expanding the ability of nurses to provide basic care especially combined with AI - I was a science major (a step above pre-med) at Penn, and most of the pre-meds I knew weren't the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Our current system rewards those who have rich parents or can borrow enough to get through med school, and the capacity of med schools is limited to prevent "oversupply" - which is another way of saying a labor monopoly to keep incomes up. Barriers to foreign doctors is another way to limit supply.

As far as end of life, that's a matter of educating people about Hospice, a far better way to end your life than a hospital bed with tubes, constant disruption and a crappy environment. DNR should be the default option unless the family specifically requires heroic measures. I think a lot of that is driven by Doctors with a "defeat death" rather than an "enhance life" mentality.

15 minutes ago, austinfan said:

People's political positions for life are generally set by the time they're 30, they may moderate to some extent from youthful exuberance, but the huge gap in under 40 support for Democrats v Republicans will not change as that cohort ages. The shift in the 1970s was due primarily to the Southern strategy, based on racism, and secondarily on cultural war which shifted white working support toward the Republican party - it was more the Democrats moving away from that group on cultural issues than that group changing its attitudes. Problem is, the "60s" are over and the "hippies" won - the under 40 and college educated generally accept the change in mores (toleration of homosexuality, "me too", opposition to racism, etc). Which is why the Republican party is doomed - instead of moving to the center, the move by Gingrich et al to go hard right paid off in the short run but has the party up a dead end alley as a combination of demographics (a multi-racial society) and the growth of the under 40 cohort (the younger part is more left than the older group, so over time the country will become more liberal).

25 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Tort reform is an urban myth. There are lots of empirical studies to show the impact of tort liability is grossly exaggerated, and it is primarily a substitute for a lack of regulation - you can either regulate through government, through the legal system, or allow fraud, incompetence and gross negligence to go unchecked. All those horror stories of huge jury judgements tend to ignore that courts generally throw out those judgements on appeal, the few that stand are punitive punishments when a corporation is guilty of gross negligence or outright culpability.

That’s nonsense.  E45 put it from a medical perspective. The personal injury lobby is significant. Tort reform works.  Like anything else, we have to balance the scales.  I handled a case with one of those ridiculous awards. Chance of reduction on appeal was zero.  That just wasn’t the law in that state.  Water in a nursery area and she fell while wearing flip flops. She literally fell on the warning sign. Shopped doctors across seven states to get one to say she had a brain injury. Jury was just stupid. No issues of law, just fact.  You don’t win appeals on facts. 
 

NV had out of control construction defect litigation.  Put in a right to repair law and the litigation went way down. The building quality went up.  It is a proven fact that medical malpractice tort reform, like E45 was referencing drives down unneeded medical costs.  Not sure caps are the right way to approach as opposed to mandatory peer review before a matter becomes actionable.  

Just now, austinfan said:

How many doctors a year have their licenses suspended or removed for incompetence or worse?

How many hospitals have implemented state of the art methods to reduce mistakes? (variance between successful outcomes between hospitals is substantial after accounting for numerous factors that impact outcomes).

Now I'm for subsidizing medical education, especially for those who commit to public service for a decade (too many specialists, not enough GPs for underserved areas), and expanding the ability of nurses to provide basic care especially combined with AI - I was a science major (a step above pre-med) at Penn, and most of the pre-meds I knew weren't the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree. Our current system rewards those who have rich parents or can borrow enough to get through med school, and the capacity of med schools is limited to prevent "oversupply" - which is another way of saying a labor monopoly to keep incomes up. Barriers to foreign doctors is another way to limit supply.

As far as end of life, that's a matter of educating people about Hospice, a far better way to end your life than a hospital bed with tubes, constant disruption and a crappy environment. DNR should be the default option unless the family specifically requires heroic measures. I think a lot of that is driven by Doctors with a "defeat death" rather than an "enhance life" mentality.

What does this have to do with anything?  Every profession has a subset that needs to be removed from circulation.

What the heck are you talking about?  You were a science major at Penn?  That's not a step above pre-med.  95% of pre-med students ARE science majors.  The 5% that aren't are generally even smarter, because they are somehow filling their science requirements while majoring in something else entirely.  Ironic you said that...I majored in neuroscience, biology, biochemistry at Penn and got a dual degree with the engineering school.  And in my experience, the pre-meds there were fairly bright to brilliant.  The fact that you would call a "science major" a "step above pre-med" shows how removed you are from the whole process.  And in typical attorney fashion, you are speaking in absolutes about what the problems are and what the solutions should be.  

 

6 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

That’s nonsense.  E45 put it from a medical perspective. The personal injury lobby is significant. Tort reform works.  Like anything else, we have to balance the scales.  I handled a case with one of those ridiculous awards. Chance of reduction on appeal was zero.  That just wasn’t the law in that state.  Water in a nursery area and she fell while wearing flip flops. She literally fell on the warning sign. Shopped doctors across seven states to get one to say she had a brain injury. Jury was just stupid. No issues of law, just fact.  You don’t win appeals on facts. 
 

NV had out of control construction defect litigation.  Put in a right to repair law and the litigation went way down. The building quality went up.  It is a proven fact that medical malpractice tort reform, like E45 was referencing drives down unneeded medical costs.  Not sure caps are the right way to approach as opposed to mandatory peer review before a matter becomes actionable.  

Hard to repair a dead person.

7 minutes ago, Desertbirds said:

COVID is also going to be a game changer, the over 60 group which is the most hard right cohort is also the one that is the most vulnerable to Trump's "let 'em die" policy on COVID which priorities opening up the economy without regard to safety (i.e., failure to mandate masks, social distancing, etc. which would allow a safe reopening like other industrialized countries).

The rise in infection directly threatens the lives of this group of voters, it'll be interesting to see how they vote in November.

Survival tends to triumph ideology, note that Democratic governors who've gone slow on reopening have very high approval ratings.

29 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

One preview into the future of "idealized" healthcare from the left is gynecological care.  Again, I'm not defending the right here, but there is some perception that the left, Obama, and the ACA figured this out.

GYN care is universal.  You could be an undocumented immigrant with no insurance, a wealthy 23 year old who chose not to buy insurance, medicaid, or someone with insurance...you have access to GYN care in one way or another.  Most OB/GYN departments in urban hospitals are primarily compensated with medicaid payments from the government.  The same progressive politicians in these regions won't entertain any tort reform.  So these departments are relying on government medicaid payments for their revenue and are paying malpractice rates of over $500,000 annually per doc.  OB/GYN departments lose 10's of millions per year, every year, and hospitals need to allocate from other departments remain whole.  University medical centers and schools actively discourage grads and resources from going in this direction.

So when you go to meet with the doc for the birth of your child/grandchild, keep in mind that you are seeing one of the least intelligent grads from their class, who barely got through their 4 years, and who now has been furnished with the least amount of resources possible to do his or her job.  The politicians and the blog lawyer say it's fine though....but at least he'll be the first one to call you when your kid is diagnosed with autism at 3 years of age so you can sue the OB/GYN.  

 people are absolutely not dissuaded from going in to OBGYN and their Step 1/2 testing scores are consistently comparable to internal medicine and emergency medicine residents.  Just an incredibly ignorant statement to make. 

2 hours ago, Asg 15 said:

I was talking about the Josh Norris tweet.  The first part of your post.

You're supposed to read the inset tweet first.  The "outside", or bigger tweet is the 2nd half.  A response.

You just read it backwards is all.

2 hours ago, HazletonEagle said:

I missed that too. Why does Twitter have to be so difficult to follow? If that was the tweet you meant to post why is it tiny and at the bottom of the other one?

See above.  Josh Norris was making the comparison between the 2 infection rates among the groups of athletes. 

 

15 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

What does this have to do with anything?  Every profession has a subset that needs to be removed from circulation.

What the heck are you talking about?  You were a science major at Penn?  That's not a step above pre-med.  95% of pre-med students ARE science majors.  The 5% that aren't are generally even smarter, because they are somehow filling their science requirements while majoring in something else entirely.  Ironic you said that...I majored in neuroscience, biology, biochemistry at Penn and got a dual degree with the engineering school.  And in my experience, the pre-meds there were fairly bright to brilliant.  The fact that you would call a "science major" a "step above pre-med" shows how removed you are from the whole process.  And in typical attorney fashion, you are speaking in absolutes about what the problems are and what the solutions should be.  

 

No they're not, there was a pre-med track that was easier than taking science courses with science majors. There was also the "non-science" track. That may have changed, I go back to the 1970s.

Now I was young and foolish, if I had a do-over I'd done the pre-med track, gone to med school, then into medical research. I just didn't understand the rules of the game and how to hustle it.

Trust me, I've dealt with plenty of doctors over the years, and most aren't that bright (neither are most corporate lawyers, for that matter). I've dealt with highly recommended surgeons who turned out to be BS artists, as well as first rate doctors.

Brilliant people are as rare as hen's teeth, I've known a few in academia, and a couple in law. When you meet one, you know it immediately.

Most successful people are good at playing the career game, but that doesn't make them brilliant or excessively competent, they just recognize the rules of the game early in life, suck up to the right mentors, paint by numbers and glide through life.

Just now, Green Dog said:

You're supposed to read the inset tweet first.  The "outside", or bigger tweet is the 2nd half.  A response.

You just read it backwards is all.

See above.  Josh Norris was making the comparison between the 2 infection rates among the groups of athletes. 

 

Twitter is crazy

11 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

 people are absolutely not dissuaded from going in to OBGYN and their Step 1/2 testing scores are consistently comparable to general surgery, internal medicine, and emergency medicine residents.  Just an incredibly ignorant statement to make. 

Don't take it as an insult to OB/GYN.  And some brilliant people who are inspired by it still go into it.  It is a great field...bringing a new life into the world.  But they are absolutely discouraged from it across the country.  No doubt about it.  Med schools have a difficult time setting up rotations in the field in an attempt to expose students to a non-toxic environment.  Same can be said for internal medicine and emergency medicine, which you mention, at certain schools.  Again, noble and important fields.  But that doesn't change their challenging logistics.

I've sat in on multiple meetings at more than a few med schools where there have been heated debates about how to handle this.

There is a reason the best & brightest are going into non-essential fields like dermatology and plastics.

 

I don't think Sanders is going to get that much unless there's injuries again. Wentz finally has weapons everywhere. The hope is they stay healthy

2 minutes ago, austinfan said:

No they're not, there was a pre-med track that was easier than taking science courses with science majors.

Now I was young and foolish, if I had a do-over I'd done the pre-med track, gone to med school, then into medical research.

OK, I guess you know more about the pre-med track at Penn than I do.

You are probably thinking of BBB (Biological Basis of Behavior).  It's the "easiest" possible pre-med track at Penn.  The pre-med recs are taken with science majors.  There isn't a separate bio-chem, organic-chem, physics etc. class for pre-meds vs. science majors.  All the same.  The periphery BBB courses to satisfy the major requirement were generally easier. 

5 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Twitter is crazy

No doubt.

And just like pe.com, when you post tweets here sometimes the format is affected and includes parts you didn't want.  Not the boards fault, just the way Twitter is designed.

Gotta admit tho, we all benefit from the moment to moment updates.

27 minutes ago, Desertbirds said:

Even if Trump was somewhat competent, and intelligent enough to hide his administration's corruption -- this would be a big problem for an incumbent president who narrowly won swing states to get elected.  

Four years of young people becoming old enough they can now vote, and 4 years of old people dying off -- COVID not even taken into account.

21 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

It is a great field...bringing a new life into the world.  But they are absolutely discouraged from it across the country.  No doubt about it.  Med schools have a difficult time setting up rotations in the field in an attempt to expose students to a non-toxic environment.  

Again, this is completely false. As is you assertion about their testing. Aamc puts out data on matched vs unmatched as well as average scores by specialty. They're not at the top but they're far from the bottom. Data doesn't lie. As far as toxicity every surgical rotation deals with toxicity because those residencies are stressful environments. Personally we had WAY more issues with general surgery Ortho and worst of all Urology than OBGYN in school. And anecdotally the surgical subspecialty residents I know had WAY worse experiences than the OBs.

You have points on the liability issues but you're comically off on your other points.

10 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

I don't think Sanders is going to get that much unless there's injuries again. Wentz finally has weapons everywhere. The hope is they stay healthy

I think it all hinges on the new scheme and how effective the passing game performs.  If we have consistency in getting chunk plays, consistency in first downs, and the offense is rated in the top 10 for an extended stretch of the season, the running game will benefit as a direct result.

Just like Jay Ajayi's first TD run in the Denver game in 2017.  We had dominated them with the pass in the 1st half, as we had all season.  They played 2 deep.  Jay broke one off.  It's one of the most basic relationships in football.

But the key is what you mentioned; if we avoid the injury bug enough that all becomes possible.