A Different Study

John Cox has posted a series of studies that he wants to use to create a much larger watercolor piece.  I hope he manages to complete this work as the smaller studies are tremendous.

See them all here.

Our Medical Future?

Consider Product X.  It costs a store owner $95 to get Product X into their store.  They sell Product X for for $100 and make $5 per sale; less the cost of their building, staff, electicity, etc.

What happens when they can only get $90 for Product X?  Most store owners would stop selling it.

What happens when someone needs Product X to survive?  Not a very nice question.

But this is precisely what is about to happen in California where the state has decided to cut Medicaid prescription reimbursements by 10%.  It isn't a 10% cut in the margin that the store owner earns.  It is a 10% cut in total reimbursements.


What does this bode for our nation's future?  Nothing good.

I hardly need to point out that we can expect a lot more stories like this one in the future.  Reimbursements currently have some give in them, which allows the highest-cost providers to operate, and the lowest-cost providers to make some profit.  The natural political tendency is to squeeze reimbursements to the level where the lowest-cost providers are pinched--or even beyond.  And the best-case result of this is that in the long-run, the lowest-cost providers get bigger, while in the short term, the disruptions among the higher-cost providers compromise at least some patients' access to care.

Are we willing to put up with that short term disruption?  Not so far, unless the service exclusively benefits the very poor.  Maybe we'll get more willing as the tax bite goes deeper.  But either way, with a dramatic Medicaid expansion on its way, and more and more of the rest of the health care system under the control of the government, the fights are going to get uglier.

A modest warning for language at the link.

New Commandments For A New Age

Victor Davis Hansen has a list of new commandments for our modern age.  Summarize below, but worth a full read.


1) Wealth and poverty are now more relative, than absolute, conditions.

2) Regulators are never the problem; a dearth of regulations always must be.

3) Debt is a mirage.

4) In our new age of diplomacy, being liked trumps being respected.

5) Collective national wealth is natural; private wealth is unnatural.

6) Medieval exemption is not medieval.

7) Victimhood is always sought, never questioned.

8) Neanderthals need nerds.

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously - not in this age of global leisure and affluence.

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving.

Now? Really?

Megan McArdle has all the details...you...might...want..about the recent dump of documents from the Heartland Institute.  And I want to point out that on the subject of human induced global warming, Ms. McArdle is a believer.

But the tidbit I want to focus is from Mr. Gleick's mea culpa.

Given the need for reliance on facts in the public climate debate, I am issuing the following statement.

...

I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed.

But we have been told that the debate is over.  We have been told that the only "rational" scientists are those that enthusiastically endorse the theory of human induced climate change that results in a global catastrophe.

Only now that this guy's boy-parts are in a vise does he find it necessary to talk about a "rational public debate" and "facts".

He could have had that without shredding his credibility if he'd be willing to have an adult conversation with people that are of a different point of view.

Marble Madness IV

The first in a series from Eddie Boes of Eddie's Mind.  You can check out his YouTube stream for more.

 

This piece of kinetic art is on display at Columbia Basin Pediatric Dentistry in Kennewick, WA.

How Rich Is Too Rich?

Megan McArdle had a recent post regarding income inequality that is worth reading.  She offers no conclusions, but I think her perspective is worth considering.

The Price Of Discovery

So what is the price for discovering new drugs? 

$43 million?  Probably too low.

$800 million?  Sounds plausible.

Between $4 and 11 billion?  Per drug.

Read the whole thing from Megan McArdle.

Then think about why drugs cost what they do.  Don't forget that all those folks living in countries with nationalized health care systems don't pay anything to cover research costs.  Just production.  Imagine how much less we would be paying if they were paying their fair share.

War Is Ugly

I was reading the news at the gym last week.  They had a story about a reporter that had died in the fighting in one Syrian city.  She only had one eye.  I don't know her name.

The point of her reporting was that the Syrians were pummeling the city and killing indiscriminately.  She said something the the effect that there were no military targets there.  Specifically, she said there was no "base" there.  The stateside reporter reminded her that the Syrian Free Army was in the area.  The reporter in Syria blithely dismissed that and went on protesting that they were killing innocent civilians.  After all, the SFA didn't have a "base".

Why was she surprised?  This is a war.

The wars of the 20th century were truly civilized when compared with the rest of human history.  It was common practice to kill and enslave until all your enemies were dead or enslaved.  The line from the original Conan the Barbarian movie was the rule.

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

There was no letting up.  There was no avoiding civilians.

This is the sort of war that non-Western, non-democratic cultures routinely practiced.  The stark difference between the two is what should make the practice of war by Western, democratic cultures all the more unique.

Do they not teach history in journalism school any more?

Uniting Citizens

The discussion about funding political campaigns and the recent Citizen's United case contains a couple of important myths.

Myth 1:  The Citizen's United case invalidated the reporting requirement for political contributions.

Those requirements are still in place.

Myth 2:  The Citizen's United case unleased wealthy individuals to give unlimited amounts of money to political groups/campaigns.

Truth:  The Citizen's United case let corporations give unlimited amounts of money to political causes.  That is new.  And I'm not convinced that it is good.

But we ought to have a national discussion that is based on the facts.  Not the myths.

Wishing

A modest check behind the scenes.  I have removed the sailors trying to sail around the world.  Their attempts have been completed and I have yet to find others worth following.  I wish the current batch of sailors all the luck in the world on their travels.

I have added a link to my Amazon wish list.  Hopefully, my family will figure this out soon!

Putting The Pieces Back Together

Just what can a putty made from stem cells do?  Mend broken bones.

In days.

Living with access to modern medicine is truly amazing.

Moving Madness III

I remember watching this one as a kid.  How cool is this!  Everyone love Sesame Street.

Spring Or Fall

The recent events of the so-called Arab Spring have been heralded as an age of advance within the Arab world.  I remain skeptical of such predictions due to the significant influence of jihadists, Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar terrorist/extremist groups across the region.

Is this really the dawning of a new age?  Is this really an Arab Spring?  Or perhaps it is an Arab Fall, complete with an Indian Summer's false promise of warmth before the deep cold of winter.

A United Nations delegate from Libya’s newly formed government told a human rights panel that gays and other groups threaten “reproduction of the human race,” drawing a stern rebuke from leaders of the international body.
...

But the harsh stance against gays voiced Monday has some critics wondering if the new government ushered in by the so-called Arab Spring is any more tolerant than its predecessor.

"Today's homophobic outburst by the new Libyan government, together with the routine abuse of prisoners, underscores the serious questions we have about the new regime's commitment to improving on the dark record of its predecessor, and about its pandering to Islamists in its ranks," U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said.

Now after listening to the news from Washington State on NPR over the last few days, I think it should be obvious that we in the U.S. still have issues with respecting the right of gays to be treated as equal citizens. Not everyone is overjoyed at the prospect of the gay marriage law just signed by their governor.  Pure as the wind driven snow, we ain't.

But we are headed in the right direction.  While the Middle East appears to loping along in the wrong direction at a fairly fast clip. 

Dive Right In?

 It is always worth the time to see where we've been so that we can know where we are going.  Read the whole thing.

Black athletes were playing for Clair Bee at Long Island University by 1933, but KU didn’t put a black player on the court until LaVannes Squires joined the team in 1952. McLendon admitted to Katz that skin color wasn’t the only obstacle standing between him and a spot on the Jayhawks—though quick and cerebral, McLendon had been cut from his high school basketball team three times. He was a former lifeguard and an excellent swimmer, though, and he expected to ace the mandatory swimming test required for his degree. But when McLendon showed up at the on-campus pool to work out, he found it half empty. He was told it was drained every Wednesday.

McLendon came back on Thursday, and found the pool empty again. Nobody had told him the pool was segregated, perhaps because no colored student had tried to swim there before. The school’s passive-aggressive trick exposed a weakness he could exploit—a fear of direct confrontation. “You’re going to have a pretty big water bill,” McLendon told the attendant. “Because I’m going swimming every day.”

Quilt #2

A side note, this is actually a post from August of 2007 that was first published in my Dain Bramage blog.  I am trying to get all my quilts onto the new blog for easy reference, sharing, etc.  You will see more of this in the coming weeks.  I hope.  Garrett's a few years older now and a pretty cool kid.

One of my co-workers got married last year. And this year he's a brand new dad. Funny how that sort of thing works, isn't it?

At any rate, as a modest token of congratulations, I made this quilt.

Click for a larger view.

Update: We finally have photos of the little squab and his quilt. This is Garrett. He's sleeping on the quilt.....which is pretty obvious. I'm told it makes a great play area, too. As always, click the photo for a larger version.

And this is Garrett, laughing his fool head off. He's one happy little baby.

Saving The Future - Saving The Past

We all have personal perspectives and interests that motivate our efforts.  One of my personal perspectives is Alzheimer's or old age dementia.  I watched my grandmother disappear before my eyes.  I watched the husk that remained live on for close to five years.

If you can call that living.

I see the early signs of the same thing happening in my dad.  I experience some early-early signs of the same thing in myself.

It is not possible to look forward to the day when long honed perception and perspective disappear in time's grey haze without experiencing an inexorably rising sense of terror.

We do not currently have a cure for dementia.  One of the reasons why I so urgently advocate for a free market for health care is that other health systems stymie research and innovation.  The first costs to be cut in every nationalized health care system are those associated with the research of new technology.  The cost of providing existing technology to existing patients naturally declines over time as patents expire and product efficiencies are identified.

Future patients needing future technologies?  Current patients being maintained by current technology but hoping for a cure?  Lives unborn in need of a cure that does not yet exist?  Nationalized health care systems have a one size fits all response.

Fuck 'em.

Yet I still have reason to hope that our recently enacted plethora of federal boards, committees, directors, chairpersons, and other august personnel of medical wizardry may yet move slowly enough that a cure for my small concern may arrive before the gates of innovation are closed.

Via Glenn Reynold's Instapundit comes word of a recent discovery of a new application for an old anti-cancer drug.  The WSJ has a decent write-up as well.

A widely available cancer drug has shown remarkable success in reversing Alzheimer's disease in mice, raising hope of a breakthrough against incurable dementia in humans, US researchers said Thursday.

Mice treated with the drug, known as bexarotene, became rapidly smarter and the plaque in their brains that was causing their Alzheimer's started to disappear within hours, said the research in the journal Science.

"We were shocked and amazed," lead author Gary Landreth of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio told AFP.

"Things like this had never, ever been seen before," he said.

Faster, please.

Oh Just One Kiss, Oh Baby One Last Kiss...

Via the very talented John Cox.

The title of this post was inspired by this.

Moving Madness II

Small scale.  Bamboo sticks for runs.  You could make this at home!

Riding Or Pushing

What happens when there are more people riding in the wagon than there are people pushing the wagon?

Almost half of America pays no federal income tax.  Yet dependence on federal spending is at an all time high.  Farm subsidies, college loans, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and welfare have grown so far over the last 40 years that we may soon discover what happens when we plumb the depth of Lady Thatcher's wise observation regarding the difficulties encountered when we run out of other people's money to spend.

At the very least, we are going to find out what happens when our spending on social programs exceeds the available income for the average citizen.  Click the image for the full report.

Sadly, the theoretic Chinese curse hoping that one lives in "interesting times" applies.

How To Make It Big

Via Don Surber:

No matter who you support this year, you have to admit Mitt Romney went about becoming president the wrong way. Instead of wasting his time learning how business works and building a multi-billion-dollar company that really did save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs, Mitt should have lived off his daddy’s fortune like Jack Kennedy. Chasing skirts and molesting teenage virgin is a lot more fun than figuring out how to revive an old business.

Instead, Mitt Romney gave his inheritance to charity. Who does that anymore?

...

Hard work though. Who does that? Small wonder the public is so suspicious.

Mitt isn't my guy this year.  I'll be voting for Gary Johnson in the Michigan primary.

But I do respect Mitt's business experience and his commitment to the real world.