CFLs vs LEDs vs incandescents: round 1,538

[Pete C.]

Not handy, I looked it up a few months ago.

It was from a government site, probably census.

[Don Klipstein]

In , Pete C. wrote in part:

I think that the bottom line for recycling glass is positive, since doing so conserves landfill space. Can you imagine the hassle from the NIMBYs each time we need to start a new landfill?

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[HeyBub]

Well, here's one statistic:

"In summary, CBO regards the estimates of between 5 million and 6 million children who are uninsured and eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP as more appropriate for considering policies aimed at enrolling more eligible children in those programs."

Our president himself says there are abou 13-15 million illegal aliens in the country.

The Department of Justice census says there are 2.6 million people incarcerated in various prisons and jails.

The following active duty military personnel do not have insurance:

Army - 543,000 Marines - 158,000 Navy - 335,000 Air Force - 330,000 Total: 1,366,000

We're up to about 25 million already without even considering those who decline to enroll in an available insurance program.

[Kurt Ullman]

Interesting line of studies from ~1990 or so showing that there are often MORE insureds using emergency rooms for non-emergent reasons. EDs are open at more convenient hours for those that work, maybe closer, and other reasons. There is also an interesting line of studies showing that even large numbers of those insured don't get preventative care. Again, lack of convenient hours, not wanting to hassel with it etc. I think both of these "fixes" are not going have the cost savings impact people think they will have.

I would suggest that to address obvious conflicts of interest. I wouldn't however, try to take the profit motive out of the doc running their office or the (independent) MRI operator or drug store.

See what happens when (1) things are paid on a per service basis and (2) one has to practice defensive medicine to avoid law suits.

[Don Klipstein]

In , HeyBub wrote in part:

Is that not 1,366,000 covered by the gubmint, no more inunsured than those on Medicare and Medicaid?

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Kurt Ullman]

Even then there is insurance available. I worked at a County General hospital that is about 80% Medicare/Medicaid billing. A few years ago they started getting aggressive in referring people and found that around 20% of their uninsured charity care qualified for a federal program. I realize that is n=1 study, but still though that was interesting.

Or just an electronic medical records. Around 50 different hospitals, health systems, freestanding surgery centers and all attached physicians in Indiana are all able to talk to each other. So, if I am a patient in Indy and I have a problem in Ft. Wayne, the hospital there can most likely access all of my medical records in real time. That is all that is needed. In fact, last month they rolled out a version that will send a subset of my records to an ambulance as it speeds to my aid. Okay, as soon as they get there and find out who hte patient is (g).

Before you get all obnoxious about low insurance company payments, both MCare and MCaid pay much less than the Evil Insurance Companies for similar procedures. The rest is correct, though.

[aemeijers]

Having been one of the loudmouths that got my office building to start recycling 20 years ago, I have some insight into this. Yes, some categories of material are marginal, or even negative at times. Aluminum cans and clean segregated white paper almost always make money. Everything else, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But it will take a generation to train people to make recycling second nature, and you can't start and stop collection programs based on this week's market prices. So you keep collecting it all in the separate system, even if some months some categories end up in the landfill. Over time, you have still saved tippage fees.

Best method of reducing landfill use is to reduce the amount of trash generated in the first place, not by recycling the trash. One of many reasons 'Cash for Clunkers' pissed me off so much. You DO NOT destroy items that still have useful life left. Most businesses and individuals replace computers way too often. 'Out of Warranty' does not equal 'worn out'. You get the idea. Use it up, wear it out, and if you don't need it and it still works, give it to somebody who can use up the rest of it.

Having said that, I have probably half a dozen perfectly good 17" glass monitors out back, that I can't give away. They last 2-3 times as long as flat screens, but nobody will be seen dead with them any more.

-- aem sends...

[CSquared]

>>>>

One of my friends from the rural area where I grew up about 70 miles NE of Dallas suggested recently that maybe I'd like to move back some day. I told her I really would love to in many ways, but that it would make the trip to all our various doctors an awfully long drive! As a result, I think we had best just stay put. It is only about 8 or 9 miles from our house to either of 2 very fine teaching hospitals here. I will grant you that there are likely some fine doctors less than 20 miles from my old home, but I'm not sure all the specialties we currently require at our "advanced age" are available there. Just as one example, my parents lived in that general area pretty much to the end of their lives but my Mom's oncologist was based in Dallas though ISTR he saw patients in Greenville at least one day a week. Later, Charlie Carothers

-- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com

[HeyBub]

I guess it depends on how you define "insurance."

In the military, if you get slightly injured (anything less than the bone sticking out), the medic or the corpsman fixes you up. This is not much different than the role of the company nurse.

[Pete C.]

>>>>>

TMC and the new medical center under construction in Denison would probably be adequate.

[h]

Wrong. Well, yes, it's "available", but unaffordable. I'm self-employed and I live in NY, which requires health insurance to cover nearly everything (HMO-type) including "wellcare" office visits with a small co-pay, etc. I never see a doctor for anything unless I'm broken or bleeding, so I only want catastrophic coverage (heart attack, cancer, etc.) but I can't legally buy that. The cheapest insurance I can find is 35% of my gross income (a lot more than my mortgage payment) and it has a $3k yearly deductible. Why on earth would I flush 35% of my income down a black hole? Also, since I have no chance of making the deductible, I'd be paying 50% more than I would out of pocket since my urgent care center comps 50% of the charges for the uninsured. If you have insurance you pay the full amount even if you haven't met the deductible.

And as for the idea that the uninsured don't have to pay for healthcare, where did you get that idea? If I have to get stitches I get a huge bill and I have to pay it. Maybe the taxpayers pick up the tab for the homeless and illegals with phony paperwork, but they sure don't pick up mine.

My "health insurance" is a 45 minute daily workout and eating properly.

[HeyBub]

Another difference is that between health "insurance" and health "care." The military provides "care" but not "insurance" (likewise for cancer patients on death row).

The absense of universal health "insurance" may or may not be a problem; the absence of "care" would be. So far, no one has been able to quantify the absence of "care."

[HeyBub]

So, then, you'd agree there's no lack of insurance, just the lack of "cheap" insurance?

[Don Klipstein]

And if they get an illness requiring treatment, they get treated. These people have medics and corpsmen and do get transported to hospitals when it is necessary and possible to do so. They are not among the uncovered roughly 13% of USA's population that are citizens or legal residents.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

Lack of insurance unless it's priced out of the reach of many working people.

About 7 years ago, I dropped a PPO after its monthly premiums got past $400. A couple years after that, I got an individual plan with a large deductible.

Maybe 2-3 years ago, the lowest cost Blue Cross HMO plan I could get through my day-job workplace would cost me $600 per month. So I stuck with my individual plan costing me little more than that per quarter then, with annual savings close to my annual deductible. Most years that was in my favor.

With my plan inflating at the 10%-annual-rate of healthcare premiums plus being adjusted for my always-increasing age, and that Blue Cross HMO as an alternative being about $700 per month (and about to go up maybe at the usual roughly 10% annual boost if it did not recently do so), one can see how the affordability goes down.

I may now be in for a bad year or two where I am likely to need a minor surgery possibly two and end up meeting or getting close to a deductible of a few kilobucks, slightly more unaffordable than paying $750-plus monthly no matter how good my health is.

While my taxes pay for gubmint spending about as high a percentage of GDP as Cadada and the rest of the Western world does, to cover only Medicare (and they need supplemental plans), Medicaid, veterans, military personnel, sCHIP enrollees, and employer contributions to health insurance premiums of government employees in healthcare related government agencies. USA gubmint spending on healthcare is about the same percentage of GDP as that of Canada and other Western countries, with that amount *not* covering me or other private sector employees or business owners, government employees outside healthcare agencies such as public school teachers, most police officers, municipal workers and court employees, and not the unemployed.

If I crash my bike while uninsured and go to an ER, I get a bill for

4-5 times what an insurance company pays, and the hospital calls the collection agency hounds who can sue me or force me into bankruptcy if I do not satisfy it.

I think USA's system is seriously broken and needs serious rebuilding, and that a lot of toes need to be stepped on and a lot of oxen need to be gored. I think best to copy whichever other Western country gets the fewest complaints (maybe Germany?), with absolutely no more than negative

1% giving way to anyone's lobbyists attempting resistance.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

What happens to a soldier who just enlisted or who just re-enlisted or just accepted a promotion in a military carreer, and then came down with pancreatic cancer or malignant melanoma or a heart problem?

Meanwhile, soldiers getting hit with bullets on the field or at their bases or at military quarters do not get hospital bills for bullet wounds that they survive. Those quartered at military facilities or deployed on the field or abord Navy ships get cared for if they get injured in vehicle crashes (with exception for off-base recreation) - without even needing to pay for car insurance or travel insurance.

And if Joe Sixpack or James or Joan 40-Ouncer gets maligant melanoma, pancreatic cancer or heart trouble or a brain tumor, while making suppose $10 per hour, who is supposed to pay for this? In all prosperous democracies other than USA, low-paid working folk do not have a special right to stick the taxpayers with the tab, and the gubmint does not spend higher percentage of GDP on healthcare than USA does (even excluding employer constributions to health insurance premiums of most gubmint employees).

(I use lots of sunblock, keep my body fairly lean, don't smoke, am hawkish to get my dermatologist to examine and if necessary remove suspicious skin lesions, and I have diet and exercise to such an extent that my LDL "Bad Cholesterol" is only 66% of my HDL "Good Cholesterol". What are my rewards? To live longer covered [not fully] by Medicare and hope that I am not bankrupted first?)

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[David Nebenzahl]

On 8/28/2009 5:25 PM Don Klipstein spake thus:

So you're implicitly in favor of a single-payer system, since that's what Germany has, right?

(Well, not exactly: theirs is a multi-payer system, but it's a hell of a lot closer to the national systems in Canada and the UK than the non-system we have here in the US.)

[Don Klipstein]

It very strongly appears to me that healthcare and related issues are much better in Germany and Canada and even better in the much-maligned UK than in USA. And I personally know many Canadians over a range of income levels, with 100% of them preferring what they have in Canada over what they would get if they moved to USA. If I did not have family ties in USA, I would be trying to move to Canada - who does not spend a higher percentage of GDP than USA does on healthcare while USA does not have gubmint covering private sector employees, a majority of govenment employees and much of the unemployed, nor most children of any of these.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[CSquared]

> >>>>>

I'm sure it will be, and I'm happy for them. The population of Denison is about 24,000 though, and I was thinking more of places like Commerce with population less than 8,000. I'm sure there are better examples as you progress to even smaller towns. My comment in this thread started out as a weak attempt at humor, but I really do feel for all the people in rural or semi-rural areas who are not well served medically. Later, Charlie Carothers

-- My email address is csquared3 at tx dot rr dot com

[John Gilmer]

Perhaps you might think so but that doesn't make it true. Most "essentials" are less expensive for the bumpkins than for your city folks.

That's why folks try to stay on good terms with their neighbors. Also, most rural communities have a "Rescue Squad" on call.

That said, if you have a heart attack while "in the sticks," the odds are you will not get to the hospital in time to make a difference.