OT: Misc. Ramblings.

[Max]

LOL. My son came by when I was in the process; he said, "Step away from the label maker, Pop". So help me.

Max

[Max]

Not the "original" ones that I found after I went out and bought a replacement. :-(

Max

[Joe]

.....And just *who* let you in my shop?????

jc

[Frank Boettcher]

My sentiments exactly. That is why I switched to a very high deductible policy with an HSA.

Last year I ran 1602 miles. Won the 60-64 Age group in all but one race I ran, 5K up to Half M. Watch what I eat. That is my real health "insurance".

The high deductible coupled with an HSA actually gives the individual an incentive to stay healthy. Nothing you can do about the premium but it is substantially lower and you look for things you can do to stay healthy and not spend the deductible.

My opinion is that the health care system has gotten very much like the legal system. The only way to beat it is to stay out of it.

Frank

>

[Chris Friesen]

What about areas that are too small for real competition--what's to stop them from fixing prices like gas stations, ISPs, phone service providers, car companies, etc. do today?

I live in Saskatchewan. Our car insurance is run by the province, and we have some of the lowest rates in the country. The market doesn't always result in the best price to the customer....sometimes it just results in shareholder profits.

Chris

[Frank Boettcher]

I don't necessarily think so. I ran a factory. About 300 employees and with families about 1000 covered souls. Self insured, that is, no insurance company involved. In cases like mine which is the predominate way employer based systems work, you contract with a TPA (third party administrator) to process the claims paperwork per your benefit schedule. The TPA charged $11.50 per insured soul per month. Never went up in the entire period I ran the factory, about nine years. All payments made directly from my accounts payable into an account used by the TPA to pay medical providers based on approved claims. TPA also contracted with many others in the market area and negotiated the U & C, signed up the providers.

Couldn't be a more streamlined efficient system and no "profit" to an insurance company.

Yet medical costs went up each and every year at a rate about 3-4 times the rate of inflation. This despite maintaining a cost sharing ratio and providing subsidy for and encouragement to join local wellness center.

Frank

[Robatoy]

I didn't think that needed to be said. Of course it is better to stay healthy.

Now tell me this... why is all the good food so much more expensive? Simple stuff, like unsalted 'anything' costs more. Low fat costs more. 'FRESH' costs more (although that's pretty obvious.) I'm talking stuff like whole wheat pasta. WHY isn't there an incentive to keep the good food prices down.

In the long run, it would pay off if we taxed the hell out of stuff like Cheetos. Yet another reason why we should never legalise weed.

The bastards prey on fear a little (LOT) too much.

oh brother...

I'm going to pretend I didn't read that..8-}

r

[B A R R Y]

Those profits attract competition.

[Frank Boettcher]

Simply said volume driven by demand. When the demand for healthy choices drives greater volume the prices will come down. Demand will rise when parents don't feed their kids a steady diet of salt, sugar and processed foods, and you have a generation demanding healthier choices because their tastes have been developed to do so.

As an example, as a kid I remember growing up on white bread and then my mother going on a health kick and pushing whole wheat, higher fiber bread on us. We thought it was gastly. I had a piece of white bread the other day at function. Tasted like soggy cardboard. My tastes were altered to the healthier choice.

We pay the premium, buy the healthy stuff, believe it pays off, and look forward to the day the prices are lower.

Frank

[Charlie Self]

Ah, jeez. Mickey Leftwich, where are you?

We came back to Treasure Island in '61, and our first cup of coffee got him in trouble, The waitress asked my Tennessee buddy, with a thick accent (to me at the time, with a NY accent), how he wanted his coffee. He said, "Hot, black and ready for the cream," without thought. Unfortunately, the waitress was cafe au lait herself. We very nearly got thrown out of the joint.

[Charlie Self]

Some people make a living doing something similar, finding double billing, general mistakes and outright theft by hospitals and doctors alike.

[Charlie Self]

Souhnds like J. I. Rodale. The one who was bragging about his health on the Dick Cavett Show, and dropped dead in mid-sentence.

Or maybe Jim Fixx, the distance runner who had a massive heart attack and died at 28.

Genetics still trumps.

[Jeff]

Yeah, well, the company went into chapter 11 on his watch...

[Robatoy]

AHA! You kept that wee bit of info from me. Could it be he dropped too many dollars in the parking lot?

:)

[Tim Douglass]

I think the big factor is that the offshore places have raised their prices to where most of the cost advantage has gone away. I will say that I have dealt with some very good tech support people from India (I think it was, anyway) and some very bad ones here in the U.S.

-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

What's the diff? Working for nothing, or not working? He did say the boss made 8 million a year, and he made 8 million less, didn't he????

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

Not in a Godforsaken wasteland like Sakatchewan. I'm just kidding, kinda. But nobody is fighting over such a thinly spread "mess of crumbs" as that "slice of the pie".

[Frank Boettcher]

You can always find anecdotal deviations in any population. But if you look at the statistics, what I do works well.

Maternal grandmother lived to be 102. Mother just turned 84, walks five miles a day. I am blessed with at least a half a set of good genetic makeup. The other half, maybe not so hot.

Frank

[Robatoy]

At what point (distance) are you going to go out to get her?

[scouter3]

A few years back, around 1999, HP spun off the Test & Measurement Equipment division. The spin off company is Agilent Technologies. They still build top grade test equipment and trace their roots to Dave Packard's garage in Palo Alto and the Hp200A.

I have to believe that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would identify themselves more with Agilent than the company that bears their names.

Lloyd Baker