Comments on: This Way There Be Dragons

By: Weekly trade prep: fat-lady bullpen edition « Mr. Unexpectedly

Weekly trade prep: fat-lady bullpen edition « Mr. Unexpectedly — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:02:43 +0000

[...] just don’t give a fuck about “productivity” (find that in their job descriptions) whine and kvetch about growing deficits, failed government, blah blah blah without adding any insight, as if they-the-Street were keeping their own house in perfect order, [...]

By: slyng1

slyng1 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:21:51 +0000

Yes… Anyone who takes IBD as a credible source of unbiased information is sadly delusional. IBD is made up of partisan hacks (not like the *educated* partisan hacks at the WSJ). I have actually asked IBD if they made a version of their paper without the “issues and insights” section (aka the editorial page)… Sadly, they only hang up on me when i ask for this. I would consider paying a 5-10c/paper bonus if i didn’t have to accidentally read their editorial page… Anyway, be warned, anyone looking for neutral/fair statistics from this source needs to start their search again.

On a side note… Did anyone else notice that for an article that was only 1/3 dedicated to the health care “crisis” that 100% of the comments are about those thoughts? gee… i wonder why that is… The rest of the article is more or less stating the obvious, only the health care part is controversial. Am I the only one who finds that interesting?

By: brouhaha

brouhaha — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:37:34 +0000

Someone please hit me with a clue stick if I’m misunderstanding this, but…

“For those waiting to see a medical specialist, 23% of those in the US get in within four weeks, while 57% in Canada have not yet done so, and in the UK 60% are still waiting after four weeks.”

Am I missing something here, or is this guy arguing against himself? If only 23% of Americans get to see a specialist within 4 weeks, that means 77% wait longer than 4 weeks. Which is worse than 57% in Canada and 60% in the UK. That whole paragraph seems to be written in an intentionally convoluted way is the idea to confuse the reader into thinking he has evidence to support his case, when in fact he has none? Makes him come off as a total douche.

By: Jojo

Jojo — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:17:58 +0000

“In the US, 93% of those diagnosed with diabetes receive treatment within six months; in Canada only 43% do, …

Now let’s remove the 47 million or so people not covered by health insurance in the USA who WILL NOT be diagnosed because they can’t afford to go to a doctor. How much does that lower our 93% (assuming that number is even valid)?

By: ook_boo

ook_boo — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:59:45 +0000

The ability of the medical profession to make one healthy is vastly over-rated (people really need to stop watching “House”), but the US system is excellent at creating bankruptcies, even among the insured. One needs to compare overall health when comparing systems, not MRI per capita or old people’s self-assessments of how healthy they feel. It is telling that US life-expectancy is somewhere around the same as Jordan’s (around #44 on the list), while Canada’s is in the top five.
And no, it isn’t because the US has immigrants: Canada has more per capita.

By: mpavan

mpavan — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:50:36 +0000

If that’s the case, you’ll be running south to the border faster than you can reach a specialist anywhere in Canada; of that we are certain.”

What a steaming pile of horsebleep. Those ignorant attacks really are getting tiresome.
Check out a recent article Krugman highlighted

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/19

a relevant clip
“This paper by Steven Katz and colleagues depicts this popular perception as more myth than reality, as the number of Canadians routinely coming across the border seeking health care appears to be relatively small, indeed infinitesimal when compared with the amount of care provided by their own system.”

if the care in the US was sooooooo much better, as that nonsense quoted in the article suggests, we’d be flocking south for our care. It isn’t and we don’t

Check the author’s portfolio. probably some HMO’s in it

-marcello

By: blakegoud

blakegoud — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:02:54 +0000

I generally really like John Mauldin, but he includes one major fallacy about the national health insurance plan. It would cover INSURANCE not CARE. The “nationalized healthcare” phrase is so overused to be almost cliche, not to mention factually incorrect. Its real purpose is as a scare tactic.

Also, the prospect of large deficits out there mentioned by John Taylor contain a clear (basic) mathematical error. He writes: “A 100 per cent increase in the price level means about 10 per cent inflation for 10 years.” Taylor apparently forgets that annual percentage changes over multiple years need to be compounded to be accurate. If I have $100 in a bank account paying me 10% interest a year (annually), I won’t have $1,000 ten years from now. I would only have to receive 7% interest for that to occur because of the compounding effect.

Also, the important point with the deficits is the evolution of their share in GDP. In order to maintain a constant share of constant $ GDP, the deficits need to grow by less than Growth Rate + Inflation Rate. The quantity Rate of Growth of Deficits – (Growth Rate + Inflation Rate) = Change in the constant $ deficit as a share of GDP. As long as the second quantity is larger, deficits will be shrinking.

By: gk

gk — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:57:19 +0000

re the alleged superiority of US healthcare, three things to consider:

1. Canadians and most Europeans live longer than Americans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_CIA_World_Factbook_.282008_estimates.29

2. Canadians aren’t rushing en masse to the US for healthcare. That’s a myth.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/19

3. American healthcare is more socialized than most European countries and Canada. http://www.rgemonitor.com/piie- monitor/256439/europe_and_the_us_whose_health_care_is_more_socialist