So needless to say it’s been awhile since I’ve posted.  There are three reasons for this (in no particular order):

1. MDs are greedy and there is nothing I can do about this, so I am trying to move on (MDs make it difficult though).
2. I am nipples deep in my dissertation and it gets the vast majority of my time.
3. I am learning C#/.NET.  It takes the vast majority of my “free” time.

Until either #2 or #3 are cleared off my plate (the dissertation will be done by spring 2010) posting will be light to non-existent.  Click the RSS feed link at the bottom.  It’ll be good for you.

Uwe Reinhardt has a good piece on the NY Times Economix blog but he misses the mark on one point.  He says:

Whatever the insurance industry may say about its prowess in the market for health services, it has always been relatively much weaker than doctors and hospitals in that market and therefore quite frequently has had to raise its premiums at double-digit rates from year to year.

This is only half true.  Compared to hospitals, namely the large companies that own them, the insurance industry does have weak market power.  Physicians are a whole other story.  While I am by no means in solidarity with physicians (they are largely responsible for the health care mess that is American health care), they do not have really any market power.  If a physician does not want to do business with a certain insurance company the only recourse that physician (or practice) has is to not accept patients from that insurance company.  Given the consolidated nature of the insurance industry I doubt a physician can just refuse to see a given population of patients.  A Hobson’s choice if there ever was one.  The only exception to this is the largest health insurance provider… the United States government.  There is a growing number of physicians who are refusing to see Medicare patients.  The payouts are below private insurance so physicians cannot maintain their desired salary if they have a high concentration of Medicare patients in their practice.

The Referendum by Tim Kreider.

It has one of the best descriptions of children and why I do not want any.

The New York Times Letters section contains a letter referring to “Health at Every Size”.

Let me state this simply:  You cannot be a person (of any sex) who is 5′2″ and weights 250 lbs and be considered healthy, because you are not healthy.  Sorry.  Unless you are an elite athlete, BMI matters.  Now I’m off to Chic-fil-a.

Between Mark Sanford and the rest of the Republican “family values” bunch, Sandra Tsing-Loh, Laura Kipnis and the rest of the marriage is dead bunch, the Chinesegovernment (well all dictatorial, totalitariangovernments) and what is happening on Wall Sheet, it is making me rethink my stance on hypocrisy.  It really should not be sufficient to damn one’s argument but when the hypocrisy is so rank, so abject, so shameless I am not sure there is any argument that needs rebutting.  I really don’t know.

I am reading CNN and I come across this article.

Ms. Wakeman could have saved herself some time if she had just realized that there is a term for a person(male or female) who exchanges companionship and sex for money… they are called prostitutes.  So Ms. Wakeman could have just written the following line: “Because I foresee my journalism career foundering, I intend to become a prostitute with a single john.”

Whenever you are in a discussion or an informal debate with someone (or an argument for that matter) one the easiest retorts to your opponent citing an expert is to impugn the motives and history of the expert in question.  You have heard this before: Newt Gingrich makes some statement about the importance of traditional marriage and the easy come back is his many divorces.  Rush Limbaugh, drugs… you know.  Thomas Friedman’s multiple columns about the environment and his several thousand square foot house (throw in Al Gore for good measure).  While hypocrisy is worthy of derision, by relying on it solely as your response to a statement you do not agree with you actually are being  intellectually dishonest and lazy (two of my major pet peeves).  What bearing does Mr. Gingrich’s marital history have on the veracity of his statement about marriage.  The truth of the matter is that one can be a hypocrite and have a valid point.  It has been my experience that when one resorts to pointing out the shortcomings of the messenger it usually means a lack of knowledge of an issue and therefore nothing intelligent to say about the topic at hand.  They just “know” that they do not agree with the statement but have only the messenger to attack.

I am as guilty of this as anyone else.  I understand the allure of it.  It is low hanging fruit.  Ripe… fat… juicy.  But Americans have become an appallingly trivial people.  We want American Idol, not Firing Line.  We want reality TV not actual reality.  We want greed not sacrifice.  In short, we have become small and callow.  Developing ideas, gathering facts and synthesizing that into understanding and insight is hard, better to just attack the messenger.  Attacking the messenger is easy, quick, cheap and requires nothing from you and consequently adds nothing of substance.  So the next time you find yourself in a situation where someone presents something you do not agree with, take the issue head on.  Do not shuck it, dodge it or evade.  If you have not thought about, then say so.  If you have then present your case.  If at the end of your case, the allure of that fruit is just to much not to pick then feel free.  Just be sure that your argument stands without it, because if it cannot then that is the easiest way to know that you do not have an argument at all.

A group in China has shown that female mice make eggs after birth. You are probably familiar with the long held theory that women are born with all the eggs they are going to have and when that supply runs out menopause initiation is the result.  None of this is a secret though.  The secret is this.  Research scientists are a competitive bunch.  The salary is low compared to what could be made working for a drug/biotech company and the hours are much longer.  So all that remains is one’s reputation.  So when another group comes out with a big finding it is very easy to see those that are in agreement with the finding and those for whom the finding represents a problem in their research.  How do you discern this?  Easy.  The scientists who hale the finding as very important are those for whom the finding benefits their work or those who agree with the finding but are not in direct competition with the group who published the finding.  The scientists for whom the finding represents a problem are the ones that drag out that old scientific saw which goes along the lines of: It’s an important finding but there is a long way from showing something in the [mouse, rat, zebra fish, fly, dog] and showing it in the human.

Why this is a bogus claim is twofold: 1. The authors make no argument about what’s happening in humans.  Unfortunately, humans are loath to submit to being killed as sham experiments, so we have to settle for mice.  2. While it is true that experimental animals are not human, everything we know about human physiology was first worked out in experimental animals.

Among the many casualties of the Obama Administration’s auto “bailout” plan, one may very well be the thing that allowed uneducated Americans, which still represents the overwhelming majority of Americans, to achieve a middle class lifestyle, namely the American labor union. If GM is forced into bankruptcy and Chrysler is sold off on the cheap to Fiat (which Obama is forcing down the throat of Chrysler) one of the net results will be the eradication of the union contracts. These contracts were weak to begin with and the UAW has been making concessions at a break neck pace. It is unlikely that a bankruptcy judge is going to take pity on the union. Despite the fact that the union has already conceded on wages, health care (for current workers), layoffs, raises and outsourcing the only prize left is the legacy health care costs for retired workers and pensions. These workers will largely suffer when the GM pension program falls on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and their health care plans (which are similar to the plans received by government employees) will be jettisoned for the substandard insurance that the majority of the private sector suffers under.  If you think I am being hyperbolic, then figure $2 million dollars (a fair estimate of what is billed when one receives treatment for cancer) and calculate how much money you will have to pay out of pocket. Do not forget to factor in what your premium will skyrocket to when your insurance comes up for renewal, assuming the insurance company does not drop you entirely.

Once the union rolls over or is forced over, exactly why would anyone join a union?  The whole point of a union is to ensure that management does not run ruff shot over the workers.  But with union membership declining and union jobs dwindling the ability of a union to fulfill its promise (a fair wage and safe working conditions) is all the more difficult.  Unfortunately, this is a feedback loop which ends when the union no longer exists.