|
Grex > Agora47 > #162: New Hampshire Supreme Court: Gay Sex Not Adultery | |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 88 responses total. |
jep
|
|
response 50 of 88:
| 
Nov 21 04:14 UTC 2003 |
I think employers are steadily moving toward eliminating health
insurance as a benefit for anyone. I know I get substantially less
health care benefits from my employer than I got 2 or 3 years ago. I
wouldn't be too surprised to see family members eliminated from these
plans first. Dismayed but not surprised.
If it happens, it will be interesting to see the effects on the
pharmaceutical and medical industries. People will change their
health care habits, and I imagine the first thing to go for most
people will be preventative health care. Then a greater demand for
emergency health care and more expensive drugs, which might lead to
more government regulation of both.
That way lies a national health care plan, with possibly even
conservatives such as myself in favor of it. I struggle at even
imagining that.
|
jp2
|
|
response 51 of 88:
|
Nov 21 11:16 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
|
polygon
|
|
response 52 of 88:
|
Nov 21 15:12 UTC 2003 |
klg: "It would be likely that a good portion of the current health
care costs incurred by the employer would be passed on to the
employee in the form of wages...."
ROTFL!
|
klg
|
|
response 53 of 88:
|
Nov 21 17:03 UTC 2003 |
(Mr. polygon, unlike this poster, probably has had no employment
experience in employee/union relations.)
|
happyboy
|
|
response 54 of 88:
|
Nov 21 18:48 UTC 2003 |
r52: what an interesting fantasy life klg must have.
|
other
|
|
response 55 of 88:
|
Nov 22 03:38 UTC 2003 |
re #53: I have. On BOTH sides. And it is my firm belief that the
statement by klg that polygon is laughing at is a huge crock and
deserves no consideration beyond derisive laughter.
|
pvn
|
|
response 56 of 88:
|
Nov 22 10:18 UTC 2003 |
Indeed. Why is it that 'health care costs' are rising at orders of
magnitude greater than even the inflationary BLI CPI (itself hugely
larger than the real 'adjusted' CPI)?
|
pvn
|
|
response 57 of 88:
|
Nov 22 10:21 UTC 2003 |
Why is it that large numbers of 'health care providers' are leaving that
industry in favor of IT jobs (not exactly booming right about now) and
others? s/BLI/BLS/ above (sorry).
|
keesan
|
|
response 58 of 88:
|
Nov 22 15:16 UTC 2003 |
Health care costs reflect the cost of expensive new equipment. My last CT
scan took 20 min on the machine and was billed $3800.
|
bru
|
|
response 59 of 88:
|
Nov 22 16:37 UTC 2003 |
Indeed, while drugs are not cheap, the machinery is very expensive, both to
create and to utilize.
MRI and CAT machines are worth millions. they are delicate, they are power
hogs, and tehy require specialists both to operate and to read the results.
|
mary
|
|
response 60 of 88:
|
Nov 22 17:23 UTC 2003 |
Everyone wants cheaper medical care until they, or
someone they love, is ill. Then they want the
best money can buy, using the latest technology,
without consideration of age or quality of life.
|
drew
|
|
response 61 of 88:
|
Nov 22 20:51 UTC 2003 |
Does a CAT scanner really consume that many resources when run for 20 minutes?
Even a fraction of $3800 worth of electricity is a *lot* of juice to be
passing through a patient.
|
keesan
|
|
response 62 of 88:
|
Nov 22 20:57 UTC 2003 |
They do not run electricity through patients with a CT scanner, rather low
level radiation. The technicians have two years training. The people who
read the results have more than 8 years (radiologists). The equipment needs
a lot of maintenance. Both times I was there at least 2 machines were broken
and they are always having to reschedule. I had a two hour wait first time.
PET scans probably cost even more. They can determine whether something
detected by the CT scan as being a mass is actually cancerous. Positron
emission tomography. Then there are MUGA scans, ultrasound, xrays....
|
scott
|
|
response 63 of 88:
|
Nov 22 20:58 UTC 2003 |
Re 61: It's not electricity, it's magnetic fields that pass through the
patient. They need to generate a really strong field; strong enough that
there was an incident where a police officer came into the CAT room in some
facility and his gun was sucked into the gap from several feet/yards away.
|
keesan
|
|
response 64 of 88:
|
Nov 22 22:01 UTC 2003 |
Oh, that explains why they wanted to be sure I was not wearing or carrying
anything metallic such as buttons or zippers or snaps. If you are, they make
you switch to a hospital gown. It is chilly in these gowns in the basement
where they keep the equipment. I make sure to not wear zippers.
Are the magnetic fields generated by electricity?
|
other
|
|
response 65 of 88:
|
Nov 22 23:12 UTC 2003 |
A huge contributor to the cost of health care is the cost of
malpractice insurance. I recently attended a seminar on malpractice
reform in which it was revealed that over 80% of physicians have
been sued.
Another interesting thing that was revealed was that the vast
majority of patients who suffer injury at the hands of physicians
don't actually sue. The point being made was at least in part that
the vast majority of suits filed have little legitimate basis, but
the presenter was not so coarse as to actually say that. What I
found most revealing in that was that no effort at all was made to
define injury in the sense being applied.
|
klg
|
|
response 66 of 88:
|
Nov 23 01:44 UTC 2003 |
Mr. Scott- re: 63
Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Computed Axial Tomography.
One uses X-rays.
The other uses a magnetic field.
You have 2 guesses to match them up.
(Our qualifications, you may ask?? . . . How about working with
radiologists to write Certificate of Need applications for CAT
scanners? Note to Mr. drew - We did not incorporate the "cost of
electricity" into the operating expense projection.)
klg
re: "#54 (happyboy): r52: what an interesting fantasy life klg must
have."
Mr. happyboy-
You are so correct. Including our "fantasy" of having served on the
negotiating team for a major automotive manufacturer. We considered
total labor costs and did not really care all that much whether they
were paid out in the form of benefits or wages.
Perhaps you might tell us your source of expertise with regard to this
subject. We would be fascinated to know.
Thank you.
|
keesan
|
|
response 67 of 88:
|
Nov 23 02:36 UTC 2003 |
So why avoid metal buttons during CT scans?
|
klg
|
|
response 68 of 88:
|
Nov 23 02:49 UTC 2003 |
Why do they have stainless steel IV stands in the room?
|
bru
|
|
response 69 of 88:
|
Nov 23 04:14 UTC 2003 |
not only that, but you are required to undergo an exray prior to MRI, because
even minute fragments of metal that might be found in your body, can becomee
projectiles in the field. notthing quite like a steel sliver ripping thru
an eyeball to spoil your day.
|
polygon
|
|
response 70 of 88:
|
Nov 23 05:06 UTC 2003 |
Re 53. Like other, I do have experience with employer/union relations,
both from a management and union standpoint.
It is also true that unionized employees make up a steadily dwindling
fraction of the U.S. workforce, so the situation that obtains in a labor
negotiation is largely irrelevant to most employees.
|
remmers
|
|
response 71 of 88:
|
Nov 23 14:43 UTC 2003 |
Re #66: There's some validity in what klg says. In the last round
of faculty/administration contract negotiations at EMU, the administration
agreed to a $1000 increase in the base salary of any faculty member who
elected a particular health care plan that would save the administration
money. (However, it was the administration who was pushing the health
care package and the union that suggested boosting salaries as a reward.)
|
russ
|
|
response 72 of 88:
|
Nov 23 15:52 UTC 2003 |
Re #63: That would have been an MRI scanner, not a CAT
scanner. CAT is just a two-axis X-ray machine and no
more needs magnets than fish need bicycles. MRI uses
the gyroscopic moment of certain atomic nuclei when they
are in a magnetic field, and depends on multi-Tesla
superconducting coils to give the nuclear spins something
to react against.
MRI machines are noisy, because there are large radio-frequency
(27 MHz or so) pulses to kick the nuclei spins, and "gradient
coils" which move the center of the magnetic field around and
permit measurements of different points inside the magnet
bore. The gradient coils are driven by massive audio-frequency
amplifiers, and while they have lousy treble response I'm told
that the lows can literally shake buildings. An MRI expert
I know told of a time that someone played In A Gadda Da Vida
over an MRI's gradient coils (crazy Brits).
|
twenex
|
|
response 73 of 88:
|
Nov 23 15:56 UTC 2003 |
I believe the phrase you're looking for is "eccentric Brits".
|
other
|
|
response 74 of 88:
|
Nov 23 16:56 UTC 2003 |
re #69: Funny, I wasn't required to undergo an x-ray before my
recent MRI. I just answered a bunch of questions.
And the machine was REALLY noisy. I brought good earplugs because I
expected there to be a lot of noise, but I figured it would have
something to do with keeping the huge electromagnet cool. That was
obviously not the source of the noise (a lot of clunking and
banging, mostly) and even with the info in #72, I'm still quite
puzzled as to exactly what the noise was.
|