Only if you are more interested in making specious arguments.
Look, I'll re-iterate my point. If a person's medical record gets fucked up, they could end up dying as a result. Nothing trumps that. Nothing.
And exactly how would letting patients haphazardedly edit their medical record going to do a thing to prevent that?
Do you even know what a medical record is?
Who has the most to lose if somebody fucks up a medical record? That's the person who should have the final say about the contents. Authority without responsibility is a major part of what has fucked up our medical system today.
By that logic, passengers on a flight should be allowed to edit the contents of the flight data recorder.
Look, I'll re-iterate my point. The electronic medical record is intended to be an objective record of a patient's health assessment. A patient is not qualified to make an objective assessment of their health status. They're able to make subjective reports that are recorded in the medical record. A medical record does not work if it gets to be edited. In fact, many successful lawsuits have hinged on the fact that the medical record had been added to or edited after the fact. At the risk of sounding cocky, I honestly don't think you understand what the medical record is, if you think that a patient should be allowed to edit it.
To read it, sure. To comment on it to their physician, sure. But to edit it, no f'ing way.
That's because only a compulsory single payer is able to avoid discriminating for pre-existing conditions.
That's completely untrue. Say, for instance, I work for LargeMultinationalCorporation. I could have diabetes, high blood pressure and had 3 heart attacks, and I'll still get coverage because I work for LargeMultinationalCorporation. And I did it without the federal government!
"Dumbing down", as opposed to **OBFUSCATING** in order to maintain the status-quo, so that people keep believing that "the government is **BAAAAD**" so private insurer can continue to gouge the public???
Please give me one example of the U.S. federal government taking over for a private industry, where the end results were better than if the federal government did not meddle at all.
Bullshit. What happens is that insurance companies are looking at all possible ways of weaseling out of their contracts in order to increase their profits, and to do this, they have armies of "investigators" who social-engineered their ways into medical records.
Now you're just making shit up. Do you have any proof of your claims that large insurance companies are committing mass fraud to gain access to medical records?
This is an unacceptable invasion of privacy. If you believe that croporations shall have the right of life or death to people, you are truly a fascist.
Or you have been sorely misinformed and swallowed the whole hook line and sinker of fascists arguments.
Sorely misinformed? My friend, I work in the hospital and see day to day what goes on. Do you?
If you were a millionnaire whose fortune would depend on maintaining the status-quo, as you are pitifully trying to do, you would not hang on Slashdot on a sunday morning.
Don't you know that Sunday morning is vacation day for millionaires whose fortunes depend on maintaining the status quo?
First off, I'm all for universal health care. I'm just against having the federal government run it. I'm all for enacting NEEDED health care reform. I'm just against expanding failed or failing government programs like Medicare and especially Medicaid in order to do it. Of course, it seems that you're under the assumption that if you're not pounding the socialization drum, you must be a facist, right?
How about you? Why are you so hell bent on preseving the "liberty" you have been led to believe you have? Why are you thinking like a zillionnaire???
I'm not thinking like a zillionnaire. I'm thinking like a medical student who's going to be a medical doctor in 5 months, and worrying that the federal government is going to completely fuck up the medical system as it has with, say, the railroads, banking, space, high technology, and the like.
The reason for the requirement of stringent privacy requirements for health-record keeping is solely due to the sheer number of unregulated, unaccountable organizations dealing with them.
I am talking, of course, of private health-insurance companies.
The obvious cost-effective solution is to get rid of them, and implement an universal, single-payer insurer that would cover absolutely everyone (no opting-out) with exactly the same coverage (no more time wasted to figure out if some procedure is covered or not).
Since coverage of everyone will be compulsory, there will be no more need to discriminate for pre-existing conditions, thus removing the need for intrusive record snooping in the first place.
In fact, such a solution is currently in place in **ALL** the industrialized countries, except in the USA.
There shall be no more pussyfooting around the bush with this issue, the bull's apple need to be bitten by the horns right now.
In addition to finally covering everyone, the USA will no longer be a turd-world country and a laughingstock in respect to health-care, and in bonus, all the rotten parasites that fester in and around private health-insurance companies will be forced to find an honourable way of paying the bills.
First off, I just don't understand why people insist that universal health care == single payer. The two are completely separate; you can certainly have the former without requiring the latter.
There are MANY reasons to argue against single payer health care.... and that is beyond the scope of this
For instance, what if a prospective employer wants to take a look at your EMR to see if you have chronic medical conditions that would require you to take days off in the future? What if your prospective spouse wants to see what heritable diseases run in your family?
Of course, that's not important for you. What's important for you seems to be inserting a rant supporting your political viewpoint. Kudos, my friend, kudos, for trying to distract a real argument with your strawman.
I understood Obama's spokespeople to making a big deal about moving to electronic records. Are you telling me that it was actually Bush who made it happen?
Obama's health care plans includes an emphasis on evidence based medicine, preventive medicine, and improved efficiency and safety.
In other words, a pretty much verbatim duplication of the CURRENT requirements of JCAHO - the accreditation body that Medicare uses to certify hospitals as compliant and eligible for Medicare funds.
Change we can believe in, indeed.
(Most medical records today aren't things that patients get--MS is taking the position that patients should be able to see their own records, and even correct their own medical records. (But with digital signatures to keep track of who is updating the record.))
IANAD (but I will be one in 5 months or so). If that is Microsoft's position, that is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard. Worse than Clippy. Worse than Bob. Look, a patient's medical record is supposed to be an OBJECTIVE documentation of a patient's health status and treatment. How, exactly, is a patient qualified to make an objective assessment of their medical problems, diagnostic workups and treatment regimens?
One thing about electronic records in general--patient accessible ones--is that it should make a difference in accountability. Normally, at many hospitals in the US, if a doctor makes a significant mistake the records disappear. If patients have direct access to their own records, that will become a less common practice.
Well, that's just complete BS. I don't know where you get your information, but altering a patient's medical record is illegal and, at the very least, will result in a physician's suspension of privileges from a hospital... and most likely, a revocation of their medical license.
Btw, your patient record is completely accessible. You just have to make a request to the medical records office. No, it's not available on the web, but it's not as if your MR is a secret like your FBI file.
My wife and I had almost the same experience. Our fridge died. We went to Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes.. Everybody said that it would take four of five days to get one delivered. We decided to check out a local place. They had a great fridge for a great price. Then came the delivery, the answer was how about tomorrow?
Ugh. I hate it when people answer a question with a question. Bastards.
Where else are kids gonna be able to take a good mid-afternoon nap? The seats in 10-250 were so comfortable. And in these smaller classes, everyone can see you fall asleep.
Ugh. I don't know if it's changed recently (I know that they recently re-did 10-250) but the LIGHTING in that room was horrendous. The flicker, man, the flicker!
MIT's Open Courseware is lacking in the fact that (a) the classes don't count for credit, (b) nobody's there to grade any work you do, and (c) many classes are not posted in the entirety (video lectures are IFAIK non-existent, answer sheets to the assigned HW questions are never there, and entire slideshow lectures are occasionally missing).
Oh knoes! I have to go to college to get a college education??
The 747 can operate out of more airfields than the A380.
Nope. One design goal was that the A380 would be able to use precisely the same runways (or shorter) than the 747 and the goal was met. The A380 is, however, considered too big to regularly visit some airports that the 747 can use but that is due to gates and how it will congest taxiing but when did you last see Air Force One docked at a gate or other aircraft permitted nearby? Now, I do think that it will be a cold day in hell when Air Force One is an A380 but that's only because it's such an important national symbol. However, I also think that the A380 is a better aircraft than the 747-8 and the sales figures show it (only one airline order and that was by Boeing's most loyal customer, Lufthansa, and the latest rumors are that they'll exercise their opt-out clause since nobody wants to be a sole operator). Boeing hasn't put that much effort into it either because they've never believed that there's a market for such a giant aircraft as the A380 (let alone two).
The grandparent said airfields, not runways. In terms of ground clearance, taxiway clearance, and operational capability, the A380 is limited to several hundred airports across the globe. For instance, the outboard engines on the A380 greatly increase the risk of foreign object debris ingestion and precludes the use of that aircraft in many airports that can safely operate the 747.
The A380 sales figures have been rather pathetic. The 747-8i has been more so, but the 748 freighter has been selling quite well. The sales figures say nothing about how good of an airplane it is, just says that the very large airliner market is limited. Of course, I bet Airbus wishes it knew that before it launched the A380...
The airbus tanker was to be built in Alabama. In fact, the facility is either already built or currently under construction. So basically, the plane would have been just as American made as a boeing: all foreign parts and assembled in the US. The only difference is that northrop's plane was better, bigger, proven by use in other countries like Australia and created 25000 new jobs in the US. There was a lot of FUD spread by certain congressmen after northrop won that contract.
The plane was bigger... (and not necessarily in good ways), but everything else in your comment was pretty much BS.
So for short-term help to reduce joblessness, I suggest lowering taxes on jobs, the payroll tax. This could be paid for with an offsetting carbon tax.
Right. Your plan would have the ultimate result that the few of us that have jobs left would pay less taxes. Brilliant.
Look, I know that there's a strong anti-business sentiment, probably deserved. But you're not going to fix it by raising taxes on businesses and then assuming that giving those savings to someone else is going to make anything better. A recession is NOT the time bump up the tax rate, despite what NYC mayor Bloomberg thinks.
And if any of the guys from MSFT are reading this: STOP trying to be Apple! If I would have wanted a freaking Apple I would have bought one,okay? You are a business company, NOT a home entertainment company. Make a decent low resource using business OS and stop trying to be "Steve Jobs Jr" because frankly it is embarrassing.
If MSFT tried to be more like Apple, it would be a good thing. Remember the OS X development cycle? They made the core of the OS stable first before they worked on the GUI. The first release was OS X used the old Platinum UI. Instead, it seems like for Windows development, the flashiness of Aero or whatever they're going to call the Win7 theme appears to take precedent. Look at all the screen shots proliferating of Win7; it's all about the "new" interface, same as the old interface.
If MSFT wanted to be more like Apple, they would make sure that the core of their OS is rock stable before working on flashy gimmicks. That's the lesson than MSFT hasn't learned yet.
The shuttle is supposed to be retired in 2010, yes, but the way the work is going along on the replacement it very well might turn out to be even later then we expect it to be. What if there's a national need for space access in the meantime before the new system is up and ready? We're fucked then. Maybe they should consider keeping it around until we're sure we'll get the next system up and going.
I know there are proposals to keep the shuttle going a little longer if we need it, but if we get rid of it it will be up shit creek if it turns out we need it again. Imagine if they give away the shuttles in 2010 and then in 2012 the Ares explodes on launch.
I think we should keep it at least in storage until we're dead certain that the new project will work out.
That's why COTS exist- Commercial Orbital Transportation System.... to fill the gap between the end of shuttle flights and the beginning of Ares/Orion/whatever they're calling it now.
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson
