They might get fined? That's it?

Can't they be sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians?

Where I find a big, big difference is the for profit facilities doing things like plastic surgery. They want to be paid up front, they will tell you what it will cost to the penny, and they never come up with bogus add-on charges.

Kinda hard to do when the bill is from an assistant anesthesiologist for work performed during surgery. That is one of the most common bills to show up months later.

Having used both systems, I would rate the French system as far superior to the American one. I don't regard that as political point, just a statement of fact.

The complexity of the billing can indeed be insane.

I have literally gotten a check (for overpayment) and a threat to send the bill to collection (for non-payment) from the same Doctor's office on the same day.

My wife was in the hospital once and a secondary Doctor in her team would come by every morning, say "Hi, you are you today?," shake my hand, chat a minute, and leave. I thought he was just being sociable, until I saw that each visit was a $300 consultation (which, BTW, insurance paid in full).

I am going to guess that you don't have much experience dealing with either hospitals or medical insurance. All sorts of things (including "mission critical" ones like prescriptions, tests and even surgery schedules) are arranged, discussed and argued about over the phone. Yes, you have to answer a set of challenge questions (i.e., social security number, policy number, etc.) to show that you are indeed the person in question, but pretty much all of the organizational business of patient care is done over the phone.

Anyone who has had an involved relationship with the US medical care system is likely to come to the conclusion that sometimes they just make their bills up, either to increase revenue or because their record-keeping is so chaotic.

If you doubt this, consider an analogy. Suppose you took your car in for major engine repair, it was in the shop for a week, and you paid the hefty bill. Now, suppose 4 months later you got another bill from a "muffler specialist" or a "catalytic converter specialist" for $ 300, with a code saying that they worked on your car while it was in the shop, but no indication as to what they actually did (except, maybe, look at your muffler or catalytic converter). Would you consider it legit? Would you assume you are being gouged? Would you pay? (They'll take you to court if you don't.)

In my experience, the medical version of this happens every time I have a family member in a US hospital. Not occasionally, not once in a blue moon, but every time. This is one reason why you never know how much a procedure is going to cost; you don't know what bills are going to show up months later.

If you want to search an audio or video recording, even a fairly poor speech to text can be very useful. A 90% success rate (1 word in 10 being incorrect) would provide a very frustrating transcript if you wanted to read it. However, if you are looking for a certain set of keywords or phrases, then 90% is likely to be perfectly adequate - after all, the point is to select "conversations of interest" that can then be listened to more intently.

If you could measure programming ability somehow, its curve would look like the normal distribution.

Says who? It would in fact look like a Pareto distribution, with some sort of long tail. Such distributions are common and to be expected in human affairs and human mental capabilities, which are not subject to the central limit theorem (which is what typically leads to a normal distribution in physical measurements).

So this week Gohmert, the chair of the oversight and investigations subpanel of the U.S. House of Representatives' Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing to explore "the consequences of politically driven science."

You have to understand that when he says things like "politically driven science" he is intending, not to communicate, but to bamboozle and deceive. This has been pointed out before:

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democ- racy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. "

(Politics and the English Language, 1946.)

You're right, although he grew up Catholic, so I expect he gets the concept.

Well, maybe. Of the Republicans running or widely considered to be possibly running for President, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal
Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum are all Catholic. That's a pretty good chunk of the people considered to be actual contenders.

The Pope has always had access to excellent advice from more-or-less anyone he wants (invitations to join the Pontifical Academy of Sciences are rarely turned down, and are by no means restricted to Catholic men). I may or may not agree with him, but I would never assume that he is being mislead by, or even has to rely on, outside advisors.

America, a nation of Stakhanovites.