Speaking as one that utilizes their int'l calling options, I can't imagine how they're making a raft of money off of me when I'm only paying $.02/min for calls to France..

Nazingifying? :)

All your phone numbers are belong to us.

forgot to add the word "physician" at the end there.... ;)

Undoubtedly you are correct.

The X-Ray they did was apparently to confirm their thoughts on the pneumonia, but the rest of the diagnosis seemed (to my admittedly untrained eye) to be good deduction and experience.

I can speak to the "Physician Assistant" thing personally, as an ex-girlfriend was one.. The law varies from state to state, but at least in Pennsylvania, becoming a PA requires several years of graduate-school education and a sort of mini-internship/residency period. They can pretty much do anything a doctor can do, short of surgery, with the supervision of a LOCAL (meaning in the building, within no more than a minute or two distance).

So, need to reply to just a few things here, not just your point, so hope you don't mind me hijacking your post.

Little story:

About 2 years ago, I was having coughing fits severe and long enough that I was on the verge of blacking out (from lack of oxygen) several times. I called my primary care doctor, but even with the description I gave, their only advice was to either come in the following day or go to the ER.

So, being a reasonable sort of person, I decided to take the middle path. I went to one of those "Doc in a box" clinics, and within 45 minutes, I'd been seen, x-rayed, given a lung capacity test (one of those plastic things with the little red ball inside), advised of my diganosis, handed some prescription cough syrup and some STRONG antibiotics (turned out I was developing pneumonia) and sent on my way.

Cost.. $20, same as an office visit (since they're not open 24/7, they don't count as an ER).

I can find no fault with the entire experience. Now, if I thought that I'd developed meningitis or Parkisons or whatever, sure, I'd get an appointment with a "real" doctors office. But for probably 95% (total guess on that percentage, but seems reasonable to me) of what people go into their GP for, this was a perfect solution.

The clinic was staffed with 5 or so Physician Assistants and 2 Nurse Practitioners, with only one "real" doctor, but at no point was I concerned about the level of care or knowledge-base of those non-doctor staff people.

In short, I got quality care, in virtually no time at all, for the cost of an office visit. I simply cannot find anything to complain about in the entire experience.

Actually, it was "invented" by a German in 1918 and proposed for the US in 1921.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/04/value-added-tax-opinions-columnists-bartlett.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=GvWYhJI1UVoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (page 4)

Presuming you don't necessarily mean that, but this is /. , so have to examine.

Let's assume that the prisoners in question are young (so as to be physically capable of the trip), so we'll start at age 25. Let's also assume that their life expectancy in prison is 50 years. So, the math at that point is fairly simple, so long as we don't calculate for the additional expense of medical care that geriatric prisoners incur in their waning years.

Using the report at http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/statsbrief/cost.html/ as our guide, let's assume that your average prisoner costs $55/day to house and feed.. So, discounting any other costs and inflation, the cost of keeping an average prisoner in jail for 50 years is around $1,000,000 (based on $55/day * 365 * 50).

Not sure, by that standard, that it would be cheaper to shoot them into space on a one-way trip to Mars, given the cost of fuel and the various other things to keep them alive. I mean, yeah, you get free labor and all, but unless the plan is to send them up as mere lab rats or unskilled labor, you'd presumably have to teach them to do stuff that they may not know, unless you pick an exceptional prisoner (someone w/ an MD or something like that..

Still, probably a good cost:benefit ratio, all told.