Affordable Care Act debates, and other matters of concern.

Mail 797 Sunday, November 03, 2013

Destroy the Market To Save It

Jerry,

This from today’s WSJ: "For all of the Affordable Care Act’s technical problems, at least one part is working on schedule. The law is systematically dismantling the individual insurance market, as its architects intended from the start."

"The millions of Americans who are receiving termination notices because their current coverage does not conform to Health and Human Services Department rules may not realize this is by design. Maybe they trusted President Obama’s repeated falsehood that people who liked their health plans could keep them. But Americans should understand that this month’s mass cancellation wave has been the President’s political goal since 2008. Liberals believe they must destroy the market in order to save it."

The piece goes on to cover in some detail what’s to happen to the individual market, and why. Read the whole thing at

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304200804579163541180312658

We individually insured types are a mere 7% of the national insurance market, and thus there may have been a political calculation we’re expendable. But note the table embedded midway through that Washington Post "Wonkblog" piece you mentioned, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/29/this-is-why-obamacare-is-cancelling-some-peoples-insurance-plans/

Key point: As of this year, only 36% of *group* insurance plans are grandfathered under the ACA. So it’s not just individuals. Many, many millions of people in group plans are also going to be hearing over the next year that they can’t keep their current insurance, that it’s going to be either costing them significantly more, or going away entirely as their employers decide to just pay the fines and dump them too on the exchanges.

I expect the political storm from this is just getting started.

Porkypine

Jerry,

RE: Obamacare

Well, this is a plausible explanation of incompetence http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/24/obamacare-site-fixer-no-amount-testing-could-have-prevented-disastrous-launch/

Apparently, DHHS served as systems integrator in-house rather than hiring an integration contractor. That makes it very probable that they let contracts for the different parts without giving adequate (any?) attention to making the puzzle pieces fit together at the end. Of course, that is not inconsistent with the chaos being a planned feature rather than a bug..

Jim

 

 

Medical Costs

Dr. Pournelle,

I have been trying to write a response to the letter you received from the cardiologist. I was hoping to find some objective data to help illustrate my points, but I haven’t had time yet. So, before the point gets to be too moot I thought I would just give some of my observations.

I would agree that we have had amazing number of advances in the last 40 years; to extend let cardiologist’s point MI’s in the time of President Eisenhower were largely wait and see affairs. People that did not die immediately frequently became "cardiac cripples" as they almost inevitably developed heart failure and a life expectancy of less than 5 years. By the early 1980’s a patient might have emergency bypass surgery on a ‘heart-lung’ machine, spend several days in the cardiac intensive care, several days to weeks on the surgical floor, be released and have months before returning to work. They might have a "balloon" without a stent, again with a prolonged ICU and hospital stay, and prolonged time before return to work. Now they do several bypass surgeries "off the pump", no need to stop the heart, no need to use expensive ‘heart-lung’ machine and technician, and much reduced hospital stay and time until return to work. With stents initial cost is higher, but re-occlusion rates are much lower. So better care at a high cost, but dropping due to reduced hospitalization and rehabilitation time and much less "cripple". Another example is use of "scopes" in surgery, such as laparoscopic surgery. When I started medical school in 1986 only a few surgeons trained in the use of fiber optic scopes for abdominal surgery, OR times were longer than "open surgery" times, and cost of equipment was very high. By the end of my residency in 1993 a large number of abdominal surgeries such as gallbladder removal where done by laparoscope and now virtually all gallbladders, appendectomies, hernia repairs, bowel resections are done through laparoscopy with a much shorter recovery time and much lower morbidity.

I would also disagree regarding our lack of "universal access". Everyone in the US has universal access to at least emergency care through a law known as EMTALA. Everyone that presents to virtually any hospital in the US requesting an evaluation for a potential emergency condition must have a medical screening exam to rule out life or limb threatening conditions, and further patients may not be discharged until they are stabilized so that they can safely follow up as an outpatient. If the first hospital does not have the capability of stabilizing the patient they have to be transferred to a facility that can stabilize the patient, and the receiving hospital may not refuse the transfer at the risk of being cut out of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, and hefty fines for each infraction. I will agree that follow up care for patients without health insurance is difficult, and we certainly need to figure out ways to promote health maintenance compared to treatment of illness.

He also makes the claim that the 39 other countries that provide care have "better quality at less cost"; I would like to see his yardstick for this claim. Again, I will stipulate that there are several things that the US system could do better, but the most advanced care in the world is available here. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean we always have the best care across the entire spectrum.

I would also argue with his rationale for why we are resistant to ObamaCare. His contention that universal coverage does not necessarily mean single payer coverage is technically correct, but the writing is on the wall. If I recall correctly most of the administration and congressional people involved in pushing the current legislature through Congress have stated they wanted single payer but didn’t think they could get there in one step. Meanwhile, the requirements for the offered plans have caused hundreds of thousands to lose access to their low cost plans because they didn’t include all the mandated bells and whistles, and a large number of people who now have "substandard" insurance through their work will lose their current coverage, too. I think the goal is to have most of these people end up on government financed plans and have a de facto single payer for a very large majority of people.

I don’t think that our "exceptionalism" attitude contributes to our dissatisfaction with ACA. I think American’s rightly recognize that as a nation we have achieved numerous exceptional feats, and realize that to a large extent this is due to freedom. At least intuitively, we know that decreases in freedom will limit our abilities to achieve remarkable things and that nationalizing health care is a very big step toward limiting our freedoms.

As to his "dark side of fierce independence" I would agree that we have a cultural disdain for people that do not take care of themselves, and I think this is a right and proper disdain. I did not say people that cannot take care of themselves. Clearly, Americans as a people are very charitable, and previously we were able to provide a large majority of our care through charitable institutions such as church sponsored hospitals, benevolent groups such as Shiners’, and local charities. I think that these traditional sources of care have died out to some extent due to cost, but much more due to overregulation of their organizations and the "bubble" effect that we see in all areas where the national government as artificially manipulated costs (e.g. college tuitions, housing, e.g. prices). I think these same factors have also limited the traditional social mobility we have enjoyed in the US compared with many European countries, largely because the national government is doing its best to emulate those countries and not amazingly having the same results. I also think that tax payers are getting fatigued taking on any cost that some group is able to lobby congress to provide for them.

I think our antipathy to ACA is much more centered on our rightful distrust of having our individual health care choices managed by a national, or state, or even local government, the fact that a large proportion of American’s were generally satisfied with their health care, and that the system mandated by ACA is inherently unfair and substandard. The fact that congress, labor unions, and big business are all trying to exempt themselves from it make it pretty obvious that this is not premium care.

I believe we would do much better to make good health care affordable if we would change laws to bring the users of healthcare closer to the decision and responsibility of what we pay for our care. If people perceive a service as being "free" it will get utilized even when not appropriate, but if they have to pay for the same care out of their own pocket it takes on a whole different value (that I think is closer to its "true" value). I think if we gave individuals the same tax advantages that businesses have for care, allow large pretax medical savings accounts, allow insurance companies to provide a wider choice of options that people could pick their coverage, and would allow private patients some cost transparency we would see a big improvement in utilization and costs. I think one of the reasons that Kaiser has been as successful as it has been (up until now) is because they have been able to use market forces to encourage health maintenance vs. paying for treatments of diseases that are preventable to some extent. I find it very ironic that the beacons of excellent care such as Kaiser, the Cleveland Clinic, etc. that the supporters of ACA tout as models are having to cut costs and lay off health care providers to meet the mandates of ACA. If these are the groups that are doing it right, and ACA is supposed to try to replicate this care across the spectrum, then shouldn’t these be the very institutions that have to change the least to meet the requirements of ACA. I also find it immoral that ACA is going to force taxpayers to pay for care that they find objectionable, and prevent people from being able to seek the highest quality of care because it is not available to everyone. I believe that the FDA recently rescinded approval of a medication used in treatment in breast cancer because it was too expensive and had a limited applicability; but what about those people that it is indicated? Shouldn’t they at least have the possibility of access to this medication?

I continue to think that ACA has almost nothing to do with providing affordable care, improving care, or getting access for people without the means of providing their own care. I think it is a power grab to control a large portion of the economy and also to have increased control over individuals to decrease our autonomy (violates the Pournelle Law of Bureaucracy).

Thank you for allowing my rant,

Douglas Lewis, MD

 

 

I am a Bunny Inspector

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

I have been reading with interest your several recent pieces of commentary on the over-reach and general uselessness of government Bunny Inspectors. As a long-time reader of your column (way back in the Byte days), I remember your saying along the lines of, “We do silly things so you don’t have to.”

Well, I did a silly thing. I spent time digging into the actual record, and found that the government employs about 120 animal care inspectors – some of who actually inspect bunnies! Of course, these 120 inspectors cover all the inspection requirements under the Animal Welfare Act, including all zoos, circuses, animal exhibitors, commercial sales facilities, research labs, and the like to help make sure that animals are treated humanely. (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/about_ac.shtml)

Even so, I was still concerned. Since my grand-daughters show rabbits (several state fair “best of breed” and “best of show” awards), I was worried that they might be subject to these regulations, but found there are broad exemptions for such backyard operations, as well as 4-H programs, state fair exhibitions, and similar uses. (Title 9, sec 2.1, U.S.C. – www.ecfr.gov).

The budget for these “Bunny Inspectors” and their parent organization is a lot of money; about $22.5 million. Arguably, even $1 spent for one animal welfare inspector may be too much, but we should put this in the context of the $55 billion annual US expenditures on pets. (http://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp) Doing the math means that zeroing the budget appropriation would defray US spending on pets for less than 4 hours.

Since you were no doubt already aware that the actual cost or burden of actual “Bunny Inspectors” is pretty miniscule in terms of what we spend on other things, and is not focused at all on “Bunny Inspections” as a primary role, I conclude that you are using this term to symbolically mean the great majority of those who work in government are simply glorified “Bunny Inspectors” who add little of value to society (e.g., your recent post “Rejoice the Bunny Inspectors Are on the Job”, along with “President Obama threatens international financial disaster if we do not continue to pay the Bunny Inspectors …” 10/9/13).

Accordingly, my 28 years of government service must mean that I am a Bunny Inspector as well. Similarly, my friends and neighbors who are still on active duty, or in the Border Patrol (who unlike the military had to work through the shutdown without pay – http://www.businessinsider.com/the-government-shutdown-is-a-big-deal-to-this-border-patrol-agent-2013-10) are also Bunny Inspectors. Who knew?

Worse yet, since I was an instructor during my time in government and still teach government students, I am also a teacher of new Bunny Inspectors. Worse yet, all of my education and training, including my post-service degree was paid for by the American taxpayer – yet another example of government over-reach and inefficiency in the pursuit of Bunny Inspections.

Clearly, government can and does do silly things from time to time. We all have examples. We can even make the case that protecting the welfare of animals used for commercial purposes is a silly thing to do, and that it is beneath the lofty purposes of the US Constitution, since the Constitutional Framers did not see fit to further define “promote the general welfare.” The idea of “Bunny Inspectors” is clearly symbolic, but that’s not the only symbol we should use for the government. Otherwise, we risk mistaking the symbol for the actual thing.

Warm Regards,

William Hanson, PhD, Colonel, USAF, (ret) Free Range Professor, Bunny Inspector, Teacher of Bunny Inspectors

I wonder if you expect a serious answer?

I would imagine that you would be shocked to discover that there is any government enterprise that does not have needless offices embedded it it. I have chosen the Bunny Inspectors because I do not believe anyone can seriously defend the proposition that what they do is so vital that we need to borrow money in order to pay them to do it. I would have thought it fairly obvious that most people would not think it reasonable to pay Federal agents to protect stage rabbits or prevent backyard rabbit raisers from selling rabbits – for pets, not for meat. If sold for meat no Federal license is needed, but if the bunnies go off as pets, then the Department of Agriculture charges very stiff fines for each instance if you have no federal license (and likely an inspection of your facilities). Colonel, if your grand daughters sell even a single bunny as a pet, you may find yourself called on to bail their parents out of their predicament.

You argue, but do not believe, that if there are any superfluous jobs in the federal government then all are superfluous, which is absurd. As to the comparative triviality of the costs of the inspectors’ salaries and benefits, the amount is trivial only if you believe improvement is not possible. True, a few tens of millions of dollars is small compared to the trillions of the budget; but then you do not seriously believe that I cannot find many more needless offices occupied by highly paid civil servants? If there needs to be such inspections, let the states handle them: the Constitution nowhere hints that Federal officers would be involved in such nonsense.

The point of Federalism is that if one state does something silly it is not a national problem. And the cost of Federal regulations is enormous: indeed it can be argued that the Great Recession that continues to this moment is a major outcome.

As to your Border Patrol friends, they were paid. Not as much as some of the civil servants who took unemployment pay for the shutdown period, then received their pay retroactively – some have voluntarily returned that money, but others have gone to the union to see if they can’t be allowed to keep not only the salary they missed even though they did not work, but also the unemployment compensation. I will not comment on the honor involved in that claim.

And see also

the LATEST on Magicians & bunnies

The latest on the USDA rules for how Magicians need to formulate plans on how they’ll care for their bunnies during any disaster:

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/23/bunny-disaster-plans-unveiling-the-magic-behind-regulations/

Emma Cate

Bunny Disaster Plans: Unveiling the Magic Behind Regulations

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently sent a letter to several magicians telling them that they needed to draft a “disaster plan” for the rabbits they pull out of hats. They must satisfy the federal government that they’re prepared to protect their rabbit from fires, floods, tornadoes, power failures, and so forth.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/23/bunny-disaster-plans-unveiling-the-magic-behind-regulations/

Obamacare prime contractor

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I have been learning some disturbing information about the prime contractor for the Obamacare web site (CGI). As you can see in the linked articles, they have a history of high-profile failures and cost overruns on government contracts.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362255/obamacares-magical-thinkers-mark-steyn/page/0/1

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/22/history-of-high-profile-failures-attributed-to-main-obamacare-website-contractor/

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/25/cgi-why-did-failure-plagued-company-get-the-obamacare-contract-perhaps-connection-to-the-nsa-and-prism-explains-it/

Mark Steyn is the most readable as he discusses the failure to produce the Canadian Firearms Information System (CFIS):

"The registry was estimated to cost in total $119 million, which would be offset by $117 million in fees. That’s a net cost of $2 million. Instead, by 2004 the CBC (Canada’s PBS) was reporting costs of some $2 billion — or a thousand times more expensive.

Yeah, yeah, I know, we’ve all had bathroom remodelers like that. But in this case the database had to register some 7 million long guns belonging to some two-and-a-half to three million Canadians. That works out to almost $300 per gun — or somewhat higher than the original estimate for processing a firearm registration of $4.60. Of those $300 gun registrations, Canada’s auditor general reported to parliament that much of the information was either duplicated or wrong in respect to basic information such as names and addresses.

Sound familiar?

Also, there was a 1-800 number, but it wasn’t any use.

Sound familiar?

So it was decided that the sclerotic database needed to be improved.

Sound familiar?

But it proved impossible to “improve” CFIS (the Canadian Firearms Information System). So CGI was hired to create an entirely new CFIS II, which would operate alongside CFIS I until the old system could be scrapped. CFIS II was supposed to go operational on January 9, 2003, but the January date got postponed to June, and 2003 to 2004, and $81 million was thrown at it before a new Conservative government scrapped the fiasco in 2007. Last year, the government of Ontario canceled another CGI registry that never saw the light of day — just for one disease, diabetes, and costing a mere $46 million."

=====

I have already written my congressman asking him to inquire into the truth of these allegations, and if so to determine exactly why this company was awarded this contract. I live outside DC. CACI, CSC, SAIC … I can think of many contractors with the expertise to tackle this project and not fail.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Was it supposed to work? Given who they hired, why would you expect it to?

Will: “The absence of a national police power is a critical element of the Constitution’s liberty- preserving federalism.”

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-carol-bond-case-showcases-government-run-amok/2013/11/01/9146cdf8-4276-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html>

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Roland Dobbins

And of course the pressure is on to arm the TSA, the least competent agency in Homeland Security. The purpose of TSA is to convince Americans they are subjects, not citizens, and they are doing that well enough now; giving them guns will not make us safer, but it will make it easier to abolish citizenship.

‘Like many hackers, NSA operatives seem to have done things sometimes for the thrill of it, just because they could.’

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-more-chatter-than-needed/2013/11/01/1194a984-425a-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html>

————

Roland Dobbins

Astonishing…

My appearance on Jim Lynch’s "Everything is Broken" radio show next Tuesday

Dear Jerry:

https://www.facebook.com/WUSBfm

I will be on Jim Lynch’s program "Everything Is Broken" again on Tuesday, November 5th at about 10:25 AM PST. We will be talking about security guards in general and the TSA in particular. WUSB is a high-powered non-commercial radio station located on the campus of Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY. There is an online feature that allows people not in the immediate broadcast area in upstate New York to listen in. It’s 90.1 FM

This is my fourth time on the show this year. My background as a security consultant and former Contributing Editor at Security Technology & Design magazine give me a perspective that most people don’t have. The recent tragic incident at LAX will be what we will start with, but I imagine that the role and history of the TSA will also be examined.

Sincerely,

Francis Hamit

Mr. Heinlein still needs your vote!

Doctor Pournelle,

I’m certain your readers would be interested in this poll to select a famous Missourian. Mr. Heinlein being one of the finalists.

http://www.house.mo.gov/FamousMissourianVoting.aspx

Best Regards,

Paul T.

Libertarians are such elitists. They think you know how to run your own life better than they do.

I’d gently suggest that 39 other countries have solved the issue to some degree or another.

The correspondents who think they are NOT paying for health care for the poor are, of course, incorrect. We all pay for those costs. It is one of the reasons why health care is so expensive in the US and why it is less expensive overseas. It is hard to “track” that money. Of course, we all directly pay for Medicaid and State, County, and Municipal medical care. However, we also pay the “hidden” costs for those who can’t pay.

After 30+ years of practice, I’d guess that the “deserving” poor outnumber the “undeserving” poor by 20-1. There are a LOT of people out there who go to work every day and can’t afford to be insured. Is that their fault? If they’d been smarter or just worked harder or something….they’d be insured. Of course, that argument can be extended to say “well if you are middle class, are you just too lazy to be rich?”

Do people all over the globe “flock to the United States for medical care.” It is uncommon for people from “First World” countries to come to the US. Why would you? The health care is FREE in their home countries and often at least the equal of the care we provide.

The idea that its “unfair” to be fined/taxed for not having insurance is silly. Try driving without auto insurance…there are other examples.

It is a very emotional topic and probably needs to be solved over a number of generations….as was done in Europe.

I don’t argue whose fault something is: I do ask why I am expected to pay for someone else’s misfortunes. If you say, see Genesis 4:9 I can only say that the lesson may apply to me, but it does not do so by the US Constitution. Moreover, while I may have a moral obligation to be charitable, I do not have anything like an obligation to require you to be charitable – and particularly I do not have any moral right to skip the obligation on myself but impose it on you, since you are a physician and wealthier than me.

I am no expert on medical travel plans, but it is my understanding that many Canadians come to the United States for voluntary medical procedures they cannot obtain free in Canada. I am told that Canada is not the only source of such people.

Your "old doctor" author writes:

snip/

One really, really good thing we should be doing is looking at the 39 countries who DO have universal coverage and see how they do it. For example, the national health service in Great Britain has great public support, their costs are something like 8 times less and their life expectancy is better. What do they do that we don’t?

/snip

PBS TV/Frontline/ says:

snip/

In the 1990s, Taiwan researched many health care systems before settling on one where the government collects the money and pays providers. But the delivery of health care is left to the market. Every person in Taiwan has a "smart card" containing all of his or her relevant health information, and bills are paid automatically. But the Taiwanese are spending too little to sustain their health care system, according to Princeton’s Tsung-mei Cheng, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/interviews/reinhardt.html> who advised the Taiwanese government. "As we speak, the government is borrowing from banks to pay what there isn’t enough to pay the providers," she told FRONTLINE.

/snip

ref: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

[according to Google: April 15, 2008]

Wasn’t there a book entitled "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"?

My friend, Jim, recently married and moved to Taiwan. His diabetes medicines that cost US$400 a month now cost him US$4 a month….I don’t know what the exchange rate is….he says he doesn’t wait in a line and has ready access to a doc when he needs one…

sjb

You can always save money by not paying your bills, but the process is not likely to last forever.

So, they’re going to build a new YF-12A/F-12B out of unobtanium?

<http://www.aviationweek.com/Article/PrintArticle.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_11_01_2013_p0-632731.xml&p=1&printView=true>

—–

Roland Dobbins

Homeland Security workers routinely boost pay with unearned overtime, report says – The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/homeland-security-workers-routinely-boost-pay-with-unearned-overtime-report-says/2013/10/31/3d33f6e4-3fdf-11e3-9c8b-e8deeb3c755b_story.html?wprss=rss_social-nonBlogPolitics-rss&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Shocking.

The Speed Of Light

Jerry,

You wrote today about an article published in 2001 indicating that, by theory, the speed of light should not be constant. I have research papers on this subject several times, so I followed your link with some interest. One theory I am familiar with is that the speed of light varied in time, that it was faster in the past and getting slower as the universe ages. This theory has been shown to be incorrect as it is not supported by cosmological observations. The second theory is that the speed of light varies with the frequency of the light. This theory was not supported by observation, either, as it should have caused observable aberration in the images of distant objects, and that has not been seen. A new theory, a consequence of joining relativity theory with quantum field theory for gravity (relativistic quantum field theories already exist for all of the other force/particle parings), predicts that the speed of light should not be a constant in open space, because open space is not a true vacuum. Even in the most rarified regions of the universe, the zero-point fluctuations predicted by quantum field theory are present, and these fluctuations should couple with photons. So the speed of light will still be a maximum of the currently accepted value, but it will not always reach that value, even in open space.

You should also note that the constancy of the speed of light is not a direct consequence of the Michelson-Morley experiment only — it was predicted by Ernst Maxwell in his work on electromagnetism. His work is what is currently classified as a "classical" model of electromagnetism as it did not account for quantum effects, which he had no clue about in the 19th century. What Maxwell found was that no matter how he formulated his equations for the electromagnetic field, the speed of light always came out as a fixed value, indicating to him that the speed of light is a constant.

So, the speed of light is still the top known speed of the universe and the quantum effects that grand unification is predicting merely act to slow photons, not speed them up.

On the brighter side, Einstein said that objects traveling faster than the speed of light might exist — the tachyons — as his restriction is placed on all matter that starts its existence at any speed less than that of light. For tachyons, the speed of light is also a limit, but it is their lower limit, as their mass goes to infinity if they slow down that much.

Kevin L Keegan

Einstein and the Speed of Light

Jerry,

In my first post tonight, I meant to include a link to the article about the research I wrote about. Here it is: http://www.examiner.com/article/new-research-shows-speed-of-light-is-a-variable

Kevin L Keegan

I am aware of Maxwell’s work. I had not thought that theory trumped observation. Now it is not at all certain that the observations are repeatable and properly interpreted, but I would have thought that experimental evidence trumps theory. Indeed, the notion of Dark Matter – and Dark Energy – comes from attempts to reconcile current theory including both general and special relativity with some of the observations of things happening in distant galaxies. If the speed of light is not in fact constant but may vary with the strengths of fields serving as media for waves – in other words, the aether rejected by Einstein’s Special Theory – then other interpretations are possible, and some may not in fact require postulating invisible matter and undetectable energy.

Relativity may be the best explanation of observed data; it is certainly not the simplest theory. It is likely that the standard theories will hold but if so, they will not suffer much from being questioned.

Firmware kills.

<http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-firmware–Bad-design-and-its-consequences>

<http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-toyota-damages-20131026,0,7844943,full.story>

—-

Roland Dobbins

Healthcare converts

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I direct your attention to the Chicago Sun-Times, which describes the travails of a Democratic staff person who has decided, suddenly , that she doesn’t want to defend Obamacare any longer. Something about having her premium jump from $291/mo with $3500 deductible to $322/mo with $6500 deductible.

The injection of additional money into the insurance market is causing prices to go up. Who’d a thought it?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/23352031-452/obamacare-jacks-up-her-insurance.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Gored Ox Syndrome?

Britney Spears Music Used To Scare Off Somali Pirates

Jerry

A cultural weapon of mass destruction — Britney Spears Music Used To Scare Off Somali Pirates:

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/10/28/Britney-Spears-Music-Used-To-Scare-Off-Somali-Pirates

“I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention,”

Ed

Subj: Improved Obamacare Software (?)

The Onion (TM)

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-improved-obamacare-program-released-on-35-flop,34294/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Default:Week1:Default

 

Second strike.

<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/31/inside-china-nuclear-submarines-capable-of-widespr/?page=all>

——-

Roland Dobbins

1st stage landing in 4 months?

Jerry,

I saw the mention of the latest Grasshopper flight on your web site, but a quick search didn’t turn up the following, so perhaps you weren’t aware of the next step toward a TSTO RLV.

"If all goes well, Musk says, the first stage of the Falcon 9 used for that flight (2/2014) will have landing legs. The plan is to have the first stage booster touch down back at its Cape Canaveral launch site."

Consider my mind boggled!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/musk-spacex-now-has-all-the-pieces-for-reusable-rockets-15985616

Sincerely,

Calvin Dodge

I will be among those cheering.

Scientific American censors blog post where female scientist objects to being called a whore

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/on-science-communication-respect-and-coming-back-from-mistakes/

—

73s/Best regards de John Bartley K7AAY

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.