An ode to quarterbacks as well as an analysis as how great process does not always lead to great results…
Change and counters to changes
The structure of language and concepts dictating physical realities
Interesting piece on reference pricing and its impacts in California…
To the extent that better decisions do lead to problematic risk selection other interventions, like additional subsidization, could address the problem. Nevertheless, it isvaluable to recognize that some degree of confusion can be harmful to consumers while playing a market stabilizing role.
Walker
The Tyranny of Choice.
aangus
Test, test.
Is this thing on?
eta Just checking.
Starfish
At least two of your links are broken because they contain extra %20 things before the last word.
tybee
too many choices, at least for me at times, leads to paralysis through over analysis
RSA
Who knew sports analysis could be more than wankery? Not me. Pretty cool stuff.
PhoenixRising
I’m seeing the new oncologist later today.
The old oncologist moved to the desert from somewhere with weather you have to shovel, where there are choices for patients. Worked 5 years, then re-retired, in part because the EMR got between her and the patients, inserting the cost-control function into every exam room. She hated having to make me wait while she called upstairs to the suits to say once again, “Yes, but this patient isn’t 40 yet and has a young child as well as a living 90 year old grandparent, so we’re going to be extra-careful about which tests to order, in case we win this fight with THIS malignancy…no irradiating the gonads, for one thing!”
The new one just got here from Sloan-Kettering in NY, and the support staff are rolling their eyes at her. She thinks that her patients here in the ass-end of nowhere deserve the best available care, and means to deliver it–or so I was told $3278 of diagnostics billed to my deductible ago.
I plan to outlast her, too.
Richard Mayhew
@Starfish: fixed
Richard Mayhew
@RSA: The quality of sports writing has dramatically improved over the past decade. I actually learn things now past the cliche bingo.
Morbo
The Onion has a story just for you, Richard.
Roger Moore
@RSA:
Nate Silver, for one. His big thing was to take modern sports analysis and apply it to politics, which was way behind sports in terms of the quality of its analysis.
RSA
Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about Nate Silver’s roots.
Ben Franklin
Spy agencies are doing what?
The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just “metadata” … although that is enough to destroy your privacy
The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that “everything” is relevant … so it spies on everyone. For example, the NSA “oversight” court believes the mere claim that terrorists use the phone system is enough to show that all phone records are relevant
NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word
It’s not just the NSA … Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS – concerned only with domestic issues – spy on Americans as well. The Drug Enforcement Administration has had direct access to AT&T phone records for 25 years
The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges
The Department of Health and Human Services will also have access to vast quantities of sensitive federal data on Americans as part of Obamacare (here’s the underlying Government Accountability Office report)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/09/new-nsa-revelations-are-breaking-every-day/
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Not only that, but The Government knows how much money you make every year, and if you try to prevent them from finding out and taking it away by claiming they can “tax” it, they’ll send you to jail!
You’ve really got to stop listening to so much Alex Jones.
Yatsuno
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
It gets worse. You know who tells the government that? Your employer. Because if they don’t they can get shut down plus it can have a penalty on your personal taxes that is a bitch and a half to remove. My agency is just all kinds of ebil.