Honda "Drive by Wire" question... what if the power goes out?

markup", etc.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. It seems to me that
hospitals will not generally haggle over costs with
individuals without health insurance.

I guess that's incentive to at least have catastrophic
health insurance. Even though one may be well below the
(usually several thousand dollars) deductible for, say, a
hospital visit, one is obtaining the discounted rates that
one's insurance company has previously negotiated with the
hospital.

So if one wants the discount, one is sort of forced into
dealing with insurance companies. But then by being insured
one is forced into subsidizing a lot of people who aren't
careful with their health. Because of the way the
insurance-health care system (monopoly? ponzi scheme?) is
set up, there's little incentive for them to refuse
unnecessary medical services. Hence doctors may prescribe
away, lining their wallets and bringing income to hospitals,
and promoting the "more is better" mentality while
simultaneously claiming it's necessary because they'll be
sued for malpractice if anything goes wrong. Meanwhile, the
added cost is passed along to those who work to stay healthy
and not abuse the insurance system.

I know buying insurance is about buying peace of mind. One
should not expect to ever get back what one pays. Just seems
that in the last 15 years or so, too many expect to get back
from their premiums what they paid and then some, by
excessive use of medical services that benefits them not at
all.

Of course, with uninsured individuals in need of significant
health care services, at some point Medicaid will kick in.
But that also pushes up costs for everone else. Plus, by the
time such people finally get to the hospital, a malady that
might have been easily cured a year ago has exploded into a
very expensive proposition.

Seems to me a Universal Health Care system would solve a lot
of these problems. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would stop
this persistent spiralling of costs that, as I suggest
above, seems more and more like a Ponzi scheme every year.

 

then theres double-billing.

the time i twisted my ankle i did everything by the book, (listed urgent
care facility, paid my co-pay, etc.) bout a year later i got a bill from
a doctor i NEVER saw that day, for treatment/services i NEVER received.
only 2 people i saw were the receptionist, and a licensed vocational nurse.

went straight into the shredder and havent heard anything since.

the dealer version of that is the:

"you need to come back with a check because..."

1) the car was mica blue metallic, and we forgot metallic paint was extra

2) down payment was too small

3)credit didnt go through

4)numbers didnt add up

5)want another chance to ream ya

 

then theres double-billing.

the time i twisted my ankle i did everything by the book, (listed urgent
care facility, paid my co-pay, etc.) bout a year later i got a bill from
a doctor i NEVER saw that day, for treatment/services i NEVER received.
only 2 people i saw were the receptionist, and a licensed vocational nurse.

went straight into the shredder and havent heard anything since.

the dealer version of that is the:

"you need to come back with a check because..."

1) the car was mica blue metallic, and we forgot metallic paint was extra

2) down payment was too small

3)credit didnt go through

4)numbers didnt add up

5)want another chance to ream ya

 

lol

.... but to a large extent, I /do/ agree with this part of
your analogy. Indeed, from what I'm reading in reputable
publications, the medical-insurance billing process is so
complicated that mistakes are very common. IIRC, and
ballpark, 30% or more of the time there is a significant
billing error by health care/insurance services. Whether
they're intentional, or just gross gross negligence is
another matter.

I give the current, non-Medicare U.S. health care system 20
years or less. By which time I will be on Medicare. Still,
if all Americans are paying less for health care (while some
are paying a bit more in taxes), that will impact on
inflation, etc.

Nice tip re garages, water heaters, and leaky car fuel
tanks. Whoa! Glad you're still alive to post here! We need a
top ten list of "Things NOT To Do While Repairing One's
Honda," drawn from real life experiences.

 

lol

.... but to a large extent, I /do/ agree with this part of
your analogy. Indeed, from what I'm reading in reputable
publications, the medical-insurance billing process is so
complicated that mistakes are very common. IIRC, and
ballpark, 30% or more of the time there is a significant
billing error by health care/insurance services. Whether
they're intentional, or just gross gross negligence is
another matter.

I give the current, non-Medicare U.S. health care system 20
years or less. By which time I will be on Medicare. Still,
if all Americans are paying less for health care (while some
are paying a bit more in taxes), that will impact on
inflation, etc.

Nice tip re garages, water heaters, and leaky car fuel
tanks. Whoa! Glad you're still alive to post here! We need a
top ten list of "Things NOT To Do While Repairing One's
Honda," drawn from real life experiences.

 

snip

We need a

1. Do NOT crawl under a jacked up car with jackstands in place!

JT

 

snip

We need a

1. Do NOT crawl under a jacked up car with jackstands in place!

JT

 

place!

What's the matter with using jackstands (of the appropriate
size) to support a car while doing work underneath it?

 

place!

What's the matter with using jackstands (of the appropriate
size) to support a car while doing work underneath it?

 

Okay, time to fess up. Sometimes I can do the *dumbest* things, too.

I used to have an early Nissan 300ZX (troublesome beast!). One day it
developed a leak in one injector, so I bought a replacement. I was waiting
for the weekend to undertake the job, but one night the engine started
running rough. I was only a couple blocks form home so I went home and
parked in the driveway. Then I noticed smoke coming from under the hood. I
didn't have an extinguisher or even a plan, but I opened the hood anyway.
"Huh. I wonder what's happening?!" Of course the leak had caught fire, but
it had burned down to where it was only hoses and insulation sedately
flaming, so I bent over and blew them out like a candle on a birthday cake.
Not two seconds later the fuel injector hose that had been burning ruptured
and sprayed about an ounce of gasoline where the flame and my face had been!
Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Who's next?

Mike

 

Okay, time to fess up. Sometimes I can do the *dumbest* things, too.

I used to have an early Nissan 300ZX (troublesome beast!). One day it
developed a leak in one injector, so I bought a replacement. I was waiting
for the weekend to undertake the job, but one night the engine started
running rough. I was only a couple blocks form home so I went home and
parked in the driveway. Then I noticed smoke coming from under the hood. I
didn't have an extinguisher or even a plan, but I opened the hood anyway.
"Huh. I wonder what's happening?!" Of course the leak had caught fire, but
it had burned down to where it was only hoses and insulation sedately
flaming, so I bent over and blew them out like a candle on a birthday cake.
Not two seconds later the fuel injector hose that had been burning ruptured
and sprayed about an ounce of gasoline where the flame and my face had been!
Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Who's next?

Mike

 

About a year ago I was working on those nasty rear control
arm bolts etc. I had to be someplace the next day, so I had
to stop mid-job. For a temporary "replacement" of a bolt I
wired up one control arm with some 10 AWG copper wire I had
lying around, several loops. I thought I should take a test
drive. I made it halfway out the driveway at a couple miles
an hour when the car went over a half-inch bump. The
applicable rear strut assembly collapsed, and that rear
quarter of the car crashed to the ground. The wheel bent out
in a totally unseemly way, and I thought, "Oh no... " The
wire was sheared right apart. Jacked it up. Stuck the old
control arm bolt yada in place. Wheel looked okay. The
asphalt of the road where the car quarter landed was kinda
scratched up. Had the wheel balance checked a week later; it
needed no adjustment. The road looks fine, after a year too.

Helluva crash. I got lucky.

 

About a year ago I was working on those nasty rear control
arm bolts etc. I had to be someplace the next day, so I had
to stop mid-job. For a temporary "replacement" of a bolt I
wired up one control arm with some 10 AWG copper wire I had
lying around, several loops. I thought I should take a test
drive. I made it halfway out the driveway at a couple miles
an hour when the car went over a half-inch bump. The
applicable rear strut assembly collapsed, and that rear
quarter of the car crashed to the ground. The wheel bent out
in a totally unseemly way, and I thought, "Oh no... " The
wire was sheared right apart. Jacked it up. Stuck the old
control arm bolt yada in place. Wheel looked okay. The
asphalt of the road where the car quarter landed was kinda
scratched up. Had the wheel balance checked a week later; it
needed no adjustment. The road looks fine, after a year too.

Helluva crash. I got lucky.

 

Heh. I forgot the "out." Hadn't had my coffee yet...

<G>

JT

 

Heh. I forgot the "out." Hadn't had my coffee yet...

<G>

JT

 

I was checking under the hood of a Pontiac Tempest and the wind blew the
hood right almost on the windscreen. It was so strong I could not bring it
down to hook in the support rod. So I left it there thinking I will be done
in a second. I got involved with whatever I was doing (I will tell you in a
second why I forgot) and then heard a very loud thud and everything turned
white. The wind had let up and the hood used me as a supporting rod.

I staggered into work and put in a full day. I think my boss was happy with
how quiet I was that time.

 

I was checking under the hood of a Pontiac Tempest and the wind blew the
hood right almost on the windscreen. It was so strong I could not bring it
down to hook in the support rod. So I left it there thinking I will be done
in a second. I got involved with whatever I was doing (I will tell you in a
second why I forgot) and then heard a very loud thud and everything turned
white. The wind had let up and the hood used me as a supporting rod.

I staggered into work and put in a full day. I think my boss was happy with
how quiet I was that time.

 

Today's NY Times editorial page has fascinating commentary
related to the above discussion as follows:

"Big Labor's Big Secret" (NY Times, Dec. 28, 2005)

As most Americans are aware, our auto industry is in a
crisis.

Workers' wages are falling, and hundreds of thousands of
jobs are being sent offshore. ...

How did we get here? There are many causes: poor car
designs, high pension costs, increased foreign competition.
But much of it comes down to the overwhelming health
insurance costs borne by the auto makers. This is why the
union's president, Ron Gettelfinger, has urged Congress to
enact sweeping health insurance reforms.

If the government paid everyone's health insurance bills, as
those in Canada and most of Europe do, Detroit's Big Three
could save at least $1,300 per vehicle. Profitability would
return. With deeper pockets, the auto makers could afford to
pay their suppliers. Communities would be spared layoffs.
....

Most advocates of universal health care focus on the
opposition of Republicans and insurance companies. But
perhaps the most important factor keeping an overhaul off
the national agenda is one that few Democrats acknowledge:
most of Mr. Gettelfinger's fellow labor leaders don't
support a single-payer system either.

The reason comes down to simple self-interest. The United
Auto Workers is one of the few private-sector unions that
doesn't run its own health plan. Rather, most have created
huge companies to administer their workers' plans, giving
them a large and often corrupt stake in the current system.

Opposition to a national health care plan is as much a part
of the American trade union tradition as the picket line. It
goes back to Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American
Federation of Labor, who railed at early Congressional
efforts to pass a law mandating employer coverage as Britain
had done, which he said had "taken much of the virility out
of the British unions."

This line of thinking led to the notorious decision in 1991
by the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s health care committee to reject a
proposal that the federation support a single-payer plan.
The majority said a national system simply had no chance in
Congress, but others saw a conflict of interest:
government-supplied health care would put union-run plans
out of business.

The deciding vote was cast by Robert Georgine, chief
executive of Ullico, a huge insurance provider created by
the unions. A decade later, Mr. Georgine, who was paid $3
million a year by Ullico, and several other company
directors - all heads of major A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions - were
investigated by a federal panel for insider trading
involving Ullico stock. Mr. Georgine and several directors
resigned, and this year he agreed to pay back $13 million to
the company.

Let's face it: union-administered health insurance funds
provide irresistible opportunities for labor leaders. First
there's patronage: hiring friends and relatives. Then there
are the conventions, junkets and retreats provided by the
plans and the providers. And for those willing to cross the
line of legality, there's the chance to take kickbacks from
health care vendors.

Many officials are charged, but few go to prison, even when
money allegedly winds up in Mafia hands. Last month federal
prosecutors lost a criminal case in Brooklyn in which they
charged that the Genovese crime family leaned on two
International Longshoremen's Association local presidents
to, among other things, choose a favored health vendor.

Evidently, the jury was convinced by the defense's argument
that the union leaders were under duress. Even Lawrence
Ricci, the principal accused Genovese figure, was acquitted,
although he disappeared during the trial and never
testified. (His body was found last month in the trunk of a
car in Union, N.J.)

Despite shrinking membership, organized labor still has
enough money and muscle to get behind a campaign for
national health insurance. Last month, public-sector unions
in California came up with tens of millions of dollars in a
successful campaign to defeat a ballot measure that
challenged their right to use union dues for political
purposes.

The problem is getting American unions to fight for common
concerns as opposed to narrow institutional interests. It
may just be that a broad-scale union overhaul will have to
precede one in American health care.

----

By Robert Fitch, author of the forthcoming "Solidarity for
Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and
Undermined America's Promise."

So the UAW (the auto industry union) has no ties to health
insurance; its industry is being devastated by health costs;
and so the UAW is for a national health plan, which is
consistent with the whole (let's face it, socialist or at
least social-democrat) notion of unions.

(But what ties to health insurance profits do auto companies
have? Would it pay for the CEOs of auto companies to lobby
for a national health plan?)

Unions in other industries have ties to health insurance;
are in industries not /as/ devastated (knock on wood) by
health costs; and so oppose a national health plan, which is
antithetical to the notion of unions. And, apparently, they
have opposed such a plan as a matter of historical record.

 

Today's NY Times editorial page has fascinating commentary
related to the above discussion as follows:

"Big Labor's Big Secret" (NY Times, Dec. 28, 2005)

As most Americans are aware, our auto industry is in a
crisis.

Workers' wages are falling, and hundreds of thousands of
jobs are being sent offshore. ...

How did we get here? There are many causes: poor car
designs, high pension costs, increased foreign competition.
But much of it comes down to the overwhelming health
insurance costs borne by the auto makers. This is why the
union's president, Ron Gettelfinger, has urged Congress to
enact sweeping health insurance reforms.

If the government paid everyone's health insurance bills, as
those in Canada and most of Europe do, Detroit's Big Three
could save at least $1,300 per vehicle. Profitability would
return. With deeper pockets, the auto makers could afford to
pay their suppliers. Communities would be spared layoffs.
....

Most advocates of universal health care focus on the
opposition of Republicans and insurance companies. But
perhaps the most important factor keeping an overhaul off
the national agenda is one that few Democrats acknowledge:
most of Mr. Gettelfinger's fellow labor leaders don't
support a single-payer system either.

The reason comes down to simple self-interest. The United
Auto Workers is one of the few private-sector unions that
doesn't run its own health plan. Rather, most have created
huge companies to administer their workers' plans, giving
them a large and often corrupt stake in the current system.

Opposition to a national health care plan is as much a part
of the American trade union tradition as the picket line. It
goes back to Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American
Federation of Labor, who railed at early Congressional
efforts to pass a law mandating employer coverage as Britain
had done, which he said had "taken much of the virility out
of the British unions."

This line of thinking led to the notorious decision in 1991
by the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s health care committee to reject a
proposal that the federation support a single-payer plan.
The majority said a national system simply had no chance in
Congress, but others saw a conflict of interest:
government-supplied health care would put union-run plans
out of business.

The deciding vote was cast by Robert Georgine, chief
executive of Ullico, a huge insurance provider created by
the unions. A decade later, Mr. Georgine, who was paid $3
million a year by Ullico, and several other company
directors - all heads of major A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions - were
investigated by a federal panel for insider trading
involving Ullico stock. Mr. Georgine and several directors
resigned, and this year he agreed to pay back $13 million to
the company.

Let's face it: union-administered health insurance funds
provide irresistible opportunities for labor leaders. First
there's patronage: hiring friends and relatives. Then there
are the conventions, junkets and retreats provided by the
plans and the providers. And for those willing to cross the
line of legality, there's the chance to take kickbacks from
health care vendors.

Many officials are charged, but few go to prison, even when
money allegedly winds up in Mafia hands. Last month federal
prosecutors lost a criminal case in Brooklyn in which they
charged that the Genovese crime family leaned on two
International Longshoremen's Association local presidents
to, among other things, choose a favored health vendor.

Evidently, the jury was convinced by the defense's argument
that the union leaders were under duress. Even Lawrence
Ricci, the principal accused Genovese figure, was acquitted,
although he disappeared during the trial and never
testified. (His body was found last month in the trunk of a
car in Union, N.J.)

Despite shrinking membership, organized labor still has
enough money and muscle to get behind a campaign for
national health insurance. Last month, public-sector unions
in California came up with tens of millions of dollars in a
successful campaign to defeat a ballot measure that
challenged their right to use union dues for political
purposes.

The problem is getting American unions to fight for common
concerns as opposed to narrow institutional interests. It
may just be that a broad-scale union overhaul will have to
precede one in American health care.

----

By Robert Fitch, author of the forthcoming "Solidarity for
Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and
Undermined America's Promise."

So the UAW (the auto industry union) has no ties to health
insurance; its industry is being devastated by health costs;
and so the UAW is for a national health plan, which is
consistent with the whole (let's face it, socialist or at
least social-democrat) notion of unions.

(But what ties to health insurance profits do auto companies
have? Would it pay for the CEOs of auto companies to lobby
for a national health plan?)

Unions in other industries have ties to health insurance;
are in industries not /as/ devastated (knock on wood) by
health costs; and so oppose a national health plan, which is
antithetical to the notion of unions. And, apparently, they
have opposed such a plan as a matter of historical record.

 

snip


I suspect that the "savings" of $1,300 would quickly be distributed as
bonuses and other executive perks etc. with little going to reduce
prices or instituting efficiencies...

JT

(Who really like to call "trickle down" something else...)