Open Thread

dave, my Chinese Zodiac sign appears to be the Dragon:

“A powerful sign, those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dragon are energetic and warm-hearted, charismatic, lucky at love and egotistic. They’re natural born leaders, good at giving orders and doing what’s necessary to remain on top. Compatible with Monkey and Rat.”

And I only reply to profiles with pictures. Some woman emailed me on Sunday with no picture, not to mention she lives in some town in Florida I’ve never heard of.

John Huntsman may be the best candidate in the GOP field, although his religion is enough to turn away voters in both the primary and general elections.

kens,
Tough break with your girlfriend.
Sorry to hear. If it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be. Life’s too short to become someone else’s emotional punching bag. Although many relationships seem to thrive on that.

bxgrl,
I read through your link there.
Cute presentation but completely WRONG.
No references either. Was that someone’s personal blog? lol

I base my views both on personal anecdotal information gathered in my own career and on hard data.
Take one point in particular, the idea that Defensive Medicine does not cost that much.

In a University of Miami study they showed that malpractice defense alone took up 14% of medical costs to their outpatient center. That’s not even including the hard-to-determine defensive medicine aspect where doctors routinely order costly exams for no other reason than a pushy patient or because they are too lazy to rely on their clinical skills to make a stand against a CT or an MRI or an Ultrasound.

Malpractice/tort reform in medicine is basically divided into three categories:

1. Decreasing frivilous litigation that drives up malpractice insurance costs needlessly.

2. Controlling Malpractice Insurance company gouging of doctors, hospitals and clinics.

3. Elimination/control of defensive medicine practices;
the indiscriminate ordering of diagnostics, tests or treatments in order to prevent the possibility of lawsuits.

Here’s a small article from the WSJ:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125193312967181349.html

Huntsman’s an interesting guy, dibs. A very intriguing candidate (not that I would vote for him.) Loyalty issue bothers me. Is there a precedent for a high profile political appointee running directly against the prez who appointed him immediately after resigning? Opens a question at least of who’s interests he was serving while ambassador.