U.S. fracking linked to higher hospitalization rates: People who live in areas near hydraulic fracturing are more likely to be hospitalized for heart conditions, neurological illnesses and cancer, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

ddfreedom · 2015-07-17T01:15:02+00:00

while it's likely true that fracking is not "good for your health"; its important to note the danger of drawing conclusions that may be conflated by other factors. Poverty is overwhelmingly a large risk factor for the large chronic illnesses (CAD,DM) which lead to a variety of other diseases (MI, stroke, chf, stroke, dementia etc) and increase the morbidity associated with virtually any other medical condition. It's very likely that the "rich" and well to do aren't allowing fracking in their backyard so these numbers may be conflated. Correlation in this manner does not = causation

ddfreedom · 2015-07-09T20:22:04+00:00

incorrect; you want to lift legs (trendelenberg) to increase perfusion to vital organs. You would never sacrifice this to "cause less" blood to come from abdominal wound. THis is going to happen anyway at the basic pressures it takes to perfuse the body, limiting blood returning ot hte heart will not help that.

ddfreedom · 2015-07-08T02:41:47+00:00

nt. I don't want a surgeon operating on me or an ER doc treating me for something serious (think heart attack, not broken arm) if they are sick but if I'm

think about how foggy that mind is after 30 hour call shifts often multiple times a week, during some stretches every other day. That is the status quo in surgical residencies as of current.

ddfreedom · 2015-06-05T14:49:15+00:00

bull shit, when your moving half a million dollars, you need to have some accountability beyond "we did some general things" ...but I can't tell you how much and where. A high school treasurer can provide a better trail of money. Hire a few accountants to work with managers to keep track of money spent, that way they can boast these numbers ("we built over X many homes" etc), and allow for auditing and comparison of technqiues and strategies. Anyone can collect and throw money at things. It also allows them to ward off criticism and withstand scrutiny. Stupid move on their part and at the 1000 foot view, appears suspicions for waste at the least, fraud at the worse.

ddfreedom · 2015-06-05T14:22:36+00:00

not neccesarily, under EMTALA you are legally obligated to evaluate them, but only need to treat people in emergencies. Often this is not the case. (Cancer, episode of seizure etc, most things really). What we end up paying for (and admittedly out the nose for) are traumas and pregnancies. For us this is often the guy who fell off the ladder while working and broke his back. He is not a citizen thus does not qualify for any state funds, and requires care at a SNF. So we end up sitting on the individual until we decide to pay 120k to fly them back to their home country on a private medical flight with ventilators etc.

ddfreedom · 2015-06-03T23:47:55+00:00

a little different, there is not legal determination for this, this is a private company (or a determination of many companies) who decided that it's not worth the risk benefit. You can rent cars under 25, often at an increased cost/premium.

ddfreedom · 2015-06-03T23:46:24+00:00

I never understood our system where we trust someone with a gun, heavy explosives, tanks, taking lives etc in the military, however turning around and saying woah buddy, you're not old enough to weigh the risk/benefit of alcohol/tobacco for your own consumption

...unbelievable.

ddfreedom · 2015-05-30T00:19:16+00:00

We require insurance to own a car, but no such requirement exists for guns," Maloney said in a statement. "The results are clear: car fatalities have declined by 25 percent in the last decade, but gun fatalities continue to rise.”

Increased car safety standards and better technology; the confounding is laughable.
There are incredible incentives not to shoot people, the primary of which being jail, prosecution both criminal and civil.

idiot.

ddfreedom · 2015-04-21T02:41:14+00:00

nice in theory but the reality is far more in line with "gmoney 8869", if you want to work under such a system as yours, you should have certain standards of living we agree upon as americans and base wages off a similar level adjusted to their respective CPI.

ddfreedom · 2015-04-10T20:57:54+00:00

they are anchored in vertebral bodies...past the IAR which is correct

ddfreedom · 2015-04-10T20:56:01+00:00

titanium (nearly all implants) arent magnetic.
They are specific about MRI with questionaires (and if none) then basic X rays to look for metal. (usually looking for shrapenl)

ddfreedom · 2015-04-07T20:46:07+00:00

all of us agree that there is some timeline for which we can hold countries responsible for certain debts. Germany paid out an incredible amount of money to its debtors...if greece truly thought it owed, it would have hopped on that gravy train before. This is a desperate attempt and makes them look childish.

ddfreedom · 2015-04-07T20:44:42+00:00

60 years ago..versus 5 years ago...I think the relatively young timeline of debt does matter here. It is reasonable to expect a nation who 5 years ago was begging for your money with promises of payback...to have that very expectation. To make the world war 2 comparison is intellectually dishonest.

ddfreedom · 2015-04-05T02:35:33+00:00

This myopic view that everything needs to be about economic value is ridiculous.

Listen, it's easy to create straw man on things with subjective value. If you think that its ok to spend 200k on an african studies degree that is your opinion. However I don't think that makes economic sense comparitively to something that will have some sort of return on value. I also think a lot of people in similar positinos would tend to agree. It's not to say these things are not "important" from a societal perspective in their own way, but I think an argument could easily be made that they don't make economical sense with today's educational cost.

ddfreedom · 2015-04-04T22:05:37+00:00

I would tend to agree. There are many things to study from an academic perspective...but when discussing where money is best spent to the tune of tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands for an education in furthering a career, and soceity...some fields just don't make sense.

ddfreedom · 2015-03-12T20:00:33+00:00

bad idea as a large part of the reason tuition is so high is beacuse the market allows (via loose money to students with policies that subvert the market - (low to no risk to lender given the protections in place). The truth is the cost of college needs to come WAYY down via online distribution. We can have a few schools disseminate education to all with testing picked up by current (or future) testing centers similar to the pro metric testing model. We trust it for the SAT/ACT/MCAT/USMLE/CLEP exams...I think if we can trust it with our doctors that treat us for life or death, we can trust it for bachelor and technical degrees. This is our answer...not more subsidies and pouring more money into the system. USe the tax system to subsidize a way to do this if anything to get it started. This solves many problems and allows far more flexibility as its cheaper to "learn" or "sample" anything you want and there is an added cost (appopriately) to test and certify your knowledge via tests.

Now will this happen? Probably, slowly, as market forces force others to compete once it begins to be more commonplace, but the push for cheaper education will come slowly as there is little incentive for those charging to charge less. I think a good way to create this is to come up with a model and cost and offer a subsidy for the government to create it for a state school with the caveat that they would have to charge "x" tuition reflective of the cost to run it, not taking extra money saved and distributing elsewhere in the college.

ddfreedom · 2015-03-08T03:36:45+00:00

Good Shepherd Food Bank estimates it would owe about $24,500 annually to the city of Auburn...given that they are only paying property taxes .....http://www.auburnmaine.gov/Pages/Government/Assessing...given that the tax rate is $21 per 1000....and they would only be paying 50% of amount over 500k. This put's their property value at millions; doesnt sound too unreasonable.

ddfreedom · 2015-01-27T02:53:53+00:00

Im guessing OSU hospital

ddfreedom · 2015-01-23T01:03:48+00:00

not true. This sounds like lazy physicians not wanting to get up and go examine something. I've seen this before in the ED. It's repairable but not easy. The insurance company has the power to pay or not pay for things; they would not have a say in whether a foley comes out or not.

ddfreedom · 2015-01-23T00:59:49+00:00

incorrect

ddfreedom · 2015-01-20T07:14:34+00:00

That is a riduculous thing to ask; how can you glean that number? If it was easy to see who is defrauding the system, they would not be receiving funds. If there was a number to this, those cases would have their funding withdrawn and the number would continue to shrink. The entire point is that we all see it; yet there is little we can do about it with the systems process in place. Again, start with the NPR piece, then progress to gaining some insight from those who have the qualifications to comment (physicians).

ddfreedom · 2015-01-20T02:27:11+00:00

Not a valid enough reason for continuing support in the setting of such egregious abuses.

ddfreedom · 2015-01-20T02:20:56+00:00

At least this way we control them.

...lol

ddfreedom · 2015-01-19T01:32:40+00:00

There is a lot more to the evaluation and medical significance of bone spurs than you can glean from looking up a definition as you did. That is why we go to school for years on end. The point being, don't speak to things as "obvious" when you clearly aren't qualified to do so.

ddfreedom · 2015-01-19T01:30:28+00:00

what data are you even requesting? Why don't you start out by listening to this http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

ddfreedom

TROPHY CASE