The New York Times on the consumerist revolution in retailing:

Pricing has always been a tug of war between retailer and
shopper, with the retailer having more muscle. No more. Thanks to the
Internet and shopping comparison apps, price-wise shoppers are haggling.
Mr. Vineburgh, a real estate agent, has a closet full of haggled items,
including shirts from Jos. A. Bank and the Brooks Brothers outlet.

If retailers balk, some shoppers walk; there is always Amazon and
eBay. The shifting balance of power has many stores scrambling for
pricing strategies that get beyond the time-worn cycle of markups and
discounts — and still make them money.

Of course, there is no reason why this sort of revolution of
transparency and choice couldn’t radically reshape the American
healthcare system, as well.

Harvard University’s Regina Herzlinger has
been the leading proponent of just such a transformation where patients
become empowered consumers. Here’s a good summary of her approach, via BusinessWeek:

– Consumers tailor their own health-care coverage, navigating in a national insurance market.

– Small, disease-specific hospitals care for patients who don’t need all the services offered by medical centers.

– A national database contains the prices and outcomes for procedures
at every hospital and clinic, so consumers can make informed choices.

– Individuals get generous tax breaks to buy their own insurance, with subsidies for those with low incomes. Here is where I part ways with Regina Herzilinger. Why must everything have a GOVERNMENT connection or controlling interest. If we all got to keep more of our money by having lower taxes rather than a punitive progressive tax we could afford to take care of the things we need to take care of. It is this constant government intervention into our lives and the marketplace that has gotten everything out of whack.

Herzlinger:

Consumers are overwhelmingly interested in the quality of
their doctor and hospital for their specific needs. So somebody who
might be planning, let’s say, foot surgery, would be very interested in
the outcomes achieved by different surgeons in different hospitals in
doing that procedure on people who share the characteristics of that
consumer. That’s what people want to know. That information is notable
for its absence. The provider community, the doctor‐hospital community
understandably is not too eager to provide that kind of information. And
even when it is provided, it’s provided in a way that is hopelessly
obscure. …

This is much like Government run education or for that matter any government agency. We are never allowed to ask for efficiency studies or to look at the work product of these agencies. With teacher tenure we are not even allowed to fire a non-productive teacher or reward a great teacher. Again these are not the marks of a FREE ECONOMY. When the consumer is not given a choice the prices have a tendecy to rise as value and quality decline.

The providers are not eager to enter into the kind of competition,
which, like the competition in other markets, rewards better producers
of goods and services. After all, that’s how Toyota got to be so good.
It was an obscure Japanese care company, it entered the American market,
and Consumer Reports and other sites that have very specific
information said, ‘You know what? Toyota is much better than American
cars at that time, in the following characteristics.’

So the providers
do not want it. The consumers do want it. So how do we get it?

There is
only one way, and that is the government must force them to disclose
this kind of information. Again with the GOVERNMENT SOLUTION. NO the best way to get medicine to become competitive is to allow FREE MARKET principles to work. We need the government out of medicine since they reward bad behavior and punish the good. In order for doctors to get federal money they must behave in the ways perscribed by the government. This is not free market capitalism. If people were actually permitted to shop nationally for health care coverage and were able to custom design their own plans and coverages and pick their doctors and hospitals care would improve and costs would decrease because of open and honest competition.

Under the current healthcare system there is too much GOVERNMENT control and not enough CONSUMER control. Let the buyer beware. And remember the customer is ALWAYS right.

Now that the government has messed up healthcare for everyone they want to come along and fix it? GIVE ME A BREAK!

This is a view from the nest. What say you?

We have been bombarded daily with the Trayvon Martin shooting case in South Florida. Each day I have to shake my head in unbelief of some of the comments I hear coming forth from news sources and activists wanting to get their points across. Over the weekend the New Black Panther Party offered a bounty of $10K for the head of George Zimmerman who was responsible for shooting the unarmed teenager.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Mikhail Muhammad (the leader of the NBPP) announced the reward during a protest on Saturday, and when a Sentinel reporter asked if he was inciting violence, Muhammad said, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Muhammad called on 5,000 black men to mobilize and capture the neighborhood watch volunteer.

“If the government won’t do the job, we’ll do it,” Muhammad said,
leading chants that included “freedom or death” and “justice for
Trayvon.”

Nationally
the shooting death has brought up questions about whether Zimmerman,
who was on a Neighborhood Watch patrol, profiled Martin and whether
Sanford police’s failure to arrest Zimmerman had to do with racism.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,
the New Black Panther Party has been rejected by the Black Panther
Party of the ’60s and ’70s. The SPLC says the group is “a virulently
racist and anti-Semitic organization whose leaders have encouraged
violence against whites, Jews and law enforcement officers…”

Let me see if I understand this correctly: The whole story started with a hooded black man being chased by a ‘white hispanic man and ends with black men from the ‘hood’ chasing a ‘white hispanic man’ and this isn’t racist? I remember a time around the civil rights movement when men wearing hoods and chasing people and bounty hunting was considered racist and a hate crime. I guess it depends on which ‘hood’ the men are wearing?

I think the only solution to this problem would be to ban all ‘hoods’.

Eagle out!

Beloved, my whole concern was to write to you in regard to our common salvation. [But] I found it necessary and was impelled to write you and urgently appeal to and exhort [you] to contend for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints [the faith which is that sum of Christian belief which was delivered verbally to the holy people of God]. For certain men have crept in stealthily [gaining entrance secretly by a side door]. Their doom was predicted long ago, ungodly (impious, profane) persons who pervert the grace (the spiritual blessing and favor) of our God into lawlessness and wantonness and immorality, and disown and deny our sole Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One). Jude 1:3-4 (AMP)

In the wake of this Progressive French Atheism that we are now living in, there is absolutely no slowing down of the removal of any mention of God from our society by today’s “Progressivist French Atheists”. This war on religion has been an ongoing battle since man has walked the blue orb. It will not end until King Jesus comes back and pesonally silences his critics.

that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:10-11 (ASV)