Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Yok Huy
In ancient times, these giants of Urqopacha dominated the Turali continent, but several centuries ago their power waned, and they withdrew to a secluded mountain home. Sparse though they are in number, the Yok Huy continue to immortalize their existence with glyphic traditions according to their unique beliefs of life and death.



In new ff14 expansion they changed the troll name.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/dawntrail/world/

There are already different Trolls in XIV that are basically a Goobbue skeleton wrapped in fur with horns.

Isn't infant mortality rate often used as a metric to determine how good a healthcare system is? So this "bias" should be affected by medical technology advancement no? If childrens are dying left and right in a country, outside of starvation or war, healthcare system and medical technology should play an important role.


To my knowledge average lifespan in some countries dropped during covid pandemic. Since covid was new without a cure it is hard to draw the conclusion that medical technology doesn't affect human lifespan from that data alone.

Here is one article where researchers found average human lifespan having positive connection to money spent on healthcare system:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/11/countries-compare-on-healthcare-expenditure-life-expectancy/

They also point out US is one of the few country that spent a lot of money on healthcare and yet failed to reach average age 80+.


I think the way US health care system works is what makes people feeling healthcare is scam. In my country we have dirt cheap healthcare, I have never heard of anyone saying healthcare is scam. most people were well aware of problems caused by government undercutting medicine price and healthcare professionals salaries. To the point that significant amount of people here actually support healthcare price increase because it is not sustainable like this.

I think US health care system is just too expensive so people have the exact opposite opinion on the fair price for healthcare, that's all.

Health care in Japan is cheap and has a great system.
Work pays for it, or can go to City Hall to sign up for it for a Health card.
It's about about 30$ or up to 100$ a month for a card.
It includes every health wellness, hospital/dental/eye/etc...
When I go to the dentist for a checkup or a cleaning it's about 3$.
If I go to a clinic for seeing why I'm feeling unwell, the bill is about 10$.

Lower child and infant mortality is good for society, for sure, but it doesn't necessarily play into expectations of healthcare progress for adults. If you made it to adulthood, you had an expected lifespan well into 50s or 60s for most of history. So, potential benefits of healthcare vs other adaptations(climate control, cleanliness, food availability) are more up for question.

US average lifespan was dropping before covid pandemic, and statistically covid doesn't actually seem significant. Excess deaths from one year that are balanced by following year; the people most effected were those that were, for lack of a more polite way to put it, already on the way out.

Absolutely. I don't think capitalism in medicine is a bad thing, and I think being able to spend more for better care is great for society. As it pertains to the US specifically, though, there are major regulatory issues leading to us getting less for our money.

Most doctors have little practical knowledge and simply follow an app where they put in your symptoms and go down checklist to find most likely disease. Even doctors with experience often stick to this system because failing to recognize a unique disorder is less risk to their insurance than treating in a manner inconsistant with current standards. Current standards are bought out by pharmaceutical companies to pad their own profits. Despite our doctors being reduced to automatons, medical malpractice is still the third most common cause of death in the country.

DEI initiatives and other anti-meritocracy programs have resulted in newer generation of 'professionals' who really don't have the knowledge required to do their job efficiently. Wildly ineffective or even harmful drugs such as SSRIs are pushed on huge swaths of the population. Medical education is primarily about management of chronic conditions, which is done by pushing lifelong drugs rather than addressing underlying causes. Far too many Americans allow this by being unwilling to change their habits or question their doctors' competence. There is an assumption that because they have a degree, they are inherently capable, and likely correct. This is far from true with the current standards in our education system.

I am on medicare and medicaid. I basically pay nothing. I get reports about what I have been charged and what gets covered but not what the government has negotiated away. The amounts make me go pale.

Thanks, I intend to.

The government funds most medical research for new drugs and treatments. The drug companies own research funding is mostly toward ways to extend patent protection on existing medications. Every penny they put into research is tax deductible.

The US government has the legal right to produce any medication they have funded but they don't. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders among others want the government to license overly expensive drugs to generic drug makers. I agree with this. Drug companies fight against it.

American health care expenses include lobbying and advertising costs. (Again tax deductible.) But the real reason it costs so much is it also includes massive profits and astronomical C suite salaries.

Every other industrial country has medical systems that are far more socialized than ours. Not nearly all have single payer systems.

Hospitals in the US used to be non profit by law. I often wonder when this changed and why.

lol I guess I'm out of the loop. Do the private server posts not showup on the main page anymore.

Missed a whole day of dipshittery

They don't show up anymore?
ohnoanyway.gif

But we didnt miss you!

It's true that biotechnology industry can be very profitable. But part of reason is because the risk of investing in this industry is very very high. I generally avoid buying any biotechnology industry stocks at all cost, because the stock price can drop very quickly if a new drug fails the test. It is such a high reward high risk investment that I would rather invest in a more stable industry for a higher chance to win.

If everybody has the same mindset, then you can see why people demand high return IF a research on new drug is successful.

I don't see how this mindset can be different in other countries, it is human nature to want higher return if the investment risk is high.

As far as medical system goes. Correct me if I am wrong, I feel it could have something to do with some Americans not liking the idea of paying for something they may* not use. In other countries with universal healthcare you still have to pay for other people's insulin injection even if you don't have diabetes. I've read that some voters in the US don't like such idea, so the US system works that way.

Tavnazia shown in the splash art for Echoes of Vana'diel. It's actually gonna happen isn't it

Damn, this game is looking so good. Love that they used Saikyou no Fusion for this trailer too; easily one of the best Dragon Ball songs. More news next week too! @w@


If we go to Tavnazia proper, they damn well better expand explorer mode to cover alliance raids too. >_>;
EDIT: OR make it the hub area for the raids!

Also The Arcadion is gonna be a tournament arc lol. I hope it's voice acted and we get commentary during the fights. 7 Remake nailed that with the Hell House fight, and I'd love to see that here too.

The issue isn't an abstract concept of high risk high reward. The issue is the actual prices paid or negotiated. In the US, many drugs cost 2-10x what the same drug costs in other parts of the world (and we're talking thousands of dollars, not something accounted for by difficulty of transit). This happens because insurance companies have pharmacy benefit managers who negotiate with the drug company to create a mutually beneficial situation.

For example, the drug I am on, Etanercept.. costs $688 for 200mg in 4 pens(my dosage for 4 weeks) in the UK. It costs $641 for the same dose in Australia. This is something people in many countries would see as unreasonably overpriced. I see it as reflective of the risk, and reasonable for the advancement and risk.

Now, in the US, the same dosage is $7,401.84 at list price. This happens because the PBM negotiates with the drug producer to set drug price extremely high, so the insurance company can pretend they're saving customer a ton of money. So, this arrangement results in a situation where people are forced to buy insurance(because paying the $7401 list price would be more than the cost of an insurance policy). It also results in a price with insurance that is still higher than fair market price in any other country. The drug manufacturer gets around it with copay cards that cover your share up until out of pocket cap, leaving the insurance company as the only actual payer. This drives up insurance prices across the whole pool.

This sort of situation is present across all sorts of things (hospitals will list bill saline pouches that cost $1 for over $100, tissues at $10, gloves at $50, etc..). So, insurance becomes mandatory and paying out of pocket at a fair market rate no longer exists. The insurance companies want it to stay that way, they have guaranteed business and guaranteed profit because they can add any price increase back to premiums.

Citizens are largely in favor of one-payer healthcare, and almost universally in favor of some sort of healthcare reform. But, because we are a representative democracy, we cannot directly vote for that. Candidates who are openly in favor of health care reform lose their elections, because special interest groups will funnel money into their opponent's campaigns to ensure they keep the status quo. So, you can't really vote for change in our system.

The medical industry spends more on lobbying politicians(legal bribery) than any other industry in the country. They also spend vast sums on patent litigation to ensure competitors that have a comparable generic cannot bring it to market. Our legal and political systems are being used against the citizens to make ridiculous profits for the manufacturers. This isn't an issue of free market or one payer vs multi-payer, it's corruption resulting in the opposite of a free market.

There are some positives to the system as well.

For example a drug company can generate a lot more revenue in the US than the other countries, meaning they can secure much more funding from investors for research and development for new or better drugs as well, because those investors know "we have x amount of years patented in the USA after this cost sink, we will easily and reliably make our investments back"

so sometimes the entire planet in turn benefits from some of the lucrid American pharmaceutical behaviors and money tossed into research and development

I wouldn't consider "We pay more so other countries can pay less" a positive, and I'd wager nobody in the US would support such a system if given the choice. It's really not a matter of investment either, most of these companies are spending very little on R&D. Their money goes to corporate bonuses, and their investments are primarily in legal battles and lobbying to ensure they can keep prices high on drugs that have already been completed and brought to market.

Etanercept was released in 1998, and it's patent was originally due to expire in 2012. By patenting subcomponents of the drug at later times and patenting parts of the production process at later times they manage to extend it indefinitely. It's currently set to expire in 2029, and it's likely they'll find another way after that.

They can make more money to make more drugs that the people paying for the previous drugs will never be able to afford in their lifetimes. Great deal.

There's also examples of misuse of these new developments. For example, Ozempic is an easy one. Originally developed as a treatment for diabetes, once people caught on that it also acts as an appetite inhibitor it started being marketed and advertised as a miracle weight loss drug, increasing the price and making it next to impossible for the actual diabetics to get their hands on it.

yeah I wouldn't consider the oversimplified strawman argument you created a positive either.

My point was some of these drugs wouldn't even exist in the first place if they didn't have a strong profit incentive behind their research and development that only certain societies can provide. As for supporting the system, regardless of what you believe the average person would support, all of the people in power and the lobbying forces that keep them there do absolutely support these systems and keep them thriving.

So humanity in turn gains some benefit from a drug existing that might save lives when it otherwise was not profitable enough for another communist or capitalist society to fund research of etc.

Probably. However American drug company's advantage on drug research is also real. Didn't Pfizer and Morderna won the vaccine race during covid pandemic? Both of their HQ are in the US if I remember correctly. A lot of countries were struggling for vaccine at that time but they just couldn't get them. Nor they have resources to make their own vaccine fast enough.

Our government tossed a lot of money away on vaccine development during covid pandemic but ultimately lost the competition in the market since they can't compete with American drug companies in terms of research speed.

If a new deadly virus happen again and killing everyone on earth, I bet Americans will get their cures before everyone else, lol.

There is a theory that one of the reasons nations with free health care systems are supporting mass immigration from the 3rd world (so these people or their family are far more likely to have serious health issues) so heavily, is to crash the health care systems sooner so they can implement a system similar to the US everywhere.

The NHS in the UK and whatever it's called in Canada are completely unsustainable, especially with drug prices being as high as they are due to these industries being public companies with investors to please. Voters however will never accept it being removed now, so they have to force it to fail.

The NHS in the UK maybe has maybe another 10 years before it just completely collapses in its current form.

I am pretty sure the immigration is supported by voters...at least that should be the case some years ago lol.

If you dare to say "I don't want immigrants" in Canada, I bet people will quickly call you MAGA or something. It was just politically incorrect to even have such opinion.

Canada's health system is also getting worse than a lot of less developed countries atm. Many immigrant community are telling people don't move to Canada because healthcare sucked so much now.

This really isn't a meaningful measure of anything. Most voters(and most people) will vote for whatever gets astroturfed on social and traditional media. If something is critical enough to a moneyed interest, both candidates will have already been paid off to support it. In the unlikely event a candidate is opposed on idealogy and has the conviction to stick to it, every attempt will be made to ensure their opposition wins. Democracy in the current year is just manufacturing consent.

I don't think this had anything to do with any specific research speed, as much as focus on MRNA platform over traditional platforms. Ironically, this also means that if MRNA vaccines are the future, the US has a duopoly(because pfizer and moderna have licensing for it and nobody else does), while countries with weaker patent law can have as many competing firms as they want. I'm not so sure that means we'll get the fastest cure.

It isn't, but we get it anyway because corporations want cheap labor.

Even without the law protection you still need a striving biotechnology industry to research and produce them. If one country has low investment in this industry then they will not suddenly have all the best researchers and equipments when new vaccine or cure is really needed.


The best talents will go to the most profitable industry. And America probably has all the best talent in this industry now, since that's where the money is. That's what I meant by America should has the highest biotechnology research speed and results in theory.

Though you are free to feel it is not worth it because the pros didn't outweigh the cons for average people, it is an understandable feeling.

The last vote we got to do in canada was snuck in on one months notice by the liberal govt in the middle of a pandemic because he hoped he could get a majority govt to really control things.

When that didnt happen, he made a deal with one of the lesser parties to ensure no one could call an election until 2025.


Im 40
Ive never voted
I think Polivere is a *** idiot
Im still gonna vote him because of the damage Trudeau has done to canada the last 5 years.

Im not voting for who i want to run my country, im voting for the best chance to ensure that moron cant run my country any longer.

Thats the sad state of politics and government

I don't think this is true either, because you don't need to be located in the USA to profit off of our medical system. Merck, Roche, Biontech, Novo Nordisk, and Novartis (5 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in profit) are located outside the US.

But, it's almost certainly true that it will assure us greater availability here, as most companies will prefer to sell where they get greater profit. I don't think it's necessarily correct that our market produces a unique incentive to create drugs though, any sufficiently successful drug will bring in huge profits worldwide regardless. Maybe if we had fair prices, other countries get charged a little more each, but I doubt it would deter research meaningfully.

All of this is before getting into the fact that we still pay higher list price on many drugs where the initial research was subsidized by our own government.

Idk about the UK, but this 2011 articles showed that back in pre-2011 Canada was extremely pro-immigrant. It isn't until recent years that this opinion finally changed.

https://irpp.org/research-studies/pro-immigration-canada/

do you not understand the difference between an immigrant who goes through the legal processes of immigration and open border unvetted illegal immigrants and “asylum seekers”??

I dont have a problem with immigrants. One of my parents are an immigrant, who went though the legal process and proper vetting of immigration to Canada.


Also using data from 14 years ago is bonkers. In ffxi terms, thats pre-ilvl.