Especially if tomorrow it's 700.
Don't believe me, or even Baghdad Bob, though.
Follow it yourself at the Johns-Hopkins COVID-19 tracking page.
Ignore case numbers if you like; we've only been testing for a couple of weeks, really. And we expected those to blossom as soon as they started doing tests.
But AFAIK, we aren't blending Kung Flu deaths with deaths from heart attacks or flu.
So deaths are real. IOW, we lost more people in the last 2 days as we lost in the six weeks before that. Got your attention there, did we? Welcome to exponential growth.
That means in the next week, it's only going to keep going up every day.
NYFC is losing someone every 24 minutes now. I'm sure actually it's just fine there, though, and this is all just hype and hoax. I heard that on the Internet. Bummer if your relative was one of the 600 today though. That's the breaks, I guess.
How long will this keep climbing?
No one can say for sure. Possibly into mid-summer. Maybe longer.
We're at this point with only 115K confirmed cases.
That only leaves 329,900,000 other Americans yet to infect.
That's a paltry 1.6% CFR.
Seasonal flu, which everyone was clucking about being "much worse" until about 15 minutes ago, has a CFR of 0.1%.
So this is "only" 16 times worse than that.
Oopsie.
And the actual case numbers could be double, making this "only" 8 times worse than flu.
I feel better already, don't you?
So depending on how many people get this, it might "only" kill 2.6M people before it fades out. Maybe even less.
Which is only how many people die in this country every year, from everything.
Pffft.
Buck up.
What's to worry about?
You didn't need 21st century medicine this year anyways, right?
For anything. Not yourself. Not your kids.
And hey, fuck Grannie anyways, she was old, and she had a good run, amirite?
Call me when the deaths peak, and start going down every day.
That won't be the beginning of the end of this.
But it'll be the end of the beginning.
We're still in the ramp-up phase, apparently.
UPDATE: One courtesy of Matt Bracken
 |
| This embiggens. Click it. |
Also:
Between 11A and 4P, the JH website updated.
New U.S. numbers:
121,478 confirmed cases; 2026 deaths.
135 new deaths in 5 hours.
That works out to 27 deaths/hr in the intervening 5 hr period.
About one death in the U.S every 2 minutes.
27/hr = 648/day, if this keeps up.
Yet again: we told you so.
BTW, half of all U.S. cases, currently, are in New York. Just saying.
Stay home. Wash your Hands.
Maybe we should quarantine every Dem Shithole City in the country for a month. We can send them leftovers for dinner.
ReplyDeleteAlong with the cell phone data, more incidental/indirect indications of high death toll in china...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/urn-deliveries-in-wuhan-raise-questions-about-chinas-real-coronavirus-death-toll/
n
just back from followup with family doc for BP (improving BTW). Doc came in jocked up; scrubs gloves, mask, whole deal. Said they'd seen (and apparently referred) PT's for WuFlu. Wuflu folks seen in another part of the practice. Waiting area very quiet with those few at triple arm intervals or greater.
ReplyDeletejust read the Nawlins report as well as a layman can. Dunno when we'll see the "end of the beginning" but damn...this is BAD.
thanks as ever for sounding off when you did. Very glad to have had the benefit of your counsel.
Boat Guy
"Especially if tomorrow it's 700"
ReplyDeleteOver the last four days, the US dead # by day has been 802, 1046, 1302, 1711 today or +200 +300 +400, so +700 is three days away, if the trend holds.
At some point soon, the daily dead # is going double every day, if normal progression holds true, unless the chloroquine+zpac+vents saves a shitload of people AND we don't run out of one of them AND we don't run out of people to administer treatment AND by some miracle the social distancing/stay at home orders start to work.
As our host has been saying since forever, this is going to be bad.
DON'T GET SICK and pray for divine intervention, especially for the EMT, ER, ICU workers.
Nemo
@Nemo,
ReplyDeleteAu contraire, mon ami.
At 8A on 3/27, the death toll, per the JH Kung Flu page, was 1301.
It was 1711 at 1AM after 17 hrs.
At 11A Today/ 3/28, it's 1891. It was 1711 at 1AM after 17 hrs.
(Refresh your browser more frequently?)
That's 590 in 27 hours.
It's basically 600/day now.
Those are their numbers.
You bring up an excellent point - are we or are we not blending multiple causes of death and blaming them on COVID-19. The NOLA doctor seemed to indicate that everyone dying, almost for any reason, had the virus, and I've read reports that that seemed to be the case in Italy. Is there any way to know whether the overall death rate has spiked or just the COVID-10 deaths? And I haven't heard any report of flu related deaths since this started, and here in CT we heard the numbers every week, at least. I was going to ask you if the flu death rate had changed while this was going on, before I read this post.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to say this bug is not a problem - it obviously is. I'm an engineer, not a medical person, but in engineering the first rule is when things go to shit it is critical to truly understand the underlying causes or you will waste a lot of time fixing things that aren't the problem while the original problem continues to make things worse. Doesn't mean you don't shore up the dike while you are figuring out why it failed in the first place, but fixing the wrong thing just results in the dike continuing to leak.
I appreciate your unvarnished opinions and your feet-on-the-ground reports and conclusions.
Thanks and pray for a cure/treatment.
Most times, the average ER has between 0-1 deaths/shift. We go days with no one dying at all. Management prefers it that way.
ReplyDeleteSo when, out of nowhere, you start getting metric fucktons of deaths with the same presentation, you don't need a test swab to diagnose that it's all the same thing, and it isn't seventeen other things. Coincidence is a sucker bet.
This guy flat-out says they've had 89 intubated patients in a smaller community hospital, all with the same presentation. 70-86% of whom will likely never recover.
That's Kung Flu, not Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and bubonic plague, making a random guest appearance.
"When you hear hoofbeats, think horses; not zebras."
And I haven't heard any report of flu related deaths since this started, and here in CT we heard the numbers every week, at least. I was going to ask you if the flu death rate had changed while this was going on, before I read this post.
ReplyDeleteIt's been dropping like a rock since January:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
The three high profile young guys who died, two docs in NYFC and a dude in Florida all perfectly fit. Homosexuals. That HIV component in Covid19 "tickling" something here? Where they HIV positive?
ReplyDeleteA couple of memes for the cause:
ReplyDeletehttps://i.imgur.com/iGN77R4.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kUdf8q6.jpg
But hey, the masses have ObamaCare!
ReplyDeleteThanx Matt. Posted the 2nd one.
ReplyDeleteAesop - Could the difference in the numbers coming out of Italy and Spain when compared with Germany be due to classification? That Italy counts everyone that dies with (as opposed to OF) Kung-Flu, whereas Germany counts only people that die OF Kung-flu and everyone that dies WITH it died of their other co-morbidities (sorry for not being well written, I have re-written this twice already and it just gets worse)
ReplyDeleteThank you for your blog
It's why there's a difference, but it's German fuckery.
ReplyDeleteThose people had the co-morbidities long-term, and didn't die.
They get Kung Flu, and they're dead now.
Hypertension and diabetes aren't killing them, they're dying because they have them and then they got Kung Flu.
That makes COVID-19 the culprit.
Co-morbidities are co-morbidities, not causes of death.
They're doing what W. Africa nations did during the 2014 Ebola outbreak: they're trying to make their country sound less infected than it really is.
It's still bullshit.
After all the .gov attention on this virus, POTUS 45 still has not closed the Mexican border to the poverty and disease being brought to FUSA by 3rd world invaders !
ReplyDeleteFederalize the Army Guard and put their combat strength on the Mexican border. Instead POTUS 45 federalizes Guardsmen to prevent Americans from traveling within their own country ? Pitiful.
Maybe this C-19 was imported here courtesy the "open borders" politicians and their beloved invading foreigners ? Who da thunk, eh ?
Leave the damn Guard alone, they got stuff to do.
ReplyDeleteYou want troops on the border? That'd be the U.S. Army. Full stop. Not the Reserves, certainly NOT the Guard.
And NO numbnuts those Guard troops are NOT " federalized" if they were they couldn't do what they are tasked to do because THEN like the rest of DoD they are bound by Posse Comitatus.
Boat Guy
"they're trying to make their country sound less infected than it really is."
ReplyDeleteHence the N100 mask and decon shit. At some point I'll have it....hopefully late enough there'll be a hospital bed for me and my neighbours available. If not....adios Granny and even money on me would be foolish. Gimme da Scheißkopfmedall.
Morbid curiosity. (intended)]
ReplyDeleteDeaths from vehicles, hoodrats, other?
It's been reported domestic violence is up. You would see it first hand.
And mothers with newborns, who are recently out of a job, forever, dropping babies of at the local church parking lot. 5th order knock-on effect.
ReplyDeleteTracking data for my fellow Texans: https://txdps.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/28ba1555d2834e159bfcbf835ff3f5f7
ReplyDeletethanks Ann!
ReplyDeleten
Yeah, I'm waiting for a spike in child abuse cases and physical trauma to start showing up in the EDs, with all the chillins forced home, and M&D now get to have a bad case of brush up on teachin' the edjamacation thing...especially when those that have, at best, poor self restraint, start smacking the kids for being around and making noise.
ReplyDeleteSteveO
this video report might be the origin of the 21 million dead chinese cell phone account story.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/i/status/1242643023474896896
The guy in the vid thinks that he could possibly account for a certain number of accounts being closed for normal reasons (normal for virus ravaged china) but thinks there are still 5 million unaccounted for with many of those likely dead.
So not 21M all dead, but a whole bunch likely to be. (or they could all be dead, he is just playing devils advocate to bring the number down from 21...)
n
"they couldn't do what they are tasked to do because THEN like the rest of DoD they are bound by Posse Comitatus."
ReplyDeletehttps://billslinksandmore.com/2010/01/22/obama-executive-order-13528-subverts-posse-comitatus-act-of-1878/
Boat Guy...read it and weep.
In no way does this excuse the FDA, DC and the NIAID policymakers from piano-wire neckties for malign negligence resulting in the mass murder of perhaps millions
ReplyDeleteUsing the publicly posted numbers at worldometers.info:
ReplyDeleteIf you assume an average of 14 days from hospitalization to death, the death rate is 18%.
If you assume an average of 10 days, it's 7%.
Assume 5 days, it's 5-6%.
That's just taking the posted deaths as a percentage of the new cases posted X days prior, and doing some rough averaging. (I put together a spreadsheet and have been entering numbers each morning)
Given the New Orleans doctor was talking about 15% serious cases and 5% critical, if you figure "critical" means "has a good chance of ending up on a ventilator", the experimental data is in the same range as my spreadsheet guesstimate.
The official CFR of .1-1% really looks questionable to me.
Skinnedknuckles:
" Is there any way to know whether the overall death rate has spiked or just the COVID-10 deaths?"
Total deaths in Bergamo in Italy from March 8-16 in 2019 was 23. Total deaths, same period in 2020, is 330. Similar multipliers everywhere else in the areas hit hardest by the virus. Everyone saying deaths are being overcounted is lying to you.
Would be interesting to see similar comparisons for Germany.
Nick flandrey:
That's not the only origin. I first saw a reference to that claim as a link to a Chinese-language Hong Kong discussion site. All in chinese characters so I can't vouch for the content.
Please don't miss this one, Aesop, if you have not seen it yet.
ReplyDeleteYou'll want to copy and spread it around at work.
Outstanding medical guidance from a New Orleans ER doc in the Coronavirus trenches.
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/er-doctor-offers-lessons-on-treating-covid-19-patients-cheat-sheet-for-physicians-excellent-read/
Also interesting to me that we are not seeing stories like this one from across the pond:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/not-ready-to-go-tributes-paid-to-uk-first-named-victims-of-coronavirus
We used to laugh at Russia and China with regard to their .gov owned propaganda organs, now they blush at what is omitted by the FUSA press corpse (intentional misspell).
Ask yourself why a government would seek to hide the human face of what is happening? I come up with only one answer and i'm not happy about it. When it gets serious you have to lie. The amount of lying is directly correlated to the severity
No, a ten year-old ObaMao EO is not gonna make me "weep". A goodly number of "phone and pen" EO's have been negated by POTUS and the courts.
ReplyDeleteThe salient point is the same; those Guard troops are NOT "federalized" and are under state TAG control, not DoD.
Boat Guy
Bottom line for times like this is that laws, EOs, etc. only hold the weight they are given by the people (NG, etc). When things step up well past this shit mardi gras, "Rules" may go right out the window.
ReplyDeleteDon't assume, run the numbers.
ReplyDeletehttps://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=238679
@Matt Bracken,
ReplyDeleteI'm way ahead of you.
It was featured here yesterday:
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/03/field-clinical-report-nawlins-er.html
Aesop, one more question. Have you seen any data discussing the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the pneumonia vaccines to help prevent or minimize pneumonia in COVID-19 patients?
ReplyDeleteDon't assume, run the numbers.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, run the numbers honestly. Unlike our host, I have enough economics background to assess Karl Denninger's economic positions, and they're based an original sin of taking the peak of the Jimmy Carter era sky high, over 20% interest rates as as a fundamental fact.
Instead of an aberration caused by his belated appointment of Paul Volcker to run the Fed and bring inflation under control, which peaked under Carter at ~13% per year. Things were so bad the Treasury had to issue Carter bonds denominated in West German Deutschmarks and Swiss Francs instead of dollars.
(Note that for now the dollar doesn't seem to be at risk, we're seeing massive deflation as nominal dollars like the former values of airlines evaporate.)
As our host has noted before, when it comes to things medical, Denninger also cherry picks what supports his position. I first noticed this when Aesop pointed out Denninger was saying surgeries were overpriced based on surgical specialty centers that only work on the relatively healthy, and socialize their risks by sending the bad outcomes to normal hospitals.
TL;DR: Denninger is fundamentally dishonest, and in the matter of COVID-19, very dangerously so. Any attention you spend on him is worse than wasted.
@LT???? and more ????
ReplyDeleteI've got supplies to stack and organize, but wth are you talking about?
The test specifically does look for the genetic sequences of the virus identified as SARS2-CoV, which causes the illness called Covid-19.
We are currently tracking its spread and mutation thru at least 8 strains around the world SPECIFICALLY thru its genetics.
This is much better for identifying a pathogen than any other method as it uses the genetic code itself and not some other superficial descriptor.
If you're not just trolling, then you've got some research to do before coming back...
nick
ThatWouldBeTelling
ReplyDeleteIf Denninger is dishonest then where are the errors with his COVID-19 numbers?
I am only looking for facts. Where are yours to refute his?
Denninger doesn't have numbers. He saw a youTube video (and/or stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once) purporting that all Kung Flu transmission is fecal-oral. This immediately satisfied his urge to end all social distancing and quarantines, so he latched onto it like a non-profit going after a government grant, and hung on like a terrier, despite his entire evidence being that same YouTube video.
ReplyDeleteThat's not math, or science, it's advocacy grasping at straws that line up with one's own confirmation bias.
Game. Set. Match.
QED
This is all too important to leave to hacktivists with an axe to grind.
Sorry, but Denninger is absolutely RIGHT in his long-running statement that healthcare in this country is overpriced by roughly EIGHTY PERCENT over what it would otherwise be if we actually had a free market in healthcare in the USA, which we absolutely DO NOT.
ReplyDeleteYou say that he cherry picks his data, because places like the Surgery Centef of Oklahoma can and do send their cases that develop complications to a 'regular' hospital. So what? Every out-patient surgery center in America operates in the same way.
In America you usually cannot get a price up front for any medical treatment or procedure. But you CAN get a comprehensive proposal and price up front for pretty much anything else....auto repair, lasic eye surgery, home remodeling, dental implants, carpet cleaning, liposuction, pool cleaning, veterinary services, landscaping and lawn care, accounting, and the list goes on and on.
But not medical care. There is no up-front price discovery allowed, and thus no ability to shop around for the most competitive bid. This is an absolute violation of black letter federal anti-trust laws that have been on the books for one hundred years. This is law that is vigorously enforced in every industry.....EXCEPT our sick care industry.
Cui bono? Ask yourself who benefits from this? Not you and not me, that's for sure. Ask yourself who enables this ongoing decades-long medical shearing of all of us sheep, and what 'incentives' might they be given for continuing to support this truly massive price-fixing scheme that defines the American healthcare industry of today.
If you paid for your health care, that might matter.
ReplyDeleteYou don't.
The government pays for it.
Insurers pay for it.
They know what they pay, because they do pay.
You want prices?
Pick up the whole bill, and we can talk.
When 50.1% of America picks up its own tab, you'll see prices posted.
That hasn't happened for 60-80 years.
When you stop paying for something, you don't get a say in the pricing.
Don't like it?
Bitch to FDR.
I have a hole in my paycheck, in every paycheck, for my health care. Denninger argues that billing reveals the fraud: he specifically displays a $21K bill presented by the hospital to the insurer results in the insurer cutting a check for < 2K.
ReplyDeleteI don't get a say in it because the Affordable Care Act SAYS I don't get a say, ie, there's a gun up my nostril.
Jim.
Stipulating that health care in the USA is overpriced and sooner or later the system will change, probably sooner - that aside, Denninger cherry picks his data on EVERYTHING. As long as he's talking about something you know little about, he sounds plausible. The moment he starts talking about something you might happen to have direct knowledge of, it becomes blatantly obvious. Then you start doing some double-checking and asking other people who might have some knowledge of the topic about his other claims, and it becomes blindingly obvious.
ReplyDeleteHe does this so consistently, and he cherry picks the data so carefully in every case, it's really not possible to believe he doesn't know the truth about whatever the topic is. It's just the way he is. He's not capable of being intellectually honest, with himself or with anybody else.
Just in this chinavirus case - he's explicitly claimed that in 1918 the social distancing measures raised overall mortality. https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7582 is a fairly in-depth look at the numbers demonstrating the exact opposite. Does he have his own numbers and sources? Who knows? He never cites anything, he just screams assertions. He's now claiming that hospitals are the primary vector of infection. This is explicitly contradicted by multiple data sources - the NO doctor's account for one (people are coming into the ER for other causes but already having the chinavirus symptoms showing they caught it outside somewhere), the NYC case patterns for another (it's clustered along the commuter lines, there's no connection with hospitals or takeout delivery zones or anything like that).
Systematically responding to every single thing Denninger says with cited sources and evidence demonstrating that he is absolutely full of crap on 99% of the things he has ever said is entirely possible. But what's the point? It's a huge amount of work to no benefit - and you won't even get him to ever admit fault; just saying "I disagree" on his forum is enough to get you instabanned (ask me how I know this). And for the few things he does say that are true and accurate (health care being too expensive) his manner and approach and rhetoric is almost calculated to be anti-persuasive and antagonize people rather than getting them on board.
At least he's a decent litmus test. You can watch how people react to him and what conclusions they draw and when/if they twig to his BS, and draw your own conclusions.
Denninger never heard of Gunnison, CO?
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/gunnison-colorado-the-town-that-dodged-the-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic
They shut the entire mining/farming town down for 4 months... It must have killed their economy!
They, however, didn't get sick or die in the first two waves.
MN Steel
yep. prolly just the flu.
ReplyDeleteItaly suffers another 756 coronavirus deaths in one day as death toll soars towards 11,000 and number of cases in the country nears 100,000
Death toll in Italy alone accounts for third of all deaths from the bug world-wide
The total number of confirmed cases in country rose to 97,689 from 92,472
At least 50 medics have died while trying to contain spread of Covid-19 in Italy
...seems like just about every year we kill 50 medical staff fighting flu in less than a month, yep. Flu. No big deal. Media hype.
nick
Norwegian Docs go public; 82 page report using OSINT to detail what works to fight COVID in China.
ReplyDeleteThe doc starts with full disclosure re. linkage to China etc.
https://www.docdroid.net/80gIu9f/essential-takeaways-from-chinas-response-to-covid-19-magnus-nordby.pdf
When reading Doc Nawlins' report it instantly shows that he is speaking from first-hand experience in the trenches: in the school of hard knocks. Like the difference between an urban cowboy and a country cowboy: the latter has the bull$|-|][^[]^ on the outside of the boots. Was a delight to read; made me regret that I retired 10+ years ago.
ReplyDeleteDenninger really does get a bit old at hammering on healthcare. Look, our medical system is truly problematic. I graduated med school >35 yrs ago, and I do NOT like much of what has happened. Big Pharma has done a LOT to corrupt medicine, even worse are the CDC & FDA. OTOH we are VERY GOOD at much of what we do, and we have placed a high value on medical care. When people complain about health and outcomes (in general, not specific to the CervezaBug) I like to respond in this manner:
ReplyDeletePut the fork down; exercise; don't smoke; don't drink alcohol or do it moderately. At that point you will eliminate the LIONS share of the cost. Now with our current little experiment, it turns out that these same factors will play a significant role in survival. Not the sole factor, but when all is said and done, I suspect that 1/3 - 1/2 of the mortality will be controlled by these same factors.
I do TRULY HURT for many small business owners and the difficulties they are experiencing. The .gov cares little for them and won't do a lot. There really is no "easy & painless" answer to this predicament. It is more a matter of which poison do you prefer.
The issue of critical care survival is real ... but it is for every disease. Does that mean we never use a ventilator for ANYONE? Of course not. A dear friend told me she was grabbed to do an emergency intubation for someone who was not even her patient, but it was a young person turning blue. The risk of infection was raised for her (and she has vulnerabilities that means she likely cannot survive this virus) but as she said, she couldn't just stand there and watch someone die. People like Denninger are utterly clueless about the things that drive us to care for others. Over the years I have had people talk about "you rich doctors" (rich ... not really!) and I point out that few people go into medicine to 'get rich' as there are easier ways to make even more money. We do it because we care.
For the nurses, I am delighted that they have seen a substantial increase in pay over the past 20 yrs... RNs used to be terribly underpaid for what they did. Now someone with an associate degree in nursing has far more respect AND income than they had 30 yrs ago. But what BURNS me is the massive proliferation of administrators who do nothing (which does include some nurses who gave up patient care) or are a necessary evil due to the massive bureaucracy.
Finally, every time I see one of these billboards for the class action lawsuit over oxycontin, I want to scream. Relatively few addicts started legitimately on this drug, and MUCH of that can be laid at the feet of the JCAHO! When they had this massive brain fart and DECLARED FROM MT SINAI: "Pain is the 5th Vital Sign!!!" and started slamming facilities for "inadequate evaluation and/or treatment of pain," they played a huge role in the uptick in opioid (which used to be called opiates, but we have to keep having NEW WORDS ... and genders!) prescribing.
Alright, enough of my stuff. Aesop, you have done a tremendous service by your efforts to educate people the past number of weeks. Having gotten burned out on WRSA, I hadn't seen your stuff in a long time. When I was digging into this bug a couple of months ago, I started to check to see where you were on it. We got all dressed up with nowhere to go for Ebola ... but that was the dress rehearsal. PPE has stayed in it's sealed tub, now being useful to me and others!
Be careful out there!
The comment on Nawlins was posted while I was writing. What he is saying is a bit more technical than what was being tweeted out of Italy, but the EMOTIONAL TONE is the same. This is SERIOUS.
ReplyDelete"It's a huge amount of work to no benefit - and you won't even get him to ever admit fault; just saying "I disagree" on his forum is enough to get you instabanned (ask me how I know this)."
ReplyDeleteHeh, I'm in that club too. He's no different than Twitter in that respect, only yes men allowed. Dissent gets the ban hammer. His site, his prerogative, but that doesn't mean I have to accept his opinions as revealed fact.
Agreed, Denninger's site is a big fuckin circle jerk. I was banned for asking a question; you know, as in "let's talk more about this".
ReplyDelete[Denninger] saw a youTube video (and/or stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once) purporting that all Kung Flu transmission is fecal-oral. This immediately satisfied his urge to end all social distancing and quarantines, so he latched onto it like a non-profit going after a government grant, and hung on like a terrier, despite his entire evidence being that same YouTube video.
ReplyDeleteI had difficultly believing even he could be this stupid, so I checked his site and sure enough. His "evidence" for it is laughable, assuming social distancing orders and requests are actually being obeyed in the US, and ignoring the incubation and early symptoms lags. Making such a claim about the worse respiratory virus in a century, he's not even wrong (although his claim is falsifiable to a degree, a criteria I think Wikipedians recently added to that page).
@Jim,
ReplyDeleteThat "hole in your paycheck" isn't "paying for health care". What you pay is the tip.
The insurance you buy is what pays the bills.
Don't believe me?
Drop your coverage.
Pay cash.
Let us know what everything really costs.
Aesop, I have noticed over the last 8 years without health insurance, that I can negotiate lower bills for routine healthcare and even emergency services. When in a doctors or dentists offices, I've been paying cash for those years, saving 30% to 60% off my bill. All told, I have saved thousands when compared to what I was paying for health insurance premiums.
ReplyDeleteMeh.
ReplyDeleteI read you both often. You both love an audience, both think you know it all, and neither of you likes challenge or discussion--he summarily bans, you ridicule people and delete comments. Whatever. Your blogs, your rules.
But you are BY FAR the better writer.