Quotulatiousness

January 15, 2012

As you’d expect, healthcare costs are not evenly distributed

Filed under: Economics, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:20

Jordan Weissmann in The Atlantic:

When it comes to America’s spiraling health care costs, the country’s problems begin with the 5%. In 2008 and 2009, 5% of Americans were responsible for nearly half of the country’s medical spending.

Of course, health care has its own 1% crisis. In 2009, the top 1% of patients accounted for 21.8% of expenditures.

The figures are from a new study by the Department of Health and Human Services, which examined how different U.S. demographics contributed to medical costs. It looked at the $1.26 trillion spent by civilian, non-institutionalized Americans each year on health care.

The top 5% of spenders paid an annual average of $35,829 in doctors’ bills. By comparison, the bottom half paid an average $232 and made up about 3% of total costs.

Tim Tebow and David Bowie, as one: Tebowie

Filed under: Football, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:59

Denny Green as a coaching talent spotter

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:39

While the current Minnesota Vikings management goes through the fire-and-hire cycle for the coaching staff who finished the 3-13 season, it’s perhaps of some value to recognize how important the junior coaches can be to ensuring long-term team success. At the Star Tribune, Jim Souhan lists the rather stellar cast of assistant coaches former Vikings head coach Denny Green assembled at the start of his tenure with Minnesota:

After Roger Headrick hired him away from Stanford, Green assembled a staff that included Tony Dungy, Tom Moore, Monte Kiffin, John Teerlinck, Ty Willingham, Willie Shaw and Brian Billick. Green even brought in two players, Mike Tice and Jack Del Rio, who would become NFL head coaches.

At the time, nobody knew just how impressive that list of names would become.

Dungy rehabilitated a sagging career as Green’s defensive coordinator and became an outstanding head coach.

Tom Moore coached receivers for Green. Not until he mentored Peyton Manning as the Colts offensive coordinator would his methods gain fame.

Monte Kiffin coached inside linebackers. He would become one of the great defensive coordinators in NFL history.

Brian Billick coached tight ends. He would win a Super Bowl while running the Ravens.

Willie Shaw coached the secondary for Green; he would become an NFL defensive coordinator. His son now coaches Stanford.

Ty Willingham would become the coach at Notre Dame and Teerlinck would coach the Colts defensive line for Dungy when they won the Super Bowl.

Coaches are not the total answer: even the best coaching staff in the world is limited by the skills and talents of the players they have to work with. But a good player can elevate his game with the assistance of good coaching. The quality of your coaching staff will make a difference to the total performance of your team.

Timeline of civilian shipping disasters 1912-2012

Filed under: History — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:19

While the Costa Concordia had the possibility of being a much more serious incident had it been further away from shore, the Guardian lists the most serious shipping disasters (in peacetime) since 1912:

15 April 1912 — Canada

The White Star passenger liner Titanic sank on her maiden voyage off Newfoundland after hitting an iceberg. Of the 2,200 passengers and crew aboard the ship, dubbed before its departure as “unsinkable” 1,523 died.

29 May 1914 — Canada

At least 1,012 people were killed when The Empress of Ireland passenger liner collided with a Norwegian freighter on the St Lawrence River in Canada. It was carrying 1,057 passengers and 420 crew.

[. . .]

29 October 1955 — Soviet Union

The Novorossiysk, formerly the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare, was moored near the shore at Sevastopol. She was the flagship of the Black Sea squadron of the Soviet Navy. The ship exploded and then capsized and sank with the loss of 609 crew.

[. . .]

6 March 1987 — Britain

The car ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized and sank shortly after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The vessel had 463 passengers and crew on board when it left the port with its bow doors still open. 193 people were killed.

20 December 1987 — Philippines

In the worst peacetime sea tragedy, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with the tanker Vector in the Sibuyan Sea. 4,375 people died on the ferry and 11 of the Vector‘s 13-man crew were killed.

Steyn: Ron Paul’s military policies would be a disaster for the Pax Americana

Filed under: Liberty, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

While I generally enjoy reading Mark Steyn’s writing, he does have a fixation with America’s burden to be the world’s policeman and he (correctly) sees Ron Paul as a threat to that role:

No candidate is ideal, and we conservatives are always enjoined not to make the perfect the enemy of the good — or in this case the enemy of the mediocre: sitting next to me last Tuesday on Fox News, the pollster Frank Luntz said that Romney in his victory speech was now starting to use words that resonate with the American people. The main word he used was “America.” On Tuesday night Romney told us he wants to restore America to an America where millions of Americans believe in the American ideal of a strong America for millions of Americans. Which is more than your average Belgian can say. The crowd responded appreciatively. An hour later a weird goofy gnome in a baggy suit two sizes too big came out and started yakking about the Federal Reserve, fiat money and monetary policy “throughout all of history.” And the crowd went bananas!

It’s traditional at this point for non-Paulites to say that, while broadly sympathetic to his views on individual liberty, they deplore his neo-isolationism on foreign policy. But deploring it is an inadequate response to a faction that is likely to emerge with the second-highest number of delegates at the GOP convention. In the end, Newt represents Newt, and Huntsman represents Huntsman, but Ron Paul represents a view of America’s role in the world, and one for which there are more and more takers after a decade of expensive but inconclusive war. President Obama has called for cuts of half a trillion dollars from the military budget. In response, too many of my friends on the right are demanding business as usual — that the Pentagon’s way of doing things must continue in perpetuity. It cannot.

America is responsible for about 43 percent of the planet’s military expenditure. This is partly a reflection of the diminished military budgets of everyone else. As Britain and the other European powers learned very quickly in the decades after the Second World War, when it comes to a choice between unsustainable welfare programs or a military of global reach, the latter is always easier to cut. It is, needless to say, a false choice. By mid-decade the Pentagon’s huge bloated budget will be less than the mere interest payments on U.S. debt. Much of which goes to bankrolling the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Nevertheless, faced with reducing funding for China’s military or our own, the latter will be the easier choice for Washington.

[. . .]

Ron Paul says he would pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan “as quickly as the ships could get there.” Afghanistan is a land-locked country, but hey, that’s just the kind of boring foreign trivia we won’t need to bother with once we’re safely holed up in Fortress America. To those who dissent from this easy and affordable solution to America’s woes, the Paul campaign likes to point out that it receives more money from America’s men in uniform than anybody else. According to the Federal Election Commission, in the second quarter of 2011, Ron Paul got more donations from service personnel than all other Republican candidates combined, plus President Obama. Not unreasonably, serving soldiers are weary of unwon wars — of going to war with everything except war aims and strategic clarity.

Ron Paul is neither isolationist nor anti-military (the donations from serving troops clearly proves that case). He is, however, against military adventurism and perpetual American involvement in the defence of rich countries who have been cashing in the “peace dividend” for two generations or more.

What’s next, allowing only “registered journalists” to report the news?

Filed under: Government, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:14

A brief item that should send a frisson down the spine of anyone who collects and disseminates information from the web and social media outlets:

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that emerged from the Department of Homeland Security in November, Washington has written permission to collect and retain personal information from journalists, news anchors, reporters or anyone who uses “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to DHS, the definition of personal identifiable information can consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.”

H/T to Chris Myrick for the link.

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