The almighty .plan

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +1100

No updates for a while, 2008 has been remarkably shitty so far.
I've been very ill, temporarily lost a heap of mail to a global
config cock-up when fetchmail was upgraded on yallara, and left
without any real source of income.

After being screwed around for another month by centerlink I was
told I can't get "Newstart" (i.e. the dole) if I'm studying at
university. Yes, that's right, if you are on the dole you are
*not allowed* to be studying a course longer than a few weeks,
even if it doesn't interfere with looking for a job. This wouldn't
bother me so much if they had just said so back in October - they
knew full well at the time I was a uni student.

In other news, I've had terrible upper chest pains - it seems to be
some inflammation or problem with the chest wall and possibly the
cartilage near my ribs. I've had a heap of tests done this week,
everything bar x-ray or ultrasound imaging. All we know is that it's
probably not heart problems (because my ECG is fine) and probably not
pneumonia (because I'm not coughing up anything and my lungs sound
clear), even if it is making it even more difficult for me to breathe.

     -----==========-----

Valdrax sums up free market healthcare brilliantly:

   Anyone who understands free market capitalism should understand
   why it doesn't work for healthcare. The rational, informed,
   value-seeking man does not exist in the healthcare world. Real
   healthcare patients are seeking the best treatment that they can
   afford, not the cheapest healthcare that will probably get the job
   done. That's the kind of market where prices go up instead of down
   because the only downward price pressure is whether or not a
   provider can find enough people that can pay at the prices they offer.

   Matters of life and death are not ruled by bargain-seeking
   behavior, and thus the entire driving forces of supply and demand
   are thrown completely out of whack. Anyone who's spent any time
   studying economics should recognize that the fundamental
   assumption of modern economic theory doesn't apply here.

   -- http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423562&cid=22106702


More on the same topic:
   http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423562&cid=22107346
   http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423562&cid=22106402
   http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=423562&cid=22106332