Hacker News: njtransit

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 00:02:45 +0000

My claims were entirely substantiated.

Original claim: doctor salaries are part of the problem.

Substantiation: Doctors in the U.S. earn way more than doctors elsewhere. It logically follows that higher salaries lead to higher healthcare costs. For reference, the average doctor in the U.S. earns over $360K. In Germany, that number is around 85K euros.

Then you claimed that some doctors think this is a problem.

I responded by saying that the AMA lobbied to artificially restrict the supply of doctors. This is a well known fact. It’s literally in the introduction (with sources) on their Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association

> the AMA has frequently lobbied to restrict the supply of physicians, contributing to a doctor shortage in the United States.[10][11][12][13] The organization has also lobbied against allowing physician assistants and other health care providers to perform basic forms of health care. The organization has historically lobbied against various forms of government-run health insurance.[8]

So all that is left unsubstantiated is your claim that “a bunch of doctors do recognize the issue.” Ok, which ones? How widespread is this belief? Why is the AMA acting against these beliefs?

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 20:15:42 +0000

Or you should provide some evidence? What’s your source, “trust me bro?” It’s already a well established fact that the AMA lobbied congress to impose residency quotas, a position they continue to support. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that the (likely vast) majority of doctors support this.

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 17:22:28 +0000

Hmm I guess when I see a single, unified viewpoint codified into law by the singular professional association representing the entirety of doctors in America, I don’t really think “hmm l, those doctors really have varying viewpoints on this issue.”

I’m very skeptical that there are many doctors that support removing the supply cap. Of course, many doctors understand that the supply cap increases their salaries and thus the cost of care. But that’s different from actively supporting policies that will lower their salaries.

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 16:17:17 +0000

It sounds like they want to increase the cap, not remove it entirely. This is, again, likely self serving. If there aren’t enough anesthesiologist, for instance, surgeons can’t perform surgery.

But, honestly, good for them. I wish other white collar ICs understood the power of banding together to lobby for your professions interests.

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 14:40:32 +0000

Except in this case, the main group of doctors (the AMA) convinced congress to cap the number of residencies available to med school graduates explicitly to prevent the “over supply of physicians”.

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 13:26:37 +0000

No, the issues is that the AMA convinced congress to limit the number of residencies available, which acts as a hard cap on the supply of doctors.

New comment by njtransit in "The ENTIRE healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 13:04:41 +0000

It is a supply issue. And supply is artificially limited by the AMA by limiting the number of residencies available.

New comment by njtransit in "The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies"

njtransit — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 06:07:12 +0000

I always find it funny that doctors never think their huge salaries are part of the problem. Doctors in other countries earn way less than doctors here. That helps keep costs lower.

New comment by njtransit in "Doctors Say Dealing with Health Insurers Is Only Getting Worse"

njtransit — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 13:42:45 +0000

It’s not helpful to think of most pain clinics as fundamentally interested in treating chronic pain. Rather, these pain clinics were an experiment with de-facto legalization of opioids for recreational use. Just like you used to be able to see certain doctors in California for a “medical” marijuana license under dubious pretenses (“I’m having trouble sleeping”), you could walk into a pain clinic and get legal opiates (“My back hurts no matter what I do”). It turns out that legalization of opiates is a disaster.

New comment by njtransit in "TSMC founder says Intel has neither a strategy nor a CEO"

njtransit — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:25:24 +0000

I don't understand the focus on Intel's board. Intel released a new processor back in October (Arrow Lake) and it was a total flop. That is why Pat Gelsinger was fired.

New comment by njtransit in "OnlyFans models are using AI impersonators to keep up with their DMs"

njtransit — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:21:33 +0000

First, they came for OF creators, and I did not speak out

New comment by njtransit in "Ask HN: How do I rebuild at 36yo after a checkered career of undiagnosed ADHD?"

njtransit — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:14:45 +0000

One thing you could try is to get into a field that skews older. Most people don’t enter the trades until they’re in their 30s, so a 36 year old apprentice wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. From your post, it doesn’t seem like you’ll ever be cut out for knowledge work, but you didn’t really share any details so it’s hard to say.

New comment by njtransit in "What we know about CEO shooting suspect"

njtransit — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:59:47 +0000

Violence certainly can be effective, but also not. Everything is situational. See the Black Panthers vs. peaceful protesting during the civil rights movement. See also the American Revolution. Whether or not violence makes sense likely depends on how strong you and your friends are.

New comment by njtransit in "A liar who always lies says "All my hats are green.""

njtransit — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 19:38:22 +0000

That how we define "all" logically but not linguistically. For instance, linguistically we would consider this inconsistent: "all 10-foot men have black hair AND all 10-foot men have blonde hair" yet it is true, logically, if there are no 10-foot tall men. The translation of the English word "all" should be something something like: |Q| > 0 ∧ ∀x∈Q, x is ...

New comment by njtransit in "Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intel"

njtransit — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 03:32:24 +0000

I think Gelsinger was fired because Arrow Lake was a total flop.

New comment by njtransit in "From the Bretton Woods system to global stagnation [pdf]"

njtransit — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 04:22:16 +0000

Bioengineering will obviously be a large technological force moving forward. Quick vaccine development and targeting cancer seems like the tip of the iceberg.

Technological advancement in semi-conductors has enabled human-like AI models.

New comment by njtransit in "Weak pointers in Go: why they matter now"

njtransit — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 12:24:12 +0000

The article doesn’t actually explain how they work… How does the indirect pointer get set to nil? Does it use runtime.SetFinalizer?

New comment by njtransit in "Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail"

njtransit — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 12:29:01 +0000

These are all very interesting points. I’d like to add the total flop of Arrow Lake. That’s the type of thing the board likely cares about.

New comment by njtransit in "Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail"

njtransit — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 12:28:01 +0000

50M in salary is actually quite high. The S&P 500 average is less than 20M. I’ve seen companies half the size of Intel pay their CEOs ~11M.

New comment by njtransit in "The Death of Intel: When Boards Fail"

njtransit — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 04:35:49 +0000

The article focuses on the boards alleged ineptitude, not about Gelsinger directly, but the article directly states that Gelsinger was the best possible candidate:

> But the reality is he’s the single best candidate for the company.

However, directly before this, the author offers this:

> Meanwhile, Pat wanted to pursue the big, bold IFS bet, with 100s of thousands of wafers, when the reality is just getting 10s of thousands of wafers is a massive problem as is.

This sounds oddly reminiscent of people I've worked with in the past. They have grand, pie-in-the-sky visions of what something should be, but don't know how to quickly and efficiently take the steps to get there.