Joseph Bulger IV

I was just watching a television show that’s a drama about the medical field.  The particular episode I was watching perfectly illustrated the reason why Health Care in our country has completely gotten out of control.

The scenario: A patient has lost one of his digits (his thumb to be exact), and requested that the minimal amount of surgery be done on him as to avoid costs from his medical insurance.  His insurance only covers 60% of what they deem major surgery. He also indicated that if it was too much he wouldn’t sign the consent forms and would rather not get the surgery at all and just lose his thumb.

The doctor, in response to this patient, decides to get the patient’s consent for the least amount of surgery possible (basically to just attach the skin, but keep in mind this is fictitious), and after getting the consent and putting the patient under he proceeds to fully attach the mans thumb even after being explicitly told not to do so.  Now this isn’t what I’m saying the problem is, because I don’t really think a doctor would do this in real life.  The problem is what is to come, and shows the mentality that a lot of people with power seem to have.

The hospital ends up getting sued by both the patient and the insurance company, because both parties are unwilling to foot the bill (imagine that), and so the manager of the hospital goes to the doctor to confront him about the consent issue and the surgery.

Here’s the problem: The doctor, at some point, responds, “I wasn’t going to let the guy throw away his thumb just to save a few bucks.”

It may sound reasonable at the front of it, but consider something else.  The manager said the cost of the procedure was $80,000.  Taking into account for the fact that the patient would be responsible for a minimum of 40% of that amount, you’re talking $32,000.  That is not a few bucks.

Now the crux of this whole thing comes falling down.  Ultimately who’s responsibility/right is it to decide whether this procedure is done or not? It’s the patient’s. He decided he didn’t want it done; respect the decision. Our mentality about Health Care in this country needs to change from the mentality of this doctor. We need to give respect back to the patients. They have the right to choose.  They have the right to negotiate price. They have the right to refuse. They have the right for a second opinion. They have a right to their own opinion.

Just FYI, my wife is very wise.  I had her look over the design I came up for the reputation system.  She thought it would be easier if the user could just check off the things they wanted.

Sometimes its just better to get a second opinion!

This is the new concept.  Not much has changed visually, but the behavior will definitely be different.

So the behavior will be by checking off one of the items from the search you’ll be informing the owner that you’re interested in that item.  What happens after that point I’m still working out, but that basically wraps up the behavior for this side.  What we have left to do is get the behavior done for the owner’s side.

Now my problem is I need to design a checkbox that will go on the side so people can just to click on.

So far I’ve come up with this, but I’m not 100% satisfied with it.  The coloring won’t really get nailed down until we put it up on the site and tweak it to make the color scheme, but you get the idea.

Any suggestions?

I’m throwing this out there because I heard something a while ago that caught my attention.  I don’t honestly care all too much about 16 year olds being able to vote, but there is one very interesting caveat to all of this.

There is a deep seeded understanding in America that it is unconstitutional for there to be no taxation without representation. So having said that, which one should it be?  Should 16 year olds be allowed to vote?  Or should 16 year olds be exempt from all taxation?  You decide…

I’m trying out a new product Microsoft is releasing on the web called Hohm.  It’s a web site dedicated to tracking your energy expenditure and cost, so that you can reduce your energy consumption and also save you some cash along the way.

How does it accomplish this?  It profiles you and your house.  It asks you some basic (and some not so basic) information about your house and your energy habits.  The cool thing is you can choose to fill in as much, or as little, as you want.  No pressure.  However, the more information you can give it the more accurate the reports will be.

Other cool things include the ability to track your energy bills through an automated feed.  This has to be set up with your utility company(ies), but if they offer it, then it’s a quick way for Hohm to get a lot of information about your energy consumption.  I live in Homestead, FL, and as of today they haven’t set up any of the providers here.  I’m hoping they will in the future so I can submit them my data feed and get some real data to project.

I’m really using it as a way to try and save money primarily.  If it works out I’ll be writing a success story on it at a later date.