How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

How to Charge $546 for Six Liters of Saltwater

as the tale of the humble IV bag shows all too clearly, it is secrecy that helps keep prices high: hidden in the underbrush of transactions among multiple buyers and sellers, and in the hieroglyphics of hospital bills.
At every step from manufacturer to patient, there are confidential deals among the major players, including drug companies, purchasing organizations and distributors, and insurers. These deals so obscure prices and profits that even participants cannot say what the simplest component of care actually costs, let alone what it should cost.

The term is information asymmetry. And it is one of the reasons why health care in the US is so damn costly and everyone claims that they are not the ones making money on health care.

The 10 non-softball questions Ron Paul refused to answer during his Reddit AMA

The 10 non-softball questions Ron Paul refused to answer during his Reddit AMA

ron-paul:

Reddit Ron Paul AMA (question not answered)

Sorry, I don’t have any softball questions for you here, but I’m sure many have been wondering the answers to these.

  1. I didn’t want to start off with this one, but the populace really wants some answers. To be frank, the only answers you’ve given…

I always thought of Mr. Paul as half right, half crazy. The 10 questions here are hardly new. But they illustrate the very serious reasons why Paul was never a serious candidate and could only have a career in a safe GOP district in Texas.

NYT: Welcome to the Age of Denial

NYT: Welcome to the Age of Denial

Today, however, it is politically effective, and socially acceptable, to deny scientific fact. Narrowly defined, “creationism” was a minor current in American thinking for much of the 20th century. But in the years since I was a student, a well-funded effort has skillfully rebranded that ideology as “creation science” and pushed it into classrooms across the country. Though transparently unscientific, denying evolution has become a litmus test for some conservative politicians, even at the highest levels.

…

Meanwhile, climate deniers, taking pages from the creationists’ PR playbook, have manufactured doubt about fundamental issues in climate science that were decided scientifically decades ago. And anti-vaccine campaigners brandish a few long-discredited studies to make unproven claims about links between autism and vaccination.

This is the age of truthiness. We have an industry that promotes truthiness and employes people to provide fact-like quotes to balance out arguments.

Moment of Truthiness

Moment of Truthiness

Do people like Mr. Cantor or Mr. Paul know that what they’re saying isn’t true? Do they care? Probably not. In Stephen Colbert’s famous formulation, claims about runaway deficits may not be true, but they have truthiness, and that’s all that matters.

And please stop saying both sides are just as bad. MSNBC is not reporting we are running a surplus. The NYT isn’t reporting there is no deficit. Its isn’t the same.