Feb 23 Comcast Digital Channel Lineup – Royal Oak, South Oakland

This is not a real post, but I thought I would share this list with the rest of the world.  Comcast recently offered me digital cable for the same price I am currently paying for basic cable and internet in the interest of keeping me from ditching them and going with WowWay since they are now available in my area.  However, I soon found out that the way they stick it to you is by not giving you a channel guide without a digital converter.  Since my TV is a new TV with a built-in ClearQAM tuiner, there was no need for me to rent the box from them.  I soon found out though that I would run into problems when setting up my computerized PVR (SageTV) since Comcast does not publish their channel guide for people without boxes.  I personally went through and mapped out all of the channels for the Royal Oak, South Oakland digital cable line-up without a digital box.   I have uploaded the PDF to my site.

Comcast_Digital_Channel_Line

I am using this on my homemade media server.  I will post a guide on how I built mine in the near future.

Filed under: Miscellaneous by sschauer
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Feb 14 technology review – Android

For those that know me, one of my favorite things to blow way too much money on is technology.  I’ve been partial to Verizon since 2001, mainly because of the coverage they provide.  I had Sprint for a little while, but that was back when Sprint PCS was in its infancy, and the coverage just didn’t compare.  I have since been happy with their expansion and customer service.  The downside to Verizon is that they are always the last ones to pick up the latest in terms of user-technology.  They finally picked up the Android-based operating system back in November, so I was sure to pick up the Motorola Droid as soon as it was released.  I ended up exchanging it for the Droid Eris a few weeks later.  I had been used to the touch screen technology from my last phone, and therefore found the extra weight and bulk created by the real keyboard was not worth it.  I have been very pleased with the phone ever since.  Until Android became available for Verizon I had been a loyal Windows Mobile user (yes, I have even tried BlackBerry and was beyond unhappy with it).  Microsoft has been plagued with poor mobile technology development for years now, and has not released a new kernal for their mobile phone OS in at least 5 years!  It’s going to take a lot for WM7 to lure me back.

The only part of the Droid Eris that I have been unhappy with is how slow HTC has been to release an update to the OS.  Eris users are still stuck using the old Android v. 1.5 (the most current is 2.1).  The part of it that bothers me the most is the lack of new software technology that the 1.5 OS is capable of running.

All of that aside, I plan to do some technology reviews of software and hardware released for the Droid Eris.  One of the best applications I have downloaded is called “Barcode Scanner”.  It just flows well.  You use the camera built into the phone to snap a picture of a bar code on the item you are looking at while shopping, and it immediately pulls up all of the Google Shopping results for that item.

barcodescannerd

The beauty of it is being able to save money by price comparison.  Here is my receipt showing the money I saved just by showing them my phone search results!

IMG_1033

Filed under: Technology Reviews by sschauer
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Dec 21 Update Notice

Update coming soon – I will be adding some new technology reviews.  Unbiased complaining.

Filed under: My Latest Rants by sschauer
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Jul 23 Americans don’t want a choice of health insurance policies; rather, they want a choice of doctors and hospitals.

It’s been a while since I’ve put a worthwhile piece of on my blog.  This one is a bit long and detailed, and thus has taken me a while to really get it finished.  Though I generally consider myself more conservative, this is something that is not a right-wing/left-wing issue anymore.  I like my personal rights, my firearms and the idea that less is more when it comes to most government issues.  However, this is a bipartisan issue that must be addressed… soon.

Through my experience in medicine, I have been lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you view it) to see a wide-variety of the population in and out of many aspects of the healthcare system.  Given my interest in emergency medicine, I will admit I am a bit biased in seeing how many people are forced to turn to the emergency department for care.  The ED is the one place anyone can turn to for healthcare, even if the issue they are coming in for is not what most would deem is a true “emergency.”

As our former president put it, “I mean, people have access to healthcare in America… After all, you just go to an emergency room.” (George W. Bush, Cleveland, Ohio, 10 July 2007)

So what?  Why is this important?

  • Almost 46 million Americans were uninsured as of 2007.  46 MILLION!  That amounts to almost 1 in 6 people in the richest country in the world that don’t have healthcare insurance.[i]
  • The number one cause of individual bankruptcy is medical bills.[ii]
  • Being uninsured increases the risks of many major illnesses and death.  The odds of suffering a stroke are nearly 3-fold when comparing the uninsured to those with continuous coverage.[iii] The odds of death are 1.6-fold higher for people aged 55-65 when comparing the insured to the uninsured.[iv]
  • Having a single-payer system would separate healthcare coverage from employment.  This would increase portability and allow for continued healthcare coverage when between jobs.  In turn, the incredibly high rates of COBRA coverage would no longer be a concern when between jobs.  Additionally, this would allow those that fall ill while working from losing coverage while recovering from illness.
  • We are the only industrialized country in the world without some form of universal healthcare.  We are one of three OECD analyzed countries without universal healthcare; the other two being Turkey and Mexico.[v]

Nothing makes for more interesting writing than what USA Today calls the “cocktail taboos”: Religion, sex, politics.  In light of some conversations I’ve had with other both medical and non-medical people I would like to address the top 10 arguments against universal healthcare (UHC) I hear most often.

Top 10 Myths of a Single-Payer Healthcare Plan:

1 – “I don’t want to have to wait to see my doctor or get surgery I need”

The median wait time to get an elective CT or MRI was less than 4 weeks.  Greater than 86% were able to get their elective imaging done in less than 3 months. The median wait time to see a specialist physician was just over four weeks, with 89.5% seeing them in less than 3 months.  The median wait time for elective surgery was less than four weeks, with 82.2% receiving it in less than 3 months.  The average wait time for a total hip was less than four weeks.[vi] By comparison, the average wait time to see a specialist with Medicaid coverage was greater than 3 months.[vii]

Additionally, a Commonwealth study that was done in 2005 demonstrated that 47% of sick adults were unable to get same-day or next-day appoints here in the US.  We ranked second to last.[viii]

2 – “The Canadian Healthcare system is expensive compared to the US”

The US government spends more on healthcare than on Social Security and the Depart of Defense combined.[ix] In 2006 we spend almost 16% of our GDP on healthcare, in comparison, Canada spent only 10.1%.  Additionally, Canada’s total healthcare costs per capita were approximately 53% of what the per capita cost was in the US in 2007.[x]

3 – “Healthcare in the US is of higher quality than in Canada”

Our healthcare, by almost all measures ranks very poorly compared to other industrialized countries of the world.  In fact, in most areas our healthcare system essentially sucks.  A 2007 study comparing the US healthcare to Germany, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, we ranked last or next to last in quality, access, efficiency, equity and outcomes.  The only place we consistently ranked number one was in cost.  It is also worth nothing that we were the only country in that study lacking universal healthcare.[xi] Our infant mortality rates are worse than every industrialized country with universal healthcare.  Cuba out ranks us and we just barely beat Croatia![xii] We rank 50th in life expectancy, behind Portugal and just above Albania.[xiii] We rank 37th (way behind Canada) in overall healthcare system performance.[xiv]

The bottom line is that there is not a shred of evidence that industrialized countries with a single-payer system delivery an inferior quality of care compared to the US.

In addition to being poorly ranked in outcomes, we also rank poorly in preventative care.  A survey comparing preventative care access, Americans were almost five times more likely to skip out on preventative care testing recommended by their doctor due to lack of access and/or insurance coverage.[xv]

4 – “I work hard, that’s why I have good healthcare coverage”

There are 46 million uninsured Americans.  There are another 25 million that are “under-insured.”  Allow me to show the breakdown of those 46 million that are uninsured.

-One-third of the 46 million are children.

-93% reside in households with an income of greater than $50,000 per year.

-64% reside in households with an income of greater than $75,000.

-1.8 million are veterans.[xvi]

Healthcare costs have risen 78% since 2001 while wages have risen only 19%.[xvii] The bottom line is that the average working family simply cannot keep up with the costs associated with keeping their family insured.

5 – “The government can’t afford to provide healthcare to everyone”

NEWS FLASH: THE GOVERNMENT ALREADY PAYS FOR THE MAJORITY OF HEALTHCARE COSTS!

The government already funds 57% of healthcare in the US![xviii] This includes government employees, military, Medicaid, Medicare, etc.  Additionally, a little known secret is that your tax dollars actually fund my post-doctoral training.  The hospitals receive approximately $100,000 per “residency” position in exchange for guaranteeing that they will accept patients with Medicare.  This was originally started when Medicare was signed into action, fearing that hospitals would not accept coverage.  In exchange for providing care for Medicare patients, hospitals would receive a sum of money to train “resident” physicians.  There are many ways in which the government is currently funding healthcare that the average tax-payer is unaware of.  If it weren’t for the Medicare payouts for resident training many inner-city hospitals would not be able to afford to keep their doors open.

Additionally, government-run healthcare costs less, plain and simple.  Medicare spends less than 3% on administrative costs.  That is in comparison to private insurance companies that spend 10-31% of total costs on administration.[xix] It is simply lean and more efficient.

6 – “Universal healthcare would cause an exodus of healthcare providers”

This chart shows the movement of Canadian physicians abroad versus those returning to Canada.  As you can see in the past three years there have been more physicians coming home from abroad in comparison to those leaving.

There is no evidence to support the claim that it would cause a “brain drain”.  More and more Canadian physicians prefer the single-payer system, hence the net return of physicians.[xx]

7 – With free healthcare, the system would result in over-consumption

A study published by Johns Hopkins University in 2007 compared ED use in America to that of Ontario, Canada with controls for demographical variation.  They found, “ED visit rates and patterns are similar in the United States and Ontario, Canada.”  The US had a total of 39.9 visits per 100 people in comparison to Canada having 39.7 visits per 100 people.[xxi]

8 – “Canadians are always crossing the border for healthcare”

In a 2002 survey of hospitals in border cities, they found:

-Greater than 80% of the hospitals reported seeing less than one patient per month.

-During the entire year, state hospitals in NY, MI and WA reported treated a total of 909 Canadian patients, only 17% of which were elective.

-Only one of “America’s Best Hospitals” reported seeing more than 60 Canadians over the previous year.

-In the survey of 18,000 Canadians, only 90 reported receiving care in a US facility.  Only 20 of them came to the US seeking care.[xxii]

This claim is simply a myth with no evidence to back it up.

9 – “American doctors and nurses don’t want to become government employees”

A 2007 poll demonstrated that the majority of physicians and healthcare providers are in favor of universal healthcare.  Just over 59% of physicians polled support a government organized healthcare plan.  In Massachusetts, 64% prefer the single-payer system over private healthcare options.  Moreover, 64% of all physicians polled are in favor of a universal healthcare program even if it resulted in a 10% pay cut so long as it reduced the amount of paperwork.[xxiii]

Additionally, single-payer medicine is not socialized medicine.  In a socialized medicine system the doctors are government employees and the hospitals are property of the government.  With a single-payer system, doctors and hospitals remain private.  The billing is simply funneled through a single-paying source instead of having to hire billing specialists just to bill the 1500 different insurers that currently exist.

10 – “Canadians have to purchase extra coverage just to be seen by the ‘good’ doctors”

More than 99% of physician services are covered by Canada’s single-payer system.  Just over 90% of total hospital costs are paid for by the government.  Most of the extra coverage that is purchased is for dental care, which is currently limited in coverage.  That amounts to a total of 70% of total healthcare costs being paid for by the government health plan.  Most of the remaining 30% is due to dental care which is not generally covered by their universal healthcare plan.  Additionally, the vast majority of physicians are private healthcare providers.[xxiv]

The bottom line is that we cannot afford to ignore this problem anymore.  A tax-credit or step-wise process simply will not work.  It has not worked anywhere else, and will not work here.  Those that have insurance are paying for those that don’t.  There’s a reason why a CT scan in the ER costs you over $1000, they have to make up for all of the care that is provided to people that cannot pay.  Additionally, having universal healthcare places everyone in a common risk pool.  It prevents the ability for insurance companies to cherry-pick the best patients.  Try getting health care coverage with a history of breast cancer, heart disease or any chronic illness for reasonable rates.

Americans don’t want a choice of health insurance policies; rather, they want a choice of doctors and hospitals.

Special thanks to Dr. Jim Mitchiner at St. Joe’s Medical Center for allowing me to use some of his work in writing this.


[i] Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf, Accessed: 14 July 2009.

[ii] Medical bills leading cause of bankruptcy, Harvard study finds, http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_study.html, Accessed: 15 July 2009.

[iii] J Gen Int Med Suppl, April 2004, 19:147

[iv] Health Affairs, July/August 2004:228

[v] OECD Health Project, http://www.oecdwash.org/PDFILES/health2003_wash.pdf, Accessed: 10 July 2009

[vi] Self-Reported Difficulty Accessing Services, http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/system-regime/2006-fed-comp-indicat/2006-fed-comp-indicat-3-eng.php#a1, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[vii] Note to Medicaid Patients: The Doctor Won’t See You, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118480165648770935.html?mod=todays_us_page_one, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[viii] “The Doctor Will See You – In Three Months,” http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm, Accessed: 18 July 2009.

[ix] Opportunity ‘08, “Meeting the Dilemma of Healthcare Access,” Accessed: 10 July 2009.

[x] OECD Health Data 2009, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf, Accessed: 10 July 2009.

[xi] Davis et al. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care”, http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2007/May/Mirror–Mirror-on-the-Wall–An-International-Update-on-the-Comparative-Performance-of-American-Healt.aspx, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[xii] CIA – The World Fact Book: Infant Mortality Rate, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[xiii] CIA – The World Fact Book: Life Expectancy at Birth, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[xiv] The World Health Report, http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex01_en.pdf, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

[xv] Schoen et al. Health Affairs.2007; 26: w717-w734

[xvi] Schoen et al. “How many are underinsured?  Trends among adults.” Health Affairs, 10 June 2008.

[xvii] “Health Insurance Premiums…” The Kaiser Family Foundation, http://www.kff.org/insurance/ehbs091107nr.cfm, Accessed : 18 July 2009.

[xviii] OECD Data, 2005.

[xix] “Statement of Dr. Marcia Angell Introducing the National Healthcare Plan,” http://www.pnhp.org/facts/statement_of_dr_marcia_angell_introducing_the_us_national_health_insurance_act.php, Accessed: 18 July 2009.

[xx] Canadian Institute for Health Information statistics, 2006

[xxi] Li et al. “Emergency department utilization in the United States and Ontario, Canada.” Acad Emerg Med. 2007 Jun;14(6):582-4. Epub 2007 Apr 30.

[xxii] “Survey of US Ambulatory Care Providers in Border Cities…” Health Affairs, 2002, 21:19.

[xxiii] Gallup Poll, 10/9/2007

[xxiv] CIHI – Exploring the 70/30 Split, http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=AR_1282_E, Accessed: 17 July 2009.

Filed under: Politics by sschauer
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Sep 27 this might be the funniest news story of all time…

I’m working on some new posts, in the mean time this is quite entertaining:

So, this guy was arrested in South Charleston on a charge of drunk driving a few nights ago.  While in the police station during booking, he apparently made it a point to let out the worst fart known to mankind.  The odor was so bad he was actually charged with battery on a police officer due to the release of such a noxious odor.

The original article can be found here:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,427365,00.html

Filed under: Interesting News by sschauer
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Jun 3 the $30,000 Millionaire

For the longest time I never knew that people outside of Las Vegas used the term “$30,000 Millionaire”. I was wasting time on Facebook the other day when I noticed one of my friends had it listed in his profile and I found it humorous how that term has proliferated. So what does it mean? Basically, it is a douche bag that makes about $30,000 per year but in front of other people he or she likes to act like they are worth millions. The term really applies more to dudes, and they are often found at the trendiest nightclubs and bars. After working at a nightclub for several years I can tell you that at any given moment 2 out of 3 patrons in a trendy nightclub are, in fact, millionaires (not really). Common symptoms of “$30,000 Millionaire” syndrome:

  • You refer to yourself as “baller”, or “high-roller”, etc.
  • When in public you like to point out how much the things you are wearing cost, i.e. “look at my new [hideous] Versace shirt, it cost me over $150″
  • Everything you own is leased
  • Your credit card(s) is maxed out, mostly with charges for clothes and cheap champagne at the hottest nightclubs
  • You wear a lot of hideous looking gold jewelry
  • You like to wear your sunglasses inside
  • Your life is dictated by all of the latest trends
  • Every time you go out you like to buy champagne and bottles for everyone at the table and then dance around with the bottle in your hand.

These things are commonly done to appear as those you are loaded and ultimately you think it will get you laid. Most likely neither occur. Just in case you were wondering what they look like I thought I’d include some pictures:

Here we see the bleached greasy hair, hideous shirts that probably cost more then their monthly income and most of all, they are standing there with their thumbs up each other’s asses as they talk about who is more “baller”.

These next two are pretty self explanatory:

Now this next one I know you are going to jump to conclusions and say “oh but this guy really is a millionaire!!” I will explain…

Technically speaking, he himself is a $30,000 Millionaire. He has no money, he is poor, and he is worthless with no talent. All of his money was actually Britney’s money.

While this is kind of off topic, I’d like to say that one of my new favorite sites to look at is called, “Hot Chicks with Douchebags“. There you can find more examples of $30,000 Millionaires, except on this site they will show all of the idiot women that have fallen for it. It could also be titled, “Women with an IQ less than 15 that like to put out for guys that make $30,000 per year but like to pretend they are millionaires.”

Filed under: Miscellaneous by sschauer
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May 14 attention hippies: THE GREENHOUSE GAS EFFECT DOES NOT EXIST

This is dedicated to all those tree-hugging hippies out there (you know who you are).

Global temperature changes are a natural part of the earths climate cycles. Unfortunately, people like Al Gore make money fooling the morons of society into believing this bullshit. Legitimate scientists call what he does “zohnerism”; it is defined as “the use of a true fact to lead a scientifically and mathematically ignorant public to a false conclusion.”

Watch the video, it’s only a little over 10 minutes and it can do more in that 10 minutes to educate you about “global warming” than I can in several pages.

Click here to download this movie in AVI format.

This movie, “Unstoppable Solar Cycles” is reproduced by IdeaChannel.com with permission.

Filed under: Interesting News by sschauer
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Apr 27 some genetics that would make Mendel jealous

In case you didn’t know, one of the guys I share server space with is getting his Ph. D. in genetics from Cornell. For a moment we will just ignore the fact that Cornell’s nickname is “Big Red” and we will focus on the true science behind my experiment. Since Brideau just sits in lab all day forcing Drosophila flies to have sex with each other so he can see what kind of crazy mutations he can create I thought I would show him what real genetics research is.

Hypothesis: If Carson Daly and that real annoying guy from the Verizon commercials that just walks around and says, “Can you hear me now?”, were to have sex, what would they produce?

Data: Since Carson Daly and that Verizon-guy are unable to have sex that would successfully produce off-spring (assuming they are, in fact, both men), I will have to rely on a computer generated presentation of what the child might look like.

Results: The results are stunning.

Graph 1.1 – The results of the computer generated off-spring.

Conclusions: The personality combination was amazing. We combined an extremely annoying person from a TV commercial with a guy that hosts the worst TV show to hit late night television and some how ended up with a guy that is a pro at hoarding money and is an expert at finding things to do with drunk people and digital cameras.

Filed under: Miscellaneous by sschauer
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Mar 1 letter to the editor – State News

I recently sent in another letter to the editor at the State News. They always give the letters some lame ass title, they called mine, “Roger Clemens case wastes congress’ time, resources.” The other stupid thing the State News does is edit it. I really hate they way they edit it, since they usually soften it down. Here is the original piece:

 

This extensive investigation into Roger Clemen’s possible drug use a decade ago serves as proof that congress has too much time on their hands and is not capable of being trusted to run our government. Let’s think about this for a second. Our social security system is failing, a large portion of our population have no health care coverage, our borders are not secure and we are at war in Iraq, yet it is more important for congress to allocate all this time and resources looking into a baseball player that might have used steroids in the past?

I really don’t get it. Until 5 years or so ago no one seemed to have a problem turning a blind eye to drug use by professional athletes in exchange for seeing records getting smashed. Professional athletes have been using drugs to help with their training for decades, and it is much more prevalent than most fans would ever realize. They work in a hyper-competitive environment, and like most competitive people, they are doing what they can to gain a training edge. The competitive environment puts the pressure on them to break the records if they want the sell-out games. It is not much different than the way that people might consider taping another team’s defensive strategy to win the big trophy.

Senator Larry “Wide-stance” Craig, someone the state of Idaho trusted to hold a position in congress with dignity and honesty, has done everything but that. He has disgraced the senate, and used his position of power to finagle his way out of the hot seat. The rest of congress has allowed him to walk away with a slap on the wrist, but they’ll be damned if an athlete who might have used steroids a decade ago gets away without being hung from a yard arm.

Here is the publishing in the State News on 18 February 2008:

http://www.statenews.com/index.php/article/2008/02/letter_schauer_021908

Filed under: School by sschauer
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