Mitchell Tsai

President Obama’s promise that you would get to keep your doctor was propaganda to me from the first time I heard it. Health care doesn’t work this way. How can you keep me as a doctor unless I decide to keep you as my patient? Don’t I have the fundamental right to choose? What happens if your health insurance plan pays me too little and overly restricts the prescriptions I write or the tests I try to order for your benefit? - Mitchell Tsai

The idea that you could keep your insurance plan was more propaganda. Back in June 2010, the federal Health and Human Services Department, the IRS and the Labor Department published draft regulations for the new law that set standards for insurance plans. It was predicted that from 45% to 66% of those offered by employers as well as from 40% to 67% of individual policies would no longer be legal by 2013. - Mitchell Tsai

Thanks holly #ravingfangirl for posting this at http://ff.im/1g5F8E - Mitchell Tsai

Every month, every Swiss person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor, how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear. - Mitchell Tsai

The working hypothesis is that innocuous cowshed microbes, plant material and raw milk protect farming children by favorably stimulating their immune systems throughout life, particularly early on. - Mitchell Tsai

See http://ff.im/THNps, Battery info on my last battery when it was dying http://ff.im/THNZE - Mitchell Tsai

Alcohol is the most harmful drug in Britain, scoring 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual. - Mitchell Tsai

A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated. Even that may be optimistic. Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce just six of 53 “landmark” studies in cancer research. - Mitchell Tsai

If you dropped the statistical power from 0.8 to 0.4, which would seem realistic for many fields, you would still have 45 false positives but only 40 true positives. More than half your positive results would be wrong. - Mitchell Tsai

Arm’s length: 45% of Japanese women aged 16-24 are ‘not interested in or despise sexual contact’. More than a quarter of men feel the same way. - Mitchell Tsai

In Italy in the recent past we had less than zero population growth and more people over 65 than under 15 years old. It's not an Apocalypse. - Ubikindred

The Cost of Crisis-Driven Fiscal Policy [Macroeconomic Advisers - Oct 2013] http://pgpf.org/sites... - Mitchell Tsai

Customers cleared shelves and police were called in to control crowds taking advantage of suddenly unlimited spending allowed on their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards, which are issued to recipients of government food stamps. Spending limits on the cards were reportedly disabled for about two hours. - Mitchell Tsai

Xerox, which runs parts of the EBT system, said a power outage during a routine maintenance test caused the glitch. - Mitchell Tsai

Walmart’s corporate headquarters told the store to continue selling to EBT card holders despite the glitch. A spokesman for Walmart later told KSLA that the company continued selling to shoppers “so that they could get food for their families.” - Mitchell Tsai

The lightest gamblers—the 10% of customers who placed the fewest wagers over the two years—also had the highest winning percentage. About 17% of them ended up in the black—tough odds but still better than the dismal 5.4% winning percentage of the heaviest gamblers. - Mitchell Tsai

Among the whole group of 4,222 gamblers, just seven won more than $5,000 (€3,698) over the two years, while 217 lost more than $5,000. That's a 31-1 ratio of big losers to big winners. - Mitchell Tsai

Poker is partly a game of skill, and the outcomes reflect that. About one-third of the poker players classified as "most involved" by the Harvard researchers ended up winning money over time, while just 10% of the rest ended up in the black. - Mitchell Tsai

[[[Read the many good comments]]] A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power. ... in other situations we are relatively higher on the totem pole of status — and we, too, tend to pay less attention to those a rung or two down. - Mitchell Tsai

QUALSOL: Could it be that this is just another liberal biased study? Is it possible that all the empathy shown at the lower end of the social ladder is nothing more than false empathy - as those people have no other option than to rely on their neighbor to watch their children. Imagine what would be if they actually spoke their mind - they'd have no options. So, theres an argument to be made that they wealthy are simply more honest... - Mitchell Tsai

Starting Oct. 1, 2014, the law will signify the beginning of the end of the health insurance industry as we know it. My former CEO at Cigna said at a leadership retreat that what kept him up at night was the fear that big health insurance corporations might someday be viewed as unnecessary middlemen, that their “value proposition” would come under scrutiny and found to be wanting – that insurance companies would be, to use his term, “dis-intermediated.” - Mitchell Tsai

@A.T. -- I just assumed that you are an American, sine the topic is the U.S. healthcare system. I'm not sure what your position is. - Todd