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njtransit

301 karma · joined June 25, 2024

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njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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?

njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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.
njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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.

njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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.

njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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”.
njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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.
njtransit··on The ENTIRE healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
It is a supply issue. And supply is artificially limited by the AMA by limiting the number of residencies available.
njtransit··on The entire healthcare system is broken, not just health insurance companies
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.
njtransit··on Doctors Say Dealing with Health Insurers Is Only Getting Worse
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.
njtransit··on TSMC founder says Intel has neither a strategy nor a CEO
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.
njtransit··on OnlyFans models are using AI impersonators to keep up with their DMs
First, they came for OF creators, and I did not speak out
njtransit··on Ask HN: How do I rebuild at 36yo after a checkered career of undiagnosed ADHD?
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.
njtransit··on What we know about CEO shooting suspect
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.
njtransit··on A liar who always lies says "All my hats are green."
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 ...
njtransit··on Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intel
I think Gelsinger was fired because Arrow Lake was a total flop.
njtransit··on From the Bretton Woods system to global stagnation [pdf]
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.

njtransit··on Weak pointers in Go: why they matter now
The article doesn’t actually explain how they work… How does the indirect pointer get set to nil? Does it use runtime.SetFinalizer?
njtransit··on Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail
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.
njtransit··on Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail
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.
njtransit··on The Death of Intel: When Boards Fail
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.

njtransit··on Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail
There’s an implicit assumption in the article that, because Gelsinger was technically competent, he was going to be a great CEO of given enough time.

Personally, I’ve heard nothing but bad things from Intel during Gelsinger’s tenure. He had some lofty ideas, but he clearly wasn’t executing well with Intel’s bread and butter business.

Also, I’m not sure good engineers always make good managers. Management is all about delegation. The skillset is really about identifying talent and trusting them to do things competently so you don’t have to worry about the details. That’s pretty much the antithesis of engineering, where you like thinking through the specific details of how things will work. And of course, engineering is only one part of brining products to market.

njtransit··on Gitlab names Bill Staples as new CEO
Rumors are that Gitlab is for sale, so the move might make sense in that regard.
njtransit··on Show HN: Flow – A dynamic task engine for building AI agents
I once had a dream to be a writer. I made a tool that was going to help me write every day. The most insightful feedback I got was: "Wow, aspiring writers will do anything to avoid writing!"

I think something similar applies here: you see way more dev tools than successful products because people can't build many successful products using LLMs. Building a devtool (the old-fashioned way) is something that people can tangibly do.

njtransit··on Skia Canvas: Browserless implementation of the HTML Canvas drawing API for node
That’s pretty cool! But v8 alone kind of sucks unless you specifically want isolation. Sometimes you just want to make a network request, you know?
njtransit··on Fish have a brain microbiome – could humans have one too?
Is it the blood brain barrier that keeps out bacteria or your immune system? Admittedly I know little about biology, but I thought bacteria growing inside your body was generally considered a “bad thing” (topologically speaking, your digestive system is outside your body).
njtransit··on Wayland Color Management Protocol Might Be Close to Merging
I think the point is that X had this feature when Wayland was launched 16 years ago. That’s not exactly an inspiring pace of development.
njtransit··on RomCom exploits Firefox and Windows zero days in the wild
It’s not negligent it use an unsafe OS if no safer options exist. It is negligent to use an unsafe language when safe alternatives exist.
njtransit··on Kids are getting ruder, teachers say. And new research backs that up
My daughter sits in a W pose and has since she could sit independently. She never uses an iPad or other device. The doctor said it’s due to having flexible hips. Just an anecdote.
njtransit··on A career-ending mistake
This argument assumes that code is an ends not a mean, which is false. The value you deliver is not your code, it’s the enablement of business functions. Let’s say you launch a new product that gains traction. Sure, in 5 years your code may be refactored out of existence. But the people doing the refactoring only have jobs because of the value you delivered when launching the initial product. That is your lasting contribution, not the lines of code you wrote.
njtransit··on Mechanically strong yet metabolizable plastic breaks down in seawater
Up until earlier this year, many "grease proof" papers (e.g. butter wrappers) were PFAS.
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