The cover story of TIME magazine, "Bitter Pill" is so interesting and captivating that almost every U.S. TV stations have been discussing about this article. It has 70 pages (Kindle DX pages, not print pages) and I tried to read every single sentence because it is so informative. Until now, I only finished 50 pages. Never being engrossed in any cover story of TIME like this.
The cover story of the latest issue of TIME magazine has a very interesting and comprehensive coverage to explain the exorbitant medical bill in the U.S. A few weeks ago, there was a posted medical bill on FB to show US$21,459 bill for 6-hour stay in hospital for just a simple indigestion problem. From TIME's 7-month studious work on this issue, it found the hospital charges are typically 12-15 times higher than their costs. ( 廣達 has 3% profit; Apple has a covetous 65% profit, still way behind hospitals' 1200% profit margin). Even you have medical insurance and even with heavy discount from insurance company, the average final payment from you and insurance company is still around 35%-40% of the itemized bills (The posted bill has US$8,016 payment which is 37% of $21,459 with $3,526 from patient and $4,490 from insurance company.) That is, even with heavy discount, hospitals still make 450% profits.
The charge of CBC (complete blood count) test in this bill in Atlanta, GA, is US$295 while it is $157.51 in Stamford, CT as reported by TIME. But Medicare (a government-run medical insurance agency for the elderly with extremely large leverage) only paid $11.02 to hospitals for CBS test since it is the true cost for CBS test.
Princeton Medical Center recently relocated to my town, Plainsboro, NJ with an imposing glass skyscraper and ethereal decorations inside which makes me feel it is a super 5-star luxurious hotel rather than a philanthropic hospital.
PBS "Nova" in this afternoon had "Earth from Space". It is astounding that the vast amounts of brine sediments in the Antarctica during winter is the major factor to stabilize the worldwide sea temperature within 1 deg.C. The ancient plankton in Sahara Desert in north Africa contribute to the vast swathe of verdant Amazon rain forest in South America. What we have done to the environment may affect people and living organisms even several thousand miles away and vice versa.
Finally got company's approval to file a patent application for a novel infrared pixel to solve a prickly problem that dogged us in the last few years. Figured that out one day in the very early morning when I could not fall asleep.
Another terrible sign of long-term unemployment (i.e., unemployed for more than 6 months), now it accounts for 38% of all the unemployed. (i.e., 3% long-term unemployed out of overall 7.9% unemployed). This 38% for long-term unemployed is three times as high as the average since 1950. It shot up since 2008 financial crisis but did not go down in the last four years. If your job skill is replaceable and out of jobs for more than six months, your future job prospect may be doomed. (From recent issue of Business Week)
Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Paul Krugman are my three most favorite NY Times columnists and they constantly appear on TV to discuss about economic and social issues. However, I start to feel Paul Krugman is too arrogant since he starts to level criticism against both Friedman and Brooks. Though Paul Krugman has won the Nobel prize in Economics, it should be more appropriate for him to say "I don't tend to agree with them" rather than "They are totally wrong"
In recent issue of Economist magazine, it seems like the comprehensive immigration reform is imminent. Though it was driven, in part, by the meager 27% Hispanic votes to the Republican Party, the incentive to encourage the high-skilled STEM (science, tech, engineering and math) graduates to stay in the U.S. seems to be less controversial than the amnesty for the 11M illegal immigrants. This forthcoming immigration reform bill probably will even propose automatic green cards for Ph.D. or even master-degree-holders of STEM graduates. Last time that U.S. had automatic green cards to high-skilled workers was more than 50 years ago. It is interesting to see this provision of green-card conferment , if proposed, will stir any backlash in this high-unemployment era.
Seldom did I admire or worship any prominent heavy hitters other than Bill Gates, a philanthropist rather than a former Microsoft CEO. He has already donated US$28B, mainly allocated for human health improvements such as eradication of polio and malaria worldwide. His foundation still doles out US$3B every year for various philanthropic purposes. Always enjoy watching his TV interviews and hope to assimilate his scintillating, eloquent and vibrant attitude.
"Other People's Knowledge" in IEEE Spectrum mentioned that most of the knowledge an engineer applies is learned through on-the-job problem-solving and just-in-time knowledge acquisition. Colleges only need to provide the fundamentals and the core principles of engineering. I tend to agree with this viewpoint since on-the-job problem-solving gives you immense driving force to tackle the problem and is extremely effective to imprint the knowledge you just learned in your brain for a long time. The question is "What kind of core principles of engineering that college should provide if most of the knowledge is not learned in college?"
Never did an article from Thomas Friedman, a NY Times columnist, touch my heart so deeply from this 1/30 article. The surging of productivity is accompanied by the declining of household income. People with more skills and capital exploit more, much more, from the benefits of soaring productivity than the unskilled workers. Rapid technology advances shed substantial job opportunities; any jobs that machines can replace. Old generations only need diligence to be successful while younger generations need both diligence and skill, a skill that machine cannot replace, to be successful.
