June 28, 2012

Poor Arguments in John Stossel's Health Care Opinion Piece

I really don't understand John Stossel's opinion piece on the health care ruling.

In one sentence he says, "No more cruel discrimination against the obese or people with cancer." But then he compares that with optional flood insurance and car insurance costing more for risky drivers. Last I checked there wasn't a whole lof of 'risky' behavior that I can eliminate to seriously reduce my chances for brain cancer, colon cancer, or breast cancer. Black people are more susceptible to certain diseases--can they become less black?

Likewise, there are some risky behaviors that are supposed to, overall, have benefits that outweigh the risks. Such as playing sports, which is more likely to result in broken bones. Have you done a genetic analysis lately to find out if red wine is going to decrease your chance of a heart attack, or instead destroy your liver? Don't like (or can't afford) to eat fish twice a week? Your insurance premiums should go up.

Later on, he talks about everyone getting health care because hospitals treat those without insurance, medicaid (government health care funded by taxes) is available, people pay cash, or doctors will let some people pay less or nothing if they can't afford it. Other than pro-bono work, the rest of those don't seem like amazing options when your child is diagnosed with leukemia. And I kind of doubt the hospital is going to handle that pro-bono.

There are a dozen things we pay for collectively that aren't directly linked to our individual chance of contributing to the need for that thing. Criminals don't pay more taxes to fund the police or justice system. People who buy boxes of matches don't pay more taxes to fund fire departments. Politicians who weaken political relationships with other countries don't pay more for the increased intelligence gathering and military operations that result (maybe they should). The reason is that we know that our civilization is better off with people having the social and financial security and stability associated with those services.

Posted by josuah at 11:26 PM UTC+00:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 12, 2012

LG 47LM6200 DHCP-Only

We picked up an LG 47LM6200 television over the weekend for use in the bedroom. Right now it is hooked up to an Apple TV and Christina is enjoying it a lot because she can use AirPlay Mirroring from our iPad to watch Chinese shows off YouTube. We also used it for watching Crunchyroll content.

Unfortunately there is one problem with the TV: it does not support static IP network configuration. I was able to get everything working via Wi-Fi and DHCP (in fact this is necessary as the Wi-Fi MAC address is only visible after connected; only the Ethernet MAC address is listed in the device information screen based on my memory) but despite text on the TV setup screens and user manual that implies support for static IP configurations, I was unable enter one.

I ended up spending about one and a half hours on the phone with LG support. The representative was very helpful, and called me back after doing some investigation. But the end result is that the TV only supports DHCP. (I think she got some confusing answers from LG technicians because her explanation on the callback wasn't entirely correct.)

So, we won't be using the SmartTV features of this display. Too bad, since it's Netflix UI should be better than what's on the Apple TV. But, it's okay because we have network access via the Apple TV.

Posted by josuah at 12:13 AM UTC+00:00 | Comments (0) | TrackBack