I’ve moved

I decided to register my own domain for this blog, so you can now find me at http://www.thunderdowncountry.com. I've imported all of my posts and comments from this blog, so nothing will be lost in transition. I'll be playing with the layout quite a bit, so don't mind the rough appearance.

Check out the blogroll

You might notice that I added a new section of links on the right. The links lead to the blogs of various people that I at least sort of know. You should check them out.

Also, since starting this blog, I've been unable to accurately judge my readership because a lot of traffic tends to come in spurts when I post links on other sites (like with my Silver Jews post). I know that I have at least a few regular readers and/or RSS subscribers, because WordPress says so. But I don't know who you are, so it'd be great if you could leave a comment or something so I know who I'm writing for!

Debunking myths about universal health care

I missed this during my move out frenzy this week, but Kate Steadman has a great post that takes a look at the popular myth that Canadians frequently seek treatment at American hospitals due to suposedly horrendous waiting lists. It's a pretty ridiculous argument that always gets thrown at me anecdotal evidence. A glance at the numbers renders it laughable.

A 2002 Health Affairs paper examined hospitals near the border, as well as national surveys to tease out how many Canadians actually visit the U.S. to receive elective procedures.

In terms of hospitals along the border offering advanced treatments or special diagnostic technology (i.e. CT scans and MRIs), about 640 Canadians were seen, along with 270 for procedures like cataract surgery. They compare this to about 375,000 and 44,000 similar procedures in the region of Quebec alone during the same period. If you divide the total number of Canadians seeking those treatments in the US, divided by the number in Quebec alone that's about 0.09%.  Not even a tenth of a percent.

But the most striking stats come from the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS).  From the article:

Only 90 of 18,000 respondents to the 1996 Canadian NPHS indicated that they had received care in the United States during the previous twelve months, and only twenty had indicated that they had gone to the United States expressly for the purpose of getting that care.

Only 20 of 18,000 sought care in the United States.  I can't believe how many people are coming over here!  Their system but be truly awful.

Read the rest here.

Greg Mankiw starts to blog

Greg Mankiw, Harvard economist, chairman President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, and textbook author extraordinaire, has finally launched a blog…and it's fantastic. I am, of course, in no position to evaluate the merits of his work, even if some of his work on the CEA is a little dubious and many economists express some mild disdain with his supposed partisanship. However, his blog is written solely from the point of view of an economics professor trying to broaden his undergraduate students' horizons. He mostly leaves politics at the door and instead focuses on delivering analysis that is someone without a Ph.D can understand and enjoy. Check it out.

Awesome Criterion sale at DeepDiscountDVD.com

http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/studio.cfm?mainStudioid=2

For the second time this semester, my credit card is reeling. Purchases include Fanny and Alexander, Scenes From a Marriage, and Slacker. The collection grows and grows and grows. 

An amazing photo to start things off

Things that made me laugh out loud today:

Does he look like he doesn’t want to be there or what?