Steve from MD

Bitter bitter bitter

Revisado: 03-27-18

Having been a failed lecturer he turns his bitterness to others. The book is full of inaccuracies and ironies. He hates intellectuals but tries to be one by constantly talking about his intelligence. Numerous logical fallacies exist including his reliance on ancient wisdom , I return this book. I loved his first book like black swan was indifferent to Antifragile but this one is just bad. I hope some day he can accept his own inadequacies and stop being so bitter to those who succeeded where he failed.

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Nice story

Revisado: 10-28-16

Nice story with good research on memory but no big break throughs. Enjoyable but could benefit from editing.

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Ok

Revisado: 07-25-16

Well read. Some nice humor and well researched. But overall disappointing. Topic were not that exciting.

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No critical thinking

Revisado: 07-31-14

In the introduction he states that our health care system is expensive and not as good at delivering results as other countries. His conclusion is to introduce free market economics as the solution. So the answer to fixing the only health care system which operates on free market principles is to double down. We operate in a free market he might not like the market or the rules since he failed at running his first business.

He harps on several points but does not seem to have any knowledge of the realities.

1. Overpriced hospitals. Here he is confused by costs vs charges. Hospitals are required by law to care for all patients regardless of their ability to pay. Since at many emergency departments over a third of all patients do not pay. So the hospital must raise charges to cover these patients. As specialty hospitals grow taking away paying patients this only makes it worse. Hospitals are struggling throughout the country. Many are closing or selling themselves because they can not survive.

2. Customer satisfaction is bad because there is no free market. If you look at press ganey the largest surveyor of patient satisfaction doctors and hospitals are doing great. Over 90 percent of hospitals and 99 percent of doctors score over 4 on a 5 point scale. Much better than Airlines which have been deregulated and are more free market or restaurants as a group.

3. There is no innovation. This is just looking at the facts he wants and ignoring all others. there has been great innovation. Pick a specialty cardiology has gone from 2 weeks bed rest for myocardial infarction to stents in 90 minutes from arrival. We have better tests to find heart attacks. Surgery has gone from large incisions to laparoscopic and in some cases robotic.

4. If only people could choose things would be better. This is nonsense. When someone is sick they rely on doctors to help guide them. Also many would say that they do not feel spending 100$ more on a meal which might increase there chance of enjoyment of the meal by 1% is clearly not worth it to them however, spending money on a better chance to survive an illness? They would spend that. Also look at all the money spent on alternative medicine. Here people have the freedom to choose and they choose options that offer no benefit. The National Institute of Alternative medicine just completed a 10 year review and found no evidence to support use of anything tested as alternative medicine.

5 Choices are needed in insurance. Health insurance is not like cable TV. I do not know which illness I am going to get this year. I am sure if I do not want ESPN today I will not want it later this year. People will opt out of lots of choices then when they become ill they get covered by the either the government or the hospitals that provide the service. We removed the moral hazard. I am not advocating not treating people I am saying that if we are arguing for free markets you are arguing for letting people suffer because of their choices which we do not do.

I do agree with him when he talks about information, reducing overhead and getting rid of fee for service. A free market tries to maximize one thing and that is profit. If it can do it my delivering expensive less effective health care it will as it has proven. So eliminating fee for service is a start. Going to a single payer is another good step. Less paperwork and back office support is needed with a single payer. However, these will not reduce lawsuits which contribute to costs of healthcare. Doctors win about 90% of malpractices cases so most cases are about poor outcomes not medical care. The free market would say if we can make money by suing we will sue. Many cases are settled to avoid the years of pretrial and trial costs which only encourages more lawsutis.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

hardly history

Revisado: 07-27-14

Would you try another book from Adrienne Mayor and/or Paul Hecht?

I understand it is hard to write a book about a ancient ruler where little information exists but lots of myths. This book looks at an interesting character in history with all the skepticism of a big foot hunt. I do not even think they did any real research into poisons.

What could Adrienne Mayor have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

More critical thinking.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

na

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This is an example of Why Economics is not science

Revisado: 10-12-13

This book is why economics fails. We are to learn about the authors opinions about how he thinks economics works in the real world. To do this he creates a total fictitious land and then translates from the fiction to reality. This does not work. Lets start with some basics. On his island everyone not only does every one have a job this job provides for all the basic needs. Clearly this does not exist anywhere in the real world and with such a base how can you believe all that flows from this world would translate into ours. He also ignores history. He views all regulations as bad. There was a reason regulations are created and often they solve a problem. In our recent history we have deregulated banks and savings and loans both lead to huge bailouts. I could go as with his poor explanation of why the gold standard is so important. After all in his world fish do provide a real benefit to the inhabitants they can eat it and survive. How is gold similar. It only has value because others want it not. How does he explain the tulip bubble or the internet bubble? This occurred with out any government involvement. I would leave his fantasy world in fantasy land and take no useful lessons from such dribble.

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Worse reading ever

Revisado: 11-10-12

The reading is so boring I could not listen to this one. I think this one is a waste of money. Even when I turned the speed up I got bored.

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Bad Habit

Revisado: 08-14-12

Parts were good but most was over reach. The idea that we create routines and tend to exeecute them is good and interesting. However, the definition of habit and reward get stretched beyond recognition. As an example the use Michael Phelps as an example, He has a set routine he does before a race. It is suggested the reason he wins is he follows this pattern. However, it is clear that there are a lot of swimmers who swim against him with there own habits and probably very similar but who do not win. A better case would be to talk about his habit of training. The book is an example of when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. In this case everything looks like a habit.

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esto le resultó útil a 8 personas

Lacking Research

Revisado: 08-14-12

I enjoyed parts of the book which were less science and more trivia. Lots of talk about toxins and measuring these toxins in people. Little science to show any real problem despite all the inuendo. Overall it seemed like some one with an agenda who took the word of research she felt had truthiness. I am not saying it might not be true but a more balanced view would be nice, or at least stating how she tried to find alternate opinions but these views were held by a small fringe.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

Good Science Bad Interpretation

Revisado: 03-27-12

The book is one big logical fallacy. To do scientific research and find out how the brain functions is great. However, taking this research then going back in time and finding some vague similarities to some artist then giving them credit for the discovery is absurd.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas