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US Drug Pricing - Mfg Coupon "As Low As $5/Mo"
  • The reason is because it supposedly creates a moral hazard. This is the logic behind pricing for all sorts of medical resources (such as co-pays and deductibles). If there is a nominal cost involved to obtain the resource, then you will be incentivised not to use more than you need. But if it is free or costs too little, then you (and others) may choose to use a lot of the resource, far more than you actually need.

    For example, suppose there is a $50 co-pay (a co-pay is essentially a fee) to see the doctor, and you figure you should go once a year for a check-up. In this case, you will not schedule an excessive number of appointments because you know it is not necessary and it will cost you money each time you do. If scheduling doctor's appointments were free or costs very little, like $1, you may instead choose to schedule two or three appointments per year, because why not? Or maybe you will go see the doctor for every minor cold or stuffy nose. It's not like it will cost you a significant amount of money. Or so their thinking goes, anyway.

    Remember, the $50 you pay isn't all that it costs. For every $50 you pay, the insurance company is probably paying the doctor $150.

    Similarly, suppose a drug costs $100, but the insurance company pays $90, and you have to pay a $10 co-pay. You buy one vial, which is good for one month. The fear is that if the insurance company pays for all $100, since the drug is now free for you, you might decide to get two vials instead, just in case. After all, they're free for you, right? This means the insurance company has to pay $200 for two vials of the drug but the benefit to you is actually pretty small. Again, this is how insurance companies think.

    Now, whether this logic is sound or not, I leave that part up to you.

  • Ah Bernie, what could have been...
  • Why do you suppose I included this sentence at the end of that bullet point?

    This statement is made without implying anything, it is a statement about formal logic.

    ...and why did you, having read that, assume I made that implication anyway?

  • I was explaining to my daughter about the differences between Gimp and Photoshop and saw that Adobe had a page that claimed to compare the two. It never compares the two. It barely mentions Gimp.
  • I doubt that GIMP will ever overtake Photoshop. Adobe has the money to employ (and does employ) hundreds of experts in their fields to work on Photoshop for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Although GIMP is very impressive as an open-source project and a massive testament to how far the free software model can go, it is still, at the end of the day, made by a ragtag band of (mostly) amateurs volunteering their time. Adobe, by brute force, can deliver a higher-quality product just by having the resources to employ the best people to work for them.

    I love GIMP. I use it for all my image editing needs and would never consider giving a dime to Adobe. But I don't do it for a living and I respect the opinions of those who do when they say that GIMP isn't a good replacement for Photoshop.

  • Ah Bernie, what could have been...
  • Two things:

    • It being legally permissable doesn't mean that it happens. Just like how the DNC's argument that if the elections are rigged, it wouldn't be illegal is not an admission that they rigged it. This statement is made without implying anything, it is a statement about formal logic.
    • Influence is not the same as control.
  • Ah Bernie, what could have been...
  • This is really a good argument for nonpartisan blanket primaries, which in other countries would be known as the first round of a two-round system. And it really should be advertised that way so people don't just write it off as "just a primary".

    California adopts this system. You vote for one candidate in the primary. The top two candidates appear on the second round ballot. Most votes in the second round wins.

    However, the fact that parties choose the candidates is really not unusual at all. In fact, the US is pretty unique in terms of how much influence voters have over the process. In most countries, interested candidates apply for the party's nomination, and then the party's central leadership or local party committee vets the applications and nominates their favourite candidate. Only the chosen candidate gets to stand with the party's rosette.

  • New York bans “addictive feeds” for teens
  • The effectiveness of bans has always hinged on two factors:

    • The likelihood of being caught
    • The severity of punishment if caught

    For example, everyone knows that the odds of being caught speeding are pretty low, but if the punishment for speeding is ten years imprisonment, then very few people will risk speeding.

    Similarly, even if the odds of getting caught violating this law is only 1%, if the punishment is banning the platform and shutting down the company along with a fine equal to a year's worth of revenue, then companies will probably not want to risk it.

  • Thoughts on Hong Kong urbanism?

    This image is from Google Maps and depicts Maritime Square on Tsing Yi, the island where my grandmother lives. I chose it because I think it is the embodiment of the new millennium Hong Kong urban development.

    The entire development is built by the MTR Corporation, a Government-owned publicly traded company that is primarily known for running the Hong Kong metro system of the same name.

    The primary attraction of this development is the eponymous Maritime Square Mall, a large five-storey indoor shopping arcade. It is attached to Tsing Yi Station, a metro station on the overground Tung Chung Line and there is a small bus interchange on the ground floor.

    The mall has shops including a grocery store, around a dozen restaurants, a Marks & Spencer, bakeries, clothing retailers, electronics stores, a few banks, and some miscellaneous other stores. Notably NOT in the building is a school, otherwise, you might even be able to spend your whole life without leaving it.

    There are several towers extending out of the main mall complex which contain hundreds of units of (unaffordable) housing. I think there is a botanical garden on the roof, too. The entrance to these towers is inside the mall, where there's just a lift lobby where you'd expect a shop to be. The lift lobby is closed to the public; a keycard or code is required to enter.

    I think it's a similar concept to a 15-minute city, but more like a 15-minute building.

    7
    U.S. sends Ukraine seized Iranian-made weapons
    wapo.st U.S. sends Ukraine seized Iranian-made weapons

    The circuitous supply of Iranian-made weapons to Ukraine comes as Russia mounts an aggressive push and House Republicans stall further U.S. military assistance.

    The Pentagon has provided Ukraine with thousands of Iranian-made weapons seized before they could reach Houthi militants in Yemen, U.S. officials said Tuesday. It’s the Biden administration’s latest infusion of emergency military support for Kyiv while a multibillion-dollar aid package remains stalled in the Republican-led House.

    The weapons include 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, along with a half-million rounds of ammunition. They were seized from four “stateless vessels” between 2021 and 2023 and made available for transfer to Ukraine through a Justice Department civil forfeiture program targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.

    Officials said Iran intended to supply the weapons to the Houthis, who have staged a months-long assault on commercial and military vessels transiting off the Arabian Peninsula. Central Command said the cache is enough to supply rifles to an entire Ukrainian brigade, which vary in size but typically include a few thousand soldiers.

    4
    U.S. sends Ukraine seized Iranian-made weapons

    The Pentagon has provided Ukraine with thousands of Iranian-made weapons seized before they could reach Houthi militants in Yemen, U.S. officials said Tuesday. It’s the Biden administration’s latest infusion of emergency military support for Kyiv while a multibillion-dollar aid package remains stalled in the Republican-led House.

    The weapons include 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, along with a half-million rounds of ammunition. They were seized from four “stateless vessels” between 2021 and 2023 and made available for transfer to Ukraine through a Justice Department civil forfeiture program targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.

    Officials said Iran intended to supply the weapons to the Houthis, who have staged a months-long assault on commercial and military vessels transiting off the Arabian Peninsula. Central Command said the cache is enough to supply rifles to an entire Ukrainian brigade, which vary in size but typically include a few thousand soldiers.

    2
    Is there a way to donate outside of Google Play?

    Google eats 30% of in-app purchases so I'd like to donate directly if possible.

    If there is a way to do this, perhaps add it to the community's sidebar?

    3
    Expelled congressman George Santos plans another House bid
    wapo.st Expelled congressman George Santos plans another House bid

    Paperwork filed with the FEC indicates George Santos will run in New York’s 1st Congressional District against one of the Republicans who helped oust him.

    5
    Tesla repays San Jose pie shop owner after last-minute cancellation
    abc7news.com Tesla repays San Jose pie shop owner after last-minute cancellation

    "I'm so super grateful": More than an hour after Rasetarinera's Monday interview with ABC7 News, she confirmed that Tesla had officially repaid the $2,000 that she was out for the purchase of the ingredients.

    Tesla repays San Jose pie shop owner after last-minute cancellation

    tl;dr After local news aired the story, Tesla has paid the pie shop $2,000, the cost of ingredients for the cancelled order.

    44
    Capital One-Discover merger may face stiff antitrust review in Washington
    wapo.st Capital One-Discover merger may face stiff antitrust review in Washington

    Before the two companies can close the $35.3 billion merger, they must obtain approval from federal antitrust watchdogs who have challenged other recent deals.

    Capital One-Discover merger may face stiff antitrust review in Washington
    34
    It is a huge failure in communication to pretend that distro upgrades are entirely different versions of the operating system. It does nothing but make Linux seem more complex than it actually is.

    The jump in distro versions, say, from Fedora 38 to Fedora 39, is not the same as the jump from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It's more like the jump from version 23H2 to 24H2.

    Now, I'm sure even most Windows users among those reading will ask "wtf are 23H2 and 24H2"? The answer is that those version numbers are the Windows analogue to the "23.10" at the end of "Ubuntu 23.10". But the difference is that this distinction is invisible to Windows users.

    Why?

    Linux distros present these as "operating system upgrades", which makes it seem like you're moving from two different and incompatible operating systems. Windows calls them "feature updates". They're presented as a big deal in Linux, whereas on Windows, it's just an unusually large update.

    This has the effect of making it seem like Linux is constantly breaking software and that you need to move to a completely different OS every six to nine months, which is completely false. While that might've been true in the past, it is increasingly true today that anything that will run on, say, Ubuntu 22.04 can also run without modification (except maybe for hardcoded version checks/repository names) on Ubuntu 23.10, and will still probably work on Ubuntu 24.04. It's not guaranteed, but neither is it on Windows, and the odds are very good either way.

    I will end on the remark that for many distros, a version upgrade is implemented as nothing more than changing the repositories and then downloading the new versions of all the packages present and running a few scripts. The only relevant changes (from the user's perspective) is usually the implementation of new features and maybe a few changes to the UI. In other words, "feature update" describes it perfectly.

    41
    Banks in Hong Kong can print their own money. There are 8 different designs in circulation.

    Before someone asks why there isn't insane inflation from banks printing an infinite amount of money for themselves, the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar. In order to be allowed to print HKD, banks must have an equivalent amount of USD on deposit.

    11
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)NA
    NateNate60 @lemmy.world
    Posts 11
    Comments 595