State of the Union Thoughts

[engelhardtlm1]

My wife and I decided that watching the second half of this week's Downton Abbey was a better use of our time than watching the State of the Union. I do not regret that decision. Especially since, in this wonderous age of technology, I can watch a video of the State of the Union any time I want, AND, if I prefer (and I do), I can just read a

Comments

[jordan179]

The problem with the sequester is that we would probably lose more money in the form of damage from wars undeterred and enemies allowed to send their strikes home than we would save from the military cuts: then we would have to increase our military spending even more anyway to win the resultant wars. Defense spending, from the American POV, is essentially insurance against war.

[ladyarkham]

'How are we going to quantify "quality of care"?'

I wish I could remember more from my classes that dealt with this subject but it's something people are trying to do. Hospitals already get audited by the Joint Commission for safety, and there's been a move recently to make "outcomes" statistics public for health care facilities, to put that information into the hands of consumers. Which so far has had the effect of doctors moving out of regions where the information is publicized and refusing to take on risky patients.

So I guess quality of care can be quantified, it's just a matter of which system/systems we use to do it.