I\’ve always had health insurance and not had many medical issues (knock on wood,) and so could claim some ignorance to the health care issues. For instance, I\’ve never had an emergency where I needed to ride in an ambulance to the emergency room.  But things like Dennis Kucinich\’s quote \”60% of Bankruptcies Are Because Of Hospital Bills! 80% of Them Are Insured!\” signal that there is something wrong.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpfrtssF2A&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2Fdiscuss%2Fduboard.php%3Faz%3Dview_all%26address%3D385x337268&feature=player_embedded

In thinking about the issue today, I came to a realization: Firetrucks and Police respond because of emergencies and get paid for through taxes, not an exorbitant fee because my house burned down or I had the bum stealing things arrested. If a firetruck (and the whole fire hydrant infrastructure) are paid for by taxes, why shouldn\’t a health emergency be paid for?

One of my few experiences with an ambulance was when a team mate on my football team was unconscious. I later found out that the ambulance ride to the hospital cost him around $1500 (he had to pay for that because his deductible had not been met yet,) but insurance covered most of his hospital stay (post deductible.)

On the other hand, when a neighbor\’s house burned down, they didn\’t need homeowners insurance for the fire department to come and possibly salvage some remnant of their homes.

I see no excuse why an emergency is not an emergency. Does it currently work with the ambulance/hospital infrastructure? not in most cases.  Many hospitals are privatized, and many ambulances are private services. I have not heard of the term volunteer ambulance and health care system. But why not? Should ambulances really be competing with which hospital will give them a higher commission for bringing them patients? Should a service that I could accomplish in my car (limited medical assistance) or in a $2/mile taxi cost $250 a mile? To make this analogy, and the system work, there needs to be county and city hospitals again.

Preemptive care

The relationship has some issues after emergencies though because the fire department doesn\’t check on your house each year to make sure it won\’t burn… well at least not for free. But, the police do tend to help suggest ways to be safer. Neither has the correlation to reduced costs as much as preemptive medicine. Going to the doctor and learning about diabetes, being overweight, and having a healthy diet will prevent that emergency when you have a heart attack or stroke, and can help you look for signs.

But sprained muscles, bruised bones, broken or chipped teeth or cavities… these aspects have no immediate cost and should not cost loads of money. Nor should everybody be billed because Johny is athletic, but breaks bones… gets in fights… or refuses to brush his teeth.

The Costs

The insurance industry is making money in two ways here. Because they have lawyers that will suit after a medical incident, doctors now need more mal-practice insurance, and because mal-practice insurance costs money, customers need to pay more because they get more \”value\” out of their health insurance. A correction in the courts limiting discretionary damages could be useful.

Just remember, an insurance company only makes money if they pay out less than they are paid in, and if you look at the success of many of these corporate companies, or look at the compensation packages that they offer their employees, you will see that they are not non-profit companies, in fact, many are publicly traded companies trying to perform for shareholders like Cigna. Effectively, your medical care is paying for the middleman\’s Maserati, it infrastructure, investment advisors, and more. Why shouldn\’t rates decrease and people\’s money go toward the actual care infrastructure.

If you\’re not convinced that the insurance agency is wrong for health care:

Cigna wavered over getting an insured 17 year old girl a liver transplant, until they said yes, too late.d

Then, if you read more on this reason.com article, you will see that the American expenses on health care don\’t provide less cost or particularly better service than France or Germany\’s \”socialized\” system.

\”The most striking similarity between America, France and Germany, however, is the model of \”insurance\” upon which their health care systems are based. In other insurance markets, the more coverage you want, the more you have to pay for it. Consider auto insurance, for instance. If you want everything—from oil changes to collision protection—you\’d have to pay more than someone who wants just basic collision protection. That\’s not how it works in health care.\”

Of course, this works like a lot of conspiracy theories, the employment offered by health insurance companies might be so large in that it is employing all of these IT works, CEOs, Financiers, Lobbyists, politicians, etc that when it is shut down too many people will be out of jobs!

If you ever follow the FAS and FAZ Direxion 3x Bear/Bull Financial Sector ETF, you probably saw in the news yesterday and in their share prices today that they went through a reverse 5 for 1 split.

Why
I\’m sure that Direxion was finding it difficult to earn the percentages through options trade that the ETF promises. That and maybe they can make it more attractive and competitive with other popular ETFs (basically every other one.)

Why Doesn\’t It Make Sense
If you owned share before the split and own them now, you are now getting 1/5 of the performance (because you own 1/5 of the shares.) While the target performance is the same, you\’ve effectively lost a lot of your leverage and position. I would also suggest that the effective price increase will hurt volume over the next several weeks as it is now more expensive to trade the same number of shares.

Compared to stocks
Normally when a company splits or reverse splits there is no dilution, and post split an owner would own the same amount of equity in the company, meaning that the risks and rewards are basically in the same position. There is no inherent additional value in the split FAS and FAZ, because the ETF still seeks the same objectives.

So essentially, yeah, you just got robbed a little.

As a business manager, my father realized that if he could get used computers for our family to grow up on that it would be beneficial for learning. So I\’ve been on older computers longer than many people might believe.

Technically, the first personal computer that I used was my family\’s 286. My brother and I used it together to play games, using a DOS shell and having some qbasic available. Mostly we used word perfect and had family games of gorilla.

My first personal computer was actually a downgrade to a Tandy 8088. I played red Baron on it and has word perfect. It was exciting.

The 386 SX (15) was the first computer that I built by myself, well, with my dad. This is one of my most memorable creations and achievements. How many 3rd graders do you know that put together their own computers? Then came the 386 25mhz upgrade.

This was about when windows 95 came out. I installed a copy from floppy disks.

The Mathematical processor in a 386 DX 40 was a giant upgrade and computing was at a new level.

At this time the internet was starting to get bigger with compuserve and aol services being the big ones – but BBS networks were free and where all of the hobbyists were at.

Future… blog post from experiences on the Stanford campus that drive me crazy and possible disservices to the idea of bicycling.

Tomorrow I will be traveling to California, specifically Palo Alto, Stanford, San Luis Obispo, and San Francisco. Hopefully, I\’ll be meeting or touring with some Venture Capital and Private Equity groups out there, along with hoping to tour Google and/or Apple… or at least just visit campus and eat lunch there.

Sorry in advance that my blog posts will be decreasing for a week. I promise a reasonable photo blog when I get back.

If your firm is in the area and you want to meet,  let me know.

This is the first real non financial post I\’m making.  Which is sort of funny because it very much could be interpreted as one… and I just changed the sub title on this blog to be financially inclined.

I\’ve been making huge strides in timing this year. I suppose part of it was the addendum to my New Years resolution of trying not to be late to important meetings and as many events as I could change. I get my habit of being late from my mom, who just this last Thursday almost missed a flight that she missed last time she went to the same place.

I\’ve recently discovered how useful it is to be early for events and presentations and the advantages it brings toward you as a participant, and the extra professionalism it adds.

On the other hand, it is difficult for me to really work on my timing when I feel like I am on time to the important things. I\’ve never missed a flight, interview, or professional meeting, and I am proud of this, but it also makes a very loud statement to the things that I am late for that they are less important.

So, imagine how much simpler your life might be if you just got moving in time and made it to your commitments. How much more impressed would your friends and acquaintances be if you showed up to coffee on time for them. And what if you had time to spare - which is actually one of my favorite parts about being early. If I see somebody, have to make a quick call, or who knows make a trade there is now all of a sudden time to do it.

Planning out your schedule a little better and prioritizing can definitely help make your professional image look better. This extra effort will change how others see you and the respect they have for you.

Really Be there!

But once you\’re on time, be there. I\’ve seen this a lot through my life, I guess because I am lucky because I don\’t typically have a problem with an in-the-middle state, but if you\’re going to be awake, then be awake.  That all-nighter that a group member did last week didn\’t help at all when he showed up for the presentation glazed over. I take a shot of apple or orange juice to get me going, and it tends to work pretty well. Just think, all of that sugar going to your brain. But the more important part is the routine and convincing yourself to really be there.

Timing is important for the market too!

As somebody reading a financial blog, you should have a schedule that at least in some way reflects the markets. Seeing opening bell is important, checking out the news ahead of time is important, reading the futures can help you make a good decision in the day. Don\’t oversleep the things that get you the useful information that you need to know. Of course, we also want to time when the directions will shift, but that\’s much harder to succeed in.

Timing on the Street. (on the road, sorry)

As an avid bicyclist who uses it as my primary mode of transportation to work, restaurants and entertainment, and committee meetings I see dozens of cars trying to make time by speeding up only to make my life more dangerous and to end up waiting at the same stop light with me. Driving fast nets an average of 8 seconds on a short trip. Is it worth it?

Too long, too short.

I\’ve been meeting with a lot of venture capitalists and investors recently along with seeing startups pitch ideas. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to make your presentation either too long (boring) or too short (leaving me with questions.) I\’d actually love to mention the success at StartupRiot where not a single presenter (of 51) went much over the three minute presentation time.

Stephen