[OT-ish] It's Spring, when a young man's thoughts turn to

I think this is just the cosmic balance police, making up for the fact that Boki isn't asking "What kind of modulator do we need for next technology life?" recently.

Tim.

It seems that you're ahead of me in the delay department. I graduated at age 30. There was a kid on the way when I went full time, and another just born when I graduated 3 years later. (It was all worth it.)

Jerry

--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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I couldn't restart my edumacation until I started work with an employer that had reimbursement - college is just not affordable in the US. While I don't strictly need the degree to put bread on the table, it's all part of a grand master plan that will start moving much faster when I graduate in 1,091 days 14 hours 15'33". Not that I'm counting.

My #1 daughter was born when I was in grad school. Good financial training for when they hit college--"Don't panic, it's not as bad as when...."

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

Our #1 daughter was born end of January of my senior year at MIT ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

Hearing these stories is making me feel kinda reassured, since my wife is making "children noises". Were either of you guys working as well as going to school across this time? (Starting this fall, I'm technically a full-time student - 12 credits - as well as working full- time. Previously I was only doing 7 credits a semester).

My job in the lab of a small company kept me from night school. (I had to be at work when there was a crunch. A transfer to the assembly line would have given me the freedom to duck overtime, but I liked working in the lab.) All of my wife's salary and a good part of mine had been banked, and we had enough for me to take a year off and go days. My boss assured me that I'd have a job at year's end. (I called it the leapfrog system.)

In the end, my folks and inlaws covered the rent and food after the first year. I finished in three years and two summer sessions. Ann's endocrinologist had told her that if she didn't get pregnant right away, she would probably never conceive at all, so the first was on the way. (We almost lost him.) three more followed in rapid enough succession to that one year they were all in college.

Jerry

--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

I hope the smilely means that you understand that isn't true. Around the time you were having your first child in MA I lived in Saskatchewan the first Canadian Provence that had a form of universal health care.

Saskatchewan demographics made it a special case, most people at the time were middle class folks who owned family farms. In most things this population was small c conservative that voted Conservative federally (Republican) and NDP provincially (NY Democrat) Most local hospitals were built as community projects. Doctors were paid incentives directly and indirectly (free housing and some cash) to come to the community in addition to normal medical fees. This was a provence that had a population of about a million.

The AMA took out 2 page spreads in essentially every newspaper in the provence for months to warn against what would happen if the provence implemented a single provence wide health plan putting health care in the same category as public schools. When it came to a vote it passed by a small margin. The AMA ads set the debate agenda and irked enough folks by its interfering in local affairs to put it over the top.

Forty five years later the system works quite well. If life expectancy is a measure of the effectiveness of health care then the statistics speak for themselves.

From a user point of view (I've lived in both US and Canada) it is a health insurance system. Doctors have private practices and there are walk in clinics for day to day care. (Walk in clinics are privately owned for profit companies. In Ontario where I live most medical lab services are companies that are private companies) Services are paid by me presenting a health card and the providers billing for services rendered.

I understand that.

w..

Funny that You already put "student" between quotes. I wouldn't be surprised if the person who sends You the question is not a student at all but a "programmer" at an Asian company that companies in the US and other countries outsource programming jobs to ;-).

Yours sincerely, Rene

If that's the case, then our jobs are secure. :)

--
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! My BIOLOGICAL ALARM
                                  at               CLOCK just went off ... It
                               visi.com            has noiseless DOZE FUNCTION
                                                   and full kitchen!!

... snip ...

Interesting. I am wondering if this is your own project or the result of prodding from your recently added wife. I believe she persuaded you to learn to drive :-)

Incidentally I went through roughly the same thing at roughly the same age about 45 years ago. I didn't follow my wifes advice. I didn't need it, since I was doing fine. I already had three years of an honors mathematics and physics degree, so I had adequate knowledge for what I did. About 25 years later I regretted my failure.

--
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

... snip ...

Thank god for Saskatchewan. It lead to the present Canadian medical system. Even the older people seem not to remember when medical care was missing. My mother died 25 years ago, and was simply a user of the system. She was complaining about her own neglect in failing to have some problems checked, and the result was a fatal cancer. Yet she was a highly intelligent mover and shaker.

I left Canada just when the Sask system was coming into existance.

As it should be.

--
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: 
            Try the download section.

Have you any support for that figure? European countries pay roughly 8% of GDP, which would be a much larger % of their earned income.

Sounds decent so far.

Life expectancy is horrible measure for the effectiveness of health care. Apart from servicing the very basics, like infection, extreme, super-deluxe, ultra-quality health care measures don't much cure the things that kill people in America.

By quality measurements (outcomes for a given condition), America's care is better, albeit pricier ever since the gov. started subsidizing it.

(ditto mortgages, retirement, college, food, ethanol, ...)

Note also that, even then, he got care, and it was free. And it was made much more expensive (for the taxpayer) than needs be, due to the lovely intervention of the State.

Cheers, James Arthur

The bulk of the Canadian health care is paid for as a payroll tax paid for by the employer that is based on 2.25% of earned income. There is some gray area's in some of the capital expenditures and medical research and education.

America's care is better than? I am not being argumentative, the question is the very best there is or the care that is available to 90% of the population. I am not arguing that good care is not available in the US, it is especially for chronic illnesses.

Canada has developed some very good health practices in dealing with outbreaks of communicable diseases and disease prevention.

w..

This article puts Canada's 2005 cost at 10.4% of GDP:

care

By gross measure of total outcomes, e.g.:

--------------

"August 22, 2007 ? New reports from EUROCARE suggest that cancer care in Europe is improving and that the gaps between countries are narrowing. However, comparisons with US statistics suggest that cancer survival in Europe is still lagging behind the United States."

...

"The age-adjusted 5-year survival rates for all cancers combined was

47.3% for men and 55.8% for women, which is significantly lower than the estimates of 66.3% for men and 62.9% for women from the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program ( P < .001).

Survival was significantly higher in the United States for all solid tumors, except testicular, stomach, and soft-tissue cancer, the authors report. The greatest differences were seen in the major cancer sites: colon and rectum (56.2% in Europe vs 65.5% in the United States), breast (79.0% vs 90.1%), and prostate cancer (77.5% vs 99.3%)[...]"

--------------

Cheers, James Arthur

Oops, that link asks for registration--sorry...I got there from Google.

The same article, information therein, and constituent reports from EUROCARE and SEER are all web-available, from numerous sources.

Cheers, James Arthur

The school thing? No, that's really my project though my wife supports it. The grand master plan for world domination, of which the school thing is a part, that's inspired but not exactly prompted by my wife.

Recent???? I'll be celebrating my seventh wedding anniversary in four months...

Yes :) Mind you, I got my license before she did!

My grand master plan requires two specific pieces of formal certification for which the BSEE is an initial requirement.

2.25%

education.

That is not in-consistent. The direct costs are are essentially covered by payroll deductions and infrastructure is paid from other sources including private funding. A large percentage of Ontario hospitals are either privately owned or community owned.

In a number places I have seen that the per capita costs for health care in Canada at about 2/3 that of the US.

care

A more direct comparison between the US and Canada puts the outcomes similar for both countries. From personal experience Canadians tend too seek treatment earlier.

w..

[snip] [snip]

Yep, By traveling south of the border, for surgeries that have waiting periods in Canada ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 | I love to cook with wine Sometimes I even put it in the food