Hi Chris. You\'re welcome. You\'ve got a very interesting site yourself. I\'ll feature it on here soon.

Like a friend said to me \"We all have the ability to recognize bad information, but for whatever reason there are people who choose to ignore it.\"

Maybe it is the case then that the younger we are the more we choose to ignore? Maybe...

Thank you for the concern. But it all turned out pretty well without the help...two thirds of writing is revising.

You know, that\'s a great point I missed. THE Lunar landing would probably become the Chinese touchdown. This is perhaps the strongest argument for why the landing would mark China\'s ascent as one of the world\'s leading cultural trend setters. New achievements take the place of older history.

I just finished Rogert Crowley\'s Empires of the Sea and I was amazed again and again by just how important the Ottoman empire was to the politics of Europe. For a long time, they were THE boogeymen of Europe. These guys murdered, skinned alive, abducted, and enslaved countless numbers of people in Europe over a period of 200+ years. Their dominance eventually led the greatest Alliance of European powers (Spain, Venice, and the Vatican) ever seen. Growing up, however, the only boogeymen that we were warned about in school were of the German variety, and THE Alliance people talked of was headlined by gun wielding GIs. Even though both the Nazi and the Ottoman menace defined the politics of Europe and led to equally momentous alliances, only one set of these occurrences matters - the newer one.

You won't find an argument from me regarding the superior schooling of American doctors compared to MDs from elsewhere in the world. Consider 4 years of pre-med, 4 summers of research as undergraduates, 4 years of med school (again, limited free time in the summer), 3-8 years of residency, another few years of fellowship...it's no contest.

Bottom line though, when someone who studies for four years and gets a finance degree, or even a degree in English, it's not fair that they make as much as those who study much more in medical school. This is true anywhere in the world. Medical school everywhere, frankly, is much tougher than any other school or PhD program one goes through. (The only people who'll disagree with me have never been around a medical school curriculum).

But, it's hard for me to say that Chinese doctors are much more fortunate. At the same time, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, and say that all Chinese doctors as victims. They're not, and they are. The truth , as always, is complicated. The easiest thing to say is that there are bad ones and there are good ones. But, the system in China is negatively incentivized to make it easier for good doctors to become bad or for bad ones to thrive. Stories like your friends are unfortunate and all too common when doctor's think with their purse. Giving patients the ability to sue doctors in China would be a good way to curb some of the abuses; and America can provide the example of where to draw the line with medical malpractice, seeing as how, here, the system is too much incentivized towards suing doctors without cause.

If we are talking about the period of time when drug companies were wining and dining American doctors, the no. If we are talking about the need to go door to door and really inform doctors about the merits of a product, then yes.

Trust me, no moment in time is full of only lost opportunities.

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved. Check out some of the micro lending sites if you are looking to help from abroad (guessing you might be from you IP address.)

That's an interesting take Arianna. I tend to think that culture plays a large role in quality of life and life expectancy just because if one lives in a culture where grandparents are treated as the center of a family and get to see their grandchildren often, then they have something to live for. I have no comment on whether or not this is less true in American...lets remember that America is a very big place, and probably the most culturally inscrutable place on the planet.

You've taken the statement out of context. The Professor is listening to a classroom of high achieving young people, who are studying policy and thinking about these issues at a policy level more complex than your average American listening to talking heads on television. Yes, many of them are elite students, who have earned a place at one of America's small percentage of competitive colleges through hard work and talent.

By wrestling with the details of health policy formulation on a day to day basis these students absolutely gain a much better understanding of health policy than the majority of people who do not get this training. Do I think this means that they are more likely to have a better understanding of health policy than the average person, even the older ones who have had time to find wisdom? Yes, absolutely. The wisdom of time can only get you so far in understanding complex issues. Sixty year olds cannot magically become great surgeons by skipping medical school and then watching E.R. the next forty years.

Do I think that an education at a competitive college automatically means that someone is better informed about the topic? Certainly not. Does the reverse hold true, that someone who went to, lets say, a community college is automatically not well informed about the topic? Certainly not, again. Bottom line, the main point to take out of this is that within the college environment students, no matter their major, have the advantage of thinking about health policy formulation, without having to listen to the screaming of political hacks.

Am I an arrogant, elitist prick? It depends on how you define it. I do not think that everybody's opinion holds the same weight on certain issues, and health reform is certainly one of them. But, yes, I do think that everyone having a vote in the matter is a good thing for the sake of consistency. I guess its a matter of opinion/perception.

Finally, as a side note, think about how people's willingness to immediately, without so much as an introduction, resort to name calling on television, the internet, and other public forums is impeding any real chances we have at progress on many important issues of governance, not just health policy.