Hello R.
On 30-Jul-00, you wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> A short while ago, I just thought of yet another reason to preserve
> computer equipment, particularly that which is the most durable.
>
> While doing some research for someone else pertaining to application
> service providers (ASPs) - which I don't like, I began thinking of
> things mentioned by Sun and Microsoft that give me the creeps: the
> thought of programs, applications, operating systems and, worse yet,
> one's own data, aacessed by, and stored somewhere on, the Internet,
> not locally. A user would have no control over one's files. If
> enough people will be foolhardy enough to fall for the marketing hype,
> and begin using "network appliances" instead of computers, 10, 20, or
> 30 years from now, will home computers with local mass storage even be
> sold, or be legal to own, for that matter? After all, we know what
> mindless sheep most people appear to be when it comes to following the
> herd and not thinking for themselves.
Yes I think this last line says it all. Follow Microslop and don't worry,
we'll take good care of you, won't we? (evil grin)
>
> BTW, what I've been researching is the danger of the use of ASPs for
> medical claims processing, and when one begins digging into this, one
> begins to see the commercial and governmental interests involved in
> people's medical records, and it's not nice. There's the problem with
> non-objective medical information presented by web sites such as
> WebMD/Healtheon (which also want to process medical claims as ASPs)
> due to conflicts of interest who have advertisers and shareholders to
> consider. For those in the US, some may be surprised when they learn
> the realities of HCFA and the HIPAA, and how much privacy they stand
> to lose by laws promoted by certain politicians (including the
> president) as increasing privacy, when they really do just the
> opposite - not to mention the temporary moratorium on national IDs for
> everyone to be used for medical purposes, ...then there's the work
> towards the creation of a national database for medical records. I
> won't even begin to touch on such areas as the commercial and
> governmental influences involved with the A.M.A. (no wonder many
> physicians don't belong to it!) and conflicts of interests that affect
> nonpprofit web sites such as Intellihealth (look into its connections
> with Aetna, and what Aetna has done to people's health with it's HMOs)
> and Medem. Before anyone flames me, please look into this yourself if
> you value your health and the confidentiality of your medical
> records... then express your concerns to your physician.
Yes, just watch the news and see how many health insurances and HMO's are
DENYING coverage to people because of this information. Remember that the
prime goal of insurance companies is NOT to pay out on claims.
>
> --
> R. D. Davis
> rdd_at_perqlogic.com
> http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd
> 410-744-4900
I have noticed that we are becoming more encumbered by the computers we use.
Freedom of thought is being re-placed byy a 'fill in the blank' attitude.
AT&T discovered that years ago; try talking to one of their employess about
anything out of the very narrow rut they deal with.
The easiest way to control men's thinking is to control the information they
use. And computers give them that control. What's why I still like books
-- it is very difficult to censor a million plus books, but it is very easy
on a centralized database.
>
>
Regards
--
Gary Hildebrand
Box 6184
St. Joseph, MO 64506-0184
816-662-2612
or
ghldbrd_at_ccp.com
Received on Sun Jul 30 2000 - 20:02:54 BST