Another one bit the dust.

I had just recycled a digital answering machine at a neighborhood thrift store. Hopefully, someone else can still get some good uses out of this electrical contraption before it becomes part of the heap in the landfills. It looks like that leaps and bounds in telecommunication technology had claimed yet another victim. With features like voice mail, call waiting and caller-ID included in our regular phone service, this 20th century invention is no longer a must-have item in our bustling and hustling life. Our friends and family members have not left any message on our machine for ages. They can contact us instantly through many wireless devices. The messages left in our machine these days are mostly from the telemarketer. Portable answering machine, like what it did to the personal answering services industry, itself becomes redundant and obsolete. Now I wonder which e-gadget will be the next casualty under the fast moving technological cloud? - Ayee

$430 Million of False Medicare Claims*

When I heard the arrest of many healthcare providers in many US cities on fraud charges, I had two thoughts come to mind. First I felt sad for the perpetrators who would commit such despicable crime. What they did to the Medicare program is not only criminal. It is also immoral. We always think that only the destitute resolves to crime to survive. But many arrested are professionals, like doctors, nurses, and administrators. My second thought on this massive fraud case came upon the question on how the costs of the government sponsored medical services are determined? Many years ago, healthcare industry started “de-bundling” their services. We all know when a service got de-bundled, invariably not only the cost to the users of the service rises, so is the complexity of the underlying service. Based on this real life experience, it is not hard for me to speculate perhaps the de-bundling of healthcare plays a pivotal role why oversights and abuses are prevalent in a government program like Medicare. - Ayee *“Medicare Fraud Crack Down,” The Nightly Business Report, October 04, 2012