LaFontaineToMogilny

Based on your post, I recommend you vote for Mitt Romney

As far as I know, a lot (most) of medications are results of publicly funded research done by private companies? I guess less profit on the American market for drug manufacturers would lead to less incentive for private drug companies to invest in developing new products, but again, I am not sure that's a terrible set back. I believe there will still be enough competition and demand in the market that we will still be able to get heartburn tablets with both fruit and cherry flavor. I also think that medicine that truly advance humankind forward, there will always be huge monetary rewards as well as the more important humanitarian rewards.

Is it possible that publicly financed research could lead to breakthroughs in more important areas of medicine than erection-care and hair replacement? I'm not 100% convinced that purely profit driven research will get the best public health results.

It is my experience, that if you have good health insurance you are milked for easy profits by over providing care. This happened to us when my daughter broke her arm, and I was stupid enough to go along with it until I realized what was going on. I am pretty sure it is a widespread tactic for padding the revenue. There is a reason why it is twice as expensive to treat a patient in the US as anywhere else, yet the results are not very impressive.

That is the system that is in place where I am from, Norway. I am very happy with that system and it does solve some of the issues related to wait times and availability that other single payer systems gets criticized for. Very basically, the single payer system in Norway provides everyone with insurance, doctors and hospitals are paid over the national budget and everyone is assigned to a general practitioner. Co-pays are low, and everything is 100% covered outside of that (no co-pays for children). For preventive and emergency care the public system works very well. It does a decent job of 'rationing care' since there is no intensive to over medicate or over treat patients. Alongside this public system there are private doctors and clinics, typically they specialize in elective procedures, but there are private high priced alternatives for more general care as well. Individuals can also buy private insurance to complement the single payer system if they would like. The way the private health industry works is that it typically manages the 'overflow' in the public system. Let's say you want to get a vasectomy. This would be a completely elective procedure that could put you on a waiting list of up to a year to get done at a public hospital. You now get the option to either take a spot in line and wait to get it done for free, or to go into the private market and have it done immediately. If you choose to use a private option, the government will pay the private clinic the same amount as they pay for a vasectomy done at a public hospital, any left over balance you pay out of pocket (or it is covered by an individual private health insurance plan if you chose to have one of those).

It seems Republicans think the Democratic convention was weak, didn't offer any new solutions and was just a rehash of old talking points. It seems Democrats think the Republican convention was weak, didn't offer any new solutions and was just a rehash of old talking points.

I would not disagree Not sure if this is a viable option for you, but when the same thing happened to me I replaced the drive motor on the disc drive. You can pick up a drive motor online for less than $10 I would guess. I wouldn't say that replacing the drive motor of a disc drive is very easy though, but not as difficult as you'd might think either.

I know this, but I also know that there are hundreds and thousands of players around the world who wants to win so badly that they would gladly uproot their family, commute all over the country, do whatever it takes for the chance to win above all. If Doan wants to put his roots in Phoenix above the desire to win that is perfectly fine. I suspect I would do the same, but it also shows that his priorities are not to win above all else. I just see that as an interesting counter point to the many posts claiming he is the kind of character that will turn around an entire locker room. Myself, I want Doan to skate to the front of the net, knock loose some pucks and feed Vanek in the low slot. Any 'leadership' intangibles are just gravy to me. All that said, Phoenix have gotten a lot closer to winning it all than the Sabres recently so perhaps Doan thinks he has as good a shot at winning in Phoenix as anywhere else? One thing I feel sure about though: If he does somehow end up in Buffalo, then it is ALL about the money.

As gung-ho as I was (am?) about getting Shane Doan, this is actually the only thing that worries me about the deal we reportedly had (have?) on the table for him. If he is so very ready to stay in Phoenix, he must be content being the big fish in a small pond. If he was the super-driven bad-ass winner-skull that people make him out to be I would imagine he would embrace the chance at facing a bigger challenge.

I frequently find myself frustrated with the lack of substance, fact and coherent reasoning on either side of the political debate in the US. I can only imagine how teeth-gnashing it must be for people who, unlike me, has actually put serious study into American politics.

I'm riding high with Amur Khabarovsk of the KHL, season starts on Wednesday. Thank you internet streaming!

Versus and now NBS Sports always did seem to give the Sabres pretty decent coverage. Now just get the CBA done and let's get to it already!

If Calgary was going to move Iginla for picks and prospects he would be long gone already, and the Sabres would face STEEP competition. This just seems like pie in the sky moves to me to be honest. Doan is a Free agent with at least some feasible chance of signing somewhere else. There's not much indication the Iginla can be moved for picks and prospects.

I would love to have Iginla on the Sabres, just as much an amazing fit as Doan. The key though is the bolded. Doan can be signed for a (pretty steep) cap hit, Iginla would require sending back significant pieces. I don't see how risking having to move players because of Doans cap implications is a disaster, but giving up players in a trade would be a-ok.

I will be more than a little disappointed if we sign Doan for four years at $7.5M and he never scores a point for the Sabres.

I respectfully disagree with everything in this post

I would argue that buying into the new coaches high pace style, getting excellent play from their fourth line and staying exceptionally healthy pushed them to the Cup.

I get your reservations and frustrations. I find myself on your side of the table when the whole board was getting hot and sweaty over Bobby Ryan. That said: SHANE DOAN! SHANE DOAN! SHANE DOAN!

First, props for the Monthy Python reference, second you are of course correct, one player doesn't solve anything but a team improves by adding pieces that are missing. I happen to think that the Sabres are not as far away as many other here seem to think. I think they have struck gold with the Ennis line, if a similarily awesome top line can be constructed we are in a pretty good spot. Doan is the missing piece on our top line right now in my mind (well, an upgrade to Hodgson would be nice, but a right wing for Vanek is the biggest need in my opinion). What adding Doan does is that it sets out first line, frees up one of our best players in Pominville to anchor yet another powerful line. Giving us three capable scoring lines with some muscle. Our 'third' line would presumably be Leino Pominville and Ott, and I love it. Leino and Pominville showed late last year that they might have some chemistry building, and Ott would be this line's Foligno. Pretty strong. So, through my uberoptimistic glasses I see the Sabres rolling out Vanek - Hodgson - Doan, Foligno - Ennis - Stafford, Ott - Leino - Pominville, Gerbe - McCormick - Kaleta. I am thinking those top three lines will give a lot of teams some serious match up headaches. One of them will get significant time against third pairings. Seeing what Ennis et. al. could do against second pairings last year this concept is very interesting to me. I would love to see it. I also think that it could force teams to move focus of Vanek to some extent, and I think that would be very great for the Sabres. So, while one player doesn't solve everything, Doan is a pretty amazing fit for the Sabres I'd like to see. It's a shame he's so old, but other than that; SHANE DOAN! SHANE DOAN! SHANE DOAN!

The draw for me in Shane Doan is in how he is a perfect match (in my mind) for our top line. He's the kind of player who will skate to the front of the net and work the puck loose, send it into the slot or muck the puck in the net. I think he will be a great compliment to Thomas Vanek who has one of the most deadly low slot players in the league. I would love to see Doan take over the brunt of the goal crashing and have Thomas lurk around picking up the spillage. He is in my opinion an almost perfect piece for our top line. If he was 34 it would be perfection. Add to that all the other positives he apparently will bring and I completely understand why the Sabres are willing to dig deep to get him.

I hate myself for being caught up on this, but this must be the tenth time at least I see you misspell Gaustad's name. He's name is not Gausted. It's GaustAd. An easy reminder is that his last name is the same as the psychiatric hospital in Oslo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaustad_Hospital Resume debate.

Doan is a right wing, and the perfect compliment for Vanek. If he was two years younger he would be virtually the ideal player for the Sabres to pick up.

Hey! The top goalie of all time is still one of the top two goalies ever. Personally, I rank Hasek as one of the top twenty goalies of all time, right at the top of that list. I also consider him to be one of the 10 best hockey players ever, maybe even top 5. Held against this standard I can see how some people think Miller is not that good of a goalie.

But that deal also includes, what, a 24% rollback in salaries? In that case the Sabres would reduce payroll by about $14.5M, problem solved

:w00t: