If you want to see an inflated bill for a routine office visit, go to Stanford. It doesn’t matter if they’re a PPO on your plan. I’ve never before seen such bloated invoices! UCSF, on the other hand, has been consistently fair in their billing.

One of the reasons I bought our current house is it’s a few blocks from an excellent ER. We do CPR and other life-saving techniques on a regular basis at home and only whisk the kid to the ER when she needs morphine and a heart monitor. We’re the people who come racing in dragging an incoherent teenager and they open the door and she’s in a bed and on monitors within seconds. A good ER is a truly fine community of amazing people.

My daughter’s friends who are graduating from high school next month have radically changed their college plans. Most are looking for jobs and hoping to be able to afford some community college, with the possibility of attending “real” college later. Culinary school is very popular. Only a few had their scholarships actually materialize. The ones who had planned to become doctors are choosing other paths — who wants to work in socialized medicine?

I see that Spaceweather.com has resorted to displaying a magnetic image of the sun since there aren’t even sunspecks. We’re in for an interesting ride.