That's bad news - his art is great and I hope he's doing alright. It's not really surprising, though; did he imagine that he would get away with a highly-visible event like this in Beijing during the Olympics?

@Teresa Nielsen Hayden

What, so boingboing readers aren't allowed to call shenanigans on things they find silly? I agree with HJO3; these stickers look ugly and would annoy me if a neighbor used one.

Are we not allowed to disagree with you guys? It's rude to talk down to a poster.

Meh. If it's not Manhattan, it's not NYC.

This post piqued my interest, and I checked out the site. Seems to be an intelligent guy who honestly cares about reducing healthcare costs for young folk, but his math is a bit fuzzy. This is all based off of having PPO insurance.

I'm a young healthy professional living in NYC who is married to a doctor. I get BlueCross PPO through my employer for 45 bucks a month, or $540 a year, and my wife gets her insurance from the hospital she works at. Office visits and prescription drugs cost $10, and I don't need referrals to see a specialist because I've got PPO and not HMO insurance. I would also like to note that I don't make a ton of money, and that even at 22, working for a non-profit straight out of college, I still had PPO insurance.

Dr. Parkinson is a huge fan of high-deductible healthcare plans which, as he explains on his site, have the individual pay for the first $2500 of care by themselves. While he might offer unlimited "e-visits", only providing two face-to-face appointments per year seems a bit stingy. There are literally thousands of things that could happen to you during the course of a year, and not just things that happen to the old and sick, that require doctor's visits or minor surgery or bloodwork. I will concede that lots of problems can be solved over the phone or via email, but not everything. And if you're using one of your two allotted annual appointments for a physical, as everyone should, then that leaves you with only one appointment a year.

Back to my insurance costs - $540 a year. I see a doctor for a physical once a year, $10. The bloodwork is free. I get a rash a few months later, I see a dermatologist for $10 and get a prescription for $10. I get headaches that won't go away and I see my GP for $10, a neurologist for $10, and get an MRI for free. Let's say I hurt my knee - this one actually happened to me this year. I see an orthopedic surgeon recommended to me by a friend for $10. I get an x-ray there for free. He tells me to start on physical therapy. Once a week for two months. $10 times 8 is $80.

Add all these things up, things that could possibly happen in a single year, and you pay $680.

Now, if you paid for Dr. Parkinson's services, you give him $500 to become a patient. The physical is free appointment number one. Let's say that later on you get a rash. He diagnoses it over videochat even though he's didn't have a dermatology residency and writes you an Rx. You have to pay for the prescription. In all likelihood it's a generic, so even without insurance maybe you're lucky and only pay $20. Not so bad. You get headaches. He wants to take blood pressure and do bloodwork, so he visits you. That's your second and final free visit. He refers you to a neurologist who will charge you $300-$400 for the visit, not including the $600-800 charge for the MRI. God forbid you hurt your knee. He can't see you, you've used your visit. That's $150 per additional visit. Or maybe he referred you to the neurologist earlier without seeing you. Say you have the one visit left but still have to pay $200-300 to see an orthopedic surgeon and pay $100 for the knee x-ray. Physical therapy? My physical therapist, who was good but certainly not the most expensive in the city, charged $155 an hour.

You don't even have to add up the numbers. Unless you're lucky and you never need any sort of screening, or a prescription for a patented medicine - he also mentions acne on his site, retin-a micro is patented - then you'll most likely end up spending far more money with him than you would with a traditional healthcare PPO plan.

This post piqued my interest, and I checked out the site. Seems to be an intelligent guy who honestly cares about reducing healthcare costs for young folk, but his math is a bit fuzzy. This is all based off of having PPO insurance.

I'm a young healthy professional living in NYC who is married to a doctor. I get BlueCross PPO through my employer for 45 bucks a month, or $540 a year, and my wife gets her insurance from the hospital she works at. Office visits and prescription drugs cost $10, and I don't need referrals to see a specialist because I've got PPO and not HMO insurance. I would also like to note that I don't make a ton of money, and that even at 22, working for a non-profit straight out of college, I still had PPO insurance.

Dr. Parkinson is a huge fan of high-deductible healthcare plans which, as he explains on his site, have the individual pay for the first $2500 of care by themselves. While he might offer unlimited "e-visits", only providing two face-to-face appointments per year seems a bit stingy. There are literally thousands of things that could happen to you during the course of a year, and not just things that happen to the old and sick, that require doctor's visits or minor surgery or bloodwork. I will concede that lots of problems can be solved over the phone or via email, but not everything. And if you're using one of your two allotted annual appointments for a physical, as everyone should, then that leaves you with only one appointment a year.

Back to my insurance costs - $540 a year. I see a doctor for a physical once a year, $10. The bloodwork is free. I get a rash a few months later, I see a dermatologist for $10 and get a prescription for $10. I get headaches that won't go away and I see my GP for $10, a neurologist for $10, and get an MRI for free. Let's say I hurt my knee - this one actually happened to me this year. I see an orthopedic surgeon recommended to me by a friend for $10. I get an x-ray there for free. He tells me to start on physical therapy. Once a week for two months. $10 times 8 is $80.

Add all these things up, things that could possibly happen in a single year, and you pay $680.

Now, if you paid for Dr. Parkinson's services, you give him $500 to become a patient. The physical is free appointment number one. Let's say that later on you get a rash. He diagnoses it over videochat even though he's didn't have a dermatology residency and writes you an Rx. You have to pay for the prescription. In all likelihood it's a generic, so even without insurance maybe you're lucky and only pay $20. Not so bad. You get headaches. He wants to take blood pressure and do bloodwork, so he visits you. That's your second and final free visit. He refers you to a neurologist who will charge you $300-$400 for the visit, not including the $600-800 charge for the MRI. God forbid you hurt your knee. He can't see you, you've used your visit. That's $150 per additional visit. Or maybe he referred you to the neurologist earlier without seeing you. Say you have the one visit left but still have to pay $200-300 to see an orthopedic surgeon and pay $100 for the knee x-ray. Physical therapy? My physical therapist, who was good but certainly not the most expensive in the city, charged $155 an hour.

You don't even have to add up the numbers. Unless you're lucky and you never need any sort of screening, or a prescription for a patented medicine - he also mentions acne on his site, retin-a micro is patented - then you'll most likely end up spending far more money with him than you would with a traditional healthcare PPO plan.