Archive | 6:50 AM

North of the border health care

3 Aug

 

If your views are way left of center you are likely a fan of a single payer government health care system and certainly that is the best way to cover everyone, but is it the best and most efficient way to deliver health care?  Again, some Americans would say yes indeed and point to Medicare or to Canada as good examples.  I have written several times in these pages about the reality of Medicare, but never about Canada.  I am not able to verify the authenticity of the interview to which I have linked, but it clearly provides food for thought.

One thing is very clear, at least to me, and that is a government run system will out of necessity have to ration care in some manner and in the process will create a two tired system worse than we now have because those who can afford it will purchase supplemental coverage and those who can’t will remain mired in a bureaucracy just as occurs in all government programs.  You see, a federal program will have to control costs, today Medicare does that simply by paying less, but one must ask how will that work is there is no private alternative to bail out those federal strategies. I think the answer to that is found in part within this interview  

Views on the Canadian Healthcare System from an insider

 

 

If you can’t do it on an iPhone, it cant’ be done

3 Aug

 

I am the proud new owner of an iPhone, the 32 mg version although I have no idea what I am going to do with all that memory.  Here I have in my hand what amounts to a computer more powerful than the first Apple IIe I purchased in 1984 and no doubt more powerful than many much larger older computers as well.

I got so excited downloading applications I now have one that helps calculate my monthly period and given I am a 65 year old man that is quite an accomplishment.  On the other hand I also have a bubble level, a currency converter, all the most current economic data, a pedometer, solitaire and twenty five thousand crazy facts (like it is impossible for a pig to look up to the sky).  I have spent so much time on this darn thing since I got it, my marriage is in jeopardy (speaking of Jeopardy I have that on my iPhone too), but not to worry I suspect there is a marriage counselor somewhere within the App store.

Just think when I started working in 1961 one of my jobs each morning was to change the chemical tank on the one page at a time wet copier and that was pretty high tech stuff.  I still blame those chemicals for the lack of hair on my head.  We didn’t need no stinking copiers to keep our records; we had carbon paper like real men.

Ah, App number 65,397

Ah, App number 65,397

Between my iPhone and my new Kindle ® I am in tech heaven and what I like best is that you can use this stuff without reading any manual, I have no idea of where I am going, but who needs directions?  Imagine, I can get an exercise program on my iPhone and today’s Wall Street Journal ® on my Kindle each for ninety-nine cents.  I bet Amx just loves those $.99 charges.

The next time I fly I am going to have the Kindle read a book to me while I play solitaire on the iPhone and check to be sure the plane is level.

One problem though, the iPhone and my Blackberry are competing for space on my belt, is this the new pocket protector status symbol?  Am I one of the oldest geeks this side of Cupertino?  Fear not, I have no hope of understanding how this all works and if there is more than one wire involved I am lost.  If something goes wrong, I call my son (but even he doesn’t have an iPhone).

And just think, over 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a phone call (I got that fact from an App).

I hate to rush off but I think my phone is just about finished cooking my dinner.

What do you do in the bathroom?

3 Aug

 

Ok, that really is a rhetorical question; I really, really do not want any answer.

Two sinks is not a problem and thank heaven the seat is not granite

Two sinks is not a problem and thank heaven the seat is not granite

Why ask the question then you may ponder?  Well, given the vast wasteland of television, I am frequently reduced to watching the Food Network and HGTV (I TIVO ® the more educational programs such as Wipeout).  On HGTV, there are several shows where people are looking to buy a new home and we are taken on the tour of perspective purchases.  More often than not, the bathroom(s) is too small for the potential buyers.  Every time I hear that, I run into my own bathroom(s) to check the size.  Mine are best described as tiny and small. There is no double sink, no Jacuzzi tub, no lounging area, not enough room for two people and a total distance of about eighteen inches between the tub and the sink.  Watching these potential homebuyers evaluating bathrooms based on the view from the whirlpool, the granite counter tops, dual sinks and twenty person showers with more water pouring out of them then Niagara Falls makes me feel downright inadequate.  How did my wife and four children ever manage with two very modest size bathrooms?  Better still how did my parents and the three children manage in an apartment with one bathroom?

I am not sure of the attraction to have more than one person in a bathroom at one time although I am easily persuaded as to the benefits of a two-person shower.  Americans truly have a distorted perspective when it comes to necessities, not only do they need bathrooms the size of my garage, they apparently need several of them which begs the question with so many bathrooms why are they concerned about having more than one person in there at the same time.  Oh, I know, four of them are not en suite.

People Have to Understand

3 Aug

Responing to a question about higher taxes, Timothy Geitner said, “People have to understand that we have to bring those deficits down.” In other words taxes are going up and just not on the rich. He should have said Congress has to understand we have to get spending under control. The House had no trouble throwing around another two billion for clunker cars with no thought where the money was coming from and rationalization for billions in earmarks still prevails as does a mentality that health reform is about expanding coverage not controlling costs.

Just like making sausage

Just like making sausage

Larry Summers said that a key element to controlling the deficit is health care reform, but that needs funding from somewhere. Umm to save money starting perhaps in ten years we need to spend a trillion dollars starting in 2010. What Mr Summers really means is that the federal budget can’t handle the promises already made in terms of health care via Medicare and Medicaid and we need to find a way to move those costs somewhere.

We spend too much on health care, but isn’t that economic stimulus too. Aren’t there millions of jobs related to health care, far more than the auto industry for sure. If we cut health care spending what happens to the jobs that now support that industry? Will the next step will be cash for old x-Ray machines?

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