Sunday, August 23, 2009

Health Reform Plan--More Nonsense

Amid anguished cries of 'fascism' and 'socialism,' critics of the Government's health care reform bills proclaim that THEY DO NOT WANT THE GOVERNMENT RUNNING HEALTH CARE.

At the same time, people say, 'Health care costs too much,' 'Millions cannot afford health care,' 'Millions cannot afford health insurance,' 'THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.'

Come on, guys, you can't have it both ways. We all can see that health care costs too much, and the costs continue to increase. The players in our health care system can not, will not take actions to cut the costs. If we want the government to fix the problem, the government will either have to regulate the system, or take it over.

But is the government capable of doing either of those things? As I mentioned in my last post, I doubt it. Congress is refusing to identify 'cost drivers' in the system and eliminate or regulate them. Instead of trying to simplify the process and regulate the specific activities that are out of control, Congress is proposing to add complexity to the system, get more people involved, and introduce more reporting and paperwork. It's another example of their "comprehensive" plans.

The Commentary section of Sunday's Orange County Register contained two diagrams of the proposed reform plan. One drawn by Republicans on the front page, large and in color, was on the front page. The second, drawn by Democrats, nearly microscopic and monochrome, was on page 5. For me the issue is not the relative emphasis of one over the other because both are ridiculoulsy complex. One had over 50 'bubbles' on it; the other had over 60 blocks. Commisions, boards, reports, hundreds of people doing everything except curing illnesses. The costs will show up on our health care bills and our tax bills as increases, not reductions.

A direct, top down analysis would start with a simple diagram that has only a few boxes:
  1. consumers
  2. health care providers (doctors, laboratories, hospitals)
  3. pharmaceutical manufacturers
  4. health insurance companies and management organizations
  5. Law firms (handling the suits pressed by consumers against providers)
  6. federal government (assuming we want them involved)

Then you draw some lines between them that represent the flow of money, products, and services. To do it right, the preparer has to virtually 'sit' in each block and determine where revenue comes from, where the income is spent, and what the net gain is. The resulting diagram will generate a lot of questions to be answered, and identify real problems to be resolved in order to make sure that the largest portion of the dollar spent by the consumer is used directly to cure his health problem.

I read an article the other day claiming that a congressman stated he does not want to look at ways to cut costs. If that is so, I know why I cannot support the administration's health care reform plan

Friday, August 21, 2009

Health Care Reform Is a Farce

Unfortunately, the health care reform issue is a total shambles. Only politicians could muck things up so totally. I posted some suggestions months ago, but I'm sure very few read them and nobody acted on them.

Political payoffs prevent the President and Congress from doing the obvious and logical thing, that is: Determine what portion of each health care dollar goes to each element of the process: patient insurance, hospital liability insurance, doctors malpractice insurance, insurance billing and administrative costs, hospital buildings and maintenance, cost of medication, doctors office rent, and (I almost forgot) doctors pay, and nurses pay.

Such a study would reveal the obvious -- that insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies take the lion’s share of the dollar in exhorbitant premiums and obscene profits. To change that, government must enact controls to minimize those cost drivers. Elected officials will never do this, because their elections were bought and paid for by those very companies. Democrats won't give up the financial support and Republicans will scream that the changes stifle free enterprise…

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Professor Gates and Officer Crowley

I read that they had a "beer summit" with President Obama, and that they agreed to disagree.

Now that I have read both versions of the story, I have formed my own opinion.

I worked in Cambridge, MA, for two years. The Cambridge police department has a specific procedure that an officer must follow when he investigates a report of attempted break in. I believe that the procedure is exactly the same, no matter what the race is of the person who answers the door. And I believe that an officer who is given authority to investigate must maintain control of the situation to the extent needed to complete the investigation. I was taught always to comply courteously with requests from a policeman. The time to challenge his authority, if necessary, is after the fact, in a court of law. That's the way it works in our country.

By his own account, Professor Gates operated on the assumption that a white police officer who comes to his door is there to hurt him, not to help him. Professor Gates, operating on that prejudice, is the racist. Instead of being civil to an officer of the law, the professor chose to be belligerent. But the good professor is blind to his own racism, and he belligerently accused an officer who was following protocol of being a racist, without any specific facts to support that accusation.

There is is no way for me to know how intense things got at that moment, and whether or not the professor's actions justified an arrest for "disorderly conduct." For me, that issue is secondary; it would not have come into play if Professor Gates had not acted on his own prejudice in the first place.

A double standard applies to the concept of racism--perpetuated by radicals like Professor Gates, Rev. Wright, and Al Sharpton.