Single-payer health care in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.

You have to empathize with doctors who would like to see a single-payer system in the U.S., to cut down on paperwork and multiple treatment authorizations. But interestingly, respected non-profits like the Mayo Clinic, singled out as models by President Obama, and many medical specialty groups, oppose a Single Payer system. Why would this be?

Our current system is more complex and expensive than it needs to be. And single-payer health care plans often work well for a while. But eventually the problems now seen in the UK and Canada become serious. Acute care still seems to be good in these countries in most cases. Though there have been cases of ambulances lined up, waiting to take patients into Emergency in the U.K. Routine preventative care is good in the city. Dental care in the UK is abysmal (it's an exception to single payer in Canada). Those with chronic conditions often wait for months for an appointment in both Canada and the UK. Cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. This is one indication of more timely care and more treatment options in the U.S.

Cost-Cutting in Canada (sometimes at the expense of the U.S.)

In Canada, those "with connections" get seen by doctors much sooner than ordinary people, just like in Marxist countries. Urban dwellers get much better care than rural folks. In some smaller towns in Canada, there is a lottery system for doctor visits. I believe that there is no private care option in Canada (though it is now under consideration) and many Canadians come to the U.S. for treatment of serious conditions.

I once attended a meeting in which Canadian regulators explained their extortion program for getting American companies to do some of their research in Canada in exchange for reasonable drug prices. Canada is one of the few countries in the world with "mandatory licensing", which means that they will force innovative companies to disclose information necessary for another company to produce their new drug if the government doesn't like the price the innovator company wants to charge for the drug.

No wonder Canadian companies do not develop new pharmaceutical products. The reason new drugs are so much cheaper in Canada than in the US is mostly that Canadians do not consider it in their national interest to help companies recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars it takes to get a new product registered because they do not have a pharmaceutical research industry themselves. Canada is no less advanced than Sweden, but Swedish companies develop pharmaceuticals (though American consumers still pay for most of their research costs). Since the U.S. now supports most medical innovation in the world, new therapies which are more expensive when first introduced will be squelched if single-payer health care becomes the default system in the U.S.

The company I worked for opened a Canadian subsidiary and had Canadian sites for clinical trials so that they would be allowed to make a little money in Canada rather than turning their product information over to a generic manufacturer. Canadian doctors were notorious for not providing all the data required by the protocol of the study in which they were involved. They knew that they were in demand by American companies for political reasons - not because of the quality of their participation in studies.

Freedom and Fairness in the UK

The UK has a private health care system for the elite in addition to national health care, but no crossover between private and national health care is allowed. In the UK, a woman who had the audacity to pay for a cancer treatment not covered by national health care was punished for getting "unfair" treatment by cancellation of all her other national health care benefits. People are not allowed to spend their own money for better care if they are in the public system.

Some people think dogs get better medical care than people in the U.K. Don't know about that, but they probably get more timely care.

However, some Brits now go on "medical holidays" for health care in other countries. That way, they can get the care they want without getting their health care coverage cancelled back home. A few Americans are also starting to go on medical holidays abroad in countries moving toward capitalism, like India (still taking advantage of technologies developed in the U.S., usually) because of lower cost. But usually not because care is unavailable to them here. And not because they will be denied future medical care for going outside "the system" in the U.S.

Single-payer in the U.S.

The federal and state governments already pay for a big percentage of American health care. To get a feel for how things might change with a uniform single-payer system, it might be good to review results for Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and military medicine. Medicare is vastly more expensive than it was intended to be. Not Surprising. Other government-sponsored medical systems are characterized by inefficient and inconsistent care.

Single-payer proposals in the U.S. would change things in a drastic manner. The two things which scared me the most about single-payer HillaryCare when the Democrats tried to ram it through years ago were (1) the proposals that health care professional who treated both private and public patients would be criminals and (2) Hillary Clinton's remark to a nurse that if she had wanted a good-paying job, she should have gone into another line of work. (Law, maybe). Wage controls for all medical professionals seemed, how do you say it, unconstitutional to me. I do not want the vast majority of doctors and nurses in the U.S. dependent upon the government. And we don't need doctor strikes.

During her later presidential campaign, Hillary made a point of shadowing a nurse for a day during her "listening tour" as a gesture of humility after her earlier statement which suggested that nurses did not deserve a good salary. She also became more supportive of nurse's unions.

If a huge country like the United States adopts a single-payer system, all sorts of unintended consequences will occur. They will occur much faster than in smaller, less diverse countries.

The bill now being rushed through Congress is a messy first step toward a single payer system. The bill under consideration empowers dozens of federal bureaucracies to regulate the provision of health care. A federal bureaucracy is the closest thing to "forever" in American government. Why not let the states experiment with plans to work toward universal coverage and insurance reform? Why not consider Medical Savings Accounts which would lead to more true competition and less bureaucratic hassling of physicians by insurance companies?

Plans for rationing health care in the U.S. are already under consideration. If a single-payer system is adopted in our country, which provides a kind of foreign aid by paying for research for the whole world, medical progress will be also be slowed down tremendously. There is a place for federal funding for basic research in government institutions, universities, etc. Private companies are more effective at the boring, tedious work it takes to bring an innovation to market.

Dangerous Right-Wing Mobs

Barak Obama's Twitter post, August 4: "BarackObama: Lots of disinformation on health insurance reform out there. Learn/share the facts: http://bit.ly/191Bzz #hc09 (Via @WhiteHouse)." Not everyone is impressed by the "facts" presented at the link. They seem to consist only of repeats of promises by the President.

The Obama Administration is worried about inaccurate information about the healthcare proposals. Maybe if they gave us more than short policy statements about what is in the health care proposals, alternative viewpoints would not be such a big concern.

As an aside, Obama's health care website provides fodder for conspiracy theorists. Check the first few comments. Why the Obama camp continues to use icongraphy reminiscent of the most brutal totalitarian regimes of the 20th century is a puzzle to me. Though it often makes his detractors seem like nut cases when they point out the similarities. There is a sort of "new age" feeling to the new Obama Healthcare logo as well, however. Sort of dreamy.

The DNC and unions also go on the offensive, labeling protesters as "mobs" coordinated by evil insurance companies. They have started selectively stacking town halls with friendly faces. Michelle Malkin on what real angry mobs look like. Is condemnation of conservative activism PROJECTION? Or a reflection of liberal righteousness? Some in the media seem to have short memories.

Conservative and libertarian bloggers are having fun with the liberal smear campaign. The king of libertarian parody Iowahawk carries the President's message forward.

Bottom line: Reforms in the American health insurance system, and better enforcement of current regulations, are in order. But a federal "Public Option" insurance scheme will lead to the end of private health care coverage, except for the elite. The bill under consideration ends "Medicare Advantage" and calls for a 500 billion dollar cut in Medicare coverage, just as enrollment is expected to increase dramatically, to help pay for a Public Option. Why won't the Democrats answer questions about HOW they intend to cut 500 billion dollars from Medicare?

This means less health care for seniors. Why the rush to pass a bill, any bill, before Americans really have a chance to understand and debate what is in it? If it's not a power grab which would be rejected by the majority of Americans if they understood it, what's the rush? Barak Obama was elected in large measure because of his remarkable talent for oratory. He has the power to coerce networks into giving him lots of airtime. Certainly, he could explain this bill in a way which would make sense to the majority of Americans. COULDN'T HE?

Why revert to Alinsky tactics now? He's the President of the United States.

Why we need more taxpayer funding for Higher Ed.

Utopia at Stanford. The Synergy Program may be unsustainable, but it makes people feel good about themselves. Hooray. Hippies used to fund these kinds of programs on their own, in an informal, unstructured manner, with some help from Mom and Dad. But putting such programs on campus naturally leads to costs which students and their families cannot manage without taxpayer help.

More higher education, particularly at elite liberal universities, is clearly the key to America's future ability to compete in the world. No doubt the ground-breaking Synergy program at Stanford helps the participants get good jobs and fulfill key roles in society. It deserves our generous support through Pell grants, etc. In fact, we should think about making similar programs mandatory for young people.

And when the graduates are making big bucks as Insect Negotiators, they can fund more programs through their tax contributions. You know their parents will be proud.

But seriously, I think part of our educational program should focus on letting kids be kids. How many of these post-adolescents were pushed by Mom and Dad to get into an elite school at all costs? How many were told at 6 that they were responsible for saving the planet? Or the whales? Or Darfur? Things they had no possibility of controlling. How many were given adult privileges long before they were adults? Maybe they should have experienced talking to ants when they were eight, instead of worrying about world events.

Maybe we should refrain from putting the weight of the world's problems on children's shoulders at a young age. Let them learn about self-mastery, interpersonal relationships, nature, God, work and play. And some educational basics. Maybe then they won't revert to the ant-negotiating stage of human development when they get to the university. How many of the Synergy graduates will be past their self-congratulatory post-adolescent dependency 5 years after graduation?

Utopia vs. Freedom

Thomas Sowell:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away. . .

The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."

If we are, then there will be a never ending series of "solutions," each causing new problems calling for still more "solutions." That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers' money and-- more important-- ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

Mark Steyn:

. . . government health care "redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in a way that hands all the advantages to statists — to those who believe government has a legitimate right to regulate human affairs in every particular."

But don't worry, you'd be surprised how you get used to it. . . .

[In the UK] The national government is installing 24-hour cameras in your home to ensure that you eat properly and go to bed on time. And social decay in Britain (which is at least partly due to the nanny state's assumption of all adult responsibilities) is so advanced that almost everyone now thinks this perfectly normal.

Bottom line: Reforms in the American health insurance system are in order. But a federal "Public Option" insurance scheme will lead to the end of private health care coverage, except for the elite. No matter what the White House now says.

Footprints - Solar, Wind and Nuclear

A visual comparison of the relative amounts of land needed to generate the same amounts of electricity based on current nuclear, solar and wind technologies. The last image is superimposed over a map of Rhode Island.

Concerning solar power:

Try to imagine the entire solar (yellow) footprint covered with solar panels. Next, try to imagine washing these things every three to four days.

Concerning wind power:

No wonder T. Boone Pickens jockeyed Congress for help with eminent domain issues while executing his plan for using 1,200 sq miles for 4,000 MW of wind power production. Hopefully, this will be an eye opener to the amount of forests, plains, and desert needed to enable wind and solar energies to compete with nuclear energy in power production. Until the technology is developed to store the energy produced by wind and solar energies, this is the footprint of land that we will be dealing with.

What makes various "clean energy" technologies "earth friendly"? No easy answers. As for sustainability:

Today's USA Today has a piece on students who are studying for "sustainability" careers, such as being a wind turbine technician.

I doubt that anyone tells the students that much of the "sustainability" industry, such as wind farms, is sustainable only with constant government subsidies.

All Politics is Loco

A relatively recent theory concerning American politics is Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

Of course, you have to take Jane's Law with a grain of salt. But sometimes, it seems very apt. There has been a lot of renewed attention recently concerning "Birthers" - people who believe that Barak Obama was not born in the United States. This idea first got started during the primary presidential campaign, when Hillary's people were looking into Obama's background. Continued suspicion is teased along by Obama's shifting narratives about his own past and the rather romanticized fictions in his autobiographies. These, along with points of style and the unusual history of how Obama's first book was written, have led to yet another conspiracy theory - that Bill Ayers was the ghost-writer for Dreams from My Father. UPDATE: This conspiracy is starting to look a little more believable.

"Birthers" are also motivated by the decision of the Obama camp not to release his "long form" birth certificate. But the "certification of live birth" which has been released is considered to be legal verification of his birth in Hawaii. Other than for historical reasons or to put controversies to rest, there is no legal requirement for Obama to release the more detailed birth certificate. Some people would like to make it a requirement for presidential candidates. because they are convinced that there is something terribly wrong behind the non-disclosure of this document. And as Andrew McCarthy says,

. . . The point has little to do with whether Obama was born in Hawaii. I’m quite confident that he was. The issue is: What is the true personal history of the man who has been sold to us based on nothing but his personal history? On that issue, Obama has demonstrated himself to be an unreliable source and, sadly, we can’t trust the media to get to the bottom of it. What’s wrong with saying, to a president who promised unprecedented “transparency”: Give us all the raw data and we’ll figure it out for ourselves?

But the theory that Barak Obama was born in Kenya, smuggled into the U.S. and provided with a false "certification of live birth" is pretty screwy. There's even a new "Kenyan Birth Certificate" floating around now, reminescent of the famous forged National Guard documents which were the downfall of Dan Rather.

There are other "Birthers" this political season, too - those who believe that Sarah Palin did not give birth to her son, Trig. The most prominent of these is blogger Andrew Sullivan, who now seems to have finally accepted that Sarah's daughter Bristol could not have been the mother, but still seems to think that Sarah was covering for another mysterious mother. The "Trig conspiracy" theory was reportedly first pushed by the same CNN stringer who recently "revealed" along with a few other anti-Palin bloggers that Sarah and Todd Palin are getting a divorce. The revelation was later modified to indicate that the divorce would be secret. Sarah Palin's statement seems to have taken the air out of the latest rumor, though the far less believable Trig conspiracy theory still slithers around among the Left.

And then there are the "Truthers" on both the right and the left who believe that President Bush had advance knowledge of 9/11. Rosie O'Donnell famously said that fire doesn't melt steel in explaining her theory that the Twin Towers did not collapse from the impact of the planes on 9/11 and the resultant fires. Polls indicate that the "Truthers" had more advocates when Bush was president than the "Birthers" have now. Still, the number of people who aren't confident that Barak Obama was born in the U.S. is pretty high. But maybe all conspiracy theories are not created equal.

There is evidence that Americans are becoming more polarized politically. More choices in media outlets, emotional television news coverage and dumbed-down "headline-type" coverage, along with a failure to emphasize critical thinking in education, all contribute to this polarization. And this polarization often leads to fanaticism. It's hard to reason with those who have fanatical political beliefs.

A few years ago, an Emory psychologist scanned the brains of self-described partisans. Partisans were able to notice the hypocritical statements of the opposing candidate but not the inconsistencies of their preferred candidate. Ideology, it was determined, showed effects similar to drug addiction.

The press seems to portray the "Birthers" as more kooky than the "Truthers". Mark Steyn thinks the "Birthers" could be even kookier than they are:

As for the alleged "kookiness" of birthers, a true conspiracy theorist would surely believe that Obama deliberately started the birth-certificate business in order to make it easier to dismiss his opponents as deranged.

The "Birther" controversy diverts attention from more important issues in national politics which face us today.

Why Congress should vote on bills before reading them

President Obama put a lot of pressure on the House to pass a Health Care Bill before the August recess. Democratic Representative John Conyers on why he thinks it's more important to get bills signed than to read them:

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’ ” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

And he's not the only lawmaker who doesn't understand the bill.

Mark Steyn thinks lawmakers should understand the laws they vote on. He even thinks that people should be able to understand the laws they live under:

Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. . . . No individual can read these bills and understand what he's voting on. That's why the bulk of these responsibilities should be left to states and subsidiary jurisdictions, which can legislate on such matters at readable length and in comprehensible language.

Read the whole thing. It's short and very comprehensible.

You're Probably a Federal Criminal

Lots of people are considered criminals under federal law, and they dont even know that they are criminals.

Space Rocks

The Hubble Telescope has shown us a massive debris plume which is probably from a recent impact on the planet.

The Hubble team says the force of the explosion was thousands of times more powerful than the Tunguska impact, which devastated 500,000 acres of Siberian forest land in 1908.

One big question about the impact is: Why didn't we see this coming? What does this say about our ability to detect potential killer asteroids or comets before they hit Earth?

Jonah Goldberg compares the attention that a possible asteroid hit gets in the scientific world, compared to the attention given to global warming. A snippet:

. . .A scientist quoted last month in Maclean’s noted that “there are more people working in a single McDonald’s than there are trying to save civilization from an asteroid.”

Meanwhile, the global-warming industry — and it is an industry now — could fill football stadiums.

It makes you wonder. For all the rush and panic, the truth is, climate change — if real — is a very slow-moving catastrophe. Moreover, it happens to align with an ideological and political agenda the Left has been pushing for generations. . . .

Decisions on which types of scientific research to fund are sometimes more political than scientific.

Update: Jupiter = Gitmo? Heh.