Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Friday, October 23, 2009

  taking a brief break from health care for something more geeky

My last post gathered a lot of great comments and the debate continues, hot and heavy, on the subject of health care.

I surfaced for a little while, and spotted something that appealed to my ha ha only serious and geeky nature... if you don't know who's in the photograph, you won't get the joke.



OK, I return now to some voluminous commenting on health care.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

  Reframing the issues of the health care "debate"

I am despondent on the whole health care reform thing.

I view it as a circus distracting people from the real issues, actually.

I was nearly driven bankrupt, twice, by the current system, and have a long list of detailed complaints about what is wrong with it at present. Coping with the current system, as it exists, with a pill for every malady, and pills to cure the side effects of those pills, and pills to cure the problems caused by the other pills... made me considerably more sick than I needed to be, for far longer than I needed to be, and coping with the stresses of the system didn't help either.

However, living where I do now, I don't have to pay into the US system any more, and I don't intend to go back. In fact, the risks involved in going back are so high - one traffic accident, and I would be on the brink of bankruptcy again - that it is a profound disincentive to even think about visiting the USA again.

So I really shouldn't care, anymore, but I got into a debate about it the other night and thought I'd type up my side of the argument.

I think that the legions of non-medically trained auditors and lawyers and lobbyists should not exist.

I also find the idea of one nationwide universal health bureaucracy for 300 million people abhorrent. I believe that the central government of the US should be as weak as possible and mostly concerned with national defense. If a given one of the 50 states wants Obama-like health care, great! Maybe people will want to live there more.

For example, both Massachusetts and Tennessee implemented Obama-like care a few years ago.

How's it working out? Is it a success? How are the demographics changing?

It is far easier to experiment with public policy at the state level than it is to do so at the Washington, DC, level, and far, far easier to rectify mistakes. Even then (witness the decline of California vs NJ, for example) it may take decades to reverse course.

Most importantly, most of the developed world is in a demographic trap. The old are getting older; there are not enough of the young. The haves - mostly the boomer generation, now - is trying to extract as much money as possible from the have nots - the successor generations - at every step of their slow decline into senility, so their Woodstock goes on and on while we have to clean up the messes they've left behind.

There are easy solutions to the demographic problem - lots and lots of immigration, easy citizenship, and incentives for child-rearing - that aren't on the table, and won't be until it is too late.

I wrote a story once, called "the good life", which was about a life insurance salesman that sold the "good life" to those young and healthy - cars, booze, parties, trips, etc - in exchange for a few organ donations when they hit 30... And naturally, being raised ignorant and away from valid work, they'd go into debt selling off more organs and limbs, partying further, after that, until they had nothing left but a brain attached to a few machines, and big payments to make on keeping those running too, and after that... nothing.

Their organs and limbs went to the old, who were living on cruise ships....

The old preyed on the young in this brutal dystopia until there were no more young left to support them, and revolution ignited between the oldsters fighting over the last "useful" young people, who by then were being bred in jars and kept in the matrix, dreaming, until they could be harvested for spare parts.

...

Jerry Pournelle writes:



I have a long list of things that would help American health that are politically unacceptable - from banning sugar and corn subsidies (as per the above), to taxing fast food restaurants, and taxing or banning bad foods, full of carbohydrates and such (and subsidizing vegetables in return), to taxing tivos, tvs, and game consoles (and in turn subsidizing gyms, yoga retreats, and international travel)

Here's another one: Why on earth do businesses still work 9 to 5, with employees wilting under dim florescent lighting, when outside there's a sun already shining? Is it to sell more vitamin D cream, gym memberships, and anti-depressant medications?

None of these solutions are on the table. On my bad days I tend to think that modern society is oriented towards killing off those that cannot summon the will to turn off their tivos and take a walk once in a while.

Lastly I'm going to quote a few more choice words from Jerry Pournelle on the issue of the largest health care cost of all - treatment near the end of life:



In anticipation of the flames, it's probably a good idea to put on my asbestos suit now... even though that causes cancer, in the long term.

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David Täht writes about politics, space, copyright, the internet, audio software, operating systems and surfing.


Resume,Songs,
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Best of the blog:
Uncle Bill's Helicopter - A speech I gave to ITT Tech - Chicken soup for engineers
Beating the Brand - A pathological exploration of how branding makes it hard to think straight
Inside the Internet Mind - trying to map the weather within the global supercomputer that consists of humans and google
Sex In Politics - If politicians spent more time pounding the flesh rather than pressing it, it would be a better world
Getting resources from space - An alternative to blowing money on mars using NEAs.
On the Columbia - Why I care about space
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Doc Searls
Where's Cherie?
UrbanAgora
Jerry Pournelle
The Cubic Dog
Evan Hunt
The Bay Area is talking
Brizzled
Zimnoiac Emanations
Eric Raymond
Unlocking The Air
Bob Mage
BroadBand & Me
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