Nick, at the risk of being shot down by esteemed academics, but one with
experience of both universal health care in the UK and the current
system in the US for the past 29 yr....
* Access to decent perhaps basic health care is a human right
because we don't want to see suffering in our fellow man, woman or
child.
* It's immature, perhaps immoral to think otherwise.
* Because making money off people so disadvantaged, not in a
position to argue, perhaps not even conscious, is unconscionable
(that's why its different from car insurance)
* Our current plutocracy is based on '/Them as has the gold makes
the rules/' and is a simple rule enjoyed by enough agents in the
system that it is self perpetuating. Having gold means they have
the means to preserve the original rule. A neat positive feedback
system.
* All positive feedback systems eventually max out somewhere and
break or get reset.
* I have a simple story. When I was 10 in the UK, I tore open my
arm and had to be taken to the hospital in a taxi to have 10
stitches. One of my concerns on the way, believe it or not, was:
what was this going to cost my Dad. 'There, there don't worry you
Dad won't have to pay anything.' Sigh on my part.
* I'm thinking that national consciousness here is still at the 10
yr old level and has not yet matured enough to meet the larger
social responsibilities.
* The current health care system has unaligned goals: Making money
is inconsistent with making or keeping people healthier.
* Organizations with unaligned goals will never have a happy future.
* I think it starts with good education that makes thinkers. But
the 'them' probably see that as threat at the ballot box so ...
Fire away anyway.
Thanks
Robert
On 2/14/10 11:49 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
This discussion is a wonderful example of what Doug is talking about.
Notice how the more imponderable the situation is the more confident
become our opinions. Think about the following conundrum. Let's
imagine -- for the purposes of argument -- that health care is a
genuine imponderable ... we NEVER will have enough information, with
enough precision, to know what we should do about it. Given that
assumption, what behavior is proper?
It's like that old distinction between Dionysians and Apollonians. We
all know that there are Dionysian Fools ... they are the people found
dancing to their ipods on the railroad tracks with the train bearing
down on them. But aren't there also Apollonian Fools ... people who
engage in carefully planning and thoughtful argument about a situation
what is too complex to make a decision about?
Anyway, as a leader among Apollonian Fools and a Knee-Jerk Liberal, in
the bargain, allow me the following: I shudder whenever anyone talks
of a right to healthcare, because it sounds so much like a Right to
Health. The chances that I will die in the next 20 years are almost
1.00. You do NOT want to get into the business of guaranteeing my
health.
Rights talk is madness.
nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu <mailto:nthomp...@clarku.edu>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
*From:* ERIC P. CHARLES <mailto:e...@psu.edu>
*To: *friam <mailto:friam@redfish.com>
*Sent:* 2/14/2010 10:54:13 AM
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Health care [was Sources of Innovation]
But Owen, we are NOT required to buy car insurance! It is an
if-then thing: If you want to drive, then you need insurance. That
doesn't map on well to health care.
I agree that the health care debate is not just about profit. At
least one other thing it is about is whether or not to consider
health care a "human right". I for one (and I anticipate being
skewered for saying it) don't understand this line of reasoning. I
am told that "it is unfair that rich people get better medical
care than poor people", and what I hear is "it is unfair that rich
people drive better cars than poor people." If we really just
wanted to make health care cheaper we would up training for people
to self-diagnose and self-treat easy problems, we would reform
malpractice litigation, and we'd invest a boat load in grief and
end of life counseling so that people were, in general, more
accepting of death (their own and other's). If we wanted reform in
the industry, the best we should be pushing for is to enforce
contracts so that the insurance companies pay out what they are
supposed to.
Insurance is a business. It is a gambling game, where you try to
get people to give you more money than you think you will have to
pay out. It is true that some times insurance companies make
insane profits, but it doesn't take too many people who cost them
a million dollars each to shift things around. The basic model for
any insurance situation should be to give a security blanket to
people who are not at much risk (i.e., give healthy people
insurance against crippling disasters). You know, like the home
owner's insurance you don't go running to every time your toilet
is stopped up, but you are glad you have if there is a bad fire.
And even if you think that people have the right to health care,
how can anyone argue that people should be guaranteed the right to
be insured?!? Car insurance companies turn down people who are
high risk, ditto home owner's insurance, flood insurance, business
insurance, etc., etc., how is health care any different?
The whole medical situation in this country is crazy, I got in a
15 minute long argument with a doctor who wouldn't tell me how
much a procedure cost, only that my insurance wouldn't cover it.
The notion that I would consider simply paying for something the
insurance didn't cover made no sense to her.
Blah,
Eric
P.S. Aesthetically, I would actually be much less offended by
fully socialized medicine - take the business out of it, and have
the state run everything - just stop trying to tell perfectly
reasonable businesses they can't follow simple and intelligible
business models.
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 11:26 AM, *Owen Densmore
<o...@backspaces.net>* wrote:
I don't buy the health care debate being quite so one sided.
Certainly there is self interest in the insurance world, but
there is equal opposing interest.
Businesses both large and small realize health care in other
countries is subsidizing their competition. Thus Detroit was
first in line to lobby for health care.
Doctors too are lobbying against the absurd
malpractice litigation which has become a barrier to practice.
There are a few steps that could be made that would get little
resistance from the corporate devils you paint. For example,
why not require people to pay for a reasonable insurance plan?
We are required to do so for car insurance. Our current
practice drives folks to use the emergency room for their
doctor at a huge and silly additional cost.
So: 1) Require universal health care insurance. But 2) Remove
preconditions. See the yin/yang? Insurance companies have
already said that pair would work for them, as have the
AMA/doctors. And yes, 3) Subsidize those who cannot afford
the base rate. And 4) limit malpractice litigation. It is
claimed that just these 4 steps would reduce the cost of
current health care and increase businesses competitiveness
significantly. And properly put in place the right market
counter forces to the evil corporations.
We ourselves need to change. How many of us spend as much on
medical care as we do our cars? In my calculations, cars and
their care still cost more. Compare auto leasing costs for
two cars for the standard family and insurance for same and
they're surprisingly close. Add upkeep of the car and they
are way ahead.
-- Owen
On Feb 14, 2010, at 9:04 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
Pamela,
I think the healthcare issue goes way beyond just the
usual corporate profit protection, pay for play political
game. Look at how polarized the nation has become over
just this issue alone. Look at how many people /don't/
believe that the healthcare issue is really about
healthcare insurance industry profit protection.
We truly are a nation of idiots. We deserve Rush
Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Pat Robertson.
Model that, if you like. The agents in the individual
based simulation won't need much sophistication.
--Doug
On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 8:00 AM, Pamela McCorduck
<pam...@well.com <#>> wrote:
When Kennedy envisioned going to the moon, no lobby
existed to fight ferociously for the sole right to
take the profits from going to the moon, and the sole
right to decide who gets to go.
If you read the not-very-deep subtext in this fight,
you will see that it's not about giving better
healthcare to Americans (which we desperately need)
but about protecting the enormous profits of the
healthcare insurance industry. It's dressed up in
"right to choose," and "privacy between doctor and
patient," and "keep the government out of medical
care," but it's really about profit protection. From
several different and reliable sources (one of them a
congressional candidate) I have heard that since early
last summer, the insurance and pharmaceuticals
industries have been spending over $1 million per day
on lobbying. It continues. You can do the arithmetic.
The media regularly reports on how much better,
cheaper, and more effective medical plans are all
around the developed world. It doesn't penetrate $1
million-plus per day.
On Feb 13, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Where does all this whining about health care
come from? Everyone in Germany has a health
insurance, it is obligatory. There is general
agreement here that the European (and esp.
the German) health care system is better
and more social than the one in the US.
The USA obviously needs a better health care
system. Where is the American optimism and
the "i believe we can do it" spirit? I've heard
that optimism and positive thinking is a typical
American attitude.
America is lacking a vision, something like
Kennedy's vision to bring a man to the moon
and back. Military and NASA won't do it
this time. A vision or a common dream which
would foster technological innovation. Schmidt
mentioned "renewable energy" and green
technology. What about a clean L.A. with
fresh air? A large scale scientific initiative
to create the first AI would be another one.
America would have the resources to do it, it
has the companies with the largest data centers.
It should be proud of Google, Microsoft,
Amazon, and Apple. It is difficult to understand
why it disputes about health care so long.
-J.
----- Original Message ----- From: Roger Critchlow
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2010 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Sources of Innovation
[...] We're too busy defending ourselves from
hedge fund vampires and health care ghouls to
worry about growth. Say what you will about the
undead, they steal their profits fair and square
and invest them in the rule of law.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
