I’ve spent most of the last week and a half finding a new apartment. After meeting with half a dozen different real estate agents, and seeing more than a dozen apartments, the search was successful. But in the process, I was reminded at the horrible state of professionalism that you see in modern-day businesses. Here are some basic rules, all of which I think ought to be self-evident, and all of which I saw violated in the last week:
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May 122009
May 112009
I tend to be fairly skeptical of government based health care plans. But it looks like this country is headed in that direction. If we have to go that way, lets take advantage of it and use this change to its fullest potential. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to improve not just health coverage, but health care in this country. There are lots of ideas from the social sciences on ways to improve health care that are impossible to implement given the current culture and infrastructure of health care delivery. We can develop a health care coverage plan that encourages these methods of more efficient delivery, but only if we set it up correctly. Once a new policy is in place and becomes entrenched as the status quo, it will become politically difficult to make significant adjustments to improve it.
For this reason, I believe that adopting using a Medicare or Medicaid model for universal health care would be a monumental mistake. While it would change the way health care is paid for, it would not change the way health care is provided. We can do better. Below I outline an alternative to Medicare or Medicaid based plans, which I believe will both cost less, and lead to better health outcomes than the plans that congress seems to be currently considering. I am interested to hear what the leftfielders have to say about it.
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There is a really good article in the New York Times today on the problem of paid sick leave, specifically the fact that it often doesn’t exist. It reminds me of an episode of the TV show House in once saw. House is talking to a buddy about diseases spreading around the hospital. He reminds his friend that the hospital has a strict policy that you aren’t to come to work sick. Makes sense for a hospital. Then House gestured over to a cafeteria worker who very obviously had an upper-respiratory virus (cold or flu or something). His friend was exasperated that the worker came in, until House reminded him that the cafeteria workers make just over minimum wage when they work, and make absolutely nothing if they stay home sick. The employees can’t afford to stay home, so they come to work sick, thereby risking getting everyone else around them sick.
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