Archive for the ‘education,’ Category

Thomas sowell hits this whole health care thing on the head!

Thomas Sowell: Alice in health care
By: Thomas Sowell
Examiner Columnist
March 1, 2010

Most discussions of health care are like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

What is the biggest complaint about the current medical care situation? “It costs too much.” Yet one looks in vain for anything in the pending legislation that will lower those costs.

One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians’ answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government.

Back when the “single payer” was the patient, people were more selective in what they spent their own money on. You went to a doctor when you had a broken leg but not necessarily every time you had the sniffles or a skin rash. But, when someone else is paying, that is when medical care gets over-used — and bureaucratic rationing is then imposed, to replace self-rationing.

Money is just one of the costs of people seeking more medical care than they would if they were paying for it with their own money. Both waiting lines and waiting lists grow longer when people with sniffles and minor skin rashes take up the time of doctors, while people with cancer are waiting.

In country after country, the original estimates of government medical care costs almost always turn out to be gross under-estimates of what it ultimately turns out to cost.

Even when the estimates are done honestly, they are based on how much medical care people use when they are paying for it themselves. But having someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used.

Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.

One of the big costs that have actually forced some hospitals to close is the federal mandate that hospitals treat everyone who comes to an emergency room, whether they pay or not. But those who talk about “bringing down the cost of medical care” are not about to repeal that mandate. Often they want to add more mandates.

The most fundamental issue is not whether treating everyone who comes to an emergency room is a good policy or a bad policy in itself. If it is a good policy, then the federal government should pay for what it wants done, not force other institutions to pay for it. Then let the voters decide at the next election whether that is what they want their tax money spent for.

Confusion between costs and prices add to the Alice in Wonderland sense of unreality.

What is called lowering the costs is simply refusing to pay all the costs, by having the government set lower prices, whether for doctors’ fees, hospital reimbursements or other charges. Surely no one believes that there will be no repercussions from refusing to pay for what we want. Some doctors are already refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients because the government’s reimbursement levels are so low.

Similarly, if it costs a billion dollars to create one new pharmaceutical drug, then either we are going to pay the billion dollars or we are not going to keep on getting new pharmaceutical drugs produced. There is no free lunch.

Virtually everything that is proposed by those who are talking about bringing down the costs of medical care will in fact raise those costs. Mandates on insurance companies? Why are insurance companies not already doing those things that new mandates would require? Because those things raise costs by an amount that people are unwilling to pay to get those benefits.

If not, it would be a slam dunk for the insurance companies to add those benefits to the policies and raise the premiums to cover them. What politicians want to do is look good by imposing mandates, and then let the insurance companies look bad by raising the premiums to cover the additional costs.

It is a great political game, but it does nothing to lower medical costs.

Politicians who want a government monopoly on health insurance can easily get it, just by making it impossible for private insurance companies to charge enough to cover the costs mandated by politicians. The “public option” will then be the only option — which is to say, we will no longer have any real option.

Examiner Columnist Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and is nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Thomas-Sowell-Alice-in-health-care-85919882.html#ixzz0h3EhsuuZ

Since I have come to live in in the convalescent home  I have had to learn many new things.  Since my last stroke in 2005 I have much difficulty getting everything to move around on my body.  At first I couldn’t even speak clearly, but after much speach therapy I got  better.  I still have trouble , but I have gotten sorta used to the different feeling.  To See what this was like  just pretend sometime  that you can’t move around.  All of the things, you used to do  you now can’t do.
especialy going to the bathroom  The thought is very scary.  Basically that’s what happens when you have a stroke.  One of the things people don’t realize about a stroke is you have to change your thinking.  As you once moved around without giving it a thought  now requires a great deal of thought and attention to move certain parts of your body.

In fact you have to relearn completely new steps inside your mind to move around.  God  has given us a great machine called the brain.  Believe it or not, you can actually re-program  things that have been damaged.  As for myself, I have chosen to do this. This thinking requires a great deal of effort .  Typically we are not programmed to do this.  So, those who are helping you need to be patient and understanding with you.

I heartily recommend this attitude.  This challenge gives your mind something to focus on.  Mentally, you begin to realize that you can be in control again.  Now, granted the control is not what you are used to having but it is the beginning of a great life adventure.

from the September 09, 2009 edition – http://www.csmonitor.com/
Do you work in sales? Thank you.
No matter what the rest of us do all day, our paychecks and prosperity rely on the efforts of salespeople.
By Mark Lange

San Francisco

Had enough of the recession? Next time somebody pitches you something – whether or not you open your wallet – at least say thanks.

Because economic growth is a story we tell one another. Transactions are its dialogue. And the authors of both are the master storytellers: salespeople.

Before you tune out, consider this: Nothing happens until somebody sells someone something. And no matter what the rest of us do all day, our paychecks and prosperity rely on the efforts of salespeople.

At some level, of course, everyone sells. Authors and academics (if they hope to have impact), the yard guy across the street, the young woman shilling for Greenpeace in front of Target, even President Obama. None of us succeeds without applying the art of influence, in the best sense.

But front-line, all-day salespeople are the connective tissue between what we have and what we need. Their work demands a rare mix of audacity and humility, hope and realism. They take rejection and abuse that would crush the spirits of most. Yet they bounce back with the resilience of Tigger and the patience of Job.

While political campaigns come and go, salespeople practice the politics of hope every day. They live by faith – faith that someone, somewhere needs what they have.

Everyone else in an organization can grumble and grouse, play office politics, soak in a bath of righteous cynicism. Salespeople don’t have time for that. They only get paid when somebody outside the cubicle cocoon is moved to act and demonstrate one of the truest measures of trust – parting with their money.

The good ones, along with intellect, have impressive integrity. They focus on your interests, not theirs, because they know that if they’re clear about yours, their own will follow.

Rather than spray you with words, they ask you questions, and listen carefully to what you’re really saying. They bring your authentic interests into sharper focus.

They really don’t want to waste your time, because they make a living on theirs.