Sicko and health care: Guest post #1

Post by Larry Markham

Here are a few comments about the Canadian system, especially from experience with my mother:

1. When you're sick and need to be in the hospital, there is no wait. They take care of you and keep you as long as necessary. The quality of care is very good, just as good as the U.S. The cost is minimal, unless you choose to pay extra for a private room.
2. Poor people and rich people are treated the same.
3. There is a waiting list for elective stuff like hip transplants. Rich people can go to other countries if they want it done quickly.
4. I've heard that certain equipment (MRI?) is much less plentiful in Canada.
5. No paperwork. No insurance companies aguing about everything. This is a big cost saving, and a huge time saving for the consumer.
6. The doctors make less money, and some leave for the U.S. to make the big bucks.
7. Some people have a hard time finding a doctor who will take new patients.
8. Nobody goes bankrupt because of medical bills. This factor alone justifies using the Canadian system.
9. People retire early because they don't have to worry about medical costs. This is a huge difference. People in the U.S. are afraid to retire before 65 when Medicare kicks in.
10. The government decides when and where new hospitals are built.

Larry is an engineer with International Paper, and grew up in Ontario, Canada.

Earlier: Sicko: Is Michael Moore right?

Life imitates art

The Wire's War on the Drug War (TIME)

The writers of the critically acclaimed HBO show The Wire respond directly to one of the thorny questions their show inspires: What should we do about the drug war?

I guarantee their answer will surprise you.

Sicko: Is Michael Moore right?

Michael Moore's 2007 film Sicko about the American health care system took me a bit by surprise when I first watched it: I thought it was smart, well-made, and actually quite funny. But I still came away from the film with a fundamental question that many others have also posed: To what extent is Sicko "correct" in its judgment that the American health care system is inferior to systems found in countries such as Canada, France, and the United Kingdom? I'm sure that in any country, you can find both horror and success stories about the quality and accessibility of their health care, and Moore did indeed find many compelling examples of how the American system fails people in ways that other systems do not. But what is missing from the picture he paints?

Criticism of Sicko is not hard to find; here is one of the more thoughtful pieces I read, and here is a longer piece by MTV's Kurt Loder. But I tend to trust people I know much more than any random article on the Internet, which is why I am calling on those of you with experience with other health care systems to contact me with your comments:

e-mail: contact [at] kevinmarkham [dot] com

Or, just post your comments below.

These reactions will be featured in a series of guest posts on this blog. I look forward to your thoughts!

Searching for answers

The Most Depressing Day of the Year (TIME)
Dangers (xkcd)

Google is such a fun tool. Besides its pure search engine capabilities (helping you to find the web pages you're looking for), it has amassed an extraordinary amount of data that is right at your fingertips. One way to mine the data that Google has captured is to look at it as a "voting" mechanism: Use the number of search results for a given query as a proxy for a vote in favor of that idea.

Can't decide whether to spell "traveling" with one 'L' or two? Search for both variations, and see which one has more results in Google. Not sure whether author X or author Y is the true source of a quote? See which author has more search results linked to that quote. It's not the most rigorous scientific method, but it is quick and has the benefit of drawing from a vast data source.

The TIME article takes a look at this phenomenon, as does this fun comic from xkcd (my favorite webcomic).

The future of voting :(

One way not to conduct Internet voting (The Risks Digest)
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results of 2008 Election Early (The Onion)

As the Internet and technology become more and more ingrained into our daily lives, it's inevitable that there will be an increased demand for Internet voting as part of our elections. Certainly, Internet voting could deliver both cost savings (for the government) and convenience (for the voter); it would seem to be a technology worth exploring.

I was curious to hear that Democrats Abroad, the organization that represents Democrats living outside the U.S., was holding a "Global Primary" (which awards actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention) in which Internet voting was offered as an option. While the mainstream news focused on Obama's decisive win in the Global Primary, I focused my attention on the technology, and was not surprised to find that the "whole process was neither secure nor well run".

Voting technology in the U.S. continues to disappointment me, lagging leaps and bounds behind other high-tech industries that show evidence of constant innovation. Thankfully, the solutions are out there, and I am hopeful that all levels of government will develop the political will to ensure that our elections are both secure and accurate.

In the meantime, the "Onion News Network" delivered one of the funniest satires of our electoral process that I have ever seen.

One Nation, Under Canada, Above Mexico

Contest: A Six-Word Motto for the U.S.? (Freakonomics Blog)

Freakonomics author Stephen J. Dubner challenged his blog readers to come up with a six-word motto for the United States, and as of this posting, over 1,300 entries have been submitted in the comments section. I looked through a few hundred of the responses, and found them to be both highly entertaining and informative. I think they provide a great insight into how the U.S. is viewed from both inside and outside of the country, albeit largely from a cynical perspective.

Dubner's follow-up post, commenting about the contest and picking his "top five" entries, is also worth a read. (My pick is #3; you can find out who won here.)

The downfall of Romney?

What Is It About Mormonism? (New York Times Magazine)

I have always found it to be strange that even among my most open-minded peers, disdain for Mormons (or at least a wholesale rejection of their beliefs) is commonplace, and jokes about the Mormon faith and culture are accepted far more casually than they would be if the topic was race or gender. Given these personal experiences, I was surprised how well Mitt Romney did (at least for a while) on the Presidential campaign trail, and even more surprised how little attention was paid in the mainstream press to the challenges any Mormon candidate for President would face in this climate.

I was glad, then, to see this article in the New York Times Magazine, which helped me to better understand the history of the Mormon church (better known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and how views about church members have evolved in this country over the last two centuries.

Culture of an epidemic

Death March (New York Times)

South African journalist Jonny Steinberg, in a new book about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, wanted to find out why people in his country still aren't getting tested for HIV and/or obtaining treatment for AIDS, despite the presence of strong AIDS treatment programs in certain areas. His answers are a stark reminder of how much the practice of medicine is a function of culture as well as science.