Hillary, Health Care, and the Morbidly Obese

As you may know, I’m in favor of universal health care, although it would need to be watched carefully to prevent inefficiency and abuse. If every American is guaranteed public schooling, it’s ridiculous not to offer health care as well.

I’ve always wondered, though – how do you stop abuse? I don’t want my tax dollars to go to pay for repeated bypass surgery for someone who refuses to even try to be healthy. Should everyone have to pay for the 400 pound man who smokes two packs a day and never gets off the couch?

I was talking to a friend of a friend of my fiancee, a guy who happens to be a Canadian citizen (Through a rather confusing set of circumstances). The conversation came up just as we were leaving, so it didn’t go as far as I might have liked, but he made the point that there will always be people like that, no matter what is being paid for, and we can’t choose yes or no on universal health care based on that.

It got me thinking. What about the kid in the public school system who cuts class when he can, and sleeps or misbehaves when he can’t? I don’t want to pay for his schooling, either. Or perhaps the couple who fight constantly – I don’t want to pay for the police to come break it up once a week. For any service the government provides, there will be people who abuse it.

So we have to figure out how to prevent abuse. We don’t want people rushing to the emergency room every time they sneeze in search of expensive prescription drugs. We don’t want people to abuse their bodies, knowing that corrective surgery will be available when they need it. We also need to protect the system from abuse by politicians. It would be a matter of minuntes after a universal health care system was put in place before someone tried to pass a law saying that the government would never pay for anything to do with birth control.

So, how can we make this work? I think a co-pay system might help. If people have to pay some amount, it would make them think twice about going to the doctor for something trivial. Of course, there’s virtually no way to keep a co-pay system from being like a regressive tax, and putting more burden on those with lower incomes.

A non-partisan council to determine what is necessary and what is elective might help, as well. Of course, I have no idea how such a council might be created.

So, Hillary, I’ll make you a deal. If you present a realistic and feasible plan for universal health care, I’ll vote for you, despite my misgivings. And I’ll even consent to paying for a bypass surger for the fat smoker on the couch. However, I reserve the right to throw rotten tomatoes at his house while he’s in the hospital.

Charles Stross blog

Charlie’s Diary: Genre neuroses 101

I don’t really care if you read the above-linked post, although it is interesting and amusing.  I found it via John Scalzi’s blog.  The important part of this post is that Stross is a cool author.  As is Scalzi.  I don’t remember how I first came across Stross’ novel Accelerando, which he had shared online.  I imagine I found it through BoingBoing.  But I read it, and enjoyed it, and kept reading his stuff.  I think Iron Sunrise is my favorite thus far.

I really should read more.  It makes me want to write, which is both good and bad.  It’s good because I like writing, but it’s bad because I can never seem to keep at it long enough to finish anything, so it’s frustrating.   Maybe I’ll get a chance to hit the library this weekend.

American Airlines thinks it can ignore me

I still have no response from them.  They didn’t even respond to the online form, although I told them another letter was coming, so maybe they figured they’d wait for that.  I’m not sure they realize who they’re dealing with.  Do they not know who I am?  They will taste the wrath of the Better Business Bureau before long, you wait and see.  They will rue the day they stole 16 hours of my bachelor party.

How does this help the American people?

Senate Rejects Estate, Minimum Wage Bill

The GOP strategy put Democrats in an uncomfortable position. Either they could vote against the bill – thus rejecting a minimum wage increase – or they could vote for it – thus agreeing to cut taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. Most rejected the bill, blocking a GOP victory months before the election.

Never mind that it’s disgraceful that the minimum wage is tied to the whims of politicians rather than some real measure of economic conditions.  That’s a post for another day.  I fail to see who benefits from tying together two unrelated bills.  This is (or should be) an abuse of the system.  If I have a bill that no one wants to vote for, then I tack it on to a bill that everyone wants to vote for, and therefore get my bill passed, that only serves me.  It does not serve the public.

When I vote for Congressmen and Senators, I don’t do it with the idea that my Congressmen and my Senators will fight for exactly what I want at the expense of everyone else.  I vote for them so that they can take some views I agree with into the larger discussions of what’s best for the country.

This particular case is pretty despicable, too.  Bill Frist desperately wants to repeal the estate taxes so that wealthy people can leave more to their wealthy children.  He can’t get enough votes to do it, so he (or someone else, I don’t know) attaches the bill to a raise in the minimum wage.  So, take a bill to help put more tax burden on lower income people, and tie it to a bill that people mistakenly thinks helps some of those same lower income people, and voila!  You have a bill that everyone likes.

Except what we really need is a simplified tax code that treats all income like income, and then makes some exceptions to promote things we want to promote, like saving and investing and charitable contributions.  Then we need to rethink the minimum wage laws.  Yes, I know I said this was for another day, but I’m on a roll.  First, determine what the minimum wage is supposed to do.  Is it supposed to guarantee that a couple on minimum wage can raise a family?  If that’s the case, it’s way too low.  Is it supposed to be a guideline for what to pay a sixteen-year-old kid on his first job?  Well, then it at least needs to incorporate cost of living adjustments.  Whatever it’s supposed to do, it’s broken now, and this bill isn’t going to fix it.

Kudos to GM

Being Greenish: Silverado, Sierra to be GM’s First Hybrid Trucks; Fall 2007 Launch – Jalopnik

I’m always quick to bash GM (Because they make shitty cars and embrace dead-end means for saving the planet like corn-based ethanol), but I will give credit where credit is due – GM will probably beat Toyota to market with the first hybrid pickup.  This is exactly what the American auto industry needs – to fire back against the attacks that Toyota and Nissan (And, to a lesser extend with the ridiculous Ridgeline, Honda) have been mounting against American dominance in the large truck market.

Americans like to buy big trucks.  For some, it’s a necessity.  And the Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan have finally given consumers a real alternative to Ford, GM, and Dodge.  So it’s nice to see GM fighting back, and in exactly the direction I like to see.  Sure, a V8 hybrid isn’t going to get 30 MPG.  But if it gets improved mileage, doesn’t lose a significant amount of power, and runs a lot cleaner, then I’m willing to pat GM on the back for this one.  Assuming this isn’t just a rumor.

A thought

I was listening to NPR this morning, and they were of course talking about the conflict (War?  Is it officially a war?  Does it matter?) over in Israel and Lebanon.  Now, I’m a little biased, since I have cousins in Israel.  But NPR explained how France, and many of the other countries who might be involved in a security force, don’t wish to go in and secure the area until there is a cease-fire and Hezbollah has been disarmed.  Now, set aside the fact that it seems silly to wait to send in a peace-keeping force until after there is some amount of peace.  How would you feel if you were Hezbollah?  This is a group fighting for power, and now the world is going to come in and pat them on the head and tell them, “If you want to be a real political power, you’re going to have to give us your guns and play by our rules”.  That’s insulting, and patronizing, and it’s the kind of attitude that makes people all over the world hate us.

I don’t know enough about the situation over there to offer a solution.  But I know enough about human nature to realize that disarming Hezbollah and not Israel is going to make a lot of people really mad.

Even now, no one wants to vote

Democrats Scrambling To Organize Voter Turnout

It seems to me that, in the current political climate of 36% approval ratings, if you can’t get Democratic voters to actually get out and vote, then the problem is not with your voter turnout schemes.  The problem is that you have offered no compelling reason to vote for you.  “I’m not a Republican” is not a compelling reason to vote for you.

Maybe if Democrats actually focused on the issues.  For example, I’d love to see a Democrat with a real plan to get us out of Iraq.  But we have to finish what we started, first.  We can’t just leave while the country is still in disarray.  And what about the environment?  Health care?  The economy?  You can’t just claim that the Republicans are ruining everything and leave it at that.

It’s frustrating.  If the Democrats can’t take back the House and Senate now, when Bush and his supporters are so unpopular, then the party should be disbanded.

This is not a surprise to me

Acura Integras Still Being Stolen – Jalopnik

Of course Integras are still being stolen while RSX’s aren’t.  One, the Integra was awesome while the RSX is just an Integra with a new name.  Two, the smart kids bought Integras to pimp out – a stock Integra blows the doors off a Civic with $10,000 of engine work.

My first car was a 1988 Integra RS.  I loved that car.  Then someone rear ended it, and Allstate determined it wasn’t worth the repairs.  So my sister and I took the insurance money and a little out of pocket cash and bought a 1989 Integra LS.  We had that until my brother drove it into the ground.  They were great cars.  My girlfriend in college bought a brand new 2000 Integra during our senior year.  That was a fun car to drive, but not quite as much fun as the ’89.

Anyway, it’s too bad they’re discontinuing the RSX.  Maybe if they brought back the Integra it would start selling again.

Its like rats from a sinking ship

CNN.com – UK, Arnie in global warming pact – Aug 1, 2006 First Nick Saban, now the Governator?  Ahnold has now bypassed the President and gone straight to Tony Blair to make an agreement on global warming.  Everyone wants to distance themselves from an unpopular President.

“We see that there is not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment,” Schwarzenegger said. “We know there is global warming, so we should stop it.”

Great.  Stop global warming.  I’m all in favor of being more environmentally friendly.  But this reeks of “Please re-elect me, California” rather than any sort of real step toward anything.

And no matter how much I dislike the President, we can’t let being publically rude to him become a tool to win voters.  It’s like focusing on his poor public speaking – it ignores the real problems (Like his desire to take away all of our civil rights) and focuses on something highly visible, but not that important.

Jayson Stark is smoking crack

ESPN.com – MLB – Stark: What should have been — Clemens to Red Sox

But there is also an obligation on the other side, the obligation any team has to a player of Roger Clemens’ stature.Obviously, everybody in Houston has a vision of how the Rocket Man deserves to close out his astonishing career. And obviously, this isn’t it.

For some reason, Jayson Stark thinks that, after Roger Clemens stated quite clearly that he was more important than all of baseball with his little “I’m going to sit at home and play when I feel like for who I feel like” stunt, the Astros should do what’s best for Clemens and trade him to a contender.

Is Clemens the greatest pitcher of the modern era?  You can make that argument.  Would a lot of people be happy to see him end his career with a win in Game Seven of the World Series?  Sure.  Would I be one of them?  No.  Is that because I’ve got a little sour grapes because he’s played for every AL East team but my Orioles?  No, of course not, that’s ridiculous, how could you even say that?

Where is it written that the Astros (Who are only 6 games out of the wild card, although they aren’t playing that well right now) should make their team worse to give Clemens a last shot at the postseason?  It’s not written anywhere.  Clemens came to Houston because he wanted to pitch at home.  They were okay with a big contract for half a season.  Fine, that’s their decision.  But now that Houston doesn’t look like a good bet for the playoffs, they’re supposed to roll over and die?  Do you think they’d get anything in return from Boston?  Some mediocre prospect, maybe, and they’d probably have to eat a big chunk of Clemens’ salary.

Anyway, I hope Clemens’ last start is a totally meaningless game in September.  Houston plays at Pittsburgh right before going to Atlanta to finish the regular season.  I hope Clemens starts one of those games and loses to some 22-year-old kid brought up when the rosters expanded.  Maybe that will remind him that even 343 wins doesn’t make you bigger than the game.