Healthcare costs in US no laughing matter

A bunch of years ago I was a trouble shooter for the computer systems provided by Burroughs Corporation. My expertise was health care at the time and my task was to determine why a flag ship system at a major western Canadian hospital was not doing what it was supposed to do. I won't go into details but, in the final analysis, the issue was training. Staff were not familiar with computers and some were afraid of them. We fixed the problem by providing better training and trainers.

The real point of this entry has to do with a meeting I attended in Charlotte, North Carolina. The meeting brought together about 50 US Burroughs Health Care reps and myself. I was the only Canadian doing any work in health care for Burroughs in Canada.

For five days I listened to US reps describe their latest commercial conquest. The sold major systems to major and minor institutions -- each of which made our Canadian flag ship system seem puny. They were installing mainframe computers to do insurance billings in 200 bed hospitals that were larger and more expensive than the one we installed in Canada to run a whole 1250 bed hospital. Why so much computer power?

The answer is there was more profit to be made in billing an insurance company than there was in delivering health care services. The US system generally is based on profit... not care. I don't care what the proponents of for-profit health care say -- I lived the nightmare.

Any honest health care administrator or former Burroughs sales guy could set the US debate over health care straight but they are scared. People are carrying guns to town hall meetings. This is not a good sign for Americans.

Did Harper find eight honourable people in Canada?

They are over 30 years old, they own property and they pay their taxes, so that qualifies them to be Canadian Senators. They are appointed to the $132,200 per year, plus perks and pensions, until the reach the age of 75.

But wait, Harper's new round of honest men and women Senators agreed that they will only serve eight years. Right?

However, Bill C-19, an Act to amend the Constitution of 1867 concerning Senate Tenure, did not pass third reading in 2008 before Harper called an election. Therefore there is nothing to compel the new crop to give up their cushy seats and there big salaries.

Guess we will have to wait eight years to find out how honourable the Honourables really are.

Improving on perfection

A little temporary sidestep from politics.

I was doing some research on McIntosh apples this morning.  They were developed by a Morrisburg (Ontario) area farmer in 1811.  They are considered a cultivar, a cultured plant that once establish retains its new characteristics.  There is even a organization with a regulation to designate and support cultivars.  The regulation is the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.

The McIntosh is described in Wikipedia as: "an apple cultivar with red and green skin, a tart flavor, and tender white flesh. It becomes ripe in late September. It is traditionally the most popular cultivar in New England and Eastern Canada, well known for the pink sauce unpeeled McIntoshes make. Many consider it a superior eating apple and well suited for applesauce, cider, and pies. It is extremely common to find this particular cultivar packed in children's lunches across North America owing to its small to medium size and longstanding reputation as a healthy snack." 

A McIntosh apple is nature's perfect snack.  Nothing could be better than a McIntosh.  There is no way to improve on a McIntosh apple!

You are wrong, apple-breath.  (with apologies to Johnny Carson)


In 2002, some guy named Richard Crooke of Ashfield, Connecticut, filed a patent in the USA for the:  "Miriela, a variety of MacIntosh [sic] apple tree which is characterized by a later fruit maturity date, harder texture, slower ripening/softening rate, lower flesh ethylene level, and strong resistance to pre-harvest drop."

Who says you can't improve on perfetion.

What comes around

A number of years ago a lawyer sat across a table from me and told me that there was nothing wrong with outsourcing lesser-skilled jobs to India. You will make more money, says he.  He also told me that the higher-skilled and higher paid jobs would be safe in Canada.  I jokingly asked him if his was one of the highly-skilled jobs. His answer was, "they could never outsource me."

Wrong.

According to the Globe & Mail, Canadian company Rio Tinto has outsourced its legal council to India. (chuckle, chuckle)

Hey, the Indians have the same common law structure as Canada so it makes sense.

Does that mean that we can or should outsource to Indian judges? After all Canadian judges are far too overworked and overpaid.

While we are at it, since India has the British Parliamentary system, maybe we can outsource Parliament. Now wouldn't that be juicy!

Saying goodbye to a giant

America was blessed with the presence of Teddy Kennedy. An advocate of human rights and a strong supporter of a universal health care system, he will be missed for his oratory and ideas.

To HST or no to HST

There was an interesting letter to the editor in the Citizen this morning. Some guy claims he is a small business owner in Ontario and he will not be collecting the HST next year. He claims the right of eminent domain -- the government shouldn't have the right to steal his money. What bunk!

If the guy was really a small business owner he would know that he already collects the equivalent to the HST and that the work to do that is higher than what the province is promoting.

As a small business owner his costs will go down because all the sales tax he pays to run the business will be treated as an Input Tax Credit and therefore will be deducted from the tax he collects. With the extra profit he makes with the new system he can reduce his prices.

But as a small business owner he already knows these things. So why is he being so dense?

You go. Chantal

In today's Toronto Star, amongst the rants and raves over a beer ad that called Torontonians cold, was an editorial by Chantal Hebert concerning the fact that most Ministers of Health across Canada have less time in their jobs than most servers at Tim Hortons.  At a time when pandemics are on the minds of Canadian, is it right that we are led by neophytes?

But Chantal stopped too soon in her analysis.

The reality is that there are junior everybodies all the way down the seniority food chain in almost all levels of government.  With senior people retiring, the young pups are brought in to replace them... and in many cases those new souls think they have more experience than the elders they are replacing.  But nothing could be further from the truth.

But let's look at the upper middle level of government -- the deputy ministers.  In our federal group, DMs seldom have experience in their assigned ministry. They most often surround themselves with Queen's or UofT MBAs with more hair than experience.

Government used to be a calling for Canadians.  It has over time turned into just another job where the term "pensionable time" is commonly mentioned.

The long reach of stupidity

So here I am in Saskatoon.  I am having breakfast at a local establishment quietly reading the morning news rag and what should my wondrous eyes behold?  A full length editorial comment on a 3 week old story that includes my old friend Lisa MacLeod, Ontario MPP extraordinaire.  An issue which I thought had been burned to a crisp in the media but continues to surface out here.

The issue was the ruling of the judge in the Larry O'Brien case.  The judgment included a synopsis of the evidence and questioning of MacLeod by Larry Edelson, the defense lawyer.  That "evidence and testimony" included such things as "it was a small part of a larger conversation" and "my dad was dying in Nova Scotia so I had other things on my mind."  All these are very good facts for the defense to bring forward.  Then the judge called MacLeod's testimony unreliable because she presented four stories on four different occasions.  Anyone who knows Ms MacLeod, would not be too surprised by that.

But Ms MacLeod did not like being called unreliable so she quipped to the Globe & Mail that she did not know that "truth knew a gender".  In other words she called the judge sexist.

Again, I thought that this issue was put down a few weeks back.  The reality is that anyone who read sexism into the judges remarks was either sexist themselves or did not read the judgment.  The truth of the matter is that McLeod is a self-promoter and decided to use gender as a weapon to raise her pitiful profile within the opposition benches.
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Harper does it again

So a reporter in Waterloo asks PM Harper about the issue of a Canadian being held as a criminal in Kenya at the request of the Canadian government.  His answer?

McGuinty has screwed up on e-Health Records

Good answer Steve.  NOT!

Flaherty to be hit by 2x4 (made in china)

I cannot even fathom the news out of China today.  It seems that FinMin Flaherty has decided to sell Canada to the Chinese in exchange for having a ScotiaBank branch across the street from Mao's tomb.

I have spent a great deal of time in China, I have done business in China and I have been screwed by Official China more times than I know what to do with.

If Flaherty imagines that Canadian banks are going to be welcome to operate as equals in China, I like some of what he is smoking.  The truth is that in a manged economy where ALL spending flows from a central point, being a prestigious Canadian bank, no matter how well run, will be a pimple on an elephants ass in China.  If your goal in life is to cash travelller's checks and operate an ATM, then China is for you.  If you want to get into the auto and home financing business in China -- good luck.

Canadians need to learn a whole lot more about the world outside of North America if they want to compete.

Lowell's Grin

Larry O'Brien is a colleague of mine.  I am pleased that charges against him were dismissed.  But the CFRA knives need to be put back into their sheaths.

Lowell Green. the mouth that spews, has begun his conspiracy chatter over the issue.  He wants an investigation to find out why the charges were even filed, by whom and to what end.  His level of gloat over the issue cannot be hidden.

If  Lowell Grin believes that everyone who  is found not-guilty is the victim of malicious prosecution then I wonder if how he would defend... say... OJ Simpson.  Simpson was acquitted.  What do you say Lowell?