Quick Roundup 454

The Long ...

Via The Rational Capitalist is a blog posting of collected tweets, annotated by page, by someone who read the bill for socialized medicine -- you know, the bill that is so important its supporters want to make it law without even reading it.

Here's a sample of one man's interpretation of part of what this law would mean:

PG 844-845 OMG! This Home Visitation Prog. includes Govt coming in2 ur house & telling u how 2 parent

Pg 838-840 Govt will design & implem. Home Visitation Prog 4 families w young kids & families expect kids.

PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by Govt for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes. No sh*t

PG 829-833 Govt will impose a fee on ALL private health ins. plans incl. self insured to pay for Trust Fund!

Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc req. 2 register. Govt takes over private payment sys.

PG 801 Sec 1751 The Govt will decide which Health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!

Pg 789-797 Govt will set, mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs brought 2 mrkt. Bye innovation [bold added]

And here's what someone charged with considering its merits and whether it ought to be the law of the land has to say.

I love these members, they get up and say, "Read the bill." What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?

That was John Conyers (D-MI), as quoted from the last link above.

If the above blog post is right about any one of the things it points out over just those fifty-odd pages, this bill should not become law.

Conyers has the right answer, but for the wrong reason. We don't need to read this entire bill to know what to do with it. It should have been rejected long ago.

... and the Short of Socialized Medicine

In the meantime, C. August tweaks a pretty good executive summary of what the above bill (and any variant) would achieve.

To meet budget targets, governments reduce payments to providers and to buy equipment. This reduces the supply of people willing to provide health care services (doctors, nurses, medical staff and support) and the supply of equipment (hospital beds, diagnostic tools, etc.). Meanwhile, the idea of "free" care leads to artificially high demand as people flock to the now understaffed, underequipped clinics. Shortages develop, and those who are sick or injured, suffer.

They find themselves with health care coverage, but without health care.

The italics are what he added. The whole thing clocks in at 82 words.

Tap Your Own Brilliance

I'm looking forward to participating in Jean Moroney's next teleclass, "Tap Your Own Brilliance," which has only 15 slots and is set to begin in just over a week. A while back, I had this to say about her free introductory class:

One thought I had after taking the Jump Start course was that, as one who uses many of David Allen's productivity techniques, this "gives a brain" to his approach, which certainly helps one implement goals, but not necessarily to set or clarify them.

The dust still hasn't quite settled from my move and I'm taking on a new project. My first impulse was to wait a little longer to take this, but based on what I learned from the Jump Start, I think that this is actually a good time for it. It does help, though, that you do not necessarily have to attend the teleconferences live to get all the material.

Gran Torino

Back in January, Harry Binswanger posted a favorable review of Gran Torino to HBL and I made a note to see it some time. Bouncing back and forth between Houston and Boston at the time, I never realized my hope of seeing it in a theater with Mrs. Van Horn. But we did rent it on Netflix and saw it a few days ago. I highly recommend it, and mostly agree with Scott Holleran's review of it (at the end of that post).

-- CAV