Hello there Austin, Chris, Davey, Frank and Brian.
We are on the mend from a virus or something nasty, and I have been thinking (and reading). First off, I believe all of us are in town except for Frank, so expect a phone call. My house? My whiskey stock has magically increased over Christmas and there is a shocking excess of tobacco.
Next, I read Wendell Berry’s latest, Bringing it to the Table. I’m sure several of you beat me to it, but I didn’t see anything on the site about it. If you haven’t read it, please do so soon. I am very interested to see how it strikes you. It sorted out some things for me. The great thing about Berry is that it is what he doesn’t say as much as what he does say that carries insight to the reader. I have to be careful here. I am still learning what questions to ask as I said in my last post, so ashamedly long ago. I could easily assume that I have a handle on it now, when in fact I don’t. But reading Berry and Economics as if People Mattered (thanks for that reference, Austin) is helping some things to fall into place in my mind.The thing is, this stuff cannot be left alone in good conscience. If one agrees with it it will be formative for his future (and his generation’s future), and disagreement can hardly be any less.
Also, I intend to actually read your posts, frequently too.
This helps frame the earlier post a lot better. 100% with this comment from Pastor Wilson from this post:
David, Christopher is right — I never “blanketly condemned” home births. I am against ideological home births, just as I am against ideological hospital births. We need to be careful not to demonize the method choices of others (as one commenter put it), but I can be critical of an ideological commitment that skews everything. That goes beyond method. For example, if some home birthers demonize the hospital, it can lead to odd commitments. “We are going to have our baby at home, but if anything goes seriously wrong, we have the Great Satan for backup.”
And remember also that my point in this thread has been one that many home birth practitioners have agreed with — don’t have the government pay for it.
Here is a video taken the day after Michael Jackson’s death, in Toronto’s Dundas Square. Completely spontaneous, just a bunch of folks dancing to his music. For the first few minutes, you can pick out people who clearly know the iconic Motown 25 performance, but if you get a feel for it and jump ahead to 2:30, you’ll see exactly why I occasionally miss big cities.
On a recent trip to DC, a friend and I ran into a vagrant that called himself the Black Rain Man. You could name any country in the world and he would rattle off a series of facts or a story in barely intelligible but beautifully rhythmic bumspeak. He entertained us for the while, constantly eliciting high fives and hugs from us. Never even asked for money.
The anonymity of the metropolis is a true tragedy, and I have felt the loneliness and isolation of New York City. Still, a vast sea of humanity like New York demands that some learn how to rise to the top, or even tread water. I’m often reminded of the talent, beauty, and sheer possibility of our fellow man in such places.
Sorry to disrupt the pleasant string of posts about freezer meals, Archie Bunker trivia, and Austin’s fear of gayness, but you all need to meet my midget.
Krugman has an interesting post refuting the commonly held belief that Canadians spill over the border into the US for health care, much like how the Niagara Falls spill from Ontario over into New York State.
In my current job, I’m often surprised by how often warring anecdotes are the cause of some sort of cooperative stagnation. People are inductively gathering data and forming opinions constantly, and over time these opinions become assumptions. This is problematic for many reasons, but notable among them is that fact that any of these assumptions can be challenged by a single anecdote. In any conversation where opposing anecdotes have been shared, the participants believe they have summarily refuted the other side, and antics ensue shortly thereafter.
I peddle data for a living, and while data itself can be misinterpreted or skewed or exaggerated, some sort of common ground like this is almost always necessary where conflicting viewpoints will be present. This opens the door for anecdotes to serve as interpretive tools for analyzing data, rather than the data itself.
For instance, F knows some folks who drive across the border to America for treatment because Canadian medicine apparently sucks. I, however, have been to the doctor once since I was 15, mostly because doctors and medicine cost money and I don’t really have much of that.
Canadians have high taxes, it’s true. I, on the other hand, will spend (before taxes) just over 16% of my salary on healthcare in the coming year. After income taxes (15% marginal for my bracket) and payroll taxes (my share is roughly 7.5%, depending on which economist you ask), we’re roughly in the neighborhood of 37% of my income, more than the average tax rates of Sweden, Italy, France, the U.K., and even Canada. However, that 16% for healthcare isn’t a constant percentage rate, because the costs of healthcare are fixed (roughly) and the percentage is a function of my salary. For the rich, the percentage cost is much lower. For the poor, the percentage cost is much higher. In our current progressive system, or even in a flat tax system, my healthcare cost would go down as a result of aggregate averaging.
I’ve taken care to average my taxes by computing marginal rates, and I’ve included healthcare benefits as well as payroll taxes paid by my employer. Of course there are complexities (Canada has stunningly high sales taxes, for instance), but they work both ways – one might argue that, given the current recession, labor supply is now inelastic and absorbing more of the payroll tax. All in all, even given a pretty steep margin of error, the point is the same: in America, the rich can afford healthcare easily. The poor have a much more difficult time, and could be better off in a socialist state.
So while some may say that people in Canada come to the US for healthcare, others say that 40 million Americans are already here and aren’t using it. The warring anecdotes – quality vs. quantity – flatline the conversation completely.
I haven’t been able to look at this report in detail yet, but I’m interested in data that may challenge the conventional wisdom. Frank, if you have time, I’d appreciate your input. If the methodology looks even reasonably solid, it may be an opportunity to interpret our anecdotes differently and rethink our assumptions.
Another fact to be considered is that the only currently known cure for Frankophilia resides in Canada. The healthcare therefore can’t be all that bad. Perhaps we can try importing.
Today I was shambling about Canon (before the morning Americano) and I looked at Frank’s office and wondered why he wasn’t in it because I forgot momentarily that he didn’t work here anymore. I thought that warranted this:
New thing to try! Flavor your cheap french press coffee with herbal tea. The brewing / steeping times are typically parallel, and it tastes great I’ve heard.
