Lazy Sunday, Sort Of

Sunday, June 1, 2008
Today I'm planning on making it a "Lazy Sunday."

We're going to breakfast at one of our favorite local places, Buffalo Boyd's. It's old and gritty, and they decorate with old beer signs. Lots of character, and fabu burritos. Much better than a chain restaurant.

We also have to stop at the post office to mail off my mother-in-law's batch of grape jelly, and I want to spend some time practicing my base, since I was able to have my lesson on Thursday, and my teacher corrected my form.

All reasonably fun stuff.

Unfortunately, however, my final paper for Law, Politics and Policy is due on Tuesday, and it's still not done.

The assignment is to write a position paper advocating for a specific policy position like you were a lobbyist. The topic I chose was single-payer health care. The twist is that you have to write the paper taking the opposite position you actually hold.

Yeah. Writing a position paper on why we should let the working poor go without medical insurance because it's simply too much of a burden to help them is offending my liberal sensibilities, and when I used actual statistics to prove my financial points, I threw up in my mouth a little.

Yes, yes, I realize it's a great intellectual exercise, and also encourages you to view a policy issue from both sides. The assignment has intrinsic value, and I don't disrespect the professor in any way for giving it. In fact, this professor has been more helpful than any DU professor I've had so far. But it's still icky, and I'll be glad when it's over.

The good news? My research led me to Health Care for All Colorado, a non-profit dedicated to instituting a single-payer health care system in Colorado. I'm seriously considering joining, as their plan was included in Colorado's Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care's Final Report, and while I think they could do better, at least they're doing something.

I'm off to peruse the Commission's report again, as I need to spend more time on the minority report. Wish me luck!

7 comments:

Random Michelle K said...

Apropos of nothing,

My database on my server seems to have fallen down and gone boom.

I'm feeling rather lethargic right now, but if it remains down for awhile, I'll put up a redirect and write from a non sql database page.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go read and nap and not necessarily in that order.

Nathan said...

Your post office is open on Sunday?

Janiece said...

I use the "Automated Postal Centers."

Yay, no postal robots!

Jeri said...

Do the automated postal centers allow you to check larger packages? Our drop boxes have big ol' signs limiting us to packages of 13 oz or less, or it has to be sent at the counter via a live human.

But then, we dont have APC androids yet. ;)

John the Scientist said...

Janiece - you should have dropped me a line. I can give you some really good reasons for not having single-payer without having the only other option be large chunks of uninsured.

Since when has the government managed anything well? There are at least 2 non-universal coverage options: a safety net for the uninsured (which I prefer) or a combination of public with supplemental private such as in the UK which has lots of issues, but is still doable. Single payer systems stifle innovation because, even more than here, people with accounting degrees rather than MDs are practicing the medicine.

Europe has all but destroyed its medical research infrastructure. In the 50s and 60s, they led the way in everything from drugs to medical devices to surgical techniques. Now, their output is a fraction of the US because the single-payers decide whether a new treatment with fewer side effects is worth paying for (who cares if the patients doesn't feel as bad taking this new chemo? Hair is overrated, anyway...)

Believe me, if you institute single-payer in CO, you will regret it in 5 years. If you think arguing with an HMO is fun, try arguiing with some minimum wage bureaucrat.

Janiece said...

Jeri, you can mail up to 16x12x10 at our post office. There's a chute you put them in.

John, thanks for the offer, but I found the info I needed pretty easily, since it's such a hot topic right now. The paper was a negative argument only, so I couldn't make suggestions on a better system - only against single-payer.

For myself, I think the Swiss model is currently the best option.

John the Scientist said...

Oh, I've got lots of arguments against single payer. It continues to amaze me that socialists think that private monopolies are bad., but government ones are good.