#1047 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday January 3)

Good morning,

A day of potpourri…serious and light…

JIMMY CARTER, RIP

We will be hearing a lot about the Carter presidency during this period of national mourning. While there is a lot to debate about choices that were made as president, there are few people who would doubt his basic humanity and decency. Here, he reminds us of what dehumanization of “the other” can do.

“In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us — often a child – is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.”

-- Jimmy Carter, Nobel Lecture (December 10, 2002)

PREVENTIVE CARE

In an earlier Musing I suggested a number of actions that could improve health outcomes. Educating the public on preventive care would make for a healthier population and reduce the cost of healthcare. While the benefits of healthier living are well-known, they are conveyed through inefficient public service announcements and listing ingredients on food labels. Yet billions of dollars are spent on “counterprogramming” of unhealthful alternatives that are loaded with sugar, saturated fats, and unhealthy additives.

In order to better inform the public, health advice and preventive care must be integral to individual healthcare visits and decisions. We should encourage regular preventive care visits to physicians. If we can create incentives, through some sort of credit for doctor visits (either a government payment of a reduction in insurance cost) people would receive one-on-one conversation with a physician speaking directly to them about their lifestyle choices and eating habits. Doctors would be able to dispense basic healthcare advice and offer specific advice tailored to the patient. Hearing these messages from one’s own doctor, rather than through news and product labeling, offers a higher chance the message will be heard, and sometimes a major problem can be averted by early intervention.

Dr. Rich Guess suggested that healthcare costs have risen both because of unhealthy behaviors but also money being spent on supplements and other things that don’t contribute much to healthy outcomes. Here are some of his thoughts:

“I spent 35 years in the ER. I was well paid and pretty much loved my job. Looking back, I’m not sure I always realized at the time how difficult it was. One reason I went into medicine was its independence. I soon learned there are a lot of bosses: patients (most are really good people), administrators, on call docs, committees, the Medical Board, attorneys (less of an issue than most would think), insurance companies, etc.

I dispensed a lot of preventative advice in those years. Most of it was pretty basic: don’t smoke, exercise, stop eating crap, take time to enjoy life to de stress, etc. How hard is it to wear a seat belt? The list goes on. Skip the 1/2 of 1% stuff. Focus on the basics.

It seems to me that most preventative medicine is done by the individual patient. They need the basic tools (what to eat, how to exercise, how not to eat 10 cookies after dinner, how to avoid refilling a soda cup three times at McDonald’s, etc,) but the industry never fails to see a bogus chance for a profit: grossly overpriced and usually unnecessary supplements, wildly overpriced sunscreens, unnecessary whole body scans, an MRI for every sprain. In my community it’s easier to find a “Med Spa” than a grocery store. No wonder we’re approaching 20% GDP on healthcare.”

IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE ONE THING OR ANOTHER

There seems a split of opinions regarding a single-payer healthcare system. Many companies have better medical outcomes through a single-payer system. Yet another reader pointed out that, while agreeing that the current healthcare insurance system doesn’t work, some procedures in the U.K. and Canada (where there is a single payer system) require months of delay. It is correct that some required procedures (not only elective procedures) have long wait times.

My response would be that, while there are problems experienced in some single payer systems, such as long delays in delivery of some procedures, this doesn’t suggest it can never work. Why can’t we have it both ways? We should have smart people tackling the problem of creating a system that addresses fixing our system, while avoiding the shortcomings apparent in other single payer systems.

Fundamentally, we are a country with bad eating habits, lack of exercise, and too many other unhealthy behaviors. The bad eating habits are furthered by a food-industrial complex that delivers unhealthy foods loaded with sugar and additives that are practically addictive.

LONG TERM HEALTHCARE

In an earlier Musing, I shared some insurance that simply isn’t worth the premium paid, like vision, dental, earthquake, and travel insurance. Russ Chittenden highlights another type of insurance that probably isn’t worth purchasing—long term healthcare:

“Another insurance conundrum is long term care. It's like dental or vision insurance because it doesn't really insure against an unexpected disaster but rather helps manage funds for something that is almost certain to occur, i.e., dental or vision expenses. Similarly, long term care insurance doesn't really insure for the costs of such care, it just contributes a set amount toward that care. In fact, long term care insurance may be even worse because, unlike dental or vision, the triggering event is less certain to occur. That's the worst of both worlds -- insurance against a liability that may not occur but, if it does, the full cost of the isn't even close to covered. A simple rule -- if the potential payout isn't big multiples of what you paid in, it's probably not worth it and it's probably not really even insurance. For long term care, self-insurance makes more sense if you have the wherewithal and discipline to do it.”

OUR PRESIDENT-ELECT’S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

In case you didn’t read it, here it is (this is NOT a joke):

“Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in "repair" money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about "anything." Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens' Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World. Likewise, to the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the U.S. to be there, and we will!...

Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME. They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing. Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky "souls" but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL! We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

SILLY QUOTATION OF THE DAY

“I only know 25 letters of the alphabet. I don’t know why.”

Have a great day,

Glenn