FRENCH HEALTH CARE, SOME SILLY STUFF, AND IRAN: #25

FRENCH HEALTH CARE

Even though United Health Care sits at the top of the charts when it comes to denying coverage, and even though those denials have most likely caused many avoidable deaths, those denials are no excuse for murder. It's easy to believe that a denial of service led to the murder recently of United Health Care's CEO because for-profit healthcare in this day and age is an abomination, plain and simple. The data on both the ridiculous costs and the poor outcomes of the American for-profit system are clear and compelling.

Around the world, the United States ranks 48th in life expectancy. France is 13th. Of the world's 38 high income countries, the US has the highest infant mortality rate and the highest maternal mortality rate, averaging about three times higher. That's a disgrace. And yet the US spends nearly twice as much per capita for healthcare than France.

So Americans are dumping profit into a healthcare system that provides lousy outcomes while single-payer systems clearly supply the best bang for the buck. That's not to say that there aren't problems with single-payer systems, though. And the problems take two primary forms, funding and regional disparities in the availability of services.

Funding a single-payer system, if the single payer is the government, means taxes. And we are in a world in which rich folks are spending a lot of money, time, and effort to convince poor folks that they - the rich folks - are being taxed too much. So, incrementally, countries like France with vibrant single-payer systems are falling farther and farther into debt. We just have to look across the Channel to see a country whose single-payer healthcare system is almost completely broken, a country in which Thatcher joined Reagan years ago in making government itself villainous. That populist proposition, in France at least, is joined by a leftist philosophy that rejects any cuts in government services of any type while not having the balls to push for the taxes necessary to completely pay for those services. The result in France is a system that's still working quite well but that is in debt, limping along, waiting for the debt shoe to drop.

Two things have to be said. First of all, I'm an American expat with  limited understanding of the long term history of the various political movements in France and a limited familiarity of the thinking of the folks in Paris that shape policy. I'm just sticking my two cents in and my two cents is worth exactly that, two cents. This is simply the way that the situation looks to me today. And secondly, I report that the French system has never failed us. We see specialists when we must, we have scheduled medical procedures when needed in a timely fashion, and throughout we have been treated with comity and respect. We just have the weird habit of being concerned about the future.

About those taxes. The French pay just under 10% of their salary, capital gains, and most other forms of income to the government as what are called their social charges. Employers contribute as well. Public pensions, like Social Security Retirement, are not taxable. In return, the system pays about 70% of all medical and drug bills. And costs are strictly controlled. Our GP charges the mandated 30€ for each of our several annual wellness visits, less than our copay with insurance in the USofA. We get all but about 2€ back from the public system and from our supplemental insurance for each visit. The supplemental insurance is purchased from a for-profit insurance company, costs us under 2000€ annually, and covers most of the costs that the government program does not. The full cost without any insurance at all for a routine surgery, like for cataracts, runs under 2000€. With our public and private insurances, I paid less than 100€ out of pocket for each eye. Cathey had two dental implants, for which coverage is not very comprehensive, and paid just over 1000€ total.

Over ten years ago, before I left the USofA, I paid $6,000 off the top of my paycheck annually to cover Cathey and was paid $6,000 less that I could have been to cover my employer's cost for insuring me. Do the math. $12,000 not counting out-of-pocket expenses, not an insignificant amount if you have a health problem that your insurance doesn't cover fully. In other words, your not being taxed anew. It's that the money you are paying for your health care is being put in a different pocket, a pocket that isn't worried about how much profit can be realized from your illness.

We're fortunate that we live in a rural region that's close to two small cities, Narbonne and Beziers, featuring not one or two but several hospitals and clinics. We have a wealth of choices. The farther into the hinterlands that you live, the fewer services that are readily available and the farther that you have to travel to get more specialized care. Services do tend to congregate in the cities. It makes sense that retirees often do, too.

That's all for now. Happy to take questions.

SILLINESS - IT'S BEEN AWHILE

There are times that I just can't help myself.

It takes a sloth one month to digest one leaf.

Chicle is a tree sap that is used in chewing gum. You guessed it. Chiclets. Not only can't the body break chicle down, but more recently, they have begun replacing chicle with stuff like synthetic polymers that the digestive tract can't handle either. Your Momma was smart when she told you not to swallow your gum. It's almost certainly gonna come out the other end, whether you realize it or not.

Moving to a different vital bodily function, breathing, did you know that trees produce less than half of Earth's oxygen? Phytoplankton is your friend. Don't plant a tree. Save the oceans.

Enough!

IRAN

If you haven't figured out that the war in the Middle East is Israel versus Iran, you haven't figured out the war in the Middle East. Because of Iran, the government of Lebanon has lost control of its southern half. Because of Iran, the Houthis destabilizing Yemen fire missiles at Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and shipping in the Gulf. And Iran and Putin are apparently the last remaining friends of Assad, that beacon of democracy in Syria, and Iran has just decided to skedaddle. EDIT And as I was writing this, Assad skedaddled too.

Many blame Israel for growing instability in the Middle East. And of course, Western meddling is a convenient bogeyman around the world for folks with grievances to air. But if there is one simple way to bring peace to the Middle East, that is to topple the mullahs in Iran and end that country's sponsorship of terrorism in the region. There was a time when the United States would have tried to do that through covert action by the CIA. It was wrong then and would be wrong now. But that doesn't mean that we should not encourage at every opportunity any movement in Iran that encourages Iranian women to live freely as equals with Iranian men and encourage those Iranian men to dance with their women friends and partners in the streets.

LONGYOU CAVES, WASHINGTON AND CHERRIES, CATALINA ISLAND AND MORE: #21

LONGYOU CAVES

Amazing recent archeological find in China. Follow the link above to a Wiki that's startling in its brevity given the scope of the mystery. Check out the YouTube videos. It's as if the pyramids were built underground, the Egyptians left no record of their having been built, and there was no above ground evidence of their very existence. Huge amounts of stone had to have been excavated to create underground spaces covering over 300,000 sq ft, but there's no evidence of where the debris went. None of the local structures utilize matching stone. And, at only 2,000 years old (if current dating is correct), the idea that the meticulous Chinese bureaucracy failed to mention their construction truly boggles the mind.

WASHINGTON AND THE EVIDENCE

An archeologist poking around in the dirt basement of Mount Vernon found a couple of bottles of cherries. Still moisture inside. Smelled like cherry blossoms. Experts confirm that the bottles are probably 250 years old. The folks that run the museum that is George Washington's home on the Potomac will tell you that the story of a young George chopping down a cherry tree is pure myth. They lie. I think that the two bottles buried in the basement tell us that George's father was preserving the evidence should George ever change his story. It's the sort of thing that my dad would have done.

CATALINA ISLAND 

A century ago, 18 mule deer were imported to Catalina Island off the SoCal coast. They began doing what deer do. They mated and they grazed. Now there are a couple of thousand mule deer on the island. And now, plant and flower species unique to Catalina Island, found nowhere else in the world, are threatened with extinction by this non-native, invasive species of deer with no natural predators.

The folks responsible for managing Channel Islands National Park want to remove the deer from the environment that they are devastating. After study, they have decided to shoot the deer from helicopters. It may not the way that I would do it. I would favor a controlled hunt. But it has to be done and the Park Service made a choice. I can't wait to hear what the local community of environmentalists has to say. In a somewhat similar case in my home state of New Jersey, it was so hard to convince folks that thinning a herd in a state park was necessary that deer died of starvation before hunters were allowed to come in and thin the herd. Compassion can have unintended consequences.

SPEAKING OF COMPASSION

A doe-eyed child stares into the camera. The caption solicits money for food for starving Gaza children. By itself, this meme proves two things. Charities have learned to use research to maximize donations. And compassion is driven by the popularity of the cause. 

Studies show that when you put forward a picture of one child in distress and ask people how much they would donate, they come up with a number based on their own resources and the depth of their empathy. Add a second child, and the number diminishes. Show a camp full of children and the empathic impulse can be overwhelmed, leading to a feeling of helplessness. So to maximize donations, one good picture of one hungry child. 

80,000 children have died of starvation during the Syrian civil war in the last decade. 80,000. Children. Have. Starved. To. Death. Thousands more have succumbed to diseases like diphtheria. Thousands more from violence. Who marches for them, for the 600,000 dead Syrians in total, for the 4,000,000 Syrian refugees? Who marches for the 300,000 civilian dead in the Yemeni civil war? I am not pretending that the plight of civilians in Gaza is not dire. But I have to wonder why, over the past decade, Arab on Arab violence towards children is given a pass while the effects of the October 7 declaration of war by Hamas has caused international condemnation of Israel's response.

I suppose that the answer, if it's not outright antisemitism, is that Israel is viewed as a European construct, so the violence is white-on-color violence. But 60% of Israelis trace their heritage not to Europe but to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. And the non-Jewish Arab population since 1948, when 150,000 Arabs remained in Israel, has grown to over 2,000,000 Arabs who live, work, and vote there today. Hardly apartheid.

In my opinion, the reason for the misguided demonstrations is the rise of solipsistic thinking, the belief that truth is personal rather than revealed through discourse. The demonstrators do not want to hear that, while Israelis build shelters to protect civilians from rockets and mortars, Hamas builds tunnels under civilian homes, hospitals and schools to protect themselves with human shields. Evil.

We can only hope that we are witnessing the death throes of Iran as its internal and external critics take action against its barbarity and the barbarity of those groups that Iran sponsors - Hamas and Hezbollah and ISIS and Al Qaeda and the Houthis. Just imagine living with those folks as your neighbors. Imagine the constant shellings and the suicide bombers. Now imagine what the real justice would be in holding the real evil accountable while Israel struggles alone against a Caliphate that will, if it manages erase Israel, come swords bared for Europe and the Americas next.

#`19 - RALLY AGAINST DEAL WITH IRAN, MUSLIM BARTENDER

RALLY AGAINST DEAL WITH IRAN
Trump, Cruz, and Palin held a rally today to denounce to Iran deal negotiated by the 5+1 countries.




MUSLIM BARTENDER
Given my Russian Jewish heritage, I am more than sympathetic to claims of religious persecution. To this day I bear scars on my knuckles, the result of schoolyard brawls in defense of my tribe.

Then there's the case of the airline stewardess who converted to Islam and refused to serve alcoholic beverages. The airline tried to accommodate her by requiring other stewardesses on her flights to serve booze for her. But then one of those stewardesses complained about the extra work and the Muslim was put on unpaid leave.

I feel a lawsuit coming on.

Next? Christian Scientist pharmacist who refuses to prescribe drugs? Amish DMV clerk who refuses to register motorized vehicles? Hindu deli worker who refuses to serve beef? Jewish health inspector who refuses to license restaurants that serve pork? The possibilities are endless...

#13 - ILLIAH AND ILLYA / CHAMBERLAIN, HITLER, AND IRAN

ILLIAH AND ILLYA
One lives with us and we're glad that she does. The other doesn't and we wouldn't mind if he did.

For the children in the audience, that's David McCallum. You know, Ducky on NCIS. Illya Kuryakin was the role he played in Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in the day when TV was steam-powered.

CHAMBERLAIN, HITLER, AND IRAN
History has not been kind to Neville Chamberlain. But that's beginning to change. Folks are beginning to realize that Chamberlain did exactly what needed to be done given the lay of the land at the time. Read and learn.

England came out of WWI dazed and confused. The war had been brutal beyond imagining. Those men and women who survived and came home were forever changed. The social structures upon which British society was based were crumbling. Britain was not prepared physically, emotionally, or materially to take the steps necessary to thwart Hitler's European ambitions. Under the circumstances, the best that Chamberlain could do was to stall, to give his country time to take a deep breath, see the situation clearly, and make preparations to face the coming storm. That's what Chamberlain did, a thankless task as demonstrated by the inaccurate judgement of history that he facilitated Hitler's conquests. Rather, what Chamberlain did was to give his country just enough time to prepare, to endure, and finally to retaliate and win.

Iran is a different issue entirely but people who mistakenly accept the discredited view of Chamberlain are equally mistaken about the prospective nuclear agreement.

What are America's options?

1. Do nothing? Keep the sanctions in place, even tighten them? So what? All that means is that Iran, if it really was working on The Bomb, gets to continue working on The Bomb. From the initial round of sanctions in the 70s to their expansion in the 90s to the 'crippling' sanctions imposed in 2006, Iran has continued its slow march toward nuclear capability. The simple fact is that any country sufficiently large with sufficient brain power and sufficient will can develop The Bomb. Blueprints are on the web. Do nothing? Bad idea.
2. Bomb Iran? Really? How well has the idea that bombing settles things in the Middle East worked out so far? Is Iraq stable? Is ISIS on the run? Heck, has Israel managed to pacify tiny little Gaza through military action? Do we really want Iran - and probably Israel as well - actively engaged in all-out warfare in the region instead of working through surrogates. They're making enough mischief as it is. Bomb Iran? Bad idea.
3. Engage and negotiate? Let's look at two countries in Asia with which the United States has been at war - North Korea and North Vietnam. We are technically still at war with North Korea though we've beaten them back behind barbed wire. China, their only real friend, hasn't exactly been happy with them lately. They are an international pariah, isolated and alone. And they developed The Bomb. North Vietnam, on the other hand, chased us out and thumbed their noses at us. But now, after what hardly counts as a decent interval, they are a cruise ship stop and a trading partner. Barbed wire and isolation versus engagement and negotiation? Which approach has the better outcome in modern times?