Month: September 2009

Healthcare: The Supply Side

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Here’s a thought experiment. Suppose the year is 1902. Automobiles exist, but they are rare and expensive. The assembly line has not yet been invented, and car manufacturing, such as it is, is done entirely by craft methods.

Now imagine that our politicians decide that every American family, as a matter of national policy, should have its own automobile. (Let’s also stipulate that the trades involved in automobile-building–machining, welding, carpentry, etc–are tightly controlled by guilds.)

What would happen?

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“From time to time we get asked about the image SWJ and SWC uses in the upper left hand corner of all the main pages… “

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From time to time we get asked about the image SWJ and SWC uses in the upper left hand corner of all the main pages… The image is called Tracking Bin Laden and was painted by U.S. Army Center of Military History, Museum Division’s staff artist Sergeant First Class Elzie Ray Golden, US Army. – SWJ

I like the painting titled ‘The Hizara Province’ (at the link) – especially the use of color and the depiction of light. Some of the other paintings are, frankly, a little too intense for me (also, kind of disturbing) but that is the nature of the subject…..

Pride in You Tube Voices

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I’m tired of students who sit in my class for no better reason than that only “students” can remain on their parents’ insurance. I sympathize – I, too, want my children covered. But that’s a lousy reason to stay in school. I ran a small business and couldn’t cover my full-time employees – or at least cover them well. Hot Air links to a small businesswoman protesting. She argues for opened competition and tort reform. In a longer discussion on television, she explains she’d like catastrophic insurance. Portability, cross-state competition, tort reform, catastrophic insurance options – these appear real (direct, market-oriented, constitutional) solutions to real problems. Our system can be improved, but it seems to be righting itself – in the time since I sold my business, our local hmo has opened more options. Why shouldn’t they? We were potential customers.

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Step 1: Connect electrodes...

Under socialized medicine your doctor will have access to the latest diagnostic technology.

Bottled and Sold

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Regardingthe story about the AP publishing pictures of a dying American soldier in Afghanistan [h/t Instapundit] over the objections of his squad mates, the Army, the Secretary of Defense and the soldier’s family, let me just say this:

A noble man’s horrific last moments, the suffering of his squad mates and the grief of his family are not a product to be bottled and sold.

We should never forget that journalism is a paid profession and that journalists, editors and publishers act from a profit motive. Whatever noble motives they may claim, they still took and published those pictures to make money .

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