Michelle Malkin has posted a document, being published today in the Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published 'The Cartoons'. It's titled 'MANIFESTO: together facing the new totalitarianism'.

Signed by 12 intellectuals - most of them Muslim, including Rushdie and Irshad Manji. It's being published in Germany and France at the moment. It will obviously gain ground rapidly.

It's important; it's a manifesto for freedom, against the totalitarianism of Islamism. It says important things - it's not a 'clash of civilizations'; not West vs East; but a global struggle between democracy and theocrats (ie, totalitarianism).

It speaks for equality, freedom and secularism. And, against cultural relativism, eg. Canada's famed multiculturalism..which is not about equality of individuals but instead is about equality of cultures and traditions. That means that a culture that denigrates women is equal to that of a culture that frees them - that's multiculturalism.

And, an insistence on freedom of expressions, "so that a critical spirit may be exercised".

It's an important document.

The only way health care can progress is through change and the status quo benefits only those that are employed in the current system. They yell and scream supposedly on healthcares behalf but really it's there own "iron rice bowl" jobs they are concerned about. They are in fact the greediest dog-in-the-mangers and care not one whit about the system, just their own job security. They cry fire repeatedly to protect themselves and extract money from the system. As was mentioned it may very well take people out of the public system but what better way to point out a union riddled disaster that now passes as Canada’s health care.
If one anyone deserves more money and status it is the orderlies, bless them and the work they do.

Do you have a link ET?

ç

Sorry, found it here

Mullan vs The Mullah, sounds like it might have ben a winner!
Too bad President John Harker of Cape Breton University is chicken sh** on universityy's being the the place for open discussion on controversial issues in Cape Breton.
In Canada. I am not making this up.
Pity.

Western - You are absolutely right in saying the loudest yelling is from those who see some loss of job security or more importantly pay reduction?

It doesn't matter if we are discussing health care reforms, child care reforms, aboriginal reforms, gun registry reforms, or any or the multitude of other reforms being suggested by the Conservatives, the loudest yelling comes from those who have a vested interest in keeping the status quo, beauracrats, advocates, activists and all others who see their place at the trough threatened!!!

The MSM shows their bias by giving air time to those individuals who speak the loudest and not doing the research to determine the other side of the story. (Case in point - CTV story last night on the gun registry which left the impression that if Jim Roskos guns were registered, the Mayerthorpe shootings would not have happened.

The fact that he was not supposed to own guns and was still out on the farm not in jail was not mentioned. The inaccurate fact that the gun registry is consulted thousands of times a day (even though it is linked to general information) was given as evidence that this gun registry is a good thing. This was backed up by a biased "politico" chief who gave the standard political statement.

Sorry bad link, its here manifesto

The greatest impediment to decent healthcare in Canada is the entitlemnet demanded by the Public Sector Unions who run the monopoly system.

The unions have been making windfall profits for years - closed shop agreements so everyone who works has to join & pay, but without any organizing costs that a private sector union would have.

Terrible, windfall profits for unions, profiting off the health of Canadians. Morally irresponsible.

They could care less . . . but nothing a little free enterprise & competition won't fix.

Time to abandon "North Korean Style Healthcare" and design a "Common Sense Canadian Style" (C2S2) mixed mode system.

"Hockey Moms Just Call Him Stephen". Posted by "God Bless". +

The video clip is even better, which you can click on at the url provided at the bottom, or watch directly here: http://tinyurl.com/ryuly

Terrific to see a family guy, his son, and hockey like this. Almost puts a tear in your eye. God bless.

---------------------------------------------

Stephen Harper balances job, hockey dad duties
Updated Wed. Mar. 1 2006 8:09 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

One adjustment for hockey dad-turned-Prime Minister Stephen Harper is that Mounties now insist on driving him to the rink.

"Didn't used to get so much help," said Harper, who was sworn in as prime minister on Feb. 6. "Now we have a lot of people who want to carry the bags and sticks and open the door."

As prime minister, Harper now has a federal government to run. However, he says it helps to be the boss -- he can often adjust his schedule to fit in the games of his nine-year-old son Ben.

"It's important to me because it's important to him," Harper said.

And it also lets the one-time player live vicariously through his progeny.

"I can watch my son play and say, 'Gee, I wish I could play like that,' because I was not much of a hockey player and I wish I could have been," he said.

As Ben battles for the Sandy Hill Chargers, Harper tries hard to fit in as just another one of the hockey parents.

Asked what she calls him, Angela Rickman said: "Stephen ... Just plain Stephen." +
http://www.voy.com/178771/92.html

Thank you Texas Air National Guard ! I hope New Orleens puts a bit more thought ta who they are gonna vote for next time round.
GWB

Interesting US perspective on our system. It ignores the 3 basic flaws in the single tier argument:

1) Healthcare delivery is NOT a constitutional federal jurisdiction. The provinces (illegally) allowed the feds in as long as they held to their promise to provide 50% of cost burden, but now that some provinces receive less than 14% of their Health care costs from the feds, they have decided that when they stop paying the piper he plays his own tunes. Private supplemental care flourishes in federally defunded provinces and within a decade we will see large modern leading edge privately owned clinics and hospitals...all courtesy of Liberal deficit balancing by defunding of the public health plan.

2) The only people sniveling about the imminent demise of a rigid socialist one tier (free?) health system are those bureaucrats, administrators, unionists and sundry freeloaders living on the public teat who held the system ransom for their own perks and salaries....again, proving that socialists HATE to compete fairly and love to feather their nest in entitlement-based state owned monopolies rather than take the risks and rewards of competing skillfully and smartly and pursuing quality in a competitive private sector marketplace…this is part of the reason the public system failed…unionist extortion gluttonized the limited, decreasing capital injections that should have gone to technology and specialty medicine upgrades.

3) With the majority of doctors, nurses, specialists along with the majority of system users and private employers being pleased with the options and expanded services private supplemental health care provides....and the truly poor with basic health care covered by public health ( free)...just who, exactly, is continuing the political agitation opposed to this evolving multi tier system? Is it possible that the single "tier" system is a Trudeaupian socialist myth and only a political wedge issue? ANY federal/provincial health administrator and politician knows that the true socialist state health monopoly single tier system never existed in Canada (public health was heavily supplemented by private insurance funding through auto, accident, private health and drug plans and WCB for decades....this private funding created a mostly privately funded rehabilitation and specialty care industry) The reality is that the special interests caterwauling over the demise of some mythic single tier socialist system, is bogus and totally manipulative.

Fortunately the nation marches onward to private sector health and service options despite the hordes of parasitic evolution-retarding socialist monopolists...as always Canadians do what they have to do to survive and many times that means ignoring the asinine dictates and blathering of special interest socialist lobbies.

Here's my take on the Health Care issue. It's the same as with the teacher threaten to go on strike. The teachers in BC are, as of today, without a contract. If, (I wish. I wish.) the provincial government had any guts they'd. Right, you don't have a contract, teachers. We're taking applications for your job. It's non-union and the pay is lower. Care to apply?

One of the reasons the teachers push so hard for smaller class size is that there's a surplus of teachers. Now, do you're own figuring.

Hey Redux . . AMEN Bro :)

Well said.

The Macleans interview with Harper (get there via NealeNews) was very good. Well... the questions weren't but the answers were at least.

The fatal flaw in the manifesto:

"This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field."

Arms is the final policy, not passivity, when engaging an enemy whose goal is your extinction.

First priority: Here is Churchill on the "butcher and bolt" policy.

June 3rd 1940 The Commando Idea is Born

The completely defensive habit of mind, which has ruined the French, must not be allowed to ruin all our initiative. It is of the highest consequence to keep the largest numbers of German forces all along the coasts of the Countries that have been conquered, and we should immediately set to work to organise raiding forces on these coasts. Enterprises must be prepared with specially trained troops by the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror first of all on the “butcher and bolt” policy.
http://www.army.mod.uk/royalengineers/org/59sqn/

+

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism (ISLAM) (Must Read! by Danish NewsPaper)
Jyllands-Posten ^ | 3/1/06

Posted on 03/01/2006 7:21:41 AM PST by areafiftyone

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1587723/posts

while I agree with what is said about hospital unions there is another reason our healthcare system is in such trouble...... It covers so many more things than it did when it started. Heart, liver, lung, and kidney replacements cost a lot more money than lying in bed till you die. Premature births never extended into what is the fetus stage, giving rise to the true million dollar baby. Joint replacement didn't exist etc, etc........ We are at a stage where many, in their life time, will become six million dollar men/women. I am not saying this is good or bad, just that the health care system we all grew up to love does a lot more than it was ever expected to do...... It is like we expect to live forever and demand that the system repair us regardless of the cost. A case of being entitled to our entitlements? If it is our money we would ask is it worth it? When it is other people's money that question does not arise. We just ask how long the wait time is.

Mike, unfortunately in B.C. we have only varying degrees of left of center to choose from, as the Campbell government is made up of mainly Martinites. Why do you think B.C. Ferries was transformed into a , so called, private corporation. They've already gone hat in hand to the government for money to build new vessels beyond the Super C-class, so that contradicts their reason for making B.C. Ferries a non-crown corporation in the first place. The shareholders don't get to look at the books now and we have Earnscliffe with offices in Vancouver and Victoria, I guess they had to find new sources of revenue when it became apparent that they would be cut off from the federal trough. Carol Taylor conviently abandons the CBC to join the B.C. Liberals just as the LPoC Titanic was striking the iceberg. Christy Clark's stab at the NPA leadership in Vancouver was also just another blatant example of how the LPoC has been operating for years. The teachers without a contract will be played out to distract attention away from the real issue in B.C., the fact that the B.C. Liberals are running a deficit and increasing the debt, the spin being put on it sure smells of Earnscliffe to me.

I am a Canadian living in the USA. From what I have seen there are two major problems with the American system and I will outline them below:

l. People have three options to make health care avaliable to them.

(a) Privately funded insurance. This is fine until you get sick; once you recover, if there is a chance for remission, then it is difficult to find an insurance company that will insure you at any kind of a decent rate. Also, I talked with a 60 year old healthy single female (senior) recently who told me her premiums were $6,000 dollars a year. So as you get older the premiums get very expensive..and watch out... if you get sick you are in trouble.

(b) Publicly funded medicare: The premiums are affordable and the care is excellent. Here is the catch. Before you can be eligible for medicare you will have to expend all of your assets first, including your principle residence. In other words you have to sell everything you own to get on medicare. At least that is what the lady in (a) told me. So, let's suppose someone who is having major health problems had good private insurance; eventually the insurance company finds a way to back out of coverage. Then the sick person can go to medicare; but first all outstanding medical bills will have to be paid out of the sick person's personal assets. From what I understand, the house has to be sold to pay for that desperately needed surgery.

(c) Free clinics--I don't know much about them, but I expect that if someone owns any assets they are SOL with the clinics.

So, the two big problems are:

First: There are millions of Americans with NO coverage, mostly the working poor, who may have a few assets and cannot afford health care premiums from private insurance companies (a family of four pays probably around $350 to $400 a month). They don't want to sell all they own to get on the public system....so they have no coverage at all. I don't know whether they have access to free clinics.

Many seniors are losing all their property to go on medicaid once they lose their health. The only thing they can hope for is that they have kind relatives (children) who will take them in. I know many families where the children have purchaed property and built two houses, one for them, and one for their parents. This is not an uncommon site in the USA.

Hope this helps.

Ciao

Israel understands "butcher and bolt" policy.

Stand with Israel. +

Israel Kills Islamic Jihad Leader in Airstrike
Posted by stm
On 03/01/2006 7:51:21 AM PST · 11 replies · 241+ views

Fox News ^ | Wednesday, March 01, 2006 | AP
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Islamic Jihad's top military commander in Gaza was killed Wednesday in a car blast that rocked a busy street in Gaza City, knocking out electricity and wounding two other people. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1587754/posts

Reader tips?

Well I'd be happy to oblige. Take a perusal of the latest at liberalleadershipodds.

http://www.liberalleadershipodds.com/node/180

The civil war just opened a new front.

New Jersey: Higher Rates Insurance Rates for Blue Collar Workers

Geico insurance charges more to insure the automobiles of customers who have a lower occupational status or educational background.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger compared the rates of a 30-year-old single male from Newark and found if he were a lawyer with a master's degree he'd pay $1686 a year. If he were a high school educated janitor, he would pay $2880 -- 70 percent more.

New Jersey law allows insurance companies to determine rates by factors with a proven relationship to losses. The law prohibits charging based on certain factors such as race and ethnicity.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/09/987.asp
********************************

It's official: class matters

A study by academics at University College London (UCL) and Kings College London has given statistical backbone to the view that the overwhelming factor in how well children do is not what type of school they attend- but social class. It appears to show what has often been said but never proved: that the current league tables measure not the best, but the most middle-class schools; and that even the government's "value-added" tables fail to take account of the most crucial factor in educational outcomes - a pupil's address.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1719123,00.html

Ha! Almost fell for the "eco-news report" site. Polar bear passing out from heat exhaustion and a guy comforting it...hahaha!

The EPA to mandate reductions of emissions from volcanoes - ha! It would be funny if it wasn't almost true, government pencil heads coming up with a new law...

Yeah, what would a Greenie do about squirrels and mega solar plant? I got a better solution - why not just move the mega solar planet down the road?

Snicker. Money, what money?

cheers
tom

Right on Bruce! BC is a Cesspool of leftist politics. The Teachers are now legally sanctioned to engage in "political discussions" (campaign for the NDP) with parents during parent-teacher interviews. Campbell's Liberals, after abandoning any attempt of privatization post BC Rail / PPP Highways fiascos is now as Left-Liberal as the Feds were.

The essential difference between the NDP and BC Libs is that the later are more (outwardly) business friendly leftists, while the former are still locked into the class struggle of the Nineteen-thirties and a defacto instrument of the public sector monopoly unions.

The Prime Minister looked great and like a "normal guy" in the CTV piece, of course the Liberals are still expecting him to be able to do this

Keep it between the ditches, Kate!

6+inches of snow here this morning, just outside Edmonton. It took a while, but I managed to get the John Deere (snowblower) fired up!

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n030111A

After years of being on the governing side of the House of Commons, Liberal MPs made their way to a caucus meeting today in Ottawa.

Many, including former justice minister Irwin Cotler, gravitated toward the government caucus room, only to be directed by security to the Opposition's traditional meeting place.

Cotler appeared befuddled as he tugged on a locked door, before realizing that his colleagues were in a room across the hall.

Canada Taxpayers Federation 8th Annual Teddies Waste Awards
Taxpayers Honour Joe Volpe, Province of Manitoba, City of Richmond, and David Dingwall....
http://www.taxpayer.com/main/index.php

So much waste, the CTF is now awarding Teddies every month. They're looking for nominations:
http://www.taxpayer.com/main/news.php?type_id=1&news_id=2222

dddkinnear

In your second example you stated Medicare but I think you meant Medicaid (State funded assistance to people without means). Federal US Medicare kicks-in at age 65 (if you have worked and contributed for the equivalent of ten years) and basic insurance is provided irrespective of means.

While by no means inexpensive or utopian, the main difference between US and Canadian Healthcare is that even with no insurance, accessibility to treatment is more avialable in the US. For example, easy terms can be arranged for payments post treatment which work out to less than insurance premiums. While there are tragic exceptions, they are not unique to the US.

There are three salient facts about Canada's health care issues going forward.

1. Canada is spending more money, adjusted for inflation, in our history.

2. Canada's demographic is changing to be more and more senior .

3.The Chaoulli decision has forced the governments of the land to address our Charter rights to have timely access to health care and has ruled that in Quebec it is unconstitutional to outlaw private heath insurance. The SC has spoken and the government must act or face huge class action law suits.

Hoping the population will get younger and pouring more and more money into it won't solve the problems. Canadian's have to be willing to debate this openly, without emotion to tackle our problems. Not yell and scream, "American style health care, help, help."

So, we can bury our head in the sand and eventually go bankrupt chasing this dream or we can make some hard decisions. Like Redux said above a large part of the problem is the health care monopoly. The more we fight privatisation the more we loose our control over our own destiny.

Lets start with a single public payer with increased private delivery of simple procedures and diagnostics. Later we can move to competitive private insurance for these areas and maintain strong public insurance for the serious areas of health care like cancer and heart disease ect.

Health care in Canada has been reported to cost about $142 billion a year. That works out to about $400 per month for every man, woman & child in Canada.

And, don't we already have (NDP/Liberal-approved, publicly funded) private clinics in Canada? Except, of course, they are Abortion Clinics.

I have to commend the BC Premier for looking to European countries for ideas. Can't hurt.

Can't believe that anyone in their right mind would spend time paying attention to a weirdo like Mullan, although I applaud his defense of freedom of expression. Starting to look like this site really is frequented (and maybe run)by right-wing loonies and homophobes.

OT Harper giving it to the MSM right now

Healthcare... we all know there is a problem. Nowhere have I seen it stated that WE are a big part of the problem. We live the life we want, then when we break, we say "fix me". What if we ate healthy? I don't mean a half-hearted attempt at it, I mean healthy. Look at the Meditteranean. Their incidence of diseases and maladies are far lower than ours. When you look at the food there, and compare to ours, it's not a far stretch to see why we have a healthcare system in crisis. Diets rich in tomatoes, broccoli, and other veggies, fruits, grains, and reasonable portions of meat. Compare to our average table. Roast (or hamburger), spuds w/gravy, couple spoonfuls of carrots, peas or corn. How many times have you seen people in a buffet come back with plates heaping with fat-rich food, 16 oz steaks, mash w/gravy, and a few token peas? Until we take responsibility for our own health, the situation will only continue to get worse. Add to that the hypochondriacs who visit the doc for every little thing, imagined or real, and docs who milk the system by requiring patients to return each time they need a refill. I fear the only way to stop these last 2 things is to charge a small fee pervisit, say $5. Hypochondriacs will think twice, because it's suddenly "not free" to visit, and no patient will tolerate having to return for each refill.
Address these 3 things, and we will be well on the way to affordable healthcare whether public or public/private.And no, docs won't starve, as there will be more money to pay them. Fewer visits, same or more money, keeping them in a public system.

Just on the off chance that anyone is interested in intelligent commentary on global warming you may want to check out:

http://www.realclimate.org/

They're non political and they publish dissenting opinions.

The Unsolved Mystery of the Oklahoma City Bombing

If you're interested.... a woman on Al-Jezeera(sp?) tells it like it is, gives a cleric a sound thrashing. Gawd, I hope they find another couple million like her! With more like her, there is hope!

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19460_A_Clash_Between_the_Middle_Ages_and_the_21st_Century&only

Courtesy of Debris Trail at CJunk

Several years ago, when a relative had to go on a seizure medication, our druggist suggested that his doctor issue on prescription/year, with several refills. The druggist said every time we filled his meds he had to charge a dispensing fee, but refills were free. Cut his med bill down from 1200/yr to 300/yr. The doctor had never thought about it, and now writes all prescriptions that are ongoing, this way. This saves several trips to the dr/yr, unless for an emergency. This should be mandatory. There is no reason a heart patient must go every week for a check up. Too many doctors are milking the system for needless appointments. They walk thru a longterm care facility, say hello to all the residents and bill for a visit. I remember a client who showed me her AHC stmt (when we still got them) and it showed her dentist had billed for 3 root canals and listed the patients. One was herself, one for her 6yr old son and one for her 1yr old daughter. She was upset, but would not report him for fear the next time she needed a dentist she would be blackballed. Those in charge of sending pymts out to drs etc, know how much they bill/yr. But, it is not their job to flag exhorbitant billers so the cheating goes on. We need a Sheila Fraser to audit all the prov systems and punish all those that abuse the systems. Also, many procedures should be delisted and not paid for. 1st on my list is sex-change operations for prisoners (yes it has happened) then for all wanting them, abortion would be #2. Birth control pills are funded but some diabetic supplies are not.

Sonsof

What's a right-wing -loonie?
What's a homophobe?

How does this relate to anything said here?
Are you gay ?
Are you a left wing loonie?
Need that concern us?
Why post dehumanizing intollerant hurtful remarks to those you disagree with or perhaps do not understand ?

This argument that some sort of private health care will drain personel away from the public system is a nonsense. We already have the biggest private health care system in the world right next door and it has been draining thousands upon thousands of health care professionals away for decades. Talk about trying to lock the barn door after the horses have fled!

Perhaps, if we offered some alternative approaches at home these people would find less reason to leave. In other words, a more flexible system incorporating some private care options might actually result in a *reduced* exodus of health care workers and not as many sick Canadians would have to chase them to the US or other foreign jurisdictions.

Let's not forget North Korea and Cuba are the only other countries with as strictly controlled a public health system. That's not company we should be proud to keep.

regards,
k

While I think private care should be allowed for those who can afford it, I disagree with follow-up work born on the back of the public system... as I understand it, this is one of the fears in Alberta.

Additionally, I think what will be needed is a rigidly enforced critieria for ensuring that no less than equal time is born by the Doctor in the public system as well as private, to ensure no migration of doctors occurs to the private sector to the exclusion of the public.

In the end though, I'm deeply disappointed in the Alberta Government's lack of true effort in reforming the system. The truth of the matter is that there is no question there is room for improvement in the existing system, they just don't want to tackle the bear.

Automation would drastically improve the costing of Healthcare... I don't just think this, I've already proved it in other areas of provincial effort.

In Alberta, we have roughly 3.2 million people, and yet through the mysteries of the Bureaucratic halls in our Capital, we somehow have over 5 million healthcare numbers issued. That’s a hell of trick.

Now you and I, the people that actually have to figure out how to make sure the bills are paid every month, would look at that and say “we have a problem which, given an annual cost of $9 billion for Healthcare, we’d better solve”.

Gee, I don’t know, how could you solve this?

Maybe by making people re-apply for their cards, and maybe, just maybe, those cards could act as identification, with a magstripe on the back with your healthcare details encoded, which could then have a pin number on it, so that only you as a general rule were using it.

Just so you understand, a simple magstripe card, like your debit card, combined with a Pin number which can be changed at the descretion of the issuer on a real-time basis (Realtime is what Debit and Visa/Mastercard use to update and approve transactions, as opposed to a batch based system which only updates your file once every 24 hours), effectively eliminates 95% of all fraud that could occur... then you focus on the 5% that does occur.

This allows us to weed out all the deceased number holders, and all the Americans that have come here for free medicine.

It would also allow us to force our doctors and hospitals to track everything they do for you through the number on that card.

This is managed by a swipe system when your dispensing. An example would be a nurse, accessing additional supplies for your stay, like TP or syringes or what have you, same for drugs from the pharmacy.

This way, instead of massive projects to gather empirical information, audits that are impossible to complete because of misplaced or lost paperwork, or shoddy data-entry, you simply punch up the account, and voila, you know everything you need to know about a persons medical history.

If I as a researcher wanted to know how many people popped uppers in 2005, I could just query the database using the name of the drug as it relates to prescriptions issued as the search tool.

Or perhaps I want to see how many people were treated for a particular ailiment over a set number of years, what the success of the treatment was etc...You get the idea I'm sure.

This way we could be categorically sure the system wasn’t being abused with fraud through double billing or padding the pocket.

I might even be able to see a set of financial statements on Healthcare in Alberta, maybe even audited by independent agencies because of the simplicity of data collection and retrieval.

I don't just think this is possible, I know it is.

My company runs a program for the NSIFTE, which handles all the exemption claims for fuel purchases by Indians. Essentially, we track who is making the purchase, how much is bought, and verification of the purchaser is done at the Gas Station.

While we have no hard evidence, as the Government of Nova Scotia isn't terribly forthcoming with written data... (What Government is.) We have been told that the first year of our program saved them roughly 90% over what the program cost them handling manual claims the year prior. That equates to around 8 or 9 million. It cost them less than 10% of that to set up, and the system fully recovered its costs in under 3 months.

Now you may think this is rather simplistic in comparison to Healthcare, but it isn't. It's exactly the same thing, just more of it.

Any claims orientated process can be automated, and as soon as you take the human element out of the claims process, you begin to save money. The main reason being the fallibility of humans. Humans have independent thought, which automatically means trouble, while machines simply do what they are supposed to do.

By implementing the same formula in the Alberta Healthcare system, we estimate a savings in excess of 1.5 billion the first year. That is a lot of money.

The problem is how the Government thinks, or doesn't think as the case may be.

In-depth knowledge and skills are required on each aspect of the control and of the controlled substance in order to successfully design and implement a successful claims program without incurring huge costs as a result of "trail and error".

Since the 60s and 70s (the so-called information age), information collection has been in place for all governments, and large to medium sized organizations.

Having information gives an organization the basic mechanism, as a starting point, to gain control. Yet within the current complex infrastructure (the rules and policies) which are rife with explosively overloaded information, the control becomes an "illusion".

All the information gatherer has is information with no real means of validation to control the implications of the information they gather.

This basic flaw in gathering information makes it extremely costly to gain significant control, and further to enforce that control. Such policy implementation failures have been seen in many areas in virtually any place where there are rules and regulations in place.

A good example of this would be to look at thousands of years of criminal law enforcement, to the now infamous "gun registry" and the Federal Government Ad-scam Scandal.

Information is gathered, policy is created, but there is no methodology to support implementation, or to validate information to support efforts to enforce the original policy created. Control becomes a matter of social science in human behavioral psychology, which results in becoming a matter of prevention, not punishment.

The fundamental problem has always been the "human" factor to interpret, understand, carry, monitor, follow or otherwise report, and enforce such rules and regulations where the "human factor" may be involved, as well as within the "conflict of interest" components of the Claim program.

Crime is a good example. It is a known fact that where crime exists, 90% of the law breaking cases are not known, and less than 50% of those reported result in charges being laid. (Each as a result becomes extremely costly to enforce, in direct relation to the cost as opposed to expenses or lost revenue’s as a result of the unenforceable, or unreported crimes).

An obvious example would be speeding motorists… less than 1% of the occurrences that are caught, can easily consume more than a quarter of all the police resources to enforce speeding laws. This is a prime example of a crime that is committed, but which is difficult to enforce simply due to the shear volume of offenders.

If the police could catch everyone who speeds, the cost associated with trying to enforce the law and stop speeders would go down.

The irony of these types of examples is that economical, feasible methods and technologies do exist. These technologies have the ability to effectuate a level of control that can, for example, catch 90% of the speeders, utilizing only a fraction of the resources of a local police department.

This is no different in the "policy making" business of Indian tax exemption on Reserves. Beyond the primary human "interpretation" factors, there are human errors in many, if not most, of the industry applications that can and do result in potential loss through over-payment.

Based on the erroneous assumption that data means information and information means control, many policy makers and system designers pursue costly implementations that achieve not much more than populating a hard drive with information.

The gun control program is a very good example of this. The program was designed to serve the purpose of aiding in stopping the proliferation of guns. As well as the tracking of the whereabouts of registered guns, but to date has been not but a source of political optics, be they good optics or bad.

Clear understanding of control and controlled substances would result in effective design of the control program, and effective design and implementation would yield the sought after outcome.

Policies and laws must exist as a judgment tool, but by no means can one categorically state a particular law to be one of effective "control".

Information collected helps to understand what needs to be controlled, but still has no meaning in the sense of actual "control". Policing and punishment is the least effective way of gaining control, and nowadays becomes a matter of "risk management" over the cost of control.

So the formula of control should read: Policy + Enforcement = Control

The conventional formula has been:: Enforcement = Policing + Punishment
i.e. Policy + Policing + Punishment = Control

The "Effectiveness" (or limitation under the guise of “risk management”) would be the equation and balance between "Cost of Enforcement" verses "Cost of Loss of control ".

In which case the formula should read:
Enforcement = Prevention
i.e.
Policy x Enforcement = Control

It is part of our human nature and mindset that, "hiding and running" is easy, while "catching them all" is extremely hard. 10% of the exceptions are typically the cause of 90% of the problems, yet 90% of the resources must be spent to stop the 10% from growing to be 90%.

Nor does it mean the 10% causing issues can be completely eliminated, rather they are isolated.

When the interest or benefit becomes significant enough, it is a condition of human nature to take risks, break rules, and taking advantage of a situation. That is why we are human, and how we advance and evolve. On the other side of the coin, it is also a human condition to be obsessively minded to believe that we can control a situation and that we should “know everything”, which is a mathematical impossibility.

The most effective means of enforcement obviously is prevention. The effective prevention becomes the enforcement, and the enforcement is the control integrated directly from policy. Policymaking becomes part of the control and enforcement.

The implementation of prevention is not costly, nor hard to achieve. Rather "training" or "education" which still relies on human psychological stress (conscious fear of consequences) is expensive and unreliable.

In the advent of a technologically enabled society, it should be an effective automated machine preprogrammed with policy, which then enforces that policy.

In the following formula,

Benefit x Opportunity - enforcement = Exceptions

When the interest and benefit (like healthcare dollars) is significant, humans can not avoid the temptation to break the rules. If opportunity presents itself, regardless of how much brainwashing, or punishment is involved, there will always be someone who can see advantage.

Speeding is the result of greater “opportunity”, and drug trafficking is from greater benefit than consequence. The prevention efforts and technologies introduced are to reduce the “opportunity”, viewing this as the most effective and only method to reduce exceptions.

If consequence of infraction was sufficient enough a deterrent, no one would bother locking their doors at night, confident in the security of the consequences to anyone invading their homes. Obviously, this has not been the trend.

This is why deployment of technologies, when they can do a better job than humans, must be implemented. One must always remember that machines are stupid in nature, and they can only do what we tell them to do. A machine does not suffer from consciousness.

This can be likened to the concept of putting up a “stay off the grass” sign, knowing that the moment the sign goes up, someone will walk on the grass. Why not take the money spent on the sign, and the money spent attempting to maintain a trodden lawn, and put it into a hedge surrounding the lawn, effectively preventing anyone from walking on it to begin with, and saving the headache of repairing any damage.

This method of thinking creates a situation where there is no case of “catch me if you can” and “catch and release”. Simply “obey” because there is no option to “Disobey”.

Lets look at an Healthcare claims program… on top of automating electronic process’ to reduce labor intensive manual processing costs, the primary target is to effectively implement human independent devices and mechanisms. This provides the environment to avoid abuse and misuse, which would end up being more costly to control without effective security and control.

This requires zero tolerance for misunderstandings and errors at the design stage and throughout the implementation process, in addition to allowing room for flexibility for future expansions -- the so-called design to control the "unknown".

I have seen abuse and misuse rates as high as 15% to 30% in uncontrolled claims process'. With lack of control, the incidences can go as high as 200% or more.

The failure is not the policy itself, but rather the mechanisms to implement an effective and efficient system so the policy maker can obtain the control, and most importantly, the active enforcement with minimal cost.

I know the Government is trying to do this, but they just don’t know what they are doing, and the ministers are often not visionary, they are simply playing the risk-management game in the deluded hope of managing systems that are completely out of control.

When you have a Healthcare system that costs 9 billion dollars in a year, and is increasing by 10% annually, for a population of 3.2 million people, you've got larger issues at hand than just "waiting times".

cat curfews imposed amid bird flu scare

Israeli military says not involved in this kaboomer. Who did it to the rocketmaker? No missile parts found; just body parts? Notice the exculpatory word: "militant". The proper word is murdering "terrorist". +

Palestinian Work Accident Watch

Oops, Khaled. No virgins for you. Explosion Kills Islamic Jihad Figure.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Islamic Jihad’s top military commander in Gaza was killed Wednesday in a car blast that rocked a busy street in Gaza City, knocking out electricity and wounding two other people.

The Israeli military, which carries out pinpointed attacks against militants in the coastal strip, said it was not involved in the death of rocketmaker Khaled Dahdouh. And the Palestinian Interior Ministry said no missile parts were found in the incinerated car.

But Islamic Jihad accused Israel of killing Dahdouh in an airstrike and vowed revenge for his death. via LGF

I would rather see Alberta try a public payer/private provider system prior to introducing private medical insurance. This is simply because I can't see my first choice for health care feasible on a sole-provincial level.

I'd like to see a model whereby Health Care is funded by making the purchase of private health care insurance mandatory for Canadians. A legal requirement. Have a means test to see if the Province funds it.
Health Care Consumers can then buy the kind of coverage they need from any number of companies. Let the market place decide who manages health care dollars the best.

Before someone says U.S.-Style!!! take a deep breath. It's Switzerland and it's Consumer-Driven Health Care.
The main U.S. backer of this is the Harvard Business School and Prof. Regina Herzlinger.
A link to a story dated a few days ago is the lastest review of her work on this model. I first heard her speak on Rutherford (630 CHED Edmonton).
Here is the link for those interested.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/business/s_427691.html

It'd be great if such a system was put in place to be able to track the abuses and abusers. Coupled with "preventive maintenance", there is no reason why an affordable healthcare system can't be had for less money than we have now. There are many factors involved, but as William has stated tracking/controlling is key. Good post William!

From Frum: "Management experts"...blah, balh, blah.

Whom did she have in mind? AdScam Chretien/Martin? Trudeau? Toomy Douglas? Gagliano? Dinggumwall? BS?

Where do these people live? What have they learned?

Notice Prime Minister Harper's one-word answer: "Yes". He did not say: Dithers. +

Management experts say that when you go into a new job, you should wait 100 days to get the lay of the land before making big decisions. You came out of a gruelling and extra-long campaign and then, within two weeks, you had to make a boatload of decisions that will define your government for years to come. Did you have the time, to your satisfaction, to properly research and weigh those decisions?

Yes. Because surely what people have discovered about me by now is that I think a few steps ahead. +
http://www.voy.com/178771/242.html

The problem with our health system is the same one that afflicts all government, semi-government and quasi-government operations in all of Canada:

PUBLIC SERVICE UNIONS

Ah, B.C. land of hope and hemp. I see Marc Emery is crying because he most likely is going to get tried in the U.S., and there was a recent bust in Quebec, and it seems that they will be charged in Canada. Marc's arguement? "What happened tO Canadian Sovereignity?". Well, Marc, you broke the law, and personally I would rather you get tried in the U.S. because chances are you probably would go to jail, whereas in Canada you would probably get house arrest for 30 days so you could spend more time with your plants.
Re the impending teachers strike in B.C. -- I would love to see the lot of them fired, and re-hired as non-union workers, but I don't think that will happen. I do know that whenever Jinny Simm is on either radio, or TV, it gets turned off.

Blaming Unions for the issues in the Healthcare system is too simple...

Unions in Healthcare play an important role in many respects... Would you want to have surgery done on you by a Doctor who has been on their feet for 20 hours straight, or Medication provided by a Nurse who is nothing more than a glorified waitress.

Unions place a modicum of control on the usage of the human product within an environment, and are critical in many respects to the proper function of the Healthcare system.

Did you know that in most 2nd and 3rd world countries, it's not the Doctor that kills you... in fact, often the Doctor is much better qualified than the ones you get here at home... it's the Nursing staff that kill you. Under-educated, poorly paid, and overworked.

You can have a brillant Doctor operate on you, but if he uses 5 surgical towels, and the nurse only retrieves 4 because she doesn't know how to count... your fucked before you even get off the table.

There are abuses in Unions to, but nothing in comparison to the level of leakage in hard product, wasted product, and product that is foisted on the Hospital because of regulations based on the individual, and not the group as a whole. Not to mention the bureaucratic logistics of handling an ungainly, nightmarish system with mostly manual controls.

It takes so many people to administrate the Healthcare system, it almost bogles the mind. A couple of thousand computers, scanners, and bar-code printers, coupled with a damn big server, could easily do the jobs of several thousand humans, and you only pay for it once (plus maintenance and service, usually calculated at 10 to 15% of the upfront cost of implementation per annum)

Simply put, there's to many monkeys trying to do to much at the same time... it can't but help to consume enormous resources to handle such a miasma of information.

What the Healthcare system does with the supplies it consumes is not unlike a Jewish grocery store, everything has to be kosher, or in the case of the hospital, sterile.

Yet it behooves us to ask the question of whether or not it makes sense to pay 400% more for a roll of toilet paper than you'd spend at the local grocer because it's known to be sterile. How much of a difference is there really? Would using toilet paper bought at Costco significantly increase the number of deaths related to contamination in toilet paper? Or 1700% more for a roll of Saranwrap? Using a drycleaner as opposed to a standard industrial washer dryer in the basement of a hospital? Buying Mr. Clean for the floors as opposed to Medically approved Pinesol? What is the true cost of human life in relation to the successful use standard products vs medically approved equivelants... is it really necessary? Will it make an overall difference? Or are we just creating wealth at the expense of the healthcare dollar for the sake of an illusion of safety?

We do not have cash incentives for Doctors to use a certain pharmacuticals drugs in Canada, we have research grant incentives instead.

We have 20 year patent protection for new drugs, but we do no research in the developement of the drug, and what the reasonable expectation time for return on money is vs the length of time needed to recoup costs of a patent protected drug. Does Drug A really need 20 years protection before a generic can be developed, or are we being screwed over after say 6 years of patent protected production.

Is expensive drug A better than lower cost drug b, or are the research grants better?

These are questions and situations that continually evade scrutiny by our Governments, either because of incentive slipping through the backdoor, plain stupidity, or fear of job loss through efficiencies.

We have no choice but to look seriously at these issues, and we are just delaying the need to.

Take Bottled Water, half of the bottled water you buy today is straight out of a city tap... yet we pay $1.69 for something you get for like 5 cents at home.

It's no better, we just are to lazy to take note.

Re: Private healthcare

Why are we so concerned that the monied can't get the service they want. 90% live within an hour or so of the American border where they have all the private health care money can buy. Why do we need to take resources from our health care system to further enrich the rich??

I saw Keith Martin interviewed after the Liberal caucus meeting. He pretty much parrotted the party line on health care reforms. THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY LINE. He seems to be very supportive of the initiatives of the Alberta government and recognizes that the status quo isn't working. Why did he jump ship again?

If consequence of infraction was sufficient enough a deterrent, no one would bother locking their doors at night, confident in the security of the consequences to anyone invading their homes. Obviously, this has not been the trend.

It hasn't been tried. If it were legal to shoot intruders the moment they broke through the door, there would be few intruders.

Anyway, I'd sooner go to jail for shooting an intruder than have the criminal cause me harm. Reasonable force be damned.

I am sooooo sick to death of all these do-gooders that are against ANY innovation in our disfunctional "health care" system. I am now 35 weeks and waiting for double knee replacements . These so-called friends of medicare are no friend to the people who need the services! They are assured of speedy care because they are in the front lines of protest. I want to be able to access care in my province and if I can pay for it why should I not? Why should I have to go out of province or to another country when my support system is here?

Truthsayer, you have hit it right on and that is what my argument is . If I can pay for my knee replacements, why oh why can I not get it done in my home province, Alberta.?

This is good news for Canadians: the AdScam Chretien/Martin jailbird 'flu.

The wealth care system of the Librano$ is in emergency; the prognosis is not good. Do not say a prayer for them. +

Officials withheld info from Gomery, says new book.........should keep the media busy until Parliament resumes

"A new book on the sponsorship inquiry says high-ranking public servants and political staff in the Liberal government of Paul Martin withheld information and tried to hamper efforts by the Gomery inquiry to get to the bottom of the scandal." +
via bourque

They had this debate in England in the 70's. The Prime Minister Thatcher brought in two tier medicine promising it would not affect public health care. Guess what. Public health care became second rate.
This is not only not surprising it is entirely predictable. Those of us who fight privatization fight it because we are not stupid. We know exactly what will happen.
ELIZA if you cant wait for your operation then drive across the border and get it done.
If you get your wish and privitization becomes a reality know this, you will get yours done at the expense of someone less fortunate who will wait perhaps years to get your operation. Unless you think these highly qualified surgeons grow on trees.

Another useless tax-funded Statscan study:

Immigrants often don't remain here
Study seeks to understand why
About one-third of working-age immigrant men left Canada within 20 years of arriving from 1980 to 2000 -- 60% within a year, a Statistics Canada study says...

The 49-page study, based on more than 100,000 men's tax forms, immigration records and census reports, could not tally those who never filed tax forms....

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Canada/2006/03/02/1469428-sun.html

Steve d this
"Those of us who fight privatization fight it because we are not stupid"

is contradicted by your

"Why are we so concerned that the monied can't get the service they want."

A conflict of interest
Warren Kinsella, National Post
Published: Thursday, March 02, 2006

Between the swaths of preening vanity and ham-fisted prose contained in Inside Gomery -- a new book written about the famous Quebec jurist by his obliging press flak, Francois Perreault -- there are a handful of revealing details...

...Much of the book is like that, but that is not its most serious problem. Its most serious problem is that Inside Gomery represents a conflict of interest -- for three principal reasons:
- Gomery has permitted Perreault to pocket the proceeds of the French and English editions, even though his PR underling had already received approximately $250,000 in public monies in a contract awarded without competition.
- Gomery and Perreault advanced the book scheme while the Gomery Commission was still underway and receiving legal submissions.
- Gomery encouraged Perreault to write the book despite a confidentiality agreement signed by the latter....

Rich:

Gee, thoughtful response!

Are you gay....haha!

I wasn't talking about the rich fighting for privatization. No, for them it is another level of luxury at their fingertips. But at whose expense?? No, I was refering to the majority of those who follow the mantra "privatization will set you free". Most people who want it haven't thought it through. As if new medical workers will suddenly materialize out of the ether as if by magic. Please, don't insult my intelligence, we can't get enough doctors now and the baby boomers are going to increase the need over the next 20 years. So you want to privatize so that we can spread our finite resources even thinner so that you, the monied class, can jump the cue? No sir, if you want to jump the cue go across the border.

I wasn't talking about the rich fighting for privatization. No, for them it is another level of luxury at their fingertips. But at whose expense?? No, I was refering to the majority of those who follow the mantra "privatization will set you free". Most people who want it haven't thought it through. As if new medical workers will suddenly materialize out of the ether as if by magic. Please, don't insult my intelligence, we can't get enough doctors now and the baby boomers are going to increase the need over the next 20 years. So you want to privatize so that we can spread our finite resources even thinner so that you, the monied class, can jump the cue? No sir, if you want to jump the cue go across the border.