When It Makes Sense, It Won't Fly in D.C.

A Web site called Business Insider offers up a thoughtful analysis called "Our Health Care Wish List."

Now, mind you, probably none of the changes suggested in the article will ever be implemented, let alone even seriously discussed in Congress or the White House, but there are some good ideas in the piece.

Let me focus on a couple:

One is to let pharmacists write prescriptions, as is done in Europe (in Mexico, you just walk up to the pharmacy and buy what you want, I hear). What a time- and cost-saving idea. When I had a sore throat last year and knew I needed antibiotics, I had to trudge to the doctor's anyway and let her ring up a $200 office visit. What a waste of time and money. In Europe, I could've gone to the pharmacy and just asked for amoxicillin.

The other proposal is to create mini-doctors, which the article defines as "someone with minimal training," to examine sore throats and infections and treat them at $20 a pop. (Why not just train the pharmacists to do these basic functions?) I've always felt that most doctors' visits could just as easily be handled by nurse practitioners, but as I reconsider the situation, creating a new category like a corpsman in the Navy would be perfect.

I guess I should mention one other proposal--get rid of insurance entirely for the routine stuff and just use insurance for the big-ticket items that require specialized procedures and/or hospital stays--catastrophic insurance, in other words.

Personally, I would have no problem paying for the routine stuff if I could get a catastrophic policy for the price of a small car a month, say a couple of c-bills or so. Of course, bringing down the cost of medicine would help immensely too, but already WalMart and Target have huge lists of drugs they'll sell you for $4 a month or $10 for 90 days. If you can stick to the list, it's cheaper than using your insurance and its co-pay.

But, as I said, none of this will matter once the politicians debate health care reform. Then it will be all about creating government bureaucracies and so-called initiatives. And no one will take on the American Medical Association, so look for high-cost, physician-based insurance to reign from cradle to grave (except for the politicians who will feed off the taxpayers' largesse for free).

When government reforms something, we all end up paying.

They Pay for the Honor to Work at McDonald's

To be honest, I'd never heard of this phenomenon before, so I thought I'd better share it. It seems that young Thai university students pay $3,000 and up to come to the U.S. and work in a fast-food joint for the honor of listing "foreign work experience" on their resumes.

Now, $3,000 in Thai current is a huge sum, but listen to Jiratchaya Intarakhumwong: "Honestly, if I had the money, I'd go back."

Back to what? Jiratchaya and two friends spent the summer cramped in a Best Value Inn, the cost of which wasn't included in the $3,000 work-travel package, and each morning donned McDonald's uniforms and took the shuttle bus to the Pittsburgh International Airport to begin their 6 a.m. minimum-wage shifts.

It paid off. Jiratchaya is now 22, a university graduate, and works as a service representative for the deluxe Sofitel Hotel in Bangkok.

The Thai language book Go Work, Go Study, Go Vacation in America: Don't Think You Can't is part how-to guide, part memoir about a Bangkok college student's stints at McDonald's and Whattaburger franchises in the Florida panhandle.

The author, known only as "Baeya," explains in detail the concept of a "drive-thru," her no-nonsense manager named "Diamond," and the persistent customers who tried to woo her.

"We were all very excited," she wrote of her first day at McDonald's. "I tried to tell myself and all my friends that we don't have to worry. Even if they scold us, we won't understand anyway."

Even former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra once worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the U.S.

Many of the young women report being hit on by farangs, the Thai term for white-skinned foreigners.

Welcome to America, the land of McDonald's--and horny McDonald's customers.

Nice Gig If You Can Get It

Here are (reportedly) the salaries of some of the top health care execs in the nation:

• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751

Now, the people who posted this used it as an argument in favor of single-payer (yup, socialized) health care. I fear that a lot of people in the country these days are using jealousy over other people's pay to advocate for socialization of everything.

Is Major League Baseball next? Obama can make Joe Biden "the czar of sports" to go along with his other meaningless (and unfulfillable) titles.

Personnel Concepts and Its 'Final Notice' Tactic

A firm that markets labor law posters out in California called Personnel Concepts has gained a lot of notoriety, not all of it positive, for its Final Notice campaign.

I've received these marketing pieces in the mail, and they do look a lot like an "official" government notice, which evidently freaks some people out. However, if you look through the letter, it's really just a reminder that you need to stay current with labor law and safety notification requirements. I actually think it's kind of clever--sure got me to open it, anyway.

If anybody has any thoughts on the "Final Notice," please use the comments section. I'd like to hear your experience.

Administration to Protect Those With No Ability

Congress is proposing, and Barack Obama is poised to sign, new legislation called the Americans With No Ability Act (AWNAA) to protect the millions who possess no discernible work skills.

Read all about AWNAA.

Map Shows If You've Been Screwed by Data Breach

Now, here's an innovative use of the interactive nature of Web sites these days.

On Jan. 20, 2009, Heartland Payment Systems (HPY), the sixth largest payment processor in the nation, revealed that its databases had been breached.

So far, 447 banks have stepped forward to admit that they use HPY (why the Y?), including Union Bank of California (UBOC) in San Francisco. The thing I want to know if UBOC is isolated to one branch in San Francisco, or to all its branches in the state. My guess is the latter, meaning I may be screwed.

Anyway, you can go to this U.S. map and click on your state to see if your bank account may have been compromised.

Analysis Correct, But What Aren't They Telling Us?

A group calling itself Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) has issued a press release revealing the failure of Hillarycare as it was resurrected in Massachusetts by former Governor Mitt Romney (who somehow has now seen the light of his transgressions from Republican orthodoxy).

Costs are up, services are hard to get, the state is going broke, and what was once free for the indigent now costs them money--that's the Massachusetts health care plan implemented in 2006.

So far, so good--these are the inevitable results of government interference in the free market. (Watch for higher costs and more rationing coming down the pike soon.)

However, PNHP then advocates the adoption of a single-payer national health care system "while maintaining the private delivery system." This plan is embodied in H.R. 676, the so-called United States National Health Care Act.

The group claims implementation of H.R. 676 would save Massachusetts alone "about $8 billion to $10 billion a year in reduced administrative costs," but it fails to say how except that it would eliminate (now, really?) the 31-percent administrative fees built into private insurance plans. Eliminate some admin costs, yes, but all, no, but PNHP never goes into detail.

Also, how does this differ from just putting everyone on Medicare? No clue in the press release.

What H.R. 676 really amounts to is a massive "fee-for-service" cash grab by the physicians of America who, once they got their hands on an "unlimited" federal money spigot, would open the valve as wide as possible with a) more patients and b) more services for every patient they see.

Unless they can provide better details than this crappy press release does, these physicians need to go back to the drawing board--and figure out how they can see more patients for the same, or less, than they do now.

Otherwise, it's just more greedy pigs lining up at the federal trough (see banks, the Big Three, the states, housing, unions, etc.).