THE WAY OUT ROOM ... IS WAY OUT

"I hear that note, that one great note and I get the message, but in the corner, where do we hide ? Hide, hide hide hide."

Beatniks!



That’s Honey West in disguise, BTW [via Like Dreamsville]. Let’s get a closer look at those shades, shall we?



Insert "Bono" joke here.

Sunglasses at night,

This is dF

HEALTHCARE, HONG KONG STYLE

Some people have been asking me about the Hong Kong healthcare model. And seeing as how US Republicans love to point our way whenever they want to “prove” that flat taxes and laissez-faire capitalism works a treat and the US should copy it, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that we have socialized medicine, public housing and govt investment in infrastructure, I thought I’d oblige with a little info.

First of all, as you might expect, as a former UK colony, Hong Kong’s healthcare system is based more or less on the NHS (National Healthcare Satan) model. We have the Hospital Authority (HA), which runs the public hospitals off a budget that works out to something like 15% of the total govt budget. We also have about a dozen private hospitals.

It’s not single-payer as I understand the term (and I confess I don’t, really) – you either pay the doctor/hospital directly, or you hand them a medical insurance card and they submit the bill to the insurance company who then decides how much if any they’ll cover. Or you pay the bill and then submit it with a form to the insurance company for compensation (if any).

The good news is that the quality is overall pretty good (though certainly not perfect). The bad news is that we’re competing with Israel for the position of second-highest healthcare costs in the world after the US – which is problematic because while the private sector accounts for over half of primary-level care (which is pretty cheap), with the rest split between public doctors and Chinese medicine practitioners, the public sector handles over 90% of secondary care, which is way more expensive.

Ironically, the fact that we have the second-highest life expectancy is also creating a problem as the size of the elderly population grows. And for years the HA has been under a lot of strain with the budget it has – a fact that was made all too clear with the SARS crisis in 2003.

So the HK govt has been looking at reform issues as well, though as far as I know they still haven’t come up with a plan. It may just be a question of better money management and interactivity with the private sector (at the moment they’re completely separate in terms of records, referrals, etc). But it’s worth pointing out we’re financing most of this on a flat-tax system in a city of 7.2 million people. So higher taxes are also a possibility.

I can’t say how much of this applies to the US, but there is a similar theme here: rising costs and system inefficiencies. If yr going to do universal healthcare, you need to get the money from somewhere, and with costs as high as they are, you need the most efficient system possible to deal with it. That’s why Medicare is the elephant in the room in the US healthcare debate, and it’s why I feel that one genuine criticism I’ve heard of the Obama/Demo plan to date is that they haven’t yet worked out a concrete way to fund it 100% yet – and in a way that allows for the likelihood that initially it’s probably going to cost more than they think.

That’s not an argument against reform, of course. And the current system, frankly, isn’t going to get any better without at least the threat of govt intervention. Here on the LJ, bedsitter23 and dydan have good insider explanations as to why. But if the HK example is anything to go by, a govt plan by itself is no guarantee of healthcare costs going down, and it’s not an easy thing to keep in the black.

But then I know dick about healthcare, so don’t take it from me. I’d suggest reading this article to get a sense of what HK is up against, and this really long article from Paul Krugman and Robin Wells that breaks down the problems with the US healthcare system. If you can figure out what any of them are saying, let me know.

Okay, that’s all I got on healthcare. You may now go back to shaking yr fist at the television. I'll be back shortly with retro babe pictures or something.

Turn yr head and cough,

This is dF

THAT’S SOME HAD HAIR HAT, HARRY

Best hairdo EVER.

"The Dickies - Booby Trap" (Watch on YouTube)

It's from a Japanese TV show, (but of course), but no explanation or translation necessary, I think.

I swear to God if my hair was capable of that, I’d totally pwn that hairstyle.

Fear of a black hat,

This is dF