Mischievous Ramblings II

Simple Math on Canadians Coming to America for Health Care

It's a common refrain whenever the cheap, effective Canadian health care system is brought up: "what about all those Canadians who come to the US for health care?"

Here is the simple answer.  All numbers are from 2014.  Links go to the sources.

In 2014, according to the Fraser Institute, 52,513 Canadians got non-emergency health care in foreign countries.  Since there were about 35.5 million Canadians in 2014, that's about 0.15%.

In 2014, the Census Bureau reported that a sharp drop in uninsured Americans (caused by the first year of implementation of ObamaCare) meant there were 33 million uninsured Americans.  The Census Bureau also reports that the population of the US in 2014 was about 319 million, so the uninsured population was about 10%.

The Canadian health care system underserves about 1/7th of a percent.  The American system underserves slightly over 10% -- after the first year of Obamacare.  The number the year before would have been about 13%.

In a single number, the American health care system underserves 70 times as much of the population as the Canadian system.

This number is conservative, as it includes Canadians who get non-emergency health care in other countries because of convenience or scheduling, when they might have gotten it at home, and reserves American under service to those completely without insurance, not including anyone who can't afford a co-pay or deductible.

(Cross posted to Group News Blog)

Rogers Wireless Bait-and-Switch on Canada/US iPhone Data Plan

On 2010.02.04, Rogers Wireless announced new data plans for the iPhone.  Special data plans, because they eliminated data roaming charges in the US.

A wonderful thing if you cross the border regularly -- as I do.  So far as I know, these are the first cross-border data plans available, not only in Canada, but anywhere!

Can you imagine my delight?

We switched immediately, giving up the 6GB plan ($30/month) we'd signed up for when we got the iPhones on launch day -- knowing we'd never get them back at that price.  But frankly, Sara rarely uses even 200MB and I usually use about 500MB, so I signed her up at 500MB ($35) and me at 1GB ($40).  For $5 a month (and reduced data headroom that we don't seem to need), we got free data roaming in the US!

And it was sweet.  No more lobotomy at Lynden.  No more checking anxiously to see when the Rogers 3G came back on the way north (sometimes not until we're north of the border, actually).  Free data!  Data wants to be free!

Being a geek, I had to see what would happen if I tried tethering my MacBook Pro while I was in the US.  A good friend suggested it would not work because tethering had to be enabled at the cell tower level via provisioning.  I figured that, since I'd had to modify the phone (Rogers downloaded an additional/alternate firmware or carrier provisioning bundle when I asked them to turn tethering on), it should work.

At least it was worth a try.

But when I attempted it, I got this message:

 

 

OK, no big deal.  No tethering in the US -- that makes me just like any other poor iPhone user attached to the AT&T network (which, BTW, I agree sucks compared to Rogers -- data transfers are slower, tend to drop out more, and it generally doesn't achieve the level of "service" I'm used to getting).

Unfortunately, I got that very same message the next time I tried to tether while over town.  Dang.

I assumed (dangerous word) that Rogers had accidentally turned off my tethering while changing my data plan.  So I called support.

After three calls, I've discovered that it wasn't an accident.  On my first call, customer service told me that they couldn't enable tethering on my plan so I'd have to call technical support.  On my second call, tech support told me that tethering wasn't available on my plan and then out-waited me when I asked for a manager to explain the discrepancy between what they were telling me and the web site.  On my third call, customer support told me that I'd have to upgrade from the 1GB on Smartphones, Canada & US One Rate Data Plan for $40/month to the Mobile Internet Flex-Rate, Canada & US One Rate Data Plan at $60/month.

After some back and forth, she offered to "open a ticket" to find out why my plan doesn't offer tethering.  She said that I'd get a callback in 3-5 business days with either: a solution to adding tethering to my existing plan; or "other options".

I'm betting those "other options" are limited to "pay us $20 more a month".

Despite Rogers' web site claiming:

Tethering is the use of your phone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet from your computer. For a limited time, if you subscribe to a data plan which includes at least 1GB of data transmission, and if you have a compatible device, you may use tethering as part of the volume of data included in your plan at no additional charge. Tethering cannot be used with data plans of less than 1GB.

I can't tether.

Fall Convocation 2008: Simon Fraser University

(Photo: Simon Fraser University)

Last month, I received my MBA from Simon Fraser University. My family persuaded me to attend convocation, although my previous experience (BACS, UC Santa Cruz, 1983) had left me disinclined to attend

I am so very grateful that I was persuaded. After gowning, lining up, precessing, and waiting (since there were no doctorates to be awarded, we MBAs were the first of about 400 students to reach our seats), we were sitting and listening to what I expected would be the traditional boring platitudes about how wonderful we were, how fantastic our experience at school had been, and how we would now proceed to change the world, preferably through good capitalist means.

I had forgotten that I was in Canada.

Dr. Michael Stevenson, President of the university, gave a fantastic speech:

The movement over the last quarter century to lessen the size and cost of the state, and to liberate the market from bureaucratic regulation and inefficiency, has been characterized by many contradictory trends. For example, the promise of less government has been undercut by the continued growth if redirection of government spending; the promise of the free market has been undercut by “irrational exuberance” of poorly regulated capital markets; the assurance of better services has been undercut by the health and safety threats in deregulated water, power and food systems or the increased visibility of homelessness and drug addiction following the deinstitutionalization of mental health care. Domestic “wars” on drugs or crime are as ineffective in achieving their announced objectives as the international War on Terror. And claims to political superiority grounded in the defense of human rights and civil liberties are devalued by arbitrary arrest and the abrogation of legal rights in defense of “homeland security,” and by the more general pressure to liberate executive power from judicial restraint.

For reasons like these, the events of the last few weeks underline the limits of American and North American domination, whether economic, military or political. The world is a much different place than it was even a decade ago, when we celebrated the advent of a new millennium.

As new university graduates you know the world is a more complicated and dangerous place. You know that this is not only a question of the rapid restructuring of economic and political power in the global market and international order. It is also a question of the life of the planet itself…of fundamental changes in climate and ecosystems, the intensified risks of natural disaster and reduced biodiversity, and the hugely complex issues of adaptation to and mitigation of environmental change.

Despite the magnitude of these challenges, and despite the rhetorical drum-beat of electioneering calls for change, the political response is so far not encouraging. Governing and opposition parties still vie for the embrace of lower taxes, knowing apparently that most of us will favour a marginal increase in private consumption over any collective investment in public infrastructure or social services. Courageous leadership on climate issues is the exception rather than the rule, and it is met with opportunistic opposition to carbon taxes, unless they be levied on someone other than ourselves. Public investment in the arts as a means to building the creative economy and improving the quality of life is opposed as a sop to cultural elites and a subsidy to work that affronts the sensibilities of ordinary men and women, as great art tends to do when first produced. And public investments in education, which are so urgently required in order to rethink the fundamentals of our ways of life and to redefine long term strategies for social change, are increasingly targeted to the short-term demands of the existing labour market and to the shortest possible return on investment through the commercialization of research.

Serious discussion of these and other issues is muted by the forces governing our electoral politics. In the age of mass communications simple plurality, first-past-the-post, electoral systems force convergence on issues and differentiation on image. Trash advertising and spin, segmentally targeted to different “demographics,” manipulate political sentiment and undermine rational discussion.

This is a different place.

Snowboarding

As a long-married man, it's dangerous for me to say that I've been inspired by another woman, but since Ducky talked about her (almost) first snowboarding experience this weekend, I guess I need to talk about mine last weekend.

I agreed quite a while ago to go snowboarding with Kiernan, but it's taken at least a month to find a usable weekend day, which turned out to be last Saturday.  Kiernan has taken a few lessons before deciding he liked skiing better, but I haven't been interested in skiing since I was a kid, and boarding seems to have more fascination potential for me.

We started with a two-hour lesson from a young lady named Louise.  Kiernan did better than I did, of course.  Not only does he have some experience, he's a natural athlete.  While Louise showed me how to push myself along, use my edges, go down the hill forward and backward, Kiernan simply did it all.

As Ducky says, boarding is, well, boarding makes you sore :-)

When boarding down hill, you dig in with your uphill edge to slow down, and ease off digging in to go faster.  If you dig in with your downhill edge, you fall down.  Fast.  You slide from side to side by shifting weight from one side to the other.  In order to do all these things, you use your leg muscles.  A lot.  You bend your knees and and shift your weight back and forth (or side to side, depending upon how you look at it) to control direction and speed of travel, as well as to cushion vertical impact.  When getting up, you go from kneeling or sitting to standing using primarily (or exclusively) your calves and thighs.  It's hard work.  When pushing your uphill edge in, you use your calves and feet.  And I, at least, had to use a lot of leg strength to shift my weight enough to go left (right was easier for some reason).  Rest was essential -- and I got it by falling down whenever I needed it.

The night after spending 2 1/2 hours boarding for the first time, I woke up several times with severe thigh cramps (a first for me -- I've had calf and arch cramps, but never as high as the thigh).  I wanted to scream, but we had to get up early to get Sara to the airport, and I wanted her to have as much sleep as possible.  So I went downstairs to scream :-).  A week later, my legs still hurt, and I'm actually bruised on my right thigh.  Bruised from mere exercise.  Quite an experience.

Still, it was fun,and I certainly plan to try it again.

US Medical System Worst In 19 Industrialized Nations

Reuters reports on a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, authored by Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee, published in Health Affairs, a peer reviewed journal:

France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

Remembrance Day

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

In Flanders Fields

No Man's Land

Dulce et Decorum Est

For The Fallen

Please Wear a Poppy

I'm taking Kiernan, Devi, and Ethan (a friend of Kiernan's) to downtown Vancouver for the commemoration at the Cenotaph.

War is Evil. Sometimes it is a Necessary Evil, but it remains Evil.

But the Evil of War does not automatically contaminate those who fight for us. Some become Evil, temporarily or permanently. Many more simply die -- mostly horribly. Those who go deserve our support, love, and respect until they prove otherwise (like most people, only more so). Those who return deserve even more.

The generation that fought The Great War is almost gone. Australia lost their last combat veteran of 1918 this year (the last one who fought at Gallipoli died a couple of years ago). Eric Bogle's line "Someday no one will march there at all" from And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda will come true very soon.

And yet we create more and more Veterans with each passing war, each passing year. Some come home whole or even grown better. Some return diminished or confused or maimed.

Some don't come home at all.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Why Canada’s Health Care is Better

Surgery Without Insurance

75% discounts for pay-as-you-go. Do you realize what that means? Doctors think 75% of the money they get goes to handling insurance paperwork. I thought it was only 40%.

Basic health care is a right here. Yeah, taxes are high, but not that much higher. Cost of health care here is less than it is in the US (on a per-capita basis), and only about 2% of Canadians ever go to the US for treatment. Waiting times are apparently comperable.

Health problems without insurance (actually, even with insurance) are a stone bitch in the US. I remember.

For All of Us who will have to carry US Passports

Electromagnetic Field Shielding Fabrics

Raw material for shielded clothing.

“My Name is John…”

This apparent takeoff (5 MB) on the Molson "I Am Canadian" ads is awesome! Unfortunately it looks like his web site is gone.

(update: it appears that this may in fact be a takeoff on the Apple "Switch" ad campaign instead. Unfortunately, the web site is definitely off the web and there seems to be no cache or archive anywhere.)

Morning Grind

I did the Grouse Grind this morning for the first time.

Before Breakfast.

The Grind is a well known local conditioning hike (it has to be for conditioning, there's no view to speak of) that goes up Grouse Mountain roughly under the aerial tram that runs for sensible people.

In 2.9 klicks (not quite 2 miles), the Grind goes up 800 meters (about 2400 feet), which translates to up 1 foot for every 4 feet you go forward, which means it's like going up stairs for 3 kilometers. I can attest that there seem to be parts of the trail where the ratio more than 1 foot up for every 1 foot you go forward, which feels more like going up a ladder.

The world record on the Grind is something like 24 minutes. I took 116, which I'm told is pretty typical for a first time (2 hours), and it was the hardest physical thing I've done in years. There were only two people I saw on the trail who didn't pass me, and one of those would have if the trail had been 50 feet longer.

Music that helped: Riding with Private Malone by David Ball, Standing Outside The Fire from Garth Brooks, Break On Through from The Doors.

I want to do this again, but I'm gonna work out a whole lot more than the 12-16 miles a week I've been doing in the gym for the last few weeks to get ready for it.