The Mad Sailor

It is January first, two thousand and ten. I guess I should say something about the last decade. After all, everyone else has!

Last night on the local news the headlines of the decade were all bad. You know; 9/11, Iraq, Afganistan, George Bush, illegal government wiretaps, waterboarding and everybody who was anybody in the 20th century died last year. This morning the industry websites I visit were all bad news. Housing market, unemployment, stock market and major retailers folding. It’s kind of like that old HeeHaw song, Gloom despair and agony on me.

I should say something, but I’d like to say something good. But what?

Finally, I found it! It took a few days, but I found some good news about the first decade of this century. You see I’ve been concerned for some years that this country was going down hill. We lost our scientific lead. We lost our manufacturing lead and we lost our moral foundation. But now we have a new chance to reconnect with those American values. Internet TV is bringing back the movies of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Stars like John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Gregory Peck are shining again. I believe that this resurgence of early twentieth century ideals could help to revive the spirit that made America great. You know; Mom’s apple pie, truth, justice and the American way. And maybe with a little luck we can shed our feminine side.

So, it seems that Washington is heading down the road of mandatory insurance for healthcare. How will that work? How will you force the homeless to buy healthcare? What will you do if someone refuses,put them in jail, send them to Vietnam? What happens with pensions that include healthcare? Is that just lost? Is it turned into cash? And most important, how much money are the insurance companies pouring into this disaster.

Insurance in healthcare is a really bad idea. Let’s look at the history. We have insurance in healthcare because in WWII Washington froze wages, so industry offered healthcare in order to attract and keep employees. Healthcare costs got out-of-hand. So insurance companies stepped in to control the cost of healthcare. Since then we’ve lost house calls and doctors have been forced to spend less and less time per patient. Now a doctor cannot spend more than 8 minutes with you because that’s all the insurance will pay for. For the last 20 years insurance companies have been refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions. They won’t be able to do that in universal healthcare so ……guess what….. the premium will be going up …. and up. Employers have been offering less and less coverage because the cost keeps going up. And I hope you don’t think things will get better because the government is getting into the healthcare business. Yea right, when did that ever happen?

So what should we do? First outlaw healthcare insurance and malpractice lawsuits. Doctors make mistakes, but that should be handled by a much more efficient arbitration system. Then return doctors billing to a “pay what you can afford” system. It is historically cheaper for the patient and more lucrative for the providers. Insurance companies burn 30% of healthcare premiums as operations and profit. Malpractice insurance is so high in some fields that providers can no longer stay in business. Getting the insurance industry out of healthcare will cut healthcare costs in half, easily. The “pay what you can afford” system will reconnect providers and patients, a relationship that has been severely eroded by the healthcare insurance model.

But I’m just whistling in the wind. Nobody, but nobody will ever challenge the insurance industry. They are the 600 pound canary.

Sadly I must report that Boater’s World is going out of business. Some of you may know that Boater’s World was my former employer and many friends and coworkers will be hurt by this turn of events. It’s widely reported that Ritz Camera was forced to sell Boater’s World at auction to liquidators thru the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. All 129 stores in 27 states are to be closed, liquidated, by June 30th.

The only national chain left is Westmarine. Certainly the demise of Boater’s World will have a negative effect on the boating industry.