Bill Gates On Health Care, Technology

The February 7 - February 13 2011 Bloomberg BusinessWeek had an interview of Bill Gates by Charlie Rose ("Charlie Rose talks to Bill Gates").

There are two excerpts, seen below, that I found especially interesting, although I don't necessarily agree with what Gates says.

Rose's questions are in bold.  For now I will simply post them and may comment upon them further in the future:

What do you conclude about U.S. spending on health care vs. the rest of the world?
We spend 17.8 percent of our GDP on health care. And the next highest is at 12 percent. You have some, like Britain, who are down at 9 percent. That is just mind-blowing. And our outcomes aren't better. The incentive system exists to have all sorts of ways of spending money on 70-year-olds and 80-year-olds—spend $100,000 on this, spend a half-million dollars on that. You're taking resources away from the young. Anything you can invent, we have no metric that would hold us back. So, innovation is inventing ways of taking resources away from the young, whether that's education or anything else.

Technology has been good to the U.S. Are we losing our momentum?
We'd have to keep making a lot of mistakes for several decades before we'd lose that edge. It's great that other countries are more innovative. When my child gets sick, I won't look at the pill and say, "Oh, my gosh, it's made in China." If they invent something that can save my child's life, I'll say, "Hallelujah." But the U.S. lead is very strong. Our universities, our funding of research, it's pretty amazing. Smart people still want to come to this country. Do we make it as easy for them as we ought to? I don't think so. But we have time to renew our excellence in how we educate, the excellence of our immigration system, in how we invest in young people.

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A Special Note concerning our economic situation is found here
SPX at 1343.01 as this post is written

Health Care Legislation - A Few Comments

I would like to make a few comments regarding the health care legislation. I've written a few posts mentioning health care; these can be found with the "healthcare" label.

First, as I've previously written, the health care system that we now have needed to be changed. It clearly has evolved into something that is unsustainable economically as well as clearly suboptimal in other areas.

However, I don't view the legislation voted upon last night as a good solution. Although some aspects of it appear, in a general sense, to be laudable - such as making health care attainable to a broader audience - from an "all things considered" basis I believe that it doesn't solve many underlying problems. Furthermore, it will likely create new problems.

We, as a nation, had the opportunity to fix a long-standing "mess" and, as the future will show, we've failed to enact an effective solution. This scenario, of having opportunities to address major problems, and subsequently failing to enact effective solutions, is recurring in an increasing fashion, unfortunately.

Second, one aspect of the health care legislation that seems to be lacking in recognition is that of how businesses will be impacted. The health care legislation adds uncertainty, complexity, regulation, and costs to businesses. These factors are very significant, especially in today's economic climate. One area that these factors impact is hiring. I've explained this in my blog post series "Why Aren't Companies Hiring" which started on July 24, 2009.


SPX at 1158.71 as this post is written

Singapore's Healthcare System

I ran across this piece, titled "What Singapore Can Teach the White House," in the Wall Street Journal from October 20. I found it very interesting, as it discussed the healthcare system for Singapore.

SPX at 1110.73 as this post is written

A Note On Healthcare Legislation

There is so much that can be said about our healthcare system and the reform efforts underway. My previous post on the topic is from August 19.

There is one special aspect of the current legislation that I would like to comment upon. This aspect is that no member of Congress or the President would participate in the proposed healthcare program.

I find this highly notable, and I am very disappointed by it.

It is a responsibility and obligation of leadership for them to be included in such a proposal. As well, their enrollment in the plan would signal confidence in the quality and benefits of the legislation.

If they have acted in a forthright and dignified fashion, and have fulfilled their fiduciary responsibilities as well as moral obligations in creating this legislation, they would ostensibly have no objection in including themselves in such a plan.



SPX at 1087.24 as this post is written

Healthcare - A Few Thoughts

As President Obama said during his July 22 Press Conference, healthcare is "a problem that Washington has failed to solve for decades."

I want to make a few random comments about healthcare. Any substantive discussion on my part would be exceedingly lengthy as this is a complex subject.

I do believe that there has to be major changes made, and quickly. There are many large problems with the healthcare system in a variety of areas.

However, I think that in order to make effective changes, there has to be a greater understanding of the problems inherent in the current system. As well, there should be an examination of some of the current assumptions being made.

Some questions I would ask are:

Should government be involved in healthcare? Why?

What are the underlying problems of the healthcare system?

Do we fully understand the problems of the healthcare system?

What would be the attributes of a perfect healthcare system?

Are there models analogous to the healthcare scenario that a person faces? What can we learn from them?

Also, I wanted to exhibit this recent op-ed from The Wall Street Journal. John Cochrane makes some interesting points that are worthy of contemplation:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203609204574316172512242220.html


SPX at 982.51 as this post is written