The Olympics and Paralympics have the ideas of worthy opponents and fair play front-of-mind for me just now.
Okay, remember the fallout from the royalty review and subsequent royalty regime change in 2008?
The Alberta PC's seemingly were not deemed worthy opponents by the petroleum producers. They like nothing more than fair play and that means having a worthy opponent.
The industry wants to buy access to Albertan's reserves of petroleum - oil and gas. In fact, it needs that access so it has some product to sell and a business case that attracts other people's money as investment.
Premier Ed and Co. came along and changed the royalties. The petroleum producers questioned the change and began bargaining by saying the royalties were unfair and would kill the industry in Alberta. Many began to move to other, friendlier jurisdictions. The Alberta PC's were quickly seen to be crumbling from within as many PC supporters and even some elected government members decided to abandon the party and the new royalty regime.
(Mind you, at least one leading Alberta-based producer with nearly all of its production inside Alberta's borders reported that its analysis showed the new royalty regime would have no impact on its business, either negative or positive. But I digress. Sorry for that. Back to the case at hand.)
Capitulation! Surely not!
But, it seemed so. Then the Wild Rose Alliance Party sprang up led by people with a reputation for being hard-nosed as business people need to be. Two elected capitulaters moved from the PC fold to the WRAP fold.
The industry seemed to ask, "Hey! Can these people form a worthy opponent?" They began to direct petro-dollars to their cause.
Now! perhaps the petroleum industry had found a group that could be nurtured to be a worthy opponent in the tradition of St. Peter Lougheed. (Not really an official Catholic saint, but a pretty heroic figure in Alberta nonetheless fighting PET as leader of the Evil Freezing-In-The-Dark East! Although, St. Peter did form a Crown petro-corporation in Alberta Energy that was meant to compete with the federal Petro-Canada and only incidentally compete with local and foreign owned producers, but that couldn't be helped.)
The growth of the Wild Rose Alliance seems to have stalled while there is no great return of support to the Alberta PC's. Now what?
What can the Liberals do to convince the petroleum industry that Liberals can be worthy opponents? The Liberals need to convince the petroleum industry that they, the Liberals, will be Tough! Tough! Tough! in acting as agent for the owners of the resources, the people of Alberta.
Tough policies are therefore in order.
How about "No Royalties!" ?
How about "No Lineups for Petroleum Employees Seeking Necessary Health Services where necessity is determined by petro-employee demand!"?
Or, should that ready access to health care be only, "No waiting for Petro-Investors and Executives!" while the employees have to get in line with their Alberta neighbours?
How tough can Liberals be! Come-on folks! Think Tough!
This is the Liberals' best opportunity since the battle of Alberta Mayors - Ralph and Laurence!
Mike
Friday, March 12, 2010
Alberta's PC's changed the royalties
So, Premier Ed & Co. changed the royalties to what they were in the pre-Ed era.
Interesting item in the Calgary Herald today addressed the issue by informing us that as many as 8,000 new jobs could be created by doing so, while foregoing some $380M in royalties.
8,000 jobs is a lot of jobs and therefore a good goal.
I wonder how many jobs would be created in Alberta if its fiscal regime was made even more competitive. What if royalties were foregone altogether? How many jobs would be created if there were no royalties?
How many jobs would be created if the petroleum industry was actually paid say $10 per barrel of oil equivalent as a negative royalty to exploit those reserves?
What if petroleum producer employees paid no provincial income tax, how many jobs then?
Corollary to that, how much of other people's money could the current owners of production companies attract to both sell off some or all of their current ownership and to finance the expansion of the industry?
How much would the federal government's equalization payment liability to Alberta be then? The province would then be a have-not-province and surely be eligible for substantial equalization payments.
Just wondering.
Mike
Interesting item in the Calgary Herald today addressed the issue by informing us that as many as 8,000 new jobs could be created by doing so, while foregoing some $380M in royalties.
8,000 jobs is a lot of jobs and therefore a good goal.
I wonder how many jobs would be created in Alberta if its fiscal regime was made even more competitive. What if royalties were foregone altogether? How many jobs would be created if there were no royalties?
How many jobs would be created if the petroleum industry was actually paid say $10 per barrel of oil equivalent as a negative royalty to exploit those reserves?
What if petroleum producer employees paid no provincial income tax, how many jobs then?
Corollary to that, how much of other people's money could the current owners of production companies attract to both sell off some or all of their current ownership and to finance the expansion of the industry?
How much would the federal government's equalization payment liability to Alberta be then? The province would then be a have-not-province and surely be eligible for substantial equalization payments.
Just wondering.
Mike
What if your neighbour is a Democrat!
I am wondering what it must be like to be a Tea Partier in the USA, living next door to a Democrat, especially if that Democrat is a fervent supporter of Obama's health care reform.
Must be kind of scary to know that your neighbour is probably lining you up for review by the death panels of government-run socialized medicine. I mean, here you are going to the same church, kids going to the same schools, playing in the same bowling league, sharing garden and handi-man tools, sharing a good fence and that Democrat is lining you up for extermination by the health reform death panels!
Gives one pause, doesn't it?
Does all that sound patently absurd? That's because it is. These are your trusted neighbours for goodness' sake! There's no way these people with whom you have shared the trust of looking after each other's kids can be part of such a policy, yet the Tea Partiers are saying this is part of the hidden agenda of public health care supported by those same neighbours!
All I'm asking people to do is think about this. Many of these conspiracy theorists sound just plain crazy and few crazier than the Tea-Partiers. And, I think this is exactly one of the reasons why we must respect others' opinions for public policy instead of slagging them with out of this world conspiracy theories. Without that mutual respect, society collapses into chaotic anarchy. The last millennia of human development will be for naught.
Mike
Must be kind of scary to know that your neighbour is probably lining you up for review by the death panels of government-run socialized medicine. I mean, here you are going to the same church, kids going to the same schools, playing in the same bowling league, sharing garden and handi-man tools, sharing a good fence and that Democrat is lining you up for extermination by the health reform death panels!
Gives one pause, doesn't it?
Does all that sound patently absurd? That's because it is. These are your trusted neighbours for goodness' sake! There's no way these people with whom you have shared the trust of looking after each other's kids can be part of such a policy, yet the Tea Partiers are saying this is part of the hidden agenda of public health care supported by those same neighbours!
All I'm asking people to do is think about this. Many of these conspiracy theorists sound just plain crazy and few crazier than the Tea-Partiers. And, I think this is exactly one of the reasons why we must respect others' opinions for public policy instead of slagging them with out of this world conspiracy theories. Without that mutual respect, society collapses into chaotic anarchy. The last millennia of human development will be for naught.
Mike
Monday, March 1, 2010
Health Care Dysfunction in a Single Payer System
Nicholas D Kristof in his Op-Ed Column in the New York Times addresses the dysfunction of the U.S. health care system by addressing the issue of lack of coordination within the system, FROM THE PATIENT's PERSPECTIVE!!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21kristof.html?th&emc=th
This is an amusing piece that also makes clear what is the origin of some of the system's dysfunctionality and therefore much of the out-of-control cost escalation. His reference point is to use the health delivery system business model to offer editorial commentary.
He alludes to a Jonathan Rauch piece in the National Journal magazine wherein the provision of air travel is offered under the health system business model.
This is likewise a clear and amusing piece.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=st_20090926_4826
Now, we smug single-payer (By the way, we may not be as single payer as we like to think.) Canadians might be tempted to think, "Well, that's the U.S. health care system. That's not us."
I think there are clear comparisons that can be made to provide insight on some of the difficulty we face with our own system.
What we see is a U.S. system filled with independent players, each with its own mandate and mission and governance model. Coordination among these disparate players without explicitly focusing around a single common goal and perspective is impossible.
I had an interesting personal experience some time ago with helping a loved one go through Calgary's at that time regional health system. The chronology worked like this - 911 call, ems with paramedics took over, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at an acute care hospital specializing in such cases, determination that hospital was not the ideal one after all, discharge to admission to ems patient transportation services to another hospital, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at the second hospital, discharge from emergency services to admission to an acute care ward, discharge from acute care to admission to rehabilitation in a third hospital, discharge from that third hospital to admission ems patient transportation to discharge from ems to admission to long term care facility.
Within each facility there was control of custody among departments, moving from the care ward to diagnostic imaging or to other diagnostic services, including change of custody from all of acute care, rehabilitation and long term care to diagnostic and other service centres, often within the same building, but change of custody nonetheless.
Every change of custody required paperwork, that is hard copy paperwork, to accompany the patient. The crazy repetition of admission and discharge paperwork that Mr. Rauch speaks of, had to happen all the time. That kind of constant repetition is, as he points out, error prone. What saves errors from happening more often is the alertness of the practitioners involved. That can be compromised when such activities occur over a shift change and the same person is not coordinating activity throughout the process.
Because of these examples and the likes of arguments presented by Kristof and Rauch, the idea of an Alberta Superboard seems sensible. Alberta then has one coordinating body and that should help smooth the custody control procedures among other things.
But again, this does not seem to be done from the patient's perspective. The controls are made from the provider's perspective with the Superboard acting unilaterally. We then have opportunities for dysfunction at every place where any service, public or private, meets the Superboard. The Superboard then takes on the role of the patient and advocates for itself as a patient would be expected to advocate for her or him self.
But the Superboard is not the patient. The Superboard is itself a provider to be added to the mix of providers. It is simply a single bureaucracy that, from the patient's perspective probably makes no difference at all. The patient would previously have dealt with a regional or hospital board bureaucracy, only one bureaucracy at a time per patient.
In the absence of a standardized custody control process to regulate the changes of custody and the coordination of all activities around the patient's needs, we are going to have ineffectiveness and inefficiency, of which ineffectiveness is the most inefficient as we have expended resources to no good effect.
It seems we have developed a single-payer system that emulates as much as possible non-single payer systems. Therein, I believe, lies the lion's share of our health care system's dysfunctionality (ineffectiveness) and out-of-control cost escalation (inefficiency).
I believe that until we organize our health system around meeting the patient's needs from the patient's perspective, we will never get this thing under control and be only somewhat better off than those systems with multiple payers. In other words, we will spiral out of control somewhat more slowly than they do.
It's interesting that when we apply democratic principles to broad societal issues such as health care, we are likely to find the solutions we must have to assure sustainability. We have to decide if access to health care is part of access to security of the person as a right of every person in our society. Once we have decided that, then we have to realize that objective by building a system around patient need instead of supplier capacity.
Mike
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/opinion/21kristof.html?th&emc=th
This is an amusing piece that also makes clear what is the origin of some of the system's dysfunctionality and therefore much of the out-of-control cost escalation. His reference point is to use the health delivery system business model to offer editorial commentary.
He alludes to a Jonathan Rauch piece in the National Journal magazine wherein the provision of air travel is offered under the health system business model.
This is likewise a clear and amusing piece.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=st_20090926_4826
Now, we smug single-payer (By the way, we may not be as single payer as we like to think.) Canadians might be tempted to think, "Well, that's the U.S. health care system. That's not us."
I think there are clear comparisons that can be made to provide insight on some of the difficulty we face with our own system.
What we see is a U.S. system filled with independent players, each with its own mandate and mission and governance model. Coordination among these disparate players without explicitly focusing around a single common goal and perspective is impossible.
I had an interesting personal experience some time ago with helping a loved one go through Calgary's at that time regional health system. The chronology worked like this - 911 call, ems with paramedics took over, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at an acute care hospital specializing in such cases, determination that hospital was not the ideal one after all, discharge to admission to ems patient transportation services to another hospital, discharge from ems to admission to emergency services at the second hospital, discharge from emergency services to admission to an acute care ward, discharge from acute care to admission to rehabilitation in a third hospital, discharge from that third hospital to admission ems patient transportation to discharge from ems to admission to long term care facility.
Within each facility there was control of custody among departments, moving from the care ward to diagnostic imaging or to other diagnostic services, including change of custody from all of acute care, rehabilitation and long term care to diagnostic and other service centres, often within the same building, but change of custody nonetheless.
Every change of custody required paperwork, that is hard copy paperwork, to accompany the patient. The crazy repetition of admission and discharge paperwork that Mr. Rauch speaks of, had to happen all the time. That kind of constant repetition is, as he points out, error prone. What saves errors from happening more often is the alertness of the practitioners involved. That can be compromised when such activities occur over a shift change and the same person is not coordinating activity throughout the process.
Because of these examples and the likes of arguments presented by Kristof and Rauch, the idea of an Alberta Superboard seems sensible. Alberta then has one coordinating body and that should help smooth the custody control procedures among other things.
But again, this does not seem to be done from the patient's perspective. The controls are made from the provider's perspective with the Superboard acting unilaterally. We then have opportunities for dysfunction at every place where any service, public or private, meets the Superboard. The Superboard then takes on the role of the patient and advocates for itself as a patient would be expected to advocate for her or him self.
But the Superboard is not the patient. The Superboard is itself a provider to be added to the mix of providers. It is simply a single bureaucracy that, from the patient's perspective probably makes no difference at all. The patient would previously have dealt with a regional or hospital board bureaucracy, only one bureaucracy at a time per patient.
In the absence of a standardized custody control process to regulate the changes of custody and the coordination of all activities around the patient's needs, we are going to have ineffectiveness and inefficiency, of which ineffectiveness is the most inefficient as we have expended resources to no good effect.
It seems we have developed a single-payer system that emulates as much as possible non-single payer systems. Therein, I believe, lies the lion's share of our health care system's dysfunctionality (ineffectiveness) and out-of-control cost escalation (inefficiency).
I believe that until we organize our health system around meeting the patient's needs from the patient's perspective, we will never get this thing under control and be only somewhat better off than those systems with multiple payers. In other words, we will spiral out of control somewhat more slowly than they do.
It's interesting that when we apply democratic principles to broad societal issues such as health care, we are likely to find the solutions we must have to assure sustainability. We have to decide if access to health care is part of access to security of the person as a right of every person in our society. Once we have decided that, then we have to realize that objective by building a system around patient need instead of supplier capacity.
Mike
"I love Canada."
Bill Plashke of the Los Angeles Times wrote a personal story of his and his daughter's experiences with Olympics volunteers and Canadians in Vancouver generally.
Anyone wanting to find out how visitors feel about Canadians, want to know what to expect when visiting Canada, or wanting to have another feel good story about being Canadian, should read this.
Mr. Pleshke gives us another definition of Olympic success.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olympics-plaschke28-2010feb28,0,133518.column
Mike
Anyone wanting to find out how visitors feel about Canadians, want to know what to expect when visiting Canada, or wanting to have another feel good story about being Canadian, should read this.
Mr. Pleshke gives us another definition of Olympic success.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olympics-plaschke28-2010feb28,0,133518.column
Mike
IOC Responsibilities
Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post sees a dangerous trend on the IOC's and and thereby host country's realization of ethical standards in the planning and operation of the Olympics Games. This sports columnist worries that the great standards of excellence and human spirit are being threatened by organizational dysfunction.
She makes a point well worth heeding if we are to continue using the international Olympic movement to further human development beyond individual athletic prowess and into human relationships through competition.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022703315.html
Mike
She makes a point well worth heeding if we are to continue using the international Olympic movement to further human development beyond individual athletic prowess and into human relationships through competition.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022703315.html
Mike
2010 Games a success in US
Amy Shipley of the Washington Post finds lasting success for the U.S. in the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Importantly, I think, Canada's and the International Olympics Committee's reputations as an Olympic hosts and organizers can only be enhanced by such opinions.
It's important to the success of Olympic ideals to have all nations feel they have succeeded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803290.html
Congratulations to Vanoc for helping the guests succeed!
Mike
It's important to the success of Olympic ideals to have all nations feel they have succeeded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803290.html
Congratulations to Vanoc for helping the guests succeed!
Mike
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