Spring Break Update

The NCAA Champions were crowned last night and my congratulations to the Florida Gators. Of course I had Carolina beating them for the National Title, but since Carolina could not stay the course I'm delighted that my second choice turned out to be the winner. (You ever notice how a Carolina fan can find goodness in almost any outcome?)

I got a note from the Hawks last week reminding me that I had not made my initial deposit on season tickets for the 2007/2008 season. Let's see: the Hawks are 27 & 47 with 8 games remaining and they are showing no signs of actually thinking they are an embarrassment to the city of Atlanta. The coach is a joke and management continues to draft 6'9' small forwards as if you could actually compete in the NBA with a group of small forwards. We have one pick in the draft this year.......mid-first round if memory serves and given their record it is extremely doubtful that they would actually draft anyone of consequence. Nope, I'm finished with the Hawks. They can give my seats to another fool.

Went to Holy Spirit last night for the monthly meeting of the men's club and listened to Dr. Michael Johns, the Executive Vice President of Health Affairs at Emory University. Dr. Johns is also the Chairman of the Board for Emory Health Care and the CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. He gave an interesting and frequently amusing presentation about the state of health care in this country and to the surprise of absolutely no one in the room he surmised that it sucks. At the end of the day, a lot of groaning and moaning about the current administration, previous administrations and government in general. A few tirades about the admin costs associated with health care, some comments about it being okay to get health care from a drug store and finally the conclusion that we need a national health care solution. You know, I am certain that Dr. Johns is an incredibly intelligent and caring individual, but last night he did not present anything close to an intelligent road map for achieving a solution and quite frankly I was disappointed. Using Japan as a model of national health care efficiency because they have lower administrative costs, people live longer or because they have a lower infant mortality rate does not reflect the differences in diet and national attitudes towards compliance for the greater good of the nation. I'm not saying that there aren't lessons to be learned, but it is somewhat of an "apples and oranges" comparison. I prefer the approach advocated by Bill Novelli, the CEO of AARP in his book 50+, where included working to transform health care not only by demanding quality care (Dr. Johns did not mention the tens of thousands of patients who die each year because of medical errors) and lower pharmaceutical costs, but also by engaging in healthy lifestyles and preventive care. Mr. Novelli also advocates the concept of performance based pay for health care practitioners, something the physicians' lobby seems to strongly oppose. Living a healthy life requires daily focus on one's diet and regular exercise. It is hard work and as a nation we seem disinclined to accept these realities. You only have to visit a local elementary school and look at the number of overweight children to understand the root of the problem. Our kids are focused on computer games and watching TV and simply do not get out and run about the way I did as a child. Yea, I know that everyone believes their generation was healthier, but in my case we really did spend most of our waking hours outside running around playing games, swimming in the local pond or riding our bikes. Our hero's were Tarzan and Hercules and we all competed with each other in races and other feats of physical endurance or strength. It's a different world today for most kids, including mine unfortunately.

Anyway, for me the way to begin to seriously address health care in this nation is to focus on raising healthier kids and living healthier lifestyles. I would institute a national health program for every child under the age of 16 that is funded by a national insurance tax indexed to income and that everyone pays, no exceptions. The next step would be to create a national physical fitness program that is tied into private health insurance and which rewards participants with lower premiums; i.e: the healthier you are the less it costs for you to participate in private health care. Finally, I like the idea of companies creating wellness programs that provide employees access to the underlying infrastructure required for exercise and fitness. It could be a corporate membership that is tax deductible, a small facility with exercise equipment, or a fitness program that includes counseling and guidance on diet/nutrition and exercise. The primary focus is on creating a healthier population and while these few steps do not solve the national crisis, I think they would go a long way towards addressing some of the underlying problems. Raise a healthier generation and your health costs will be reduced. Make sure kids are getting the right health care while they are growing up and you will have have healthier adults. Given adults incentives to be healthy and create a national buzz around fitness. I know it is a throw-back to the JFK era, but perhaps we need to be a bit retro if we are going to get to the root of this crisis.