THING

Simple Solutions #3: How to Fix Public Healthcare

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In this series I posit some unconventional/ will-never-be-tried solutions to problems of our times.

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Like many public healthcare agencies worldwide, Ireland has a crumbling healthcare system. Waiting lists to even be seen by a specialist through the public system are unacceptably long, let alone for anything to actually be done about the ailment.

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Many The majority of people are forced to pay for private healthcare.
“And why shouldn’t they?” I hear you cry. Well, that’s fair enough (I have private healthcare myself) but in this country there is supposed to be a public healthcare system on par with anything available privately. But that is clearly one basic lie the government refuse to admit to.

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THE PROBLEM: How could the Public Healthcare System (in Ireland or anywhere else) be given the best chance of success?

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THE SOLUTION: Make it a term of employment to everyone working in that system to forego private healthcare for themselves and their dependants.

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Obviously, this ensures that all doctors, nurses, managers, administrators, cleaners, janitors, cooks and bottle washers have a personal vested interest in ensuring the public healthcare system is as optimal as can possibly be within the allotted budget.

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Of course this won’t be adopted because: There is no real reason for a government to have a perfect public healthcare system. If there was nobody would buy private healthcare and the government would have to pay for everybody, which would mean higher taxes.

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Reason #2: Vested interests. The single block to all true progress. Too many people and groups slurp the cream off the trough in Healthcare. They simply wouldn’t abide it. It’s OK to screw everybody because “everybody” doesn’t have a legitimate voice or access to the right ears. “Everybody” is an ill-defined group even if it includes everybody.

However, a single large group who make the right nods and pay the right people follow the correct channels can hold an enormous sway over, and often to the detriment of, the majority.

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The only hope it will ever be done: Dictatorship.
Or the right kind of authoritarian leader at least who has the balls to stick them out in public for a couple of years while it rights itself from the bottom-up.

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I believe something like this has been done in some part of China, with great success.

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Externals

Just watch it

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Some things are too funny not to share…

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..My favourite part is when he picks up the blue soap.

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Banks, Finance, Ireland, Simple Solution

Simple Solutions #2: The Greece Issue

In this series I posit some unconventional/ will-never-be-tried solutions to problems of our times.

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THE PROBLEM: Greece is going bankrupt and needs money.

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THE SOLUTION: Have a holiday!

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Instead of giving/loaning Greece billions of euros, European governments should commit a certain percentage of their populations to take a holiday in Greece each year for the next X number of years.

eg. 10% of the Irish population will holiday in Greece over the next 3 years.
2% of Germans will holiday in Greece over the next 3 years.
3% of French people will holiday in Greece over the next 3 years.
etc.

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This brings money to the people of Greece themselves, who then spend it and it filters up the chain to banks and governments.

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EU countries can offer incentives to their own people to go to Greece, thus ensuring the numbers -eg. “Buy a holiday in Greece and we won’t charge you VAT on the purchase!” …this can also boost businesses in their home countries, by encouraging ‘local’ travel agent holiday purchases rather than internet sales so as to verify the deal.

Also, it lends confidence to the financial market as it is a verifiable income to the country of Greece for the next number of years.

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Greek people get money and goodwill. Other Europeans get a holiday in a lovely part of the world.How bad? It sure as hell beats forking out a fortune and praying it comes back some day.

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If the Greek infrastructure isn’t up to the influx of travellers well they’ll just have to build more infrastructure -and how bad will that be?

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Of course this won’t be adopted because: It’s unconventional. It doesn’t directly involve single vested interest groups (eg. “The banks”, “The government”), but instead relies on individuals throughout the EU.

It seems obvious to me that the banks and the governments are the last ones to fix these problems (on their own at least), but who the hell listens to me?

Huh?

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A Digression

From Teeth to Riverdance

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Brushing teeth is like polishing shoes. If you don’t use polish at all your shoes always look fine -a little scuffed over time, perhaps. Never “sparkly” of course. But fine.

As soon as you start using shoe polish you had best never quit because the day you do your shoes crumple up and fall apart.

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A friend of mine has never brushed his teeth. Well maybe a few times when there was a toothbrush-drive on at school. You might believe he has brown choppers and a mouthful of halitosis, but no.

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He’s 40 years old, has no fillings and I don’t recall him ever losing a tooth (I would know about these things).

A few years back he went to the dentist for a checkup. After the inspection the dentist said there was nothing for him to do in there and asked what his secret was.

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“Drink Coke and never brush your teeth!” he told him.

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I almost regret doing what I was told all those years, but I guess it’s too late for me to stop now -they’d probably fall apart.

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I lived with another friend for a few months after college. A gang of us shared an apartment in fact. Anyway, when this friend unpacked his toothbrush I held it up and laughed -it was completely splayed-out.
“We could use that to scrub the pots,” I joked.

“Yeah we could,” he said, seriously.

“And what would you use for your teeth?” I asked.

He nodded to what I held in my hand and said “that”.

He wasn’t joking.

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Still on the toothbrush front… I use ‘manual’ myself, but a couple of years agoI bought my wife an EXCELLENT present for Christmas… a Phillips Sonicare Toothbrush!

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I had spent days scouring the internet (they were hard to find OK, but someone had told me they were the ultimate toothbrush so I persisted) and finally I located one in time to be delivered before the 25th of December.

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To say it was the most disappointing present she ever received from me (including when I bought her a toilet brush+holder and a wok for our first wedding anniversary) is an understatement. She was disgusted.

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I too was devestated because I thought it was such a great gift. …The gratitude of some people!

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This toothbrush is upstairs somewhere as I type… hardly used, though slowly yellowing in the bathroom last time I noticed (I try not to). I could probably sell it cheap if anyone was interested?

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Actually, that reminds me of another toothbrush tale… The same toothbrush in fact…

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I don’t know if they sell them anymore, or if the shape has changed, but at the time the Sonicare was a fairly sizeable electric, plastic item (around 6-8″ or so in length).

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…It was on the kitchen table, amid a pile of other “clutter” one day. The brush part was not attached.

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My mother called round and we were talking in the kitchen. She picked up the (half) toothbrush, in mid-sentence, but didn’t refer to it in any way as she talked about something else. She examined it for a couple of seconds, then more or less threw it down and quickly turned away as if she had a fright.

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She only briefly lost track of what she was talking about, before continuing.

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I couldn’t very well cry out “it’s a toothbrush – not a vibrator!” She was already talking about other things. It’s probably best she didn’t switch it on though.

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…And that reminds me of another tale…

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I know someone who hid a porno dvd in a Riverdance dvd case. Nobody would ever think to look at Riverdance, right? …Then one day his mother-in-law called round and borrowed a disc while he wasn’t there… yes you guessed it -she was in a mood for some sweaty thrusts and dexterous writhing that night, culminating in a heavy banging climax.

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To those of you sniggering that it was me -of course it wasn’t. What would I be doing with a Riverdance DVD!?

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Ireland

Your Country Your Call

I’ve just entered the Your Country Your Call competition. It seems like a genuine attempt to collect mold-breaking do-able ideas to help lift Ireland out of the doldrums it (not to mention everywhere else) finds itself. So I thought I’d give it a bash. Who knows, one of these days someone might listen to me.

I’m not sure what I should say about my idea at this stage, but the proposal is listed here. I’m quite positive about it’s chance of success actually, but I’ve resolved to put the whole thing out of my head for now until finalists are announced -in September or so I think.

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Here’s the ‘blurb’ for my submission if you don’t want to click the link.

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Ireland -A New Way (Sli Nua)

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The title might appear to imply some sort of idealised political movement, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is a new way for the people of Ireland (and the world at large) to look at Ireland and see it as it has never been seen before.

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It’s radical, yet very simple. It requires a little effort from people throughout the country, but will soon transform every area -for the better.

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It’s economically practical. It creates jobs and skills throughout the country (not just in certain areas), increases tourism everywhere, vastly improves the physical and mental health of the people, makes the country a safer environment, is Environmentally-friendly, brings communities and its people closer together (in non-political, uplifting and positive ways), teaches skills to those who want them -and also brings a boost to local businesses the length and breadth of the country.

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It also brings some comforts of city-living to people of the countryside and gives city dwellers a greater taste of country living.

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This proposal benefits everyone in practical, realistic and non-cynical ways. No vested interest wins over other sectors.

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Happiness

Got Wood?

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I’m not into golf so I wasn’t watching The Masters at Augusta yesterday, but it was nice to hear that Tiger Woods had a 69 on the last day. I bet it’s been a while for him.

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Music

Here Today and Gone Tomorrow

It’s been a while since I posted a song by John Poland (ok and me too on lyrics, etc.).
Here’s our latest “finished” one. Nothing really funny here this time I’m afraid, but I quite like it anyway. 🙂

I say “finished” because we have many more “almost finished”, but not completely so. We have a lot of songs in total and have had to stop starting new ones because we weren’t getting around to completing any. Now we’ve resolved to root-out a decent “album number of songs” that suit each other and get them into one collection ASAP.

…A few months’ time perhaps.

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