Rowing?

Bad timing? I enquired about rowing at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) when I first started classes (two and a half years ago). They had rebuilt the clubhouse, opened the new restaurant, and installed poker machines. But when they were in the process of rebuilding the boathouse, they laid off all the staff and had yet to hire new ones. So the only rowing allowed were the top-level athletes. No plebes allowed. Even though I had rowed on San Francisco Bay, I needed to be "taught" how to row here (because the coriolis effect might confuse me?) That was just the first of my many disappointments with UTS, which led to me not only dropping out, but leaving Australia to accept opportunity back in my homeland. Now, they've finally hired staff to oversee rowing (because volunteers just wouldn't do?) Learn to row at UTS

Incentives to cure?

The Boston Globe article Hepatitis C drug costs leave many without care tells of how state-administered Medicare programs in the US are struggling to fit the cost of hepatitis C treatment into their budget. If you look a little deeper, the issue is also a good contrast between how various countries deal with health care costs, and how that's changing. In the US, prior to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies might have considered hepatitis C a pre-existing condition and offered no coverage at all. Treatment would be either be by cash payment, or for indigents in government programs, covered as the article describes - depending on the budget and how it was allocated. As the article cites, that often translates into no treatment at all. Now that the Affordable Care Act is in place, insurance companies cannot refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions. However, a quick search reveals that insurance companies may only pay for specific drugs, require co-pays, deductibles, etcetera - bottom line, the patient may still be stuck paying a huge cost if they want treatment.

In other developed countries, hepatitis C is considered a serious public health hazard, and the goal is to treat as many people as possible to reduce spread of the disease. These countries negotiated a contract with the manufacturer to make the drug available to everyone in their national health plans. While in the US, the drug is in some cases being denied to those still using drugs, according to HepatitisAustralia There are no restrictions applied to people who inject drugs as they are a priority population for hepatitis C treatment. Also people in prison are a priority population for hepatitis C treatment. Contrast that to the US, where those who are at high risk are less likely to receive treatment (thus continuing the spread of the disease).

While the profiteering of the US system encourages innovation (in some cases to the point of promoting quackery), it is not so well engineered for preventing the spread of contagious disease (in this case, hepatitis C). Innovation still occurs in other countries - researchers in the UK are claiming the new medicines are based on their work. In India, the drug was licensed to about twelve generic manufacturers for distribution within the country. Meanwhile, rather than the drug being distributed to prevent the spread of disease in the US, it is going to those who can afford it, and being rationed to the most desperate cases in public health programs. Obamacare is still a work in progress.

Got a hall pass?

I could have renewed my passport at the US consulate in Sydney faster than it would be processed in the US, but I didn't think of it until last minute. So I felt oddly trapped in the US when I had to mail in my passport for renewal. It's back now, and I'm free to leave the US, and free to stay in Australia as a permanent resident. The new ones have a thicker cover, but it still seems like cardboard, and don't know how it will wear if I stuff it in my pants pocket like the old one.

Is Canada closer to Australia than to the US?

This is an interesting conversation about the territoriality of nations, and the conversation shifted into the realm of relations between the US, Canada, and Australia. Keeping Sea Lanes Open

The Best

When something claims to be the best in Australia,  you gotta look at how many are in the set to compare (sometimes a pretty small number).  When an institution in the US claims to be the best in the US,  it's almost always hype. Claiming an institution is the "best in the country"  at X niche is a common and often ridiculous assertion. Just cite some statistics and follow it with "we're good at this".

Organizational assumption: automobile

Things you forget being in an area well-served by transit: outside of those bubbles, which is most of the USA, everyone just assumes automobile ownership. I found housing that allows me to walk to work. So I call to make an appointment for orientation and find it's several miles out of town. Then there's another task to be accomplished a mile away from that location. I mention taking the bus (because I've scoped the area and know the bus route), and the person acts as if taking the bus is unprecedented, but can be accommodated. This makes me suspect they'll have me run across town again for a upcoming, somewhat trivial task that could easily be accomplished on site. Welcome back to the work world - where the work is not the actual work (at least not yet?)

One downside of taxpayer funded health

This is one of the downsides of having a national health system. In the US, if you can find the money, you can probably find a doctor who will do just about anything. Whether it's an effective treatment or not is another matter, but doctors perform a lot of questionable procedures in the name of income, and supposedly for "rare cases" or potential cures outside of orthodoxy. There's a lot more latitude for quackery, but there's also a lot more latitude for experimentation. When the government and taxpayers are paying for it, you have to draw the line on what's considered effective - you can't be funding questionable procedures for everyone; funneling lots of money to potential quacks. But as this article illustrates, a cabal of orthodoxy conspires to bully others in support of where the line is drawn.

The Australian system could be improved by allowing more self-funded experimentation - meaning, the government won't necessarily pay for it, but if someone wants to try it in Australia, it should be allowed on an experimental basis, with the patients' full knowledge that it's considered experimental and there could be serious hazards or side-effects. If someone is dying, they won't care. People with money are going outside Australia for treatment, where even more questionable doctors claim more questionable practices are actually effective.

Top neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo says Sydney Children’s Hospital refuses to let him operate on sick children