Health Care Today

      I recently was forced to come face to face with the reality of the Arthritis that I was suffering from.  Arthritis was not what I had intended to talk about in this blog, but sharing my experiences may be beneficial to many. I have (I used to have had) crippling arthritis in my hip. Upon reflection, I now realize that arthritis had been destroying my hip for a very long time.

      My son is an analyst in DC.  He researched what was globally available for me for hip replacement.  He found Israel and Costa Rica to be the two best medical options for my hip replacement surgery.  I liked the concept of warm beaches and cool breezes, so he arranged for my surgery to take place in Costa Rica.  I enjoyed a glorious medical experience in Costa Rica, and one that used to be available in the United States.  My son paid the necessary costs up front; Passport Medical, my travel, the Doctors, the hospital, the hotel, the therapy and the food.  All of those people delivered exactly what he paid them for and each participant delivered those services very graciously and in a very professional caring manner. 

 

     When I was in the building business, I had a single paragraph contract.  It said, “I will build your building and you will pay me for what I build.”  Insurance, legislation, and bureaucracy have made the "normal" cost of a building 40%-50% more than the cost should be.  Insurance, legislation and bureaucracy have driven the medical cost to a multiple of what it should be with a devastating loss in the quality of service.  I could not find a doctor that I trusted in the US …. all anyone in medicine wanted to talk about was insurance.  All I wanted to talk about was having my arthritis go away.

 

      Until I had my Costa Rica medical experience, I did not recognize what huge obstacles exist in the US medical field today.  My first-hand experience and then the analysis of my experience made the problems crystal clear.

 

All causes in the in the life of Yahoos start as a movement, become a business then a racket.

 

      In the United States we now have so many levels of parasites that consume all that the medical insurance market will bear.  The doctors must employ a staff, not for medical purposes, but they must employ a staff to successfully extract their fees from those feeding at the medical trough.  I built an office for a neurosurgeon that had to have a room for depositions.   How incongruous is this situation, to have to devote money, time and effort to insurance, legal and advertising before you devote one minute to medicine?   The medical moochers offer no added value to the medical process, yet they take the lion's share of medical expenditures; they exist to take, not to help. 

 

      The United States no longer provides a supportive environment for those in need of medical treatment.  The US no longer offers an attractive environment to encourage the best and brightest to practice medicine.  Why would anyone want to be a Doctor today when the medical structure dictates how you are to practice "medicine"? 

 

      I asked a friend how well his health insurance worked.  He said, "As long as I make my payments and file no claims, my insurance works just fine."  Medical services should be straight forward and easy, those medical services in the US used to be a direct relationship between only the doctor and the patient.  That direct relationship between a Doctor and a Patient, exists in Costa Rica right now.... for a while anyway. 

 
      The most powerful, enticing, calming and misleading word in the English language is “FREE.”  I have a fit, full of life 91 year old friend that I have known for over a year.  During the year that I have known him, the US medical system has tried to kill him twice with two infections resulting from two surgeries.  He reacts with a big smile on his face saying, “It did not cost me one cent!”  The total “bill” from two surgeries along with two follow-up lifesaving maneuvers comes to a total of around $200,000 medical  US "monopoly" dollars.  In fact, my friend did not have to pay one penny, but the real “cost” to his 91 year old body has to be significant.  Yet, he is happy as a clam because the medical abusers used the drug “FREE” on him.  Everyone in the medical sham got their fraudulently “earned” money and in addition, he was merely their money vehicle.  When the drug "FREE" is applied, all accountability vanishes in the mist.  In all of my years of building many doctor's houses and knowing them personally and professionally, I have never heard one doctor even pretend that their work even remotely approached the condition of the original equipment. 

Proposed AMENDMENT to the US Constiution

AMENDMENT to our Constitution

On all ballots (Federal and local), for every election (primary or final), there will be an additional candidate: "None of the Above." If "None of the Above" receives a plurality of the votes, a legal US citizen will be randomly drawn from the voter registration rosters. The requirements to serve will be; 1) Past or current Military Service. 2) A minimum of a Bachelor's degree. 3) A US Property owner. 4) No outstanding tax debts, either local and Federal. 5) No convictions, past or pending.

If "None of the Above" is elected, "None of the Above" will serve for a term of 4 years at a salary of $125,000/year, or the average net income of their last 3 years on "None of the Above's" Federal Tax Returns, whichever is greater. Or, "None of the Above" can choose to not serve, and will immediately serve a full 45 days evaluating the Federal Penal System from within.

United States Senators will, once again, be chosen by State Representatives to serve a 6 year term. All elected officials will serve one term only to enable them to return to their real avocation. The path of continuity must be broken to eliminate the entrenched corruption. All elected officials will be properly paid, day by day, to eliminate the "carrot trap" that has "tricked" everyone since the beginning of time. The elected officials will have no benefits or rights that are beyond the laws or rights of the general population of United States Citizens. The moral codes of our United States Military Academies will control conduct in every walk of life. If you lie, cheat or steal.....you are out….no questions or appeals.

ALL laws, codes, agencies and regulations, down through, and including Little League Sports, will revert back to their status before 1960.

In Education, an average effort will be marked as a "C". There will be only one educational opportunity. There will be no holding back at Grade Levels. In school you will receive either, "Completed" or "Graduated" at each step. If you lie, cheat or steal you will be suspended for that day.

Herding Bison

Claudine and I made a trip to the Painter Outpost located a few miles south of the Wyoming-Montana border on the eastern edge of Yellowstone Park.  We saw an incredible picture of a Bison chasing a Grisly Bear in the snow.  If you have never been face to face with these enormous creatures you have missed an understanding that is beyond words.  I asked the proprietor about the Bison and the Grisly Bear.  He told us many interesting facts.  One fact in particular caught my attention.  He said, “You can herd Bison any way that they want to go.”  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Claudine said, “Rusty, that is exactly the way that YOU are!”  We laughed because of the precise truth in her statement.

Over the following days I gave a lot of thought to these statements and I realized that the statements represented a major principle in the lives of all creatures.  I was raised on a cattle ranch. And, since I was the most expendable member of our family I was often charged with the task of herding our Hereford Bulls from one pasture to another.  If the weather was hot, the Bulls were annoyed to begin with, and they certainly did not want to go on any long country strolls.  As I would whistle and yell to encourage them to another location they would snort, kick the ground and head butt anything that was handy to demonstrate what they could do to you.  These Hereford Bull images came to my mind as I turned the recent Bison/Claudine story over in my mind.  Quickly, the images of herding the Herford Bulls became images of me herding my two wives.  When herded, and annoyed, my wives would snort and demonstrate other aggressive behavior.  The images of my wives morphed into images of the reactions of my two boys being herded.  The visions of the actions of my two boys being herded changed into visions of me herding architects.  It just does not work to herd any creature in a direction that they do not want to go.  Herding creates resistance, resistance creates drama and drama is a very unhealthy, unproductive state of mind. 

LAWS

 

"Laws are the crystallization of community prejudices." - Ayn Rand

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

            For 10 years I served on the board that directed building activities for Amarillo. As I served as Chairman, I helped create an Ordinance that would require additional cost to make homes safer. The policy in Amarillo required that each new Ordinance be approved in a Public Hearing. At the public hearing for "MY" ordinance a few local builders appeared at a hearingto protest. "MY" ordinance was soundly defeated. Why do we not go through this process for every additional law? "MY" ordinance was 90% ego driven and 10% good practice. It took time and energy for the Builders to fight this new encumbrance. They were totally right in their objections. Everyone should have a "choice" to make their homes safer.

     King Arthur's creation of the Round Table was an ambitious step in people's endeavor to create a just world. Quickly however he put himself in an untenable position because a law that he created went against human nature. The law stated that infidelity was a crime punishable by death. As grand as his intentions were, he was dictating a prejudice that he felt would never affect him personally. Here is the historic rub. As good as he was, King Arthur was a moral busybody. His best friend, Sir Lancelot fell in love with his wife Guinevere. The problem was not Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, the problem was the ill-conceived law. Should King Arthur burn his wife at the stake and kill Sir Lancelot because his two most beloved friends fell in love with each other. Love's process is not understood nor is it manageable. Insurmountable drama has been created in our world based on the faulty overreaching of omnipotent moral busybodies trying to control elements that cannot be controlled? How well did US prohibition work? All prohibition accomplished was to allow, even promote, the success of gangsters at the cost and peril of US citizens.

     I personally loved everything about the construction business that I perfected, for me, for 35 years. It became time for me to abandon my love when I realized that federal terrorists were everywhere. These (OSHA & EPA) terrorists could subjectively take everything that I had worked a lifetime for, whenever they chose to. I have personally known some of their victims. When the "probable" risk in business overwhelms the "possible" rewards from that business, the prudent man will no longer offer that service.

 
     

Life is a Game

     “Life is a Game” .... Such a happy, safe, good-feeling statement.  BUT, on the objective side... "Life is a Game" is the short story version of a much greater reality.  Each game can be won or lost on a single play.  In life we play many games a day.  So what ... if we lose a single game?  There are many more games left to be played.  The problem of taking an, "only a game," attitude too nonchalantly is that one pivotal loss can change the course of a life just as brutally as it can cost a championship.  A single pivotal error in a single game can lose the pivotal game.  A reasonable person will quickly point out that in any game there are many good plays: why focus on a single error?  As we participate in any endeavor, average-to-good efforts are the norm.  It is the outlier that usually determines any outcome.  Machiavelli says that to be successful, you must work very hard AND have a generous helping of good fortune.  Gary Player once said, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."  The preceding statements are quite true.  Another brilliant person stated that an error is not a mistake until you choose not to correct the error. 

     "Life is a Game" is the underlying principle of the rise and fall of dynasties and societies.  It is a human tendency to relax once you have become successful.  It is also human nature to lose sight of the factors that actually created a specific success.   After six months in a new marriage, my sister-in-law asked her new husband, Mark, why he had ceased to dote on her every whim.  He, way too truthfully replied, "Darling...trapping season is over!"  This husbandly/wifely behavior is representative of the down side of the Bell Curve.  Mark would not have won fair maiden to begin with, without a "trapping season" effort.  The downside complacent efforts affect all of us as we pass through the life we live, uncaring or unaware.  Life, love and success are transitory.  The existence of “transitory” is nature’s sense of balance and nature's way of determining who is truly worthy of the championship.

     I have enjoyed becoming intellectually involved in tracking baseball over the last couple of years.  Baseball games (all life games) are highly cerebral activities.  Recently I watched a game where a highly successful team had a play where one of the players was laughing and monkeying around.  The balance between being relaxed and rightly focused is razor thin.   The team that was monkeying around, lost the next several games.  Monkeying around is merely an underlying warning symptom that represents a lack of respect for life's harsh judge.  In the losing games, the team lost these games because they failed to make a few plays that they could have made if they had been intently focused and respectful of the laws of life's game. 
 

    Success/confidence, or lack thereof in any game, has a dramatic influence over how we act and react in future games.  The psychology of loss far overpowers the positive mental energy of success.  In other words; one "oh shit" wipes out all the "atta-boys."  Self-doubt is established with a loss.  Only an arrogant sense of normalcy is felt with a win.  Re-establishing confidence after a loss takes much more energy, AND good fortune, than the energy required for the original success.  The original success did not have the burden of failure to overcome.  Original success is culminated by, everything to gain, nothing to lose.   Original success is cloaked in a relaxed sense of respect, enjoyment, wonder and untold hours of hard work.

Experts vs. Rock Stars

      There exists a little known, yet common sense, benchmark for an Expert.  An expert is a person who has over 10,000 hours learning and improving a specific skill.  Our society has experts in all endeavors.    Only "Caveat Emptor" allows a Society to have a chance to shape its own destiny by use of experts.  Life, quite naturally, gets complicated when decisions and one's destiny are based on money/friendship/ease as opposed to making decisions based on actual qualifications.

      When I learned of the Expert Benchmark, I sat down at my computer and created an Excel Spreadsheet to personally evaluate the Expert theory. The results of my study were quite illuminating.  I have (36,360/hrs - Computer-APL,EDL,PC), (31,040/hrs - Builder), (16,381/hrs - Design), (16,920/hrs - Autocad), (14,880/hrs - Archicad), (23,920/hrs - Reading), (5,600/hrs - Baseball), (11,552/hrs - Golf), (4,512/hrs - Skeet).  I therefore have several areas of expertise and hundreds of areas of little to no expertise. 

     For several years, around 2005, I did consulting work for a company in Budapest.  At a corporate meeting in Prague the leaders of that company stated their new desire to hire "Rock Stars" to promote and teach their product.  As you might guess, the CEO of this Budapest company considered himself a "Rock Star" and quite naturally he surrounded himself with "Rock Stars."  During his reign, the company came on lean times and sold out to a company in Germany.  Germans being Germans, had a concept of rebuilding the company with "Experts."  This company once again produces one of the world's premier products now that they have the proper job description for "Rock Stars," promote, and let the Experts shape the company’s critical path.

     One of the greatest contemporary proofs of "Experts" vs. "Rock Stars" is illuminated by the experience of the Oakland Athletics in the book and the movie, "Moneyball."   The Oakland Athletics changed ownership.  New ownership cut the budget for the baseball team by 70%.  Circumstances put together a computer "nerd" and a "failed" baseball player.  The diligence of this unlikely combination revealed that most players were overvalued and judged by mostly by their "Rock Star" status.  When these newly forced enlightened leaders signed players based on ability and not "Rock Star" status they were able to compete with and win with a third of the money that other teams spent.  It is not an accident that the Texas Rangers were successful during 2010 and 2011.  The Ranger's Manager was trained by the Oakland "Moneyball" administration. Nolan Ryan, one of the Ranger's current owners, knows, by his extreme dedication, that only hard work creates experts.  "Experts," not "Rock Stars," provide leadership for a winning combination.

     For years I enjoyed and trusted Charlie Gipson on "Good Morning America."  After watching Charlie for years, I realized that what I appreciated the most about Charlie; Charlie was egoless.  Comparison is necessary for real appreciation.  It is sad to me, and creates a real irritation, to have to listen to the Rock Stars that have taken over the news, our government and business in general.  We clearly need more workhorses and far fewer showhorses in the leadership positions.  "Rock Stars" consume too much energy which is consumed for their own needs.

     Life could be pretty great if we took an Oakland Athletics approach and actually elected officials and hired people based on the objective Expert evaluation.

     Below is a perfect example of our self-designated, media made, Rock Stars.  Harry Reid and Joe Biden.  This image was on the internet on January 1, 2013.  How can a man that was hired to do a job, that he has willfully neglected and abused, have a smile on his face?  Pride instead of Shame?

 

     I had the privilege to instruct 2 employees of Clark Construction, out of Bethesda, in New York City.  The 2 Clark Construction employees highlighted the extremes between a Rock Star and an Expert.  The Rock Star (CRS, i.e. Clark Rock Star), as you might imagine wore an expensive as hell suit and was a graduate of Penn State, the most almighty school in the world.  The Expert was a crusty, grumpy old thing (Riff) that had worked for Clark for many years in many company positions.  When I met the two, Riff was highly annoyed at how abusively the Rock Stars out of Budapest had treated Clark Construction.  I told Riff and the CRS that I was there to help them and for them to take a seat and that I would teach them something.  Riff and I shared 3 intensive days and evenings of mutual learning in NYC.  The CRS really couldn't be bothered.  He spent all his time putting together his presentation (collecting BIG buzzzz words) for Clark Construction when he got back to the office so he could retain his Rock Star status while learning very little.

     On several occasions I have visited Riff at Clark Construction in Bethesda.  Of course I was overwhelmed by the scope and stature of work that Clark performed.  Symphony halls, stadiums, everything.  Riff had his own little office, way back in the back, where he saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars per day with his expertise.  All the while, the CRSs would parade by and ask why in the world he was working with those silly 3d models.  Riff performed his magic with a relatively cheap but highly effective software know as "Light Wave."  "Light Wave" was just like Riff, it simply did its job without fanfare while enduring the ridicule from the Rock Stars.  A couple of years ago, I learned that "Avatar" was accomplished using "Light Wave." 

     Anyway..... about a year after my initial meeting with Riff and the CRS in NYC, there was a global knowledge sharing meeting scheduled in Budapest.  I was certainly going to attend and was most excited to find out if Riff would attend.  I could just picture in my mind Riff revealing to the world all that he had shared with me.  I called Riff.  He told me that the CRS was going to be the one to represent Clark Construction in Budapest.  I was appalled.  I call some of my friends with the Budapest Company to encourage them to get Riff to attend.  Rock Stars want other Rock Stars.  The knowledge shared in Budapest was OK.  The CRS missed most of the meetings because he was either hung over or drunk.  Simply... there is not enough time in life to be both a Rock Star and an Expert.  The world, for balance, has and certainly needs both types, if for nothing else other than for the contrast.

The Drunk and the Lightpost

The drunk seeks a light post only for support, not for illumination.  One reads Tweets until he finds one that supports his position. 

When did Twitter become an approved "News Source?"  There is no possible illumination in a one line Tweet.  Our once respectable News has become bursts of Tweets....can you believe that News Professionals actually quote results from Twitter?  Consider what the Tweet source might be and the invested thought needed to create that Tweet.