An Oddity for Sure

Here is a pitcher (the Yankees farm system) who throws with both arms. Seriously how cool is that? The article says his dad started him throwing with both hands when he was 3. Maybe I will do that with Jack

Here is the Youtube clip of him

The Rat Race

So today after a particularly nasty conference call (yes when I am supposed to be on vacation) I got to thinking about my long range plan. Lets call it my FU zone where if things pissed me off enough I could just walk away. Since I am a finance guy I have monthly projections for the next 20 years. By my projections I enter the FU zone in August of 2022.

Criteria for FU zone:
Have $0 debt (No home, cars, student loans etc..)
Saved considerably for Retirement
Saved considerably for Childrens' education
6 Months of living expense in a savings account.

That puts me at a little over 13 years and I would be 46....

Patience....

PAC-10 Expansion is Closer than you think

Here is why I think PAC-10 expansion is coming.

Check out this quote:

Quote:

Revenue from the Pac-10’s primary football contract with ABC/ESPN, its secondary football deal with Fox Sports Net and its basketball deal with FSN place the conference fifth in total revenue behind the Big Ten, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12, said Kevin O’Malley, a television industry consultant. He said the conference was geographically well situated to create its own network the way the Big Ten has.

“It has universities from contiguous states, mostly land-grant schools that dominate the state,” he said. “That’s a lot of marketing power among alumni and fans when you consider the distribution.”

Scott said he was aware of the television-deal issues.

“I’ve picked up on the sense that some people feel that the Pac-10 may not be boxing at their appropriate weight, so to speak,” Scott said of the league’s television deal. “One of the skill sets that I bring is dealing with television for 15 years and dealing with all of the major networks over that time.”

Yep... its not going to be long until you see the PAC-10 Network. If the link is to be believed the PAC 10 gets 100 million in Revenue each year (half of the Big 10's 200). So what do you do if you are the pac 10? You add two more teams and get a championship game for 15 million a year. You then start the PAC-10 Network. You need someone to play on that Network so you make a stipulation that the new network will have an unbalanced amount of games for the additional 2 teams.

You then get two more bowl games and you build the Network. Soon with the championship game, extra bowl revenue and the new network you get that that extra 100 million.

Instead of 10 million (100 million / 10) per team. You Now have 200 Million divided by 12 which is 17 million per school.

That's a pretty good incentive.

Fixing the World Baseball Classic

Interesting article on ESPN about the WBC and how to make it better. My plan would be a little bit different.

Take the All Star week off (WBC in lieu of All star game) in July and play a 16 team tournament in single elimination style.
1. Do it in a either Chicago, New York or LA (Multi stadium towns)
2. Limit Pitch counts to 100 (or 90)
3. Add 6 extra slots for pitchers

The week would look like this in Chicago.

Monday - Home Run Derby and other All Star Festivites - Wrigley
Tuesday - 8 Games (3 at wrigley), 3 at Comiskey, 2 At Milwaukee
Wednesday - 4 games - 2 at Wrigley - 2 at Comiskey
Thursday - 2 games - 1 at Wrigley - 1 at Comiskey
Friday - Championship game at Wrigley.

MLB resumes the next Monday.

Obama's Health Plan

Here is the New York Times piece on it.

Socialist idiiots will think its a great idea because they don't understand economics. I never thought National Health Insurance would happen but its looking more and more likely now.

Doctors and Hospitals... get ready to have your pay cut by 30%.

Here's my prediction of the order of events.

1. Obama's plan passes.
2. We go a couple years side by side and more and more companies move to the National program because its cheaper.
3. Most Health Insurers go out of business. Only those that offer premium services and premium prices (IE only PAC, SU and Creekster can afford) are left.
4. Some doctors decide only to accept cash or premium insurance leaving a logjam for those who can't afford the premium services
5. Even if the government doesnt change their current price structure for Medicare its still 30% Less than what hospitals get from BCBS or Humana. With more people on the plan they spend need to spend more to keep the structure secure.
6. Our 1.9% tax for Medicare double or triples to meet the new demand for services
7. To cut costs the government starts to ration health care like in Canada
8. Incentive for New procedures and drugs are cut so medical tech progress is stifled.
9. People get used to the "right" to government subsidized health care and will not change systems without being fear mongered by socialist idiots.

Unions have destroyed Detroit

At one time the Unions were a good thing. They fought child labor and forced overtime. They served a purpose. That time was 60 years ago. Now the UAW has effectively destroyed Detroit. I've ran across some depressing and interesting articles about Detroit the last couple of days.

This feature in Rolling Stone was sombering.

This photo essay in time was eye opening.

How did the Unions destroy Detroit? Their greed and always pushing for more concessions. Its estimated that the Big 3 have 100 Billion dollars in Liability for Healthcare for Current and retired workers. Many workers can retire with a full pension after 30 years of work. That means a worker who started at 18 gets to retire at full pension at 48. Not to mention they don't pay a dime for healthcare (ok maybe a measily $10 for co pays)

Here is great article about what GM should do.

I've become a concerned citizen

I decided to write my state senator about my fix for healthcare in michigan. Below is original email:

Senator Switalski,

As a concerned citizen of Michigan I am writing you with an idea to bring this state out of the terrible economic downturn we are in. In 2005 Rick Wagoner CEO of GM made the comment

“CEO Rick Wagoner told shareholders that health benefits add a staggering $1,500 to the price of every vehicle GM makes. GM will spend more than $5.6 billion this year on health coverage for 1.1 million people” – Boston Globe June 16, 2005

Can you imagine if those costs were cut in half or even thirds? How much more competitive would GM and the other big 3 be if they weren’t being weighed down with staggering health costs. Not to mention the suppliers like Delphi which have similar problems. Jeff Jacoby the Boston Globe columnist who reported the above also said the following:

“The health benefits GM provides are generous to the point of recklessness. While its salaried employees pay 27 percent of their healthcare costs, the nearly 120,000 workers who belong to the United Auto Workers pay a minuscule 7 percent. They have no deductibles, no monthly premiums -- only modest co-pays for doctor's visits and prescriptions. Benefits that lavish might have been tolerable back when GM was king of the automotive hill and could count on selling enough cars to defray such a huge expense. But GM today sells only about one-fourth of the cars bought in America -- down from nearly half in the 1950s.”

I’ll first state my health care plan to drastically change the health care coverage for all Michiganders.

1. High Deductible insurance is given to all residents of the state. The state pays health care providers once the residents of the state meet the deductible amounts (see provisos below) at Medicare rates and cover the exact same items that Medicare covers.

Here are the provisos to #1
A. Every person from 1-18 is completely covered no deductible
B. Single people from 19-65 have $6,000 deductible
C. Married people from 19-65 have $6k deductible per person or $8k per couple
D. People over 65 have a $2k a year from state to cover Medicare costs and deductibles
E. 100% of Preventative measures are covered
F. Employers must contribute 40% of Deductible for Full Time workers and 20% of part time workers that work 20 hours a week. If someone does not work 20 hours a week the employer is not required to pay anything. Conversely, an employer may only pay 80% of deductible each year.

G. Smoking cessation, Gym membership, or other weight loss programs all contribute up to $1500 of Deductible. Dental care can contribute up to $2,000 of deductible.

2. $2 a gallon Gasoline tax is affixed to pay for program. Michigan averages 4.5 billion gallons of gasoline consumed each year. That means 9 billion dollars to cover 7.1 million people. Reasons for a gas tax:

A. It’s easy to collect - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/the-gas-tax-revisited-a-guest-post/

B. It gives incentive to the designers, engineers and makers of automobiles to come up with gas saving cars.

3. 10% Fast Food sales tax. Average American consumes 159 fast food meals a yearhttp://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/779290.html. A 10% tax on an average meal of $6 for 7.1 million equals almost 700 million. These revenues would be used solely for Preventative measures and covering Children’s health. Reasons for this tax

A. Obesity and Fast Food consumption are correlated http://www.theyesword.com/obesity_and_fast_food.htm
B. Easily to collect.

4. Statewide system of Health care coverage that every provider in State must subscribe to track how much of deductible is used.

In conclusion, this plan makes sense on many levels.

A. It appeals to democrats as a way to broaden coverage to all Michigan residents

B. It appeals to Republicans as a Health Savings account provides market based solution

C. It appeals to hospitals and health care providers because as soon as a person meets their deductible amount ONE payer pays the reimbursement.

D. It appeals to business out of state to move to Michigan. Business’ where payroll makes up a substantial amount of costs are seeing the dramatic rise in health care costs.

Example #1 of how system would work: Bill Smith is single under 65 and has a health savings account to which his employer contributes $4800 of his deductible each year. Bill contributes the other 1,200. Bill has a heart problem and angioplasty which costs $20,000 by the hospital. Bill pays his $6,000 and the state insurance covers the other 14,000 through payments or discounts.

Example #2 of how system would work: Bill Smith is single, under 65 and has part time work under $20 hours a week. His employer contributes $0 of his deductible each year. Bill contributes no money as well. Bill has a heart problem and angioplasty which costs $20,000 by the hospital. Bill has a responsibility of $6,000 and the state insurance covers the other 14,000 through payments or discounts. If bill defaults on his portion the hospital at least receives their compensation from the state.

The above is my plan. You may call me or email me with any questions.

I received the following correspondence from the senator:

Thanks for you email. You have an interesting plan. I agree with the idea of universal catastrophic coverage. I agree with taking this burden from the auto companies and businesses.

A few questions. If you want to give everyone the same as Medicare, plus a $6000 deductible, why do people over 65, who already have Medicare, get $2000? In example #1, how does a 60/40 split yield $4800 and $1200. You've switched to the 80%. How will people react who now have full coverage?

All in all, you raise points well worth considering.
Mickey

I then responded to his questions with the following:

My responses are in bold

Thanks for you email. You have an interesting plan. I agree with the idea of universal catastrophic coverage. I agree with taking this burden from the auto companies and businesses.

A few questions:

If you want to give everyone the same as Medicare, plus a $6000 deductible, why do people over 65, who already have Medicare, get $2000?

I was unclear on my first email. Instead of saying “Every resident from Michigan” it should have stated “Every resident from Michigan 65 and younger”. Those who qualify for Medicare should use Medicare. There are no premiums for Medicare Part A but the deductible is $1,075 (2008 number) and the Premiums for part B are $97 a month.

In example #1, how does a 60/40 split yield $4800 and $1200. You've switched to the 80%.

My example #1 was assuming that the persons place of work paid 80% of the deductible as noted in Proviso F. Proviso F states:

Employers must contribute 40% of Deductible for Full Time workers and 20% of part time workers that work 20 hours a week. If someone does not work 20 hours a week the employer is not required to pay anything. Conversely, an employer may only pay 80% of deductible each year.

How will people react who now have full coverage?

Moral Hazard which you are describing right now (IE if people have insurance they use it) is mitigated by the large deductible. If its still a worry the state could put in another proviso that recognized voluntary or experimental medical work cannot count towards your deductible and is not covered by the states High deductible insurance. Or they could add a proviso that has people pay coinsurance up to say 10k with a stop loss or some total out of pocket amount. Additionally, the insurance could be regulated to only be available in Michigan to Michigan Providers. People traveling from the state could be given an option to purchase travel insurance at low amounts.

Another thing I neglected to mention was Medicaid. In 2006 MI spent 8.3 billion in Medicaid. Half of that funding came from the Federal government. My 9 billion estimate should have been 13 billion.

Thanks for hearing out my thoughts.


He then sent me another email stating that he used my ideas in his plan. Here is the macomb daily article he is talking about. Not much of my plan in there.

Oh well at least I tried.