LAX Disfunction

having recently traveled through LAX I was greatful to read about the changes that they are making. I think that is great, but in contrast to any other international airport I have traveled through LAX is the worst. I have had people tell me that they would not fly out of LAX but use San Francisco instead. LAX is more convientent though. I hat it especially for international travel. It is the pits. When compared with what Heathrow , UK is doing its laughable. In reality LAX is going to bring it up to the standard of what Heathrow or Hong Knong was, not what they are or will be. There is no real competition though for international travel, but LAX is terrible. The Check in is terrible with checking your bag twice, then when returning the immigration is crazy. Now for the INS officers its a headache I am sure, but the disorganization is horrendous. If Disneyland can figure out how to keep people in a line and sort them out so there is some organization so should LAX.

Giant Bicycles on the Lil’ Giant Review

While back my wife and I were looking for a tricycle for our son t ride. We looked and looked and finally after a lot of thought landed on the Lil’ Giant. The local bike shop had two and one was used but in near new condition, it was not as nice as the nice German bikes, but a whole lot cheaper and appeared to be a lot better construction than the cheap ones around. Well we wanted one with a handle, to help with steering, breaking, and pushing. The bike seems great, the handle on the back is not. It’s aluminum tubing. While its lightness is great, the strength of the tubing and the weld is negligible. We have had two break off under normal use now. Don’t expect to have something that will withstand enormous stress, but I do expect to have something that will not continually break. The problem is that there are two straps underneath the bike and the aluminum is merely welded in a simple weld to it. Twice the soft aluminum tubing has broken off of this through simple use. It would be much better to put the aluminum post into a much stronger receiver than simple weld. But then no one has asked me, nor can I even really complain to the company. I was looking online at there website and there was no contact information. Since they care so little of giving me excellent customer service, the chances of me giving them any more business is nil. Zero, nada, none.

The interesting thing is that while I was looking this up online I ran across a description that said it will make a great heirloom, the bike might the handle will serve a different purpose.

Reforming American Medical Care

The American Medical System is based on money. This is no surprise to me it seems as though there are actually two different models of this.

• For Profit
• Non-Profit

The for profit puts the shareholder as the driving force, the non-profit puts the patient and care givers as an integral part of the driving force. Some will say that efficiencies are gained by the profit motive, and there is something to that, but also there is finances taken out of the system and payed to the shareholders. This appears to be a net lost to the system. Some will want to adopt the socialist version found thought the rest of the world, and in the most of the rest of the world it works well, if not always fabulous. Now some might argue with my criticism of the socialist model, but the fact is that all of them will send difficult cases to the US for treatment. That is exactly where the model fails in the difficult abnormal system. The model that the US should adopt at least as a first step is to require that everyone who is responsible for deciding care given be non-profit, a non-profit will set limits on pay(renumeration) and remove the share holder. Who would be included on the list

• Doctors Organizations
• Insurance companies
• Hospitals
• HMO's
• Traveling Nurse Organizations

Some will argue that the drug companies and equipment manufacturers should be on the list as they have a part to play, and I will agree that there prices need to be regulated, but innovation in manufacturing seems to only come from a profit motive. This is why Marxism fails, not because its a bad ideal but because it is against basic human nature.

Doctors will mostly complain as they think that they are gods and should be paid as such, but the reality is that they are no more important than the whole. They are not gods and need to be treated as such, being a non profit would only effect a certain amount of doctors and where pay controls are in place in the socialist systems they still get paid a fair amount and there are enough to go around. Besides the fact that with my medical care I don't want money to be the driving factor. I really suspect that there are few doctors in the nation that this would have any effect on whatsoever.

The last important piece is limiting liability. Now I am all for intintianal negligence cases, but I am against the whole phylosophy that the case will cost so much that the insurere will settle out of court rather than fight a fraudulent case. Some cases are appropriate but many are not. Negligence is one thing, mistakes are another. Sometimes people want to sue because of misconceptions about what healthcare can and can not do. This whole culture of lawsuitses has gone over the top though and must be limited.

The ultimate goal of healthcare must be to treat patients with care and consideration. Not as a number or a method to gain wealth. Now it might be difficult to actually thwart people who will abuse the least able to fight them off, but like politicians who are in it for the power and prestige(most of them) we need to slow them down.