By Evan Falchuk
When health care reform became law, HR and benefits professionals I spoke with had two reactions: surprise and annoyance. Surprise, because they thought reform was dead; annoyed, because the law was full of provisions that didn’t make sense to them.
But it was partly their own fault.
By Evan Falchuk
There is an endless list of bad things about being sick. What I want to talk about for a minute is what happens to the relationships you have with people around you when you become ill.
Let me tell you about a man I know. I will call him Bill, even though that’s not his real name.
By Evan Falchuk
What I read (or wrote) this weekend:
1. CONSPIRACY! Can’t figure out why health care reform isn’t as popular as you think it should be? Look for the mysterious forces aligning against it. Or something like that.
2. NEUROSURGERY. Top Red Sox prospect, Ryan Westmoreland, needs serious brain surgery. He is afflicted with the same kind of problem that struck my brother, Brad Falchuk, co-creator of Glee. I hope Westmoreland’s doctors are as skilled as those who treated my brother.
3. HEALTH CARE FOR ARTISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS AND WRITERS. Nancy Pelosi says,
Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.
She’s running out of time, but give her credit, she’s doing her best to come up with brand new rationales for whatever reform plan she’s talking about.
4. ONLY ONE MORE WEEK? The White House says the (some) health care reform plan will be “the law of the land” by this time next week. Whatever you think of whatever it will be, there is good news for health care bloggers:
“[O]nce it passes, we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of health care reform. That’s a debate I think we’re obviously comfortable having.”
5. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME. Not awesome.
By Evan Falchuk
To the right of these words you see three icons – one for a service called “digg,” one for Facebook, and one for another called “reddit.” At the bottom of the post, you can see an icon for “buzz.”
If you don’t know, I wanted to give you a quick explanation of what those are there for and how they work.
DIGG AND REDDIT. Digg and reddit are similar services. They are ways that people can tell other people that they found something interesting and worth reading. To use them, all you need to do is set up an account on digg and reddit. Then you can browse around and find out what are the most popular, most controversial, or newest stories or blog posts that people around are talking about.
It takes about a minute to set up you account, and you’ll be very glad you did it. I go to both sites all the time and find loads of interesting stuff.
Many media people use these services to source stories – I often find that something I see on TV or in a newspaper as “news” is something I read about through digg or reddit many days beforehand. That’s cool.
I have those links on each of my blog posts so you can let other people know about anything I might write that is interesting. The number on the digg icon tells you how many people have shared the post on digg. The number on the reddit icon is a combination of how many people posted it and how many people liked or disliked it. If you like it you can click the “up” arrow and if you thought it sucked, you can click the “down” arrow.
So PLEASE, if you like something I wrote, click on digg or reddit and let other people know.
BUZZ. This is sort of like Google’s version of digg, although it’s more like a combination of digg and twitter. If you have a Buzz account, you’ll share whatever you click on with your network of followers. It’s kind of an emerging network, but it’s Google, so I feel like I have to have it on the blog or someone will come to my house at night and make me put it on there. Just kidding. Sort of.
FACEBOOK. If you click there, it will open a new window, and it will automatically help you post what you’ve read here to your Facebook account. Like the digg icon, the number there tells you how many people have shared the story on Facebook using that icon. It doesn’t count if you just copy and paste the url, but I’m fine either way!
Thank you very much to all of my readers, it’s a thrill to me to have so many of you here every day.
Please help spread the word about my blog by clicking on those icons whenever you read something you like.
Thank you again!
By Evan Falchuk
Yesterday, I was sitting on the floor about two feet away from where I am now. I was holding our wonderful chocolate lab, Hooper, in my arms as he died.
Tired of all the health care reform talk? Good, because I’m in Tokyo, Japan this week, and there isn’t anything happening here that will be affected by that story. Anyway, since the weekend has already ended here, I’ve got my quick weekend round-up for you.
1. DR JEROME GROOPMAN talks about the fallacy of “best practices” in medicine:
But there is a schism between presidential advisers in their thinking over whether legislation should be coercive, aggressively pushing doctors and patients to do what the government defines as best, or whether it should be respectful of their own autonomy in making decisions. The President and Congress appear to be of two minds. How this difference is resolved will profoundly shape the culture of health care in America.
Read the whole thing, it’s Groopman in his purest form.
2. CLINTON ADVISER Lanny Davis has some advice for Democrats on health care reform. He says step-by-step solutions are the wiser course.
3. IN AN AIRPORT SECURITY LINE, please, put your shoes directly on the belt not in a bin. At least that’s what I told CNN.
4. KEVIN MAGGIACOMO says that the poor economy is a poor excuse for poor performance.
5. FALCHUK NEWS. My brother Brad’s show Glee keeps racking up awards, this time a SAG award for Best Comedy Ensemble. In very different news, I report with pride the work that my mother’s organization, Hadassah is doing in Haiti. Israel has sent dozens of doctors and health care workers to Haiti, and set up the first emergency field hospital there.
The hospital was set up under the auspices of the Israeli military, but the doctors others are from Hadassah Hospital. As my mom told me today,
The medical needs of Haiti are unbelievable, and to save one life is as if you saved the world. Hadassah is proud to be part of the medical team representing Israel and we will do what we can to not only save lives but help recreate the medical infrastructure of a devastated people.
We all can play our own small part in helping, I’m proud of the work she is doing.
By Evan Falchuk
One late afternoon, some summers ago, I was at the beach.
I was with our dog, a Labrador retreiver. He was playing fetch with a stick I was throwing into the ocean. Every time I threw it, he darted into the ocean to find it. Swimming through the waves, he would get the stick and carry it back proudly to shore. He would drop it in front of me, shake off some of the water soaking his coat, and stare at me, heaving, begging me to throw it in again.
We did this for a while, and it was always the same. He was joyous. Eventually I had to stop, even though I loved seeing him that way. He would have kept doing it until he drowned.
By Evan Falchuk
Some news from the weekend:
1. Congratulations to my brother, Brad, co-creator and executive producer of Glee. They won the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy TV series. They beat some terrific shows, like 30 Rock, Entourage and The Office. Well done, and congratulations to everyone at Glee.
2. Speaking of awards, I was honored by Lexis Nexis as one of the Notable People of 2009 in the field of Workers Compensation. It’s not as sexy as a Golden Globe but it is a great honor, since it was voted on by other workers compensation professionals. What it is really about is the work we do at Best Doctors to make sure that people who get hurt on the job get the right care. I owe special thanks to Mark Walls, of Safety National Insurance, for nominating me and Best Doctors. Mark and the other senior executives at Safety National care deeply about doing the right thing, and helping each and every injured worker have the best chance to get well. I commend them and I am grateful we are able to play a role in helping them succeed.
3. More from me over the weekend: if you listen to one doctor about health reform, make it Dr. Seuss.
4. Interesting: questions about immediate savings from corporate wellness programs. Do they work?
5. Happy birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr. You were a true American patriot and hero.
By Evan Falchuk
Why do people or organizations let you down? It’s hard to generalize. But most of the time I think it happens because most of us are too busy thinking about ourselves to think about the impact our actions have on others.
Cary Tennis, writing in Salon a few years ago describes it well:
Aw, shit. People fail you, they do, they let you down when you need them, they get suddenly dense when you need them to be smart, they fold when you need them to open up, they close right before you get there and sleep through your honking horn in the snow. “I know she’s in there, where else could she be? Why doesn’t she come to the door?” People fail you, they do, they let you down when you need them. They don’t say they’re sorry because they don’t even know. That’s how dense they are.
I guess it’s easy to criticize people who fail you when you need them. But you know what? They deserve it. You’re trying to figure out how to take care of a sick parent or child or loved one and you naturally turn to friends or family or institutions and expect them to help you find the way. Instead, it’s, gosh that sounds terrible, but you know I’m a little distracted here, too, can I get back to you? The people who are there when everything is fine, but run for cover as soon as trouble arrives.
Still, not everyone is like that.
I’ve seen people spend hours at the hospital trying to help struggling friends cope with a crisis. I’ve known people who have taken in troubled children and raised them as their own. I’ve seen communities rally around families as they try to make it through tragedy. And I’ve known acquaintances who became close friends because they reached out their hand to help.
I suppose there is something in human nature that compels people to help others. But we fail at it too often for it to be that simple. I think in most cases it’s a choice – someone you know is in trouble, what do you do? There are no easy answers, and not every situation is the same, but still, you have to choose. How you choose over the course of your life defines the kind of person you are, whether or not you are, Lt. Col. Frank Slade would say, a person of character.
Now I have come to the cross-roads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew, but I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard. Now here’s Charlie. He’s come to the cross-roads. He has chosen a path. It’s the right path. It’s a path made of principle that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey.
We all face these cross-roads, and must make choices. Try to do what’s hard.
By Evan Falchuk
A round-up of interesting things found on the web:
1. Joe Lieberman wants you dead.
Well, maybe not you, in particular. But Ezra Klein can’t figure out why Senator Joe Lieberman opposes the current version of the Senate health care reform bill. So, he has reflected on the point concluded that it is because he
seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.
Well, ok, then. Health care seems to make people say some crazy things.
2. Jonathan Bush doesn’t like Congress.
Babies are enjoying a renaissance. First, they day trade. Now, they seem to have access to Israeli-manufactured submachine guns:
I still have to keep going to Washington and sucking up. . . . Because the problem is when you have a baby with an Uzi, right, they might accidentally mow you down. But here’s the thing . . . they’re brilliant people. It’s just that the idea of a market in health care never occurred to them.
But the CEO of Athena Health makes some interesting points. He doesn’t think the reform proposals in Washington are a good idea, but says that companies like his stand to make a lot of money implementing whatever it is that is passed. It’s a colorful interview that is worth reading.
3. Massachusetts businesses are worried that federal reform will undermine the Massachusetts reforms of 2006
For all the talk about how bad the Massachusetts health care reforms are, a coalition of the most important business groups are worried federal law might undermine them. So they wrote a letter to Senator Kennedy’s (temporary) replacement Senator Paul Kirk asking him to make sure this doesn’t happen:
Our hope was that national health reform efforts would compliment, rather than undermine, our state efforts. In recent weeks, we have grown increasingly concerned that many provisions contained in the health reform bills before Congress could actually undo the success of Massachusetts health reform by making coverage more expensive. . . . .Employers cannot absorb this increased cost, particularly when our health care costs are already among the highest in the nation.
The business groups are especially concerned with taxes on health insurers and so-called “Cadillac” plans, but also raise a number of other issues. Their biggest concern is cost-containment and they are worried that the Senate bill isn’t going to address that problem.
4. The UK’s Health Insurance and Protection Magazine featured an interesting story on Best Doctors
As I noted after my recent visit to our European headquarters, different countries may have different health care systems, but the experience of being sick or treating patients is very similar:
The fact that medical treatment varies locally and internationally is well-established. In the UK, mastectomy rates for breast cancer patients range from 36% to 53% between regions, and between surgeons from 19% to 92%. . . . [T]hese examples serve as useful reminders that doctors operate within a complex context. While national guidelines exist, there remain difficult choices to be made.
Bottom line: everyone wants more control over their health care.
5. Tinker!
At Healthcare etc., Marya Zilberberg says good things happen when we question authority and try things for ourselves:
People, we are no better informed than our ancestors banging their drums to ward off solar eclipse. . . . If we want true innovation, we need to get back to our tinkering roots. Learn to darn your socks, help your child to read and teach her to tinker, so that she can stay curious. Question “experts”: most of the time the mountains of complexity behind their concepts are useless or unnecessary, or created for the purpose of exclusion by obfuscation. Throw open these black boxes and shine a light in them. Play with stuff. Play with ideas. Tinker!
I’m all in favor of her advice. Except the the part about sock darning.
UPDATE 12/15/09: This was cool and came out late yesterday: My brother and his co-creators of the show Glee received 2 nominations for awards from the Writer’s Guild of America.
UPDATE #2: And they got four Golden Globe nominations. Not a bad day.
