I read an article in LA Times recently about a fight in the Chinese community in Southern California over the use of traditional vs simplied scripts in Chinese language schools and in public schools in the area that offer Chinese courses. Traditional script is how Chinese have been written over thousands of years. It is distinguished by a series of complex strokes that makes for beautiful calligraphy. It is still the official writing in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The simplified version was introduced by the communists in China about 50 years ago to make it easier for the rural mass to become literate quicker. It is supposed to be easier for a child to learn than the complex traditional version.

In the past the Chinese America community was dominated by immigrants from Hong Kong and southern China. Then the Taiwanese came. Since all of these groups use the traditional version there was no controversy. Now there is a big influx of mainlanders who grew up using the simplified version. Obviously they want their children to learn the simplified version. So now school officials are caught in the middle. It is really too bad because it tears the Chinese American community apart over something as beautiful as Chinese writing.

My own feeling is that I want the traditional writings to survive. I am biased because I learned the traditional version. I also feel that the tradition is more beautiful. It has more, pardon the pun, character. I doubt that the simplified version is that much easier to learn. If you want easy, use alphabet! But I am also realistic, with the overwhelming population of China and its increasing influence in the world of commerce, the simplified version will eventually prevail. Just like Cantonese will give away to Mandarin in Chinatowns here and eventually even in Hong Kong, traditional scripts will lose out. It is too bad but it is reality.

Everybody had been waiting breathlessly to see which way Snowe would fall. Would Snowe have ice in her veins? Can she weather the storm of attack from her Republican party? Would she flake out from the middle ground? In other words will the Baucus bill have a Snowe ball's chance in hell of getting a Republican vote? Well after watering the bill extensively, particularly getting rid of the public option in order to woo Republicans, the Baucus bill passed out of committee 14-9. Of course without all that compromise, it would have only passed 13-10. It is nice to claim bipartisan support but it is hardly a great victory for the Democrats.

On a different note, the insurance industry is now against healthcare reform saying it will increase premiums $4000 on average over the next ten years. I think any intelligent person would consider the source of this "research". I can tell you my insurance has gone up over 60% in the last 3 years without reform and in 10 years at this pace my premium will increase way more than $4000. If a proposal is too confusing to me I usually just look at who is endorsing or against it. For example if the tobacco companies are for something, it is probably not going to be good for your health. The insurance industry is looking out for my premium? Come on! People should now root for reform more than ever.

I don't lik Rush Limbaugh. But all the reaction out there against him trying to buy part of the Rams? I think this just plays into his hand. He was not serious about buying in. He knew that the NFL would not let him in. But by trying to buy in it caused an uproar from the players, owners and people like Sharpton. Now he can go on his show and claim that he was discriminated against and get his base rile up again. The NFL owners are not exactly a group of good people. I mean why do they still allow a franchise in our capital to be called the Redskins? They all looked the other way as steroids and other drugs were used all over the league. Criminal records of some of the players are astounding. It is like the kettle calling the pot black when it comes to their complaint about Limbaugh. My question is: Who are the morons who invited Limbaugh into the partnership? Are they trying to sabotage their own candidacy to help Limbaugh get publicity?

The scientists who won the Nobel prize did their breakthrough works about 30 years ago. They are finally being rewarded now. Obama has been president for 9 months and he wins his prize already? He is greater symbol for peace than Gandhi, who had never won the Nobel? Well, I suppose he is able to bring enemies together. Both the Taliban and Rush Limbaugh believe that Obama is worse than Hitler. Both Israelis and Palestinians think that with the award, he will be tougher on them. Both the extreme right and the extreme left don't think he has not done enough. But other than bringing these mortal enemies together against him winning the award, I don't see how he should have even been nominated. At this pace if the world comes out of recession next year, he will win the Nobel prize--for economics.

The question I have now is will this affect his decision about Afghanistan? He is taking a lot of time to make the decision. In the past he has said that Afghanistan is different than Iraq and that we need to win there. I agree with that and hold him to that. As I have said before, I agree with the generals who recommend that we add troops to Afghanistan. The fact that we got side-tracked by Bush in Iraq and that the job is much more difficult today does not change my believe that we have to defeat al qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Maybe Obama does not need to authorize all 40,000 troops McCrystal asked for, but he should not hesitate to increase the manpower as soon as possible. I hope winning the peace prize does not affect his judgment in this.

One more thing about the Nobel. The winners in each catergory split 1.4 millon. Since there is usually 3 winners, each get less than 500,000. Not bad but not exactly anywhere near the bonuses the Wall Street types get. Without scientific innovations, businesses have nothing new to sell. In the long run we must increase funding to the scientific fields so that the brightest people continue to go into sciences and we get scientists from other countries who want to come here to do research. Inventing the next computer chip or medicine is much more important than creating the next hedge fund.

It is unbelievable that so many Hollywood types come out in support of Roman Polanski. Debra Winger, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen? If I am Polanski, I don't want Woody Allen to be on my side. Comments and petitions from these people only reinforce the perception to the rest of the country that the powerful in Hollywood don't live in reality. They believe that they are above the law.

In fact Polanski's treatment by the LA justice system 32 years ago make him almost above the law. How is it that the prosecution and the defense were making a deal for probation when someone rapes a 13 year old girl? If Polanski was poor he would have been in jail for more than 10 years. If the judge was changing his mind about the plea deal as both the prosecution and defense contend now, he had a perfect right to do so. The judge is not the one making the deal but he gets to approve or disapprove of it. Until he makes that decision he certainly can change his mind. Now everybody is blaming the judge because he is dead and cannot defend himself. The prosecution should be the one that the public be angry at for making such a sweet heart deal for a heinous crime.

Regardless of the conduct of the judge, the fact remains that Polanski skipped out of the country and would not return for trial. I can now understand why the celebrities are on his side because if Polanski is allowed to go free, then every time a rich person commits a crime, all he had to do is flee the country. Is this the message we are sending? If Polanski cannot be brought to justice because of the length of time and that he is not dangerous at his old age, then why do we drag 90 year old Nazi war criminals out of Argentina or other places to face trial?

Joe Wilson says that Obama lied about illegal immigrants not being covered in any healthcare reform package. I think that if Obama did not lie then he is wrong on this issue. As are most of Americans. All the Democrat's plans do not allow illegals to even buy their own insurance, never mind subsiding them if they are poor. As I have said before, most illegals are doing what you and I would have done, if we have the energy and drive, to risk their lives to work very hard to support their families. If our government don't want their services, deport them. I think it would be worse for our economy but it is a fair legal choice we can make. However, to say that someone who is working and paying taxes but cannot get pay for their own insurance, is morally wrong.

Besides being morally wrong I think it is also impractical. If an illegal has a heart attack or appendicitis e.g. he will go to ER where we have a policy not to turn away anyone. So without insurance or in this case the legal right to buy insurance, the bill will probably be paid by taxpayers or swallowed by the hospital which has to charge others more. Since illegals are younger and in better physical shape than Americans on the average (you don't sneak into the country and work in the fields 10 hours a day in my condition), we should want them to be part of the paid insurance pool. As I said before, if an illegal gets tuberculosis and do not get treated, he may die and also spread it to others. Tuberculosis does not know nationality. Do we want this?

I was quite happy with my football predictions on Saturday. Sure I was wrong about USC and OSU. But I had also predicted to my younger son that Michigan and UCLA were going to lose. Since my alma mater and his school won, it makes me 0-3 in predictions but very happy. The truth is that OSU should have won even though I was wrong about the abilities of the two qbs. Pryor doesn't seem to have improve much as far as passing goes from last year. And I expected him to scramble more which I think would cause more problems for USC and may have opened up the passing. Barkley did better at the end than I thought he possibly could. He didn't panic and certainly did not choke at the end as I predicted. I am not sold on him, however. It is obvious that the USC offense was way more conservative than in previous years. I think with Aaron Corps, who can scramble and throw, USC would have won easily. I hope that USC play this way against Cal in a few weeks.

In continuation on weekend sports: I think Serena Williams got off too easy. She should have been fined a lot more and suspended. But you know that would never happen. Not when they never supended McEnroe and Connors. Truth is tennis was at its most popular time when the two bad boys were playing. Tennis authorities know that controversial personalities sell tickets and bring high ratings. They were not about to have Connors and McEnroe miss tournaments and they are not going to have Serena Williams miss tournaments if they can help it.

McEnroe, by the way, predictably defended Williams. He said that foot fault should not be called in this situation, ie bring on match point. He said refs let fouls go in basketball all the time especially at end of games. I think that is absurd. Michael Jordan may get away with fouls because he is a superstar and because fouls are subjective. But stepping on a line is not subjective. If a ref sees Jordan step on the line with the ball near the end of the game, he is going to call it. In this case if the linesman sees a foot fault, he or she must call it, regardless where we are at the match. Anyways if it was not for linesmen and umpires who "can't be serious", McEnroe would not be making so much money after he retired!

I don't think Obama's speech is going to change any minds. He knows that he will not get any support from any Republicans and is just trying to get more public support and keep the liberal and conservative Democrats from fighting each other. He will improve his approval rating on healthcare as a result of the speech for a few days. This won't last and he will have to push quickly for the House and Senate to push bills through and then reconcile the difference between the more liberal House bill and the more conservative Senate bill in conference committee. This is why he refuses to come out totally for or against the public option. This gives him the flexibility to accept whatever comes out of the conference committee.

Personally I don't think healthcare reform is going to make much difference if there is no public option. Without it I think premiums will keep rising and we will have to revisit the problem in the near future. But I think at this point Obama will accept any bill and declare victory and move on. If there was any victory for Obama yesterday it was thanks to the Republicans. Their response speech was weak and the crazy guy who called Obama a liar probably helped the Democrats more than Obama's speech.

As a side note , I predict that Ohio State will beat USC on Saturday. I think USC is over confident, the game is in Columbus, and USC has a freshman qb who was not tested in the first game. I think OSU will stack the line to stop the run and hope that Barkley makes mistakes. On offense I think Pryor will give USC problems just as Vince Young did a few years ago.

It seems like we are getting bad news everyday out of Afghanistan. The apparent corruption of the central government in the election and the increase in casualties make this war appear unwinable. This is most unfortunate because if we had not gone into Iraq but focused on Afganistan I think we could have defeated the Taliban permanently and captured most of the leaders of al qaeda, if not bin laden himself. The question is what to do now.

When we went into Afghanistan, I felt our goal was not just to defeat al qaeda and the Taliban but to also rebuild Afghanistan. I felt that if we just bomb the whole place up and leave afterwards it will help the terrorist leaders elsewhere be able to recruit more people against us. But in order to rebuild Afghanistan, there has to be leadership within the country itself. Karzai does not appear to be able provide that leadership. Just like the economic crisis, Obama inherited this war from Bush and owns it now. I don't think he has any good choices here.

I think Obama has to increase his troops in Afghanistan as his generals are suggesting. The surge worked well in Iraq and is worth trying here. But even if we have some military success over the next couple of years it will not be enough. The bad guys can afford to wait it out in the mountains if we drive them back. We must be willing to stay for the long run. But if a surge works a little, at least Obama can then convince Congress and the public that it is worthwhile to keep going. We also need to win over the people outside of Kabul. This means that we have to find a way to bypass the corrupt central government and provide aids to the provinces. This will require more civilian aid workers as well. It will not be an easy task but our fight against terrorism depends on it.

There has been some scary stories about the Canadian health system floating around. The idea is to make people think that Obama is trying to put in a single payer system and that it would be a disaster for America. This has made some Canadians upset as most of them think that their system is superior than ours. I will give my opinion on this subject today.

Statistically the Canadian system is better than ours. So are all the systems in the industrialized world. Canadians spend just a little over 50% of what we spend per capita on healthcare and their life expectancy and infant mortality rates are better than ours. There is no worry for any Canadian going bankrupt due to health problems. They go to the primary doctor of their choice and have very low copay. If they pay for their medicine, it is much cheaper than here. They do have trouble with access to doctors in rural areas but that is the case in this country as well. So it will not be a disaster for us to copy their system despite all the scary stories out there. They don't deny care to terminally ill people as some have suggested.

There are delays in nonemergency surgeries. A national health program is going to be tougher on specialists than generalists. The Canadian government pays the doctors according to a fee schedule. For primary doctors the discount compare with private pay in U.S. is acceptable because they have less paper work and less hassle of having to deal with only one insurance--that of the government. Specialists' pay will decrease more so there is less people going to various specialties and probably some who move to the U.S. to practice. I don't think that is necessary a bad thing. But for patients in the U.S. who are used to have their elective procedure paid for and scheduled quickly, this can be an annoyance. Of course if you don't have insurance, then it is not even possible to get elective treatments.

Two things that bother me about the Canadian system is that of low or no copay or deductibles. This drives up the cost as people will tend to use services more. It is human nature if say you can get anything you want at the grocery store and pay only $5, wouldn't you get more items? The other thing is that you can't buy private insurance unless it is for something your provincial government does not cover, such as optometry or dentistry. Why should a free country not allow people to purchase something they want? While it maybe true that if there are privately insured patients, some doctors would opt out of the public program and provide services to private pay patients only, that is not enough reason to deprive people of their freedom of choice.

Right now if someone does not want to wait to get nonemergency treatment in Canada, there is no private choice he can turn to. If he is rich enough, he can go to the U.S. and pay out of his own pocket. So it is not possible to have the same treatment for everyone regardless of income. In fact some of the government officials who support national healthcare, have bypass the system to come to the U.S. for treatment so they can be done faster. So why not allow for private insurance option so the middle class can bypass the public program if they wish? I am all for competition. So give us the public option in our reform. And give the Canadians the private option in their system.

Today's blog is a 2nd part installment on healthcare. Recently someone wrote in our local newspaper asking 2 questions. First is why drug companies charge much more in U.S. than in Canada. The second is why hospitals may charge $10,000 but will accept say $1500 from Medicare. What is the true value of the care they delivered?

The answer to the first question is easy: Because they can. Under Canada's national health, the government determines what a drug is worth and if the drug company won't sell it at that price, it loses the Canadian market. In the U.S. if a company has a patent on a drug, it can sell at any price because there is no competition from a generic. Of course, Medicaid and private insurances can negotiate for a better price, but patients who pay out of their own pocket will have to pay what the company wants to sell the drug for. So if you have no drug insrance coverage, you should buy your drugs from a reputable Canadian pharmacy. It is the same medicine.

The drug companies will argue that the prices are high because they have to pay for research and development costs. If prices are controlled in U.S. like Canada, then it will decrease research and thus decrease introduction of new drugs. Certainly if one develops a completely new drug, a patent of certain length is deserved so that a company will profit. But most of the basic scientific research that leads to creation of new drugs take place in universities, or labs under government funding. The drug companies turn the basic knowledge into making a new drug, get it tested and approved for use. So it is not just the private companies doing all the inventions. If the drug companies comes up with a completely new class of drug that changes the treatment of a disease, they will be richly rewarded under any system. But most of the time they come up with "me too" drugs which change 1 or 2 molecules of previous drugs. I would bet the R@D budget of some of the drugs on the market is less than their advertising budget. I don't advocate total price control but there should be a system where "me too" drugs should not cost $5 a pill.

Regarding the 2nd question we have to look at what is value. If you make a pair of sneakers and you price it at $150, probably nobody will buy it. Then you can lower the price or you can refuse to sell them at all. Obviously a pair of Air Jordans is really not 6 times better than a generic pair of sneakers. But Nike can set the price because people want to buy them. In healthcare hospitals can set their price if the market is really free. If you have a heart attack you are going to pay whatever the hospital charge or else you die. But hospitals can't charge you before you are treated. This is because the law forces hospitals to treat you whether you can pay or not. So if a drug addict who shot a cop comes in with gun shot wound the hospital and doctors there will have to treat him even though he will never pay after he gets out. So in order to make up for those people who have no insurance and have no money to collect from, hospitals have to charge everybody a lot more. But Medicare and Medicaid pay only what they want to pay. So $10,000 becomes $1500. Insurance companies who have a lot of patients can negotiate with hospitals and generally pay a little more than Medicare. So it is hard for hospitals to make up for the losses from the uninsured whom hospitals are forced to treat. Some insurance companies would not negotiate in good faith with hospitals and when their customers go to ER the insurance companies would pay much lower than the norm. Hospitals tried to bill the patients for the balance which upset patients. It appears that politicians are going against the hospitals on this because patients are voters. But unlike the sneaker seller, hospitals cannot hold back service. At least not until they are forced to close the ER.

So who gets screwed? The uninsured who have some money. If you are working and have a house and bank accont but no insurance, you will have that $10,000 debt. You can probably negotiate down the amount but not to anywhere near $1500. This is one of the reason why our system needs an overhaul. The working poor or middle class without insurance are the ones who can go bankrupt if they get a serious illness. If you are a drug addict or an alcoholic you get free medical care in ER which in turn causes someone who works hard for his money to lose everything he has. Is that fair?