Head on up to Contra Costa County For a High Time

You are invited!

What:  Street Party in Contra Costa County

When:  May 4th, 2009

According to an April 22, 2009 story in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.  District Attorney Robert Kochly also said that beginning May 4, his office will no longer prosecute felony drug cases involving smaller amounts of narcotics.

That means anyone caught with less than a gram of methamphetamine or cocaine, less than 0.5 grams of heroin and fewer than five pills of ecstasy, OxyContin or Vicodin won’t be charged. People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift,

Legal tomes and controlled substances alike will go Up In Smoke with this handy lighter

trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won’t be prosecuted, either.  …

“Don’t even bother submitting the cases”, Kochly said Monday in a memo to the Contra Costa County Police Chiefs Association …”

Yipes!

Plane from Amsterdam full of partiers bound for Contra Costa County

Paulano is not much of a partier, so I will respectfully send my regrets to Mr. Kochly, and steer clear of Contra Costa County for a while.  I may also offer the observation that his party may get a little out of hand, given that his guest list includes speeders, red light runners, burglars, trespassers, litterers, street brawlers, and everyone who’s ever wanted to party like they were in Amsterdam, but didn’t want to pay the air fare.

Drunk Drivers beware: DUI cases will still be prosecuted!

The good news is that the Contra Costa party will have SOME limits.   The Chronicle went on to say that wife beaters, drunk drivers, sex criminals, those who commit assault with a deadly weapon are still NOT welcome at the party.    Well, OK then.  Party on.

If you are trekking to Contra Costa County, you may need some supplies.   Kyle Designs Flasks, cigarette lighters, cigarette cases,  pill boxes, condom cases, ipod cases, and any number of personalized, engraved or mongrammed has gifts for your party host or hostess.

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Jay Byrne, an authoritative and respected voice in online communications, recently wrote an article entitled, “The Death of Print.”  In the article, Jay, just like most of us, bemoans the death of American newspapers. 

The most informative part of the article is where Jay seems to poke fun at newspapers that have recently discontinued their print editions in the hope of making a kill, in terms of ad revenue, from the web. Jay warns as long as newspapers stick to the agrarian ways of providing content, their venturing to web publishing is an exercise in futility.  

“What many newspapers don’t realize is that they have yet to perfect the basic mission of successful Web publishing: Link relevant content with relevant audiences for increased ROI [Return on Investment] opportunities for relevant advertisers,” Jay says. 

To illustrate this point, he compares the positioning of asthma-related articles on the web sites Drugs.com and Nytimes.com. In the latter articles on asthma sit side-by-side to drugs-related adverts. This is not the case with the articles on the Nytimes.com, where adverts on mobile phones, biotechnology, levy jeans and identity theft dominate the page.  

After reading Jay’s article, I decided to visit Time.com, which recently carried a cover story about the demise of newspapers. Click on any article on this web site and you’ll find that at the top right-hand side of every article is a FedEx advert. It doesn’t matter whether an article is about an acknowledgment by Paraguay president that he’s the father of boy born when he was still an ordained bishop or the pleading guilty of a former Iowa Kosher Slaughterhouse manager for harboring illegal immigrants.

As Jay puts it, newspapers will only survive if they “visibly link relevant content with relevant audience for relevant advertisers.”

More about Unreported Side Effects of Powerful Drugs …
www.blog.sethroberts.net

People like to scoff at the idea of blending health care with shopping.  Uttering the very words “consumer driven health care” sends shivers down the spines of “purists” – your local medical specialist, whose life-saving work necessitates the confidence and ego driving the indignancy of the thought.  Does consumerism cheapen health care?  Well, yes…if you caught the double entendre.  Those of you who are too good to have your profession sullied by associating it with value probably think so as well…but not in the good way.

Check out these two posts from Brian Klepper on The Doctor Weighs In Blog.  The first, entitled “The Myth of Healthcare Consumerism” points out a recent study that shows only 19% of people would research their doctors and switch providers if they found their doctor had received a low rating.  Now, even if this number is lower than expected, I don’t think healthcare consumerism has anything to worry about.  First of all, as the post points out, 19% is 38 million adults.  Secondly, the data says nothing about using online research to find a provider in the first place.  Switching doctors is difficult and inconvenient.  Picking one in the first place isn’t…and it certainly will only get easier as more information comes available to make an informed decision.  This is sort of the point.  Surveys ask people to describe what their behavior will be in a given set of circumstances.  These circumstances have never existed…so the utility is unknown.  However, the early sites seem to be showing promise.  How many hits do you think drugs.com or wedmd.com get in a day?  My startup, doctorpricing.com gets thousands a month and it’s still a beta version.

Klepper’s second post: “Health Care and the Gathering Storms“ compromises the theme of his first.  Warren Brennan, the CEO of SMA Informatics in Richmond, provides economic data (S&P/Case Shiller Home Prices Indices, wage data) that supports what any informed American already knows – we are experiencing and economic contraction that may become, or possibly already is, a recession.  The individual consumer makes up 70%+ of our country’s economy, and health care has been riding a wave of economic prosperity that is ending.  The conclusion?  Health care businesses (doctors, hospitals, technology companies, etc.) are going to hurt just like every other industry.  What can we deduce from this?  Health care consumers are, at some level, price sensitive, just like every other type of consumer.  It is a basic tenet of economics. 

Why do Americans spend more per-capita than any other country in the world on medical care?  Because they can….  When the can’t any longer, they won’t.  Price matters.  And it’s going to matter more as health care costs continue to outpace inflation by 200-500 basis points.  Employers will no longer be able to provide standard insurance to employees…cheaper alternatives like High Deductible Health Plans will become more mainstream.  People will have to manage some of their own health care risk…one way or another.

At least I hope so…for the sake of all of us…