Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US

As I said on this blog a few weeks back, imagine how powerful an economic stimulus plan this would be for the US:

Bring in a universal health care plan that would

A) have the government, not insurance companies, pay doctors and hospitals set rates for tests and procedures (the “costs” of tests and procedures vary not only from hospital to hospital but depend on which insurance company a hospital or doctor is charging)

B) Provide access to everyone at a much lower cost (due to the huge savings in overhead found by eliminating the middleman)

C) Drastically reduce the crippling premiums that are paid by individuals and employers

Such a plan, though it would bring about layoffs in the insurance industry and hospital billing departments, would free up money currently paid by employers for benefits, allowing them to create new jobs. More importantly, no one would ever hesitate to go into their own business or change jobs simply out of the fear of losing their healthcare coverage. Finally, the worries of tens (hundreds?) of Americans about going bankrupt due to serious illness or injury would be lifted. That would be the stimulus package of all stimulus packages and on its own would radically transform the economy.

This recent article from The New Yorker finds some insight into how Americans might get there from here by examining how other countries moved to universal health care models.

Thanks to Heidi for directing me to this article.

Good piece by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek this week about why Canada’s financial sector has weathered this financial crisis so well:

Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it’s Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system the healthiest in the world. America’s ranked 40th, Britain’s 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn’t grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

[. . .] If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet—OK, sometimes boring—neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

The full article is worth reading. Nice to see that someone is noticing these increasingly striking difference between Canada and the US of late. This is not to say that Canada is not also facing a dire situation at the moment. We’re shedding jobs quickly and the Conservative government’s bailout package, as Bob Rae so beautifully pointed out in the National Post this weekend, looks like it will be putting a lot of money in many of the wrong places. People on both sides of the border are anxious as to whether or not any of the stimulus packages each country is putting forward will help.

Working here in the office while watching a video of the Adam Graves jersey retirement in NY last night. He was undoubtedly a great, even heroic player, winning his first Stanley Cup with the Edmonton Oilers before heading to NY, where he helped the Rangers win the cup in 1994. You can see by watching this scene as he entered the rink last night what a fine person he is, too. What a wonderful example for everyone as to what we can and should be giving back to others. A true hero of hockey.

What? We don’t look interesting? We may not behave in ways that catch peoples’ attentions but we certainly look like an interesting country, don’t we? Well, you need to pay attention to know what you’re missing up there.

At any rate, some good explanations here of why Obama’s trip to Canada matters to both countries.

Check out CNN’s take on Why Canada Is More Interesting Than it Looks

Back to work for me. Have to look more interesting…

Although I think many of us feel that the recent Canadian budget is seriously flawed and that a coalition government could have worked out well for Canada, I also think that Michael Ignatieff’s move to support the budget was a savvy one that will better position him to win an election when the time is right. There’s an interesting profile of Ignatieff in the NY Times today that’s worth reading. I’m looking forward to reading his new book this spring.

As this is a continuing topic of conversation in the US and with Americans who ask me my thoughts on these issues as a Canadian, I’ll continue to post here links to resources that I find helpful in explaining these differences. This interview with Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt, a top American expert on health care economics, explains in a way that I’ve not heard before in the same detail just why the administrative costs are so high in the United States and why a national health care system could easily save enough money to bring affordable universal health care to everyone in the US. If this is something that interests you, make sure to take the time to read or watch this extensive interview.

This part of the interview, which was featured in this other shorter news story on the Canadian system that I’ve embedded below, explains it all:

Edie Magnus: We were in a hospital that was affiliated with McGill University, and it was a regional system that had six hospitals that were affiliated with one another, and they annually have some 39,000 inpatients, and they do about 34,000 surgeries and they deliver about 3,000 babies. And managing all of this is a staff of 12 people doing the billing, the administration. What would an equivalent hospital in the U.S. take to run administratively?

Uwe Reinhardt: You’d be talking 800, 900 people, just for the billing, with that many hospitals and being an academic health center. We were recently at a conference at Duke University and the president of DukeUniversity, Bill Brody, said they are dealing with 700 distinct managed care contracts. Now think about this. When you deal with that many insurers you have to negotiate rates with each of them. In Baltimore, they are lucky. They have rate regulations, so they don’t have to do it. But take Duke University, for example, has more than 500,000 and I believe it’s 900 billing clerks for their system.

As an academic and a parent of young school-age children, I surprise friends and acquaintances sometimes when I tell them that by the time my kids are of age to attend university, I’m not sure that the academic institution as we know it today will be all that relevant. I’ve just spent a bit of time checking out some of the rapidly growing content on iTunes University and have to ask why, with such great learning opportunities available at the click of a mouse, anyone today would want their learning to be confined to the set of teachers at only one institution? Why not pick and choose from hundreds of institutions and create the type of education that best suits (and better serves) one’s interests?

Today I am wrapping up teaching my online course on Margaret Atwood to a great group of UVM students who have taken the course from home over Christmas. Even now, after teaching this course online for about five years, I’m still impressed and surprised by how students in my online courses routinely outperform my students in face-to-face classes. Why is that? One reason may be that they are more responsible for their own learning in that environment. Instead of being required to go to class at a particular place and time, they get to choose where and when they want to learn. I also ask them to write and read a great deal every day. It’s impossible to sit in the back of the class to see what the professor or their fellow students have to say; they need to be active learners each and every day of my course.

This ad from Kaplan University inspired me to take a few minutes today to talk about this. The ad sums up my point very well, except for that here it’s still an ad for a single, profit generating university that shapes students learning opportunities within parameters generated by that institution. I think that someday maybe (if I live long enough) I’ll be paid by the students from all over the world who want to take my class rather than by an individual university. My office might well be an actual office, a beach chair, or Cappuccino U.

Barack Obama will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Spider-Man, on sale on January 14th.

Today’s Guardian has a preview:

The five-page story takes place in Washington DC on inauguration day, when one of Spidey’s oldest enemies, the Chameleon, attempts to stop Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. Fortunately, Peter Parker is covering the event as a photographer, and jumps in to save the day.

“Ya hear that, Chameleon? The president-elect here just appointed me … secretary of shuttin’ you up,” Spider-Man says as he thwacks the Chameleon in the face. “I hope this doesn’t ruin the inauguration for you,” he tells Obama, as the Chameleon is led away by security officials. “Honestly, I’m more upset by the Chameleon’s shockingly deficient understanding of the electoral process,” Obama replies.

Spidey then cedes the limelight to Obama. “This is your day, after all, and I know it wouldn’t look good to be seen palling around with me,” he says, in a nod to Sarah Palin’s comment that the then presidential candidate had been “palling around with terrorists”.

Having a President appear in comics is nothing new. I even remember way back in 1979 when Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau appeared in the Uncanny X-Men and later Alpha Flight. It doesn’t get cooler, though, than having a President who collects comics, and a state Senator who not only collects comics but appears in the latest Batman movie. Sadly, and this is just a guess, I don’t think Michael Ignatieff reads comic books.

This is one of the courses I’ll be teaching this spring. It’s new for me, as are a few of the books on the syllabus. Should be fun!
English 180: Women’s Writing from Canada
From the beginnings of Canada’s literary history, women writers have played a key role in the development of that nation’s rich and distinct literary voice. Especially over the last 50 years, it is safe to say that women writers are at the heart of the Canadian literary canon. Writers such as Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Gabrielle Roy, and Margaret Laurence are some of the greatest (and best known) Canada has ever produced. At the same time, writers such as Nicole Brossard, Daphne Marlatt, and Sheila Watson have been on the front lines of innovative writing in Canada. In this course, we’ll look at women writers from across Canada who have paved new ground for the literatures of Canada both in terms of stylistic innovation and Canada’s international literary reputation. Although we’ll be focusing primarily on fiction, we will be reading poetry and some non-fiction throughout the course as well.

Montgomery, LM. Anne of Green Gables (Norton Critical Edition only). 9780393926958
Gabrielle Roy, Street of Riches and The Road Past Altamont
Laurence, Margaret. The Stone Angel.
Watson, Sheila. The Double Hook.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale
Munro, Alice. Carried Away: Selected Stories.
Brossard, Nicole. Mauve Desert.
Brand, Dionne. What We All Long For.

Robinson, Eden. Monkey Beach.

A good article online here from Intelligent Life about the recent rise of Canada as a musical force to be reckoned with. One only needs to start listening to CBC Radio 3 to discover just how much amazing music is coming out of Canada these days.   

Speaking of discoveries, my favourite new Canadian band is called Rural Alberta Advantage. They put out a terrific album this year called Hometowns. Pick it up. You will not be disappointed. You can find an interview with them here on emusic.com, where you can download their album if you’re a subscriber.