The Ownership Society is the appropriate, 21st century replacement to the New Deal. It’s about making it possible for the economy to turn on a dime, not once a decade. The bad news is that George Bush didn’t bother to bring up the idea until a few weeks ago, in his convention speech.

[Via OpinionJournal.com]

One of the first battles of ownership versus entitlement is health care. When my son was born I was amazed at how inept the business of health care was compared to building a house. We had just recently completed building a house in 1991 so it was fresh in my mind. It took me months to figure out the bills from the health care providers and the statements from the insurance company. They acted surprised that I would question their bill when I could not figure who they were or what they had done. It was my money I was spending and I wanted to know why. It appears that many people are unwilling to question their doctor over billing or defensive medical practices.

In the last two years my wife has had two operations and I think the health care providers have improved somewhat. The billing side has improved but the diagnosis side is still questionable. I find it fascinating that my wife questions whether the breast biopsy was really necessary. The good news is the biopsy was negative. The bad news is that you are $11,000 poorer.

My sister-in-law recently broke her wrist. She had a simple operation to set the bones and insert pins. After the operation she complained to the doctors about continued pain so they prescribed pain pills. When she complained enough they have found the bones were still separated and she had an infection. They reset the bones with a plate and a bone graft. The bad news is that they are considering putting her in a hospital so that they can administer antibiotics by IV. Its pretty bad when the medical provider is the likely cause of the infection and really bad when they cannot diagnose an infection they probably caused.