States’ right approach – US Healthcare

Interesting approach to reforming healthcare in the US. It is my opinion that healthcare should be at best an individual issue (with direct subsidies to the poor) and at worst a state rights issue. It is good to see two Senators – Wyden and Brown- Democrat and Republican respectively, are pushing the states’ rights approach.

Wyden and Brown become Senate’s odd couple in The Washington Post

In short, the legislation would allow states to opt out of the federal health law in 2014 instead of 2017, provided they meet minimum coverage benchmarks. The argument, Wyden said, is that the bill would give both conservatives and liberals a chance to prove their theories on how best to run health care. Conservative-leaning states antagonistic to the bill’s individual mandate provisions can try more market-based models. And the more liberal states that considered the overhaul insufficiently bold can give the public option a shot.

Unless of course the US Supreme Court or the lower courts rules the entire law unconstitutional. I think the court in Virginia has already said so about some parts of the law – the part where govt forces every individual to buy private insurance.

Republicans have been fighting it. But they may be overplaying their hand. If I were Obama’s adviser I would just ask him to extend Medicaid to all who wants insurance. This would be perfectly constitutional. But this would be the worst nightmare for anyone wanting a smaller govt, especially in Washington.

India should pay a bit more (understatement) to our states’ right. We are only seeing the beginnings of various command and control mandates from Delhi. These mandates, fueled by ivory tower activists, pushing one rights based something after another, are busy shoving one law after another down the throat of states. There are no provisions for states to experiment and customise solutions to fit their needs. It is all one size fits all. Recipe for disaster.

Education, food, agriculture, etc. are state issues and should be left to the state to decide how to deal with them. Infact some of these are individual rights issues. State should experiment, especially with empowering of individual with direct subsidies to the deserving. Central govt should have no say in these matters.

Stuxnet – New form of warfare

We may be seeing the birth of a new form of warfare using computer viruses and worms. Check out more about Stuxnet

The sophistication of the worm is pretty amazing. With all our devices increasingly interconnected we wont even know how our device got infected. Look at the increase in the complexity of the tasks a worm like Stuxnet is doing.

Interestingly it is pretty big in size for a worm/virus.

Iggy Pop – How I plan to talk to kids

I plan to communicate with my kids via my blog.

I got the idea from the article on Jim Morrison of Doors and Iggy Pop – The Doors’ disaster at Michigan by Alan Glenn.  I get regular update – Michigan Today – from U of Michigan where I studied. I love these Malcolm Gladwellesque articles. How one incident becomes the catalyst for something completely different and unexpected. All of Gladwell’s articles are like that.Though I have not heard Iggy Pop much, love these following type statements

“At the time [Iggy] was being reviled, around 1970, rock music revolved around virtuosity,” says Paul Trynka, former editor of Mojo magazine and author of the biography “Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed.” “Once his impact was felt, from 1977, rock music revolved around feelings, emotions—like boredom, frustration, incoherent rage, and the joy of loud, explosive rock and roll. Without Iggy there’d be no Sex Pistols, no Nirvana, no White Stripes.”

Just finished his book What The Dog Saw – “nineteen brilliantly researched and provocative essays that exhibit the curiosity his readers love, each with a graceful narrative that leads to a thought-provoking analysis.”

Coming back to my kids, they love music. So I want them to learn the history of music. Especially the history of modern music. Well, they are free to learn anything else they want, but I have always been intrigued by the connection between rebellious music and social change of the 60′s and 70′s in the U.S. How the Civil Rights Movement, the war in Vietnam and other momentous upheavals had a direct impact on music. Or was it the other way around?

I have requested my kids to read the article about Iggy Pop and how he was inspired by what happened to Morrison at U of Michigan and pretty much changed the course of rebel music. Iggy is from Michigan and debut in 1967 in Ann Arbor. Both my kids were born in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is also the place where Kennedy initiated the Peace Corp. Also the place of wonderful riots and stone throwing during the 60s in protest of the war in Vietnam.

Next time my kids visit their birthplace hope they see the place in a whole new light.

Thanks Daniel

Thanks to Daniel, my friend, IT entrepreneur, volunteer at Chennai City Connect and Janaagraha, I am back to blogging. Thank you Daniel for your prodding and help.