Man Robs Bank for Free Medical Care

Posted by Matt at 4:42 PM Tagged with: , ,
Jun 212011

Saw it coming.  No, seriously, I called this one a few years ago.  And you (if you knew me back then) probably laughed at me.

Let’s talk about my favorite thing in the world: incentives.  An increasing number of Americans are uninsured and unemployed.  Emergency rooms provide care, but aren’t very reliable (and aren’t set up for treating anything that requires more than a visit or two–long term care simply isn’t an option).  We do have a few free health insurance programs for people without jobs, but most of them come with an age minimum or maximum.  With one notable exception: prison.  Prisoners get free healthcare, regardless of employment status, age, or anything else.

So what would you do if you have cancer, no job, and no money?  I’d argue that a sane, rational person would commit a crime.  And get caught.  On purpose.

Meet James Verone.  He has a limp foot, carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and a mysterious protrusion on his chest that was causing him extreme pain.  So he robbed a bank.  He stole one dollar, and calmly sat in the corner waiting for the police to come and arrest him.  It’s not technically bank robbery (since the dollar amount is so low), so Verone, who has a doctor’s appointment this Friday, won’t be in jail for too long.  His plan is to wait it out in prison with the free medical care until he qualifies for Social Security and Medicare.

In case you were wondering, yes, it’s WAY more expensive to keep someone in prison than to just give them free healthcare on the outside.

Now, there aren’t a ton of James Verones out there.  But there are enough people who are evaluating the risks and rewards associated with committing all sorts of crimes.  If everyone had free healthcare, how many crimes would that prevent?  (Seriously, I’m asking, someone go do a study and come up with some estimates.)

I’m not trying to espouse one policy or another here.  This isn’t a political statement (or at least not one supporting a particular agenda).  All I’m saying is that James Verone robbed a bank for the free healthcare, that something isn’t quite right with this situation…and that I told you so.

Policy and Politics 3 Responses »

From Sit-Ins to Drive-Ins

Posted by Matt at 8:57 AM Tagged with: , ,
Jun 182011

A sit-in is a form of protest made famous in this country by the Civil Rights Movement.  Sit-ins have been used with varying degrees of success all over the world, on almost every continent (if anyone has evidence of an Antarctican sit-in, post it in the comments).  Most definitions involve occupying seats or floor space in a business, usually an establishment open to the public.  But what happens when protesters take seats in private vehicles?

A small group of Saudi Arabians recently combined two classic forms of protest: the sit-in and the tried and true tactic of taking to the streets.  Demonstrating their opposition to Saudi Arabia’s ban on female driving, about three dozen women hopped in cars, with family members and journalists as passengers, and executed a new form of civil disobedience which I’m calling the drive-in.

A few months ago I talked about how Twitter and Facebook helped take down totalitarian governments, and it’s not hard to see how the Internet is playing a key role in these nascent attempts to reform some of Saudi Arabia’s most draconian policies.  This kind of protest would have been very difficult to orchestrate and carry off successfully without technological resources.  For starters, Facebook and Twitter were both used to spread the word (as of today, the two Facebook pages have totaled over 16,000 “like”s), as well as keep people connected in the aftermath.  And with the world watching, Saudi Arabia could hardly respond with the brutality they once used to enforce their most oppressive laws.  Most of the women just got tickets for driving without a locally issued license, and the Los Angeles Times noted that one group of police officers, ticketing a woman with two journalist passengers, seemed more scared than the driver.

These subtle changes are incredibly significant.  Secrecy benefits dictators and oppressors, while open communication benefits those fighting for equality and self-determination.  Any psychologist will tell you that humans behave better when they think someone’s watching, and I’m going to keep my eyes open for more stories like this one.  (Hear that, brutal dictators?  I’m watching you.)

A few moving violations is hardly a revolution, but it’s a step, and one in which we can see glimpses of how a better future will be created.

Policy and Politics No Responses »

Not The Onion

Posted by Matt at 3:50 PM Tagged with: , ,
Jun 172011

WSJ.com screen capture, 6-17-11

When I first got a gchat about this, I thought we were talking about an Onion article.  Nope, the above image is part of a screenshot I took moments ago while on the front page of the Wall Street Journal’s website.

(While population differences between states means that you won’t always have 50% of the state unemployment rates below the national average, the fact that it works out that way sometimes should not be the least bit surprising or newsworthy.  The breakdown by state count also isn’t a good indicator of economic health.)

I had some actual policy commentary, but instead I’m just going to file this post under “Miscellaneous” and shake my head sadly.

[HT: Emre Guzelsu]

Miscellaneous No Responses »

Grading Biodegradable Plastics

Posted by Matt at 6:07 PM Tagged with: ,
Jun 072011

At first blush, biodegradable plastics sound great.  With a regular plastic bag, someone tosses it on the ground and you SEE it.  It’s clearly visible as it chokes birds and lowers property values.  But if the bag is biodegradable, it becomes like paper.  It magically disappears, and your guilt–be it liberal, Catholic, Jewish, or just good old-fashioned self-loathing–never rears its ugly head.

But things aren’t always what they seem.  A new study suggests that once you take into account the entire life cycle of a biodegradable bag, the picture isn’t so clear-cut.  While the new bags make our land cleaner, they make our sky more polluted, in the form of greenhouse gases.  There’s a trade-off that needs to be considered.  I won’t pretend enough clairvoyance to positively assert which is worse, but I would like to add a layer of analysis that environmental experts are missing.

What the real scientists are missing is what the social scientists will quickly pick up: a bad situation with incentives.  In this case, the incentives aren’t clear and obvious machinations, but rather, subtle and psychological.  People know plastic bags are bad for the environment, and they exercise some level of care over how many they use and how carefully they dispose of the temporary carriers (you can argue over what that level of care is, but let’s just call it X for now).  Once people realize “hey, this plastic bag is biodegradable” there’s an implicit assumption that it’s better for the environment.  The care level they exercise in conserving the new bags will be weakly less than X for almost everyone (by which I mean no one is likely to exercise more care, and plenty of people are likely to exercise less).

Simply put: people are going to see biodegradable plastics as a reduced incentive to use fewer of them (I’m sure some people feel that way already).  And these plastics aren’t necessarily better; they’re just bad in a different way.

So the next time you encounter biodegradable bags, please keep in mind the whole life cycle of the product (and maybe lecture some nearby people who don’t read PSB).

Science and Technology No Responses »
© 2011 The Evitable Future Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha