ALYC NB has the world's biggest flag.

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Immigants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it
was them.

I have to ask the obvious: If the premise is that insuring all Americans will decrease health care costs, shouldn't we want illegal immigrants to be insured?

In other news: Will somebody please buy me a Chia Obama?

They send you off to college, try to gain a little knowledge

Whenever people find out I'm a pharmacist (and that I work for an insurance company), they assume I have some grand plan for fixing health care. I usually tell them health care cannot be fixed...but that's not entirely true; more correctly, health care won't be fixed.

It won't be fixed, because nobody seems to know why it needs fixing. For the last month, I've heard the President talk about unsustainable cost increases. Okay, we want to fix health care to lower the prices of health care; that sounds reasonable to me. However, earlier in the summer, health care needed fixing because there are forty-something million uninsured people in this country. If we're still interested in helping out those forty-something million people, saving money just got a whole lot harder.

On that note, here are the 3 things I hope Obama says tonight:

1) "The Swiss do more than make good cheese."

Insurance coverage should be mandatory for everyone. I anticipate my health care costs to be under $500 next year. I would have to be pretty stupid to buy a health insurance policy that costs me $100/month--I'd be out $700 a year. Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision, because no insurance company would sell me a policy for $100/month. The insurance company has no way to know that I'm only going to cost them $500 next year; in fact, all their research indicates that I wouldn't buy that policy; only the guy who's going to cost them $6000 next year would pay for his own insurance...us healthy people would rather risk it and go without insurance.

So, let's learn something from the Swiss. Make everyone buy insurance, subsidize those who cannot afford to pay. Insurance companies will be happy to issue these policies if they know that it won't be only sick people buying them.

2) "Your life is not worth fifty million dollars."

In addition to paying ungodly fees for malpractice insurance, your physician is forced to order less than necessary tests and perform less than necessary procedures all for the purpose of not having to stand in front of a jury to explain why he/she did not order said test or perform said procedure in the unlikely event that you end up dead. American juries are not fit to determine damages in malpractice lawsuits...or any type of personal injury lawsuit for that matter. Read about New Zealand, if you're bored. If you get injured in New Zealand, your disability payments are covered by the government. You cannot sue the offending party; the government will take care of punishing the offending party if anything illegal took place.

3) "Everything is rationed."

Full body scans were all the rage a few years ago when the economy was booming. The theory is good: have a radiologist look at your entire body, and get a head start on treating cancer, heart disease, or anything else that might be about to kill you. Insurance companies typically do not pay for these scans, mostly because there is no evidence to support that they are good for anything. The point is, if you had an unlimited supply of money, you could probably improve health care quite a bit. Sadly, money is not unlimited...if we spend it on health care, we can't spend it somewhere else. I happen to know of one particular class of middle schoolers that will be 10 times more likely to die in horrible toaster accidents this fall because their teacher has been fired.

Moving up in the world...

The view from my new (shared) office. If you look closely, my car is parked right above the computer monitor.

[My roomate starts work at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM, so it is likely that we will never see each other.]

A walk along the beach might sound tempting on a hot day...

However, if you are not looking to get soaked, do not attempt your walk in the area between the water and the unusual 5 foot high sand wall.

I always thought I had wasted an extra year (and two summers) in Indiana...

New Zealand uses (what appears to be) a very streamlined system for determining who is allowed to immigrate. They don't care where you're from (as long as you speak English); they don't care what you look like. They do care how old you are (sorry to my readers over the age of 55), and they do care about your education/profession. If you're bored, give the NZ Immigration Points calculator a try. If you score over >100, you are eligible for entry (but if you don't have a job lined up, you really need more points, or they won't let you in). If you score >140, you are automatically allowed in...after they confirm you are not lying.

I claimed a conservative 145 points. I was feeling pretty good for four weeks, until someone at a desk in London decided my Doctor of Pharmacy degree did not allow me to 1) claim points for having a pharmacy degree (NZ issues only Bachelors of Pharmacy) and 2) claim any points for being a pharmacist (since a Bachelors of Pharmacy is required to be a pharmacist) and 3) claim any points for a profession on the Long Term Skills Shortage List (since as above, I am not a pharmacist). This brought me down to 60 points. It was recommended that I find a job as a pharmacist, then I can claim points for having a job as a pharmacist...

So I've sent this back to NZ Immigration (copied from their website). As my qualifications have been assessed by the NZ Pharmacy Council, and they have issued me a provisional license, I'm hoping another 4 week wait will take care of things.

If your qualification is not on the List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment, or the List of Qualifications Recognised as an Exception you will need to get your qualification assessed by the NZQA (unless you have full or provisional registration and your qualification has been assessed by a New Zealand organisation as comparable with a New Zealand qualification on the List of Qualifications Exempt from Assessment).

I used to have a cool credit card that payed off my mortgage every time I bought something. I could spend $15,000 on a trip to New Zealand and think: "Hey, I'm being responsible. This trip will pay off my mortgage a month early." Unfortunately, thanks to new credit card regulations, this perk has disappeared. So I broke down and found a new card. It won't pay off my mortgage, but it does give me 1% cash back to do with as I please...and there are absolutely no transaction fees if I use it in New Zealand...and I got to upload a cool picture of Picton to put on the card.

Nico says we can't have flamingos...

I am probably too young to be worrying about the weather, but the thought of a real winter is starting to scare me a bit. With that in mind, we are scoping out warmer parts of the Long White Cloud.

One of these is Napier. That's right, the art deco capital of the southern hemisphere. Neither of our NZ trips this year brought us to Napier, so this would be a "sight unseen" relocation. Fortunately, Nico is used to those; and I've had a little practice, as well.

Here are some borrowed pictures:

Saturday morning @ The Laguna Coffee Co. The bike, the beach, and a jazz quintet.

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Interviewing, interviewing, and still more interviewing

Alternative Title #1: He who controls the drugs controls the country

Alternative Title #2: Take this job and shove it

If you are wondering why I have not posted anything in a month, it is because I have been tasked with hiring 10 pharmacists. "Ten pharmacists? Ten pharmacists doesn't sound so bad," thought I. I was mistaken; unless one is very good at picking which pharmacists to interview, one has to interview like, 30 pharmacists to find 10. I lost count, but I think I interviewed closer to 35...and it left me a little depressed about the state of the profession. I can understand that working at Walgreen's does not require a whole lot of brain activity (most pharmacy jobs do not), but at the very least, I expect all pharmacists to know what the drugs they are dispensing are being used for.

While I was not interviewing others, I spent my free time interviewing for my own next job. Two Skype interviews last week, though one became a phone interview after technical problems (which I'm pretty sure were not on my end) prevented us from having video. Interviewing 35 pharmacists prepared me well, and I was offered a job at PHARMAC. If you don't feel like clicking that link, Pharmac is the government agency that handles the drugs. Sort of a PBM with some functions of FDA thrown in. Without a doubt, the best offer I will be receiving, but I'm not exactly moving to New Zealand for career advancement. The two men in suits conducting the interview (you're not supposed to need a suit in NZ) who told me they had to wear said suits due to frequent meetings with Ministers and CEOs of drug companies, gave me a warning that I was in over my head. When I asked one of them to walk me through a normal day, he talked for twenty minutes. I am not sure how I convinced them I was qualified for this position, and it was quite difficult to turn down.

I am now thinking I want to work in a community pharmacy in a town of 1000. Maybe the townsfolk will call me Doc Mike.