A Plan Whose Time Has Come

Medicare Plan P, Playing The Odds

Health care reform leaders seeking a way to avoid costs have ignored an obvious option – Medicare Plan P, Playing The Odds .

In GovSpeak, that’s (PTO).

The PTO plan should be developed after a recent burst of news reports that had the medical profession telling us to please ignore what they had told us before:

·        Get a mammogram every year after 40 became Whoops! We mean after 50, and Gee Whiz! We’re not so certain that the radiation risks outweigh the benefits. Also, we know we told you to do self-exams, but now we’re telling you not to, and we’re not so sure our own Free Feelies do any good either.

·        Drugs that were said to help various conditions may either do nothing or do harm, but we’ve always prescribed them, so please take them anyway. And drugs that are proven to help some conditions never caught on, so we just don’t prescribe them. With your best interests at heart, of course.

·        Low-fat, high-fiber diets help prevent cancer – or maybe they don’t, but don’t ask which is best. But whatever we’ve told you before, please keep doing.

·        Be Aggressive in treating prostate cancer, except when you Watch And Wait, and please, don’t ask us what the difference might be.

The view from the medical profession that not so long ago thought bleeding sick people was the way to fix them and only grudgingly accepted the germ theory is that “ask your doctor” is the universal answer. That’s because, in this benign view, the doctor has kept current and knows all the answers. And of course it assumes that you can routinely get past the N.P. A. (No Patients Allowed, aka Nurse Practitioner Assistant) and see the doctor.

And maybe the doctor does know all the answers, but the problem is that recent studies have the Right Answers all over the lot and are often mutually exclusive. While the patient has a stake in finding the Right Answer, the doctor gets paid either way, which is why Medicare Plan Playing The Odds (PTO) would be such a help.

Medicare Plan P (Playing The Odds) would reimburse a doctor according to how correctly they diagnosed and treated. If a doctor was right 50 per cent of the time, those patients on Medicare Plan P would bring the doctor a Medicare payment only 50 per cent of the fees of a doctor who was completely right. If the doctor batted 100, so would that doctor’s cash register. And the ratings would be public by law.

Of course there are record-keeping issues, but those are already sort-of addressed in the current Health Reform packages before Congress. And besides, this is a certain way to still the conservative objections that Health Care ought to be left to the marketplace, not the government.

The marketplace would allow doctors who were right a higher percentage of the time to charge higher fees, while doctors who were right only occasionally would be forced to charge lower fees. God Bless Free Markets! (and occasional, regrettable deaths of lower-income types).

Those citizens whose hard work, inheritance or plain dumb luck left them with lots of money could spend it on doctors with the highest guess-right percentages, while those with less resources could get by with the less-expensive/effective doctors.

Ain’t free enterprise health reform wonderful? Tell your elected representatives you’re For PTO!

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Oui! En Garde!

Medical Tort Reform –

A Pointed Solution At Last

Medical tort reform is like the half-dotty Aunt who shows up at all family gatherings to ask 20-somethings if they’ve solved that bed-wetting problem. A “yes, Auntie” gets you a round of embarrassing congratulations and a “No Auntie” gets an equally embarrassing round of encouragement.

“Shove it, Auntie!” isn’t an option, unless perhaps in South Carolina, where manners are clearly different. So Auntie usually wins. It’s the same for lawyers in medical cases.

“So Doctor, have you stopped your habit of malpractice?” a lawyer will demand with a wink for the jury. No matter which way the doctor answers, the jury will get a wink, the lawyer will get a huge fee. And the rest?

The doctor might get the shaft, a legal version of a colonoscopy in which a verdict is shoved upwards until all polyps of money are removed. Or the jury might shaft the patient.

All this dramatically increases the cost of health care, since doctors are forced to pay outrageous insurance premiums so they can afford lawyers to defend them against the outrageous charges of other lawyers representing patients and their insurance companies.

Critics of the current system have pointed out that it’s set up so lawyers and insurance companies always get paid while doctors and patients trade turns on the shaft. Reform, in the view of lawyers and insurance execs means mandatory washing of the shaft between users, perhaps by the pesky do-gooders who keep demanding limits on “pain and suffering” jury verdicts.

Turns out some of those pesky do-gooders are Republicans, so the following modest suggestion is sure to draw bipartisan support because it solves a current problem by returning to the past.

We don’t need to reform tort law, folks, we just need to make dueling legal again.

You know, with swords or pistols or knives or cudgels or whatever both parties feel will get the job done. And the job?

A “tort” in civil law is a wrongful act for which the inured party can seek damages. If you say a local lady in private business has seen more pumping action than a fire company, that’s a tort. If the fire company says the lady has a loose pumping gasket, that’s another. And if the doctor who was supposed to replace your left hip replaced the right instead, that’s still another.

Torts come in endless varieties but most boil down to an offense against one party’s honor, property or person. And that’s what duels once settled quickly and to the complete satisfaction of both parties since both winners and losers had judgment absolutely beyond appeal.

Of course, to get such a reform passed, we’re going to have to make certain that all the folks now in the game get at least something.

For insurance companies, we’ll pass a requirement that both duelists take out life insurance policies in the amount under dispute, naming the other party as a beneficiary. Skewer the doctor who charged you $150,000 for fixing the wrong hip and you get both money and satisfaction. If the doctor wins, he gets satisfaction and his fee.

Lawyers, of course, will want their cut of the new action, so the new law will have to permit them to be co-duelists, able to dispatch either the opposing party or that party’s lawyer in return for a pre-agreed split of the insurance proceeds.

A side benefit to the Republic is that each such decision will necessarily result in the death of at least one lawyer, hardly a stampede of legal reform, but nonetheless one less ass in the herd.

The Obama administration is committed to passing health reform this year.

As they say, “Yes We Can!”

But let’s add tort reform:

“Oui! En Garde!”

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G.O.P. Tar Baby Tactics

Republican Secret Strategy Revealed

Seasoned political observers said Republican reaction to President Obama’s Wednesday speech on health care reform revealed new clues on Republican development and strategy.

Pointing out that most Republicans spent the evening sitting on their hands during Obama’s applause lines, analysts said it was a sound rebuttal to the charge that Republicans can’t find their asses with both hands. “The Republican party had both hands firmly in place for all to see,” said one GOP representative. Few Democrats denied the observation.

Others saw the passive Republican behavior as part of a secret Republican plan to deal with increasing Democrat demands and a shrinking Republican base by adopting a Tar Baby strategy.

Based on the folk-tale writings of Joel Chandler Harris, the Tar Baby strategy uses a dummy to smear and entangle anyone who tries to connect. An example was South Carolina Republican Representative Joe Wilson shouting out “You lie!” when Obama said the proposed health plan wouldn’t cover illegal immigrants.

That Wilson is from South Carolina affirms his dummy credentials, but close observers said he was stung by calls from both parties to apologize. Informed sources said he briefly considered South American airplane tickets for a reflective hike on the Appalachian trail using South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s map. Wilson ultimately apologized for his “lack of civility,” although some wondered whether fellow Republicans had applied pressure after considering the possible loss of illegal immigrant household help.

Meanwhile, designated readers at Republican pre-speech conferences also reportedly told lawmakers that B’rer Rabbit, the ensnared victim in the Tar Baby folk tale, escapes by convincing his captors to throw him into the briar patch. He convinces them he fears it most, but knows it’s his home and haven.

That reportedly energized Republican lawmakers to redouble their efforts to torpedo health care reform, secure in the knowledge that the electorate would throw them into the briar patch outer darkness most call home.

(In a side development, several Republican lawmakers reportedly expressed unease that Uncle Remus, the narrator in Harris’s folk tales, is an African American. Makes them nervous. They were reassured when designated readers explained that at the time of the narrative, Uncle Remus would have been owned by a Red State person.)

Other Republicans at the conference listened to the designated readers and asked if those who set the Tar Baby in B’rer Rabbit’s path were engaging in malicious deception and misrepresentation. There was palpable relief when the readers confirmed that behavior, prompting one Republican member of Congress to mutter “glad we’re sticking to the basics.”

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President or Pretty Boy?

Tonight’s The Night For Obama

Tonight’s the night when America finds out if it elected a President in November or just a Pretty Boy who can show his teeth only when he smiles.

President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress and the rest of us on reforming our health care system. That Americans spend more and get less on health care is beyond dispute, but rational debate has disappeared beneath a wave of partisan point-scoring, most of it coming from the Rabid Right.

The Rabid Right strums a tune of Fear and Smear, Resent and Distort on the mindstrings of the under-educated and under-employed who form their base. Those who fear any change as another shove down the ladder become the natural allies of those who grow rich on the status quo. It is an ongoing spectacle of the exploited supporting their exploiters.

That’s one part of what a President must say tonight and one of the topics a Pretty Boy will dodge. Consensus and bi-partisanship and good feelings are all very fine, but the big decisions are about Right and Wrong and a President is elected to decide.

Decisions made are hollow unless actions follow. That’s another thing that sets Presidents apart from Pretty Boys. A Pretty Boy will support “universal health care” fervently in all ways that don’t involve doing something. A President will show his support by getting things done, making change happen, leading the country, not polling it.

President Obama and the Democrats have the votes in both the House and the Senate to pass a Health Care Reform bill. Republicans will howl, but it can be done without a single Republican vote. The Constitution doesn’t call for universal love, it calls for majority rule. President Obama and the Democrats have majorities – we don’t know yet whether they will rule.

If what we get tomorrow night are clear health reform goals, objectives and timetables, we’ll be listening to a President.

If the political message tomorrow is “We’ll remember who supported us and especially remember who opposed us,” we’re listening to a President.

If the only appeal to bi-partisanship is one to “do the right thing, not the political thing,” we’re listening to a President.

So here’s a hope that tonight’s address will be a Presidential Address.

We need one.

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Health Care Chronicles Part II

Pushing and Shoving Ideas

(A. Big Push didn’t often visit Cornelius Shove at his fancy K Street lobbyist firm in Washington, DC, but when he did, it was for serious talking on serious issues. Like Health Care Reform, even if old Shove did have to sniff an awful lot before he squatted over an idea. See yesterday’s tale here.)

“That was completely unnecessary!” Shove said briskly as he tried to smooth his necktie and idly wondered what having it blocked and cleaned would cost. “We could have compromised, after all!”

“Compromise! Push shouted as he slammed a grimy fist on Shove’s polished oak desk. “Compromise!” He uncurled his fist and edged the hand towards Shove’s throat again, while Shove hastily slid back his office chair.

“Well of course, compromise,” Shove added quickly. “You know, two reasonable sides working to resolve their differences, instead of unilateral declarations and..” he paused warily, then forged on “ …and personal violence.”

“Ohhh, now I gets it,” Push said, leaning back to suck on a hollow tooth for a second or two. “Why sho – we just talk and talk, and then talk some more until we’re so plumb talked out that we couldn’t croak mor’n a road-kill frog..”

“Those aren’t the terms I would have selected, “Shove said, “but they do indicate you get the general idea at least. Confrontation is the enemy of talk and compromise and talk and compromise are good, and that’s . . .”

“And that’s why it’s you and me again!” Push interrupted. “You talkety-talks have about gummed Health Care Reform to death. Oh, there’s Option A, and Option B and Option B over A and A over B, but ain’t none of them worth a damn to any old son who’s sick and can’t afford insurance.”

“Certainly you can’t expect an issue of this complexity to be resolved simply,” Shove protested. “Why the competing demands of the various stakeholders alone are extremely intricate.”

“You betcha,” snorted Push. “Ain’t nothing more prone to intricate than a gang trying to divide the loot. But that ain’t why I’m here, Shove old buddy – and damned if you don’t know it too.”

“Not again!” Shove pleaded. “The last time it almost bankrupted me!”

Push took a long look around.” I’d say you got over it, Brother Shove, I would surely say that your bank ain’t rupted nowhere.”

“We have managed to recover nicely” Shove said before Push roared “And you’ll recover again, don’t you doubt a minute, but you know what we got to do, so let’s get to doing it!”

“All right…”Shove signed. “You begin.”

“Push has come to Shove, right?” Push intoned in a preacher-like prompt.

“Right,” Shove said.

“And it’s about Health Care Reform, right?”

“Right, “Shove sighed, knowing what was coming.

“Aannd,” Push drawled, “when Push comes to shove on anything it’s time to decide what’s wrong and what’s …”

“Right,” Shove sighed again.

“So what we got right here is a health care system that costs more than any and delivers less than most,” Push said “and so it’s pretty plain that keeping anything much like it is flat out..”

“Wrong,” Shove barely whispered, he so hated the word.

Push grinned. “Well, now I know that wasn’t easy, you old Shove-it, but you said it you own self. What we got is wrong, and we got to fix it and we can’t waste any more time compromising and talking and just otherwise flapping around the hen coop.”

“You’re right,” Shove said almost to himself, then paused and said it again, adding “You’re right, it’s time to pass health care reform!” He paused again then opened his office door and bellowed to a surprised staff “PASS THE DAMNED HEALTH BILL! GET MOVING!”

Shove then turned towards Push, offering his hand.”Thanks, old friend, I needed that.”

“No thanks needed,” Push said. “Well it was just as plain as day – when Push comes to Shove, you just gotta do the right thing.”

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Health Care Chronicles Part I

Push Comes To Shove

Cornelius Shove hustled through the lobby of the gleaming K Street building to the waiting private elevator and punched the button for Five, fidgeting nervously as the doors closed and the ascent began. When the doors opened on the bronze letters Shove Associates -Washington, DC he didn’t allow the usual pause of self-satisfaction, hurrying instead straight to his office.

The big office.

In the corner.

The one with staff already there, all chirping morning greetings he ignored as he entered his sanctum and tried for the 2009^th time to slam a counter-weighted, leather-padded, $30,000 door, which closed instead with a barely perceptible hiss.

The Comm light began blinking as he slid into his chair.

“Yes?” he snarled as he thumbed the audio switch.

“Good morning, Sir, you have a visitor waiting in the public reception area on Four. He doesn’t appear to have an appointment. Shall I send him away?”

Shove sighed. It could only be. . .”Did he give a name, Miss Allbright?”

“Yes, Sir, he did, although it sounded a bit…”

“Strange?” prompted Shove.

“Well, Sir, it was ‘A. Big Pu…”

“Push!” Shove snapped, cutting her off. “A seedy fellow, looks bad and smells worse!”

“Sir! Well, far be it from me, Sir, but, yes Sir, now that you mention it. Shall I call the guards?”

“No, Miss Allbright,” Shove said in a tone of resignation. “Guards won’t be necessary. Please send him up.” He thumbed the Comm off and waited, watching the door.

Why was it always like this? So many ways to settle disputes – good ways, easy ways, and not incidentally, profitable ways. Why couldn’t reasonable men..?

And then the door opened and his guest was there, striding past a flustered Miss Allbright.

“Morning, Shove,” the man said with a smile that was really a sneer with a makeover. “We need to talk, I expect,” he added, arching his eyebrows towards the advancing Miss Allbright.

“Yes, yes, I suppose we do,” Shove muttered is a barely audible hiss, then raised his head toward the advancing secretary and barked “That will be all, Miss Allbright. Hold all calls and visitors.”

As the secretary withdrew, the man named A. Big Push looked around the corner office as if appraising an estate sale, finally drawing a chair uncomfortably close to Shove’s massive oak desk and setting his wrinkled, greasy frame all a-tilt on the expensive brocade seats. “Shove, old buddy, it certainly’s been a long while of whiles,” he grinned through yellowed, snaggled teeth. “We got to do this more often!”

“We most certainly do not!” Shove almost shouted. “And you’ve absolutely no reason to be here, you uncouth pile of..”

“Effective?” finished Push. “Well, I guess you got me on that couth stuff, but your ass is grass when it comes to being effective. So how about we stop being nice to each other and get it on?”

Shove’s disgust almost overwhelmed him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, you sick..”

“Well I’ll be a pig in a barbeque, he’s got a clue!” Push crowed. “Shove, you old ass-upper, you’re knowing more than you’re lettin’ on. ‘Course it’s about sick! But you gotta show some more skin, man! Sick ain’t enough!”

He rose and leaned into Shove’s face. “More! Why are we here?” he thundered, as Shove wrinkled his nose in disgust. “It’s about?”

Pulling back from the stench of bad breath Shove muttered “Health” as quietly as he could.

“HEALTH? HEALTH WHAT?” roared Push as he grabbed Shove’s $600 bespoke tie and half-lifted him from his chair. “HEALTH WHAT?”

“Health Care Reform,” Shove gurgled weakly, which brought a gaped-tooth smile from his captor and the release of his tie.

“You done it!” Push said. “You figured why we’re here! Shove, old dog, it takes you some time to find the spot, but you know to squat when you get there!”

“I…” Shove started, but Push silenced him with a wave.

“None of that! You knows it as well as I knows it and it’s plain right here for all to see – Push has come to Shove on Health Care Reform.”

Tomorrow: Pushing and Shoving Ideas

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Health-Reform Rumors Rebunked

Advocates and opponents of health care reform have spent so much time shooting down perfectly good rumors that a spirit of public service compels highlighting the ones they missed and the ones they only wounded.

As a bonus, a few rumors have been raised from the dead, a service not covered by any of the proposals now before the Congress of The United States, which just supports the argument for private health practice, where the patients may die but the bills live on.

The rumors:

· Pulling The Plug On Granny Death Panels aren’t part of any health reform proposal known to date, but just because Granny gets a pass doesn’t mean Grandpa should make long-term plans. Since men dies sooner than women, this could be an Obama administration ploy to generate Senior Sayonara Savings without even having to convene a panel.

· A National Medical Records Database will be supported by user contributions, but also available free to those who don’t mind their nude medical photos being posted on line, which will also be the fate of users behind on their voluntary contributions. Repeat offenders will have their photos e-mailed to their junior-high first loves.

· Health Reform Funding will include replacing almost-annual COLA (cost of living adjustment) Social Security benefit increases with annual ALOCs (arbitrary lasting obnoxious cuts), plus Medicare Part DOA, which reduces available benefits by ten percent for every year lived past median death ages.

· Public Health Insurance will be available to those unable or unwilling to participate in the nation’s private health insurance system. This will bring to poor people and illegal immigrants mostly the same health benefits now enjoyed by federal government employees, the only difference being the poor people and illegal immigrants will have to work.

· Increasing Taxes On The Wealthiest taxpayers to pay for health care reform will be a non-starter, since anyone can see the inequality in forcing a rich person to raise the portion of income they spend on health care from .001 percent to .002, while non-rich sluggards keep their health-care spending flat at 30 percent of income.

· Republican Health Care Reform Proposals will cater to their Red State base and include special genetic counseling services for brothers and sisters who are also each other’s cousins and aim to keep bloodlines pure.

· Abortion Funding in some Republican proposals would be limited to those pregnancies resulting from rape, incest or working for a Member of Congress. This is in marked contrast to liberal Democrat proposals to make the funds available to anyone screwed by the federal government.

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They Frustrates Obama Officials

On Health Care, Other Fronts

WASHINGTON – Frustrated Obama administration officials have begun blaming lack of Health Care Reform progress on deliberate misinformation spread by the shadowy but powerful group They.

“They and its sister organizations exert a pervasive and evil influence in the public debate,” said a Justice Department spokesman queried about the group. He declined to add detail or to confirm a rumored impending probe.

Other senior administration officials would speak only on conditions of anonymity.

“You never know what They are going to do next,” complained one White House insider. “We announce funding for end-of-life care and counseling and it becomes “They said the administration is going to establish death panels.”

Another senior official complained “We are paying more of our economy for health and getting less than any other advanced nation, but every time that comes up, They howl that we’re proposing socialized medicine.”

Asked why an administration that has made a point of talking with adversaries hasn’t had a chat with They, the official exploded ”Chat? Chat with who? Who are They? We never get a name, a face or even an e-mail – all we know is that every time we propose something, we soon hear ‘They say it’s never going to fly.’”

Officials also blamed the mysterious They organization for persistent rumors that President Obama isn’t a naturally born American citizen and plans to confiscate all guns.

“It drives me nuts!” said one White House staffer. “I can be back home, sitting in the local bar and the guy next to me says ‘You know, they say that feller wasn’t even born in the USA, so how can he even have that job? And they say he’s gonna take our guns as soon as he can.’

“I can explain what a bunch of mindless crap that is over the next two drinks, but it always ends with the guy saying ‘Still, that’s what They say.’”

No Obama administration official discussed on or off the record rumors of an anti-They initiative to begin after the congressional summer recess. Still, informed sources said the program was in its final discussion stages and would use the tactics They use against it.

The working name is said to be “The Hell They Said” and it will be an effort to give an alternative to the “They say” conspiracy that now clouds debate on health reform, gun control, tax reform, foreign policy and other arenas.

One observer, not part of the Obama inner circle, but still well connected, was asked when the rollout might officially be announced.

“I’m not certain,” he said “but I hear mid-September is what They say.”

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Hell of an Improvement?

Damnation Upgrade

Projects Proposed

Hell needs an upgrade.

For years the default Final Destination has been damned stubborn about sticking with the eternal punishments outlined by Dante in the Inferno – boiling blood, whip-cracking demons and such.

Sinners, on the other hand, have embraced and even pioneered new technologies that put sin as far ahead of punishment as bankers collecting bonuses after bailouts. Since Dante hasn’t written anything in years, here are suggestions for new sections of Hell and those who should populate them.

To Repeat These Choices, Press Star would be the section of flaming Hell reserved for those who bought, designed, installed or maintained the menu-driven answering services that so effectively keep service centers service-free. Sinners would be issued cell phones with calling areas the size of lobbyist integrity and battery life equal to Congressional nonpartisanship. While flames barbequed them, sinners would have to navigate the menu-driven system until they reached a demon operator, who would tell them that Hell’s offices were closed but that they could try again tomorrow.

***

And then I said would be a Hell of eternal darkness, where sinners would try to find escape by following echoes of the intimate details they spouted on cell phones to annoy others on public transportation. They would also be surrounded by demons roaring into other cell phones as though speech and transmission volume were the same. When not bellowing, demons would inflict the torments wished by anyone who sat next to the sinners on the 5:22 to Morristown.

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Next! Would be a Hell reserved for those who see that the left lane will be closed in two miles and so zip ahead in that lane until they clog the right lane by trying to cut in. They would be placed in right-lane-only cast-iron cars that grew one degree centigrade hotter every minute stuck in eternal traffic.

***

Say what? Would be a Hell reserved for those who played their personal music devices so loudly that anyone within five feet risked deafness. Those devices would be permanently implanted and set to play whatever tunes the sinner most hated. “Greatest Polka Hits” would serenade rock lovers, while tonal dog barks on “Jingle Bells” entertained jazz aficionados.

***

Prove It! Would be a Hell reserved for the conspiracy junkies who clogged public discourse with every whacko theory imaginable. Sinners would twirl in a whirlwind of superheated charge and countercharge, able to escape only when they were able to grab and hold on to a rare Passing Fact and keep it from being destroyed by a fellow sinner.

***

Health Care would be a Hell reserved for those who fought universal health care. They would endure every disease, pain and suffering their opposition caused others to endure, their only comfort being that the suffering was not rationed and that they were free to move from one suffering to another.

***

Downsizing would be a Hell for those who shed employees to inflate profit margins and their bonuses. They would spend eternity having all bodily orifices downsized while demons busily stuffed them with upsizing layoff notices written on razors.

***

Finally, Deadline would be that section of Hell reserved for journalists who would write in a perpetual August where the only matters of note would be fun, family and friends. It would be excruciating, having to say something when there’s nothing much to say. Most, however, would sink to the occasion.

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Intelligent Machines?

Not To Worry. . .

Worrywarts have come to love the Sunday New York Times because there’s often fresh stuff to worry about and yesterday’s issue was no exception, offering the worry that machines may come to be smarter than people.

The article by John Markoff nicely details how far machine intelligence has come and where some fear it may be going, including concern that “further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.”

Although anyone who has wrestled with one of the phone machines used by service companies to avoid giving service may debate the point, the skill and autonomy of machines is growing.

Even detractors admit that many machines are as bright as freshman Members of Congress, and cost less besides.

Still, there are many signs that machines have yet to develop intelligence equal to humans and as a public service, some top examples are listed here, a roll call of recent human achievement that even the best and brightest machines could never duplicate:

n War In Iraq. No machine could ever have made the decision to go war with Iraq at a cost of lives in the thousands and treasure in the trillions to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there. And no machine could have taken more than six years to swap one corrupt, family-and-faction-centered government for another corrupt family-and-faction centered government. Proud results of human, mostly American, intelligence on display for all to see.

n Worldwide Recession. No machine could have so steadfastly looked the other way while New Age Rumplestiltskins spun gold not just from straw, but from manure in the form of securities backed by securities. When the manure finally began to stink more than the economy could bear, only human intelligence could have bailed out the spinners and returned them to their task.

n American Health Care. No machine could have devised a system where rising costs deliver declining results, except for the 40-50 million who live – and often, die – outside of the system’s reach. And no machine could persuade many of those who are in the system that change would be an assault on their precious right to pay more for less.

Beyond these great recent human achievements are countless little things that only a human could do. Have you ever seen a machine smoking? Or drunk? Or texting while driving?

Or how about a machine that hates on the basis of color or language or gender? Or one that consumes more energy than it needs? Not a single widget has mastered even the fundamentals of these uniquely human and simple tasks. Humans master most of them effortlessly while yet children.

No machine on its own has yet to murder, lie, cheat or steal. Only ages of evolution could have developed those skills so easily embraced by the human intellect that yet elude machines.

Bottom line: In spite of concerns raised in the Times article, machines learning to think like humans isn’t a legitimate concern.

No machine would be so dumb.

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