Silly Little Country

Three-Quarters of an Eye and Sinking

In an earlier post I made reference to the inane suggestion that some fraction of an eye is of no use; with the rapid advances of the cataract in my right eye, I would say such a view is nonsensical, as I can still fumble through the day, though there is no question things are getting worse.
Right now I am swearing off driving at night until my operation. The single mild ghost image the clouding of the lens initially created has now become a crescent of ghost images, and this will surely grow. In daylight the ghost images are overwhelmed by reality but at night they have a greater impact and create a parallel universe that can mislead me.
I get to watch this deterioration go on for another three months, thanks to the regrettable fact that a cataract operation is regarded as a necessary medical service in Canada. Would that the government thought it was less important - then I might be able to go get faster service legally. This is one of the odd perversities of our single-payer government health-insurance system, which denies individuals any ability to signal the importance for them of particular medical interventions, as long as they are medically necessary.
Which brings me to an interesting debate - Tyler Cowen and Kevin Drum are at it over single-payer healthcare systems - check out this post. Kevin appears to me to be in over his head. I am watching with interest.

UPDATE: Looking for something else I found this from Brad deLong. It appears he does not quite understand 'single-payer' either, nor does Krugman.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:00 AM