Sellers and Buyers

Well shiver me timbers if I didn't turn on the telly this morning and there was Peter Sellers in his role as Inspector Clouseau talking about the situation in Lebanon. Which was odd, what with him having died in 1980. However, Sellers was a Pompey boy, born in Southsea, so who knows?

But....yes of course, 'twas not he, but the Lebanese minister for sport and youth, Ahmed Fatfat. I have to say, I'm not convinced he's doing his job properly, setting fire to tyres in the street is not a healthy occupation for young people.

We had however, caught the Steve Martin film 'The Pink Panther' quite recently, something we had been meaning to do because our friend Steve had had a small part in it and had really enjoyed working with Steve Martin. Sadly, however great Martin is, Peter Sellers he most certainly ain't, and we quickly abandoned the movie.

Yesterday, all my little ducks were ill. Laurence, for the first time, had to have a day off sick, he awoke with a headache and bad tummy. Back in the UK, Ben has a heavy cold and has fought off a bout of tonsillitis. Sue is under the weather and Alex is in hospital. She has an infection caused by a problem in her back and had to have a small operation. I am waiting to hear from her.

Living in Canada has afforded me not only the opportunity to make comparisons between the two health systems, but also to have a tiny peek at how things work in the States.
We are very close to the border with Washington State here and so we do have some Americans who come over every day to work. One such colleague of Kevin's had an accident recently and then you find out the limitations of a system run on the vagaries of the insurance industry. In this particular instance, the insurance company would pay for a surgical consult and the resultant surgery so long as both weren't on the same day.

I have had to watch another friend cope with the results of surgery while having to also deal with the medical insurance company, they will pay for this but not that, they'll pay for this percentage of this but only that percentage of that. And she quite possibly might have to be in a position of having to sue the hospital where she contracted MRSA should they choose to try to bill her for it.

But I can also see a positive side to this system. As you know, somehow and inexplicably I find myself watching the US Court shows. A lot of court time it seems to me, is spent trying to recoup medical costs when someone else has caused the injury.
Some of these cases involve minors injuring other minors, and this is where I can see the point. If some vile little brat has bullied and wounded some other kid, actually having them stood before a judge in a court of Law and being ordered to pay the medical costs has an impact that the parents, the Police, the Teachers simply can't deliver. I will just add that although I said the parents, just as was my experience at Mayhem and other schools I worked in, the parents of the bullied rarely acknowledge that their kid is in the wrong.

Being hit in the wallet kinda makes the point, but you can't buy integrity.