Containing Health Care Costs
Health care is at the Canadian intersection of pride and politics. This makes it a financial sacred cow. No political party has EVER cut health care. Period.
And yet cut they must. Ontario’s spending on health care is already half of every provincial dollar spent and climbing fast. In an aging population scenario, this is Greek economics. It can’t last long.
But cutting alone is a foolish idea. We need a much more radical approach to handing our health care dollars. In particular, we need to get out of the health care business and into the wellness business. Out of the reactive and in the proactive.
So what do such policies look like? Here are some ideas.
Sugar Tax
I take huge argument with people that want to put together a fat tax. Fat in itself is not the problem. Mayonnaise is fat but is not a problem. Olive oil is the same. Sugar however, is a problem and there is no medical reason on earth not to treat food with processed sugar as public health enemy number one. Put a sales tax on substances that contain sugar.
Physical Education
Public schools (and I suspect private ones as well) are for the most part a total waste of time. What is worse, they setup our children for a life of sedentary activity. Want to make society fat? Shove them into a seat, yell at them if they get up, stress them with homework, and keep them locked up all day. Watch the fat materialize. We need to re-inject physical activity into the schools through making after school sports and physical education true first class citizens of the education system. We need to start ranking our children’s health “performance” on the same level as their math tests and grammar scores.
Sports Investment
We need to get serious about sports tax breaks. One of the best ways to develop a child’s confidence is through sport. No question. Provide tax breaks for gym memberships, sports equipment, league fees. Second, Invest in the places of sport. Running tracks, basketball nets, ice rinks. We have these things but most of them are only small investments away from being places that you could be proud of.
Community Cooking
This is a bit strange of a thought but I think it’s worth a lot. Start to build community cooking shops. These can be done by partnering with existing grocery stores or other appropriate locations. The point here is that cooking and proper eating need to be taught again to both young and old. We need to create places where people can meet with their families to provide cheap and healthy cooking solutions. A side benefit of such institutions is that they foster stronger community ties.
Health Care costs are huge and are only going to get bigger in the future. To really get ahead of these costs requires us to give up on our desire to create “the best hospitals in the world” and to start producing “the healthiest citizens in the world”. The change in mindset is critical if our cherished public institution of health care is to survive the oncoming attacks and calls for privatization.
Image: vichie81 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Sell Your Life
Before heading out on your grand adventure, one major task that faces everyone is what to do with all your stuff. Your house, clothes, TV, stereo, family photos. All of it. Unless you are walking out the front door and locking it behind you until your return, you’re going to need to address the question of what to do with your stuff.
The first major decision is clearly the house/condo/apartment. One of the great cost savings of long term travel is the ability to alleviate first world costs. Since most people will spend between a third to half of their salaries on housing, the ability to offload that cost can be a major uplift to any travel budget. Selling in particular, while emotionally challenging, is one option. The second option is to rent either furnished or unfurnished. If you are like me and you are renting, closing down your apartment is just as simple as sending an email to your landlord to give notice.
If you decide to liquidate your housing, your next step is to address your house’s contents. Here I would strongly suggest taking advantage of the opportunity to purge. People are like Velcro; stuff just sticks to them. If you look around your place, you’ll see lots of stuff that gathered innocently enough. Each item is not much, but collectively, it’s a burden you most likely don’t even realize. If you’re looking for more inspiration, go read up about Dave Bruno and his 100 Things Challenge.
The goal of the 100 Thing Challenge is to break free from the confining habits of American-style consumerism. A lot of people around the world feel “stuck in stuff.” They feel like their closets and garages are too full of things that don’t really make their lives much better.
I’ve personally just started the purge and have a bit of a ways to go, but I’ve found it a refreshing experience. I’ve been slowly posing items on Craigslist where I think I can make money and setting items aside where I think donations are more appropriate. If you chose to go the Craigslist route and have an iPhone, one great app I’ve found very helpful is the Craigslist iPhone App. Its a pretty quick way of getting from a picture to a post with minimum effort.
Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Technology
Planning a trip can be tough. But these days, there are so many technologies that make it easier than ever to find what you want, connect with people, track spending, write home to loved ones. Heck, if you’re really good, technology can help you pay for the travel itself. There are a million different tools out there that you can use. I’m not claiming to be an expert in all of them. But here are some technology resources that I’ve found helpful in my planning and travels.
Image: nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
About Me
I'm a professional engineer working in the software industry based currently out of Toronto, Canada. If I'm not writing code, you might find me on the hockey rink or reading the NY Times over coffee.
I have recently started to plan a trip around the world with my wife, Susana, putting my software development career on hold while I grow and learn in other ways beyond the keyboard. 