Healthcare – look at France and Netherlands

The Boston Globe has a great article similar to a PBS “Frontline” episode about a year ago. Both show there are many ways to skin a national healthcare cat, with government involvement, but not in the top-down way of Great Britain or Canada.

Here’s Jonathan Cohn’s nut graf, from a month of investigating heathcare coverage in France and the Netherlands:

Not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American. And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care. Physicians felt free to practice medicine the way they wanted; companies got to concentrate on their lines of business, rather than develop expertise in managing health benefits. But, in contrast with the US, everybody had insurance. The papers weren’t filled with stories of people going bankrupt or skipping medical care because they couldn’t afford to pay their bills. And they did all this while paying substantially less, overall, than we do.

And, other than a modest difference on cancer, these doctors actually treat many diseases and syndromes better than we do here.

That said, here’s nut graf two:

Of course, reforming health insurance in the US isn’t going to turn this country into France or the Netherlands overnight, any more than it would turn the US into Britain and Canada. The truth is that the changes now under consideration in Washington are relatively modest, by international standards.

But, significant chunks of the Obama Administration think anything that involves more direct government intervention in the healthcare sector is radical.

Dutch politicians rethink ‘tolerance’

And no, it’s not right-wingers, whether white power-based or not. It’s the Labor Party, part of the Netherlands’ center-left governing coalition, that is leading the charge.

The party, which oversees immigration matters as part of its government portfolio, has issued a party white paper on the subject. Its comments include:

“The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance.”

Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, added that “the grip of the homeland has to disappear” for recent Dutch immigrants whom, news reports indicate, retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent after becoming Dutch citizens.

The paper adds that employment, including government programs toward that end, help, but in and of themselves, cannot bring about social integration.

Interesting, following on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call to end the traditional French policy of “blindness” toward ethnic and cultural differences.

Read the full story for more.

Air-purifying concrete highway

A road in the small Dutch town of Hengelo will be paved with an air-purifying concrete, or that’s the claim about it.

The University of Twente developed and tested concrete paving stones contain a titanium dioxide-based additive.

Under laboratory-controlled sunlight, the additive, which comes from a Japanese invention, binds the nitrogen oxide particles emitted by car exhausts and turns them into harmless nitrates.

The road should be done by the end of this year, with the first real-world tests of its effectiveness next summer.

On the coffee table – ‘The Taste of Conquest’

It’s why Venice treacherously overthrew the Byzantine Empire with the Fourth “Crusade.” It’s why Portuguese rulers sent mariners ever further south down the coast of Africa, until Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, followed later by Vasco DeGama. It’s why the Dutch created the world’s first modern joint-stock company, the Dutch East India Company.

IT? It’s the spices of India, Southeast Asia and the Spice Islands.

Chef and food writer Michael Krondl tells the story of how each city, in turn, became the spice capital of Europe in this fascinating read. Throwing in dashes, pinches and soupçons of food sociology, medieval cooking and more on the way, Krondl pens what can only be considered a flavorful read.

Seriously, you’ll learn that Europeans, even today’s bland-eating French, went as heavy with the spices as most East Asians did 500 years ago. You’ll learn their favorites. You’ll learn the dark side of the spice trade, such as Dutch slavery and genocide, its profit margin and more. You’ll also see a few myths about spices debunked. You may even get ideas for new cooking yourself.

Krondl also has a website with not only selected pages from the book, but historical and modern U.S. and global spice consumption, recipes and more.