cellio | low-end jobs

Automated alternatives to humans in the service industry have been around for a while. ATMs were probably the first widespread case of this. The real value of ATMs was the ability to interact with your bank at times when the bank wouldn't otherwise be available. I think ATMs are a real win for that reason, and the only time I visit humans in my bank is when I want to make a deposit.

More recently, I've interacted with automation that is designed to specifically replace humans rather than broadening service. The automated check-out at grocery stores is the big example here. Instead of one cashier per line, stores now need one employee per 4 or so lines. This isn't making things more convenient for customers; unlike ATMs, the scanners are only available when the store is open anyway.

There are practical reasons I tend to avoid the automated checkouts, mostly related to speed. The line for the human has to be about three times as long as the line for the machine before the machine looks like a time-saver. People may get more proficient at scanning and packing over time, of course.

But I find that even absent that consideration, I'm reluctant to use the machine. Doing so helps to eliminate a low-end job that might be the only job the job-holder is capable of doing. Most of the cashiers I see at the grocery store aren't college-age kids looking for spending money; they're middle-aged and sometimes visibly handicapped.

This is not wholly a compassion-based argument; it's also one of expedience. I think we as a society are better off if almost everyone has a productive job. And some people are only capable of the lower-end jobs that are most in danger of being automated away. (Aside: for this reason, requirements for high minimum wages are also a bad idea -- don't make it cost-ineffective to hire people at prices they're willing to work for!)

We cannot avoid automation, of course, and in many cases it's a good thing. I'm no Luddite (she says, typing on her computer :-) ). But I kind of wish that we could focus it a little differently sometimes.

And yes, sometimes the humans are annoying to deal with. Last night I lost close to ten minutes to an inept cashier, and there is one (mentally challenged) bagger who I will never again allow to touch my groceries because he seems utterly bewildered by ideas like "the bread goes on top" (multiple failures). People who aren't capable of doing the job shouldn't hold the job anyway just out of pity. (Giant Eagle was right to fire the guy who was partially eating food and then putting the package back on the shelf, and I don't care that he didn't understand that this was wrong.) But y'know, the machines aren't painless either -- just try to get a scanning error fixed. And for the most part, the people holding these jobs are quite capable and willing to work, and I find I'm rooting for the people over the machines.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Canada does not permit the "haves" to buy additional care. This means they come across the border to get care because they don't want to accept the standard level (or standard waiting-list time). I know that this happens at least somewhat because I know people who do it. Note, by the way, that if the US goes this route then we won't have the option of easily crossing the border for care; flights to Europe are a lot more expensive than drives to New York.

Yeah. Let me be real, real clear on this. I really am proposing that maybe you and I -- clearly both "haves" -- should, for moral reasons, accept less good health care for ourselves, for the sake of other people having better health care. I hate, hate, hate this. It scares the bejesus out of me. This is life-and-death stuff, and the consequences of this sort of decision could be personally catastrophic and tragic to me and the people I care about.

But there are also people I care about who can't afford the medication they need to maintain a chronic illness so it doesn't spiral out of control. There are people I care about who only ever see a doctor when the problem has gotten to be such a crisis that the emergency room is the only option. This is not news, I'm sure.

This all scares me intensely.

But I also have to live with myself.

So please -- I would LOVE to be wrong on this one. Check my logic:

1) Given: The nationalization of medicine in Canada is why it is worse than the medicine in the US, which is private.

2) Id est: The private medicine of the US is better than the nationalized medicine in Canada, because it is private.

3) Private medicine -- medical care sold on the open market as a commodity -- is subject to the law of supply and demand in pricing.

4) The law of supply and demand in pricing stipulates that the price of a commodity will stabilize at that point on F(supply, demand) which maximizes F.

5) The law of supply and demand stipulates that as the price rises demand falls off. This is for the economic definition of "demand" which does not mean "wants", but means "has cash on the barrel head to pay for".

6) For any prize above zero, there are, definitionally, buyers for whom that price exceeds their demand. The further above zero it is, the more buyers that is.

7) Since F(supply, demand) never stabilizes with a price of zero (since it maximizes price X purchases), there will always be buyers for whom the price exceeds their demand, again, where "demand" include "capacity to pay".

8) Therefore medicine which requires being sold as a commodity (as our 1 and 2 above) to attain superior quality, as a concomitant requires for that quality that some known number of buyers be unable to acquire it.

Did I screw up anywhere? I'll be the first the say that economics is not one of my pursuits. (I'll tell you where and when economics and I parted company in a different thread.)

As far as I can see (and I welcome correction) the quality healthcare I enjoy can only exist if some people can't have any healthcare at all. That is, it seems, the logical outcome of arguing that our superior medicine is a result of it being a commodity.

(If, however, we can argue that our superior healthcare is due to something else, we can have our cake and eat it, too. A nice thought, but I'm dubious. Willing to entertain arguments though, if anybody has 'em.)

Yeah. Let me be real, real clear on this. I really am proposing that maybe you and I -- clearly both "haves" -- should, for moral reasons, accept less good health care for ourselves, for the sake of other people having better health care.

But all this does is to redefine the "haves". Do you really think that, say, the family of a doctor is going to get the same quality care in this system that everyone else does? There will always be "haves" -- if not "have cash to pay for it", then "have connection to a provider who'll see me privately".

6) For any prize above zero, there are, definitionally, buyers for whom that price exceeds their demand. The further above zero it is, the more buyers that is.

This is true of health care, or food, or housing. The logical extension of your argument would be that no one should be able to buy any of those (above the median quality) because doing so means someone else would go without. If this argument is correct, then it's about much more than health care.

But what actually seems to happen today is that there is a government-subsidized minimum, in the form of welfare, and most people pay their own way. Why does it work for housing but not for health care?

But what actually seems to happen today is that there is a government-subsidized minimum, in the form of welfare, and most people pay their own way. Why does it work for housing but not for health care?

Housing: there is public housing for (some of) the very poor, those better off can afford to pay their own way, and those in the middle get screwed.

Health Care: there is a publicly funded system that (theoretically) cares for the very poor, those better off can afford to buy into the system, and those in the middle get screwed.

The group in the middle getting screwed is a lot bigger, but the difference isn't as big as you think.

The national health care system in Canada is not the only model available. In fact, it's not even the same model in all Canadian provinces... and there is a big push to privatize parts of the system.

Most of Europe has what is called "two-tier health care" - a public universal system, and (presumably better) private care available for those who want to pay for it.

And one feature that you might want to think about: in Britain, Public Health doctors are public employees, and select from positions where the public health authorities have decided that doctors are needed. In Canada, doctors are all in private practice, with the bills paid by the various provincial health systems. One effect of this is a chronic shortage of doctors in smaller cities and towns, and in rural areas.

Which system would you prefer?

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