Ideas for Free

One small change in the law that would make sense and head of a few problems in HealthCare.

Problem: Electronic health records are stored in proprietary formats. In a dispute with the software provider, doctors may not be able to access existing records.

Solution: Require that records be turned over in a timely manner, much the same as the requirements for lawyers returning all client files. For electronic files, require that PDFs or equivalent printable information for each patient be turned over. At the worst, a hospital could fall back onto paper records.

While this would have small regulatory burden on the industry, it would relieve concerns about adopting electronic records and would serve the public good.

Here’s one of those simple ideas with absolutely no barrier to entry, and is more of a craft project.

Problem: I have always loved beautiful notebooks and journals leather and wood inlays. I have no excuse to have more. Also, I forget which books I read over time, for I read so many.

Solution: Create an heirloom quality journal to record which books are read over time. It should preprinted pages for remembering what books you have read, much like the preprinting in a blank address book. For each book, you could record the a third of page with the name, author, publication year, genre, notes, and your rating. Over time, this could be a source of nostalgia and to jog ones memory. For young readers, it would also give a sense of accomplishment.

This probably exists in some form already; it’s a simple idea with no new technology. At a mininum, one could make an ink stamp to stamp and existing blank journal.

Problem: Court reporters own the transcripts to all the trails for which they are the transcriber. This denies public review of the trials, causes a loss of historical record, and generally increases litigation costs.

Solution: Court reporters should be paid the basic transcription cost, shared equally by the prosecution and defense. This guaranteed transcription cost should be slightly more than two transcripts, which is what court reporters make on almost all trials. Also, the court reporter would retain a limited copyright for ten business day, after which the transcript would be released into the public domain.

What Happens: Court reporters still earn a good living, perhaps a slightly better one. Court reporters still have the chance of a “lottery ticket” for drawing the court case that is a media circus. If the news media is interested in a case, they will still purchase a transcript before it goes into the public domain. On the other hand, all transcripts will go into the public domain for later analysis.

Short term copyrights are not new. For example, stock quotes are copyrighted for only a few minutes. This does require a federal law change. The only downside is that an impovished defendent may be required to pay for the transcript; a small amount compared to all other costs involved.

Update 10/10/2006: I checked with a few sites, notably the National Court Reporters Association, and found this white paper. It appears that copyright per se does not apply, but innumerable state rules and laws apply. The short version is that court reporters are still deprived of their guaranteed sale of two copies of a deposition, but the state and other attorneys are deprived of electronic copies. In California, an ascii-text elctronic copy may cost about $5,000 without rights to copy.

This is just a small idea, with low cost and low resistance.

Problem: Sneaky junk mailers try to make their envelopes look like official government mailings

Solution: Every piece of mail from the Federal or State government should have the same official seal.
Yes the Department of Obscure Services can have its own logo, but the government seal would be first. Even your lowly city government could place the seal first, as long it was followed by a logo that said “City of …”. A good seal might be something as simple as a square box with the words “GOVERNMENT MAIL”. Postal Service regulations could prohibit any mail with anything near this seal.

The details for the post office would need to spelled out:

• No private mail with a box or other enclosure in the corner.
• No boxes or enclosures anywhere on the envelope with the word “GOVERNMENT”, “MAIL” or “OFFICIAL”
• No boxes or enclosures anywhere on the envelope in light blue

This would need to be phased in over a few years. The primary cost would be those agencies that now need to print light blue onto their envelopes. Even these could just print in black and white if necessary.

As some of you may know, California has a “2 strikes to life” law. In practice, this law incarcerates you for life on your second possession conviction. The law was theoretically supposed to wait until a third conviction, but the prison business is booming and needs a steady supply of inmates. In practice, the second arrest will be for two felonies. No violent crime is required: drug use, peeping toms, shoplifting, and others have all been used.

So a rational human, once convicted of one felony, would do anything to avoid a second one. We would like to think this avoidance would take the form of scrupulously honest activity, but it could also take the form of extreme violence to silence witnesses. Hence the storyline.

One plausible outcome is a far more violent gang. If a felon were arrested, gang member would immediately target the arresting officer, witnesses, etc., to prevent conviction. After all, the conviction is a death sentence and a convict on bail would probably try for this. It could extend further, to random acts of crime in the neighborhoods of high conviction judges. Once convicted felons would find themselves forcibly recruited.

No need to think too deep, as this would be one of those “just enough storyline to justify cathartic violence” novels. Pick either side as the protagonist and kill the otherside in droves.