Derek Lowe, a real live medicinal chemist (link via Colby Cosh, says this on his site, Lagniappe:
We need something electron-donating that's no bigger than a fluorine.
Although it's been a few years since I left chemistry, I have been obsessed with this question for the last few days. Unfortunately, I can't expand on this now as we're going over to the in-laws for dinner.
But, in a word: boron.
Long entry today, but disjointed. See:
We celebrated American Thanksgiving on Thursday. We: my wife and I; our housemate; my wife's sister "Karen" and her baby. Dinner was a roast stuffed chicken and most of the usual Thanksgiving trimmings, scaled back a little.
It was nice. Next year if it's just the two of us, we're thinking of having a miniaturized Thanksgiving. A cornish game hen. Apple and mince tarts. Delicate, tiny new potatoes.
We've been sleeping next door for the last three days, since Karen is just-recently-released from the hospital and still edgy about being alone at nights. Her husband and their son were down in the States for American Thanksgiving. Her husband is a Yank like me.
Actually, on paper he looks quite a lot like me. Same home city, same college, similar field, unusual musical instrument, similar glasses, hair, height, width. I suppose that's what it means to be "a type".
What is it with this Canadian disgust about Canadian health care? I've spent a lot of time looking at it from next to inside in the past six weeks, and it seems pretty good. Have any of these guys lived in the States? (Apparently Jeremy Lott does now. Maybe we'll hear from him.)
The U.S. insurance system primarily differs from the Canadian system in that for-profit insurers are allowed to pick the best risks to insure. Those who don't or can't get insurance (we'll talk about this later, but I really do mean "can't") either pay from their own pocket, join the state "uninsurables pool", or go bankrupt. Bankruptcy is our health insurance of last resort.
I've lived under both systems. Perhaps it's important that I've been self-employed under both systems. It was impossible for me to find coverage in California as a self-employed individual -- that is to say, I was unable to find anyone willing to write me a policy. I believe that any policy that would have been written would exclude treatment for kidney problems because I have a pre-existing condition. (I had the bad taste to pass a kidney stone while I was leaving graduate school.)
But then we incorporated our company. Suddenly, it was trivial to find coverage -- pretty good coverage too! There were no pre-existing condition exemptions, and it even covered pregnancy. Same two people, but because they were employees of our corporation, we were able to find someone to write the policy. And it was a steal -- at $110 USD per person per month.
Then we moved to Canada. When we crossed the border, we were covered. My wife is a returning Alberta resident; she gets Alberta health care. I am her dependent spouse, legally present in Canada. I get Alberta health care. I had to present my immigration document before I got my card, but my coverage is backdated to the date I entered the province. We pay $120 CAD per person per quarter. We pay one-fifth what we were paying in the States; or only one-third, if you don't convert the dollars. And we can go to any provider we want, instead of only to network providers, as per our U.S. plan.
Alberta Health Care has probably spent over $100,000 on Karen's care so far. Her family has had no out-of-pocket costs until now, after discharge, when they're filling prescriptions at normal pharmacies. Under our U.S. plan, in a similar situation, we would have paid $5000 by now out of pocket, our annual maximum co-payment. The $100,000 would count against a lifetime maximum of (I believe) $5,000,000 -- which is the escape clause for catastrophic life-altering illnesses. If you go over your lifetime cap, your policy is over, and your insurer can decide not to write you a new one. That's the free market, baby.
So yeah. Thanksgiving. Be thankful for what you've got.