Being a tech and gaming writer, I don’t talk about politics much on this blog, but I’ve been following the attempts of the Democrats to reform healthcare in the US closely. As someone who lives in a country with a fairly robust healthcare system, it beggars belief that any developed nation could allow its citizens to fall through the cracks so readily that you end up with random developing-word-style ‘field clinics’ being inundated whenever they appear. It’s also shocking that people who’ve had and recovered from a major condition (such as cancer) find it extremely difficult to get coverage from that point on. That’s how pet health insurance works in the UK, but to have a similar system for humans is just crazy.

Since Obama came to power, the Democrats have struggled to come to some sort of compromise with the Republicans, before ultimately going it alone. Over time, the Republicans gradually withdrew any kind of support and than had fun spouting all kinds of bullshit about health systems elsewhere, such as the UK’s NHS. This backfired to some extent once people looked past the bluster and examined the facts. One of my favourite posts was by Alex Massie, who quoted Ezra Klein’s research where he noted the NHS costs about 41 cents for every dollar the US spends per capita on health. Massie’s point was that if the US did a straight switch for an NHS-style system and dropped its standards slightly, it’d have 59 cents in the dollar to do with as it wished. That money could improve infrastructure, social circumstances, or just be ploughed back into the health system, making US services the envy of the world in every conceivable way, but for no extra cost.

As far as I can tell, opposition to these viewpoints is centred around the thorny issue of ‘communism’ and ‘big government’. A certain chunk of Americans (roughly half) doesn’t like ‘being told what to do’. They’d actually rather pay more than twice as much as they need to for health because they have the choice to do so. The fact the poor are stuffed is irrelevant to the ‘anti’ crowd, as is the fact that the US effectively has an enforced lock-in anyway, just in the commercial arena rather than at state/national level. (‘Anti’ campaigners also avoid the difficult point that the British system is actually at least three-tier—‘free’/tax-paid coverage for all, but then you have levels of additional ‘private’ services that one can ‘top up’ with if you can afford to do so.)

To my mind, one of the very best responses to this argument came in a comments thread for The New Republic’s The Coming Conservative Health Care Freakout. Someone with the ID ‘singlspeed’ notes that if anti-healthcare campaigners are truly against state support then they should stop being hypocritical and give up all of it. “For all those out-of-work, underemployed or retired, red-meat, red state conservative ’Merikans that are getting social security, disability, medicare and unemployment benefits that rue the day about how big gubmint and taxes are ruining America, I suggest they forfeit all aspects of government that they benefit from,” he says. “No more calling 911 for any emergencies, no using the interstate highways for you, no flying (FAA controls the air paths), no buying gasoline or using electricity (those are gubmint subsidized industries), no buying any food product that includes corn or high-fructose corn syrup (all heavily government subsidized), don’t buy California lettuce (it uses Federally subsidized water to grow it), don’t go to a state university that accepts Federal grant dollars for science and medical research, stop using that Social Security check to pay for your rent…”

As of yesterday’s vote, these points are, to some extent, finally moot. The bill that’s on the table is far from perfect, but as James Fallows says in Why This Moment Matters, “the significance of the vote is moving the United States from a system in which people can assume they will have health coverage if they are old enough (Medicare), poor enough (Medicaid), fortunate enough (working for an employer that offers coverage, or able themselves to bear expenses), or in some other way specially positioned (veterans; elected officials)… toward a system in which people can assume they will have health-care coverage.” And in any reasonable light, that alone can only be a good thing.

Since I was at school, I’ve been accused of being a Mac fan-boy. In the old days, this was down to me having the audacity to suggest that Macs were actually pretty good and rather usable. Detractors suggested Macs were toys, and the Mac OS was for people who didn’t know how to use a ‘real’ computer (rather than people who just wanted to get things done). “Real men,” I was told, “use the command line.”

Not a million years later, Windows evolved from a piece of garbage into something that was actually pretty good (Windows 95), largely by ripping off the Mac OS. “A-ha!” I’d say, only to have fan-boy-accusers say that now it was obviously OK to have a GUI, because [insert spurious reason that only makes sense ‘because’]. Right.

This pattern has continued into my professional career. Of late I’ve been called an Apple fan-boy on an increasingly regular basis, due to my love of iPod gaming and taking the royal piss out of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series efforts. Shots that have been fired my way echo Paul Thurrott’s contradictions that were nicely summed up by Chris Grande a couple of days back.

When iPhone OS arrived, Thurrott derided its lack of copy and paste, saying it was “unreal” that such a feature was “inexplicably missing from the iPhone”. Anyone arguing the toss (either that the feature wasn’t really necessary, or agreeing with Apple’s stance that’s it’s better to do something right, even if that means taking longer to deploy it) was a Mac fan-boy.

Fast forward to the present day and Microsoft’s stated its Windows Phone revamp will lack copy and paste (and there’s no consensus on whether the company is working on a solution—some claim it is, and others say the opposite). Thurrott now states: “No matter”. I’ve experienced pretty similar reactions from people on the Apple/Microsoft scrap. According to some, Apple’s closed ecosystem and lack of third-party multitasking were the most stupid things in the history of tech, but now Microsoft’s doing the same, they’re somehow fine. Anyone defending Apple’s stance before was a fan-boy, but anyone attacking Microsoft for taking up the same position: also a fan-boy.

I find this a strange, somewhat deluded and often hypocritical argument, but there is of course one major difference between today’s mobile space and the early 1990s desktop PC ‘war’: the positions have been switched. Microsoft’s still using its photocopier and playing catch-up, but this is all the more apparent now it’s the underdog with a lower marketshare. It’ll be interesting to see how the two companies fare over the coming year or so. I’m hoping Apple wins the long game for the first time (and also that other rivals—Google, Palm—force Apple to innovate rather than just cloning Cupertino output)—the company cares more about experience and design than marketshare and dominance. I’m sure this stance will have me branded ‘fan boy’ for years to come. So be it.

The more I read about Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7, the more I think senior staff at the company should cut down on the gin. For being utterly drunk is the only explanation other than outright incompetence regarding the direction of its mobile platform.

In tried and tested Microsoft fashion, Redmond has got its photocopier out, and is creating its own iPhone. The only problem is that Microsoft appears to be copying Apple circa 2009, hence its decision to omit copy and paste from Windows Phone 7 (source: Engadget).

Microsoft’s reasoning is that most users don’t really need clipboard functionality. Most users don’t “really need” Windows Phone 7 either, so maybe Microsoft should just cancel the whole thing and buy Palm.

The Guardian reports that the BBC’s planning to reinvent its digital radio output around extensions to existing radio networks. In essence, it’s going to kill 6 Music—generally regarded as one of the finest digital stations, and perfectly in line with the BBC’s public service remit—and use the cash to extend 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

One exec was quoted as saying: “Just like the Xtra Factor goes backstage and tells you what happened at the X Factor, so Radio 2 could have spin-off digital shows with extra coverage from Glastonbury or the Electric Proms”. And this pretty much proves that once again the BBC doesn’t understand what it has, nor what it really needs to offer. 6 provides music you can’t get elsewhere, not extensions of existing coverage. And it’s hardly like existing extensions are working well anyway, with Radio 1Xtra’s Tim Westwood once famously stating that his audience share was so low that he’d been broadcasting to “absolutely nobody for the last three hours,” saying this was “soul-destroying”.

But the BBC seems to want to blunder on regardless, removing its one real piece of exciting and innovative radio and replacing it with ‘more of the same’. This is like the music industry closing every indie label but providing extra Top 40 play, and it’s just not acceptable.

If you’re a fan of 6 Music or independent, innovative music in general, email the BBC now.

I’m a staunch advocate of the BBC and the licence fee, but today I really want to ram my licence fee down the throat of the director general. This is because the rumours are true and Mark Thompson and friends have decided to axe 6 Music (source: BBC News).

In an age of increasing rampant commercialism in the music sector, 6 Music is vitally important. It focuses on relative unknowns, doesn’t tend to force playlists on its DJs, and is therefore the closest thing we have left to John Peel. For up-and-coming musicians or long-time ones who never troubled the top 10, the station is essential, and for anyone with an interest outside the mainstream, it’s without doubt the best available station.

To that end, axing 6 Music is an astonishing decision, given the BBC’s public service remit. The argument from various idiots (including politicians and, unsurprisingly, News International) is that this is the kind of thing the commercial sector should deal with, making 6 Music a waste of the BBC’s funds and, by extension, licence payers’ money. But musicians outside of the mainstream are often not commercially viable and are therefore ignored, hence why even stations claiming to champion genuinely ‘indie’ music don’t—they instead tend to focus on artists majors are attempting to thrust into the spotlight.

Phill Jupitus has described the axing of 6 Music as “an act of cultural vandalism,” which is bang on the money. Thompson argues that the report—including the removal of 6 Music—is about “putting quality first,” which doesn’t ring true when the teens-only disaster that is Radio 1 gets to live. Clearly, this is about commercial viability—in other words, 6 Music is simply seen as too expensive to justify. That the digital station is being scrapped on the basis of a lowish audience share just prior to the digital switchover is idiotic, however.

This all said, I have some sympathy for the BBC. Both the Tories and Labour are, for whatever reason, beholden to major media corporations and hang on their every word. Both use BBC bashing as a way to drum up votes among the ignorant who don’t understand the true value of the BBC. One minute, they argue the BBC cannot justify the licence fee, due to low ratings. So the BBC responds by becoming more mainstream. Then the politicians argue the BBC is competing against existing commercial product, which is against its public service remit. Today, all these things are clashing, and the BBC is somehow accused of being too niche and yet also competing against existing commercial product.

Ultimately, this is probably the thin end of the wedge. With Thompson caving, in anticipation of a BBC-hostile Tory government, these won’t be anywhere near the last cuts, and we’ve probably started on the path to a ‘shell’ BBC. While I’m sure that’ll make the Sky-obsessed, drunk on American imports, gleefully happy, this spells disaster for home-grown programming and television and radio that isn’t entirely advertising-dependent and therefore utterly aimed at the mainstream.

UPDATE: The Register reports that the BPI and indie association AIM claim “half of the music programming [on 6 Music] is never played anywhere else,” which rather puts paid to claims that 6 Music is treading on the toes of commercial competition, and that commercial competitors are best suited to championing the kind of content 6 Music plays.