The Good Samaritan

         

    

      Some politicians are still obsessed with repelling the Affordable Care Act. People elected to public civil service sure are cavalier about cutting medical insurance to millions of voters. 

         When Ford motor realized the Pinto was dangerous, the company calculated the cost of a human life and decided it was an acceptable loss.

         The insurance companies are notorious for calculating profits on a Macvellian level. How much is the cost of a human life today Mr. Insurance executive? After you add in the cost of buying a congressman to vote in your favor, is the cost of a human life still cheap enough? How easy is it to deny coverage to diabetics who can't afford their insulin, or somoene with a pre-existing heart condition? Very easy when captialism trumps morality.

         If we want to be truly Macavellian capitalist let's go all the way. People with expensive disabilities-gone, People who are retired and obviously in poor health-gone. The poor, the homeless, the willfully unemployed-gone. Let's bring back eugenics- the sterilization will be at their cost, of course- they simply cost too much for society to support.

         Let's put our massive, costly military to good use and create death squads. What better way for a soldier to prove their loyalty to the oligarchy than ridding it of potential protest and revolution.

         I'm being cynical, of course but where do we draw the line? How do we decide this life is more valuable than that one? When did our society decide that making money is more valuable than someone's life?

         Those who insist publicly funded health care is socialism, "Why should I pay for some strangers unhealthy choices?" forget it also provides medical protection  for your family, relatives, friends and co-workers.

         We pay to support local police, fire departments and community colleges to protect and enrich the community. That means all of us. Do you really want to be like the soulless who keep you poor by denying basic human needs?

ACA, health care, society

Reddit Explains Healthcare

Start with this link at Reddit and I'll add my observation on the whole "GOP hates Obamacare " debate. 

As the top comment mentions, ". . .It makes it so insurance companies have to spend a certain percent of their revenue on actual health care, which essentially caps their profits at a certain percent." 

This is the crux of the resistant from the insurance companies who have been conspicuously silence during this debate. As a recent Time article pointed out the health care business is making tons of money and don,t want to see The Affordable Healthcare Act become law. Americans pay far more for health care than many other countries but get less for it. Why? Because no one is controlling the costs. Free market and all but health care is not a commodity to sell on the open market like cars or produce. 

The fact is most countries have some form of national health care that more or less works. There are flaws but some flaws are better than someone dying because they couldn't afford to seek medical help. Like you and me.

A Novel Solution

We have too many people and not enough money, energy or space to deal with a world of nearly seven billion people. What is needed is a cheap, efficient way to deal with the strain on our resources. Here in America we have to share in the solution to cut costs and return some balance to the economy.

We can start by eliminating the sick, handicapped and elderly. They contribute nothing to the economy, they take up space and energy. The elderly spend their time in idle retirement draining Social Security. Raise the retirement age to seventy. Anyone above that-eliminate. The handicapped are obviously a waste of money. Do you know how much it cost to keep this man alone alive? We’re talking serious liability here. The cost to extend the lives of the sick and terminal ill is staggering- and for what? It’s just an ugly dilemma when the pesky notion of ethics meets the realities of commerce.

Paul Krugman asked in a recent column: “How did it become normal- or for that matter acceptable - to refer to medical patients as ‘consumers’ and doctors as ‘care providers’ ?” Because Mr. Wimpy liberal, health care is a business. It’s a product to be consumed and the cost efficiency must be contained if it is to remain profitable. It’s not just some essential need to keep people healthy.

Why stop there? Let’s bring back eugenics. The state can’t afford to pay for the lazy poor, pregnant single women, and illegal immigrants. It puts a strain on those who contribute to society; you know, people who work for a living. This solution has many advantages. It opens up more housing and resources thus improving profitability.

Forget all the abstract talk of ethics and such, this is about practicality.
Instead of sitting around pondering the morality of every goddamn problem let’s just do something for a change and worry about the consequences later. Humanity never could come to an agreement on such weighty matters anyway. Regarding problems as black or white has a certain elegant simplicity to it.

Either you are a contributing member of a capitalistic, consumer driven economy or you are a loafing socialist who’s thinks you are entitled to a free handout from the government. Only the fit and productive are allowed to live and prosper.

If you are nodding your head in agreement at any of this Swiftian satire, then you need to reconsider your values. It’s a shameful world when we look on each other as commodities or liabilities. We are human beings not products to be thrown away carelessly like a cheap plastic toy. What each of us contributes to the world can not be measured on a ledger sheet. Oscar Wilde remarked that “Americans know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”

Economics has ruined everything. There is no room for such things as kindness where profits are the only measure or worth. Our society is so desperate and money driven that we have lost sight of the social values we esteem. Discussion of ethics has become an abstract we praise without practicing. Mr. Krugman- an economist- sees the danger of this kind of thinking and we need to stop it.

Healthcare is big business because. . . .

As pointed out on Andrew Sullivan's blog site one of the reasons why healthcare cost so much in America is that Americans want to see specialists ( thanks to the promotion by the AMA) and they cost so much because people think that medicine has to be expensive to work. Good cheap doctors- which a lot of patients in other countries get without too much compliant -are hard to come by in the profit driven healthcare business here.

The Year in Review Part 2

I have been sorting out my notes and found some leftover bits and pieces on various subjects. Here, in no particular order I present some observations about events, controversies, and the media from the last year that caught my eye.

We were treated to yet more examples of TSA incompetence from their security manual being posted on the internet to the latest bomb threat and their bone head security solution to it, that that average person can see is useless. Real security is based on stopping bad people not bad things. It’s about correctly interpreting the ego of these bad people. As Dr. Hawkins says about ego in his book, "Reality vs. Subjectivity":

"The ego is not only unable to correctly access situations that are fatal but it even willingly sacrifices life for its own ends. The ego is therefore potentially deadly and would rather 'see you dead than admit it is wrong. . . The ego is intran sigent in that it fails to learn from its mistakes. Failed policies are reinstated repeatedly, even in the face of major catastrophe, and the justification is almost always a resort to some moralistic catch phrase that services the political gains of the propagandists who exploit the gullibility of the naive public."

We think racial profiling is wrong blah, blah but law enforcement has been engaging in racial profiling for years. Ask any Black or Hispanic how many times they have been pulled over by a cop. Is the TSA afraid of using ethic profiling because of the political backlash or because the profiling won’t work? Take some lessons from the Israeli's, they know how to do this.

Speaking of fantasy the ( non) issue of gay marriage is till in the news with the advocates sounding more intelligent than the opponents.

“Gay people should be free to marry and other people should be free to believe that our same-sex marriages are wrong because their religion forbids it or because that's how they were raised or because they just think it's icky. Just because same-sex marriage is legal doesn't mean that everyone is required to approve. Interracial marriage is legal despite the disapproval of some; inter-faith marriage is legal despite the strong and sometimes violent disapproval of most religious traditions; divorce is legal despite the disapproval of Jesus Christ himself and despite being forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. Gay people want the same deal interracial couples, inter-faith couples, and divorced-and-remarried couples all have now: our marriages should be legal even if some people disapprove.” Dan Savage

Gays are also angry and impatient. And you don’t want to piss off a drama queen.

":. . . If Obama wants to support gay equality, he knows what to do. If Pelosi and Reid want to support gay equality, they know what to do. If HRC believes in gay equality, they also know what to do.So spare us the schmoozing and the sweet-talking and do it. Until then, Mr. President, why don't you have a nice steaming cup of shut-the-fuck-up? " Andrew Sullivan

Meanwhile certain so called Christians ( Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, Don Schmierer) are now backpedaling from the propaganda they spewed in Uganda now that the country is pushing for a law that would put homosexuals to death. Good thing they weren’t told Jews were out to pervert their children.

Health care reform is still a disgusting joke. If you think our system is fine, good for you. The Republicans on the other hand hope that I die quickly if I’m hit by a car. So do I because I have no insurance.

On that cheerful note I wish everyone a happy new year where you are in good health when you attend the wedding of a gay friend after flying safely on a plane.

You're not sick, you're just faking it

For those who think we don't need health care reform guess again.Oh yeah and don't get sick. If you are a convicted felon in prison or a federal employee then you get the best care available. All others pay through the nose.

So much for compassion

I found this fascinating. There have been other cases where a hospital has denied visitors to someone critically injured or dying. I wonder at the logic behind the policy. Are they really afraid a loved one will interfer with treatment or something else? Are they afraid maybe they will be sued if someone witnesses them fucking up treatment? I'd like to ask those involed with denying visitation this: If you are in a strange hospital after suffering illness or injury who would you want comforting you, a total stranger or someone you know?

Hospitals are meant to be a place of healing and many accomplish this thank you very much but when they screw up like this, very publicly- it should give them pause to consider the right of the patient over their desire to protect some abstract policy that can have unintended or nasty consequences. Jackson Memorial Hospital owes the deceased woman's family an apology.

And if you think this could never happen to you. . .

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

I don’t know about you but I’m overwhelmed by all the vitriol being spewed on both sides of the health care reform debate. Or the same -sex marriage debut, and the value of torture-excuse me “enhanced interrogation techniques” was it good or bad? And how about the bank bail out? Sheesh if any of the dire predictions of doom, catastrophe and the fall of our civilization are true we are in deep, deep shit.

Now wait a minute. Let’s get real here. Have any of the extreme claims from past controversies ever come true? No. When women sought the right to vote, the critics said it would lead to the end of civilization as we know it.

“ I do not wish to see the day come when the women of my rac in my state shall trail their skirts in the muck and mire of partisan politics. I prefer to look to the Americna woman as she has always been, occupying her proud estate as the queen of the American home, instead of regarding her as a ward politician in the cities. As the mother, as the wife, as the sister she exercises a broader and deeper and mightier influence than she can ever exercise ro hope to on the stump and in the byways of politics in this land.” - Rep. Clark of Florida speaking to his colleagues in 1915.

This turned out to be exactly the opposite of what happened. When Truman deesegregated the military, the critics were sure it would erode unit cohesion. It didn’t happen. ( ironically the same claim is being made if “don’t ask, don’t tell” is repelled but I’m getting ahead of myself). Now we hear that the government is going to take away our guns, the socialists are taking over and gay marriage will destroy society.

"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right... Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." A line from the text of a prepared speech to the Heritage Foundation by Senator John Comyn (R-TX) that he deleted.

 "One thing is certain, these snappy comparisons make great talking points. Such emotionally-laden statements get noticed pretty quickly. But since we’re really only talking about consenting adults who want to marry each other, comments like these are also irrelevant." Jim Burroway on Senator Comyn's prepared speech and similar references by Bill O'Reilly, Senator Rick Santorum and Rev.Jimmy Swaggart. -Quote

OK. Let’s all just step back for a moment, take a deep breath and consider the impact of hyperbole and wild speculation on what ever issue is being debated. Afterall the more outrageous the claim the less likely it will happen.

A lot of things will change whether we like it or not. Health care coverage may get better or worse or not change at all. Other countries have managed it, so can we. But the only way we’re going to find out is to allow events to happen and adjust accordingly instead of running around like the sky is falling. Humans have a great capacity to adapt to change and create new environments. We managed with women’s suffrage, desegregation, and now with bringing adequate health care to all American citizens.

You're still sick and no, you can't go to Canada

I generally don't get in involved with politics, it causes ulcers and I yell at the TV but this is one issue that has gotten way out of control. In Canada health care coverage works, take it from a Canadian. But don't believe them, our health care system is SO much better than theirs, really.