"Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy ... [it] is incompatible with democracy, prosperity and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world."
-Phil Agre
I've lost faith that there is going to be any meaningful health care reform anytime soon. It's not going to happen. I've got to give President Obama some credit for at least trying to make it happen. He got a lot farther than Bill Clinton did back in the 90's. The opposition was just too extreme. He had no no support from Republicans (naturally), but even some fellow Democrats wouldn't support health care reform.
I can understand the wealthy not supporting health care reform. After all, who is going to pay for it? Well, most likely, they are. Those people lucky enough to have incomes over 250 thousand a year. Most of us don't make this much. Actually, most of us don't even come close to making this. These are the people marching in the street opposing "Obamacare" and holding signs that make Obama look like Adolph Hitler. It's amazing, really, how people in this country continue to vote against their own best-interests.
I've resigned myself to the fact that one major illness in our family will bankrupt us. I remember my mother having a brain aneurysm back in the 1970's. She had to have brain surgery and was hospitalized for over 3 months. Could she have afforded that surgery now? Probably not. Under the current health care system, my mom probably would have died. I've come to accept that that is just the way it is. If you get sick, you'll either die, or go broke. One or the other. The best thing to do is just to try to keep yourself healthy. Some people will say it's our own fault that Americans are so unhealthy. We eat crap. Americans will deep fry virtually anything, including Oreo cookies. I keep seeing commercials for Jack in the Box's "Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger", with two meat patties, three strips of bacon, and bacon bits sprinkled all over the bun. Now...come on...people eating this are just asking for a heart attack.
I've tried to make a few healthier changes in my diet since I moved back to America. I don't drink nearly as much soda as I used to, for fear of getting diabetes. I now...maybe...will drink one can of soda per week. I don't eat red meat very often when I'm at home. We stick to mostly fish and chicken (although on weekends I may occasionally indulge myself with Texas BBQ.) So, my point in all of this is that I am trying to keep myself out of the hospital, because I know the consequences.
But, as unhealthy a country as we are, I will still and always support universal healthcare. It's a system that works and that people are happy with. In Taiwan, which has universal healthcare, over 70% of its population is satisfied with the healthcare system. Most of the world has universal healthcare. Who doesn't have it? The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.
I know I've written about this numerous times before on my blog, so I'll stop for now, unless by some miracle Obama succeeds and we actually see change. Until then, I'll just pray that no-one in my family gets sick.
(Picture: one of the many negative ads used to attack Obama's health care reform, using a cartoon from one of my favorite shows, "Futurama")
-Phil Agre
I've lost faith that there is going to be any meaningful health care reform anytime soon. It's not going to happen. I've got to give President Obama some credit for at least trying to make it happen. He got a lot farther than Bill Clinton did back in the 90's. The opposition was just too extreme. He had no no support from Republicans (naturally), but even some fellow Democrats wouldn't support health care reform.
I can understand the wealthy not supporting health care reform. After all, who is going to pay for it? Well, most likely, they are. Those people lucky enough to have incomes over 250 thousand a year. Most of us don't make this much. Actually, most of us don't even come close to making this. These are the people marching in the street opposing "Obamacare" and holding signs that make Obama look like Adolph Hitler. It's amazing, really, how people in this country continue to vote against their own best-interests.
I've resigned myself to the fact that one major illness in our family will bankrupt us. I remember my mother having a brain aneurysm back in the 1970's. She had to have brain surgery and was hospitalized for over 3 months. Could she have afforded that surgery now? Probably not. Under the current health care system, my mom probably would have died. I've come to accept that that is just the way it is. If you get sick, you'll either die, or go broke. One or the other. The best thing to do is just to try to keep yourself healthy. Some people will say it's our own fault that Americans are so unhealthy. We eat crap. Americans will deep fry virtually anything, including Oreo cookies. I keep seeing commercials for Jack in the Box's "Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger", with two meat patties, three strips of bacon, and bacon bits sprinkled all over the bun. Now...come on...people eating this are just asking for a heart attack.
I've tried to make a few healthier changes in my diet since I moved back to America. I don't drink nearly as much soda as I used to, for fear of getting diabetes. I now...maybe...will drink one can of soda per week. I don't eat red meat very often when I'm at home. We stick to mostly fish and chicken (although on weekends I may occasionally indulge myself with Texas BBQ.) So, my point in all of this is that I am trying to keep myself out of the hospital, because I know the consequences.
But, as unhealthy a country as we are, I will still and always support universal healthcare. It's a system that works and that people are happy with. In Taiwan, which has universal healthcare, over 70% of its population is satisfied with the healthcare system. Most of the world has universal healthcare. Who doesn't have it? The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.
I know I've written about this numerous times before on my blog, so I'll stop for now, unless by some miracle Obama succeeds and we actually see change. Until then, I'll just pray that no-one in my family gets sick.
(Picture: one of the many negative ads used to attack Obama's health care reform, using a cartoon from one of my favorite shows, "Futurama")
President Obama made a point the other day in speaking at the Republican retreat to say he wasn't an ideologue, and while there was skepticism in his audience about whether that was true, there was agreement in both parties that not being an ideologue is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIs it? Maybe the problem is that neither party has any ideology anymore -- its just all about getting the money you need to run commercials at election time, and being against whatever the other party is for. For example, why is the decision to have the trial of Khalid "Shake Shake Shake" Mohammed in New York a Democratic position, and not having it in New York a Republican position? Republicans are usually the 24 loving macho warriors. Isn't it the more macho position to be saying, "Damn right we're going to try them at the scene of the crime! We're going to make that bastard look at Ground Zero right out the window of the courtroom every day -- we're going to stick his nose in it like a dog who's made a mess on the rug: 'Look what you did! Bad dog! Bad!!'"? I can much more easily imagine Bill O'Reilly making that case than Obama.
And yet, because its the Democrats who suggested it, the Republicans automatically piss all over it and find themselves backing the opposite approach, then make up a bunch of stupid reasons why: it'll fuck up traffic in Manhattan; it'll be a platform for Mohammed to "mock" us.
Really? The big tough guys are afraid of this loser mocking us?
Blue team says X, Red team says Y. You know how the Democrats can get health care passed? Say they're against it.
Phil Agre is full of crap. Obama managed to get elected in this so-called "conservative aristocratic society" that is allegedly dominating, deceiving and perpetuating inequality and prejudice. Give me a break.
ReplyDeleteThere is no longer any support for health acre reform because the price tag is far too high for voters to stomach. It's that simple. A billion dollars is not chump change. And don't give me the line that the wars the U.S. are fighting cost more in the long run. If you don't know it already, wars are profitable.If they weren't, the president has the power to stop it. He won't. At least not until the job is finished. Hurrah.
And Ken, people who make over 250 grand a year are not "lucky". Almost all of them are producing something of great value to someone in the form of capital, technical expertise, innovation, service etc. They are not worker drones who just want to put their time in and go home and have a beer. They are the point-men (and women) who make our economy tick. They're hard working people with keen minds. Almost all are go-getters and producers who rely on themselves to make their own fortunes. They are adverse to sitting around and waiting for someone to do something for them.
Also, I suggest you check out mainland China (very industrialized last time I checked) to see if they have a universal health care system. Or research the quality of Russian care?
U.S. health care is costly because it's the best in the world. Hands down. It is wise you have decided to buck up and deal with it. Your only alternative is to move back to Taiwan and get satisfied like 70% of the Taiwanese population. Like you say, it's a no-brainer. You might want to go for it and save your bank account from certain depletion. Egads.
With all due respect to yours, I have expressed my views as briefly as my time will allow.
Keep up the good work. And write your congressman. I do.
The US may have the best health care in the world (although that is easily debatable). But at what price are we getting it? The number one cause of bankruptcies in this country are because of health care expenses. In a great nation such as this, nobody should have to go bankrupt and lose their home because they couldn't afford their hospital bill.
ReplyDeleteTaiwan may have a good healthcare system, but there are many other things about the country I don't like (just read my blog entries about Taiwan and you'll know what I'm talking about). I'd rather live here than in Taiwan. If I had a monstrous medical bill I couldn't afford, and the bank was foreclosing on my house to collect the money for that bill, then I'd go back. We're lucky to have that net should we need it, though I pray we never do.
Cole, I imagine if you were around in the 60's, you would also have opposed Medicare, as most conservatives did. This is now considered one of Lyndon Johnson's greatest accomplishments. Taiwan's healthcare system is patterned after US Medicare, except it's for everyone, not just the elderly.
I'm not trying to be some radial liberal saying that healtcare should be totally free for everyone. All I'm saying is that it should be affordable. The cost of healthcare should be based on a persons income. The less you make, the less you have to pay.
Cole:
ReplyDeleteThe very point of health care reform is to bring down costs in the long run. The current trajectory of medical costs and entitlements in the U.S. is literally unsustainable. Health care reform is not a matter of ideology, but of fiscal necessity.
The U.S. really is the only industrialized country without universal health care. (China is still a developing country, not an industrialized one. Russia is nominally a democracy, but is in fact quite corrupt.)
Look at all the Western European countries, and at Canada. They spend far less on health care than we do, in terms of their GDP, and they get better results. Our system is broken.
The quality of health care available in the U.S. may be among the world's best, but its distribution certainly is not.
And finally, wars are not profitable for the American government. They may be profitable for private contractors and oil companies, like Haliburton and the former Blackwater, but they are not economically profitable from the point of view of U.S. taxpayers. We are squandering billions upon billions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are curtailing our economic competitiveness as a result.
Ken,
ReplyDeleteI think you might be pushing the envelope a bit when you add the word "easily" to a hypothetical debate of the quality U.S. healthcare compared to other countries. That kind of absolutism in writing tends to have a a taint of hyperbole that lacks credibility. It's like threatening to shoot someone's head off with a pea-shooter. Lighten up.
Actually, I was around in the 60's and I thought medicare was a good idea at the time. It helped my mother who had cancer and eventually died from it. Yet, it has evolved far beyond what it was originally meant to do. My mother also had supplemental insurance which she and everyone else with common sense makes room for in their budgets. In other words, they didn't or don't take tax refunds and go to California with it or blow it going out to eat twice a week. Our parents were far more thoughtful about putting aside for the essential. They knew the difference between "wanting" something and "needing" something and acted accordingly. When you think they had it easier than we did when it comes to saving money, think again... They were just better with money management than people are today. And, of course, there were less things to buy as well as media hype making you feel like a loser if you don't buy what the commercials are hawking.
Health care won't be fixed by re-distributing wealth. Whining doesn't help anything. Personal responsibility and action does.
Any problem man makes, man can fix.
Ken, you need to let go of this "conservatives are evil" dogma you're clinging to. Conservatives are no more evil than liberals. We are all Americans. Think John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Just because we disagree about what should be done or the hows, does not mean we don't want the same things.
Alex,
In time, you'll see that some problems aren't a matter of immediate action, but of thoughtful action. The Obama plan is Robin Hood plan. I am well aware that ideology has nothing to do with it.
The last time I checked. China's economy was the second largest in the world. Having foreign cash reserves of over 2 trillion and building infrastructure at a dizzying pace puts them beyond the pale of "developing" countries in the sense of Cambodia or Laos. Comparing a country like China to Cambodia is like comparing a 21 year old man feeling his oats to a malnourished child at the age of 5.
China a developing country? They have a manned space program for goodness sake!
Russia is corrupt. No doubt about it. But, by the way some less than critical thinkers are shooting their mouths off, they would have you believe the U.S. is just as corrupt - led by a vast conspiracy of conservatives with swastikas tattoos on their shoulders.
You are right about one thing however. Entitlements are not sustainable.
Wars are profitable... for the U.S. government as well as the corporations involved. And what is the U.S. government? It's a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Sounds like taxpayers to me...
If you care to check, you'll find that the U.S. military was the catalyst (and the checkbook) for many of the technological innovations and conveniences our culture. The interstate highway system and the internet being two of them. You might be surprised to learn what new innovations we might have in 20 years as a result of the wars that are winding down now. "Squandered" is far too strong a word and an incorrect one in this case.
Everyone says the U.S. is in decline, but that is wholly mistaken. We are only just beginning to ascend as a country. Time will bear this out. Watch and see.
Cole:
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I'd like to acknowledge that you allow us to exchange our ideas and viewpoints in a civil fashion. Thank you.
But I'd also like to respond a little bit to your most recent comment.
You say that: "Wars are profitable... for the U.S. government as well as the corporations involved. And what is the U.S. government? It's a government of the people, by the people and for the people."
Please explain to me exactly how the American government and U.S. taxpayers actually profit economically from long military engagements abroad. As far as I can tell, these endeavors are astonishingly expensive, and the American people never see the vast majority of that money ever again. You say that the military has helped spur technological innovation in the past--which may be true--but the "military" as an institution is not the same thing as a "war" being fought on foreign soil.
Furthermore, in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision endowing corporations with all the same political rights of free speech as individual citizens, thereby allowing them to contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns and causes, I'd question whether our democracy really is "by the people and for the people." Corporate money can easily drown any form of political speech made by your average Everyman working a 9-5.
While I too would like to think that U.S. is not in decline, the economic and political realities don't seem to reflect that sentiment. Our standing internationally has been weakened by our recent wars, our economy is in the largest recession since WWII, and our Congress is dysfunctional. All this is most unfortunate.
It is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.
ReplyDeleteIn Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no coverage at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.
Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?
Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?
The Republicans have learnt how to stoke up resentment against the patronising liberal elite, all those do-gooders who assume they know what poor people ought to be thinking.
Right-wing politics has become a vehicle for channelling this popular anger against intellectual snobs. The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.
Hello Alex,
ReplyDeleteI apologize for my belated response. I am at the beck and call of daily life and only visit Ken's blog sporadically.
Consider my heels clicked and head bowed for your acknowledgment and gratitude for my civility.
I stand by my contention that war is profitable for the United States, but most people do not understand that this profitability isn't like putting your money into a slot machine in Vegas and winning a jackpot. In other words, the U.S. congress doesn't empower the I.R.S. to just tax it's citizens, wage war, collect booty and distribute the victory loot to the populace like a payment on a short term bond. There is a false impression fueled by the recently acquired cultural A.D.D. affliction that causes common people to think in a very short time-line. The economic benefits of a war do not immediately happen. It takes years for it to come to fruition.
I cannot even begin to explain the complex, multifaceted ways that the wars the U.S. fights profit our country without writing a book on macro and microeconomics. This forum is too small for that and I'm not going to discount my argument with a abbreviated explanation that would most likely be regarded with skepticism and questioned anyway. I won't waste my time or yours in that way. I simply do not engage in any discourse for the sake of argument itself.
Instead, there are two books that I can strongly recommend you read that will broaden your understanding of the point I made. The first is titled " The Next 100 Years" by George Friedman. Straightforward and non-political.
The second book is titled "The Economics Of War" by Paul Proust. Detailed and extremely interesting. You want nuts and bolts of how war gets things humming? This is the guts of the answer you seek.
No, the military is not a war being fought on foreign soil. It is the "instrument" of making war on foreign soil. Much in the same way that knowledge is a tool of intelligence. Intelligence is nothing more than the ability to solve and resolve problems. Knowledge aids intelligence. War is nothing more than a method for nation-states to solve and resolve contentions. The military executes war. You are in university right? Put two and two together Alex. It unequivocally equals four.
ReplyDeleteCorporations are run by individuals with the same constitutional rights as you and I and have commercial interests that extrapolate into the economic interests of individuals who depend on them for employment. The Supreme Court did the constitutionally correct thing. That's good for everyone in the big scheme of things.
Our democracy is one of personal responsibility. "Of the People" and "By the People" means just what it says. "WE" run the government. Do you write your congressman and tell him or her what your concerns as a citizen are and what you want him/her to do regarding laws being considered? Do you take part in your local and state government in the same way? In any way? Or do you just take up the socially fashionable habit of griping about what wrong with our country instead of looking for solutions. We can't save the world by our actions alone, but we have the power as the people of our nation to speak to our representatives and tell them what we want them to do. Sadly, people spend more time writing blogs like this one, moaning about things that piss them off when they could be spending that passion and energy writing their congressmen. I assure you that it would have far more punch in the long run if it was done as consistently as the meandering writings I peruse for entertainment on the web at times.
The political and economic realities you are talking about are transitory. The U.S. is going to emerge from what is going on now even stronger than before. Also, where is exactly is our "standing" been weakened? In whose eyes are we, the U.S., being judged? Russia? China? Japan? Get a grip... Take some initiative and quit listening to the isolated thinking of your politically correct professors and hip friends and take a hard look at the countries we are being "judged" by.
Our Congress has always been dysfunctional... right from the beginning. Somehow,we haven't done such a bad job of it.
Hi Ken, Congrats to Sara for winning the award.
ReplyDeleteOn this topic of Health Care reform, CNN has a story right now that describes over-billing of insurance companies by hospitals.
The headline is $1,000 for a toothbrush. Let me know if you have trouble finding it.
Just wondering what your thoughts are on this story--especially since you work at a hospital.
Just don't post anything that might get you in trouble with your boss!
Taylor
I just watched that video and I'm not surprised at all by it. $100 for a band-aid is common, so $1000 for a toothbrush doesn't surprise me. As I had mentioned before (a few times), I paid $700 for my daughter to be given a dose of Motrin.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why health care reform is needed. It's price gouging like this that makes our premiums skyrocket.
Reading this "discussion" is like masturbating with steel wool.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, I know.