I keep hoping that one day the Tea Party movement will have its' Jaws moment. I don't mean the shark movie, but the character played by Richard Kiel in two James Bond films in the 1970s. A assassin sent out to kill Bond, Jaws was 7 foot, 2 inces tall, had metal teeth, and was apparently indestructible. For instance, in The Spy Who Loved Me , during a fight scene on a train, Jaws has Bond by the throat and is about to take a metallic bite out of him. But Bond grabs a broken lamp and shoves it in Jaws mouth, temporarily (!) electrocuting him. Jaws is then pushed off the fast moving train, lands hard on the ground, and rolls down an embankment. Afterwards, he gets up, brushes himself off, and straightens his tie. I always loved the straightening of the tie part. It's hard to hate a villain who manages to retain some semblance of dignity after a rather humiliating defeat. Jaws, after all, was a freak of nature, and didn't really fit in with all that Bondian glamour. Maybe that's why he was so homicidal.
The Tea Party movement is no freak of nature. Is it homicidal? Well, some of our elected officials, the ones who voted for health care, have been receiving death threats. And the Tea Partiers have been known to carry signs with targeted representatives on them. In their defense, the Tea Partiers (I'm trying very hard not to refer to them as teabaggers; that joke's gotten kind of old) claim they're only targeted for defeat in the next election. If the representatives make it to the next election. On the day of the health care vote itself, John Lewis (D-GA), a significant figure during the 1960s civil rights movement, was called a nigger, and Barney Frank (D-MA) was called a fag by Tea Partiers as both gentlemen entered their office. I think Jaws showed more dignity when he bit into the broken lamp.
Until now, I've been somewhat reluctant to criticize the Tea Party movement. Most of them seem to come from the white working-class, about the only group left in these politically correct times the sophisticates feel free to malign. I've long felt the white working-class could be won over to the liberal side, at least when it comes to economics. Social issues, such a gay marriage, would be a much harder sell. Still, once you had them securely in the liberal fold, maybe you could win them over on those as well.
However, the way the Tea Party movement has reacted to the economics of health care reform has given me pause. Sure, this is not the best bill Congress could have passed, and some aspects of it, such as the mandates, have me worried as well. But a simpler way of doing it would have been labeled socialism. Of course, the Tea Party movement has labeled it socialism anyway, as well as communism, fascism, and Nazism. Supposedly what bothers the Tea Partiers most is government spending. Fair enough. So where were they during the war in Iraq? That cost the taxpayers money, as well as some taxpayers' lives and limbs. OK, they're supposed to be proudly patriotic, and lot of them probably equate patriotism with any military action someone in power deems necessary (which reminds me, the expansion of the war in Afghanistan is the one policy move by the Obama administration they don't seem to have a problem with), but what about George W Bush's expansion of Medicare? Where were they then? They claim to be upset with both political parties, but where were they during the eight years Bush was in office? They claim to hate the bank bailouts, but again, never protested until after Bush moved out of the White House.
The Tea Partiers claim to be against "elitism". Well, one definition of elitism is people who believe themselves to be better than others. When they call others "nigger" and "fag", doesn't that mean they think they're better? Or do they think Lewis and Frank enjoyed being called that? Apparently, elitism is relative.
I've often wondered if the Teabaggers--oops--Tea Partiers aren't paid to protest at town halls and the like. There's no proof that they are. But even if there is no direct change of cash, I nevertheless believe they take their marching orders from people with much bigger bank accounts than them, who live in much bigger houses than them, who have many more options in life than them, and who no way in hell identify with or understands them. I take the last part back. If you're going to manipulate people, it helps first to understand them.
Which brings me to the second James Bond movie with Jaws, Moonraker. In that film, an evil tycoon sends Jaws out to dispatch Bond before he can discover his nefarious plan. Jaws falls short of killing Bond, but at least captures and brings him to the evil tycoon's lair, in this case an orbiting space station. Confident Bond can't escape, the tycoon lays out his plan. Jaws listens in as well, probably hearing it for the first time. The tycoon is going to release a bunch of globes filled with poison gas into Earth's atmosphere, thus killing everybody on the planet. Aboard the space station are dozens of what the evil tycoon considers genetically perfect humans. Once the effects of the poison gas wears off, these perfect humans, these elite humans, will return to Earth and live in a perfectly elite world.
As Jaws listens to this plan, a look of realization appears on his face. There's not going to be any room for a freak like him in this perfect world. He's being used. Jaws switches sides, and helps Bond save the day.
Here's hoping the Tea Partiers have their Jaws moment.
Showing posts with label health care reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care reform. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Medical Center
I'll be honest, the passage of the health care reform bill took me by surprise. It wasn't just that it passed, but that it passed this week. For some reason, I thought they would be arguing about it for another couple of months. It's not like I haven't been paying attention. I wrote about health care back in June , expressing my disappointment that a single payer system wasn't even considered, and that the alternative, a public option, looked like it might be dropped because it was considered too "divisive". When the option was indeed dropped, the whole health care debate began to seem like background noise. I tried to pay attention, but one can only listen to "We must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good" or "They want to shove government health care down our throats" so many times until it begins to sounds like, "Don't let a perfect enemy shove government throats down our good health care." So I gradually tuned out, until this week, when, lo and behold, it passed.
But what passed exactly? Here are some highlights of the bill, culled from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, along with my comments.
Major coverage expansion begins in 2014. When fully phased in, 95 percent of eligible Americans would have coverage, compared with 83 percent today.
So far, so good.
Beginning in 2014, almost everyone is required to be insured or pay a fine.
This is the part I don't quite get. I thought the reason there are so many uninsured is because they couldn't afford it. They can all of a sudden? But wait, help is on the way.
Expands federal-state insurance program for the poor [Medicaid] to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.
Now, are they saying 133 percent of $29,327, or are they saying the poverty level is something else, and the $29,327 is the 133 percent of that something else? Whatever the amount, a childless adult is going to have to divide it by four. Everyone better bone up on their math by 2014.
Tax subsidies for purchasing insurance available on a sliding scale for households making up to four times the federal poverty level, $88,200 for a family of four. Premiums for a family of four making $44,000 would be capped at around 6 percent of income.
More math. Maybe they should add a pocket calculator subsidy.
Insurers barred from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies or from denying coverage to children with pre-existing existence medical problems.
I just so happen to know some parents of a child with pre-existing conditions. I haven't talked to them about any of this yet, but I can't help but think they're happy.
In 2014, insurers barred from denying coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions or charging them more, or from charging more for a woman.
Until I read the above sentence, I had no idea that one's gender could be considered a pre-existing condition. Bars may offer Ladies Nights but not hospitals? Maybe Chastity Bono was just trying to save money.
Beginning in 2008, taxes health care plans costing at least $20,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. Increased Medical payroll tax on investment income and wages for individuals making more than $200,000, or married couples above $250,000.
Taxes. The number one reason people bitch about big government. Well, look at it this way, those of you of the bitching persuasion, no tax is as expensive as the spot that may one day show up on your X-ray.
Gradually closes "doughnut hole" coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that hits seniors who have spent $2,830. When it is eliminated in 2020, seniors will still be responsible for 25 percent of the cost of their medications until Medicare's catastrophic coverage kicks in.
Seniors, don't throw away those pocket calculators just yet.
Beginning in 2014, small businesses, the self-employed and the uninsured could pick a plan offered through new state-based purchasing pools.
And what exactly are state-based purchasing pools? Will they have actual addresses? Will they advertise? Will they be in the phone book? Will they be found online? One thing we don't need is word-of-mouth insurance.
Those of you from countries with national health insurance have probably read all the above and thought, "Wouldn't it just be simpler if the government payed for everything? Sure, you'd pay more in taxes, but you'd offset that with what you'd save on doctor's bills." Well, those of you from other countries, it's like this, any U.S. health care reform has to meet the approval of the middle-of-the-roaders, who decide everything in this country. What you consider national health insurance they consider Stalinism with a stethoscope. I'm sure the middle-of-the-roaders in your own countries would disagree. Maybe some day we'll have a middle-of-the-roaders cultural exchange. Just make sure your middle-of-the-roaders get a check-up before coming here.
For all my misgivings, I'm glad health care reform passed. Not ecstatic, as I would be were it single payer, but glad. It's better than what we had before. I don't know about the perfect being the enemy of the good, but the mediocre should at least be the enemy of the unconscionable.
But what passed exactly? Here are some highlights of the bill, culled from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, along with my comments.
Major coverage expansion begins in 2014. When fully phased in, 95 percent of eligible Americans would have coverage, compared with 83 percent today.
So far, so good.
Beginning in 2014, almost everyone is required to be insured or pay a fine.
This is the part I don't quite get. I thought the reason there are so many uninsured is because they couldn't afford it. They can all of a sudden? But wait, help is on the way.
Expands federal-state insurance program for the poor [Medicaid] to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.
Now, are they saying 133 percent of $29,327, or are they saying the poverty level is something else, and the $29,327 is the 133 percent of that something else? Whatever the amount, a childless adult is going to have to divide it by four. Everyone better bone up on their math by 2014.
Tax subsidies for purchasing insurance available on a sliding scale for households making up to four times the federal poverty level, $88,200 for a family of four. Premiums for a family of four making $44,000 would be capped at around 6 percent of income.
More math. Maybe they should add a pocket calculator subsidy.
Insurers barred from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies or from denying coverage to children with pre-existing existence medical problems.
I just so happen to know some parents of a child with pre-existing conditions. I haven't talked to them about any of this yet, but I can't help but think they're happy.
In 2014, insurers barred from denying coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions or charging them more, or from charging more for a woman.
Until I read the above sentence, I had no idea that one's gender could be considered a pre-existing condition. Bars may offer Ladies Nights but not hospitals? Maybe Chastity Bono was just trying to save money.
Beginning in 2008, taxes health care plans costing at least $20,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. Increased Medical payroll tax on investment income and wages for individuals making more than $200,000, or married couples above $250,000.
Taxes. The number one reason people bitch about big government. Well, look at it this way, those of you of the bitching persuasion, no tax is as expensive as the spot that may one day show up on your X-ray.
Gradually closes "doughnut hole" coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug benefit that hits seniors who have spent $2,830. When it is eliminated in 2020, seniors will still be responsible for 25 percent of the cost of their medications until Medicare's catastrophic coverage kicks in.
Seniors, don't throw away those pocket calculators just yet.
Beginning in 2014, small businesses, the self-employed and the uninsured could pick a plan offered through new state-based purchasing pools.
And what exactly are state-based purchasing pools? Will they have actual addresses? Will they advertise? Will they be in the phone book? Will they be found online? One thing we don't need is word-of-mouth insurance.
Those of you from countries with national health insurance have probably read all the above and thought, "Wouldn't it just be simpler if the government payed for everything? Sure, you'd pay more in taxes, but you'd offset that with what you'd save on doctor's bills." Well, those of you from other countries, it's like this, any U.S. health care reform has to meet the approval of the middle-of-the-roaders, who decide everything in this country. What you consider national health insurance they consider Stalinism with a stethoscope. I'm sure the middle-of-the-roaders in your own countries would disagree. Maybe some day we'll have a middle-of-the-roaders cultural exchange. Just make sure your middle-of-the-roaders get a check-up before coming here.
For all my misgivings, I'm glad health care reform passed. Not ecstatic, as I would be were it single payer, but glad. It's better than what we had before. I don't know about the perfect being the enemy of the good, but the mediocre should at least be the enemy of the unconscionable.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Is You Is or Is You Ism
About twenty years ago, I was sweeping the parking lot of the McDonald's where I worked when this car that had just been in drive-thru pulled up along side me. The driver lowered his car window and, in a pissed-off voice, said to me, "I thought we were supposed to be different from the communist countries!"
"Huh?" was my honest, heartfelt reply.
"I thought we were supposed to have choices in this country. That's why we're supposed to be so much better than the communists."
This was right after the Berlin Wall fell. It didn't literally fall, but East Berliners were now allowed to visit West Berlin without getting their heads blown off. Meanwhile, other Eastern Europeans countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were peacefully replacing their communist leaders with capitalistic democrats. Or democratic capitalists. Take your pick. And the whole thing had been set in motion by the sphere-influential leader of the U.S.S.R., Mr. Glasnost himself, Mikhail Gorbachev. As a result, there was a lot in the U.S. media about how the formally enslaved peoples of the Iron Curtain countries would now have more choices in their lives.
What kinds of choices? Well, they could now choose their own leaders. And they could now read anything they wanted. They could now criticize the government if they wanted. And they could write and paint and draw and compose and sculpt and direct and perform whatever they wanted without fear of being sent to some gulag in Siberia.
But that wasn't the kind of choice the guy in the McDonald's parking lot had in mind.
"Sir," I said. "I really don't know what you're talking about."
"I tell you what I'm talking about! I wanted Hot Mustard sauce for my Chicken McNuggets, but the girl in drive-thru said they were all out. She tried to give me Sweet 'N Sour instead! What kind of choice is that?! This country is supposed be about choices. I might as well be in Russia!"
With that, he did an angry burn out of the McDonald's parking lot, leaving me standing there in a cloud of carbon monoxide.
Let's jump 20 years ahead (and 70 years back) to an ism other than communism, shall we?
As you may know, both the House and the Senate have produced their health care reform plans. Plans that, hopefully, promise universal coverage at affordable rates. For the last six months or so, the political Right have been comparing such efforts to Nazism. You remember Nazism, don't you? Adolph Hitler. Goosesteps. Swastikas. Book burnings. Tattooed numbers. Cattle Cars. Barbed wire. Showers. Zyklon B. Ovens. Crimes against humanity. None of which I believe is mentioned in the current health care bill. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently appeared at an anti-health reform teabag event, sharing the podium with some guy holding up pictures of the dead at Buchenwald. That's not in the health care bill, either.
The Nazis did offer free medical attention to twins, whether they needed it or not. Usually not. Again, not in the current health care bill.
Really, you shouldn't compare what happens in the U.S. or other western countries to what happened under communism or Nazism. It's like comparing apples and oranges.
Or Hot Mustard and Sweet 'N Sour.
"Huh?" was my honest, heartfelt reply.
"I thought we were supposed to have choices in this country. That's why we're supposed to be so much better than the communists."
This was right after the Berlin Wall fell. It didn't literally fall, but East Berliners were now allowed to visit West Berlin without getting their heads blown off. Meanwhile, other Eastern Europeans countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were peacefully replacing their communist leaders with capitalistic democrats. Or democratic capitalists. Take your pick. And the whole thing had been set in motion by the sphere-influential leader of the U.S.S.R., Mr. Glasnost himself, Mikhail Gorbachev. As a result, there was a lot in the U.S. media about how the formally enslaved peoples of the Iron Curtain countries would now have more choices in their lives.
What kinds of choices? Well, they could now choose their own leaders. And they could now read anything they wanted. They could now criticize the government if they wanted. And they could write and paint and draw and compose and sculpt and direct and perform whatever they wanted without fear of being sent to some gulag in Siberia.
But that wasn't the kind of choice the guy in the McDonald's parking lot had in mind.
"Sir," I said. "I really don't know what you're talking about."
"I tell you what I'm talking about! I wanted Hot Mustard sauce for my Chicken McNuggets, but the girl in drive-thru said they were all out. She tried to give me Sweet 'N Sour instead! What kind of choice is that?! This country is supposed be about choices. I might as well be in Russia!"
With that, he did an angry burn out of the McDonald's parking lot, leaving me standing there in a cloud of carbon monoxide.
Let's jump 20 years ahead (and 70 years back) to an ism other than communism, shall we?
As you may know, both the House and the Senate have produced their health care reform plans. Plans that, hopefully, promise universal coverage at affordable rates. For the last six months or so, the political Right have been comparing such efforts to Nazism. You remember Nazism, don't you? Adolph Hitler. Goosesteps. Swastikas. Book burnings. Tattooed numbers. Cattle Cars. Barbed wire. Showers. Zyklon B. Ovens. Crimes against humanity. None of which I believe is mentioned in the current health care bill. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently appeared at an anti-health reform teabag event, sharing the podium with some guy holding up pictures of the dead at Buchenwald. That's not in the health care bill, either.
The Nazis did offer free medical attention to twins, whether they needed it or not. Usually not. Again, not in the current health care bill.
Really, you shouldn't compare what happens in the U.S. or other western countries to what happened under communism or Nazism. It's like comparing apples and oranges.
Or Hot Mustard and Sweet 'N Sour.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Recommended Reading
A while back I mocked Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz for suggesting the news--hard facts--be copyrighted. Well, today I sing her praises. No, I haven't changed my mind about the copyright; I still think that's nuts. This is about a more weighty matter. In the current health care crisis, people need a scapegoat.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Between Barack and a Hard Place
I've discovered that political commentary is a bit more problematic when the guy you voted for actually gets into office.
As someone who cast his ballot for Barack Obama last November, I really should give the guy the benefit, or--heh, heh--shadow, of a doubt. After all, the poor man's under siege by birthers, Third Reich health care scholars, and those who assert their First and Second amendment rights to peacefully assemble with peacemakers .
Lets start with the birthers. No matter how many copies of his birth certificate, or Hawiian birth announcements, he shows those folks, they're still not convinced. All counterfeit, they claim. And that his mother was a native born American doesn't seem to convince them, either. Was she counterfeit, too? A fembot, maybe? Or a Stepford wife?
And the guys who show up with guns at Obama events? Simple self-protection. You never know when those Secret Service men might do something rash. Like protect the President.
What must be most annoying are these folks who insist of disrupting the Town Hall health care meetings with their screaming and shouting. Ah, says the right-winger, left-wingers have a long history of disrupting meetings, hearings and speeches with screaming and shouting. Just look at Code Pink. Fair is fair. And the right-winger is correct. Left-wingers do have such a history. They also have a history of getting sprayed with tear gas, dragged by their hair, and dumped in the back of paddy wagons. None of which seems to be happening to the anti-health care protesters. Unfair is unfair. Some have accused the insurance lobby of sending those people to protest. If so, they're sending some of the most emotionally fragile, Prozac-deprived souls this side of Dr. Phil. On the news I saw one overwrought woman wearing glasses cry out:
"I don't recognize my own country!!"
I think she needs to go to LensCrafters and get a new prescription.
OK, so it's not a good time for President Obama, and I really shouldn't add to his troubles with my own criticisms. On the other hand, should I cut the oxygen to my brain all in the name of liberal solidarity? After all, I just want to criticize Obama from the Left. I'd think he'd find the change in direction refreshing.
I'm just afraid this is going to be the Clinton administration all over again. Liberals and progressives who won't admit to being liberal and progressives and, in fact, don't seem to be particularly liberal or progressive much of the time, but liberals and progressives are expected to support them anyway because there are people out there a lot worse at being neither liberal nor progressive. Truth be told, what followed Clinton was a lot worse. But maybe if Clinton had been a little more liberal and a little more progressive, Bush and friends would have had a more difficult time being otherwise. Yes, there was prosperity under Clinton, but he talked so much like a Republican at times that I think some voters thought there would be even more prosperity if they voted for someone who sounded even more like a Republican. Say, an actual Republican. But before any of that came about, liberals and progressives were expected to fight the good fight. And what exactly was that good fight in the 1990s? The right for a president to screw around behind his wife's back on the public dime and then lie about it under oath? He shall overcome. All over a black dress.
I don't expect Obama to cheat on his wife, and don't much care if he does as long as I'm not expected to cover for him. But he's getting more Republican by the day, even as the real Republicans sharpen their knives, or, as health care dominates the news, their scalpels. Like Clinton, he probably believes he, and only he, can keep the barbarians at bay, and, like Clinton, he may just end up at bottom of that bay tied to a rock, gurgling that it's all a right-wing conspiracy. Takes one to know one.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on Obama. He is pushing for health care reform. If we only knew which health care reform (I half-expect him one day to say lower prices is not the essential element of health reform.) He did say--after what, two, three weeks?--that there were no death panels and that he found such talk "objectionable." So's your old man!
Last year about this time, I heard Obama supporters mocked as fanantics who expected their candidate to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Let's just hope he doesn't turn the other cheek while being nailed to the cross.
As someone who cast his ballot for Barack Obama last November, I really should give the guy the benefit, or--heh, heh--shadow, of a doubt. After all, the poor man's under siege by birthers, Third Reich health care scholars, and those who assert their First and Second amendment rights to peacefully assemble with peacemakers .
Lets start with the birthers. No matter how many copies of his birth certificate, or Hawiian birth announcements, he shows those folks, they're still not convinced. All counterfeit, they claim. And that his mother was a native born American doesn't seem to convince them, either. Was she counterfeit, too? A fembot, maybe? Or a Stepford wife?
And the guys who show up with guns at Obama events? Simple self-protection. You never know when those Secret Service men might do something rash. Like protect the President.
What must be most annoying are these folks who insist of disrupting the Town Hall health care meetings with their screaming and shouting. Ah, says the right-winger, left-wingers have a long history of disrupting meetings, hearings and speeches with screaming and shouting. Just look at Code Pink. Fair is fair. And the right-winger is correct. Left-wingers do have such a history. They also have a history of getting sprayed with tear gas, dragged by their hair, and dumped in the back of paddy wagons. None of which seems to be happening to the anti-health care protesters. Unfair is unfair. Some have accused the insurance lobby of sending those people to protest. If so, they're sending some of the most emotionally fragile, Prozac-deprived souls this side of Dr. Phil. On the news I saw one overwrought woman wearing glasses cry out:
"I don't recognize my own country!!"
I think she needs to go to LensCrafters and get a new prescription.
OK, so it's not a good time for President Obama, and I really shouldn't add to his troubles with my own criticisms. On the other hand, should I cut the oxygen to my brain all in the name of liberal solidarity? After all, I just want to criticize Obama from the Left. I'd think he'd find the change in direction refreshing.
I'm just afraid this is going to be the Clinton administration all over again. Liberals and progressives who won't admit to being liberal and progressives and, in fact, don't seem to be particularly liberal or progressive much of the time, but liberals and progressives are expected to support them anyway because there are people out there a lot worse at being neither liberal nor progressive. Truth be told, what followed Clinton was a lot worse. But maybe if Clinton had been a little more liberal and a little more progressive, Bush and friends would have had a more difficult time being otherwise. Yes, there was prosperity under Clinton, but he talked so much like a Republican at times that I think some voters thought there would be even more prosperity if they voted for someone who sounded even more like a Republican. Say, an actual Republican. But before any of that came about, liberals and progressives were expected to fight the good fight. And what exactly was that good fight in the 1990s? The right for a president to screw around behind his wife's back on the public dime and then lie about it under oath? He shall overcome. All over a black dress.
I don't expect Obama to cheat on his wife, and don't much care if he does as long as I'm not expected to cover for him. But he's getting more Republican by the day, even as the real Republicans sharpen their knives, or, as health care dominates the news, their scalpels. Like Clinton, he probably believes he, and only he, can keep the barbarians at bay, and, like Clinton, he may just end up at bottom of that bay tied to a rock, gurgling that it's all a right-wing conspiracy. Takes one to know one.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on Obama. He is pushing for health care reform. If we only knew which health care reform (I half-expect him one day to say lower prices is not the essential element of health reform.) He did say--after what, two, three weeks?--that there were no death panels and that he found such talk "objectionable." So's your old man!
Last year about this time, I heard Obama supporters mocked as fanantics who expected their candidate to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Let's just hope he doesn't turn the other cheek while being nailed to the cross.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Medicalcified
If you bothered to read them, you might have noticed my last few "Recommended Reading" links have dealt with health care reform. I haven't written anything about the subject myself because, I figured, those guys are experts and can explain it a lot better than I ever could, especially when big words are involved. But now I feel I have to write about health care as it's all I can think about, especially after catching an old episode of Marcus Welby last night and thinking I might be coming down with the same symptoms as Special Guest Star Pat Harrington (his eyebrows were thinning out at an alarming rate...)
First up, "single payer", where the government pays for everything. This is the system Canada, Britain, and France has, but those countries, according to critics of single payer, are "nanny states". So? Fran Drescher has been wanting to go into politics, anyway. And didn't these critics ever watch Mary Poppins as kids? As a nanny, she was practically perfect in every way. She was also oddly alluring, wearing that tight-fitting Edwardian governess outfit, and seductively cooing "Chim Chim Cheree" (OK, I was a weird kid.) Anyway, according to the critics, we need a system that's "uniquely American", which actually pretty much describes the current system, what with it's 16% (as of ten minutes ago; more layoff announcements pending) of the population without any kind of coverage other than the police asking you to move along if you start having a seizure in front of an entrance to a dollar store. If we really need a uniquely American health system, can't the doctors, nurses, and orderlies just add red and blue to their basic white? Besides, there's things we use every day that came from somewhere else. Like our arithmetic. We got that from the people whom lately we've been so at odds with, the Arabs. And how about our language? It ain't called Americish.
Another reason we can't have single payer, according to none other than our President, is Americans have traditionally received their health care though their employers. I don't know. At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans, and pretty much everyone else, had traditionally traveled on horseback, had traditionally lit their houses with candles, and had traditionally relieved themselves outside (or in pots that they then had to dump outside), yet we somehow managed to break free of such traditions (so much so that we now tremble in fear whenever environmentalists warn us we might have to go back.)
Single payer is off the table. The public just won't stand for it. Assuming the public even knows what it is. Single payer has been so absent from the current debate, that if you asked the average Joe to define it, he may think it either has something to do with an unmarried couple going Dutch, or it's the opposite of a joint tax return.
Then there's the "public option". Under this plan we would still have private insurance, but it would compete with one run by the government. No one much likes this, either. Well, according to the latest polls, 70% of the public do like it, but we're not talking people who count. The President usually counts, and has been publicly in favor of such an option. There are rumors, however, that he's willing to drop it so as to not rile up the Republican minority. After two humiliating election cycles, he must feel those folks have suffered enough. Just what don't the Republicans (and some "blue dog" Democrats) like about a public option? They claim it's an invitation for the government to "meddle" with your health care. Perhaps. But we're talking competition here. You can either choose to have the government meddle with your health care, or, if you're an ardent laissez-fairest, you can opt to be turned away by a private company for a pre-existing condition.
Finally, there's mandates. Just force everybody to get insurance. Well, that's one way to achieve universal coverage. The private companies have no problem with mandates as long as it's THEIR insurance everyone is forced to get (although they still want the option, the private option, to turn people away.)
I wonder if we could solve other social problems with mandates. Poverty, say. Just make it against the law to be poor. Or homelessness. You legally have to live somewhere.
Then there's murder, rape, assault, burglary, and theft. Those problems need to be addressed.
Let's make crime a crime.
First up, "single payer", where the government pays for everything. This is the system Canada, Britain, and France has, but those countries, according to critics of single payer, are "nanny states". So? Fran Drescher has been wanting to go into politics, anyway. And didn't these critics ever watch Mary Poppins as kids? As a nanny, she was practically perfect in every way. She was also oddly alluring, wearing that tight-fitting Edwardian governess outfit, and seductively cooing "Chim Chim Cheree" (OK, I was a weird kid.) Anyway, according to the critics, we need a system that's "uniquely American", which actually pretty much describes the current system, what with it's 16% (as of ten minutes ago; more layoff announcements pending) of the population without any kind of coverage other than the police asking you to move along if you start having a seizure in front of an entrance to a dollar store. If we really need a uniquely American health system, can't the doctors, nurses, and orderlies just add red and blue to their basic white? Besides, there's things we use every day that came from somewhere else. Like our arithmetic. We got that from the people whom lately we've been so at odds with, the Arabs. And how about our language? It ain't called Americish.
Another reason we can't have single payer, according to none other than our President, is Americans have traditionally received their health care though their employers. I don't know. At the beginning of the 20th century, Americans, and pretty much everyone else, had traditionally traveled on horseback, had traditionally lit their houses with candles, and had traditionally relieved themselves outside (or in pots that they then had to dump outside), yet we somehow managed to break free of such traditions (so much so that we now tremble in fear whenever environmentalists warn us we might have to go back.)
Single payer is off the table. The public just won't stand for it. Assuming the public even knows what it is. Single payer has been so absent from the current debate, that if you asked the average Joe to define it, he may think it either has something to do with an unmarried couple going Dutch, or it's the opposite of a joint tax return.
Then there's the "public option". Under this plan we would still have private insurance, but it would compete with one run by the government. No one much likes this, either. Well, according to the latest polls, 70% of the public do like it, but we're not talking people who count. The President usually counts, and has been publicly in favor of such an option. There are rumors, however, that he's willing to drop it so as to not rile up the Republican minority. After two humiliating election cycles, he must feel those folks have suffered enough. Just what don't the Republicans (and some "blue dog" Democrats) like about a public option? They claim it's an invitation for the government to "meddle" with your health care. Perhaps. But we're talking competition here. You can either choose to have the government meddle with your health care, or, if you're an ardent laissez-fairest, you can opt to be turned away by a private company for a pre-existing condition.
Finally, there's mandates. Just force everybody to get insurance. Well, that's one way to achieve universal coverage. The private companies have no problem with mandates as long as it's THEIR insurance everyone is forced to get (although they still want the option, the private option, to turn people away.)
I wonder if we could solve other social problems with mandates. Poverty, say. Just make it against the law to be poor. Or homelessness. You legally have to live somewhere.
Then there's murder, rape, assault, burglary, and theft. Those problems need to be addressed.
Let's make crime a crime.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
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