You know what? The hell with all the hand wringing, shouting, pushing and shoving over healthcare reform. Let’s just do nothing. Leave everything the way it is. Let the conservative fear mongers have their day. Let the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and all their high paid lobbyists do as they wish. Congress will knuckle under and probably pass some watered-down, worthless bill, regardless, and they will call it healthcare reform. Why bother?
I have insurance provided by my employer that covers me as long as I keep my job, but I can’t afford to add my wife. For her, we will have to try and keep a Blue Cross Blue Shield major medical policy with a $5,000 deductable and outrageous premiums and out of pockets. It is only good if she goes to the hospital. She can’t use it for check-ups or medicine. Last year her premiums increased three times. If there are any more increases, she may as well join the ranks of the uninsured and just hope and pray that she does not get sick like millions of other Americans.
If I should lose my job or change jobs, I’m “up the crick” anyway, because I now have a preexisting condition. I am a diabetic. Even if I could find coverage under another policy, it would be doubtful that I could afford the premiums. Without insurance, my medicine would become extremely expensive and doctor visits would be over $100. (No more $25 co-pays.) I’m sure the boys and girls from “The Party of NO” are right. True healthcare reform would just cost too much. We should save our money for defense spending and new weapons that are too expensive to use. We sure can’t afford a Public Healthcare Option, even if President Obama says he won’t sign the bill, if it cannot pay for itself. Everybody knows it would still cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and it would drive our private insurance companies out of business (horrors!)…just like government-run Medicare did. Remember Medicare? Besides, who wants government run healthcare with “death panels” that would pull the plug on Grandma, where everyone would be covered? There is just something wrong with that idea.
I think Americans should pay more for their prescription drugs than the rest of the world. Let our drug companies continue giving deep discounts to Canada, Mexico and Europe. And for sure, let’s enforce the laws that keep us from buying prescription drugs from those countries at a lower price. Somebody has to pay for all that research and development. It may as well be us taxpayers.
So what’s wrong with letting doctors invest in testing facilities? The more tests they order, the more money they make. Who cares if the tests make us healthier or not? If you are lucky enough to still be able to afford insurance, let insurance pay for it all. (Does anyone hear a ratchet sound regarding the cost of healthcare?) Medicine should be all about making as much money as you can. That is the American way! Remember, medicine is not about outcomes.
So, if most of us reach a point where we can no longer afford our insurance and we are finally cut off from the healthcare system as it is, life will get real simple and…cheap. No more premiums, no more co-pays, no more high deductibles or out of pockets, no more costly prescriptions. We will just grow old, get sick and…die. Those in Washington, who are now debating our healthcare reform, can just step back and keep what they have. You see, THEY are covered. The federal insurance, the fancy tests and expensive, lifesaving drugs and treatments will still be available…for THEM. We do not deserve healthcare! We are only tax-paying citizens. WE are expendable.
On that day, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries will finally be happy. They will at last get rid of all who are sick, have preexisting conditions and those who are poor. Finally, when most of us Americans die off or get too sick to work…oh, wait…
Never mind. Forget the part about doing nothing.
Food for THOUGHT…
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Politics of Fear
Congress has adjourned for its summer break. Their work on healthcare reform was left on hold while they go back to their states and districts to hold town hall meetings and get the pulse of the nation on their efforts. To their surprise, many of our Washington politicians have been met with organized groups who disrupt their meetings with shouts, pushing and shoving and name calling. They scream about Obama’s “Death Panel” and chant, “Just say NO!” For those of us who were hoping to get real healthcare reform passed by Congress it has been a disappointing turn of events.
Thanks to Sarah Palin, the former Republican Governor from Alaska (didn’t she just resign in midterm for some obscure reason?), the conservative right wing of the Republican Party, now have a rallying cry: “Death Panel.” To the relief of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, they now have a way to scuttle all the hard work that has been done up to this point. As they did over the last eight years, they continue to use fear to achieve their agendas. Fear works! Just look at the faces of those protesters on television as they shout down anyone trying to explain the healthcare reform legislation before our congress. They have been scared to death with lies and misinformation and they don’t want a discussion. They want reform stopped dead in its tracks.” Keep things just the way they are” seems to be their message.
So where is this fear coming from and what lies are being spread to generate such uncivil reaction to something that should be welcomed by all Americans…healthcare reform? The top five lies are these:
1)President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma by using a “Death Panel.”
Truth: There is no “Death Panel” in the bill, but there is a provision, supported by the AARP and the AMA, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans. This counseling service is voluntary, not mandatory. Nobody is going to kill grandma, but individuals will have help with options and information so THEY can make their own decisions on care.
2)Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan.
Truth: Obama’s plan will create a ”Heath Insurance Exchange” that will create a one-stop marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options. One of those options will be a “Public Health Insurance Option” that will offer a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers. It will compete right alongside private insurance companies introducing competition into the market place driving up quality and driving down costs. If you are happy with your existing coverage and doctor, you can keep them, but the Public Option will offer expanded choices to millions of small businesses and individuals that simply cannot afford healthcare now. Coverage will no longer be denied because you get sick, lose your job or transfer jobs or have a preexisting condition.
3)President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing.
Truth: Right now large corporations decide what coverage you may have, what doctors you can see and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered. If that is not rationed care…what is? Healthcare reform will give families and businesses more choices for coverage and expand access to high quality healthcare.
4)Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens’ Medicare benefits.
Truth: There will be cost savings coming from Medicare, but it will be coming from cutting billions of dollars in over payments to insurance companies and eliminating waste , fraud and abuse, all things unrelated to patient care.
5)Obama’s healthcare plan will bankrupt America.
Truth: Obama’s reform plans would be fully paid for over the next 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit. He has vowed to veto any plan that would increase the deficit. If we do nothing, spiraling insurance costs are projected to raise the average family premium to over $22,000/yr in the next decade. Each year nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.
If you want more information, check out this website:
www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
Much of the shouting has been about “President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan” when in reality the plan is being hammered out and designed by Congress. You know, those guys we send to Washington to represent us. President Obama has given Congress these guidelines for healthcare reform:
• Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
• Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
• Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
• Invest in prevention and wellness
• Improve patient safety and quality of care
• Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
• Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
• End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions
Let’s see what our elected leaders bring President Obama for his signature. Will it get watered down to appease the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and other special interest groups or will it be the true healthcare reform this country needs? Will the fear mongers, hoping to discredit and depose this administration for their own partisan reasons, prevail? Is that what America deserves?
I suggest that We the People are better than the shouting, pushing, disruptive groups we now see on our TV screens at these town hall meetings. We deserve healthcare reform. Why should we continue with the most costly healthcare system in the world with one of the worst outcomes? What does the rest of the world know that we just don’t seem to get? We have the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all Americans, not just the privileged few. Will we hold our leaders to the task? Will we make it through the politics of fear?
Food for THOUGHT…
Thanks to Sarah Palin, the former Republican Governor from Alaska (didn’t she just resign in midterm for some obscure reason?), the conservative right wing of the Republican Party, now have a rallying cry: “Death Panel.” To the relief of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, they now have a way to scuttle all the hard work that has been done up to this point. As they did over the last eight years, they continue to use fear to achieve their agendas. Fear works! Just look at the faces of those protesters on television as they shout down anyone trying to explain the healthcare reform legislation before our congress. They have been scared to death with lies and misinformation and they don’t want a discussion. They want reform stopped dead in its tracks.” Keep things just the way they are” seems to be their message.
So where is this fear coming from and what lies are being spread to generate such uncivil reaction to something that should be welcomed by all Americans…healthcare reform? The top five lies are these:
1)President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma by using a “Death Panel.”
Truth: There is no “Death Panel” in the bill, but there is a provision, supported by the AARP and the AMA, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans. This counseling service is voluntary, not mandatory. Nobody is going to kill grandma, but individuals will have help with options and information so THEY can make their own decisions on care.
2)Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan.
Truth: Obama’s plan will create a ”Heath Insurance Exchange” that will create a one-stop marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options. One of those options will be a “Public Health Insurance Option” that will offer a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers. It will compete right alongside private insurance companies introducing competition into the market place driving up quality and driving down costs. If you are happy with your existing coverage and doctor, you can keep them, but the Public Option will offer expanded choices to millions of small businesses and individuals that simply cannot afford healthcare now. Coverage will no longer be denied because you get sick, lose your job or transfer jobs or have a preexisting condition.
3)President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing.
Truth: Right now large corporations decide what coverage you may have, what doctors you can see and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered. If that is not rationed care…what is? Healthcare reform will give families and businesses more choices for coverage and expand access to high quality healthcare.
4)Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens’ Medicare benefits.
Truth: There will be cost savings coming from Medicare, but it will be coming from cutting billions of dollars in over payments to insurance companies and eliminating waste , fraud and abuse, all things unrelated to patient care.
5)Obama’s healthcare plan will bankrupt America.
Truth: Obama’s reform plans would be fully paid for over the next 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit. He has vowed to veto any plan that would increase the deficit. If we do nothing, spiraling insurance costs are projected to raise the average family premium to over $22,000/yr in the next decade. Each year nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.
If you want more information, check out this website:
www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/
Much of the shouting has been about “President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan” when in reality the plan is being hammered out and designed by Congress. You know, those guys we send to Washington to represent us. President Obama has given Congress these guidelines for healthcare reform:
• Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
• Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
• Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
• Invest in prevention and wellness
• Improve patient safety and quality of care
• Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
• Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
• End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions
Let’s see what our elected leaders bring President Obama for his signature. Will it get watered down to appease the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and other special interest groups or will it be the true healthcare reform this country needs? Will the fear mongers, hoping to discredit and depose this administration for their own partisan reasons, prevail? Is that what America deserves?
I suggest that We the People are better than the shouting, pushing, disruptive groups we now see on our TV screens at these town hall meetings. We deserve healthcare reform. Why should we continue with the most costly healthcare system in the world with one of the worst outcomes? What does the rest of the world know that we just don’t seem to get? We have the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all Americans, not just the privileged few. Will we hold our leaders to the task? Will we make it through the politics of fear?
Food for THOUGHT…
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
New Revelations - Part Three
The New Revelations: A Conversation with God by Neale Donald Walsch is a dangerous book. Depending on what you believe, what you have been taught, it may make you angry. It may scare the hell out of you or it may open your mind and expand your belief systems. It may also close your mind and entrench your current beliefs. Or it may confirm what you have always suspected. It made me wonder. It made me examine and explore what I believe and the meaning of God and Life.
Was God actually communicating with Neale Donald Walsch? Who knows? Does God still do that? Or did God stop handing down revelations with the Book of Revelations written by John at the end of the Bible. Or did God’s last words come to us from Mohammad’s conversation with God in a cave as written in the Quran? Perhaps God said all he had to say when he gave Moses the 10 Commandments up on the mountain. Are the sacred texts of the world’s major religions all we have to know…God? And of all the world religions, which one is the one true religion that human beings should follow? Which of the texts are the TRUE words of God?
In the book, God reveals Nine New Revelations to Neale Donald Walsch. God talks about a New Spirituality to transcend and expand our world religions. God challenges our old beliefs that no longer work, that no longer serve us and the evolution of human beings. So what are those New Revelations from God?
First New Revelation
God has never stopped communicating directly with human beings. God has been communicating with, and through, human beings from the beginning of time. God does so today.
Second New Revelation
Every human being is as special as every other human being who has ever lived, lives now, or ever will live. You are all Messengers. Every one of you. You are carrying a message to life about life every day. Every hour. Every moment.
Third New Revelation
No path to God is more direct than any other path. No religion is the “one true religion,” no people are “the chosen people,” and no prophet is the “greatest prophet.”
Fourth New Revelation
God needs nothing. God requires nothing in order to be happy. God is happiness itself. Therefore, God requires nothing of anyone or anything in the universe.
Fifth New Revelation
God is not a singular Super Being, living somewhere in the Universe or outside of it, having the same emotional needs and subject to the same emotional turmoil as humans. That Which Is God cannot be hurt or damaged in any way, and so, has no need to seek revenge or impose punishment.
Sixth New Revelation
All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing That Is.
Seventh New Revelation
There is no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only What Works and What Does not Work, depending upon what it is that you seek to be, do, or have.
Eighth New Revelation
You are not your body. Who you are is limitless and without end.
Ninth New Revelation
You cannot die, and you will never be condemned to eternal damnation
So there you have the New Revelations from God given to and written down by Neal Donald Walsch. Some are very familiar and some might be considered blasphemous. I can only guess at the range of emotions they will trigger. I will say it again, this is a dangerous book. Human beings define themselves by their beliefs and even when those beliefs are false and no longer serve them, they find it hard to change a long held view of the world and their place in it. I am personally working through revelations # 6 and #7, but I found the book and Walsch’s back and forth dialogue with God most interesting and enlightening. I welcome your comments, especially if you were brave enough to read the book.
I offer this third and final part of the series as…
Food for THOUGHT…
Was God actually communicating with Neale Donald Walsch? Who knows? Does God still do that? Or did God stop handing down revelations with the Book of Revelations written by John at the end of the Bible. Or did God’s last words come to us from Mohammad’s conversation with God in a cave as written in the Quran? Perhaps God said all he had to say when he gave Moses the 10 Commandments up on the mountain. Are the sacred texts of the world’s major religions all we have to know…God? And of all the world religions, which one is the one true religion that human beings should follow? Which of the texts are the TRUE words of God?
In the book, God reveals Nine New Revelations to Neale Donald Walsch. God talks about a New Spirituality to transcend and expand our world religions. God challenges our old beliefs that no longer work, that no longer serve us and the evolution of human beings. So what are those New Revelations from God?
First New Revelation
God has never stopped communicating directly with human beings. God has been communicating with, and through, human beings from the beginning of time. God does so today.
Second New Revelation
Every human being is as special as every other human being who has ever lived, lives now, or ever will live. You are all Messengers. Every one of you. You are carrying a message to life about life every day. Every hour. Every moment.
Third New Revelation
No path to God is more direct than any other path. No religion is the “one true religion,” no people are “the chosen people,” and no prophet is the “greatest prophet.”
Fourth New Revelation
God needs nothing. God requires nothing in order to be happy. God is happiness itself. Therefore, God requires nothing of anyone or anything in the universe.
Fifth New Revelation
God is not a singular Super Being, living somewhere in the Universe or outside of it, having the same emotional needs and subject to the same emotional turmoil as humans. That Which Is God cannot be hurt or damaged in any way, and so, has no need to seek revenge or impose punishment.
Sixth New Revelation
All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing That Is.
Seventh New Revelation
There is no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only What Works and What Does not Work, depending upon what it is that you seek to be, do, or have.
Eighth New Revelation
You are not your body. Who you are is limitless and without end.
Ninth New Revelation
You cannot die, and you will never be condemned to eternal damnation
So there you have the New Revelations from God given to and written down by Neal Donald Walsch. Some are very familiar and some might be considered blasphemous. I can only guess at the range of emotions they will trigger. I will say it again, this is a dangerous book. Human beings define themselves by their beliefs and even when those beliefs are false and no longer serve them, they find it hard to change a long held view of the world and their place in it. I am personally working through revelations # 6 and #7, but I found the book and Walsch’s back and forth dialogue with God most interesting and enlightening. I welcome your comments, especially if you were brave enough to read the book.
I offer this third and final part of the series as…
Food for THOUGHT…
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