And while I'm on my soapbox...

[kellinator]

Excellent column from Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times today about whether the United States can really claim the best health care in the world. Did you know a woman in America is eleven times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in Ireland? But if you manage to survive till you're Medicare-age, your life expectancy goes through the roof.

On the other side of the coin, we have protesters in Washington shouting "kill the bill", despite the fact that many of them are of the age where they are either covered by Medicare or soon will be. The comments they make indicate that most of them really don't know what they're talking about -- they whine about government interference and then out of the other side of their mouths they bitch that Medicare doesn't cover enough.

Most sadly for me, apparently a large number of these people announced they were Christian. I guess they missed all the verses about caring for the sick and needy. People like this are why some of the best people I know recoil when I tell them I'm a Christian.

Frankly, this whole healthcare thing has pretty much destroyed any faith I had left in either America or human kindness. I watched V the other night, and the big reveal that the aliens were evil was the phrase "universal health care." What's so bad about giving everyone a chance for proper health care, not just those who were born into privilege? The article didn't say, but I'm betting there weren't that many people of color in the crowd. And I'll bet you that crowd thinks everything they have they earned, when so much of life is just plain luck (and expect to have more of it if you're white and rich).

Opt-out option? Right now I'd like to opt out of the human race.

Comments

[reannon.livejournal.com]

That moment in V was my main annoyance with it. That was some hyperconservative writer interjecting his subtext into my science fiction. I wonder if there's more of that crap in the next couple episodes, and maybe that's why the showrunner got fired. Seriously: the evilest thing the lizardfolk can do to us is cure our diseases? Wow!

[polychrome-baby.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally took it differently. I took it as this Holy Grail that we've been reaching and straining for, and here they come just handing it to us, all "oh, hey, you dropped this.."

I figured they were supposed to be illustrating the idea that they were offering to solve all of our problems in one shot.

Yano, the whole "too good to be true" plot device.

[teague.livejournal.com]

I hear you! I read a bit where someone said, in protest, "I don't want to pay for someone else's health care!" Well, guess what? You already do! Also, by that logic, I should protest paying for roads in Omaha. I'm fairly sure that's someone else's road. I may not even ever use it, or get the benefit of any use of it. But I pay for it. Hmm.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

If you find a way to opt out of the human race, let me know. I'll be right behind you....

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, that column! I just read it before seeing your post. The best bit was the apology to Slovenia at the end. *grin*

Have you seen the video on YouTube, "We're #37"?

[kth-dragon.livejournal.com]

The United States claims the best health care in the world?

Every time someone does that, the entire population of Canada and Europe laughs uproariously. They have better health care and it costs less.

[leezechka.livejournal.com]

I am astounded at the number of people who say America's is the best because a few really really rich people can get the top of the line super special care. Drug companies will make just as much profit from the rich under universal care as they do now, the rich can always afford the super care. Of course we will never get real universal coverage...
Meanwhile everyone else struggles to have coverage or is forced to linger at jobs they hate so they don't go bankrupt and lose the ability to ever have insurance again.
I was reading yesterday that, per capita, Switzerland is the most innovative in pharmaceuticals. Kinda quashes the whole innovation has to be be based on for profit medicine thing...

[meganinhiding.livejournal.com]

I think veterans also get funded through the VA. Another noteworthy group of people whose receive health care via the taxpayer are members of Congress. Why hasn't anyone suggested that they foot their own bills.

[leezechka.livejournal.com]

I have seen that suggested in online forums, but of course they won't give up their awesome stuff, any more than they will deny themselves a raise.

[whitecrow0.livejournal.com]

[A]pparently a large number of these people announced they were Christian. I guess they missed all the verses about caring for the sick and needy...
Right now I'd like to opt out of the human race.

Sadly, I feel the same way you do. :/

[scarcrest.livejournal.com]

Scott Peters' work on The 4400 was great, and so I had high hopes for V, but after hearing about that line, I'm tempted to skip the series entirely.

[mfree.livejournal.com]

"I watched V the other night, and the big reveal that the aliens were evil was the phrase "universal health care."

Did we watch the same show, or did you have an expectation based upon hat others had said and/or sensitivities on the subject?

The big "evil tells" to me were the moments befor ethe interview with Chris Decker when Anna demanded the V be cast in a positive light.... and, of course, the wee floating "that's no moon, " whirling dervish o' doom and flying nails later on.


As far as *healthcare* goes... we're not going to agree. Mostly because of research I did back a couple revisions ago thanks to someone who parsed out the taxation sections, allowing me to figure that I'm going to end up paying overall ~3X what I do now for less services (tax increases, alread paying around 24% though I don't have the actual number in front of me) and those "medicare aged" folk could be protesting because despite what the AARP thinks, there's a fairly large stripping of funds from medicare right when the 'boomers are about to hit it. I don't so much mind where my health care comes from but looking at the current legislation it's going to be an absolute clusterf* with unintended consequences out the yang. Want to throw money at the problem? Toss some at the state efforts and other more local-level beneficiaries and figure out how to cut the bad bureaucracy out of the current federal schemes.

Or we could just toss in that 2 kilopage monstrosity and gift ourselves a medical system as gloriously efficient as.... Amtrak.

See, I get riled on this two ways. One, I know almost to the penny what I'm paid, what I pay in taxes, and am able to figure back what I recieve or am allowed in government services, and I "overpay" by a vast amount, and am about to watch that slowly creep towards where I'd be close to a third of my "gross" income going to taxes, and well over a third if you're figuring in actual employer overhead due to tax matching schemes. Second, I work [somewhere] that I've not only witnessed but participated in the act of squeezing pennies until Abe cries uncle, an absolute obsession with cost... which lets me "see" inefficiencies from other govt entities because I know how the system works.

Total healthcare is a fantastic, egalitarian idea, and certainly something to aim for. This bill, unfortunately, is utter crap. One of those unintended consequences is a couple sections that would serve to limit the amount of work performed by a given provider. Since the government is paying, that's a de facto limit on income. Well, nobody's found a section yet limiting overhead costs like malpractice insurance premiums... you've just lost doctors. Reduced doctors means eventually, someone's going to have to form a queue for a given service. What to do then? Re-raise the limits? By the time that occurs the doctors lost would have either let their licenses lapse or taken up elsewhere (who could blame them) so you now have a true doctor shortage. Queues for doctors, short on doctors... make more doctors? Takes time. Make the existing doctors take extra work? Obvious solution.

Until you realize that you just had the federal government force a citizen to do work, essentially at the barrel of a gun (not hysterics, what are the ramifications of refusal to follow law, court order, or jurisdictionally valid code? Men with guns pick you up and store you for a while.)

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

One, I know almost to the penny what I'm paid, what I pay in taxes, and am able to figure back what I recieve or am allowed in government services, and I "overpay" by a vast amount, and am about to watch that slowly creep towards where I'd be close to a third of my "gross" income going to taxes, and well over a third if you're figuring in actual employer overhead due to tax matching schemes.

So you pay more to the govt than you get back? Where do you think the roads you drive on come from? You get your electricity from TVA, right? Know how that came about? Not to mention you live in Tennessee, and it's well-known that southern states get back more from the federal govt than they pay in.

I'm really not interested in debating health care with you, because you're right, no one's mind is getting changed, but I will challenge you on that claim. And I will also tell you that I think it's asinine, and I think if you object to taxes going to pay for civilization so much, you should stop using civilization and go live in a cave somewhere.

And re: your comments on V, ever heard of hyperbole? How stupid do you think I am anyway?

[mfree.livejournal.com]

I don't object to taxes going to "pay for civilization" at all. I'd just like them to go where I have a little more control over direction. And yes, in my particular situation, I'm not using/allowed federal services equivalent to the amount removed from my paycheck and the matching sum paid by my employer combined minus the amount averaged per capita regained by the state on my behalf. On that note, I don't actually *mind* it so much. I mind the amount that gets taken out and put to *waste*, which the bill on the table is going to generate in droves.

I don't think you're stupid at all. I wasn't being literal, the whole "hope/change/universal healthcare" thing was hamfisted as all get-out. But to that point in the plot, evilness wasn't hinted at beyond the absolutely creepy body language of Anna, and alliteration to it would have been from preconcieved notion either from knowing the plot (I'd watched the original mini-series) or from the banter about the code words the writers peppered the dialogue with, as has been discussed for weeks. *That* is what I'm phrasing around. Yes, I could have put it better, I'm looking at what I wrote now and it looks high-handed, and for that I apologize.

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I really appreciate that.