So before we start, I need to tell you that this is strictly a gratuitous shot of my wife dressed up as a cowgirl. It has nothing to do with my post or anything else in the world except the fact that it makes me so hot.....
OK, now on with the show!
Several of my brothers and I have been having a very "lively" debate on health care reform this past week. It's been, shall we say, very, VERY SPIRITED.....
There are many firm opinions on this.
We have had instances of some people calling others out on their beliefs.
It has been so violent that it truly could be considered a damaging thing to friendships.
But only if we let it.....and we certainly don't.
I have found over and over in my life that when you truly love and respect someone, you can disagree (and even do it loudly and often) and it doesn't change the relationship. It can actually add to it.
And that's what has been happening.
I always end up, no matter where someone comes down on the issue, going back to Jesus' teachings. And luckily for me, most of that is pretty much not up for debate since it's all right there in your face.
Plus, I love righteous indignation best!!!
I have really enjoyed this particular debate so I decided to put out my first "manifesto" that I wrote as a response to a brother-o-mine's rantings.......we'll call this one the first shot across the bow.
Hope you enjoy and hope I get lots of hate mail from my fascist friends (since that includes most of you!!)
And before "thou doest protest too much", here is the definition of a fascist just so you'll know you are one:
Fascism, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology.
Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.
Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.
Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.
Fascism is much defined by what it opposes, what scholars call the fascist negations - its opposition to individualism, rationalism, liberalism, and communism.
Here I go...........
Change is hard. It’s always hard. But it’s especially hard when it threatens our wallets.
I’m not going to tell you how we are going to (
or even how I think we should) pay for these things……..
I’m just going to talk about these things and hopefully get some agreement that our medical system is broken and it needs to be fixed.
And in that fixing, there is going to be a great divide between people on how it should be done………just as there has been for generations.
And no matter what the facts are said to be or end up being, that divide will continue to cause a great debate between those that have – and those that need.
Neither am I going to bring up the historical changes that “broke” our country such as Teddy busting the trusts or Wilson wiping out the last of the robber barons.
I’m just going to remind you that any change in the status quo is painful and those of us fortunate enough to have privilege will always feel the pinch more than those that have nothing to lose in the first place.
We can’t change that anymore than we can change the fact that Oliver Twist wanted some more pudding.
But first, in order to get any validity here, you are going to have to agree that there is a problem with our medical system………. If you can’t do that, then we’ll never be able to have a conversation in the first place.
When my son was born, it cost me $1874 at Forrest General Hospital and he and his mother stayed in the hospital for 3 days and then we wrapped up the little bundle of joy and went back home to my apartment that I paid $275 per month for over by your old lab in the trailer on Weathersby Road. (You used to wave at me as I ran by. Seems like you had much less gray hair in your beard and there was just a lot less of me in those days!)
When my grandson was born, it cost $11,423.89 and he and my daughter got to stay exactly one night in the hospital.
To further illustrate our medical situation I will illuminate the only other two actual examples I have in my life. My outpatient sinus surgery I had last month cost almost $12,000 and my back surgery two years ago was $132,000……….
Our doctors can’t practice medicine anymore without looking over their shoulders at lawsuits and the majority of their earnings seem to go to pay their malpractice insurance.
My mother is in a nursing home. It costs almost $6000 per month. Mr. Howard pays me a very good salary and my life is very good………but I don’t have that kind of extra cash to pay for my mother so we had to liquidate everything she owned and put her on Medicaid.
Not what I had in mind, but if I went looking for any extra $70,000 per year to take care of her, I’d have to rob banks for a living.
The times when she’s sick and requires hospitalization these days, she has to go to Forrest General in an ambulance. The waiting room at the county hospital is completely full of people who have no where else to go………so they go to the one place that has to see them and it clogs up all of our medical facilities.
So yes, our system is broken. It’s broken badly. And due to the rising insurance costs, employers are unable to continue to provide insurance to their workers and the cycle gets worse and worse.
In my 25 years at Howard Industries, our dependent insurance coverage for management has gone from nothing to $600 per month………but at least we still have that option. I’m not sure that will last forever at the rate it’s rising.
For quite a while now, everyone has recognized that there is a problem. Especially our elected officials and they have debated and commiserated and come up with an official “yes there is a problem”………but no one has done a thing about it other than to keep saying how bad it is.
The bottom line is that the wealthiest country in the world should not have a problem with people unable to get care when they are sick.
But even beyond that, I can tell you that as a Christian, this makes me sick that we can’t do the minimum things that we are called to do……..“heal the sick”, “feed the hungry”, “clothe the naked”, “visit the prisoner”……..you know, all those things that we’re supposed to do for the least of us.
Oh, and by the way, Jesus was about as far away from a conservative as you can get! And that always makes me almost delirious with laughter when I realize that old white men with money who claim to be religious are the ones that fill the conservative ranks of our society??
Very strange bedfellows indeed!
They get all up in arms about whether or woman can choose to be pregnant or not and yet allow the kind of poverty that boggles the mind exist in the Mississippi Delta because those folks obvously are just plain lazy and living off they "system"??
But back to your question at hand……….
How to pay for it………how much will it cost………how will it work……..all of these things are questions that need to be answered and I’m very sorry that I can’t provide you with the facts that you desire.
All I can tell you is that something needs to be done and I’m glad that someone finally has the courage to do something. And even if we fall on our face and end up deciding that we should put all the old people in camps and gas them when they get too much of a burden to society, then at least we can say we tried.
Maybe that will let us all sleep better at night……………
Sorry I couldn’t answer your questions – but I don’t know the answer – I’m just glad that finally we are taking a look at it.
