It’s easy to view politics with a jaundiced eye, assuming little if anything done in Washington or elsewhere can possibly have that much effect on you and yours.
Which is the way we want it, really.
Most of us want to be left alone to live our lives. We know and understand how to conduct ourselves in society; the need for personal responsibility and taking care of ourselves.
Most of us.
There is an element in society that believes for whatever reason, usually past grievances against ancestors long since passed away, it is entitled to receive that for which they have not worked. The Scriptural edict laid down by God to Adam and all his descendants (“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return”) is dismissed as irrelevant. It believes it should have what others work for without working for these things itself.
A separate segment of society has seized upon this notion, feeding it through propaganda and posing not as the great emancipator but rather the great equalizer, a contemporary Robin Hood taking away ill-gotten gain from the evil rich and graciously bestowing it on the noble poor. Never mind this segment is itself wealthy; never mind this segment is manipulating those it pretends to assist. This takes place through the creation of a cycle of dependency in which handouts, given in lieu of genuine assistance toward betterment via working toward the improvement of the situation, is standard operational procedure. Neither challenge nor encouragement to work toward self-reliance is presented. The segment of society receiving such returns the favor by unhesitatingly keeping those who allow it to languish in a state of perpetual dependency in power, never once suspecting that while it mutters of mythical dark conspiracies perpetrated against it by “the man” a blatant genuine conspiracy is working to keep them in a state it blithefully embraces.
The health care bill passed by the House last night is the most extreme example yet of this in that the Democratic majority in Congress along with the President are working toward driving as many people as possible into subservience to a government-run program. Under the guise of helping combat the rising cost of health care while making it more available to all, the plan will drive the country even deeper into its already intolerable level of debt. It will force most everyone to take up the government-run plan as the punitive regulations in the bill with either force up the price of health coverage from private insurers to an unaffordable level or drive them out of business. Further, as part of the attempt to “pay” for the plan outside of levying additional taxes on individuals and business which will further depress an already staggering economy it will dramatically slash payment to the existing Medicare system.
Which makes it personal.
The left reacted with derision when Sarah Palin used the term “death panels” to describe how under the bill it would be boards of bureaucrats deciding when someone had received all the medical assistance they warranted and, with an eye on the budget, would receive no more. The fact is these boards will be created.
Which makes it personal.
My mother is in her mid-eighties. She has assorted health problems. Will the government be willing to pay for the treatment and medicine she needs?
My brother suffers from diabetic neuropathy and the onset of MS. Will the government be willing to pay for the treatment and medicine he needs?
Or will some faceless suit somewhere decide they’re not worth the cost?
And how will my own health coverage along with my wife’s be affected when we’re eventually forced into the public plan? Will we have any say in who our doctors will be? Will we have to fight to keep our assorted prescriptions? How much will it all cost, either directly or indirectly through taxes and fees?
So yeah, this one’s personal.
Damn straight this one’s personal.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jerry Wilson, tanmany2k. tanmany2k said: RT @Jerry_Wilson: Why the health care bill is a personal issue http://tinyurl.com/y8vtskv #tcot #sgp #hhrs [...]
Couldn’t disagree with you more on this one, Jerry. It sounds like you’ve bought into the GOP paranoia stream about people being left to die because they’re just not convenient anymore. Fact is, that’s precisely what the current system does. If some mega-million-dollar insurance corporation decides your health issues are costing them too much money, you’re left to die. Period. The United States is the ONLY industrialized nation in the WORLD that forces people into bankruptcy over medical bills, all the while permitting medical groups to charge thousands more than necessary for basic care, and permitting pharmaceutical companies to jack up prices more than 5,000% for maximum profit because they know people will suffer or die without their products. I believe that America should either provide proper care for every citizen, or permit its citizens to begin acting with extreme violence against the corporations who kill for profit. The current insurance scam in the U.S. is purest evil and must be rectified.
This nation has the best health care in the world–if you can afford it, and that’s the trick. If insurance was simply regulated, it would save us trillions of dollars and not lead to this monstrosity. It’s sad that so many people genuinely refuse to wake to what should be the obvious and instead cling to the tired and disingenous ‘hope-’n-change’ monologue. In wanting to genuinely help people, you are empowering bad people to enact deceptive legislation that will hurt many more people than it helps. Claiming that you want to help people, you are exposing your hopeless self-centeredness that brought this entire regime into power. If you really care about people, you will care about the ENTIRE POPULATION and listen to both sides, not just the so-called needy. Try putting down your hope-’n-change stick with which you beat down dissenters and instead listen to what we have to say. You just might find, even if you don’t like all of us…that we have a valid point.
I find the comment about “hopeless self-centeredness” to be almost hilarious. Sorry, but the self-centered ones are the Republicans who refuse to help anyone but themselves. And, of course, the insurers who will do anything, up to and including pronouncing death sentences on patients, in order to protect their bottom line. As usual, the Christ in American Christianity only extends to the seam of their wallets.
I’ll chime in on this one, stating from the get-go I work for an insurance provider. Not health insurance, but the industry mechanisms and practices are the same.
I utterly reject the “evil insurance companies” meme. Insurance companies are, by law, not allowed to be evil. Whether it’s medical, life or property (auto/home), the stringent regulations levied against all insurance providers at the federal and state level prohibits illegal and unethical behavior. Should such behavior take place, there are easily accessible channels for consumers to file complaints.
Where both sides of the aisle have failed is in not addressing the matter as an insurance issue in the same fashion the government at federal and in some instances state level have addressed insurance needs beyond the scope of private insurers. As I outlined back in September, the proper approach is the government acting as reinsurer for when medical costs exceed levels beyond what private insurers can reasonably carry. Instead, we have a guaranteed bloated bureaucracy coming. How does that serve anyone?
TSJ’s really dropped the ball on this one IMO. He sounds like my Socialist “friend” (we once were friends) who believes the DOI “proves” that since we’re all “entitled” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (whatever “happiness” actually means is perhaps a subject for another debate), therefore Socialism’s aim for “universal health care” is just. Nonsense. The DOI guarantees us all an opportunity for these things, not a guaranteed outcome. I hope he and TSJ remember these things when it’s their head on the proverbial chopping block of life-or-death healthcare.
Spoken like someone who’s never been told by some multi-million-dollar company that their child doesn’t qualify for a wheelchair,even though he can’t walk and never will…
Its too bad there can’t be honest dialogue rather than diatribe.
That’s the worst thing about religion and politics.
Sad.
And I disagree too, Jerry, and for me its personal too, but I’m not weighing in
I was too tired last night to leave a longer comment, but I feel like coming back once more. Jerry, those “easily accessible channels” you refer to might be easily accessible to begin with, but they are often outright hostile to the patient and much too lenient with the insurer. Multiple appeals have to be filed with one’s medical group (which, frankly, shouldn’t even exist), and then with the insurer when the med-group appeals are exhausted. All of this before anything can be filed at the state level with those “easily accessible channels”. Then their appeals take months and months, sometimes years to resolve, and all the while the patient’s medical condition could be deteriorating. Insurers and medical groups have legions of lawyers on their side who, if nothing else, will file continuances until the cows come home. The idea that insurers are “not allowed to be evil” is naive in the extreme; everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — in the process is leveraged in the corporations’ favor.
The only way we got our son’s insurance issues resolved was to contact our local legislators (Calif. Assemblyman Bill McClintock and State Sen. Bob Dutton), both of whom intervened on our behalf and essentially ordered the medical group and insurer to cover our son’s wheelchair and physical therapy (that’s right, they also denied PT to a kid whose leg muscles were so tense he couldn’t straighten them out). Something has to be done to straighten out the current situation, and if it takes a socialist-style national health care plan to make it work, then so be it. I’m sure you’re already realizing that the bulk of American citizens support such a program, despite all the babble, hatred and lies coming out of Washington.