Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

Health Care Debate — in diagram form

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Whether or not to reform the health care industry comes down to some basic ideas:  what is our collective expectation of our health care options, and how can we lower costs and increase caliber of service over the long term?

1.  Do you think health care is (a) a privilege, (b) a right or (c) regardless of whether it is a right or a privilege, it is a broken system that needs fixing?  If (a), then skip to the bottom.  If (b) or (c), then go to the next question.

2.  Do you think AFFORDABLE, adequate, health care is (a) a privilege or (b) a right or (c) regardless of whether it is a right or a privilege, it is a broken system that needs fixing so those who have it can benefit from it?  If (a), then skip to the bottom.  If (b) or (c), then go to the next question.

3. Do you view health care reform as essentially a political issue?  If yes, then skip to the bottom.  If no, then go to the next question.

4.  Do you agree or disagree: companies should not be able to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, impose annual or life time limits, or drop coverage for those who develop illness? If you disagree with all or part of the statement, then skip to the bottom.  If you agree with the statement, then go to the next question.

5.  How do you think it is best to keep premiums down? (a) a best practices safe harbor from malpractice claims; (b) cooperatives; and/or (c) public option.  If none of the above, then skip to the bottom.  If any of the above, go to the next question.

6.  How do you reduce the costs to the taxpayers of uninsured people? (a) refuse medical attention to anyone without proof of insurance; (b) require all persons residing in this country to have insurance, (c) tax those who don’t get coverage and/or (d) some other option that induces people to get coverage or at least takes the burden off of taxpayers for those who cheat the system.  If (a), then skip to the bottom.  If (b), (c) or (d), go to the next question.

7.  If you are at this question, then grab a seat at the table and start negotiating.  Let’s assume that the polls are correct and that the overwhelming majority of Americans want some kind of reform.  FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, ARE YOU LISTENING? 

 Bottom:  Here you are at the bottom.  It is a dog-eat-dog world, huh?  Just some follow-up questions: 

  1. Did you ever see Glenn Beck’s iReporting after his botched hemorrhoids surgery?  (Now he is a raging you-know-what.)  You might not trust his currently analysis after viewing the video. 
  2. Or maybe you are invincible, lucky or just too rich and selfish? 
  3. Or maybe you are delusional, like the actor Craig T. Nelson, who said no one helped him when he was on food stamps and welfare (yes, idiots can be actors). 
  4. You are a patriot, right?  So you aren’t going to leave the country when the deficit rages out of control because health care costs are ballooning out of control and the taxpayers will have to pay a large percentage of their incomes just to meet interest payments on the deficit?   
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Tainted Beef, Still a Problem after 100 years

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I read this weekend about a young girl paralyzed by eating a hamburger tainted with bacteria.

In the 1900s, reporters and journalists — among them Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell — wrote articles and books detailing, among other things, the unclean practices in meat-packing factories. 

One hundred years later, we still read about tainted meat.  Not in a third world country.  Right here in the USA.

It seems that most of the strides made in sanitary food preparation have been lost in the era of de-regulation. 

We need more and better inspectors and real, catastrophic economic sanctions against operators of packaging companies that produce tainted food.  In some of the most egregious cases, the unsanitary conditions are obvious to the untrained eye.  We need to make it too costly to produce unhealthy products.

How many more children must die or be crippled by E Coli or other dangerous bacteria festering in our food production plants?

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David Letterman, Senator Ensign, Roman Polanski

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There are no parallels among these men.

David Letterman did get out in front of the “scandal”. That was smart media.  As long as the women with whom he was intimate were consenting adults — that means without fear for their jobs or career advancement — then it is just another philandering person.  What makes it news is that he is a TV star.  What is sad is that sexual harassment happens everyday and there is no famous star to blackmail to make it stop.  David Letterman has a lot of heartache ahead of him.  But he doesn’t need to apologize to me.

Conversely, Senator Ensign needs to apologize to his voters because he is a fraud — he is not the “family values” candidate that his constituency elected and he broke the public trust in the cover-up. His extra-marital affair was not criminal or actionable — consenting adults without any specter (so far) of harassment in the workplace.

Roman Polanski is, based on the information available, a scoundrel and a sexual predator.  A thirteen year-old is a child and is not capable of consent in sexual circumstances.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  Lock him up and throw away the key.

Let’s not lump these men and their actions together.  None is a shining star, but in only one case was there a sexual criminal.  In another, it was the cover-up that is criminal.  The third, well, unless we hear more, is just disappointing and ooky.

There is one guy, whose handle is TheFlaCracker on Twitter, who refers to all Libiots (liberal idiots) as defending Roman Polanski.  That’s unfair.  I am a G-d damn Democrat and liberal and a Hillary-lover.  I am proud of it.  But, child abuse is not a liberal or conservative issue.  It is solely about our expectations and demands for the safety of society’s and our children.

The true measure of our society is how we treat the children others have “cast off”and those who abuse them.

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So Jon Stewart called Sen. Schumer a [censored] idiot

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Ok, that may have been a little harsh, but I understand the frustration.

I held my breath during the general election, through the contested senatorial elections, through the swearing in of Sen. Al Franken.  Just as I was about to exhale — because the logjam has been removed — the Republicans hijacked the public dialogue and sent Democrats, fractured, and on the run.

I am not an ideologue; I just want effective financial, health care and government reform to start.  I don’t need Jay Rockefeller’s public option (although I think it is the right thing) right now, but we need to stop talking about what could be and deal with what is possible.

The government once seemed on the verge of great things.  But now it is frozen and ineffectual. The Republicans are doing what they always do; and, unfortunately, the Democrats are doing what they always do — promise big and then crash and burn because of in-fighting and factionalism.

But we gave the Democrats another chance in 2008.  We believed this time that Washington would be different.  We dared to hope and believe in change.

Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.  Ok, we were crazy but now, Congress, I think we’re angry.

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Politics is making my head explode, so I am watching cartoons

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It doesn’t get more stupid than this:

Glenn Beck’s attempt to co-opt Yom Kippur as a national day of fasting for the health of the Republic, a large, government-paid, medical providers’ sending scary letters to disabled and senior citizens, GOP’s sending out questionnaires implying that race will have an effect on who gets health insurance, the president’s heavy handed approach with the NYS gubernatorial race (I agree with the sentiment but not how it was handled), the ACORN debacle, FOX News’ orchestration of 9/12 march on Washington, leaking the CONFIDENTIAL Afghanistan report, the ideologues on both sides of the aisle in Congress not seeing that some reform is better than no reform . . . I could go on and on and on.

But, I won’t go on and on and on and on (today). 

I will go home tonight and watch cartoons on the PBS kids.  Because in the land of PBS kids, people learn to work and play and get along with each other.

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Karma is a boomerang

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When all financial hell started breaking loose last year, fear was the prevalent mood.  Then, fear turned to despair, turned to anger, turned to dog-eat-dog mentality.  It seems to me, unencumbered by knowledge, information or expertise, that instead of working together toward the common good, we are scrambling to get ahead of the pack. 

Now, it is acceptable to demand unconscionable discounts on things because vendors and service providers are struggling financiallyand will make the deal even at a loss because they are cash-strapped.  There is a word for this behavior: stealing.  Shame on those who do this. 

And for those of you who do this, be forewarned, Karma is a . . . .

boooomeraaaaaaang! 

 

 

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Obama’s Detractors will come up with anything

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Now someone says President Obama is gay.  It is clearly meant as an insult even though I thought that we had made strides in that regard. 

Because any man who is an intellectual, loves his children and seems to have a good relationship with this wife (at least from the outside) must be gay?  And, who cares?  Should we start talking about George Bush and his drinking?

So, you can’t fight him on the issues so you go for heckling and “disparaging” comments?  So, what if he is? So, what if he had blue skin or purple eyes? 

The right wingers can’t fight fair because they have no good arguments.  They only have their prejudices.

I hope Americans see through all of this and are disgusted by the absence of decency and fair play and calm discussion of the ISSUES.

President Obama, if you are gay, have blue skin or purple eyes, I don’t care.  I’m with you.

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Say it ain’t so, Joe

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Joe Wilson, GOP Congressman from South Carolina, broke protocol by yelling at the President, “you lie!” when the President was giving his address to Congress last night.  Of course, this is the same guy who supports Sarah Palin’s assertions about death panels that will decide care for elderly.  

Look, I wish some people called out Bush on the false claims of Iraq’s buying WMDs and plutoniun from Niger in his speech to Congress, so maybe protocol breaches are ok every now and then.

The problem with Wilson’s outburst is what it lays bare for all to see: 

  1. the discussion of health care reform has become an exercise in name-calling and fear mongering;
  2. there can be no debate while people are screaming to score points with constituents; and
  3. the ideologues (on either side of the issue) will not bend to acknowledge the facts and realities “on the ground”. 

Ideology without common sense (and some sinister malfeasance, thank you, Dick Cheney) got us in the guagmire known as the Iraq War, where debate was stifled by fear-mongering and name-calling (“unpatriotic” was often used) and people afraid to be unpopular with constituencies that just wanted revenge (as in “round up the usual suspects”).

Trying to bring the likes of Joe Wilson into the bipartisan tent is a fool’s errand.  Similarly, if bringing in armchair “Progressives” into the bipartisan tent means clinging onto a public option come hell or high water, then close the tent flaps to them, too. 

Actually, let’s have both sides of the extreme ideologies in an arena and let them scream at each other.  We’ll sell tickets, televise it (and get advertising revenue) and the proceeds will help pay for health care reform.  We’ll call the show “Extreme Dysfunction”.

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Fox News, Shame On You.

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A friend emailed me that I should blog about Fox News Network’s being the only network NOT to air President Obama’s speech. 

Fox News Network: it was very classy move, really. 

Ok, it is so despicable that I can’t even write something merely sarcastic or facetious.  I know why people think that the owners and talking heads on Fox are evil.  Because they are.

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What is the fear?

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The minute President Obama took the oath of office, there has been a fevered pitch among white right wing radicals, as if somehow life imitated art and we elected the Manchurian Candidate.

Relax, everyone, Barack Obama is not the Manchurian Candidate.  How do I know?  Because George Bush was the Manchurian Candidate.  Think about it.  Whether you read the book, or saw either of the movies, George Bush bent to the will of his vice president (through Cheney’s own statements), a vice president who believed in torture and brain washing and who, as vice president, was able to wage war within the US and outside.  (Even the Manchurian Candidate had limits so we did not bomb Iran.  Thank G-d.)  During those 8 years, we fought a senseless war and muddled through another and let tinder boxes of Anti-American sentiment smolder and erupt.  The country was almost destroyed by catastrophic financial crises. The government put incompetent people in charge of disaster relief for its own citizens.    We survived the Manchurian Candidate. 

Relax, everyone. Give Obama the chance to do the things we elected him to do.

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