How Healthy is America

Healthcare

I have one question for the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats standing in the way of passing legislation to provide healthcare to everyone living in this country. Why shouldn’t quality, affordable healthcare be a civil right, as precious as our freedom of speech, press, or to vote?

Our Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — “

What is life, liberty, and happiness? To have life, we need protection from the elements – housing. We need enough to eat or we will starve. And, we must have adequate healthcare or we die of disease and injuries.

Liberty? We should be free from tyranny, whether government or corporate. We have freedom of speech, the press, movement, and the daily running of our lives. Why should we not be free to seek medical care without the tyranny of the insurance companies denying us the treatments needed to cure our illness? Why should we not be free from the fear of the cost of healthcare ruining our lives and taking every penny we have worked hard to earn?

Happiness comes in many forms; a good job, enough money to live at least a sustainable if not comfortable life; family and friends whom we care about and who care for us; enough to eat; a warm bed in which to sleep; and, the certain knowledge that if we become ill, aged, or are injured, we will receive the best medical care in the world without going bankrupt.

We’re hearing from the conservatives that the Democratic leadership is “rushing” a bill through Congress. Bull-puckey! We have wrestled with this problem in the U.S. for 100 years, while European countries implemented total coverage beginning in 1883.

Theodore Roosevelt believed no country could be strong if its people were poor and sick, but he was followed by a series of conservative leaders who postponed the discussion for 20 years. During WWI amidst the anti-German fever, the government-commissioned articles denouncing “German socialist insurance” and opponents of health insurance assailed it as a “Prussian menace” inconsistent with American values.

By the 1930’s, the focus shifted from stabilizing income to financing and expanding access to medical care – medical costs for workers were regarded as a more serious problem than wage loss from sickness. Health care costs had begun to rise during the 1920’s, mostly because the middle class began to use hospital services and hospital costs started to increase. Medical, and especially hospital care was now a bigger item in family budgets than wage losses.

Franklin Roosevelt avoided including healthcare in his 1935 Social Security program, fearing the AMA would kill Social Security. FDR’s second effort at national healthcare in the 1939 National Health Act fell victim to a resurgence of conservatives in 1938, economic woes, and WWII.

President Truman was fully behind national healthcare, but with the onset of the Cold War, the conservatives were able to successfully argue that “socialized medicine” was the entrée for Communism in America – they continue to beat that drum today.

In 1968, the Johnson administration ushered in Medicare and Medicaid after 20 years of debate, and AMA resistance over a national plan. The focus on the needs of the elderly prompted a grass roots movement that even the insurance lobby couldn’t stop.

The point in this brief history of healthcare is to point out that this debate has gone on for over a century, and that the conservative argument that we are rushing to judgment is nonsense. They will not learn one new thing in the next 30, 60, or 90 days that we don’t already know.

Their concerns about the cost are specious. These are the same people who consistently voted to spend over $600 billion on an ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, and who authorized a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry last fall, much of which went to CEO bonuses. These are the people you believe and trust?

There are two reasons they are dragging their feet. They do not want President Obama to succeed where 18 previous presidents have failed, and many politicians are the recipients of huge sums of money for their reelection – the top 20 politicians, Democrat and Republican, have received just over $860,000 for their 2010 reelection campaigns from the insurance industry according to opensecrets.org.

I ask again, notwithstanding the data above, why should healthcare not be an unalienable right for every person in this country? I hope that everyone in this nation will take note of any Senator or Representative who stands in the way of comprehensive healthcare, and votes to insure they won’t be around the next time there is a vote for the people of this nation. They may have money, but we own the votes.

The Republicans are not an issue in this debate. The Democrats have the majority, and that’s who needs to hear from us. The following list of Democrats in the Senate and House are either opposed, or say they “don’t know” what to do.

Sen Mary Landrieu D LA
Supports the choice of public Healthcare option? No
Contact information:
Phone: 202-224-5824 | Fax: 202-224-9735
Web: http://landrieu.senate.gov/ | Write: http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/in…

In the House of Representatives, the following people are either opposed, undecided, or offered no information as of July 13. If they report to you as a voter, let them know what you want.

You can access a spreadsheet at http://kingsrightsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/where-they-stand-on-health-care.html that will list the Representatives who have not supported the effort to provide all Americans with healthcare.

Black-White; Race in America

Yin-Yang

“Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!” George Bernard Shaw

Yin and Yang – the ancient Chinese symbol that represents the philosophy that complementary opposites exist within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, which constantly interact, never existing in absolute stasis.

This definition of our world would seem to define our continuing battle to balance black, white, brown, red, and so-called yellow in our society. The most recent example of this is the recent confrontation between Dr. Gates and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge police department.

TV pundits have babbled incessantly for the last ten days about this event and will most likely never find the truth, or an understanding of what really happened that evening. I suspect their purpose is related more to ratings than solutions.

What I suspect is that both men behaved badly. Dr. Gates, having returned home from a trip, probably tired, and then having to put his shoulder to the door to get in his house, was probably not in a great mood.

Once confronted by a white cop who said he was investigating a reported break-in, it’s not hard to imagine that a black man like Dr. Gates would quickly move to the presumption that both a neighbor seeing two black men forcing open a door, and a white cop finding a black man inside a house in a predominantly white neighborhood, was operating on a model that our society has created of black crime.

Sgt. Crowley, as hard as he might try, and as good a person as he might be, is still the product of a white society, and though it would never be acknowledged by most people, likely subscribe to the belief that a majority of crimes are committed by black people. Arriving at the house, his instincts probably told him there was a high probability that he had arrived during the commission of a crime.

This is the point where both men allowed their baser instincts, rather than intellect and common sense, to rule the day. While both parties may be spinning the facts to their advantage now, it seems to me that Dr. Gates almost certainly became verbally abusive, and that Sgt. Crowley, perhaps embarrassed after discovering that Gates really did live in the house, and angered by Gates’ verbal attacks, sought some degree of vengence by arresting him and taking him to the precinct.

I excuse neither man for escalating this incident, but in the end, I have to hold Sgt. Crowley to a higher standard. Our police are charged with “keeping the peace”, not exacerbating a situation. Once Crowley understood that Gates lived in the house, no matter what Gates may have said he had not committed a crime, as evidenced by the dropping of charges.

I have a great deal of empathy for the men and women who police our cities – they have one of the most difficult jobs you can imagine. But, having said that, they have an obligation to rise above the behavior of citizens who may act out, may be verbally abusive, and have to become the Solomons  of society. That’s part of the job, whether anyone thinks it’s fair or not. They must aspire to a much higher standard of tolerance, intelligence, and understanding than the average citizen.

What Are We Doing?

Flag of Iran

“The real war is not between the West and the East. The real war is between intelligent and stupid people.” Mariane Satrapi is an Iranian contemporary graphic artist, novelist, illustrator, children’s book author, and Academy Award nominated film director.

Have we learned nothing by our invasion of Iraq, and the loss of over 4,000 American lives?

We now hear the war hawks rattling their sabers and calling for President Obama to get tough on Iran. We have no say in what Iran does with their elections, or with what type of government they should have. They are a sovereign nation, just like China, Viet Nam, and other nations with whom we don’t agree, but we aren’t invading them. On the contrary, we’re doing billions of dollars in trade with them.

As a nation, we need to learn to butt out. That doesn’t mean we condone human rights violations, or oppressive governments, but we have no right, God-given or otherwise, to physically interfere with the workings of any independent nation. If we feel strongly that things are out of control, we need the agreement of the UN, as we did when we went into Afghanistan to remover the Taliban.

Seriously people, it’s time we get over this superiority complex that has dictated policies on how we live and deal with the rest of the world. No god has baptized us the leaders of the world any more than he/she has any other country or religion.