Sleep Tight

You wake up in a cold sweat, your world crashing in around you. You turn on MSNBC and watch in horror as Olbermann breaks down the latest horror story coming out of Washington. You thought it was bad enough that in the 1^st 100 days of the new administration we had lost our funding for studying the migration habits of yellow perch, cracked down unfairly on companies that are kind enough to employ undocumented migrant workers, and our military is now actually killing people in Afghanistan. “How could it get any worse” you wonder aloud. How did all these idiots not see this coming? You knew all along what a mistake it was to have Sarah Palin just “a heartbeat away” from the Presidency. When that wack-job senator from Arizona had a heart attack during the inauguration, you were not surprised; you had warned people about this. How could America have been so stupid? Well now they will see for themselves just how crazy this bitch really is. The unthinkable is happening right before your eyes as tomorrow congress is going to vote on Palin’s latest far right-wing initiative: Drilling in Alaska’s wilderness…. The HORROR!!!!!!!

You wake up again, this time for real, and you realize it was all just a bad dream. THANK GOD! You breathe a sigh of relief as you realize things are as they should be. The government has a firm grasp on the banking, housing, and auto industries, the US Army is still using rubber bullets with kind interrogation methods, and the big legislation on the table is the much needed government takeover of our “broken” health care system. This is no nightmare, maybe to those out of touch evil conservatives it is, but not to you. You can sleep easy tonight, all is right in the world.

Bad Medicine

First things first:

As I read through these graphs (from PBS, hardly right wing) this is what becomes clear to me.

• The vast majority of people who are not insured in this country are not citizens of this country.
• The largest group of uninsured people do not work.
• There are 21 million making over $50k a year and obviously choosing not to be insured.
• The biggest group of uninsured are aged 18 to 34, also the least likely ages to need medical help I would think.
  

The first problem I have with the current health care reform initiatives is the haste at which they are being attempted. As with almost everything, I feel it is more important to get it right than to get it now. The second problem, and perhaps the biggest to me, is that I am being asked to believe that there is a serious problem that I simply can not see. I’m not saying a problem does not exist, I’m just saying I have no first hand knowledge of it. Again, I’m not in denial, I just haven’t seen the evidence. I don’t have to see something to believe in it, I mean I believe there are probably some open minded liberals out there somewhere, yet I have witnessed nothing to affirm that belief. But, for the sake of argument, lets say the Boogey Man exists;

Life is what you make of it. Some people work harder than others. Some people are born into better situations than others. But as our latest Supreme Court nominee shows us, upward mobility is very achievable in this country. I believe health care is like anything else. We can't all drive a Bentley, eat fillet Mignon, and ski in Aspen. Most of us can however get a Hyundai, a piece of chicken, and occasionally tube down Mt. Wachusett. It is the same with visiting the Doctor. If you don't put in what is needed to ensure that your family is taken care of, that is on you, not me. When I say "I don't want to pay" for everybody else, what I mean is this; For the health care of all these uninsured people to get better, the health care of my children MUST necessarily get worse. I find that about as un-American as it gets. The following Article spells out exactly how much the current bills stink.

Article from CNN