Where’d they go?

I think my stand on health care has offended all of my readers.  Second day in a row with no hits.

More on health care fallout

“We will be more determined than ever to see that this country is governed the way the constitution intended,” said Brenda Bowen, a tea party organizer in Greenville, Ala. “We are all getting our second wind. When we do, you’d better watch out.”  (Full text here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100323/ap_on_re_us/us_health_overhaul_tea_parties)

I thought that the constitution provided for national elections for President and state elections for Congress to pass laws for the country as a whole.  Huh?  Guess I was wrong.

The ‘socialized medicine’ backlash – where’s the logic?

After reading the facebook comments of a number of my (conservative mormon) friends who are all up in arms about ‘socialized medicine’ and the ‘government take over’, I decided to write down my opinions.  If you don’t agree with them feel free to express your own opinions (respectfully of course.)

Ok.  First off.  The current (semi) private health insurance system works ok … for one group of people.  It works for HEALTHY (read no ‘pre-existing conditions’) corporate and government employees.  That’s it.  It fails miserably for the unemployed, the self-employed, the freelancers, the victims of unfortunate accidents or genetics, the elderly and pretty much anyone who would possibly USE health insurance.  If you lose your job (happened to anyone you know recently?), if you have an accident, if you have a child with an unfortunate genetic condition, or if you get old, you’re basically out in the cold.  You’re not covered (except maybe by the government’s ‘socialized’ medicare plan if you’re old).  And you can’t GET covered.  As a matter of fact, if you are one of the accident or genetic victims, you can’t get a JOB because of your pre-existing condition, let alone get covered.  Nice system huh?  That’s what the uproar is trying to protect.  Weird.

Ok, second point.  There’s a reluctance to trust health care coverage decisions to the same people who run the IRS.  While that’s understandable, let’s look at the alternatives and make a comparison.  If you ARE covered by private insurance, your health care coverage decisions are made by people who are trying to make money.  They’re made by corporate VPs … either in the insurance company or your employer.  The incentive in both cases is to NOT cover you.  For insurance companies, they don’t want to spend money.  Every dollar they spend on your health care is taken directly from their profit line.  So yes.  They are going to fight you on everything.  For the corporate VPs making the coverage decisions for their employees?  Their incentive is to boost company profits to raise stock prices so they can cash in their stock options.  The talk about health care being so expensive is … mostly talk.  Coverage has been cut at every company I’m aware of, premiums have been raised, and guess what … CEOs and VPs get rich because of it.  They make long term decisions to take company revenues away from covering their employees in order to get short term increases in stock prices.  They create ‘revenue growth’ by screwing their employees so they can cash in stock options.  So.  Looking at the choice of who you want making decisions about health care, do you want disinterested government employees (who admittedly are going to screw it up half the time, but they don’t get anything in return for denying you coverage) or self-serving corporate types who will make money if you get less coverage?  I’m going to vote for the government employees … BECAUSE they don’t care.

Now, if I haven’t convinced you on that last point, let’s do one thing.  Talk to people.  Talk to government employees … the kind who have government officials making the decisions … and talk to corporate types.  See who is actually more satisfied with their health care plans.  Do you really believe it will be the corporate types?  Really?  My money is definitely on the government plans.  Yeah.  The ‘socialized’ ones.

Ok, next point.  (Are you tired of this yet?)  ‘Socialism’ is bad.  Government taking over health care is just one step on the slippery slope of communism.  Ok Glen Beck, settle down.  Here’s my point on this one.  Where exactly do doctors come from?  Are they born in little white gowns with latex gloves covering their tiny little fingers?  Not exactly.  Just about every doctor I would trust came from a US medical school.  After an undergraduate degree at a US university.  Which they needed a US high school diploma to get.  Do you see where I’m going?  Our doctors are the product of the public education system.  Sure, a VERY small percentage come from private prep schools or home schooling.  Does your doctor?  Probably not.  So, why, oh why is there a massive upcry about ‘socialized medicine’ when ‘socialized education’ produced nearly every doctor you know?  I’m especially amused by teachers who oppose the health care initiatives.  (Sorry mom.)  Teachers LOVE public education and oppose private education at every turn.  (They’re socialists… at least when it comes to schools.)  They have government-run health care already.  There’s not a good logical base for opposition here.  So I think it’s amusing.

Ok.  My last point.  How horrible health care will be if the government takes it over.  Let’s completely set aside how awful it is now.  Let’s go ahead and grant the assumption (again, if you’re a teacher and you want to make this assumption, then FUNNY!) that the quality of doctors will deteriorate under ‘socialized medicine’.  So, we’re imagining the world of government-run health care with underpaid doctors and a major ‘brain drain’ in the medical field.  How is that bad?  How many people in their lifetimes will NEED the very best doctor they can find?  How many of us are with mediocre doctors right now, and have no clue because mediocre is all we really need?  I posit that the group of people who need and ever will need the cream of the crop is very small.  And you know what?  They aren’t covered for that anyway.  The people who do and will need the BEST doctors are the people that are denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions.  For the rest of us?  Bring on the mediocre.  It’s all we need.  It’s fine.   Exactly the way that public school is satisfactory for nearly everyone.  So, you can’t see the doctor without waiting for a couple weeks?  Have you TRIED to get a same day appointment with your current doctor?  Waiting a couple of weeks isn’t a big change.  So you don’t get coverage for the most current prescription drugs?  Is that bad?  Only if you’re a hypochondriac.  We’re an entirely overly medicated nation anyway.

So to sum up my opinion.  Will government health care suck?  Probably.  But it will suck a lot less than what we have right now.  And more people will be covered by a less sucky system.  That’s a good thing.  That’s my opinion.  Go ahead and share yours.

How the world works

Here’s a local news story about teens getting kicked off a a city ‘youth council’. 

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=10028787

Looks like a life lesson on how government REALLY works.

When was I cast in a French movie?

Here’s a recap of my Saturday night:

• introduced to the Million Kisses foundation
• failed at flirting with a girl in a tartan beret and red leather gloves
• a belly dancer with dreadlocks
• a nearly all male dance party with a LOT of energetic (but not good) dancing
• a suggestion of a threesome with my roommate

Yeah.  Interesting weekend.

Subconscious messages

For anyone out there into dream interpretation, here’s a little gem for you.

What does it mean when you dream you’re walking around your old elementary school with a guy you haven’t seen since high school while carrying a couple of extra large pizza boxes?

Another trip to the grocery store

I was walking around the grocery store, and I saw a really cute blonde woman several times.  She had her phone glued to her ear the entire time we were both in the store.  And I’m pretty sure that she was faking having a conversation.  Now, I need to figure out whether I was the creepy guy that she was avoiding conversation with…

Another email scam

Continuing my little habit of posting phony job offers, here’s another.  This one is not even particularly well done.

Your charges are:

• Record maintaining on what you’ve done
• make up a list of customers in the USA
• The information supplying to clients
• fulfillment of financial transactions within the USA.

You will get all the further instructions during an interview over the phone.

Staff demands :

• Age: from 25
• Citizenship: US
• You need to have 3-5 free hours every day to fulfill all your job.

The remunerationfor this vacancy run to up to 5000USD monthly. Money will be carried out to your bank account every month. If you are really interested in our proposition, please do not delay making a decision.

Fellow job hunters, be safe.  It’s dangerous to give information to someone who comes to you instead of the other way around.

What do people think?

A thought occurred to me today when it took me three tries to find a shopping cart that I was willing to use.  People might say I’m too picky.

Good things

The good thing about being back in Utah is that there are BEAUTIFUL women everywhere.

The bad thing about being back in Utah is that all the beautiful women are married.