For those that get whiney about there not being enough Christ in Christmas, perhaps you ought to look in the mirror at your own consumerism before you blame "the heathens" for secularizing the holiday. There is as much Christ in Christmas as YOU put into it. Blame Wal-Mart before you blame the "lib'ruls". Blame the marketing department of your favorite retail store. Capitalism, in all it's market-driven glory, is simply doing it's job by trying to expand the market for a consumerist holiday. I couldn't care less if some store-clerk I don't know doesn't wish me "Merry Christmas" and instead wishes me "Happy Holidays".
Grow a pair and understand we live in a diverse country whether you like it or not. It's simply smart business to not alienate your consumers. It might be fine and dandy in a rural community of all white God-fearing Christians to wish someone "Merry Christmas" at the local Five and Dime, but to do so in a large metropolitan area (in the kind of litigious society in which we live), is just idiotic. I will celebrate Christmas no differently with my family whether or not all of the other houses around them are celebrating Christmas or not.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Health Care Chronicles: The Health Care Quandry
If the Republicans are unwilling to address the need for healthcare by all, then hospitals need to start refusing care. To the elderly. To the pregnant women. To the unfortunate. Oh and of course to blacks and "Mexicans." (After all, the subtext is that they are causing this health care problem... oh, AND the mortgage crisis.)
If those on the right who believe health care is EARNED and is not a human right, then let those who have not earned it die, right? Otherwise, we will continue to incur the wrath of unpaid medical bills in our insurance payments; that is where the costs are going.
I am frankly tired of paying increasing premiums and co-pays because other people cannot afford care. So, in essence, I am already being taxed, just by private insurance companies and hospitals. But the lack of control over how much I am charged is more or less at the same level as if it were controlled on a state or federal level by the government. Sure there's a modicum of choice on the insurance end, but not really. I either go with the insurance offered by my employer (two plans) or I go with market-rate individual health-insurance. Or I can go without.
Where is the outrage that fat-cats in the insurance agencies are pocketing our money?
Claims are often made that our health care is the best in the world; after all, why do Canadians come HERE when their health care is SO GOOD, huh?! In 2000, the World Health Organization (liberals!), ranked the US in 37th place, just behind Costa Rica in 36th. How's that for exceptionalism?! I'm playing this a little tongue-in-cheek here, but my main point is that we either need to come to terms with the fact that our country is not as great or as compassionate as we believe it to be -OR- step it up and back up our words / feelings with actions befitting of a great country. It's not all doom and gloom and I don't intend to get wrapped into the "OMG! see, America sux" of the liberal left, but I think the right needs to be a little more realistic and a little less nationalistic when it comes to health care.
Health care spending in the US: 16% of GDP and rising.
Health care spending ranking in among UN countries: 2nd (damn you, East Timor!)
Health care quality ranking by WHO: 37th (as of 2000)
Where does all the money go to?
If those on the right who believe health care is EARNED and is not a human right, then let those who have not earned it die, right? Otherwise, we will continue to incur the wrath of unpaid medical bills in our insurance payments; that is where the costs are going.
I am frankly tired of paying increasing premiums and co-pays because other people cannot afford care. So, in essence, I am already being taxed, just by private insurance companies and hospitals. But the lack of control over how much I am charged is more or less at the same level as if it were controlled on a state or federal level by the government. Sure there's a modicum of choice on the insurance end, but not really. I either go with the insurance offered by my employer (two plans) or I go with market-rate individual health-insurance. Or I can go without.
Where is the outrage that fat-cats in the insurance agencies are pocketing our money?
Claims are often made that our health care is the best in the world; after all, why do Canadians come HERE when their health care is SO GOOD, huh?! In 2000, the World Health Organization (liberals!), ranked the US in 37th place, just behind Costa Rica in 36th. How's that for exceptionalism?! I'm playing this a little tongue-in-cheek here, but my main point is that we either need to come to terms with the fact that our country is not as great or as compassionate as we believe it to be -OR- step it up and back up our words / feelings with actions befitting of a great country. It's not all doom and gloom and I don't intend to get wrapped into the "OMG! see, America sux" of the liberal left, but I think the right needs to be a little more realistic and a little less nationalistic when it comes to health care.
Health care spending in the US: 16% of GDP and rising.
Health care spending ranking in among UN countries: 2nd (damn you, East Timor!)
Health care quality ranking by WHO: 37th (as of 2000)
Where does all the money go to?
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