...self care is never a selfish act- it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do so not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch.

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Follow the $ to a Deepening Health Care Crisis

Last week, I received in the U.S Post (warning: socialized delivery system) a lovely glossy fold-out from my Congressman, John Culberson of Texas (R), explaining to me the evils of the current health care reform bill as well as regurgitating the favorite hang-dog of corporately owned politicians like Culberson, law suit "abuse."

The American Nurses Association estimates that $1.8 million has been and continues to be spent per day to defeat any public choice in health care reform. I wonder who pays the price for mass mailings like Culbertson's? I live in an hysterically red district, why is it necessary to oversell the faithful? Is it because all the resources marshaled to stall reform have created a nasty image problem of being the force for obstruction in the face of the 40+ million without a physician?

I don't know who pays for the behemoths' propaganda. But when your premiums rise to about 40% of your income in a little while, as we have been told they will, you can thank the magnates for passing on to paying customers any hidden costs, which would include lobbyists and marketing, and a few more million of uninsured Americans.

Who really cares, just as long as you and I have what we need, right?

AHEM, well the update just this last weekend, I just received a very thick envelop asking me, ME, to help pay for Congressman's crusade against health care reform. What's the Christmas season without a weekly mass mailing opposing any health care reform for the benefit of the millions of men, women, and children without one?




Posted by at 3:00 AM

4 comments:

  1. Congressman Culberson is to be commended for acting to expose the truth about efforts to nationalize healthcare in the United States. At issue is not the mythical 40 million "uninsured" for that is the meaningless product of political theater. The mythology is debunked as one extracts from that invention those who are illegal aliens, those who do not choose to spend their money on health insurance, those who choose to pay for their own care. Apart from emotional exaggeration, the arguement for nationalizing healthcare in the United States is without merit. At heart, this effort only reflects an agenda of shaping our nation into a socialist construct that is toxic to that personal freedom and independence that are the foundation and genius of America.

    The cost of stopping this effort to nationalize healthcare in the United States are great. Those cost are necessary to speak out effectively in the face of efforts by those who seek to eliminate the current system of private healthcare to substitute a system funded by increased taxes saddled on the backs of wage earners. The patent dishonesty of explanations that pretend that only the "rich" will pay higher taxes is a tissue of deceit that only persuades those who willfully choose to believe that everyone can have something for nothing.

    There is always a price to pay for freedom and independence, even when that freedom and independence is threatened by those who would use the mechanism of a expansive federal government to confiscate and redistribute personal property in the name of public good. The cost of stopping this threat to our nation is great. But far greater would be the cost of standing by and allowing narrowly drawn politically driven interest groups to seize control of a major portion of the national economy.
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  2. There you go again with the "nationalizing" word. There's no nationalizing going on. As I understand it, choice is being discussed. Just the thing that any monopoly with obscene profits hates.

    Maybe you’ve been listening to Lou Dobbs too long, because for him, illegals explain all our problems. Do you really think that those without a doctor are all illegals? Can anyone really be treated with no insurance? Are you saying that the American citizens who need a doctor and can't get one don't matter? But you and I pay for them already! So in the name of saving a buck, wouldn't you rather have these costs transparent rather than a hidden part of your bill?

    To me social responsibility is why achieving health care reform matters in 2009. Yes, freedom is a great gift, but freedom with no responsibility to our neighbor is not freedom.
    ReplyDelete
  3. With respect, words are tools for communication. Especially when dealing with something so toxic as the subject at hand, words such as "nationalizing" are helpful to identify the precise nature of that poisonous concoction that brewed in a backroom is packaged and sold to the public as "healthcare."

    When the German army marched into Eastern Russia they were greeted as liberators by those who had suffered under the outrages of Stalin. Later came the bitter realization that those whose jackboots echoed through villages’ streets were not liberators but conquers bringing not freedom but bondage. A similar threat is posed to our nation by those who would destroy our economic and personal freedom to realize their socialist agenda. To pretend otherwise is as much an act of fantasy as to pretend that abortion is not about killing.

    If this were only a matter of simple financial transparency in making healthcare accessible, an immediate equitable and economical solution would be to use Dept. of Health funds to subsidize uninsured citizens that they might purchase that level of healthcare which they consider appropriate. But of course the issue is not healthcare. The issue is political power and control. The issue is the ongoing effort of those who would use publicly financed healthcare as a tool by which to buy votes and build a political fiefdom. The issue is the ultimate consequence of such action which would be our transformation from citizens on whose behalf elected official govern to subjects over whom politicians rule. It is to high a price to pay that for nationalized healthcare our personal freedom and independence should be traded off for a bowl of thin hope wrapped in the gauze of cheap promises offered by those who are nothing less than paragons of deceit and dishonesty.
    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, we enjoy perfect freedom today, freedom of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. When it's about saving and protecting corporate and supper rich profits, it's called freedom; when it's about a better future and economic security for all, it's called socialism, or nationalization.

    I agree it's about control and power- it always is. The question is, who is it benefiting, or better, how many more does the reform benefit. Is it done for the common good, not just for a few.

    Maybe your proposal will find a way into the reforms being discussed.

    Would you then do away with Medicare (nationalized health care)? If not, what would you do to fix it?
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Welcome! I serve Chapelwood, a United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas. Clergy are frequently present for others. Thus, your own self care isn't an option. I hope that the links and posts you find here will give you ideas, humor, hope and encouragement. We cannot offer what we don't have.

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