Good luck, America

[glenatron]

So it's finally happening. The big showdown between the people of America and the corporate interests that see them as no more than cattle to be milked until they are utterly leached of worth. If Obama fails, this will be the turning point, the moment that it becomes clear that America is governed in the interests of business rather than the people. I remember saying some time around the election that I wasn't sure if that tide could be turned, and I'm still not, but I would love to see the ones who care about America and the American people win. I just don't know if they can defeat the putrid heart of the right, pulsing with corruption and vitriol and casting an intoxicating miasma of vileness over the nation's media.

I don't believe that stinking organ is the heart of America no matter how many shills, lobbyists and hate-feeding talk-show monkeys they pay for. I believe that somewhere in that heart there is still charity, enough to help out other people from time to time. Maybe even a love of freedom too, even if sometimes that means freedom from rather than just freedom to. But we're not hearing much about that over here at the moment.

Still, you have it right now. A hero making a stand against the powers of darkness. A very simple black and white, good and evil confrontation. Either you love the people of America or you hate them, but don't pretend that your argument is based on anything beyond that. You can layer sophistication and sophistry upon it, but the essence is that either you think citizens deserve to have some basic degree of healthcare no matter who they are, or you don't. And if you don't then you're condemning people to suffer and to die for no crime beyond poverty.

If the hero fails then America fails and something that once meant a lot to the whole world fails with it. I don't know if there will be another similar chance to curb corporate power in the future but my guess is that there won't be and if it doesn't happen in the US it will be meaningless anywhere else. There is hope, there is still the will of the American people, but against that is the terrifying force of the republican party and the lobbyists and behind them, the shadowy hints of the sinister powers that spew money endlessly into their yawning coffers. What can men do against such reckless hate?

Comments

[z111.livejournal.com]

I hope you're not holding your breath. :-(

Maybe because I'm hanging out with gun nuts now, but it seems like Obama's popularity is plummeting (news says it's plummeting among white people), and the wing nut contingent is getting louder and crazier.

And the "news reporting" on health care has a media war behind it and I confess the wing nut contingent is stirring so much fear, uncertainty and doubt, there is no way this is going to work.

In general, I think the plummeting popularity is simply because the economy sucks, and other than the stock market, nothing is looking better. People are tired. And there is a perception that Obama may be making things worse and at least hasn't done anything to make it better - all while spending us under the ground.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I'm not. You guys have a lot of guns and a lot of feet and I'm sure you're collectively happy to use one to shoot the other indefinitely. I just don't know why people aren't up in arms about the whole rip-off cycle from the insurance companies I mention below. It's like you've got this whole class of gentleman thieves stealing from the increasingly few people who can afford healthcare of any kind and then these guys are telling you that you love it.

Armed revolution would be a more appropriate response, but the gun nuts seem to be the guys who are lapping it up, so I guess you're safe on that front...

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Well written post. This topic stirs up a lot for people, and there have been discussions about it at work, with my fiance's (republican) family, and at home. Howard Dean, being the former governor of my home state, is one of my personal heroes. And a little while ago he postulated that Obama was taking out the public health option as a political maneuver to get past certain Republicans, so that later on he could put it back in. Enough time has passed that I don't know what I believe anymore, whether or not I think that's true. But here's the link;

Daily Kos, Howard Dean

And to be honest I have mixed opinions about health care for everyone, which is vastly complicated by other facets of our culture. I know so many people right now, some of my close friends even, who have NO health insurance. And they really really should. But their jobs don't offer it. Or they're between jobs due to the economy. And then I know other people (including my fiance) who do get 'health insurance' through their jobs, but it's a joke. He needed to have a procedure done to check for a problem with his esophagus, and the procedure costs $4,000. The insurance company would have paid only 20%. He canceled the procedure when he realized the financial implications.

I look at these people that I love, and care about, and I really want them to have affordable, good health care. I do embrace the belief that everyone deserves health care - up to a point.

But rumor has it (and some of this I take from what you yourself have said about your country's health care) that everyone having health care carries its own problems; including not being able to receive the care you need for months. That doesn't sound so good. And there was the thing in the news about how Obama and the Senate wouldn't be using the same public option available for everyone else. I don't even know if that's true or not, but it does cause me to hesitate.

On top of that, I, personally, do not agree with our health care system a good percentage of the time. There's NOOOO preventative health care!! You're lucky if you get a doctor that actually bothers to tell you to exercise BEFORE writing you a prescription for high blood pressure, or high cholesterol...none of the doctors here have any clue about diet AT ALL, and so much of the time I personally find them to be somewhat useless or even harmful. (Which isn't to say that if I broke a limb or needed my appendix out that I wouldn't want a western medicine doctor post haste. It's just that I would be more strongly FOR everyone having access to health care if I felt it actually helped their overall health, and not just emergency situations.)

Last but not least, I feel like our medical system is somewhat convoluted. Viagra was covered by insurance for YEARS while women had to pay for their own birth control pills. People can drink themselves silly, get a liver transplant, and go drink themselves silly again. People who refuse to monitor their diet still get to go have thousands of dollars in surgery for diabetic conditions that could be otherwise managed. The thing that's missing here in common sense.

So personally I continue to study herbalism, and Reiki, and go see my chiropractor, and take my vitamins, and be glad I haven't recently suffered any broken limbs...

As for Obama. He's got a tough job. I'm sure you've heard the jokes about how it's so tough being President right now that they gave a black man the job?

Yeah.

As an American, I sort of feel like we are all heartless and corrupt as a country, that there's a lot of negative forces at work here. But then my state is actually very different, and should be reason enough to give me hope. My state gets so much right in a world where a lot has gone wrong, which is amazing.

It always feels strange to me when other countries watch the U.S. and see us as center stage. I don't think we are worthy of that attention, except by virtue of the fact that we have hogged most of the world's resources to build our own economy.

Anyways.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

We do have our own problems but we also have the choice to use private health insurance if we want to. Nobody is forcing us to use the NHS ( except that if you get run over, the ambulance will take you to an NHS hospital and you will be treated with no fees charged to anyone ) and nobody is forcing anyone not to have chiropractic treatment or anything else of their own accord. Our friend Karen French, who teaches Alexander Technique works in a hospital teaching people to manage pain through the Technique - as long as something is clinically provable to work the NHS will use it, and having that means that a) we aren't constantly bombarded with adverts for medicines and b) there is much more value in preventative medicine because treating people costs more than preventing the problem coming up and as treating people works at a loss here rather than a profit there is value in prevention.

It is fair, which matters to people in britain. We may be grumpy and distant much of the time but on the whole we despise unfairness.

No system is perfect, but one that means everyone has access to reliable healthcare yet gives them the choice to go elsewhere if they want seems quite reasonable to me, but then it's what I have always lived with.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Also you guys are all getting ripped off so savagely it's incredible. You have to pay for insurance and if something goes wrong your insurance company will sue the practitioner which means they have to pay vast amounts for insurance, which means they have to charge more to you so they can afford their insurance policies which means that your insurance companies have to pay more if you need treatment so your premiums go up.

No wonder the insurance industry are desperate to maintain the status quo and can afford to pay off every lobbyist and right wing commentator to motormouth off in their favour. They're taking you all for a bunch of mugs.

[penella22.livejournal.com]

I *totally* agree with both these comments...but is it true then that you see people having to wait a frustratingly long period of time for health care...or else they face paying out very large amounts of money?

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Depends on what it is- when sleepsy_mouse needed her appendix out she got treatment within about 6 hours of going in to hospital ( maybe a little more, but the earliest they possibly could after she had eaten ) and when my mum had cancer they got her operated on into chemo really quickly.

If you want to see a GP you generally can get an appointment within a day or two so medical care is quite available. It's really for relatively minor ongoing things it's not so great- for example managing something like sleepsy_mouse's headache can mean long waits to see a consultant and months between appointments. But it doesn't cost us any more for private treatment or private health insurance than it costs you guys, it's just that not nearly so many people go for it because there's an entirely free and generally good alternative.

[baddynono.livejournal.com]

Waiting times in the UK have got much better in the past few years. Before you could have been waiting for two years for non-urgent surgery - just from the point where they decide that's what you need.
Now it's 22 weeks in Wales and soon to be 14 and times are shorter again in England. They're also changing the target so that soon it'll be a 26 week maximum wait from being referred by your GP, through all the tests to receiving treatment.

There's more on this here: http://www.statswales.wales.gov.uk/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=10403 ...if you like statistics or hospital performance information.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I should have thought of asking you about that one.

When people in the medical trade ask you for figures do they say "Get me the stats! Stat!"

[harnessphoto.livejournal.com]

I really hope something changes soon... it'd be nice if I could go to a Dr... or if you know... I could have health insurance since I wrestle thousand pound animals on a daily basis.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

You see, to me it seems unfair that you can't, really unfair.