Health Care Solution?

Disclaimer – I am not in the health care industry.  I am not an economist.  I have done no number-crunching on the realistic likelihood that what I am about to propose would work or not.  This is simply a thought I’ve had in regards to the “health care crisis” in the United States. 

Why can’t the government act as one giant company, representing the citizens of the United States, and use their resources to negotiate health care deals with major insurance companies?  Well, actually…I know they can, and that they do.  Medicare?  Medicaid?  That’s basically what they are doing there.  When someone is on one of these programs they actually have health insurance through a private insurer.  Thing is, the government pays for that.  What if they just gave us the ability to purchase those health care plans on our own dime, and gave our employers the option of paying those costs (or a part of them) for us instead of negotiating their own deals with the big insurance companies? 

These plans should in no way be mandatory, with the following exception – If you don’t have insurance and you go to a hospital, you have the option of signing up for a plan on the spot.  If you choose not to do so, whatever unpaid costs you have for your hospital stay are deducted from your taxes at the end of the year. 

The way I see it – Lots of money ends up going into the private sector (insurance companies), creating jobs and strengthening our economy.   A larger percentage of the population has access to health care, allowing them to get treated for illnesses instead of letting them worsen to the point that they have to be hospitalized.  When people DO end up in the hospital, a larger percentage of them are covered by insurance so the Hospital actually ends up getting paid for the services they render.  Hospitals end up having more money and are able to afford better levels of care, and taxpayers aren’t called upon to cover those unpaid medical costs as often.  An overall healthier population increases productivity across the board as people with lower paying jobs (the folks who may be at the bottom of the class system but frequently end up doing the jobs that keep the rest of us going) don’t get sick as often and miss work.   Due to the fact that the insurance companies would be potentially negotiating for millions of new customers their rates would be fiercely competitive and would fall across the board, allowing private companies to offer even better health insurance benefits or pay them completely for their employees.

I want to be clear – I’m not talking about a subsidized program here.  I’m not talking about the government paying for these programs at all.  They could simply act as mediators between us and the insurance companies and handle the administrative end for us.  Hell, they could even roll the yearly benefits selection process into our tax returns.

Like I said – a completely uneducated thought, but a thought I had nonetheless. 

Edit – Another thought I just had.  This kind of system would allow individuals to stay on the same health care plan regardless of where they ended up working, so they had no lapse in benefits and no risk of being refused care by an insurance company due to pre-existing conditions.

Get Off The Toilet

So let’s get all the funny stuff out of the way right up front here.

There was an article on CNN this morning about a woman who spent two years on the toilet.  She was there so long that her legs atrophied and her skin grew around the toilet seat.  The seat had to be pried off with her stuck to it and removed at the hospital.

These people lived in a trailer, and her boyfriend let this behavior go on for two years before finally calling someone in to help. 

Commence the laughing at white trash now.  I’ll wait.

Listens to “Dueling Banjos” during the pause.

Ok, back now?  Cool.

This article disturbs me.  Deeply.  Not just from the gross factor, which is pretty intense.  I cannot even begin to imagine the smell in that bathroom, not to mention the sheer foulness of a human being allowing their flesh to grow around a toilet seat.  Or, for that matter, someone who supposedly loved them letting them go so long without moving that it happened.  I’m sorry, but you’d think after a day or so you’d maybe think something was wrong.  I kind of have this thing about being in the bathroom while someone else is on the toilet to begin with, but the minute my other half asked me to start bringing her meals in the bathroom would be the minute I started placing phone calls.

Beyond the revulsion I have at this particular case, though, I wonder how much of a comment this case is on our society in general.  How many of us are just sitting on the figurative toilet, saying to ourselves that “maybe tomorrow” is the day we’re going to come out.  How many of us are letting our flesh grow into the toilet seat while we do nothing but contemplate how scary the world is outside? 

Fear of change.  Fear of failure.  Laziness.  Apathy.  These are the things that trapped that woman in her bathroom.  These are the same things we trap ourselves with.  Unfortunately, like the boyfriend in the case above, those around us are other blind to what’s going on or unwilling to put forth the effort to coax us into activity.  So we sit, and we fester, and the longer we do the more we atrophy.  Eventually, if we can be forced to move at all, it’s only through a great deal of pain and effort, and our momentum is forever stunted due to the damage that we caused ourselves in the process.

Don’t let yourself get stuck on the toilet, my friends.  Snicker and point at this woman all you want, but like it or not there are a lot of us that are just as unwilling to come out of the bathroom as she is.  We’re just not quite so literal about it.  Don’t let fear keep you from moving.  Don’t let inactivity rob you of the ability to move.  Don’t spend all of your time trapped in a room with the stink of your own waste for god’s sake. 

Shit and get off the pot. 

Being a guild leader…

…is like throwing a really big party and inviting everyone you know.  It’s kind of fun at first, but it doesn’t take long for the groups of people who liked each other to being with to start going off and forming their own little groups.  As the party goes on and more people show up there is inevitably going to come a point where some kind of ugliness happens, and at the end of the night regardless of how hard you tried everyone who had a bad time is going to blame you.

Mmm…so very deep.

Something is rotten in the state of Florida…

So.

The GOP in the state of Florida decide to move their primaries up ahead of just about everyone else.  The Republican party responds by cutting the number of delegates that will be seated in Florida in half.  The Democrats tell Florida that if they have their primaries on that day NONE of their delegates will be seated, and they suggest that Democrats caucus at a later date instead.  Democrats choose to go ahead with the vote knowing full well that their delegates will not be seated.  Hillary wins, but gains no delegates. 

Fast forward to now.

Yesterday our Governor, Charlie Christ, started making noise about Florida voters being disenfranchised and insisting that their votes be counted.  Chain gang Charlie (who, in the spirit of honest discourse I must say I generally have no real issue with) supported John McCain for President.  On Tuesday John McCain clinched the Republican nomination so it doesn’t matter if he gets his full complement of delegates in Florida.  It COULD matter, however, on the Democrat side.  Florida is an all or nothing state, and Hillary won.  With as close as the Democratic primary looks like it is going to be, the Florida votes could very well swing things in her favor.

Many on the conservative right are urging their herds to support Hillary Clinton.  People like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have even talked about raising money for her.  Why?  Because they don’t think she has a chance in hell of beating McCain, but they think Obama does.  Many Conservatives have said that they would not vote in the general election if McCain was the nominee UNLESS it was an anti-Hillary vote.  They hate McCain, but they hate her more. 

So…am I the only one who finds it a bit fishy that we’re only seeing Charlie pipe up about this issue NOW?

Don’t get me wrong – I hate the fact that Florida has become a laughingstock for the whole “Republican Voting Conspiracy” thing, but you gotta admit this one at least looks funny on the surface.