The Greatest Society, Part Deux

Kwazy

Shared on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 17:17
Salutations, Dear Reader! Better start with the post below this one if you want to know what’s going on.

I was all set to begin a rant today blasting the evil whores at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. I was going to make reference to the snail tracks the administers of that hell-hole must surely leave everywhere they ooze. But I’m not going to. These people after all, are just the bottom-feeders. They’re the exploiters, the pneumonia from the AIDS, the secondary infection. When the street thugs bash the old man over the head and take his watch and wallet, they’re the ones who slink over afterwards to steal his belt and shoes. They’re opportunists, and they’re enabled by exactly one thing:

You. Me. Us. Because we allow this to happen.

The United States is pretty much the only first-world country on the planet that does not provide some sort of minimum universal health care to its citizens. Let’s look at the Group of Eight, also known as the G8. The G8 compose the eight most powerful countries on the planet. Together, these companies compose 65% of the total world economy. Let’s run through them and check if they provide basic, guaranteed health-care for their citizens:

Canada Yup
France Yup
Germany Yup
Italy Yup
Japan Yup
Russia Kind of....there’s barely any healthcare in Russia to start with
United Kingdom Yup
United States Nope, go fuck yourself

Usually at this point in the conversation one or two arguments is offered from the gallery. The first of which is:

“But you’re forgetting about Medicare/Medicaid.” Um, yes. Just ask the guy dragging himself down the street how well they work out. The sad point is that more often than not, if this homeless guy is male, he is also veteran. Thanks for your service, pal! The next point of conjecture is usually:

“I know people in Canada. They say they’ve got to get on a waiting list 743 people long to have a wart removed.” Well, in certain circumstances that may be accurate. The main difference here is nobody ever died because they had a wart on their ass. Likewise, nobody ever died because the pharmaceutical companies charged 20 times the fair market value for wart medication. Furthermore, just because you have basic public healthcare provided doesn’t mean that those with the means can’t spend more for private care. The hospitals are already money-making ventures, it’s not like it would be a new concept for them.

In following this “rule of twos,” I’ve found that there are generally two types of people who oppose this subsistence level of medical coverage. They are rich people and stupid people. Rich people don’t give a shit and don’t want their taxes raised to care for their common man. The simple fact that the money is already there and that it’s just being misspent on ill-advised modern day colonialism seems to escape them. The stupid people, on the other hand just simply don’t recognize what’s in their own best interest. This is typified by the “I’d rather die a horrible death than to have some pinko-commie socialism shit gone on here.” With any luck, these people will just eventually fail to win the natural selection game show. A perfect example of this is the book What’s the Matter with Kansas. I guess it’s entirely possible, and likely, for a person to both be stupid and rich. I am especially scared of these people.

I really want to yell and scream some more, but my wife wants something...has wanted something for ten minutes...and I’m even more scared of her.

Comments

Devonsangel's picture
Submitted by Devonsangel on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 17:44
How is this care going to be subsidized? Not trying to flame, it is a legitimate question.
Kwazy's picture
Submitted by Kwazy on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 18:14
No, no! I encourage intelligent discourse. The simple fact is that it's not very much money. Healthcare is only as expensive as it is because it's big business. One hundred years ago all hospitals were pretty much ran by the Catholic church as benevolent enterprises. Today, pretty much all of them are just like most businesses, only worse as they prey off human suffering. By giving you this link, I'm not trying to condescend, but it really does do a good job of putting it simply: http://truemajority.org/oreos/
Kwazy's picture
Submitted by Kwazy on Thu, 02/15/2007 - 19:22
There will be no tearing apart here :) Wow. The last two comments are a lot to digest. Let's work on a little bit at a time. Baby steps. Let's see...adopting kids from Africa. That's my present favorite running joke; that impovrished kids from Africa will replace the stupid little dogs that celebutantes carry around everywhere. One more thing on that note: Fuck Madonna. Washed up hack has been or never was, I'm not sure. It's time to walk her out into the pasture and put a hard calibre behind her ear. "You are no longer relevent. Please leave the auditorium." Fuzzy, a lot to talk about. I too am a disenfranchised Republican. When I was in high school, I actually ran my friends mom's campaign for city council (she lost, I suck). But the party's been hijacked by special interests, the religious right and big business most of all. This is a disertation within itself, so I won't beleaguer it at this point. Let me touch real briefly on the taxing the rich, spoiling the poor thingL: it's deeper than what you've said. You've got legitimate points. Personally, I'm for a flat percentile tax. But look at it this way: America's working poor are often times no more capable of improving their lot in society than a bunch of Iraqis are at running a democracy. It's not that they don't know how, it's that "you can't get there from here." It will happen, but not in one generation. Hopefully it will be less than five. OK got to get going. Wife wants to watch Survivor (OK, I kind of want to also). Thanks so very much for your comments.
FuZZ_E_BiZkitZ's picture
Submitted by FuZZ_E_BiZkitZ on Thu, 02/15/2007 - 19:48
yea it kinda snowballed
Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 18:52
So at the end of 8 years we are spending $0 on defense. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Russia and China are both sending arm to those "axis of evil" countries...maybe that is why they only suffer domestic attacks. Also notice that "True Majority" left out the spending for social security, welfare, food stamps, medicare, medicaid, etc. The "oreos" wouldn't look nearly so unbalanced if they had the guts to present the whole truth. Of course, the whole truth would interfere with their attempt to manipulate public opinion. Should we cut defense. Yes. But we should also cut out a lot of other crap in the budget, deal with the Social Security disaster (raise taxes or cut benefits or both) and get the damn government out of our lives while we are at it. Congress, and all of the lobbyist's that infect our government are corrupt. They all lie to further their agendas. They all line their pockets. True statesmen no longer exist.
Kwazy's picture
Submitted by Kwazy on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 19:47
I'm um...I'm not going to argue with any of that. You want to write for me?
Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 02/12/2007 - 19:55
lol. No. I need someone else writing so that I don't stand out too much. Thanks!
wilderz's picture
Submitted by wilderz on Tue, 02/13/2007 - 17:23
I work in the home health industry and have seen Medicare do a lot of good for a lot of seniors. However, I've seen the other side as well which is: "we've got to get another x amount of patient admissions to meet quota" and so on.... The problem is that it's a lot more fashionable nowadays to spend millions providing relief for other countries, while working middle class here in the states is slowly dissolving. The money needs to be spent here, taking care of our elderly and our children. For instance the latest Hollywood trend to adopt a child from Africa. They carry these kids around like accessories..granted I think Angelina Jolie has done it with the purer of intentions. Help children here in our country. I akin the US to the friend that you have that will over extend themselves even at the cost of themselves. At some point you have to say "I need to start taking care of myself, because no one else is really getting my back".
FuZZ_E_BiZkitZ's picture
Submitted by FuZZ_E_BiZkitZ on Tue, 02/13/2007 - 19:35
My view is capatilism works, hence the US is the only reamining superpower. Get the federal gov't out of healthcare, (and baseball, I could go on but you get the point), pass a GREAT version of Tort reform to let hospitals concetrate soley on health care. There are other points that can be fixed as well but the point is fix the problem at the source. Don't just throw a blanket over. If everything is taken care of for you or taken away from you to take care of others why do you need to strive to do more. Which raises Taxation problems, where is the money coming from. Let's take it away from the rich and give it to the poor. Problem is you create more poor, because the rich can't afford to employ the middle anymore. I agree the social divide is growing, and also believe getting the Gov't more involved in resolving it will make the problem exponetialy worse. I may be a nut but see the best solution being the FAIRTAX(fairtax.org). Reduce the Federal Govt's involvment in states issues, and private industry. Hold judges more responsible for legislating from the bench (to both extremes). We also need our major political parties to not be as polarizing as they are now, and work together for real. Maybe a third party that can break up the debate of Rebulicans want to kill babies by bombs, and Democrats want to kill babies with a blender. Then they can get some fucking work done, other than stiffer steroid testing for privately employeed athletes. Was it Gov't that fixed that or ESPN and the Bonds debate that really put pressure on the owners to reform. I'm done. Its all a long shot (as in will never be done) and I could be completley wrong, but its makes sense to me. If you can convince me otherwise I'm all ears. I've recently come to these conclusions and others in the past couple years, making me leave the Republican Party. Right know I'm debating between Libertarian and Constitution Parties, don't agree completley with either, trying to figure out which one makes the most sense. My thoughts are sporadic and I'm not a great writer so I hope this made a little sense to somone. Thats a deeper look into me than I ever allow, but feel free to tear me apart for it, I'll learn something I hope. I am FuZZ_E_BiZkitZ and I approve of myself.

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