Where the fuck are the people?

[Maia_s_Well]

@PrettyVacant

According to this Union site there is a new pre-existing medical condition:

“domestic violence victim”

You kind of run out of words with that one . . .

(I added the quote within the quote, 'cause I don’t know how to quote the quote within the quote. Sorry.)

Of course this is horrendous and unconscionable.

It’s also a smart business move. Victims of domestic violence who are injured and need hospital care are more than likely going to visit the ER again and again, and, while I’m sure there’s a poster or two here who will argue that they deserve what they get, most of us understand that there are reasons that these victims end up in these relationships and have a hard time getting out. I don’t doubt that if you run the statistics (as no doubt the decision-makers of private health insurance companies do), you’ll see that the chances that a domestic violence victim will suffer future injuries requiring hospitalization are good.

See, I think it’s really important to deal with reality. Corporations have shown that they are not in themselves entities with morality or compassion. And, generally speaking large corporations or big businesses do not grow bigger and more profitable by hiring executives with a sense of community or caring for the customers these businesses serve. That is simply not the nature of the beast.

If a company is not a non-profit company, then it is by definition a for-profit company. We have seen clearly (through the WallStreet fiasco) that executives are being compensated with outrageous amounts of money for showing profits, and not for the service to customers, the community, and our country. (Whether they are operating in the long-term interest of their companies or not is irrelevant… what matters is turning a profit today.)

This is reality. The executives within these companies who hold authority over how the company is run are not going to wake up tomorrow and decide to “do the right thing” because for them, “the right thing” is showing a profit. The formulas these companies use to determine who to cover and who not to cover and what to charge the people they cover do not include the factors of compassion or morality. The formulas are based on numbers, on facts. To expect this to change without any kind of intervention is fantasy, and to get mad at businesses for making good business decisions is kinda silly. As I always say, Maia’s Well be angry at the rain.

We expect our government to maintain a military to protect us from foreign powers. We expect our local governments to maintain a police force and firefighters to protect us and our property, because as individuals we are not able to adequately protect ourselves and have any kind of freedom.

Why then, is it so unthinkable that we agreed to pool our resources as best we can through our government to provide a service that is a literally a matter of life and death? Or at least provide regulations against behaviors that cost many consumers so much, whether in assets or their very lives? As I’ve said before, the free market can provide basic goods and services to some degree, if the market is open enough to that companies can truly compete with one another. However, the complexity of private health insurance along with the system that ties most people’s insurance to their jobs does not support competition. The average American consumer simply doesn’t have a choice, and even for the rare individual who can afford private health insurance and has no history of anything that could be called a pre-existing condition, buying a healthcare policy is still a crapshoot. There’s no real guarantee that you will always be covered or that your premiums will always be affordable.

I’ve always been politically and financially conservative at heart. I like the idea of free market whenever possible, but what we have now is not even free market. What we have now is “survival of the fittest,” and I would hope us humans have evolved into a species that *chooses *to protect the weaker. (Ironic that so many fundamentalists support evolution a market that reflects an evolutionary function.:p)

So, this is the kind of thing I write when I write to members of Congress. Which I do, frequently. (see how I circled back to the OP? Clever girl, huh.)

[Maia_s_Well]

double post,

d’oh!

[PrettyVacant]

@Crafter_Man

Funny how the market works very well for dentistry. There is minimal government involvement in dentistry, and dentists can (and do) compete.

Compare the infrastructure, investment in technology, suport staff, range of treatments. But you can’t because you are blind.

[BrainGlutton]

From The Nation:

There are three important points to acknowledge about people like Gladney. First, they are not new. The cold war in general and McCarthyism in particular was built on lies, misinformation, obsession and guilt by the most tenuous of associations. After Eisenhower defeated Taft at the 1952 GOP convention, a woman emerged insisting, “This means eight more years of socialism.” In the late 1940s, a chairman of a federal loyalty review board conceded, “Of course, the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn’t prove that he’s a communist. But it certainly makes you look twice, doesn’t it? You can’t get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line.” Today the Internet distributes these slurs faster, and cable TV gives them more outlets. But there has always been a sizable section of society that seeks to fashion a bespoke reality out of whole cloth. These are the people who believe that civil rights was really about miscegenation, abortion rights is about promiscuity and gay rights is about pedophilia. There are more of them than we’d like to think. And they are not going away.

Second, you can’t argue with them. A good two and a half weeks after failed rescue efforts during Hurricane Katrina left bodies floating in the streets and people abandoned on roofs, 35 percent of the country believed that George W. Bush had done a good or excellent job responding to the crisis. That is roughly the proportion of the country with whom there is no real means of engagement. These are the birthers, Swiftboaters, climate change skeptics, Obamaphobes and Palin-tologists–the base. They live in a politically parallel world where everyone they know believes the same as they do. They don’t like established facts, so they come armed with their own. The left has such people too, but they are marginal. With no news channels to promote them or Congressmen prepared to advocate for them, their views rarely reach the mainstream.

Third, we can beat them. These people gain the kind of purchase that shifts them from an irritant to an obstacle only when there is a vacuum of leadership and the absence of good alternatives. It is only under these conditions that they are able to cast unreasonable doubt in the reasonable minds of those who seek clarification, encouragement or a stake in any substantive change. This is precisely what has happened with the healthcare debate over the past few months.

[adhay]

@PrettyVacant

…
It looks fucking pathetic. It’s shameful shit.

I agree it’s painful. But don’t look for a late-60s revival of united political demonstration against the injustices we inflict at home and in every country we touch every day.

In addition to the fact that major factions of the progressive movement (blacks, women, gays, etc.) have been more or less pacified, there are two reasons that I see.

1. No conscription. War has been privatized.
2. Media consolidation. The real issue of corporate “personhood”, per se, is never raised and our common interest in reform has been obscured by smoke from culture wars and dazzled with entertainment and economic theory.

Corporations, constitutionally, are not people. The notion that they are results in the collateral damage that we look on around the world. While corporate money calls the tune, Barack, as well-intentioned as I believe him to be, can never be more than Bush in blackface.

Previous posts of mine to the seeming contrary, I am not a political person but I think I’d find some way to be a part of a nationwide strike in the name of rescinding corporate personhood, perhaps directed at SCOTUS in Citizens United v. FEC.
I won’t hold my breath.

[Lama_Pacos]

@RTFirefly

Look, we had hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of DC in January or February 2003, protesting against the Iraq War, and you know what? The media practically ignored those protests. But they’ll put 40 people at one of those wingnut ‘tea parties’ on the air.

The left has realized that there’s no payoff to marching in the streets. And given that it’s a lot of work, why bother? There are other ways to make one’s voice heard.

This. Never even mind Iraq, I know people who marched in large demonstrations for health care this year, and I haven’t seen a peep about that in the media.

[Kearsen]

@gonzomax

A guy at my health club showed up yesterday. His lymphoma has come back. He has lost his job .He does not know how long he will have coverage. He has had 3 chemo treatments and has lost his hair. His insurance company had refused to pay for tests the doctor has ordered. The doc says a CT scan does not give a specific enough image for him to assess the cancer. The insurance company has over ruled the doc and will not pay for it. He will have to pay for the test himself.
The insurance company will drop him soon. He has resigned himself to going bankrupt while he is very sick. He is 44 years old. That is some health care system we have.

And has access to paid health club membership?

[Enderw24]

@Maia_s_Well

Thanks for answering.

I asked because I was shocked to discover recently that a couple of my sister’s neighbors, who are quite vocally opposed to healthcare reform, don’t have health insurance.
It just never occurred to me that anyone opposed to govt. funded insurance would not have health insurance themselves.

I’ve come to learn that this is the case for a good portion of the anti-public option protestors. Probably not the majority, but who knows.
At first, this was really surprising to me. It didn’t make any sense. But I’ve come to two conclusions regarding it

1. I have a grudging respect for them. I vehemently disagree with them and I think that they’re naively voting against their own interests and those of their family, but they REALLY don’t want the government in their life and are willing to fight to see that it happens. That takes principles…of sorts.

2. It’s really because they have no health insurance right now (and probably never did) that they’re so easily manipulatable. Anyone with health insurance already knows about the bureaucracy. Anyone with health insurance already knows about paying too much and getting so little in return. Anyone with health insurance knows about the paperwork and the interference from reviewers who refuse to cover X,Y, and Z and forcing endless battles to have procedures covered.
   But if you don’t have health insurance, if you’ve never had health insurance, then it’s pretty easy to be convinced when someone says that government run health care is going to get between you and a doctor, create a massive bureaucracy, not cover you in your time of need, and do dozens of other things that anyone with private health care can tell you currently happens!

It’s easy for someone with no health insurance to say “well, I’m not using it, I’m not paying for it, and a public run health care will raise my taxes!” That’s a simple link to make. But no one’s telling that person that their taxes are ALREADY going to support those who fall through the cracks or otherwise have to be supported through medicare, medicade, VA benefits, and the like. No one’s telling that person that people getting sick and no longer being a profitable member of society ends up costing them money as well. It’s a much harder concept to wrap your head around than the straight taxes=money concept

[VinylTurnip]

@Kearsen

And has access to paid health club membership?

Yeah, why can’t he take the $30 monthly gym membership fee and use that to pay for the $1500 MRI?

[Jack_Batty]

The least he could do is to sell his children to cover the chemotherapy. How about taking some personal responsibility, ferchrissakes.

[Maia_s_Well]

@Enderw24

I’ve come to learn that this is the case for a good portion of the anti-public option protestors. Probably not the majority, but who knows.
At first, this was really surprising to me. It didn’t make any sense. But I’ve come to two conclusions regarding it

<snip>

These are very good insights, thanks.

The part I was having trouble understanding was that these particular people quite frequently rant about being taxed to care for people who are “irresponsible”. The contradiction, to me, is knowing that if these people without health insurance are seriously injured or have a heart attack or something, they won’t be turned away from the ER and most likely will not be able to pay their hospital bills. So they will get bailed out by people who are more “responsible” than they are. The very behavior they are ranting about in others.

In talking to a friend about these people, she casually commented that that type of person is pretty lacking in self-awareness. They spend most of their time focusing on what others are doing wrong, without being aware that they are guilty of the same behaviors. I think she’s right.

[Maia_s_Well]

@Jack_Batty

The least he could do is to sell his children to cover the chemotherapy. How about taking some personal responsibility, ferchrissakes.

Nah. Who can afford to buy children these days? I haven’t bought one since the Clinton years.

[marshmallow]

Wow, the system really has the OP dancing like a puppet. But maybe he’s learned a valuable lesson: voting is dumb.

[PrettyVacant]

Holy Jesus H Chopsticks.

If this is what protesting is about, I’m not surprised you all go to the mall instead:

YouTube link:

9.12 DC TEA PARTY - March Footage with Interviews

[BrainGlutton]

@Crafter_Man

The companies and corporations have no control over me. Only government has control over me.

OK, that’s not even a difference of opinion there, that’s just a plain lie, because you cannot possibly be stupid enough to believe it.

[adhay]

@PrettyVacant

Holy Jesus H Chopsticks.

If this is what protesting is about, I’m not surprised you all go to the mall instead:

YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

Lovely. Maybe we do have the government we deserve.

[Lightnin]

@Carol_Stream

Umm, a majority of Americans don’t want what Dear Leader is selling:

Blow me. Take that fucking shit out of here. The only people who worship their leaders appear to be you and your kind.

We elected the guy. We don’t fucking worship him, and I’m getting tired of you assholes trying to use that as some sort of weak-ass prop for your dissent.

KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.

[PrettyVacant]

@adhay

Lovely.

I’ve seen some of it three times. Spent more time rolling around on the floor but I’ve tried.

They don’t even seem to know what they think, or what’s in their best interests.

Extraordinary.

[Wile_E]

@Lightnin

Blow me. Take that fucking shit out of here. The only people who worship their leaders appear to be you and your kind.

We elected the guy. We don’t fucking worship him, and I’m getting tired of you assholes trying to use that as some sort of weak-ass prop for your dissent.

KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.

It’s a little funny considering that since 2001 through January of this year if we said anything critical about the president we were not employing our American right of dissent, we were un-American commie pinko’s who should get the hell out of this country if we didn’t like it. Well, it would be laughable if it wasn’t actually very sad.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@baronsabato

The National Council of Churchesadvocates for health care reform and has released a statement in support of President Obama’s plan. Many individual denominations and congregations are doing the same. Unfortunately, a pastor who preaches about “aborting Obama” makes for better news than churches trying to do good things in the world.

They ought to butt the fuck out of politics. If they have a political message to promote, they need to find a secular platform from which to do so. Now that their old umbrella, the GOP, has been reduced to a batshit crowd of morons (with no small help from their evangelical Igors) these religious fuckers think they can suck up to the left and drag it down into bullshit nonsense as well. We’ve got enough problems. Stick to the kingdom that is not of this world, religicos!!!