Health care reform: Mulling it all over, and I still don’t know what to say
I haven’t written in a few days, but rest assured I’ve been trying to follow the progress of health care reform as it makes its way through Congress.
<sigh>
Where to start. Let me say first of all that this has all become so complicated and cumbersome that I hesitate to jump on either the “kill the bill” or the “support it as a starting point” sides. My grandfather could repair just about anything int he house or the car. But being of limited means, he couldn’t always do as much as he wanted to with any project. So his catch phrase became “Well, it’s better than it was.”
But I’m not sure we can even say that about health care in this country. No public option. No medicare buy-in. Politicians making the right to have an abortion suddenly not a right if you are a low-income citizen (who happens to be a woman). And while some say that this Senate bill can be improved upon after it has been passed, I have 4 words for you: No Child Left Behind. Piss-poor when passed, it has gotten no better over time; instead there’s a massive call for throwing it out and starting over again.
Can we afford to do that with health care in this country?
The wheeling and dealing going on to get this version passed does not make it any more palatable to me. Sen. Ben Nelson huffed and puffed and voila! Suddenly Nebraska gets the federal government to pay for 100 percent of the cost for expanding Medicaid in the state. It seems even Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom I admire immensely, has his price. In return for his support on the bill, the Democratic leaders promised to set aside $10 billion for community health centers nationwide, which Sanders has long been advocating.
And where has the Obama Administration been during the last 12 months of health care debate? Without leadership at the top, how can health care in this country ever be reformed. Did President Obama really think Congress could sort this all out on their own? When Congress is overrun with lobbyists from the health care industry?
Here’s what the largest registered nurse’s union says:
NNU Co-president Deborah Burger, RN challenged arguments of legislation proponents that the bill should still be passed because of expanded coverage, new regulations on insurers, and the hope that it will be improved in the House-Senate conference committee or future years.
“Those wishful statements ignore the reality that much of the expanded coverage is based on forced purchase of private insurance without effective controls on industry pricing practices or real competition and gaping loopholes in the insurance reforms,” said Burger.
I’m wishing for some words from candidate Obama. Tell me what you think in the comments.
There’s snow to be played in!
I’m not normally a big fan of this new kid on the block, Justin Bieber, but I do have to say that there’s something special about a young person singing this classic. Some day. Some day.
Aldous Huxley must have known about the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay when he wrote those words above. It’s good advice to remember, because there’s a whole lot of ignoring going on. The headlines recently make it sound like the prison at Guantanamo Bay is finally being closed down for good:
From Guantánamo to Beyond ‘Supermax’
Tiny town sees big dollar signs in Guantanamo transferees
But when one reads beyond the headline in that last article, there is a fact that is being ignored by everyone who is hailing this move as progress toward restoring the American sense of justice and human rights:
The White House is shipping 100 of the 210 suspected al-Qaeda figures currently held at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba, to the Thomson Correctional Center
One hundred of the 210? And what will happen to the 110 not being shipped out to Illinois?
And all those jobs that this influx of prisoners is going to make happen in “tiny town” Thomson? Well, the truth is not quite so bright:
[T]he Department of Defense estimates that it will need “between 1,000 and 1,500 employees” to staff its wing of the prison. “One-third of these employees will be government civilian employees or private contractors with annual salaries between $80,000 and $90,000. The other two-thirds of the employees will be military personnel, with salaries of $65,000, which includes a housing allowance.”
Not surprisingly, the analysis states: “DoD expects few of its direct hires to come from the local communities.”
So what’s left for the locals? Lower salaries, for one (with the exception of some prison guard jobs). And once the construction jobs are done, not much; while the economic analysis reports that “local residents will be excellent candidates for 1,240 to 1,410″ of the jobs relating to “the modification, opening, and running of the facility,” it also states that “in total, BoP expects to hire 448 workers locally.” That’s a far cry from the 3,000-job figure being thrown around. Although much stock is being placed in “indirect jobs due to increased spending and economic activity,” as well as potential teaching jobs for theoretical schools that will accommodate military families who move to the region, these estimates are hardly definite.
I would like to believe that we have turned a corner with Guantanamo Bay, but we have not. The facts that we are holding people indefinitely without charging them, and that their transfer to a small struggling town will neither fix that issue nor provide jobs — these facts still exist.
Wednesday Poetry Break: Rubber Snow Boots with Metal Buckles Edition
So, my friends and family in the Northeast may not appreciate this one as much as those further south do, but I found it quite evocative of childhood memories of snow. This is from today’s edition of The Writer’s Almanac.
When I First Saw Snow
Tarrytown, N.Y.
Bing Crosby was singing “White Christmas”
on the radio, we were staying at my aunt’s house
waiting for papers, my father was looking for a job.
We had trimmed the tree the night before,
sap had run on my fingers and for the first time
I was smelling pine wherever I went.
Anais, my cousin, was upstairs in her room
listening to Danny and the Juniors.
Haigo was playing Monopoly with Lucy, his sister,
Buzzy, the boy next door, had eyes for her
and there was a rattle of dice, a shuffling
of Boardwalk, Park Place, Marvin Gardens.
There were red bows on the Christmas tree.
It had snowed all night.
My boot buckles were clinking like small bells
as I thumped to the door and out
onto the grey planks of the porch dusted with snow.
The world was immaculate, new,
even the trees had changed color,
and when I touched the snow on the railing
I didn’t know what I had touched, ice or fire.
I heard, ”I’m dreaming …”
I heard, “At the hop, hop, hop … oh, baby.”
I heard “B & 0″ and the train in my imagination
was whistling through the great plains.
And I was stepping off,
I was falling deeply into America.
– Gregory Djanikian
I’m fighting a bit of a stomach bug at the moment. Posting will be light, needless to say. We will be back to our regularly scheduled blogging shortly. Please feel free to talks amongst yourselves in the comments ….
Well JelloHeads, it’s hard to believe it’s Friday already again, but here we are! In our ongoing public service, I present to you another “artist you may not have heard of.” (Or, “artist of whom you may not have heard,” for my fellow GrammarHeads.)
I hope you enjoy this one by Imogen Heap, called “Goodnight and Go.”
Finally.
As all language nerds will remember, in 1996 Alanis Morrissette sang a catchy song called “Ironic,” which was full of examples of things that were, well, not ironic. A fly in your chardonnay? That really sucks. But it’s not ironic.
No, the meaning of irony is to use words to express the opposite of something. It is the expression of an idea by using words that mean the opposite. It is awarding a Peace Prize to a man just days after he orders a tripling of the number of troops going to war.
Maybe now we will all fully understand the literary technique known as “irony.”
I have a new line for Alanis:
“It’s like getting a peace prize when you escalate a war.
Isn’t it ironic?”
