If anyone knows of anywhere that is taking applications for a pundit, would you please point me there? Because I have decided that I would make an awesome pundit
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Actually, people who I've talked to who live in other countries specifically say that they'd never want to live in the US because of our lack of universal health care. Find a few on the internet and ask them if you don't believe me. We're the only first world country that doesn't have it, and I've heard people in other countries say that they consider us barbaric because of it.
And while, yes, the government would probably fuck up the health care system, there are people who have literally no health care and no options, should they get sick. These people end up in emergency rooms after they get really bad, clogging up our hospital system (rather than being able to go to a doctor earlier and practice an ounce of prevention). For these people, some health care, ANY health care, is better than nothing. I don't know if you've ever met someone who is just one illness away from total ruin, but I have.
Universal health care doesn't mean that people who can afford it can't still get private health insurance, just like the existence of social security doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to save for retirement. But it provides a safety net that I believe helps all of society because it would help to unclog hospitals and make workers more productive.
Sometimes I feel like the word 'socialism' has been bandied about too freely, and we're losing sight of what it means. It's one of those high-emotion words that are often used to manipulate people, and words like that are dangerous. George Orwell writes about the phenomenon in an essay called 'Politics and the English Language', which I highly recommend. He argues that there are some words and phrases that we start using by rote, and doing so clouds our mind and judgment, because it keeps us from actually thinking about what we mean to say.
At any rate, if McCain wins, we can kiss Roe vs. Wade goodbye. He has said flat out that he will appoint justices who will overturn it -- he's not even paying lip service to the idea of appointing the most qualified people, like Bush was. There are three justices who probably won't last through the next four years. So a McCain presidency will be the end of abortion being legal.
Okay, people are waiting for me for a birthday party, so I have to run!
(BTW, novel is almost finished and edited. Should be completely done by the end of this year.)
I am very glad to hear the novel is progressing!! I WANT TO READ IT!!
On to politics! I really enjoy reading your political views because you are almost completely opposite me, despite our (seeming, anyway) to agree on what is morally right (ie, we're both pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, etc).
I don't understand who it is who is going without medical care in America that would be helped by "universal" healthcare. (See, I didn't call it socialist!). Right now, if you are low income, you can get health care through the government. If you are disabled and low income, you even get a stipend (albiet a pitifully low one). If you are middle income, paying for health insurance is painful, but possible (our health insurance is $175 a month for a family of four).
Where I live, many, many, many people are not getting the health care that they need. My own son cannot get the psych care he needs. We have insurance, but all the money in the world won't help when there are so few good doctors and almost no specialists. I believe that there are so few doctors because there is so little money to be made in being a doctor. I live in a very, very poor area. So poor that the major medical centers don't accept paying customers or people with insurance because they serve only the low-income/welfare population. My fear is that with universal healthcare, the whole country will become like Yuma.
My youngest sister doesn't have insurance. She is self-employed and will be totally screwed if she gets a serious illness. It's a choice she's making--not unlike people who don't get auto insurance (which is another thing that's really, really hard fur us to afford on our low income!). When I was first married, I didn't have health insurance either, and at one point, had to go on low-income gov't paid healthcare to pay for a difficult pregnancy. I took a calculated risk and lost.
So, in summary, my two disagreements with universal healthcare is that (a) the quality of medical care will plummet, brilliant people will stop going to medical school because the gov't pays less than half of what private insurance pays for medical care; and (b) the private sector offers insurance and the gov't offers insurance, so people ought to be able to take care of their own insurance needs (and if they choose not to, that's their own problem).
I know a lot of people who are in the middle ground, not poor enough to get government health insurance, but not wealthy enough to pay for their own. Most of these people are students, or working retail. (Or both.) They're paying their rent and buying food okay, but they couldn't afford an extra $200/month, or whatever they'd be forced to pay. You -can- get a modicum of health insurance pretty cheap, but it's not going to cover more than the basics. If you need medication for something, for example, the co-pay is usually pretty high, and a lot of things aren't covered.
I can't attest to the quality of care/availability of doctors. That's something we'd have to look to England and Canada to see. Again, it's likely that you'd have private hospitals and specialists not covered under the government care, so the wealthy would still be getting better care than those who couldn't afford insurance -- I think that's the situation in England and Canada. But it's possible that what's keeping the pay down where you're living is that they're taking a lot of people who can't pay for their care, and they're losing money that way. If that's the case, than universal health care could actually bring doctor pay up.
There are fewer specialists because fewer people can pay for them, and it's probably always going to be that way, no matter the state of our health care system. Specialists will gravitate towards wealthier areas, where people can afford to pay what they feel they're worth.
When people choose not to have health insurance (or can't get it), it's not just their problem. As I mentioned in my original post, they don't go to doctors, wait 'till they're really, really sick, and then go to the emergency room -- which clogs up emergency rooms and lowers the quality of care. In addition, they generally can't pay the hospital bills, which means the hospital loses money, isn't able to pay doctors as much, and again loses quality of care.
Not going to physicals and checkups means that they don't practice any form of preventative medicine. Which, again, means more emergencies (for example -- someone who isn't tested for heart problems, isn't prescribed heart medication, isn't advised about lifestyle changes, has multiple heart attacks) and thus more hospital time for people who can't pay.
But regardless of the above, it's still important to bear in mind that if McCain gets to be president, Roe vs. Wade gets overturned. The woman he's chosen as his VP is pro-life, and takes the extreme stance that abortion should be illegal, with no exception for rape or incest.
I don't know why people keep saying that about abortion. Right now, there is a one justice advantage in terms of overturning it. McCain and Palin have both stated that their goal is to get it overturned, and while I think McCain is probably neutral on the issue, Palin is all for it. And McCain, who probably doesn't feel very strongly either way, is sure to see the benefit to his political career in doing something that will make him a living legend and forever hero in the eyes of the religious right.
Most of the Supreme Court justices are pretty old, including Ginsburg, who is one of the pro-choice supporters. There are theories that the next President might get as many as three appointments. If true, and the ones who retire are replaced with right wing cronies -- not entirely improbable -- then they're certain to revisit the issue. They will be under intense political pressure to do so (and indeed, some of the appointments might be back-room conditional on their willingness to push for a revisitation) and if revisited, it will be overturned, and it will be very hard to reinstate, since a democrat would have to wait until enough of the right justices retired to give them an advantage again. You'll notice how young Bush's appointees are.
Roe vs. Wade hasn't been around all that long. I've heard a lot of the old school feminists talk about how girls who grew up with the rights that they fought for take them for granted, and don't understand that the people who were so reluctant to relinquish them are, in some cases, still in power. If we don't keep on fighting for ourselves, they will take back what they were forced to give.
Roe vs Wade. I am perhaps behing naive, but I don't think they CAN overturn it. They may talk about it, say they're pro-life, etc, but all the protesting and other Republican presidents and congresses haven't gotten rid of Roe vs Wade, so I don't think McCain can either.
I am curious what you like about Obama.
I am, as yet, undecided in the upcoming election, mostly because I can't stand either party's candidate.
And while, yes, the government would probably fuck up the health care system, there are people who have literally no health care and no options, should they get sick. These people end up in emergency rooms after they get really bad, clogging up our hospital system (rather than being able to go to a doctor earlier and practice an ounce of prevention). For these people, some health care, ANY health care, is better than nothing. I don't know if you've ever met someone who is just one illness away from total ruin, but I have.
Universal health care doesn't mean that people who can afford it can't still get private health insurance, just like the existence of social security doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to save for retirement. But it provides a safety net that I believe helps all of society because it would help to unclog hospitals and make workers more productive.
Sometimes I feel like the word 'socialism' has been bandied about too freely, and we're losing sight of what it means. It's one of those high-emotion words that are often used to manipulate people, and words like that are dangerous. George Orwell writes about the phenomenon in an essay called 'Politics and the English Language', which I highly recommend. He argues that there are some words and phrases that we start using by rote, and doing so clouds our mind and judgment, because it keeps us from actually thinking about what we mean to say.
At any rate, if McCain wins, we can kiss Roe vs. Wade goodbye. He has said flat out that he will appoint justices who will overturn it -- he's not even paying lip service to the idea of appointing the most qualified people, like Bush was. There are three justices who probably won't last through the next four years. So a McCain presidency will be the end of abortion being legal.
Okay, people are waiting for me for a birthday party, so I have to run!
(BTW, novel is almost finished and edited. Should be completely done by the end of this year.)
Reply
On to politics! I really enjoy reading your political views because you are almost completely opposite me, despite our (seeming, anyway) to agree on what is morally right (ie, we're both pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage, etc).
I don't understand who it is who is going without medical care in America that would be helped by "universal" healthcare. (See, I didn't call it socialist!). Right now, if you are low income, you can get health care through the government. If you are disabled and low income, you even get a stipend (albiet a pitifully low one). If you are middle income, paying for health insurance is painful, but possible (our health insurance is $175 a month for a family of four).
Where I live, many, many, many people are not getting the health care that they need. My own son cannot get the psych care he needs. We have insurance, but all the money in the world won't help when there are so few good doctors and almost no specialists. I believe that there are so few doctors because there is so little money to be made in being a doctor. I live in a very, very poor area. So poor that the major medical centers don't accept paying customers or people with insurance because they serve only the low-income/welfare population. My fear is that with universal healthcare, the whole country will become like Yuma.
My youngest sister doesn't have insurance. She is self-employed and will be totally screwed if she gets a serious illness. It's a choice she's making--not unlike people who don't get auto insurance (which is another thing that's really, really hard fur us to afford on our low income!). When I was first married, I didn't have health insurance either, and at one point, had to go on low-income gov't paid healthcare to pay for a difficult pregnancy. I took a calculated risk and lost.
So, in summary, my two disagreements with universal healthcare is that (a) the quality of medical care will plummet, brilliant people will stop going to medical school because the gov't pays less than half of what private insurance pays for medical care; and (b) the private sector offers insurance and the gov't offers insurance, so people ought to be able to take care of their own insurance needs (and if they choose not to, that's their own problem).
Reply
I can't attest to the quality of care/availability of doctors. That's something we'd have to look to England and Canada to see. Again, it's likely that you'd have private hospitals and specialists not covered under the government care, so the wealthy would still be getting better care than those who couldn't afford insurance -- I think that's the situation in England and Canada. But it's possible that what's keeping the pay down where you're living is that they're taking a lot of people who can't pay for their care, and they're losing money that way. If that's the case, than universal health care could actually bring doctor pay up.
There are fewer specialists because fewer people can pay for them, and it's probably always going to be that way, no matter the state of our health care system. Specialists will gravitate towards wealthier areas, where people can afford to pay what they feel they're worth.
When people choose not to have health insurance (or can't get it), it's not just their problem. As I mentioned in my original post, they don't go to doctors, wait 'till they're really, really sick, and then go to the emergency room -- which clogs up emergency rooms and lowers the quality of care. In addition, they generally can't pay the hospital bills, which means the hospital loses money, isn't able to pay doctors as much, and again loses quality of care.
Not going to physicals and checkups means that they don't practice any form of preventative medicine. Which, again, means more emergencies (for example -- someone who isn't tested for heart problems, isn't prescribed heart medication, isn't advised about lifestyle changes, has multiple heart attacks) and thus more hospital time for people who can't pay.
But regardless of the above, it's still important to bear in mind that if McCain gets to be president, Roe vs. Wade gets overturned. The woman he's chosen as his VP is pro-life, and takes the extreme stance that abortion should be illegal, with no exception for rape or incest.
Reply
We'll have to "agree to disagree" on abortion--I think it's all talk, they couldn't possibly overturn R -v- W.
Reply
Most of the Supreme Court justices are pretty old, including Ginsburg, who is one of the pro-choice supporters. There are theories that the next President might get as many as three appointments. If true, and the ones who retire are replaced with right wing cronies -- not entirely improbable -- then they're certain to revisit the issue. They will be under intense political pressure to do so (and indeed, some of the appointments might be back-room conditional on their willingness to push for a revisitation) and if revisited, it will be overturned, and it will be very hard to reinstate, since a democrat would have to wait until enough of the right justices retired to give them an advantage again. You'll notice how young Bush's appointees are.
Roe vs. Wade hasn't been around all that long. I've heard a lot of the old school feminists talk about how girls who grew up with the rights that they fought for take them for granted, and don't understand that the people who were so reluctant to relinquish them are, in some cases, still in power. If we don't keep on fighting for ourselves, they will take back what they were forced to give.
Reply
I am curious what you like about Obama.
I am, as yet, undecided in the upcoming election, mostly because I can't stand either party's candidate.
Reply
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