More timely writer's block!!
i'm baaaaaaaa-aaaack!!
ALL IT TAKES for me to get healthy is to give the bug to at least two people apparently. Maggie and sibling are BOTH sick now. 0=cD
but it's not my fault 'cause i don't think it's contagious? dunno. me not a bio-chem-sicko major.
anyway, so upon my return to LJ, what is the writer's block?
Writer's Block
Is health care a right or a privilege to you?
...
Well. Considering I just got thru being sick and visiting half a dozen drs and having to take a few hundred thousand pills... i'm obviously biased. another point towards my bias on the subject: as i write this, my dad's in on his second surgery on a knee that should have been fixed the first time but for some reason wasn't. It's a workman's comp injury, meaning: had he not been at work, earning his paycheck and paying his taxes, he would still be healthy and whole and able to walk upright like a man of 50 years old is supposed to be able to do. However, he was at work, earning his paycheck and paying his taxes, and therefore he is injured. That cause-effect relationship mandates that the access to health care be a *right* to all members of American society. Me, myself, and I, am unemployed. I'm a student, but I'm unemplolyed. I pay dearly for the health care that I get because I no longer have an employer paying the bills for me. Because I pay for it, it is a right. Were I to not pay for it, I know better than to expect it, because I have enough troubles with the stuff i DO pay for, but regardless, my situation is such that without proper access to health care, my quality of life - if not my life itself - would come to a rather painful demise.
In a more general sense, less case specific to my own little corner of the world, the Declaration of Independence promises to all Americans the rights "to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The very first word in that phrase is "life", therefore implying that health care be a RIGHT to all citizens, because without health care, at some point, be it thru midwives, nurses, or doctors, none of us would have made it out of the womb in predictable numbers. It implies that in dire, emergency situations, if there is a chance that we be allowed to continue to live, the government and our fellow countrymen will ensure that we have that right to care. Ambulances, flight-cares, first-aid booths, prompt-care centers, hospitals, etc. are all made available and are legally obligated to accept anyone in need of care, regardless of faith, creed or color. It is our RIGHT as Americans and our right as human beings as well (ie: how many non-citizens are cared for in emergency rooms across the country? Tourists, aliens, diplomats...) to receive the care that the doctors are licensed to practice.
The last word of the above phrase, 'Happiness', also implies that health care is a RIGHT and not merely a privilege. We have the right to at the very least pursue avenues that we believe will make us as human beings happier, from matters of vocation to health. When's the last time you heard about someone suffering from life-long migraines, or from cancer, or even just a flu-bug, telling the world that they were truly happy? 'Happy' is as much a chemical reaction as it is a state of mind; the concepts are codependent and interchangeable in my opinion. Without one's health, one can not be really happy; pain of any stripe puts a damper on the enjoyment of life. That's why hospital gift shops sell toys and balloons and flowers to cheer people up. Supposedly, chocolate is a mood lightener, and they sell that too. Coincidence? I think not.
Aside from all of that, as human beings, we all have a place in the food chain, something we want to do with our lives, or something to be when we grow up. Doctors are no different. Some go in to it for the money, others go in to the medical field because some past harm done to them inspired them to help other people. In the past 80 years or so, the doctoring practices have gotten more expensive - not out of necessity or lack of demand, but out of greed from the middle-men pitching them a tall tale. Doctors at one time went to school as apprentices, but were still seen as quack jobs little different than witches. Science has changed to allow them some advantages, but it still remains that doctors are still only licensed to *practice*; they don't know everything there is to know about the human body and how to heal it, so they throw cures at it until something works. And it is our right as American citizens to seek out their advise, and it is their privilege to offer it once they have the experience to do so. At one time, they worked for pennies and were kept busy for miles in rural America, making house-calls and doing well with their private business. To this day, without patients, the doctor could not thrive, and without doctors, some patients can't survive.
A medical ethics board can withdraw a doctor's right to practice, just as the Bar Assn. can withdraw an attorney's right to practice law; it's just a job, they can find another job doing something different if they are not fit to be doctors. But there is no logical, ethical, intelligent or moral reason to deny a fellow human being medical care when it is needed. There is no governing body in place set up for the sole purpose of revoking a person their right to see a doctor, find medicines, or seek a cure for whatever ails them. Again, the closest we have to that practice is the private industry of 'medical insurance' companies, and they operate not as living people but instead as a money-making machine with no moral, ethical, or intelligent processes; only the bottom line of cold, hard cash. That was set up not as a protection for the people, by the people, and of the people like our government is, but instead only by rich men who wanted to be richer. The private sector is made up of con men, middle-men, lenders and loan-sharks, adorned in big expensive suits, with powerful friends, living on Wall Street. Government run health insurance plans are a last resort to those meddler's manipulations, and they are so overburdened and under funded simply because the existence of the ins. co's drives the cost of care up higher and higher.
Why? Because it *can* be raised, without needing or even accidentally causing the direct consideration to the people who ultimately have to pay the bill for it: the American consumer.
Not the American Citizen, but the Consumer. There is a difference in today's society.
The American Citizen has the RIGHT to health care. The American Consumer has the PRIVILEGE of paying for it.
....
< / rant > i should be channeling this in to writing something that will actually be seen and be some-day-productive, but alas. no. i ramble to LJ and watch DVR'd tv shows. =cD
ALL IT TAKES for me to get healthy is to give the bug to at least two people apparently. Maggie and sibling are BOTH sick now. 0=cD
but it's not my fault 'cause i don't think it's contagious? dunno. me not a bio-chem-sicko major.
anyway, so upon my return to LJ, what is the writer's block?
Writer's Block
Is health care a right or a privilege to you?
...
Well. Considering I just got thru being sick and visiting half a dozen drs and having to take a few hundred thousand pills... i'm obviously biased. another point towards my bias on the subject: as i write this, my dad's in on his second surgery on a knee that should have been fixed the first time but for some reason wasn't. It's a workman's comp injury, meaning: had he not been at work, earning his paycheck and paying his taxes, he would still be healthy and whole and able to walk upright like a man of 50 years old is supposed to be able to do. However, he was at work, earning his paycheck and paying his taxes, and therefore he is injured. That cause-effect relationship mandates that the access to health care be a *right* to all members of American society. Me, myself, and I, am unemployed. I'm a student, but I'm unemplolyed. I pay dearly for the health care that I get because I no longer have an employer paying the bills for me. Because I pay for it, it is a right. Were I to not pay for it, I know better than to expect it, because I have enough troubles with the stuff i DO pay for, but regardless, my situation is such that without proper access to health care, my quality of life - if not my life itself - would come to a rather painful demise.
In a more general sense, less case specific to my own little corner of the world, the Declaration of Independence promises to all Americans the rights "to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The very first word in that phrase is "life", therefore implying that health care be a RIGHT to all citizens, because without health care, at some point, be it thru midwives, nurses, or doctors, none of us would have made it out of the womb in predictable numbers. It implies that in dire, emergency situations, if there is a chance that we be allowed to continue to live, the government and our fellow countrymen will ensure that we have that right to care. Ambulances, flight-cares, first-aid booths, prompt-care centers, hospitals, etc. are all made available and are legally obligated to accept anyone in need of care, regardless of faith, creed or color. It is our RIGHT as Americans and our right as human beings as well (ie: how many non-citizens are cared for in emergency rooms across the country? Tourists, aliens, diplomats...) to receive the care that the doctors are licensed to practice.
The last word of the above phrase, 'Happiness', also implies that health care is a RIGHT and not merely a privilege. We have the right to at the very least pursue avenues that we believe will make us as human beings happier, from matters of vocation to health. When's the last time you heard about someone suffering from life-long migraines, or from cancer, or even just a flu-bug, telling the world that they were truly happy? 'Happy' is as much a chemical reaction as it is a state of mind; the concepts are codependent and interchangeable in my opinion. Without one's health, one can not be really happy; pain of any stripe puts a damper on the enjoyment of life. That's why hospital gift shops sell toys and balloons and flowers to cheer people up. Supposedly, chocolate is a mood lightener, and they sell that too. Coincidence? I think not.
Aside from all of that, as human beings, we all have a place in the food chain, something we want to do with our lives, or something to be when we grow up. Doctors are no different. Some go in to it for the money, others go in to the medical field because some past harm done to them inspired them to help other people. In the past 80 years or so, the doctoring practices have gotten more expensive - not out of necessity or lack of demand, but out of greed from the middle-men pitching them a tall tale. Doctors at one time went to school as apprentices, but were still seen as quack jobs little different than witches. Science has changed to allow them some advantages, but it still remains that doctors are still only licensed to *practice*; they don't know everything there is to know about the human body and how to heal it, so they throw cures at it until something works. And it is our right as American citizens to seek out their advise, and it is their privilege to offer it once they have the experience to do so. At one time, they worked for pennies and were kept busy for miles in rural America, making house-calls and doing well with their private business. To this day, without patients, the doctor could not thrive, and without doctors, some patients can't survive.
A medical ethics board can withdraw a doctor's right to practice, just as the Bar Assn. can withdraw an attorney's right to practice law; it's just a job, they can find another job doing something different if they are not fit to be doctors. But there is no logical, ethical, intelligent or moral reason to deny a fellow human being medical care when it is needed. There is no governing body in place set up for the sole purpose of revoking a person their right to see a doctor, find medicines, or seek a cure for whatever ails them. Again, the closest we have to that practice is the private industry of 'medical insurance' companies, and they operate not as living people but instead as a money-making machine with no moral, ethical, or intelligent processes; only the bottom line of cold, hard cash. That was set up not as a protection for the people, by the people, and of the people like our government is, but instead only by rich men who wanted to be richer. The private sector is made up of con men, middle-men, lenders and loan-sharks, adorned in big expensive suits, with powerful friends, living on Wall Street. Government run health insurance plans are a last resort to those meddler's manipulations, and they are so overburdened and under funded simply because the existence of the ins. co's drives the cost of care up higher and higher.
Why? Because it *can* be raised, without needing or even accidentally causing the direct consideration to the people who ultimately have to pay the bill for it: the American consumer.
Not the American Citizen, but the Consumer. There is a difference in today's society.
The American Citizen has the RIGHT to health care. The American Consumer has the PRIVILEGE of paying for it.
....
< / rant > i should be channeling this in to writing something that will actually be seen and be some-day-productive, but alas. no. i ramble to LJ and watch DVR'd tv shows. =cD