I have just this minute finished watching the make or break address to Congress by President Obama on Health care Reform in the United States.
First of all I just want to mention what most of us already know - President Obama is one hell of a public orator. The last 5 minutes of the the speech where he quoted the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and applied the example of his progressive liberalism, personal experiences with health care, and the legacy of his ideas of reform with the context of the present, and the future was simply outstanding.
The President has also made it quite clear that a lot of the myths and lies spread not only by certain factions of the media but also by politicians, are counter-productive and wrong. This was a very much needed hypothetical slap in the face to certain idiots.
ILLEGAL immigrants (given my current situation caps were needed there), will NOT be entitled to subsidies by the government for free health care - just one of the lies spread over the last several weeks.
The financial deficit that already loom's over America because of the fiscal irresposibilities by you-know-who (and I'm not talking about Lord Voldemort), will NOT be increased, but the 10- year $900 trillion plan will be financed by fines on the greedy over-expensive health insurance companies that started this problem in the first place.
The ridiculous death panel claims by Sarah Palin are false, and she is a tart.
These are just samples of this wonderfully partisan speech, and if you did not watch it, choose to ignore the politics of what was said, and are naive enough to continue to believe the blatant right-wing lies, I pity you.
I urge you to understand the issues and the politics. The only way health care will reform is with the co-operation not just of left and right politicians, but by an understanding public who understand the value of common sense. If this doesn't happen...what's the point in Democracy? Go to Libya.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Ignorance is bliss?
For the past two weeks I have found myself reviewing and repeating something that was asked to me. This question that has been floating around in my head, and has itself led to other questions like an unwanted spawn of offspring. That question: "Is Osama Bin Laden still alive?..."
This was neither supposed to be comical, nor was it a joke.
Did the question come from a young child who is still learning to tie shoe laces? Did it come from a person with Parkinsons Disease who can't even remember their own name? Did it come from a lonely tribe member in a secluded part of the world where communication dare not reach? No. It actually came from an American.
I found myself at the time dumbfounded and somewhat shocked it was even asked of me. But then after time, I felt quite saddened about it.
Since the events of 9/11 and the campaign to overthrow the Al-Qaeda harboring Taliban government of Afghanistan less than a month later, the search for public enemy number one Osama Bin Laden still continues almost 8 years later. This has also led to 940 deaths of American troops alone in Afghan territory, not to mention the 4000+ in the War on Terror's progeny "War on Iraq: The Second", but that's a conversation for another day.
Now if I was someone who's country had been rattled to the point of breaking by bombarding planes into the World Trade Center (9/11), had his country's troops travel to war (Afghanistan), had his troops die in war (the 940 in Afghanistan), and have the knowledge that the war was set to carry on for a number of years...I would want to know if the person who caused all that death and misery was merely alive or dead.
On a slightly different note, since my arrival in the US back in June I have also been asked by a number of people if I am from;
- Australia
- Sweden
- Ireland
- Germany
- Canada
- probably some others that I tried to erase from my memory out of pure embarrassment for that person.
After being in this situation several times, it somehow doesn't seem so bad. But it's something I'm begrudgingly going to have to live with.
I also got into a conversation with some guy last month, when he asked me where I was from. I replied, "the UK". His reply was, "UK...where's that? Somewhere near Russia?..."
I leave your thoughts about this to accumulate...
This was neither supposed to be comical, nor was it a joke.
Did the question come from a young child who is still learning to tie shoe laces? Did it come from a person with Parkinsons Disease who can't even remember their own name? Did it come from a lonely tribe member in a secluded part of the world where communication dare not reach? No. It actually came from an American.
I found myself at the time dumbfounded and somewhat shocked it was even asked of me. But then after time, I felt quite saddened about it.
Since the events of 9/11 and the campaign to overthrow the Al-Qaeda harboring Taliban government of Afghanistan less than a month later, the search for public enemy number one Osama Bin Laden still continues almost 8 years later. This has also led to 940 deaths of American troops alone in Afghan territory, not to mention the 4000+ in the War on Terror's progeny "War on Iraq: The Second", but that's a conversation for another day.
Now if I was someone who's country had been rattled to the point of breaking by bombarding planes into the World Trade Center (9/11), had his country's troops travel to war (Afghanistan), had his troops die in war (the 940 in Afghanistan), and have the knowledge that the war was set to carry on for a number of years...I would want to know if the person who caused all that death and misery was merely alive or dead.
On a slightly different note, since my arrival in the US back in June I have also been asked by a number of people if I am from;
- Australia
- Sweden
- Ireland
- Germany
- Canada
- probably some others that I tried to erase from my memory out of pure embarrassment for that person.
After being in this situation several times, it somehow doesn't seem so bad. But it's something I'm begrudgingly going to have to live with.
I also got into a conversation with some guy last month, when he asked me where I was from. I replied, "the UK". His reply was, "UK...where's that? Somewhere near Russia?..."
I leave your thoughts about this to accumulate...
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Surgery, and the 'socialist' implications
It only seems natural to put recent events into perspective, entwining both the personal and political.
During my wonderful* 24 hour stint in the hospital, a 4-inch gash where my appendix was had suddenly appeared, along with the bewilderingly morbid sense of satisfaction that I had finally been subject to some surgery. But the realization* of how extortionate and inconceivable the cost of health care was in the US had also played on my mind.
As this was the first surgery/hospital visit/illness I had since I arrived in the states, it was a chance to see how its 'all done' over here in comparison to the UK. And besides the pleasant yet obvious high standard of treatment in hospitals here, (think accommodating restaurant waitresses handing you something to pee in), the raw ethic remains the same - Fix this person, and get him out of here.
The UK's National Health Service since its inception in 1948 has been loved and hated by general British groaners, but has always remained to an extent a free service you can rely on if something bad happens to you. For example, if your appendix is about to burst. The nice thing about this is, that when your lying in your hospital bed awaiting your surgery, your not ambushed by some drone asking you future payment options for your impending service whilst handing you a pile of paperwork. This can get tricky.
If like me and millions of people across the US at this particular moment in time you DON'T have health insurance, you run the risk of this happening to you. The average cost for a appendectomy in the United States without health insurance to cover you will cost in the region of $19,000-$24,000. The average cost for this in the United Kingdom, is a tenner for a taxi fare.
And now this becomes slightly* political.
President Obama, is as I'm sure your attention hasn't been able to escape is attempting to push through a health care reformation for the United States to stop exactly this type of occurrence from happening;
- You cannot afford health insurance.
- You have something wrong with you, and if left untreated has the potential to kill you.
- You are screwed.
And in the midst of this struggle to persuade Americans that health care has gone beyond the reach of 47 million people and is need of a shake up, Adolf Palin decides to attack the reform bill by blurting out ill-informed accusations/myths that citizens aged over 65 will be subject to 'Obama's death panel'. It was later discovered that she, like many other Republicans had not even read the proposed reform bill in its entirety...and she would have been Vice President.
This isn't even where the most boorish of Republicans are at their most ignorant. At the height of heated town hall debates across the country on health care, they then decide to attack the UK's national health service, by denouncing it as 'socialist' and immoral!
OK now they have just passed the threshold into stupidity and insecurity.
This as a result has led to yet more unfortunate lowering impressions of the US, and even led Twitter to briefly crash because of an unprecedented and overwhelming influx of 'supporting tweets' for the NHS by the British. The general feeling is that Americans have no right to say this about the health system of the UK, and should realize that this is the 21st century and progression is needed if a system is failing, and if your scared of a new way of thinking, don't be ignorant enough to call another country's loved institution 'Socialist'.
No matter what reservations some may have over the NHS, it has worked for us for 60 years. It has guaranteed people of a lesser income health care if it is needed, without worrying about shelling out thousands upon thousands to pay for it.
I think I know which route I would rather.
During my wonderful* 24 hour stint in the hospital, a 4-inch gash where my appendix was had suddenly appeared, along with the bewilderingly morbid sense of satisfaction that I had finally been subject to some surgery. But the realization* of how extortionate and inconceivable the cost of health care was in the US had also played on my mind.
As this was the first surgery/hospital visit/illness I had since I arrived in the states, it was a chance to see how its 'all done' over here in comparison to the UK. And besides the pleasant yet obvious high standard of treatment in hospitals here, (think accommodating restaurant waitresses handing you something to pee in), the raw ethic remains the same - Fix this person, and get him out of here.
The UK's National Health Service since its inception in 1948 has been loved and hated by general British groaners, but has always remained to an extent a free service you can rely on if something bad happens to you. For example, if your appendix is about to burst. The nice thing about this is, that when your lying in your hospital bed awaiting your surgery, your not ambushed by some drone asking you future payment options for your impending service whilst handing you a pile of paperwork. This can get tricky.
If like me and millions of people across the US at this particular moment in time you DON'T have health insurance, you run the risk of this happening to you. The average cost for a appendectomy in the United States without health insurance to cover you will cost in the region of $19,000-$24,000. The average cost for this in the United Kingdom, is a tenner for a taxi fare.
And now this becomes slightly* political.
President Obama, is as I'm sure your attention hasn't been able to escape is attempting to push through a health care reformation for the United States to stop exactly this type of occurrence from happening;
- You cannot afford health insurance.
- You have something wrong with you, and if left untreated has the potential to kill you.
- You are screwed.
And in the midst of this struggle to persuade Americans that health care has gone beyond the reach of 47 million people and is need of a shake up, Adolf Palin decides to attack the reform bill by blurting out ill-informed accusations/myths that citizens aged over 65 will be subject to 'Obama's death panel'. It was later discovered that she, like many other Republicans had not even read the proposed reform bill in its entirety...and she would have been Vice President.
This isn't even where the most boorish of Republicans are at their most ignorant. At the height of heated town hall debates across the country on health care, they then decide to attack the UK's national health service, by denouncing it as 'socialist' and immoral!
OK now they have just passed the threshold into stupidity and insecurity.
This as a result has led to yet more unfortunate lowering impressions of the US, and even led Twitter to briefly crash because of an unprecedented and overwhelming influx of 'supporting tweets' for the NHS by the British. The general feeling is that Americans have no right to say this about the health system of the UK, and should realize that this is the 21st century and progression is needed if a system is failing, and if your scared of a new way of thinking, don't be ignorant enough to call another country's loved institution 'Socialist'.
No matter what reservations some may have over the NHS, it has worked for us for 60 years. It has guaranteed people of a lesser income health care if it is needed, without worrying about shelling out thousands upon thousands to pay for it.
I think I know which route I would rather.
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