In a recent (Sunday, February 26) editorial column, the Editor of the Omaha World-Herald opined that a main engine of ever-rising health care costs is "Americans' preferences[.] We as a society avoid shopping for care (because we want constancy in our providers) and have distorted insurance from a backstop against disaster into a 'prepaid medical' plan."
WRONG.
What acutally has happened is that technology totally outstripped planning. Illnesses, accidents, and assaults that used to kill people--and quickly--now can be managed medically, as chronic medical conditions [consider Lee Harvey Oswald: if he'd been shot nowadays, he'd not have died from a single gunshot to the abdomen.--ed.] . . . which means continual care, which means high long-term costs. None of the health insurance plans I know of were created in this context. Medicare, for just one example, will pay for a lot of procedures when done to someone who is an inpatient, but will not cover the very same things when the patient is at home. The costs of being an inpatient are much higher, as they include the hospital room, meals, and a lot of other things that the patient is already covering as ordinary costs of living while living at home.
This obviously makes no sense. To some degree, Medicare and other insurance plans are beginning to recognize this, as they are modifying and adapting their coverages to include certain preventative care tests and procedures because a problem caught early is, as a rule, a problem less expensively resolved than a problem caught late. But getting the insurance industry as a whole to totally revamp itself is a haphazard hope at best.
Besides, the people most often in immediate need of health care are not in a position to shop around for it. If one has spiked a fever of 103°, one isn't going to go calling everyone in the phone book to find the cheapest treatment: one is going to the first place one finds. One doesn't have the luxury of taking the time to shop around.
Furthermore, who has a crystal ball to determine in advance what kind of health care/insurance one needs? My own example is telling: I, a lifelong NON-smoker, have a chronic and ultimately terminal pulmonary disease. Before I was diagnosed, if I were shopping for health insurance coverage, I would not have chosen a plan with a lot of pulmonary coverages had it been cheaper not to include that in the plans from which I was able to choose. And I'd have been sunk once my disease manifested. Which I nearly am as it is, so I know whereof I speak.
Thus is revealed the fallacy of running health care as a for-profit business. The free market is not a panacea for every economic problem plaguing mankind. When one is talking about health care, one is talking about life itself, the most fundamental of our inalienable rights. Second, the people who need health care the most (especially under the current system, where preventative care and early detection are not necessarily covered) are the least able to afford it--for they are already ill.
The entire point of insurance is to spread the risk so broadly that everyone's costs come down. This won't happen under present "health-care reform" suggestions like health savings accounts (HSAs). Those who don't need health care will amass savings, while those in the most dire need are unable to, because whatever money they have is already paying for prior health-care services rendered. The net result? A segregated society: those who have good health and money on one side; those who have poor health and no money and declining care due to same on the other. In the long run, this will be slow genocide, or Social Darwinism run entirely amok.
If the goal truly is to solve the problem, a national health insurance plan that covers everybody is inevitable. That is the only way to spread the risk widely enough to ensure that no one is bankrupted by one debilitating, chronic illness . . . which is all too often exactly what the chronically ill are forced to suffer now. Which means no more "for-profit" health care, which means government must run the program. (1) National problems require national solutions; (2) "government" is not a dirty word; (3) therefore, if we truly are united in society to further our collective rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," we need to start thinking and working together to solve the problem instead of limiting ourselves to letting "the market" literally kill off the unlucky.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
An Olympic Observation Of Little Or No Consequence
Did anyone notice that the Italian National Anthem sounds an awful lot like an opera chorus?
Actually, I thought the Italians did a lovely job of hosting the recent Winter Olympics. I just couldn't help but giggle quietly to myself whenever their anthem played. I kept expecting to see "The March of the Toreadors" from "Carmen" . . . or Spike Jones's version of same . . . or PDQ Bach's "Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, An Opera In One Unnatural Act" . . . or Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd performing "The Rabbit of Seville."
I am totally ashamed of myself.
As well I should be.
I'm continuing to giggle anyway.
Actually, I thought the Italians did a lovely job of hosting the recent Winter Olympics. I just couldn't help but giggle quietly to myself whenever their anthem played. I kept expecting to see "The March of the Toreadors" from "Carmen" . . . or Spike Jones's version of same . . . or PDQ Bach's "Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, An Opera In One Unnatural Act" . . . or Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd performing "The Rabbit of Seville."
I am totally ashamed of myself.
As well I should be.
I'm continuing to giggle anyway.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
A Darwin Award Candidate In Omaha
OK, so technically the guy doesn't really qualify as a Darwin Award candidate. He destroyed neither himself nor his ability to produce progeny. Still, if he keeps doing the kinds of things he recently did, he'll get there soon enough.
Our hero was working on his car in his detatched (thank goodness) garage one recent morning. It was cold, and he had a propane heater on in the garage. He decided to warm a can of red (of course) spray paint before using it to touch up the front end of his car by leaving it atop the propane heater.
You can guess what happened.
The can exploded, knocking the garage off its foundation, buckling the garage door, displacing part of the garage roof, giving our hero second degree burns on his hands and face, and imbedding itself into a cross beam in the garage's ceiling.
The warning on the can that its contents are both flammable and under pressure is easily read on the part of the can protruding from the cross beam.
Masking tape that our hero had placed on parts of his car also caught on fire, which our hero dutifully extinguished before he was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center by ambulance.
He is lucky to be alive. The auto insurance industry is again vindicated in its collective decision to charge drivers of red cars higher rates, as they tend to take more risks than most people.
I wonder whether our hero's vechicle was a sports car, a truck, or an SUV.
In any event, if the rest of us are lucky, we won't (literally) run into him when he decides to make his candidacy for a Darwin Award more than the "honorable mention" kind.
Our hero was working on his car in his detatched (thank goodness) garage one recent morning. It was cold, and he had a propane heater on in the garage. He decided to warm a can of red (of course) spray paint before using it to touch up the front end of his car by leaving it atop the propane heater.
You can guess what happened.
The can exploded, knocking the garage off its foundation, buckling the garage door, displacing part of the garage roof, giving our hero second degree burns on his hands and face, and imbedding itself into a cross beam in the garage's ceiling.
The warning on the can that its contents are both flammable and under pressure is easily read on the part of the can protruding from the cross beam.
Masking tape that our hero had placed on parts of his car also caught on fire, which our hero dutifully extinguished before he was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center by ambulance.
He is lucky to be alive. The auto insurance industry is again vindicated in its collective decision to charge drivers of red cars higher rates, as they tend to take more risks than most people.
I wonder whether our hero's vechicle was a sports car, a truck, or an SUV.
In any event, if the rest of us are lucky, we won't (literally) run into him when he decides to make his candidacy for a Darwin Award more than the "honorable mention" kind.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Some Questions I'd Like Dubya To Answer
So the State of the Union is very good? Which Union is that, anyway? Certainly not the one I'm living in.
Dubya said last night that the US economy was robust and that our collective economic endeavors more than doubled those of the EU and Japan combined. And that we created an ungodly number of new jobs in the last year.
OK. But is creating a bunch of minimum-wage, no benefits jobs really better than losing all the high-tech jobs that US companies are outsourcing to other countries?
And is our economic performance so great when everyone I know is saying that they are having to work harder and harder, and do more and more tasks, in less and less time and with less and less support and benefits, just because the corporate powers that be are trying to improve their bottom lines?
And why is it that executive compensation packages keep getting better and better while more and more and more companies are announcing plant closures, layoffs, and other cutbacks?
What about the drag the federal deficit is putting on the economy? And why is it better to whittle away at the edges of the deficit by trying to minimize, restrict, or even curtail the already too small programs that really help people and then undoing any miniscule good that that might have done by increasing tax cuts for the already very, very rich?
And why is a 4% COLA in Social Security benefits such a good thing when the costs of things like Medicare premiums is at the same time raised by more like 33%?
Why is it that you persist in saying the free market is the best way to run health care, when it obviously does not work? People can't shop for medical procedures the way they can shop for cars--when they need services, they are not in any position to take their time, shop around, and bargain for the best price. The free market may work for people who are in excellent health and who just want to get the least expensive health care policy premiums possible, but in this day and age, with the very medical technologies we have to save and prolong lives that just a few years ago would have been lost, does that description even fit a majority of the population?
I'll say it again: health care, because it deals literally with people's lives, is part and parcel of the most important of our unalienable rights--those being "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--thus it violates our birthright as Americans to put health care on a "you can get what you can afford to pay for" mentality.
It may not be a conscious decision, but to act in ways that will eventually limit health care to those incredibly lucky few who do not need it will have the same effect as out-and-out euthanizing the entire population of the disabled. Talk about Social Darwinism run amok!
(Silly me--I thought Social Darwininsm had been thoroughly discredited as a way to run a society.) Welcome to George Orwell's Brave New World, indeed.
Dubya said last night that the US economy was robust and that our collective economic endeavors more than doubled those of the EU and Japan combined. And that we created an ungodly number of new jobs in the last year.
OK. But is creating a bunch of minimum-wage, no benefits jobs really better than losing all the high-tech jobs that US companies are outsourcing to other countries?
And is our economic performance so great when everyone I know is saying that they are having to work harder and harder, and do more and more tasks, in less and less time and with less and less support and benefits, just because the corporate powers that be are trying to improve their bottom lines?
And why is it that executive compensation packages keep getting better and better while more and more and more companies are announcing plant closures, layoffs, and other cutbacks?
What about the drag the federal deficit is putting on the economy? And why is it better to whittle away at the edges of the deficit by trying to minimize, restrict, or even curtail the already too small programs that really help people and then undoing any miniscule good that that might have done by increasing tax cuts for the already very, very rich?
And why is a 4% COLA in Social Security benefits such a good thing when the costs of things like Medicare premiums is at the same time raised by more like 33%?
Why is it that you persist in saying the free market is the best way to run health care, when it obviously does not work? People can't shop for medical procedures the way they can shop for cars--when they need services, they are not in any position to take their time, shop around, and bargain for the best price. The free market may work for people who are in excellent health and who just want to get the least expensive health care policy premiums possible, but in this day and age, with the very medical technologies we have to save and prolong lives that just a few years ago would have been lost, does that description even fit a majority of the population?
I'll say it again: health care, because it deals literally with people's lives, is part and parcel of the most important of our unalienable rights--those being "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"--thus it violates our birthright as Americans to put health care on a "you can get what you can afford to pay for" mentality.
It may not be a conscious decision, but to act in ways that will eventually limit health care to those incredibly lucky few who do not need it will have the same effect as out-and-out euthanizing the entire population of the disabled. Talk about Social Darwinism run amok!
(Silly me--I thought Social Darwininsm had been thoroughly discredited as a way to run a society.) Welcome to George Orwell's Brave New World, indeed.
Everyone Knows It's Wendy's
(With apologies to The Association)
Wendy's got a lot of sympathy last year once the news was out that the "finger in the chili" was a fraudulent extortion attempt.
Wendy's just wasted all that sympathy--and more.
Dan Mirvish, former Omahan, former speechwriter for US Senator Tom Harkin, and current independent film producer, recently got royally dissed at a Wendy's in Park City, Utah. He was there to host his annual Slamdance Film Festival, in conjunction with the more well-known Sundance Film Festival. He's also in a wheelchair at present, thanks to a broken leg.
He wanted a hamburger before going to attend one of the several late-night parties associated with the festivals, and the parking lot was icy, so . . . he wheeled up to the Wendy's in his chair. The dining room being closed, he did what any hungry and enterprising soul would do, and moved over to the drive-up window, which was still open.
The cashier then informed him they weren't allowed to serve "walk-ups" at the drive-thru. [What's wrong with this picture?--Ed.] So, he went off to his party, gathered together several of his filmmaker friends--with cameras--and then returned to the restaurant, whereupon restaurant manager "slammed the window literally in our face," according to Mirvish.
As if that weren't bad enough, the manager had also called the police, who drove up, lights flashing, and demanded that "You in the wheelchair--pull over!"
The police thereupon ordered Mirvish and his companions to leave.
Mirvish is considering filing some kind of complaint or lawsuit against Wendy's for violating the Americans With Disabilites Act. I say more power to him!
It would have been different had the Wendy's dining room been open, but under the circumstances, it's a slam dunk that Wendy's failed the ADA's requirement that commercial establishments provide "reasonable accomodation" to those with disabilities.
Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini only made matters worse when he tried to defend the restaurant manager's behavior by saying that the "no walk-ups" policy had nothing to do with the ADA, and that it rather was a matter of public safety and security "particularly late at night, for employees and customers as well." [How nice that he included customers in his comments, considering that customers are the entire driving engine of Wendy's business.--Ed.]
Everything Bertini said is probably true, but is so insensitive as to be absolutely crass. I, for one, no matter how much I like Wendy's chili on a baked potato, will not buy from Wendy's again. Please join me in my boycott.
Wendy's got a lot of sympathy last year once the news was out that the "finger in the chili" was a fraudulent extortion attempt.
Wendy's just wasted all that sympathy--and more.
Dan Mirvish, former Omahan, former speechwriter for US Senator Tom Harkin, and current independent film producer, recently got royally dissed at a Wendy's in Park City, Utah. He was there to host his annual Slamdance Film Festival, in conjunction with the more well-known Sundance Film Festival. He's also in a wheelchair at present, thanks to a broken leg.
He wanted a hamburger before going to attend one of the several late-night parties associated with the festivals, and the parking lot was icy, so . . . he wheeled up to the Wendy's in his chair. The dining room being closed, he did what any hungry and enterprising soul would do, and moved over to the drive-up window, which was still open.
The cashier then informed him they weren't allowed to serve "walk-ups" at the drive-thru. [What's wrong with this picture?--Ed.] So, he went off to his party, gathered together several of his filmmaker friends--with cameras--and then returned to the restaurant, whereupon restaurant manager "slammed the window literally in our face," according to Mirvish.
As if that weren't bad enough, the manager had also called the police, who drove up, lights flashing, and demanded that "You in the wheelchair--pull over!"
The police thereupon ordered Mirvish and his companions to leave.
Mirvish is considering filing some kind of complaint or lawsuit against Wendy's for violating the Americans With Disabilites Act. I say more power to him!
It would have been different had the Wendy's dining room been open, but under the circumstances, it's a slam dunk that Wendy's failed the ADA's requirement that commercial establishments provide "reasonable accomodation" to those with disabilities.
Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini only made matters worse when he tried to defend the restaurant manager's behavior by saying that the "no walk-ups" policy had nothing to do with the ADA, and that it rather was a matter of public safety and security "particularly late at night, for employees and customers as well." [How nice that he included customers in his comments, considering that customers are the entire driving engine of Wendy's business.--Ed.]
Everything Bertini said is probably true, but is so insensitive as to be absolutely crass. I, for one, no matter how much I like Wendy's chili on a baked potato, will not buy from Wendy's again. Please join me in my boycott.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)