I have lots of time on my hands waiting for my new knee to heal enough to allow me to get out and about. I've been reading and thinking, playing my guitar, and watching TV. Actually, I'm watching Netflix TV shows on my laptop. I'm about 10 episodes into Breaking Bad, which I never got around to on regular TV. For those of you who are not familiar with the show, it's main character is a high school chemistry teacher, who upon discovering that he has lung cancer, begins a second career of making Methamphetamine to pay for his treatments, and to provide for his family after his demise. It's a really good show, gritty and seemingly realistic, and it allows me to segue into what I really want to talk about, which is health care.
I've heard a good deal of talk about an article in Time Magazine by Stephen Brill entitled "Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us". This article came out in the March 4, 2013 edition of the magazine, and is a long 38 page expos'e of hospital costs. The article follows the experiences of six patients faced with understanding and coping with their medical bills. Stephen Brill certainly deserves a Pulitzer Prise for his work on this article, and the article should be a must read for everyone in the country. I urge you to find a copy, read it, and pass it on to someone else.
The article exposes the absolute evil of hospital chains like the one here in our town, which, while providing good health care on the one hand, is administratively bent on wringing every penny possible out of each and every patient with the other. This system is not free market based, it is out and out extortion.
Surprisingly, while exposing the medical care industrial complex, the article provides the best explanation I have ever seen of how well Medicare works , and how it can be improved. The article would be well worth reading just for it's insight into medicare.
After reading the article, you might understand how a show like "Breaking Bad" could almost be true.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Michael Steel should abandon the GOP
When Michael Steel Was the national chairman of the Republican Party, I would watch him with disgust as he reiterated whatever talking point the party was pushing that day. It always galls me to see a Republican minority pundit because I generally feel they are just being trotted out as a token spokesperson. The Republicans like a black or Hispanic pundit, they love a black or Hispanic gay Republican, and they would fall all over themselves for a female black or Hispanic gay republican, if they could find one.
Anyway, Steel has now lost his chairmanship, and often appears on MSNBC and other venues as a Republican Pundit. His views have softened a bit, and while still a fiscal conservative, he has taken the blinders off, and is often critical of the far right in his party. I can forgive Michael for being a fiscal conservative, but I cannot accept his support of his party, even though I think I understand his reasoning.
Over my years of keen observation of the human condition, I've noticed that successful people who come from poor beginnings, often lean to the right, and exhibit an intense disdain for others who are not as successful. They tend to believe that their success is solely the result of their own hard work, and that other people are just lazy, and could be wealthy (.IE successful) also, if only they applied themselves.
I suspect that Michael steel is a poster child for this kind of reasoning. I read a bio of him on Wikipedia, and I know that he was raised by his grandmother under very poor conditions, but that he did well in school, and attended good colleges. I suspect he got a lot of lucky breaks along the way.
I've also come to the conclusion that success is in reality, more a combination of lucky breaks than anything else . In this world their are many of kinds of luck. There is the luck of superior intellect, the luck of family money and connections, good looks, charisma, family values, your age when you start school, support from teachers and other mentors, focus, the luck of having ambition, and, most often, the luck of being in the right place at the right time. These things all aid in success, although, I'm mostly talking about the conservative definition of success, which is wealth and power. No one or even two or three of the things I mentioned guarantee's success, but without some combination of the above, success cannot be achieved.
Unfortunately most people in this world are not endowed with any of the lucky traits, or more commonly only a few. Notice also, that many of the traits involve the help of other people, so, so much for the self made man.
I believe Michael Steel is fundamentally a decent man who just needs to do a little self-evaluation. He should disabuse himself of the notion that his success illustrates the character flaws of others. Then he should consider whether he wants to continue being a black foot soldier for the Confederacy in the on going war between the states. Let me explain that outlandish statement to those of you who don't get it.
After the Civil war no self respecting southerner could sink to being a Republican (The party of Lincoln and the abolition of slavery). These Dixiecrat's only began to switch parties during the end of segregation around the time of Kennedy and especially Johnson. If you look at a 2012 red state/blue state election results map, you will notice that the core of the red states are the states of the old Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia which went for President Obama because of the populous I-95 corridor. (It is also interesting to note that an overlay of a map which shows the states that receive more in Federal funds than they pay in taxes, very closely matches the red state voting map.) (Takers not makers)
So Michael, I call on you to secede from the Republican party. You can still be a moderate fiscal conservative Democrat (There are quite a lot of them), or you can become an independent. Believe me, you will feel good about yourself, and the country will be better off.
Anyway, Steel has now lost his chairmanship, and often appears on MSNBC and other venues as a Republican Pundit. His views have softened a bit, and while still a fiscal conservative, he has taken the blinders off, and is often critical of the far right in his party. I can forgive Michael for being a fiscal conservative, but I cannot accept his support of his party, even though I think I understand his reasoning.
Over my years of keen observation of the human condition, I've noticed that successful people who come from poor beginnings, often lean to the right, and exhibit an intense disdain for others who are not as successful. They tend to believe that their success is solely the result of their own hard work, and that other people are just lazy, and could be wealthy (.IE successful) also, if only they applied themselves.
I suspect that Michael steel is a poster child for this kind of reasoning. I read a bio of him on Wikipedia, and I know that he was raised by his grandmother under very poor conditions, but that he did well in school, and attended good colleges. I suspect he got a lot of lucky breaks along the way.
I've also come to the conclusion that success is in reality, more a combination of lucky breaks than anything else . In this world their are many of kinds of luck. There is the luck of superior intellect, the luck of family money and connections, good looks, charisma, family values, your age when you start school, support from teachers and other mentors, focus, the luck of having ambition, and, most often, the luck of being in the right place at the right time. These things all aid in success, although, I'm mostly talking about the conservative definition of success, which is wealth and power. No one or even two or three of the things I mentioned guarantee's success, but without some combination of the above, success cannot be achieved.
Unfortunately most people in this world are not endowed with any of the lucky traits, or more commonly only a few. Notice also, that many of the traits involve the help of other people, so, so much for the self made man.
I believe Michael Steel is fundamentally a decent man who just needs to do a little self-evaluation. He should disabuse himself of the notion that his success illustrates the character flaws of others. Then he should consider whether he wants to continue being a black foot soldier for the Confederacy in the on going war between the states. Let me explain that outlandish statement to those of you who don't get it.
After the Civil war no self respecting southerner could sink to being a Republican (The party of Lincoln and the abolition of slavery). These Dixiecrat's only began to switch parties during the end of segregation around the time of Kennedy and especially Johnson. If you look at a 2012 red state/blue state election results map, you will notice that the core of the red states are the states of the old Confederacy, with the exception of Virginia which went for President Obama because of the populous I-95 corridor. (It is also interesting to note that an overlay of a map which shows the states that receive more in Federal funds than they pay in taxes, very closely matches the red state voting map.) (Takers not makers)
So Michael, I call on you to secede from the Republican party. You can still be a moderate fiscal conservative Democrat (There are quite a lot of them), or you can become an independent. Believe me, you will feel good about yourself, and the country will be better off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
