No, I’m not rich—far from it.  The health non care system is swallowing my small inheritance at a remarkable rate. 

I have spoken out for health care reform, equal rights, equal opportunity, voting rights, done community organization.  I’m not a parlor pink by a damn site.  I have been and remain a change agent.

I ask the same questions you do.  Most of the time with humor as I find it is the best way to gentle folks over to the progressive side.

As for not leaving for better ground, we were planning to but heath issues intervened.

Expat has nailed this here. Instead of engaging in an infantile discussion on who is chosen to exist or not, perhaps you should be an advocate for reducing the suffering of the human condition, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The lack of medical coverage is an abomination that so many choose to accept because they lack the stamina to stand up for their rights. History has revealed time and again that new approaches become reality when older methods are no longer deemed acceptable. Perhaps “not good enough” should become an active mantra.

^ this isn’t about you, okay!  You print, you take responsibility, you print you get read!  This is about the health of you and every other American citizen.  Stand up for christs sake and demand that which you deserve!  Quit whinning!!!!!  Do something!!!!

I didn’t say I didn’t like it, smartass.  I’m just offering; you’all lack guts and determination and let the government walk all over you!  You can voice any opinion you like; they are all the same to me.  mostly it’s a bunch of whiners who don’t have the guts to do something about the thing they don’t like.  I can discuss anything as long as it’s civil.  We all have our points; respect is paramount!

Yes…I do take the hard line…Stephen Hawking-altho he has infirmities-has really done something with his life[overcome SO MUCH]And he is a GENIUS..I AM NOT SAYING WE SHOULD NOT TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE….BUT….EVEN A TRIAGE UNIT HAS TO PICK PRIORITIES…We ENCOURAGE THE YOUNG to have sex and BREED….even when the 13 year old mother LEAVES THE CHILD IN DIRTY DIAPERS-ALONE-WHILE SHE CHATS WITH FRIENDS ON MYSPACE….We ALLOW PEOPLE TO HAVE CRACK ADDICTED BABIES….I also believe that EVERY ANTI-ABORTION ADVOCATE SHOUD HAVE TO ADOPT A CRACK ADDICTED BABY and BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL IT’S CARE…
This IS MY OPINION…And that is what this SITE ADVOCATES…FREE SPEECH!!!I also BELIEVE “BULLSH*T and CO”. should be tried for war crimes and murder
but"one voice does NOT a choir make”-SO…this is a place to voice MY OPINION-Don’t like it?DON’T READ ME….

^ by the comments here.  Access to medical care (not health care per Lefty, yes!) has been an issue for more than 40 years.  As tempting as it is, I’m not impressed with “hippy Pam’s” let the weak die or name calling (“Socialized” Medicine), god forbid! VillageElder’s $4128 per month however, took my breath away.  No one should have to pay that except the rich! (are you rich, I think not)  I guess what is missing here is the outrage; but then, you all passively have accepted this crap for 40 years.  Why should anybody listen to you?  Good question, eh?  The answer is you’ve been beaten down for so long you believe you have no power.  Well, here’s another one: How is it the worlds largest economy doesn’t take care of it’s most valuable resource….YOU????  Here’s one more: How is it an emerging third world country, namely Thailand, has a national Health Insurance program and you don’t?!?!?  Think about it….or not.  Every citizen has the right to a doctor and hospital for less than $1 USD/visit.  I have the good stuff; $13.66 USD/month.  No co-pay; medicine, included for no extra; annual physical, blood work, EKG, etc.  As the saying goes; no guts, no glory!

Good idea Jackpine, they are delicious with lots of grilled veggies also. Just make sure the meat is well done, don’t know what kind of diseases you might get from undercooked meat.

Only joking, but I like your comment.

Re Purplewolf Comment: Only The Strong Survive

Can’t say I agree with your thoughts here.  The animal kingdom is one thing and our world is another. With a little tender loving care, every human being has potential. Take Stephen Hawking, for example. He has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but look what he has contributed to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity. No, I think you need to broaden your thinking on this.

I Lived in a town several years ago with a center[school] for the mentally impaired.The government closed the facility and farmed the patients/inmates[what is the PC term now]out in to the world…But not before a male and female had 3 children[with each other].You would see the boy[about 8 years old]
holding his sisters[about 5] hand and carrying the baby[in diapers]-the 5 year old would be holding moms hand and mom would be holding dads hand-What a sight to see…I say we need national health care-and jobs for all who can work-and clean water-and great educational institutions-And THANK YOU PURPLE WOLF-I knew my comment would be construed by the mentality of each person reading it…

The health care non-system in these United States has been receiving a failing grade for decades.  Whenever there appears the slightest chance that we might rationalize our health care, perhaps move it from an 18th century economic schema, the lies begin with the phrase “socialized medicine”.  It would be nice if those making the claims were acquainted with the tenets of socialism.  Be that as it may, those of us who suffer the burden of literacy need to protest the fear mongering and lies of the right.  As Peter quoted, Richard Nixon saw the need for national health care.  I have commented before that all the candidates in this race are to the right of Eisenhower and Nixon.

There are many well thought commentaries on the state of our health care and the profiteering by the insurance and pharma.  While I usually prefer not to use myself as a case in point I just learned what the health insurance for myself and my wife will cost as of July 1, 2008.  $4128 per month.  We are a small business group of two.  The good outlook is that my wife, who is now disabled will be eligible for Medicare as of August.

A great deal of this cost is attributable to age:  I am over 65 and my beautiful young wife has just turned 60.  As you get older, at each birthday ending in 0 or 5, the insurance industry will boost your rates because you just might need services as you get older.  From their stand it would be better if the old folks just went away – it would maximize profits.

The usual talking point I see is an uninformed right wing troglodytes complains “I don’t want to pay for some one else’s poor life style choices.”  This completely ignores and discounts the number of autoimmune diseases which plague our population.  My wife and I are particularly familiar with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that could only have been prevented if we each could have chosen different parents.  A choice that just is not available.  The life style choice with RA is not to avoid things which cause the disease, but to do things so one can keep going.

Cyrena, has kindly described the scene in the ER and her situation.  A scene which is repeated daily and hourly across the length and breadth of this land.  All working and poor and middle class people can be financially destroyed by one health care incident!  Medical costs are the biggest reason for folks declaring bankruptcy.  Jobs, homes and all else is easily lost in this 18th century economy.

Also within the framework of the right wing nuts reality, if you are among the halt, lame, sick or poor it is because “the abramic god” didn’t favor you or you are morally inferior.  Yes, I can provide the passages from the “holely bible”.  These thought underlie much of the right wing position and are “occasionally” revealed by those paragons of theology: the televangelists.

Maybe we should eat the weak…  We can stuff them in feed lots and cram carbs down their gullets; don’t worry, a steady dose of antibiotics will allow us to maximize space and keep the meat (mostly) safe for consumption.

Two birds with one stone, eh?  Improve our bloodline and free the cows…lord knows they never did anything wrong.

Martin Bormann is over for dinner and he agrees 100%, even though we’re having falafel, tabouli, and humus…he’s a strict vegetarian.

What Hippy Pam is saying, and what one of my biology professors said to his students in college: “There are more born of every species than can survive.” It means that just because something is born, be it animal or person, not everyone of them will survive to adulthood, especially those born unhealthy. Today we spend millions of dollars on one person, case in point: Terry Shiavo, yet exclude others who may only need a twenty dollar antibiotic, with the claims of there is no money for it. It is proven that we spend the most money and effort on the least productive members of society. By continuing to keep the unhealthy surviving at the expense of all others brings down the “whole herd” as the unhealthy allowing them to then pass on their defective genetic information unto another generation with a higher incidence of unhealthy medical histories.

Some of you will yell it is every-one’s right to reproduce. But if the odds are stacked against you, would you really want to risk bringing another person into a world where when you are no longer able to care for it, would have to rely on society to do so? Adopt those already here, they need a home and many of them are left because they are not perfect.

I worked in the medical field off and on over 30 years and have taken care of people who do not even know they exist- estimated IQ-9, yet they, according to the government caseworkers, who have never taken care of people like this, claim they have the right to reproduce. This makes no sense at all. The patients I worked with were highly violent and would kill a baby and not know it was wrong, let alone what a baby is. Most would try to eat it and that is not a joke but actual fact. They function on an instinct-fight and eat only mode if they are able to walk or total personal care to even exist, and that it is not really living as we know it, that is an existance.

The animal kingdom is perhaps wiser then their human brothers in this, and yes in early biblical times defective progeny were left out in the desert to die. They did not let the unhealthy survive, let alone reproduce. Study history. Those who survive in the animal kingdom are the healthy, the strongest and the smartest ones. Humans, on the other hand cannot claim that standard.

This is not a comment about euthanasia or eliminating medical insurance, it gives a view from the side of life of working with one part of the medical population in this country today. Go ahead and feed them and tend to what is needed, but as for encouraging/allowing them to reproduce who are not capable of their own personal existence makes no sense. People who are capable of making a choice for themselves often write “no heroic measures” on their medical papers, somewhere along the line we have gone over the top in some cases and pulled out all the stops for some at the expense of others.

Now, like Hippy Pam, I shall wait for the fall out. But it is time for reality and not uneducated emotion to take control of things. We have seen some of the disasters that have happened when emotional over rules common sense.

Re Hippy Pam Comment on Insurance And The Weak

What exactly are you saying, hippy pam? Are you suggesting that we the people eliminate the medical insurance benefits of our weak representatives so they will disappear and will breed no more?

We are animals-we need exercise-We need the right diet.How can we expect a strong herd/bloodline?We allow[and encourage]the WEAK TO LIVE AND BREED.Here is a little CONTROVERSY FOR YOU ALL….
[I’m going in my basement now cuz I know you all are gonna SLAM ME FOR THIS COMMENT]

Re: Jackpine’s Comment: Disease, Misery and Death Profiteers

Since it is clearly the insurance industry’s goal to insure only healthy persons with no disease conditions, I must disagree here. 

After all, disease, misery and death would only reduce profits. This is why insurance profiteers rush to cancel policies of the newly sick and go to such lengths to eliminate persons with pre-existing conditions of disease and misery.

Hence, Senator McCain’s proposed health insurance plan, which assures coverage for the healthy and excludes coverage for the sick that have pre-existing conditions of disease and misery.

jackpine savage, this is the beer doctor. I am making an internet house call. I detect despair when you state: “Altruism in America is dead… it isn’t just medicine.”
Well hold on there Bucko, that is the mindset that the Shameless Ones want us to be in.
Altruism is not dead. Your postings on Truthdig are proof of it.

No, you can’t be serious!?  You’re suggesting that maybe massive corporations shouldn’t be profiting off of the disease, misery, and death of the population?

Of course our politicians are for the status quo, the profits of disease filter into their bank accounts.

Altruism in America is dead…it isn’t just medicine.

And we all get to drink the recycled chemical compounds in our water too.

Great post, Lefty, thanks.

Yes, too many our so-called representatives are showing signs of “chronic disconnect” when it comes to addressing the basic needs in the U.S.  And as we’ve seen during these past 6 years, money appears to be no object for them if it’s for unjustified invasions and alleged “democracy” building other countries, but if it’s funds to provide medical insurance for our troops or funds to assure affordable medical insurance for our citizens, they rant, rave and cry poor mouth. Needless to say, most of us are asking ourselves what’s wrong with this picture?

I greatly appreciate Bill pointing out the fact that these people waiting for services are primarily from the working class and the poor. I’d like to point out that the WORKING Class and the POOR are the same.

These are people who would have otherwise been insured. Why are they not?

Personal experience example..I was employed for 40 years and had insurance provided by my employers, for which I paid reasonable premiums, which I could manage, because I was employed.

I didn’t have much need for medical services the first 20 or so of those years. Occassional check-ups, the occassional injury, a preganancy and delivery, the occassional illness here and there, but nothing big time major.

But of course we age, and the knocks and bangs of occupational injuries and the illnesses that become chronic, and all of the rest. One straw break injury, or one or two illnesses that become chronic, and whammy…there you have it.

And as a result, whammy…no job. (just one injury will do it) No job means no insurance. So, for nearly 5 years, (at a time that I needed it the most) I had no insurance, and I was among these very same people spending my time in urgent care or other emergency facilities.

How did it ever come to this? It came to this because corporations and politicians have enriched themselves at the expense of the population.

Anyway, these are middle/working class people. Why do they not have health care coverage. That’s the sign of a decayed society where the money is spent on destruction, not maintenance or improvements.

Just think how many emergency rooms and urgent care units could have been built with the money spent on the war of occupation in Iraq!

Just think how many emergency rooms and urgent care units could be built with the budget of the Department of Defense!

Just think of all of the money squandered!

Let us not only do Justice but then let us do right!