The Speakers from Illinois

 

Predications

Mud oozed blood and hid dead faces.  Bayonets slit throats and their butts cracked skulls.  Carnage flashed through rain as though nature were guiding the battle.   Rebel soldiers fell with their bigoted convictions intact.  The battle scene scored for the Union Army.  History was unabridged, but biased as told in Spielberg’s Lincoln.

The opening scene reminds us of the war’s horrible costs.  It shadows the three long years of fighting already endured.   The simple way men fought two centuries ago was captured.  Tactics whose odds favored death much more than today.  Men are seen scrapping and punching, the hand-to-hand pedestrian approach to combat that passed as official, commissioned, Civil War.  The scene filled in those years from 1861 through 1864 when the nation divided and offered the black man freedom on the end of a gun.  Abe is meeting the troops just before the battle of Wilmington, North Carolina in the winter of ’65.  Black soldiers explain how they have earned the white’s respect by fighting, but still make 3.00 less in pay.   He says in a few years they could be ranking officers.  In fifty years they might reach the rank of Colonel and in a hundred years they might be able to vote.

 

Hindsight

The fifteenth Amendment was ratified February 3, 1870.   The “Reconstruction Amendment” prohibited governments in the United States from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of race.  Lincoln was a crafty one.  He had no hand in writing that amendment, but his previous legislation shaped the words posthumously. 

The opening scene closes with the president listening to a white Union soldier parrot his 1863 Gettysburg address verbatim.   The film proceeds though the months leading up to Lincoln’s assassination.  And I would think of Obama from time to time, our first black Commander in Chief 143 years later.  Our president has often quoted Lincoln.  But it occurred to me that the way Obama initially went about securing affordable healthcare for millions had parallels to how Lincoln went freeing the slaves.  Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was a product of his constitutional authority as commander in chief.  It was not a law passed by congress and only freed slaves in states that were in rebellion.  The ruling did not apply to the so called “border states,” states that did not declare their secession before April, 1861.  Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky were not free until the passing of the thirteenth Amendment in December of 1865.

Political poetics

Lincoln wrestles with the smooth passage of the amendment.  He knows the law, perhaps too well, from his years as an Illinois lawyer.  He capitulates and avoids portraying the tyrant that men like Booth thought he was.  He can’t free the slaves too fast.  Lincoln’s methods are measured carefuly and the legality of each clause is weighed.  The need to uphold his oath to “protect and defend” the constitution bears down on him.  It influences his decision back when such integrity still hung in the balance.

When the kitchen got too hot Abe would lighten the mood.  He’d tell stories; tales gathered from experiences as a lawyer and voracious reader.  He told a story about Ethan Allen.  After leading the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 Allen met with King George III in England.  He excused himself to use the WC (water closet).  In the facilities he noticed a portrait of George Washington.  Later the King George asked Allen whether he noticed the portrait.  He asked Mr. Allen if he found the placement of Washington in poor taste.  Ethan replied, “not at all, nothing would make a British soldier shit so quick as the sight of General Washington.

Whether the anecdote actually happened is not clear.  Daniel Day Lewis’s Lincoln delivers the stories with wit.  The credibility of them is not to be questioned.  They fall into that category of intentionally unanswered elements that I am left with after many Spielberg movies.  His constituents bought it, and his intent to lighten the mood succeeded.  Through January of 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment gets past the senate and stalls on the House floor.  It is voted on twice in the film and defeated.

Not a line of dialogue was heard.  Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse April 9, 1865 was shown but not told.  A writer could see the value in this.  The war ended.  A scene shows the president on horseback cantoring though the carnage of Richmond, the last battle of the war.  An estimated 600, 000 young men were killed in four years.

The stage is set

“Death to tyrants” is tucked discreetly in history.  It is never uttered until the fat lady has sung.  The phrase won’t come to mind until all the king’s horses have been fed to his men.  Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s theater on April 14 is a footnote.  The killing took place on Good Friday; an irony I doubt history has missed.  140 years later our first black president is echoing his words.  Obama’s “emancipation” of millions of uninsured Americans originally drew from the same prudence Lincoln exercised to posthumously pass the Thirteenth Amendment. 

Republicans and the tea parties may think Obama is as much of a tyrant as the democrats thought Lincoln was.  “King Abraham Africanist” is a quote from the movie that lodged itself insidiously in my mind.  It spoke of the sympathy Lincoln and his supporters had for the black man.  It echoed the vehement resentment felt for that sympathy.  It said how the South would fall if their chief source of production was suddenly taken away.

 

Bootlegging time

Prohibitions don’t work and the antagonistic feeling they cause may not be worth the fight.   In an 1840 speech to the Illinois House of Representatives Senator Lincoln said “Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance.  It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.  A Prohibition Law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”  Lincoln knew the score.  He could reason that prohibiting anything, up to and including the unpaid servitude of human beings, could possibly irreparably sever the union. 

The pressure was on Lincoln as he began his second term.  He made his decisions and implementations of mandates cautiously.  Like Obama, who is beginning his second term, his administration veered towards appeasement by compromise.  In the film, Lincoln says that if he passed on any opportunity to end the war he would be a hated man.  He held out and risked being unpopular.  If getting the black man lasting freedom from involuntary servitude was the end result, he would weather angry clouds of resentment.  Now, at the beginning of the 21^st century, after presidents from Roosevelt to Clinton tried to reform health care, the young man from Illinois succeeded.  Obama’s approval rating dropped, again and again.   It rose with the killing of Bin Laden, but then fell again. 

The issue for Obama was affordable health care and laws preventing insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.    The issue for Lincoln was slavery.  By 1861 the majority of the union’s states and territories were free.  Each issue was contested; each had monetary loss at stake.  In Lincoln’s case the time was right.  Abolition of slavery had been an issue in America since the Quaker’s efforts in the late 18^th century.  

However, in the case of health care reform, the timing may have been wrong.   I saw what Obama intended when he addressed the nation in 2009.    I saw how he saw health care reform looked like a vital part to dealing with two wars and a sagging economy, much of which can be attributed to his predecessor.  His plan came with a hefty price tag.    But then, most things that benefit posterity do.

MB Moshe

©2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

worst case senarios

AMERICA, THE LAND OF THE FREE:

               ­­­­Long, long ago, in a monarchy far, far away, the seeds were planted for a democracy.  In 1776, when the leaders of the 13 original colonies decided to declare their independence from King George III, Thomas Jefferson had no idea that the simple idea of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” would metamorphose into greed, lethargy and the pursuit of drugs.  The concept of welfare, apparently innate  to American government, (we acquired a statue in 1885 from France and immediately inscribed the words “Give us your tired, your poor...” on its base)  all started with altruistically sound intentions to help those “men created equal” catch up in America by way of many programs of the 1960’s.  Since then it has culminated into a laughable, infallible hierarchy that will help anyone who is fortunate enough to be a citizen of this great democracy, either by birth or by a fairly elementary test.  Ironically, those immigrants who take the test, and do not take their citizenship for granted once they get it, can, in most cases, pass the test much easier than their natural-born counterparts, many of whom greedily benefit from our welfare programs.

 

Betty Boop and Dudely Doright.

 

In this article I choose to point out the truly loathsome, contemptuous and other parasitic manifestations of citizenry who see America as a helping pot, not a melting pot.  One young woman, who I will call Betty Boop, is taking the system for all it’s worth.  She has screwed her life beyond recognition and expects the government, i.e., honest taxpayers, to bail her out, caring not where her next meal is coming from, assuming that the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program will provide for her.  If she is pregnant, she could even receive more.  WIC will provide for her and the child (until the child’s 5th birthday).  Betty finds this out and decides she had better have a kid before her child turns five.  These children will most likely never know who their father is.  They are disenfranchised urchins who grow up thinking America is the biggest push-over in the world.  WIC is not bad, in the right Betty Boop’s hands.  It provides nutrition and education of nutrition for mothers and their infants.  However, the Betty Boop in this case is, as far as I’m concerned, abusing the program to the limit.  She has, as I understand, no intention of ever getting a job, her criminal background making this almost impossible.  She intends to keep having children by various men so she can support her drug habit and not work.  Most likely, if she doesn’t die or end up in jail, she will go merrily along collecting her WIC and TANF (temporary aid to need families), more commonly known as welfare programs, never giving a thought to where, or from whom, the money is coming.  She will just stand in line and cash her check at the many convenient check cashing facilities (it is no coincidence they are all over the low-rent housing areas) seeing this and the minimal paperwork she must go through as the small price she pays while we ultimately foot the bill.  TANF replaces the former AFDC (aid to families with dependent children) as a result of changes under the PRWORA (personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act) of 1996.  In the case of this Betty Boop, she has reaped the free treatment and medical aid of the county.  None of the free drug rehab she received lasted for more than a few months when I would hear she was back on the streets dealing for crack.   She has had baby after baby with the taxpayers paying to essentially bring unwanted children into this world (obviously unwanted by her) that eventually end up in foster homes, another taxpayer expense. 

 

Betty Boop is obviously playing America for a sucker, squeezing every ounce of freedom out of a government for which she does not pay.  I’ve never known her to hold a job for more than a few weeks, so how can she be taxed.  This person is the most pathetic leach on the system I have ever known.  Sure, there are mothers who honestly need the assistance and make honest efforts to pull themselves up from poverty, but the majorities I hear of are no more than criminals with a license to steal, a birth certificate.  The 60- month limit on TANF is too generous and does not impose strong enough limitations, still sending the message that our democracy will raise your family if you choose not to after the fact.

 

Dudely Doright

 

I encountered this man, who happened to be a Native American, one day on a city bus. There he sat all fat and sassy, without a care in the world.  For a while we rode as the clatter of bus windows blended with the incessant chatter.  With a wide, impish grin he suddenly decided to regale me with the details of his wonderful life.  He lived in a motel, drinking and watching TV, emerging every so often to cash checks, government checks.  The U.S. government, out of some sense of guilt over hundreds of broken treaties with the first Americans over the past three centuries, affords a stipend to anyone who can prove Native American bloodlines.  Is it fair after all this time?  What about the African-American, the Asian-American and, for that matter, almost any ethnic group to wash ashore here.  As history has taught me there were more groups that were discriminated against in the beginning than those that weren’t.  I am simply saying that there comes a time when we must question whether it is fair to hold a whole country responsible for the wrongs perpetrated generations ago.  Now, Dudely, who to me epitomized the lethargy and lack of dignity that can be the end result of America’s guilty conscience, seemed more or less happy with his existence at the expense of a nation, most of whom have no responsibility for promises broken to his ancestors. 

 

All we owe the Native American and other groups that have been wronged in the past is equality from this point forward.  That is all that is pragmatic and plausible in a true democracy.  A country of generation Xer’s (some of whom probably don’t even know who George A. Custer was) can’t be expected to be included in the debt created two centuries ago by people with manifest destiny on their minds.   However, the aforementioned men and women that were not “created equal” do deserve some extra from the pot since they were held back in the game.  Be it  Dudely Doright, who does have something to moan about, or  Betty Boop, who, for the most part, has no one to blame but herself, America must be aware that these programs are left wide open for abuse. 

 

This 227-year-old “experiment” has gone awry.  Actually, it never really lived up to its intentions. In the beginning, and slowly progressing and regressing through time, basically only white, wealthy, Christian men could truly pursue happiness.  Perhaps we should look more closely at the people who participate in the experiment two centuries later.  As the 21^st century begins, void of culture, family systems, to say nothing of integrity and dignity, it only seems fitting that I would portray the rapacious of America as cartoon characters.

A tale of two Controversies

Oscillating Fans

            I had time to kill in a hospital.  As I looked around the room for something to read, a Time magazine caught my eye.  It featured an article examining the procedure’s progress and regressions since 1973’s Roe vs. Wade decision.  The controversy is fascinating and compelled me to page to the debate. (Interestingly though, gun-control seems to be more controversial).

A sterile environment

The picture was familiar.  I’d seen it posted by pro-life advocates many times on Facebook.  On a silver tray, in perfect alignment, were the instruments necessary to perform an abortion.  A friend once called Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, as if this was the only thing they did.  He was adamantly pro-life.  I didn’t correct him, realizing, after years of debate, that some people refuse education.  I knew Planned Parenthood offered a lot more.  It offers choices, and that is the operative word.  They counsel the young mother; informing her of the other options available.  Now, I, as an adamantly pro-choice male, admit that it is unfortunate that abortion is at the end of that line of choices.  In the U.S. one out of three women chooses this by the time they’re forty-five.  They always will seek and find them, whether it is legal or not.  It might as well be done in a sterile environment.  So a clinic was created, perhaps in the back rooms of the Planned Parenthood building.  I doubt anyone’s happy about this; I doubt they come out smiling.  The doctor, the patient, the woman’s man (if she knows), the woman’s parents (who now must know when the mother is a minor) all are not proud of such a choice. I’d hope they aren't.  But the choice it’s there.  You'd might as well come to terms with it.

Restricting values

            Since January of this year the following restriction have been placed on obtaining an abortion in Minnesota:

·       The woman must get state-directed counseling that includes information to discourage her from the procedure.  She must then wait twenty-four hours before having it done.

·       Parents of a minor must get notified before an abortion is done

The caveats sound rational enough to me, but again, I’m only a man.   It also sounds somewhat familiar. 

            The stuffy echelons of the right-wing want the world like it was, at least before the sixties.  Some will pine for a time even earlier than that when men were men and women, well, had fewer rights than men.  They cherish a time when their gun was their only friend.  They’ll fight to the death (lately dyeing with pretty good success) the right to obtain that firearm with few, if any, restrictions. 

The Circle of life

            I can’t say when life begins.  That’s for judges, scientists, and doctors to ponder feudally.  It is not the issue here.   We know a few facts and, in the end, these are all that can direct our moral compass:

·       Women will abort their fetuses

·       People will always want guns; either to kill others or because they feel safer with them

·       America was founded as a democracy.  Freedoms and rights are infused it its citizenry

Okay, so the conservatives want abortion abolished (aren't these the descendants of the people who voted against the 13th Amendment?).  I constantly see schmaltzy Facebook posts overtly claiming how wrong the “killing” of babies is.  Aren’t these some of the same people who at one point tapped the domino that ultimately made it possible for the gunman to execute his plan at Sandy Hook Elementary?   I’d point out the hypocrisy in more detail but it would be lost.  It would fly over the heads of the gun lovers like the bullets flew at young children.

Come Together

            One side can’t wait, and sees it as an infringement on their constitutional right if they are asked to wait.  The other side sees it as a hurdle, a block not originally in the deal, if they have to wait.  Each wants instant access to their promised freedom.  You can’t ignore the irony here. 

            A group of women, one out of three to be exact, (58% in their 20’s, 61% who are already a parent, 85% unmarried, 69% economically disadvantaged, 73% with a religious affiliation) seek to eliminate their fetus.

These women have chosen to exercise the right Roe vs. Wade, a Supreme Court ruling, afforded them forty years ago.  Yes, they are killing in a simple sense of the word.  Although the fact is anyone can take out a life or the undetermined suggestion of one.

            A group of vigilantes, sovereign by the Second Amendment, seeks to “protect” themselves and their young children against the psychotic killer.  In 2009 there were 307 million people in the United States.  According to data from firearm manufacturers there were 300 million firearms owned by civilians.  100 million were handguns.  These patriotic Americans have chosen to exercise their Constitutional right afforded to them 222 years ago.

            Each seeks to take out a life; someone else’s, their own, or the debated one of the unborn.  They both want to be unfettered and free of government rule.  However one side valiantly tries to keep the flow of guns alive in America.  The other simply wants a choice.  All they ask is to be able to choose in the end whether they want to abort a pregnancy in a sterile environment.  Carrying it to term might endanger their life.  There might not be enough money, support, or education to raise a child; a child that could very well grow up feeling unloved, uneducated and resentful.  This is the psychopath, the one for whom the gun made accessible was earmarked.  It’s a tug-of-war.  The relatively smaller group of women’s actions will possibly prevent the angry young man Elvis mentioned in his song In the Ghetto from being born.   The other 300+ million are fighting to put a gun into his hands.  It got there completely unintentionally, but that is how the speculum bounces.

 

 

the competence of anarchy

Synopsis of The Orthodoxy of Arrogance

Mordichai (Moritz) Lebenschizt was raised by Orthodox Jewish parents. After his parents are killed when he is 11, he settles in Schaan, Liectenstein. There he learns to suppress his Jewish tendencies, among other things. The year is 1928 and Mordichai sees a crazy Jew hating man rising out of the ashes of WWI. Mordichai becomes Moritz, a more Christian sounding name. He never has a bar mitzvah and never grows payess like his father. Moritz has a hard rebellious bend. He is brash, arrogant, and pompous, with a knack for charming people.

In 1935 he meets Hannah Krankenstein in the Haage during a protest against the National Socialist Party. Hannah was also orphaned but became reclusive, introverted and reticent. Moritz found her to be charmed by him. She hung on his word and fed his enormous ego. By 1939 they had settled in the town of Dachau, Germany. There they curtailed their Judaism and flew under the Nazi radar. They would escape through a tunnel to a beer hall in Munich when the Gestapo came calling. By 1944 they were tired of playing the game.

Hannah and Moritz make their way a night through Munich. They follow the Rhine south along the Austrian border to Switzerland. They board a train destined for La Harve, France. In a small apartment in Le Harve they wait out the war. Moritz has built a small sailboat. In the fall of 1945 they make their way with their boat to a beach at Calais. At the narrowest point, the cross the English Channel to Dover. After spending a few weeks in South Hampton they get on an ocean liner to New York as “displaced persons.” They are married by the captain of the ship.

In referrence to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC:

"This museum will touch the life of everyone who enters and leave everyone forever changed--

a piece of deep sadness and a sanctuary of bright hope; an ally of education

against ignorance, of humility against arrogance..."

--William J Clinton

free to be (malicious)

The Ballad of

The Gun-toting hippie

 (a dissertation by a concerned citizen)

 

Columbine, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Aurora, Tucson, Oregon, Connecticut…

Self-Righteousness fits like a gun in a holster and the 2^nd amendment was

Written for fun, so we could be amused; its words are salient and trite and

We are the militia; well-regulated to fight with automatic weapons- forget the muskets and pitch-forks farmer had- we have rounds that can fire on the free repeatedly, helplessly they think they

Can retaliate after their hand’s blown clean from the bone, the bubelehs savor a chance

Of winning against hell-bent minds trained to kill, snapped by pills and, most importantly,

Free of fear of reprisal- they don’t care- they have nothing left to lose- and prison or hell, anything

Man or God can impose never reached their brain;

You’ve seen James Holmes in court with red hair taunting his scalp, silent, remorseless,

Truly free and brave in America while the well-regulated militia is watching Batman work

His vigilante magic they get blown away- and the heroes have guns- they have the papers

To show, to carry, but they left it at home (damn) well, better luck next time they think- if they live

To see the next time.

It’s self-righteous bullshit and the high horse refuses to stoop; the right ones say “I can carry a gun and

No one is going to deny me the right to do that” even if doing so has consistently allowed guns to fall

Into the hands of people who would be better off dead- fear not- they’ll take you with them and you can

Both buy guns freely in the next life- which has gotta be more permissive than this one-no bleeding hearts trying to save some hearts from doing likewise…

You hate me, but we watch the same violence over and over and over again- the difference is you’re

A principled individual, a generation Xer who sees a dying breed, a mock rag-a-muffin citizen who never gave Amendments 1 through 2 a through read- Yes, I picture you, as you picture yourself, out on the plains, the plowed fields with the sun painting them red, jumping fences with dignity,  holding your God-given gun- bravely you hunt and protect us, thanks so much, you are a credit to generation dead.

 

Silent vigils pour in churches- the militia’s last resort- and candles flicker for the new round of automatic dead; and now we see the three-foot coffins while parents stare at Christmas  presents that will remain wrapped- a vain America refuses to tap- cause the song says we’re the home of the free; MR. Key couldn’t have been wrong- it was a damn poem and not a song etched in stone-  How ‘bout “home of the free” etched on a tombstone- rest in peace with your guns, amend my will now to line my coffin with my permit and cross my heart with my gun as pennies blind my eyes to the violence.

The total hypocrisy of the Right pisses me off to no end, the self-centered rants masquerading as freedom for all.  Suppose a better half of the country doesn’t care to be “free” to be groped at the airport.  What if a larger percent of Americans don’t care to be free to carry guns that will 9 times out of ten be left at home or in their holsters when they’re needed.  

Think outside of the box.  The world has changed since the minute-men were the militia and the 2^nd Amendment’s ink was fresh and all of its words were read and made sense.

Yes, guns are on the streets and will never be silenced- and people with guns kill people with or without guns and it might be the person without a gun who enabled a crazy person to get a gun- to purchase it as easily as they would- would it encroach on precious rights if you had to wait say…an extra week or two for your gun?  Would this obliterate the constitution you timidly hide behind as nary a month goes by mass-murder free?

Would this concept of controlling the acquisition of guns to save lives be too much- would it fly in the face of democracy- to possibly save the lives of those recently born whose unborn “lives” you champion?

Would that be too much- conjure too much rational thought for smart peoples cut from a flag rarely flown at full-staff?

I’m not on my knees- begging for scraps of sanity- collating for some rational thought- hoping for educated minds to see the big picture- the vicious cycles they ride with such confidence; it’s alright-

I just won’t go to movie theaters anymore

Preaching to acquire another catche of liars

                The RNC and DNC were chock full of sound bites.  One bit off more than the other could chew, and swallow; you be the judge.  I watched the DNC almost in its entirety.  The parade of governors and attorneys general to grace the podium in North Carolina seemed endless.  I had my favorites; those who said what I hoped was the God’s honest truth; not the media’s truth, or the truth that is created in backrooms of partisan lobbies.

Truth speakers

 Michelle Obama spoke from the heart; bless her’s, because she wasn’t saddled with her husband’s agenda.  Bill Clinton may have spoken the truth as only he could know it.  He spoke plainly and told us the secret formula that the republicans had contrived to trickle down was made from simple arithmetic.    The 42^nd president seemed like the only one up there qualified to tell the truth.  He found an economy ravaged by 8 years of Reaganomics where 2 coins were dropped at the top and hoped would find a poorer hole like a pin-ball.  He worked through the 90’s to do things the Democratic way; from the middle out, not giving favor to the most privileged and hoping a random silver ball will land in the lap of middle-class America.  Bill said he left office with a balanced budget.  I know there are many who will refute this, but the numbers lie somewhere in that truth-keeping lock-box.  I do know he spent the next decade watching his successor deliberately dismantle everything he had done whether it was right or wrong.  Joe Biden was angry; he was passionate if not pedantic.  He stated his praise and loyal friendship for his boss.  He told more personal stories than the republicans.  He told why he was Joe Biden; he told passionately why he was the VP that 4 years had shown us.  A law student told us the future women would see in a Romney-Ryan administration.  She spoke of fighting battles they had won.  I knew that was the truth.  Romney and Ryan would roll back time until before Roe V Wade and women would feel the pressure of the decisions they face.  When the president spoke I listened for sound bites of truth.  How many jobs did he create?  Was it enough?  I have no doubt he saved millions of jobs and the auto industry.  I have heard conservatives say the auto makers should be allowed to fail.  John or Jane Doe depend on the job the industry provides them.  The industry goes, so does that job.  Obama did the compassionate thing with the families’ immediate future and ability to pursue happiness in mind.  The words rang true to me.

                I watched as much of the RNC as I could take.  I had a strong sense that what I heard out of Paul Ryan’s mouth was fixed to knock Obama out of commission.  It felt like the DNC at least made a little more effort to report the facts; not write fiction as the convention goes.  I really felt the democrats had a plan, and the reiterated it well, even if it didn’t pan out as planned.  But we all know that is really not Obama’s fault.  That is the fault of politics.  It is the fault of congress and people who loiter in lobbies.  Our president has said several times he is willing to listen to ideas from anyone.  He was humble in his speech and easily admitted his failings, which is more than I ever heard from his predecessor.  I believe President Obama is a victim of politics.  If he loses in November, his administration will be a casualty of frustration by a nation that can’t read between 2 party lines.  It will be out of a frustration that the tea partiers and the libertarians were never given a viable chance.

Too close to lie together

                I am eagerly waiting for the debates in October.  Each man may be forced to tell how it is; we may finally hear what Mitt Romney will do to wrap up the close of the Afghan war Obama’s watch began.  The moderator will see them side by side, judge them, like God or an Idol judge and reveal to us, in real time, who speaks the truth.-

 

cards stacked against us

One born every minute.  Health insurance is designed to make you a loser; poorer while making a CEO much, much, much richer.  It is flawed and geared to exacerbate the condition and flesh out its longevity by preying on those who are the most neurotic and have the lowest thresholds of pain.  Sure it is a gamble (possibly a greater gamble than any casino has seen) to not have it.  The only carriers who may possibly beat “the house” are hypochondriacs or the chronically ill.  For a single person to have insurance, cheap insurance; basic coverage which still carries a deductible the cost would be at least 2,000 dollars a year.  If this person goes in for an annual physical with no insurance it could cost 300 dollars.

The big kahuna

Long gone are the days when a hospital would admit you for a broken leg.  They set it, you hobble home and return for subsequent visits for casting and X-rays, all of which will appear on an itemized bill.  I had and appendectomy in the 80’s and I remember being in the hospital for at least a week.  I did my therapy during that stay to increase my lung volume.   A typical night in a hospital could cost from 3-5 thousand dollars.  If this were the case, the insured may possibly win one.  The cost would likely cover any deductible.  So, say you had to pay 3,000 for a bill from a night at the hospital, plus the 170 dollars a month for the basic plan.  That’s 2,040 dollars you’ve paid out over a year.  If the insurance covers the hospital bill entirely, you might actually be able to say you bucked the system for 960 dollars, in theory.

Repeat pretenders

I used to work in medical records.  The chart, or online record, for a 50 year old person might include as many as 2 Dr. visits per week.   That’s a conservative estimate of 2,040 visits in a lifetime.  Often this person has been seen for a chronic illness beginning in their youth and escalating in older age to multiple visits to the ER.   The bulk of the visits are during years in which the person can still be covered on their parents’ plan.  When someone is this sick, either mentally or physically (or both) they might be able to give the HMO’s a run for “their” money.  Many times I would read notes of infants’ visits that might have a diagnosis of “fussy baby.”  The worried mother, possibly unprepared and scared, weaknesses the HMO would subtly work to their advantage, could bring her child in every week for the first 10 years of its life.  Pediatricians must make a bundle.

A necessity?

Or is it a luxury?  Is it profitable or a liability.  It is certainly profitable, although most often not to you.  Not having it could be a big liability and having it will almost always be one.   Don’t go to the doctor so they can pick up your hat.  A sprain is a sprain and you should not pay even a 10 dollar co-pay to find out it is one and you should rest it.  Do you think Charles Ingalls summoned Doc Baker every time his mule kicked him in the shin?  I’m not talking about blood in your stool.  There something could be wrong that would require invasive surgery incurring costs that could provide you with a shot at recouping your losses of monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

Remember when you were young and insurance was the farthest thing from your mind?  Say you dad was a lawyer and had excellent health insurance.  The doctor would hastily give your mother a referral for a follow-up visit while you flew across the room on that little black stool.  She’d bring it out and the nurse would cheerfully make another appointment.  Just remember what your doctor gave you at the end of those visits.