My part of Oregon has been hit by a heat wave which means for us 100 and high humidity, the kind where nothing dries very fast. This morning, at 6:30, I got in from helping move irrigation pipe which is the only reason we can run the livestock on this place that we do.
Unhook, then lift the metal pipes (40'), carry them, hook them up again, turn on the pump, and water is thrown onto a new part of the field. The cattle particularly like it right now as they will stand in the spray to get cooled and keep the flies off. This morning we had the pipes moved before the sun came up and a darned good thing too as it's going to be a scorcher again.
Yesterday, for the first time this season, we hooked up the room a/c unit. Normally our creek cools off our house at night but this heat wave is one with little or no breeze and now about 65 at night. If we had this kind of temperature more often, we'd have air conditioning but we don't. We get it for a few days some years, sometimes a few weeks but rarely for long.
Yesterday we watched Titanic. We hadn't even owned a copy, but I got a yen for it We found you can get some of the DVDs very reasonably (new) on eBay. It was a good day to watch ice bergs although I can't say it cooled me that much. The waterworks, that it always inspires, didn't either.
I read that the Congress is going to compromise on the health care bill and not have a public option... Uh yeah right compromise. Basically it means they have desperately, both parties, been looking for a way to keep those profits flowing to the insurance companies. Supposedly this is done in the name of bi-partisanship. Horse pucky or some such phrase.
Congress is in the pocket of the big corporations, and they never wanted a public option. They want the health care business to remain profitable and not benefit the lower working class. They just waited to make it look like it wasn't a choice on the left.
If they do this, mandate insurance, with no competitive public option, it will explain why the insurance companies liked this all along. They have a captive market that has to pay what they choose. Monopolies don't make for competition.
If Congress dislikes public health care so much, why do they have it? Why do they have it for $35 a month, no co-pay and no deductible (which is what I read they have for their insurance)? I get it, public option health care is only bad for everybody else.
Universal insurance won't be free. You can bet on that. They will decide if you can pay for it and that will likely take into account what you have in the bank. It won't let you opt to buy braces for your daughter and take the chance that you won't all get sick. Supposedly this will make it cheaper for everyone. That remains to be seen without a public option. The insurance mandate is not like the automobile where we have a choice on driving. This will be if you are alive.
To me, the public option made it viable to take a risk on this mandate. If that's not in there, I don' t trust them at all about the rest. :(
Bill Maher has been saying that there are some things that should not be for profit (I know, a weird attitude for Americans to espouse), and one of those used to be people's health care. I am old enough to remember doctors making house calls and when ordinary people could afford health care without paying a lot of money for insurance. It's been a lot of years though and I don't see how this will make it better. There will be more transferring of money from the richer to the less well off, the government will go more deeply into debt, and for what?
I can already bet on who will disagree with me on this. They have insurance and don't have to fear a catastrophic illness that leads to bankruptcy or death.
(Tomorrow will begin 5 blogs, with photos, on our recent trip to Klamath Lake. Narrowing those photos down to a few was really tough this time. Experiencing them was not.)
Rain I have some issues with Bill Maher I confess...However even Maher makes sense once in awhile...
ReplyDeleteThe minute the Congress and the President took the single-payer option off the table we should have known that they were all in the pockets of Big Pharma, the insurance industry and the AMA. Until the system completely collapses there will never be real reform. I would like to be positive, but it's getting harder.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking that if we don't get the public option on the bill then we have to admit that Congress belongs to the corporations. We're only good for our measly one vote, and then we should just be quiet and let the corporations get rich at our expense. I remember when Blue Cross was a non-profit.
ReplyDeleteI hope the heatwave passes quickly and you get back to your temperate climate. Stay cool.
I guess that is easy for Bill Maher to say since he probably makes $5 to $10 million a year for working a few hours a week. Maybe TV talks show hosts should be non-profit. If he is serving such a vital service to the American public maybe he should only make $100k per year.
ReplyDeleteSorry you are having to endure this heat. And with humidity too. It was 108 where I was working yesterday and no shade anywhere to be found.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't saying nobody should make a profit, ingineer. He said maybe there should be some things that aren't about the almighty buck. In this country that is indeed heresy. Health care didn't use to be the big profit issue that is today and health insurance didn't used to be such a huge part of a person's budget. And you know nothing about what he donates to causes; so maybe you should take your own advice and not judge a situation where you don't know.
ReplyDeleteAnd anything Maher makes is a choice that someone has whether they contribute to it through watching him or attending his shows. Kind of like sports stars...
ReplyDeleteYes people make money in health care but personally I do not like the idea of having my doctor be the low bidder on a government contract. Most doctors and nurses do not just get into the business to make money. Obama's class envoy campaign is not good for America. He always targets Wall Street and now doctors.
ReplyDeleteAs for things that used to not be about money. Congress used to not be about cashing in either. And firemen used to be volunteers and now they make upwards of $200k per year in some places. College professors make big money too and tuition costs have risen much faster than inflation, but you never hear about that from the main stream media.
Drug companies need to have a profit margin to have money to develop new drugs. It is ming boggling the hoops that need to be gone through to get new drugs on the market. And many of todays drugs truly perform miracles. But if you need old fashioned drugs they are incredibly cheap. If you need Vicodin or a plain old anti-biotic the cash price is less than the normal copay on many of them. It is only the new wonder drugs that are expensive.
You are right I have not seen Bill Maher's 1040. He probably donates like Al Gore does. He donates less cash to charity than I do, but he deducts the time he spends on charitable causes and counts that as a lot.
The class envy I see from the right is of the educated people and it's why they disliked Gates so much without knowing him, why they automatically believed the worst about him and the best about the police officer-- again knowing neither. You don't watch Maher, know nothing about him but have made a judgment because he doesn't say what you prefer hearing.
ReplyDeleteAt least you are honest though. You have good insurance and don't have to fear it being canceled due to a health problem; and so it's all about protecting your coverage that you are concerned. Those that 'have' often fear losing it to change.
The problem a lot of Americans are facing is they aren't like you with a good government program. They have insurance that is marginal and if they get cancer, they are tossed from that. They work at jobs, where paying the full cost of insurance, which is sky high if you don't happen to know that, is more than they can afford and still eat. You fear government insurance and yet think it's fine for veterans. It makes no sense but I have said all along that the right operates from emotion, not logic.
Now I fear mandating insurance because I don't think the insurance companies will do like Congress hopes and watch their costs. I think they are the big winners already and will be even more so if this new program goes through forcing everyone to pay for insurance.
I would like to see single payer for everybody, and let us work it out with everybody having the same thing.I suspect it'd be our best bet at truly fair coverage but it won't happen. It doesn't suit the dollars and your fear that you won't get coverage, well right now your insurance company decides what doctors you can see, how much care you get. It's not the medical profession but the dollars that determine it. You trust them?
The major cost of bankruptcy in this country today is medical. And when your kids are not covered by your insurance, you might find out what can happen if one gets sick. Suddenly you would have to figure out how to pay for it and might be a little more sympathetic to those who work hard but can't get ahead; then along comes something catastrophic and it's all over for them economically. I read a blog where the guy wanted to upgrade his coverage and was denied because he takes a statin and had an enlarged prostate at one time. You aren't to the age yet to find out what that is like to have perfectly treatable problems and be denied full coverage because of them. When the day comes you are, you might look at this differently.
ReplyDeleteI love debating with you. I have a lot to say and no time to say it now. Maybe later tonight.
ReplyDeleteI just finished watching the AARP sponsored Town Hall meeting with President Obama where they talked about medical insurance reform. He still considers the government option to be on the table but of course he alone can not be sure of making that happen. What he said did make sense to me. I do have a Medicare Advantage plan and I fully expect to loose benefits or see my premium increase, probably some of both, due to these changes. But he is right in that there is an unmeasurable but probably considerable cost to all of us for having so many uninsured people in the country.
ReplyDeleteI have not had a chance to read everything yet, but I KNOW that COngress has a super health care plan...and I think that they ought to allow us the same plan. If they don't then I think we should NOT re-elect the whole bunch! get in a whole new congress...I know it will take several elections, but it would be worth it to get the old crooks out!
ReplyDeleteCheck out this link from Bloomberg on what we pay for health care now vs what we get.
ReplyDeleteIngineer66 I don't begrude Bill Maher making a lot of money if he is worth it. Whatever the market will bear eh? And capitalists should not view Maher with a jaundiced eye based on what he makes for a living, because, truth be told,most of us would accept it ourselves if we could get it.
ReplyDeleteLiving here in the UK, I have been following this debate with interest. I have one simple question:
ReplyDeleteAnyone know a poor doctor in the US?
Paul I do not begrudge Bill Maher for making a ton of money just like I do not begrudge sports stars or movie stars for their salaries. What I do not like is his hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of many on the left. They think it is ok for them to make money but they should be able to dictate what other people should make. Doctors go through hell to get to be able to practice medicine and deserve to be well compensated. The ones that make the most money do not even take insurance, ie plastic surgeons and the ones like Michael Jackson's doctors. Like you said what the market will bear.
ReplyDeleteAnd ainelivia I do not know any poor doctors, but I know some that make considerably less than they use to. And I do not know any poor lawyers either. We could do with a few less of them over here especially in Washington DC.
Bill Maher didn't say he begrudged people making money. he said there should be some things that are not about profit. Would you say for instance that churches should be about profit? Say buy your way to heaven like indulgences? Do you like the idea of during a time when wages were stagnant, where many lost everything in the stock market, that insurance companies profits went up 400%? Do you think greed has any downside to anybody? When they kept raising those rates, they also were cutting a lot of people out of even being able to buy insurance. Have a preexisting condition? Forget it!
ReplyDeleteYou have a good insurance police working for the state but you could find your job gone and learn what happens to others. It doesn't take much to throw a family into bankruptcy today. Lose your job? You can get cobra. Afford cobra without a job? Are you kidding! Then you don't have insurance and your wife gets a health problem that is quite treatable, say hysterectomy, but no insurance and what do you do?
What Maher was saying is that at one time groups like Blue Cross were non-profit and they weren't all about making money. They provided jobs for their employees and gave the public a chance to get over being sick without losing their homes. They didn't just have a profit goal. Why do you think they rose their rates so much during a time of everybody else in trouble? Because they could, that's why.
So you keep admiring the ones who take the money from the rest of us and that isn't Maher as he only gets what others choose to pay him to give. Not quite the same with big insurance executives is it?
And this isn't really to protect the doctors who are dictated to by insurance companies already. They are under the thumb of business people and it's about as effective as when suits run wars. People with no real understanding of anything but profit are making your health choices right now.
The big money is in insurance, not in practicing medicine. While our rates have gone up, our actual care has gone down. We pay over $2 trillion for the care that costs under $1 trillion. The thing is you somehow support that even against your own best interests. You are told to be afraid of public health care and ignore the excellent care our veterans are getting today, that Congress gets, that medicare people get. You ignore that because you are listening and reading people who tell you to fear socialism more than having a loss of job, catastrophic illness and bankruptcy costing you everything you worked for to date.
Incidentally who do you get your information from?
Jonathan Alter of Newsweek had a good piece on this: Health care, who needs health care reform!
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