Missing from the Health Care Debate

A significant portion of the country (under 65) does not have access to the best health care. Yet, do we not ALL contribute to taxes that fund new research, drugs, public hospitals, and new techniques? Aside from the moral issue of medical bankruptcies and choosing between food and health care, there is something also fundamentally wrong with all of us helping pay for the best medical care that is available to only the wealthiest portions of our citizenry.

It takes a MASSIVE effort to place a patient in front of a doctor in a hospital with resources to treat a problem. You have: years of public schools and public universities; student and professional testing boards; student loans or scholarships; internships in public hospitals (or private ones that might have some public funding); years of public review of drugs; equipment and drugs that were developed with public research money; hospitals built with generations of technical and professional knowledge and civic oversight; agencies that monitor safety and qualifications; laws and courts that keep the system honest and stable; investments that are monitored and regulated publicly to instill confidence and ensure a flow of money; regulations that keep patients safe; etc.. This represents a HUGE PUBLIC EFFORT that all taxpayers pay for.

If the powerful engines of government, taxation, public university hospitals, medical schools, research funding (not a small amount), etc only exist because of the work and taxes of ALL of us, why do only a portion of us get to benefit from them? Isn’t that wrong? Why isn’t this part of the discussion?

Additionally, why does the Baucus bill cost so much? Can’t we just pass laws that limit immoral corporate activity (like cherry-picking patients and denying coverage and buying legislators)? Why does stopping the pillaging of citizenry wealth by insurance companies (or greedy unregulated mortgage houses) have to cost the taxpayers? Are we somehow thinking about paying the insurance companies NOT to rip us off so badly? Are we doing something about compensation, like the CEO of United Health Care who received more than 1 billion dollars for less than a decade’s worth of work? Or will we be giving money away again so that disproportionate CEO and Board compensation is preserved?

I don’t get it!

Bob Basso, the 21st Century Thomas Paine?

I think Bob Basso is brilliant. A tip of the tri-cornered hat to him for his energetic portrayal of Thomas Paine! Basso’s anger, convictions, and beliefs are clear and compelling. His costume is resplendent and convincing.

While good, it is not his acting skill or his clothing that I think is brilliant. Neither do I think brilliant his literal message promoting uniculture and anti-tolerance with the goal of arousing the citizenry toward a second revolution to “stop the destruction of America.” What is brilliant, in my mind, is the conversion of an American icon away from its original meaning into its near polar opposite and the recognition of how effective that is in reducing the quality of public discourse into simplified ideological myths that are to be followed rather than understood.

Thomas Paine was an American revolutionary, thinker, intellectual, activist, and author of one of the most popular and important books ever published. Thomas Edison writes that, literally, there might not have been an American Revolution without Thomas Paine and Common Sense. Being highly skeptical of powerful institutions – governmental, corporate, aristocratic, and religious – he was a grass roots rebel. His skepticism and concern arose from his convictions about democracy: that a ruling elite shouldn’t have power over a larger underclass; that there should be free, universal, public education; that science and justice should not be subjugated to politics or religion; and that women should have equal rights. He argued for concepts and themes that included a living/minimum wage, government medical assistance, housing assistance, social security, food assistance, and more. He was against offensive wars. Read more »