The Obama Health Care Plan Will Make You Sick

It is interesting that the Obama health care plan will cost more than 1.5 trillion dollars according to the Congressional budget office when European nations are able to provide universal care for their entire population at much less than ½ the cost. This only points out the reality that the Obama plan is nothing more than a political expedient which benefits the insurance industry (depending on which plan you read) , the Trial Lawyers Association, and the substantial minority of congressmen and senators with financial investments in the health care industry. Who loses? Doctors, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and YOU the taxpayer, YOU the consumer, YOU the recipient of health care, YOU the repayer of the national debt. Why is ABC giving the President an evening on television to promote his health care bill and refusing to allow debate or dissenting points of view? Why is the Kennedy committee in charge of writing a bill that has already failed during the Clinton administration and has no chance of bipartisan support, let alone represent the interests of the American public.
Have you noticed that senior citizens and AARP are largely silent on the issue? They could control the political tide, but President Obama has cleverly kept them out of the fray by exempting them from participation in the program. And why has Congress exempted itself out of the program? BECAUSE THE PROGRAM STINKS!
A look at successful programs in Europe and Asia gives us a blueprint of what does work. And in these programs 35 million people which the Obama plan excludes are covered.
1. A universal government sponsored program provides basic health care for all citizens
2. Employers are not coerced to buy insurance for employees at inflated prices
3. Individuals have the right to individually purchase additional health care insurance at their own discretion
4. Care is rationed according to need and financial ability to pay. Yes, rationed. In this country 90% of the individual health care dollar is spent during the last year of life. Does that make sense?!! No wonder the President exempts senior citizens. His program wouldn’t have a chance in hell of passing if he told seniors they can no longer get exhorbitant life extending care. The chief consideration that seems to dominate the social landscape is what’s in it for me. Kind of like the Congress.
The only way to evolve a rational health care policy for the nation is for the public to vote with their feet: write letters to Congress; talk among ourselves; vote congressmen out of office who vote for a program in which they will not participate.

Technology Got Me Down

As a technophobe I suffer from all of the insecurities and indignities of anyone ignorant of modern technology. In a reversal of the ancient rituals of respecting the elderly and indeed of seeking out the wisdom of the elderly I have to turn to my young daughter to operate my computer, to decipher software, and to even make me aware of what is now possible. It is enough that the modern age forces me to have 3 attorneys each of whom specialize in separate areas of law; I now have my computer consultant, my computer savvy daughter, and my computer using staff to advise and direct me. Then I have my web-advisor, my SEO specialist, and my web designer and web master. In fact they keep me in touch with the cyber world in which I participate. So you will excuse some of my skepticism as I ponder what are the advantages and disadvantages of this technologic wizardry.
While fascinated by the computer and the web and grateful for the power it gives to the individual versus the organization, has the mechanism advanced so far beyond the message that we risk losing an even greater proportion of our children to ignorance and zombie-like behavior. Web3.0 technology, my daughter tells me, is about to become available for the household. This technology is now being used on CNBC to bring data into a 3-dimensional cube with the wave of a show host’s finger. We saw this same technology on election eve when the vote tallies were being evaluated by states and regions and ethnic affiliations. Yet did the message change? At the end of the day, no matter how fascinating the presentation, Barak Obama still had the majority vote and the majority of the Electoral College. The message would have been the same whether an analyst had written it on a ledger sheet as Tim Russert did in the Nixon election, or whether Tom Brokaw used the dazzling impression of three dimensional technology on television.
The United States stands apart as the most advanced and wealthy country in the industrialized world. Yet our children test last in aptitude and achievement scores of the 7 largest industrialized countries of the world. Our gifted students rank last among these countries in terms of aptitude and achievement. Where will imagination come from if every child walks around robot-like, transfixed to the music transmitted to his ears through his iPod. Can anyone drive an automobile without talking on his cell phone? Can anyone date without on-line dating (I couldn’t)? Does everyone need reality TV because they don’t have a life?! Is it not apparent that our children read poorly, write poorly, and speak poorly? And I am communicating with some of our brightest students on the north shore of Chicago.
The greatest social advances, medical advances, philosophic advances are meaningless out of context and if not applied to appropriate situations. Why is technology different?

By the way my computer crashed this weekend and I had trouble with the firewall on another computer. I need to call Pete to get this fixed right away!