Friday, December 18, 2009

R.I.P. Health care Reform

Huffington Post says that there's a "Full Blown Revolt on Health Care."

There's a lot of talk that the public isn't buying the fact that the Democrats are doing all that they can to make the watered down bill that is now on life support, to match at least the better components of the early bill.

With stories like this ... who can blaim them?

Health insurers have been among the most vocal participants in the debate. Through the first nine months of 2009, the health services and HMO industry has spent $52.8 million and used 988 lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That's almost 12 percent more than the amount spent during the same time period in 2008.

WellPoint, the largest U.S. health insurance company, spent $3.5 million on federal lobbying in the first nine months of 2009, according to federal disclosures. WellPoint's executives also have been actively making the company's case."

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are people who are getting rich off of us being sick, not eating well and dying. On my other blog (Mind Of A Media Junkie)I talk about animal rights, food equality and things of that nature, but I ALSO talk about the fact that food, and the right to healthy food, should be just as much of a part of the discussion about health care as adequate coverage affordability. We have sold our health to Wall Street, we have sold our food to Monsanto and from here the story gets bleak.

Right now the average American spends 17% of their annual incpme on JUST paying for healthcare, that doesn't account for ever being sick, thats just to continue to stay covered by the insurance you already have. We pay more in this country in insurance premiums than ANY other country in the world. The debate at this point, usually swings to the point that we have the "best healthcare system in the world." Really? You want the facts on that too?

From the NY Times:

Insurance coverage. All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefit packages with no cost-sharing by the patients. The United States, to its shame, has some 45 million people without health insurance and many more millions who have poor coverage. Although the president has blithely said that these people can always get treatment in an emergency room, many studies have shown that people without insurance postpone treatment until a minor illness becomes worse, harming their own health and imposing greater costs.

Access. Citizens abroad often face long waits before they can get to see a specialist or undergo elective surgery. Americans typically get prompter attention, although Germany does better. The real barriers here are the costs facing low-income people without insurance or with skimpy coverage. But even Americans with above-average incomes find it more difficult than their counterparts abroad to get care on nights or weekends without going to an emergency room, and many report having to wait six days or more for an appointment with their own doctors.

Fairness. The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens. Americans with below-average incomes are much less likely than their counterparts in other industrialized nations to see a doctor when sick, to fill prescriptions or to get needed tests and follow-up care.

Healthy lives. We have known for years that America has a high infant mortality rate, so it is no surprise that we rank last among 23 nations by that yardstick. But the problem is much broader. We rank near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60, and 15th among 19 countries in deaths from a wide range of illnesses that would not have been fatal if treated with timely and effective care. The good news is that we have done a better job than other industrialized nations in reducing smoking. The bad news is that our obesity epidemic is the worst in the world.

Quality. In a comparison with five other countries, the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States first in providing the “right care” for a given condition as defined by standard clinical guidelines and gave it especially high marks for preventive care, like Pap smears and mammograms to detect early-stage cancers, and blood tests and cholesterol checks for hypertensive patients. But we scored poorly in coordinating the care of chronically ill patients, in protecting the safety of patients, and in meeting their needs and preferences, which drove our overall quality rating down to last place. American doctors and hospitals kill patients through surgical and medical mistakes more often than their counterparts in other industrialized nations.

Life and death. In a comparison of five countries, the United States had the best survival rate for breast cancer, second best for cervical cancer and childhood leukemia, worst for kidney transplants, and almost-worst for liver transplants and colorectal cancer. In an eight-country comparison, the United States ranked last in years of potential life lost to circulatory diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes and had the second highest death rate from bronchitis, asthma and emphysema. Although several factors can affect these results, it seems likely that the quality of care delivered was a significant contributor.

Patient satisfaction. Despite the declarations of their political leaders, many Americans hold surprisingly negative views of their health care system. Polls in Europe and North America seven to nine years ago found that only 40 percent of Americans were satisfied with the nation’s health care system, placing us 14th out of 17 countries. In recent Commonwealth Fund surveys of five countries, American attitudes stand out as the most negative, with a third of the adults surveyed calling for rebuilding the entire system, compared with only 13 percent who feel that way in Britain and 14 percent in Canada.

That may be because Americans face higher out-of-pocket costs than citizens elsewhere, are less apt to have a long-term doctor, less able to see a doctor on the same day when sick, and less apt to get their questions answered or receive clear instructions from a doctor. On the other hand, Gallup polls in recent years have shown that three-quarters of the respondents in the United States, in Canada and in Britain rate their personal care as excellent or good, so it could be hard to motivate these people for the wholesale change sought by the disaffected.

Use of information technology. Shockingly, despite our vaunted prowess in computers, software and the Internet, much of our health care system is still operating in the dark ages of paper records and handwritten scrawls. American primary care doctors lag years behind doctors in other advanced nations in adopting electronic medical records or prescribing medications electronically. This makes it harder to coordinate care, spot errors and adhere to standard clinical guidelines.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Commonwealth Fund says, "Among the six nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity. The 2007 edition includes data from the six countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care."


Need I say more? I truly feel that if the President, Senators and Congressmen, don't truly act to pass reform in the way that benefits the American populace at large, we will have yet again, another lame duck President.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment



I sit and I watch this ... and I can only weep, knowing that my country, the place of my birth, will NOT be the place I call home ever again. This is a country that will concede to the deaths of it's citizens in the name of political expediency, and in the name of politics. Of that I can not, WILL not oblige.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

I am NOT an American

I would like to think that I'm a pretty balanced, well thought out man. Who both hates and loves the country that he lives in ... well because it's where he was born, it afforded him opportunities that he wouldn't have otherwise .. and well this ... the ability to say what I'm about to say. As of January 1, 2010, I will no longer be an American. I will do everything in my power to expedite my departure from the US as soon as humanly possible. I will NEVER say the Pledge of Allegiance again, I will NEVER vote again and I will NEVER claim that I'm anything other than a citizen of the world. America is a fucked place. I've known that while I sat watching the protests for Gulf War Part Deux and heard the President calling 10 million people a "focus group." I realized it, when the SAME people who were at the helm of the ship that caused this economy to crash, were given the keys to the liquor cabinet in the captain's quarters and told to "drink up." Not sure what I mean?

How much is $140 billion?
The U.S. economy grew at a $89 billion annualized rate in the third quarter. That was the first growth since the second quarter of 2008 and came to $22 billion in actual growth in the third quarter.
The bankers, after causing the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression, are rewarded with six times the growth accomplished so far in the much heralded “economic recovery.”
Meanwhile, seven million families face foreclosure and 25 million Americans can’t find full time work.

Think about that ... then there's HEALTHCARE. On my other blog (http://mindofamediajunkie.blogspot.com) I often talk about the costs of obesity and poor nutrition play into the ever escalating costs of Healthcare. Here's some facts from 2008:

Last month, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health came out with another report, in what has been a parade of dire warnings about obesity in the United States. In a study published in the July issue of Obesity, they concluded that unless our eating habits or exercise habits change, 86 percent of the American population will be overweight or obese by 2030. More than a third of American adults—over 72 million people—were obese in 2005 and 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The obese are more susceptible to an array of health problems, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Widespread obesity also means that today's children may even have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. (Newsweek).

Here's an article from 2009:

Americans who are 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight cost the country an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills in 2008, double the amount a decade ago, according to a study by government scientists and the non-profit research group RTI International.

America is the ONLY Democracy on the PLANET, that doesn't offer some sort of "universal" healthcare to it's citizens. Let me repeat that ... AMERICA IS THE ONLY DEMOCRACY ON THE PLANET THAT DOESNT OFFER SOME SORT OF "UNIVERSAL" COVERAGE TO IT'S CITIZENS.

The following information is from Wikipedia:

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage" (i.e. some kind of insurance).[21][22] The same Institute of Medicine report notes that "Lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States." [21] while a 2009 Harvard study published in the American Journal of Public Health found a much higher figure of more than 44,800 excess deaths annually in the United States due to Americans lacking health insurance.[23][24] More broadly, the total number of people in the United States, whether insured or uninsured, who die because of lack of medical care was estimated in a 1997 analysis to be nearly 100,000 per year.[25]
(full post here.)

more from the same post:

Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 16% of GDP, second only to East Timor (Timor-Leste) among all United Nations member nations.[10] The health share of GDP is expected to continue its historical upward trend, reaching 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017.[30][31] Of each dollar spent on health care in the United States 31% goes to hospital care, 21% goes to physician services, 10% to pharmaceuticals, 8% to nursing homes, 7% to administrative costs, and 23% to all other categories (diagnostic laboratory services, pharmacies, medical device manufacturers, etc.[2]

The Office of the Actuary (OACT) of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publishes data on total health care spending in the United States, including both historical levels and future projections.[32] In 2007, the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439 per person, up from $2.1 trillion, or $7,026 per capita, the previous year.[33] Spending in 2006 represented 16% of GDP, an increase of 6.7% over 2004 spending. Growth in spending is projected to average 6.7% annually over the period 2007 through 2017. Health insurance costs are rising faster than wages or inflation, and medical causes were cited by about half of bankruptcy filers in the United States in 2001.[34]

This is from the Kaiser Family Foundation (not to be confused with Kaiser-Permanente)

The high and growing cost of health care is a significant issue for people, businesses, and government. Spending on health care, which is a projected to be 17.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, has consistently grown faster than the economy overall since the 1960s. This fact sheet presents some of the key statistics about the level and growth of health care costs and spending in the U.S. Links to additional resources are provided at the end of the document.
Overall Spending According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the U.S. is projected to spend over $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, or $8,160 per U.S. resident (Exhibit 1).1 Health spending in 2009 is projected to account for 17.6% of GDP.

• In 1970, U.S. health care spending was about $75 billion, or $356 per resident, and accounted for7.2% of GDP.
• Health care spending has risen about 2.4 percentage points faster than GDP since 1970.
• CMS projects that by 2018, health care spending will be over $4.3 trillion, or $13,100 per resident,and account for 20.3% of GDP.

(10.6%), Japan (8.1%), and the United Kingdom (8.4%). Switzerland was a distant second to the U.S., devoting an estimated 11.3% of GDP to health care.

This document can be found here.

Yet we have "tea baggers" liars, republicans, democrats, lobbyists, etc etc, ad nauseum, who say that this bill will cost too much money. We gave full reign of the economy over to Wall Street, they slit our throats, and watch us bleed out right on the "Main Street" that President Obama refers to again and again. I may not be a genius ... but by ANY stretch of the imagination, this isn't right. As someone recently put it "America is VERY very broken and it won't be fixed anytime soon."

I'll close with this quote:

America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

Let me modify that a bit

America, just a nation of two hundred million lobbyists, making sure that you die as quickly as possible and leave all of your money to them.

FUCK you America.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Get this

The juvenile justice system in New York is so fucked up, according to a new report , that "the state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York's Family Court judges not to send youths to any [juvenile prisons] unless they are a significant risk to public safety." Yes, the agency that runs the prisons is begging courts not to send any kids to the prisons for kids because the prisons are too dangerous, for the criminals.

(From Gawker.com)

Oh and I'll be back later to rant about the LOVELY customer service experience, I've had twice today.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

And the rant is on

My last post was a bit wordy peppered with some posts from other people around the interwebs to show what things look like out here ... Feeling the chill yet? Anyway, I HAD to come back and post again. This little rant will be about that other thing you're not supposed to discuss with friends ... religion.

Let me start by saying ... I don't care what you believe, I don't care what God you put your faith in, I don't accept you or your belief system because it's YOURS. NOT mine. Get that distinction? You believe what you want and guess what .. I'll let you and not try to "convert" you .. BUT ... and this is the big one .. YOU have to let me believe what I WANT. Whether you like it or not. That means if I want to pray to a shrine of Tom Waits or a Saltine ... you have to LET me. Now with that said ... tolerance is a big deal here. My shrine won't beg you for money, it won't tell you what to believe or how it needs you to believe in it, because it is my shrine. I can point at it, make jokes about it, but still fulfill my "god-like" worshiping whenever I want. The reason that I bring this up (and I hate doing this because it gives some people free hits) is this douche:

http://notyrants.blogspot.com/

"The New Nazi Party!
It's Official! The Democrat Party has now become Thee New Nazi Party! The display of Thuggery this past few months has put the New Nazi Party on the map. These Modern Day Nazis want to control us from the “Womb to the Tomb”.

We all know by now the so-called Leader we have, would put a baby in a utility room, to die alone. So you Old People are next. You better start working on that Bucket List deal. You can bet your last devalued Dollar, with rationing Obamacare, I mean HEALTH Care, that there won't be room for Seniors.
Uh oh, as a 40 something year old, former Military, Right Wing extremist into the Constitution (I bet that word, Constitution will be outlawed soon) maybe I better start my own Bucket List."

Just simply unbelievable. I sat and read that at least 3 times, sitting with my jaw open and just thinking to myself. His God probably won't protect me. Again ... I will post more about this later.

Why I hate liberals/conservatives/GlenBeck/douchebaggery/etc.

So I woke up today in a better mood than usual, despite having watched about 4 minutes of Glen Beck's program last night before I fell asleep. I'm still in a relatively good mood, but I will say now that my faith in anything getting done right in this country anymore is just slipping away more day by day. See, I'm one of those weird people, who don't walk around chipper and smiling all day because ... well, because I'm not chipper and happy every day. In fact, I'd be the first to call me a bitter curmudgeon. The reason that I am that way? It's pretty simple really, I'm grumpy. I'm angry because of a LOT of things. Things that shouldn't make me angry but they do, things that I can do something about but sometimes don't and well ... just humanity in general. The phrase "you people really piss me off" flys out of my mouth more times than I can consider coincidence or happenstance ... but yet it does. I'm not a huge cheerleader for the human race, in fact .. in my more calloused moments, I issue poxes on people's psyche's. I'm a mental death dealer. But despite all of that, in my heart of heart, I believe that given the opportunity to really fuck up either your own life or someone else's, that MOST of humanity will work hard not to do that, but you other lazy fucks out there will just take the easy way out. Who gives a shit who it hurts. I'm a closet optimist. I don't spread that around, you never know when you may need to be cold, bitter and grumpy like me. Anywho, the reason for this little screed is that as I'm watching Douchebag Beck last night, he was ranting on and on about a book called Stand Up Straight (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/stand-up-straight-author-robert-creamer-invited-to-white-house_100286233.html) and how this guy was a convicted felon, blah blah blah blah blah. Listen folks if you think having a convicted felon at a State event is the WORST thing we've got going on ... let me lend you some voices from the "wilderness" of the American populace:

"I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT YOU COULD POSSIBLY HATE GLENN BECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HE IS ADORABLE AND SPEAKS NOTHING BUT TRUTH-HE CERTAINLY IS AN INSPRIRATION TO ME-
OBAMA IS A LIAR AND A THEIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT IS JUST SO REFRESHING TO SEE SOMEBODY WHO KNOWS HOW TO SMILE AND TELL THE TRUTH FOR A CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!
MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS GLENN BECK AND THE COUNTRY HE SO LOVES AND FIGHTS FOR TRUTH FOR!!!!!!!!!!
HE IS CERTAINLY MY HOME TOWN BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Glenn Beck is great American unlike you, you liberal loon. Liberalism is a sick weak philosophy that is rightly dying in the USA. The Wall Street Journal is thriving, the New York Times is going bankrupt, MSNBC, a pathetic liberal channel is being killed by Fox News which has millions of viewers.

Only 5 or 6 people will read your pathetic blog while the great Bill O'Reilly has 3 million viewers, not cool aid drinkers like yourself , but true Americans who think for themselves, a recent Poll showed that O'Reilly watchers were the best informed of all viewers.

I now going back to my Bill O'Reilly book, read by TENS OF THOUSANDS and still in the: "Top Ten bestseller" list after weeks and weeks. And leave you liberal losers to your powerless little blog, that's all you guys are capable of. Pathetic little bogs read by 3 people, YOUR TALK BACK RADIO IS A BORING FAILURE TOO.

L for liberal, L for loser."

"Republicans hate women ? its the Democrats that tried to destroy both Hillary and Sarah in the last election # one lie you just made
Obama and the Democrats are turning their backs on the Jewish nation # 2nd lie you just told
Democrats have no regard for History that shows by Democrats daily pissing on the Constitution # 3 lie you told
Truth boy your an idiot Obama's who life is a lie he lied about everything to get his ass into office # 4 lie you told
and if we hate gays so much why are the Gays running from the Democrats right now just like the Catholic and Independent voters are ? #5 lie you told
so in other words your just another stinking lying Democrat ..thats pretty easy to see"

I chose these three little quotes from random people on a few web sites. This is what America is now. I get the feeling out here that I may as well piss into the wind. The idea of "discourse" has now officially become tabloid. When the healthcare bill gets LESS publicity than Tiger Woods ... well you tell me ... what do YOU think? Me personally, I don't give two fucks who he's fucking or how fucked up his marriage is. Guess what ... he's a professional athlete. He's worth at least a BILLION dollars .. ok game over .. next. Get it? There are people DYING out here.. there are people who think that overtaking the government because the "liberals" are fucking it up and want to make it a violent, sexist, homophobic, christ loving (but only if it's OUR white gay bashing christ) nation. Yet THIS is what we chose to talk about? More to come later.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

So I'm being lazy ....

Work has really been kicking my ass lately so I havent had as much time to post anything but believe me ... when I have some more time, I'll be back to my old vitriolic self. Posting like a mad man ....in the meantime, I'm gonna be lazy and just post this:

engrish funny wild animal
see more Engrish

That's about all anyone can hope for anymore isn't it? Some wild animal love.