Still Angry

Hello readers, if any --

Haven't cooled off much in the past five days. A nasty ear infection hasn't exactly bettered my mood, and the collective wimpiness of our President and the Democrats is enough to remind me viscerally why I quit the Democratic Party so long ago! If this health care mess turns out to be more window-dressing behind pretty words, I will be more than tempted to barf on the steps of the Capitol, and I certainly will never again be suckered into working for any Democratic Presidential candidate. My finite resources and energy will be put into changing our utterly corrupt political system, instead.

As an object contrast, let me mention that my partner's father in Germany had to go into the hospital very unexpectedly three days ago. If you're not familiar with his situation, he's been on dialysis for 18 of the last 20 years (for two years, he had a transplanted kidney, but then the same virus that destroyed his own kidneys destroyed that one as well). Now, at 78, he is very frail, with osteoporosis as a result of the dialysis (he has broken both hips), but still able to walk and sometimes drive his car.

He suddenly developed a very high fever. Here's the German health system at work. His primary doctor, who lives nearby, came immediately when he was called on the phone and had the patient sent to the emergency room. Within a very short time they were in surgery. It turned out my father-in-law's appendix burst and had infected part of his intestines! He's going to stay in the hospital for quite a few days because his team of doctors know that his wife has a serious heart condition and cannot care for him when he needs lifting, etc.

My father-in-law paid into the German health care system all through his working life and now, as a retiree, continues to pay what we Americans would consider relatively high taxes. But in return, he and his wife and children don't have to worry about going bankrupt or losing the family home due to the costs of 18 years of dialysis and multiple surgeries for broken hips, carpal tunnel, cataracts, appendicitis, and more. Oh, I forgot his wife' s multiple stents and her scheduled open-heart surgery. And the large amount of prescription medication they have to take. Their four children were also able to attend excellent universities (one M.B.A., one medical doctor, one insurance broker, one professor) without having to pay any tuition (only living costs) in Germany. Their tax dollars have really worked for them. Their kids are all self-supporting, and they themselves, though not terribly well-off, are doing O.K. financially.

Contrast the peace of mind with which my in-laws can face surgery with the fear and worry of most Americans, who don't just have to deal with their apprehension about the procedure they're about to undergo, but also have to be terrified of the bills they'll have to pay! I absolutely cannot understand how anyone can think the U.S. system is anything but terminally dysfunctional. The worst thing, to me, is the knee-jerk, know-nothing, spiteful attitude of some who are out there ranting against health care reform: "I have to pay for my plan so nobody should get anything for free!"

Get this straight, people -- you are paying A LOT MORE for the uninsured now than you would under a well-implemented public option. Medicare works -- or it would if the Congress would stop looting its trust fund to pay for their pork -- and so would expanded Medicare, i.e. a single-payer plan. That's all "single-payer" is: Medicare for more people.

Here's the situation: we as a nation are not going to refuse people emergency care in order to cut costs -- we may not give them enough care, or the care they actually need, but they will get SOME kind of care. So all of us who pay taxes are paying local, state and federal taxes to support emergency services. If folks don't have health insurance because they can't afford it, they don't go to the doctor or a hospital until they have no choice, for fear of the expense. And it's much more expensive to have to intervene when someone is acutely ill than it is to give people regular preventive care, like annual check-ups or nutritional advice.

Now, I'm the first to agree that "health care reform" without a public option that cuts out the middle-man costs (the insurance industry's profit -- ugh, for-profit basic health care is SO grotesque and patently immoral) and provides real competition for the "health care industry," "reform" without a guarantee of regular preventive care, and "reform" without requiring some minimal level of cooperation and responsibility on the part of individuals, doesn't make sense. Of course, we can't expect the poor to avoid obesity when across the board, non-nutritious crud costs far less than really GOOD food, and really good food requires more shopping and preparation time as well as more bucks. But if we don't steer in that direction, our country will continue to be saddled with the staggering costs of avoidable chronic illness: some types of diabetes and heart disease leap to mind.

This is probably the last time in my useful lifetime that the United States of America has the chance to become a member of the community of truly civilized nations. If it's done right, it will actually save us all money, and it will remove a huge burden of fear. It will free small business owners from having to face a terrible choice, going out of business or cutting health insurance for loyal long-term employees. It will let the terminally ill concentrate on making the most of the time they have left, without having to dread the financial burden they will bequeathe to their families. It will liberate the many "health care serfs" who are now forced to go on working at jobs they hate, often under totally exploitative conditions, because if they quit, they will lose the health insurance they, their children, their spouse, or their parents need. It will take away a lot of obscene profit from giant insurance companies that have bled all of us to the bone for an unconscionably long time.

Let's do it. Get on the Internet, pick up the phone, take out a piece of paper, sacrifice some stamps and some time. Write your representatives, write anyone whose campaign you gave money to last year or this year. Don't hold back -- tell them you will not tolerate being cheated again. Tell them you will never give them another penny, and even if you can vote for them, you won't. Tell them what this monstrous for-profit non-system of "health care" of ours has done to you, your family members, your friends and neighbors. And give money to that handful of real public servants like Bernie Sanders, the independent Senator from Vermont, who is working 24/7 for the public option.

FIGHT.

If you don't fight, you have only yourselves to blame.

Bastion of Civilized Values

Hello readers, if any --

No apologies for the long "radio silence." I was on the road from May 21 to July 20, pretty much non-stop. Up the East Coast in my Smart car (a really fun ride, 980 miles in one day!), three days at my college reunion (including a stint as the most out-of-shape duffer in a racing four with coxswain, my hands shredded after 6 miles at the oar), four and a half weeks traveling around China, then a drive back down the East Coast (with three suitcases, two small bags, two carry bags, a cooler, 13 rolls of wrapping paper and a few more miscellaneous items, plus myself, successfully stowed in my Smart car such that I could still see out the rear-view mirror, a miracle), and then after a few days' respite another two days in airplanes so I could be in Lisbon, Portugal with my beloved to help him celebrate a big birthday. (He had just finished a conference there.)

I'm also cranking madly away at my book manuscript, which I must complete by October 6. That's when I hit the road again, to visit my in-laws, chauffeur my mother around Germany to see her family and friends, and then, only a day after my return home, to go to Disney (yes, I know, but it's fun for kids) with two 10-year-old girls. It's a tradition for us to take our goddess-kids to the Magic Kingdom when they turn 10, if their parents don't take them there first. After these two, there's only one more to go, three years from now.

I had to pipe up at least briefly, however, in response to the current brouhaha, which is in my opinion only peripherally about health care. The gross and cynical way in which the Republicans and the corporate interests are conniving to use frightened, uninformed, and hysterical people to disrupt public debate and try to bring down any attempt to make health care available to all Americans is beyond disgusting. This is where we who are not susceptible to being buffaloed have to stand up and create what is referred to in one of my favorite books, "Murder at the MLA," as a Bastion of Civilized Values. I don't care how busy you are. Turn on your TV and make yourself watch Rachel Maddow (9 p.m., MSNBC, Mon to Fri) or Keith Olbermann (8 p.m., MSNBC, Mon to Fri). You'll find it's not a penance, especially, in my opinion, Rachel, who totally rocks. Read a newspaper, online if not in print. This will tell you what's going on and who the chief sleazebags are. Then get on the Internet or write a piece of snail-mail to your own Congressperson and Senators, letting them know that you support the public option and health care reform and you intend not to vote for anyone who doesn't. I also exhort you to contact at least one of the so-called "blue dog" Democrats, who are playing repugnant footsie with the Republicans and the corporate profit-grubbers on this issue, and make it clear that you know who they are and you are revolted by their selling out of their constituents for the almighty lobbyist dollar.

I just did so in the case of Claire McCaskill, who I'm sorry to say I gave money to for her 2008 campaign. Blanche Lincoln of Nebraska is another case in point. Women who are putting the health care industries' (insurers, nursing homes, for-profit hospitals, etc.) dollars before the welfare of American citizens. Ugh. As though the men weren't bad enough.

Anyway, if we don't stand up and make ourselves heard now, we will be stuck with this disgrace, this shameful mess of a health care "system" (it's not a system, it's a maze) for the rest of at least my natural life. While the rest of the industrialized world manages to provide good, sensible care to all their citizens, we would go on letting millions of children go without regular medical checkups, letting family after family go bankrupt because of catastrophic illness. I remember all too well watching a dear friend die of brain cancer, unable to focus on spending what little time she had left with her family because she was worrying about the debts she would be leaving them. This is awful, reprehensible, and beneath us and it has to stop. IMMEDIATELY. Health care for profit is something we all know in our guts is morally wrong. It's the absolute contrary of a caring community, a society that is healthy in every way that counts.

ENOUGH. Fight!