Thursday, November 19, 2009

Where did all the intimacy go?

I am doing lots of re-evaluating of life right now and i have to say that i am ashamed of myself. the priorities that i have let take over, the excuses i have made for letting things go, all of them are done with some sort of technology excuse.

all the things we are involved in, all the technologies that seemingly link us, in reality they push us all farther apart. At the end of the day we continually forget that it is people that matter. not twitter, google, linked in, text messages or even... dare i say it... facebook. Even this somewhat heartfelt message i am trying to get out was way too many characters to add in a facebook status update.

How have we gotten to a point where reading a tweet or seeing a status update passes for contact?

in a society that is constantly bemoaning the increasing speed of our lives, and lamenting the loss of the small everyday things we had in our youth, or hear about from our parents like friendly gatherings, dinner parties, or just having drinks.

I am a reasonably social person, but i have been in a job for 3.5 years working with lots of people and have never once been invited to (or done any inviting to) any social gathering of any sort that was not a company function. what is wrong with me? have i been so unapproachable or distant that nobody ever wanted to invite me and my lovely wife anywhere? or is there something that is slowly changing within all of us where we feel that this is the norm.

Roxanne and i were talking the other day about the fact that we have lived where we live for about 5 years and we have no social connections. oh sure we have lots of acquaintances, through preschools and such, but we have never made any connections. And when we get a night out, half the time we waste it in a movie theatre sitting beside each other staring at a larger version of our television. Oh My God!!! how anti social is that? ok, an occasional movie is fun, but it seems that we are bombarded with and made to feel that if we do not see the latest (lets be honest...) really crappy flick, that something is wrong with us. And the DVR/TIVO, great lifesaver right... not even close. i only just figured out how bad it is. instead of taking the time to meet for a "date" at a certain time to watch the TV and then have some intervals to grab something else, or even talk... we now are able to park our ever increasing keisters in front of the tube and sit there for 3 solid hours with no breaks (just zip past those commercials) of a show that in reality we would have stopped watching LONG ago.

Now don't get me wrong, i take full responsibility for not making friends. it is a two way street and i know that making friends and increasing a social circle takes work. and i recognize that we have fallen down at it. When the neighbor has a Bunko party (wow does it sound like a blast) we are bummed out that we were not invited... yet i have never done one darn thing to try to snag an invitation. So i cannot do a blanket blaming of technology. i am a part of the equation. But lets be honest, our reliance on technology and the pressure to make even more use of it is not helping one bit.

Lets all try a little less technology. ignore your cell phone/blackberry/iphone at night. lets try to write a LETTER this holiday season. and lets all call somebody we have not talked to in a while. if i want my family to have the warm loving experience i did growing up, i have to make it so. and just like if i want my kids to grow up exercising and being outdoors, i have to lead by example. Same with my social interactions. So kids... things change today!

People matter. contact is done by calling, maybe even writing a letter. (i said letter, not an email or a text) as of now, i am resolving to be better, to show people that they matter. And i am starting by posting this blog entry, and then calling my nana!

And yes, i do get the irony of writing this in a blog! maybe video for the next one...

Peace out! (ok, that was a joke)

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Healthcare debate.

So while this debate rages on and on, we have to ask a few fundamental questions.

When we look at the services that are provided by the state, we have to ask ourselves what are some of our basic human rights. i am not referring to Mazlow's hierarchy of needs, but those things that are provided by the state for its citizens and are by their nature, basic rights.
  1. Safety via the Fire department.
  2. Security via the Police and the Military
  3. Roads and bridges, so lets call that freedom of movement.

Why then isn't health care on that list?

i read where some catholic organizations are calling universal health a moral imperative. While i have very little time for organized religion... i agree completely.

How can we call ourselves a Just, moral and progressive society when many people are one medical condition away from bankruptcy. i have good coverage. have had for years. however every years i have to put 5000$ in a pre-tax account (flexible spending account) to cover the co-pays and non covered aspects and that is STILL not enough.

I have a friend at work. he is in his low 60's. a year ago he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in his colon, liver and lungs. 18 months to live was his prognosis. and he had to keep working... HE HAD TO KEEP WORKING WITH A %($)($#&% TERMINAL DIAGNOSIS!!! it was the only way to keep all the treatments covered. As it happens, he has had a great attitude and is now virtually cancer free. But in the last 12 months, he still had to come to work most days. you think it is bad coming to work with a cold... try it with chemo!

Yet we still hear about how nobody wants the government to take over their health care. I will state for the record that i am Canadian. that means that i spent most of my life with one of those EVIL government run health care systems. i did not even have a health card. you just walk in, and get treatment. my doctor... he was the one who delivered me and treated me through my entire life, and has delivered my brothers children. how about that for substandard care. i could go through a litany of examples of things that would bankrupt you in the US, but there is little point. somebody will always pull up some remote case of some guy they read about who had to wait for an operation! without knowing all the circumstances, these examples are nothing more than here say. (for the record, i have a cousin who had a terminal diagnosis and had to wait for a month before they could remove the football sized tumor from him. however it was due to taking that long to line up all the surgeons to perform the incredibly complex surgery. and it was determined that the wait would not further endanger his condition. when they got it out, it was determined to be benign and he is fine)

Take a look at studies as to who is most happy with their health care... Medicare, medicaid, VA, all government run. the government also runs the Air traffic control system, police, fire departments, highways, NASA and the DMV. OK, so maybe we all have horror stories about the DMV, but thing of all those agencies and how much we rely on them every single day. All government run.

now i am not saying that we should let the government run everything, just that we have to accept that they do a good job of running some stuff. And at the end of the day we have to understand one very important fact about private health insurers. no matter what they say, no matter how clever their commercials are, they are in one business and one business only. the business of DENYING claims. if they allowed all claims, then they go out of business. they are making a bet, just like your car insurance company is... that you will require them to spend LESS than you put in at the end of the year. and as such, they have to craft penalties and barriers to coverage that restrict coverage.

i have suffered through trying to get an insurance company to approve something. i cannot imagine a government (NOT FOR PROFIT!!!!) organization being worse. Having come from a government run system, i can tell you that their business is patient care. no 30% profits, far less in the way of administrators, much larger buying power, etc.

If doctors do not have to have to employ legions of people in order to try to get paid from the insurance companies, their costs go down. if they do not have varying different payment schedules depending on who your insurance is, their costs go down. if the one central system is also responsible for malpractice claims, doctors no longer have to pay in excess of $250,000 a year (per doctor) for malpractice insurance. oh sure, there is still insurance, but far less since any crazy malpractice claim is first being dealt with by a large organization and not by individual ambulance chasing lawyers. so guess what, their costs go down.

If i want to start a small business right now... i am 42, i have a wife and two kids. one of whom has autism. so if i wanted insurance on my own, i need to plan on at least $1500 a month just to cover health care while i am trying to make a go of it. that sure cuts down the likelihood of me making that attempt.

Last year my daughter needed to get her adenoids out. they were blocking her throat and on the verge of causing some respiratory issues. OUR COST.... 1500$ this was a routine out patient thing for a 3 year old. Yet we had a 1500$ bill.

And lets talk about death panels. my grandmother is 88 and lives in Canada. it has just been determined that she has severe circulatory issues in her legs. as such, the odds are good she will lose one or both of her feet. i was telling my wife about this and commented that she may not get prosthetics. my wife is so conditioned by all the BS about 'government" health care systems and them denying coverage to the old and infirm... that she assumed the reason was her age. i had to explain that no, sometimes the body cannot handle a prosthetic, sometimes the therapy needed for an older person to learn to use them may be too much, etc. this is the reality of a "death panel".

Insurance companies EVERY DAY make determinations on care based on age, existing conditions, odds of survival, etc. In the case of the government run systems, at least the cost of the treatment is much farther down the list of considerations. And in the end, the harsh reality is that a surgery that has a 40% chance of survival, and may only prolong life for 6 months is not a good idea for anybody. it may seem harsh, and nobody who is related to or friends with the person up for the surgery will agree (nor should they), but in the end, decisions are always made based on the best outcome.

In the end, you have to accept one brutal reality. The United States is the ONLY major industrialized nation in the world that does not have UNIVERSAL health care. and yet we have the highest cost, the lowest coverage and the worst care. Everybody else has it figured out... why don't we?

Are we really that beholden to the insurance companies?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Whats the Point

So looking around over the last few weeks I have to wonder what the heck is going on.

 

I mean come on, just about everything is melting down, the US is falling apart by many many tangible measurements, and nobody seems to care about how to fix it.

 

Oh sure, the two nitwits running for president of the US are having a grand ole time slagging each other and repeating the same tired old mantra over… and over… and over again.  But what of somebody standing up and saying… we are in trouble because of:  {insert real solid non partisan answer here}  All they seem to be able to do is repeat the stump speech.  I loved Palins answer to the mortgage crisis in her Katie Couric interview.  You know the one, the one where her answer covered EVERY single stump speech talking point in less than a minute and was SO good that when Tina Fey did her spoof of the interview she quoted her WORD FOR WORD!

 

I am also tired of economists who have shown quite unequivocally that they do not know their hole from an ass in the ground continuing to pontificate and offer suggestions.  These are the folks who last February should have seen the potential for what COULD happen and then helped to guide the banks and the country through it all.  When it all started, anybody could see that a hyper inflated bubble was about to deflate.  A smart person (Bernanke, Paulson, anybody???) would have seen that if a bubble was about to go down, it was time to perhaps insert a surgical needle, maybe with a little Vaseline to help it go in smooth… then slowly let some air out of that puppy.  This would have been especially important given the fact that it was very clear that this bubble was constructed out of some very shaky material that nobody really understood.  If that needle had gone in, we could have had a controlled deflation… instead, we let the free market take a steak knife to that balloon

 

The exact date of the start of this mess was Feb 9 2007.  Bonus points if you can name the single “shot” heard round the world that started this mess.

 

While we like to blame all sorts of people, and all sorts of institutions… (because god knows personal responsibility is out of the question) we are all to blame.  Republicans, democrats, rich, poor… all of us.  True, the government and the fed should have recognized some signs back in say… 2001, and instituted some sort of controls, but that is not what happens in a free market, we let everybody screw themselves.

 

As I attempt to be better than many other bloggers and actually continue to write… I will talk more about my thoughts on what really happened here.  And in many other places.

 

Things to come include Healthcare, Autism, housing, job market, and whatever else my tiny brain comes up with.