Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Wednesday, October 17. 2007
Hillary Loves Big Balls
Couldn’t resist that headline! You remember the AC/DC song?Well I’m upper upper class high society
God’s gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom
The event is never small
The social pages say I’ve got
The biggest balls of all
Well it has little — if anything — to do with the topic, that being: In the 2008 Democratic primary I’d like to vote for Hillary Clinton. First woman president and all that, plus she had, 13 years ago, what I thought would be the answer to the health care fiasco we have in this country. The monied interests who control the vote in Congress shot down that effort. Those being the HMO and pharmaceutical lobbies.Our health care system today isn’t based on keeping you and I in good health and giving us the best care money can buy, it’s based on the HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies making as much money as corporately possible with as little government interference (and taxes) as possible.
Two years ago the lending lobby, the folks who own the banks and credit cards we use, wrote a law that effectively stops people like you and I from declaring bankruptcy and then gave it to a couple legislators so it could have official authors. No, they couldn’t outright ban bankruptcy itself, so many bigwigs rely on bankruptcy to remain multi-millionaires and billionaires, but they didn’t like you and I being able to file and get out of paying the tens of thousands we might owe to the various banking establishments. So they made it much harder for the little guy to declare bankruptcy.
The medical community likes it too because this means bankruptcy doesn’t automatically mean they will lose the thousands of dollars you might owe them. So, it was a win-win law for all the important people in this equation.
Part of the effort to crash on Hillary’s health care parade was an endless litany of stories about how horrible the Canadian health care system is and about how so many people from around the world come to the United States to get the health care they can’t get in their own countries … and while there is a grain of truth in that argument, the fact is, those who come here do so because A) they have the money to pay for it, or B) the health care system in their country paid for them to come here and do it. And the “C” part is that their own countries didn’t have the technical ability to provide whatever procedure they were coming here to have performed.
That’s changed of course. Now the place to go is India and a few other Asian nations that offer “surgery vacations,” complete with hotel reservations. It’s actually cheaper to fly to India, get the room by the hospital and have your procedure done there. We’re not talking cosmetic surgery; this is for heart procedures and the like, the kinds of surgeries the U.S. health care system created but now so often get denied to those of us who rely on health insurance.
Eleven years ago I had a massive heart attack — a myocardial infarction. Almost killed me. Other than an angiogram, no surgery was performed because the damage to nearly a third of my heart was so extensive, surgery would not have solved any lingering effects. But, I did receive excellent aftercare, with thrice-a-week visits to the cardiac club for cardiac rehabilitation.
Almost three years ago I had a second heart attack. Here’s the funny part: I didn’t know it was an actual heart attack until four months later when I went to my Veterans Administration health care provider and she said, “You had a heart attack in January.” Really?
At the time of the incident, I was at work. One of my co-workers, on his lunch break, drove me to the emergency room and I spent a good portion of the night in the hospital. Once I seemed to be stable, the doctors there released me and I went home. They only said I needed to miss one day of work, which for me would have been the next day. No one used the term “heart attack.”
I saw my primary care physician a few days later, he referred me to a cardiologist—who was an avid Bush supporter with all the rah-rah Bush paraphernalia on his walls—who then ran a bunch of tests on me, including the stress test with some dye in my system so they could track blood flow. He set me up with cardiac care, including cardiac rehab, but never used the terms “heart attack” or “M.I.”
Afterwards I saw my primary care physician who told me the HMO had denied the after care prescribed by the cardiologist and he also denied my request to sign papers giving me the ability to take unpaid leave, as prescribed in the Family Medical Leave Act. Despite the fact I was barely able to walk more than five minutes at a time and in need of recovery. Oh, and the primary care physician never mentioned “heart attack” or “M.I.”
Consequently, because I missed too many days of work, I lost my job. In a Dickensian twist not even Dickens would have imagined, as the Human Resources manager and my supervisor were ushering me out the door, they both acknowledged my termination was a direct result of my severe health issues, “But we have rules we have to follow,” the human resources manager said. Fuck you and your rules!
So, for me, the U.S. health care system is a joke. My only saving grace is being a service-connected veteran. Because of my service-connected disability I get a modicum of health care that is, by my personal experience, head and shoulders above and better then what I was getting in the private sector.If Hillary Clinton could change the health care system in this country, that’s just about all the reason I need to vote for her. Except for her war-like ways.
This troubles me because when Senator Clinton announced her plans to run for president and got all the questions about why, in 2002, she voted to authorize war with Iraq, part of her answer was/is, “If I knew then what I know now …”
Well, I could buy that Senator, if your actions since that vote — since you threw your hat into the ring! — complemented your words, but they haven’t.
You have voted for nearly every emergency defense appropriations bill, which, if I swallow hard can buy that too, but now, with the rest of your fellow cowardly Democrats, you voted to authorize the president to start a war in Iran. That is really too much. Have we learned nothing since Bush started his war in Iraq? Well, many of us have. And, we need to ask you senator, have you read the intelligence estimate on Iran? We already know you didn’t read the NIE for Iraq before voting to authorize the president to start his war in Iraq.
You don’t need to prove you have cojones senator — you actually don’t have testicles, medically speaking — and that’s what disappoints many who would like to vote for the first woman president of the United States. We thought having a woman, a serious contender, in the race would mark a change from the bellicosity that has, for the past 28 years, been a hallmark of our presidential campaigns. Apparently, a woman still has to prove she’s an a-hole like her male counterparts to get elected.
The majority of Americans want either a speedy or immediate end to the war in Iraq and the vast majority does not want us to start another war in Iran. Just yesterday, Vladimir Putin, the ruler of Russia (it seems too quaint to call him president since he’s begun consolidating all power in his hands) was visiting Tehran, Iran and warned the U.S. not to attack Iran or try to use Azerbaijan or its airspace to stage attacks on Iran and Putin urged all Caspian Sea nations not to host an oil pipeline, presumably we can guess, for Western companies.Do we need a woman president who is willing to give authorization to a proven incompetent to start another war? Senator Clinton said she signed a bill that would require the president to get approval from Congress before any military action is taken, but can we trust the president to do that?
Senator Clinton is scary alright. Would she be better than what we have now? Geez, I was about to write, “How could it get worse,” but remembered thinking that very thought during the Reagan Administration.
I wish Al Gore would get in the race. We need a Nobel Laureate for president.
Calendar
Quicksearch
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport