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ebonypearl wrote an entry about health care, more specifically health insurance and the cost of it and what it pays (or doesn't pay) for these days. Then inmyblueheaven posted about a battle of a mom and pop farm dealing with the possibility of getting forced out by some food conglomerate.
As Michael Moore pointed out in "Sicko," the health care system we now have in the United States was, in fact, brought into being via Richard M. Nixon. It was a plan to make medicine into big business, and the pharmaceutical companies, various hospitals and a lot of the insurers wound up making quite a bit of money from it.
Nixon did some pretty terrible things in his 1.5 terms in office, but this, as we look at it today, was likely the worst thing any president had done in the past 65 years. See, representatives are supposed to be there to represent people. Not corporations. Not special interest groups or lobbyists. And people associated with those organizations don't need representation anyhow. You're not supposed to harm the people that have nothing so that those that have plenty can get more. And yet, that is the system that has been created.
When you turn the issue of health care into a business, then it becomes all about making money, not giving proper care to everyone. So, drug manufacturers are looking for ways to cash in at every turn. They produce a drug that doesn't do what they wanted? So they test it to see what it can do, and just sell it for that! Forget the fact that it has a laundry list of side effects that could create even bigger problems than the drug claims to correct; it's a chance to cash in!
They just keep creating more and more drug products, and charging people to use them, and what is the result? the coffers of these manufacturers are sky high, and people aren't well.
Likewise, as we fund these major food corporations that are squelching the small local farmers, we are destroying our very own food system. We should be eating more local products! Stuff that's grown where you are doesn't have to travel, doesn't get picked before it's ripe so it can go a long distance in a truck, train or plane to get to you. It's all so bass ackwards it makes me wonder if George W. Bush was somehow involved.
But, really, these are the two issues that will be major factors in the next ten years. All of the Baby Boomers will be at least 55 and many of them over 65 in the very near future. So health care will be an issue. And with the issues of the honeybees still totally unresolved, there is a nagging thought that maybe there will be a food shortage in America down the road. Don't shrug this off; that honeybee "colony collapse disorder" issue will, in a best case scenario, cause the price of food to increase. In the worse case, we might have a famine in the land, and one that won't end quickly.
The fact that we seem to be backing corporations in both of these cases is the ultimate "cut off your nose to spite your face" scenario. How do we constantly wind up voting against the very things that can benefit us?
I know it's too late to go back and undo the Nixon plan for health care. And with medical being a business, and a hugely successful one, how do you convert it back into a program that actually cares for the patients and their families, and keeps these people from going into unspeakable debt? And why do Republicans get to just shout "socialism!" and get away with that?
I was thinking about whether the United States would still be around in a century. Ten years ago, that thought would never have crossed my mind. Now, I seriously am not certain that the USA will still be here in 2111.
But I know I won't be, so, eh.
And, really, it's that attitude that has gotten us to this place! There's no concern for a future that you won't live to see, so grab for everything you can now, and future be damned (and it will be)!
The problem is that these issues are easily pointed out and discussed, but actually attempting to fix them, with all of the elements that are in place to maintain them and all of the money that's in the system bankrolling them? This may require a revolution.
ebonypearl wrote an entry about health care, more specifically health insurance and the cost of it and what it pays (or doesn't pay) for these days. Then inmyblueheaven posted about a battle of a mom and pop farm dealing with the possibility of getting forced out by some food conglomerate.As Michael Moore pointed out in "Sicko," the health care system we now have in the United States was, in fact, brought into being via Richard M. Nixon. It was a plan to make medicine into big business, and the pharmaceutical companies, various hospitals and a lot of the insurers wound up making quite a bit of money from it.
Nixon did some pretty terrible things in his 1.5 terms in office, but this, as we look at it today, was likely the worst thing any president had done in the past 65 years. See, representatives are supposed to be there to represent people. Not corporations. Not special interest groups or lobbyists. And people associated with those organizations don't need representation anyhow. You're not supposed to harm the people that have nothing so that those that have plenty can get more. And yet, that is the system that has been created.
When you turn the issue of health care into a business, then it becomes all about making money, not giving proper care to everyone. So, drug manufacturers are looking for ways to cash in at every turn. They produce a drug that doesn't do what they wanted? So they test it to see what it can do, and just sell it for that! Forget the fact that it has a laundry list of side effects that could create even bigger problems than the drug claims to correct; it's a chance to cash in!
They just keep creating more and more drug products, and charging people to use them, and what is the result? the coffers of these manufacturers are sky high, and people aren't well.
Likewise, as we fund these major food corporations that are squelching the small local farmers, we are destroying our very own food system. We should be eating more local products! Stuff that's grown where you are doesn't have to travel, doesn't get picked before it's ripe so it can go a long distance in a truck, train or plane to get to you. It's all so bass ackwards it makes me wonder if George W. Bush was somehow involved.
But, really, these are the two issues that will be major factors in the next ten years. All of the Baby Boomers will be at least 55 and many of them over 65 in the very near future. So health care will be an issue. And with the issues of the honeybees still totally unresolved, there is a nagging thought that maybe there will be a food shortage in America down the road. Don't shrug this off; that honeybee "colony collapse disorder" issue will, in a best case scenario, cause the price of food to increase. In the worse case, we might have a famine in the land, and one that won't end quickly.
The fact that we seem to be backing corporations in both of these cases is the ultimate "cut off your nose to spite your face" scenario. How do we constantly wind up voting against the very things that can benefit us?
I know it's too late to go back and undo the Nixon plan for health care. And with medical being a business, and a hugely successful one, how do you convert it back into a program that actually cares for the patients and their families, and keeps these people from going into unspeakable debt? And why do Republicans get to just shout "socialism!" and get away with that?
I was thinking about whether the United States would still be around in a century. Ten years ago, that thought would never have crossed my mind. Now, I seriously am not certain that the USA will still be here in 2111.
But I know I won't be, so, eh.
And, really, it's that attitude that has gotten us to this place! There's no concern for a future that you won't live to see, so grab for everything you can now, and future be damned (and it will be)!
The problem is that these issues are easily pointed out and discussed, but actually attempting to fix them, with all of the elements that are in place to maintain them and all of the money that's in the system bankrolling them? This may require a revolution.