Do I really want to do this? Post, in a blog? Yet again? This seems to be something that I do not take to well, for a variety of reasons. I suppose one of them is that "blogging," in and of itself, seems like a useless point of time, resources, and energy, to me. I would suspect another is a sense of vulnerability, when I do this. Lastly, there are times I just feel plain lazy, or tired, and don't want to do this.
I have many thoughts racing through my head these days.
I have watched my roommate suffer unemployment, and the chaos that ensued in his life from that, and I have watched the pontificating, posturing, lying, deceiving, outright hypocrisy, and downright idiotic asinine (sorry, but it's true) childish behavior of our Congress these last few days, about President Obama's stimulus package, and been as ashamed of them as I was personally of GWB.
To borrow from our President, "let me be clear," I was never ashamed of the United States of America. But there were things said, done, documented, undeniable, during these last 8 years, that made me feel very frustrated, while I tried to cope with how we appeared, overseas, to email pen pals, in, for instance, Australia.
How was I to answer such sincere questions as "Why haven't you impeached?" or "Why'd you vote him in a second time?" How could I convey the complexity of impeachment, and clarify that it was not me, nor The People, but Congress, that did not impeach, and that it remained, forever, debatable as to who really won the second 4 years given to GWB.
Some of these things just astound our foreign friends, who think that we think we are all that matters, and that, for instance, other countries don't have problems with illegal immigrants, too. They tell me what they are doing about the world-wide water crisis, and ask what our nation is doing, and I have to say that as a nation, I do not know of anything we are doing, but that from what ever I have heard, various water conservation efforts are at state level.
This bewilders them.
Then there is healthcare. They are told that we over here don't want to pay for Universal Healthcare, that The People do not want to pay for it. This is what they are told.
Although I can prove, through diligent searching, that this is not so, it is hard to do so, because this is such a warped, and closed, topic, here.
I know what it is: I was a RN for 24 years. Those opposed, affiliated with insurance industry, certain aspects of the healthcare industry, itself, and so on, and related lobbiests, get politicians to chant half-truths, which are really lies, to the public.
Such as, you'll pay more.
Initially, probably. But in the long run, not at all, because our current system is more per capita than any other developed nation, in healthcare, and we rate behind places like Australia, the UK, Canada, in infant mortality, etc. We pay more, and get less, as it is. So initially, investing in a more streamlined, more efficient, single-payer systme, would cost more, but only in the initial phase.
Mind you, no one was concerned about the initial cost of the "war on terror" and or invading Iraq, which we were promised would pay us back in oil profits, which we have yet to see, as a nation.
You want to talk about bad investments? Talk about that. Not healthcare, where providing good stabilizing preventive medicine can save millions of dollars.
I should know.
I live with hypertension, diabetes, HIV, Congestive Heart Failure, heart attack, lung disease (Idiopathic: Lymphocytic Interstitial Pneumonitis), and have to wear oxygen 24 hours a day.
I worked 24 years as a RN, and have been disabled almost 3 years, now.
I face a $4,000.00-plus "donut hole" in my Medicare D prescriptions this year, thanks to GWB, to save Medicare money, and I do not know where I am going to find that over $4,000.00 in my budget.
If I set aside $335.00 per month, for 12 months, I would have the money. I do not have $335 in my monthly budget, to do that, which means I cannot afford $4,000.00 "out of pocket" annually.
What am I going to do? Just up and die? You tell me.
This is what it's all about.
Don't you dare say well, that's me, and you're you, and you're doing okay, so that's all that matters. I was doing "okay" too, until one day...
I could very well be you.....one day.
If you don't do something to better things now, they will be worse, for you, and your children, and your grandchildren, for generations to come.
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