When did this happen?  The rich paying for the poor?  Define poor.  Do you think the richest Indian was the one with the fanciest horse?  Or was the bravest Indian the one with the fanciest horse?

I was extremely impressed with a Missouri gentleman that built our kayak from strips of wood.  He explained the procedure and that his boats would withstand some of the wildest rivers in Missouri and Arkansas.  It took about 4 months for it to be completed and now it is a gorgeous lightweight kayak that is durable, usable art .  I suppose some of the glues, and paints may have had Chinese roots or came from a factory owned by a wealthy corporation, but, for the most part our beloved vessel was handmade by an American. He had a home, a car, a workshop, diabetes and a smoking habit.   He made his own way in his own shop living a free American life that many of us might envy.

Insurance would have been impossible for him to obtain if it hadn’t been for medicare.  He qualified for socialized medicine because he lived long enough too.  Prior to that I think he plucked chickens in a factory or something like that so he would be insured. Why is our society set up like this? Because the guys that own the chicken factories don’t want us to be free.  If we are free and don’t need the insurance they provide, we may leave and start an organic chicken farm that would compete with them.  We would be poor, but, we would be free and insured.

“Another word for freedom is nothing left to lose”  I so miss the days when everything I owned fit in my car and I traveled about, working at random restaurants, taking ballet classes and teaching ballet classes.  I never broke a body part or had a kidney stone or appendicitis.  I never thought about healthcare or health insurance.  If I had needed healthcare back in those days I would have been financially screwed.  I guess I was poor, but, I didn’t feel poor, I felt  free.

Life happened.  Husband, kids, and a job that provided health insurance for us all.  There went my freedom.  I don’t think it should have to be that way.  I think we should be able to make things, grow things, be brave and ride a fine horse.  I think we should have the choice to be free and at the same time be responsible.  I don’t think providing healthcare for all is the rich paying for the poor.  I think it is all of us pitching in for all of us.

I was in a conversation with a physician I work with the other night at the hospital.  He described me as “ubber liberal” and decided I needed to be reformed and informed.  He started printing up things for me to read from his Fox network and I told him I don’t care for Fox or MSNBC.  I mostly get my news from PBS and sometimes I like to listen to Wolf Blitzer.

This Physician is very very afraid of our government running anything.  I, on the other hand, feel that if you leave the government out of our lives then you end up with a place like Haiti.  Haiti is a graphic example of a  weak government.  Us worker bees need to be protected from corporate interests.  We aren’t the mover shaker money makers we’re the ones out here in the trenches doing the work.  We don’t mind, we’re happy.  I have amazing respect for our founding fathers’ plan for checks and balances and equal rights.  They were a bit hypocritical about equal rights, writing and signing the constitution while their slaves tended to their farms, but, their ultimate plan was ingenious.

The Physician and I are an example of check and balance.  His check is the need to be compensated for all the patients he fights hard to save.  Many of them are self abusers, over-eaters, smokers, alcoholics, prescription drug abusers.  They vary from uninsured, medicaid, Medicare as well as the insured.  Patients get better then try to sue him for some anomaly that is most often a result of their own self abuse.  Or they don’t get better and the family tries to sue.  The litigation involved is extremely expensive and is driving up healthcare costs.  Tort reform is his primary concern to improve our health care system.   I definitely get his point and I also am angry at the folks making a living out of being sick.

My balance is the waitress with a kidney stone, the restaurant owner with chest pain, the guy that builds kayaks by hand with diabetes, the lady with a shop full of locally made art.   To them insurance is a gamble; those without are gambling they won’t need it,  those with individual insurance pay dearly for a catastrophic plan.  How can we remain innovative Americans if we can’t leave Wal-mart to try our hand at Tilapia farming or growing bamboo or opening a breakfast joint.  We aren’t really free as long as we are locked in to a job because we need the insurance?

What angers me is the minds that sit around figuring out ways to make money off of our misfortunes.  There are boardrooms full of people trying to figure out how to pocket some cash.  I call them clipboard carriers.  Administrators are rewarded for making money rather than  for providing amazing results for the health of a community.  I worked with an occupational therapist who was so inspiring to me and others as we watched her bring smiles to the depressed and life to those ready to give up.  She was let go because she didn’t generate enough income for the little rural hospital.  Hospitals are not factories.  They don’t have assembly lines.  Hospitals are full of real people with real problems and sometimes fixing those problems just doesn’t make anyone any money.

Dr. William D. wrote a blog that made me think,  then again maybe they are factories?…

“. . . the life of the pig has moved out of view; when’s the last time you saw a pig in person? Meat comes from the grocery store, where it is cut and packaged to look as little like parts of animals as possible. The disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there’s no reality check on the sentiment or the brutality. . .”

The same disconnect has occurred in healthcare for the heart. The emotional distance thrust between the hospital-employed primary care physician, the procedure-driven cardiologist, the crammed-into-a-niche electrophysiologist (heart rhythm specialist) or cardiothoracic surgeon whose principal concerns are procedures—with an eye always towards litigation risk—mimics factory farms that now litter the landscape of the Midwest. The hospitals and doctors who deliver the process see us less as human beings and more as the next profit opportunity.

The “factory hospital” has allowed the subjugation of humans into the service of procedural volume, all in the name of fattening revenues. Never mind that people are not (usually) killed outright but subjected to a succession of life-disrupting procedures over many years. But whether livestock in a factory farm or humans in a factory hospital, the net result to the people controlling the process is identical: increased profits.

The system doesn’t grow to meet market demand, but to grow profits. The myth that allows this growth is perpetuated by the participants who stand to gain from that growth.

See hospitals for what they are: businesses. Despite most hospitals retaining “Saint” in their name, there is no longer anything saintly or charitable about these commercial operations. They are every bit as profit-seeking as GE, Enron, or Mobil.

http://www.wellsphere.com/heart-health-article/factory-hospitals/472314

I think most of us really do care about people and their individual health.  We just need to care less about profits.

So when you are shopping for a toy for your favorite tot and you notice that it was made in China.  Remember this picture of plastic factory waste going in to what was once a beautiful river.

Next time you buy an Iphone, computer or various other electronics and some jewelry remember this titanium plant.

Without rules a nations people are allowed to suffer.  Without activism the suffering continues.  Our country allows activism and yet some refer to those activists as socialists.  I don’t get it.

Don’t blame this horridness on the people of China.  Just like here there are good people trying to do good things to advocate for the health and happiness of all people.  Not just those who can afford good health and happiness.  Please see the entire article and all the photos at

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

Tim Gummer says:

If it wasn’t already obvious, then it is surely clear here that our Stuff is made in a Mordor of this very earth, by a people in slavery. In a globalized world, our complicity in their deaths and suffering is no less than those who stood by in the towns of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. These workers’ horrors may be marginally less, but unlike the deathcamps’ neighbours, we cannot pretend we have not seen.

Harmonic Convergence

http://www.zenmoments.org/on-the-toss-of-a-coin/

I read Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford University that was delivered on June 12, 2005.  Wow!  If you haven’t read it, please do so.  There is no bias to his words, just sincerity and emotional intelligence.  Here is the link and a few of my favorite parts.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.htm

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.  Death is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by Dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

We all know this, but, do we really do this?  I grew up with advice such as “stick to your own guns”,  “paddle your own canoe” and “find your passion”.  Those words  just didn’t put a fire under me.   “A job worth doing is worth doing well” and I do believe that; but,  my job is not my life. My job is how I pay for my life.

I chose a noble profession, I am an RN.  When my children were born I didn’t want to be a bartender anymore so I worked in a doctors office.  The doctor convinced me I should be a nurse so I went to nursing school and now I work in an Intensive Care Unit.  There was no destiny or passion or calling or anything like that.  I was like dust rolling around and collecting into what I am now.  I’m not sure any dots were connected and yet, I am surely enjoying this life.

Hospitals can be humbling.  I lost a 34 year old patient last week to cervical cancer.  No pain, no nausea, just quietly and quickly slipped away.  Someone borrowed $60 from the patient so the patient’s sister could get out of jail to be with her before she died.  Her sister made it.  Did they choose this life?  Was it a carefree life that somehow became tragic and left behind an orphan son?

Steve Jobs said, that he dropped out of school in order to take the courses that he wanted rather than the ones he was required to take.   I’m not as smart as Steve Jobs.  Without a degree in something I would flounder.  I wasn’t able to feed my children because of  anything I made in my garage. So I persevered and sat with tutors in the library and made it through nursing school.

I watched a great movie called Sherman’s Way.  It seems to fit in here somehow.  I have neighbors very similar to Palmer and DJ.  They live a carefree life and they share their fish with us sometimes.  Living a carefree life can be great as long as it isn’t irresponsible.  Then again living a structured life can be great too as long as there is  gentleness and spontaneity thrown in.   Kathy, whom I referred to in What is inside,  is like Sherman with her notes and her organized self. I enjoyed finding what was inside.

I guess it is just about living a life you enjoy and surrounding yourself with people you love.  If you’re anything like me and there are no dots to connect and no passions to persue than just live a life worth living.

Did you know styrofoam AKA polystyrene is manufactured using benzene, from coal; styrene, from petroleum; and ethylene, a “blowing agent”.  Dow Chemical is the world’s largest producer with a total capacity of 1.8 million metric tonnes in the USA, Canada, and Europe (1996 figures). The main manufacturing route to styrene is the direct catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene: If you understand that and want more detail go to…
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/styrene.html

Short term exposure in humans results in mucous membrane and eye irritation, and gastrointestinal effects.   long-term exposure to styrene (like drinking coffee in styrofoam cups every day or working in the factory where it is made) in humans results in effects on the central nervous system (CNS), such as headache, fatigue, weakness, and depression, CNS dysfunction, hearing loss, and peripheral neuropathy. This only happens after long term exposure, so if you live long enough you’ll be a deaf, unbalanced, dummyhead with tremors and restless leg syndrome. Know anyone like that?

Now, when your drinking your coffee from a styrofoam cup and throwing your cigarette butt out the window of your Excursion, you might think to yourself…  Somethings gotta kill me, I’m not gonna worry about monomers of styrene.  Try thinking of this.  It takes 500 years for the chemical components of styrofoam to dissolve and it’s foreverness accounts for 25% of landfill waste.

While Styrofoam is recyclable, most recycling programs don’t.  I found one in Florida called Blue Earth Solutions. http://www.blueearthsolutions.com/index.php

Burning styrofoam releases all the stuff its made of into the air;  including dioxin, and carbon monoxide.  yeah, run a search engine on dioxin and see what you find out.

So what do you think?  Wouldn’t you like to get styrofoam out of your house, your place of business, your town, your world?

…we have all of the NEGATIVE effects of “socialized” health care without actually having equal health care for all. Arguments against socialized health care, include the people not wanting the few to pay for the masses. But that is exactly what’s happening here.

I work 2 jobs, pay my taxes, barely make enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the plates of my family, do not get such luxuries. An ER visit typically runs me $2,000+, which I must pay or else what’s left of credit will disappear. I cannot afford health care, and with the economy today, my employers do not offer me any benefits as they won’t let me work full-time. This HAS to change.

http://www.theweeklyupdates.com/our-life/orange-county-medical-service-flawed/

This is an example of a hardworking American taxpayer who is having to go without, due to the current healthcare system.  Not to repeat myself, but, it isn’t a system.  It is a big pile of crap and when you stir up crap you realize how much it stinks.

Now — Let me share with you this exchange I had recently with a young man I know.  He is usually witty and makes funky videos so I sent him Barack Obama’s video challenge.  His response and that of his friend throws off the hope for change.  These boys are in college, so, don’t think they are uneducated knobs.

Also, Whenever you try to talk reasonably about healthcare reform it is easy to find the opposition–>they are the ones  pounding their fists on the table or resorting to foulness.

WHE

Yes please expand the government so I can lose even more freedom.

September 27 at 3:17am

NHA

hmm. while those celebrity judges are busy smelling their own asses and picking their favorite sob story maybe i should make an advertisement full of the real people who want universal health care… not the ones hand picked by the people selling this bullshit to us.

Me

If you are attending a university or college then you are involved in government funded education. What freedom is healthcare reform going to take from you?

September 28 at 12:16pm

WHE

Great idea, let’s make a video of a bunch of people who are really lazy and don’t want to have to work hard for their healthcare.  My parents and I were taxed to support this school, if taxes would have been lowered I’m sure I could have afforded to go to a better university.

September 29 at 3:18pm

Me

not everyone who gets sick is lazy.

September 29 at 3:58pm

NHA

Im simply saying that personally I’ve noticed that people in favor of universal health care are largely behind it for personal gain when they could be acting in the best interest of our country. I don’t think that all sick people are lazy. But i do believe that many illnesses (not all) are a result of the behavior one engages in. smoking causes lung cancer. Failure to wear a seat belt can cause an injury. Drinking to excess and walking down stairs may lead to broken bones. These are reasons why some people need insurance in the first place and I don’t think that our society as a whole should be forced to pay for the mistakes of a few. It doesn’t seem progressive to me. More like a ball and chain.

September 29 at 9:18pm

Me

I know a good man, self employed, no insurance, who drinks plenty of water and lives a good life providing for his family he had a massive stroke. I know a boy, who worked hard. who lived a good life and got knocked off his motorcycle on a freeway on the way home from work –>brain injury. I know a waitress, single, works three jobs, got a kidney stone requiring surgery –>debilitated her finances. All of us can have anything happen at anytime. It is the brothers keeper thing — not personal gain

September 29 at 9:33pm

WHE

Everyone get’s sick, but I don’t care if they die or not, (What?!) have you ever tried anal sex? (What?! again) Because people who smoke, eat fast foods, have buttsecks, and live otherwise dangerous lifestyles are going to benefit from this plan more than me. All I know is that socialized medicine bankrupts every country or state that enacts it.  (our country is so financially stable with our current healthcare eh?)

September 29 at 11:14pm

Me

Ok I’ll go away now

September 30 at 7:57am

NHA

It’s good to discuss these things when we’re all on the same page.

September 30 at 7:54pm

Just an example of the oppositions mind.  I wasn’t sure how to contest any further. By the way, How do you get in to college without knowing how to spell buttsex?  And, what page are they on?

http://www.blackcommentator.com/cartoons.html

Here is a good page to go to

http://factsaboutreform.org/myth.html

I guess I feel the same way about health care.  I think everyone should have access to public health care.  I think that when I was a poor single mom raising my two gorgeous and healthy children that I should have been rewarded with some health care (at least).  I thank God that I never broke a bone or had a kidney stone.  My kids and I would have suffered as many do when a health tragedy strikes.  If I had not been able to work and go to school because of an illness or accident, I would have lost my jobs and been kicked out of the nursing program. I was really, really lucky and that is all.

This is America.  Many claim we are the most powerful and wealthy country in the world and yet we have “indigents”.  We set up free clinics for them because they don’t have insurance and their children are hungry.  Other countries ie: England, Japan, France, Switzerland, Germany; have systems where there are no health care indigents.  Everyone qualifies for health care.  Why are we so opposed to this? — the cost?

OK, so, lets define “indigent” deficient in what is requisite.  Lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished.  (I looked it up on dictionary.reference.com)

They are really, really unlucky.  I wasn’t exactly indigent, but, damn close and if any kind of physical anomaly had befallen me, believe me, I’d have fit the description.  My nursing program required us to volunteer.  I chose the Salvation Army. We provided health care for the homeless with a retired cardiac surgeon.  We did good things for a lot of people and sometimes they were grateful and sometimes they were just wanting the free socks we gave them.  Some of these people were alcoholics or drug abusers and some were just really, really unlucky.  One fellow had a broken ankle.  We gave him a prescription to get an x-ray and have an orthopedic surgeon look at it at the county hospital ER.  He had no way of getting to the hospital to get this done.  I’m not sure the hospital would have done it after he got there.  Free clinics can only do so much.

So, then we have to define “requisite” essential, necessity, requirement.

What are the essential requirements of an American life? Food, shelter, clothing, good health and an education.  Some might add a car that runs vs. a sweet ride, a cell phone vs. an I-phone, a PC vs. a Mac — well, you see what I’m getting at.  Some of us think that access to health care is as essential as access to an education.  Some do not.

I’m doing OK now, I am able to afford insurance, and my children are insured.  I have a lovely home, a nice car, my children are adults and still gorgeous and healthy, and I have an income that provides for essential needs.

(Aren’t they gorgeous kids?  The best thing I’ve ever done in this life)

I whine like everyone else that the more I make the more they take. Who are they?  What are they doing with my money after they take it?  Isn’t that what we all piss and moan about?  What is this going to cost me?  I do not like it that my money was  spent killing Iraqi people, some don’t like the idea of their money being spent on a revised American health care system.  I believe that health care and the health of this planet is more important that killing people in other countries.  Our current President seems to agree.   I feel a little better about where my hard earned money is going.