The Other Side

I peruse "the other side" frequently just to see what they are talking about. And lately, the right blogs are all immigration, all the time, and the left blogs are all Iraq surge and sectarian violence, all the time.

So it's kind of difficult to get the left's opinion on immigration, because I don't see that many articles dedicated to it. Though over at Daily Kos, he calls it a Path to Citizenship, and that alone makes me think if he were a Senator he'd vote for cloture. Though I haven't the faintest idea why he likes it.

But this guy ... talking about Michael Moore's movie and how it's not going to be news to the people without health insurance that health care in this country stinks ... well he's the subject of my post.

Some of the other barriers faced by people of color and residents of low-income
communities include lack of health facilities nearby, the cost of care and
prescriptions, and the lack of neighborhood-based resources and social support
to engage in healthy behaviors. Race aside, add to that list unaffordable
premiums and reduced benefits and you have a healthcare system that excludes 1
out of 5 Californians, many of whom are average working people.

My favorite line is this ... "social support to engage in healthy behaviors." What the heck is that? Good Church girls that are abstinent are all that's keeping the people discussed from contracting an STD? That's just ridiculous. Is nothing they've done a result of their own bad choices? Is it all because there are not enough "programs" (ie - government funded hand holding) to ensure they stay on the straight and arrow?

Here are some of his ideas (that he collaborated on??) to fix the current system:

Improving data collection and analysis at local, regional, state and national
levels; creating universal access to quality healthcare and treatment; ensuring
residents in low-income neighborhoods have decent places to engage in physical
activity and purchase healthy food; strengthening regulations on hazardous toxic
substances that have negative impacts on health and the environment; and,
developing and implementing training for healthcare professionals to meet the
needs of diverse patient populations.

I think most of these are good. The universal access to quality healthcare is scary ... what does he mean by that? And "developing and implementing training for healthcare professionals to meet the needs of diverse patient populations?" What does that mean? Is that diversity training? More medical training? Is that a spanish class? What is that? I thought they got the training they needed from medical school?

And every time I peruse these places ... I recieve a glimmer of hope ...

In my documentary about the morbidly obese Michael Moore, a camera crew
would follow him around and shoot a full day of his food vacuuming. We'd bust
into his house and capture the contents of his freezer, as the high-BMI
provocateur desperately tries to hide the incriminating gallons of Rocky Road.
Cut to another scene, where we'd stick a microphone in front of the guys behind
the counter in his local Krispy Kreme and ask them if they'd ever see Moore
inhale down a dozen for breakfast.

And in the real crowd-pleaser, we'd
wait outside his doctor's office and insist that he release Moore's weight,
cholesterol, and triglycerides. Refusal, bullying and humiliation would ensue,
and then we'd cut to a montage that juxtaposes a typical Moore pig-out with
shots of poor kids waiting for hours in the emergency room.

And why not? Michael Moore has no shortage of culprits for the millions
of uninsured in America, but he neglects to point the camera at himself -- in
wide-angle format -- and to address the devilish issue of personal
responsibility. How can you talk about health care in America today and not
consider the millions just like him who are bankrupting the system, people who
live recklessly, eat tons of crap, smoke, and then want to flee accountability,
insisting that a single-payer system cover their treatment from dollar one.

Obesity-related medical costs are estimated to be around ten percent of
the $2 trillion dollar annual price ticket for health care. Ten percent of that
is $200 billion, more than the cost of ensuring every American in John Edwards'
health care plan. And if you look at other preventable illnesses, like lung
cancer, the cost is even higher. If the millions of Americans who are as
self-destructive as Michael Moore decided to stop shifting the burden of their
behavior onto others, then the economics of the health care system would
profoundly change, and grandstanding forays to Cuba would be unnecessary.

But in Moore's Manicheistic view of the world, you've got blameless
consumers versus an evil system. By pointing his chubby finger everywhere except
at himself, Moore is essentially arguing that there should be no personal
responsibility, that when it's time for his stents to be inserted, or for his
bypass surgery, or his gastric bypass, that you and I bear the price of his
years of undisciplined consumption (even though his years of undisciplined
film-making could fund it).

I'm sure that Moore would be quick to find a reason that he's not
responsible for his very own contribution to the health care crisis. He'd
probably blame McDonalds and the rest of the obesity-industrial complex for his
problem -- his version of the Twinkie defense -- as moves into his full-on
plebe-pomposity mode and celebrates his struggle for (sic) the little guy.

I've said it before ... if the American public would admit that the country has a weight problem instead of finding ways to make themselves feel better about their bad habits ... health care costs would go down. I've said it before that I think smokers should pay higher premiums than I do. If you were a bungee jumper for a living, your life insurance would be ten times what mine is. The same should be so for health insurance. In fact, as a smoker or an over weight person, your premiums are more for life insurance. Why is this not applied to health insurance?