A commenter notes the hilarious conviction that in an Augustan and undemocratic body like the Senate, it is intolerable for a small club of elected goobers to behave undemocratically. In the linked piece, Joel Achenbach avers:
But compromise too much and it won't really be reform -- and our leaders will have squandered a once-in-a-generation chance to expand coverage, improve the sanity of the system and stave off a looming fiscal disaster.Personally I'd like to know to which of the currently living and breathing generations this singular chance belongs. I am hoping it's the boomers, who overstayed their welcome merely by entering the world, the damned, damning, and spiteful issue of the truly Satanic "Greatest Generation," who saved the world from Hitler and Hirohito in order to give it the atomic bomb, Las Vegas, and their own rapacious children. Yeah, thanks a lot. Anyway. We all know what Achenbach means when he says, in the parlance of our times, that we must "improve the sanity of the system," and yet I think we'd err in not noting the categorical confusion there. Systems are neither sane nor insane, although they perhaps reflect the sanity of their creators and inhabitants . . . or the lack thereof. Has it occurred to anyone other than me that of those four terrible words, Health Care In America, it is not the first two that represent the problem?
22 comments:
There you go with your American descriptionalism again. Are there sane countries, though?
The Preznit on health care: "we should be able to find a way to create a uniquely American solution to this problem..."
Max Baucus: "We're America, we are not Canada, we are not other countries, we are the United State of America[...]so we have to have our uniquely American health care solution..."
I'm pretty sure that is exactly what they were on about.
"Uniquely American" is an oxymoron. Try and come up with your own, kids!
Well, fuck, I'm sure that any piece of legislation that winds its way out of the bowels of the Senate and the House of Representatives is going to be pretty fucked up, and leave a pretty twisted system in place designed to reward a host of corrupt actors, but all I want is to be able to afford to go to the doctor for the first time in eight years. If anything these fuckers do accidentally gives me relief, I'll be happy.
But it would sound good as a sound bite: "All new and improved sanity."
i can not tell if christopher m above is being facetious...if not, i am interested to learn how you have time and resources to blog but are incapable of affording a general practitioner's fee once in 8 years?
Christopher, I'm of a similar opinion. The system is corrupt and despicable--but let's try to see what we can get. Life is dirty. I try to get used to it--but remember that it is mutable and that disruption is possible.
That said, the notion of these cycles, as IOZ is discussing above, is flatly absurd. But it may be true, nevertheless. We might have to wait until reform comes back into fashion if we don't do this now. And it'll never be any better--or any worse--than what we do now, though many people may be hurt in the meantime.
The problem is that hip-hop isn't gay enough, if you ask me.
Reform? Puuleeez.
How about defunding, elimination?
How about no "system"?
That reminds me, it seems like every ad I hear says "Now, more than ever" at some point. There's no justification for this, and there's never "Now, less than ever" or "Now, same as ever", and no sequence of events results in the issue of timing being mooted. People seem to have a need to cook up urgency and immediacy. More front-porches, rocking chairs and lemonade are in order now, more than ever.
Can't we just invade Sweden and take theirs?
I was pretty young at the time, but I recall "Now, more than ever" being used by the committee to re-elect the president in 1972. Seemed like BS then, too. Same as ever.
It expands coverage, improves the sanity of the system and staves off a looming fiscal disaster?
Does it remove cranberry stains too?
improve the sanity of the system and stave off a looming fiscal disaster. Now more than ever -- we need a sanity clause.
If it doesn't, we should see if we can swap that sanity bit for stain removal. Or maybe extra fries.
Now more than ever. Constantly and for ever. There is no solution, and things swiftly get worse every day. This does not lessen the fact that we have choices to make.
You can't fool me! There ain't no Sanity Claus.
Dr. Hackenbush tells me I'm the only case in history. I have high blood pressure on my right side and low blood pressure on my left side.
"i am interested to learn how you have time and resources to blog but are incapable of affording a general practitioner's fee once in 8 years?"
To leave comments on a blog, all it takes is internet access, and internet access is relatively cheap. To afford insurance, I'd have to buy from the individual market, and I'm either priced out of that or outright denied that on the basis of multiple pre-existing conditions. Which is not to say that I've not gone to the doctor at all in the past eight years; it's just that in order to go I've run up massive amounts of debt that are soaking the rest of my life. On my last visit, it cost seventy-five dollars just to get the doctor to write a prescription, another two hundred to get that prescription filled. Never mind emergencies: the last time I was taken to an emergency room, it cost me thirteen hundred dollars, and all they did there was give me one of the pills I'd already paid for. I'm really, really tired from this.
I agree! Relying on accidental relief is the best way to reform our health care system.
AlanSmithee, I'm not "relying" on anything. I'm desperate, and would like help, from anywhere. Get off your fucking high horse.
Without his high horse, Alan is just another rad teenager getting hassled by the mall cops for hanging around Hot Topic all day.
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