tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5261340509073154473.post4919509817688464947..comments2023-11-03T14:08:43.854-04:00Comments on Broken Turtle: BrainwashedPhillip Bannowskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15635421147908549692noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5261340509073154473.post-52102609378794325942010-03-24T13:44:56.887-04:002010-03-24T13:44:56.887-04:00The pigs have grown their training wings.The pigs have grown their training wings.Franetta McMillianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16827358013628018462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5261340509073154473.post-44091311506198961532010-03-21T20:46:55.267-04:002010-03-21T20:46:55.267-04:00Someday in this country healthcare will no longer ...Someday in this country healthcare will no longer be a privilege; it will be a right that seems just as natural born as the status quo does today. Yes, When Pigs fly!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5261340509073154473.post-57995614293322024502010-03-21T19:55:46.602-04:002010-03-21T19:55:46.602-04:00The civilized world looks at the U.S. in wonder an...The civilized world looks at the U.S. in wonder and bemusement. The most powerful country in the history of the planet will not provide health care for its citizens. <br /><br />The U.S. has seen fit to engage in military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq for the better part of a decade. When all is accounted for, these wars of choice will have cost many lives, damaged many more lives, families and communities, and have exhausted trillions of tax dollars. <br /><br />These misadventures have coincided with a deepening trend, begun about thirty years ago, of redistributing much of the nation's wealth from the lower and middle classes up. It is as if a nostalgia for the 1930s gripped the decision-makers in the three branches of government. They have about gotten their wish.<br /><br />The drumbeat started even before the Reagan presidency and the message was repeated and eventually found its way into policy: government agencies charged with overseeing the public's welfare are incompetent and should be dismantled. By shifting funding away from the institutions that were designed to "level the playing field" and to protect the small and weak from the excesses of the large and powerful, the message became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course the FDA is incapable of keeping food safe and inadequately tested drugs off the market. Its back was broken and its teeth extracted long ago. Substitute the FTC, EPA and/or any number of other amalgams of alphabet and the pattern is the same.<br /><br />Somehow, many U.S. citizens have been induced to swallow all of this, along with the message that health care is best left in the hands of profit-making entities. Among the means that health insurance corporations use to increase profits is to make certain that as little care is provided to premium payers as possible. The handful of executives atop these corporations benefit handsomely while supposedly enhancing the portfolios of their stockholders. As a lifelong stock market investor, I am not convinced that is really what has happened. Rather, I see many CEOs and board chairs enriching themselves at the expense of anyone they can. They use legal means to the same ends that motivated Bernard Madoff.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the U.S. expends more than 1.5 times as much of its GDP as does England on health care and 1/16th of its people are without coverage. Many more live in fear of losing theirs. When pundits of the right proclaim that many of these 45 million or so choose to go without, it rings about as true as saying that people who choose to dine from dumpsters do so by choice, not necessity.<br /><br />I have, as usual, been long-winded. No one "deserves" to be kicked to the curb when taken ill. Illness is not a judgement upon the character of the afflicted, any more than good health is a sign of morality or the lack thereof for that matter. <br /><br />Rather, the casual rejection of those who have lost their livelihood and their resources due to illness reflects poorly on the judgement of a people who are willing to believe a big lie, repeated ad nauseum. <br /><br />Eventually, the pendulum of public sentiment will swing back from its long arc to the right. The problem for many is, it will be too late. No one deserves to be thrown away because time ran out.<br /><br />David P. Kozinski<br />Wilmington, DEAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5261340509073154473.post-20756196485362218012010-03-21T19:29:53.074-04:002010-03-21T19:29:53.074-04:00Thanks for writing this Franetta, we are so suscep...Thanks for writing this Franetta, we are so susceptible to internalizing the controlling and dehumanizing information coming at us from society. Maintenance all the time huh? Love always to hear from your searing intelligence and insights. karoline wileczekAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com