Planted amidst the faltering lights of Autumn
she slumbers her fragrant flesh
until the giving photons of Spring
bestow hope and perfume onto us all
Dead Bodies and Cash.
"The system now is nothing short of an abomination"... from the Newsweek Article*..
As an emergency physician and entrepreneur working with other small business people, Mr. Wilkes summery of the payment side of American health care is right on.
Ask yourself how the most powerful country in the world tolerates 50 million uninsured and perhaps an equal number who are under-insured (which can be as horrific).
Dead bodies and cash.
Every time one of the endless pharmaceutical commercials airs... I cannot help but think about the millions that have been spent on these ads. How many due you see a day? How many people in your circle are struggling one way or another with
medical bills?
It is almost absurd... As profits from other sectors level out (less and less new prescriptions are written for their brand name of drug)… the pharmaceutical industry has committed much of their hope on, the great deliverance of humanity, sleep agents.
So, while we pay billions for managed care, insurance,
medical bills... just the pharmaceutical industry alone spends millions of dollars....and will make BILLIONS - just on sleep.
And the estimated cost of affordable, universal health care? - but a handful of the first billions the pharmaceutical major shareholders will make year after year.
There is profit being made at every level, in every back door of health care, in boardrooms across our abundant lands…. to a handful of executives who rape the system taking flamboyant, wasteful, and abhorrent bonuses for increasing profits (often at the expense of overall quality!). Yet more profit for the plutocracy and a further abomination.
Dead bodies and cash.
Moreover… how do many of us then 'pay' for these health care bills... borrowing with credit cards. And we all know how this industry has bought our government to pass laws favorable to their vile usury of the same families who are under-insured. Yet more profit for the plutocracy and a further abomination.
Dead bodies and cash.
Billions upon billions are being made in profit each and every year, year after year by the bio
medical,
medical equipment, pharmaceutical, insurance, and private health care industries. It is a free-for-all orgy of cash, power and influence… while one-third of our people struggle to pay for their basic heath care. Yet more profit for the plutocracy and a further abomination.
Dead bodies and cash.
While examples from other countries with universal health care may leave much to be desired relative to wait times, rationing, etc… here in America, think about it…. despite our market driven system…. We still rank in the bottom quartile of life expectancy and infant mortality. There must be a better way..
It is time to pause and decide - today - I have had enough - we must collectively act as a people...
I propose a decentralized universal health care mandate, run by each state, funded by taxes on the for-profit health-care-related industry and tobacco, alcohol profits… with taxation of personal income as necessary, approximating what is deducted for health insurance now.
I further propose we rapidly pull America's soldiers out of Iraq... and turn the peace-keeping over the UN (like it or not they will have no choice but to intervene)... we then divert those funds to the healthcare mandate, and also a massive buy out of health care related personal debt.
Finally, we create national standards for Emergency Medical Services and Emergency Department care.... -we fund the much needed rehab of the floundering front door of acute access to health-care....
This universals access the favorable, basic health care inevitably spawns further entrepreneurship... what would happen if the small business owner had no fear of providing 'health benefits' for th
emselves and/or employees?!
We know state run insurance, is more efficient than for-profit (profit kind of hurts efficiency…. the profit itself is responsible for approximately 10-fold more overhead!). The heath profiteers can still ‘advance’
medical technology while we as a people can bask in the glory of affordable world-class heath care for all Americans. Imagine that. We’ll all, I suspect, sleep a little better or at least, won’t care.
So one may debate the prudence of one plan over another, but I think from a logic standpoint a clever way does surely exist to provide basic, earnest, healing and compassionate health care to all Americans.
It is said, to defeat an enemy do not seek to kill them... an ill target is more damaging than a dead one.
Furthermore, most empires throughout history, particularly the most prodigious have used two things most notably to satisfy their selfish ends... 1) conquest and 2) human slave labor.
Let's halt (or at least limit, for Pete's sake!) our government's conquest
This was shot on April 6th at San Jose Fire Station 34 when USAR Company 34 was dispatched to an EMS call. Next door at AMR headquarters a fundraising BBQ was taking place to raise funds for
medical and family costs for injured AMR Paramedic who is in a coma with possible brain damage following a beating in Los Angeles during the baseball season opener between the LA Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants.
The San Jose
equipment from Station 34 was on the apron as members of the public were checking out all the emergency
equipment here along with other
equipment from San Jose Fire that was dropping in to visit the fundraiser at AMR throughout the day. Local law enforcement and the EMS community were also on display throughout the day.
San Jose USAR Company 34 is shown here in it's usual configuration, USAR A and USAR B, both 1998 Saulsbury built rescue rigs, A being the heavy rescue, B the medium rescue. They carry all the
equipment needed to qualify as a state accredited heavy rescue team. The two rigs respond like this to all calls they are assigned.
In addition at Station 34 and nearby Station 5 USAR C, USAR D and USAR E are kept, which contained specialized
equipment for High/Low Angle rescue, swift water rescue and trench rescue. C/D/E are only responded to specific calls where the special
equipment they carry is needed, using staff from USAR Company 34 or Engine 5.