Monday, March 22, 2010
In my email this morning
In my email this morning, the Daily Bible Verse is:
Health care reform is a major step out of cloud-cuckoo-land for Americans. We can't afford to trip. We've had many, many chances to do it even more incrementally, with bipartisan support, going all the way back to President Nixon. If we don't also reform our financial institutions, it may go for nought. But a start at health care reform is absolutely essential over the long-term. We have to get used to idea that everyone can be insured, because Americans want everyone to have health insurance. Just how we expected that lofty goal to be accomplished without a national direction was a puzzlement. Our private insurers, pharmaceutical corporations, & many providers of health care services operate nationally & internationally, putting individual states at an impossible disadvantage. Juggling Medicaid benefits & eligibility leaves states with the problem of uninsured working people & those who've lost benefits through recession layoffs. I think this dilemma is like the levees of New Orleans. You don't solve it by advising people to move to Houston & Memphis.
I don't know if urban health care suppliers have the capacity to service millions of newly-insured Americans. But they're already struggling with it. They have a few years to adjust. An important test is how much, or if, this legislation lifts a burden off small business. Fortunately, that's one of the "popular" provisions taking effect sooner rather than later.
My friend up the street is barely keeping her business afloat in an economic climate where what she sells is not essential. She had three full time employees in addition to herself, plus part-timers she called in as needed. I think she's down to two full time now, & her values compel her to offer decent health coverage to both at shared expense. She could have gone to all part-time employees. Her work requires wide skills, but there are plenty of freelancers around she could hire. She can assign some of the unskilled work to teenagers or volunteer friends. I helped her out a few times doing dummy tasks on large, corporate jobs that dried up in the current economy. She thinks they'll come back if she can hold out. She likes being an employer. She doesn't like the thought of laying off her employees, closing her business, & working for someone else. Keeps her awake at night. She's gone back to school to learn additional skills she can apply to her business. She's a companionable, good-hearted person. I hope reform helps her. I'm sure she'll be studying it.
(& whattheheck has happened to Chris Matthews? I used to think the guy was smart & connected even when I disagreed with him. But he was utterly blindsided by how health reform unfolded. He had zilch inside track on what was happening behind the scenes. It was like six months ago he decided what would happen & stopped answering his phone. MSNBC ought to tell him to shape up or go.)
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Is there anything of which one can say,From A.Word.A.Day:
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
- Ecclesiastes 1:10 (NIV)
cloud-cuckoo-landFrom A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
MEANING: noun: An idealized, unrealistic state; a place out of touch with reality.
ETYMOLOGY:
Loan translation of Greek Nephelokokkugia, from nephele (cloud) + kokkux (cuckoo). The word was coined in The Birds, a comedy by Athenian playwright Aristophanes (c. 450-388 BCE). Nephelokokkugia was the name of a city in the sky, built by the birds in collaboration with some Athenians.
One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole. -Mohandas Gandhi& posted on Facebook wall from my distant Brit cousin, Jan, a middle class, suburban small business owner (who skipped a vacation this year due to poor economy), & frequent, grateful user of the British National Health Service:
all I can say is 'Rock on Obama!' Well done that man - don't pity the insurance companies they have had a good run for their money!I think statements like Gandhi's tend to discourage people, but he did try to follow his own advice, so millions followed him.
Health care reform is a major step out of cloud-cuckoo-land for Americans. We can't afford to trip. We've had many, many chances to do it even more incrementally, with bipartisan support, going all the way back to President Nixon. If we don't also reform our financial institutions, it may go for nought. But a start at health care reform is absolutely essential over the long-term. We have to get used to idea that everyone can be insured, because Americans want everyone to have health insurance. Just how we expected that lofty goal to be accomplished without a national direction was a puzzlement. Our private insurers, pharmaceutical corporations, & many providers of health care services operate nationally & internationally, putting individual states at an impossible disadvantage. Juggling Medicaid benefits & eligibility leaves states with the problem of uninsured working people & those who've lost benefits through recession layoffs. I think this dilemma is like the levees of New Orleans. You don't solve it by advising people to move to Houston & Memphis.
I don't know if urban health care suppliers have the capacity to service millions of newly-insured Americans. But they're already struggling with it. They have a few years to adjust. An important test is how much, or if, this legislation lifts a burden off small business. Fortunately, that's one of the "popular" provisions taking effect sooner rather than later.
My friend up the street is barely keeping her business afloat in an economic climate where what she sells is not essential. She had three full time employees in addition to herself, plus part-timers she called in as needed. I think she's down to two full time now, & her values compel her to offer decent health coverage to both at shared expense. She could have gone to all part-time employees. Her work requires wide skills, but there are plenty of freelancers around she could hire. She can assign some of the unskilled work to teenagers or volunteer friends. I helped her out a few times doing dummy tasks on large, corporate jobs that dried up in the current economy. She thinks they'll come back if she can hold out. She likes being an employer. She doesn't like the thought of laying off her employees, closing her business, & working for someone else. Keeps her awake at night. She's gone back to school to learn additional skills she can apply to her business. She's a companionable, good-hearted person. I hope reform helps her. I'm sure she'll be studying it.
(& whattheheck has happened to Chris Matthews? I used to think the guy was smart & connected even when I disagreed with him. But he was utterly blindsided by how health reform unfolded. He had zilch inside track on what was happening behind the scenes. It was like six months ago he decided what would happen & stopped answering his phone. MSNBC ought to tell him to shape up or go.)
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, in the news
