Maybe you want to watch this 40-minute Facebook Live video from Dr. Margaret Flowers, last year's Green Senatorial candidate from Maryland. Maybe you don't, and that's OK.
Maybe you truly believe that Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders's introduction of the new Medicare for All Act is perfectly timed and will generate the popular groundswell necessary to get it passed over the objection of Big Med and Big Pharma. Maybe you also believe that it will become the single "litmus-test" issue for candidates in 2018, especially in Democratic primaries. Maybe you believe neither of those, and that's OK too. For me, as long as I've been paying attention to the issues, health care reform has taken a reluctant back seat to (1) anti-war/pro-peace, and (2) environmental matters such as climate change. Both (1) and (2) not only deal with the survival of life and civilization on this planet, but are also absurdly multi-faceted and loaded with ramifications. But I have been a proponent of a national single-payer health care system since high school, when the nationwide debate topic of comprehensive medical care. ***** BIG UPDATE: Within minutes of my publishing this post, the Scott McLarty sent out this GPUS press release on the topic. So as a party, we're officially excited by this development. ***** Due to other obligations Saturday, I was not able to stay for the entire Medicare for All Town Hall & Health Fair. But I sure was glad I went, not just because there was plenty of good information on single-payer health care systems, but because all the speakers saw the struggle for single-payer as an important piece in a larger puzzle. Although no one on the panel actually spoke the word aloud, one of my favorite buzzwords kept buzzing through my mind as they gave their spiels:
Intersectionality. UPDATE: Egberto Willies got some video of the speeches from the Town Hall. The following is adapted from a Facebook link advocating single-payer health care that I posted last Friday. My motivation in posting it derives from several threads in which a friend, whose views I respect but with whom I frequently disagree, has expressed his opposition.
In asking friends to comment with their direct experiences with national health systems, my original hypothesis was that respondents would gush about how wonderful these systems are—not necessarily ideal, but a great improvement over the profit-driven model found in the US. My guess came close: There were more negatives than I'd envisioned, but most comments were favorable overall toward single-payer and similar systems. General consensus, among those who have experienced it directly and the mostly American bunch whose friends and relatives have lived under it, is that the competence of those administering the system is an important factor. There are some not-so-good single-payer systems in existence, and they don't always fix the problems of capitalist health care immediately. Those stories of ridiculous waiting times in Canada may be somewhat exaggerated, but such instances do occur. The UK's National Health Service had problems in the early stages, but the people running that system have learned from earlier mistakes and put those lessons in to practice. I'm still waiting for some respondents to reply as to whether they will permit me to repost their comments here, so this should be Part I of two. ***** Original Post I have a friend with libertarian sympathies whose reaction to any suggestion of single-payer health care is one of dread. He comments with links on my threads about the horrors of single-payer health care: patients & families losing control over their own medical destiny, patients who die waiting for promised treatment, etc. This post is NOT—repeat NOT—an invitation to slag my friend, or libertarianism with a capital or lowercase L. So don't. That shit will be deleted with all due haste. Instead, I'd like to see stories of experiences with health care in nations with single-payer or hybrid systems, positive or negative. I invite the following to address the issue. Chris in the UK All narcissists lack emotional empathy and are, to some extent, anti-social. Many narcissists are somewhat psychopathic and, therefore, sadistically prone to violence. They get a high and derive an almost sexual gratification from wielding power and inflicting pain and humiliation on others. It sustains their grandiose fantasy of omnipotence (that they are Godlike, all-powerful). That's why many narcissists are litigious, threaten "their enemies" incessantly, seek to embarrass and humiliate them in public, stalk them, and harass them recurrently. Narcissists have a black and white view of the world: if you are not 100% with me, you are 110% the enemy (this is known as "splitting" in the psychological jargon). Trump strikes me as this type of narcissist. Saturday afternoon, as a fellow Green was excoriating Donald Trump from the stage of the Last Concert Café, another fellow Green leaned over and said something like, "Trump is sick, you know. He has a mental illness, and he needs treatment."
She didn't specify Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but that's where my brain went. That's what of thought about Trump for years. I nodded and kept listening to the speech. We all need mental health care, even those of us who suffer from no recognized mental illness. We need to break the stigma surrounding mental illness and seeking treatment. We need to make mental health care affordable for everyone, or society will continue to pay the price (e.g., in mass shootings). We also need to recognize when someone like Donald Trump is manipulating the public for his own self-aggrandizement, or when the Democratic Party and its operatives are gaslighting voters. Today is the First of Breastober. This month brings a relentless storm of pink ribbons, with all that the pink ribbon entails.
This entry actually has nothing to do with the They Might Be Giants songlet "Stormy Pinkness." I just like the title. I've never been fond of wearing pink. It's really not in my color palette. It's not a "feminine colors" issue either: I have always loved purple, and I have a lavender shirt and tie that I wear with pride. If you know me, you know that I gravitate toward "winter" colors, the colors that unfortunately make me harder to see when I'm cycling at night. Today I am wearing a pink necktie to work—solid pink, not bedecked with little pink ribbon logos. I am wearing this cravat not because I support the mighty Breast Cancer Awareness Industry, but because my ladyfriend Kayleen gave it to me to wear. Kayleen and I are both very aware of breast cancer and its impact on women and families, and we don't need any Susan Komen types to remind us. We have both had women in our families diagnosed with breast cancer. Kayleen's mother just died from it this year. My own mother's stage one breast cancer was diagnosed and treated several years ago; she has been cancer-free for more than five years now. |
Blogging Sporadically since 2014Here you will find political campaign-related entries, as well as some about my literature, Houston underground arts, peace & justice, urban cycling, soccer, alt-religion, and other topics. Categories
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