|
||
I Got Mine... So F You Kids
Have you noticed that the meanest, shrillest, least compassionate and most heartless people who are well off and have all the medical coverage they'll ever need are seemingly sickened beyond cure by the notion that someone who literally cannot afford health care is somehow beneath contempt and must be vilified and humiliated?
I am repelled and mystified by the deranged reaction that rich right-wingers are regurgitating over this issue. No concern over the irrefutable fact that children in this country have more of a chance of disease and death than some nations that are nowhere near as wealthy as America.
How and why can human beings capable of this despicable, inhuman behavior call themselves civilized and Christian?
These soulless, spiritually bankrupt, intellectual frauds have more allegiance to a thoroughly discredited political philosophy than to the most vulnerable among us!
How will this effect these millions of our children who may never receive proper or rudimentary medical attention in their lives? Will they be sickly, confused and resentful of their own country? Will they ever have faith in anything ever again? We must all figure out how to help them or a shame and sickness will rise up in our souls that no medical coverage can heal.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Richard
You are spot on. If I read this verse correctly it seems that Christians are repeating history. We have apparently not learned the lesson yet!
"One day children were brought to Jesus in the hope that he would lay hands on them and pray over them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus intervened: "Let the children alone, don't prevent them from coming to me. God's kingdom is made up of people like these." MT 19:14
And the children we are "shooing away" represent the poor and disenfranchised, who were the people most drawn to Him. And we Christians say we want people to be drawn to Him. So who is really getting in the way?
I think I'd rather have one less Trident/F22/B2/insert_name_of_highly_expensive_weapons_system_here and spend that money (one B2 = 1B; one Trident submarine =3B) on healthcare even IF, horrible dictu, some "undeserving" person received it.
Why do we swallow the "camel" of Halliburton/Lockheed/Northrop Grumman/Thiokol/Raytheon/insert_name_of_defense_contractor_here getting all kinds of government money, but strain at the "gnat" of some poor, near-middle or even middle-class child receiving health services? I simply do not understand this?
That's an excellent article Richard, and just long enough to get the point home without labouring details - I wish I could write half as well.
What bothers me, as a Brit (awaiting US citizenship) about the whole health care question in the US, is how in the name of goodness has it been allowed to go on like this for so long? It's not just the last 7 years - you've NEVER had any proper health care programme to cover everybody. Why hasn't a previous government dealt with it ?
Is this really the way the majority of American citizens want to live ? It must be, otherwise they'd have demanded change long before now.
It's very puzzling to me.
Puzzles my British Husband too.
Then there is the schmuck that gets added to bills and no line item veto anymore, leaving whoever is president to have to swallow the entire bill making B.S. with a full glass of water.
Let's see, what else... Oh yeah. Which would I rather have... money wasted on an "illegal war" or money "wasted" on kids...
Ahem. I think I'll choose to live, thank you.
=^..^=
Thank you so much!!! absolutely great article.. No More Paris Hilton Tax cuts....
Come on, people!
We're not talking about indigent street people with children, we're talking about the working poor. These people work at jobs that pay as little as possible. Add into that the cost of rent, food, possibly gas and car insurance, there's very little left over for health care.
And yet, some would dismissively label these folks as lazy, undeserving bastards who should have thought about finances before having kids in the first place. How very humanitarian of them! The fact is, not everybody has the advantage of a good education, and honest, hardworking people without degrees have to make do with what they can get, often hard physical labor and gruntwork the better off would certainly avoid.
Like maids and gardeners are often invisible to the people they're working for, these working poor people annoy these selfish, affluent policy makers by failing to fade into the woodwork. How dare they put themselves in a position to be noticed!
When it comes to families being able to afford health care we're not even talking about the working poor anymore we're talking about the middle class.
My husband and I had to pay our own health insurance for two years; $500/month for minimum insurance coverage with a $2500 deductible each. Basically that's $11,000 a year before coverage even kicks in. For what? To have it just in case something bad happened so we wouldn't lose our house. Are you kidding me?
What a scam the insurance companies are fomenting on this nation. They lose money in the stock market and can only make profits if they refuse coverage of sick people and do their damndest to refuse coverage for people paying them thousands in premiums a year.
well this may be a little off the subject, but i just heard neal boortz railing against unicef because the U.N., not the U.S. gets credit for the good they do. maybe thats what they need to pass schip, this drs visit brought to you courtsey of exon mobile and the good folks at the first bleeding heart chucrch of Christs war on government handouts. a little note indicating who exactly provided a childs biopsy or whatever so they get the credit. God keeps track of those things you know.
You are so right Richard...the Christian commandment is to help your fellow citizens, not downgrade them into a life of hell.
And many people do live a life of hell here. And why should that be so? I would really doubt that people who have it made really got there by themselves, anyway!
As that French philosopher said, "Behind every great fortune is a crime."
So, however you amassed that life on easy street...someone must have had to pay for it. Maybe with sweat, maybe with blood....as the military-industrial-service industry are reaping $$$ now. Their children are no doubt well taken care of, while other kid's parents die in the war
There was a great cartoon once in the paper.There's a picture of this big bloated guy--"the world's rich", and this skinny pale guy--"the world's poor". And the rich guy says, "YEE Gads, you want how much?"
Well, as it says in their book, What good does it do you to gain the world if you lose your soul? Where is the soul of our country? What has happened to it?
There is nothing in Christian doctrine (or any other religion) that stipulates that "charity" should be administered through the redistribution of wealth via government taxes. Our government was not originally set up to confiscate one citizens wealth and give it to another it deems more "needy" (this relatively recent function of government does more to increase the power of government than anything). Charity is by definition voluntary. Even as things are right now the US is the largest source of charitable giving and it just so happens that conservatives give more moeny than liberals according recent stats.
Now let's dispell some myths that you stated here. The first is that you insinuate that our economy is a zero sum game.
"So, however you amassed that life on easy street...someone must have had to pay for it."
This is wrong! Our economy is constantly expanding - the pie is getting bigger. If you create a product or service that is in demand than yes some may get a bigger piece of that pie than some. But that does not "take" something out of someone else's hand.
Also, you seem to think that someone who accumulates wealth is always a crook. I know many honest, hard working people that have accumulated wealth....they are not crooks.
You sound like a angry, envious victicrat that is ok with being taken care of instead of picken youself up by your own bootstraps. Everyone needs a little help now and again but you will never have any range of success whining about how the world is "rigged". You are a poor soul indeed.
So much for my feelings of wanting to help my fellow man. I read a vicious little post like this and I suddenly don't care about people anymore.
Thanks for spreading the hate, dude.
Au Contraire Mon Frere:
MAT 19:16-24: And behold, a man came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?"
And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments."
He said to him, "Which ones?" And Jesus said, "You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness,Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
The young man said to him, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?"
Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."
I've have worked since I was 16 and I am now nearly 60. I'm a Viet Nam vet, hold a BS degree, and I'm a tax payer. My job was outsourced to India and now I work for less than 25% of what I used to get.
I had a heart attack and now I have no medical insurance. I can't afford the $830/mo that they charge for someone in my condition. I'm paying over $500/mo for perscription medicines. I had to sell my home to pay for the medical bills. If I get sick again, I'll lose what little I have left. As such, I live with a lot of stress, which is not good for the heart.
Now how am I supposed to "picken" myself up by my own bootstraps? They are broken! Unlike you, my piece of the pie is getting smaller every day. But I'm glad you are such a considerate and compassionate person and so willing to judge others. Take your toys and your money to your grave if you can.
I've heard things like "i don't want my tax money going to some sorry SOB,that won't work or smokes or over-eats,ect."
I reminded them about this:LEE RAYMOND for starters.Remember him,the fat bastard that ran Exxon for a decade or so.He got a $400 million dollar RETIREMENT PACKAGE.That was a year or so back when Mobile/Exxon was making 10s of BILLIONS of dollar$ aquarter in proffit.Yet they[Exxon] still receive government subsidies(CORPRATE WELFARE).Tax breaks on their "proffits",plus YOU THE TAXPAYER has to make up the difference that corporations leave by not having to pay taxes on their LUDICROUS PROFFITS.
So you have to work and pay taxes one way or another.
So,wouldn't you rather see someone that actually might need that money to say STAY ALIVE get it.OR would you rather your tax money go to someone who will take your money and "throw it in the pile",then ASS RAPE you at the pump for your WAGES too!
And I haven't even mentioned the $3 billion aweek going for who knows what in Iraq and Afganistan.
HELP THE NEEDY,NOT THE GREEDY.
So I imagine that if your employer offered you $400 million you'd turn it down. That's what I thought. BTW, you're confusing voluntary agreements with the taking of money by force. They are not moral equivalents.
You are a PRESUMTIVE PRICK!You don't know me,YOU "thought" wrong!
So you think when a corporation is making record profits,they still are entitled to OUR tax money otherwise known as CORPRATE WELFARE.
IS that what your saying?
Not exactly. If my employer gives me $400 million it's an expense to them and they are going to make it up from somewhere. It's hardly voluntary for the consumer who has to pay higher prices or the other employees whose benefits are reduced or the rest of the country who has to make up the taxes which are not being paid because I really only need a million a year so I'm deferring the rest.
The last time I looked, the children were the responsibility of their parents.
So, when you say that that the President disrespect kids, you are really saying that the well-deserved disrespect goes to the co-called parents who - beyond the act of procreation - - seem to drop any responsibility for the welfare of their own kids.
If the parents were responsible adults, this would not even be an issue.
But it is an issue. You have fixed the blame, fine. Now we need to fix the problem. It is not the fault of the children.
Yes, but it is also not proper for your money to be confiscated by force and to give it to someone who we don't even know and who has apparently abdicated responsibility.
This better done through private charity not government coersion. Gov. only uses this as a power play. Alot of this money ends up in the pockets of bureaucrats...not in poor kids pockets.
Just look at who screams the loudest when there is a proposal to scale back one of these wealth transfer programs....the public employee union poeple!...thats who.
Okay, let's say that your theory is correct - parents who cannot afford health insurance or cannot obtain health insurance because of a pre-existing condition are irresponsible. Even if this is the case, does that mean that we should turn our backs on the children and let them suffer? The government intervenes often when people have been irresponsible or are in need. Why is the president choosing to draw the line with children, and why should we find that acceptable?
Children have no control over the choices their parents make. Children do not have incomes nor do they have the legal ability to make decisions for themselves. How can we stand by while children in the richest country in the world die of simple illnesses like the flu?
Also, making sure everyone has access to proper healthcare is a public safety issue. If people do not get communicable illnesses treated, they can spread the illnessthroughout the population.
Children are full of potential. When we neglect children, we are neglecting our country's future and health.
What are your stats on this? I not seeing that kids are dropping dead in any larger numbers than anywhere else. For the most part kids are pretty healthy except they seem to be eating too much.
You know anytime I here a pol say..."we need to do this for the children"...I grab for my wallet. This is all a smoke screen to turn us into a socialist nation.
Sorry, not buying.
You are obviously of an acceptable 'body mass index,' do not have 'high blood pressure,' have never taken a preventative HIV test, never have had a skin biopsy tested for melanoma, or basal cell carcinoma, and are generally in good health. OR you get your health insurance through your employer. I hope nothing ever happens to you to need that health insurance, because is any of those conditions apply, or a myriad of others, you will find yourself excluded from coverage by your insurance company.
This is NOT an issue about good parenting, it is an issue of predatory monopolistic practices on the part of major corporations.
Are you saying that married couples should not have kids unless they are billionaires?
Yukon JAck - Thank you for representing the "other" side on a generally left-leaning site. I imagine that you take a lot of flame, either making it difficult to maintain your views or forcing you to harden your positions.
The situation that I see is that there are a range of people and situations in the world and those situations are changing for people in different ways. Certainly there are people whose beliefs do not prevent exercise on birth control and who feel the world owes them. I have little sympathy for them, though I do for the children they bring into this world and inflict with their attitudes. On the other hand, there are people whose personal situation has changed. Where they once could provide for those children, they cannot today. There are also people who believe birth control is wrong. There are alos people who have the means to provide for their children now and in the future.
The real arguments here is whether society should provide a safety net and how big that safety net should be.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
The real question is not about helping our fellow man....everyone agrees that we should as a society help those less fortunate.
The question is how should this be accomplished? The libs push for government intervention because they have the mistaken idea that private charity could not handle it all. The conservatives say let this help happen in the private sector as it has been done for centuries. Government "help" has done nothing but create a sense of lifelong dependancy in certain recipients and has unfairly confiscated the hard earned wages of US citizens.
You libs need to stop portraying conservatives as not compassionate and address the real issue we have with government wealth transfer.
Wait so when a parent has to pay an HMO more money a month than a what they earn for health insurance that is their fault? wow guy I wish i were as well off as you.
In this trade society people yet believe in a Meritocracy that will prove that the "superior" people who are working hard will become rich while the lazy are deservingly left behind. When we had an agrarian scoiety this actually worked well. Of course, the Meritocracy was defeated a long time ago by wealthy investors who wanted to be rich while watching from a living room chair.
The days when everyone would wake up and chop wood in the morning and tend to the farm in the afternoon have long passed. Energy comes from pipes and food comes from the grocer. People buy from "God and Hollywood" rather than their neighbor. Wealth comes from Daddy. Jobs come from Santa Claus. Kids rate one another on their smile over the cell. Adults rate one another on their macho calls for conservative tough love which is another way of saying tough sh!t.
Unfortunately, Americans lump the sick and the lazy together, otherwise their would be sufficient brother-love to care for the sick (even among Republicans!). Still, the sick and the families of the sick get dumped on. And Americans have become very proficient at dumping on. A friend from a third-world country once boasted to me that the sick are treated to much better care in his country. Seeing this in America brought him to shock.
If you can find a way to end the poor treatment of America's sick please do it. It seems that we have replaced the Meritocracy for an Absent-Care-tocracy, in which people are rewarded by caring as little as possible. It's enough to make me sick.
Richard, its called "Social Darwinism", and its been around a long time. One of the more endearing traits of human nature. "Those People" are obviously stupid, lazy, or both and deserve to die, is the line of thinking. Well off people will always tend to think they got that way by hard work, initiative, being smarter than other people, and personal sacrifice. All of which may be true to an extent, but they don't see how much dumb luck plays into it, and don't feel they need to help out the less fortunate with their hard earned money or time. Because its not fortune, you see, they DESERVE to be better off, and the others......well you said it all in your title.
I think you have it backwards ( or sideways). It's easy to see that someone who is smart and hardworking deserves money as a reward. It's not as easy to see how being sick warrants the delivery of money. Being sick doesn't actually produce anything, so getting paid for it doesn't make sense.
I think you don't understand the basic concept of insurance. Its' not about getting paid for being sick because it doesn't produce anything. It's about whether there is insurance for when you do. By your logic you would ban all health insurance because you shouldn't get paid for not producing anything?
You might make an argument that it is wrong to FORCE the participation in such insurance programs by requiring that you fund them through your taxes, but simplistic statements that "being sick [does not] warrants the delivery of money" really misses the main point.
As I have stated elsewhere in response to your other platitudinous pronouncements (will not repeat them here - find them below) you also need to consider the role of "safety nets" as a beneficial part of society. Keep in mind that simplistic pronouncements that are out of touch with a complex society are subject to reduction to their extremes. Extremes that would lead to a world that you really wouldn't want to live in.
You have to realize the selectively misapplied principles of evolution represented in social darwinism and dominant economic theory do not take the glaring limitations of competitive theory into account, totally disregarding the value of a common point of view where collaboration and cooperation trump competition in effective provision for the well-being of all, including the seventh generation to come.
You use "Social Darwinism," I just bet you don't believe real "Darwinism."
There would be plenty of money to pay medical bills for all Americans if the Federal Deficit was eliminated. %500 billion dollars has been paid so far this year in interest to fund the Federal Deficit. The interest is paid to mainly countries like China which is holding 1.3 trillion American dollars and now is trying to buy American industries, banks, farmland, etc. Just try and guess how much Arab countries are holding. Call your Congressman and insist that they refuse to vote for anything that will be funded by the deficit until it is erased. Items like Iraq, US military costs in overseas bases, economic and military spending, foreign aid to countries unless the United Naionss contibute.
I think a true sociopath doesn't need to behave vituperatively or sadistically in order to numb emotion like compassion or fear, like fear of the perceived weakness of others (as if you could catch vulnerability like cooties).
Most of these creeps are human, like me, so when stuff like mean-spirited short-sighted self-serving competition theory BS gets the veins bulging in my neck, I gotta remember I may be instinctually recognizing and reacting to a terrifying human weakness, just like them.
That old land of milk and honey american dream work ethic mythos is obsolete but alive in well in the american subconscious, and so is a certain gullibility to subtle divisive prompts to identify with the priviliged when in reality the 'folks' really in that category represent a very small minority.
When I read Paul Krugman's "The Great Wealth Transfer", about how most of the pie has shifted into a very small number of hands since I was a kid, I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt how truly it wasn't just my imagination, or 'just me'.
I think the main problem is that a mass disconnect along those lines, with much help from the big media corps.
A link to that article is on the 'Reading List' here:
http://crowings.wordpress.com
Wrong. America is still the land of opportunity, just not the land of guarantees.
Yeh,you have the opportunity to work at Wal Mart,Mc Donalds,Wendys some grocery store or be a janitor so you can clean up after people like Dunderdog.
Answer this BRILLIANCE:say you have A KID(thats 1 kid) you make $20 thousand a year,your insurance premiums add up to $10 or $12 thousand ayear($1200 amonth),and your deductable is $5 thousand,I KNOW PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING WITH THIS SITUATION NOW.
Polish that Turd ,Dunderdog(i'm sure you will)enlighten us with your knowledge!
Nice. Platitudes for responses that otherwise evidence no critical thinking.
As Roald said earlier "The real arguments here is whether society should provide a safety net and how big that safety net should be."
If you care to do any research beyond your Econ 101 text books or some talking points website you'd realize that even conservative economists recognize a positive role for such safety nets. If nothing else, when "properly structured" (that is the "devil in the details" where how big and how available they are is the real matter worth arguing about) they provide a beneficial effect of encouraging risk taking, e.g. switching jobs to a better one because you know you can rely on unemployment insurance to keep you out of the gutter, that increase everyone's and society's total wealth. Same thing for other forms of "socialized" insurance.
Again, as in all complext real world matters, the real argument is on the fringes, how much and how available, not the simple sound bites that "some folks" like to spew.
You are right on the money again Mr. Belzer.
Extremely well said, Richard, as always.
I'm having trouble seeing how children can help but be influenced by not only the health care crisis, but by how this country has been looted by the NeoCons and the "Christian" right. Children are very perceptive, especially when they see their parents struggle against debt, recession and the almost epic battle to get (or maintain) any semblance of health care. We've already begun to leave a legacy of bitterness.
I wish you'd post again on this topic, because I'd be curious to know how you think the tide can be turned. On Ray Ellin's show, you mentioned Obama would be your choice for a VP, yet he seems to miss the mark on health care issues, too. Aside from making our wishes known in the polls, what else can we do to insure both children and all of us?
I'm one of too many literally bankrupted by medical costs. Insurers, using the excuse of pre-existing conditions, hand-select whom they'll cover. Without something on a national level, I no longer see how anyone could obtain insurance, be it for their children or themselves.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
