Today may be the coldest day I've experienced since childhood, appropo given I'm back in southcentral Maine, land of said misspent youth, and not Virginia. Weather.com says it's 7 degrees on the other side of the frosted glass, and that it "feels like" minus-11. I'll freakin' goddamn say! It's a breeze to freeze fersherr!
My mother's headed to surgery as I post this. Sister dearest is with her going in. I'm headed over to greet her coming out. Too many trips to the hospital can surely level the mental playing field for any ex-jocularity, and yet it's reassuring to know the smaller regions of New England are well represented by the medical establishment in terms of perceptable competence as well as aesthetics. Now if we can get the insurance and pharma industries brought to heel, America might be a decent place to live again.
As to the latter point, I'd certainly like to see John Edwards take Iowa tonight. A good progressive champion is exactly what this country needs right now. Obama talks like a Republican, and Hillary is a Republican. As such, they are no genuine help to those in need of it. So to the curb with 'em, I say!
Meanwhile, the bet here is on the Huckster winning for the Repos, where beauty can now be defined by Rudy's corrupt freefall or by Mitt's expensive clothing growing less visible by the moment. (Uhm, strike that last part as "beauty" beheld. Please!)
Conversely, and it could be my imagination, everyman Americans seem to be showing less of their collective ass these days, i.e., not getting suckered by the reflexive fearmongering of the radically wrong right. A good thing, si?
One continues to hope we can save ourselves.
2 comments:
Sorry to hear about Mom, hope things went (are going) well.
As an aside (and I could not let this one go) it occurs to me that you place great hope and solace in the very industries you bash. The pharma industry for making the drugs that make her treatment possible, and the insurance companies that pay for it (hopefully, and if not, we can talk).
When these industries are, as you state, brought to heel, which means effectively nationalized, you may find rural N.E. not quite so well supplied. One need only look elsewhere, even a short trip across the border to the north, to see that the panacea of socialized medicine is one that americans would spit out once they tasted it.
Altruistic doctors will supply services, to be sure, but most in the medical profession (along with many others) have this unreasonable expectation of getting paid. Companies have an expectation of return on investment, and if none is forthcoming, they stop investing. Me, I see Dem control and new price controls, so I won't be investing. If others are like-minded, who will fund the research. NIH? And will there be enough to go around??? Unless a drug is generic, Congress will have to invalidate patents (and pay for them) in order to get enough drug--you can't force the patentholders to sell it below cost. Further, in countries that have price controls (Canada), supplies are rationed, and it caused canadians considerable heartburn when internet pharmacies started selling brand drugs to americans because it cut into the supply available to canadians (except of course for the counterfeit drugs--plenty of those to go around).
I suspect you love your mom and want the best for her (as do I). That means getting in all the treatment possible before the medical establishment is "brought to heel."
CG2
Yes G, what is best for your mother is for her to have to sell her home and any appendages to science in order to pay for her medical care. This way, the industries that keep every doctor and pharmaceutical executive in this country enjoying Bush's tax credits can be guaranteed to continued to flourish financially at the expense of your mother's health and bank account.
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