Why I Hate the New Health Care, Even if Some of it Is Good.

Don't fool yourselves. This is NOT Canadian health care. Canadians do NOT pay for their health care out of pocket. It is paid by taxes (rates almost equivalent to Massachusetts), and the rich are taxed more than the poor, as they should be.

This US health care is only a very poor start. Yes, about 2/3 of the people without health care will now have access to it. The other third will still lack health care. (For a good critique, http://www.now.org/press/03-10/03-21b.html)

I HATE the anti-choice provisions, which Obama, allegedly a pro-choice candidate, just signed into law. This will primarily affect poor and working class women. No nice rich girl, including Obama's own daughters, will ever be denied reproductive choice. If women have to pay extra for abortion coverage, then men should be required to pay extra for penis pumps and Viagra, now covered under most insurance plans. Yeah, let's try that, and just WATCH how quickly the anti-women anti-choice measures are removed.

I HATE the anti-aging clause, which allows Insurance companies to penalize people for getting older. Since women live at least ten years longer than men, it is old women who will primarily be penalized. Anti-gender provisions are still allowed as well, for larger companies, i.e. women can be penalized for their femaleness as a "pre-existing health condition". WTF????

I HATE the threat of fines for refusing to purchase health care, especially when the ceilings of what one should be able to afford are so unreasonable. For example, to be eligible for MassHealth in Massachusetts (the model this plan with follow), a single person must earn less than $14K per year, and even that amount can be questioned. 14K. Have you EVER tried to live on less than $300 per week in Massachusetts. What a joke.

I HATE the fact that stocks for the big Pharma thieves have just gone through the roof. What does THAT tell you?

Yes, I know the Republicans hate this bill. Which makes me HOPE that it is in fact ONE step in the right direction. I also know the Insurance companies spent a lot of money--but they DID achieve many of their aims, make no mistake. I believe this is a GOOD day for them, because now people who refused to sign up with them in the past will have no choice.

In Canada, Pharmaceuticals are regulated, and prices kept reasonably low. If you want high-falutin' extra insurance, you are not prohibited from getting it. But you don't need it. Just by living in Canada and paying your taxes (or even if you DON'T pay them!), you will be entitled to, for example, have a baby in a hospital, or have surgery on your knee, or see a doctor whenever you need to.

The difference is that the greedy, unnecessary middle-man is cut out, i.e. the useless insurance companies. Guess what? Not EVERYTHING should be up for grabs to make a profit. In my world that includes health care, food, water, basic shelter. If the capitalists really need to keep playing their games, let them offer luxury goods to rich folk. The way things are going, these are the only people who will soon have money to spend, in any case, in the very near future.

Snarky Blog--Don't Read This if You are in a Good Mood!

Every time someone is executed in this country, I am sickened. Remember Rwanda? That country has abolished capital punishment, but the United States, alone amongst "Western Industrial" nations, continues to allow capital punishment as a state-by-state mandate. And in cases of federal law, states without capital punishment can sometimes be overruled by the feds. So the Washington DC sniper was put to death last week. Will it bring back the people killed? No. Just more blood spilled. So barbaric, really.

The US strikes me as such a medieval country in so many ways. Still running empire wars, enslaving the poor with impossibly low wages, denying health care to the less privileged, forcing poor young women to bear children they can never support (abortion access is NEVER an issue for the wealthy), handing over taxes to Corporate, Wall Street and Banker Kings, while about 15% of the country has no visible means of support, all the while claiming that "God wills it". Yeah. Sure.

OK next. Check the video of the woman who "accidentally" fell on the T tracks in Boston a few days ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P__S-OF0ezU

I hope someone who knows her is smart enough to realize she was actually "accidentally" trying to commit suicide, whether she realizes it or not, and gets her the help she needs. First, she goes to the corner where the train will first enter the station (greatest impact area). Then, she lights a cigarette ("casual"). The she looks down the track to see if the train is coming. Then, she doesn't just "stumble" onto the tracks, for goddess's sake! She JUMPS/stumbles (looks like part of her does NOT want to die, YAY). And to me, it looks like she intentionally touched the 3rd rail with her foot, maybe figuring it would knock her out so she wouldn't feel so much the impact of the train. Yes all of this could also be just a "drunken accident". But she admitted to having drunk FOUR TWENTY-TWO OUNCE beers in a couple of hours. WHY?

I knew a teenager in Montreal who committed suicide in exactly this manner, except that she was hopped up on psych meds and not juiced. After spending about 8 months at the loony bin for extreme manic-depression and NO ONE being able to figure out why this smart, beautiful 16 year old was so messed up, she was doped up on meds and sent home. Home to the father who had been sexually abusing her for years. A month later she jumped in front of a train. She died, and no one, least of all her father (or so he claimed, to the media), understood what had led her to such desperation.

Next comment: WHY the hell is it that almost every frickin (and by the way, this is NOT a polite word--it comes from "frigging" which means self-pleasuring, as I learned from Irish-Canadians I met in Eastern Canada; "fricking" or "freakin" is just a couched Americanization) time I sit down inside Au Bon Pain to work on photos, someone (usually male) decides to slam the back of his chair into mine. It's not as if I'm invisible. Or maybe that's what the message is--"You SHOULD be invisible" as in, get outta my space, you female encroacher, you.

Reference for "frig": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/frig

Next comment: I still hate my roommate. He is so arrogant, condescending and passive-aggressive. I hate it when I hate a roommate. He is not so horrible that I have to kick him out, but I hate feeling like I just CAN'T WAIT til he leaves. Really hate it. And sure, I can try to talk to him, but he won't get it. Just like he doesn't get why I don't want him using my personal bath soap. Yuck!

Finally (not really, but I can only snark so much before it tires even me out): why is that I have met many a man who was initially SO ATTRACTED to me, for my red hair and feisty attitude, and then the second or third order of business (after meeting and charming me) is to try to get me "Under Control"? WHY IS THAT? Something else I just hate. Oh, it can take many forms. Sometimes very coarse, such as quick anger and jealousy. Other times more subtle, such as abruptly rescheduling appointments, or revealing a hidden addiction and insisting I be the rescuer, or being extremely secretive, or “juggling” a few women at once. The hook, of course, is that I, being the female, should not complain, pry, demand, get pissed or have a damn fit, even if I feel like it. Why is that? Why take something wild and crazy (which you LOVE for being wild and crazy) and try to tame the very thing you love? I don’t get it.