They’re not serious in Washington. Just so we understand each other, I am very much for an overhaul of the USA’s health care system. I’ve paid huge amounts for insurance. I’ve fought those companies for coverage. I’ve been left without insurance after losing a job. I’ve lost a lot to medical costs.
I’ve been classified as “uninsurable.” For those of you who don’t know, that means that no company will insure you no matter how much you might be willing to pay. The various “extensions” required by law operate in a very small window of time in which most won’t be able to meet the very high costs. If you lose insurance after 55 and before Medicare, you’ll likely fall into this group. The list of things they’ll refuse on is the litany of what’s wrong with most of us after middle age.
We have “rationing” on the basis of cost already. When Jeannie got sick, her regular physicians disappeared (they would only practice at the private hospital, not the Monterey County hospital). No one can convince me that any so-called “socialized” system would be any worse than what we have. But in Washington, they aren’t serious. First, they are politically afraid (or too closely aligned) to take on an out-of-control private health care insurance industry that “cherry picks” the risks, leaving the sick outside the system to fend for themselves.
Second, Congress (the largest concentration of lawyers outside of “Boston Legal” and just as funny) refuses to touch the windfall of out-of-control malpractice legal actions. It’s not just “bloated awards,” it’s thousands upon thousands of nuisance suits that are cheaper to settle than to defend. Like the obstetrician sued over stretch marks. (One of those “believe it or not” things.) It's not even in question that doctors are forced to practice “defensive medicine” giving nearly endless and expensive "just in case" tests to stay out of court. The cost of treatment can’t fall while that’s the case, whatever Obama’s nonsense about reducing “waste and inefficiency.” (I spent most of my working life dealing with those issues in organizations public and private, including implementing computer systems to support greater efficiency. I can tell you flat out that it’s unlikely to return anything near the hype, it will take huge up-front investment, and the returns will take years to materialize.) If "corruption, waste, and inefficiency" in Medicare and Medicaid is so rampant, why hasn't this administration made it a priority to root it out? I'm forced to conclude it isn't there, at least not to the extent the president claims to justify the laughable idea that we can deliver his idea of "insurance reform" for free.
Further, there is the direct cost of malpractice insurance. (There they are again.) In Florida, not atypical, physicians in general practice pay $50,000 per year in insurance premiums. Think about that. $50,000. Add to that office costs, continuing training and education requirements, medical and office equipment, a nursing staff, and administrative staff. All that paid by you when you walk in the door for your ten minutes with the nice guy (or gal) in the white coat. Of course it’s expensive. What if that malpractice-suit-associated cost were to drop, even just half, to something “reasonable,” like $25,000 per year? It’s the ONLY cost that really could be immediately reduced by laws clamping down on frivolous suits and by capping bloated awards. The lawyers, not the injured patients get most of the money anyway.But the Congress and the President refuse to touch any of that.
Like I said. Not serious.
(It goes on and on. Our drug costs pay for the research for the whole globe - while other countries cap those costs, legislation has even prohibited our government from negotiating lower drug costs. So the American consumer picks up the lion's share of the tab for everyone else. See? Not serious.)
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The Military History of the United States (short version)
Today was two hundred thirty-three years since ratifying that Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of Great Britain. That's humorous when written out. Who now thinks of London as the seat of a tyranny? Other than Iran, that is.
Before that was the French and Indian war, and after that the United States Legion, our first “standing army,” commanded by Anthony Wayne in 1792. The Navy was born in 1794, and the marines chased pirates onto the shores of Tripoli in the first and second Barbary Wars.
We fought that same island empire less than forty years after that declaration. They burned the White House. We rebuilt it. We were putting a dome on the capitol building during the Civil War. Oddly, more enmity between the combatants' descendents lingers from that war than any other. Perhaps not so oddly – family fights are the most intense, aren't they?
Those iconic commanders of our Civil War – Grant, Lee, Longstreet, and others – first “won their spurs” as young lieutenants and captains in the war with Mexico in 1848. We got California out of that deal. It's not certain whether that's a good thing or not.
Just before the turn of the 19th century, we “Remembered the Maine,” and fought Spain to liberate Cuba after Teddy charged up San Juan Hill, and the Philippines after Commodore Dewey's American Asiatic Fleet sunk a small Spanish squadron of obsolete ships in Manila Bay. We kept the latter for ourselves for nearly 50 years. You know how the former turned out. Somewhere in there we “helped out” some folks who wanted to separate from Columbia, and ended up with a canal – and the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Sherman where I swam with cayman in the Rio Chagres more than a half-century later.
Wilson stayed out of “the war to end all wars,” for while, then the British liner Lusitania – also capable of being an armed ship – sailed from New York with contraband gun cotton. A U-boat pounced off Ireland, and the colonies were in the big war. Pershing was put in charge of something more than chasing Pancho Villa around northern Mexico. This is the first war from which I knew a decorated veteran, Captain Theodor Slen, who was awarded a Silver Star and Croix de Guerre at Cantigny. Judge Slen was not only along with Pershing in Mexico, he was at the meeting in Paris in 1919 that launched the American Legion. He died July 4, 1986.
The interlude after that war to end all wars was barely twenty years. We tried (sort of) to stay out of the next one, too. It didn't work then, either. An uncle I would never know died in North Africa. Echo Co. 1/506th PIR became famous; I commanded it a little more than twenty years later.
Just a half-decade later the first North Korean nutso started the “conflict.” Honest, that's what it was called back then, “the Korean Conflict.” I knew lots of guys who fought in Korea. Some would serve with me in another war about fifteen years later. Two of my kids have since served in Korea, both officers in the United States Army, one Air Defense Artillery, one Field artillery. Randy Murph died there in 2001, piloting an F-16.
Vietnam. I've written about that – about the heroes and the ones lost.
After a few years there was Desert Storm, and Bosnia.
Somewhere in there we had a ship and two embassies blown up, then the Trade Center for the second – fatal – time. After knocking off the Taliban – for a while – with a few CIA and special forces guys and a camel or two, we crushed Saddam in a few weeks – son-in-law David was there, shooting down Scuds. A couple of years later they hung Saddam, just to make a point.
We're still hanging around both places.
Afghanistan. Alexander took his army through the Khyber Pass in 326 BC. The British had the First Afghan War (1839), the Second Afghan War (1879), and the Third Afghan War (1919). The Soviets invaded in 1979. It was the beginning of the end of that empire. Come to think of it, it was pretty much the end of the British Empire, too. This may be “the right war,” but it's not a good place.
There. The military history of the United States in about 700 words, with a few personal observations. Beat that, Courtney.
Before that was the French and Indian war, and after that the United States Legion, our first “standing army,” commanded by Anthony Wayne in 1792. The Navy was born in 1794, and the marines chased pirates onto the shores of Tripoli in the first and second Barbary Wars.
We fought that same island empire less than forty years after that declaration. They burned the White House. We rebuilt it. We were putting a dome on the capitol building during the Civil War. Oddly, more enmity between the combatants' descendents lingers from that war than any other. Perhaps not so oddly – family fights are the most intense, aren't they?
Those iconic commanders of our Civil War – Grant, Lee, Longstreet, and others – first “won their spurs” as young lieutenants and captains in the war with Mexico in 1848. We got California out of that deal. It's not certain whether that's a good thing or not.
Just before the turn of the 19th century, we “Remembered the Maine,” and fought Spain to liberate Cuba after Teddy charged up San Juan Hill, and the Philippines after Commodore Dewey's American Asiatic Fleet sunk a small Spanish squadron of obsolete ships in Manila Bay. We kept the latter for ourselves for nearly 50 years. You know how the former turned out. Somewhere in there we “helped out” some folks who wanted to separate from Columbia, and ended up with a canal – and the Jungle Warfare School at Fort Sherman where I swam with cayman in the Rio Chagres more than a half-century later.
Wilson stayed out of “the war to end all wars,” for while, then the British liner Lusitania – also capable of being an armed ship – sailed from New York with contraband gun cotton. A U-boat pounced off Ireland, and the colonies were in the big war. Pershing was put in charge of something more than chasing Pancho Villa around northern Mexico. This is the first war from which I knew a decorated veteran, Captain Theodor Slen, who was awarded a Silver Star and Croix de Guerre at Cantigny. Judge Slen was not only along with Pershing in Mexico, he was at the meeting in Paris in 1919 that launched the American Legion. He died July 4, 1986.
The interlude after that war to end all wars was barely twenty years. We tried (sort of) to stay out of the next one, too. It didn't work then, either. An uncle I would never know died in North Africa. Echo Co. 1/506th PIR became famous; I commanded it a little more than twenty years later.
Just a half-decade later the first North Korean nutso started the “conflict.” Honest, that's what it was called back then, “the Korean Conflict.” I knew lots of guys who fought in Korea. Some would serve with me in another war about fifteen years later. Two of my kids have since served in Korea, both officers in the United States Army, one Air Defense Artillery, one Field artillery. Randy Murph died there in 2001, piloting an F-16.
Vietnam. I've written about that – about the heroes and the ones lost.
After a few years there was Desert Storm, and Bosnia.
Somewhere in there we had a ship and two embassies blown up, then the Trade Center for the second – fatal – time. After knocking off the Taliban – for a while – with a few CIA and special forces guys and a camel or two, we crushed Saddam in a few weeks – son-in-law David was there, shooting down Scuds. A couple of years later they hung Saddam, just to make a point.
We're still hanging around both places.
Afghanistan. Alexander took his army through the Khyber Pass in 326 BC. The British had the First Afghan War (1839), the Second Afghan War (1879), and the Third Afghan War (1919). The Soviets invaded in 1979. It was the beginning of the end of that empire. Come to think of it, it was pretty much the end of the British Empire, too. This may be “the right war,” but it's not a good place.
There. The military history of the United States in about 700 words, with a few personal observations. Beat that, Courtney.
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