This article sums up one of the least talked about problems that currently exists on the domestic level in our country. It’s easy enough to talk about how the elderly and young children are lacking in health insurance, but seemingly, those people that are in my age bracket (post college 20-somethings) and trying to make their way in the world have fallen into an ever growing coverage gap that is eventually going to consume a whole subsection of our society, and I think that’s wrong.
There’s issues on multiple levels, really. For one thing, there’s been a huge change over the past few decades about how much responsibility there is on a corporate level to provide for employee welfare. I would point easily at Wal-Mart, which has had a history of doing as little as possible to provide health insurance to its workers, but it’s not just there. The people in that article don’t work in Wal-Mart. They’re waiters, artists, tradespeople, etc. Most small businesses can’t really afford decent insurance, I suppose, or they don’t feel a need to insure part timers or such. I’m not sure. The point I’m trying to make is that there was a time when employers were very big on paying benefits to their employees. People used to go to jobs out of school and work there for their entire careers and get health and social benefits. Even established companies don’t always do that these days (MTV, apparently, for example, as mentioned in that article).
The other bigger issue is that I believe this is a side effect of letting our health insurance industry become completely private and mostly unregulated. I’m not saying that switching to a fully socialized system is the answer for people like this (basically, you’ll end up paying nearly 50% of your income into the system to support it, and the quality of the care might not be any better), but we have to do something. This rift will only grow as health care becomes more expensive and more young people decide they can’t afford it on top of everything else they are trying to do to live their lives out (I’m not even going to go into what their priorities might be with their money, because it should not be an issue). We’ve become little more than a nation of business, and we will let our businesses run amok day in and day out with little regard for the rest of us.
It is time that this nation wakes up and decides that, at the minimum, basic health care is the right of every American citizen. Before long, health coverage will become little more than another sign of the elite, and the rest of us will be sitting on the sidelines with baited breath, hoping to God that we don’t trip, fall, or come down with an illness, lest we go bankrupt getting what a lot of other people around the world take for granted.
Published
2 years, 11 months ago in
soundbyte.
RIAA University Campaign Sputters: Group Asked To Pay Up For Wasting School’s Time
It’s about damn time someone stood up to the RIAA’s shenanigans. I will be curious to see if they actually get their money back…
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Published
2 years, 12 months ago in
politics.
The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn’t have oversight ability. So what we’ve said is we’re going to reach out to you – we’ll give you every communication between the White House, the Justice Department, the Congress, anybody on the outside, any kind of communication that would indicate any kind of activity outside, and at the same time, we’ll make available to you any of the officials you want to talk to …knowing full well that anything they said is still subject to legal scrutiny, and the members of Congress know that.
–Tony Snow on Good Morning America
Exactly whose constitution is he reading?
Published
2 years, 12 months ago in
politics.
Wonderful bit I found today on DailyKos:
“Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
“Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
“One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public’s faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold the rule of law.”
–Tony Snow, 1998
Funny what happens when the shoe is on the other foot, isn’t it?
Published
2 years, 12 months ago in
culture.
So, based on what I watched from the first part of the season finale of BSG, we are headed to RDM Effect nirvana. First of all, you could pretty much gleam where most things were going based on this one hour alone. Baltar is going to be innocent. I could have told you that the minute that the prosecutor woman stood up and said “I will only try him on the stuff I can prove”, I knew there was no way he would get a guilty verdict. Secondly, no Caprica Six at the trial so far? I thought she would be the star witness. Instead, we get Tigh getting made an ass of, Roslin magically sick again, and Lee Adama finally resigns (he’s such a teenage crybaby sometimes). That’s the best they could do?
Oh yeah, there’s also the whole thing about the people that are going crazy on Galatica. Tigh and Anders hear music no one else can hear now. Tory, Roslin’s assistant, looks like the walking dead. Gee, I wonder if they’ll be revealed as three of the final five Cylons. When this happens, this will be RDM Effect at its finest. First of all, we have no build up for this. Tigh spent the first half of the season showing some guts, leadership and resolve he never showed before by leading the resistance on New Caprica. Anders might be a broken man in the wake of Starbuck abandoning him and seemingly dying, but he was a patriot too. And Tory? We hear very little from her this season, and suddenly she’s there looking all out of sorts and just giving away that she’s a sleeper. Ugh.
See, one of the best parts about season one was the way they built up Boomer’s reveal as a sleeper to the rest of Galatica. We saw her as she slowly went insane dreading that she was a cylon and such until the moment came and she shot Adama in CIC. That’s how it’s done. Sadly, we’re way past the point of doing it in a good way.
I’ll still watch the last part of the finale. I’ll feign surprise when they name the final Cylons. I’ll even just accept it when Kara Thrace shows up alive and well (which she will, I’ve decided that RDM Effect just works that way). It’s just that the shiny veneer that made me not be able to wait for the new episodes each Friday has slowly worn away thanks to RDM Effect. I’m afraid that before long, it will be gone.
