The Amazing Health Crises Part 1

I’m no fan of privatized health care. We’ve been in its shadow in America for so long it has been accepted as the Devil We Know. Lots of people are too frightened to go all-in on a Nationalized Health Care situation, wondering if the quality of care will deteriorate, like most things do when handed over to the government. I get it. I have dealt with insurance companies on deeply frustrating, emotional levels since I was in my early 20’s and trying to figure out why my joints were on fire and my skin was breaking out in scaly rashes. (answer, Psoriatic Arthritis!). Now imagine giving an entire Plan of Care over to Government Employees who are NOT in line to get bonuses based on the organization’s performance, and you might begin to picture a doctor’s office resembling a DMV lobby on a Monday near the end of the month…

The problems that stem from the gap in having good coverage and having “not good” coverage, or no coverage, can be filled with money and doctors. By 2032, there’s a predicted shortfall of perhaps 122,000 doctors, both in Primary care and in Specialists.
“The major factor driving demand for physicians continues to be a growing, aging population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s population is estimated to grow by more than 10% by 2032, with those over age 65 increasing by 48%. Additionally, the aging population will affect physician supply, since one-third of all currently active doctors will be older than 65 in the next decade. When these physicians decide to retire could have the greatest impact on supply.”

The rheumatologist I was a patient of recently semi-retired, and was one of less than 20 in the state of Washington (his number, can’t corroborate). The provider gap is expected to be filled by Physician’s Assistants and APRNs, likely doing more triage and low-severity care before referring on to the Doctors. Got gas? They’ll check you out. The gas is presenting as a green spirit that can telepathically communicate with birds? On ya go!

So we’ll have fewer doctors in relation to (potential) demand of people. Baby Boomers (about 74 million) make up a great portion of the population, and will in turn need more geriatric services and care as they near the Final Good Bye (Florida or Arizona). Factor in a generation that was caught up in few terribly destructive health crazes (jogging, low fat dieting, voting Republican) and you’re looking at more cases of Alzheimers, Dementia, Trumpism, and judging of younger generations than ever before. What then?

Well… I don’t really know. Here’s where I’d start with getting a nationalized health care plan going.

Take SUPER GOOD care of yourself. Get away from refined carbs, which can cause inflammation, which is the underlying cause of most chronic diseases. I triggered my autoimmune issues with a diet of stress, bad sleep, low fat eating, low-grade beer, and sleeping in a weird, moldy environment in college. Keeping inflammation low-to-no will greatly lend to longevity.
Forgive all student debt for Medical Doctors, or heavily subsidize their education, particularly for specialists in fields lacking care providers. Nursing is the 8th most-popular Major in college. Pre-Med isn’t in the top 10 (one study shows Health professions & related areas is #2 in 2017 but doesn’t differentiate between Nursing, Dentistry, etc.). Computer science is #1, but that’s an entirely different pursuit. (FTR, Instagram Influencer and YouTuber are not college majors, but should be charged a quarterly tuition) Student Debt should not be a barrier to entry for the betterment of anybody’s life and education.
Get Rid of Betsy De Vos. She’s a malignancy to the education of American children, and should be treated as such. She’d rather keep people poor and under-educated, as an attempt at reserving higher education for wealthier families. She is the richest person on Trump’s cabinet. She’s never taught a class in her life.
Slow-Roll the national health care plan. Phase it in a few areas at a time. Nothing jarringly huge. Take one service and subsidize it. Radiology. Every x-ray, CT Scan, MRI is paid for by the American Government. Soon you’ll see what works and what doesn’t, the potential areas of corruption, and who stuck what in their where-now?

Ultimately, staying healthy is the best cure. Age and Life take their toll. I have a surgery on January 30 to repair a torn quadriceps tendon. Life happens. But in a nation with way more money than intelligence when it comes to spending it, we need to equate a Healthy Citizenry with a Healthy Nation. We have many more needs than faster fighter jets that will never fire a shot at a hostile foreign enemy. We need people to build solar panels and roads and tend to hemp forests.

January 22, 2020 0

Death With Dignity, Instead of What Some People Deserve

Brittany Maynard recently ended her life at the age of 29, having battled aggressive brain tumors for years. As the tumors caused greater and more painful moments of being awake, and were found to be inoperable and terminal, Brittany called her own exit. The story has been well chronicled so I won’t cover it again here. However, a few years ago, this topic arose in Washington State, and it set my mind off into many different, somewhat dark regions. Having grievously watched my dad’s slow decline to a shell of a man from 2004-2009 due to dementia, the impact and effects on my family and his friends, I really began to wonder what I would do if my health came to a similar state.

The Death with Dignity act, or “physician-assisted suicide,” is available to people who have a terminal illness, incurable & excruciating pain, or have been talked into it by some family members. There’s a review process after applying to a few doctors, findable via Google and maybe Yelp? The applicant goes through a fair amount of testing to see what’s going on, and to make sure they’re not trying to get out of jury duty. Plus there’s the “less than 6 months to live” criteria. Seems subjective, but whatever…

So in all of this involvement of doctors and pharmacists and party planning and “affairs in order” and what-not, comes two main points I think must be addressed.

Is It Wrong? This is, by nature, a judgmental and personal-ethics statement within each person’s answer. Is choosing your own biological death’s date, based on a terrible illness, via the quiet undertow of a massive barbituate dosing, more acceptable than other forms of ending one’s life? Or is it in the days preceding your passing that keep it on the “light side,” being able to say Goodbye and take care of all the particulars and throw a party and cut the line at Starbucks every morning, Bucket List items and what-not?
What If It Doesn’t Work? You’ve said your “good-byes”, or “go F yourself”‘s, whatever the case called for. Your belongings are accounted for, donated, burned, repurposed, etc. And you gulp down the pills that are going to drop your blood-pressure to NIL, shut down your brain’s ability to fire off your heart muscles, and you’ll drift into the Great Other. Until BAMMO you wake up again barfing all over your Red & Gold Satin Burial robe, wondering why Heaven would welcome home a lost angel in such a horrific fashion, or maybe this isn’t Heaven, OH NO, IT’S WORSE… It’s your living room.
THEN what? I’d have a quick call to the prescribing doctor and see what the deal is. But at least you could start calling friends a few days later and freak them out. Your number comes up on their phone in the middle of their brunch, EEEEEE, creepy for them, FUN FOR YOOOU!

In a time when a fair number of people choose this route I wonder how much Brittany’s beauty played into it. Seriously, a young, beautiful person (by most standards) with a tragic illness chooses to die a few days after her husband’s birthday, and it’s national news for quite a while. What about the 78 year-old with colon cancer and carry-on colostomy bag, where’s their press?

I’m all-for the controlled slide to the Afterlife if your health is failing and you wake up to a painful existence every day. Sure, there might be a cure around the corner. There might be a pharmaceutical lottery win with your name on it. Or a natural cure right in your own back yard that somebody finds the day after you pass. But you should call your own shot if your body is taken over by cancer-caused agony. Can you be a role model of strength and endurance to those around you? For how long? Would you call a “deadline” (ha ha) to it, and if you’re not better by that date, Drop the Beats, DJ, this party’s starting?

In case you can’t go the quiet Rx route, involving doctors and lawmakers and news pundits, give me a call. I have access to a human catapult and some moonshine, we’ll go out like a hero in the parking lot of your workplace. As long as your insurance covers 80%.

November 11, 2014 0

America; The Greatest Idea In The World

This may very well fall into the “Love It Or Leave It!” category for many people, but it is something that is gnawing at me, and has been for almost 2 decades. In the near future I will write up a few entries on the topics of American History, Idealism, Patriotism, Culture, and Future. I am by no means a narrowly-focused Ph.D’er in love with the topics of Social Refurbishment Of The Family Model and/or Societal Economic Impacts On The Middle Class in Pre- and Post-“Oprah!” America. But as a guy with a family and an underwater mortgage and 2 kids to feed and clothe and send into the world with a postiive outlook on life, there’s a growing sense that either SOMETHING is in the air to keep people in financial quicksand (move slowly and you can get out!) so they stick around and feed the Beast that is Bad Government, or it’s always been like this and nothing is in control and this ship is rudderless and why do i even give a shit, because it’ll be over too soon anyway?

So that will be coming along in case anybody cares at all, and it will be very opinionated because I don’t want to research a ton of stuff and also I’ll have some great recipes to share! Thanks for reading!

March 5, 2014 0

A Theory On Conspiracies

I don’t fully accept that every crowd-involved moment in society is merely an act of nature’s will, moving us in the direction a Critical Mass event dictates. We don’t get swept up in a riot, we get into the crowd we KNOW will riot, and do nothing to get out. Nor do I fully believe that socially-impacting events (like Egypt’s tragic killings, the Boston Marathon bombing, or the Teen Choice Awards) are engineered, or even have their proverbial balls started a-rolling, by some cabal, klatsch, triumvirate, or shadow improv troupe. America’s ability to gather and gung-ho for a cause is incredible, but we’d like to leave the tear gas and face-shooting to the thugs.

What I do believe is that much of what human societies react to are Fear, Oppression, Despair, and Threat. When I hear gun-nuts (and I’m not talking gun owners, I’m talking bottom-rung Doomsday Preppers with half-finished escape tunnels in their garage) bemoan gun control, I want to remind them that if a military force DOES decide to come for those guns, they will in fact wrest it from those cold, dead, dirty, masturbating hands. And that those hands will be deadened by either a sniper’s bullet or a drone strike, not by a 19 year-old Pfc knocking at the trailer door. So when a threat is made evident, and fear washes in, and violence results, I believe there are groups who take a very keen interest in seeing the nature of the ripples in the pond. A conspiracy theorist I know, who is also a great guy but totally and understandably anti-social (not asocial, he’s truly anti-American-society after his brother’s war-ravaged mind left him suicidal and addicted to drugs, and a few divorces) once told me why he believes that a cabal’s puppet-strings can be found in the periphery of such moments.

His theory is that the groups are always experimenting not only with what drives humans, and groups of humans, to rebel or react, but HOW they do it, the success rate, and if it’s conceptually transferable to a military act FOR the people. That is, how can a military application come from crowd-sourced videos and tips from the Boston Marathon bombing, wherein cell phones and street cameras and TV footage and facial recognition software helped identify the suspects? That seems to also allow for people to either take the military side to happily send images for review, or a conspiratorial air of wondering who among us is spying within? Big Brother is watching Step Brother watching Little Brother…

A woman recently walked in to a local grocery store and caused a full evacuation and bomb squad involvement. She’s getting a mental evaluation. Her backpack was void of anything harmful. 19 years old… Hmmmm…. Did she think this up herself, to gain attention and power? Did somebody pay her to walk in and do this to see what happens? Where is she now? This is worth following.

Somebody keeps taking nips off my Half-&-Half in the work fridge, so I’ll have to lace it with something to see who passes out or powerdumps at their desk. I want to believe, that people are good, but man, sometimes people just really let ya down. And I wonder what it would take for Americans, tax-hating, vacation-paid, partial-benefits-loving Americans to fill the streets with shouts and raised fists. So far it’s just WTO and pro-sports championships.

August 14, 2013 0

American Microcosm: The Con-do Attitude

Condominium: (CON-doe-min-ee-um) n. From Latin for “domi” (home) and “con” (together). Also from English for “con-dom,” meaning a small space for an uncomfortable screwing.

I made a huge mistake years ago in buying a condo unit. Basically you get to own an apartment alongside people who want you to observe quiet hours and hate yardwork. And then you get to pay a fee to an association to take care of all the issues, which usually will be a backed-up main-out for the building’s sewer system or the damage from that not being caught in time.

I compounded my idiocy by agreeing to be on the Board of Directors for the Association, which is combined with a few apartment buildings for reasons nobody can figure out. Like many celebrity marriages, this coupling happened in the 1980’s probably around money and hidden agendas and has always been a lie about what’s really going on. The grouping of Condos and Apartments into one association is like having the Montagues and Capulets in the same roller rink. Sure, there’s rivalry and … No? Um… Hatfields and McCoys? Nothing, huh? Well we shouldn’t be linked the way we are into one association. And now I’m leading the effort to split the condos from the apartments to have a single association. New real estate rules, for most major lenders, state that they will not lend money for the purchase of a unit in an association that rents out >50% of its units. The apartments are 80 units, the condos are 50, so we’re over the 50% and can’t get lending for people who wanna sell. Refinancing is also rolled into this issue.

A few years ago when the market adjusted downwardly, which was actually a correction spurred by the predatory and Soul-committed-to-Hell lending practices of the fucking bank dicks. Can’t pay + foreclosures = Lowered property values w/high mortgages and APRs (Astronomic Percentage Rape). Again, people can’t get refinanced due the >50% rule. So we’re trying to get our own world established and help everybody along.

I then pulled together a Dipshit’s Double and agreed to a SECOND TERM on the Board to allow for consistency in the transition. It has been during this split that I have felt the most like a traditionally-defined American in my life.

I am part of the “government,” yet hate the way it’s being run and still have little power to change things.
Those who are not in the government dislike it and many believe it is poorly managed and has secrets.
Everybody has the answer to make a perfect nation. Nobody has any desire to put in any effort to see that world come to fruition. 2 hours a week is too much.
Every new person sees only what’s wrong and how to fix it. They speak before they ask.
Ex-patriates fling negative comments back over the border, and are usually met with some courtesy. Lately, however, I’ve taken to telling them how happy I am they are no longer part of the group. Get out. Stay out. Eat shit.
Everybody wants it to be better. We need far more money (taxes) and resources (workers) to make it better. Nobody wants to give any more money, because the money given in the past has been perceived to have been misspent. Still…
The perceived misspending has ended up in the form of repaired decks, fences, unit cleaning and restoration following sewer back-ups and water damage, and higher insurance claims due to all. A budget doesn’t dictate a course that needs corrections.
Everybody is more concerned with the impact of the Association’s operation within their own walls, while the Association cares mostly about making sure the walls are strong, quiet, and free of rodents and rot. What you do in your own hoarded filth is your business unless I can smell it.
Good fences make good neighbors. And when those neighbors invite friends over who don’t respect fences, the neighbors have to be told at 7am that their boyfriend’s 185-lb mastiff really should not be dropping plops on the sidewalk.
Nobody respects a financial fine without legal action. Give me a bill for $5 for “Lack of Communication,” I won’t pay it. Put a boot on my car with a $200 bill for having an ugly paintjob, I’ll pay it and then have to fight The Man about the $200 and who determines what “ugly” is.

Never buy a condo unless you’re over 45 and it is less than 10 years old.
If you care, serve on the board. It’s usually volunteer, but a great lesson in why people don’t volunteer. If you don’t, be helpful in your comments and feedback.
If you can’t say anything nice, at least be civil.
If you can’t be civil, eat shit.
Remember, always buy the nicest house on the crappiest block, or the near-crappiest house on the nicest block. Never buy the crappiest on the crappiest.

Ultimately we will end up splitting off and people can refi or sell. Lotta short sales coming. A few foreclosures, probably. Good time to buy a place. As long as it’s not a condo.

May 9, 2013 0

Tag: Government