Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth

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Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth


   Over the years, I have studied politics and economics quite closely.

   I read a lot of magazines regularly.  I enjoy reading the views on both the right and the left:

   *The Colorado Freedom Report: Libertarian Journal of Politics and Culture*, *Liberty" magazine, *Reason* magazine, the Cato Institute's *Cato Journal*, etc., representing Libertarian viewpoints;

   *The American Conservative*, *The American Spectator*, *The Conservative Chronicle*, *National Review*, *Human Events*, *The Weekly Standard*, etc., representing conservative viewpoints;

   *The Nation*--Weekly journal of opinion featuring analysis on politics and culture, *Mother Jones*, *The Progressive*, *Rolling Stone*, and so on, representing the left. 

   Kind of a mixture of political viewpoints is found in *U.S. News & World Report*, *Newsweek*, and *Time*.

   Economic analysis--sometimes without and sometimes with various ideological influences--is found in *The Economist*, *The Internatonal Economy*, *World Economic Prospects Monthly Review*, *International Review of Environmental and Resource Economy*, *New England Economic Review*, *Medical Economics*.  And so on.

   I've read many political and economic books.  Some that come to mind: *The Conscience of a Conservative* by Barry Goldwater.  The classic *Wealth of Nations* by Adam Smith.  The seminal *Second Treatise of Government* by John Locke.  "Leviathan* by Thomas Hobbes.  *Notes on the Federal Convention* by James Madison.  *Why We're Liberals* edited by Eric Alterman.  *The Tempting of America* by Robert Bork.  *Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative* by David Brock.  *Unlimimted Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House* by Gary Aldrich.  Two books by Kevin Phillips: *Wealth and Democracy* and *The Politics of Rich and Poor*.  *On Liberty* by John Stewart Mill.  *Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American* by Nat Hentoff.  *Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered* by E.F. Schumacher.  *The Last Patrician: Robert Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy* by Michael Knox Beran.  Two books by conservative John W. Dean, who was Nixon's White House Counsel: *Blind Ambition*  and *Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush*.  *American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia* edited by Jeffrey Nelson, et al.  *The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot* by Russell Kirk.  *The Conservative's Handbook: Defining the Right Position on Issues from A to Z* by Phil Valentine.  *The Heritage Guide to the Constitution* by Edwin Meese.  *The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of America* by Gus Russo.  *American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House* by Jon Meacham (Jackson stopped the first attempts to foist a Central Bank on the economic back of America).  *The Creature from Jekyll Island*  by G. Edward Griffin (which details the conspiracy that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, and the infliction of that un-American, unconstitutional evil on the American people).  And I have read many other books as well, covering the entire spectrum of political and economic ideologies.

   But I am not going to bring forth here any of the knowledge, opinions, ideas, or arguments, from any of those publications.

   I am going to talk about the value of human life.  Each of us is an unrepeatable miracle, and each of us posseses the magical human mind, and the wondrous human brain--so similar in so many ways--and yet, in each one of us, so unique. 

   To Learn more about these, I recommend *The Mind* by Richard Restak; *The Human Brain: Its Functions and Capacities* by Isaac Asimov; *The Enchanted Loom* by Robert Jastrow; *The Dragons of Eden* by Carl Sagen; *Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique* by Michael S. Gazzaniga; and *The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brain & Our Mind* by Sir John Eccles (nobel prize-winning author of *The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own*) and Daniel N. Robinson. 

   Human life is the most precious reality on this earth; and saving lives should transcend politics, economics, and all ideologies.

   These days, I don't read nearly as much about politics or economics as I used to.  The book I am currently reading is: *Everything You Need to Know About Cancer: In Language You Can Actually Understand* by Matthew D. Galsky, M.D.  It is very readable, often even enjoyable--and is packed with information, much of it very useful; some of it very hopeful; and some of it quite scary.  I highly recommend this knowledgeable, richly informative, often witty and humorous (in appropriate places), magnificent book--which I also found to be caring and compassionate--to anyone who needs or wants to know more about cancer.  Amazingly, it is a slim volume, quite a fast read--but it packs a powerful punch with concisely condensed and precisely worded text.

   Of course, in my case, the scary parts follow me like a shadow.

   I am reminded of a song I used to hear on college radio, with the refrain line: "The sound of ideologies clashing."  I fear and feel that I and many people like me are going to be crushed between the clashing ideologies that are facing off against each other today.

   I am reminded of a line I heard on a National Lampoon comedy album spoofing Woodstock: "Long hair--short hair--what the hell is the difference once your head is blown off?"  For me, today, I think I can revise that to: "Left-wing, right-wing: What the hell is the difference once you're dead?"

   I am also reminded of these words from the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson--speaking of inalienable RIGHTS, which, while they can be violated or neglected, cannot be nullified as rights: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  I've always noticed that LIFE comes first, and I understand why: You don't have in this world much liberty, nor pursuit of happiness, once you're dead.

   Now I think of something that one of my many admired teachers once said to a class I was in: "When you argue about politics or religion, you don't often win arguments--you usually just lose friends."

   So I'm not going to bring forth any of the political ideas, knowledge, opinions, or arguments that I know about, from my wide-ranging reading.

   I hope I'm not going to lose any friends.  I'm not here to make any arguments.  I'm just going to present some facts, from my own life.

   I've got cancer.  One doctor called it terminal; several other doctors call it incurable.  I call it the worst thing that ever happened to me--or ever could happen to me, because I have a lifelong, deep-rooted phobia about cancer, that makes this situation terrify and torment my mind, whenever I think about it.

   Having cancer makes me feel very unhappy at times, beyond consolation.  Sometimes it makes me worry and fear, beyond the comfort of any hope. 

   But what makes me worry and fear the most, is that my health-care coverage has almost been lost three times since this so-called "cancer journey" began for me.  And, with the economy the way that it is, my health-care coverage is once again in danger of being lost.  I have to use all of my wits to study the situation and try to figure out, once again, how to keep it.  Because once it's gone--it's gone. 

   For me, with this terrible "pre-existing condition," I will almost certainly never be able find again any health insurance coverage at all, let alone medical coverage that I could afford.

   Just one day of a round of tests that I had to take, last year, cost a little over three thousand dollars.  My current treatments come at a "bargain-basement price" (comparatively speaking) of eighteen hundred dollars a pop.  I have to be frequently monitored, with those hated blood draws and, still sometimes, other types of tests. 

   Even though I have managerial, supervisory, secretarial (including knowledge of Gregg short hand), and other office skills and experience--and skills of many other kinds--I have been unable to keep work in this economy.  I am still able to work; but that will cease to be so, sooner than I would like.

   I have also been a page editor and a newspaper reporter--just like my childhood hero, Superman--but lay-offs are occuring there, too.  I just saw something about a half million jobs being lost--I think it was in the last quarter, but I'm not sure. 

   My favorite job was when I worked as an assitant to a research scientist.  I aspired to become a research scientist myself, specializing in one of the various fields of neuroscience.  For a number of reasons, that dream didn't come true--but not because I didn't have the ability: I made the Dean's List, and the National Dean's List, and also was awarded membership in two Honor Societies.  I learned fast and well.

   Now my main job is to try to stay alive, and to enjoy life as much as I can, in the midst of a lot of fear and a lot of sorrow and regret, and suffering painful rejection--such as from certain former friends, once they found out I have cancer, and from my patient counselor--and hopefully to accomplish at least a few of my life's last goals, to achieve whatever I am still able to achieve.

   My treatments were guaranteed to keep my cancer in remission for at least one year.  That year expired on December 17.  Beyond that, they can stop working at any time.  Depending upon various difficult choices, and other factors beyond my choice, the best estimate I've heard is that--if time and chance and God's grace favor me--I might make it for about a decade.

   But I will not survive long if I lose my health insurance.  I will very likely not be able to get health insurance again, if I ever lose it, because I am now a money pit.  My life's preservation is sucking up some big bucks.  Keeping me alive is incredibly costly now.

   The present employer-based health insurance system has several flaws.  The chief flaw is that you can work five, ten, thirty years or more, and have nominal health coverage all that time.  I say "nominal" because you lose that coverage if you ever really, badly need it. 

   When is it that you will need medical coverage the most?  When you have suffered a life-threatening injury, or suddenly are stricken with a life-threatening illness.  But then, you probably won't be able to keep working. So--even though you had health insurance for decades when you didn't need a lot of medical care--now that you need a lot of medical care, the hour-glass is turned on your insurance coverage, and your time will be swiftly running out.

   In my case, the place I was last working full-time--as an office manager--was closed forever.  Keeping insurance since that time has been a hair-raising, and hair-whitening, terrifying walk on a thin line dividing my life from my death. 

   Now, once again, I am in danger of losing my health care coverage.  Further, the State has closed its public oncology center, because the Governor vetoed the tax increase that would have kept it open.  So, if I lose my insurance, my cancer's remission will soon end, and the cancer will begin eating me alive; I will have a year, more or less, before cancer takes its last fatal bite of me.

   I don't know what Obama's health care reform would have done for me, or not have done.  I'm not sure of what the costs would have been, or the benefits.  I only know that, without some kind of reform, people like me, and other people with other serious medical conditions, will continue to suffer and die, when medically they could be saved, or at least have their lives prolonged and made happier and more productive.

   Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Life comes first.

   Again, I have not argued for anything in particular; only that SOMETHING should be done, because what we have now is costing, for  many people, their total wealth--or all their heatlh--and, sometimes, even their lives. 

   I want to live.  I don't want to die any sooner than I absolutely have to.  I don't want to suffer any more than I medically have to.  I'm a human being; and that means I'm something magical and wonderful, just like you and those you love.  There are many like me, floating helplessly in a sea of uncertainty, getting ever nearer to frightening whirlpools of disaster and death.

   I don't know what should be done.  But something should be done.  The current health-care system is too much about making money, and not enough about providing health care and saving lives.  Some kind of health-care reform is needed to change that situation, I think.  What do you think?

   I'm saying all this, because I'm in big trouble.  No amount of saving money, or investing, or anything I could have done financially, could have kept me from living the nightmare I'm in now, and facing the disaster and death I now face. 

   I hope I haven't lost any friends.  I need all the old friends I have, and all the new friends I can get.


--M.L.P.
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet

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gmcookie commented on Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth

11-27-2010

Poet, I don't have cancer. But I am a humanitarian. When the health care reform battle was going on I campaigned tirelessly for health care reform. I knocked on doors, wrote letters, phoned people to get them to write letters. I circulated petitions and did all I could to help pass it. Why? Because I have a friend who was an executive in a high tech corporation. She was diagnosed with cancer, ultimately laid off because of too many sick days, lost her insurance, spent all her retirement, sold her house and even had to cash out her children's college savings before she was poor enough to qualify for medi-cal out here in California. Of course it didn't cover the expensive therapies she needed. I believe that if the technology exists to save lives, well one life isn't worth more than another regardless of how rich they are. Those technologies should be within reach of anybody who needs them, not only the wealthy.

PoetWithCancer

11/28/2010

1. Dear gmcookie, // I offer you my heart's deep thanks for your efforts to bring health care to desperate people like your friend and me. // Your comment about the wealthy is true; but even wealthy people have been wiped out by cancer and other diseases of that terrible degree. Some falsely assumed they had enough money to cover the bills for anything, and so didn't have enough insurance or the right insurance. Some never seriously considered that something so terrible as cancer could happen to them, and so they did not have adequate insurance, and were wiped out. // Only someone of the wealth of a Bill Gates, who could spend a million dollars a minute and still die wealthy, can pay for the total cost of our extravagantly expensive medical care for such life-threatening diseases.

PoetWithCancer

11/28/2010

2. If the value of human life were once understood fully by anyone--who only has to look at the value of his or her own life and the lives of those they love, and really understand this is the value of the lives of others, too--then, at the very least, everyone of every political stripe would support the provision by society of medical care for those people who face terrible suffering and grossly unnecessary early death without it. // I hear--all the time--certain people saying the government is trying to take away my right to choose my own doctor. In reality, these certain people work to keep me from having my right to life--the first unalienable right named in the Declaration of Independence--and deny me the right to the medical care that is needed to keep me alive. My life still has so much potential for enjoyment of so many of the joys of life--I want those joys, even the simplest, the joy of just breathing. My life even has great potential for much more productive creative work. // They drop the word "socialized" down like a puppet skeleton, to bar my way to life. But some things should be socialized. Some of them already are. // We don't call it socialized police services, but that is what we have. We don't call it socialized fire protection, but that is what it is. The word "socialized" isn't used for those things, because nearly everyone recognizes them as right; and the word "socialized"--even though it applies--is not properly used--but is reserved only for things that certain people oppose, even for things for which the word doesn't really apply (for example, a single-pay system, such as Japan used to keep people like me alive and as well as possible, is falsely labeled "socialized medicine" even though medical care itself, remains private, while only the insurance is socialized).

PoetWithCancer

11/28/2010

3. Most of these people who have caused me, and unknown numbers like me, to suffer so much--and to face such a terrible and far too early death when it is medically unnecessasry--believe in God. They say they love Jesus, who said: "Because you did it to the least, you did it unto me." // I hope that when I die, I will learn that Jesus has enough love to give new good life to me, though my scientific epistemology keeps me from believing anything just on faith--though I do hope for so much more than knowledge can prove. // I love Jesus, as I understand him, and his great compassion, He said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you: That ye may the children of your Father which is in heaven." Jesus had such great love, as even to pray for those who cruelly killed him, saying to God: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." // I've never done anything anywhere near that bad. // But I ultimately don't know why I'm here, or why I have to suffer so much, or why I had to fall from such a happy life to this scary struggle to survive--or where if anywhere I am going. I hope Jesus will pray to God to forgive me, too. I hope that Jesus loves me, because so many of those who claim to follow Jesus and say they love him, clearly do not love me, or even care about the value of my life. // Thank you for caring. --Michael LP, Mr. Poet

Teardrops commented on Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth

11-26-2010

I have the best health care in the country but my husband paid for it with his life rather have him back and i agree with you on the health care Marie

Poetry is what is lost in translation.

Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet.

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
OT
1
Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
Under a Constant Star (9/11) 0
Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
Feeling the Wind 0
The Wild Doe and the Hunter 0
Happy Birthday, Brian 0
The End of the World: Saturday, May 21, 2011, 6 pm PDT 1
Brian's Special Smile 0
Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
Following My Friend 3
Small Moments (Written by Patricia, for Brian) 1
For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
ank You for Your Support, Caring Love, and Understanding
2
Wonderful Connie 1
Someday-Dying 2
Between Yes and No 3
Love of Life 1
Zappa the Magnificent 1
In the Midst of Life 2
Only One Death 1
Real Illusion 1
The Unknown 1
My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
No More Me 2
Someone 2
Leaving Life 1
Precious Jade 2
Fear and Grief and Going: Unguilty of the Grave 1
Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
Seasonal Ring 1
Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
Feeling Each Other's Pain 1
Snow Man for a Low Man 0
Explanation of My Poem "As If the Last" 2
New Year, No Love 2
Poetic Form 0
Guilty Pleasures: Not Guilty 2
About Me 1
Live, Laugh, and Love 4
Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
To Sarah Y and Her Beloved Little Boy Who Cries Out: Again! 1
I and You: Unique and the Same 1
Where's the Compasssion in Our Health Care System? 0
Lonely Girl, I'm Feeling the Way You're Feeling: But We Can Both Make It Through 3
Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
Psyche 3
My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
Children of the Stars 2
Passing Life's Test 1
Why More Now? 1
Remembering My Grandma on Thanksgiving Eve 3
Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
New Birthday 2
Let Love of Life Light Up the Psyche of Fawn 1
To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
Regarding the Lack of Fall in Texas 2
Light for the Fight 2
All That I Have 3
Shine 2
As If the Last 2
Here Now 1
All in Time 2
The Exile 2
Incurable and Terminal 4
Tripping 2
One More Tomorrow 1
My Dash 4
One of Two Is Stronger 1
No More Romeo; No More Juliet 1
Friendship and Life 1
Snow and Life 3
Live Spelled Backwards 1
Sarah Y 2
To Fly 2
My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
Once 3
The Haiku Form 2
Bridge to a Comet--Your Visits and Comments to Me 4
Get Well Soon, Luna Marie 2
Winging It (a human haiku, or senryu) 3
Light Locomotive 2
Skite, Where Were You Today? Where Are You Tonight? 2
Angel's Wings, Angel's Voice 4
Shy, but Not Too Shy 2
High Coo 4
From Night to Night 3
Life's Journey's End--Cut Short by Cancer 4
Love, Light, Life, and Night 2
Fear and Courage 1
Death in Life 3
Unknown Final Fate 3
To Right a Poem 4
Crab-Like Concealed 4
Soon 2
All in the Mind 3
Ebony Shine 3
On My Nephew Naming His First-Born Son After Me 5
Love, Loss, and Lennon 3
Eqinox 4
Feeling My Heart 5
The Best Person I Ever Knew: My Best Friend--Brian 2
In Memoriam, George Difficult 3
Lovers 7
Art 5
Things to Do 4
Plane on Fire 3
Ameliorator 5
Thanksgiving 7
Worlds of Light 24
Failure's Fortress 13
Song of Life (Original Version) 13