So you like your siituation?

I know that I'm not going to change people's minds. I'm usually one who has my political opinion and keeps it to myself (close friends usually know what I'm thinking). I don't write political opinions--until now. I am moved to write my feelings on this subject. I'm going to start by asking a series of questions.

1. Have you ever had an emergency and laid there worrying whether or not the doctor who has been assigned to you is listed as a provider under your current insurance plan?
2. Has your employer changed insurance plans and it became questionable whether or not they would cover pre-existing conditions?
3. Have you ever been denied health-care insurance because of pre-existing conditions?
4. Has your health-care provider stopped covering you because your health situation is costing too much?

• I have had to scurry about to check to see if a doctor was in my plan and at a time when I should have been more worried about the situation of life.
• EPISD has changed insurance plan administrators and one of the first questions asked at an orientation meeting was, "Will you cover pre-existing conditions?"
• I had a friend whose son had a rare disease. The insurance they had discontinued coverage because it had become too costly. Then they could not get another insurance to cover him because it was then pre-existing condition. He died. Five years after their son's death, the parents were still paying for medical expenses incurred.

Charley and I are now retired, but we had to wait until he was old enough so we would be able to afford the medical insurance. I know other people who would like to retire but say they cannot do so because medical insurance would eat up whatever retirement pay they would have.

So you may be worried about universal health care, I've seen the vote go around Facebook. But what is being proposed is not universal health care or socialized medicine. If you like your insurance, you'll keep your insurance. Your insurance will have to accept pre-existing conditions, however. If you lose your job, your health will not suffer because you will still be able to get medical treatment at the same cost that your congressman pays, be he or she Republican or Democrat. If you change jobs, you will no longer have to worry whether your new insurance provider will accept pre-existing conditions.

We are already paying for people who are not insured. The way we are paying actually costs more than if we had a plan that would cover them. I taught high school in a poor section of the city. Students would come and announce that fainted the night before and their mother took them to the emergency room. They went to the emergency room because they did not have health insurance and emergency rooms cannot deny them. Did they pay the bill? No, because they were poor. Who paid the bill? We did, maybe not through taxes but through our insurance premiums. Someone had to pay.

One of the scare tactics out there is that socialized medicine is poor quality. I've been to Canada, the Canadians are afraid of getting sick in the United States and of the high medical costs. I've been to Europe where people are relaxed about their health. Doctors can diagnose and not worry about all the required insurance paperwork needed and hiring a staff that is dedicated, not to providing better health care service, but to managing insurance company claim forms. I had to get a prescription filled while in Germany, while the Germans would pay less than I did (if anything) the cost was cheaper than my co-pay at home. The pharmacist was diligent and took time to make sure my prescription was filled properly.

As for the death-panel stuff, here's was a Republican had to say about what the well-informed (ha-hem) Sarah Palin who stands by her 'death-panel' claim, her "posting came one day after Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said that Palin and other critics were not helping the GOP by tossing out false claims. Portions of the Democratic health care bills "are bad enough that we don't need to be making things up," Murkowski said, invoking a phrase that Palin used in her resignation speech, when she asked the news media to "quit making things up." Murkowski said she was offended at the "death panel" terminology. "There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill," she said." (Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.)

Think about it, who has the most to lose? It's not you or me, it is the insurance companies and the health care administrators. It is those people who are goading all the myths and lies of the health-care bill.

Alright, enough is enough from me. If you want to check out what I'm touting, here are some links:

• Jim Jaffe is a former congressional staffer and current contributor to HuffingtonPost.com and Centeredpolitics.com wrote this article found at AARP "Secret’s Out—We Already Ration Medical Care: For decades, our crafty government has been imposing rules that determine who gets what care.
• AARP reports on Health Care Reform: The Assault on Truth
• And, last but not least: The Whitehouse Reality Check

It's a war! No, it's the 4th of July!

Happy birthday America!
It's a war! It's a war! No, wait, it's only the 4th.



Ever since I was a kid, I used to love the 4th of July. Notice that I used past tense. So sit back and I'll give you a little history lesson. I moved outside the city limits with Charley and since people couldn't shoot fireworks off in the city, they would drive to the outskirts to buy from the multitude of temporary stands and then proceed to shoot their hard-earned money into the sky. In those days there weren't many people living this far out of the city. Everyone would go a little crazy like our dog, Moksha who would try and chase down the firecrackers and bite them. He would get so wild that we would have to lock him up in a room without windows until the whole event was over. But, every year we'd pull up chairs, sometimes invite friends over and have a cookout, buy the kids a small amount of fireworks (with our hard-earned money) and sit back and enjoy the madness.

But then things changed. Each year the crowds got bigger and bigger. Now there is so many cars that they create an actual traffic jam where cars creep along the freeway waiting to exit the ramp. People are no longer are just parking along the access roads of the interstate to have their little party, but driving up and parking next to our home with total disregard to our territory. They don't shoot fireworks off at their house, so they drive to mine to have their party.


When the huge crowd began to invade, the fun of the 4th began to leave me. My poor donkey, Murphy, would run around the property trying to escape the invasion of the insane. He understood that it was war. Then came the year of a drought. The crowds of people gathered as usual shooting off fireworks wherever there was a bare spot between the greasewood and the mesquite bushes with a complete disregard and disrespect for homes they parked themselves amidst. Fires started. We didn't have time to watch the fireworks that night, we were chasing little fires set in the desert surrounding our home with buckets of water in hand. We finally went to bed around midnight, then our neighbor called and said there was a fire on the other side of our house. Sure enough, a bush caught on fire. People had already jumped our eight-foot fence and were trying to put it out. Together, we smothered the flames out. Turns out that even though it was dry enough to catch the desert on fire, it wasn't dry enough for the laws of Texas. Of course, most of Texas is not a desert, but the southwestern tip is. But who cares about the southwestern tip?


But now, let's talk about the aftermath. When everyone who came to the outskirts of town has had their little party and burned all their blasting purchases leaves, do they pick up after themselves like good citizens of an ideal community? You got to be kidding yourself if you think they do. Beer bottles, cans, food wrappers, and remnants of fireworks casings remain in the wake of the celebratory war. The county does hire a clean-up crew who come out and clean most of the crap along the interstate, but the side roads are left to be cleaned by the local inhabitants, like us.


Then for ten years we were cycling during the summer months and were not at home. While we didn't see what was going on, but in the back of my mind, I always wondered if my home would be burned down in my absence. Even on the road, we would find a locale to stay put for a few days. Drunk drivers and cyclists are not a good mix. I did not want become a new test for the inebriated. Last year we retired and we no longer have to cycle-tour during the heat-stroke months of summer and have been home during the onslaught of celebrators. Last night we stayed in and just listened to the loud explosions of the assault outside. This year we are lucky, the monsoon rains started early and the desert was damp. No fires were started.


But I ask you, "Are all these people celebrating the birth of our wonderful, free nation or do they just see an opportunity to blow up things, drink, and have a party?" From my perspective, I am more inclined to agree with Murphy, it's an invasion and a war and no longer a celebration.

America's gluttony

We're in a recession?
You wouldn't know it traveling down the road. Trash, waste, food, and good merchandise line our roads. Cycling slowly up to Guadalupe National Park, a trash bag lay strewn over the dirt at a car pull out (50 yards from an actual trash bin, I might add). I spot something orange. I tell Charley, my captain of my life and tandem bicycle to stop so that I may check it out. It was a perfect orange, never peeled, never eaten, but thrown away because of America's gluttony. We take it, wash it, and eat one of the sweetest oranges you could imagine.
Our stores constantly sell one-time, one-use items. We no longer make products that will work or last over a period of years. Our children are so accustomed to toys that they will play with a couple of times then leave neglected, then thrown away. Visit Wal-mart and just look around. Yesterday I saw a bubble wand which sold for $1, before Easter they were selling a case of plastic, colored eggs for a similar price. It's not the price, but the gluttony that I am attacking here. These things have minimal use, kids tire of them quickly and where do they end up? In the landfills which contribute to global warming.
We are warm shower hosts for traveling cyclists. European visitors are shocked by the mass of products offered in stores, huge refrigerators and pantries in homes, and the mass of products Americans own. It's not just what we own but what we throw away.
Zipping down the road in a car will often blur the trash beside the roads. Cycling and walking enables a person to take in the immense quantity of things thrown and/or lost along the roadsides: backpacks, golf bags, large bags, medium bags, small bags, purses, cargo straps (never buy another one--just go for a walk or ride), wire, Leatherman multi-tools, Gerber multi-tools, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, towels, wash cloths, hand towels, coats, pants, shoes, dresses, jackets, just to name a small amount found and seen. These are all things we did NOT see in Europe.
Oh, and the plastic bags--what are we doing? I stand in the store and watch how we continually stand in line, bagless, and let the clerks place our purchased items in plastic bags. Maybe these bags will get another use at home as a garbage sack, but will inevitably either end up, again, in a landfill contributing to the demise of our planet, or as an eye sore along the roadside that even a passenger in a car zipping down the road can see.

If we are truly in a recession, shouldn't we be more frugal, shouldn't we be more careful, shouldn't we save?