The Health of the People

Today, I've chosen to make a commentary on my classmate's blog where she talks about the state of the health care system in our country. As someone who has had a severe disease when I was born, and had to undergo very costly surgeries all through my 11th year of life that left my mother and I quite poor and very desperate to make things work, I understand the plight of those that are scraping the bottom and are just a sickness away from complete destruction. Many American's today are either uninsured or under-insured and not aware of it. I saw this first hand, because even though my m other and I were covered by our great countries Military insurance-some of the best insurance there is-my disease was labeled as something that didn't need fixing, that the tumor in my lip was merely cosmetic and that it was all in my head that it was growing each time I got sick. I should tell everyone right now what disease it was, it's lymphangioma for those of you who don't know me personally outside of the interweb, and not just any lymphangioma, but cavernous, the most aggressive kind. My doctors told me it was a miracle that the tumor hadn't ballooned in size throughout my life and taken over my face-that he had seen people come in with my type, where it had formed, that had left them massive scars and medical difficulties. Because it was labeled a cosmetic reason by the insurance company, and they wouldn't budge on that ruling, my mother ended up having to pay for 80% of my surgeries.

Now, I want you to imagine something. Imagine how expensive it is to just step foot into an ER. Go on. Even if you're insured, if you don't have a very good plan, it costs you $500 to step foot in the ER. Now, I didn't go into an ER, but I did have to stay overnight in the hospital after my first eight hour surgery. Not just one night, but a full fortnight of them, and that does not come cheap. The first surgery alone set my mother back twenty-thousand, 20K, 20,000, dollars. That was the first one. After that came when the skin graft was rejected by my body and died on my face, the newly accepted tissue separating from the rest of my face one night when I was drawing, and finally a feeding tube coming lose and an emergency nurse having to rush to our house or I wouldn't be able to eat or have my pain meds the rest of the night. Mom won't tell me the final tally, since she knows it makes me sick to my stomach to hear the whole number, and because she knows how angry I'll get.

But, my point is, in a country where we spend 15% of our GDP, like Rachel said, we shouldn't be having stories like mine. She presents very good facts and statistics and makes it very clear for her readers just how she feels. She brings up the point of price regulation, and this is a very important part of the U.S. health care system that needs to be reined in. Surgeries like mine shouldn't set someone back for the price of an entry level luxury sedan. When my family still lived in Germany we had a consultation there with some of the best doctors in the world at the time, and they quoted my dad a much, much lower price for my surgeries than what my mother ended up paying here in the United States. We pay more for the same procedures in this country, and sometimes with inferior results.

From how much doctors make here, to how much GDP we spend on our health system, to how we should all be supporting the sick and not making them feel like leeches on the system I agree with Rachel's post, and think she does a great job of presenting her argument. If we want to remain a Great Nation, if we want to stay in the world scene as a leader, we need to change. As someone who has lived in other 'socialist' countries, I have to say that though they have their own set of problems, their citizen's are healthy--and at the end of the day, your health is your wealth.

The Fiscal Cliff

Over the last two weeks, it seems that no matter what channel you change your television to, or what site you go onto on the internet, the public is being bombarded by talk of the "Fiscal Cliff". What is the Fiscal Cliff? According to The New York Times the Fiscal Cliff is tax cuts that were put into effect under President George W. Bush, to help ease the tax burden on the middle class, and extend more tax cuts to the wealthiest of the Americans. Now, this would seem like it would be an easy task for the current Congress, but it seems it isn't. With partisanship now deeper than ever after the re-election of President Barack Obama, it seems like this will be a long and drawn out fight. The Democrats and some Independents are in favor of eliminating the tax cuts on the wealthiest of American's, while the Republicans are not, and say that they absolutely will not raise taxes on anyone. This is setting up to be a standstill, with the American economy, now chugging along nicely in a recovery, in the balance.

What will happen when, or if, we go over this proverbial cliff? Simply put, we would go back to Clinton era taxes. This means that, along with the top earners of the country, taxes would go up on an average of $2,000 on a middle class family. Taxes across the board would rise, and spending cuts would go into immediate effect on all sections of the Federal Government, including military and so called 'entitlement' programs. This would make a significant hole in the current debt, but at the cost of a temporary halt on the recovery of the economy. The Cliff is the ultimate test of the current Congress, to see if they can work together and play nice, or if they will continue to dig their heels into the sand and refuse to compromise on anything.

The Conservative stance that no taxes will be raised, to me, is foolish. We are at the third lowest tax rate in the history of our country, with the only two other times being when it was first established, and right before the Great Depression. Taxes generate revenue for the country to use, and they are just as necessary as cutting spending. The recovery for the Great Depression, and during the Fifties and Sixties, had our tax rates at an unprecedented 90+%, and in those times, our countries economy boomed. Now, this isn't the whole picture, since, after all, WWII was much shorter than the current War on Terror, and it also produced more machinery that we sold to our allies and some of our enemies at the beginning. The country also became very lean, sending all 'surplus' food and metal to the war front. We cinched our belts and increased taxes so that we could afford this 'war to end all wars'. That's something we have not done for the War on Terror. Instead, we have lowered taxes and cut programs that the public at large needs.

With taxes the third lowest they've ever been, there is no possible way for us to cut enough out of any program to counteract the debt. The programs they are cutting into are ones the public needs. Education has been gouged over and over again, leading to several ISD's in Texas to sue the state for too few and unfair funds, according to this article. There has even been talk of cuts to Medicare and getting rid of Social Security all together, programs that have been raided time and again for funding of the military and the Department of Defense.

So, while the Fiscal Cliff is scary, keep in mind that our taxes are the lowest they have been in half a century, perhaps more. If the current Congress can't get over their losses in November, and continues to halt all progress, then we will go over it. The middle class has always shouldered the majority of the funding to the government. It's how a capitalistic society works. Time and again it's happened, and it seems like it will happen again if Congress can't get it's act together. Should the middle class have to shoulder a tax increase because Republicans refuse to increase taxes on the wealthiest of American's, who have the lowest rates since the Great Depression? I've made this point once before, in another post, but I'll make it again. People who are as rich as Mitt Romney, or Grover Norquist, pay the same tax rate that I-a college student with very limited funds-pay, a measly 15%. My mother pays more taxes than I do, at 28%, and she barely makes over 25,000. This isn't about keeping taxes low, this is about asking the wealthy to pay their share, as they have been called on to do in the past, and should do so now.

So, Congress, do what you were elected to do. A majority of American's want the wealthy to pay more. Listen to your constituents, listen to the people who re-elected President Obama, and increase taxes on the top 1% of Americans.

Response to "Is the GOP's "War on Women" a reality?"

I have had the pleasure of reading my classmates blog recently, as I've taken the time to look at all of their works. There are a few things that I agree with in their blogs, a few things that I don't, and that is to be expected. We are all different people, and we are all of different backgrounds and origins--if we were all the same, life would be very, very boring. That said, I find myself agreeing with her. For a while, I've heard that this "war on women" has been made up by the "lamestream" media, and I have to say that I too was rankled as the original poster was. The men of the GOP, lately, seem to have been possessed by the most radical parts of their party. I consider myself a moderate democrat, with very strong moments of liberalism, but I leave people's reproductive rights to themselves. It is there body, they can do with it as they wish. She brings up the very good point of several elected officials, most of whom suffered quite marvelous defeats this passed election season, who were of the frame of mind that even in cases of rape and incest and damage to the mother, that a woman should be happy to have a baby--this point is very well raised. It creates a real sense of anger that the poster is experiencing, and that other women around the country experienced.

I have a reason for why I stand for abortion. I have a form of endometriosis that has caused extensive scarring and lesions, that while it makes it near impossible for me to conceive, if I did in fact get pregnant, I would need an abortion. Not only would the child not life passed the first trimester, chances are that I would not either. I can have extensive surgeries to have the scarring removed, and there have been great leaps and bounds in treating my Stage 4, but so far, I have yet to find a way that would make me want to put a baby through that kind of stress in the womb, and my body through that kind of angst. The writer raises very good points in the realm of the fact that the current crop of GOP leaders don't seem to think about cases like mine. She is impassioned, and though her tone comes across as inflammatory as times, her point is no more invalid.

She cites that some women take birth control because they need it for medical reasons, and those women are people like me.

Curfew's for guests

As a military brat, when I heard that a woman had been raped by two men in Okinawa that just so happened to be service members, my blood boiled. I have a family member serving on the base in question, and called him right away, wanting to know what was going to be done to correct this... mistake. He couldn't tell me anything, but this article gave me the information I wanted to know.

The actions of the General are the ones that should have been committed. After hearing of the charges and the attack, a curfew has now been enacted on all military personal in Okinawa, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., until further notice. This will ease the minds of the citizenry, and quell the out pour of anger directed at the U.S. military. There have been other attacks in Okinawa, with the most notable being the one from 1995, as the article notes, "a gang rape of a school girl by 3 service personnel", and as such, the population are justifiably upset. The article goes on to point out that Okinawa has felt the presence of the United States Military unfairly heavy since the end of World War II--the base there has more than half of all the service members in the country present. Citizen's of the cities near the base claim the base is a source of crime, according to the article.

This was, to be blunt, a blight on the honor of those who serve our country. The relationship of the United States in that area was already a tenuous one, at best, and these two men have fractured it even more. When you wear your uniform, you represent us, and as one raised around combat boots and fatigues am sorely disappointed in these men. Military members are held to higher standard, and as such, you are a model of sorts for your country and what your country stands for. When people enter the service, they are told to behave a certain way, and to always abide by the honor code. There was no such abiding happening here, and as such, even I, as a child of two service members from a family that has a long history of being all of the branches of this countries military, felt the need to apologize.

State of Federal Government

The United States government is an interesting thing. From our very founding, we have been nothing short of liquid, always changing and moving and redefining our Union and what role we want our government to play. From the Founding Fathers, to current day, the country has gone through more face lifts than any Hollywood starlet could dream of, and yet, we still keep plodding along. When the country was first founded, the Fathers originally wanted very little government interference on the common man—they, however, soon learned that a strong, and larger than they would like, central Federal Government was necessary to hold the colonies together; otherwise, we’d be a series of countries rather than states in a whole. Since then we have been expanding the role of the Federal government in our lives. Using to increase our standard of living, reign in corrupt business practices, and helping the poor get a leg up in a hard world that works against them at seemingly every turn. That was, until the eighties, when devolution of the Federal Government started—where we began to put less emphasis on individual and wellness programs, and more on our bottom line.

Most people are citing the will of the Founding Fathers for the reason of this deregulation of business, and defunding of social programs. I think, however, that is erroneous. The thirteen colonies and their inhabitants wouldn’t know what today looks like, couldn’t have, and wouldn’t be able to comprehend the sheer scale of commerce and trade—as well as connection—that we as a country have with the rest of the world. They also wouldn’t be able to understand how many people live here, and just how many no longer do farming work or artisan trade. To compare this current United States of America to the original thirteen, is foolish at best. We have taken the outline of our Fathers and furthered it, expanded it, turned this country into one so great that merely the speculation of our actions affects every other country on the face of the planet. We have had to adjust and adapt to a changing world, and to go, for lack of a better term, backwards seems contradictory. We shouldn’t try to cement ourselves, as we have never been a thing of unchanging stone, but instead, stay flexible, and fluid, and ever progressing.  

We shouldn't whittle the Federal Government away until there is nothing left. What will happen to our public schools? A national standard has been in place since the sixties, but there has been calls to let states decide how to educate their children. This is a bad idea, as soon you will not have a universal knowledge among the public and our future generations will suffer. This applies to businesses as well. The Great Depression was caused, not only by the invention of credit, but also businesses speculating and having increasing control over the nations wealth. The New Deal and the presidents of the time put in regulations to assure that this would never happen again. As soon as we started to take those regulations away, we slip into the Great Recession, and now are struggling to recover. We need a strong Federal Government for the benefit of our people. 

The Debate heard around the Party lines

After the Presidential debate two days ago, both sides are left with some new questions. Just who won the debate? Can it even be called one, as there are other runners from other parties that weren't invited? What went wrong, where, and for who? According to this Washington Post article Romney was the obvious winner--and while I do agree there to an extent, he goes beyond the mere stating of who won. He asserts that President Obama failed because he sees himself as a king, and that he has been avoiding people questioning for the past four years. His demographic is obviously Republican's, specifically the GOP, and possibly wanting to sway the few independents that still don't know who they want to vote for--if they want to vote at all. The author goes on to support his statement by stating the he hasn't held a press conference at the White House since March--which is hard to do when campaigning to be reelected.

The writers tone is very combative. He comes out swinging right out of the gate, and sets people who are Obama supporters away from his article, or those independents who are tired of the mudslinging and the vitriol that has been coming from both sides. Though I do agree that Romney did do a better job at the debate, that isn't because of the reasons the writer is stating-that Obama looking down, seeming reserved, and not matching Romney's energy. He fails to address the many lies that Romney told during the debate, that the presidential candidate would cut funding to PBS, and the tape released a few weeks back saying that the candidate wasn't concerned with nearly half of the United States population. He even goes on to assume what the President was thinking, saying "a sense that it was beneath him". If this was a piece trying to inform or sway people, as it was obviously attempting, it failed to do so spectacularly.

Romney paid $1.94 million in taxes after earning $14 million for the year

With the race for President of the United States of America heating up, it seems that Romney might have finally buckled--to some extent. Today, he released his 2011 tax returns, showing that the candidate paid his taxes, despite Senator Harry Ried's outlandish claims, but that his tax rate was at 14%. As this article from The Statesman, an Austin area news source, goes on to show that Romney forwent deductions he could have claimed in order to keep his tax rage over 13%; he did this in order to keep a campaign promise. 

I pay taxes at a rate of 15.7%; Romney pays fewer taxes than a college student. I find this interesting, not only because my tax rate is higher than the presidential candidate, but because I have a hard enough time filing taxes with all the red tape for college students. Can I claim my books? Can I claim my taxes? Do I claim my payments on my student loans? Will I get audited? All questions that I, and yourself, will have to answer for yourself as we head closer and closer to Election Day. Will this affect Romney's chances at the White House? Who can say?